Mixed Race Studies

Mom Writes Book, ‘Bad Hair Does Not Exist!’ For Daughters

NBC News
2016-02-17

Maya Chung

Bad Hair Does Not Exist/Pelo Malo No Existe! is a Children’s Book by Sulma Arzu-Brown.

“Bad Hair Does Not Exist!” is a new bilingual book that encourages young Black, Afro-Latino, and multi-racial girls to see themselves, and their hair, as beautiful.

Sulma Arzu-Brown, who calls herself a “Garifuna” woman or Afro-Latino from Honduras, was inspired to write the book after her three-year-old daughter’s babysitter commented that little Bella Victoria had “pelo malo,” which is a Spanish term for “bad hair.”

She knew then that she could either be angry or be a part of the solution, so she chose to write a book.

“The book is a tool of cultural solidarity and a tool of empowerment for all of our little girls,” said Arzu-Brown whose daughters are now 4 and 11. “The term ‘Bad hair’ or ‘Pelo Malo’ is divisive to both community and family, and can contribute to low self-esteem.”…

Read the article here.

An Exploration of Racial Considerations in Partnered Fathers’ Involvement in Bringing Up Their Mixed-/Multi-Race Children in Britain and New Zealand

Fathering: A Journal of Theory, Research, and Practice about Men as Fathers
Volume 13, Number 2 (2015)
26 pages

Rosalind Edwards, Professor of Sociology
University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom

Chamion Caballero, Visiting Senior Fellow
Department for Social Policy
London School of Economics

This article considers how partnered fathers’ involvement may be shaped by their understandings of the salience and impact of their children’s racial belonging where fathers do not share the same race as their (biological) children. We draw on findings from a small-scale study of fathers with a partner from a different racial background living in Britain and New Zealand, to consider their involvement with their mixed or multi-racial children. Bringing up mixed/multi-race children can involve white fathers in thinking about issues that they would not necessarily otherwise have to consider. It could, for example, mean that they supported their children’s access to minority cultural knowledge and challenge racism. Equally, bringing up mixed/multi-race children can involve fathers from racial minorities in thinking about racial considerations in different ways. Notably they may transmit racial pride and cultural history to help their children deal with prejudice from the father’s own minority ethnic group as well as racism from Whites.

Read the entire document (in Microsoft Word format) here.

TEDx USF with Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman

TEDx USF
University of South Florida
Tampa, Florida
2016-02-08

From November 2015, Assistant Professor of Sociology Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman discusses her new book, The Color of Love: Racial Features, Stigma, and Socialization in Black Brazilian Families.

Motherhood in Liminal Spaces: White Mothers’ Parenting Black/White Children

Affilia
Volume 31, Number 4 (November 2016)
pages 434-449
DOI: 10.1177/0886109916630581

Mary Elizabeth Rauktis, Research Assistant Professor of Social Work
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Rachel A. Fusco, Associate Professor of Social Work
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Sara Goodkind, Associate Professor of Social Work
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Cynthia Bradley-King, Clinical Assistant Professor of Social Work
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Most of the extant social work research on biracial children and families has focused on the experiences of transracially adopted black or biracial children and their white parents or Afro-Caribbean/white children and their white mothers in the United Kingdom. This study adds to the body of knowledge by using focus group interviews analyzed through a feminist lens to understand the experiences of a diverse group of white women parenting their biological black/white biracial children. The findings suggest that having children locates them in a liminal space between whiteness and blackness. Many face racism from their families and communities, which they are unprepared for, given their upbringing as white Americans. Yet despite these experiences, many still practice color-blind perspective in socializing their children. Implications of these findings include the need for early intervention and support for white mothers raising biracial children as well as the need to challenge the assumption that mothers are solely responsible for the well-being and cultural and racial socialization of their children.

Read or purchase the article here.

Can I Call My Nonbiological Twins Black Because My Husband Is?

