Mixed Race Studies

Rachel Dolezal’s True Lies

Vanity Fair
2015-07-19

Allison Samuels

Justin Bishop, Photography

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

For a time this summer, it seemed all anyone could talk about was the N.A.A.C.P. chapter president whose parents had “outed” her as white. The tornado of public attention has since moved on, but Rachel Dolezal still has to live with her choices—and still refuses to back down.

It’s safe to say that Rachel Dolezal never thought much about the endgame. You can see it on her face in the local-TV news video—the one so potently viral it transformed her from regional curiosity to global punch line in the span of 48 hours in mid-June. It is precisely the look of a white woman who tanned for a darker hue, who showcased a constant rotation of elaborately designed African American hairstyles, and who otherwise lived her life as a black woman, being asked if she is indeed African American.

It is the look of a cover blown…

Read the entire interview here.

Tessa Souter sets her story to music

The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
Rochester, New York
2014-06-23

Jeff Spevak, Staff writer

(Photo: JOSEPH BOGGESS/PROVIDED BY XRIJF)

Tessa Souter is known as a New York City singer-songwriter, but her biography runs much deeper. She’s taken a few detours on her way to the jazz clubs.

A runaway at 16, a magazine journalist writing for Elle and Vogue, a student of the legendary hipster scat singer Mark Murphy, a house cleaner while waiting for the singing career to blossom.

Souter, who has released four albums, is at the Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival, performing at 6 and 10 p.m. Tuesday at Montage Music Hall. While in Spain a week and a half ago, she took a little time to answer some questions.

On your most-recent album, Beyond the Blue, you add sultry lyrics to classical pieces such as Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, Movement 2. What’s it like collaborating with a guy who’s been dead for 187 years?

It’s fantastic because you don’t feel inhibited. If you can’t come up with anything, you don’t have to show it to them. And they’re not wondering what you are going to do with it, or if you will understand what they meant. Of course that doesn’t mean Ludwig isn’t rolling over in his grave right now. But he did write some wonderful vocal music, so he clearly wasn’t anti the whole idea of lyrics…

…You were born in London, your mother was English, your father was from Trinidad. How does that multicultural heritage work its way into that most-American of music genres, jazz?

When I first moved to New York, I sang at a cabaret open mic once, and the pianist said, “You’re not a cabaret singer. You are a jazz singer.” But I don’t try to be “jazz.” A friend, and one of my mentors, an amazing singer called Mansur Scott, once told me, “Just sing your story.” Mine includes the musical influences of my life — my mum singing to me, songs we sang together, my tween obsession with Sandy Denny, Fairport Convention, Pentangle and Joni Mitchell, my discovery of Miles Davis when I was 16 on Cannonball Adderly’s “Somethin’ Else.” Then I found Milton Nascimento and through him Sarah Vaughan and Wayne Shorter, whose Native Dancer is still my favorite album of all time. There are so many styles of jazz. Definitely American in origin. But isn’t jazz kind of like gumbo? It is itself multicultural. One of my very favorite “jazz” singers — Youn Sun Nah, who I discovered relatively recently (and who was a favorite at last year’s jazz festival) — is Korean…

Read the entire interview here.

(Collective) Memory of Racial Violence and the Social Construction of the Hispanic Category among Houston Hispanics

Sociology of Race and Ethnicity
Volume 1, Number 3 (July 2015)
pages 424-438
DOI: 10.1177/2332649215576757

Elizabeth Korver-Glenn
Department of Sociology
Rice University, Houston, Texas

Prior U.S.-based research examining the collective remembrance of racially charged events has focused on the black-white binary, largely bypassing such remembrance among U.S. Hispanics. In this article, I ask how a group of Mexican-origin Hispanics in an historic Houston barrio remember two racially charged events as well as whether and how these events are publicly commemorated. Additionally, race and collective memory research has often highlighted the role of collective memory in shaping race relations. I argue that collective memory can also be an institution, structuring macro- and micro-level representations of race. Thus, I ask whether and how respondents’ memories shape the social construction of the Hispanic category. I find strong memory convergence with respect to one event—the case of Jose Campos Torres—and divergence in three directions with respect to the Moody Park riot. The former corresponds to a collective understanding of what Hispanic meant in the past while the latter corresponds to a fractured understanding of what Hispanic means in the present. I also explore how respondents’ racial self-perceptions coincide with their various interpretations of the riot. Overall, I theorize that a fractured collective memory of a racially charged event suggests a fractured collective identity and contributes to an ambiguous Hispanic category. I conclude by discussing suggestions for future research.

Read or purchase the article here.

Ep. 22 – Jennifer Frappier, Guest

Multiracial Family Man
2015-07-19

Alex Barnett, Host

In Episode 22 of The Multiracial Family Man Podcast, host Alex Barnett (the White, Jewish husband of a Black woman who converted to Judaism and the father of a 3 year-old, Biracial son) is joined by guest, Jennifer Frappier, Producer and Event Planner for the Mixed Remixed Festival, an actress and spokesperson, and who is an advocate for egg-freezing.

