Mixed Race Studies

Iconic Fine Arts Sculptor Edmonia Lewis Honored In Google Doodle

The Huffington Post
2017-02-01

Zahara Hill, Black Voices Editorial Fellow

Sophie Diao The artist’s dedication to portraying her African-American and Native-American ancestry separated her from other sculptors.

Black History Month began with the art of this lesser-known black icon.

In honor of the start of Black History Month on Wednesday, Google Doodle paid tribute to Edmonia Lewis, who is considered to be the first woman of African-American and Native American descent to earn global recognition as a fine arts sculptor.

Lewis, who was born in Greenbush, New York in 1844, is particularly known for sculpting on “The Death of Cleopatra,” which is a graphic but highly praised depiction of the death of the former Egyptian Queen. Google Doodler Sophie Diao told HuffPost she drew the illustration on Google’s homepage in homage to Lewis because she has always been inspired by her work…

Read the entire article here.

Soccer Led Me To Embrace Every Part Of My Multiracial Heritage

The Huffington Post
2017-01-06

Geneva Abdul, Publicist & Writer
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Born from the marrying of British and Trinidadian cultures, I defined my cultural identity through soccer when I decided to play for Trinidad and Tobago at the age of 14.

Growing up, my parents had never imposed their cultures on me — my cultural identity had always felt like a decision between Canadian, Trinidadian and British. It wasn’t until I had recently retired my soccer cleats when I’d realized I had never had to make the choice, that I could be all three.

As a woman I oscillate between essence and existence. As a woman of colour I participate in a more complex rigmarole of types. The quotidian experience of being asked “what’s your background” or being told “you’re pretty for a brown girl” and “I didn’t know brown girls were athletic” served as a set of ongoing reminders that constantly interpolated my cultural identity…

Read the entire article here.

Elizabeth Anionwu’s Memoir: Mixed Blessings From A Cambridge Union Exceeds All Superlatives

The Huffington Post
2016-12-28

Claudia Tomlinson, Author, campaigner, entrepreneur
London, England

Emeritus Professor Elizabeth Anionwu: Photograph by Barney Newman

Elizabeth Anionwu is a diminutive woman of colossal talent in everything she has turned her hand to, and to top off a high achieving career, her memoir has now outed her as a wonderful author.

She was born in 1947, from the relationship between her father, a Nigerian student, and her mother Mary, a Classics student whose family came from County Wexford and County Down, in Ireland, to settle in Liverpool.

Their romance blossomed at Cambridge University, at a time of discrimination against both black and Irish people in England.

Born into a strong Catholic family on her mother’s side, Elizabeth’s arrival, to unmarried parents, was a shock to her mother’s family threatening to bring great shame to the family…

Read the entire review here.

Artist Explodes Racial Stereotypes In Shape-Shifting Photographs

The Huffington Post
2016-10-20

Priscilla Frank, Arts & Culture Writer

Shulamit Nazarian

“My experience as a person of color is different than others’. I have something to say.”

Artist Genevieve Gaignard grew up in the town of Orange, Massachusetts. Her mother was white, her father black ― one of the first black men to live in the small town. “I was always really aware that we were different,” Gaignard explained in an interview with The Huffington Post.

While Gaignard was well aware of her biracial identity, most of her classmates and neighborhood acquaintances simply saw her as the pale-skinned, redheaded child she was. They assumed, in other words, like the majority of Orange citizens, that Gaignard was white. “I passed along with everyone else,” she said. “I blended in.”

As a kid, Gaignard spent a lot of time in her room. “I was shy, quiet, in my own little world,” she recalled. She would listen to the radio, make collages and plaster magazine cutouts on her wall. She’d also obsessively look into the lives of celebrities like Mariah Carey and Alicia Keys, women who also were both black and white. She studied how they defined themselves, the spaces they occupied and the ways they existed in the world. “I would think, ‘Oh, they get to be black,’ or, ‘They’re kind of passing as white,’” Gaignard said. “I would search for images of their parents, trying to get clues. It’s interesting how media or the industry often decides where someone will fit in.”

“Basic Cable” Shulamit Nazarian

With no outside force to define her, Gaignard was left, like so many young people, feeling undefined. “It was this not knowing how to identify,” she expressed. “Not feeling black enough, not feeling white enough, that was the struggle.”…

Read the entire article here.

White Model Apologizes After Her Photo Shows Up On Blackhair Magazine

The Huffington Post
2016-11-21

Zeba Blay

“I’m very sorry this cover was taken away from a black woman,” she wrote.

Blackhair magazine had some explaining to do after mistakenly featuring a white model rocking afro-textured hair on the cover of its latest issue. The publication, known for offering hair tips and tricks for black and mixed-race women, was called out by a white model Emily Bador who says an old modeling photo of her was used without her permission for the December/January issue of the mag.

In an Instagram post published on Sunday, Bador shared a photo of the cover, writing in a caption that she “deeply and sincerely” apologized for the picture. Bador explained to her over 64,000 followers that the image had been taken three or four years ago when she was around 15 years old, before she had learned about the concept of cultural appropriation and the stigma many black women receive for wearing their hair in its natural state…

Read the entire article here.