The Ethicist
The New York Times Magazine
2016-01-27

Kwame Anthony Appiah, Professor of Philosophy, Law
New York University

Illustration by Tomi Um

I’m a Caucasian woman married to an African-American man. Shortly after we married, I discovered that I couldn’t conceive my own biological children. We opted to ‘‘adopt’’ two embryos. (Couples who have successfully undergone in-vitro fertilization and don’t wish to have more children can donate remaining embryos to other couples.) I was soon pregnant and gave birth to twins. Based on the records of the fertility clinic, we know that our children are genetically mixed Hispanic and Caucasian. I am not comfortable being open about the origin of my children, except with family and close friends, until they are old enough for me to explain it to them. However, several times in the last three years, I’ve been asked about their race, most recently on a pre-K school application form. On this form, there is no option of ‘‘mixed race’’ or ‘‘other.’’ Therefore, I identified my children as black. Was this the right choice? Name Withheld, Chicago

Ethics generally commends telling the truth. But in a situation in which our ordinary ways of thinking are at odds with reality, there can be no easy truth to be had. When it comes to race, confusion is the most intellectually defensible position. Let’s try to sow some. If your children were your biological children, many people in our society would say that they were African-American, because we have a tradition, going back before emancipation, of treating people with one black parent as black . . . or Negro or colored or whatever the favored term was at various times in American history. That’s the ‘‘one-drop rule,’’ so called because consistent application of it would mean that anyone with any African ancestry at all was black. (Of course, unbeknown to those who started this system, we all have African ancestry in the long run, which shows how much our thinking is shaped by our lack of knowledge.)…

As it happens, millions of Americans are black according to the one-drop rule but don’t have any of the features that people associate with African ancestry. Lots of them ‘‘pass’’ for white. Many don’t, though. Walter White, the early-20th-century leader of the N.A.A.C.P., was able to travel the South investigating lynchings because, although his parents were ex-slaves, he ‘‘looked white.’’ His autobiography begins: ‘‘I am a Negro. My skin is white, my eyes are blue, my hair is blond. The traits of my race are nowhere visible upon me.’’ (In a bio­pic, he could have been played by, oh, Bryan Cranston.) ‘‘ ’Cause it’s swell to have a leader/That can pass for white,’’ wrote Langston Hughes, who with his ‘‘copper-brown skin and straight black hair’’ — his description — was himself taken for white during a trip to Africa and could have passed for Indian if he troubled himself to do so…

Read the entire article here.

Race Policy and Multiracial Americans

Policy Press (Available in North America from University of Chicago Press)
2016-01-13
226 pages
234 x 156 mm
Hardback ISBN: 9781447316459
Paperback ISBN: 9781447316503

Edited by:

Kathleen Odell Korgen, Professor of Sociology
William Paterson University, Wayne, New Jersey

Race Policy and Multiracial Americans is the first book to look at the impact of multiracial people on race policies—where they lag behind the growing numbers of multiracial people in the U.S. and how they can be used to promote racial justice for multiracial Americans. Using a critical mixed race perspective, it covers such questions as: Which policies aimed at combating racial discrimination should cover multiracial Americans? Should all (or some) multiracial Americans benefit from affirmative action programmes? How can we better understand the education and health needs of multiracial Americans? This much-needed book is essential reading for sociology, political science and public policy students, policy makers, and anyone interested in race relations and social justice.

Contents

• Introduction ~ Kathleen Odell Korgen
• Multiracial Americans throughout the History of the U.S. ~ Tyrone Nagai
• National and Local Structures of Inequality: Multiracial Groups’ Profiles Across the United States ~ Mary E. Campbell and Jessica M. Barron
• Latinos and Multiracial America ~ Raúl Quiñones Rosado
• The Connections among Racial Identity, Social Class, and Public Policy? ~ Nikki Khanna
• Multiracial Americans and Racial Discrimination ~ Tina Fernandes Botts
• “Should All (or Some) Multiracial Americans Benefit from Affirmative Action Programs?”~ Daniel N. Lipson
• Multiracial Students and Educational Policy ~ Rhina Fernandes Williams and E. Namisi Chilungu
• Multiracial Americans in College ~ Marc P. Johnston and Kristen A. Renn
• Multiracial Americans, Health Patterns, and Health Policy: Assessment and Recommendations for Ways Forward ~ Jenifer L. Bratter and Chirsta Mason
• Racial Identity Among Multiracial Prisoners in the Color-Blind Era ~ Gennifer Furst and Kathleen Odell Korgen
• “Multiraciality and the Racial Order: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”~ Hephzibah V. Strmic-Pawl and David L. Brunsma
• Multiracial Identity and Monoracial Conflict: Toward a New Social Justice framework ~ Andrew Jolivette
• Conclusion: Policies for a Racially Just Society ~ Kathleen Odell Korgen

