Mixed Race Studies

Rachel Dolezal and the ‘politics of passing’

Melissa Harris-Perry
2015-06-13

Melissa Harris-Perry talks with Allyson Hobbs, the woman who literally wrote the book about passing as another race in America, about the Rachel Dolezal story and how people have responded.

Watch the interview (00:07:43) here.

‘Are you African-American?’

All In With Chris Hayes
MSNBC
2015-06-12

Chris Hayes, Host

Lacey Schwartz, a film-maker who grew up in a white family then discovered that her biological father was black, shares her unique perspective on Rachel Dolezal, the head of the Spokane NAACP whose estranged parents claim is misrepresenting herself as black.

Watch the interview (00:09:19) here.

What’s Radical About “Mixed Race”?

Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU
8 Washington Mews
New York, New York 10003
2015-04-20

On April 20, 2015, the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU hosted “What’s Radical About ‘Mixed Race’?“. Eschewing an apolitical “celebration” of mixed race, this panel examined the movement’s implications for multiracial coalition and the future of race in the US and Canada, asking: does the multiracial movement challenge—or actually reinforce—the logics of structural racism?

Minelle Mahtani critically located how an apolitical and ahistorical Canadian “model multiracial” upholds the multicultural claims of the Canadian settler state. Jared Sexton called to task multiracial activists who leverage a mixed race identity in opposition to those who are “all black, all the time.”

A roundtable conversation moderated by Ann Morning (NYU Department of Sociology) followed.

What is Systemic Racism?

Race Forward
2015-05-13

Rinku Sen President of Race Forward & Publisher of Colorlines introduces the “What Is Systemic Racism?” video series featuring our very own Jay Smooth.

Watch the entire video series here.

Will Police Killings of Blacks be the Defining Crisis of the Obama Presidency?

NewBlackMan (in Exile)
2015-04-24

Mark Anthony Neal, Host and Professor of African & African American Studies
Duke University, Durham, North Carolina

Duke University University Sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, author of the classic Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America (now in its 4th edition) and Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal discuss #BlackLivesMatters and the Obama Presidency.

Watch the interview (00:06:45) here.

Embracing otherness, embracing myself

TedGlobal
July 2011
00:13:55

Thandie Newton

Actor Thandie Newton tells the story of finding her “otherness” — first, as a child growing up in two distinct cultures, and then as an actor playing with many different selves. A warm, wise talk, fresh from stage at TEDGlobal 2011.

Obama on Racism circa 1995

Horizons: Nancy LeTourneau’s big picture look at politics and life
2015-04-16

Nancy LeTourneau

It is always fascinating to find articles and video about Barack Obama from the past. Recently a group called 22-CityView in Cambridge released the video of a reading and book discussion on Dreams From My Father by Obama back in 1995. At the time he had graduated from Harvard Law School, moved back to Chicago, was working as a civil rights lawyer and had recently married Michelle.

The reading is from what I remember as the most racially poignant part of the book. It takes place when he was 16 and includes the incident when his maternal grandmother was frightened by a black man at her bus stop as well as an interchange Barack had about that with Frank Marshall Davis…

Read the entire article here.

Beauty queen brings light to Japan’s racial issues

CBS News
2015-04-13

Walking through the Shibuya section of Tokyo, Ariana Miyamoto certainly turns heads — and she wants to use that attention to change attitudes.

When Miyamoto was crowned Miss Universe Japan in March, selected by a panel of seven Japanese judges, her surprise on stage was real, reports CBS News correspondent Seth Doane. She was the first-ever winner to be biracial. Her father is African-American, and her mother is Japanese.

“At first, I didn’t want to compete,” Miyamoto said in Japanese. “But then a close friend who was also biracial committed suicide. That’s when I decided to do something about the suffering he’d endured.”

She said the friend “really hated being half Japanese and not being fully accepted into Japanese society.”

“Japan still has racial issues, and I wanted to do something about it,” she said.

Japan, an island nation that didn’t open to the world until the late 1800s, still lacks real diversity today. Mixed-race children made up less than 2 percent of births in 2013.

At the Tokyo gym where she works out twice a week, it’s hard to imagine this now confident, stunning 20-year-old was once a bullied kid…

Read the article and watch the video here.

Little White Lie

Apple iTunes
2015-03-31
USA
01:06:00

Lacey Schwartz

Also available via Amazon.

Filmmaker Lacey Schwartz grew up in a typical upper middle class Jewish household in Woodstock, NY, with loving parents and a strong sense of her identity, despite occasional remarks from those around her who wondered how a white girl could have such dark skin. As a child she always believed her family’s explanation — that her appearance was inherited from her dark-skinned Sicilian grandfather — but as a teenager, after her parents abruptly split, her gut begins to tell her something else. Lacey’s suspicions intensify when she attends a more diverse high school, where she suddenly doesn’t quite fit any racial profile, and her classmates are vocal about noting it. At the urging of her boyfriend, who is of mixed race, she begins to question her true identity and the validity of her parents’ explanation. At 18, Lacey finally confronts her mother and learns the truth about her biological father. As Little White Lie shows, both the bonds and the lies told between family members can run deep. Lacey strives to reconcile her newfound African American heritage with her Jewish upbringing, and discovers that in order to define herself, she must first come to terms with her parents’ choices and how much she is willing to let their past affect her future. Piecing together her family history and the story of her dual identity using home videos, archival footage, interviews, and episodes from her own life, Lacey discovers that answering those questions means understanding her parents’ stories as well as her own.

For more information, click here.

The Rock Obama Cold Open – SNL

Saturday Night Live
National Broadcasting Company (NBC)
2015-03-28

After the actions of Rep. John Boehner (Taran Killam), Sen. Ted Cruz (Bobby Moynihan) and Sen. Tom Cotton (Kyle Mooney) make him lose his cool, President Obama (Jay Pharoah) turns into The Rock Obama (Dwayne Johnson).