Mixed Race Studies

Like all social constructs, race is real because we have made it so, and it seems immutable because we wish it to be. It’s no less powerful because humans invented it as a means of control. In fact, that may make it even more powerful. In the name of this deeply silly idea, my people have been plundered and enslaved and tortured, raped, incarcerated, shot, and starved. This deeply silly idea is, in fact, the only reason that my people are my people or why I exist in the first place. Race, although it may be a delusion, is one that has entranced the entire world and changed the course of human history forever.

Nylah Burton, “The Passing Trailer Highlights That Race Is A Delusion,” Refinery29, September 24, 2021. https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2021/09/10686104/passing-trailer-reaction-ruth-negga-tessa-thompson-race.

The Passing Trailer Highlights That Race Is A Delusion

Refinery29
2021-09-24

Nylah Burton

“Race is a delusion,” my friend sighed. We had been discussing passing, the act of someone from one race being accepted or perceived as a member of another, usually a marginalized race to white. After numerous anecdotes about the ridiculous race science-y tactics — gauging the slope of a nose is a popular one — that people employed to categorize others, this was our conclusion.

A week later, our Twitter timelines were scattered with comments on a tantalizing trailer for Passing, a forthcoming Netflix movie based on Nella Larsen’s 1929 novella of the same name. The film, which will be released on November 10, stars Ruth Negga as Clare and Tessa Thompson as Irene. According to Larson’s original story, both Clare and Irene are supposed to be white-passing.

Still, no matter how good their acting is, Negga and Thompson are not Clare and Irene. They’re not “dark-white” or “olive-skinned” characters on a page onto which we can project our own individual images. They’re flesh and bone people that the public solidly recognizes as Black women. There’s no real chance of delusion because we already feel in the know. Because of that, Twitter debated whether these two women could actually be white-passing. For many, the idea was ridiculous. They pointed out the features of Negga and Thompson’s flesh and bone — their skin, the shape of their noses, the curl of their baby hairs — to say it was impossible that these two women could have passed for white in the 1920s…

Read the entire article here.

“My identity was questioned a lot when I was growing up. I never really felt like I fit in anywhere. My mom’s boyfriend, who’s basically my stepdad, is Black. My white friends’ parents wouldn’t have a problem with me, but when they saw my stepdad, they wouldn’t let their kids come over anymore. And in middle school, I was called Medusa, Oreo, and a mutt.

Today, I still get the whole “Oh, you’re not really Black” thing because I’m light-skinned… and probably because I pass as white. Because I grew up with my white mom and I’m light-skinned, people will invalidate the fact that I’m Black. But I think being multiracial is its own thing. I’m not white and I’m not Black. I’m both.” —Tasha Gear, 25, Photographer

Khalea Underwood, “What It Really Feels Like To Be Asked “What Are You?”,” Refinery29, February 28, 2018. https://www.refinery29.com/2018/02/191865/black-women-racial-ambiguity-interview-photos.

What It Really Feels Like To Be Asked “What Are You?”

Refinery29
2018-02-28

Khalea Underwood

Nali Henry, 19, Artist Photographed by Myles Loftin.

Where are you from?”

“Florida.”

“Where are your parents from?”

“My mom’s from Ohio and my dad’s from Florida.”

“But, you know what I mean: What are you?”

This is the way most conversations with Tasha Gear, a 25-year-old photographer based in New York City, start. Tasha, who’s half Black and half white, has been fielding questions about her background since she could talk. “People barely say two words to me and then ask what I am,” she says. And hers is not an isolated experience.

Since interracial marriage was legalized in 1967, the percentage of interracial couples in the U.S. has grown from three percent to 17 percent. As a result, a new generation of ethnically ambiguous young people has formed; nearly one in seven infants born is considered “multi-racial,” according to a recent Pew Research Center study…

These young men and women — and the love they were born out of — should be cause for celebration. But in more cases, their experience is fetishism (every rapper on the top 40 list talks about bagging a “foreign” chick), speculation (“but what are you, really?”), or even a dismissal of identity within their own cultures.

In their own words, five multi-ethnic young people — who all identify as Black in some way — explain why they’re rejecting the “what are you?” question to explain who they really are…

Read the entire article here.

Let’s Stop This Offensive Term From Making A Comeback

Refinery 29
2017-03-09

Anna Jay & Rebecca Gonsalves

The other night I was out with a friend, and her friends, and their friends. You know, one of those evenings where you walk into the pub and realise you don’t know anyone. But seeing as this isn’t the first day of primary school and you can’t wail and cling to your mum’s leg, you have to suck it up, get a drink and start mingling.

The evening progressed and it seemed to be going well: small talk was made, jokes (and shots) were shared. On the dance floor, a new acquaintance leaned in all conspiratorial to tell me something about having slept with a guy at the bar. “Over there,” she said. “The half-caste guy.” The music was loud but there was no mistaking that ugly, old-fashioned phrase. I felt physically jarred, the blood rushing to my face. I usually hate confrontation – who doesn’t – but get a drink or two in me and I become altogether more argumentative…

Read the entire article here.