Mixed Race Studies

Meghan Markle, The Royal Family, Right Wing Media Animus and The Specter of Deeply Entrenched Racism!

Medium
2021-03-11

Elwood Watson, Ph.D., Professor of African American and Gender Studies, Post-WWII U.S. History
East Tennessee State University

It didn’t take long for the right-wing media, here in America and in Britain, to gin up their propaganda/outrage machine towards Meghan Markle, better known as The Duchess of Sussex. “Unreasonable,” “entitled,” “ungrateful,” “spoiled,” “Liar! Fake Outrage!” “Fights, Camera, Action,” “Megxile,” “So Who is The Royal Racist?” and so on. Hell, perennial Meghan Markle antagonist and fierce critic, Piers Morgan, literally screamed and stomped off of the set of the program Good Morning Britain. It was a meltdown of epic proportions for all to see.

They were savvy enough not to refer to her as “uppity,” a word reserved for Black people who anger racist, White people by taking them out of their comfort zones. These are the Black folks who upset White bigots by “doing their own thing on their own terms” and, in essence, by telling such Whites to “Go to hell!” Some in the right-wing media would have liked to have called her a “n*gger bitch,” though they know that would have resulted in some consequences, even in our current climate of over racial animus…

Read the entire article here.

Kamala Harris, Birtherism, Race and the Unscrupulous, Sinister Antics of the Far Right!

Medium
2019-07-04

Elwood Watson, Professor of History, African American Studies and Gender Studies
East Tennessee State University

Now that she has emerged as a serious contender for the 2020 democratic nomination for president, Kamala Harris has come under attack from a number of conservative political outlets. Various segments of the right wing echo chamber immediately began working overtime in an effort to discredit the former California attorney general, now U.S. Senator.

Partisan knives have been purchased, sharpened and some have been employed by their unethical owners in an unabashed effort to attempt to stab and discredit the senator’s claim of American roots. Fortunately, for Harris, her formidable mental agility coupled with her acute political acumen has been a tremendous weapon to protect herself and stave off a vicious onslaught of treacherous and wicked attacks.

The most recent genesis of such a sinister ploy originated by a Black conservative internet blogger, Ali Alexander whose online identity was previously known as Ali Akbar and Ali Abdul Razaq Akbar. Alexander is a Black right wing, MAGA-world internet personality who crafted and engineered a website for similar, conspiratorial, like-minded fringe elements of the extreme right who were unable or in some cases, unwilling to either embrace or find a stable home in more mainstream conservative media circles…

Read the entire article here.

Elliot Rodger at the Sometimes Troubling Intersection of Race and Gender

Diverse: Issues In Higher Education
2014-06-04

Elwood Watson, Professor of History, African American Studies, and Gender Studies
East Tennessee State University

Many have now heard of Elliot Rodger, the self-hating, misogynistic 22-year-old man who shot more than a dozen people and murdered six in Isla Vista, Calif., before turning the gun on himself and ending his own life. After this latest chapter of “angry young White male gone mad,” columnists, bloggers, psychologists and others weighed in with their views. Predictably, there were some websites ― primarily right of center ones like Paul Bois of Truth Revolt ― that tried to promote the argument that, since the majority of Rodger’s victims were male, critics who were denouncing his behavior by pointing out his history of misogyny were misguided in their viewpoints…

..The fact is that Elliot Rodger was a very frighteningly disturbed young man who hated himself and most of those around him. He shared a notable commonality with Adam Lanza, Kip Kinkel, Eric Harris and Dylan Kleblod and others. They were young, hostile, often socially isolated White men who were angry at the world for their own social insecurities, failures and misfortunes. To be sure, I am certainly not making the case that mass violence is the sole domain of young White men. That being said, it is clear that a disproportionate number of recent mass shootings have been committed by young White men. In the case of Rodger, a biracial White man.

This is where it gets more intense and complicated. The fact is that Rodger was the product of an interracial marriage ― White British father and ethnic Chinese Malaysian mother. He did not see himself as a person of color or mixed heritage and, rather, identified as White. This was evident in his demonstrably disturbing commentary on racist blogs such as PU Hate. This notorious website (PU Hate) has since been dismantled but not before a number of people lauded him as a martyr. The ample level of brimming rage that simmered within Elliot Rodger was evident in his rhetoric such as:…

…These were just a few of the much racially inflammatory commentary posted by Rodger. His mindset demonstrated a person who saw himself as White, male, wealthy, privileged and therefore entitled to all the perks that supposedly come along with such a status ― money, women, power, etc. The fact that he had been deprived of most all these opportunities enraged him. That some Black and other non-White men were successful in achieving what he had failed to accomplish drove him into a level of embittered rage that resulted in psychotic behavior…

Read the entire article here.