Mixed Race Studies

Scholars are sometimes (inappropriately) criticized for being activist at the same time they are scholars. More and more often it is accepted and embraced they not only can we be both but that we should be both: that being passionate about what we write about makes for better scholarship. [Yaba] Blay’s work is also an excellent example of how one can be both a scholar and an activists at the same time and be successful at both.

Andrew Joseph Pegoda, “(1)ne Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race: A Review and Reflection,” Andrew Joseph Pegoda, A.B.D., (November 23, 2013). http://andrewpegoda.com/2013/11/23/1ne-drop-shifting-the-lens-on-race-a-review-and-reflection.

(1)ne Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race: A Review and Reflection

Andrew Joseph Pegoda, A.B.D.
2013-11-23

Andrew Joseph Pegoda
Department of History
University of Houston, Houston, Texas

Yaba Blay and Noelle Théard (dir. of photography), (1)ne Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race (Philadelphia: BLACKprint Press, 2013)

Yaba Blay’s (1)ne Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race (2014) is a beautiful, first-hand look at the true complexities surrounding the ways in which societies and peoples racialize one another and the ways in which these are institutionalized. Due to an ambiguous and vastly tangled web of psychological, historical, and countless other reasons, everyday life tends to be highly racialized.

The United States was built on a foundation of “White” being good and “Black” being bad. Of “White” meaning liberty and freedom and “Black” meaning enslavement. These assumptions and corresponding racism are so interwoven into every aspect of society (similar to a cake – the sugar, for example, is everywhere in the cake but not at all directly detectable) that they go largely unnoticed and unquestioned…

…These essays also show a rare sense of raw honesty, so to speak. Some of the writers, for example, discuss how they used society’s stereotypes or expectations of what White or Black meant to the exclusion of others. Essays strongly convey why and how people have a fear of Blackness, as some respond to someone saying “I’m Black” with “no, you’re not Black,” and essays also show how complicated manifestations of Whiteness and White Privilege really are. Some of the accounts explain how “race” changes according to how people fixes their hair, what country they are in, or by who they are specifically around at a given moment…

…The personal accounts answer much more than what it means to be Black. Indeed, the individuals in this book show how unsatisfactory the term Black really is. In the United States, all too often we consider in a highly subjective process anyone with skin of a certain hue to be an African American. This pattern of thinking is far too simple, and it is inaccurate…

…Scholars are sometimes (inappropriately) criticized for being activist at the same time they are scholars. More and more often it is accepted and embraced they not only can we be both but that we should be both: that being passionate about what we write about makes for better scholarship. Blay’s work is also an excellent example of how one can be both a scholar and an activists at the same time and be successful at both…

Read the entire review here.

Dr. Yaba Blay to Appear Tonight on “Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell”

Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell
FXX
Wednesday, 2013-11-13, 23:00 EST (2013-11-14, 04:00Z)

W. Kamau Bell, Executive Producer and Host

Tonight on Totally Biased, we proudly welcome Dr. Yaba Blay! 

Dr. Yaba Blay is a professor, producer, and publisher. As a researcher and ethnographer, she uses personal and social narratives to disrupt fundamental assumptions about cultures and identities. As a cultural worker and producer, she uses images to inform consciousness, incite dialogue, and inspire others into action and transformation. While her broader research interests are related to Africana cultural aesthetics and aesthetic practices, and global Black popular culture, Dr. Blay’s specific research interests lie within global Black identities and the politics of embodiment, with particular attention given to hair and skin color politics. Her 2007 dissertation, Yellow Fever: Skin Bleaching and the Politics of Skin Color in Ghana, relies upon African-centered and African feminist methodologies to investigate the social practice of skin bleaching in Ghana; and her ethnographic case study of skin color and identity in New Orleans entitled “Pretty Color and Good Hair” is featured as a chapter in the anthology Blackberries and Redbones: Critical Articulations of Black Hair/Body Politics in Africana Communities.

One of today’s leading voices on colorism and global skin color politics, Dr. Yaba Blay is the author of (1)ne Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race and artistic director of the (1)ne Drop project. In 2012, she served as a Consulting Producer for CNN Black in America – “Who is Black in America?” – a television documentary inspired by the scope of her (1)ne Drop project. In addition to her production work for CNN, Dr. Blay is producing a transmedia film project focused on the global practice of skin bleaching (with director Terence Nance).

Being Black: It’s not the skin color

Philadelphia Weekly
2013-11-13

Kennedy Allen et al.

