Mixed Race Studies

Obama meets with 10 unsuspecting students for hourlong roundtable

The Stanford Daily
Stanford University, Palo Alto, California
2015-02-13

Victor Xu, Desk Editor

Vicki Niu ’18 (right) was one of 10 students who participated in an hourlong roundtable with President Barack Obama on Friday afternoon. (SAM GIRVIN/The Stanford Daily)

Rio LaVigne ’15 signed up to meet several White House officials after the morning session of today’s cybersecurity summit. She did not, however, expect to meet President Barack Obama.

Earlier this week, a group of 10 students with interests in cybersecurity was chosen by various Stanford professors and academics to potentially attend a roundtable meeting with “senior White House officials.” It was not until yesterday afternoon that the meeting was confirmed. And it was not until after Obama’s speech, in a back room of Memorial Auditorium, that the students figured out that they might be meeting the president.

“We walked into the room and pretty quickly noticed there was a nametag in front of every seat except one,” LaVigne said. “The table’s a horseshoe shape, and the one seat that was missing was the one in the very back in the center. It was like, ‘Hmm, okay. That’s interesting. I wonder who’s going to sit there. Someone who doesn’t need a nametag?’”…

Read the entire article here.

Dorothy Roberts: Bringing Different Perspectives into Class

University of Pennsylvania
Multimedia
2015-02-12

When Dorothy Roberts was 3 months old, she moved with her parents from Chicago to Liberia, where her mother, Iris, had worked as a young woman after leaving Jamaica.

It was the first of Dorothy’s many trips abroad, and one during which her father, Robert, took a bunch of photographs and filmed home movies with his 16-millimeter camera. The Roberts family moved back to Chicago when Dorothy was 2, and she can recall weekly screenings of the 16-milimeter reels from Liberia in the living room.

“I had a very strong interest in learning about other parts of the world from when I was very little,” says Roberts, the 14th Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor. “My whole childhood revolved around learning about other parts of the world and engaging with people from around the world.”…

Read the entire spotlight here.

First Black Elected to Head Harvard’s Law Review

The New York Times
1990-02-06

Fox Butterfield

BOSTON, Feb. 5—  The Harvard Law Review, generally considered the most prestigious in the country, elected the first black president in its 104-year history today. The job is considered the highest student position at Harvard Law School.

The new president of the Review is Barack Obama, a 28-year-old graduate of Columbia University who spent four years heading a community development program for poor blacks on Chicago’s South Side before enrolling in law school. His late father, Barack Obama, was a finance minister in Kenya and his mother, Ann Dunham, is an American anthropologist now doing fieldwork in Indonesia. Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii.

“The fact that I’ve been elected shows a lot of progress,” Mr. Obama said today in an interview. “It’s encouraging.

“But it’s important that stories like mine aren’t used to say that everything is O.K. for blacks. You have to remember that for every one of me, there are hundreds or thousands of black students with at least equal talent who don’t get a chance,” he said, alluding to poverty or growing up in a drug environment…

Read the entire article here.

Claiming Race, Identity and a Right to Education

Mixed Roots Stories
2015-02-02

Briellen Griffin, Doctoral Student of sociology in Cultural and Educational Policy Studies
School of Education
Loyola University Chicago

It is my job to think about school. Everyday, I read, write, and speak about education. I ask, and often try to answer, the big questions. Like, why do we have schools? Or, what is the purpose of education? Even more specifically, how do I make sure all kids get the education they deserve? Since I now have my own children, these questions have taken on new meaning in my life. They have become personal. More than I expected, they have become questions that challenge who we are; who I am and who my children will become.

When I think back to my earliest years of schooling, I can’t pinpoint a specific moment when I knew that I was getting a different education that my friends. I grew up in urban public schools, not unlike the one my own kids attend today. I LOVED SCHOOL. I mean, LOVED it. All parts. Carrying the milk crate for snack, practicing handwriting, chasing friends on the playground. Later, the love grew to encompass algebra and writing, student council and more writing… I was good at school and that made every moment satisfying and fulfilling.

At some point, I began to realize that I got more credit than I deserved. It wasn’t just that I was good at what I did. Maybe, I thought, it wasn’t even that I was better than anyone else at school, at all. It did have something to do with having blond hair and blue eyes. It had to do with feeling free in a place that didn’t criminalize me. It had to do with looking white.

I am, perhaps, one of the more stereotypical American multiracial blends, one that connotes the taboo of race-mixing specific to slavery in this country. My mother is white and my father is Black, though his heritage includes European & American Indian and is evidenced by a “high yellow” complexion and wavy black hair. What is less stereotypical about my multiracial identity is that I look white, especially to most white people. And the result is that I benefit from white privilege…

Read the entire article here.

Today’s college students see no problem with multiracial relationships

College
USA Today
2014-01-08

Aja Frost
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

Had Kim Kardashian and Kanye West gotten married 48 years ago, they would have probably been met with more policemen than paparazzi. That’s because interracial marriages weren’t legalized in the U.S. until 1967.

Interracial relationships are more common than ever. In 1960, just 0.4% of marriages were interracial. A recent study found that number had increased to 15% for newlyweds.

Nowhere is the growing acceptance and practice of multiracial relationships more common than on college campuses.

