Mixed Race Studies

Seeking Participants in a Research Study Examining Multiracial Individuals’ Attitudes Toward Seeking Counseling in the U.S.

Wright Institute, Berkeley, California
2013-10-25

Emmanuel Zamora
Department of Clinical Psychology

My name is Emmanuel Zamora, M.A. and I am a Psy.D. student in the Clinical Psychology program at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, CA. I am currently working towards completing my dissertation, and I am seeking participants for my research study examining multiracial individuals’ attitudes toward seeking counseling in the U.S.

Please consider participating in my survey if you meet the following criteria:

1. You are an adult (18+) living in the United States.
2. You have parents that are racially different from each other or you identify as multiracial (mixed race, mixed/multiple heritage, biracial, hapa, etc…)

As a participant you must be willing to complete an anonymous one-time online survey. Completing the survey takes approximately 25 minutes.

Participation is anonymous, strictly voluntary, and you can choose to withdraw at any time without penalty. If you successfully complete the questions in the survey, you will have the option to enter your e-mail address into a raffle with a chance to win one of six $30 Amazon gift-cards. E-mail addresses will be kept confidential.

The risks associated with this project are minimal, however it is possible that participation may elicit mild psychological distress related to the disclosure of information. There are no direct benefits to participating in this study; however you may find the questions interesting and reflecting on self can be enjoyable. Your responses may be used to educate mental health professionals in providing more helpful services for multiracial individuals.

If you have any questions about the study, please feel free to contact Emmanuel Zamora, M.A. at ezamora@wi.edu. You may also contact my dissertation chair, Alicia del Prado, Ph.D. at 510-841-9230 ext. 141. This survey received IRB approval on 10/25/2013. If you have any questions regarding your rights as a research subject, please contact The Wright Institute’s Institutional Review Board at (510) 841-9230.

For more information, click here.

African Slavery: The New Hollywood Renaissance

Our Weekly: Los Angeles
2013-11-14

William Covington, Contributor

With the recent release of “12 Years A Slave” and “Django Unchained” and numerous slave genre movies awaiting release, it appears the slavery motif is possibly generating a new African American Renaissance in Hollywood.

According to Pasadena screenwriter Herman James, “Hollywood doesn’t care about educating the nation on the institution that built this country. They are taking the pulse and following the money.

Movies about slavery have become a niche genre that has a strong possibility of making money, and James says this has nothing to do with a Black president in the White House or the fact that the Civil War took place 150 years ago. Instead, he thinks the proliferation may be attributed to the fact that recently Hollywood discovered that movies about slavery and plantations are profitable. “They are the new race movies. However, if they flop they will vanish as easy as they have become big-screen entertainment.”…

The race movies that James refers to are early movies produced between 1915 and 1950 for Black audiences…

…In “The North Star,” the character Big Ben escapes a southern plantation and makes his way north to freedom by following the North Star. He ends up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where he is helped by local Quakers who are part of the Underground Railroad, a system of hiding places and trails for those escaping the horrors of slavery. This movie is currently in post production.

“Belle” is inspired by the true story of Dido Elizabeth Belle (Gugu Mabatha-Raw), the illegitimate mixed-race daughter of a Royal Navy Admiral. Raised by her aristocratic great-uncle Lord Mansfield (Tom Wilkinson) and his wife (Emily Watson), Belle’s lineage affords her certain privileges, yet the color of her skin prevents her from fully participating in the traditions of her social standing. Expected to be released in 2014.

In “The Keeping Room,” three Southern women—two sisters and one African American slave—left without men in the dying days of the Civil War, are forced to defend their home from the onslaught of a band of soldiers who have broken off from the fast-approaching Union Army. It is scheduled for release in 2014…

Read the entire article here.

