Mixed Race Studies

Book Review: Crossing the Color Line: Race, Sex, and the Contested Politics of Colonialism in Ghana by Carina Ray

Africa at LSE
London School of Economics
2016-03-18

Yovanka Perdigao

Yovanka Perdigao praises Crossing the Color Line:Race, Sex and the Contested Politics of Colonialism in Ghana for dismantling preconceptions of interracial couples in colonial Ghana.

Carina E Ray’s first book Crossing the Color Line: Race, Sex, and the Contested Politics of Colonialism in Ghana both surprises and delights its readers as it navigates through the lives and politics of interracial couples in Britain and Ghana. It explores how such interracial relationships from precolonial to post-independent Ghana had an enormous impact in the making of modern Britain and Ghana.

The book highlights the evolving attitudes of both British and Ghanaian societies, and how each sought to negotiate these relationships. Despite one being familiar with the topics at hand, one is left surprised as the author explores the micro politics of disciplinary cases against colonial officers who challenged the British Crown by keeping local women; to the making of transatlantic networks in the eve of Ghanaian independence…

Read the entire reveiw here.

Book Review: The ‘R’ Word by Kurt Barling

The LSE Review of Books
London School of Economics, London, United Kingdom
2016-03-04

Amal Shahid

As the newest edition to the Provocations series from Biteback Publishing, The ‘R’ Word challenges the idea that we have entered a ‘post-racial’ society in which race no longer represents a significant obstacle to opportunities. Drawing upon his own personal experiences, Kurt Barling questions the often paradoxical prevailing discourses surrounding race and racism in contemporary society. Although Amal Shahid suggests that the resolutely autobiographical nature of the account is occasionally inhibiting, she finds this book a lucid, accessible and effective engagement with issues surrounding racism, written with journalistic flair.

If you are interested in this book, LSE alumnus Kurt Barling will be speaking at an LSE alumni event, ‘The ‘‘R” Word: Racism and Modern Society’, on Tuesday 26 April 2016, alongside Provocations series editor Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, LSE academic Dr Caroline Howarth and LSE’s Student Union Anti-Racism Officer, Jasmina Bidé.

The ‘R’ Word. Kurt Barling. Biteback Publishing. 2015.

Many believe that the society we live in today is a ‘post-racial’ one and that race is no longer an impediment to opportunities. And yet, over the course of the year to April 2015, out of all people stopped and searched by the Metropolitan Police in Britain, about 38 per cent were people of ‘Black appearance’ and approximately 14 per cent were of ‘Asian appearance’. Of these, around 21 per cent of the former and 16 per cent of the latter were subsequently arrested. This implies that the rates of stop and search as well as arrests were significantly higher for non-white subjects, even as recently as 2015 (113)…

…The major strength of the book lies in the particular issues that it addresses, some of which find parallels in several contemporary societies. For instance, Barling demonstrates how over time there has been a denial of racism in public discourse. The growing multiculturalism of Britain has led people to believe that racism in its rudimentary form no longer exists. On the other hand, a parallel discourse has emerged that argues for a White English victimisation. This sense of majority victimisation has become a part of many diverse societies, ranging from the USA to India…

…Being of mixed race himself, Barling makes the question of ‘who speaks for whom’ less controversial…

Read the entire review here.

A Post-Genomic Surprise: the molecular reinscription of race in science, law and medicine

The London School of Economics and Political Science
Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building
London, United Kingdom
2014-11-06

Speaker:

Troy Duster, Chancellor’s Professor of Sociology
Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy
University of California, Berkeley

Chair:

Nigel Dodd, Professor of Sociology
London School of Economics

Professor Duster will analyse the resurgence of the idea that racial taxonomies deployed to explain complex social behaviours and outcomes have a biological and genetic basis.

Download the audio (01:29:49/43.2 MB) here. Download the video (01:29:27/767.1 MB) here.

SO224: The Sociology of Race and Ethnicity

London School of Economics
2013/2014 session

Helen Kim

The course provides an introduction to theoretical, historical and contemporary debates around race, racism and ethnicity. It firstly explores the main theoretical perspectives which have been used to analyse racial and ethnic relations, in a historical and contemporary framework. It then examines in more detail the areas both theoretical and lived within our contemporary social and political climate where analyses of ‘race’, racism, culture, belonging and identity are urgently needed, focusing primarily on Britain, Europe and the US. Topics include: race and ethnicity in historical perspective; race, class and gender multiculturalism; diaspora and hybridity; whiteness; mixed race; race, disease and contamination; race and the senses; race and popular culture; urban multiculture and the street; race, riots and youth culture; community cohesion; Muslim identities; asylum and new migrations; the Far Right and the white working class.

Were the riots about race?

The Guardian
2011-12-08

Reading the Riots: Investigating England’s summer of disorder
In partnership with the London School of Economics
Supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Open Society Foundations

Hugh Muir, Diary Editor

Yemisi Adegoke, Freelance Journalist

Some commentators were quick to call them ‘race riots’, but the true picture was more complicated

Amid the chaos and confusion of this summer’s riots, a few commentators felt the benefit of certainty. “These riots were about race. Why ignore the fact?” chided the Telegraph columnist Katharine Birbalsingh. Abroad, there seemed no need for deeper reflection. “Over 150 arrested after London hit by huge race riots,” said one US business website. “Let’s talk about those race riots in London,” urged talkshow hosts in New Zealand. Those on the other side of the debate could appear just as certain. “This is not about race at all,” Max Wind-Cowie of the left-leaning thinktank Demos told the Huffington Post…

…Of the 270 rioters interviewed by the Guardian and the LSE, 50% were black, 27% were white, 18% of mixed race and 5% Asian…

Read the entire article here.

Interview with Zara Paul: A Future Leader

London School of Economics
2011-10-26

Zara Paul recently graduated from LSE. She has been listed among the top 100 black graduates of the UK in the Future Leaders magazine 2011-12. In this interview she talks about her time at LSE, her passion for music, what being mixed race means to her and how she sees herself as being ‘massive’ in the next 10 years.

How did you feel when you heard that you had been selected among the top 100 black graduates of the country?

I felt absolutely brilliant! It didn’t sink in until I went to the actual Future Leaders event. I was surrounded by so many intellectuals and academics and politicians. I thought it was a great privilege. I couldn’t believe it…

…Tell us about your family history. Where do you trace your ‘roots’ to and are those ‘roots’ part of your identity?

My mum is Scottish-Irish and my dad is Jamaican. In my school, as a mixed race person coming from a council estate, I always stood out. I think that made me a bit stubborn, it made me think I am still going to be a little nightmare but I am also going to be smart and get my A levels and GCSEs behind me. I think being stubborn is a really good thing, to a degree. I did my dissertation on whether your identity changes dependent on your location. In a rural area, you may be black; in a multicultural area, you are who you are.

Do you believe in celebrating your mixed race status?

I love being mixed race. I can fit into so many social groups, most people can’t do that; so it’s something I think I should embrace. For example, when I did research into the riots, people found talking to me easier because of my mixed race status. In my heart however, I did think that when we are talking about equality why do we have to have separate awards for ‘black graduates’?…

Read the entire interview here.