Mixed Race Studies

Eugenics, Admixture, and Multiculturalism in Twentieth-Century Northern Sweden: Contesting Disability and Sámi Genocide

Terry-Lee Marttinen, Independent Researcher/Writer

Journal of Critical Mixed Race Studies
February 2022
28 pages
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.32472.37125

This article examines twentieth-century northern Swedish geographical isolate studies in Norrbotten Province involving Torne-Finns and northern Sámi, who have historically shared pronatalist Laestadian religious beliefs pathologized by mainstream eugenicists. Deemed a sign of religious fanaticism, Laestadianism was associated with the stigmatization of Torne-Finns and Sámi people and conceptualized as an early sign of schizophrenia. Geneticists, as an outgrowth of early twentieth-century eugenics, structured schizophrenia as a genetic disease caused by first-cousin marriage. These consanguineous marriages, which were reported as prevalent in Torne-Finn and Sámi reindeer-herding communities practicing Laestadianism, legitimated race-based sterilization of psychitrized Tornedalian and Sámi women. Similarly, the Swedish State Institute for Race Biology, established in 1922 by Herman Lundborg, advanced reorganizing race along family lines and populations, which supported gendered disability and Sámi genocide. Torne-Finn, as well as Sámi, religious minority women, who were sterilized at first admission to psychiatric facilities, require redress for colonial violence. Current academic and direct-to-consumer admixture research on Finnish and Sámi peoples is recognized as upholding colonial logics of difference in Swedish multicultural policies. This, in turn, results in ongoing gendered genocide. It is concluded that in a radical break from eugenic theories, major psychoses associated with common infections lie in the neglected half of the human genome rather than according to classical genetic rules.

Read the entire article here.

Judge Jane Bolin

Historical Society of the New York Courts
2018-02-21

David L. Goodwin, Appellate Public Defender
New York, New York

Dear Jane,

You’re one of the reasons the courts for children are a greater hope than some people say. You’re one of the dedicated ones.¹

Born and raised in Poughkeepsie, but with a career in the five boroughs of New York City, Jane Matilda Bolin (1908–2007) is best known for a particular “first” of groundbreaking magnitude. She holds the honor of being the first African-American judge in the entire United States, joining the bench of New York City’s Domestic Relations Court in 1939. Her appointment by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, which came as some surprise to Bolin herself — summoned with her husband to an audience with the mayor at the 1939 World’s Fair, she was not informed of the mayor’s intentions in advance — made “news around the world.”²

About that news: in announcing this historical judgeship, some outlets hedged the call, if ever so slightly. The Chicago Defender, which “chronicled and catalyzed the African-American community’s greatest accomplishments for nearly a century,”³ proudly announced that La Guardia had “smashed a precedent for the entire United States” because Bolin was “thought to be the first Race woman judge to be appointed in this country.”⁴ About two months later, the Defender had eliminated the qualifier, describing Judge Bolin as the “first Race woman to serve as a judge in the history of America.”⁵ And despite the shifting nature of historical inquiry, her title has held firm; on the sad occasion of her obituary, she was still, resolutely, “the first black woman in the United States to become a judge.”⁶…

Read the entire article here.

‘Once We Were Slaves’ examines fluidity of race through a Jewish lens

Forward
2022-01-28

TaRessa Stovall

Have you heard the story of the Jewish mother and children who were born enslaved in the Caribbean and became some of the wealthiest Jews in New York?

Professor Laura Arnold Leibman was researching Jewish communities in Barbados when she discovered two small ivory portraits belonging to a Jewish heiress from New York. She traced the family’s ancestors back to Bridgetown, Barbados in the 1700s. But instead of discovering an exclusively Sephardic ancestry, she uncovered a much more complex story of a diverse Jewish family whose identities were impacted by time and place.

Her findings became the book, “Once We Were Slaves: The Extraordinary Journey of a Multiracial Jewish Family.”…

Read the entire article here.

What happened to the British children born to black GIs?

BBC News
2022-01-29

Eighty years ago, US soldiers began arriving in the UK to help in the fight against Hitler’s Nazi Germany. In a small sleepy village in Suffolk, life was about to change forever.

Best friends Eldridge Marriot and Trevor Everett grew up together in Tostock, where they still live today.

As the pair, now aged in their 70s, reminisce over summers spent playing on the village green, it is clear they have a deep connection.

They were two of 14 children in the village, and about 2,000 across the UK, born to white British mothers and black American soldiers during World War Two.

“We definitely stood out with our curly hair,” Eldridge laughs. “But we didn’t have any racial problems; we were never treated differently.”

