{"id":26792,"date":"2013-11-12T02:16:45","date_gmt":"2013-11-12T02:16:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=26792"},"modified":"2013-11-12T02:16:32","modified_gmt":"2013-11-12T02:16:32","slug":"soledad-o%e2%80%99brien-explores-racial-and-ethnic-identity-in-provocative-black-in-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=26792","title":{"rendered":"Soledad O\u2019Brien Explores Racial and Ethnic Identity in Provocative Black in America"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com\/2012\/12\/04\/soledad-obrien-explores-racial-and-ethnic-identity-in-provocative-black-in-america\/\" target=\"_blank\">Soledad O\u2019Brien Explores Racial and Ethnic Identity in Provocative Black in America<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">CNN Press Room<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\" target=\"_blank\">Cable News Network<\/a>\u00a0(CNN)<br \/>\n2012-12-04<\/p>\n<p><em>Who is Black in America? <\/em>Debuts Sunday, Dec. 9 at 8:00 p.m. &amp; 11:00p.m. ET &amp; PT<br \/>\n<strong>U.S. Encore: <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Sunday<\/span>, <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">January 27, 2013,\u00a0\u00a020:00 p.m. ET, 23:00 p.m ET, and\u00a0Monday, 02:00 ET<\/span><\/strong><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">International Debut on CNN International:<\/span> <span style=\"color: #000000;\">Sunday, January 13, 02:00Z and 10:00Z (Saturday, January 12, 21:00 EST and Sunday, January 13, 05:00 EST).<\/span> <\/strong><\/span><strong>View regional schedules <\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/CNNI\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>here<\/strong><\/a><strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t really feel Black,\u201d says 17-year-old Nayo Jones. Her mother is Black; she was raised apart from her by her White father, and she identifies herself as biracial. \u201cI was raised up with White people, White music, White food so it\u2019s not something I know,\u201d she says in a new documentary that explores the sensitive concepts of race, cultural identity, and skin tone.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CWcs7YsZVuY?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>For the fifth installment of her groundbreaking <em>Black in America <\/em>series, CNN anchor and special correspondent <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/CNN\/anchors_reporters\/obrien.soledad.html?iref=allsearch\" target=\"_blank\">Soledad O\u2019Brien<\/a><strong> <\/strong>reports for <em>Who is Black in America?<\/em> The documentary debuts Sunday, December 09 at 8:00p.m. and 11:00p.m. ET &amp; PT and replays on Saturday, December 15 at 8:00p.m. and 11:00p.m. ET &amp; PT.<\/p>\n<p>Is Jones Black? Is Blackness based upon skin color or other factors? The 2010 U.S. Census found 15 percent of new marriages are interracial, a figure that is twice what was reported in 1980. <strong>One in seven American newborns were of mixed race in 2010, representing an increase of two percent from the 2000 U.S. Census.<\/strong> Within this context, O\u2019Brien examines how much regarding race and identity are personal choices vs. reflections of an external social construct.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.timwise.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Tim Wise<\/a>, an author and anti-racism activist believes in self identification, but says, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=26180\" target=\"_blank\">in practice, society often will remind biracial people like Jones of their Blackness<\/a>, \u201cin a million subtle ways,\u201d he says in the documentary.<\/p>\n<p>As the hour unfolds, O\u2019Brien follows Jones, and her best friend and fellow high school student Becca Khalil, as they take part in a spoken word workshop led by the Philadelphia-based poet, <a href=\"http:\/\/phillyyouthpoets.org\/issue\/july-2011\/article\/vision\" target=\"_blank\">Perry \u201cVision\u201d DiVirgilio<\/a>.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nVision, who is biracial, says he never felt quite White or Black enough to fit in with friends who had parents of one race.\u00a0 Vision identifies as Black, and says that identity is more than skin \u2013 that identity encompasses experiences and struggles.\u00a0 Through his workshop, he encourages young people to think, talk, and write about identity, as well as the concept of colorism, which he blames for his early struggles with self-esteem and identity.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n\u201cColorism is a system in which light skin is more valued than dark skin,\u201d says Drexel University\u2019s assistant teaching professor for Africana studies, <a href=\"http:\/\/yabablay.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Yaba Blay<\/a>.\u00a0 Blay tells O\u2019Brien that, as a young African-American woman growing up in New Orleans, she felt discriminated against \u2013 often by lighter skinned African Americans \u2013 due to her dark skin tone.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nBlay\u2019s work focuses on how prejudice related to skin tone can confuse and negatively impact identity and self esteem.\u00a0 She aims to help others also develop positive images of cultural identity \u2013 for African Americans of all shades.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nOften complicating concepts of identity beyond multiracial heritage is skin tone.\u00a0 Khalil, who has light-colored skin and two parents who are Egyptian in origin, identifies herself as African American.\u00a0 She feels contemporaries dismiss her African American identity due to her light skin tone.\u00a0 She says in the documentary that she wishes she had darker skin.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nWriter, producer, and image activist, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Michaela_Angela_Davis\" target=\"_blank\">Michaela Angela Davis<\/a> says she accepts that race is a social construct, but she feels it is important for people to name and claim their own racial identity: \u201cYou are who you say that you are,\u201d she says in the documentary&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire press release <a href=\"http:\/\/cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com\/2012\/12\/04\/soledad-obrien-explores-racial-and-ethnic-identity-in-provocative-black-in-america\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Soledad O\u2019Brien Explores Racial and Ethnic Identity in Provocative Black in America CNN Press Room Cable News Network\u00a0(CNN) 2012-12-04 Who is Black in America? Debuts Sunday, Dec. 9 at 8:00 p.m. &amp; 11:00p.m. ET &amp; PT U.S. Encore: Sunday, January 27, 2013,\u00a0\u00a020:00 p.m. ET, 23:00 p.m ET, and\u00a0Monday, 02:00 ET International Debut on CNN International: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,125,8,394,20,842],"tags":[12983,9447,3142,12980,12984,12982,12981,12774,7870,7993,3343,7992],"class_list":["post-26792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-identitydevelopment","category-media-archive","category-socialscience","category-usa","category-videos","tag-becca-khalil","tag-cable-news-network","tag-cnn","tag-michaela-angela-davis","tag-nayo-jones","tag-perry-divirgilio","tag-perry-vision-divirgilio","tag-soledad-obrien","tag-tim-wise","tag-yaba-a-blay","tag-yaba-amgborale-blay","tag-yaba-blay"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26792\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}