Mixed Race Studies

Caitlyn Jenner, Rachel Dolezal and instability in gender and race

Maclean’s
2016-12-04

Sujaya Dhanvantari

Sociologist Rogers Brubaker examines transgender and transracial differences

TRANS

By Rogers Brubaker

In Western culture, gender and race were traditionally thought to be unchangeable and fixed for life. Black or white, male or female: These were forever separated by the binary logic of absolute difference. But even as the old colonial theories of racial determinism have long been discredited, the notion of changing race is still ethically troubling. Not so for changing gender, which is now socially accepted in unprecedented ways. That is why celebrity trans woman Caitlyn Jenner and transracial civil rights activist Rachel Dolezal, born white but now identifying as black, are not the same kind of “trans.” Inspired by those two news stories, UCLA sociologist Rogers Brubaker explores the unstable categories of gender and race in his new book…

Read the entire review here.

Race In The Northwest: Hood River Man Learns His Family’s Surprising Truth

Oregon Public Broadcasting
2016-12-07

Anna Griffin, News Director

Hood River writer and cidermaker John Metta. Anna Griffin/OPB

Hood River, Oregon—John Metta grew up thinking of himself as mixed race: His mother was white. His father’s side of the family proudly proclaimed themselves a blend of African-American and Native American.

“Actually, I grew up always being the Indian kid at school,” he said. “I have pictures of myself in like fourth and fifth grade, and my hair was dead straight parted in the middle. I looked like the typical Native American.”

The family wasn’t entirely clear on where that Native American element entered the mix — someone at some point had spent time on the Seneca reservation in Western New York. Still, they embraced their native side…

…A few years ago, Metta’s sisters got curious about precisely which tribes and parts of the country their relatives came from. They asked an uncle to swab his cheek and had the sample tested. How much Native American blood did they find?…

Read the entire article here.

How Jews Became White Folks — and May Become Nonwhite Under Trump

Forward
2016-12-06

Karen Brodkin, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology
University of California, Los Angeles

Decades before I wrote the book “How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America,” I had an eye-opening conversation with my parents. I asked them if they were white. They looked flummoxed and said, “We’re Jewish.”

“But are you white?”

“Well, I guess we’re white; but we’re Jewish.” Then they wanted to know what I thought I was.

I’m white and Jewish…

Read the entire article here.

“Us versus Them” – A Thought on the Complexities of Multiracial Passing

Multiracial Media: Voice of the Multiracial Community
2016-12-08

Joanna L. Thompson, Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Criminology, Law, and Justice
University of Illinois, Chicago

Is this an example of “Multiracial Passing?” Photo credit: YouTube

Recently, a post on TheRoot.com discussed the challenges Sofia Richie, daughter of iconic singer Lionel Richie, faces in the fashion industry. As a mixed-race, half Black/half White individual, Richie presents more White than Black. Because Richie presents more White than Black due to her light-skinned complexion, she mentioned in the interview that many White people who work around her feel comfortable saying racist things because ultimately, they forget or do not even know she is also Black. In a world that is growing more multiracial each day, the topic of passing is more prevalent than ever. The topic also raises questions which have yet to be answered. How do light-skinned multiracial individuals handle the racism that exists around them, whether it is directly or indirectly intended at them? And how can people who are not mixed-race do better at not only decreasing their racist remarks, but respecting spaces where the presence of light-skinned multiracial individuals are high?…

Read the entire article here.

Hawkins told Smith that he has three sisters married to white men who do not suspect their wives of having negro blood.

“Would-Be Bridegroom Takes Oath He Is Negro,” The San Francisco Call, Volume 104, Number 70 (August 9, 1908). page 31, column 4. https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC19080809.2.99.

‘Born a Crime,’ Trevor Noah’s Raw Account of Life Under Apartheid

The New York Times
2016-11-28

Michiko Kakutani, Chief Book Critic

Trevor Noah, host of “The Daily Show,” in 2015. His memoir provides a harrowing look at life in South Africa under apartheid and then after that era. Credit Chad Batka for The New York Times

As host of “The Daily Show,” Trevor Noah comes across as a wry, startled and sometimes outraged outsider, commenting on the absurdities of American life. During the presidential campaign, the South African-born comic remarked that Donald J. Trump reminded him of an African dictator, mused over the mystifying complexities of the Electoral College system and pointed out the weirdness of states voting on recreational marijuana.

In the countdown to and aftermath of the election, Mr. Noah has grown more comfortable at moving back and forth between jokes and earnest insights, between humor and serious asides — the way he’s done in his stand-up act, and now, in his compelling new memoir, “Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood.”…

Read the entire review here.