“Younger people aren’t tied down with all the old racial stereotypes,” says Dr. Erica Chito-Childs, a sociology professor at Hunter College in New York City and author of two books on interracial marriage. “They’re more likely to have grown up with a favorite musical entertainer [who] is African-American or of a different race. They’ve grown up watching shows or cartoon shows that are multiracial. And depending on where they live, they’ve probably gone to school with friends that are of a different race.”…

…A survey by the Pew Research Center showed that 43% of all Americans believe the rise in intermarriages has been a good thing. However, among 18- to 29-year-olds, a majority 61% approve of interracial marriage and 93% favor multiracial dating. The approval for multiracial marriages rises in accordance with college education levels.

But Dr. Chito-Childs cautions against getting too excited about the statistics surrounding multiracial relationships…

Read the entire article here.

Mixed College Students: WHO vs. WHAT

NASPA: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education
2014-12-24

Aaron Moore, Residence Life: Hall Director
Ohio State University

Over the past few weeks I have read Mixed: Multiracial College Students Tell Their Life Stories (2014) and was extremely pleased with the thought provoking and eye opening narratives that were shared by the many students included in this book. I decided to read this book as a means of furthering my understanding of identity and how students come to understand who they are, but specifically, for individuals who identify as multiracial. I teach a Social Justice education course and understanding the racial landscape is often tough for students when they look at understanding themselves and relating to others, but grasping that there is not a “binary” if you will as it relates to how one identifies can be a challenging topic to explore and a tough even tougher for individuals trying to answer the question of “who am I.” When reading this book and the narratives I often had moments where I shook my head and understood what was being shared, but as I worked to connect with each student sharing their story, I found myself clothed with empathy as I tried to imagine what it must be like to answer the following:

• What are you?
• What does it take to be noticed?
• Is there a “better” race to identify with?
• How do I fight for how I want to be seen?

The list went on. The experiences of students who identify as being multiracial is not one of understanding, but is often one that presents itself with more questions than answers…

Read the entire article here.

So, What Are You?: A Multiracial Perspective On Identity

Jossle Magazine
2014-11-18

Leilani Stacy
Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts

“So, what are you?”

In a word, “Wasian,” or more accurately, “Multiracial.” Specifically, I’m a quarter Japanese, a “mutt” of white—Scottish, Irish, Pennsylvania Dutch, French, English, German, Danish—and probably a little Native American (don’t worry, I didn’t put that down just to get into colleges) and, contrary to my name, not Hawaiian.

So when the issue of race comes up, one question often arises: Where do I fit in?

I’m sure if I ever visited Japan, people wouldn’t consider me “Japanese enough.” Meanwhile in the US, I get a little too tan to be considered “White enough.” Additionally, I’ve never felt comfortable joining a Japanese or Asian-American cultural club. And when people start talking about “cultural” traditions or life at home, forget it…

Read the entire article here.

Getting in Touch with Our “Identity”

Multiracial Identity Program
Portland State University
2015-01-13 through 2015-01-15

Multicultural Center
1825 SW Broadway
Smith Memorial Student Union, Suite 228
Portland, Oregon 97201
Wednesday, 2015-01-14, 12:00-13:30 PST (Local Time)

The multiple types of racial identities on campus varies. Let’s come together and discuss our identities to break barriers and create a better knitted community amongst ourselves. For more information please contact the Cultural Centers at cultures@pdx.edu or (503) 725-5342.

For more information, click here.

Multiracial Identity Program – Panel Discussion

Multiracial Identity Program
Portland State University
2015-01-13 through 2015-01-15

Multicultural Center
1825 SW Broadway
Smith Memorial Student Union, Suite 228
Portland, Oregon 97201
Tuesday, 2015-01-13, 16:00-18:00 PST (Local Time)

Kickstarting the Multiracial Identity Program, this panel will consist of individuals who identity as multiracial and/or multiethnic. Come together for an insightful discussion of the experiences and implications of identifying along a spectrum of racial and ethnic backgrounds. For more information please contact the Cultural Centers at cultures@pdx.edu or (503) 725-5342.

For more information, click here.

Revealing Racial Purity Ideology: Fear of Black–White Intimacy as a Framework for Understanding School Discipline in Post-Brown Schools

Educational Administration Quarterly
Volume 50, Number 5 (December 2014)
pages 783-795
DOI: 10.1177/0013161X14549958

Decoteau J. Irby, Assistant Professor
School of Education
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

Purpose: In this article, I explore White racial purity desire as an underexamined ideology that might help us understand the compulsion of disciplinary violence against Black boys in U.S. public schools. By pointing to the dearth of research on sexual desire as a site of racial conflict and through revisiting Civil Rights–era fears about interracial intimacy between Black men and White women, I encourage readers to consider if and to what extent fears about sexual desires remain in the fabric of our school and social lives.

Proposed Conceptual Argument: I argue that in schools, White-supremacist patriarchy reproduces normative Whiteness through the continual surveillance, punishment, distancing, and removal of primarily heteronormative Black male bodies, locating its justification in protecting the bodily safety and academic achievement of heteronormative White girls. I suggest that in predominantly White desegregated schools, disciplining heteronormative Black boys represents a new policy-based campaign of institutionalized violence and intimidation that reflects a subtle, but nonetheless pernicious, White male segregationist agenda.

Implications: Considering fear/desire of interracial intimacy as a lens, alongside economic and political explanations of resistance to desegregation, provides a more complete analytical framework to comprehend racial conflict and segregationism in contemporary school settings. Our collective failure to acknowledge and interrogate the ways schools produce Whiteness by seeking to protect White girls from Black boys ensures Black boys’ bodies and minds will continue to be unfairly subjected to the violence of harsh and disproportionate disciplinary measures.

Read or purchase the article here.