Mixed Race Studies

Will Jawando Doesn’t Have To Be The Next Obama

MTV News
2016-04-18

Jamil Smith, Senior National Correspondent

There are rules for knocking on someone’s door while campaigning. And Will Jawando, a few weeks back, broke a big one. “Rule 101 in canvassing,” he told MTV News, “is that you don’t go inside.” This makes sense. There’s only so much daylight to use knocking on doors, and there are significant security concerns for all parties involved. “But as the candidate, I can break the rules,” Jawando said.

It didn’t seem like there would be any harm in this case. The woman who invited him in was a 90-year-old Holocaust survivor from Germany. “She wanted to talk, and I told her about my background: My dad coming to this country on the heels of a civil war in his country, and [me] growing up here,” Jawando said. “You could tell that she related.”

Jawando, 33, is the youngest candidate in a crowded Democratic primary race in Maryland’s upper-crust 8th Congressional District. But as he sat in this stranger’s living room, both of them were just different shades of the American immigrant story. The same thing can be said for Jawando’s former boss: President Obama. And the similarities between the two men are uncanny.

Both Jawando and Obama are the telegenic sons of African immigrant fathers and white mothers from Kansas (that’s where Jawando’s father, Olayinka, met his mother, Kathleen Gross, in the early 1970s, after fleeing Nigeria’s civil war). Both lost their first attempts to win public office: Obama in a congressional primary, Jawando for a Maryland state representative seat. Both are policy wonks with a talent for retail politics. Both are even married to women with the same name who are both accomplished attorneys; Jawando’s Michele is a vice-president at the Center for American Progress policy institute. Jawando served as the White House associate director of public engagement in 2010, and, if he wins in Maryland, will become the first Obama administration alumnus elected to public office.

Should he get there, of course, Jawando wouldn’t be Obama. Diverse black American lives have long been reduced to a monolithic “experience,” and that problem gets exacerbated when you happen to share uncanny biographical similarities with the President. Both men also have considerable political talent and a love for the wonkish details of policymaking, but Jawando makes it clear that he has his own reasons for entering politics…

Read the entire article here.

Boris Johnson’s Essay on Obama and Churchill Touches Nerve Online

The New York Times
2016-04-22

Sewell Chan, International News Editor

LONDON — Hours after President Obama landed in London to urge Britons to vote to remain in the European Union, Mayor Boris Johnson, arguably the most visible leader of the campaign for Britain to leave the bloc, hit back with an opinion essay that criticized the president but immediately raised hackles online.

The essay, published in the right-leaning tabloid The Sun on Friday morning, recycled a story about a bust of Winston Churchill that was removed from the Oval Office shortly after Mr. Obama took office in 2009. It also mentioned a theory, prominent among some right-wing Americans, that Mr. Obama is motivated by a radical anti-imperialist agenda and that “the part-Kenyan president’s ancestral dislike of the British Empire” motivated the removal of the bust…

Read the entire article here.

White America’s Obama-era freakout: What research can tell us about racial animus since 2008

Salon
2016-04-17

Sean McElwee

The election of America’s first black president somehow led even more conservative whites to change parties

Racism may be the single most important feature of contemporary American politics and the key to understanding the Obama Presidency. This is not to say that other things don’t matter: class, gender, religion, region all certainly affect political views. But if you want to understand the broad contours of American politics today, you need to examine race. Previously, I’ve argued that whites are rapidly leaving the Democratic Party because of racism. But in his new book, “Post-Racial or Most-Racial,” political scientist Michael Tesler makes a powerful argument that race has affected even seemingly non-racial parts of American society…

Read the entire article here.

Obama praises wife Michelle’s curves as he sits down with prima ballerina Misty Copeland for interview about body image and growing up black in America

The Daily Mail
London, United Kingdom
2016-03-14

• The president and ballerina interviewed each other for TIME magazine
• Copeland is the first ever African American to be named the principal dancer at the American Ballet Theater
• Obama praised her for being a role model to his young daughters as she breaks barriers with her athletic body type
• Copeland asked Obama for advice on how to stay humble and grounded when one reaches the top of their field

They have a shared history of multiracial families, being raised by single mothers and making it to the top position of their respective fields.

