Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

All of these things I took into consideration before coming to my own conclusions about my own identify. I first didn’t know I was Black. I then wanted to be Black. I knew I had African ancestry throughout High School and beyond college—to the point of calling myself a mulato. I might be “mixed” in the Dominican Republic, but here, in a foreign land that I now call home, I am Black. Not because American anthropologists or society tells and treats me like so—and believe me, they have—but because I choose to. I am Black through my own accord.

César Vargas, “César Vargas: How I Became Black,” Okayafrica. Giving you true notes since 247,000 BC, January 8, 2016. http://www.okayafrica.com/news/cesar-vargas-how-i-became-black/.

Playing with Race in the Early Republic: Mr. Potter, the Ventriloquist

Posted in Articles, Biography, History, Media Archive, United States on 2016-06-26 22:00Z by Steven

Playing with Race in the Early Republic: Mr. Potter, the Ventriloquist

The New England Quarterly
June 2016, Volume 89, Number 2
pages 257-285
DOI: 10.1162/TNEQ_a_00530

Paul E. Johnson, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History
University of South Carolina

The first American-born stage magician and ventriloquist was an African American named Richard Potter. Potter’s stage career (1811–1835) coincided with the transition from an entertainment culture grounded in a metropolitan Atlantic world to an American show business that was nationalist and racist. This essay traces Potter’s strategies and experiences within that transformation.

Read or purchase the article here.

Tags: New England Quarterly, Paul E. Johnson, Paul Johnson, Richard Potter, The New England Quarterly

Comments Off on Playing with Race in the Early Republic: Mr. Potter, the Ventriloquist

Mixed Race Studies

Playing with Race in the Early Republic: Mr. Potter, the Ventriloquist

Pages

Categories

Calendar of Posts

Links

Meta