Mixed Race Studies

Leslie Barlow’s mixed-race identity inspires her to paint underrepresented people

City Pages
Minneapolis, Minnesota
2016-07-18

Erica Rivera

There are plenty of portrait painters in Minnesota, but few have captured such a wide range of diverse faces in the tender and beautiful way Leslie Barlow does. The recent MCAD MFA grad focuses on the underrepresented faces of the Twin Cities, a mission driven by the lack of visibility of stories like hers: people of mixed-race backgrounds.

Barlow first became fascinated by the question of how we define who we are in the fifth grade, when she was asked to label her race on a standardized test. This was before the “other” box existed or multiple choices were allowed. She checked “African-American” (her father is primarily black), but when she went home and relayed the day’s events, her mother (who is primarily white) asked why she hadn’t checked the “white” box.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m being pulled in two different communities or I feel like I’m not part of any community because of my background,” says Barlow…

Read the entire article here.

PHOTOS: What It Means to Celebrate Afro-Latinidad in the Time of Black Lives Matter

Remezcla
2016-07-12

Isabelia Herrera, Music Editor

Photography by: Itzel Alejandra Martinez, Photo Editor

Itzel Alejandra Martinez

When Remezcla headed to the fourth edition of New York City’s Afro-Latino Festival this weekend, surrounded by colorful dashikis and bold #BlackLivesMatter t-shirts, we were reminded that the political utility of the Afro-Latino label is more urgent than ever. Speaking with festival attendees, families, and musicians, it became clear that celebrating Afro-Latinidad in times of black trauma isn’t about diverting the focus of anti-racist movements, but about highlighting the diversity of black experiences. As the nation reels from the deaths of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, and as police violence continues to rattle black and brown communities, Afro-Latinos are uniquely positioned to combat anti-blackness in Latino communities. To that end, we spoke to a group of festival attendees about their Afro-Latinidad in the context of the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Here’s what they had to say…

Red the entire photo-essay here.

How Reggie Yates went from kids’ TV to confronting neo-Nazis

The Guardian
2016-06-28

Hannah J. Davies

Louis Theroux 2.0: Reggie Yates in a cell at Bexar County Detention Center.

He braves Russian far-right rallies and Texas prison cells for his job. Meet the man helping to reinvent the documentary for Generation Y

While filming in South Africa in 2013, Reggie Yates experienced the two scariest moments of his TV career to date. “The director, sound man and I got caught up in a fight between two gangs,” he explains. “One of the guys pulled out a gun and I thought: ‘All bets are off.’ We got out of there, but we met up with one of the gangs again later on in this little hut and they all had their machetes out. I thought: ‘This could go wrong at any minute,’ but it didn’t. I think a lot of that came down to the respect we showed them; I don’t wear a bulletproof [vest] in these places, because [that would be] saying that I don’t trust someone or I think I’m better.” He laughs before adding: “It could’ve been worse!”…

…Starting out as a child actor in 90s barbershop sitcom Desmond’s, he went on to work as a kids’ TV presenter alongside pal Fearne Cotton on shows including CBBC’s Smile. Then came a move into radio DJing on 1Xtra, before a gig as the anchor of Radio 1’s Official Chart Show. Somehow he’s also found time to voice cartoon rodent Rastamouse and appear in Doctor Who, as well as writing and directing his own short films (his latest, Shelter, stars W1A’s Jessica Hynes). It even transpires during our conversation that he’s a “massive interiors nerd”, who teases that he might one day open a furniture store…

Read the entire article here.

NYC AfroLatino Fest Comes at an Important Time

Sounds and Colours
2016-07-05

Gina Vergel

It seems the fourth edition of AfroLatinoFest in New York City comes at a crucial time.

A survey by the Pew Research Center, released in March, points to a disconnect in how some Afro-Latinos living in the United States report their race. It found that while 24 percent of U.S.-based Latinos identify as Afro-Latino, just 18 percent of that group reports its race as “Black.”

According to an article in Colorlines, “when asked directly about their race, only 18% of Afro-Latinos identified their race or one of their races as black. In fact, higher shares of Afro-Latinos identified as white alone or white in combination with another race (39%) or volunteered that their race or one of their races was Hispanic (24%). Only 9% identified as mixed race.”