“I’m very light, so some people don’t really know that I’m black. I’ve been in situations where people will say something kind of racist and I’ll step in and they’ll be like, ‘Oh, well, you’re light,’” she says, her eyes flashing. “That still doesn’t cut it, buddy. It’s 2016—you better get your shit together before you get slapped out here.” —Sofia Ritchie

Rebecca Haithcoat, “Family Business,” Complex, December 2016/January 2017. http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/sofia-richie-interview-2016-cover-story.

Family Business

Complex
December 2016/January 2017

Written by Rebecca Haithcoat
Photography by Sasha Samsonova

Sofia Ritchie

Sofia Richie has been known to the world as Lionel Richie’s daughter, Nicole Richie’s half-sister, and Justin Bieber’s BAE. Now, the aspiring model is ready to make her solo debut—Without Losing her Privacy.

Sorry—Sofia Richie does not want to talk about Justin Bieber.

Sitting in an outdoor booth at the Beverly Hills Hotel’s luxurious Polo Lounge, Richie’s manager, Alex Avant, is setting the terms of her impending interview. Hollywood handlers are typically overprotective, but his chaperoning will prove to be extra oppressive: He’s a longtime family friend and has been personally tasked by Richie’s father, Lionel, to take care of his baby.

Whatever Richie wants, she gets. And what she wants is no Bieber questions.

“There are just so many rumors and lies,” Avant says. He waves at Russell Simmons across the room.

Avant is told this interview is a great way to clear up those rumors and lies.

He shakes his head.

So, Sofia and Justin, are they still…?

He nods, then shakes his head, somehow confirming and denying at the same time. “Just no questions,” he says finally.

This is unfortunate, because at the present time, Sofia Richie, 18, is known for three things: her famous family (singer and father Lionel and former reality star/current fashion-plate sister Nicole), walking in Kanye West’s most recent Yeezy Season fashion show (the one whose casting call was for “multiracial women only”), and, yes, dating Bieber…

Read the entire interview here.

Whatever Happened to Interracial Love?

Ecco (an imprint of HarperCollins)
2016-12-06
192 pages
5.313 in (w) x 8 in (h) x 0.432 in (d)
Paperback ISBN: 9780062484154
E-book ISBN: 9780062484161

Kathleen Collins (1942-1988)

Foreword by: Elizabeth Alexander

Named one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of the Year, and named one of the most anticipated books of the fall by the Huffington Post, New York, The Boston Globe, Lit Hub, The Millions, and Nylon.com.

Now available in Ecco’s Art of the Story series: a never-before-published collection of stories from a brilliant yet little known African American artist and filmmaker—a contemporary of revered writers including Toni Cade Bambara, Laurie Colwin, Ann Beattie, Amy Hempel, and Grace Paley—whose prescient work has recently resurfaced to wide acclaim.

Humorous, poignant, perceptive, and full of grace, Kathleen Collins’s stories masterfully blend the quotidian and the profound in a personal, intimate way, exploring deep, far-reaching issues—race, gender, family, and sexuality—that shape the ordinary moments in our lives.

In “The Uncle,” a young girl who idolizes her handsome uncle and his beautiful wife makes a haunting discovery about their lives. In “Only Once,” a woman reminisces about her charming daredevil of a lover and his ultimate—and final—act of foolishness. Collins’s work seamlessly integrates the African-American experience in her characters’ lives, creating rich, devastatingly familiar, full-bodied men, women, and children who transcend the symbolic, penetrating both the reader’s head and heart.

Both contemporary and timeless, Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? is a major addition to the literary canon, and is sure to earn Kathleen Collins the widespread recognition she is long overdue.

Lionel Richie’s Daughter Sofia Says People Say Racist Stuff Around Her Not Knowing She’s Black

The Root
2016-12-06

Yesha Callahan, Senior Editor

Sofia Richie during New York Fashion Week on Feb. 11, 2016 Gustavo Caballero/Getty Images

The model spoke about the racism she’s subjected to because people don’t see her as a black woman.

Lionel Richie’s daughter Sofia has made a name for herself in the fashion industry, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t subjected to everyday racism. Especially when people forget that she’s actually black.

“I’m very light, so some people don’t really know that I’m black,” Sofia Richie, 18, said in an interview with Complex. “I’ve been in situations where people will say something kind of racist, and I’ll step in and they’ll be like, ‘Oh, well, you’re light.’”

And it’s those statements that might cause her to go off…

Read the entire article here.