Mixed Race Studies

Not White Enough, Not Black Enough: Racial Identity in the South African Coloured Community

Ohio University Press/Swallow Press
2005
264 pages
5 1/2 x 8 1/2 in.
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-89680-244-5

Mohamed Adhikari, Lecturer of Historical Studies
University of Cape Town, South Africa

The concept of Colouredness—being neither white nor black—has been pivotal to the brand of racial thinking particular to South African society. The nature of Coloured identity and its heritage of oppression has always been a matter of intense political and ideological contestation.

Not White Enough, Not Black Enough: Racial Identity in the South African Coloured Community is the first systematic study of Coloured identity, its history, and its relevance to South African national life. Mohamed Adhikari engages with the debates and controversies thrown up by the identity’s troubled existence and challenges much of the conventional wisdom associated with it. A combination of wide-ranging thematic analyses and detailed case studies illustrates how Colouredness functioned as a social identity from the time of its emergence in the late nineteenth century through its adaptation to the postapartheid environment.

Adhikari demonstrates how the interplay of marginality, racial hierarchy, assimilationist aspirations, negative racial stereotyping, class divisions, and ideological conflicts helped mold people’s sense of Colouredness over the past century. Knowledge of this history, and of the social and political dynamic that informed the articulation of a separate Coloured identity, is vital to an understanding of present-day complexities in South Africa.

The Law: Anti-Miscegenation Statutes: Repugnant Indeed

Time Magazine
1967-06-23

Judge Leon Bazile looked down at Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter Loving as they stood before him in 1959 in the Caroline County, Va. courtroom. “Almighty God,” he intoned, “created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.” With that, Judge Bazile sentenced the newlywed Lovings to one year in jail. Their crime: Mildred is part Negro, part Indian, and Richard is white.

In Virginia, as in 15 other states (the number was once as high as 30), there is a law barring white and colored persons from intermarrying. The Lovings could have avoided the sentence simply by leaving the state, but they eventually decided to fight the Virginia antimiscegenation law “on the ground that it was repugnant to the 14th Amendment.” In rare unanimity, all nine Supreme Court Justices agreed last week that it was repugnant indeed.

Read the entire article here.

The Transformation of U.S. Racial and Ethnic Identities in Global Media

Contact Spaces of American Culture: LOCALIZING GLOBAL PHENOMENA
36th International Conference of the Austrian Association for American Studies (AAAS)
Department of American Studies, University of Graz
2009-10-22 through 2009-10-25

Shelleen Greene, Assistant Professor of Digital Studio Practice and Theory
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

Through an analysis of the DreamWorks SKG 2008 release Tropic Thunder, this essay investigates how the rhetoric of race and ethnicity in U.S. films is influenced and transformed through their circulation within the global film market. Engaging Arjun Appardurai’s work on
global culture in the digital era, in particular his model of the mediascape, or the production and distribution of images through electronic media platforms that are used to create “imagined worlds”, “narratives of the other” and “protonarratives of possible lives”, I examine contemporary “Hollywood” films that speak not only to industrial shifts, such as film financing as well as film productions across national boundaries, but also to the ways these new circulations lead to a re-consideration of racial and ethnic identities that are no longer bound to the nation-state. Tropic Thunder garnered media attention and controversy for its use of blackface performance. However, I argue that while the film’s reception was mired in discussion of the historical legacy of racial stereotypes in American film, the broader implications of Tropic Thunder’s critique of Hollywood’s hegemonic role within global cinema has remained unexamined. As a pastiche of the Vietnam War film and a satire of the Hollywood film industry, I suggest that Tropic Thunder’s use of blackface performance must be read in light of the film’s ruminations on American cultural imperialism. The film’s meditation on the role of Hollywood in the global film industry can be read through a comparison of the film’s explicit blackface performance (Robert Downey Jr.) and what can be considered its performance of racial drag in the character of Les Grossman (Tom Cruise). Ultimately, films such as Tropic Thunder index a shift in the reception and consumption of racial identities due to their dissemination within the global cinema, but also point to the continued use of racial performance and stereotype to sustain the Hollywood industry in a rapidly transforming and highly competitive global film economy.

