Mixed Race Studies

Deep Dive with Dorian Warren: Passing

The Takeaway
WNYC Studios
2021-11-04

Melissa Harris-Perry, Host and Managing Editor

Dorian Warren, Co-host

This month, “Passing,” a new film by writer and director Rebecca Hall premieres on Netflix. Adapted from Nella Larsen’s 1929 Harlem Renaissance novel of the same name, “Passing” is shot in black and white. It’s a complex film likely to revive old debates and provoke new conversations around unresolved and still unspoken meanings of race, class, gender, power, identity, and resistance. For this week’s Deep Dive, Melissa and co-host Dorian Warren use the film as a jumping off point to explore the thorny questions raised by the concept of passing.

Joining Melissa and Dorian to discuss her film and her family’s history with passing is Rebecca Hall. Adding context on the history of passing is Allyson Hobbs, associate professor of U.S. History and the Director of African and African American Studies at Stanford University and author of “A Chosen Exile.” Karla Holloway, James B. Duke Distinguished Professor Emerita of English at Duke University and author of Legal Fictions and A Death in Harlem: A Novel, discusses how race has been socially constructed over time. Brit Bennett, author of “The Vanishing Half,” explains how she explored colorism in her 2020 novel. Lauren Michele Jackson, assistant professor of English at Northwestern University and a contributing writer at The New Yorker, discusses the idea of “Blackfishing,” which is when white people and even more notably white women, attempt transgressing racial boundaries by adopting a performance of Blackness through darkening their skin excessively, wearing hairstyles and clothing trends that have been pioneered by Black people. Bliss Broyard, author of the award-winning memoir, “One Drop: My Father’s Hidden Life- A Story of Race and Family Secrets,” talks about finding out in her mid twenties that her father had passed as white for most of his life. And finally, Dean Moncel, a freelance writer based in Switzerland and Aryah Lester, deputy director of the Transgender Strategy Center, join the show to discuss the ways passing emerges around gender and sexuality.

Listen to the story (00:59:26) here.

Melissa Harris-Perry in Conversation with Allyson Hobbs

Stanford University
Cubberley Auditorium
Stanford, California
Wednesday, 2018-05-23, 17:00-18:30 PDT (Local Time)

Contact: rmeisels@stanford.edu

Join us for an evening of conversation with Melissa Harris-Perry, Maya Angelou Presidential Chair at Wake Forest University, founding director of the Anna Julia Cooper Center, Editor-at-Large, Elle.com and Author of Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America, in conversation with Allyson Hobbs, Associate Professor of History and Director of African and African American Studies [and author of A Chosen Exile: History of Racial Passing in American Life].

Sponsored by: Clayman Institute for Gender Research, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Humanities Center, African & African American Studies, Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, History Department, and Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education.

For more information, click here.

All Mixed Up: What Do We Call People Of Multiple Backgrounds?

Code Switch: Race And Identity, Remixed
National Public Radio
2016-08-25

Leah Donnella

In a country where the share of multiracial children has multiplied tenfold in the past 50 years, it’s a good time to take stock of our shared vocabulary when it comes to describing Americans like me. Jeannie Phan for NPR

It’s the summer of 1998 and I’m at the mall with my mom and my sister Anna, who has just turned 5. I’m 7. Anna and I are cranky from being too hot, then too cold, then too bored. We keep touching things we are not supposed to touch, and by the time Mom drags us to the register, the cashier seems a little on edge.

“They’re mixed, aren’t they?” she says. “I can tell by the hair.”

Mom doesn’t smile, and Mom always smiles. “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” she says.

Later, in the kitchen, there is a conversation…

…‘Multiracial’ or ‘mixed’?

In light of Hall’s paper, “multiracial” was adopted by several advocacy groups springing up around the country, some of which felt the term neutralized the uncomfortable connotations of a competing term in use at that point: “mixed.”

In English, people have been using the word “mixed” to describe racial identity for at least 200 years, like this 1864 British study claiming that “no mixed races can subsist in humanity,” or this 1812 “Monthly Retrospect of Politics” that tallies the number of slaves — “either Africans or of a mixed race” — in a particular neighborhood.

Steven Riley, the curator of a multiracial research website, cites the year 1661 as the first “mixed-race milestone” in North America, when the Maryland colony forbade “racial admixture” between English women and Negro slaves.

But while “mixed” had an established pedigree by the mid-20th century, it wasn’t uncontroversial. To many, “mixed” invited associations like “mixed up,” “mixed company” and “mixed signals,” all of which reinforced existing stereotypes of “mixed” people as confused, untrustworthy or defective. It also had ties to animal breeding — “mixed” dogs and horses were the foil to pure-breeds and thoroughbreds.