Drexel prof Yaba Blay’s striking new photo book “One Drop” explores how a wide range of different skin tones affects Americans’ personal identities. In  this PW excerpt, eight Philadelphia-area residents of mixed heritage concur: However light they may be, they’re still most certainly Black. Our own Kennedy Allen agrees…

Growing up in Mt. Airy, an ethnic and economically diverse neighborhood, instilled within me a level of acceptance and tolerance regarding my fellow man that, confoundingly, many didn’t seem to share. I was one of seven Black kids in a class of 42. Because I spoke English properly and preferred rock to rap, I was deemed “White girl” by my racial peers—a label that haunted me for what felt like eons. I knew I wasn’t White, nor did I ever have the urge to be, outside of wishing my hair would blow in the wind like some of the girls in my class. Flash-forward to my final years of high school, in a black school where I was the “light-bright girl who talks White.” Dark-skinned people still sneer at me, somehow assuming that I believe myself to be “better” than they are because of my buttered-toffee skin tone.

When all is said and done, racial or ethnic identity rests upon the individual and their experiences. I identify myself as a black woman who happens to have Irish and Cherokee lineage. What of all the others who identify as black, but appear otherwise? Scholar and activist Arturo Schomburg, whose extensive collection of books and historical records of African people’s achievements eventually became the famed Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, N.Y., identified as an Afro-Puerto Rican. (In fact, his passion for gathering all those documents was born after a grade-school teacher told him that black people had no history, heroes or accomplishments.) Would Schomburg’s experience be less valid because it fails to meet some homogenous notion of Blackness? Who has the right to determine these standards in the first place? And in an age of global interconnectedness and the instant, worldwide exchange of information and ideals, why does it still even matter?

Dr. Yaba Blay wondered some of the same things. A first-generation Ghanian-American and the co-director of Drexel’s Africana studies program, Blay has spent the past two years gathering vibrant portraits and intimate stories from nearly 60 individuals across the country in an attempt to shine some light upon questions of racial ambiguity and legitimacy. Those portraits now comprise a new book that she’s edited and published, (1)ne Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race—as well as an exhibit of the same name, currently on display at the Painted Bride Art Center…

Read the entire article and eight subject profiles from the book here.

Soledad O’Brien Explores Racial and Ethnic Identity in Provocative Black in America

CNN Press Room
Cable News Network (CNN)
2012-12-04

Who is Black in America? Debuts Sunday, Dec. 9 at 8:00 p.m. & 11:00p.m. ET & PT
U.S. Encore: Sunday, January 27, 2013,  20:00 p.m. ET, 23:00 p.m ET, and Monday, 02:00 ET
International Debut on CNN International: Sunday, January 13, 02:00Z and 10:00Z (Saturday, January 12, 21:00 EST and Sunday, January 13, 05:00 EST). View regional schedules here.

“I don’t really feel Black,” says 17-year-old Nayo Jones. Her mother is Black; she was raised apart from her by her White father, and she identifies herself as biracial. “I was raised up with White people, White music, White food so it’s not something I know,” she says in a new documentary that explores the sensitive concepts of race, cultural identity, and skin tone.

For the fifth installment of her groundbreaking Black in America series, CNN anchor and special correspondent Soledad O’Brien reports for Who is Black in America? The documentary debuts Sunday, December 09 at 8:00p.m. and 11:00p.m. ET & PT and replays on Saturday, December 15 at 8:00p.m. and 11:00p.m. ET & PT.

Is Jones Black? Is Blackness based upon skin color or other factors? The 2010 U.S. Census found 15 percent of new marriages are interracial, a figure that is twice what was reported in 1980. One in seven American newborns were of mixed race in 2010, representing an increase of two percent from the 2000 U.S. Census. Within this context, O’Brien examines how much regarding race and identity are personal choices vs. reflections of an external social construct.

Tim Wise, an author and anti-racism activist believes in self identification, but says, in practice, society often will remind biracial people like Jones of their Blackness, “in a million subtle ways,” he says in the documentary.

As the hour unfolds, O’Brien follows Jones, and her best friend and fellow high school student Becca Khalil, as they take part in a spoken word workshop led by the Philadelphia-based poet, Perry “Vision” DiVirgilio.
 
Vision, who is biracial, says he never felt quite White or Black enough to fit in with friends who had parents of one race.  Vision identifies as Black, and says that identity is more than skin – that identity encompasses experiences and struggles.  Through his workshop, he encourages young people to think, talk, and write about identity, as well as the concept of colorism, which he blames for his early struggles with self-esteem and identity.
 
“Colorism is a system in which light skin is more valued than dark skin,” says Drexel University’s assistant teaching professor for Africana studies, Yaba Blay.  Blay tells O’Brien that, as a young African-American woman growing up in New Orleans, she felt discriminated against – often by lighter skinned African Americans – due to her dark skin tone.
 
Blay’s work focuses on how prejudice related to skin tone can confuse and negatively impact identity and self esteem.  She aims to help others also develop positive images of cultural identity – for African Americans of all shades.
 
Often complicating concepts of identity beyond multiracial heritage is skin tone.  Khalil, who has light-colored skin and two parents who are Egyptian in origin, identifies herself as African American.  She feels contemporaries dismiss her African American identity due to her light skin tone.  She says in the documentary that she wishes she had darker skin.
 
Writer, producer, and image activist, Michaela Angela Davis says she accepts that race is a social construct, but she feels it is important for people to name and claim their own racial identity: “You are who you say that you are,” she says in the documentary…

Read the entire press release here.

