Mixed Race Studies

The fascist who ‘passed’ for white

The Guardian
2007-04-04

Gary Younge, Feature Writer and Columnist

Lawrence Dennis was a leading light in the American fascist movement of the 1930s. He was a fan of Hitler and a self-avowed anti-semite. Now a new book reveals that he was actually black—although even his wife didn’t know. Gary Younge reports

Lawrence Dennis was, arguably, the brains behind American fascism. He attended the Nuremberg rallies, had a personal audience with Mussolini, and met Nazi leaders; throughout the 1930s he provided the intellectual ballast for America’s bourgeoning pro-fascist movement. But though his work was well known and well appreciated by the intelligentsia and political elites on both sides of the Atlantic, there was one crucial fact about him that has never emerged until now: he was black. It turns out that the man Life magazine once described as “America’s number one intellectual fascist” was, in fact, a light-skinned African American, born in the segregated South—although he “passed” for white among the greatest race hatemongers known to mankind.

In a new book, The Colour of Fascism, Gerald Horne reveals how Dennis managed to live a lie for his entire adult life. “It’s not clear that his wife knew that he was black,” says Horne, a history professor at the University of Houston. “He certainly never told his daughter. When she asked him, he would just smile enigmatically.”…

…”Passing” was common in American society at the time. Despite laws against miscegenation, the pervasive practice of masters raping their slaves had produced a large number of light-skinned people. Under America’s rigidly enforced codes of racial supremacy, any child of a mixed-race relationship was deemed “black”, regardless of their complexion. They called it the one-drop rule: one drop of “black blood” made you black…

Read the entire article here.

François Hollande’s misguided move: taking ‘race’ out of the constitution

The Guardian
2013-02-12

Alana Lentin, Senior Lecturer in Cultural and Social Analysis
University of Western Sydney

Valérie Amiraux, Professor of Sociology
University of Montreal

Not talking about races does not lead naturally to the demise of ‘race thinking’ – it just obscures the persistent inequalities

It’s become something of a commonplace to speak of the US as having entered a post-racial age. Both the right and the left have heralded the end of race, either triumphantly or as a way of dismissing talk of racism as so much political correctness. However, in Europe, the debate about race – post- or otherwise – is virtually non-existent compared with North America, where race never really goes away as a topic no matter how much people wish it would. Which is why it is surprising that the issue has become a significant part of François Hollande’s term in office. During the French presidential elections last spring, the Socialist candidate pledged to remove the word “race” from the French constitution. Currently, it states that “France shall be an indivisible, secular, democratic and social republic. It guarantees equality before the law for all citizens without distinction of origin, race or religion.” He is promising to effect that change before the summer…

…If ending racism were as simple as banning the one word, racism would be a thing of the past in Europe where, following the Holocaust, “race” was rightly declared a scientifically bogus term and officially dismissed as adding nothing to the understanding of human difference. However, racism did not simply melt away, as the French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, whose participation in the UNESCO anti-racist project which led the charge against race from the early 1950s, admitted later…

Read the entire article here.

Obama’s inauguration carries symbolic resonance on Martin Luther King Day

The Guardian
2013-01-20

Gary Younge, Feature Writer and Columnist

America’s first black president will be sworn in on the day devoted to its most famous civil rights leader

In April 1961, four months before Barack Obama was born, Bobby Kennedy told Voice of America: “There’s no question that in the next 30 or 40 years a negro can also achieve the same position that my brother has as president of the United States.” Less than a month later a group of black and white freedom riders were firebombed and beaten with baseball bats and lead piping as they tried to travel through the south. The interracial marriage of Obama’s parents was not recognised in more than 20 states. Black people’s right to vote, let alone stand for election, had not been secured in much of the south. The prospect of a black president never seemed further away.

Four years later the essayist and author James Baldwin mocked Kennedy’s prediction. “That sounded like a very emancipated statement to white people,” he wrote in The American Dream and the American Negro. “They were not in Harlem when this statement was first heard. They did not hear the laughter and bitterness and scorn with which this statement was greeted … We were here for 400 years and now he tells us that maybe in 40 years, if you are good, we may let you become president.”

The fact that Obama’s inauguration is taking place on Martin Luther King Day – a federal public holiday to celebrate the birth of the civil rights leader – carries great symbolic resonance. The notion that America might vote in a black president now seems little more than a banal fact of life…

Read the entire article here.

On adoption, race does matter

The Guardian
2012-12-21

Oona King

Like Michael Gove, I used to believe a loving family was all. But I’ve heard from too many black adoptees who are struggling with their identity

“My social worker is racist,” said a softly-spoken 10-year-old white boy. “She says I shouldn’t stay with my foster carer because my carer is black.” This child was one of 20 in the care system who told the Lords select committee on adoption legislation about their experiences, during a review of proposed changes to the Adoption and Children Act 2002.

The government, spurred on by the education secretary, Michael Gove (himself adopted as a baby), is determined to ensure “race doesn’t matter” when it comes to finding families for children in care. While Gove’s motives are understandable, the Lords committee, on which I sit, decided this week that his main proposal – the end to the obligation on social workers to give “due consideration” to race, religion and ethnicity when assessing adoptions – should be scrapped.

