Mixed Race Studies

High Yellow (1965, trailer) [Starring Cynthia Hull]

YouTube
Department of Afro-American Research Arts Culture
2017-06-29

Cynthia Wood, a light-skinned 17-year-old girl, tries to pass as white after getting hired by wealthy movie magnate Mr. Langley, who has problems with his spoiled wife and promiscuous teenage daughter and son.

Watch the full movie (01:20:11) here.

NAACP to Tampa: For Juneteenth, find Robert Meacham, a slave who became senator

Tampa Bay Times
2021-06-12

Paul Guzzo, Tampa Bay LIfe Reporter

This portrait of Robert Meacham was taken around 1870. Meacham was an enslaved man who was later elected Florida senator. [Courtesy of State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory]

He was buried in the erased College Hill Cemetery believed to be located in what is now the Italian Club Cemetery’s parking lot.

TAMPA — Robert Meacham was an enslaved man who became a Florida state senator pushing for educational opportunities for Black children.

“Robert Meacham is the type of man who deserves a street named for him,” said Fred Hearns, the curator of Black history at the Tampa Bay History Center. “Maybe even a statue.”

But he doesn’t even have a marked grave.

Meacham is among the more than 1,200 buried in Tampa’s erased College Hill Cemetery for Blacks and Cubans, believed to be located in what is now the Italian Club Cemetery’s parking lot.

June 19 is Juneteenth, the day commemorating the anniversary of when in 1865 the enslaved in Texas were freed. It serves as the day to celebrate the end of slavery in the United States…

…Meacham was born in Gadsden County in 1835. His mother was an enslaved woman. His father was her white owner.

As a child, Meacham rode alongside his father in the family buggy and was educated. But, when he turned 18, Meacham was taken to Tallahassee to “fulfill the role of a house-servant for an affluent Leon County family.” When his father died, Meacham became that family’s “property.”…

Read the entire article here.

Being mixed-race in the age of BLM

The New York Daily News
2021-06-12

Tanya K. Hernández, Archibald R. Murray Professor of Law; Associate Director & Head of Global and Comparative Law Programs and Initiatives
Fordham University School of Law, New York, New York

Protesters march for the sixth consecutive night of protest on September 7, 2020, following the release of video evidence that shows the death of Daniel Prude while in the custody of Rochester Police in Rochester, New York. (MARANIE R. STAAB/AFP via Getty Images)

Today marks the 54th anniversary of the Loving v. Virginia, the landmark Supreme Court decision that invalidated interracial marriage bans in the United States in 1967. Interracial marriage has been legal across the nation for nearly half a century, but the children of mixed-race marriages and other interracial unions are still subject to many other types of discrimination that their parents and ancestors faced. The persistence of such bias shows that while courts have may have remedied the bias behind interracial marriage bans, but they remain unable to blunt the continued vibrancy of white supremacy in the United States.

In my book, “Multiracials and Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories of Discrimination,” I found that mixed-race arrestees describe their experiences of racial profiling and police violence in much the same way that single-race identified non-whites do. Thus, like George Floyd, the African-American man killed in 2020, by police officer Derek Chauvin, multiracial people can also experience being viewed as so inherently suspicious that they warrant out-sized interventions based upon their non-white racial appearance…

Read the entire article here.

Ceremony

Penguin Random House
2006-12-26 (originally published in 1977)
272 Pages
5-5/8 x 8-7/16
Paperback ISBN: 9780143104919
Ebook ISBN: 9781440621826

Leslie Marmon Silko
Introduction by Larry McMurtry

The great Native American Novel of a battered veteran returning home to heal his mind and spirit

More than thirty-five years since its original publication, Ceremony remains one of the most profound and moving works of Native American literature, a novel that is itself a ceremony of healing. Tayo, a World War II veteran of mixed ancestry, returns to the Laguna Pueblo Reservation. He is deeply scarred by his experience as a prisoner of the Japanese and further wounded by the rejection he encounters from his people. Only by immersing himself in the Indian past can he begin to regain the peace that was taken from him. Masterfully written, filled with the somber majesty of Pueblo myth, Ceremony is a work of enduring power. The Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition contains a new preface by the author and an introduction by Larry McMurtry.

