Mixed Race Studies

Kaneesha Parsard on (1)ne Drop and the Multiplicity of Blackness

Climbing Vines: A Collection of Short Stories
2014-05-01

Janday Wilson

When you think of blackness what do you see? Dr. Yaba Blay’s multiplatform project (1)ne Drop and book (1)ne Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race complicate the answers to that question. In the book, visually stunning portraits and candid personal testimonies, presented along with historical conceptions of race, challenge the rigid notion of what blackness is.

Kaneesha Parsard (Penn ’11) was one of (1)ne Drop’s incredibly forthcoming contributors whose profile shed light on her mixed African and East Indian heritage and the privileges and challenges that are tied to her physical appearance – but her interest in race extends beyond her participation in this project. Currently a doctoral student in the combined program in American Studies and African American Studies (and doing a qualification in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies) at Yale University, her research examines the literary and artistic representations of the late 19th century and early 20th century colonial British West Indies and the ways in which the descendants of enslaved Africans and indentured Indians shared spaces and frustrated the colonial management of bodies, dwellings, and reproduction. And by the time you read this, she will have already submitted the prospectus for her dissertation, “Improper Dwelling: The Yard, The House, Sexuality and Colonial Modernity, 1838-1962.”

Read Climbing Vines’ conversation with Kaneesha to learn about her experience with (1)ne Drop, her thoughts on black beauty and self-image and to find out her plans for the future.

How did you get involved with (1)ne Drop?

I did the interview in the summer of 2011 … after I graduated from Penn. Yaba Blay, [Co-Director of] Africana Studies at Drexel – who got her PhD from Temple [University] in African American Studies – got in contact with me, I believe through Salamishah Tillet [Associate Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania], who is one of my very close mentors. I think Salamishah recommended me for the book. She came to my house and that’s where we did the interview. And then we followed it up a couple weeks later with a photo shoot in downtown Brooklyn. It was really beautiful to see the ways that Yaba and her partner in the project, Noelle Théard, who is a photographer, sought to visualize the themes I was talking about in my interview with different settings and colors…

Read the entire interview here.

2014 Independent Publisher Book Awards Results

Independent Publisher
May 2014

Congratulations to all of this year’s medalists and sincere thanks to the 2,500+ independent authors and publishers who participated. Even if you didn’t win a medal, know that the competition was very fierce, and that everyone involved in the independent publishing movement is a winner!

Listed here are the 78 National Category medalists, 275 in all, chosen from about 4,000 entries. Click the links below to visit the Regional, Ebook and Outstanding Book of the Year medalist pages.

The 2014 IPPY Awards medal ceremony will be held on May 28th in New York, on the eve of the BookExpo America convention…

29. Multicultural Non-Fiction Adult

Gold: (1)ne Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race, by Yaba Blay, Ph.D. (BLACKprint Press)

The A.C.T.O.R. (A Continuing Talk on Race) presents: (1)ne Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race

Busboys and Poets
Langston Room
14th & V Streets, NW
Washington, D.C. 20009
Sunday, 2014-04-06, 17:00-19:00 EDT (Local Time)

Join us for a discussion with (1)ne Drop author, Yaba Blay!

What exactly is Blackness? What does it mean to be Black? Is Blackness a matter of biology or consciousness? Who determines who is Black and who is not? Who’s Black, who’s not, and who cares? (1)ne Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race seeks to challenge narrow perceptions of Blackness as both an identity and lived reality. Featuring the perspectives of 60 contributors representing 25 different countries and countries of origin, and combining candid narratives with simple, yet striking, portraiture, this book provides living testimony to the diversity of Blackness. Featured on CNN Newsroom and the inspiration behind CNN’s Black in America 5 – “Who is Black in America?” – (1)ne Drop continues to spark much-needed dialogue about the intricacies and nuances of racial identity, and the influence of skin color politics on questions of who is Black and who is not. (1)ne Drop takes the very literal position that in order for us to see Blackness differently, we have to see Blackness differently.

The A.C.T.O.R. (A Continuing Talk on Race) open discussion series is produced and hosted by Busboys and Poets as a community service. It provides the opportunity for people to come together and speak openly and honestly about issues of race. The intent is that each person walks away from the discussion feeling something: challenged, educated, uncomfortable, enlightened, refreshed, reassured and hopefully inspired and moved to action! Each month there is a new topic for discussion with a Busboys and Poets-sponsored facilitator. This series is produced and facilitated by our Marketing and Events Director, Pamela Pinnock.