Now President Barack Obama and Prima Ballerina Misty Copeland are sharing a table, discussing their thoughts on women’s body image, affirmative action and growing up black in America.

Copeland, the first African American to be named the principal dancer at the American Ballet Theater, has been breaking barriers in the ballet world with her athletic body type.

And Obama revealed during the TIME interview that it was the likes of Copeland and wife Michelle that were acting as role models for his daughters as they learn the pressures women face today to ‘look a certain way’…

…Copeland said that growing up African American has definitely been a ‘huge obstacle’ but she credited for giving her ‘this fire’ that has made her one of the best in her field.

As both she and the president praised social media for inciting conversation on racism and discrimination in the country, Obama pointed out that more still had to be done…

Read the entire article here.

‘A black president, yay’: 106-year-old finally meets the Obamas, dances like a schoolgirl

The Washington Post
2016-02-22

Michael E. Miller, Morning Mix Reporter

Virginia McLaurin’s life isn’t easy. Last winter, she battled bedbugs in her D.C. apartment. This year, snowstorm “Snowzilla” trapped her inside for several days.

She also happens to be almost 107 years old.

None of that mattered last week when the centenarian stepped — nay, scampered — into the White House to meet President Obama and the first lady.

With the leader of the free world in one hand and Michelle Obama in the other, McLaurin danced with sheer and utter joy, shaking her hips like a 16-year-old and flashing a smile as bright as the camera flashes going off all around her.

“She’s 106?” the president asked incredulously.

“No, you are not,” scoffed the first lady, before adding: “I want to be like you when I grow up.”

The uplifting moment was also heavy with history, though. After her super-senior shuffle, McLaurin suddenly got serious.

“I thought I would never live to get in the White House,” said McLaurin, who was born in 1909 in South Carolina, worked as a seamstress for most of her life and has been a widow for more than 70 years.

But her amazement went beyond merely making it inside the hallowed building. She was particularly bowled over to be meeting America’s first African American president…

Read the entire article here.

What Obama’s visit means for Cuba’s national conversation about race

The Los Angeles Times
2016-03-21

Kate Linthicum, Contact Reporter

In recent years, Afro-Cuban intellectuals have started gathering in a cramped Havana apartment to discuss a topic long considered off-limits in Cuba: race.

Fidel Castro’s communist revolution 60 years ago promised to wipe out racial divisions and level the playing field for all Cubans, regardless of color or wealth. Yet racism persists in Cuba, and many say recent economic changes here have overwhelmingly favored the light-skinned elite.

The historic visit this week of an American president who happens to be black is of special significance to Afro-Cubans, who, like many minorities around the world, view President Obama as a symbol of what is possible. It’s of particular importance for the small but growing movement of black activists on the island, who have struggled for years under government pressure, and who hope that warming U.S.-Cuba relations will push Cubans toward greater race consciousness.

“Maybe without an enemy, everyone here can begin to look more closely at things inside our own country,” said activist Manuel Cuesta Morua, who said he is one of several Cuban dissidents, most of whom are not black, invited to meet with Obama on Tuesday. “We hope it will help people see the racism here with more clarity, and see that there is diversity, and diverse ways of thinking.”…

Read the entire article here.

Cuba Says It Has Solved Racism. Obama Isn’t So Sure.

The New York Times
2016-03-23

Damien Cave, Deputy Editor for Digital

HAVANA — President Obama spoke of his Kenyan heritage. He talked about how both the United States and Cuba were built on the backs of slaves from Africa. He mentioned that not very long ago, his parents’ marriage would have been illegal in America, and he urged Cubans to respect the power of protest to bring about equality.

“We want our engagement to help lift up Cubans who are of African descent,” he said, “who have proven there’s nothing they cannot achieve when given the chance.”

Mr. Obama’s speech on Tuesday, in an ornate Spanish colonial-style hall in Havana, was not only strikingly personal. It was also an unusually direct engagement with race, a critical and unresolved issue in Cuban society that the revolution was supposed to have erased.

