Mixed Race Studies

New doc on Shadeism doesn’t make the cut

Mixed In Canada
2014-12-08

Rema Tavares

Debuting November 10th, 2014 on the CBC’s free preview on their documentary channel, Hue: A Matter of Colour opens with the narrator and main subject, Vic Sarin, discussing his relationship to his mixed-race family (or if anything lack thereof). This movie, he reveals, is his way of explaining his strange and often absentee behaviour to his children. The children provide an example of said behaviour by explaining how he refuses to go on the beach with them, choosing instead to stay out of the sun, as well as staying out of family photos. He also tells us that he has a strained relationship with his first born from a previous marriage, in part because he never showed up for a family vacation in the Caribbean due to his compulsion to work. Meanwhile, the backdrop is of the children packing for a family vacation to Sarin’s favourite destination, Brazil, the place where the film opens and closes.

While it is a bit obscure at first, he eventually informs the viewer that he was born in India to a diplomat father (read privileged), raised in Australia for a while, eventually ended up in Toronto Ontario in the 60s, and now resides in Vancouver, BC with his family. Every country of residence impacts him in a different way: in India he discusses how he was scolded for playing in the sun. In Australia he very badly wants to become a citizen but is denied due to racist immigration policies which devastates him. In Toronto he was very aware that he was marginalized and isolated, being one of only a few people of colour, and having only white friends. He also rhetorically asks an insightful question regarding his choice in marrying two white women, commenting on how that was likely not a coincidence, regardless of the real or perceived lack of eligible Indian women in Canada.

As a viewer, it was pretty clear to me from the outset that this documentary was going to be centered around his and other people of colour’s internalized racism, which is very much related to and often a result of shadeism. However, the latter isn’t a necessary condition for the prior. In other words, while it is improbable that we can completely rid ourselves of our internalized racism as people of colour, I believe that it is possible to look at shadeism with a critical eye (not to be confused with the problematic & Eurocentric “objective” eye). Simply discussing internalized racism though, without even as much as naming it, is a dangerous arena in which to venture unless you come prepared with heavy critical analysis to accompany it. Unfortunately, this is not what happens, which leads to several problematic & triggering moments in the film…

Read the entire review here.

2014 National Poetry Month Poem of the Day: Fred Wah

Turnstone Press
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
2014-04-16

“Waiting for Saskatchewan,” the title poem for the book, arose out of an event that occurred in Nelson, BC on a winter night in the early ’80s. We had been anticipating an exhibition of art from Saskatchewan about to open at a local art gallery when we were advised that the show would be delayed due to heavy snows over Kootenay Pass, preventing delivery of the art. So I took the poetic hint and used the phrase to meditate on my own historically tethered relationship to Saskatchewan, a place that held, for me, the complications of a mixed-race family history and the geographical site for an Asian-European intersection, a kind of hyphen that I have used to construct a personal imaginary. The poem is a biotext that offers the space to measure the accumulation of particularities and apprehensions, dreams, and memory. The poem is one way to remember the future.

—Fred Wah on “Waiting for Saskatchewan”

Waiting for Saskatchewan
and the origins grandparents countries places converged
europe asia railroads carpenters nailed grain elevators
Swift Current my grandmother in her house
he built on the street…

Read the entire poem here.

Hot Topic: Crisis in Ferguson, Missouri

Carleton Newsroom
Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
2014-11-28

Unrest is spreading in response to a grand jury’s decision not to indict a white police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black teen in Ferguson, Missouri. A Carleton expert is available to discuss many aspects of the situation.

Daniel McNeil
Associate professor in the Department of History and the Institute of African Studies
Email: daniel.mcneil@carleton.ca
Phone: 613-520-2600 Ext.2835

McNeil’s research focuses on the cultural history of areas bordering the Atlantic Ocean during the 20th and 21st centuries. His publications include Sex and Race in the Black Atlantic: Mulatto Devils and Multiracial Messiahs. He is regularly invited to share his research about media, culture and society with academic, governmental and non-governmental organizations around the world…

Read the entire press release here.

Waiting For Saskatchewan

Turnstone Press
1985
96 pages
Paperback ISBN: 978-0888011008

Fred Wah

Winner of the Governor General’s Award for Poetry 1985

Wah interprets memory—a journey to China and Japan, his father’s experience as a Chinese immigrant in small Canadian towns, images from childhood—to locate the influence of genealogy. The procession of narrative reveals Wah’s own attempts to find “the relief of exotic identity.”

