Mixed Race Studies

“The Average Man”—Did You Ever Size Him Up?—The Human Melting Pot

The Day Book
Chicago, Illinois
1914-04-04
pages 3-4
Source: Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers (Library of Congress)

Herbert Quick

No phrase is more abused and overworked than the expression. “the average man.”

Whenever a person uses it, he refers to a being in which he personifies all the rest of the world. Generally he looks down on, this fellow, “the average man,” as not quit so important a person as himself. Jones may be more intellectual than I, Smith may be better looking. Brown more athletic, Robinson healthier, and Vanastorfeller richer, but I have to say this for myself, I stand higher than “the average man.”

Well, let’s look into the matter. If all the people were averaged in mental, moral and physical qualities, what sort of person would “the average man” be?

The “averaged” man would be an octoroon. One-eighth of the blood in him would be negro. But he would be darker than the octoroon of the United States for he would be more than one-third of the blood of the Hindus, and Chinese, Japanese and other yellow races, and of the white blood in him there would be only a dash of the blonde races of the northern lands. The Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, and other races which, while Caucasian, are dark, would mingle with the Hindu, and other Asiatics, and the blue-eyed, blonde-haired characteristics would be stamped out.

The “averaged” man would be as dark as a Jap. He would have eyes not quite as almond-shaped as the Jap’s, but distinctly of that type, on account of the admixture of Mongolian blood. He would probably have hair inclined to curl, because in Caucasian, Semitic and negro strains this sort of hair is common.

His eyes would be black or dark brown. His lips would be thicker than those of the white man, and, in spite of the hooked beaks of the Europeans, Arabs, Hindus and Jews, his nose would be shorter and flatter than is common with us.

He would not be a Christian; for the half-pagan Christianity of our race would be submerged in the whole-hearted beliefs of the other races. He would be strongly materialistic on account of the Chinese and Japanese basis of his blood, but he would sneak aside and practice foul rites, fetishism, voodooism and witchcraft.

The big Slavs, Germans, Scandinavians, Europeans generally, Americans, negroes and Indians would give him a stature greater than that of the Japanese and Chinese.

The “averaged” man would just about be able to read in the First Reader. He would be higher in political qualities than the Mexicans, but lower than the Japanese.

This “averaged” man would have a wife as a “help meet for him,” and about five children. There wouldn’t be enough provisions in the house for three meals, and the house would not be worth a hundred dollars. But the man would be just fair as to industry, and would probably get another meal in time to prevent the family from being only just a little famished.

He would be opposed to equal suffrage.

The Mixed Marriage

The New York Times
2014-01-11

Interview by Lise Funderburg

Lise Funderburg, a journalist, interviewed Yael Ben-Zion, a photographer raised in Israel, about her new book, “Intermarried,” published by Kehrer, which features families from the Washington Heights neighborhood where she lives with her French husband and 5-year-old twins.

Q. What inspired this project?

A. I saw an Israeli television campaign that showed faces on trees and bus stops, like missing children ads. A voice-over said, “Have you seen these people? Fifty percent of young Jewish people outside of Israel marry non-Jews. We are losing them.” I happen to be married to a person who is not Jewish. And, so for me it was, “Aah, they’re losing me.” I’m not religious, but this campaign made me wonder more generally why people choose to live with someone who is not from their immediate social group, and what challenges they face.

Q. How did you establish your taxonomy for what qualified as mixed?

A. I wasn’t going to go in the street and ask couples if they were mixed. I didn’t grow up here; I didn’t even know what terminology to use. But I live in a very diverse Manhattan community that has an online parent list with more than 2,000 families on it. I put up an ad saying I was looking for couples that define themselves as mixed. I said it could be different religion, ethnicity or social background. I didn’t use the word race, because I wasn’t sure how politically correct that was. All the couples who responded are either interfaith or interracial or both, but my goal from the beginning wasn’t to create some statistical visual document. For example, I have hardly any Asian people, and I don’t think there are any Muslims, and the reason is that they didn’t approach me…

Read the entire interview and view the slide shows here.

Intermarried

Kehrer Verlag Heidelberg
2013
128 pages
57 color ills.
24 x 29.5 cm
English
Hardcover ISBN 978-3-86828-418-8

Photography by: Yael Ben-Zion

Text by: Amy Chua, Maurice Berger, Yael Ben-Zion

Yael Ben-Zion uses photography and text to reflect on intermarriage.

Following her award-winning monograph 5683 miles away (Kehrer 2010), in Intermarried Yael Ben-Zion fixes her camera on another personal but politically charged theme: intermarriage. Ben-Zion initiated the project in 2009 by contacting an online parent group in Washington Heights, her Manhattan neighborhood, inviting couples who define themselves as “mixed” to participate. Her own marriage “mixed,” she was interested in the many challenges faced by couples who choose to share their lives regardless of their different origins, ethnicities, races or religions.