“We had some good times and I’ve had a brilliant life, I wouldn’t change it for nothing,” Trevor adds…

Read the entire article here.

How Are Black–White Biracial People Perceived in Terms of Race?

Kellog Insight
Kellog School of Management
Northwestern University

2017-12-06

Based on the Research of:

Arnold K. Ho, Associate Professor of Psychology and of Organizational Studies
University of Michigan

Nour S. Kteily, Associate Professor of Management & Organizations
Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

Jacqueline M. Chen, Assistant Professor of Social Psychology
University of Utah

Yevgenia Nayberg

As the nation has become more diverse, increasing numbers of Americans belong to more than one racial group. In 1970, just one in a hundred babies born was multiracial; these days, the share has climbed to one in ten.

This makes it critical for organizations—and the researchers who study them—to understand how multiracial individuals perceive themselves in terms of race, as well as how they are perceived by others.

“What’s the experience of being multiracial and feeling like others are categorizing you one way or another?” asks Nour Kteily, an assistant professor of management and organizations at the Kellogg School.

The stakes are high.

Being perceived as belonging, or not belonging, to a particular group can affect well-being. An organization might categorize a multiracial person a certain way for diversity quotas, for instance—but if she does not identify with that minority, the categorization may make her feel constrained or stereotyped.

Previous research in America has focused almost exclusively on how white people regard biracial people and has shown that they tend to categorize those of mixed race as belonging to the racial category of their minority parent. In new research with two colleagues, Kteily wanted to know whether black people tended to do the same thing.

The research finds that overall, both races view black-white biracial people as slightly “more black than white,” says Kteily.

But white and black people appear to differ in why they might classify biracial people this way. Namely, white people who classify biracial people as more black tend to hold more anti-egalitarian views, while black people who classify biracial people as more black show the opposite pattern, tending to be more in favor of equality between groups…

Read the entire article here.

“You’re one of us”: Black Americans’ use of hypodescent and its association with egalitarianism.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Volume 113, Issue 5 (November 2017)
pages 753–768
DOI: 10.1037/pspi0000107

Arnold K. Ho, Associate Professor of Psychology and of Organizational Studies
University of Michigan

Nour S. Kteily, Associate Professor of Management & Organizations
Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

Jacqueline M. Chen, Assistant Professor of Social Psychology
University of Utah

Research on multiracial categorization has focused on majority group social perceivers (i.e., White Americans), demonstrating that they (a) typically categorize Black–White multiracials according to a rule of hypodescent, associating them more with their lower status parent group than their higher status parent group, and (b) do so at least in part to preserve the hierarchical status quo. The current work examines whether members of an ethnic minority group, Black Americans, also associate Black–White multiracials more with their minority versus majority parent group and if so, why. The first 2 studies (1A and 1B) directly compared Black and White Americans, and found that although both Blacks and Whites categorized Black–White multiracials as more Black than White, Whites’ use of hypodescent was associated with intergroup antiegalitarianism, whereas Blacks’ use of hypodescent was associated with intergroup egalitarianism. Studies 2–3 reveal that egalitarian Blacks use hypodescent in part because they perceive that Black–White biracials face discrimination and consequently feel a sense of linked fate with them. This research establishes that the use of hypodescent extends to minority as well as majority perceivers but also shows that the beliefs associated with the use of hypodescent differ as a function of perceiver social status. In doing so, we broaden the social scientific understanding of hypodescent, showing how it can be an inclusionary rather than exclusionary phenomenon.

Read or purchase the article here.

Rachel Dolezal and racial identity

jennifer j. roberts
2015-06-13

Jennifer J. Roberts

“…and she also chairs a police oversight commission”

Writing about race, to me, always seems to require a “side”, a perspective: I’m writing as a black woman… I’m writing as a white woman… I’m writing as a bi-racial woman. I could never fully dig my heels in on a side, because I never fully felt like any of those things completely. I was never quite sure what I was, so taking any perspective under those labels felt like taking a side and that felt like fraud.

Each of those racial designations stem from how you experience yourself in the world and, more importantly, how you are experienced by others. It felt different for me every day. There was no template, and my race was a moving target. Black to some, Hispanic to others, mystifying to most. White, as far as my mother was concerned. I looked just like her and she was, according to her, Irish.

My mother countered every swing of the racial bat with our Irish heritage, which was real but clearly, only part of who she was or we were. That other part, the part she didn’t want to know about, was me, looking her in the eyes…the spit of her; dark skinned and frizzy haired…

Read the entire article here.