Free and open to all. To be added to the A.C.T.O.R. email list, please email press@busboysandpoets.com

A.C.T.O.R. is held on the first Sunday of every month at Busboys and Poets 14 th & V; 5:00 PM.

For more information, click here.

Whiteness Without Complex?

Anthropology While White
2014-03-06

Sarah Abel, Marie Curie Fellow
EUROTAST

A couple of weeks ago I attended an event called ‘Color Without Complex‘, featuring a public conversation between image activist Michaela Angela Davis and ethnographer and publisher Dr. Yaba Blay. The discussion revolved around Blay’s recent book and accompanying exhibition, (1)ne Drop, which looks at the faces and stories of individuals who identify as black, but do not necessarily fit with common prototypes of blackness in the US. By focusing on light-skinned individuals existing at the very outer periphery of blackness, the project tests the perceptual limitations and the social implications of the one drop rule in today’s post-segregation America – a country in which contemporary notions and benchmarks of ‘race’ are still rooted in cultural and legal traditions established under slavery, colonialism and Jim Crow segregation.

The theme up for debate was colourism, a hot internet topic over the past nine months in particular, and the object of a number of recent documentaries, chat shows and news articles in the US. While social prejudice against people ‘of colour’ – as well as the pathological tendency of the Western media to showcase whiteness not only as the norm, but also as virtually the sole domain of beauty – are perhaps two of the most visible social legacies of colonialism throughout the Atlantic world and beyond, these recent debates are bringing to light skin colour prejudices within the black community. Whereas, historically, light coloured skin was prized and aspired to throughout the Americas as a path to social ascension and a means of escaping the stigma of blackness, in recent decades pan-Africanism and a multitude of black pride initiatives have caused a shift towards celebrating and embracing blackness as embodied by a dark-skinned, African ideal. Meanwhile, in some cases light-skinned blacks have become the target of double-edged prejudice: stigmatised by whites for being black, and ostracised by blacks for apparently aspiring to be white…

…And yet, I think it is worth mentioning that there was also a significant minority of white women among the audience who turned up to listen to the debate. Looking around the room, I wondered what had brought them there, like me, to listen from the sidelines into a conversation to which we were not party. In the Q&A session at the end, the (white) woman sat in front of me, holding hands tightly with her (black) husband, asked a question about healing through empathy [at 00:45:43]. Some minutes later, a young (white) woman a few rows further down asked the following question [at 01:05:05]:

“How would you defend, or maybe not necessarily defend, but how would you address a woman who is of colour, but appears to look as white as I do? How would you talk to her or address to her what her place is in relation to colourism, for example? How does colourism apply to her, because she looks white but she is a person of colour, and identifies with that?”…

Read the entire article here.

International Blackness vs. Homegrown Negroes: Lupita, Chimamanda, Thandie and me

Alternet
2014-02-23

Esther Armah

“She is very white!” Revered Swedish film critic Jannike Åhlund watches a clip of actress Thandie Newton playing Olanna, one of the Nigerian twin sisters in the film adaptation of the award-winning novel Half of a Yellow Sun by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. In January, the Goteborg International Film Festival and International Writers’ Stage Gothenburg co-hosted a conversation between Jannike and Chimamanda in Sweden. The audience laughed awkwardly at Jannike’s assertion. Chimamanda frowned at the description. Critiques of Thandie Newton in this leading role gathered force. Chimamanda was called upon to respond to them.

Half of a Yellow Sun is one of Chimamanda Adichie’s three novels. Chimamanda’s name exploded in popular circles recently when Beyoncé included a quote from her TEDx talk, “We Should All Be Feminists,” on the track “Flaweless” from her latest album. Half of a Yellow Sun also stars award-winning Nigerian-British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor of 12 Years a Slave fame and African American actress Anika Noni Rose. Rose stars as Olanna’s fraternal twin, Kainene.

