Mixed Race Studies

Multicultural families: Deracializing Transracial Adoption

Critical Social Policy
Volume 34, Number 1 (February 2014)
pages 66-89
DOI: 10.1177/0261018313493160

Suki Ali, Senior Lecturer of Sociology
London School of Economics and Political Science

In 2010, the Coalition government announced its plans for adoption reform which included ‘removing barriers’ to transracial adoption. The government has blamed social workers’ looking for ‘perfect ethnic matches’ for denying black and minority ethnic children placements with ‘loving and stable families’. The paper draws upon qualitative research with professionals and parents, which shows that the government has failed to take into account the complex ways in which race and ethnicity matter within adoption. Their wish to deracialize transracial adoption fits with wider concerns about race mixing, families and national belonging in multicultural Britain. While they attempt to minimize the importance of race and ethnicity, they continue to place race at the heart of these debates.

Read or purchase the article here.

Why did the BBC cast a mixed-race Porthos in The Musketeers?

The Guardian
2014-01-28

Stuart Jeffries, Feature Writer and Columnist

Certain viewers are non-plussed by the casting of a musketeer of colour, but surely blind casting is preferable to an historical whitewash

Studs in leather? Check. Swordplay? Check. Buckled swash? Check. Medieval cleavages? Check. Over-complicated facial hair? Check. Dead-eyed Peter Capaldi as Louis XIII’s enforcer Cardinal Richelieu, that 17th-century prototype of Capaldi’s Malcolm Tucker in The Thick of It? Check.

There’s so much diverting stuff in BBC1’s current adaptation of The Musketeers that you might have missed perhaps its most intriguing aspect. One Telegraph reader didn’t during their below-the-line rant against what they called a “dumbed down romp”. “And,” they sighed, mid-tirade, “there is the one obligatory part-black character to prove that multiculti [sic] political correctness outweighs historical accuracy.”…

Read the entire article here.

One might imagine, that the children of such connections, would fare better, in the hands of their masters, than other slaves. The rule is quite the other way; and a very little reflection will satisfy the reader that such is the case. A man who will enslave his own blood, may not be safely relied on for magnanimity. Men do not love those who remind them of their sins—unless they have a mind to repent—and the mulatto child’s face is a standing accusation against him who is master and father to the child. What is still worse, perhaps, such a child is a constant offense to the wife. She hates its very presence, and when a slaveholding woman hates, she wants not means to give that hate telling effect. Women—white women, I mean—are idols at the south, not wives, for the slave women are preferred in many instances; and if these idols but nod, or lift a finger, woe to the poor victim: kicks, cuffs and stripes are sure to follow. Masters are frequently compelled to sell this class of their slaves, out of deference to the feelings of their white wives; and shocking and scandalous as it may seem for a man to sell his own blood to the traffickers in human flesh, it is often an act of humanity toward the slave-child to be thus removed from his merciless tormentors.

Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, (Auburn, New York: Miller, Orton & Mulligan, 1855). 40-41.

Lecture: Evolutionary Versus Racial Medicine: Why It Matters

Wake Forest University
Broyhill Auditorium in Farrell Hall
1834 Wake Forest Road
Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27106
Thursday, 2014-02-06, 19:00 EST (Local Time)

Dr. Joseph L. Graves Jr., Associate Dean for Research, Joint School of Nanoscience & Nanoengineering, North Carolina A&T State University & UNC-Greensboro, will discuss the biological and social definitions of race. He will explain how these differ and why conflating the two has had disastrous consequences for biomedical research and clinical practice. Graves will also discuss why understanding basic evolutionary mechanisms are indispensable for comprehending human biological variation and how these in turn may be applied to addressing ongoing health disparities.

For more information, click here.

The Global Obama: Crossroads of Leadership in the 21st Century

Routledge
2013-11-29
344 pages
Hardback ISBN: 978-1-84872-625-3
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-84872-626-0

Edited by:

Dinesh Sharma, Senior Fellow
Institute for International and Cross-Cultural Research
St. Francis College, New York

Uwe P. Gielen, Founder and Executive Director
Institute for International and Cross-Cultural Psychology
St. Francis College, New York

The Global Obama examines the president’s image in five continents and more than twenty countries. It is the first book to look at Barack Obama’s presidency and analyze how Obama and America are viewed by publics, governments and political commentators around world. The author of Barack Obama in Hawaii and Indonesia: The Making of a Global President (Top 10 Black History Book) scaled the globe to gather opinions—cultural, historical and political analyses—about Obama’s leadership style. Writers, journalists, psychologists, and social scientists present their views on Obama’s leadership, popularity, and many of the global challenges that still remain unsolved. As a progress report, this is the first book that tries to grasp ‘the Obama phenomenon’ in totality, as perceived by populations around the world with special focus on America’s leadership.

