Mixed Race Studies

An Interview and a Snapshot

Neither/Both LLC: Counseling for Mixed individuals and interracial families
Minneapolis, Minnesota
2018-01-2018

Lola Osunkoya, MA, LPCC

Lola Osunkoya

Recently, I was contacted by someone out of state who wanted to interview me for a documentary they are filming for their thesis. They needed a professional or expert to discuss Mixed identity. I said no a couple of times due to time constraints as well as concerns about the project. A portion was sent to me that featured a White mother offering commentary about her Mixed children that was problematic—tone deaf comments about “good hair” and her perspective that her kids had no problems with their racial identity. After being reassured that this was exactly why they were seeking my perspective to add, I agreed to answer their questions via email.

I thought my answers turned out to be a pretty good snapshot of where I was at in December 2017 in the way I would describe my perspectives and experiences. It’s always tricky as a therapist to answer personal questions. Part of me wants to be completely transparent when talking about being Mixed, and part of me knows I need to take good care of my boundaries. It’s a flexible balance. The questions and my answers:

Read the entire article here.

‘You’re basically white’: my blackness on debate

Media Diversified
2017-09-11

Sam Kaner
Oxford, England

Sam Kaner talks about experiences of racialization as a person of mixed heritage

‘You’re basically white’

A phrase I frequently heard from white students at my school. They would tell me this after I had crossed a particular threshold in my relationship with them where their racialization of me as Other would soften. It was the point at which they questioned whether they should confer the same amount of respect to me as their white friends, operating under the assumption that being a light-skinned biracial person, I would receive their newfound perception of me as a compliment.

I recently fell into an argument with a white person because they had insisted to me that Mariah Carey couldn’t be black; she didn’t look black, she wouldn’t be racialized as black, and therefore, she should stop claiming to be something she’s not.

I find it concerning how white people will repeatedly make attempts to determine and declare who may claim blackness and who may not; and I wonder, in doing so, if they have ever instead critically considered how this interjection recalls the colonial imposition of blackness as something non-negotiable and as a marker of subjugation…

Read the entire article here.

Do you identify as a Biracial (Black and White) Activist?

Alliant International University, San Francisco
2018-01-04

Brittany Cooper, Ph.D. Candidate in Clinical Psychology
California School of Professional Psychology
Alliant International University, San Francisco, California

Win a $50 Visa Gift Card!

Do you identify as a Biracial (Black and White) woman?

We want to learn more about how you use your voice as an activist!

You are invited to participate in a study about Biracial women’s identity and activist expression. If you are at least 18 years old, we would like to hear your thoughts in confidential interviews. Your participation can place you in a raffle for a chance to win a $50 Visa Gift Card!

To participate, please contact: biracialactiviststudy@gmail.com.

If you have any questions or concerns about this study please contact B. Cooper, MA, Alliant International University, at: biracialactiviststudy@gmail.com.

Approved by Alliant International University Institutional Review Board.

Being Irish, mixed race and living abroad: it’s complicated

The Irish Times
2017-12-01

Conrad Bryan, Treasurer
Irish in Britain

A scene from Hashtag Lightie, playing at the Arcola Theatre in north London.

London play ‘Hashtag Lightie’ puts the spotlight on mixed-race identity

I live in London, a melting pot of cultures and ethnicities. It is a place where anything goes and where people of different ethnicities have always mixed, loved and married.

However, today the binary black and white notion of race is being challenged by the younger generation. They are choosing for themselves where they sit on the colour spectrum and how they self-identify. No longer will they accept other people labelling them.

Many are choosing to self-identify as mixed-race rather than black, which is causing a real debate in the black community here. This has many consequences for individuals struggling to determine where they fit in society, or what side to take…

Read the entire article here.

ASU student explores how parents in multi-racial families communicate about race

ASU Now
Arizona State University
2017-10-27

ASU doctoral student Annabelle Atkin

It’s First Friday at the Children’s Museum in Phoenix, Arizona. Amid the kids exploring giant bubbles, a kiddie car wash, and a paint maze, there is an 8×4 folding table with a red tablecloth draped over it. Behind the table sits the smiling face of Annabelle Atkin, a doctoral student at the T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University. An assortment of children’s books featuring characters with diverse racial backgrounds is spread before her. To her right is a colorful poster describing her multiracial families project.

Atkin is working on recruiting multi-racial families for her research. She is exploring how parents of multi-racial families communicate with their children about race, as well as the effects those conversations have on their children’s racial identity and development. Her excitement and interest in this topic shines through when she talks about the families she’s met so far…

Read the entire article here.

Who gets to be Metis? As more people self-identify, critics call out opportunists

National Post
2017-11-23

Graeme Hamilton

Robin Robichaud shows his t-shirt after a meeting for the Wobtegwa aboriginal community, a new Metis group. Christinne Muschi /National Post

The arrival of new players is stirring up tension with established Métis groups and raising concern among First Nations leaders

SHERBROOKE, Que. – The scent of burning sage lingers in the air as drummers begin a song of welcome. They are traditions dating back centuries, but on this Sunday afternoon the ceremony opens a gathering of one of the country’s youngest Aboriginal groups — the two-year-old Wobtegwa Métis clan.

The meeting, held in a high school auditorium, has brought together members from a corner of Quebec stretching northeast from Montreal past Quebec City and south to the United States border. Some of those present have long known of their Indigenous roots; for others the discovery has come recently. But they have all come together to push for government recognition of their rights.

“This clan is sovereign on its territory,” Yves Cordeau, band chief for the Lac-Mégantic region informs the group.

