Mixed Race Studies

TriPod Mythbusters: Quadroon Balls And Plaçage

Tripod
WWNO 89.9 FM
New Orleans, Louisiana
2016-09-22

Laine Kaplan-Levenson, Host

There is a common myth told about 19th-century New Orleans. It goes something like this: Imagine you’re in an elegant dance hall in New Orleans in the early 1800s. Looking around, you see a large group of white men and free women of color, who were at the time called quadroons, meaning they supposedly had ¼ African ancestry. The mothers play matchmakers, and introduce their daughters to these white men, who then ask their hand in a dance.

The ballroom is fancy, and the invited guests look the part. When a match is made, a contract is drawn up. The white man agrees to take care of the young woman and any children she may have with him. This arrangement was called “plaçage.”

Charles Chamberlain teaches history at the University of New Orleans. “Plaçage is defined historically as where a white man would basically have a relationship with a free woman of color where she would be kept, so that he would provide her with a house and some form of income so that she could maintain a lifestyle.”

What Chamberlain is describing is basically a common-law marriage. And those did happen. But the idea of Quadroon Balls is way sexier, which helps explain why they get talked about so much. French Quarter tour guides walk by the Bourbon Orleans hotel and talk about the famous quadroon balls that took place inside. But try to find proof of plaçage Chamberlain says, and it’s not there…

Listen to the story here.

Turn Onto Old Dixie. After a Long, Rocky Stretch, It Becomes Obama Highway.

The New York Times
2016-10-23

Dan Barry

Peter Henry, the son of Dora Johnson, looking over a wall near 27th Street and President Barack Obama Highway in Riviera Beach, Fla., that once separated black and white neighborhoods. Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times

A main thoroughfare in the predominantly black town of Riviera Beach, Fla., was once called Old Dixie Highway. But now the road has a new name: President Barack Obama Highway.

RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. — The rechristened road runs beside a railroad freight line, slicing across a modest corner of Palm Beach County and a considerable section of the Southern psyche. It used to be called Old Dixie Highway.

But now this two-mile stretch, coursing through the mostly black community of Riviera Beach, goes by a new name. Now, when visitors want to eat takeout from Rodney’s Crabs, or worship at the Miracle Revival Deliverance Church, they turn onto President Barack Obama Highway.

Our national journey along this highway is nearing its end, these eight years a blur and a crawl. That historic inauguration of hope. Those siren calls for change. The grand ambitions tempered or blocked by recession and time, an inflexible Congress and a man’s aloofness.

War, economic recovery, Obamacare, Osama bin Laden. The mass shootings, in a nightclub, in a church — in an elementary school. The realization of so much still to overcome, given all the Fergusons; given all those who shamelessly questioned whether our first black president was even American by birth.

His towering oratory. His jump shot. His graying hair. His family. His wit. His tears.

The presidency of Mr. Obama, which ends in three months, will be memorialized in many grand ways, most notably by the planned construction of a presidential library in Chicago. But in crowded and isolated places across the country, his name has also been quietly incorporated into the everyday local patter, in ways far removed from politics and world affairs…

Read the entire article here.

Standards for Maintaining, Collecting, and Presenting Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity

Federal Register: The Daily Journal of the United States Government
A Notice by the Management and Budget Office on 09/30/2016
2016-09-30
4 pages

Howard A. Shelanski, Administrator
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs

AGENCY:
Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

ACTION:
Review and Possible Limited Revision of OMB’s Statistical Policy Directive on Standards for Maintaining, Collecting, and Presenting Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity.

SUMMARY:
The Standards for Maintaining, Collecting, and Presenting Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity were last revised in 1997 (62 FR 58782, Oct. 30, 1997; see https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/fedreg_1997standards). Since these revisions were implemented, much has been learned about how these standards have improved the quality of Federal information collected and presented on race and ethnicity. At the same time, some areas may benefit from further refinement. Accordingly, OMB currently is undertaking a review of particular components of the 1997 standard: The use of separate questions measuring race and ethnicity and question phrasing; the classification of a Middle Eastern and North African group and reporting category; the description of the intended use of minimum reporting categories; and terminology used for race and ethnicity classifications. OMB’s current review of the standard is limited to these areas. Specific questions appear under the section, “Issues for Comment.”

DATES:
Comments on the review and possible limited revisions to OMB’s Standards for Maintaining, Collecting, and Presenting Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity detailed in this notice must be in writing. To ensure consideration of comments, they must be received no later than [30 days from the publication of this notice]. Please be aware of delays in mail processing at Federal facilities due to increased security. Respondents are encouraged to send comments electronically via email, or http://www.regulations.gov (discussed in ADDRESSES below)…

Read the entire document in HTML or PDF.