Trans-racial Mothering: Double-Edged Privilege

Journal of Social Distress and the Homeless
Volume 17, Issue 1-2 (01 February 2008)
pages 8-36
DOI: 10.1179/sdh.2008.17.1-2.8

Martha Satz, Assistant Professor of English
Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas

In this essay, the white adoptive mother of two bi-racial children reflects upon her thirty year experience of parenting to make several philosophical claims. She argues that through the unique mother-child bond, trans-racial mothering may produce knowledge of others’ experience that crosses the racial divide. She claims that in this way trans-racial mothering produces epistemic and ethical privileges that may give the mother an advantaged position in public dialogue. Yet, paradoxically, in light of this epistemological transformation, highlighting the works of Black legal scholars and theoreticians, she argues against the general practice of trans-racial adoption of which she is the beneficiary.

Read or purchase the article here.

Mixed-race children are not ambassadors for anti-racism

Parent24 (News24)
South Africa
2016-01-21

Aneshree Naidoo

Why it’s unfair to lay the responsibility to prove that “love conquers all” on their little shoulders.

The events of the past few weeks have spurred a shift in South Africa, from tight smiles and blank faces at work and dinner tables, to voices now being raised very loudly against racism, and – as is inevitable and still somehow shocking – for it.

One particular act of anti-racism has me quite concerned though.

I have in the past few weeks seen pictures of interracial couples and their mixed-race children, or white families and adopted black children, circulated as ‘proof’ that love conquers all. That some sort of interracial utopia exists when we love and have sex across the colour line and birth biracial children.

It’s a dangerously naive sentiment, and places responsibility on tiny shoulders that do not ask for such, nor need it thrust it upon them…

Read the entire article here.

Family inspires book on life

Communitynews.com.au
Perth, Western Australia, Australia
2016-01-12

Bryce Luff, Fremantle Gazette

The idea of family has changed: Matthew Green and Naomi Kissiedu-Green with their children Savannah, Kobi and Ebony Green. Picture: Matt Jelonek

An Atwell mother disheartened by a lack of books depicting multicultural families has decided to fill the gap in the market herself.

Naomi Kissiedu-Green, a woman of Ghanaian heritage, has three children under four years of age with her Australian husband Matthew Green.

The qualified childcare worker said she searched high and low for books depicting families with diverse backgrounds to read to her kids.

Locally she could find little so she imported literature from overseas.

That is when The Colourful Life! series, Kissiedu-Green’s first publishing venture, was born…

Read the entire article here.

Photographing Multiracial Families In Scotland: Celebrating mothers, daughters and diversity through portraits

Medium for Pixel Magazine
2015-12-17

Interview by Emily von Hoffmann and Polarr

Image courtesy of Kim Simpson.

Portrait photographer Kim Simpson began her Exottish project after her daughter, who is of mixed heritage, experienced a series of racial insults in her primary school in Scotland.

Kim says she hopes her portraits — which feature families with some “visual differences” between their members — will encourage viewers to revisit their engrained ideas of what it looks like to be Scottish.

For Polarr, Emily von Hoffmann spoke with Kim about the work and her experience as a parent in a multiracial family.

Emily von Hoffmann: “Girls and Their Mothers” is one part of the larger Exottish project. What does “Girls and Their Mothers” entail? Who are these women?

Kim Simpson: “Girls and Their Mothers” is a collection of portraits of mixed race girls, of all ages, with their mothers — 48 portraits featuring 16 different families in a mix of individual and group portraits.

Instead of questioning their ancestry or scrutinizing their appearance, I chose to photograph girls and women of mixed heritage and their mothers with an intent to question social perception. These images display their relationships, linking these girls and their mothers together while at the same time respecting their disparity…

Image courtesy of Kim Simpson.

…EvH: What sort of national dialogue, or vocabulary even, around race and appearance exists in Scotland? Is it discussed in school, for instance? I’m interested in thinking about this in comparison to the current Black Lives Matter movement in the U.S., and the greater mainstream attention to identity issues of multiracial individuals.

KS: Black Lives Matter is extremely relevant in Scotland, especially at the moment. We have had an awful tragedy that saw the senseless end of Sheku Bayoh’s life at the hands of police officers as he was suffocated during an arrest in Fife, Scotland. Justice has not been served in this instance and it echoes all the hallmarks of what has been going on across the water with concerns of interactions between police officers and members of the black community…

Read entire the interview here.