Mixed Race Studies

Rachel Dolezal: ‘I’m not going to stoop and apologise and grovel’

The Guardian
2017-02-25

Decca Aitkenhead

Two years ago, she was a respected black rights activist and teacher. Then she was exposed as a white woman who had deceived almost everyone she knew. Why did she do it?

Spokane is a modest town of wide streets and snow-capped horizons in Washington state, 90 miles from the Canadian border. Its population is 91% white, and voted heavily for Donald Trump. The lunchtime crowd in a downtown hotel bar is too absorbed in the ice hockey game on big screens to notice the woman who sidles into the lobby, and though curious to see what kind of attention she would attract, I feel relieved for her. Her great spiralled mane bounces as she approaches in a jade dress and heels, but only a fool would mistake the look for self-assurance.

Two years ago, life was going well for Dolezal. Branch president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and chair of Spokane’s police ombudsman commission, she was well known and respected for her civil rights activism. Her Eastern Washington University students adored her; her 21-year-old son was about to intern for a diversity advocacy group in Washington DC; her younger son was doing well in high school. When a local TV news crew arrived one afternoon to interview her, Dolezal thought they were there to talk about hate crimes.

“Are you,” asked the reporter, “African American?” Like a cartoon, her features froze. “I don’t understand the question.” The reporter pressed, “Are your parents white?” Dolezal turned from the camera and fled…

…The 39-year-old says she can count the friends she has left in town on her fingers. “Right now the only place that I feel understood and completely accepted is with my kids and my sister.” She has written a memoir, titled In Full Color, but 30 publishing houses turned her down before she found one willing to print it. “The narrative was that I’d offended both communities in an unforgivable way, so anybody who gave me a dime would be contributing to wrong and oppression and bad things. To a liar and a fraud and a con.”….

Read the entire article here.

The film “A United Kingdom” reminds us of the progress made with interracial marriage

The State Press
Tempe, Arizona
2017-02-23

Guillermo Mijares, Political Reporter

Photo by Karen Ta | The State Press “People shouldn’t be uncomfortable seeing an interracial couple.” Illustration published on Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017.

I believe we are undoubtedly the most progressive generation so far. This past weekend I went to see a film that reminded me of that.

“A United Kingdom” reminds us that it wasn’t too long ago that skin color was a barrier to overcome for some couples. In fact, it wasn’t until the year 2000 when the state of Alabama finally changed its decision and lifted the ban on the right to an interracial marriage in the state.

Just 55 years ago, Arizona repealed its ban on interracial marriages. Many of our parents lived to witness this repeal, yet we tend to forget this unfortunate part of history.

This film reminds us that a visual image today of an interracial couple is almost entirely a non-issue, certainly among millennials. As a college student at ASU, I witness many interracial couples daily, which is something past generations could not witness.

Despite the flaws our world has when it comes to race relations, I believe people, especially younger people and students, are leading the way to a more accepting society…

…Though the film addressed a racial issue, it wouldn’t address why people were so uncomfortable seeing an interracial couple.

Author and Time magazine contributor Arica L. Coleman Ph.D, said that this has been an on-going problem with the film industry.

She said she gives credit to the industry for highlighting important and progressive moments in historical films, but she also finds a problem in those same films for not presenting the full picture to the public when it comes down to race.

“They are problematic — they sell an illusion — and a problem I have with the topic of interracial marriage is the whole notion of using interracial marriage as a sign of progress with race, but it also can be used as an eraser,” she said. “Also, just like most of the time with Hollywood, it’s almost always the black man with the exotic white woman, which continues to show that the lack for black women is still present.”…

Read the entire article here.

Sense of Place with Minelle Mahtani – Adebe DeRango-Adem and George Elliot Clarke

Sense of Place with Minelle Mahtani
Roundhouse Radio 98.3 FM
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
2017-02-27

Minelle Mahtani, Host and Associate Professor of Human Geography and Planning, and the Program in Journalism
University of Toronto, Scarborough

Minelle speaks with Canada’s current Parliamentary Poet Laureate George Elliot Clarke and poet and PhD student Adebe DeRango-Adem about the mentor-mentee relationship.

Listen to the interview (00:19:08) here.

Sense of Place with Minelle Mahtani – Chelene Knight

Sense of Place with Minelle Mahtani
Roundhouse Radio 98.3 FM
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
2017-02-16

Minelle Mahtani, Host and Associate Professor of Human Geography and Planning, and the Program in Journalism
University of Toronto, Scarborough

Minelle speaks with Room magazine’s managing editor, Chelene Knight, about the local magazine and its volunteer collective.

Listen to the interview (00:15:50) here.

Angela Rye: I always knew I was black

Cable News Network (CNN)
2017-02-24

Angela T. Rye

Angela Rye is a CNN political commentator, NPR political analyst and CEO of IMPACT Strategies, a political advocacy firm in Washington. She is also a former Congressional Black Caucus executive director and general counsel. You can follow her on Twitter @angela_rye and on Instagram @angelarye. This is part of the “First time I realized I was black” series. The views expressed are her own.

(CNN)I never had a moment of realization about my blackness — I just was. Blackness was a central thread of my experience as a child and as an adolescent, as it is now that I’m an adult.

It seemed like my father knew everybody in Seattle, where I was raised. When he and I would walk down the street I remember people would regularly ask him how he was doing. He would respond without missing a beat: “You know, just out here fighting this racism, man.”

My mother worked really hard to ensure that I had black dolls (of all hues), black books by black authors, and my personal favorite: a poster from the 1975 Anheuser-Busch Great Kings and Queens of Africa collection (of course, she removed the beer logo). She would regularly have me name family members and friends who looked like each of the queens and kings on the poster…

…Indeed, with every instance of systemic oppression, black people have demonstrated an uncanny ability to succeed and excel — from Black Wall Street (a name given to a economically thriving black neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, during the early 1900s, which helped the black dollar circulate 36 to 100 times before leaving the community) to working diligently to elect the first black president. …

Read the entire article here.

What is Race? Just the Facts.

The Nib
2017-02-24

Whit Taylor, cartoonist, writer, and educator from New Jersey

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Mixed-race couple: ‘The priest refused to marry us’

BBC News Magazine
2017-03-01

Claire Bates

Phil Coomes Trudy and Barclay Patoir met during World War Two at a time when mixed-race relationships were still taboo. More than 70 years later they reveal the obstacles they had to overcome to stay together.

When Trudy Menard and Barclay Patoir told friends and family they were going to get married, no-one thought it was a good idea – because Trudy was white and Barclay was black.

“When I told them at work they thought I was daft marrying a black man. They all said, ‘It won’t last you know,’ because it was a mixed-race marriage,” says Trudy.

“I think some people thought I was marrying beneath myself.”…

Read the entire article here.

How a man of mixed race helped create British Columbia

The Vancouver Courier
2017-02-14

Martha Perkins, Editor-in-Chief

Sir James Douglas, who became governor of Vancouver Island in 1851, was born in Guyana to a Creole mother and Scottish father.

To celebrate Black History Month we profile the Hudson Bay Company’s Sir James Douglas

In 1803 in what was then British Guyana, James Douglas was born. His father was a Scottish merchant and his mother was what they called “free coloured” — a Creole woman of mixed African and European heritage.

Unlike his younger sister, who was as dark skinned as their mother, Douglas appeared to be Caucasian. But his later actions, including marrying a woman of Cree ancestry, have led amateur historian (and former Vancouver mayor) Sam Sullivan to believe that when Douglas built Fort Victoria, his aim was to create an inclusive society where everyone had an opportunity to thrive…

Read the entire article here.