Mixed Race Studies

Mixed-Race Chic

The Chronicle Review
The Chronicle of Higher Education
2009-05-19

Rainier Spencer, Associate Vice Provost for Academic Affairs
University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Popular wisdom suggests that we are in the midst of a transformation in the way race is constructed in the United States. Indeed, so strong and so inevitable is this shift said to be that longstanding racial dynamics are purportedly being dismantled and reconstructed even as you read these words.

According to this view, individuals of mixed race, particularly first-generation multiracial people, are confounding the American racial template with their ambiguous phenotypes and purported ability to serve as living bridges between races. This perspective is reflected in television and magazine advertising and coverage and in books both academic and nonacademic. As long as a decade ago, the sociologist Kathleen Odell Korgen wrote in From Black to Biracial: Transforming Racial Identity Among Americans (Praeger, 1998) that “today mixed-race Americans challenge the very foundation of our racial structure.”

From his well-received speech on race, in which he positioned himself as having a direct understanding of both black and white anger, to his reference to himself as a “mutt,” Barack Obama and his historic election have significantly boosted this view. Many Americans hail his background as portending our postracial future. We hear that self-styled multiracial young adults accept their mixed identity far more than did their pre-civil-rights-era predecessors; but precisely what they are actually assenting to and what it means may be little more than a fad.

People who see us accepting a new multiracial identity have long argued that it is destructive of race: that recognition and acceptance of multiracialism will bring about the demise of the American racial model. The American Multiracial Identity Movement thereby suggests that multiracial identity possesses an insurgent character, a militant stance against the idea of recognizing race in the United States.

Regardless of their contemporary popularity, such claims are without merit. Indeed, they are self-contradictory. If one holds that multiracial identity is a real and valid identity, then it can be sensible only as a biological racial identity. If words are to mean anything, and they should, it quite obviously cannot be that a multiracial identity is somehow not a biological racial identity. Rather, multiracial identity merely falls in place to join other, already existing racial categories…

…As Catherine R. Squires, a professor of journalism, writes in Dispatches From the Color Line: The Press and Multiracial America (State University of New York Press, 2007), multiracialism is fundamentally ambiguous: “This ambiguity is about exoticism and intrigue, providing opportunities for consumers to fantasize and speculate about the Other with no expectations of critical consideration of power and racial categories.” Squires makes an important point, for it is crucial to be able to separate racial ambiguity that might be utilized to work consciously against racial hierarchies from racial ambiguity that is simply a form of self-interested celebration that ends up reinforcing those racial hierarchies…

Read the entire article here.

The very definition of a “mixed-race” society is fraught with difficulty, and this is one of the problems of acknowledgement, even in Liverpool. All the current terms are inadequate: The term “half-caste” has long been discredited, but even newer terms; “mixed-race” and “dual heritage” have their own problems. “Dual heritage” suggests a child living with the supposed ‘dilemma’ of each parent having a different culture or background. This may not be the case in many Liverpool children with both European and African genes, as any intermarriage may have taken place generations ago. Thus, a child who appears to have 50/50 genes may not have one black and one white parent, but could be the product of a community which became a distinct multi-racial community literally centuries ago, just as Mexicans and many Central and South Americans have now evolved from being considered half Native American (or ‘Indian’, as they were wrongly called) and half Spanish to distinct ethnic identities…

Dr. Ray Costello. “The Liverpool-Born Black Community,” Diverse Magazine. 2009.

At school I was called a half-caste. Today I’m proud: As census reveals over a million Britons were born to inter-racial relationships, one woman’s moving story

The Daily Mail
2012-12-11

Tanith Carey

Whenever the moment comes when I have to choose the box on the Census that asks me to describe my national identity, my hand hovers over which one to tick.

With my fair hair, pale skin and green eyes, I certainly look like I should be picking the category that says ‘White/British’.

But by putting my mark in that square, I would not be doing justice to all that I am.

Like more than one million people in Britain, according to data from the 2011 Census released yesterday, I am a member of the fastest-growing population group in this country: those born to parents in inter-racial relationships.

Jubilation over the successes this summer of Olympic athletes such as Jessica Ennis —  the daughter of a Jamaican father and a white British mother — has shown how far we have come in embracing such a large mixed-raced population.

When talking race, people are very quick to talk about the negatives — discrimination and the difficulties of integration, to name but two.

But let’s not forget how tolerant Britain is as a nation, and how inclusive we have become in the space of just a few decades.