…Testified by his own tongue-and-cheek portrayal and response to the performance and film overall, it is evident that Downey Jr.’s performance is markedly different from what was the norm of popular American culture some sixty years ago. Not only should we consider changing notions of race brought about by genetic science, proving that one’s racial identity is arbitrarily related to one’s skin color, but also a radical shift in the American political, social and cultural landscape that has seen the rise and fall of affirmative action, the first census to allow a “mixed-race” designation, and the acknowledgement of race as a construct. We find ourselves in the era of self-reflexive racial performance, as seen in the comedic work of Dave Chappelle, or the emblematic and troubling figure of post-race, Michael Jackson. “Race” is no longer taken as an inherent quality of the subject, but one that can be performed or produced through surgical procedure. That Robert Downey Jr.’s performance speaks to these shifts in the popular conceptualization of race is not surprising…

Read the entire paper here.

ART & DESIGN FACULTY – Shelleen Greene awarded IRE Faculty Diversity Research Award

Peck School of The Arts News
University of Wisconsin, Madison
2010-06-15

The award will allow Assistant Professor Shelleen Greene to complete her book project, Equivocal Subjects: Mixed-Race Identity in the Italian Cinema. The book examines the representation of mixed-race subjects of Italian and African descent in the Italian cinema, arguing that the changing cultural representations of mixed-race identity reveal shifts in the country’s conceptual paradigms of race and nation. Greene’s work further contends that these representations of mixed-race identity inform African diasporic filmmakers seeking to “write” the history of post-colonial Italy as a means of narrating African disaporic identity formation in the present era of global migration…

Read the entire article here.

Even discussing ‘angry black man’ stereotype provokes anger

CNN
2010-06-16

John Blake

(CNN) — Here are some sound bites from the post-racial era:

“The long legged Mac Daddy in the White House is angry this morning. Seems to me we should change the name to the Black House for the next few years. Your news organization obviously is very racist.”

And:

“I don’t care what anyone says. If Obama takes to heart the calls for anger in this crisis all bets are off! White America will dump him right on his black a#s.”

Last week, CNN published an article entitled “Why Obama doesn’t dare become the ‘angry black man’ ” after critics complained that President Obama had not displayed enough anger in response to the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster.

The article quoted scholars on race relations who said many white Americans would be unsettled by Obama losing his temper because he would evoke the stereotype of the angry African-American man.

…The phrase comes as no surprise to Rainier Spencer, director of Afro-American Studies Program at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.

Spencer said the angry black man stereotype has its origins in slavery. During slavery, white men feared black men like Nat Turner who resisted slavery. They were the black men who led slave insurrections and were sold further South. They were called Bucks.

“There’s the image of the minstrel, the happy, silly Negro who is fun to watch and laugh at. But the other one—the Buck—is the one you have to be careful about,” Spencer said.

The angry black man stereotype persisted after the end of slavery, Spencer said. Black militants in the civil rights movement; today’s black male rap artists—all are equated with some variation of the angry black man, Spencer said.

But Spencer said the angry black man stereotype doesn’t have the bite it once had. Certain black male public figures—Obama, Colin Powell—can display anger…

Why do we have to talk so much about race?

But who says a black man is running the country?

Some readers got miffed because CNN identified Obama as a black president. He’s biracial, they say.

“CNN get your facts straight—he is an angry half-black man! CNN you are a bunch of idiot race-baiters.”

Another:

“Maybe the 50 percent white part of him keeps the 50 percent angry black part calm and collected and on an even keel. Hmmm, that might be worthy of a university study! Could be ground-breaking science here! I’ll bet the guvment’ would even pay for it!”

Spencer, the race scholar from UNLV, said that Obama has already made his identity choice. He identified himself as black on his census form. He is perceived and accepted as black my most African-Americans.

Obama’s racial background doesn’t make him unlike most blacks; it makes him similar to most blacks, Spencer said.

Spencer, who is writing a book on mixed race, said an estimated 90 percent of African-Americans have white ancestors, including Michelle Obama, the first lady.

“It doesn’t make sense to talk about mixed race unless you’re going to include all 30 million African-Americans,” said Spencer, author of the upcoming book, “Reproducing Race: The Paradox of Generation Mix.”…

Read the entire article here.

