Passing Strange: Shakespeare, Race, and Contemporary America by Ayanna Thompson (Klett review)

Posted in Articles, Arts, Book/Video Reviews, Media Archive on 2013-06-03 18:27Z by Steven

Passing Strange: Shakespeare, Race, and Contemporary America by Ayanna Thompson (Klett review)

Theatre Journal
Volume 65, Number 2, May 2013
pages 303-304
DOI: 10.1353/tj.2013.0043

Elizabeth Klett, Assistant Professor of Literature
University of Houston, Clear Lake

Ayanna Thompson’s exciting book analyzes a wide variety of sites for performing, interrogating, and dismantling Shakespeare and race in contemporary American popular culture. Arguing that “Shakespeare’s American cultural value and legacy cannot be weighed through performances in traditional venues only” (7), Thompson extends her purview beyond expected forms (such as professional theatre productions and literary and film adaptations) to include nontraditional modes of performance (such as YouTube videos and prison and youth-oriented productions). The book as a whole provides a fascinating and multilayered appraisal of the uses (and misuses) of race in American appropriations of Shakespeare and his plays.

One of the most notable aspects of Thompson’s book is her ability to work with conflicting statements and oppositional ideas, which she often presents, at least initially, as epigraphs to her chapters. For example, she tackles the debate over so-called color-blind casting by foregrounding the very different views of August Wilson and Robert Brustein. Similarly, the book revisits the eternal tensions between universalizing and historically particularist interpretations of Shakespeare, suggesting that Shakespeare is both freeing and something from which one must be freed. Thompson does not attempt to resolve these kinds of contradictions and instabilities; instead, she revels in them, exploring what they reveal about contemporary American culture and its preoccupations with Shakespeare and race. She does take sides, however; as her first chapter warns, the book is occasionally polemical, “because this is a project that requires action and not just passive reflection” (14). Her main goal is “to bring contemporary race studies and contemporary Shakespeare studies into an honest and sustained dialogue,” contending that many performances, citations, and analyses of Shakespeare ignore or elide racial issues (3).

The second and third chapters focus on two films and a young adult novel that engage with Shakespeare and race in varied ways. Thompson’s analysis of each is intriguing and made me want to watch the films and read the novel for myself. In Suture (1993), a film noir about two brothers, one white and one black, Thompson finds a vexed “desire for colorblindness in contemporary American life” (27); although the film strategically ignores the racial differences between them, it also exposes the seam of the racial divide in a culture that elevates stereotypically white standards of beauty. Her argument is fascinating, but the connection to Shakespeare (cited several times in the film) feels somewhat tenuous. Her analysis of Bringing Down the House (2003), a studio vehicle for Steve Martin and Queen Latifah, however, is brilliant. Unpacking the meanings implicit in the character of “William Shakespeare,” a dog owned by a rich conservative, played by Joan Plowright, Thompson concludes that in this satirical film, “Shakespeare represents the epitome of Western culture because he represents the exclusivity of white culture” (37). Targeting both bardolatry and the false universality of whiteness, this big-budget film thus reveals larger ideas circulating in American culture about the meanings of Shakespeare and race and justifies Thompson’s choice of popular materials for her analysis. She goes on to place a more obscure source, the 1992 novel Black Swan by Farrukh Dhondy, in the context of other writers (such as Maya Angelou) who have imagined a black Shakespeare. While she argues that the novel “asks the reader to interrogate if/how the identity and race of Shakespeare impact one’s understanding of the plays,” she also notes that reviewers of the novel tend to whitewash the main characters’ racial identities (55).

Thompson’s fourth chapter is one of the strongest, offering an intelligent discussion and analysis of cross-racial casting. In it, she analyzes the rhetoric employed by classical theatre companies, such as the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF), to describe their approach to race and casting practices, revealing how these companies attempt to yoke Shakespearean universality and multiculturalism together to create “relevant” performances (73). Thompson does not find the results wholly satisfactory, even at well-intentioned companies like OSF. Her “holistic” approach to multicultural casting would incorporate “diversity initiatives” at every level of production to ensure…

Tags: , , ,

Lung function, race and ethnicity: a conundrum

Posted in Articles, Health/Medicine/Genetics, Media Archive on 2013-06-03 02:19Z by Steven

Lung function, race and ethnicity: a conundrum

European Respiratory Journal
Volume 41, Number 6  (June 1, 2013)
pages 1249-1250
DOI: 10.1183/09031936.00053913

Philip H. Quanjer
Deptartment of Pulmonary Diseases and Department of Paediatrics
Erasmus Medical Centre
Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