As the granddaughter of an Indian entrepreneur who was at the forefront of this transformation, I can testify to just how far we have.

When I was a child growing up in the Seventies, it was not uncommon to be called a ‘half-caste’.

Sometimes the phrase was used to try to pigeon-hole me when I was asked about my slightly more exotic origins.  At the time, the term ‘half-caste’ implied that because you were the sum of two halves, you amounted to nothing much.

It was used as the worst of all insults…

Read the entire article here.

From Colour-Blindness to Recognition? Political Paths to New Identity Practices in Brazil and France

Prepared for presentation at the conference:
Le multiculturalisme a-t-il un avenir?
Paris 1-Panthéon Sorbonne University
2010-02-26 through 2010-02-27
25 pages

Karen Bird, Associate Professor of Political Science
McMaster University, Canada

Jessica Franklin
Department of Political Science
McMaster University, Canada

For decades, both France and Brazil officially denied the existence of race and, by extension, racism. France, with its republican and universalist normative framework, insisted on a political project of assimilative integration and non-differentiation among citizens in the public sphere. Race and ethnicity, in this regard, were not merely suspect but politically and normatively illegitimate categories. Despite the significant role of colonialization and immigration in modern French social history, the theme of ethnic and racial relations would remain taboo in both political discourse and social science research until the late-1990s. Brazil, on the other hand, constructed itself as a nation representing the idea of a “racial democracy.” In a progressive fashion since the abolition of slavery, racial mixing and harmonious racial relations became a central pillar of Brazilian democracy. They were held to be so amply developed as to provide no room for racial discrimination. Despite these official paradigms of colour-blindness, both France and Brazil have taken significant steps in recent years towards recognizing ethnic difference and combating structures of racist discrimination. This paper examines the emergence of the theme of race and ethnicity in public discourse and public policies in France and Brazil, looking at similarities and differences in the political pathways of transformation across the two countries.

Read the entire paper here.

In Brazil, a mix of racial openness and exclusion

Nordonia Hills News-Leader
Kent, Ohio
2013-03-14

Jenny Barchfield
Associated Press

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Many Brazilians cast their country as racial democracy where people of different groups long have intermarried, resulting in a large mixed-race population. But you need only turn on the TV, open the newspaper or stroll down the street to see clear evidence of segregation.
 
In Brazil, whites are at the top of the social pyramid, dominating professions of wealth, prestige and power. Dark-skinned people are at the bottom of the heap, left to clean up after others and take care of their children and the elderly.
 
The 2010 census marked the first time in which black and mixed-race people officially outnumbered whites, weighing in at just over 50 percent, compared with 47 percent for whites. Researchers suggest that Brazil actually may have been a majority-nonwhite country for some time, with the latest statistics reflecting a decreased social stigma that makes it easier for nonwhites to report their actual race.
 
It is a mix of anomalies in Brazil that offers lessons to a United States now in transition to a “majority-minority” nation: how racial integration in social life does not always translate to economic equality, and how centuries of racial mixing are no guaranteed route to a colorblind society…

…Nubia de Lima, a 29-year-old black producer for Globo television network, said she experiences racism on a daily basis, in the reactions and comments of strangers who are constantly taking her for a maid, a nanny or a cook, despite her flair for fashion and pricey wardrobe.
 
“People aren’t used to seeing black people in positions of power,” she said. “It doesn’t exist. They see you are black and naturally assume that you live in a favela (hillside slum) and you work as a housekeeper.”…

Read the entire article here.

Brazilian Population ‘Color’ Self-Descriptors

Source: National Survey by Household Sample (PNAD).  Extracted from: Lilia Moritz Schwarcz, “Not black, not white: just the opposite. Culture, race and national identity in Brazil,” Centre for Brazilian Studies, Working Paper Number CBS-47-03, (2003): 5.

The Melanin Millennium: Skin Color as 21st Century International Discourse

Springer
2013
348 pages
32 illustrations
Hardcover ISBN 978-94-007-4607-7
eBook ISBN: 978-94-007-4608-4
DOI: 10.1007/978-94-007-4608-4

Edited by:

Ronald E. Hall, Professor of Social Work
Michigan State University

• Addresses the issue of skin color in a worldwide context
• Discusses the introduction of new forms of visual media and their effect on skin color discrimination
• Touches up on the issue of skin bleaching and the Bleaching Syndrome

In the aftermath of the 60s “Black is Beautiful” movement and publication of The Color Complex almost thirty years later the issue of skin color has mushroomed onto the world stage of social science. Such visibility has inspired publication of the Melanin Millennium for insuring that the discourse on skin color meet the highest standards of accuracy and objective investigation.