Now, to answer your first query—whether by our breach of treaties we have not justly exasperated the bordering nations of Indians against us, and drawn upon ourselves the barbarous usage we meet with from them and the French? … I shall only hint at some things which we ought to have done, and which we did not do at our first settlement amongst them, and which we might have learnt long since from the practice of our enemies the French. I am persuaded we were not deficient in the observation of treaties, but as we got the land by concession, and not by conquest, we ought to have intermarried with them, which would have incorporated us with them effectually, and made of them staunch friends, and, which is of still more consequence, made many of them good Christians; but this our wise politicians at home [in England] put an effectual stop to at the beginning of our settlement here, for when they heard that Rolfe married Pocahontas, it was deliberated in Council, whether he had not committed high treason by doing so, that is, marrying an Indian Princess; and had some troubles not intervened which put a stop to the inquiry, the poor man might have been hanged up for doing the most just, the most natural, the most generous and politic action that ever was done this side of the water. This put an effectual stop to all intermarriages afterwards.

But here methinks I can hear you observe, What! Englishmen intermarry with Indians? But I can convince you that they are guilty of much more heinous practices, more unjustifiable in the sight of God and man … for many base wretches amongst us take up with negro women, by which means the country swarms with mulatto bastards, and these mulattoes, if but three generations removed from the black father or mother, may, by the indulgence of the laws of the country, intermarry with the white people, and actually do every day so marry. Now, if instead of this abominable practice which hath polluted the blood of many amongst us, we had taken Indian wives in the first place, it would have made them some compensation for their lands. They are a free people, and the offspring would not be born in a state of slavery. We should become rightful heirs to their lands, and should not have smutted our blood, for the Indian children when born are as white as Spanish or Portuguese, and were it not for the practice of going naked, in the summer and besmearing themselves with bears’ grease, etc., they would continue white; and had we thought fit to make them our wives, they would readily have complied with our fashion of wearing clothes all the year round; and by doing justice to these poor benighted heathen, we should have introduced Christianity amongst them. Your own reflections upon these hints will be a sufficient answer to your first query. I shall only add that General Johnson’s success was owing, under God, to his fidelity to the Indians, and his generous conduct to his Indian wife, by whom he hath several hopeful sons, who are all war-captains, the bulwarks with him of the five nations, and loyal subjects to their mother country.

The Reverend Peter Fontaine of Virginia, in a letter to his brother Moses
March 30, 1757

Robert S. Tilton, Pocahontas: The Evolution of an American Narrative, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). 21-23.

Pocahontas: The Evolution of an American Narrative

Cambridge University Press
November 1994
276 pages
31 b/w illus
229 x 152 x 16 mm
Paperback ISBN: 9780521469593

Robert S. Tilton, Professor of English
University of Connecticut, Torrington

From the time of its first appearance, the story of Pocahontas has provided the terms of a flexible discourse that has been put to multiple, and at times contradictory, uses. Centering around her legendary rescue of John Smith from the brink of execution and her subsequent marriage to a white Jamestown colonist, the Pocahontas convention became a source of national debate over such broad issues as miscegenation, racial conflict, and colonial expansion. At the same time, Pocahontas became the most frequently and variously portrayed female figure in antebellum literature. Robert S. Tilton draws upon the rich tradition of Pocahontas material to examine why her half-historic, half-legendary narrative so engaged the imaginations of Americans from the earliest days of the colonies through the conclusion of the Civil War. Drawing upon a wide variety of primary materials, Tilton reflects on the ways in which the Pocahontas myth was exploded, exploited, and ultimately made to rationalise dangerous preconceptions about the native American tradition.

• The only study to focus exclusively on the Pocahontas narrative during this period
• Deals with crucial aspects of Indian/white relations, such as interracial marriages, and the place of the Indian in ‘Manifest Destiny’ ideology
• Brings together a number of visual images not elsewhere presented together

Table of Contents

• 1. Miscegenation and the Pocahontas narrative in colonial and federalist America
• 2. The Pocahontas narrative in post-Revolution America
• 3. The Pocahontas narrative in the era of the romantic Indian
• 4. John Gadsby Chapman’s Baptism of Pocahontas
• 5. The figure of Pocahontas in sectionalist propaganda
• Index

White mayor, black wife: Bill de Blasio and Chirlane McCray shatter an image in New York City

Minneapolis Star-Tribune
2013-11-16

Jesse Washington, National Writer/Race and Ethnicity
The Associated Press

Another milestone is passing in America’s racial journey: The next mayor of New York City is a white man with a black wife.