And so Afro-Latino Fest, taking place from the 8th to the 10th of July, is offering a series of intellectually engaging panels, documentary screenings, and keynote speakers about AfroLatinidad, along with music and food, of course…

Read the entire article here.

Prize-winning Hong Kong-born poet Sarah Howe makes verse of city’s Basic Law

South China Morning Post
2016-07-07

Clare Tyrrell-Morin

Having played down her Chinese side while growing up and studying in the UK, Howe, now at Harvard, has turned to it again as she makes an ‘erasure poem’ out of Hong Kong’s mini-constitution

We meet in a small office on the second floor of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, overlooking a tranquil garden unseen from Harvard University’s main thoroughfares. It’s freezing outside, but the view is spectacular: the bare branches of an ancient tree, contemplated by scholars for generations, silhouetted against a wintry sky. It’s a good view for a poet.

The office belongs to a Radcliffe Fellow, Sarah Howe, who is spending the year here with 50 other artists and scholars. You may not know her name yet, but Howe could become one of Hong Kong’s most celebrated writers.

In December, the 32-year-old won the Sunday Times/Peters Fraser & Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award for authors under the age of 35. The previous month, scientist Stephen Hawking read out a poem, titled “Relativity”, that she had written for him for Britain’s National Poetry Day. And, in January, Howe was presented with the £20,000 (HK$204,000) T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry at a lavish ceremony at the Victoria and Albert Museum, in London.

Her winning collection was “Loop of Jade”, which weaves around her identity as a British-Chinese poet born in Hong Kong. The dualistic, hybrid work dances between the search for her mother’s Chinese roots and subjects as varied as censorship, 14th-century Flemish paintings, evenings in Arizona and the rain in London. The book captures a quest for identity, dislocation and the crossing of waters – themes familiar to many a Hongkonger – yet, equally, it is an exploration of the Western literary canon and the impact Chinese poetry has had on it…

Read the entire article here.

Essence Fest: How Prince helped Misty Copeland discover artistic freedom

The New Orleans Times-Picayune
2016-07-02

Chelsea Brasted, Lifestyle and Culture Reporter

Misty Copeland recounted her own Prince tribute Saturday (July 2) during an Essence Fest weekend full of them. But for the first African American woman to be named principal dancer at the American Ballet Theater, the music star was a friend before she’d ever even seen him in concert.

“I’d never seen him perform live,” Copeland said during an interview with Soledad O’Brien on the festival’s Empowerment Experience stage. Copeland was emotional as she continued her story, adding, “I approached this relationship as this really hilarious quiet guy that became my friend, then I stepped onstage with him for the first time and I was like, OK, I get it now. Like, wow.”…

Read the entire article here.

Chi-chi Nwanoku: A classical legacy and an African heritage

Music Africa Magazine
2016-06-16

Ed Keazor

A short biography of Chi-chi Nwanoku MBE, world-renowned classical baroque bassist and Professor of Music, covering her life, influences and deep connections to her African roots.

Dr Michael Nwanoku adjusted himself in his seat as the next announcement was about to be made. He and his wife Margaret had looked forward to this day for several weeks and he had made the point of wearing his full Igbo Chief’s regalia, complete with the “Ozo” Cap and Coral beads. After all it was not every day one visited Buckingham Palace, neither was it every day that one witnessed one’s daughter receiving the award of a national honour from Queen Elizabeth II herself. His daughter, through sheer talent and hard work, had conquered years of adversity and some might say, prejudice to emerge as one of Britain’s finest Classical Musicians and academics. Almost in the same way, he and his Irish wife had conquered racism and ignorance in the course of their long and happy marriage. Dr and Mrs Nwanoku had too many good reasons to be proud of their eldest daughter, the talented Chi-chi Nwanoku, now Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) as she received her award from the Queen.