This volume addresses the issue of skin color in a worldwide context. A virtual visit to countries that have witnessed a huge rise in the use of skin whitening products and facial feature surgeries aiming for a more Caucasian-like appearance will be taken into account. The book also addresses the question of whether using the laws has helped to redress injustices of skin color discrimination, or only further promoted recognition of its divisiveness among people of color and Whites.

The Melanin Millennium has to do with now and the future. In the 20th century science including eugenics was given to and dominated by discussions of race category. Heretofore there remain social scientists and other relative to the issue of skin color loyal to race discourse. However in their interpretation and analysis of social phenomena the world has moved on. Thus while race dominated the 20th century the 21st century will emerge as a global community dominated by skin color and making it the melanin millennium.

Contents

• Preface
• Chapter 1. The Bleaching Syndrome: Western Civilization vis-à-vis Inferiorized People of Color; Ronald E. Hall
• Chapter 2. The Historical and Cultural Influences of Skin Bleaching in Tanzania;  Kelly M. Lewis, Solette Harris, Christina Champ, Willbrord Kalala, Will Jones, Kecia L. Ellick, Justie Huff and Sinead Younge
• Chapter 3. Pathophysiology and Psychopathology of Skin Bleaching and Implicationa of Skin Colour in Africa; A. A. Olowu and O. Ogunlade
• Chapter 4. An Introduction to Japanese Society’s Attitudes Toward Race and Skin Color; Arudou Debito
• Chapter 5. The Inconvenient Truth of India, Caste, and Color Discrimination; Varsha Ayyar and Lalit Khandare
• Chapter 6. Indigeneity on Guahan: Skin Color as a Measure of Decolonization; LisaLinda Natividad
• Chapter 7. A Table of Two Cultures; Eneid Routté-Gómez
• Chapter 8. Where are you From?; Stéphanie Cassilde
• Chapter 9. Social Work Futures: Reflections from the UK on the Demise of Anti-racist Social Work and Emerging Issues in a “Post-Race'” Era; Mekada J. Graham
• Chapter 10. Shades of Conciousness: From Jamaica to the UK; William Henry
• Chapter 11. Fanon Revisited: Race Gender and Colniality vis-à-vis Skin Color; Linda Lane and Hauwa Mahdi
• Chapter 12. Pigment Disorders and Pigment Manipulations; Henk E. Menke
• Chapter 13. Skin Color and Blood Quantum: Getting the Red Out; Deb Bakken and Karen Branden
• Chapter 14. The Impact of Skin Color on Mental and Behavorial Health in African American and Latina Adolescent Girls: A Review of the Literature; Alfiee M. Breland-Noble
• Chapter 15. Characteristics of Color Discrimination Charges Filed with the EEOC; Joni Hersch
• Chapter 16. The Consequences of Colorism; Margaret Hunter
• Chapter 17. Navigating the Color Complex: How Multiracial Individuals Narrate the Elements of Appearance and Dynamics of Color in Twenty-first Century America; Sara McDonough and David L. Brunsma
• Chapter 18. The Fade-Out of Shirley, a Once-Ultimate Norm: Colour Balance, Image Technologies, and Cognitive Equity; Lorna Roth
• Chapter 19. What Color is Red? Exploring the implications of Phenotype for Native Americans; Hilary N. Weaver
• Chapter 20. From Fair & Lovely to Banho de Lua: Skin Whitening and its Implications in the Multi-ethnic and Multicolored Surinamese Society; Jack Menke
• Chapter 21. Affirmative Action and Racial Identityin Brazil: A Study of the First Quota Graduates at the State University of Rio de Janneiro: Vânia Penha-Lopes
• Index

While contemporary academic discourse acknowledges the existence of multiple identities, and it is possible to talk about having identities that are both/and rather than either/or (Collins 1990) for a child with one black and one white parent, this is usually restricted to a choice of being both mixed race and black. You can never claim whiteness. Whiteness is sustained and preserved through a myth of purity, exclusivity and restricted access. The addition of a ‘mixed-race’ category on the census does nothing to challenge the racial hierarchy and this is one of the reasons I reject it. Similarly, a decision for me to identify exclusively as black fails to disrupt the status quo and so for me is also problematic. It is the fluid and multidimensional models for identity that are reminiscent of a time before we had been conditioned into a belief in rigid racial classification which are so interesting and potentially offer such scope to the ‘mixed’ person—and indeed all people.

