Month: October 2016

  • ‘I shouldn’t have to defend my Irishness’ – tackling the identity struggles faced by mixed race Irish The Irish Post 2016-10-10 Erica Doyle Higgins, Digital Reporter The above image of Lorraine Maher Faissal as a child is the main image of the #IAmIrish Project. (Picture: Lorraine Maher Faissal) FOR the first time a photography exhibition…

  • I Loved My Bigoted Uncle, and He Loved Us The Daily Beast 2016-10-09 Goldie Taylor, Editor-at-Large My late Uncle Buster, a barrel-chested white man raised in the woody bowels of Louisiana and a self-professed bigot, opened his life, his home and his heart to me. Wendell “Buster” Carson was ours by marriage but, even as…

  • The way ahead The Economist 2016-10-08 Barack Obama, President of The United States America’s president writes for us about four crucial areas of unfinished business in economic policy that his successor will have to tackle WHEREVER I go these days, at home or abroad, people ask me the same question: what is happening in the…

  • The President Has Never Said the Word ‘Black’ Poem selected by Matthew Zapruder The New York Times Magazine 2016-09-30 Morgan Parker This poem’s expressions of feeling about the blackness of the president disquiet, trouble and inform. Its tones shift among mockery, sympathy, cynicism, anger and mourning. Here, a young African-American poet is addressing the explosive…

  • An important addition to the literature of the period, Gentleman Jigger is the story of two brothers. Aeon, who passes for white and becomes a famous poet, faces the conundrums of love across the color line. Stuartt, who is openly homosexual-as was the author-joins the younger intellectuals of Harlem in defying authority figures, both black…

  • America’s obsession with multiracial beauty reveals our ongoing bias against blackness Quartz 2016-10-06 Robert L. Reece, Ph.D. Candidate Duke University Last month, rapper Kanye West posted a controversial casting call for his clothing line, Yeezy, mandating “multiracial women only.” Many objected, arguing that West had insulted darker-skinned black women. But Kanye was only adhering to…

  • One Drop of Love: Middle School / High School Educators Guide One Drop of Love: #TRUTH #JUSTICE #LOVE 2016 13 pages Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni, Playwright, Performer and Producer Show Overview One Drop of Love is a multimedia solo performance by Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni. This extraordinary one-woman show incorporates filmed images, photographs and animation to tell the…

  • Colin Kaepernick, Racial Identity and the Power of Protest Racism Review 2016-09-06 Alyssa Lyons Department of Sociology The Graduate Center, City University of New York NFL player Colin Kaepernick has made headlines recently by refusing to stand for the national anthem before football games in protest. It’s a protest linked to racial identity and politics, as…

  • ‘MIXED’ Values: Biraciality in Non-Post-Racial America Documentary Magazine International Documentary Association 2016-09-23 Caty Borum Chattoo, Co-Director Center for Media & Social Impact, Washington, D.C. Filmmakers Caty Borum Chattoo (front left) and Leena Jayaswal (front right) with the first mixed-race couple in North Carolina after the Loving v. Virginia decision. The comments—and the fetishizing perspectives—were naively…

  • Britain’s Black Past BBC Radio 4 2016-10-03 The Invisible Presence Professor Gretchen Gerzina explores a largely unknown past – the lives of black people who settled in Britain in the 18th and early 19th centuries. She reveals a startling paradox – although Britain was at the heart of a thriving slave trade, it was still…