U.S. far from an interracial melting pot

CNN
2010-06-16

Daniel T. Lichter, Ferris family professor in the Department of Policy Analysis and Management, and Professor of Sociology
Cornell University

Ithaca, New York (CNN)—According to a recent report by the Pew Research Center, one of every seven new marriages in 2008 was interracial or interethnic—the highest percentage in U.S. history. The media and blogosphere have been atwitter.

Finally, it seems, we have tangible evidence of America’s entry into a new post-racial society, proof of growing racial tolerance. Intermarriage trends are being celebrated as a positive sign that we have come to think of all Americans as, well, Americans…

…It’s time for everyone—on all sides of this issue—to relax and take a deep breath. The reality is that racial boundaries remain firmly entrenched in American society. They are not likely to go away anytime soon.

We are still far from a melting pot where distinct racial and ethnic groups blend into a multi-ethnic stew…

Read the entire article here.

“A Black Girl Should Not be With a White Man”: Sex, Race, and African Women’s Social and Legal Status in Colonial Gabon, c. 1900–1946

Journal of Women’s History
Volume 22, Number 2, Summer 2010
E-ISSN: 1527-2036
Print ISSN: 1042-7961
DOI: 10.1353/jowh.0.0140

Rachel Jean-Baptiste, Associate Professor of African History
University of California, Davis

This article reviews representations and lived experiences of interracial sex and métissage in twentieth-century colonial Gabon to argue that African communities and colonial societies debated over “the métis problem” as question of how to demarcate African women’s sexuality, and socioeconomic and political power in the urban locale. These discourses and social realities reflected ambiguous and contradictory colonial discourses and polyvalent struggles among Gabonese populations to recast gender and respectability in the colonial capital city. Mpongwé women’s participation in interracial relationships, frequently brokered by male kin, had unintended consequences that threatened colonial order and reordered gender hierarchies within Mpongwé communities. Following World War I through the 1950s, shifting coalitions of elite African men, colonial officials, and private French citizens—anxious of the social mobility black and mixed race women achieved and sought to maintain—frowned upon and sought to restrict interracial liasons. Mpongwé women, both black and métis, involved in interracial relationships struggled to maintain control over their property, their labor, and insist upon their respectability in the precarious urban milieu. Using oral and written sources, this article addresses a gap in the scholarship on gender, sexuality, and colonialism by foregrounding how African women and men engaged in and reflected on miscegenation at the center of analysis. Furthermore, this article emphasizes the colonial encounter as a dialectic in which the actions of African women shaped colonial perceptions and policies.

Read or purchase the article here.

Washington College students awarded summer fellowships

The Star Democrat
Easton, Maryland
2010-06-02

CHESTERTOWN, MARYLAND Six Washington College students were awarded Comegys Bight Summer Research Fellowships supported by the Comegys Bight Fellows Program, which invites scholars to design independent research projects and internships built around their particular interests. These projects include field research on the ghost tour industry, a study of the relationship between military service and political behavior, and an exploration of biracial identity in America.

The program, conceived and sustained by Drs. Thomas and Virginia Collier of Chestertown and administered by the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, offers stipends for students to pursue independent projects with the guidance of faculty mentors…

The program has served 38 students since its advent in 2003.

“One of the most exciting things about this program has been seeing how the students’ experiences as Comegys Bight Fellows continue to resonate in their lives throughout college and far beyond,” said Adam Goodheart, Hodson Trust-Griswold director of the Starr Center…

..Drawn from a range of academic majors, the 2010 Fellows include:…

…English major Kristine Sloan, Class of 2012, will explore biracial identity in America through a nonfiction writing project about her Filipino-American family and her own sense of dual identity. She will travel to the Philippines…

Read the entire article here.