‘Passing’ keeps its writing simple, asking viewers to lean in for greater understanding

The Los Angeles Times
2022-01-18

Rebecca Hall

My adaptation of Nella Larsen’s “Passing” had a slow birth, even by the often glacial standards of script development. When I started writing, I was an actress in my 20s with vague but fervent aspirations to one day direct. I wrote the first draft in 10 days, immediately after first reading the novel, in something of a fugue state. I was fascinated but also mystified by that fascination, and my first draft was crude and impractical. I didn’t think for a second that I would ever have the means or the courage to turn it into a film.

In retrospect, I probably could never have written it otherwise. Over the years, I tinkered, adjusting it radically and then minutely and then radically again until it became something of a piece of me — not so much a project or a process as a thing that I have lived in dialogue with for the better part of my adult life.

The main challenge of the adaptation revolved around the character of Irene. Contemporary reviewers often missed both Irene’s centrality and her fundamental unreliability. Clare, the object of Irene’s obsession, was frequently taken to be the main character, rather than one half of the extraordinary — and extraordinarily complicated — relationship that drives the action…

Read the entire article here.

Surnames, by Counties and Cities, of Mixed Negroid Virginia Families Striving to Pass as “Indian” or White by Walter A. Plecker (ca. 1943)

Commonwealth of Virginia
Department of Health
Bureau of Vital Statistics
Richmond, Virginia
(Source: Encyclopedia Virginia)

December 1943

To Local Registrars, Clerks, Legislators, and others responsible for, and interested in, the prevention of racial intermixtures:

In our January 1943 annual letter to local registrars and clerks of courts, with list of mixed surnames, we called attention to the greatly increased effort and arrogant demands now being made for classification as whites, or at least for recognition as Indians, as a preliminary step to admission into the white race by marriage, of groups of the descendants of the “free negroes,” so designated before 1865 to distinguish them from slaves.

According to Mendel’s law of heredity, one out of four of a family of mixed breeds, through the introduction of illegitimate white blood, is now so near white in appearance as to lead him to proclaim himself as such and to demand admission into white schools, forbidden by the State Constitution. The other three find it more difficult to make the grade. As a climax of their ambition, colored people of this type are applying for licenses to marry whites, or for white license when intermarrying amongst themselves. These they frequently secure with ease when they apply in a county or city not the home of the woman and are met by a clerk or deputy who justifies himself in accepting a casual affidavit as the truth and in issuing a license to any applicant regardless of the requirements of Section 5099a, Paragraph 4, of the Code. This Section places the proof upon the applicants, not upon the clerks. We have learned that affidavits cannot always be accepted as truth. This loose practice (to state it mildly) of a few clerks is now the greatest obstacle in the way of the proper registration by race required of the State Registrar of Vital Statistics in that Section. Local registrars, who are supposed to know the people of their registration areas, of course, have no excuse for not catching false registration of births and deaths.

In many cases negroids have white marriage certificates, while the Bureau demands correct Legal registration as to race when their children’s births are reported. Armed with the clerk’s marriage certificate, they leave home and easily pass as white, when a birth certificate with the pedigree on the back is not requires. They are even threatening legal action against the State Registrar but have difficulty in securing a lawyer if he first applies to the Bureau of Vital Statistics for the facts.

The Virginia Bureau of Vital Statistics, through the exceptional, painstaking, and laborious work of the highly trained genealogist whom it is fortunate in having, has made a study by groups and families of the principal borderline aspirants for racial change. The chief sources of information are the early birth and death records, made by tax assessors from 1853 to 1896; marriage records from 1853 to date; United States Census reports for 1830, 1850, and 1870, especially a printed list of free negroes by counties from the 1830 Census; county tapayer lists by races, now in the State Library, which have been studied back to 1808; and, not of least value, their own proclamation of race made by applicants for registration as voters, made soon after the War Between the States, to United States military authorities, now preserved in the State Library. The progenitors of the present would-be whites then marched up voluntarily and registered, for the first time in the life of their race in Virginia, as negro voters—not as Indians, not as whites.

Public records in the office of the Bureau of Vital Statistics, ana in the State Library, indicate that there, does not exist today a descendant of Virginia ancestors claiming to be an Indian who is unmixed with negro blood. Since our more complete investigation of all of these records and the statements (mostly signed) of numerous trustworthy old citizens, many now dead, all preserved in our “racial integrity” files, no one has attempted by early recorded evidence to disprove this finding. If such evidence exists, our research worker would have found it.

One weak point, which is giving us endless trouble, is the fact that many birth certificates since 1912 have, without realization of future danger, been accepted with false registration as “Indian.” Not a few, when we were off our guard, have slipped by as white. The General Assembly should empower us to state the recorded pedigree on the backs of such certificates and transcripts, to protect those desiring the truth now and in the future.

