Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

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  • Gillian Wearing redefines Birmingham for the 21st century

    Gillian Wearing redefines Birmingham for the 21st century

    The Telegraph
    London, United Kingdom
    2014-10-31

    Bernadette McNulty, Music Editor and Arts Writer


    Gillian Wearing’s A Real Birmingham Family Photo: Courtesy of Birmingham City Council, Arts Council England and Ikon

    With her statue of a mixed-race, single-parent family, Gillian Wearing has transformed Birmingham’s city centre, says Bernadette McNulty

    Birmingham has had an uneasy relationship with public sculpture over the last few decades. In 1991, the council unveiled a work by the city-born artist Raymond Mason in the newly created Centenary Square. Called Forward, it depicted a throng of the city’s great and good at key moments in the area’s history – including Joseph Chamberlain and Josiah Mason. Made out of butter-coloured polyester resin, the monument was comically dubbed the Lurpak statue by locals and in 2003 destroyed by arsonists.

    In nearby Victoria Square, Antony Gormley’s ominous Iron Man looms over a corner, while Dhruva Mistry’s 1994 River Goddess – known as the Floozie in the Jacuzzi – is currently trussed up in a neon pink bikini for a breast cancer campaign. To her left, a towering column props up a magisterial Queen Victoria, who looks away disapprovingly.

    But the latest statue in Centenary Square, while no less controversial than Mason’s, stands a better chance of connecting with the feelings of the city’s residents. Gillian Wearing’s A Real Birmingham Family was unveiled on Thursday outside the new Library of Birmingham. This flagship building, thronged with people, has transformed the square, now unrecognisable from its Mason days. Before it was revealed to a small, excited crowd (including local dignitaries and the artist), the piece looked dwarfed by the monumental proportions of the library behind it…

    …It wasn’t until plans for the new library were finalised in 2010, with a site in front of it designated for a statue, that the project was set in motion. The Ikon set about a painstaking two-year search for entries of what people nominated as their “real” family, including groups of friends or even single people. In the end a committee whittled down hundreds of entrants to the two mixed-race, single parent Jones sisters: “They were passionate about knowing their identity as a family and the bond between them. They also spoke of how proud they were to be from Birmingham and how Birmingham was such an accepting place, and how they can be a family here more than anywhere else.”…

    Read the entire article here.

  • Mixed-race African-Carribean children at risk of falling behind in Reading primary schools

    Mixed-race African-Carribean children at risk of falling behind in Reading primary schools

    Get Reading (Reading Post)
    Reading, United Kingdom
    2014-11-13

    Natasha Adkins, Health Reporter

    The gap between Reading’s under-performing ethnic groups in the Key Stage 2 national curriculum tests has widened to 10 per cent – an increase of three per cent on 2013’s results

    Mixed-race African-Carribean children in Reading’s primary schools are at risk of falling behind, warns Reading’s lead councillor for education.

    The gap between Reading’s under-performing ethnic groups (UPEG) in the Key Stage 2 (KS2) national curriculum tests has widened to 10 per cent – an increase of three per cent on 2013’s results.

    A report into school performance at the adult social care, children’s services and education committee meeting last Thursday showed that while all children in Reading had made progress in 2014, the rate of progression in UPEG has slowed…

    Read the entire article here.

  • Perceptions of Mixed-Race: A Study Using an Implicit Index

    Perceptions of Mixed-Race: A Study Using an Implicit Index

    Journal of Black Psychology
    Published online before print: 2014-11-12
    DOI: 10.1177/0095798414550248

    Barlow Wright, Senior Lecturer in Psychology
    Brunel University London, England

    Michael Olyedemi
    Brunel University London, England

    Stanley O. Gaines Jr., Senior Lecturer in Psychology
    Brunel University London, England

    The psychology of race is in its infancy, particularly in the United Kingdom and especially regarding mixed-race. Most use untimed explicit indexes and qualitative/self-report measures. Here, we used not only explicit responses (participants’ choice of response categories) but also implicit data (participants’ response times, RT). In a Stroop task, 92 Black, White, and mixed-race participants classified photographs of mixed-race persons. Photos were accompanied by a word, such as Black or White. Participants ignored the word, simply deciding whether to categorize photos as White or Black. Averaged across three different instructional sets, White participants categorized mixed-race slightly to the White side of the center point, with Black participants doing the converse. Intriguingly, mixed-race participants placed mixed-race photos further toward Black than did the Black group. But for RT, they now indicated midway between White and Black participants. We conclude that at the conscious (key-press) level, mixed-race persons see being mixed-race as Black, but at the unconscious (RT) level, their perception is a perfect balance between Black and White. Findings are discussed in terms of two recent theories of racial identity.

    Read or purchase the article here.