If the claim comes as news to many in Quebec, it’s because the province’s Métis awakening is recent. Raynald Robichaud, the Wobtegwa’s clan chief, says even members of his own family discouraged him from returning to his Aboriginal roots. “We knew we had a great-grandmother who was aboriginal, but our family absolutely did not want to talk about it, because they were afraid,” he says. “For us now, the fear is gone, and people are coming back.”…

…Checking a box on a census or connecting to family heritage is one thing. But as groups like the Wobtegwa lay claim to special services and territorial rights — in some cases, the same land as other Aboriginal groups — a backlash to the influx of new Métis is emerging. Some critics question the motivation of those who “become” Métis, and the impact of their activism on more established groups. Others question the right to self-identify at all…

…Leroux, Gaudry and organizations representing western Métis maintain that mixed ancestry alone does not make one Métis. True Métis — as recognized by the Constitution as one of Canada’s three aboriginal groups — must have roots in Manitoba’s historic Red River settlement, they say. That can include Métis all the way west to British Columbia and into Ontario, but not as far east as Quebec and the Maritimes…

Read the entire article here.

Emma: On Whether Irish Black People Are Woke, and on Changing “Foreign” Names

Dublin Inquirer
2017-10-25

Emma Dabiri

Illustration by Rob Mirolo

Do you think Irish black people are woke? What’s being woke? Is there any civil-rights movement? You’re mixed race, so are you black? Africa: would someone like yourself get the culture? What did you get culture-wise from your father’s side? Irish people come across as just trying to look for one person they can say… Yes, here is our black successful person, as opposed to uplift black Irish people in general […] In Dublin, Pavee Point has a centre. The LGBT community has Outhouse. Why do you think ethnic minorities don’t have such a place?

Cheeky! This is like 10 questions but I like ‘em, so let’s go. Let’s start with explaining “woke”. “Staying woke” refers to questioning the dominant paradigm, and occupying a state of awareness about structural oppressions.

The phrase “staying woke” has some early references in the 1960s, it was then further popularised in the 2008 song “Master Teacher” by Erykah Badu, but really caught on following the wave of protest after the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson and the subsequent rise of Black Lives Matter. In 2016, “woke” entered into the Oxford Dictionary…

…Am I black? Gosh you aren’t shying away from the big questions, now are ye? But yes, I identify as black. The thing is, despite being told I was black (and often not so politely) my whole damn life, and often being reminded that I wasn’t “really Irish”, my claiming of my blackness still elicits occasional cries of “But what about your ma?” or “You’re erasing your Irishness!” Blah blah di blah blah blah.

I think what we really need to look at is why a person with a white parent can identify as black, but why a person with a black parent can rarely, if ever, identify as white. We have to stop acting as though racial constructions are rational or ordered. They are not. I always say that you cannot be “half white”. You are either white or you’re not. And I’m not…

Read the entire article here.

“What are you?”: Embracing a mixed-roots identity

The Pitt News
2017-11-12

Erica Brandbergh, Columnist

(Illustration by Raka Sarkar | Senior Staff Illustrator)

I once asked my dad, out of curiosity, whether he put Caucasian, Asian or both on surveys that ask about his race. He paused for a bit and said he didn’t know. I asked if he identified with one more than the other, and he was unsure of that as well.

My dad is half-Japanese. He was born on an American Army base in Okinawa and came to the United States at a young age with my grandparents and his siblings. His mom — who we call “Oba” — is from southwestern Japan. My Oba never taught my father Japanese, so I never learned much beyond the basics that she taught me when she was my kindergarten teacher.

Despite my diminished interaction with my non-white heritage, it was clear from my experiences growing up as someone with only one-quarter Asian ancestry that white society at large didn’t consider me fully one of its own. That reality is even more pronounced for people who are half non-white, like my father, or even more…

Read the entire article here.

The quest for racial validity

The Berkeley Beacon
Boston, Massachusetts
2017-11-02

Elise Chen, Beacon Correspondent

I identify as a person of color, but in the fight for racial justice I often feel more like an ally than a member of the POC community.

I’m biracial—Chinese on my dad’s side, European descent on my mom’s. As I navigate through the world, I usually pass as white, which provides me with privileges most of my POC peers don’t have. I understand I have a responsibility to use this privilege as a tool to amplify the voices of people who continue to be silenced.

In many POC communities, members are encouraged to prioritize the voices of those within the group who are most marginalized. They often discourage centering whiteness in conversations, because it’s exhausting for members to hear about white people again when so much of life already revolves around the systemic inequality created and upheld by white people.

But when you’re a POC whose existence does, in fact, center on whiteness, it can feel isolating…

Read the entire article here.

The Census Always Boxed Us Out

Narratively: Human Stories, Boldly Told
2017-10-30

E. Dolores Johnson

Illustration by Xia Gordon

For most of our history, the U.S. government treated biracial Americans as if we didn’t even exist, but my family has stories to tell.

In June, 1967, I walked across the quad of Howard University, a light-skinned, 19-year-old sophomore. It was Black Power days, when I was on fire to learn the black history America had largely ignored. On that wide walkway, I ran into a boy from class who broke into a toothy smile, stuck out his much darker hand and shook mine vigorously, laughing like he had no sense.

“Congratulations,” he said.

“Congratulations for what?”

“For not being a bastard anymore.”

“What are you talking about?” I said, snatching my hand away. “I was born legit.”

“No you weren’t,” he said. The day before, the Supreme Court’s decision in Loving v. Virginia had overturned laws in 16 states outlawing interracial marriage, and he assumed that this meant my parents’ marriage was finally legal. In fact, my parents were married in New York, where their union was officially sanctioned, but the Loving decision was still a watershed — the start of a long journey to learn the truth about my mixed family’s place in America’s racial landscape…

Read the entire article here.