Mixed Race Studies

Don’t let the politics of BLM define mixed-race Americans

The New York Daily News
2021-06-19

Charles Byrd

Mixed-race Americans (Shutterstock/Shutterstock)

Prior to June 12, 1967, anti-miscegenation laws still existed in the southern United States. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned those remaining statutes of segregationist race-consciousness with its landmark “Loving v. Virginia” decision. That case did not magically eradicate racist attitudes towards interracial couples and their progeny, but it did signal yet another milestone in our country’s continuing evolution from a slaveholding society to one that extends the same civil rights and freedoms to all.

The 2020 Census allowed multiracials to again choose multiple boxes instead of being forced to identify solely with one race, yet in the throes of the current Black Lives Matter era, there is a seeming renewed effort to compel mixed Black/white Americans to look in the mirror and acknowledge that, in the face of “relentless white supremacy” particularly on the part of law enforcement, they will always be viewed and treated as Black and nothing else. That rationale runs counter to the philosophy that how one views oneself is more important than societally imposed identities, a worldview that a growing number of mixed-race Americans embrace…

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Being mixed-race in the age of BLM

The New York Daily News
2021-06-12

Tanya K. Hernández, Archibald R. Murray Professor of Law; Associate Director & Head of Global and Comparative Law Programs and Initiatives
Fordham University School of Law, New York, New York

Protesters march for the sixth consecutive night of protest on September 7, 2020, following the release of video evidence that shows the death of Daniel Prude while in the custody of Rochester Police in Rochester, New York. (MARANIE R. STAAB/AFP via Getty Images)

Today marks the 54th anniversary of the Loving v. Virginia, the landmark Supreme Court decision that invalidated interracial marriage bans in the United States in 1967. Interracial marriage has been legal across the nation for nearly half a century, but the children of mixed-race marriages and other interracial unions are still subject to many other types of discrimination that their parents and ancestors faced. The persistence of such bias shows that while courts have may have remedied the bias behind interracial marriage bans, but they remain unable to blunt the continued vibrancy of white supremacy in the United States.

In my book, “Multiracials and Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories of Discrimination,” I found that mixed-race arrestees describe their experiences of racial profiling and police violence in much the same way that single-race identified non-whites do. Thus, like George Floyd, the African-American man killed in 2020, by police officer Derek Chauvin, multiracial people can also experience being viewed as so inherently suspicious that they warrant out-sized interventions based upon their non-white racial appearance…

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Mayor de Blasio’s son Dante says the SHSAT, the elite high school admissions test, fostered racism at Brooklyn Tech

New York Daily News
2018-06-14

Dante de Blasio (son of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Chirlane McCray, is a rising senior at Yale University.)

Dante de Blasio attends the Brooklyn Technical High School graduation ceremony on June 19, 2015. (Stephanie Keith for New York Daily News)

A year after I graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School in 2015, the hashtag #BlackinBrooklynTech started appearing on my social media. Black students and recent alumni were using it to share stories of overt acts of racism at the school.

The stories included a teacher laughing at a black student when that student shared her dream of becoming a doctor, white and Asian students using racial slurs to bully black students, and faculty members ignoring a black student’s complaints after he was called the N-word and “monkey” by his peers.

Older black alumni soon got involved, and they shared many of their own stories at a public meeting with the principal. The current and former students who drove the campaign were sick of having to defend their right to earn an elite education in the face of adversity from the students and faculty meant to support their success.

I understood exactly where my fellow black alumni were coming from. I’d had many of my own experiences. Some of them might seem innocuous. For example, I remember being the only black kid in many of my classes (something that seemed normal to many of my classmates). However, many experiences displayed the racism which was all too common in the school…

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EXCLUSIVE: White supremacist James Jackson reveals deranged desire to kill black men to save white women in jailhouse interview

The New York Daily News
2017-03-26

Ellen Moynihan and Steven Rex Brown

The racist who fatally drove a sword through 66-year-old Timothy Caughman said Sunday he hoped the attack would stop white women from entering relationships with black men.

In an exclusive Rikers Island interview with the Daily News, James Jackson, 28, offered a window into his deranged, hate-filled psyche.

He shared details about his upbringing with “typical liberal” parents, his wishes to have shed more African-American blood, and his fear of being killed in custody now that he is being held in a jail with a largely minority inmate population and staff.

During the disturbing sitdown, Johnson was at times self-aggrandizing, boasting of his white supremacy without shame. In other moments, he appeared dejected by society’s rejection of his violent, racist message — which echoed another notorious racist killer, South Carolina church gunman Dylann Roof.

Most chillingly, Jackson said he had traveled to New York from Baltimore intending to kill numerous black men, imagining that the bloodshed would deter white women from interracial relationships. “‘Well, if that guy feels so strongly about it, maybe I shouldn’t do it,’” he said, imagining how he wanted a white woman to think…

…In 2008, Jackson said, he voted for Barack Obama for President, one of the few people of mixed race he said he could respect. “I couldn’t let Palin get in there. She’s stupid,” he said, referencing then-Republican candidate for vice president Sarah Palin…

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Mixed marriages, stubborn racial bias: Discrimination persists for the nonwhite

The New York Daily News
2016-12-09

Tanya Katerí Hernández, Professor of Law
Fordham University

Mildred and Richard Loving (Associated Press)

“I ’m pregnant.” Those are the first two words uttered in the recently released film “Loving.” The poignant opening prompts viewers to consider the most contested social consequence of interracial relationships: mixed-race children.

