All at Sea

Posted in Autobiography, Biography, Books, Caribbean/Latin America, Family/Parenting, Monographs, United Kingdom on 2019-12-01 02:06Z by Steven

All at Sea

4th Estate (an imprint of HarperCollins)
2016-04-07
240 pages
Paperback ISBN: 978-0008142162

Decca Aitkenhead

In May 2014, on a hot still morning on a beautiful beach in Jamaica, Decca Aikenhead’s life changed irrevocably. First her four year old son Jake, pootling by the water’s edge in his pyjamas, was dragged out to sea on a riptide. Then Tony, her partner and Jake’s father, dived in to save him, but drowned in the process.

Tony – a Northern, mixed race former prisoner, drug dealer and crack addict – “Black” and “Decca” – a prize-winning Guardian journalist from the West Country – had always made an improbable couple. For years they tried to find a way to come together from very different starting places. Tony reformed himself, got an education, and then a job. Decca bore him two sons and they bought a medieval farmhouse in Kent and set about transforming it. A decade on, lying in the sand in their favourite place in the world, young, strong, fit and with their children playing at their feet, they were congratulating themselves on their achievements when everything was ripped away.

Bookended by the deaths of her mother in childhood, and Tony this year, All at Sea looks at class, race, privilege and prejudice through the prism of Decca’s life and these deaths. It stares into the dark chasm of our worst nightmare – a random accidental tragedy – and somehow finds the light on the other side.

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After Misty Comes Marie: Breaking Barriers in ‘The Nutcracker’

Posted in Articles, Arts, Media Archive, United States on 2019-12-01 01:45Z by Steven

After Misty Comes Marie: Breaking Barriers in ‘The Nutcracker’

The New York Times
2019-11-28

Gia Kourlas, Dance Critic

Charlotte Nebres is the first black Marie, the young heroine of “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker,” at New York City Ballet. 
Charlotte Nebres is the first black Marie, the young heroine of “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker,” at New York City Ballet.
Heather Sten for The New York Times

This year, for the first time, New York City Ballet’s “Nutcracker” has a black Marie, the young heroine whose life is charged with magic.

She may not remember it, but during the first summer of her life Charlotte Nebres canvassed for Barack Obama with her mother, Danielle, who carried her in a sling. She attended political rallies. And on a frigid day in January 2009, she accompanied her parents and older sister to his inauguration.

When Charlotte was 6, Misty Copeland became the first female African-American principal at American Ballet Theater. That, she remembers.

“I saw her perform and she was just so inspiring and so beautiful,” Charlotte, 11, said. “When I saw someone who looked like me onstage, I thought, that’s amazing. She was representing me and all the people like me.”

Now Charlotte, a student at the School of American Ballet, is breaking a barrier herself: She is the first black Marie, the young heroine of “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker,” at New York City Ballet. It’s a milestone for the production, which dates to 1954.

It isn’t lost on Charlotte that she “got to grow up in a time when it wasn’t just like, oh yeah I can do this, but not do this,” she said. “There was nothing holding you back.”

But the cultural shift reaches beyond Charlotte, whose mother’s family is from Trinidad (her father’s side is from the Philippines), as her school works to diversify its student body. In addition to Charlotte, the other young leads this season are Tanner Quirk (her Prince), who is half-Chinese; Sophia Thomopoulos (Marie), who is half-Korean, half-Greek; and Kai Misra-Stone (Sophia’s Prince), who is half-South Asian. (The children are always double cast.)…

Read the entire article here.

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Bernardine Evaristo: ‘These are unprecedented times for black female writers’

Posted in Articles, Arts, Media Archive, United Kingdom, Women on 2019-12-01 01:12Z by Steven

Bernardine Evaristo: ‘These are unprecedented times for black female writers’

The Guardian
2019-10-19

Bernardine Evaristo


‘These times really are extraordinary’ … Bernardine Evaristo. Photograph: Karen Robinson/The Observer

The first black woman to win the Booker prize argues that a revolution is sweeping through British publishing. But can it lead to lasting change?

Chidera Eggerue, AKA The Slumflower, is a social media star, south-east London homegirl and feminist. She first came to prominence in 2017 when she created the hashtag #SaggyBoobsMatter on Twitter in order to promote the body-positive message that women’s breasts and bodies are fine just as they are. It’s an important idea and antithetical to a beauty industry that berates us for our imperfections. A year later Eggerue published a self-help motivational book, What a Time to Be Alone: The Slumflower’s Guide to Why You Are Already Enough, which entered the Sunday Times bestseller list the week it was published in 2018, when she was 23. In her very pink, zanily illustrated book, Eggerue, a self-styled “guru, confidante and best friend” to her readers, offers advice on self-worth and self-acceptance. An earlier booklet called Little Black Book: A Toolkit for Working Women, by Otegha Uwagba, became a bestseller in 2016, paving the way for Eggerue. This, in turn, was probably influenced by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s 2014 essay We Should All Be Feminists.