Race and Racism in Nineteenth-Century Art: The Ascendency of Robert Duncanson, Edward Bannister, and Edmonia Lewis

University Press of Mississippi
2021-07-15
282 pages
30 b&w illustrations
Hardcover ISBN: 9781496834348
Paperback ISBN: 9781496834355

Naurice Frank Woods Jr., Associate Professor of African American Studies
University of North Carolina, Greensboro

Foreword by George Dimock, Associate Professor Emeritus of Art
University of North Carolina, Greensboro

The extraordinary struggle, achievement, loss, and reclamation of three brilliant African American artists of the 1800s

Painters Robert Duncanson (ca. 1821–1872) and Edward Bannister (1828–1901) and sculptor Mary Edmonia Lewis (ca. 1844–1907) each became accomplished African American artists. But as emerging art makers of color during the antebellum period, they experienced numerous incidents of racism that severely hampered their pursuits of a profession that many in the mainstream considered the highest form of social cultivation. Despite barriers imposed upon them due to their racial inheritance, these artists shared a common cause in demanding acceptance alongside their white contemporaries as capable painters and sculptors on local, regional, and international levels.

Author Naurice Frank Woods Jr. provides an in-depth examination of the strategies deployed by Duncanson, Bannister, and Lewis that enabled them not only to overcome prevailing race and gender inequality, but also to achieve a measure of success that eventually placed them in the top rank of nineteenth-century American art.

Unfortunately, the racism that hampered these three artists throughout their careers ultimately denied them their rightful place as significant contributors to the development of American art. Dominant art historians and art critics excluded them in their accounts of the period. In this volume, Woods restores their artistic legacies and redeems their memories, introducing these significant artists to rightful, new audiences.

George Floyd Protests Prompted a Reckoning Over Colorism, Afro-Latinx Identity

Teen Vogue
2021-05-26

Zoë Watkins

Racial Reckoning is a series produced by student journalists reflecting on how the national uprisings after the police killing of George Floyd affected their generation. It was produced in collaboration with Dr. Sherri Williams’ Race, Ethnic and Community Reporting class at American University.

Alé Headley, 24, an Afro Panamanian living in Minneapolis, Minnesota, attended over 20 marches and rallies last summer to protest the death of George Floyd. Headley, who is Black, Afro-Latina, and queer, identifies as nonbinary and uses the pronouns they/them and ella. They say they were “immediately” driven to join movements demanding justice for Black and brown lives lost to police violence.

Their decision to get involved was multifaceted and deeply personal: They had witnessed police officers mistreat unhoused people in their neighborhood, thought of their younger brother who regularly endures police harassment, and their own experiences with racial profiling. “It’s disgusting to see how other people are treated, and then experiencing it for yourself,” Headley tells Teen Vogue. “It’s a different level of empathy.”

While navigating dual identities, many members of Afro-Latinx communities got involved in last summer’s uprisings against systemic racism. Many often found themselves in an uncomfortable tug of war with their identities. As they protested and heard personal stories of racism, some realized that their identification with their Blackness had been muddied throughout childhood, and their dual identities were never allowed to fully shine…

Read the entire article here.

One Drop featuring Dr. Yaba Blay and the Mixed Aunties

Militantly Mixed Podcast
2021-04-27

This is a very special episode of Militantly Mixed. I, along with TaRessa Stovall and Sonia Smith-Kang aka “the Mixed Aunties” sat down to speak with Dr. Yaba Blay, author of One Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race about her work on the book and the term “One Drop” as it pertains to Mixed-Black identified people.

Listen to the podcast (01:05:02) here.

Validation of the Multiracial Youth Socialization (MY-Soc) Scale among racially diverse multiracial emerging adults.