Emma Dabiri, “Why I see myself as a daughter of the Diaspora rather than mixed-race,” Black Girl Dancing at Lughnasa (March 12, 2013). http://thediasporadiva.tumblr.com/post/45223779733/why-i-see-myself-as-a-daughter-of-the-diaspora-rather.

Disparate Diasporas: Identity and Politics in an African-Nicaraguan Community

University of Texas Press
August 1998
320 pages
ISBN-10: 0292728190; ISBN-13: 978-0292728196

Edmund Gordon, Associate Professor of Anthropology
University of Texas, Austin

This book is out of print.

Based on a decade the author spent among the African-Caribbean “Creole” people on Nicaragua’s southern Caribbean coast, Disparate Diasporas is a study of identity formation and politics in that community. Edmund Gordon lived in Bluefields, Nicaragua, during most of the 1980s, a turbulent period during which he participated in the community’s search for solutions to problems ranging from a crumbling economic base to the mutual mistrust and animosity between most Creole people and the Sandinista revolutionary government.

Disparate Diasporas is not a conventional ethnography. Rather than being just an observer, Gordon actively participated in the life of the community, intent on contributing to its political processes. A basic premise of his book is that engagement and activity can enhance ethnographic insights and sharpen theoretical understanding.

Disparate Diasporas shows how a particular “Black” community can evolve distinct types of diasporic consciousness, and, depending on the historical moment, how different types of memories, consciousness, and politics come to predominate. The author uses the Gramscian notion of “common sense” to understand the Creole community’s history of shifting politics and ideologies, focusing on the period of the 1970s and 1980s. His work explains the inability of the Sandinistas to come to terms with the racial and cultural challenge to the Nicaraguan nation posed by the Creole community.

IU Libraries Film Archive a treasure chest of educational, rare films

inside IU Bloomington
Weekly news for faculty and staff from the Indiana University Bloomington campus
2013-03-07

Lynn Schoch, Office of the Vice President for International Affairs

Many of a certain age—particularly those who were in elementary school in the ’50s and ’60s—will remember 16 mm films produced by the U.S. government, Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., McGraw-Hill or National Educational Television.

They often provided the only glimpses of other worlds that U.S. school children had the opportunity to see.

By the 1970s, videotape and documentaries with large budgets and prime-time aspirations, like Kenneth Clark’s “Civilisation,” began to replace the older formats.

From about 1940, IU’s Audio-Visual Center (then part of the Extension Division and later, Instructional Support Services) was the depository for U.S. government films. In time, it became the state’s most active lender of educational films to schools, museums, clubs, community centers, and churches in the state.

As the move to videotape made 16 mm films “obsolete,” the center became a repository for what other institutions and organizations no longer wanted.

In 2006 what was then a collection of 34,000 reels formed the core of the IU Libraries Film Archive. IU Libraries has supported the transition from lending library to historical archive with a dedicated film achivist in the Herman B. Wells Library, support for resources to digitize the collections and an off-site storage environment designed to minimize deterioration.

“We have the largest educational film collection in any university library,” said Rachael Stoeltje, film archivist with the IU Libraries Film Archive.

There are films available nowhere else in the world, and rarities such as 30 titles from the 1950s CBS series “You Are There” and the world’s most complete collection of Encyclopedia Britannica films…

…Darlene Sadlier, director of the Portuguese Program and a professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, a program within the College of Arts and Sciences, has been using educational films from the collection for many years in her classes in Latin American cinema and culture.

“One film that is helpful in a discussion of the history of race relations in Brazil, for instance, is ‘Brazil: The Vanishing Negro,'” she said. The film is a 30-minute film produced for public television in the 1960s, showing Afro-Brazilian religious ceremonies and the daily lives of Brazil’s black population.

“It was an informative resource when it was first produced, but it was also polemical because it discussed the benefits of racial mixing, or rather whitening, of the Brazilian African population, to the detriment of its heritage,” Sadlier said. “In recent years, Brazil has recognized its African heritage with affirmative action laws and a holiday dedicated to national race consciousness. With this film, we can look back and consider how far the country has moved to acknowledge its long-held myth of ‘racial democracy.’”

Sadlier has published extensively on the histories, languages and cultures of Brazil. Her latest book deals with the Good Neighbor policy adopted by the U.S. government during World War II to cultivate stronger alliances with countries in the Western Hemisphere…

Read the entire article here.