{"id":26841,"date":"2012-12-07T19:20:15","date_gmt":"2012-12-07T19:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=26841"},"modified":"2013-02-20T04:51:41","modified_gmt":"2013-02-20T04:51:41","slug":"cnn-contributing-producer-probes-lingering-pain-of-the-%e2%80%98one-drop%e2%80%99-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=26841","title":{"rendered":"CNN Contributing Producer Probes Lingering Pain of the \u2018One Drop\u2019 Rule"},"content":{"rendered":"

CNN Contributing Producer Probes Lingering Pain of the \u2018One Drop\u2019 Rule<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

ColorLines: News for Action<\/a>
\n2012-12-07<\/p>\n

Akiba Solomon<\/a><\/strong>, Columnist, Gender Matters
\nNew York, New York<\/em><\/p>\n

Keep the concept of privilege-clinging in the back of your mind as you check out the work and words of Dr. Yaba Blay<\/a>, the driving force behind \u201cWho Is Black in America?\u201d the fifth installment of CNN\u2019s \u201cBlack in America\u201d series. Using Blay\u2019s Kickstarter-funded multimedia collaboration with photographer Noelle Theard<\/a> as a starting point, the show focuses on how people of African descent practice colorism, enforce identities based on appearance and the challenges of self-definition for multiracial people who aren\u2019t recognizably black.<\/strong> I caught up with Blay, an assistant professor of Africana Studies at Philadelphia\u2019s Drexel University (and, full disclosure, a Facebook-buddy-turned-friend), a few days after she co-hosted a special screening of the program on campus. Here, an edited, condensed version of our discussion.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s the origin of the (1<\/span>)ne Drop Project<\/a>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oftentimes we do research that\u2019s reflective of our lived experiences. So I\u2019ve been personally impacted by colorism growing up as a West African, dark-skinned girl in New Orleans where you\u2019ve got [self-described] black, white and Creole [cultures] and skin color politics are at the forefront of our social relationships there. I\u2019ve always been very aware that I\u2019m dark-skinned, in fact very dark-skinned. \u2026 I looked at colorism from the standard direction as far as how we look at the disadvantages of having dark skin in a racialized society. But there was always a part of me that wanted to explore the other side of this. \u2026 And actually, the first iteration of this project was called \u201cThe Other Side of Blackness,\u201d but \u201c(1)ne Drop\u201d just emerged [as a] more catchy name. I\u2019ve always known that light-skinned people were having their own experiences with skin color politics, but I wasn\u2019t necessarily sure how to approach the question. There are black people all over the world, but the imagery connected to [blackness] has been more nebulous. If I take my students on study abroad, say in Brazil, will they be able to recognize the black people? Or are they just living with the idea that the black people are the ones who look familiar?…<\/p>\n

Read the entire interview here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CNN Contributing Producer Probes Lingering Pain of the \u2018One Drop\u2019 Rule ColorLines: News for Action 2012-12-07 Akiba Solomon, Columnist, Gender Matters New York, New York Keep the concept of privilege-clinging in the back of your mind as you check out the work and words of Dr. Yaba Blay, the driving force behind \u201cWho Is Black […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,13743,6,394,20],"tags":[11800,3922,11801,8015,9847,7993,3343,7992],"class_list":["post-26841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-interviews","category-new-media","category-socialscience","category-usa","tag-akiba-solomon","tag-colorlines","tag-colorlines-news-for-action","tag-noelle-theard","tag-rosa-clemente","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\/26841","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=26841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26841\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}