Mixed Race Studies

Northern Ireland’s most (un)wanted

Media Diversified
2014-07-28

Jayne Olorunda

Northern Ireland’s capital, Belfast has had many songs written about it. The lyrics of one Belfast song resonates in my ear as I think of the reputation the city now has. The lyrics of the song always stood out to me, but now they are more ironic than ever. The song goes, ‘Belfast, Belfast a wonderful town it doesn’t matter if your skin is brown’ I wonder if this was ever true? It certainly wasn’t in my time or even in my parent’s time. The outside world knows Northern Ireland as a country dominated by sectarian strife where Catholic and Protestant people have for decades been at war. This is of course true, but within Northern Ireland other hate based dynamics exist, recently they have come to the fore. Today’s Northern Ireland has a serious problem with racism and it is fast becoming a problem that can no longer be brushed aside…

…I am Northern Irish, but I am also black and this is not a comfortable position to be in, at times it has felt like a disastrous combination. My story came to public attention when I wrote ‘Legacy’ a book about my families experiences in Northern Ireland. It documents the difficulties we faced with identity and of course the sometimes impossible realities of assimilation. I was born and bred in Northern Ireland and I imagine that I am among a small handful of people of colour who can say that. It is sad that even now in my thirties black faces in Northern Ireland still stand out in the crowd. As such we have become targets to those elements in our society determined to keep their society white, those intent on living in bitterness.

Growing Up

Growing up my sisters and I have became used to being the only blacks and being identified not on our merits but as ‘the black girls’. Northern Irish racism for us began in the womb, with comments such as ‘how dare you bring another black bastard into the world’ being levelled at our mother. Our story began when my father, originally from Nigeria, was offered a job in Belfast on his graduation. Like any student fresh from university he was delighted at the opportunity in his chosen field and seized it. Whilst here he met my Mum who is from Northern Ireland. As all romances go the pair fell in love and got married, they had a family consisting of three children, I was the youngest. Not everything was perfection and it goes without saying that my parents encountered racism, they met in the 1970’s after all. Yet they were a strong couple and as long as they were together they coped…

Read the entire article here.

Please pass me the skin coloured crayon! Semantics, socialisation, and folk models of race in contemporary Europe

Language Sciences
Available online: 2014-08-06
DOI: 10.1016/j.langsci.2014.07.011

Martina Zimmermann
Institute of Multilingualism
University of Fribourg, University of Teacher Education, Fribourg, Switzerland

Carsten Levisen
Department of Aesthetics and Communication
Aarhus University, Denmark

þórhalla Guðmundsdóttir Beck
University of Iceland, Háskóli Íslands, Iceland

Cornelia van Scherpenberg
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, München, Germany

Highlights

• Explores the cultural semantics of colour words in four urban European communities.
• An idealised cognitive model of ‘the colour of skin’ shared across these languages.
• A link between the colour terms and the ‘skin’ prototype is intact.
• The sociovisual ideology embedded in the ‘hautfarben’ concept is powerful.
• Traces the origin of the skin-based colour concept to language socialisation.

This study explores the cultural semantics of colour words in the four urban, European communities of Munich, Berne, Aarhus, and Reykjavik, focussing on hautfarben (German), hutfarb (Bernese Swiss German), hudfarvet (Danish), and húðlitur (Icelandic), all of which can be translated as ‘skin coloured’. Unlike in English, where skin coloured has fallen out of use due to its racist semantic profile, these words are still widely present within the four communities. Using evidence from a referential colour naming task and semi-structured interviews, our study seeks to reveal the linguistic worldviews and idealised cognitive models embedded in skin-based colour concepts in contemporary German and Scandinavian languages. Arguing that colour concepts are linguistic constructs through which speakers have learned to pay attention to their visual worlds, we trace the origin of the skin-based colour concept to language socialisation. Our study suggests that children’s use of crayons in pre-schools, homes, and kindergartens have a formative impact on the acquisition of colour concepts in general, and in particular, in acquiring a skin-based colour concept. Apart from ‘crayon socialisation’ and children’s drawing practices, our study points to one other salient aspect of meaning associated with the skin-based colour concept, namely socio-political discourses of multiculturalism, political correctness and racism. Some speakers find it ‘natural’ to use a skin-based colour concept while others find it ‘racist’. Yet regardless of an individual speaker’s views on the matter, they all appear to recognise the specific folk model of race, encoded in hautfarben, hutfarb, hudfarvet and húðlitur. In addition, based on the disagreement among speakers, we do find some evidence that discursive changes in German and Scandinavian languages could lead to similar changes as the ones which have taken place in English (i.e. the replacement of skin coloured with peach or a similar construct). Skin-based colours in Germanic languages also offer new perspectives on visual semantics, the social origins of colour, and on the interface of language, sociality and colour.