Mixed “evokes identity crisis” to some, says Teresa Willams-León, author of The Sum of Our Parts: Mixed Heritage Asian Americans and a professor of Asian American Studies at California State University. “It becomes the antithesis to pure.”…

Read the entire article here.

Thank You, Melissa Harris-Perry

The Nation
2016-02-29

Dave Zirin

Melissa Harris-Perry (You Tube)

The most diverse, intellectually bracing show on network news was treated as expendable, and its host would not have it. She and her show will be sorely missed.

This weekend, a show that mattered to its audience as few programs on the vanilla ice-milk buffet that passes for news do, The Melissa Harris-Perry Show on MSNBC, was canceled, and it’s a tragic as well as angering turn of events. “Ties were severed,” as an MSNBC executive put it, after Melissa, who I am proud to count as a colleague, sent an email to her staff explaining why she would not be hosting her show this past weekend after several weeks of having the program pre-empted for election coverage. The “scorching” email, now public, is being cherry-picked in articles, particularly the part where Melissa wrote, “I will not be used as a tool for their purposes. I am not a token, mammy, or little brown bobble head.”…

Read the entire article here.

MSNBC severs ties with Melissa Harris-Perry after host’s critical email

The Washington Post
2016-02-28

Paul Farhi, Media Reporter

MSNBC has parted ways with host Melissa Harris-Perry after she complained about preemptions of her weekend program and implied that there was a racial aspect to the cable-news network’s treatment, insiders at MSNBC said.

Harris-Perry refused to appear on her program Saturday morning, telling her co-workers in an email that she felt “worthless” to the NBC-owned network. “I will not be used as a tool for their purposes,” wrote Harris-Perry, who is African American. “I am not a token, mammy or little brown bobble head. I am not owned by [NBC executives] or MSNBC. I love our show. I want it back.”

The rebuke, which became public when it was obtained by the New York Times, has triggered discussions involving the network, Harris-Perry and her representatives about the terms of her departure, said people at MSNBC, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because Harris-Perry’s departure has not been formally announced…

..All of the changes carry a potential perception risk that MSNBC — known as the most liberal among the three leading cable-news networks — is diminishing the contributions of its minority personalities, network officials acknowledge. In addition to the issues with Harris-Perry and Diaz-Balart, the network’s new emphasis on news during the day has led to the demotion of two African American hosts: the Rev. Al Sharpton and Joy Reid, both of whom have been moved from daily shows to lower-profile weekend slots. (Reid assumed Harris-Perry’s hosting duties on Saturday.)…

Read the entire article here.

Melissa Harris-Perry Walks Off Her MSNBC Show After Pre-Emptions

The New York Times
2016-02-26

John Koblin, Television Reporter

Melissa Harris-Perry said she had received no word about whether her MSNBC show had been canceled. Credit Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Melissa Harris-Perry said she was refusing to go on the MSNBC show she hosts this Saturday, following several weeks of pre-emptions and what she described as a loss of editorial control.

In an email sent to people she works with this week, which was obtained by The New York Times, Ms. Harris-Perry said that her show had effectively been taken away from her and that she felt “worthless” in the eyes of NBC News executives.

“Here is the reality: Our show was taken — without comment or discussion or notice — in the midst of an election season,” she wrote. “After four years of building an audience, developing a brand and developing trust with our viewers, we were effectively and utterly silenced.”…

…Ms. Harris-Perry is black, and Mr. Lack and Mr. Griffin are white. In the phone interview on Friday, Ms. Harris-Perry clarified her remarks and said she did not think race played a role in her recent absence from the air.

“I don’t know if there is a personal racial component,” she said. “I don’t think anyone is doing something mean to me because I’m a black person.”…

Read the entire article here.

Intersection Episode 10: Being Melissa Harris-Perry Is a Full-Time Job

The New Republic
Intersection with Jamil Smith
2015-12-01

Jamil Smith, Senior Editor and Host

Professor, feminist, TV host, activist, mom, rabid hip-hop fan. Melissa Harris-Perry works seven days a week balancing all her identities, and she isn’t stopping anytime soon.

Besides hosting her eponymous MSNBC news show and teaching political science and running an institute at Wake Forest University, she is also on the front lines of an intersectional fight for racial justice and women’s rights.

This November, the Anna Julia Cooper Center, a research center directed by Dr. Harris-Perry, partnered with the White House Council on Women and Girls to co-host a major conference on expanding opportunities for women and girls of color. Her center is also part of new collaborative to advance equity for women and girls of color through research…

Listen to the interview here.