For many Cubans, Mr. Obama’s comments were striking for their acknowledgment of racism in both countries. His remarks served as a reminder that their particular kinship with him — as reflected in dozens of conversations and responses to his history-making three-day visit this week — involves not just policy, but also identity.

“It’s a revolution,” said Alberto González, 44, a baker who was one of the few Afro-Cubans to attend a discussion with the president about entrepreneurship on Monday. “It’s a revolution for everyone with a background descended from Africa.”…

…Socialized medicine and education also helped create a society more deeply shaped by interracial interactions and marriages than the United States.

And yet, Cuba is no more postracial than anywhere else. Many Afro-Cubans in Cuba and abroad have been quick to point out that the presence of Mr. Obama, the first black president of the United States, only highlights that the Cuban government does not reflect the demographics of their country.

On an island that is around two-thirds black and mixed race, according to a 2007 study by the Cuban economist Esteban Morales Domínguez, the civil and public leadership is about 70 percent white. He also found that most scientists, technicians and university professors, up to 80 percent in some fields, were white…

…Some Afro-Cubans, like the hip-hop artist known as Soandry, linked the president to “what can be achieved in a capitalist system.”

Other Cubans brought up race more directly, without prompting, arguing that because Mr. Obama is African-American, he understands their country.

Mr. González, whose bakery counter is adorned with photographs of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, said it was not just the president whom people admire. “Look at that family,” he said, smiling broadly. “Can you imagine? Have you ever seen a more beautiful family?”…

Read the entire article here.

Read the Full Transcript of TIME’s Conversation With President Obama and Misty Copeland

TIME
2016-03-14

Maya Rhodan, White House Reporter

The first African American president and the first black principal dancer at the American Ballet Theater have much more in common than their success. Both have risen to the pinnacle of institutions that have historically been led by whites. Both were raised by determined single mothers and born into multi-racial families. And both seek to use their unique positions of power to inspire a generation of kids who may not see a clear path forward toward success.

They have also come to appreciate each other from afar, prompting a rare meeting at the White House on Feb. 29, when they sat down with TIME’s Maya Rhodan for a unusually personal, 30-minute conversation about body image, raising daughters, empowering the young and fighting racial discrimination. “As the father of two daughters, one of the things I’m always looking for are strong women who are out there breaking barriers and doing great stuff,” Obama said after they sat down. “Misty’s a great example of that. Somebody who has entered a field that’s very competitive, where the assumption is that she may not belong.”

By his own admission, President Obama didn’t realize how much social pressure women faced to look and act a certain way when he was younger. “When you’re a dad of two daughters, you notice more,” he said. “And that pressure I think is historically always been harder on African American women than just about any other women.”

Copeland, a member of the President’s advisory Council of Fitness, Sports and Nutrition, said she has embraced her role as a mentor for younger people, especially black women. “I feel like people are looking at me, and it’s my responsibility to do whatever I can to provide opportunities,” Copeland said….

Here is a full transcript of the conversation:

TIME: Well thank you both so much for joining us today. My hope is that this is more of a conversation than an interview. So we’ll just let you guys talk. I’m going to be obviously jumping in with questions. But we want it to be natural and fun. And I want to start off by saying that you guys have a lot more in common than I’m sure a lot of people know. You’re both born into multiracial families, you were raised by single mothers. And you’ve risen to the top of your respective fields as African Americans. Which is pretty notable. But I’m curious, what do you see in each other that you recognize in yourself? Like what is it, and is there a common thread that has allowed you both to succeed?

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Well first of all, I thought you were going to say that I’m also a really good dancer. (Laughter.)

TIME: I thought about it. I saw you dancing with a 106-year-old. (Laughter.)…

…TIME: And you both represent the African American community. As the President of the United States, as a principal dancer for the American Ballet Theater, do you ever think that – how does race come to play? Do you think that people still treat you differently because of race? Because you’re African American?

