Mixed Race Studies

Seeing a Color-Blind Future: The Paradox of Race

Farrar, Straus and Giroux (an imprint of MacMillan)
April 1998
84 pages
5 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-374-52533-0, ISBN10: 0-374-52533-1

Patricia J. Williams, James L. Dohr Professor of Law
Columbia Law School

In these five eloquent and passionate pieces (which she gave as the prestigious Reith Lectures for the BBC) Patricia J. Williams asks how we might achieve a world where “color doesn’t matter”—where whiteness is not equated with normalcy and blackness with exoticism and danger. Drawing on her own experience, Williams delineates the great divide between “the poles of other people’s imagination and the nice calm center of oneself where dignity resides,” and discusses how it might be bridged as a first step toward resolving racism. Williams offers us a new starting point—“a sensible and sustained consideration”—from which we might begin to deal honestly with the legacy and current realities of our prejudices.

Jewish After Mount Sinai: Jews, Blacks and the (Multi) racial Category

Bridges: A Jewish Feminist Journal
Volume 9, Number 1 (Summer 2001)
pages 31-45

Katya Gibel Azoulay [Katya Gibel Mevorach], Associate Professor of Anthropology and American Studies
Grinnell College

My point of departure begins with the social and political fact of being both a Black woman who is Jewish and a Jewish woman who is Black in order to undermine the presupposition of inherent cultural or racial differences that favors the vocabulary of mixed or hybrid identities over the conjunction [both.. and].  Instead of being mutually exclusive, the link between Jewish and Black identities witness Stuart Hall’s “logic of coupling rather that the logic of binary opposition.”…

…The revisionist celebration of a mixed-race identity negates and eclipses a long history of white men crossing the color line to engage in sex with Black women, usually without their consent.  It has rendered invisible violations of Black women while critiquing the strategic efficacy of privileging Black political identities. Although questions of appearance, performance and class require a separate analysis of diverse and divisive perceptions and conceptions of Blackness, the campaign for a multiracial category obscures the fact that Black/African-Americans is already a multiracial category.  Legal scholar Patricia Williams skillfully encapsulates this sentiment when she writes, “what troubles me is the degree to which few people in the world, and most particularly in the United States, are anything but multiracial, to say nothing of biracial.  The use of the term seems to privilege to offspring of mixed marriages as those ‘between’ races without doing much to enhance to social status of all of us mixed-up products of illegitimacies of the not so distance past.”…

Read the entire article here.

The New Hollywood Racelessness: Only the Fast, Furious, (and Multiracial) Will Survive

Cinema Journal
Volume 44, Number 2, Winter 2005
pages 50-67

Mary C. Beltrán, Associate Professor of Media Studies
University of Texas, Austin

This article interrogates the rise of the “multiculti” action film and the casting of multiracial actors as Hollywood action film protagonists. These trends are examined in light of shifts in U.S. ethnic demographics and youth-oriented popular culture.

Recent Hollywood films such as Romeo Must Die (Andrzej Bartkowiak, 2000) and The Fast and the Furious (Rob Cohen, 2001) are notable for their multiethnic casts and stylized urban settings. Correspondingly, the key to the survival of the protagonists in these “multiculti” action narratives is their ability to thrive in environments defined by cultural border crossings and pastiche. Perhaps not coincidentally, the heroes who command these environments increasingly are played by biracial and multiethnic actors, such as Vin Diesel in The Fast and the Furious and XXX (Rob Cohen, 2002) and Russell Wong, who plays a pivotal role in Romeo Must Die.

This trend reflects contemporary shifts in U.S. ethnic demographics and ethnic identity, while subtly reinforcing notions of white centrism that are the legacy of the urban action movie. In particular, as I shall argue, the new, ethnically ambiguous protagonist embodies contemporary concerns regarding ethnicity and race relations with respect to the nation’s burgeoning cultural creolization and multiethnic population. The analysis presented here shall be situated in the history of Hollywood representations of the multiethnic inner city, as well as in relation to shifts in the country’s ethnic demographics, cultural interests, and popular culture…

Read the entire article here.

Racial Revolutions: Antiracism and Indian Resurgence in Brazil

Duke University Press
2001
392 pages
46 b&w photos, 1 map, 3 figures
Cloth ISBN: 978-0-8223-2731-8
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8223-2741-7

Jonathan W. Warren, Associate Professor of International and Latin American Studies
University of Washington

Since the 1970s there has been a dramatic rise in the Indian population in Brazil as increasing numbers of pardos (individuals of mixed African, European, and indigenous descent) have chosen to identify themselves as Indians. In Racial Revolutions—the first book-length study of racial formation in Brazil that centers on Indianness—Jonathan W. Warren draws on extensive fieldwork and numerous interviews to illuminate the discursive and material forces responsible for this resurgence in the population.