Through layered images and revealing texts (including excerpts from a questionnaire she asked her subjects to fill out), Intermarried weaves together fragments of reality to compose a subtle narrative that deals with the multifaceted issues posed by intermarriage.

Afro-Vietnamese Orphans Tell Their Stories in ‘Indochina: Traces of a Mother’

Black Film Center/Archive
Indiana University, Bloomington
2012-04-25

A new(er) documentary film by Idrissou Mora-Kpai follows the stories of Afro-Vietnamese orphans born of Vietnamese mothers and West African fathers – tirailleurs sénégalais – brought by the French to fight la sale guerre, mostly in today’s Viet Nam. The synopsis:

Through the story of Christophe, a 58-year-old Afro-Vietnamese man, the film reveals the little known history of African colonial soldiers enlisted to fight for the French in Indochina. Christophe was one of seven Afro-Vietnamese orphans adopted by one of those soldiers when he returned to Benin after the war. The film explores the long lasting impact of bringing together two populations who previously had no ties and sheds light on a frequent practice within colonial history, that of using one colonized people to repress the independence claims of another colonized people.

Told in Vietnam and Benin, the film gives space for the grown Afro-Vietnamese orphans to tell their stories, but also to explore the contradictions of the colonial order…

Read the entire article here.

The Stuart Hall Project (Washington premiere)

The National Gallery of Art
East Building Auditorium
Between 3rd and 9th Streets, N.W. along Constitution Avenue N.W.
Washington, D.C.
2014-01-19, 16:30 EST (Local Time)

The celebrated Jamaican-born sociologist and theorist Stuart Hall (b. 1932) is the founding father of cultural studies — the popular interdisciplinary field that has reworked the way in which cultural patterns are studied within societies. Combining archival imagery, home movies, and found footage with new material and a uniquely crafted Miles Davis soundtrack, “John Akomfrah’s filmmaking approach matches Hall’s intellect, its intimate play with memory, identity, and scholarly impulse traversing the changing historical landscape of the second half of the twentieth century” — British Film Institute. (John Akomfrah, 2013, DCP, 95 minutes)

Overturning Anti-Miscegenation Laws: News Media Coverage of the Lovings’ Legal Case Against the State of Virginia

Journal of Black Studies
Volume 43, Number 4 (May 2012)
pages 427-443
DOI: 10.1177/0021934711428070

Jennifer Hoewe
College of Communications
Pennsylvania State University, University Park

Geri Alumit Zeldes, Associate Professor
School of Journalism
Michigan State University

This study fills a gap in scholarship by exploring historical news coverage of interracial relationships. It examines coverage by The New York Times, Washington Post and Times-Herald, and Chicago Tribune of the progression of the landmark civil rights case of Loving v. Virginia, in which the Supreme Court overturned Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law, which prohibited marriage between any White and non-White person. An analysis of the frames and sources used in these publications’ news stories about the case indicate all three publications’ coverage favored the Lovings.

Read or purchase the article here.

Ivey, 51, is the daughter of a white woman who was raised by her black father and stepmother. She said her racial heritage was the “No.1 issue” when she launched her first political campaign in 2006 — repeatedly being asked by voters to “clarify” her racial identity.

Erin Cox, “Ivey describes herself as ‘Trayvon Martin’s mom’,” The Baltimore Sun, (October 14, 2013). http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013-10-14/news/bs-md-gansler-ivey-20131014_1_running-mate-doug-gansler-trayvon-martin.

“I think there is an additional layer of psychological interest for me in that my vision is filtered through the lens of my personal experience as someone of mixed race growing up in Canada. I was often identified as being “different” and even persecuted for this perception. As a result, I tended to form friendships with minority kids and anyone who might have felt excluded from the “mainstream.” This has had a significant impact on my view of the world, my desire for social justice and equality, and my long-standing motivations as an artist who is interested primarily in people.” —Tim Okamura

“Q&A with Tim Okamura: A Painter with a Purpose,” SCA Close Up: News and Events From the School of Visual Arts (August 29, 2013). http://blog.sva.edu/2013/08/qa-with-tim-okamura-a-painter-with-a-purpose/.

MOsley WOtta

Oregon Art Beat
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Aired: 2013-05-30
Length: 00:08:24

MOsley WOtta is a sly play-on-words meant to remind us that we are all “mostly water.” This inclusive, hip-hop reminder helps Bend-based man-behind-the-artist Jason Graham find family wherever he goes and to share his danceable message of peace and mutual support.

An unmanageable Commodity to have imported into this white Country: Growing up Mixed-Race in India and Scotland, 1780-1830

Institute of Historical Research
Senate House (Room 103)
Malet Street
London WC1E 7HU
Tuesday, 2014-01-14, 17:15-19:15Z

Ellen Filor
University College London

Seminar Series: Life-Cycles (Spring Term 2014)

This seminar series will address issues relating to the life-cycle such as age, intergenerational relationships, parenthood, ageing, childhood and youth, from long-chronological and interdisciplinary perspectives.

For more information, click here.