Mixed Race Studies

In fact, there’s no evidence that Native Americans are more biologically susceptible to substance use disorders than any other group, says Joseph Gone, associate professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. American Indians don’t metabolize or react to alcohol differently than whites do, and they don’t have higher prevalence of any known risk genes.

Maia Szalavitz, “No, Native Americans aren’t genetically more susceptible to alcoholism,” The Verge, October 2, 2015. http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/2/9428659/firewater-racist-myth-alcoholism-native-americans.

Like many TCKs [third culture kids] and persons of mixed ancestry, I have searched all my life for “home”. In late 2012 I relocated to the Los Angeles area after more than two decades in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City. L.A.’s a good place for in-between-ers like me. In this sprawling metropolis with no center, a place that’s in a perpetual state of fragmentation, disintegration, and transformation and whose population represents every culture and nation, I can enjoy a sense of internal and external spaciousness. But it’s a restless city and its vast size lends itself to tribalism. As a relative newcomer, it’s been challenging to find a place of belonging. But then I’m reminded that, as an adult TCK who’s moved over 40 times since my birth, I’ve always felt this way, no matter where I’ve lived. I belong everywhere and nowhere.

Mari L’Esperance, “Liminality as Inheritance: On Being Mixed and Third Culture,” Mixed Roots Stories, October 7, 2015. http://mixedrootsstories.com/liminality-as-inheritance-on-being-mixed-and-third-culture/.

“That’s one of the fundamental paradoxes of Obama’s presidency — that we have the Black Lives Matter movement under a black president,” says Fredrick Harris, a political scientist at Columbia University. “Your man is in office, and you have this whole movement around criminal-justice reform asserting black people’s humanity?”

Jennifer Senior, “The Paradox of the First Black President,” New York Magazine, October 7, 2015. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/10/paradox-of-the-first-black-president.html.

“My mother said, ‘By identifying yourself as black, you’re cutting out the whole other side of your heritage. You’re not acknowledging the fact that half of you is white, that half of your background is white.’ That I wasn’t acknowledging that she existed.”

“I’m starting to see myself as mixed. If I’m asked my identity, I will say Northern Irish and it took me a long time to say that and to feel comfortable saying that.” — Jayne Olorunda

Dean Van Nguyen, “Half-white, half-Asian, but no less Irish,” The Irish Examiner, August 15, 2015. http://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/features/half-white-half-asian-but-no-less-irish-348324.html.

“I think she [Rachel Dolezal] was a bit of a hero, because she kind of flipped on society a little bit. Is it such a horrible thing that she pretended to be black? Black is a great thing, and I think she legit changed people’s perspective a bit and woke people up.” —Rihanna (Robyn Rihanna Fenty)

Lisa Robinson, “Rihanna in Cuba,” Vanity Fair, November 2015. http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/10/rihanna-cover-cuba-annie-leibovitz.

“I don’t like when people put me in the woman box or the Latina box or the political artist box,” she says. “That limits who I am as an individual. I want to instead embrace the possibility of who I can be. That’s where ulti­mate freedom is.” —Favianna Rodriguez

Thea Singer, “How art can disrupt our ideas and identities,” news@Northeastern, September 23, 2015. http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2015/09/how-art-can-disrupt-our-ideas-and-identities/.

In an interview about the events last week that happened to my youngest son, I said that it takes an incident like this to make me truly realize that two of my sons are black.

Betty Blake, “EXCLUSIVE: Race relations in America are ‘getting worse,’ says James Blake’s mother Betty, a white Briton who raised 2 black sons in New York,” The New York Daily News, September 17, 2015. http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/exclusive-james-blake-mother-weighs-race-relations-article-1.2364319.

“I remember a mom of a friend of mine in the suburbs made some comment about a black person and – I had to be 12, about 60 pounds – and I said something and she said: ‘Oh no, not you. You are not black. You are great.’ It was real. That fucking happened. And she meant it. And she meant it sincerely and sweetly. She was paying me a compliment.” —Jesse Williams

Jana Kasperkevic, “Jesse Williams: ‘Celebrity culture? I am not going to participate in that’,” The Guardian, October 1, 2015. http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/oct/01/jesse-williams-greys-anatomy-celebrity-culture-civil-rights.

It’s amazing, really—this intransigent, irrational belief that the language of “colorblindness” can actually undo centuries of race-making. The French seem to believe, that through the magical power of language alone, they can talk racism into oblivion. Nevermind the fact that France spent centuries establishing racial hierarchies at home and in its colonial empire for the purpose of enriching the state. Some truly believe that words like “Republic” and “citizenship” and “indivisible” can suddenly undo processes that were produced and institutionalized over the course of four hundred years.

Crystal Fleming, “France’s Approach to Fighting Racism: Pretty Words and Magical Thinking,” The Huffington Post, May 7, 2015. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/crystal-fleming/frances-approach-to-fight_b_7231610.html.

If all ethnic identities are created, imagined or negotiated to some degree, American Hispanics provide an especially stark example. As part of an effort in the 1970s to better measure who was using what kind of social services, the federal government established the word “Hispanic” to denote anyone with ancestry traced to Spain or Latin America, and mandated the collection of data on this group. “The term is a U.S. invention,” explains Mark Hugo Lopez, associate director of the Pew Hispanic Center. “If you go to El Salvador or the Dominican Republic, you won’t necessarily hear people say they are ‘Latino’ or ‘Hispanic.’ ”

Carlos Lozada, “Who is Latino?,” The Washington Post, June 21, 2013. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/who-is-latino/2013/06/21/bcd6f71a-d6a4-11e2-b05f-3ea3f0e7bb5a_story_1.html.