Mixed Race Studies

I have never felt more black than I do in this current climate. It’s a state of mind I’ve grown with since becoming a mother in 2013 and realizing how much representation matters and how important it is to me that our kids be exposed to all cultures, yes, but to my blackness in particular. Perhaps this is why it jarred me so to hear someone question my connection to Simone. She is of me, as is her brother. Someone questioning our connection felt like a dismissal of her blackness.

My paternal Bajan side, my maternal Polish side, my family’s immigrant experience, the minority experience—all of these things make up who I am and I have a desire to make sure our kids comprehend it all. But it’s my blackness that I have come to see as crucial. Theo and Simone will grow up with white privilege due to their appearance, just as I have privilege as a light-skinned woman of colour. So I want them to feel connected to their black roots, through music, food, stories and traditions.

Alicia Cox Thomson, “I’m black, therefore my kids are, right?,” Today’s Parent, January 31, 2019. https://www.todaysparent.com/family/parenting/im-black-therefore-my-kids-are-right/.

Afro-Descendants in Latin America

Rayburn House Office Building
45 Independence Ave SW
Room 2247
Washington, DC 20515
2019-02-26, 11:00-12:30 EST (Local Time)

Hank Johnson, Host
United States House of Representatives (GA-04)

Panelists

• Ofunshi Oba Kosso, Yoruba Cuba Organization
• Carlos Quesada, Race and Equality
• Crystal Yuille, WOLA
• Euclides Rengifo, UNIAFRO
• Alessandra Ramos, TRANS FORMAR, Brazil

Please join Rep. Hank Johnson^* for a discussion on the state of Afro-descendants in Latin America. Our panel of experts will illuminate many of the rights and liberties under threat in Latin America, and how a productive relationship between government and civil society can promote inclusion, justice, and equality for Afrodescendants in the region. Panelists will also speak to the importance of the UN designated International Decade for People of African Descent in globally combatting racism and discrimination.

^*Rep. Johnson is the sponsor of H.Res 133—Supporting the goals and ideals of the designation of January 1, 2015, to December 31, 2024, as the “International Decade for People of African Descent.”

RSVP to Chelsea Grey at Chelsea.Grey@mail.house.gov.

I’m black, therefore my kids are, right?

Today’s Parent
2019-01-31

Alicia Cox Thomson

Photo: Christine Kufske, www.clickphotography.ca

Alicia Cox Thomson was raised to embrace both her Bajan and Polish cultures, and feels it’s crucial that her own kids embrace their blackness.

My daughter and I were in the produce section when it happened.

“What a beautiful baby!” Pause. Eyes flick up. “Is she yours?” My jaw clenched. I felt awkward, angry and, weirdly, embarrassed. I was so floored that all I could say was, “Yes. Thank you,” with a smile that didn’t reach my eyes.

My daughter and I do not look alike at first glance, so I guess it’s a fair, albeit rude and intrusive, question. I’m mixed race^* (black dad, white mom), with curly dark hair and brown eyes and skin. My husband, Mike, is a blue-eyed white man. Simone, 22 months, is fair-skinned with blue-grey eyes and straight hair, while our son, Theo, 4, is darker-skinned with big brown eyes and curly hair. Neither of my kids look black, and I do. I know this. But I never considered the optics until that day in the grocery store—which, considering how I grew up, was perhaps naïve…

Read the entire article here.

Secrets of famous 1930s ‘blonde bombshell of rhythm’ revealed with help from UW library

UW News
University of Washington
2012-03-27

Molly McElroy

We all have things in our past that we gloss over. Some secrets might just be embarrassing or unflattering. But others may be more serious, and people who conceal these truths may fear that revealing them would undermine their livelihoods.

Such was likely the case with an Emmy-winning female bandleader who rose to fame in the 1930s and led bands until the 1960s. Known as “the blonde bombshell of rhythm,” this sex symbol hailing from Chicago had security to protect her from the men who mobbed her performances.

See why they were so enchanted:

Ina Ray Hutton, who died in 1984 at age 67, also had a secret that could have damaged her stardom. A reporter from KUOW radio, with help from the UW libraries, recently revealed the secret. It turns out that the blonde bombshell had more than hair-dye to hide…

Read the entire article here.

Passing and the Costs and Benefits of Appropriating Blackness

The Review of Black Political Economy
Volume 45, Issue 2, 2018
pages 1-19
DOI: 10.1177/0034644618789182

Kristen E. Broady, Vice Provost for Graduate Studies
Kentucky State University

Curtis L. Todd, Associate Professor of Social Work
Atlanta Metropolitan State College, Atlanta, Georgia

William A. Darity, Jr., Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy
Duke University, Durham, North Carolina

The socioeconomic position of Blacks in America cannot be fully contextualized without considering the marginalization of their racialized social identities as minorities who have historically combated subjugation and oppression with respect to income, employment, homeownership, education, and political representation. It is not difficult to understand why the historical reference to “passing” primarily has been associated with Blacks who were able to—and many who did—claim to be White to secure the social, educational, political, and economic benefits that were reserved for Whites. Therefore, the majority of passing narratives have focused on Black to White passing. This article departs from the tradition in the literature by considering appropriation of various aspects of Black culture and White to Black passing. We evaluate the socioeconomic costs and benefits of being Black and inequalities in citizenship status between Blacks and Whites. Furthermore, we examine the socioeconomic and political capital of Blackness versus Whiteness in an attempt to explore the rationality of passing for Black.

