Just because more people are marrying across color lines today doesn’t mean race or racism are things of the past.

Posted in Excerpts/Quotes on 2015-11-28 00:02Z by Steven

“Many people portray the history of race in the United States as the rise of the “one drop of blood” rule. We have made too much of this. It was not the one-drop rule that kept the edifice of Jim Crow so strong. Racism could work through many different rules about ancestry, and it did. It could work even with a great deal of racial mixture. Just because more people are marrying across color lines today doesn’t mean race or racism are things of the past.”—Ariela J. Gross

Gilien Silsby, “Renowned Legal Historian Discusses Race in America,” Gould School of Law News (University of Southern California), October 29, 2015. http://gould.usc.edu/press/article.cfm?newsid=4236.

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Personally, as a biracial American, I prefer to be identified as such. …Ijeoma Oluo, who is also biracial, prefers to identify as black. Neither of us are wrong.

Posted in Excerpts/Quotes on 2015-11-27 02:31Z by Steven

The controversy has stirred up fresh debate about the divisive issue of biracial self-identification—a divisiveness I, and many other mixed-race people, have experienced firsthand. Personally, as a biracial American, I prefer to be identified as such. But my Establishment colleague, Ijeoma Oluo, who is also biracial, prefers to identify as black.

Neither of us are wrong.

Jessica Sutherland, “Taye Diggs Isn’t Wrong (Or Right) About His Son’s Biracial Identity,” The Establishment, November 20, 2015. http://www.theestablishment.co/2015/11/20/taye-diggs-isnt-wrong-about-his-biracial-identity-and-neither-are-you/.

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“If you are going to classify me as white, then treat [me] as white,” Khalaf said. “Especially when I go to the airport…”

Posted in Excerpts/Quotes on 2015-11-23 20:17Z by Steven

In the past, “white” was the only racial option available to Arab American respondents, a classification that didn’t truly reflect their social standing and hurt efforts for their political empowerment in post-Sept. 11 America, said Samer Khalaf, president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

“If you are going to classify me as white, then treat [me] as white,” Khalaf said. “Especially when I go to the airport. So, yeah, it’s inaccurate.”

Associated Press, “Census change may result in fewer ‘white’ Americans,” The Los Angeles Times, November 22, 2015. http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-census-changes-20151122-story.html.

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Whiteness has its privileges, among which is the privilege to be taken seriously as an intellectual…

Posted in Excerpts/Quotes on 2015-11-23 02:46Z by Steven

Whiteness has its privileges, among which is the privilege to be taken seriously as an intellectual, to be seen as the model patron of a library, the rightful inhabitant of a university campus, never to be viewed as a security risk to other students for his mere presence there.

Ann M. Little, “Who’s telling who to STFU at American universities? Observations on teaching at a HWCU.Historiann: History and sexual politics, 1492 to the present, November 21, 2015. http://historiann.com/2015/11/21/whos-telling-who-to-stfu-at-american-universities-observations-on-teaching-at-a-hwcu/.

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By looking at Afro-Latinos, you kind of get a better sense of how fluid race has been. People have constructed it in different ways depending on conditions and circumstances.

Posted in Excerpts/Quotes on 2015-11-23 02:39Z by Steven

“Whether we look at race as a fixed notion or culturally constructed concept it is very real. Race itself is an invention, a creation. Many people feel race is something that’s fixed, rigid and doesn’t have variances. By looking at Afro-Latinos, you kind of get a better sense of how fluid race has been. People have constructed it in different ways depending on conditions and circumstances.” —Miriam Jiménez Román

Kim Haas, “Q&A with Miriam Jiménez Román,” Los Afro-Latinos: A Blog Following the Afro-Latino Experience, March 30, 2012. http://losafrolatinos.com/2012/03/30/qa-with-miriam-jimenez-roman/.

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To end racial strife we must stop racializing others and stop racializing ourselves.

Posted in Excerpts/Quotes on 2015-11-23 02:32Z by Steven

To end racial strife we must stop racializing others and stop racializing ourselves. Racialization is the mortar that holds together the edifice of racism, whether manifest at the intrapersonal, interpersonal, structural, institutional, or systemic level.

Carlos Hoyt, “Correcting the conversation about race,” OUPblog: Oxford University Press’s Academic Insights for the Thinking World, November 20, 2015. http://blog.oup.com/2015/11/correcting-the-conversation-about-race.

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In some respects the increase in relationships between different ethnic groups does not make the slightest difference to white supremacy in society.

Posted in Excerpts/Quotes on 2015-11-23 02:19Z by Steven

In some respects the increase in relationships between different ethnic groups does not make the slightest difference to white supremacy in society. The latter not only exists but has such a profound and all pervasive impact on society. People may mix, they may marry and have children but what of the structures of racism that prevail?

Huma Munshi, “White supremacy remains intact despite the increase in interracial relationships,” Media Diversified, July 8, 2014. http://mediadiversified.org/2014/07/08/make-no-mistake-white-supremacy-remains-intact-despite-the-increase-in-interracial-relationships/.

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“It’s difficult in Brazil to point out racism… They always say ‘Brazil is a mixed country, we are not the US, we are not South Africa,’ and if you raise racial questions, you’re seen as trying to separate that.”

Posted in Excerpts/Quotes, Social Justice on 2015-11-13 02:46Z by Steven

“It’s difficult in Brazil to point out racism,” says Alexandre Ciconello, a human rights expert and adviser to Amnesty in Rio de Janeiro. “It’s a taboo for the elite of the country and for politicians and authorities. They always say ‘Brazil is a mixed country, we are not the US, we are not South Africa,’ and if you raise racial questions, you’re seen as trying to separate that.”

Will Carless, “Brazil’s ‘Black Lives Matter’ struggle — even deadlier,” Public Radio International, November 3, 2015. http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-11-03/brazils-black-lives-matter-struggle-even-more-dire.

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The future for the mixed race population is currently not looking very bright in my opinion where academia is concerned.

Posted in Excerpts/Quotes on 2015-11-13 02:41Z by Steven

The answer seems to be that mixed race people urgently need to be more represented in UK social policy and mental health experts need to do the groundwork of converting academic texts on mixed race identity into their practice. We are in a quandary though as for this to happen more academic research on mixed race identity is needed in the UK in the first place. The future for the mixed race population is currently not looking very bright in my opinion where academia is concerned.

Nicola Codner, “Academia and the Identity of Mixed-Race Women,” Ain’t I A Woman Collective, November 10, 2015. http://www.aintiawomancollective.com/academia-and-the-identity-of-mixed-race-women.

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It’s really hard to be two things at once, or at least from a Westernized perspective.

Posted in Excerpts/Quotes on 2015-11-06 16:53Z by Steven

“Being mixed race and being American is really weird because Americans, and I say this as an American, they like to do this thing where they put literally everyone into a box. We see it on the Census, we see it in schools, standardized testing, anything you could possibly label, Americans like to label. Mixed race people will present this as a cognitive dissonance. It’s really hard to be two things at once, or at least from a Westernized perspective. So when we want to check two things off it kind of becomes a little hard. So I think it’s distinctly more difficult in America to be mixed race than it is in a lot of other places.” —Julia Muhsen, Columbia College sophomore

Caroline Wallis, “Blending shades of self,” Columbia Daily Spectator, November 5, 2015. http://features.columbiaspectator.com/eye/2015/11/05/blending-shades-of-self/.

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