Multiracial Faculty Members’ Experiences in the Academy

Posted in Campus Life, Media Archive, United States, Wanted/Research Requests/Call for Papers on 2017-03-24 14:31Z by Steven

Multiracial Faculty Members’ Experiences in the Academy

University of California, Los Angeles
Graduate School of Education and Information Studies
2017-01-31

Jessica C. Harris, PhD, Assistant Professor
Department of Higher Education & Organizational Change
University of California, Los Angeles
310-794-4982

Jessica Harris, PhD, from the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is conducting a research study to explore multiracial tenured/tenure track faculty members’ experiences within the academy.

Why is this study being done?

This research will qualitatively explore the academic experiences of mixed race faculty working in U.S. institutions of higher education. While the experiences of monoracial faculty of color are documented in extant literature, there exist no studies, to my knowledge, of the experiences of mixed race faculty in the academy. The study will focus on participants’ experiences with tenure and advancement, teaching, research, service, and other important issues that must be explored in order to better inform inclusive practices that help to recruit and retain mixed race faculty and increase diversity within and across institutions.

What will happen if I take part in this research study?

If you volunteer to participate in this study, the researcher will ask you to do the following:

  • Fill out an online demographics questionnaire.
  • Participate in an approximately 60-minute individual interview conducted by the lead researcher and/or a graduate student researcher that the lead researcher supervises.
  • Individual interviews will take place via Skype, telephone, or the communication software preferred by the participant. The researcher will conduct the interview in a private room.
  • Questions within the interview may relate to participants’ experiences with the tenure and advancement process, teaching, pedagogical approach, and research.

How long will I be in the research study?

The demographic form will take about 15 minutes to complete. The individual interview will last approximately 60 minutes. The total time you will dedicate to this research is about 75 minutes. Given the time that lapses between filling out the demographic questionnaire and setting up an interview for the research, you may be an enrolled participant in this research anywhere from a few days to several months.

Are there any potential risks or discomforts that I can expect from this study? Are there any potential benefits if I participate?

Your participation should cause no more discomfort than you would experience in your everyday life. Participation may prove cathartic for participants. The information obtained from the study will help educators and campus leaders gain a better understanding of multiracial peoples’ experiences on the college campus. This will guide inclusive practices on campus. Your identifiable information will not be shared unless (a) it is required by law or university policy, or (b) you give written permission.

Will information about me and my participation be kept confidential?

Any information that is obtained in connection with this study and that can identify you will remain confidential. It will be disclosed only with your permission or as required by law. Confidentiality will be maintained by means of storing information with identifiers in a locked file cabinet in the lead researcher’s office- transcripts, audio files, and demographics forms will be stored under a numerical pseudonym. Your name will only be linked by a numerical code key that will be kept in a separate file cabinet and will only be accessible to two individuals, the lead researcher and the graduate research assistant. Finally, when information is reported out (via publications and conference presentations) all participants and institutions will be given pseudonyms. Other information will be reported back in general, broad categories, e.g. southern institution rather than an institution in Atlanta. All information will be kept in a secure and locked location for use in future research and destroyed within 10 years of the first interview.

What are my rights if I take part in this study?

  • You can choose whether or not you want to be in this study, and you may withdraw your consent and discontinue participation at any time.
  • You may refuse to answer any questions that you do not want to answer and still remain in the study.

Who can I contact if I have questions about this study?

  • The research team: If you have any questions, comments or concerns about the research, you can talk to the one of the researchers. Please contact: Jessica C. Harris at jharris@gseis.ucla.edu or 310-794-4982.
  • UCLA Office of the Human Research Protection Program (OHRPP):
    If you have questions about your rights while taking part in this study, or you have concerns or suggestions and you want to talk to someone other than the researchers about the study, please call the OHRPP at (310) 825-7122 or write to:

UCLA Office of the Human Research Protection Program
11000 Kinross Avenue
Suite 211, Box 951694
Los Angeles, California 90095-1694

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Sorry, but the Irish were always ‘white’ (and so were Italians, Jews and so on)

Posted in Articles, History, Law, Media Archive, United States on 2017-03-24 01:22Z by Steven

Sorry, but the Irish were always ‘white’ (and so were Italians, Jews and so on)

The Washington Post
2017-03-22

David Bernstein, George Mason University Foundation Professor
George Mason University School of Law, Arlington, Virginia


Immigrants after their arrival in Ellis Island by ship in 1902. (Ullstein Bild via Getty Images)

Whiteness studies” is all the rage these days. My friends who teach U.S. history have told me that this perspective has “completely taken over” studies of American ethnic history. I can’t vouch for that, but I do know that I constantly see people assert, as a matter of “fact,” that Irish, Italian, Jewish and other “ethnic” white American were not considered to be “white” until sometime in the mid-to-late 20th century, vouching for the fact that this understanding of American history has spread widely.

