Mixed Race Studies

Craniometric Study of the Cape Coloured Population

Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa
Volume 33, Issue 1 (1951)
pages 29-51
DOI: 10.1080/00359195109519876

J. A. Keena
Department of Anatomy
University of Cape Town

(With Plate XI and three Text-figures.)
(Read November 16, 1949.)

The Cape Coloured people inhabit Cape Town, the Cape Peninsula and the western corner of the Cape Province. Their emergence aa a distinct ethnic group is a matter of history, covering a time-period of three centuries. The basis of the Cape Coloured group is the original Hottentot population, and an early admixture occurred between the incoming European settlers and the Hottentots. The Hottentot people at that time were already a somewhat mixed racial group, having absorbed a good deal of Bushman blood (Maingard, 1932). The Bushman element in the genetic make-up of the Cape Coloured will be seen to be an important factor.

A further admixture occurred when the Dutch East India Company introduced slaves into the colony. Some of the slaves came from population groups in the far East, such as Java, or the nearer East, such as Ceylon and India, and they brought into the Cape Coloured group elements of the south-eastern races of Asia. Other slaves came from the east coast of Africa along the trade route of the Dutch East India Company, and these brought a negro clement into the racial make-up of the Cape Coloured. It should be noted, however, that this is not the same as the West African negro element which has entered into the formation of the mixed racial groups of the American continent. The East African negro populations contain a considerable admixture of Hamitic stock which differentiates them from the West African negro communities.

In the main, therefore, the Cape Coloured people contain a mixture of Hottentot, Bushman, European, Asiatic and Negro racial elements, the crossings between these major subdivisions of mankind being well established and having occurred within a comparatively short time-period. To such…

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Marvel’s Mixed Race “Ultimate Spider-Man”

The Huffington Post
2011-08-03

Marcia Dawkins, Visiting Scholar
Brown University

As a kid from Queens, NY it’s not hard to understand why Spider-Man has always been my favorite superhero. Aside from a shared geographical location Spider-Man reflected many of the qualities of urban youth. He came from a working class background. He lived with extended family. He was open-minded. Sometimes unsure of himself, he struggled to make sense of the bustling world around him and his place in it.

And now there’s a new chapter to the story. Today we meet Miles Morales, a younger multiracial and multiethnic Spidey. Morales, of mixed black and Latino descent, is described by TIME Magazine as a gangly teen “that fights crime and hurls spiderwebs, just like Peter Parker used to do.” The similarities between Morales and Parker don’t stop there. They share alliterative names and Miles was bitten by a powerful spider too. I guess that makes them both multiracial spider-men…

Read the entire article here.