The corporate institution of mixed race: Indigeneity, discourse, and Orientalism in Aboriginal policy

Critical Race and Whiteness Studies
Volume 10, Number 1, 2014
17 pages

Camie Augustus
Department of History
University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Contradiction in Aboriginal policy, especially the oscillation between assimilation and segregation, is often viewed as inconsequential. The suggestion has been that inconsistency is typical of governments and even expected of administrations that have little time, money, or motivation to be overly concerned with Aboriginal matters. However, I posit that ambiguity has meaning. I propose that utilizing Said’s concept of the corporate institution of Orientalism reveals a ‘mixed-race’ discourse in government records during the late 19th and early 20th centuries that in fact gives meaning to this contradictory nature. I examine the ways in which the texts of Aboriginal law and policy in Canada, the US, and Australia constitute a specific mixed-race discourse of ambivalence and ambiguity, in contrast to a racial discourse of certainty. Based on a discourse analysis of key policy texts, I conclude that ambiguity and ambivalence constitute part of a colonial structure based on racial binarisms where an absence of space for ‘those in between’ reflected the perceived transitional and transient nature of ‘mixed-race’ as a temporary category, and the impetus to eliminate it. This discourse is surprisingly similar and persistent across a broad span of time and space, suggesting that questions about racial mixing and the presence of mixed-ancestry Natives constituted a major determining factor in the shaping of Aboriginal law and policy in these three countries between 1850 and 1950.

Read the entire article here.

Mixed-Race Identity, Ferguson & Why it Matters to Us

Mixed In Canada
2014-11-25

Rema Tavares

By now you probably already know that Darren Wilson wasn’t indicted yesterday, November 24th, 2014 for murdering unarmed Black youth Mike Brown on August 9th, 2014. Ever since that day, folks around the world have been showing their support, as well as massive hatred, towards the Brown family. Today in Canada, there will be protests in Toronto & Vancouver as well as in Hamilton on December 1st. So what does this mean to us, mixed-race identified people? While I can’t speak on behalf of all mixed-race identified people, here are some thoughts that come to mind about how it affects us.

NON BLACK-MIXED FOLKS: Show your solidarity to your Black-mixed brothers, sisters & trans* siblings. Black and Indigenous folks (mixed-identified or not) face the most heinous forms of state-sanctioned violence around the world and here in Canada. Our struggle is your struggle, just as yours is ours, all oppression is connected. #IdleNoMore #BlackLivesMatter

FOLKS MIXED WITH WHITE: Calling out white supremacy does not mean that you don’t love your white family. If anything, seeing our friends and family as real people with flaws, is true love. We have all been raised in this system, we are all complicit. Let us remember that the revolution starts at home.

BLACK MIXED FOLKS: Make sure to take care of yourself and if you can, reach out to our brothers, sisters & trans* siblings. Take time for self care and care of the community…

Read the entire article here.

Marni Soupcoff: A law that bans ‘mixed race’ couples? Yes. In 2014. In Canada

National Post
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
2014-11-06

Marni Soupcoff, Deputy Comment Editor

A Canadian woman falls in love and joins her life with that of a man of a different race. As a direct result of this union, she is harassed, receives notice of eviction, and is told she must leave her home.

What century are we talking about? This one, I’m afraid; and the culprit is not some errant racist landlord trying to throw one tenant out of a building. It’s the Kahnawake Mohawk council, which has a law that bans all “mixed race” couples from living anywhere in its Montreal-area territory.

Waneek Horn-Miller is half of one of those “mixed race” couples who has been told to get out. Horn-Miller may be a Mohawk, but because her common-law husband (and the father or her two children) is white, the aboriginal activist and former Olympian is no longer welcome or permitted to live on Kahnawake territory.

This is happening in 2014. Which, to put things in context, is 47 years after the United States Supreme Court ruled anti-miscegenation (or race-mixing) laws unconstitutional in that country…

Read the entire article here.

Conceptualizing, and Re-conceptualizing, Mixed Race Identity Development Theories and Canada’s Multicultural Framework in Historical Context

SFU Educational Review
Volume 1, Number 1 (2014)
ISSN: 1916-050X
18 pages

Samantha Fischer
Department of Psychology
Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada

“Racism is like a fleet-footed bedbug that runs for cover under a sweet-smelling duvet stuffed with politeness and tolerance for multiculturalism” (Hill, 2001, p. 155).”

Scope of the topic, and paper organization

This paper will examine the most prominent theories of identity development of mixed race people in Canada from the late 1800s to the present day in the emergent multicultural context. It will examine the theories and contexts related to all mixed race people rather than focusing on a specific group.

This paper will commence with a discussion of the relevance of the topic, and an overview of multiculturalism policies in Canada. In the second part of the paper, the history of concepts relating to mixed race identity development in Canada will be analyzed in historical context and, when possible, related to the Multiculturalism Policy. In the third section of this paper, the current theories of mixed race identity development and multiculturalism will be addressed. Finally, the need to re-conceptualize race and/or mixed race identity, and current proposals for re-conceptualization will be outlined. When selecting this topic, it was assumed that identity development theories would need to be adapted to suit multiculturalism; however, it was found that the current theories addressing mixed race individuals were comprehensive, and enough empirical and theoretical evidence existed to suggest that they meet the needs of mixed race people. Thus, to address the incongruence between mixed race identity development models and multiculturalism, the focus will be placed on the latter, but a few ideas that are in accord with existing theories on Mixed Race Identity development and the empirical research to address the discrepancies will be suggested. Then, a theory of reconceptualization will be argued as the most appropriate, and the implications for research, the challenges/disadvantages, and the remaining challenges will be addressed.

