Mixed Race Studies

I Call Myself What I like: Mixed Race Identity & Social Media

University of Leicester
October 2013
68 pages

Nadia Riepenhausen

Submitted for the degree of MA in Mass Communications, Media & Public Relations

This research study asserts that mixed race people are hyper-visible in terms of their images in media and popular culture, yet still remain largely invisible, due to a lack of recognition and acknowledgment, in mainstream media. As a result of a lack of representation, social media has become an important and significant way for mixed race people to interact, in terms of producing and consuming content. The study uses a qualitative research methodology, in the form of in-depth interviews, as well as incorporating several theories, including a ‘uses and gratifications’ approach. The research also shows that social media allows those who identify as mixed race to navigate multiple identities more freely and express themselves in ways that are not always possible in ‘real life’.

Table of Contents

• 1. Introduction
  • 1.1 Research questions
  • 1.2 Why mixed race?
• 2. Theoretical Perspective
  • 2.1 Representation theory
  • 2.2 New ethnicities
  • 2.3 Critical theories and mixed race
  • 2.4 Uses and gratifications theory and social media
• 3. Literature Review
  • 3.1 Mixed race studies
  • 3.2 Race, mixed race and media
  • 3.3 Social media and race
• 4. Research Methodology
  • 4.1 Objectives of research
  • 4.2 Qualitative Research/In-depth Interviews
  • 4.3 Research sample
  • 4.4 Shared Identities
  • 4.5 Data Collection and analysis
• 5. Results and Discussion
  • 5.1 Multiple Identities
  • 5.2 Mixed race identity and gender
  • 5.3 Media representations of mixed race
  • 5.4 Navigating mixed race and social media
  • 5.5 Creating new identities.
  • 5.6 ‘Produsage’
  • 5.7 Cheerios Commercial
  • 5.8 The way forward
• 6. Conclusion
  • 6.1 Limitations
  • 6.2 Future Research
• 7. Appendices
• 8. References

Read the entire thesis here.

The Symbolic Power of Color: Constructions of Race, Skin-Color, and Identity in Brazil

Humanity & Society
Volume 35, Numbers 1-2 (February 2011)
pages 62-99
DOI: 10.1177/016059761103500104

Marcia L. Mikulak, Associate Professor of Anthropology
University of North Dakota

Some current cultural anthropologists define race as a social construct, yet explorations of the socio-historical constructions that give form and structure to racial identities perpetuating notions of “race” are rarely discussed. This study explores the theory of racial formations proposed by Michael Omi and Howard Winant as it applies to Brazil’s racial project, arguing that Brazil’s rhetoric on race and national identity during the late 19th to early 20th century culminated in a racial project ultimately known as democracia racial. As a result, I propose that Brazilian racial consciousness is symbolically pluralistic, encompassing race, social class, and social position, generating a particularly virulent, yet silent form of racism. I expand upon racial formation theory through analysis of my fieldwork carried out in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, in 2004. This analysis illustrates how contemporary Brazilian social structure and daily cultural discourses on race, skin-color, racial identity, and social marginalization reflect the nation’s early racist ideology, yet contest its reality. Informants discuss self-identifications of skin-color, the meanings attributed to color tonalities, and the impact racism has on their daily lives.

Read or purchase the article here.

(1)ne Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race

BLACKprint Press
2013-11-29
284 pages
75 full-page photographs
Hardback ISBN: 978-0-9896645-0-9

Yaba Blay, Ph.D., The Daniel T. Blue Endowed Chair of Political Science
North Carolina State University

Noelle Théard, Director of Photography

• Independent Publisher’s 2014 “Multicultural Non-Fiction Adult” Gold Medal Winner

What exactly is Blackness?
What does it mean to be Black?
Is Blackness a matter of biology or consciousness?
Who determines who is Black and who is not?
Who’s Black, who’s not, and who cares?

In the United States, a Black person has come to be defined as any person with any known Black ancestry. Statutorily referred to as “the rule of hypodescent,” this definition of Blackness is more popularly known as the “one-drop rule,” meaning that one solitary drop of Black blood is enough to render a person Black. Said differently, the one-drop rule holds that a person with any trace of Black ancestry, however small or (in)visible, cannot be considered White. A method of social order that began almost immediately after the arrival of enslaved Africans in America, by 1910 it was the law of the land in almost all southern U.S. states. At a time when the one-drop rule functioned to protect and preserve White racial purity, Blackness was both a matter of biology and the law. One was either Black or White. Period. One hundred years later, however, the social and political landscape has changed. Or has it?

(1)ne Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race sets out to explore the extent to which historical definitions of race continue to shape contemporary racial identities and lived experiences of racial difference, particularly among those for whom the legacy of the one-drop rule perceptibly lingers. Featuring the perspectives of 60 contributors representing 25 countries and combining candid narratives with simple yet striking portraiture, this book provides living testimony to the diversity of Blackness. Although contributors use varying terms to self-identify, they all see themselves as part of the larger racial, cultural, and social group generally referred to as Black. They all have experienced having their identity called into question simply because they do not fit neatly into the stereotypical “Black box”—dark skin, “kinky” hair, broad nose, full lips, etc. Most have been asked “What are you?” or the more politically correct “Where are you from?” numerous times throughout their lives. It is through contributors’ lived experiences with and lived imaginings of Black identity that we are able to visualize multiple possibilities for Blackness above and beyond the one-drop rule.

The inspiration behind CNN’s Black in America: “Who is Black in America?” and featured on CNN Newsroom, (1)ne Drop continues to spark much-needed dialogue about the intricacies and nuances of racial identity and the influence of skin color politics on questions of who is Black and who is not.

(1)ne Drop takes the very literal position that in order for us to see Blackness differently, we have to see Blackness differently.

Contents

• Author’s Note
• Intro
• Introspection
• Mixed Black
• American Black
• Diaspora Black
• Outro
• Notes
• Acknowledgements
• About