Chimamanda seized the opportunity that Jannike’s comment provided to talk about the complexity of shades within blackness and specific issues of international blackness. The criticism internationally has been that Thandie Newton is not Nigerian and is therefore a problematic choice for the lead role…

…Igbo is a tribe in Nigeria, as is Yoruba, Hausa and Ogoni. The term “Igbo yellow” identified you as the “enemy” during the bloody and brutal Biafran War (the subject of the book and film). Thandie’s light skin as Olanna does not equate to the privilege rooted in the history of shadism and colorism in America. Thandie is not Nigerian – and for some Nigerians her authenticity – and that of the film – wanes precisely because of her “foreign blackness.”

Debates and discussions around colorism and shade in America are often cyclical and absolute — light skinned equals privilege, light is Hollywood leading lady, light is the chosen one; dark equals rejected, ugly, undesirable, unimportant. That is indeed a truth, but it is one of many truths. That is the framing of complexion narratives, and that of the legacy of untreated trauma of America’s history where enslaved Africans had babies by slave masters beginning the panorama of complexion on these shores. Historically, the closer to white you were, the better the treatment you received. Time travel though history and in today’s America that legacy persists, manifesting in celebrity, beauty magazines, and leading lady selection. It continues to be the cause of pain and hurt within and among African American communities, and diasporan black folk due to Western standards of beauty. A recent hour long Oprah’s Life Class on Colorism with New York Times best-selling author and teacher Iyanla Vanzant explored the issue with an audience full of black women running the gamut from deepest chocolate to the lightest of light skinned blacks. Actor and director Bill Duke in his documentary Dark Girls also explored the issue of complexion…

…There is work that contributes to expanding narratives around blackness. Scholar and producer Dr. Yaba Blay’s pivotal projects–(1)ne Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race and “Pretty.Period,” open up the conversations about the two extremes of color – light and dark skinned – contextualizing, clarifying, honoring and celebrating what has often been divisive, contentious, difficult space. On Dr. Blay’s site, she explains her reasoning for Pretty.Period. a visually delicious website that features darker skinned black women. For Dr. Blay, ‘Pretty. Period’ pushes back against the privileging of a single story in relation to complexion. Blay writes, “We focus primarily on the sociopolitical disadvantages that come with being dark-skinned in a society that continues to privilege and prioritize White/Western standards of beauty…

Read the entire article here.

News Nation with Tamron Hall (with guest Yaba Blay)

News Nation with Tamron Hall
2014-02-25

Drexel University Professor Yaba Blay discusses her new book (1)ne Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race with host Tamron Hall.

Watch the interview here.

Multiple (Eye)dentity Series: (1)ne Drop Rule w/ Yaba Blay

New York University
Kimmel Center for University Life
60 Washington Square Sout
Room 802
New York, New York 10012
Thursday, 2014-02-27, 17:00-21:00 EST (Local Time)

The Multiple (Eye)dentity Series is comprised of films, performances and speakers that showcase the ways in which art and media are platforms for creating dialogue, sharing personal narratives, exploring issues of identity and diversity, and encouraging activism and social change.

This session features Dr. Yaba Blay, creator of the (1)ne Drop Rule Project. Through this project, Dr. Blay, seeks to challenge narrow perceptions of Blackness as both an identity and lived reality. Featuring the perspectives of 58 contributors representing 25 different countries and countries of origin, and combining candid memoirs with simple, yet striking, portraiture, this multi-platform project provides living testimony to the diversity of Blackness. Although contributors use varying terms to self-identify, they all see themselves as part of the larger racial, cultural, and social group generally referred to and known as “Black.” They all have experienced having their identity called into question simply because they don’t fit neatly into the stereotypical “Black box” — dark skin, “kinky” hair, broad nose, full lips, etc. – and most have been asked “What are you?” or the more politically correct, “Where are you from?” numerous times by various people throughout their lives. It is through contributors’ lived experiences with and lived imaginings of Black identity that we are able to visualize multiple possibilities for Blackness above and beyond appearances.

Please stop by the 8th floor of the Kimmel Center to see a portion of the exhibit until mid March!

For more information, click here.

Color Without Complex: A Conversation w/ Michaela Angela Davis & Dr. Yaba Blay

New York University, Washington, D.C.
Abramson Family Auditorium
1307 L Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005
Tuesday, 2014-02-18, 18:30 EST (Local Time)

Michaela Angela Davis

Yaba Blay, Ph.D., Professor of Africana Studies and Women’s & Gender Studies
Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

What exactly is Blackness? What does it mean to be Black? Is Blackness a matter of biology or consciousness? Who determines who is Black and who is not? Who’s Black, who’s not, and who cares? This discussion seeks to challenge narrow perceptions of Blackness as both an identity and lived reality.

