Mixed Race Studies

The Proud Portrait of Richard T. Greener

The Crimson
2020-09-17

Sophia S. Liang, Staff Writer

Greener’s rosy recollection of Harvard reflects a series of contradictions that characterized his life, both during and after college. Greener was a light-skinned Black man straddling racial divides in a segregated world. He received life-changing opportunities at a university where he struggled with loneliness and lacked faculty support. And despite his tremendous contributions in activism and public service, he remains relatively unknown to historians today.

In an 1881 speech at the Harvard Club of New York, Richard T. Greener, Class of 1870, lavished his alma mater with praise: “[Harvard] answered the rising spirit of independence and liberty by abolishing all distinctions founded upon color, blood, and rank,” he told an applauding audience. “There has been but one test for all. Ability, character, and merit — these are the sole passports to her favor.”

Such sentimental remarks may come as something of a surprise coming from the first Black graduate of Harvard College. The University, after all, had not been a friendly place to most who came before him and many who came after — nor, at times, to Greener. Indeed, the Harvard Club of Washington, D.C. would reject his own application four years later for no reason other than his race.

Greener’s rosy recollection of Harvard reflects a series of contradictions that characterized his life, both during and after college. Greener was a light-skinned Black man straddling racial divides in a segregated world. He received life-changing opportunities at a university where he struggled with loneliness and lacked faculty support. And despite his tremendous contributions in activism and public service, he remains relatively unknown to historians today…

Read the entire article here.

Replication Data for: Do Voters Prefer Just Any Descriptive Representative? The Case of Multiracial Candidates

Perspectives on Politics
Volume 19, Issue 4: Special Issue: Race and Politics in America (December 2021)
pages 1061-1081
DOI: 10.1017/S1537592720001280

Danielle Casarez Lemi, Tower Center Fellow
John G. Tower Center for Political Studies, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas

While scholars of representation have examined variation in voter support conditional on shared demographic traits, we know little about how voters respond to candidates who belong to multiple racial categories. I study responses to multiracial candidates, who challenge how we think about and study representation. I theorize that multiracial categories provide mixed information about how well a candidate adheres to group norms of identity, resulting in a multiracial advantage across groups, but a disadvantage within groups. A conjoint survey experiment on 787 White, Black, Asian, and Hispanic voters and a separate analysis of support for a multiracial candidate in a real-world election support these claims. Thus, multiracial candidates have the advantage of building coalitions with voters from other groups, but they are disadvantaged when appealing to co-racials with strong racial identities. These findings demonstrate that future research on representation must engage multiracial elites.

Read or purchase the article here.

Killian & the Comeback Kids, With Taylor A. Purdee, Kassie DePaiva, Shannon O’Boyle, More, Eyes Summer Release

Playbill
2020-08-03

Andrew Gans, Senior News Editor

Purdee also wrote and directed the new folk-rock musical film.

Taylor A. Purdee’s folk-rock musical film Killian & the Comeback Kids is currently slated for a theatrical launch in late August, adding new states on a rolling basis as regions reopen.

The film stars Purdee (Gotham) in the title role, with Kassie DePaiva (Days of Our Lives), Nathan Purdee (The Young and the Restless), Shannon O’Boyle (Once), Emily Mest (Spring Awakening national tour), Shane Andries (Tomorrow Ever After), John Donchak, Andrew O’Shanick, Yael Elisheva, Maddi Jane, and Academy Award winner Lee Grant (Shampoo)…

Read the entire article here.

My Life in the Sunshine: Searching for My Father and Discovering My Family

Viking (an imprint of Penguin Random House)
2022-06-07
320 Pages
5-1/2 x 8-1/4
Hardcover ISBN: 9780593295960

Nabil Ayers

A memoir about one man’s journey to connect with his musician father, ultimately redefining what family really means

Throughout his adult life, whether he was opening a Seattle record store in the ’90s or touring the world as the only non-white band member in alternative rock bands, Nabil Ayers felt the shadow and legacy of his father’s musical genius, and his race, everywhere.

In 1971, a white, Jewish, former ballerina, chose to have a child with the famous Black jazz musician Roy Ayers, fully expecting and agreeing that he would not be involved in the child’s life. In this highly original memoir, their son, Nabil Ayers, recounts a life spent living with the aftermath of that decision, and his journey to build an identity of his own despite and in spite of his father’s absence.

Growing up, Nabil only meets his father a handful of times. But Roy’s influence is strong, showing itself in Nabil’s instinctual love of music, and later, in the music industry—Nabil’s chosen career path. By turns hopeful–wanting to connect with the man who passed down his genetic predisposition for musical talent—and frustrated with Roy’s continued emotional distance, Nabil struggles with how much DNA can define a family… and a person.

Unable to fully connect with Roy, Nabil ultimately discovers the existence of several half-siblings as well as a paternal ancestor who was enslaved. Following these connections, Nabil meets and befriends the descendant of the plantation owner, which, strangely, paves the way for him to make meaningful connections with extended family he never knew existed.

Despite his father’s absence, Nabil, through sheer will and a drive to understand his roots, redefines what family truly is.

The Meaning of Multiraciality: A Racially Queer Exploration of Multiracial College Students’ Identity Production

Lexington Books (an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield)
June 2022
168 pages
Trim: 6 x 9
Hardback ISBN: 978-1-7936-1727-9
eBook ISBN: 978-1-7936-1728-6

Aurora Chang, Director of Faculty Development and Career Advancement
George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia

The Meaning of Multiraciality: A Racially Queer Exploration of Multiracial College Students’ Identity Production provides a comprehensive overview of Multiraciality as a term, experience, and identity using data from a study of Multiracial college students and well as the author’s own experiences as a Multiracial person. Utilizing a racially queer framework, they discuss what it means to be a Multiracial insider (being a Multiracial researcher studying Multiracial study participants), the counter-stories of Multiracial college students, the theorizing that has emerged as a result, and the educational consequences and impacts on Mulitracial students overall. The author explores the following questions: How do Multiracial students produce their identities? How do Multiracial students exercise their agency? How does the notion of Multiraciality perpetuate and disrupt notions of race? How can we expand theoretical understandings of race so that they take Multiracial people into account, specifically within educational settings? The author illustrates the agentic ways in which Multiracial college students come to understand and experience the complexity of their racialized identity production. Their counter-narratives reveal an otherwise invisible student population, providing an opportunity to broaden critical discourses around education and race.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter One: Multiracial Me
• Chapter Two: The History and Complexity of the Term, Multiracial
• Chapter Three: Multiraciality and Critical Race Theory
• Chapter Four: Multiracial College Students’ Counter-Narratives
• Chapter Five: Multiracial Students and Educational Implications
• Chapter Six: Racial Queerness
• Epilogue
• References
• About the Author