Read the entire article here.

Chi-Chi tells Tubridy about her Mum’s heartbreaking story

The Ryan Tubridy Show
RTÉ Radio 1
2018-03-12

Chi-Chi Nwanoku

Acclaimed double bass player and professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London, Chi-Chi Nwanoku OBE spoke to Ryan Tubridy about the extraordinary and poignant story of how her Irish mother met her Nigerian father in the 1950’s.

“Theirs was an unconventional coupling… My mother was white, my father was black. Society was not in favour of this kind of union.

“As soon as my mother let her parents know that she’d met the man of her dreams, they said never darken our doorstep again.”

Chi-Chi’s mum did as she was told but received a surprise visit when her own mother showed up on their doorstep in London three months after Chi-Chi’s birth. She secretly stayed for a week and that was the last the family ever saw of her…

Listen to the interview (00:21:11) here.

Skin Color and the Nature of Science

The American Biology Teacher
Volume 80, Number 3 (March 2018)
page 163
DOI: 10.1525/abt.2018.80.3.163

Douglas Allchin, Lecturer, History of Science and Technology
Minnesota Center for the Philosophy of Science
University of Minnesota

Skin color is the trait most commonly associated with race. Consider just the “black” in the Black Lives Matter name or the “white” in white nationalist rallies. Skin color and the concept of race are ideologically charged—and socially divisive. But scientifically, what is the nature of this relationship?

A study led by Sarah Tishkoff published not long ago in Science contradicts many widespread views of skin color and further dispels the very concept of human races in biology. The group identified at least eight genes for skin color, but the genes do not cluster neatly into predictable groups, or races. They further found that the genes do not align with conventional racial groups:

• The same depigmentation gene that led to “white” skin in the lineage of most Europeans (SLC24A5) is also common in East Africa, where skin color is much darker.
• Another pair of genes linked to lighter skin, hair, and eye color among Europeans actually originated in Africa, where among the San people in southern Africa, it also contributes to lighter skin tones.
• By contrast, a gene for darker pigmentation now common in Africa appears to be widespread in non-African groups as well: Indians, Melanesians, and Australian Aborigines.
• Some darker skin colors result not by increasing dark pigments but by reducing yellow and red pigments.

The routes to skin color are many and varied, and not exclusively determinant of any geographic or ancestral group. Trying to define race by skin color genetics is hardly “black and white.”…

Read the entire article here.

In Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, Indian Americans want more opportunities to connect

NBC News
2019-02-12

Chris Fuchs

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., at a rally launching her presidential campaign on Jan. 27 in Oakland, California. Noah Berger / AFP – Getty Images

While the California Democrat has caught the eyes of South Asian voters, some say her ethnic background isn’t enough for them to identify with her.

Shiv Dass, 82, recalls fondly the time he met Hillary Clinton when she visited Jackson Heights, in the Queens borough of New York City, while campaigning in the 2016 presidential election.

Dass, the owner of Lavanya, an Indian apparel store on 74th Street for almost a quarter century, described the Clintons as having a close relationship with the Indian-American community, owing in part to what he said was Bill Clinton’s support of India when he was president.

Now that a woman with Indian roots, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., is running in the 2020 presidential race, Dass, a Democrat, will have some decisions to make.

“I am proud that she is Indian, but I will not support her because she is Indian,” Dass, who immigrated to the United States in 1966, said. “I will support her if she is good for us, good for the country.”

Harris, who kicked off her campaign in her hometown of Oakland in late January, was born to a Jamaican father and an Indian mother. She supports policies such as Medicare for all, debt-free college, and a tax cut that will benefit working families…

Read the entire article here.

Testing Common Misconceptions about the Nature of Human Racial Variation

The American Biology Teacher
Volume 79 Number 7 (September 2017)
pages 538-543
DOI: 10.1525/abt.2017.79.7.538

Amelia R. Hubbard, Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Wright State University, Dayton Ohio

Race is a hot-button topic in American society, but one that needs to be addressed in the biological science curriculum. This paper examines how college students in a large introductory course came to understand race through the exploration of four key concepts about the nature of human biological and genetic variation. Using clicker data collected from four courses (n = 296), change in starting and ending understanding of content was compared using paired t-tests and mean difference scores. Results indicate statistically significant improvement in student understanding of common fallacies of the “biological race concept” after a single exposure to content.

Read or purchase the article here.

How My Southeast L.A. Culture Got to Japan

The New York Times
2019-02-19

Walter Thompson-Hernández

I grew up with Chicano and Chicana culture in Los Angeles and heard it had spread to Japan. I wondered: Is this cultural appropriation?

I grew up in southeast Los Angeles, the son of an African-American father and Mexican mother, and the concept of identity is a theme that has been central to my life and a thread that weaves through many of my stories. I heard a rumor that lowrider culture — a community with an affinity for cars, outfit with intricate designs, multicolored lights and heavily tinted windows that can be traced in Southern California to as far back as the 1940s — had traveled to Japan. Apparently a Japanese journalist came to Los Angeles in the early 1990s to cover a lowrider event and returned to Japan with photos and stories to share…

Read the story here and watch the video here.