Richard Pryor’s Daughter Opens Up About The Racism Her Family Faced In Beverly Hills

The Huffington Post
2016-08-18

Lisa Capretto
The Oprah Winfrey Network

“I’m a product of this thing that everyone was against.”

When Rain Pryor was born in 1969, her father, Richard Pryor, had already begun transitioning from a relatively mild joke-telling comedian to a fearless, outspoken comic whose routines doubled as raw social commentary. As Pryor’s comedy was shifting, so was the country, moving toward more progressive values. But, as his daughter Rain points out, blatant racism still affected countless families, including her own.

Speaking with “Oprah: Where Are They Now?”, the 47-year-old actress opened up about her childhood, setting the scene for what her interracial family faced during that time in their Beverly Hills community.

“My dad’s Richard Pryor. My mother, Shelley, was a poor Jewish woman,” Rain says. “Imagine, if you will, Beverly Hills in the early ‘70s. Here I am, this mixed-race child [with] my golden skin, my big poufy hair ― because Mom knew nothing about a pressing comb ― [and] my mom’s blond-haired, blue-eyed, looking like Cher, wearing dashikis.”…

Read the entire article here.

Escaping Whiteness

The Huffington Post
2015-07-12

Jennifer Delton, Professor of History
Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York

The exposure of Rachel Dolezal, a white woman passing for black, was just a blip in a year of more urgent stories about race in the United States. Indeed, many expressed annoyance that the story was given so much play, in light of more serious injustices. But the interest in Dolezal’s story was not just crass sensationalism. The issues it raises should concern anyone who has tried to understand what exactly constitutes “race” in the United States and, more specifically, whether one can escape or overcome the race one was born into.

The question asked over and over about Dolezal’s deception was: Why would anyone want to be black??? Why would someone give up the privileges of being white in America and willingly embrace the disadvantages that come with being black? People asked this as if it were truly perplexing, but why on earth would anyone want to be identified with a race that practiced a brutal form of slavery for over two hundred years, then set up a system of segregation and discrimination bolstered by white terrorism and an ideology of white supremacy, the effects of which still linger today despite legislative attempts to overcome them? Who wants that as their “racial heritage?” Who wouldn’t give up their privilege if they could escape that burden?…

Read the entire article here.

What Scientists Mean When They Say ‘Race’ Is Not Genetic

The Huffington Post
2016-02-09

Jacqueline Howard, Senior Science Editor

A new paper explains why it can be dangerous to think otherwise.

If a team of scientists in Philadelphia and New York have their way, using race to categorize groups of people in biological and genetic research will be forever discontinued.

The concept of race in such research is “problematic at best and harmful at worst,” the researchers argued in a new paper published in the journal Science on Friday.

However, they also said that social scientists should continue to study race as a social construct to better understand the impact of racism on health.

So what does all this mean? HuffPost Science recently posed that question and others to the paper’s co-author, Michael Yudell, who is associate professor and chair of community health and prevention at the Dornsife School of Public Health at Drexel University in Philadelphia…

Read the entire article here.

“I think the media does a great job of wanting to silo who we are as Americans… They’re like, ‘Oh, that’s the immigrant issue, that’s the African-American issue, that’s the Asian issue.’ No, it’s us. And until we understand that we have a vested interest in all these different topics we can’t actually come together with an American agenda.” —Maria Teresa Kumar

Carolina Moreno, “Voto Latino CEO On Why Police Violence Against Latinos Isn’t In The News,” The Huffington Post, July 8, 2016. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/voto-latino-ceo-on-why-police-violence-against-latinos-isnt-in-the-news_us_577f9fa5e4b0c590f7e8df88.

Your Blackness Isn’t Like Mine: Colorism And Oppression Olympics

The Huffington Post
2016-06-28

Sil Lai Abrams

Monday night, actor and activist Jesse Williams gave a powerful speech at the BET Awards upon receiving the Humanitarian Award, during which he spoke eloquently, passionately, and dare I say — even lovingly to the audience of millions. I have seen hundreds of awards show acceptance speeches and Williams was the first Black man I witnessed stand up and acknowledge the sacrifices of Black women on this type of platform. In fact, through this speech he acknowledged damn near everyone, from “activists,” to “the civil rights attorneys, the struggling parents, the families the teachers, the students, that are realizing that systems built to divide and impoverish us cannot stand if we do.” He called out the names of those who have been killed by the police and railed against cultural appropriation and exploitation by White media corporations.

Williams’ speech was profound and emblematic of what it means to be “truly woke,” yet for some it wasn’t enough. While many tweeted their adoration for his message, there was a vocal group of people expressing their frustration that Williams — a light-skinned, biracial Black man, was being given center stage as “the face” for the Black Lives Matter movement. While criticizing his appearance, they conveniently ignored that there are plenty of prominent Black folks with darker complexions who haven’t said a damn thing their entire lives about social justice, stars with platforms even bigger than Williams…

Read the entire article here.