Contents

• Part I: Obama as a Global Leader
  • 1. Obama’s Adventures in Globalization D. Sharma, U.P. Gielen
  • 2. President Obama and American Exceptionalism: Is the U.S. an Indispensable Nation in a Multipolar World? G.W. Streich, K Marrar
  • 3. Obama’s Leadership in the Era of Globalization: A Critical Examination R.S. Bhagat, A.S. McDevitt, M. Shin, B.N. Srivastava, D.L. Ford
  • 4. Barack Obama and Inclusive Leadership in Engaging Followership E. Hollander
• Part II: Africa
  • 5. Obama, Hillary, and Women’s Voices D. Sharma
  • 6. Afro-Optimism from Mahatma Gandhi to Barack Obama: A Tale of Two Prophecies A. Mazrui
  • 7. African Diasporas, Immigration, and the Obama Administration P. T. Zeleza, C. Veney
• Part III: The Americas
  • 8. Love as Distraction: Canadians, Obama, and African- Canadian Political Invisibility R. Walcott
  • 9. Changing Times and Economic Cycles: President Obama – the Southern Continent, Mexico, and the Caribbean E. Moncarz, R. Moncarz
• Part IV: Europe
  • 10. Is Obamamania over in Europe? A. Kalaitzidis
  • 11. Obama’s French Connection D. Morrison
  • 12. A Relationship of Hope and Misinterpretation: Germany and Obama T. Cieslik
• Part V: The Middle East and Israel
  • 13. Arab Images of Obama and the United States: An Egyptian R. Ahmed
  • 14. Obama, Iran, and the New Great Game in Eurasia P. Escobar
  • 15. Great Disappointments in the Arab World during Obama’s First Term M. Masad
• Part VI: Asia-Pacific Region
  • 16. Bent by History in Afghanistan A. Muñoz
  • 17. Between Popularity and Pragmatism: South Korea’s Perspectives on Obama’s First Term M. Maass
  • 18. The Chinese View of President Obama B. Shober
  • 19. Radical Manhood and Traditional Masculinity: Japanese Acknowledgements for Literary Obama E. Senaha
• Part VII: Conclusion
  • 20. A View from Israel: A Critical Commentary of Obama’s Leadership Style D. Efune
  • 21. A Commentary from South Africa: Commentary S. Cooper
  • 22. Obama’s Leadership Paradigm in India: A Personal Reflection S. Singh
  • 23.President Obama: A Commentary From Russia E. Osin
  • 24. America’s Asian Century: A Mirage or Reality? D. Sharma

Preface

This book began as a companion volume to Barack Obama in Hawai’i and Indonesia: The Making of a Global President (Sharma, 2012), which was rated as the Top 10 Black History Book for 2012 by the American Library Association. While researching and lecturing about the earlier book, which entailed travel throughout the United States, Europe, Africa, and Asia, there were varied and diverse perceptions about President Obama as a leader. However, the president frequently garnered higher approval ratings in most parts of the world than in the United States. What a paradox, we thought at the time. The first black president elected with great enthusiasm, loved by people around the world, yet struggling for approval for his policies at home—whether it be the healthcare initiative, the stimulus to bail out the economy, or his “leading from behind” on foreign policies.

We wanted to explore the stark contrast between Obama’s popularity abroad and his suboptimal ratings at home, which puzzled almost everyone we interviewed: Why the inverse correlation between the public image at home versus abroad? You can’t be a prophet in your own land, Obama suggested to the senior editor of India Today during his visit. Thus, the idea was hatched to publish an edited volume on “Ghe Global Obama.”

As Obama himself has said, his life story spans many continents, races, cultures, and histories. It is only appropriate that we try to grasp the total Obama and not try to box him into a preconceived theory, which may capture only a part of his persona. Clearly, part of Obamas worldwide appeal is due to his international biography and global roots, but we found there is invariably a chasm be- tween the soaring rhetoric and foreign policy due to various forces of history, culture, and political cycles. Yet, the search for great leaders who can speak to the totality of human experience is never- ending. Across the cultural divide from North-to-South and East-to-West, the romance of leadership continues.

Barack Hussein Obama’s rise from his early life as a multiracial and multicultural outsider in a broken family—repeatedly changing composition and shifting residence between Hawai’i and Indonesia—to assuming the world’s most powerful executive position is as improbable as it is global in its trajectory and in its implications for the evolving twenty-first century. But whereas his life story has been the subject of several good biographies, his global position as a leader has not been assessed in a sustained manner. Obama’s global leadership qualities and position and how he is being perceived and judged around the world are the central and intertwined topics of this book.

Given that no one scholar, social thinker, or journalist has an expertise in all of the regions of the world we wanted to cover, we decided early on to develop the project as a collected volume, relying on a group of local scholars and observers connected with their communities. Our methodology is broadly social science based, yet also relying on the skills and knowledge of local journalists and reporters. The central theme of the book is Obama’s leadership style as it is perceived around the world. With the guidance of Anne Duffy, the acquisition editor, the series in leadership with Routledge Press became a natural home for this project.