How should a dancer look? Ask Misty Copeland and Stella Abrera

The Melissa Harris-Perry Show
MSNBC
2015-07-18

Melissa Harris-Perry, Host

Dancers Misty Copeland and Stella Abrera discuss their pioneering work as, respectively, the first African American and Filipino American principal ballerinas at the American Ballet Theater.

Watch the video (00:07:46) here.

The Perfect Struggle: MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry On Being Okay With Making Mistakes

Vibe
2015-03-27

Shenequa Golding

Melissa Harris-Perry

In the history of high school drama, nerds tend to get the short end of the stick. While preferring to keep their noses buried in books, the academically zealous usually opt out of Mean Girl gossip and make social sacrifices to land 4.0 GPAs and clock in for extracurricular endeavors.

But geniuses nationwide re-upped on cool points when Melissa Harris-Perry, host of the wildly popular The Melissa Harris-Perry Show on MSNBC, boldly and unapologetically claimed to be of the same ilk. While the Virginia-raised author, professor and public speaker is warm, funny and personable, MHP is no fool, often diving deep into topics of politics, art, race and whatever else the mother of two feels demands attention.

And while Melissa proudly lets her nerd flag fly, she’ll also show off her cool side while dancing in her seat to hip-hop, R&B and other smooth tunes as the show goes to commercial break. VIBE called up MHP to discuss race, balancing life in North Carolina and New York, and the one thing women shouldn’t fear.

Shh, enough talking. Class is in session…

…On realizing my race and gender:

So I’m African-American. My mother is white and my father is black and both my parents were married before they met and had me. I have one sibling who has two white parents and three siblings where both parents are black, so we’re truly a mixed race family. It was something that I was always aware of, but specifically when I was 14 and I was a freshman in high school. Two very different things happened. I was a cheerleader and I loved being one. I went to a public high school in central Virginia where football is king. It was very clear to me that there was a cap for how many black girls could be on the team and that no matter how many black guys were on the football team, people in the stands didn’t want to see more than a few African-American girls as part of the cheerleading squad. So I not only learned about being black and a woman, but also being light-skinned because one of my girlfriends who was dark-skinned and was equally good, did not make the team when I did. The other thing is I’m a sexual assault survivor and that was the year I was assaulted. The perpetrator is an African-American man, who was my neighbor. I didn’t tell [anyone] for about 10 years. One of the reasons I didn’t tell [anyone about it] was about race, [from] experiencing the worst kind of vulnerability as a girl and as a woman, and suddenly understanding what it means to be a girl and victimized in this way, and then for [the perp] to be someone who was in the [same] race group…

Read the entire interview here.

Melissa Harris-Perry: LGBT Advocates Need Public Progressive Faith

Religion Dispatches
Sexuality/Gender
University of Southern California
2011-05-31

Peter Montgomery, Associate Editor

Political scientist Melissa Harris-Perry has developed a devoted following with her appearances on Bill Moyers Journal and Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show, and her insightful commentaries on race, history, politics and culture in The Nation and elsewhere. Less well known among progressive activists may be that the self-described social-scientific data geek also makes a compelling case for a more powerful progressive religious voice in the public arena.

On May 23 (in the midst of a very public debate with her former Princeton colleague Cornel West) Harris-Perry gave the keynote address at the Human Rights Campaign’s Clergy Call, which drew hundreds of LGBT-equality-supporting clergy to Washington, D.C. for inspiration, mutual support, training, and lobbying visits on Capitol Hill.

The Civil Rights Agenda of Our Time

“My work is based in the empirical, not in the spiritual… I like data points. I like survey analysis. So what in the world am I doing here, an empirical social scientist straight girl at a clergy call around LGBT issues?” she asked. Her answer: “I believe that the struggle for equal human and civil rights for lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual, same-sex-loving, gender-nonconforming and queer persons is the civil rights agenda of our time.” And, she said, “faith must be part of the work we’re doing.”   

The religious history of Harris-Perry’s own family has the sweep of an American saga. Her mother, whose Mormon ancestors pushed handcarts across the country to their promised land in Utah, graduated from Brigham Young University in 1964, having spent most of her time there, Harris-Perry says, writing articles about Mormon womanhood. Meanwhile, her father, whose great-great-grandmother was sold as a slave on a street corner in Richmond, Virginia, attended Howard University where he was “converted to Black nationalism” and shared a room with Stokely Carmichael. By the time her mother and father met in Seattle in the early 1970s, each had become a parent and had been divorced. After they had Melissa, they moved their blended family and children—white, black, and mixed-race—to Virginia in the immediate aftermath of the civil rights movement. “In that context you had to be Unitarian Universalist,” she said to knowing laughter…

Read the entire article here.