New Book on Racial Identity by Dr. Yaba Blay to be Released on Black Friday with Launch Party at the Painted Bride

Drexel Now
Drexel University
2013-11-04

News Media Contact: Alex McKechnie, News Officer, University Communications
Phone: 215-895-2705; Mobile: 401-651-7550

On Black Friday, Nov. 29, a new book on racial identity by Drexel University’s Dr. Yaba Blay, one of today’s leading voices on colorism and global skin color politics, will be released from Blay’s recently launched independent press, Black Print Press.

To celebrate the release, a launch party will take place at The Painted Bride Art Center (230 Vine St.) on Nov. 29 from 6 p.m. – 9 p.m. A concurrent photography exhibition is currently on display at The Painted Bride through Dec. 21.

The book, entitled (1)ne Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race, seeks to challenge narrow perceptions of what Blackness is and what it looks like. By combining candid narratives and photos from 60 contributors hailing from 25 different countries, the book provides a living testimony to the diversity of Blackness. It is intended to spark dialogue about the intricacies and nuances of racial identity and the influence of skin color politics…

Read the entire press release here.

Dr. Yaba Blay on shifting the lens on race

Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane
WHYY 90.9 FM
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
2013-10-30

Who is black? And who is not? “Mixed/Jamerian,” “Black/Latina,” “Appalachian African American” are examples of how some people of color describe themselves. Drexel University Africana Studies professor Dr. Yaba Blay explores the nuances of the politics of racial identity and hair and skin color. Her work sheds light on the legacy of the outdated “one-drop” law – that if a person had a drop of black blood, they would be forever identified as black. Through interviews and research, she shows the diversity of the many ways bi-racial and multi-racial people self-identify. Her new portrait essay book is “(1)ne Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race.”

Download the episode here.

(1)ne Drop Project Live

Painted Bride Art Center
230 Vine Street
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106
Telephone: 215.925.9914
Sunday, November 10, 2013, 17:00-18:00 EST (Local Time)

Do you know Blackness when you see it? This provocative question informs the work of Dr. Yaba Blay, whose (1)ne Drop Project depicts the stories and images of over 60 individuals from around the world, all of whom identify as Black, but none of whom fit the stereotypical “Black box.” Their candid memoirs challenge our understanding of race and identity.

The storytelling event, (1)ne Drop Project Live, interweaves history with candid stories from participants in the Project and gives a microphone to living testimonies of diversity. The event will include readings from project participants.

For more information, click here.

New Book by Dr. Yaba Blay Explores Racial Identity and Skin Color Politics

Drexel Now
Drexel University
2013-07-31

News Media Contact: Alex McKechnie, News Officer, University Communications
Phone: 215-895-2705; Mobile: 401-651-7550

What does it mean to be Black? Is Blackness a matter of biology or consciousness? What determines who is Black and who is not? A new book by Dr. Yaba Blay, an assistant professor and co-director of the Africana Studies program in Drexel University’s College of Arts and Sciences, seeks to challenge narrow perceptions of what Blackness is and what it looks like. 

The book, entitled (1)ne Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race, combines candid narratives and photos of 60 contributors from 25 different countries, providing a living testimony to the diversity of Blackness. It is intended to spark dialogue about the intricacies and nuances of racial identity and the influence of skin color politics.

The book is part of Blay’s larger, multi-platform project called (1)ne Drop – a reference to the “one-drop rule” from the early 1900s that held that anyone with 1/32 of “African Black blood” was Black.

The project, which includes an online and traveling exhibition, ultimately seeks to raise social awareness and inspire community conversation about the complexities of Blackness as both an identity and a lived reality.

The project was the inspiration behind “Who is Black in America?”, the fifth installation of CNN’s Black in America television documentary series with Soledad O’Brien in 2012, on which Blay served as a consulting producer…

Read the entire press release here.

“One-Drop: Fact, Fiction, or Fate?” by Dr. Yaba Blay, April 13th at 7pm in Stirn Auditorium

Amherst College
Stirn Auditorium, Mead Art Museum
Amherst, Massachusetts
Saturday, 2013-04-13, 19:00 EDT (Local Time)

What exactly is Blackness and what does it mean to be Black? Is Blackness a matter of biology or consciousness? Who determines who is Black and who is not? The State, the society, or the individual? On April 13th at 7pm, Dr. Yaba Blay, an Africana Studies professor at Drexel University [and artistic director and producer of the (1)ne Drop Project], will present at Amherst in Stirn Auditorium. “One-Drop: Fact, Fiction, or Fate?” provides a brief social history of the laws instituted to regulate social interactions between the races and thus outlines how it is that the United States came to adopt the one-drop rule as the specific, and seemingly quantitative definition of Black identity. This presentation highlights the lived experiences of individuals for whom the one-drop rule exacts its influence most. There will be food and drinks!

For more information, click here.