  • My Family Passed for White (A Hidden Secret)

    My Family Passed for White (A Hidden Secret)

    Jambalaya Magazine & Clothing
    2014-11-02

    Julia Dumas, Culture Blogger

    One Culture, Many Colors

    One of my earliest memories is attending church with my Dumas family in Saint John the Baptist Parish. It was a small, white building of the Protestant denomination. Us children were gathered together in the front learning to sing, “Jesus Loves the Little Children”. For those that do not know, it goes a little something like this:

    Jesus loves the little children
    All God’s children of the world
    Red and yellow, black, and white
    They are precious in his sight
    Jesus loves the little children of the world.

    One of the greatest flaws in humanity is our need to create hierarchies. We separate, then judge one another to make ourselves feel better. Early humans differentiated themselves based on religious beliefs and royal birth status. Today, class and color makes one person feel superior to another based on our social order. Most people know this is lunacy, but some truly believe people of different colors are a different type of people. There are prejudices so ingrained in our society that we often do not detect the bias until irreparable harm has been done. Sadly, the Creole community is not immune.

    I would like you to meet my cousin Paula.

    Paula, like myself and most other Creoles, has the blood of people from the four corners of the world flowing their her veins. She likes to say, “I am every woman!” Her family’s story was once considered scandalous. In the 1930s, her grandparents, who were Creoles of Color, left Louisiana and chose to live as white for the rest of their days. Remember the movie Imitation of Life?

    In Creole country, we call this passe blanc (passing for white). It is a choice many people made, but very few have been willing to speak of. It is a subject full of shame. Some people are ashamed of their African heritage, while others are ashamed of the choices their ancestors made by passing. There is no shame here, only a longing to reconnect to a family and culture stripped away…

    Read the entire article here.

  • Ormonde: Windrush’s Forgotten Forerunner

    Ormonde: Windrush’s Forgotten Forerunner

    Hannah Lowe

    Hercules Editions
    2014-11-05
    36 pages
    125 x 140 mm, full colour throughout
    ISBN: ISBN 978-0-9572738-2-5

    Ormonde is a chapbook by the award-winning writer Hannah Lowe, which brings together a cycle of poems and unique personal and historical archives to chart the 1947 journey of SS Ormonde, the first post-WW2 ship (more than a year before SS Empire Windrush) to carry immigrants from Jamaica to the UK.

    On board was the poet’s father, R. Lowe, ready to start a new life in a new country. His daughter writes poignantly of his hopes and aspirations, of his fellow passengers, and the issues faced by immigrants arriving in Britain at the time.

    The book includes a foreword by the author explaining her personal quest to find out more about this forgotten ship, and her influences and process in writing the poems. An afterword by the acclaimed writer and historian Mike Phillips puts the history of the Ormonde into the wider context of black British immigration.

    The chapbook is published in a limited edition of 300, and is signed by the author. A special edition, available only through our Indiegogo campaign, includes an additional signed poem.

  • Two Chowan Discovery Panels in Chicago

    Two Chowan Discovery Panels in Chicago

    Chowan Discovery Group
    Press Release
    2014-10-27

    Marvin T. Jones, Executive Director

    Thursday, 2014-11-13, 09:00 CST (Local Time) and Friday, 2014-11-14, 16:00 CST (Local Time)

    For the second consecutive conference, Chowan Discovery Group is hosting two panels at the Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference at DePaul University in Chicago. Address is DePaul University Center, 2250 N. Sheffield at the Fullerton CTA station.

    • Thursday, November 13 from 2:15 to 3:45pm, Room 325: “Mobility and Definition in Mixed-Race History.” The moderator is Mayola Cotterman, retired professor, Northwestern University. The panelists are:
      • Dr. Arwin D. Smallwood (North Carolina A&T University): “Documenting and Exploring the Early History of Mixed Race Peoples: Over Five Hundred Years of the Merging of Native American, African, and European Peoples in North America from the 1500s to Present”
      • Ainsworth Tracy (New York College – CUNY): “Documenting the Intersections and History of African-Americans and Native Americans in Colonial America: American Marronage: An Examination of Eastern North Carolina.”
      • Marvin T. Jones (Chowan Discovery Group): “Measurements of a Mixed-Race Community – the Winton Triangle.” Jones’ presentation will give the audience the size and scope of the Winton Triangle by showing numbers of large houses, stores, churches, acreages, professionals and educators.
    • Friday, November 14 from 1:45 to 3:15pm, Room 314A: “Beginnings and Transitions of Mixed Race People in North Carolina.” The Moderator is Steven F. Riley of www.mixedracestudies.org. Panelists are:
      • Lars Adams (Independent Writer): “The Algonquians of North Carolina: Ethnic Transformation and Identity Retention in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries”
      • Dr. Arwin D. Smallwood (North Carolina A&T University): “One of America’s First Mixed Race Peoples: A Study of the Tuscarora and the Indian Woods, Reservation Established in Bertie County, North Carolina in 1717.”
      • Marvin T. Jones (Chowan Discovery Group): “A Mixed Race Family at War – The Robbins Family.” We are still in the time of the 150th anniversary observances of the Civil War. This story is about one Mixed Race Family and its role in the War and beyond.

