Mixed Race Studies

Gugu Mbatha-Raw to Star Opposite Matthew McConaughey in Gary Ross’ ‘Free State of Jones’ (Exclusive)

The Wrap: Covering Hollywood
2014-01-06

Jeff Sneider, Film Reporter

Scott Stuber and Jon Kilik are producing the Civil War tale for Robert Simonds’ STX Entertainment

Hot off a pair of acclaimed performances in “Beyond the Lights” and “Belle,” Gugu Mbatha-Raw will star opposite Matthew McConaughey in Gary Ross’ Civil War movie “Free State of Jones,” TheWrap has learned.

Robert Simonds’ STX Entertainment is producing the $65 million movie and co-financing with foreign sales company IM Global. STX will handle domestic distribution, while IM Global will handle foreign rights. CAA brokered the domestic deal…

…Based on a true story, “Free State of Jones” will star McConaughey as Newton Knight and Mbatha-Raw as Rachel, a slave whose relationship with Knight played a central part in his life and in his armed rebellion against the Confederacy during the Civil War…

Read the entire article here.

What Being Mixed Race in a Small Town Does to Your Sense of Beauty: Otherwise Known as Growing Up “Exotic”

Bustle
2015-01-06

Justin Robert Thomas Smith

Let me just start by saying this: Up until this point (and hopefully for at least a little while longer), I’ve led a relatively charmed life. I grew up with lots of love and emotional support from my single mother and the rest of our family; with a roof over the top bunk of the bed I rested my head on well into my teenage years; with a warm meal delivered to me almost every night from the diner my family continues to own to this day; and blessed with every new video game system as soon as it hit the market — a big deal for a family of softcore gamers. But relativity will always be a slippery slope, and a charmed life doesn’t come without a curse or two to keep the magic alive and the blessings counted. My curse? Growing up in a place where I was considered “exotic” by almost everyone. In other words: Being mixed isn’t all vanilla-chocolate-swirls or Uh-Oh Oreos.

Where I grew up, most lives were led in a similarly charmed manner. Where I grew up, most lives were also white. In Lacey Township, NJ — a small conglomerate of towns that added their populations up to hit a whopping 25,000 residents — I could count on my hands how many black families paid their taxes (an extremely low percentage of diversity that was roughly equal to that of any other minority’s presence in the area). Keeping that in mind, I was also raised solely by a white mother: My black father had been [rarely in, but for the most part] out of the picture for a long time, which gave our family’s frame an unusual shape to go with its already unusual coloring. People were surprised to see my mother alone with three dark-skinned children, but — and I believe this is especially because she was white — they felt comfortable enough to make comments to her (and eventually, as we got older, even to us) about our more “exotic-looking” features. That’s how I was first introduced to a crazy little thing called microaggression, or — you know — unintentional discrimination…

Read the entire article here.

When Being Black Is a Family Secret

the sisterhood: where jewish women converse
The Jewish Daily Forward
2015-01-02

Susan Reimer-Torn

When Lacey Schwartz was accepted at Georgetown University, it was a dream come true. It also blew the lid off a tightly-guarded secret.

Along with her admission, the high school senior from Woodstock, New York received an invitation to join the Black Student Alliance. She had chosen not to check an ethnicity box on her application, but she did include a photo.

The acknowledgement that she was black ran counter to a lifelong assumption: Schwartz was raised as the biological daughter of her mother and her father, two white Jews with Eastern-European origins. The invitation led to a process of inquiry that revealed a hidden truth: Schwartz was the daughter of her mother and her mother’s long-time black lover.

The young woman’s undaunted deconstruction of an explosive family secret inspired the autobiographical documentary Little White Lie. The film is the result of Schwartz revisiting her life with an ever-present camera to record startlingly frank encounters in a home, larger family and community where once there had only been denial. The film chronicles the process of dismantling a false identity and reconstructing a new one.

Reached by phone in a recent interview, Schwartz explains why her story speaks to so many. “My case is particular in its details. But lots of people feel a gap between the person they are raised to believe they are and who they sense they might be.”…

Read the entire article here.