Chinyere (Chi-chi) Adah Nwanoku, was born in Fulham, London, in 1956 to Michael Nwanoku and the former Margaret Ivey. Her parents had met at a chance encounter at a dance in London, in 1955 and were inseparable from then on and they got married shortly afterwards. The young couple faced prejudice on account of their Interracial relationship at the time, recalling a period in Britain, where signs on Houses, advertising lodging vacancies, would boldly state, “No blacks, no dogs, no Irish”. The couple humorously recalled thanking God they didn’t have a dog (since they were both black and Irish)…

Read the entire article here.

Africa Writes Returns to London

London Live
2016-07-01

Reya El-Salahi, Presenter

The UK’s biggest festival celebrating contemporary African literature returns to the capital today. The fifth annual Africa Writes event features award-winning authors, book launches and panel discussions at The British Library. Sheila Ruiz from the Royal African Society says the event aims to make African literature more mainstream while promoting cross-cultural understanding in London.

Africa Writes festival runs from Friday 1st – Sunday 3rd July 2016 at the British Library. For full listings visit: africawrites.org.

Africans in Medieval & Renaissance Art: Duke Alessandro de’ Medici

Victoria and Albert Museum
London, England, United Kingdom

Portrait of Duke Alessandro de’ Medici, after Jacopo da Pontormo, Florence, Italy, about 1550. Museum no. CAI.171. Ionides Bequest

Both of the objects highlighted here feature Alessandro de’ Medici (1511-37), the first Duke of Florence. It is thought that Alessandro’s mother was a Moorish slave.

The Medici, an Italian family of merchants, bankers, rulers, patrons and collectors, dominated the political and cultural life of Florence from the 15th century to the mid 18th century. They were expelled from Florence in 1494-1512 and 1527-30. In 1530, after a long and bitter siege, the army of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V conquered the city and backed the installment of Alessandro de’ Medici as the first Duke of Florence. Alessandro’s reign ended in 1537, when he was assassinated by his cousin and rival Lorenzino de’ Medici. As he had no children with his wife (Margaret of Austria, illegitimate daughter of the emperor Charles V), and his illegitimate son Giulio was only four years old, Alessandro was succeeded by a member of another branch of the Medici family, Cosimo I.

Officially, Alessandro was the illegitimate son of Lorenzo de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino (1492-1519), but it was rumoured that Lorenzo’s cousin Giulio (later Pope Clement VII), had fathered him. Alessandro’s mother, Simonetta, was allegedly a Moorish slave who had worked in the household of Lorenzo and his parents during their exile in Rome…

Read the entire article here.

Mary Seacole statue: Why Florence Nightingale fans are angry the Crimean War nurse is being commemorated

The Independent
2016-06-27

Kashmira Gander

Some Florence Nightingale experts say Mary Seacole isn’t a nurse

It should be a symbol of pride in a black British heroine. Instead, a statue of Mary Seacole, to be unveiled on 30 June, has become a source of controversy

Staring proudly across the River Thames towards Big Ben, her cape caught in a gust as she strides away from a backdrop of the Crimean battlefield. This is how the Crimean War heroine Mary Seacole will be memorialised in a powerful 10ft bronze statue by the distinguished sculptor Martin Jennings, to be unveiled outside St Thomas’ hospital in central London on Thursday.

The campaign to commemorate the nurse once voted the greatest black Briton began when a group of Caribbean women approached their local MP in Hammersmith. Seven years later, the sculpture – the first public statue of a named black woman in the UK – is complete thanks to donations from tens of thousands of people. Happy days.

Except a small faction of hand-wringing Florence Nightingale experts and fans are not at all happy. To them, placing Seacole’s statue outside the hospital where the Lady with the Lamp established her revolutionary nursing school is an affront…

…Then there’s the argument that Seacole is a symbol of political correctness gone mad because the great black British icon isn’t, er, black. In a Spectator piece Rob Liddle took the baffling stance that Seacole was “three-quarters white”. This is despite contemporary depictions of her as a person “of colour” (and her own recollection that a white American at a dinner party said he wished he could bleach her skin).

But how tiresome this mud-slinging is. If we were going to pick holes, we could point out that even Nightingale couldn’t compete with the fact that her military hospital at Scutari was placed over a sewer, meaning many patients died. But we celebrate the best in her: her initial impulse; her skill in creating and organising the British nursing profession in later life…

Read the entire article here.