“Loving” depicts the real-life struggle of Mildred and Richard Loving in the 1960s as they fought to get interracial relationships legally recognized. This battle culminated in the 1967 Supreme Court case of Loving vs. Virginia, which invalidated interracial marriage bans across America.

Interracial marriage has been legal for nearly half a century. But the products of those marriages are subject to discrimination that reveals a great deal about race in America, and the cultural status of those unions.

In my own examination of civil rights cases across employment, housing, public accommodations, education and jury service, I find an increasing number of claimants who identify themselves as multiracial and biracial. The cases frequently describe acts of discrimination accompanied by pointed, derogatory comments about nonwhiteness — and blackness in particular…

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“As many of you know, I was adopted. As African-Americans in general, it’s often hard to know where our ancestry, where our roots are. As someone that was adopted, for me, it has been even harder. All I ever really knew was that I was from Milwaukee, but recently, I took an Ancestry DNA test and discovered that my ancestors are from Ghana and Nigeria. It changed everything for me. It helped me know that my history did not begin with being adopted. It did not begin with slavery. It’s even part of why I wear this Afro now. I’m not going to hide who I am.” —Colin Kaepernick

Shaun King, “KING: Colin Kaepernick’s ‘I Know My Rights Camp’ cements his status as a cultural superhero in the black community,” The New York Daily News, October 29, 2016. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/king-kaepernick-camp-cements-status-black-community-article-1.2850326.

KING: Colin Kaepernick’s ‘I Know My Rights Camp’ cements his status as a cultural superhero in the black community

The New York Daily News
2016-10-29

Shaun King

Daily News columnist Shaun King, his son, and Colin Kaepernick pose for picture after Kaepernick’s camp. (Shaun King/New York Daily News)

“Dad. Does Colin still have a game on Sunday?”

The question was a smart one for any football fan to ask – particularly one who’s rooting hard for Colin Kaepernick and the San Francisco 49ers.

It was 12:49 a.m. in Oakland late Friday night. My 10- year-old son, EZ, and I, made the trek there from New York and we were dragging. For our bodies it felt like 4 a.m.

We were invited by Kaepernick to attend a camp on Saturday morning and I had just gotten a text from Colin.

It read, “Hey Shaun. I just wanted to check and make sure you and your son made it safe my brother.”

I replied, “Thanks man. Just now checking in at the hotel. We took a late flight. See you soon bro.”

And his reply was what shocked my son and I both…

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Mayor de Blasio says his ‘exemplary’ son Dante follows the law, but fears police brutality: ‘Black Lives Matter as an idea is so important’

The New York Daily News
2016-07-15

Jennifer Fermino, City Hall Bureau Chief

Mayor de Blasio said he finds it “intolerable” when protesters lodge “vile” insults at cops, but also defended the Black Lives Matter movement as “necessary.” (KEN MURRAY/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)

Dante de Blasio is an “exemplary” teen who never gets in trouble – but even he is scared of being a victim of police violence, Mayor de Blasio said on Friday.

The mayor, speaking about race matters on the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC, spoke openly about his son after an African-American Queens grandmother called in to complain that she was afraid “racist” cops would hurt her teenaged grandsons.

His comments immediately touched a nerve with the Police Benevolent Association, who blasted him for not vigoriously defending the NYPD against the woman’s charges…

Read the entire article here.

Al Sharpton says some criticism of de Blasio is related to his mixed race family

The New York Daily News
2016-01-05

Jennifer Fermino, City Hall Bureau Chief

The Rev. Al Sharpton thinks that some of Mayor de Blasio’s woes stem from his mixed race family.

Speaking Tuesday morning at an interfaith breakfast, Sharpton said that de Blasio, whose wife is black and has two mixed-race kids, and President Obama have upset the status quo.

“We elected a President of a different race, and a different bent. And not long after this city elected a mayor, after years of developers and others setting the tone in this city, that set a different tone in New York,” said Sharpton.

“And when many looked up and saw an African-American family in the White House, and a biracial family in Gracie Mansion at the same time, they tried to trump them.”

The comment — and veiled barb at White House contender Donald Trump — drew laughter from the crowd, which included many faith leaders as well as de Blasio and First Lady Chirlane McCray.

“God always has the prophets for the time in which they live,” said Sharpton.

“You’re in the age of Obama. You’re in the age of de Blasio. Put away your sermons from the age of Nixon.”…

Read the entire article here.

Even though my skin is fair, not once have I considered what it would be like to somehow transform myself into “being white.” I wouldn’t even know where to begin. By the time I was in the seventh grade, I exclusively sat at the “black lunch table,” not as a guest, but as a resident. I’ve been sitting there ever since.

Shaun King, “Shaun King: I’ve been called the N-word since I was 14, but now those same people want me to be white,” The New York Daily News, November 3, 2015. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/king-people-call-n-word-white-article-1.2421243.