In Search of Nella Larsen: A Biography of the Color Line

Harvard University Press
May 2006
624 pages
6-3/8 x 9-1/4 inches
37 halftones
Hardcover ISBN: 9780674021808

George Hutchinson, Newton C. Farr Professor of American Culture
Cornell University

• 2006 Booklist Editor’s Choice
• 2006 Honorable Mention of the Professional/Scholarly Publishing Annual Award Competition, Biography & Autobiography
• Finalist, 2007 Independent Publisher Book Awards, Biography Category
• 2007 Christian Gauss Award for literary scholarship or criticism, Phi Beta Kappa Society
• Choice Magazine A Best Academic Book of the Year

Born to a Danish seamstress and a black West Indian cook in one of the Western Hemisphere’s most infamous vice districts, Nella Larsen (1891-1964) lived her life in the shadows of America’s racial divide. She wrote about that life, was briefly celebrated in her time, then was lost to later generations–only to be rediscovered and hailed by many as the best black novelist of her generation. In his search for Nella Larsen, the “mystery woman of the Harlem Renaissance,” George Hutchinson exposes the truths and half-truths surrounding this central figure of modern literary studies, as well as the complex reality they mask and mirror. His book is a cultural biography of the color line as it was lived by one person who truly embodied all of its ambiguities and complexities.

Author of a landmark study of the Harlem Renaissance, Hutchinson here produces the definitive account of a life long obscured by misinterpretations, fabrications, and omissions. He brings Larsen to life as an often tormented modernist, from the trauma of her childhood to her emergence as a star of the Harlem Renaissance. Showing the links between her experiences and her writings, Hutchinson illuminates the singularity of her achievement and shatters previous notions of her position in the modernist landscape. Revealing the suppressions and misunderstandings that accompany the effort to separate black from white, his book addresses the vast consequences for all Americans of color-line culture’s fundamental rule: race trumps family.

What’s at stake in claims of “post-racial” media?

FlowTV
Department of Radio, Television, and Film at the University of Texas at Austin
2010-06-03

Mary C. Beltrán, Associate Professor of Media Studies
University of Texas, Austin

Tracy Morgan, comedic actor best known for his role as comedic performer Tracy Jordan on the NBC series 30 Rock (2006+), trumpeted America’s supposed post-racial identity at the Golden Globe Awards in January 2009. When 30 Rock was awarded Best Musical or Comedy Television Series, he gleefully snatched the statuette from Tina Fey, creator and star of the series, quipping, “Tina Fey and I had an agreement that if Barack Obama won, I would speak for the show from now on.” He continued, “Welcome to post-racial America! I am the face of post-racial America. Deal with it, Cate Blanchett! We’d like to thank the Hollywood Foreign Press … especially me, ’cause a black man can’t get no love at the Emmys. I love you, Europe! That’s what’s up!”…

…Unsurprisingly, when used in description of media trends, post-racial has taken on differing meanings both for scholars and media professionals. For one, it’s been used as shorthand to describe purported progress in ethnic/racial inclusion in employment and casting, as appears to be at least part of what Morgan had in mind in his claim that he is the face of post-racial America. In fact, a fair number of television series and films now integrate a few characters of color into their casts (notably, this was described recently by the Hollywood Reporter as perhaps due in part to an “Obama effect”), and we’ve witnessed a growing number of non-white and mixed race stars. Important to note and study, a major catalyst of these shifts is a turn away from niche productions targeting African American or Latina/o audiences to media texts that aim instead to appeal to a broad, multicultural audience. Arguably this does not make these texts post-racial (Dale Hudson’s concept of “multicultural whiteness” comes closer to describing this trend in relation to the continuing centrism of whiteness), but does raise the need for new methodological tools and theoretical frameworks for studying ethnic and racial representation in this supposed post-racial era. Also important to take into consideration is the continuing and sometimes growing underrepresentation of creative professionals of color behind the screen in tandem with “post-racial” shifts.

There is a need in such study to also take note of the casting and portrayal of mixed-race actors and individuals in Hollywood media productions. I’ve noted in my own work that the rhetoric of post-race has followed in the wake of the rising vogue for mixed-race and racially ambiguous actors and models since the 1990s. The “raceless” or “ethnically ambiguous” aesthetic (as I and journalist Ruth La Ferla described this trend, respectively), particularly noticeable in contemporary tween programming and stardom, is an important strand of contemporary media formations that at times falls into descriptions of post-racial trends. Given that mixed-race representation does offer the potential to highlight the constructed nature of race and fissures in racial boundaries, as Camilla Fojas and I discuss in the introduction to Mixed Race Hollywood, this will be an important site of study in relation to the implications of contemporary trends in ethnic and racial representation…

Read the entire article here.