We would all agree with Gove in principle that race shouldn’t matter – and certainly in the specific case of the young boy in foster care it should not. But for many black and mixed-race children, ethnicity shapes their experience. To imagine it doesn’t is to imagine the earth is flat. I’ve lived that experience and I know it’s real…

…The fact that we were – on the surface – separated by race, nagged me as a child. It fed into other vague feelings around being different and “not belonging”. I was the only mixed race child in my class, both in primary and secondary school, although in those days I was often called, at best, half-caste, at worst, mongrel. But it still wasn’t such a terrible thing. After all, I had a loving, capable parent. And that’s what I want for all Britain’s kids languishing in our care system…

Read the entire article here.

Britain is now a better place to grow up mixed race. But don’t celebrate yet

The Guardian
2012-12-15

Lanre Bakare, The Guide’s Previews Editor

Prejudices have receded significantly in the past 20 years, but a report out this week shows racist attitudes remain

Growing up as a mixed race child, with a mother from Leeds and a father from Nigeria, my Bradford childhood certainly wasn’t trouble-free. But I had the kind of relatives to see me through any tricky moments. As well as a fantastic, loving family on my mother’s side, I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by a strong Nigerian community, focused around a friendship club my father founded, which acted as a focal point for a small but vibrant community.

With my dad and his mates I would hear Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa spoken; I’d listen to the music of Fela, Shina Peters and Ayinla Kollington, and get to taste jollof rice, eba, moinmoin and other Nigerian cuisine. This understanding and engagement with the other side of my ancestry and culture was vital to me. It gave me confidence to fall back on when people would question who I was. Both my parents instilled the idea in me that being different was a huge positive. It was something special, that should be celebrated and cherished rather than hidden or denied.

Not everyone is so lucky, of course. But this week a report released in the wake of the 2011 census threw fresh light on mixed race relationships in the UK and the public’s perception of them. And it seemed to bring good news. The census revealed there are a million people who identify as mixed race. British Future, the thinktank that produced the report (titled The Melting Pot Generation – How Britain Became More Relaxed About Race), found that 15% of the public have a problem with these relationships, compared to 50% in the 80s and 40% in the 90s.

The so-called Jessica Ennis Generation (those born in the 80s and 90s, like me) was portrayed as more tolerant of, and essentially not bothered by, mixed race families…

Read the entire article here.

Jackie Kay and Sebastian Barry: Identity and struggle

The Guardian
2011-08-15

Sarah Crown

In our inaugural podcast from the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Sebastian Barry and Jackie Kay talk to us about the themes that power their work

In our first podcast from the 2011 Edinburgh International Book Festival, we explore questions of identity and struggle as played out in the 20th-century…

…The poet and novelist Jackie Kay turned memoirist last year with her book Red Dust Road, an account of her search for her birth parents: a white Scottish woman, and a Nigerian man. Her writing reflects her grappling with the thorny issue of her own identity, and she reveals how this podcast has reconnected her with her family…

[Jackie Kay reads “Burying My African Father.”]

Read the entire article here.  Listen to the audio here. Download the audio here.

Obama’s second victory is more low key, but in some ways more impressive

The Guardian
London, England
2012-11-07

Gary Younge, Feature Writer and Columnist

The euphoria of 2008 has gone, but the US president’s second win is remarkable precisely because it is not as symbolic

Harold Davies didn’t cry this time. Four years ago when I accompanied him to the polls his eyes welled up as he described how it felt to vote for an African American candidate. This time he was in and out within 10 minutes and then off to his brother’s for his tea. You can only elect the first black president once. To use the euphoria of 2008 against the more toned-down celebrations of Tuesday night as a stick to beat Barack Obama misunderstands the significance of his trajectory.

Electing a black candidate on his promise, amid a massive economic crisis, is one thing. To re-elect him on his record, even as that crisis endures, is quite another. In more ways than one his victory on Tuesday night was more impressive than in 2008 precisely because it was not more symbolic.

It’s difficult to think of a more vulnerable president facing re-election and pulling it off so decisively. Having redrawn the electoral map and reshaped the electorate in 2008 he managed to give a plausible account of his efforts over the past four years even when they had fallen short. His fallibility as a candidate is now accepted; his timidity as a leader now beyond question.

On a flight to Denver last week an Obama supporter sitting next to me explained how his view of the president had evolved: “I thought he was a prophet. Now I realise he’s just a king.” Sooner or later he will have to get used to the fact that his president is just a human being…

…There are a few reasons to believe that this might change. The first is that the Republican party has reached a point where it will either have to change or die. This election effectively exposed it as a mono-racial party in an increasingly multi-racial state. At every rally you can see it. Regardless of the ethnic composition of the area in which they are held, the composition of rallies never changes. At the Republican convention one person threw peanuts and insults at a black camerawoman. The Grand Old Party is becoming the White People’s Party. And that is not only unbecoming, it is untenable.