Even in a nation with a biracial president, where interracial marriage is more accepted and common than ever, Bill de Blasio’s marriage to Chirlane McCray is remarkable: He is apparently the first white politician in U.S. history elected to a major office with a black spouse by his side.

This simple fact is striking a deep chord in many people as de Blasio prepares to take office on Jan. 1, with McCray playing a major role in his administration…

Read the entire article here.

Victoria to fly flag in memory of executed Métis leader Louis Riel

Times Colonist
Victoria, British Columbia
2013-11-15

Richard Watts

The infinity-embossed flag of the Métis Nation will fly at municipalities around B.C. as they proclaim Saturday as Louis Riel Day.

Victoria, Langford and Sidney have agreed to the proclamation. Victoria has even agreed to fly the flag of the Métis Nation, a white infinity symbol (a sideways “8”) on a solid blue, black or red background.

Today, at Royal Roads University in the Blue Heron House, Métis culture will be showcased with a short film, bannock and tea, from 10 a.m. to noon.

Bill Bresser, president of Métis Nation Greater Victoria, said the celebration is part of a growing recognition across Canada that now sees Riel, not as an executed villain but as a defender of the Métis.

“He is now recognized not as a traitor but somebody fighting for his people and the rights and property of people that were being taken advantage of,” said Bresser.

Also, Bresser said, Métis people are now being recognized as legitimate builders of the modern country…

Read the entire article here.

Why Do You Call Yourself Black And African?

New African
2009-04-30

Carina Ray, Associate Professor of African and Afro- American Studies
Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts

A little over a year ago I received an email with the subject line “Ok I wonder why you call yourself ‘black’ and ‘African’” from a self-described longtime New African reader.  Even if subsequent emails have been less direct in their articulation of the same underlying sentiment, they all point in a similar direction: some people are confused about my racial background and about the way I racially identify myself.  Their need to seek clarification suggests that being able to label me is important to the way in which they understand the content of my columns.

I was perplexed at first by this seemingly sudden preoccupation with my race.  After all I’d been writing for New African for several years and never had anyone raise the subject before. It then occurred to me that these racial enquiries started happening almost immediately after my picture began running with my column.  Obviously there was a disconnect in the minds of some readers between my appearance and my writing, especially when I refer to myself as both Black and African, and use the collective “we” to talk about the past, present, and future of Black people worldwide.

Indeed, the fact that I claim my place in the global African world annoyed one reader so much that he asked, “Why do you keep on writing ‘we’?” Just in case he hadn’t already made his point clear he added, “You are not black in my eyes. You look much more Italian or Spanish. I can assure you, if you go to Africa you will be called ‘white’.” I always find it amusing that people seem to forget the proximity of southern Spain and Italy to Africa.  There is a reason after all that Spaniards and Italians from the south look a lot like North Africans—centuries of exchange between the two regions certainly wasn’t limited to material goods.

Ironically, however, the reader was partially right.  I am ¼ Italian, but I don’t look anything like my blond hair and blue eyed Italian paternal grandmother who came from Turin in the far north of the country.  Nor do I look anything like my paternal Irish grandfather.  The reader wasn’t off the mark either when he guessed I might be Spanish.  My mom is part Spanish. She is also Taíno Indian and African, most likely of Yoruba ancestry, as were many of the enslaved Africans who worked the sugar plantations on the island of Puerto Rico where my mom was born.  So there you have it: Taíno, Spanish, Northern Italian, Irish, and yes, African too.  Why, you might ask, if I am so thoroughly mixed race do I identify as Black and African?