The relevant scholarly literature seems to have started with Noel Ignatiev’s book “How the Irish Became White,” and taken off from there. But what the relevant authors mean by white is ahistorical. They are referring to a stylized, sociological or anthropological understanding of “whiteness,” which means either “fully socially accepted as the equals of Americans of Anglo-Saxon and Germanic stock,” or, in the more politicized version, “an accepted part of the dominant ruling class in the United States.”

Those may be interesting sociological and anthropological angles to pursue, but it has nothing to do with whether the relevant groups were considered to be white…

Read the entire article here.

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Identity Crisis

Posted in Articles, Book/Video Reviews, Judaism, Literary/Artistic Criticism, Media Archive, Passing, Religion, United States on 2017-03-24 01:07Z by Steven

Identity Crisis

Washington Independent Review of Books
2017-03-10

Helene Meyers, Professor of English
Southwestern University, Georgetown, Texas

The “white Jewish” question posed in The Human Stain.

Emma Green of the Atlantic started a firestorm recently with the article “Are Jews White?” Taking for granted that Ashkenazi Jews have assimilated to whiteness, Green used the white Jewish question to wonder whether the rise of the so-called “alt-right” (read racist, misogynist white supremacists) is upending Jewish security in the U.S.

Green’s provocative title question caused quite a bit of tumult on Twitter. Predictably and understandably, Jews of color replied, with much amusement and some angst, “No.” Some white Jews responded, “No,” as well, citing anti-Semitism and/or Jewish distinctiveness. For once, this group agreed with the likes of David Duke, who tweeted in all caps “NO — JEWS ARE NOT WHITE.” Some white Jews and blacks unequivocally replied, “Yes,” citing white privilege as decisive.

While the answers to Green’s question from Jewish-American literature are all over the map, Philip Roth’s The Human Stain brilliantly depicts the continuing effects of “so arbitrary a designation as race” on those who choose or are assigned the off-whiteness of Jewishness…

Read the entire essay here.

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Blackness Behind White Skin

Posted in Articles, Autobiography, Media Archive, Social Justice, United States on 2017-03-23 19:25Z by Steven

Blackness Behind White Skin

Mixed Roots Stories
2017-03-22

Kenneth Miks

Professor: Now everyone stand up

Class: [shuffling around to stand up]

Professor: Take a look around at all the Black men standing around you.

Class:[Everyone begins looking around awkwardly]

Professor: Now, everyone sit down, but all the black men remain standing…

It is in this very moment I begin to panic. My mind starts to race at a 100mph and I begin to nervously look around as I see everyone sitting down, but all the black men standing tall. “Do I keep standing?…

Read the entire article here.

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Being biracial or multiracial doesn’t stop white parents from teaching their kids internalized racism and colorism.

Posted in Excerpts/Quotes on 2017-03-23 19:16Z by Steven

Being biracial or multiracial doesn’t stop white parents from teaching their kids internalized racism and colorism. Not all interracial relationships begin with a white partner who has a deep understanding of systemic racism, white privilege and colorism. Undoing privilege and anti-blackness is a lifelong endeavor.

Lara Witt, “Stop Weaponzing Biracial Children,” Wear Your Voice: Intersectional Feminist Media, March 16, 2017. http://wearyourvoicemag.com/identities/race/stop-weaponzing-biracial-children.

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“We are eggrolls and hotdogs”: Mixed race Asians at the University of Pennsylvania

Posted in Asian Diaspora, Campus Life, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, United States on 2017-03-23 18:44Z by Steven

“We are eggrolls and hotdogs”: Mixed race Asians at the University of Pennsylvania

University of Pennsylvania
2016
140 pages

Amy L. Miller

A dissertation in Higher Education Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Education

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the identity development of mixed race Asian students, also known as Hapas, and the influence of college environments of their perceptions of self. More specifically, this study will use Narrative Inquiry to gain insight into the lives and experiences of 20 Hapa students at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn). In order to uncover the shared experience of Hapas on this college campus and to discern any specific activities or aspects of university life that contributed to their identity development while at Penn, I conducted 20 one-on-one interviews. I also conducted one focus group with 8 of the participants in order to observe the interactions between the students. This topic is relevant to student affairs administrators and faculty because of the rapidly changing demographics in the United States. Some projections estimate that by 2050, mixed race Asian people will represent the largest Asian constituency in the country, thus potentially changing the face of our campuses.

