Mixed Race Studies

The Perils of Compartmentalization

Columbia Daily Spectator
New York, New York
Friday, 2008-09-26

Dennis Yang
Teachers College

When I arrived from California as an incoming graduate student at Teachers College, one of the first things I attempted to find was a large-scale supermarket—a task that proved to be more difficult than I had anticipated. Without a car or friends nearby, I ventured on foot to the market nearest to my on-campus dormitory and was pleasantly surprised at my discovery. Though modest in physical infrastructure, this market was just like any other that I had ever visited; every item was organized and stacked according to predetermined labels. The chips were aligned, the vegetables were neatly displayed in an aisle, and the frozen meat section was impeccably synchronized—chicken, pork, beef…

…To my understanding, the cardinal reason why Barack Obama is being branded “black” is simply for no other reason than his skin color—which, by the way, is not by any conventional definitions, black. Obama, like other mixed-race individuals in America, is the victim of a society that prefers to attach labels on and insert into categories those people who unambiguously do not fit into austerely sealed boxes. What this election has shown is that Americans, in general, with exceptions of course, are unable to differentiate a child who is a product of one African American parent and a child who is a product of two African American parents. Debates abound regarding the importance of such clarifications, but to anyone who grows up answering questions, both internally and externally, about which pre-ordained ethnic/racial categories they are forced to identify with, this clarification is of monumental importance. We owe it to the multiracial and multicultural Americans from Sacramento, Calif., to Scranton, Pa., to extend appropriate recognition to their unique experiences in life…

Read the entire article here.

Faculty Spotlight: Melissa Harris-Lacewell

CAAS News
Center for African American Studies
Princeton University
Spring 2008 Newsletter
Pages 6-7

Dara-Lyn Shrager

Melissa Harris-Lacewell smiles broadly when asked about Senator Barack Obama’s run for the democratic nomination for President. She is clearly a fan of both the man and his campaign.  As a former Chicagoan, who lived in the state while Obama was first a State Senator and then a US Senator, Harris-Lacewell considers herself an Obama supporter.  After just a few minutes spent chatting with Harris-Lacewell in her cozy Corwin Hall office, I realize how lucky Obama – or anyone for that matter – would be to find Harris-Lacewell on his side. She is a veritable storm of intelligent exuberance, possessing equal parts charm and determination. I left our meeting as a fan and supporter of Melissa Harris-Lacewell.

…Q. What do you make of the criticism that Obama is not really black?

R. It’s wrong. Americans are really stupid about race, partly because we live so far apart from each other. Black people have always been a mixed race but whites cannot say this about themselves.  Doubting his authenticity as a black candidate means that white people cannot feel good about supporting him because he’s not really black. That’s ridiculous.  It also discredits his ability to make claims on the black resistance movements and other important issues.  Obama has actively promoted himself as someone onto whom we can cast our own understandings. His race is something of a blank slate onto which we can project our own hopes, dreams and desires…

Read the entire interview here.

Princeton Professor tweets about  her views on mixed-race identity (Interview with Melissa Harris-Lacewell)

Mixed Child: The Pulse of the Mixed Community
2009-07-29

Jeff Eddings

MSNBC contributor, Princeton University’s Associate Professor of Politics & African American Studies and author of Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought Melissa Harris-Lacewell had a frank  discussion with a follower on Twitter about the concept of mixed-race identity.

The conversation with Jeff Eddings of Silicon Valley, CA went as follows (published Monday, July 27th [2009]):

Eddings: Wrong pres[idential]. predictions aside, the biggest missed opp. w/BO [Barack Obama] as pres. & you in the mix is lack of discussion re: multiracial.

Harris-Lacewell: I’m not sure its a missed opportunity. From my perspective I am not “multi-racial” the term has no meaning for me.

Eddings: We keep talking about race as if it were one thing. e.g. You & pres. are both multiracial, but only self-identify as black.

Harris-Lacewell: because race is a social construct it is clear to me that I am constructed as black and self-identify as such.