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Modern Diversity May Prompt US Census Bureau to Seek Better Classification of Hispanics’ Race

Latin Post
2014-07-29

Nicole Akoukou Thompson

Modernizing data and research methods, as well as offering clear depictions of diversity in the nation’s population, are prominent objectives of the United States Census Bureau. However, the government agency has often missed its mark.

The U.S. population continues to diversify. As the number of non-whites increases, there’s been a growing demand for the bureau to better and more accurately catalog those living in the U.S., as the current process doesn’t allow individuals to self-identify in a way that makes sense for them and their heritage. But the upcoming 2020 census promises to offer more accuracy.

The Hispanic origin question (identify ethnicity and complete questions about race) has evolved. Each decade the organization looks to more appropriately sort and label the budding Hispanic demographic.

“White, black and ‘some other race'” are selections presented after identifying one’s ethnicity as Hispanic. But most Hispanics believe that the delineated racial categories don’t represent their identities, while others believe that each category represents them…

…Regarding race, 47.7 percent of Hispanics reported “white” as their race, compared to 2.1 percent reporting “black,” despite statistics on the African diaspora, which would suggest much higher numbers, particularly among those hailing from Brazil, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Panama or Ecuador. That said, many are unlikely to identify as black; instead they may honor a myriad of other terms regarding mixed-race and African ancestry, including moreno, afrodescendiente, pardo, mulato and zambo…

…”It’s not that the people are confused; it’s that the question is inexact,” said Hector R. Cordero-Guzman, a professor at the School of Public Affairs at Baruch College, of the decision by many Latinos to choose “some other race” or no race at all. “If you are asking somebody simply what their skin color is — that’s how some people understand the question. Some people say they are asking me about my ancestry. Others think they are asking me about how I’m treated when I go outside.“…

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Skewing the Data: Mixed-Race Identity & the Problem of Counting for Race

Lucia Lorenzi: the body politic: musings and meanderings
2014-04-13

Lucia Lorenzi
University of British Columbia

A few weeks ago, I attended a panel hosted by the Institute for Gender, Race, and Sexuality at the University of British Columbia, entitled “CWILA and the Problem of Counting for Race.” CWILA (Canadian Women in the Literary Arts) is a non-profit organization, founded in 2012, as a “discursive space to address gender disparities in Canadian literary culture, as well as the wider politics of representation, the critical reception of women’s writing in the literary press, and the ways in which we can foster stronger critical communities.” Through their first two annual counts, CWILA demonstrated that there is a significant imbalance when it comes to gender representation in Canadian literary culture. Considering the myriad ways in which these imbalances continue to circulate, (as evidenced by statements from the likes of David Gilmour, whom I have written about here) the collection of data seems to serve a useful purpose in providing some numerical and concrete grounding to what often feels like an abstract and unquantifiable problem. Data can help to back an argument, to lend “credibility,” when people would otherwise dismiss lived experiences or personal narratives as “mere anecdotes.”…

…I am deeply aware that I am, in so many ways, a question mark. A fully Italian name, with seemingly-matching olive skin. My mother tongue is German. My mother is white and my father is black. When my parents separated, my sister and I were raised by our mother in a primarily-white suburb of Vancouver. And, in many moments in my life, I have had the privilege of passing. While my sister and I share the same parentage, the rolling of the genetic dice meant that while I was born with lighter skin and straight hair, my sister was born with darker skin and curly hair. Even now, when my sister and I are out together, it is she who is more readily-racialized than I am. It is because of this complexity that the question of race, and accounting for my own racialization, has always been fraught. I am genetically, biologically, half-Black, and yet I have had virtually no connection to “Black” culture for most of my life. What is “Black” culture, anyway? I did not inherit the stories of my father’s family, the stories of growing up in Barbados, growing up Black on an island with a history of British colonization and the Atlantic slave trade. And yet, that history is still mine, somehow. It’s in my skin. Do I count in percentages? Half-half? 70%-30%?…

Read the entire article here.