Mixed Race Studies

ITYC Interview: Multicultural Psychologist and Author Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu

Is That Your Child? Thought in Full Color
2013-02-11

Michelle Clark-McCrary, Host

Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu
Stanford University

ITYC had the great pleasure of talking with multicultural psychologist and author Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu about his latest book When Half is Whole: Multiethnic Asian Identities. Through deeply personal, raw storytelling, When Half Is Whole explores the complex journey of identity formation in a world where social and economic realities of race affect every facet of human life both here in the United States and abroad in countries like Japan…

Listen to the interview here.

As my critical contemplative response tempered my emotional one, I saw that the antiblack bias at the core of many multiracial organizations had shaped the larger discourse of mixedness and multiracial identity. While many mixed individuals and organizations are engaged and invested in social justice, discussions about mixed identity the realm of popular culture and mass media tend to frame the presence of black ancestry as a hindrance. While I believe that there is a definite mixed experience, I think that care must be taken not to cleave that experience from the broader historical continuum of how race has been constructed and reconstructed in America and that any analysis of race/identity must begin with defining whiteness and how the construction of whiteness has directly impacted the construction of all other identities in this country. As parents of black/white mixed kids and black/nonwhite mixed kids, we have to address the ways in which we’ve all internalized messages of antiblack bias and how that affects both the identity choices we make for our children and the ones we want them to make for themselves. For those outside the realm of the black/white/black/nonwhite mix, it’s still important to consider how antiblack bias relates to your child’s particular identity construction and how the historical black/white mixed binary informs how all mixed/multiracial identities are understood in our society.

Michelle Clark-McCrary, “Coming Clean About Blackness, Mixed Race Identity and the Multiracial Movement,” Is That Your Child? Thought in Full Color, (December 11, 2012). http://www.isthatyourchild.com/2012/12/coming-clean-about-blackness-mixed-race.html.

CNN’s Who’s Black in America: Some Thoughts

Is That Your Child? Thought in Full Color
2012-12-12

Michelle Clark-McCrary

So here’s an audio journal with my reflections on last Sunday night’s CNN Who’s Black in America special. Ultimately, my view of this special and the entire series as a whole is that conversations about race cannot happen without first directly addressing, defining, and recognizing whiteness. If whiteness/white supremacy are not central to your examination of racial identity and racial identity formation, then the conversation will inevitably lay the issues and outcomes of racial inequality at the feet of nonwhite people. I think this is what happened on Sunday night and I think that’s what happened with the series as a whole. The space of commercial cable news in many ways is no friend to nuance or complexity and that the commercial motivations of these outlets somehow impact their willingness to “say white.”…

Listen to the audio journal here.

Coming Clean About Blackness, Mixed Race Identity and the Multiracial Movement

Is That Your Child? Thought in Full Color
2012-12-10

Michelle Clark-McCrary

Before I go into my reflections on CNN’s “Who’s Black in America” series, I have to come clean about the evolution of my personal perspective on blackness, mixed race identity and the “multiracial movement.” Over that last three years, I’ve been trying to develop a deeper, more nuanced understanding of race-particularly as it relates to how my marriage, motherhood, and my daughter fit within the historical continuum of our racialized society. Part of my process has to do with balancing my emotional, gut responses to race/racism with my contemplative, critical responses to race/racism. To be clear, there is room for both responses to simultaneously coexist. I’m a firm believer in trusting one’s instinctual, emotional responses, while at the same time interrogating and rounding out those responses with more rational, contemplative thought…

…As my critical contemplative response tempered my emotional one, I saw that the antiblack bias at the core of many multiracial organizations had shaped the larger discourse of mixedness and multiracial identity. While many mixed individuals and organizations are engaged and invested in social justice, discussions about mixed identity the realm of popular culture and mass media tend to frame the presence of black ancestry as a hindrance. While I believe that there is a definite mixed experience, I think that care must be taken not to cleave that experience from the broader historical continuum of how race has been constructed and reconstructed in America and that any analysis of race/identity must begin with defining whiteness and how the construction of whiteness has directly impacted the construction of all other identities in this country. As parents of black/white mixed kids and black/nonwhite mixed kids, we have to address the ways in which we’ve all internalized messages of antiblack bias and how that affects both the identity choices we make for our children and the ones we want them to make for themselves. For those outside the realm of the black/white/black/nonwhite mix, it’s still important to consider how antiblack bias relates to your child’s particular identity construction and how the historical black/white mixed binary informs how all mixed/multiracial identities are understood in our society…

Read the entire article here.