These are unprecedented times for black female writers, in no small part due to the internet. It has reconfigured how we present ourselves to the world at large, as well as bringing previously marginalised social groups and writing to the fore in ways hitherto unimaginable. As a society we are beginning to recognise and take seriously the ills and pitfalls of social media, but it is still the most exciting channel of mass communication since history began…

Read the entire article here.

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Genetic Options: The Impact of Genetic Ancestry Testing on Consumers’ Racial and Ethnic Identities

Posted in Articles, Health/Medicine/Genetics, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Social Science, United States on 2019-12-01 00:52Z by Steven

Genetic Options: The Impact of Genetic Ancestry Testing on Consumers’ Racial and Ethnic Identities

American Journal of Sociology
Volume 124, Number 1 (July 2018)
pages 150-184
DOI: 10.1086/697487

Wendy D. Roth, Associate Professor of Sociology
University of Pennsylvania

Biorn Ivemark, Postdoctoral Researcher
School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences
Örebro University, Örebro, Sweden

Publication Cover

The rapid growth of genetic ancestry testing has brought concerns that these tests will transform consumers’ racial and ethnic identities, producing “geneticized” identities determined by genetic knowledge. Drawing on 100 qualitative interviews with white, black, Hispanic/Latino, Asian, and Native Americans, the authors develop the genetic options theory to account for how genetic ancestry tests influence consumers’ ethnic and racial identities. The theory maintains that consumers do not accept the tests’ results as given but choose selectively from the estimates according to two mechanisms: their identity aspirations and social appraisals. Yet consumers’ prior racialization also influences their identity aspirations; white respondents aspired to new identities more readily and in substantively different ways. The authors’ findings suggest that genetic ancestry testing can reinforce race privilege among those who already experience it.

Read or purchase the article here.

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The Rise of Mixed Parentage: A Sociological and Demographic Phenomenon to Be Reckoned With

Posted in Articles, Census/Demographics, Media Archive, Social Science, United States on 2019-12-01 00:35Z by Steven

The Rise of Mixed Parentage: A Sociological and Demographic Phenomenon to Be Reckoned With

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Volume: 677, Issue: 1, What Census Data Miss about American Diversity, (May 2018)
Pages 26-38
DOI: 10.1177/0002716218757656

Richard Alba, Distinguished Professor of Sociology
City University of New York

Brenden Beck, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminology
University of Florida

Duygu Basaran Sahin
City University of New York

Issues

Ethno-racially mixed parentage is rising in frequency, creating a strong challenge to both census classification schemes and, indeed, to common conceptions of ethnicity and race. Majority (white) and minority (nonwhite or Hispanic) parentage predominates among individuals with mixed-family backgrounds. Yet in public presentations of census data and population projections, individuals with mixed backgrounds are generally classified as nonwhite. We analyze 2013 American Community Survey data and summarize the results of important studies to argue that individuals from mixed majority-minority backgrounds resemble whites more than they do minorities in terms of some key social characteristics and experiences, such as where they grow up and their social affiliations as adults. Those with a black parent are an important exception. An implication of this analysis is that census classification practices for mixed individuals risk distorting conceptions of the current population, especially its youthful portion, and promoting misunderstandings of ethno-racial change.

Read or purchase the article here.

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Establishing the Denominator: The Challenges of Measuring Multiracial, Hispanic, and Native American Populations

Posted in Articles, Census/Demographics, Latino Studies, Media Archive, Native Americans/First Nation, Social Science, United States on 2019-12-01 00:22Z by Steven

Establishing the Denominator: The Challenges of Measuring Multiracial, Hispanic, and Native American Populations

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Volume: 677, Issue: 1, What Census Data Miss about American Diversity, (May 2018)
Pages 48-56
DOI: 10.1177/0002716218756818

Wendy D. Roth, Associate Professor of Sociology
University of Pennsylvania

Issues

For multiracial, Hispanic, and Native Americans, norms for racial and ethnic self-identification are less well established than they are for other population groups. There is considerable variation and fluidity in how multiracial, Hispanic, and Native Americans self-identify, as well as how they are classified by others. This presents challenges to researchers and analysts in terms of consistently and accurately estimating the size and population dynamics of these groups. I argue that for analytic purposes, racial/ethnic self-identification should continue to be treated as a statistical numerator, but that the challenge is for researchers to establish the correct denominator—the population that could identify as members of the group based on their ancestry. Examining how many people who could identify with these groups choose to do so sheds light on assimilation and emerging racial classification processes. Analyses of the larger potential populations further avoid bias stemming from nonrandom patterns of self-identification with the groups.

Read or purchase the article here.

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Recruiting Volunteers for a Study on Multiracials

Posted in Social Science, United States, Wanted/Research Requests/Call for Papers on 2019-11-30 23:39Z by Steven

Recruiting Volunteers for a Study on Multiracials

Haley Pilgrim, Sociology Ph.D. Student
University of Pennsylvania

2019-11-26

Do you have one grandparent that is white and three grandparents that are black or one grandparent that is black and three grandparents that are white?