COPELAND: You know, my experience has been that a lot of what I’ve experienced has not always been to my face, or it’s been very subtle. But it’s in a way that I know what’s going on and I feel it deep inside of me. And I, being the only African American in almost every environment in terms of classical ballet, it weighs on you and it wears on you after a while. And I feel like a lot of it as well is what I’m kind of putting on myself. And this just trying to not get too caught up and too wrapped up and too weighed down with being black and trying to just be the best person and the best dancer that I can be. And work, and work harder than, even if I see the person next to me that things may be a little bit easier for them, I’m going to try and push myself even harder than them. But I think that being African American has definitely been a huge obstacle for me. But it’s also allowed me to have this fire inside of me that I don’t know if I would have or have had if I weren’t in this field…

Read the entire transcript here.

Whose President Was He?

Politico Magazine
Volume 3, Number 2 (January/February 2016) [The Obama Issue]

Michael Eric Dyson, Professor of Sociology
Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.

Barack Obama brushed aside the critics who hated him for his skin color—but failed to see the racial confrontation they foretold.

“If I spent all my time thinking about it, I’d be paralyzed,” Barack Obama told me. “And frankly, the voters would justifiably say, ‘I need somebody who’s focused on giving me a job, not whether his feelings are hurt.’”

We were sitting in the Oval Office in the summer of 2010, and I had asked the president about the persistence, since the early days of his 2008 campaign, of viciously racist attacks against him. Millions of ordinary white citizens and right-wing critics didn’t cotton to our first black president’s chutzpah in capturing the highest office in the land—and they have been unleashing venom ever since. Signs at early protests spoke volumes: “Obama’s Plan: White Slavery” and “The American Taxpayers Are the Jews for Obama’s Ovens.” Some played on racist stereotypes: “Obama: What You Talkin’ About, Willis? Spend My Money.” Others tagged him “Traitor to the Constitution” and “Sambo,” or played on his ancestral homeland: “Ken-ya Trust Obama?”

This last message was, of course, a hallmark of the birthers, who formalized racist attacks into a movement by claiming that Obama, despite his Hawaiian birth certificate, was born in Kenya—or that he was really a citizen of Indonesia, or that he had dual British and American citizenship at birth. The sick attempt to paint Obama as un-American—a closet socialist, a secret Muslim and a hater of democracy, no less—didn’t stop there, echoing over the years in the feverish rantings of figures like Dinesh D’Souza, who claimed Obama was motivated by “an inherited rage” against American wealth and power from his anti-colonialist Kenyan father. On TV, Glenn Beck asserted that Obama had “a deep-seated hatred for white people,” while Rush Limbaugh spewed a steady stream of invective on his radio show, from playing a song dubbed “Barack the Magic Negro” to claiming that Obama wanted Americans to get Ebola as payback for slavery. The most infamous birther, Donald Trump, questioned, without basis, not just Obama’s birth certificate, but his college transcript and whether he had truly deserved a spot at Harvard Law School…

Read the entire article here.

Proud of Obama’s Presidency, Blacks Are Sad to See Him Go

The New York Times
2016-03-12

Yamiche Alcindor

CHICAGO — In his 30s and 40s, the Rev. C.T. Vivian rode with the Freedom Riders, organized sit-ins in Nashville and worked closely with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Many years later, before the 2008 election, he traveled the country along with other civil rights leaders exclaiming to voters that a Barack Obama presidency was exactly the kind of prize that they had been fighting for all their lives.

All of that came back to him during a meeting at the White House three weeks ago between President Obama and several of those leaders. Mr. Vivian told the president how proud he was of him, and how sad he was to see him go.

And then he began to cry…

…But if seven years under President Obama has opened possibilities for black Americans, many of those interviewed were torn about his lasting impact on race relations.

They were, on one hand, hard-pressed to imagine a white president saying “Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago,” inviting the Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. and the white police officer who had confronted him to a White House “beer summit,” or singing “Amazing Grace” at the funeral of the pastor who was one of the nine black churchgoers gunned down in Charleston, S.C., last year.

“We are losing a soldier who has actually been through the things that individuals are going through,” said Jakya’s father, Jevon Hobbs, 42. “None of the current candidates,” he said, “know what it’s like to be accosted by the police for no reason.”

On the other hand, they said they did not believe a white president would have heard “You lie!” shouted at him from the floor of Congress; or would have had his birth certificate challenged and then seen a man who challenged it become the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination…

Read the entire article here.