Mixed Race Studies

Obama’s skin looks a little different in these GOP campaign ads

The Washington Post
2015-12-29

Max Ehrenfreund

A new study shows that negative ads targeting President Obama in 2008 depicted him with very dark skin, and that these images would have appealed to some viewers’ racial biases.

The finding reinforces charges that some Republican politicians seek to win votes by implying support for racist views and ethnic hierarchies, without voicing those prejudices explicitly. The purported tactic is often called “dog-whistle politics” — just as only canines can hear a dog whistle, only prejudiced voters are aware of the racist connotations of a politician’s statement, according to the theory…

Read the entire article here.

One Drop of Love 2015

Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni
2015-12-30

Love & Gratitude to all who contributed to making 2015 an amazing year for One Drop of Love!

One Drop of Love is a multimedia one-woman show exploring the intersections of race, class, gender, justice and LOVE.

For more information, click here.

Bias in the Flesh: Skin Complexion and Stereotype Consistency in Political Campaigns

Public Opinion Quarterly
First published online: 2015-12-17
DOI: 10.1093/poq/nfv046

Solomon Messing, Director of Data Labs
Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C.

Maria Jabon, Senior Software Engineer
LinkedIn, Mountain View, California

Ethan Plaut, Postdoctoral Fellow
Stanford University, Stanford, California

Researchers manipulated the tone of President Obama’s skin to measure viewers’ stereotypes. (Courtesy of Solomon Messing / Political Communication Lab, Stanford University)

There is strong evidence linking skin complexion to negative stereotypes and adverse real-world outcomes. We extend these findings to political ad campaigns, in which skin complexion can be easily manipulated in ways that are difficult to detect. Devising a method to measure how dark a candidate appears in an image, this paper examines how complexion varied with ad content during the 2008 presidential election campaign (study 1). Findings show that darker images were more frequent in negative ads—especially those linking Obama to crime—which aired more frequently as Election Day approached. We then conduct an experiment to document how these darker images can activate stereotypes, and show that a subtle darkness manipulation is sufficient to activate the most negative stereotypes about Blacks—even when the candidate is a famous counter-stereotypical exemplar—Barack Obama (study 2). Further evidence of an evaluative penalty for darker skin comes from an observational study measuring affective responses to depictions of Obama with varying skin complexion, presented via the Affect Misattribution Procedure in the 2008 American National Election Study (study 3). This study demonstrates that darker images are used in a way that complements ad content, and shows that doing so can negatively affect how individuals evaluate candidates and think about politics.

Read the entire article here.

Dominicans, just like any other people of the world, have the right to come up with their own identifiers without judgment or interference as long as they aren’t subjugating any group of people. Wanting equality is a universal human trait, and being that the Dominican Republic has also been colonized by white supremacy, racism and colorism is prevalent, to an extent. Although, it shouldn’t be enough to hold anti-Dominican sentiments like most people have in the States when discussing the dire situation of Haitian immigrants and their Dominican-born descendants. Because that hate ricochets to most innocent Dominicans who have absolutely no power to be racist, and it trickles down to those even more powerless than them; Haitian immigrants and their Dominican-born descendants themselves.

César Vargas, “Black in a Foreign Land: In Defense of Dominican Identity,” The Huffington Post, Latino Voices, December 17, 2015. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/casar-vargas/black-in-a-foreign-land-i_b_8807772.html.

Bell: How do you identify yourself?

[Misty] Copeland: My mom told me I was black. I filled out paperwork at school that said I was black. Those were the boxes I checked. Misty laughed. She laughs a lot. But she’s serious when discussing race. Both of Misty’s parents were mixed race. Sylvia DelaCerna, Misty’s mother, was Italian and black, adopted and brought up by a black woman and her black husband in Kansas City, Missouri. DelaCerna’s adoptive mother worked for child services. DelaCerna grew up to be a professional cheerleader for the Kansas City Chiefs. Misty’s father split for Chicago when Misty was a child and left her mom with six kids.

Ian Spencer Bell, “The Caramel Variations,” Ballet Review, Spring 2012. 22. http://www.balletreview.com/images/Ballet_Review_40-1_Caramel_Variations.pdf.

“A Hawaiian is a Hawaiian is a Hawaiian,” said Michelle Kauhane, president and CEO of the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement. “Whether they have a drop or more than 50 percent.”

Jennifer Sinco Kelleher, “Rulemaking under way for DNA testing for Hawaiian homelands,” The Associated Press, December 28, 2015. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/d5481a15bd164d25ba02fc510473d046/rulemaking-under-way-dna-testing-hawaiian-homelands.