Journal of Family Psychology
Published online: 2021-05-31
DOI: 10.1037/fam0000879

Annabelle L. Atkin, PhD, Postdoctoral Scholar
T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics
Arizona State University

Hyung Chol Yoo, Associate Professor of Psychology
Arizona State University

Rebecca M. B. White, Associate Professor of Family and Human Development
Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics
Arizona State University

Alisia G. T. T. Tran, Assistant Professor in the Counseling and Counseling Psychology Program
Arizona State University

Kelly F. Jackson, Associate Professor of Social Work
Arizona State University

Multiracial children are the largest demographic group in the United States among individuals under the age of 18 (Pew Research Center, 2015), but their developmental processes are understudied. Parents and caregivers play an important role in preparing youth to navigate racialized society by teaching them to understand what it means to be a member of a racial-ethnic group (Hughes et al., 2006). However, this process is more complex in multiracial families, where youth belong to multiple racial-ethnic groups. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to develop and validate the first measure of racial-ethnic socialization for Multiracial youth, the Multiracial Youth Socialization (MY-Soc) Scale, to assess the unique messages that are communicated in multiracial families regarding topics of race, ethnicity, and culture. Using a sample of 901 Multiracial emerging adults (m_age = 22.43), we separately captured the socialization practices of two of the youths’ primary caregivers from the youths’ perspective. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported a 62-item scale measuring eight types of socialization: Navigating Multiple Heritages Socialization, Multiracial Identity Socialization, Preparation for Monoracism Socialization, Negative Socialization, Colorblind Socialization, Diversity Appreciation Socialization, Race-Conscious Socialization, and Silent Socialization. The MY-Soc Scale was also supported by validity and reliability tests. This study contributes an important tool for scholars and practitioners to learn which racial-ethnic socialization messages are promotive for Multiracial youth development in different contexts.

Read or purchase the article here.

No mass protests after Honolulu police shoot, kill Black man

ABC News
2021-06-06

Jennifer Sinco Kelleher and Mogomotsi Magome, Associated Press

n a 2021 photo provided by Bickerton Law Group representing the family of Lindani Myeni, he is standing on a beach in Waimanalo, Hawaii with his wife and two children. Some Black people in Hawaii say Myeni’s shooting death by Honolulu police is a reminder that Hawaii isn’t the racially harmonious paradise it’s held up to be. (Myeni Family Photo/Bickerton Law Group via AP)

Honolulu police shot and killed Lindani Myeni, a Black man, three months after he moved to Hawaii with his wife, believing it would be safer place to raise their two Black children

HONOLULU — Lindsay Myeni and her South African husband moved to Hawaii, where she grew up, believing it would be safer to raise their two Black children here than in another U.S. state.

Three months after they arrived, Honolulu police shot and killed her husband, 29-year-old Lindani Myeni, who was Black.

“We never thought anything like this would ever happen there,” Lindsay Myeni, who is white, told The Associated Press in an interview from her husband’s hometown, Empangeni in Kwazulu-Natal province.

To some, Lindani Myeni’s death and the muted reaction from residents, is a reminder that Hawaii isn’t the racially harmonious paradise it’s held up to be.

The couple moved to Honolulu from predominately white Denver in January.

Hawaii, where white people are not the majority and many people identify as having multiple ethnicities, felt right: “We were refreshed to be back to somewhere that is so diverse.”…

Read the entire article here.

‘Mixed-ish’ Cast Reacts to ABC Cancellation After Two Seasons: “Onward And Upward”

Deadline
2021-05-14

Alexandra Del Rosario, TV Reporter

Kelsey McNeal/ABC

The actresses behind Mixed-ish‘s Johnson family broke their silence on social media after ABC announced that it will not renew the comedy for a third season.

Arica Himmel, who stars as the younger version of Tracee Ellis Ross’ Rainbow “Bow” Johnson, first posted her reaction to the news on Instagram. She reminisced on her time on the series, following in Ross’ steps and more.

“TI want to thank our many loyal fans who joined us each week for the last two years on our journey from the commune to the ‘burbs — it has been an amazing experience and I will miss my TV family more than you can imagine,” she said…

Read the entire article here.