SURNAMES, BY COUNTIES AND CITIES, OF MIXED NEGROID VIRGINIA FAMILIES STRIVING TO PASS AS “INDIAN” OR WHITE.

Albemarle: Moon, Powell, Kidd, Pumphrey Amherst: (Migrants to Alleghany and Campbell) Adcock (Adcox), Beverly (this family is now trying to evade the situation by adopting the name of Burch or Birch, which was the name of the white mother of the present generation), Branham, Duff, Floyd, Hamilton, Hartless, Hicks, Johns, Lawless, Nuckles (Knuckles), Painter, Ramsey, Redcross, Roberts, Southards (Suthards, Southerds, Southers), Sorrells, Terry, Tyree, Fillis, Clark, Cash, Wood. Bedford: McVey, Maxey, Branham, Burley. (See Amherst County) Rockbridge: (Migrants to Augusta) Cash, Clark, Coleman, Duff, Floyd, Hartless, Hicks, Mason, Mayse (Mays), Painters, Pults, Ramsey, Southerds (Southers, Southards, Suthards), Sorrells, Terry, Tyree, Wood, Johns. Charles City: Collins, Dennis, Bradby, Howell, Langston, Stewart, Wynn, Adkins. King William: Collins, Dennis, Bradby, Howell, Langston, Stewart, Wynn, Custalow (Custaloe), Dungoe, Holmes, Miles, Page, Allmond, Adams, Hawkes, Spurlock, Doggett. New Kent: Collins, Bradby, Stewart, Wynn, Adkins, Langston. Henrico and Richmond City: See Charles City, New Kent, and King William. Caroline: Byrd, Fortune, Nelson. (See Essex) Essex and King and Queen: Nelson, Fortune, Byrd, Cooper, Tate, Hammond, Brooks, Boughton, Prince, Mitchell, Robinson. Elizabeth City & Newport News: Stewart (descendants of Charles City families). Halifax: Epps (Eppes), Stewart (Stuart), Coleman, Johnson, Martin, Talley, Sheppard (Shepard), Young. Norfolk County & Portsmouth: Sawyer, Bass, Weaver, Locklear (Locklair), King, Bright, Porter, Ingram. Westmoreland: Sorrells, Worlds (or Worrell), Atwells, Gutridge, Cliff. Greene: Shiflett, Shiflet. Prince William: Tyson, Segar. (See Fauquier) Fauquier: Hoffman (Huffman), Riley, Colvin, Phillips. (See Prince William) Lancaster: Dorsey (Dawson). Washington: Beverly, Barlow, Thomas, Hughes, Lethcoe, Worley. Roanoke County: Beverly. (See Washington) Lee and Smyth: Collins, Gibson (Gipson), Moore, Goins, Ramsey, Delph, Bunch, Freeman, Miso, Barlow, Bolden (Bolin), Mullins, Hawkins—Chiefly Tennessee Melungeons.” Scott: Dingus. (See Lee County.) Russell: Keith, Casell, Stillwell, Meade, Proffitt. (See Lee & Tazewell) Tazewell: Hammed, Duncan. (See Russell) Wise: See Lee, Smyth, Scott, and Russell Counties.

Very truly yours,

W. A. Plecker, M. D.
State Registrar of Vital Statistics

Racial Passing off the Record: A Journey in Reconnection and Navigating Shifting Identities

Genealogy
Volume 6, Issue 1 (March 2022)
Published online 2022-01-18
8 pages
DOI: 10.3390/genealogy6010008

Gabby C. Womack, Reference/Access Services Associate, McQuade Library
Merrimack College, North Andover, Massachusetts

Anyone of African descent or with African ancestry who engages in a genealogy project soon learns that the U.S. Census is a helpful yet frustrating tool. In 2016, equipped with my history degree and an online ancestry search engine, I searched for my great-grandfather Leroy in census records after I saw a picture of him as a young man at work in Philadelphia. This image would have been unremarkable had it not been for the fact that my African American ancestor was so light skinned that he seemed to blend in with his co-workers at Kramer’s Fruit and Vegetables. I thought there had to be a story behind this. Classified as, “Mu”, for mulatto in most of his records, Leroy became “Black” on the census in 1930. My first thought was to question whether this categorization changed for other folks like him. My research led me to my master’s thesis “From ‘Mulatto’ to ‘Negro’: How Fears of ‘Passing’ Changed the 1930 United States Census”. Through this research, I also became closer to my father’s family. This piece will take you through this journey of discovery and my frustrations along the way.

Read the entire article in HTML or PDF format.