Every month 50,000 new Latinos become eligible to vote. What Tuesday night showed was that the new coalition Obama cohered in 2008 that mobilised the young, the brown and the black in unprecedented numbers was not just a one-off. Soon, North Carolina, Arizona and ultimately Texas will be tough to hold if Republicans refuse to challenge the xenophobia of their base…

Read the entire article here.

Social workers ‘at rock bottom’ over issue of race and adoption

The Guardian
2012-11-06

Hugh Muir, Diary Editor

Professional body to tell Lords committee that political stereotyping has hampered efforts to rehome vulnerable children

Morale among social workers has been driven to rock bottom by cuts, targets and ministers making the issue of race and adoption a “political football”, according to the biggest professional association.

A Lords committee will hear claims that politicians fuelled stereotypes for political gain, hampering the efforts of social workers to assist vulnerable children.

Nushra Mansuri, of the British Association of Social Workers, is expected to criticise the education secretary Michael Gove, who accused social workers of condemning black and Asian children to a life in care rather than see them adopted by white couples…

…Baffour, who sits on adoption panels, said trans-racial adoptions are hard to get right. “Race and heritage and culture are important, but ministers seem totally dismissive. A lot of people think the repercussions are going to be very damaging.”…

…Marlene Ellis, a black Londoner raised for 18 years by white foster parents in the home counties, said the complexities should not be underestimated. “It is impossible to come out really clear and comfortable about who you are in a society that still has very clear classifications for race and culture,” she said. “My parents did the best they could do but there are subtle things that happen that erode your confidence. My real memory is loneliness; of not knowing.”But minsters can say, with justification, that some social work professionals and trans-racial adoptees fully back the government’s stance on race and adoption. Jo Bonnett, a black police officer raised in rural Leicestershire and east London by white English adoptive parents, is one of them. “I didn’t find it a negative experience,” she says “I think I was very lucky. I had an older brother who was their birth son; a brilliant childhood and fantastic friends. My challenges came at 17, but when you get to that age, and have been brought up in a loving household, you are strong enough to deal with racism or any issues you might have.”She said the benefits greatly outweigh the drawbacks. “I don’t think race matters in adoption as long as you have loving parents and have all the things a child needs.”

Bonnett, 40, said she and her husband, who is white, tried themselves to adopt a black child. “But we were told the child must be mixed race. Ridiculous!”…

Read the entire article here. Watch the video here.

Cameron reshuffle brings critic of legal aid cuts into ministry of justice

The Guardian
2012-09-05

Owen Bowcott, Legal Affairs Correspondent

New Conservative minister Helen Grant criticised coalition policy on Guardian website last year

One of the new ministerial appointees to the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has previously been highly critical of the government’s key policy decision to axe £350m from the civil legal aid budget.

Helen Grant, Conservative MP for Maidstone and The Weald, practised as a legal aid solicitor for 20 years and established her own firm in Croydon helping clients through family and social welfare cases. On Tuesday, she was made a justice minister.

Writing for the Guardian’s law website last year, as the green paper on legal aid began its passage through the Commons, Grant declared: “Our country’s financial health is a priority, but not at the cost of basic social justice.

“It cannot be right that those most in need of support are left without it … We must ensure we protect those most vulnerable here at home and treat this debate with the care it deserves.” She eventually voted for the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act after it was altered through successive amendments.

Grant, 50, who has a Nigerian father and English mother, should be able to defend herself ably in political infighting: she was under-16 judo champion for the north of England and Scotland. She was briefly a member of the Labour party before becoming the Conservative party’s first black female MP. She has worked with Iain Duncan Smith’s Centre for Social Justice…

Read the entire article here.

Afua Hirsch: Our parents left Africa – now we are coming home

The Guardian
2012-08-25

Afua Hirsch, West Africa Correspondent

As a child in London, Afua Hirsch was embarrassed by her African roots. Then, in February, she became a ‘returnee’, choosing to live in her parents’ birthplace, Ghana. Her story is echoed across the continent: attracted by economic opportunity and a new sense of optimism, the African diaspora is starting to come back.

When I was a teenager, my mother overheard me telling my peers that I was Jamaican, a clearly absurd statement from a half-Ghanaian, half-English girl whose first name is one of the most common in a major African language.

My mother, born and raised in Ghana, was mortified. Although in part I was living out the now well-documented struggle of mixed race youngsters to grasp their identity, mainly I was just embarrassed. It wasn’t cool to be African in those days and in my ignorant teenage way, I was acting out a much bigger crisis of confidence, one that had been swallowing Africans and spitting them out as permanent economic migrants in Europe and America ever since the end of colonialism…

…For my mother, that was the wake-up call she needed to organise our first trip to the west African land of her birth, an essential re-education in our roots. In 1995, we visited the Ghanaian capital, Accra, for the first time. I remember the usual things that people comment on when visiting equatorial African nations for the first time – the assault of hot air when stepping off the plane, which I confused with engine heat, the smell of spice and smoked fish on the air, and – most significantly for me – the fact that everyone was black. It sounds obvious but I had never really seen officials in uniform – immigration authorities, police, customs officers – with black skin. I don’t think I had realised that there was a world in which black people could be in charge…

Read the entire article here.