The growing number of pardos who claim Indian identity represents a radical shift in the direction of Brazilian racial formation. For centuries, the predominant trend had been for Indians to shed tribal identities in favor of non-Indian ones. Warren argues that many factors—including the reduction of state-sponsored anti-Indian violence, intervention from the Catholic church, and shifts in anthropological thinking about ethnicity—have prompted a reversal of racial aspirations and reimaginings of Indianness. Challenging the current emphasis on blackness in Brazilian antiracist scholarship and activism, Warren demonstrates that Indians in Brazil recognize and oppose racism far more than any other ethnic group.

Racial Revolutions fills a number of voids in Latin American scholarship on the politics of race, cultural geography, ethnography, social movements, nation building, and state violence.

Designated a John Hope Franklin Center book by the John Hope Franklin Seminar Group on Race, Religion, and Globalization.

White Americans, The New Minority? Non-Blacks and the Ever-Expanding Boundaries of Whiteness

Jonathan W. Warren, Associate Professor of International and Latin American Studies
University of Washington

France Winddance Twine, Professor of Sociology
University of California, Santa Barbara

Journal of Black Studies
Volume 28, Number 2 (November 1997)
pages 200-218

Argues that in the United States the “white” racial category has expanded across time to include groups previously considered “non-white.” The role of blacks in this expansion is explored as well as whether white Americans are really becoming a numerical minority. An alternative racial future to the one frequently forecasted is suggested.

…But are Whites really becoming a minority? Does the escalation of non-European immigrants mean that minorities are becoming a majority? The logic of the argument appears sound enough: Immigration from Asia and Latin America is increasing, and because  these people are non-Whites, then eventually non-Whites will be in the numerical majority. Yet, this argument hinges on an unexamined premise—the essentialist premise that Whiteness is a fixed racial category. In other words, one can only draw the conclusion that Whites are becomin a minority if one assumes that racial categories are static across time and place. However, as the  following experience of Amy Pagnozzi suggests, such an assumption is dubious at best…

…In this article, we will argue that in the United States the “White” racial category has expanded across time to include groups previously considered “non-White.” The Irish will be used as an example of how groups, at one time considered to be neither White nor Black, have been racially repositioned as White. We will then explore the importance of the role of Blacks in the expansion of the White category. Finally, we will return to the question of whether White Americans are actually in danger of becoming a numerical minority, given the sharp increase in Latin American and Asian immigration, and suggest an alternative racial future to the one so often forecasted….

Read or purchase the article here.

“Skinfolks” and “Kinfolks”: Racial Passing in American Films 1930-1960

Department of American Studies
University of Virginia
Summer 2002

Introduction

Characters with a desire to become something that they are not in order to escape their realities have been present from the earliest American films to the present. The popular encyclopedia of American cinema, Videohound, categorizes films with these characters under “Not-So-Mistaken-Identity”. Of these “not-so-mistaken identity” films, more than half of the characters in question are black passing as white. This reflects the American obsession with race, authenticity, and reinvention.

As characters whose racial identity could rest somewhere between black and white, passing characters have the potential to subvert racial categories by proving the falsity of the black and white racial binary. Elaine Ginsberg argued that the power of passing narratives is “its interrogation of the essentialism that is the foundation of identity politics, passing has the potential to create a space for creative multiple identities, to experiment with multiple subject positions, and to cross social and economic boundaries that exclude or oppress.” However in most popular American films, these characters are never allowed the freedom to define themselves and live with their choices.

Despite the possibilities their existence in a society anxious about interracial sex suggests, they are actually used most often to prove that it is not possible to transcend racial categories. And just in case the repeated humiliation, violence, and personal sacrifices they endure in the films did not persuade the audience to value stability in racial identity, more traditional, stereotypical black characters are always present, and usually placed at the moral center of the films, to reinforce racist definitions of blackness and whiteness…

Visit the website here.

‘A modelling competition with a difference’ is being pioneered by social enterprise mix-d:™ at MMU’s business incubator, Innospace

News and Events
Manchester Metropolitan University Business School
Manchester, England
2010-08-02

A MODELLING competition – the first of its kind in the UK to find the mixed race face of 2010 is being organised by social enterprise, mix-d:™, based at Manchester Metropolitan University’s business incubator, Innospace, in collaboration with the prestigious agency Boss Model Management, Harvey Nichols and Vidal Sassoon.