Read the entire dissertation here.

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Whiteness isn’t a biological fact, rather it is a sort of members-only club that has rewritten its entry requirements over the years.

Posted in Excerpts/Quotes on 2017-03-23 01:27Z by Steven

The idea that white identity is under attack assumes that whiteness is something fixed, something immutable. But whiteness has always been a fluid category. Whiteness isn’t a biological fact, rather it is a sort of members-only club that has rewritten its entry requirements over the years.

Arwa Mahdawi, “I’m a bit brown. But in America I’m white. Not for much longer,” The Guardian, March 21, 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/21/us-census-whiteness-race-colour-middle-east-north-africa-america.

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Anna Cleveland: Viva La Resistance

Posted in Articles, Arts, Media Archive on 2017-03-23 01:22Z by Steven

Anna Cleveland: Viva La Resistance

Hunger Magazine
2017-03-22

Jean Baptiste Mondino, Photography

Catherine Baba, Fashion Editor


main image above Anna wears all clothes and shoes by Azzedine Alaia, feather piece by Erik Halley, necklace by Elie Top

photography JEAN BAPTISTE MONDINO
fashion editor CATHERINE BABA
casting director NICK FORBES WATSON
hair ODILE GILBERT AT ATELIER 68
make-up LONI BAUR AT ARTLIST
model ANNA CLEVELAND AT NEXT
photographic assistants EDWIGE BULTINCK AND VIRGINIE ELBERT
fashion assistant EMMANUELLE RIBES
hair assistants TAN PHARM AND SADEK LARDJANE
make-up assistant LORIANE LEGER
digital operator DOPE PARIS
production ICONOCLAST IMAGE

Anna Cleveland is fashion’s biggest chameleon. The supermodel and muse to many is currently one of the most unique faces in fashion, and one intent on trailblazing her own path, her way. In this story by Jean Baptiste Mondino and Catherine Baba see Anna in fashion worth fighting for.

Read more here.

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Protection Spell

Posted in Books, Media Archive, Poetry, United States on 2017-03-23 01:01Z by Steven

Protection Spell

University of Arkansas Press
2017-03-01
102 pages
5 ½ × 8 ½
Paper ISBN: 978-1-68226-028-9

Jennifer Givhan, Poet & Novelist

In Protection Spell Jennifer Givhan explores the guilt, sadness, and freedom of relationships: the sticky love that keeps us hanging on for no reason other than love, the inky place that asks us to continue revising and reimagining, tying ourselves to this life and to each other despite the pain (or perhaps because of it). These poems reassemble safe spaces from the fissures cleaving the speaker’s own biracial home and act as witnesses speaking to the racial iniquity of our broader social landscape as well as to the precarious standpoint of a mother-woman of color whose body lies vulnerable to trauma and abuse. From insistent moments of bravery, a collection of poems arises that asks the impossible, like the childhood chant that palliates suffering by demanding nothing less than magical healing: sana sana colita de rana, si no sanas hoy, sanas mañana (the frog who loses his tail is commanded to grow another). In the end, Givhan’s verse offers a place where healing may begin.

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Game Of Thrones’ Nathalie Emmanuel is almost unrecognisable without her curls in punk shoot as she claims a ‘lack of diversity’ on TV damaged her self-esteem as a child

Posted in Articles, Arts, Communications/Media Studies, Media Archive, United Kingdom on 2017-03-23 00:19Z by Steven

Game Of Thrones’ Nathalie Emmanuel is almost unrecognisable without her curls in punk shoot as she claims a ‘lack of diversity’ on TV damaged her self-esteem as a child

The Daily Mail
2017-03-16

Becky Freeth


Edgy: Nathalie Emmanuel showed off an edgier side in the new shoot for Hunger magazine, as she spoke about the lack of diversity she saw when she grew up

She’s landed a bigtime role on one of the most-watched cult TV shows in recent times.

But Game Of Thrones’ Nathalie Emmanuel is most thankful for roles that promote diversity, because the lack thereof on TV during her own childhood directly affected her self-esteem.

Looking unrecognisable in a shoot for Hunger magazine, the former Hollyoaks actress explains how her mixed heritage was previously underrepresented…

Read the entire article here.

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