Mixed Race Studies

Shaun King Is Not Rachel Dolezal: What the Media Gets Wrong About Race in America

For Harriet
2015-08-29

Malaika Jabali

As they have in the past, the conservative truth spinners behind the online media outlet Breitbart News Network have initiated an attack against yet another person of color fighting for civil and human rights. The target this time is activist Shaun King, who has been vocal about the police abuse that has permeated our consciousness for over a year. In likening Shaun King to Rachel Dolezal, the network accused King of lying about being half black in order to receive a “Sons of Oprah” scholarship to attend Morehouse College, a historically Black college and university.

There are some obvious logical deficiencies we could point to as to why BNN needs to have a seat. For starters, few Black people could look at Shaun King and identify him as being a completely white man. Race construction involves a composite of man-made ideas, but phenotype is a key feature among them. Plenty of African-Americans and Black people throughout the Diaspora have light-skinned relatives who look like King. While some may have taken a double take, we accepted his identity and let him do him. Even when Rachel Dolezal’s family revealed that she was lying about her race, many Black Americans were more amused than betrayed and took to Twitter to share in a collective laugh…

…Blackness didn’t originate with my ancestors’ feelings about how they wanted to self-identify. It was created over a period of centuries through very specific, deliberate constructions in European and white American schools of biology, phrenology, philosophy, anthropology, and political and legal systems to uphold the intrinsic superiority of whiteness and corresponding black inferiority…

Read the entire article here.

What’s the Difference with “Difference”?

University of Washington
Kane Hall, Room 120
4069 Spokane Lane
Seattle, Washington 98105
2016-01-14, 19:30 PST (Local Time)

Ralina L. Joseph, Associate Professor
Department of Communication
(also adjunct associate professor in the Departments of American Ethnic Studies and Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies)
University of Washington

Language is power. The words we use and the names we say count, both individually and institutionally. This is particularly true when it comes to minoritized, identity-based nomenclature, such as the language of a racialized and gendered naming. The movement from “colored” to “negro” to “black” to “African-American” signifies important historical shifts in the state and community-naming processes. In other words, the words we use matter in terms of how we assess, frame, and ultimately understand difference.

But what about the naming of “difference” itself? Difference is a term that late 20th and early 21st century scholars of race, gender, and sexuality have claimed and yet left largely untheorized. We use the word difference almost reflexively. Difference replaces—or rather revises—diversity, multiculturalism, or a long-connected string of descriptors such as race, gender, sexuality, class, nationality, and ability. But what does this shift in language mean and why is it significant for the ways in which we assess, inhabit, and perhaps even change our world? Does a change to “difference” lead to a change in identity and inequality?

Registration opens December 2015.

You do not need to be an alum of the University of Washington to attend or register.

For more information, click here.

‘Here Comes Honky!’: Why I Married a White Guy

Indian Country Today Media Network
2016-01-06

Terese Mailhot

When my sister’s dates pulled into our driveway my mother would yell, “Here comes Honky!” My sister was always livid, embarrassed, but still, she went out with white men most of her adult life. I always thought she was a traitor. I thought someday my Indian prince would come: the son of an activist in braids, with a mind full of theory and a stoic wisdom. But surprisingly I fell in love with a white man, with dusty blond hair and blue eyes.

I was always told we were a dying breed. “Meet a Native man,” my mother said. Blood quantum is important where I’m from. Land rights, healthcare, housing, and assistance all deal with blood quantum and how Indian one is ‘officially.’ Besides that, marrying Native was always what I dreamed of.

For generations Native women could not govern their own bodies, because white men and officials dictated we were their wards. We were subject to exploitation, objectification, and degradation at the hands of white people. Why would I ever want to give my body or love to a white man, a man who could never understand my grief or lineage?…

Read the entire article here.

President Barack Obama: A More Perfect Union

Routledge
2010
272 pages
Paperback ISBN: 9781594514777

John K. Wilson

Barack Obama’s “improbable quest” has become a fact of American life and a benchmark in American history. Striving now toward “a more perfect union,” Obama and the nation confront obstacles unforeseen at the outset of the 2008 electoral campaign. John K. Wilson tracks the sweep of this progress from the beginning of Obama’s political career through his move into the White House. With his critical journalistic eye and his sympathetic “native son” perspective, Wilson shows us a side of Obama we haven’t seen as well as a view of the media we need to understand-even more now as the Obama administration begins to govern. The paperback edition of this popular book includes a new introduction, updates throughout, and two new chapters on the electoral victory and the transition from campaigning into governing. New photos and new insights include a focus on the continued importance of race in American politics.

Table of Contents

• Introduction to the Paperback Edition
• Chapter 1: Generation Obama: The Youth Movement for Barack
• Chapter 2: Are You Experienced? Obama and the Media
• Chapter 3: Race and the President: Is Obama Black Enough?
• Chapter 4: The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy: The Conservative Attack on Obama
• Chapter 5: Why Leftists Hate A Liberal: The Far Left Attacks on Obama
• Chapter 6: “This Is My House, Too”: Obama and the Liberal God
• Chapter 7: From Quest to Reality: Politics and Policy in an Obama Administration
• Chapter 8: The Victory: Barack Obama’s Improbable Triumph
• Chapter 9: The Obama Administration: Turning Hope into Change Conclusion: Obama’s Hopes and Dreams
• Notes
• Index
• About the Author

Thai beauty ad: ‘Just being white, you will win’

Cable News Network (CNN)
2016-01-08

Wilfred Chan

(CNN)—It’s hard to imagine anything more blatant than this.

A new Thai beauty ad claiming white skin is the key to success has unleashed a storm of criticism in Thailand, especially online, where people complain the ad perpetuates damaging, racist ideas.

“Just being white, you will win,” says Cris Horwang, a smiling pale-skinned actress, in the 50-second spot by Seoul Secret, a Thai beauty company.

Without the advertised pill, “the whiteness I have invested in, will just vanish,” she warns.

On screen, the actress’ expression turns despondent as her skin is digitally altered to turn black.

Horwang promises that the product, called Snowz, “will help you not to return to being dark.”

“Eternally white, I am confident,” she adds.

On Friday evening, Seoul Secret pulled the video from its online platforms and issued a statement.

“(We) would like to apologize for the mistake and claim full responsibility for this incident. Our company did not have any intention to convey discriminatory or racist messages,” it said.

“What we intended to convey was that self-improvement in terms of personality, appearance, skills, and professionality (sic) is crucial.”…

Read the entire article and view the ad here.

[Note from Steven F. Riley: See the article, “Skin Bleaching and Global White Supremacy: By Way of Introduction.”]