The fundraiser event, due to be held later on the 30th October at the Monastery in Manchester, will include a catwalk competition where the two lucky winners will each win a photo shoot with a leading Manchester fashion photographer and could be signed up by Boss Model Management. They will also get involved in promoting awareness of mixed race issues….

Read the entire article here.

The social care system and mixed race young people: placing the individual child at the heart of decision making

People in Harmony
Central London, England
2010-11-11

A one-day conference from People in Harmony which will consider why mixed race young people are over-represented in the care system, how they fare in the system and beyond, and how existing procedures could be improved upon.

About the Conference

The emergence of a sizeable mixed race population provides us with the opportunity to look again at racial stereotyping, and at how public services engage with individuals who do not slot into a single racial group. The need for this is perhaps most acute in the area of looked after children and wider social care – the focus of this conference.

Mixed race young people are over-represented in the care system, which has important implications for their long term prospects. A number of reasons may contribute to explaining this over-representation – social class, cultural differences in attitudes to marriage and long term relationships, widely dispersed family and a consequent lack of informal support structures. However, the tendency of service providers to see ‘black’ children as separate from their white mothers and to question the ability of white mothers to raise ‘black’ children may also play a part.

There have been major disagreements about local authority policies which insist on the right ‘racial match’ between child and adoptive family (based on Children Act 1989 Section 22 (5) (c)). Much evidence suggests that the key to successful placements is not a good racial match, but the young person’s wishes and the warmth of the adoptive family.

This conference will seek to explore these difficult issues with openness and honesty, drawing on research and academic work, and on personal experience. It will provide delegates with an opportunity to consider:

• Whether too much time is spent finding the right label (is it dual heritage rather than mixed race, and does it really matter?).
• Why ‘racial matching’ between young people and adoptive families may have been over-emphasised at the expense of adopted children – has cultural competence simply become a new dogma?
• The direct experience of mixed race young people who have been in the care system.
• Why social class and social heritage means that outcomes are very different among mixed race young people.
• Whether there is sufficient support for parents, especially single parents, of mixed race children – and how this is informed by perception of white mothers with ‘black’ children.
• How the care system – including wider services like education and CAMHS – can work towards better outcomes?

Organisations which book places at this event are invited to take up free exhibition space to encourage an exchange of information and resources.

Certificates of attendance will be available.

For more information, click here.

Scholars Test Web Alternative to Peer Review

The New York Times
2010-08-23

Patricia Cohen

For professors, publishing in elite journals is an unavoidable part of university life. The grueling process of subjecting work to the up-or-down judgment of credentialed scholarly peers has been a cornerstone of academic culture since at least the mid-20th century.

Now some humanities scholars have begun to challenge the monopoly that peer review has on admission to career-making journals and, as a consequence, to the charmed circle of tenured academe. They argue that in an era of digital media there is a better way to assess the quality of work. Instead of relying on a few experts selected by leading publications, they advocate using the Internet to expose scholarly thinking to the swift collective judgment of a much broader interested audience…

Read the entire article here.

Vietnamese Afro-Amerasian Testimony: In Search of the “Place” in Displacement

The Global Viet Diaspora
2009

This documentary was produced/directed by Rojelio Vo, Long S. Le, and Aaron Hedge. The documentary is based on the lived-experience of a Vietnamese Afro-Amerasian, Khanh Le.

“If the individual black self could not exist before the law, it could, and would, be forged in language as a testimony at once to the supposed integrity of the black self and against the social and political evils that delimited individual and group equality.” – Professor Henry Louis Gates

Khanh Le is a Vietnamese Afro-Amerasian, fathered by an African American serviceman during the Vietnam War. Khanh has no information about his father, and his mother abandoned him when he was an infant. He was raised by a surrogate family. As a “half-breed” black child (con den lai) and a child of the enemy (con cua ke thu), Khanh did not exist before the law in Vietnam. His displacement experiences entail physical, cultural, psychological, and intellectual of which he suffered humiliation and discrimination. His search for a “place” came in 1986 when he arrived to the U.S. through the Orderly Departure Program (ODP). The ODP allowed Amerasians to bring their mothers but restricted surrogate or extended family members. Thus, at the age of ten, Khanh came to the U.S. as an unaccompanied minor, living with foster families and later in sheltered homes for Amerasian young adults…

Read the article here.
View part one (of five) of the documentary here.