Month: July 2016

  • Across the Border The Nation 2016-07-21 Michael A. Elliott, Professor of English Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia William Henry Ellis, (Photo courtesy of Fanny Johnson-Griffin) A new biography of William Henry Ellis reminds us how much we still don’t know about the elusive history of racial subterfuge in America. When, in 1912, James Weldon Johnson published…

  • How white parents talk with their black and biracial kids about race The Brood 89.3 KPCC, Southern California Public Radio Pasadena, California 2016-07-19 How does “the talk” about race and policing play out when a parent is white and their children are black or biracial? Listen to the episode here. Download the episode here.

  • Recently, there’s been numerous viral photos of white parents posting pictures of their mixed Black children with #AllLivesMatter political statements.

  • Obama Faces Growing Expectations on Race and Policing The New York Times 2016-07-21 Julie Hirschfeld Davis WASHINGTON — At the White House last week, DeRay Mckesson, a Black Lives Matter activist who was arrested only days before in Baton Rouge, La., for protesting police violence against African-Americans, had a lengthy list of demands for President…

  • How parents oppress their mixed race children The F-Word Blog: Contemporary UK Feminism 2016-07-20 Nicola Codner Leeds, Yorkshire, United Kingdom As a mixed race woman, whenever I come across articles by monoracial parents about their mixed race children, I tend to get a cold feeling of dread of inside. These articles seem to be in…

  • More than a coming of age story, Danzy Senna’s first novel, “Caucasia” (Riverhead Books, 1998) addresses themes of coming into consciousness within the U.S. ethnoracial landscape. Clearly in dialogue with Nella Larsen’s “Passing” as well as Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man,” “Caucasia” is a first person narrative where anything that happens to the protagonist, Birdie Lee,…

  • A Tale of Racial Passing and the U.S.-Mexico Border The New Yorker 2016-07-20 Jonathan Blitzer The African-American businessman William Ellis, pictured here around the year 1900, frequently passed as Mexican. COURTESY FANNY JOHNSON-GRIFFIN Some people knew him as William Ellis, and others as Guillermo Eliseo. He could be Mexican, Cuban, or even Hawaiian, depending on…

  • What Scientists Mean When They Say ‘Race’ Is Not Genetic The Huffington Post 2016-02-09 Jacqueline Howard, Senior Science Editor A new paper explains why it can be dangerous to think otherwise. If a team of scientists in Philadelphia and New York have their way, using race to categorize groups of people in biological and genetic…

  • The Complexities of Skin Color Black Issues Forum UNC-TV Raleigh, North Carolina 2016-05-01 Running Time: 00:26:46 Deborah Holt Noel, Host Inspired by the casting of Latina actress Zoe Saldana to play Nina Simone, the performer and activist known for her pride in her dark skin, Deborah chats with professor Dr. Yaba Blay, filmmaker Eric Barstow,…

  • Akala: Dynamite by any other name… The Guardian 2013-06-01 Kate Mossman, Editor and Pop critic New Statesman Akala in Notting Hill last month: ‘In Brixton and Tottenham my sister was worshipped because she was representing a side of intellectual black culture that is never usually acknowledged.’ Photograph: Karen Robinson for the Observer Rapper, adapter of…