Postcolonial Palimpsests: Entwined Colonialisms and the Conflicted Representation of Charles Bon in William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!

ariel: A Review of International English Literature
Volume 47, Number 4, October 2016
pages 1-23
DOI: 10.1353/ari.2016.0044

Jenna Grace Sciuto, Assistant Professor, English/Communications
Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts

This essay argues that Charles Bon in William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! (1936) embodies a fluidity that confronts the hierarchies of race, gender, class, and sexuality on which colonialism and neocolonialism depend for coherence and meaning. The biracial, sexually fluid Bon and his contradictory depiction by competing narrators reveal entwined colonialisms in the United States South that complicate the divide between the colonial and neo-colonial periods employed in linear surface narratives: Bon is portrayed as living multiple stories of colonialism simultaneously in the novel. With an awareness of the narrators’ divergent colonial mindsets, I show how Faulkner uses Bon’s métissage, or blending of cultural, racial, and sexual categories, to confront the resilient colonial mentalities that persist in the twentieth-century American South through imagining an alternative: the acceptance of this fluidity.

Collection of demographic data regarding multiracial identification.

The New York City Council
Melissa Mark-Viverito, Speaker
2014-11-25 (Passed 2016-11-13)

Int 0551-2014, Version A (2014-11-25)

A Local Law to amend the New York city charter, in relation to the collection of demographic data regarding multiracial identification

Proposed Int. No. 551-A would require the Department of Social Services, the Administration for Children’s Services, the Department of Homeless Services, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the Department for the Aging, the Department of Youth and Community Development, the Department of Education, and any other agencies designated by the Mayor to provide to all persons served by the agency with a demographic information survey that contains an option for multiracial ancestry or ethnic origin. The bill would also require an annual review of all forms from the designated agencies, or any other agency designated by the Mayor, that collect demographic information, are completed by persons seeking services, and are within the administering agencies’ authority to amend. The bill would require all such forms to be amended to contain an option for multiracial ancestry or ethnic origin. Proposed Int. 551-A would also require reporting on the collected data.

Passed (50-0) on 2016-11-13. Enacted (Mayor’s Desk for Signature)

For more information, click here.

Where did Colin Kaepernick get start as an activist?

USA TODAY
2016-09-30

Josh Peter

They remember the conservative haircut he wore at John Pitman High School, and now they see the Afro and cornrows. They remember his studious and soft-spoken ways from a decade ago, and now they see him refusing to stand for the national anthem and agitating for social change.

In Turlock, Calif., where Colin Kaepernick was raised, many residents have asked some version of the same question: What in the heck happened to our hometown hero?

But those who knew Kaepernick at the University of Nevada at Reno, where attended from 2006-10 and was a star quarterback before getting drafted by the San Francisco 49ers in 2011, say they’re not at all confused.

“Anyone who wants to characterize this as some new black awareness on his behalf just simply doesn’t know him or didn’t do the diligence,’’ Reg Stewart, director of the Center for Student Cultural Diversity at Nevada-Reno when Kaepernick was in school, told USA TODAY Sports. “It’s not like I turned on the TV and was like, ‘Wow, where did this come from?’ I was like, ‘You know what, he has been thinking about these issues for at least the time I’ve known him.”…

…At the black student union meetings at Nevada-Reno, Kaepernick was outspoken about issues such as attracting more African Americans to the campus, Bart-Plange said.

“He would let us know, we’ve got to get everybody unified,” Bart-Plange said. “The only way we’re going to get better is together, that’s how we’re stronger, power in numbers, educating each other.”

Kaepernick’s increasing identification as African American began as soon as he arrived at Reno, according to Stewart. African Americans made up about 4% of the student body, but Stewart suggested the university’s cultural diversity center gave Kaepernick an outlet to find his identity as an African American…

Read the entire article here.

Shaun King on Colin Kaepernick: He is Enormously Courageous and Has Sparked a Movement Among Athletes

Democracy Now!
2016-10-21

Amy Goodman, Host and Executive Producer

Shaun King, Black Lives Matter activist and the senior justice writer for the New York Daily News, discusses NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who continued his protest Sunday against racial oppression and police brutality by kneeling on one knee during the pre-game national anthem ahead of his first game of the year for the San Francisco 49ers. His actions have sparked similar protests across the country among professional, college and even high school and middle school athletes.

Read the transcript here.

Focus on world’s first black football star

The Voice
2016-10-16

Poppy Brady

Dr Tony Talburt decided that a book on Guyanese-born footballer Watson was seriously overdue, so he set about researching the background of this exceptional pioneer of the beautiful game

HE WAS the world’s first black football superstar, but the name Andrew Watson is not on every football fan’s lips – and that is why a book has been written about him to give him the spotlight he deserves.