    For last minute information call 202.236.2030.

  • ONExSAMENESS: Dr Anita Heiss at TEDxBrisbane

    ONExSAMENESS: Dr Anita Heiss at TEDxBrisbane

    TEDx Talks
    2013-10-25

    Anita Heiss

    “It’s and I-dentity, not a YOU-dentity, stop telling me who I am!”

    Anita is a contemporary Australian author. She is a Wiradjuri woman. She is an Indigenous Literacy Day Ambassador and an Adjunct Professor with Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning, UTS amongst many other things.

  • ‘Everything I Never Told You’ is Amazon’s book of the year

    ‘Everything I Never Told You’ is Amazon’s book of the year

    Reuters
    2014-11-08

    Patricia Reaney
    New York

    Nov 8 (Reuters) – “Everything I Never Told You,” the debut novel by author Celeste Ng about a teenage girl growing up in a mixed race family in the American Midwest in the 1970s, was named Amazon’s best book of 2014 on Saturday.

    It topped the list of 100 good reads, which included fiction and non-fiction works, selected by editors at the online retailer.

    “It is a beautiful book about a family,” Sara Nelson, editorial director of books and Kindle at Amazon.com, said about the novel. “The characterizations are moving. The people are very interesting.”…

    Read the entire article here.

  • On The Cusp of Dual Identities #Dispatch: Afropean

    On The Cusp of Dual Identities #Dispatch: Afropean

    Everywhere All The Time
    2014-11-10

    Bani Amor

    Johny Pitts is a writer, photographer, and broadcast journalist interested in issues of Afro-European identity. He won a Decibel Penguin Prize for a short story included in the ‘The Map of Me’; a Penguin books anthology about mixed-race identity. He recently collaborated with author Caryl Phillips on a photographic essay for the BBC and Arts Council England dealing with London and immigration, and curates the online journal Afropean.com, for which he received the 2013 ENAR foundation (European Network Against Racism) award for a contribution to a racism free Europe. He currently hosts a youth travel show for the BBC and recently finished the first draft of a travel narrative about a five month trip through ‘Black Europe’, due to be released in 2015.

    Bani Amor: Tell us about yourself. How would you describe your work and the impetus behind it?

    John: Well, I hold American and British passports, I was raised between London and Sheffield, in the UK. My Father is black, my mother is white, and I was born on the cusp of Capricorn and Aquarius, so even my star sign dual! So I identify with W.E.B DuBois’ double consciousness stuff. I feel as though I kind of grew up in that liminal terrain between cultures, races and spaces, and I suppose my work is all about trying to find some kind of coherence in that liminal space. Instead of seeing myself as half-this or mixed-that, I try to solidify the cultural ground I walk on as something whole. And that is where this term ‘Afropean’ comes in.

    It is a platform to engage with-and acknowledge the duality of- my influences, whilst bringing them together as something new. I didn’t create the term Afropean, so in a way I’m working off the backs of a Generation X who came of age in the 90’s. People like Neneh Cherry, Zap Mama, Stephen Simmonds, Les Nubians… artists and musicians who brought forth new aesthetics that were a mix of African and European influences. The word was being used, but it hadn’t really entered the popular lexicon, so I snapped up afropean.com and tried to create a community around that. See if there was a way for Afro-Europeans to get a sense of themselves in the same way I feel African Americans did…

    Read the entire interview here.

  • Growing Up “Too Black” In Trinidad

    Growing Up “Too Black” In Trinidad

    The New Local: Think Global, Read Local
    2014-11-10

    Malaika Crichlow
    Miami, Florida

    I grew up in Trinidad in the 80s and 90s as a black girl child. To be black in a country that idealizes the curly hair and mixed ethnicity aesthetic is rough to say the least. Although I shared the same parental genes as my sister, who is considered mixed or “red,” what I embodied physically was dark skin and “kinky” hair. It didn’t matter that my heritage included French, Scottish, East Indian and African; I was black to everyone who saw me, which wouldn’t bother me if I wasn’t treated as less than because of it.

    I was the daughter of a dark-skinned man who, as a man, couldn’t comprehend my female self-esteem struggles. He didn’t know that his unabashed preference of my light-skinned sister could truly fuck me up. As my primary example of the male gender and my only other dark skinned counterpart in our immediate family, he didn’t understand that not loving me as much as my red sister could damage my mind and sense of self for years.  I was also the daughter of a light-skinned mother who, similarly, couldn’t fully understand my dark-skinned complex because like my sister, she had gotten the red woman’s preferential treatment her whole life…

    Read the entire article here.