Video streaming by Ustream

For more information, contact: NYU Washington DC Events at nyuwashingtondcevents@nyu.edu or 202-654-8300.

Who Gets to Be A POC?: Self-Identifying & Privilege

Mixed Dreams: towards a radical multiracial/ethnic movement
2014-02-09

Nicole Nfonoyim de Hara

This post is in response to a great question a friend asked about how the wonderful new book (1)ne Drop:Shifting the Lens on Race by Dr. Yaba Blay and Noelle Théard, featuring portraits of individuals who identify as “Black” speaks to an article entitled “4 Ways to Push Back on Your Privilege” by one of my favorite bloggers, Mia McKenzie (aka Black Girl Dangerous). Many portraits in (1)ne Drop may raise a few eyebrows. Take the portrait of ‘Zun Lee‘ on the right. He says:

“When I applied to grad school or for jobs, all of a sudden the boxes come up. I had to make a choice, so for the first time, I checked ‘Black.’ And I didn’t think long about it because for me, it was based on personal circumstance. I just chose the box that I felt most at home with because I didn’t relate to any of the other options. From then on, if I were asked, I would answer, ‘I’m Black.’ Of course, people told me I couldn’t do that — that I couldn’t choose that box. But I had spent all of my life being pushed away by people. In Germany, I wasn’t even given the option to check anything because I wasn’t welcomed there. I had no box. For the first time, I was being given the option to identify myself. Now I had a box, and I was happy in that little box.”

Is it okay for Zun Lee to identify as black? He doesn’t self-identify in his quote as “Asian.” Should we, the viewers and readers see him and insist that he must be “Asian” or at the very least “not black?”…

Read the entire article here.

12 Beautiful Portraits Of Black Identity Challenging the “One-Drop” Rule

PolicyMic
New York, New York
2014-02-06

Amirah Mercer

What are you?” they’d ask, head tilted and eyes squinted.

“Black,” I’d reply.

“No … but like, what else are you? I know it’s not all black.”

So went a typical interrogation by my peers as a kid. With skin lighter than even some who identify as White, and hair that streaks blond in the sun, I’ve never been offended by the question, although I have since changed my response. To the more politically correct question that I’m asked in adulthood — “Where are you from?” — I would recite my ethnic makeup, followed by a definitive, “But I identify as Black.” (If I feel like being a wise ass, I’ll simply reply with “New Jersey.”)

How do you define a racial identity? Can “blackness” be defined simply by a person’s skin tone, hair texture and facial features? Can we define it by the way someone walks or the way they talk? Can it be a product of someone’s cultural affinities, regardless of what she looks like?

These are the questions that Dr. Yaba Blay and photographer Noelle Théard encourage us to wrestle with in (1)ne Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race. Featuring the perspectives of 58 people who identify as part of the larger “racial, cultural, and social group generally referred to and known as Black,” the book combines candid memoirs and striking portraits to explore the complexities of Black identity and celebrate an individual’s right to self-identify.

(1)ne Drop’s title derives from the “one-drop rule” — a (successful) attempt to define blackness in America as one drop, or at least 1/32, of Black ancestry for the economic, social, and political purposes of distinguishing a Black person from a White person. I say “successful,” because the one-drop rule still holds cultural weight today, especially with regard to how we value light and dark skin. For this reason, Dr. Blay aims to “challenge narrow yet popular perceptions of what Blackness is and what Blackness looks like.”

“I think the context that we live in shapes the way you identify yourself, and the way others identify you,” says Dr. Blay. And therein lies the power of (1)ne Drop. From Zun Lee, a man who has always identified as Black despite being phenotypically Asian, to Sembene McFarland, a woman whose vitiligo bizarrely blurs other people’s perception of her race, to James Bartlett, a man who is mistaken for Italian, Arab or Hispanic depending on what U.S. city he’s in, (1)ne Drop narrates a story of blackness that is not bound by looks, but that is fluid and empowered by the act of self-identification.

Below are 12 portraits of participants, including their self-identification and a piece of their personal story from (1)ne Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race:…

Read the entire article and view the portraits here.