Eddings: Being multiracial & having grown up in both cultures, I can tell you that I’m not constructed as simply one or the other 🙂

Harris-Lacewell: Though I respect that ppl [people] have right to think of themselves as anything they like, I think “multi-racial” is a weird idea…

…Harris-Lacewell: I don’t believe multi-racial makes sense by my understanding of race.  Race is socially constructed and “multi-racial” seems to assume that race is biological: if parents are of different then the kid is “mixed”.  But that is not how race works. Race is constructed through law, history, culture, practice, custom, etc… I have a white mother and black father, but this doesn’t make me mixed race. Race is not biology. In USA this combo makes me black…

Read the entire interview here.

On the Borders of Love and Power: Families and Kinship in the Intercultural American West

Saturday, 2010-02-27, 08:15 – 16:30 CST (Local Time)
Dallas Hall, McCord Auditorium, 3rd Floor
Southern Methodist University
3225 University Blvd.
Dallas, TX 75205

Announcing the 2009-10 Annual Public Symposium
Co-sponsored by:

• The Center for the Southwest at the University of New Mexico
• Institute for the Study of the American West at the Autry National Center
• The William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University

In the U.S. West the history of the family includes stories of Comanche warriors, Pueblo Indian women, Catholic priests, children of the fur trade, Mexican mothers, and Washington policy makers. These and other topics are part of the symposium’s exploration of the multiple ways in which women, men, and children, across time and space, were linked by bonds of love, power, and obligation. Later these presentations will become a book of essays.

After an initial meeting and public program held in the fall at the University of New Mexico, participants will gather at SMU on Saturday, February 27, 2010 to present their revised papers. Their final essays will be published as a book for course adoption as well as for the general public.

Continuing Education Credit: this symposium has been approved for Continuing Education Credit for teachers.

Symposium Co-organizers:

Crista DeLuzio
Southern Methodist University

David Wallace Adams
Cleveland State University

For more information, click here.

Bi-Ethnic Identity: Converging Conversations

Language Literacy & Culture Review
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
2009

Anissa Sorokin
Univerisity of Maryland

This paper examines ethnic identity, with a focus on bi-ethnic identity, from academic, creative non-fiction, and personal perspectives. Social psychological models of ethnic identity development, along with salient aspects of ethnic identity, are explored and interpreted through the writings of qualitative researchers, creative writers, and the author. The paper centers on two factors of ethnic identity development, heritage language and religion, and makes connections between academic literature and personal narratives. A brief discussion of perceived cultural and personal responsibility concludes the paper.

Read the entire paper here.

Mixed Race Hollywood (review) [Emily D. Edwards]

Journal of Film and Video
Volume 61, Number 4 (Winter 2009)
E-ISSN: 1934-6018
Print ISSN: 0742-4671
DOI: 10.1353/jfv.0.0051

Emily D. Edwards, Professor of Broadcasting and Cinema
University of North Carolina, Greensboro

Mixed Race Hollywood is a collection of essays that could not be timelier. As popular media, journalists, and citizen bloggers actively dispute the impact of President Barack Obama’s election on attitudes toward race, editors Mary Beltrán and Camilla Fojas have compiled a series of essays that explore ways popular media and celebrity have presented miscegenation and racial identity for Americans. These historical and critical essays analyze specific films, television programs, Internet sites, and the appearance of celebrity image to help explain the ways popular media presentations of race correspond with the development of social behaviors and attitudes. Though some might credit “liberal Hollywood” for ushering America into the “mulatto millennium,” it is obvious from the collection of essays in this book that Hollywood is not always the leader of public opinion but often takes the more conservative approach, lagging behind fairly widespread social attitudes.

The editors divide the book into four sections: themes of mixed race representation, miscegenation and romance, genre and mixed race characters, and finally, a section that examines the shift in media presentation of mixed race characters from tragic to heroic. The introduction by Beltrán and Fojas helps set the background and the overall argument that media presentations reveal a cultural shift in American attitudes toward mixed race characters. The introduction also provides some useful notes on terminology.

The essays begin, appropriately, with J. E. Smyth’s chapter, “Classical Hollywood and the Filmic Writing of Interracial History, 1931–1939.” This chapter examines films such as Cimarron (1931), Ramona (1936), Show Boat (1936), Jezebel (1938)…

Read the entire review here.