Mixed Race Studies

Shade∙ism

London South Bank University
K2-VG10 Keyworth Street
London, SE1 6NG, United Kingdom
Thursday, 2016-04-21 17:30 BST (Local Time)

Join us for this Black History Event organised by EquiNet, a network for Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) staff at LSBU. This event is supported by the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Unit.

This event brings together three speakers who will explore the social impact of gradations in skin tone. Skin colour is a potent signifier of both racial difference and sameness with the desire to have lighter skin evidenced by the increasing use of bleaching products across the globe. Shade∙ism or colourism is experienced intra-racially and is described as discrimination based on (darker) skin tone. The speakers take up the complexity of colourism by exploring skin bleaching and its relationship to shade∙ism. Can the colour complex be dealt with effectively or is it an age-old problem that won’t go away?

Programme

Skin Bleaching: is colourism to blame?
Shirley Tate, Associate Professor in Race and Culture, Leeds University

Shade∙ism: the age old issue that won’t go away
Yvonne Robinson, Senior Research Fellow, Weeks Centre, LSBU

The Colour Complex
Kavyta Raghunandan, Commonwealth Institute

Followed by a reception on the Mezzanine, Keyworth Centre

For more information, click here.

The Psychosis of Whiteness: The Celluloid Hallucinations of Amazing Grace and Belle

Journal of Black Studies
Published online before print 2016-03-21
DOI: 10.1177/0021934716638802

Kehinde Andrews, Associate Professor in Sociology
Birmingham City University, Birmingham, United Kingdom

Critical Whiteness studies has emerged as an academic discipline that has produced a lot of work and garnered attention in the last two decades. Central to this project is the idea that if the processes of Whiteness can be uncovered, then they can be reasoned with and overcome, through rationale dialogue. This article will argue, however, that Whiteness is a process rooted in the social structure, one that induces a form of psychosis framed by its irrationality, which is beyond any rational engagement. Drawing on a critical discourse analysis of the two only British big budget movies about transatlantic slavery, Amazing Grace and Belle, the article argues that such films serve as the celluloid hallucinations that reinforce the psychosis of Whiteness. The features of this discourse that arose from the analysis included the lack of Black agency, distancing Britain from the horrors of slavery, and downplaying the role of racism.

Read or purchase the article here.

About Latino Whiteness…

The NiLP Report on Latino Politics & Policy
The National Institute for Latino Policy
2016-04-10

CONTENTS

• “A Response to Linda Martín Alcoff’s ‘Latinos and the Category of Whiteness'” By Manuel Pastor (April 10, 2016)
• “Reply to Manuel Pastor” by Linda Martín Alcoff (April 10, 2016)

Manuel Pastor, Professor of Sociology and American Studies & Ethnicity
University of Southern California

Linda Martín Alcoff, Professor of Philosophy
City University of New York

Read both essays here.

Mexican-Punjabis relation through dance

NewsGram
2016-04-17

Megha Sharma

the performance held on 10th and 11th april credits: kalw.org

Mexican-Punjabi is a vanishing tribe

The United States had always been an open land to possibilities. It is visited by a huge number of immigrants every year. California which is not only a land of renowned universities, it consists of various fertile farmlands which gave opportunity to numerous Indians who wanted to have a hand in the agricultural field.

It is recorded that through Canada many people from Punjabi communities came here to grow peach and plums. However, restrictive immigration stratagem didn’t allow these outsiders to find a wife in their countries. As a result, what came out were interracial marriages of these refugees and the native Mexican women who used to work in the farms.

This gave rise to cultural amalgamation and this intermixing is now at the end of its league as the generations of this sub-culture are reaching the end of their lives. To overcome such a drastic loss a new dance series “Half and Halves” has been organised…

Read the entire article here.