While the book was conceived several years ago, we decided to wait for the reelection outcome to fully gather our views on Obama’s potential impact. His reelection clearly makes this project much more viable, although potentially in need of a follow-up in four years at the end of his second term. Thus, the questions raised in this book do not necessarily draw out a final conclusion but rather sug- gest working hypotheses and specific lines of inquiry to be followed up over time. These are issues we plan to revisit for future analysis. However, we have attempted to organize the debate in a concerted manner around the president’s leadership style, which no other book has as yet attempted. In this way, we hope to make a significant contribution to the field on leadership research and practice and to the emerging field of political leadership within the ever-expanding context of globalization…

Read the Preface here.

“There’s no doubt that there’s some folks who just really dislike me because they don’t like the idea of a black President,” Obama said. “Now, the flip side of it is there are some black folks and maybe some white folks who really like me and give me the benefit of the doubt precisely because I’m a black President.”

David Remnick, “Going the Distance: On and off the road with Barack Obama,” The New Yorker, January 27, 2014. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/01/27/140127fa_fact_remnick.

Skin color remains big barrier

The Korea Times
2014-01-27

Park Si-soo

Min Kyung-joon (alias) is a “good boy” in many aspects.

The freshman at a middle school in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, has been acknowledged by his teachers for his outstanding academic achievement and affable personality. Min is also very actively engaged in sports, which explains why he is one of the top players of an intramural soccer club.

Notwithstanding his good standing, he still has a hard time associating with his classmates, mainly because of his “exotic” appearance. The 15-year-old’s father is Pakistani and his mother a Korean native.

“That’s a huge disadvantage in making new friends among young children,” said Kim Young-im, a counselor who has interviewed numerous biracial children, including Min, in Ansan, home to one of the country’s largest population of low income immigrants.

“Children tend to get along with those who share similarity in looks and other visible characteristics. But he is different (from others) in many ways.”

For that reason, Kim added, it’s a common trend in the industrial town to see “exotic-looking” teenagers hanging out together, isolating themselves from their peers of Korean parentage.

“This is a problem that is very difficult to address,” the counselor said. “The government and school authorities have tried hard to solve this with various kinds of measures. But I think many of these programs turned out to be in vain.”

The number of biracial students like Min in Korea is estimated at 55,780 as of last year, representing 0.86 percent of the 6.53 million students enrolled in primary and secondary schools nationwide. The figure is expected to steadily increase to reach five percent by 2020, according to the education ministry…

Read the entire article here.

The popular media and specifically the Race Remixed series in the New York Times propagate the myth of multiracialism. According to this social myth, the increasing number of interracial families and multiracial children in America is transforming race and paving the way for a post-racial future. This myth assumes the existence of a growing mass of mixed youth who both identify with their multiracial heritage and who have a clear conception of its significance and transformative potential. At best, writers and audiences (popular and academic) who believe in this myth are engaged in wishful thinking. From my experience and observation, they confuse a few individuals for the many.

Gino Pellegrini, “Generation Mixed and the One Love Club,” Gino Michael Pellegrini: Education, Race, Multiraciality, Class & Solidarity, June 3, 2012. http://gmpellegrini.org/2012/06/03/generation-mixed-and-the-one-love-club/.

Alexandre Dumas: An Original Writer of Colour

Media Diversified: Tackling the Lack of Diversity in UK Media and the Ubiquity of Whiteness
2014-02-02

Glen Chisholm, Councilor (Labor Party)
Ipswich, England

A new generation of viewers are being introduced to the swashbuckling adventures of D’Artagnan and his friends and brothers in arms Athos, Porthos and Aramis. Many will know their motto,

“All for one, One for all”

as their adventures are played out in the BBC’s new Sunday night family drama series. The Three Musketeers has been produced on screen in film and TV numerous times. even in the form of a cartoon, “Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds” in the early 80′s.

For me it’s great that once again these works are getting exposure as I’ve felt a love for stories of adventure ever since I was a child. I remember my father had a collection of classic books, bound in faux leather with gold leaf print. This of course caught my attention and when I started reading them they captured my imagination. As I got older I wanted to learn more about who had created such wonderful tales and when I looked I was inspired by what I saw. Alexandre Dumas a man who like me was mixed race, a man who was black and went on to be one of the most widely read French authors in history…

Read the entire article here.

“But this is amazing, the first black president. I know you’re biracial, but the first black president. I mean you’re proud to be able to say that, the first black president, that’s unless you screw up. And then it’s going to be what’s up with the half white guy. Who voted for the mulatto, what the hell?”

Wanda Sykes, White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, May 9, 2009. (00:01:39-00:02:14).