Let me begin by providing the context necessary to understand the particularly unique way in which Black is defined in the United States, where I was born and raised. Black, as a legal-cum-racial category, was historically constructed in the broadest possible way in order to expand the number of people who could be enslaved and to limit the legal right of racially mixed people to claim their freedom.  Known as the “one-drop rule“, the idea that a person with even the slightest trace of African ancestry is Black has long outlived slavery in America.  What was once a legal construction became a socially constructed category that has and continues to encompass a broad range of very phenotypically diverse Black people.  While the racial landscape of the U.S. is home to Black people of all hues, hair textures, body shapes and sizes, and facial features, we do not all experience our blackness in the same way—far from it. Phenotype, class, gender, and geography all play major roles in shaping our individual experiences as Black people in America. Hierarchies based on skin tone, alone, have been at the root of painful divisions within the black community, and are often the basis for preferential treatment within the dominant white society. It has not been lost on African-Americans that if Barack Obama was the complexion of his father he would likely not be our president today…

Read the entire article here.

Seeking Female Participants for a Qualitative Study on Hybrid Identity

University of San Diego
2013-11-15

Roxanne J. Kymaani, M.S.
Life and Leadership Coach

I am a doctoral candidate in Leadership Studies at University of San Diego. I am trying to recruit female participants for a qualitative study that will explore whether a dialogic approach can help create the conditions for the construction of a new language for the hybrid identity that is currently labeled black and white, mixed race, and/or biracial.This study will explore in depth the lived experiences of women who have one black and one white parent, and compose a collective narrative about they describe themselves and their processes for constructing identity, as well as how their individual histories intersect within this new discourse.

Participants will be asked to complete a reflection questionnaire, participate in two group dialogues (each two hours long), and participate in one personal interview with the researcher. The dialogues will be held in San Diego, so participants should live within San Diego County or neighboring counties.

To participate in my study, you must meet the following criteria:

• Be female and 30 years of age or over.
• Have one black and one white parent that the participant identifies as such.
• Self-identify as black and white, biracial, mixed, mulatto, or other.
• Be born and raised in the United States.
• Be willing and cooperative to share and discuss your lived experiences with others during two live onsite scheduled group dialogues in December and January.

If you (or someone you know) qualify for this study, please email me to set up a time to interview. My email address is roxannekymaani@gmail.com.

Thank you in advance for any assistance you provide.

Black, White, Other: Biracial Americans Talk About Race and Identity [20th Anniversary Edition]

Smashwords Edition
October 2013
146,200 words (approximate)
eBook ISBN: 9781301877591

Lise Funderburg

In this 20th anniversary edition of the landmark “Black, White, Other,” journalist Lise Funderburg explores the lives of adult children of black/white unions. Her subjects’ unflinching honesty, whipsmart humor, and deep feeling result in a stunning — and enduring — portrait of race in America. New foreword by novelist Mat Johnson and links to updated commentary from the original participants.

Dr. Yaba Blay to Appear Tonight on “Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell”

Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell
FXX
Wednesday, 2013-11-13, 23:00 EST (2013-11-14, 04:00Z)

W. Kamau Bell, Executive Producer and Host

Tonight on Totally Biased, we proudly welcome Dr. Yaba Blay! 

Dr. Yaba Blay is a professor, producer, and publisher. As a researcher and ethnographer, she uses personal and social narratives to disrupt fundamental assumptions about cultures and identities. As a cultural worker and producer, she uses images to inform consciousness, incite dialogue, and inspire others into action and transformation. While her broader research interests are related to Africana cultural aesthetics and aesthetic practices, and global Black popular culture, Dr. Blay’s specific research interests lie within global Black identities and the politics of embodiment, with particular attention given to hair and skin color politics. Her 2007 dissertation, Yellow Fever: Skin Bleaching and the Politics of Skin Color in Ghana, relies upon African-centered and African feminist methodologies to investigate the social practice of skin bleaching in Ghana; and her ethnographic case study of skin color and identity in New Orleans entitled “Pretty Color and Good Hair” is featured as a chapter in the anthology Blackberries and Redbones: Critical Articulations of Black Hair/Body Politics in Africana Communities.

One of today’s leading voices on colorism and global skin color politics, Dr. Yaba Blay is the author of (1)ne Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race and artistic director of the (1)ne Drop project. In 2012, she served as a Consulting Producer for CNN Black in America – “Who is Black in America?” – a television documentary inspired by the scope of her (1)ne Drop project. In addition to her production work for CNN, Dr. Blay is producing a transmedia film project focused on the global practice of skin bleaching (with director Terence Nance).