Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

People of mixed racial heritage, or “mulattoes,” symbolized the dependence of white men on black labor, both in the field and in the bed. Marked by their very skin color and other features as products of the white-black encounter in the South, mulatto women were obviously white and not-white, like “our white Caroline.” They were products of the long encounter between white exploiters of labor and black sources of labor, productive and reproductive. Their commodification reminded all that, in the South, every child of an enslaved mother was some form of slave laborer, an arrangement that enabled plantation slavery to function. Every enslaved man, woman, and child was a repository of reproductive capital and a source of production. The white political economy of the South would have collapsed without the legal and cultural fictions that assigned the “mulatto” and other children of African women to the created categories “black” and “enslaved.” Women like the “fair maid Martha,” and “the Yellow Girl Charlott” also, in their phenotypes, illustrated the long past of white sexual assault. “Mulatto” women thus embodied white dependency and white power, and offered men the chance to recapitulate and reexamine the past that had produced both white power and mixed-race individuals. Unwillingly, such women introduced a pornographic history, one obscene yet for that very reason more lusted-after, into the parlors, bedrooms, and above all, the markets of the elite white man’s world. They made flesh the years of white men desiring and depending on women (and men) who were supposedly less than civilized, Christian, or even human.

Edward E. Baptist, ““Cuffy,” “Fancy Maids,” and “One-Eyed Men”: Rape, Commodification, and the Domestic Slave Trade in the United States, 1876,” The American Historical Review, (December, 2001).

“Blaxicans of LA” challenges racial binaries and unpacks the complexities of intersectional identity

Posted in Articles, Arts, Campus Life, Latino Studies, Media Archive, United States on 2017-04-07 00:55Z by Steven

“Blaxicans of LA” challenges racial binaries and unpacks the complexities of intersectional identity

The Occidental Weekly
Los Angeles, California
2017-04-04

Mallory Leeper

Photograph by Walter Thompson-Hernández

Walter Thompson-Hernández, multimedia journalist and current doctoral student at UCLA, visited Occidental College Monday, March 27 to discuss his research, which aims to bridge the gap between academia and photography and popular culture. Thompson-Hernandez’s lecture explored the historical framework of brown and black relations including anti-black sentiments within the Latinx community. Thompson-Hernández sought to highlight the experiences of Angelenos facing issues of racial classification and assumed singular ethnic identity.

The Latino/a & Latin American Studies department at Occidental College and the Institute for the Study of Los Angeles (ISLA) co-sponsored the Blaxicans of LA lecture in Fowler 202. As a part of their spring speaker series, Professor Raul Villa, department chair, explained that the event is a part of an educational and promotional campaign to bring awareness about the stdy of Latinxs across the hemisphere to Occidental. According to Villa, Latinx representation is an important component in a global education.

Three years ago, Thompson-Hernández started the Instagram page Blaxicans of LA to address the complexity of intersectional experiences — especially those of “Blaxican,” a combination of African and Mexican heritage…

Read the entire article here.

Tags: California, Los Angeles, Mallory Leeper, Occidental College, Occidental Weekly, Raul Villa, The Occidental Weekly, Walter Thompson-Hernandez

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Multi attends fourth annual Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference

Posted in Articles, Campus Life, Media Archive, United States on 2017-03-21 01:45Z by Steven

Multi attends fourth annual Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference

The Occidental Weekly
Los Angeles, California
2017-03-14

Kristine White

For the first time, Multi, Occidental’s cultural club for multiracial and multicultural students, sent a group of eight members and nonmembers to the 2017 Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference at the University of Southern California from Feb. 24 to Feb. 26. The conference brought together scholars, activists and artists from around the globe to explore the field of critical race studies with over 50 panels, roundtables, caucus sessions and performances. In celebration of the 50-year anniversary of Loving v. Virginia, which declared interracial marriage legal, the theme of this year’s conference was “Explorations in Trans(gender, gressions, migrations, racial) Fifty Years After Loving v. Virginia.”

After last semester’s Multi Week, Oct. 23 to Oct. 28, Multi President Miki Konishi (junior) noticed that Multi garnered increased attention around campus from students. Konishi, Khloe Swanson (junior) and Eushrah Hossein created Multi three years ago in an effort to provide space for and discuss the experience of multiracial and multicultural identities. The club meets bimonthly to discuss issues that multiracial students face and to provide a safe space to discuss the various factors that affect their identity. Konishi explained that, before joining Multi, he attended other monocultural clubs on campus and found it necessary to provide a space for students who identify with multiple cultures…

Read the entire article here.

Tags: Alma Olavarria Gallegos, Eushrah Hossein, Hannah Schoenberger, Joshua Harmon, Khloe Swanson, Konishi, Kristine White, Miki Konishi, Multi, Occidental College, Occidental Weekly, The Occidental Weekly

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Mixed Race Studies

“Blaxicans of LA” challenges racial binaries and unpacks the complexities of intersectional identity

Multi attends fourth annual Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference

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