This paper will be somewhat limited in its ability to discuss identity theories in an exclusively Canadian context, and it cannot accurately reflect the unique situation of the Metis peoples of Canada, or other multi-racial First Nations Peoples. This is not because this topic is unimportant. However, given the remarkably unique socio-cultural position of the First Nations Peoples in Canada, while some of the content of this paper may apply to multi-racial First Nations Peoples, it is beyond the scope of this paper to explore in a manner that would be both appropriate and comprehensive (this remains a critical direction for future work). Although the body of work on Mixed Race identity development in a Canadian context is growing, most of the research on this subject has largely been done in the United States (Taylor, 2008). When possible, exclusively Canadian sources are used, but they are supplemented with American sources interpreted for a Canadian context. Furthermore, due to space constraints, not every development model could be included; however, the most commonly cited, influential and representative ones have been added…

Read the entire article here.

Mixed Race Amnesia: Resisting the Romanticization of Multiraciality

University of British Columbia Press
2014-10-21
288 pages
6 x 9″
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-7748-2772-0
Library E-Book: ISBN: 978-0-7748-2774-4

Minelle Mahtani, Associate Professor in the Department of Human Geography and the Program in Journalism
University of Toronto, Scarborough

Mixed Race Amnesia is an ambitious and critical look at how multiraciality is experienced in the global north. Drawing on a series of interviews she conducted with twenty-four women of mixed race, acclaimed geographer Minelle Mahtani explores some of the assumptions and attitudes people have around multiraciality.

She discovers that, in Canada at least, people of mixed race are often romanticized as being the embodiment of a progressive, post-racial future—an ideal that is supported by government policy and often internalized by people of mixed race themselves. As Mahtani reveals, this superficial celebration of multiraciality is often done without any acknowledgment of the freight and legacy of historical racisms. Consequently, a strategic and collective amnesia is taking place—one where complex diasporic and family histories are being lost while Canada’s colonial legacy is being reinforced.

While noting that our “analytical vocabulary for describing the experience of multiraciality is not yet up to the task of telling a more complex story about whiteness, race, diasporic mobility, and grids of racial intelligibility in a white-settler society within what is understood as a multicultural liberal democracy,” Mahtani nevertheless undertakes to give us the tools we need to do this. The result is a book that takes critical race studies in new and exciting directions.

Table of Contents

• Introduction: Disentangling Our Curious Affection with Mutiraciality
• 1. Mixed Race Mythologies: Toward an Anticolonial Mixed Race Studies
• 2. Mixed Race Narcissism? Thoughts on the Interview Experience
• 3. The Model Multiracial: Propping Up Canadian Multiculturalism through Racial Impotency
• 4. Beyond the Passing Narrative: Multiracial Whiteness
• 5. Mongrels, Interpreters, Ambassadors, and Bridges? Mapping Liberal Affinities among Mixed Race Women
• 6. Mixed Race Scanners: Performing Race
• 7. Present Tense: The Future of Critical Mixed Race Studies
• References
• Index

Dorothy Roberts Lecture: “Fatal Invention: The New Biopolitics of Race”

McMaster University
CIBC Hall, McMaster University Student Centre (MUSC 319)
280 Main Street West
Hamilton, Ontario, L8S4L9, Canada
2014-10-23, 19:00-21:00 EDT (Local Time)

The Bourns Lectureship in Bioethics and the McMaster Centre for Scholarship in the Public Interest present a lecture by Dorothy Roberts, George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology, Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights

Dorothy Roberts is the fourteenth Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor, George A. Weiss University Professor, and the inaugural Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights at the University of Pennsylvania, where she holds appointments in the Law School and Departments of Africana Studies and Sociology. An internationally recognized scholar, public intellectual, and social justice advocate, Roberts has written and lectured extensively on the interplay of gender, race, and class in legal issues and has been a leader in transforming public thinking and policy on reproductive health, child welfare, and bioethics.

She is the author of many award-winning texts including: Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-Created Race in the Twenty-First Century (The New Press 2011), Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare (Basic Civitas Books 2002), and Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty (Random House 1997).

During her lecture at McMaster University, Roberts will examine how the myth of the biological concept of race – revived by purportedly cutting-edge science, race-specific drugs, genetic testing, and DNA databases – continues to undermine a just society and promote inequality in a supposedly “post-racial” era.

For more information, click here. View the poster here.