Mixed Race Studies

Their interracial romance ended painfully after college. They reunited 42 years later — and now live together.

The Washington Post
2021-10-04

Sydney Page, Freelance Reporter

When Jeanne Gustavson spontaneously booked a trip to Chicago last summer, she had no idea what to expect. She was going to visit her first love — whom she had not seen in 42 years.

The last time Gustavson, now 68, spoke to Steve Watts was in the spring of 1979. They were young and in love, but there was one persistent issue: Watts was Black, and Gustavson’s family forbade her to see him.

“They had this mentality that Blacks and Whites don’t belong together,” said Gustavson, who was raised in the northern suburbs of Chicago, and now lives in Portland, Ore. “In my heart, I knew it wasn’t right.”

So, she flouted her family’s strict rule and dated Watts in secret.

Although she did not like disobeying her parents, “I couldn’t let him go,” Gustavson said…

Read the entire article here.

White people don’t always know I’m Black. That’s when their racism is revealed.

The Lily
2021-12-10

Sarah Doneghy

(María Alconada Brooks/The Washington Post)

The jokes, comments and stereotypes always flow so freely. I speak up every time.

When I see mostly White people in a social gathering, whether it’s a class, party or presentation, I do a scan. It’s thorough but quick. Are there any Black people? Are there any people of color at all? When the answer is no, I prepare. How am I going to let them know that I’m Black? Am I going to wait until someone says something and then “surprise” them? Or will I be confrontational? Will I say, “Hey, guess what?” as if I’m kidding — but not really?

Most of the time, White people think I’m one of them. My skin is light, often as light as theirs. My lips are plump and my nose is broad, but my features aren’t a tip-off. My hair is black, big and curly. If anything, that’s the tell. But even then, it’s usually: “I thought you were Italian, Greek or Middle Eastern.” In other words, not quite White, but definitely not Black.

That’s when the racism rears. Someone says something because they feel safe. They can speak freely. And they have support…

Read the entire article here.

Who The Census Misses

FiveThirtyEight
2021-12-13

Jasmine Mithani and Alex Samuels

Sibba Hartunian
Large groups of people have always fallen through the cracks of its racial categories — often by design.

For James Harmoush of Colorado, none of the census boxes quite fit.

In 2010 and 2020, when the census asked him to select a box regarding his race, he picked “white.” But there’s one major problem there: Harmoush doesn’t — and has never — seen himself that way.

“Nobody would ever look at me or talk to me and say, ‘You’re white,’” said the 30-year-old Arab American lawyer. The son of Lebanese immigrants, Harmoush sees himself as part of a minority group, but the U.S. Census Bureau legally classifies him as a white man.

Harmoush is not alone. Many Americans we spoke with felt the census classifications — both “white” specifically as well as the other available categories more generally — do not match the way they identify. In total, we heard from over 200 people with frustrations ranging from the naming of categories (like “Asian Indian” to represent people with ancestry from India) to confusion over why some racial groups, like Japanese or Samoan, were given their own boxes, while Middle Eastern, North African, Southwest Asian and others were lumped together under a catchall “white” racial group. We also heard from some Americans who were now completely rethinking how they personally identified due to the way they saw race and politics intermingle in society today…

Read the entire article here.

The Recovered Life of Isaac Anderson

University Press of Mississippi
2021-12-15
256 pages
16 b&w illustrations
Hardcover ISBN: 9781496835147
Paperback ISBN: 9781496835130

Alicia K. Jackson, Associate Professor of History
Covenant College, Lookout Mountain, Georgia

The story of an enslaved man who became a Georgia state senator, helped found a church, and led his people to promise and hope

Owned by his father, Isaac Harold Anderson (1835–1906) was born a slave but went on to become a wealthy businessman, grocer, politician, publisher, and religious leader in the African American community in the state of Georgia. Elected to the state senate, Anderson replaced his white father there, and later shepherded his people as a founding member and leader of the Colored Methodist Episcopal church. He helped support the establishment of Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee, where he subsequently served as vice president.

Anderson was instrumental in helping freed people leave Georgia for the security of progressive safe havens with significantly large Black communities in northern Mississippi and Arkansas. Eventually under threat to his life, Anderson made his own exodus to Arkansas, and then later still, to Holly Springs, Mississippi, where a vibrant Black community thrived.

Much of Anderson’s unique story has been lost to history—until now. In The Recovered Life of Isaac Anderson, author Alicia K. Jackson presents a biography of Anderson and in it a microhistory of Black religious life and politics after emancipation. A work of recovery, the volume captures the life of a shepherd to his journeying people, and of a college pioneer, a CME minister, a politician, and a former slave. Gathering together threads from salvaged details of his life, Jackson sheds light on the varied perspectives and strategies adopted by Black leaders dealing with a society that was antithetical to them and to their success.

Netflix’s Passing Made Me Rethink How I Carry My Racial Ambiguity

Popsugar
2021-12-13

Adele Stewart

As a white-passing biracial woman, I really resonated with Rebecca Hall’s film adaptation of Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel, Passing. The story centers on two biracial Black women, Irene Redfield (Tessa Thompson) and Clare Kendry (Ruth Negga), who are light-skinned enough to pass as white in 1920s New York. When Irene bumps into her old friend Clare, she almost doesn’t recognize her. Unlike Irene — who is living her life openly as a Black woman despite being able to pass for white if she wanted to — Clare has accentuated her already-light features with blond hair to help her pass as white in everyday society. Taking her deception even further, she’s married a wealthy white man (Alexander Skarsgard), who not only doesn’t know she’s Black but also holds an extreme, violent hatred toward Black people.

In some ways, I identify with Clare, particularly when it comes to how easy it is for me to blend in and reap the benefits of white privilege without facing the inequities of being Black in the US. While it was never intentional like it was with Clare, I have always gone through the world passing as white and seeing things through a “white” lens because that’s simply what most people assume I am. It wasn’t until my late teenage years that I started to see how my Black family, friends, or boyfriends were treated differently than I was. I seemed to have been floating through life unknowingly reaping the benefits of my racial ambiguity for a very long time. Often, it feels like I have a secret Black identity that doesn’t quite know where she fits and when (or if) she should reveal herself. Truth is, I want to belong everywhere — with my white family and friends, but also with my Black family and friends — so I tend to blend in and code-switch depending on who I’m with. As a result, I never feel like I entirely belong in either community…

Read then entire article here.