If so, you may be eligible to participate in a dissertation study on the experiences of second-generation multiracials.

Participants will be asked to share their experiences in a 30-60 minute interview.

Please contact Haley Pilgrim, Ph.D. student at hpilgrim@sas.upenn.edu.

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Growing up Irish and Black: ‘It was the attention my hair provoked – it wasn’t good attention’

Posted in Anthropology, Articles, Autobiography, Europe, Media Archive, United Kingdom on 2019-11-30 23:17Z by Steven

Growing up Irish and Black: ‘It was the attention my hair provoked – it wasn’t good attention’

TheJournal.ie
2019-06-09

Aoife Barry

image001

Emma Dabiri speaks to us about her first book, Don’t Touch My Hair.

“One of the first rhymes I heard was: “Eeny meeeny miny moe. Catch a nigger by da toe.” Who, or what in the hell was “nigger”, I wondered? I soon learned… Irishness is synonymous with whiteness, it seemed. Whiteness is “pure” and doesn’t extend to brown girls, even those who can trace their Irish ancestry back to the 10th century.” —Emma Dabiri

GROWING UP IN Ireland, Emma Dabiri’s skin and hair were a topic of discussion for strangers. In the mostly white Ireland of the 1980s, a girl like Dabiri (whose father is Nigerian and mother is Irish) with brown skin was a subject of interest – and people didn’t care whether it might bother her to have her appearance so openly scrutinised.

Dabiri now lives in London, where she is a lecturer in African Studies at SOAS University of London, as well as a PHd student. Inspired by her own changing relationship with her appearance, she has written a book, Don’t Touch My Hair, which interrogates the topic of hair and its relationship with not just the individual, but with society, culture and African history.

While the book begins with the story of Dabiri’s childhood, it moves into a space where she discusses everything from how people treat the offspring of Kim Kardashian and Beyoncé to the cultural significance of the cornrow. It’s a fascinating must-read that reflects not just the changes that have taken place in Irish society, but the changes that still must take place.

The book shows that while today’s Ireland may be more multicultural than the Ireland Dabiri grew up in, that does not mean society treats people of different skin colours – or hair textures – the same…

Read the entire article here.

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What Racial Discrimination Will Look Like in 2060

Posted in Articles, Latino Studies, Law, Media Archive, United States on 2019-11-30 23:00Z by Steven

What Racial Discrimination Will Look Like in 2060

Scientific American
2019-11-29

Marisa Franco

What Racial Discrimination Will Look Like in 2060
Credit: Getty Images

As biracial people become increasingly common in America, bias based on perceived rather than actual identity will too

In 2009, Nathaniel Burrage requested a transfer from his job in Youngstown, Ohio, where he worked as a driver for FedEx. He alleged that he was experiencing ongoing racially motivated harassment. According to Burrage, his supervisor, Dennis Jamiot, alternated between referring to him as “Mexican” and “cheap labor,” and shouted “ándale” and “arriba” at him as he walked by. Soon after, he said his other supervisors began to chime in with the same racist insults, and Jamiot began to lob paper clips and chalk at him. One co-worker asked him to weigh in on whether what was etched on a graffiti wall was true: Mexicans are proof that American Indians had sex with buffalos.

Burrage filed a lawsuit under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Yet, despite the verbal and physical abuse he alleged he’d experienced, his case was dismissed. The reason? Nathanial Burrage was not actually Mexican, or even Hispanic. Burrage was a black/white biracial man experiencing what I have termed in my research as “identity incongruent discrimination.” Identity incongruent discrimination occurs when someone experiences racial discrimination for a race they are misperceived as.

As the browning of America continues, identity incongruent discrimination will only continue to rise. It’ll be a pressing problem for the growing multiracial population—a group that is the fastest growing racial group in America and that’s set to triple in size by 2060. Research finds that members of the multiracial group are more likely to be miscategorized than members of any other racial group. Compared to categorizing people into a single-race category, categorizing someone as multiracial is more mentally cumbersome, takes longer and is less likely to occur. And the most common race that black/white biracial people, like Burrage, are categorized as is Hispanic…

Read the entire article here.

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“Often race is used as a variable without people really defining it biologically, and that is a very minimum we should expect from a scientific variable that you’ll be able to define it biologically.”

Posted in Excerpts/Quotes on 2019-11-22 23:24Z by Steven

Often race is used as a variable without people really defining it biologically, and that is a very minimum we should expect from a scientific variable that you’ll be able to define it biologically. They just treat these social categories as though they are biological without really doing the legwork to figure out why that is a valid way to think about these things.Angela Saini

Bob McDonald, “The return of race science — the quest to fortify racism with bad biology,” Quirks & Quarks, CBC Radio, November 15, 2019. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/nov-16-watching-wildfire-with-radar-the-return-of-race-science-and-more-1.5359599/the-return-of-race-science-the-quest-to-fortify-racism-with-bad-biology-1.5359610.

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