Listen as Jen talks about growing up as a multiracial person in Virginia in the 70s and 80s, about the racial issues that arose during her childhood, and about the racial issues that continue to confront her as she makes her way in her acting career. In addition, Jen speaks with Alex about the growth of the Mixed-Remixed Festival and how it’s become a haven for multiracial people. Finally, check out their conversation about egg freezing, which is becoming more and more of an issue as women delay childbirth until later in life.

Listen to the interview here.

Irish Immigrants and the Underground Railroad

Medium
2015-07-02

Liam Hogan

A Ride for Liberty — The Fugitive Slaves, oil on paperboard, ca. 1862, Brooklyn Museum

But the Irish are indeed a strange people. How varied their aspect — how contradictory their character.
William Wells Brown (1852)

What William Wells Brown should have said was “the Irish are human.”

The sad history of anti-black violence perpetrated by some Irish immigrants in the United States is well known. This was often the abominable product of racism, political self-interest, craven leadership and labour competition. While these incidents, such as the New York Draft riots (1863) or the Memphis massacre (1866), were committed by a fraction of Irish immigrants who settled in the United States, they have certainly cast a long shadow over the historical relationship between the Irish-American and African-American communities. Some Irish were also active in disrupting the activities of the Underground Railroad. See the famous case of the self-emancipated slave Anthony Burns who was arrested under the Fugitive Slave Law in 1854 and held in custody in Boston. When a group of African Americans and white anti-slavery activists attempted to rescue him by force, it was an Irish militia which suppressed their advances. One of their deputised number was stabbed and killed during the altercation. When African Americans held a vigil before Burns was sent back to his owners they were subjected to the “jeers and insults of pro-slavery Irishmen.” Sojourner Truth witnessed how Burns was marched on to the ship, a solitary figure, under the armed guard of two thousand armed white men. Some of those in the crowd, likely to be Irish-Americans, cheered at this pathetic procession. They also pointed at prominent abolitionists in the crowd, shouting “there go [the] murderers” of an Irish labourer. The historian Noel Ignatiev has described the actions of the Boston Irish militia as being evidence that the Irish were “the Swiss Guards of the Slave Power.”

William Still included an account of a group of Irishmen who attacked fugitive slaves in his seminal work The Underground Railroad, A Record (1872) According to his correspondent, these Irish attackers were either a group of slave-catchers following up on a bounty or racist thugs looking to attack African Americans as part of their Halloween entertainment. Either way, they got more than they bargained for…

…Perhaps it is for these reasons that the role of a number of Irish immigrants in helping slaves escape their bondage has been overlooked. It helps to explain why the cordial relationships and marriages, although the latter were relatively rare, between Irish immigrants and African Americans in the early nineteenth century have been mostly forgotten. This complex relationship is illustrated well by Frederick Douglass’ guarded reaction to two sympathetic Irish labourers in Baltimore…

…Who were these Irish born “conductors”?

Because of the nature of this surreptitious activity, attempts to verify what actually happened are often difficult, if not impossible. While it may make the academic historian wince, this history generally relies on oral tradition. From the few names I have found, it seems that the Irish immigrants who supported the Underground Railroad were mostly middle class, some were Presbyterian, others were Catholic, and a majority hailed from Ulster. The class aspect is not a surprise as it mirrors the general make up of the anti-slavery movement in Ireland in the late eighteenth to mid-nineteenth century. The following list is far from exhaustive, so please get in touch if you know of more individuals from Ireland who were involved…

…Name: Mary Weaver
From: Ireland
Location of UR Activity: Richmond, Virginia
Narrative: The remarkable story of Mary Weaver is recounted by William Still. Mary Weaver and John Hall, a slave, fell in love and wished to marry. Hall was the property of a slave owner named John Dunlap but he singled out his prior owner, a man named Burke, as being especially cruel. Both of these men might also have been Irish. Mary then proceeded to save money and make arrangements to pay for his escape via the Underground Railroad to Canada. She later joined him there and the two were soon married.

“[Hall] was also under the influence and advice of a daughter of old Ireland. She was heart and soul with John in all his plans which looked Canada-ward. It is very certain, that this Irish girl was not annoyed by the kinks in John’s hair. Nor was she overly fastidious about the small percentage of colored blood visible in John’s complexion. It was, however, a strange occurrence and very hard to understand. Not a stone was left unturned until John was safely on the Underground Rail Road. Doubtless she helped to earn the money which was paid for his passage. And when he was safe off, it is not too much to say, that John was not a whit more delighted than was his intended Irish lassie, Mary Weaver. John had no sooner reached Canada than Mary’s heart was there too.”

“Circumstances, however, required that she should remain in Richmond a number of months for the purpose of winding up some of her affairs. As soon as the way opened for her, she followed him. It was quite manifest, that she had not let a single opportunity slide, but seized the first chance and arrived partly by means of the Underground Rail Road and partly by the regular train. Many difficulties were surmounted before and after leaving Richmond, by which they earned their merited success. From Canada, where they anticipated entering upon the matrimonial career with mutual satisfaction, it seemed to afford them great pleasure to write back frequently, expressing their heartfelt gratitude for assistance, and their happiness in the prospect of being united under the favorable auspices of freedom!”…

Read the entire article here.