Writer and education adviser Dr Tony Talburt decided that a book on Guyanese-born footballer Watson was seriously overdue, so he set about researching the background of this exceptional pioneer of the beautiful game.

As Dr Talburt so eruditely puts it in his book Andrew Watson – the World’s First Black Superstar, had Watson been born more than 100 years later in the 1980s, he would most certainly have been considered a sporting celebrity.

“What Watson achieved in the 1880s was probably the equivalent of contemporary legends such as Lionel Messi of Barcelona or Cristiano Ronaldo of Real Madrid, captaining both club and country” said Dr Talburt.

“In more ways than one, Andrew Watson was truly a remarkable footballer and sporting hero.”…

Read the entire article here.

Creating the Ideal Mexican: 20th and 21st Century Racial and National Identity Discourses in Oaxaca

University of Massachusetts, Amherst
September 2015
235 pages

Savannah N. Carroll

Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

This investigation intends to uncover past and contemporary socioeconomic significance of being a racial other in Oaxaca, Mexico and its relevance in shaping Mexican national identity. The project has two purposes: first, to analyze activities and observations of cultural missionaries in Oaxaca during the 1920s and 1930s, and second to relate these findings to historical and present implications of blackness in an Afro-Mexican community. Cultural missionaries were appointed by the Secretary of Public Education (SEP) to create schools throughout Mexico, focusing on the modernization of marginalized communities through formal and social education. This initiative was intended to resolve socioeconomic disparities and incorporate sectors of the population into the national framework that had been excluded prior to the Mexican Revolution in 1910. While these efforts were predominantly implemented in indigenous communities located in the northern part of Oaxaca, observations from cultural missionaries related to social and educational conditions reveal ongoing disparities between what it means to be indigenous versus mestizo. The exclusion of moreno, or Afro-descended people from this state sponsored initiative indicates that blackness along with indigenity is otherized, with the primary difference being that Afro-descended Mexicans lack visibility.

To gain a better perspective of the historical and present significance of blackness, my project moves from the general to the specific to include José Maria Morelos, Oaxaca, an Afro-descended community that is isolated, has no tourist attractions or services, dirt roads, and little access to socioeconomic resources. Morelos was established by blacks who escaped slavery and lived independently in their own community. People in the town strongly identify with this history and its relation to their present condition. After speaking with local activists, it became apparent that rights that were supposed to be gained from the Mexican Revolution, such as land rights and public education, did not happen in Morelos, which adversely affects people’s prospects for socioeconomic advancement.

Read the entire dissertation here.

Remapping Race on the Human Genome: Commercial Exploits in a Racialized America

Praeger
October 2016
645 pages
6.125 x 9.25
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4408-4992-3
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4408-4993-0

Edited by:

Patricia Reid-Merritt, Distinguished Professor of Social Work and Africana Studies
Stockton University, Galloway, New Jersey

Is race simply an antiquated, pseudo-scientific abstraction developed to justify the dehumanization of various categories of the human population?

Focusing on the socially explosive concept of race and how it has affected human interactions, this work examines the social and scientific definitions of race, the implementation of racialized policies and practices, the historical and contemporary manifestations of the use of race in shaping social interactions within U.S. society and elsewhere, and where our notions of race will likely lead.

More than a decade and a half into the 21st century, the term “race” remains one of the most emotionally charged words in the human language. While race can be defined as “a local geographic or global human population distinguished as a more or less distinct group by genetically transmitted physical characteristics,” the concept of race can better be understood as a socially defined construct—a system of human classification that carries tremendous weight, yet is complex, confusing, contradictory, controversial, and imprecise.

This collection of essays focuses on the socially explosive concept of race and how it has shaped human interactions across civilization. The contributed work examines the social and scientific definitions of race, the implementation of racialized policies and practices, and the historical and contemporary manifestations of the use of race in shaping social interactions (primarily) in the United States—a nation where the concept of race is further convoluted by the nation’s extensive history of miscegenation as well as the continuous flow of immigrant groups from countries whose definitions of race, ethnicity, and culture remain fluid. Readers will gain insights into subjects such as how we as individuals define ourselves through concepts of race, how race affects social privilege, “color blindness” as an obstacle to social change, legal perspectives on race, racialization of the religious experience, and how the media perpetuates racial stereotypes.

Features

• Addresses a poignant topic that is always controversial, relevant, and addressed in mainstream and social media
• Examines the various socio-historical factors that contribute to our understanding of race as a concept, enabling readers to appreciate how “definitions” of race are complex, confusing, contradictory, controversial, and imprecise
• Inspects contemporary manifestations of race in the United States with regard to specific contexts, such as the quest for U.S. citizenship, welfare services, the legislative process, capitalism, and the perpetuation of racial stereotypes in the media