Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

There is nothing more bizarre to me than when people who identify as biracial/mixed race etc, demand that those of us who also have parents of differing races, identify ourselves just like they do. Barack Obama self-identifies as a black man. Period. Finished. Let him be. It is those people (and not black/white people) who actually hurt the multiracial “cause” (if such exists), by forcing one experience on us. To me, they are exactly like those who invented the tragic mulatto. We all have different experiences and should be free to identify as we wish. My mother is black (African) and my father a white man. I never got to meet or know him or his family, but my mother made sure that I was proud of who I am from all angles. I have always chosen to identify myself as a black woman. Not because I hate my “white side”, but because my experiences closely mirror those of black people, especially the black people who raised me. While I do share some experiences with biracial people, I have not come close to identifying myself as such. However, I think it’s great when anyone can chose who they are or identify with. I’m not ashamed of either of my parents, just ashamed of the society we live in, where people try and force you to be who they want you to be. It comes from all sides, but it’s uglier when it comes from those who have front-row experience on the pain of being society outcasts because people are unable to box us immediately. I don’t think this topic will ever go away, in fact it will get worse, no matter how much we try and wish it away. Race was born out of capitalist ambitions, invented by human beings so one group can control and benefit from the subjugation of another. That’s a human problem that will never go away. If you call yourself biracial…good for you. But I call myself black, and so does Barack. Leave us alone.

Rosalie (from NY), Reader’s Comments (#45) for article “Pushing Boundaries, Mixed-Race Artists Gain Notice,” The New York Times, July 5, 2011. http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2011/07/06/arts/mixed-race-writers-and-artists-raise-their-profiles.html?permid=45#comment45

And today it’s to the point where when I walk into a place and people see or hear me, people assume I’m mixed because mixed identity EXISTS.

Posted in Excerpts/Quotes on 2018-02-20 03:52Z by Steven

“I think the generation after me was really the beginning of people openly embracing the idea of mixed identity. And today it’s to the point where when I walk into a place and people see or hear me, people assume I’m mixed because mixed identity exists. Because it didn’t exist in the public consciousness in the past, people would look at me like I was this wild, mutant creature.” —Mat Johnson

Charles Pulliam-Moore, “Incognegro: Renaissance Author Mat Johnson Talks About Living a Black Life With Skin That Can Look White,” Gizmodo, February 12, 2018. https://io9.gizmodo.com/incognegro-renaissance-author-mat-johnson-talks-about-1822834011.

Tags: Charles Pulliam-Moore, Gizmodo, Incognegro: Renaissance, Mat Johnson

Comments Off on And today it’s to the point where when I walk into a place and people see or hear me, people assume I’m mixed because mixed identity EXISTS.

A Black Female Astrophysicist Explains Why Hidden Figures Isn’t Just About History

Posted in Articles, Interviews, Media Archive, United States, Women on 2017-01-19 01:09Z by Steven

A Black Female Astrophysicist Explains Why Hidden Figures Isn’t Just About History

Gizmodo
2017-01-17

Rae Paoletta

Taraji P. Henson as Katherine Johnson in Hidden Figures. Image: 20th Century Fox/YouTube

First, it beat Star Wars: Rogue One. Now, for the second weekend since its wide-release debut, Hidden Figures—the true story of three black female mathematicians at NASA—is number one at the box office. It’s raked in roughly $6o million so far, and counting.

The inspiring story of Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughan has reenergized the ongoing conversation about the importance of inclusivity in STEM. Though we’ve long done away with the Jim Crow laws depicted in Hidden Figures, black women in are still notoriously underrepresented in mathematical sciences, including physics. A quick look at the numbers proves it: between 1973 and 2012, 22,172 white men received PhDs in physics. Only 66 black women did.

Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein was one of those women.

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein Image Credit: GR21 LOC

In 2010, Prescod-Weinstein became the 63rd black American woman to ever earn a PhD in physics, from the Perimeter Institute at the University of Waterloo in Canada. Now, as a theoretical astrophysicist who’s worked at MIT and, more recently, the University of Washington, she is an advocate for black women and non-binary people in STEM…

Read the entire interview here.

Tags: Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, Dorothy Vaughan, Gizmodo, Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, Rae Paoletta, STEM

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Mixed Race Studies

And today it’s to the point where when I walk into a place and people see or hear me, people assume I’m mixed because mixed identity EXISTS.

A Black Female Astrophysicist Explains Why Hidden Figures Isn’t Just About History

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