Plessy v. Ferguson Re-Argument

C-SPAN: Created by Cable
Program ID: 71350-1
1996-04-20

Hosted by Harvard University

Distinguished jurists heard a re-argument of Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 Supreme Court case in which the Court found that Louisiana did not discriminate against Homer A. Plessy when it refused to let him sit in the white only section of a passenger train. In this decision, the Court established the legal doctrine of “separate, but equal,” which governed discrimination cases until the 1954 decision of Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. The participants had access only to the facts and case law available in 1896 for their arguments. Following the arguments, the “Court” deliberated in public and unanimously reversed its original 6-1 decision.

Watch the video (02:31:49) here.

Rulemaking under way for DNA testing for Hawaiian homelands

The Associated Press
2015-12-28

Jennifer Sinco Kelleher

This Dec. 24, 2015 photo provided by Pat Kahawaiolaa shows Kahawaiolaa taking a selfie at Keaukaha Beach Park in Hilo, Hawaii. He is among those with at least 50 percent Native Hawaiian blood who are eligible for low-cost land leases from the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands. The department is proposing a rule that would allow use of DNA evidence as proof of an applicant’s Hawaiian blood quantum. (Pat Kahawaiolaa via AP)

HONOLULU (AP) — When the state deemed Leighton Pang Kee ineligible for one of the most valuable benefits available to Native Hawaiians — land at almost no cost — because he couldn’t show that he was at least 50 percent Hawaiian, he sued.

Pang Kee knew he was, and needed to figure out a way to prove it. According to his lawsuit, his mother was at least 81.25 percent Native Hawaiian, but his birth certificate didn’t list his biological father.

But he knew who his father was. Pang Kee, who was adopted, found his late father’s brother, got a DNA sample that showed there was a 96.35 percent probability that Pang Kee and the man were related, the lawsuit said.

While that initially wasn’t enough for the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, the agency eventually settled, and has proposed rules that would allow the use of DNA evidence to prove ancestry.

Hawaiians don’t typically fixate on how much Hawaiian blood they have when it comes to asserting ancestral identity.

“A Hawaiian is a Hawaiian is a Hawaiian,” said Michelle Kauhane, president and CEO of the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement. “Whether they have a drop or more than 50 percent.”

One of the only times blood quantum is relevant is for applying for a homestead lease. Those with at least 50 percent Hawaiian blood quantum can apply for a 99-year lease for $1 a year…

This Thursday, Dec. 24, 2015 photo shows houses in the the Hawaiian homestead community of Papakolea in Honolulu.The state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands has proposed rules that would allow people applying for a homestead lease to use DNA evidence to prove ancestry. (AP Photo/Audrey McAvoy)

Read the entire article here.

Tiger Woods at 40: The 14-time major champion’s legacy

BBC Sport
2015-12-30

Iain Carter, Golf Correspondent

Masters 2001: Woods seals ‘Tiger’ slam

Imagine Earl Woods choosing to put a baseball bat rather than a golf club into the hands of young Eldrick, his toddler son.

How different would golf be if Tiger Woods, who turns 40 on 30 December, had chosen to play something else?

As the ailing 14-time major champion struggles to swing a club again, he can celebrate this landmark birthday by reflecting that no-one has had a bigger impact on the game…

…Woods was golf’s poster boy. He was different – a black man in an overwhelmingly white sport – and he became the inspiration for the players who populate the top of the current world rankings.

“What Tiger Woods has done for golf, I’m not sure anyone would do again,” four-time major champion Rory McIlroy told the BBC.

“Not just how unbelievably talented he was, but what he stood for, where he came from. He brought a whole new demographic into golf and sort of made golf cool again for kids.”…

Read the entire article here.

The truth is that African Americans are essentially all mixed race. From the beginning, enslaved and other Africans had close relationships with poor and indentured servant whites, that’s one reason why so many black people have Irish last names. During slavery, sexual relationships between enslavers and the enslaved, occurring on a range of coercive levels, were routine. Children born to enslaved women from these encounters were identified as “black.” The one-drop rule—you are black if you have one drop of black blood—was an economic tool used to protect the institution of racialized slavery (by preserving the distinction between two increasingly indistinct racial groups) and enrich the individual enslaver (by producing another human being he could own). Those enslaved children grew up and had children with other enslaved people as well as other whites.

Lisa Wade, “Why It Was Easy for Rachel Dolezal to Pass as Black,” Pacific Standard, June 15. 2015. http://www.psmag.com/books-and-culture/why-it-was-easy-for-rachel-dolezal-to-pass-as-black.