In this issue Braun et al. make a plea for an international workshop to review aspects of race and ethnicity in relation to lung function. This is a timely initiative, as many people struggle in epidemiological and genetic studies, and in clinical practice, with the interpretation of test results in an increasingly multi-ethnic society. Our notions of race derive from Blumenbach, who defined “Four varieties of mankind, one species” (adding a fifth variety in 1781). Definitions of “race” and “ethnic” are confusing and often used interchangeably. This ambiguity is reflected in the frequent use of race/ethnicity, a transitional concept adopted for use while phasing out “race” from the USA census. At this stage the USA census recognises two ethnicities: “Hispanic or Latino”, and “not Hispanic or Latino”, and five races; Hispanic/Latino individuals have a mixed European, African and native American ancestry. American citizens were allowed to self-identify with more than one race in 2000: 2.4% self-identified as multiracial. In sharp contrast, France passed a law in 1978 barring the government from collecting all racial and ethnic data (the Act prohibits collecting “any information that shows, directly or indirectly, racial or ethnic origins, political, philosophical or religious opinions, trade union membership, moral principles, or information that relates to health or sexual life” without either the written consent of the individual or an advance recommendation of the National Commission for Information Technology and Civil Liberties, which must first be approved by the Conseil d’État). The collection of data on race and ethnicity by governments serves administrative and statistical purposes; the classifications should not be interpreted as being scientific or anthropological in nature. However, this caveat is not heeded, and the classifications are widely used in everyday life, science and medicine, where race/ethnicity is used as a proxy for other phenomena.

Humans (Homo sapiens) originated in eastern Africa and migrated to the rest of the world. Analysis of microsatellite loci shows progressive loss of genetic diversity as our species grew and spread; genetic variability outside Africa is generally a subset of that within Africa. In general, a species is biologically defined as a group of similar organisms that can reproduce only with each other. Hence, genetically and biologically, Homo sapiens is one species, but with genetic diversity. Only 5–15% of genetic variation occurs between large groups living on different continents, the remaining variation occurring within such groups. A clustering algorithm applied to multilocus genotypes from worldwide human populations produced genetic clusters largely coincident with major geographic regions, suggesting that global human genetic diversity is a result of gradual variation and isolation by distance rather than major genetic discontinuities.

A widely held view among anthropologists, biologists and sociologists is that race is a socio-political construct based on the notion that groups can be demarcated on the basis of important and clear differences in phenotype, skin colour, ancestry, socio-economic status (SES) and geographical location, etc. Hoffman, a highly respected statistician who was particularly interested in the “negro problem” in the US, gave scientific racism its credibility and respectability. He posited that white people were at the top of the hierarchy and social order; “minority” racial groups were both biologically inferior and barriers to progress. One of Hoffman’s arguments was that “pure blacks” had “inferior vitality” because their vital capacity (VC) was found to be 6–12% smaller than in whites; this contributed to the belief that the inferior black race, that had a higher death rate, was doomed to extinction. The word “vital” in VC, so named by Hutchinson, and the smaller VC, led Hoffman to a value judgement. His views were contested by contemporary scientists, who pointed out that SES and inequalities in access to medical care, etc. should be taken into account in studies of biological differences between ethnic groups. Nevertheless, Hoffman’s views remained very influential; they have contributed to great atrocities and still affect personal interactions and social institutions.

Categorising subjects into racial/ethnic groups is done on the assumption that race/ethnicity is a proxy for genetic relatedness; this misrepresents genetic variation and leads to confounding. In general, in studies comparing differences in disease prevalence between two ethnic groups, if an unmeasured environmental variable (such as SES) co-varies in the same fashion as the proportion in one group, a racial difference might be due to this unmeasured variable. For example, in a study of differences in mortality between African and European Americans, Burney and Hooper concluded that the higher mortality in African Americans could only be explained by their lower forced VC, reminiscent of the views of Hoffman. Correlation does not prove causality: direct analysis of the relevant gene or causative factor is the only reliable way to evaluate risk in an individual.

Race, ethnicity and ancestral categories falsely suggest genetic homogeneity within and heterogenity between groups; they ignore the genetic variability within groups, gene–environment interactions and differences due to socially mediated mechanisms. Therefore, many scientists advocate abolishing such categorisation in research, versus those who believe there is still a role for the continued use of self-identified race and ethnicity in biomedical and genetic research…

Read the entire article here.

Tags: , , ,

Defining race/ethnicity and explaining difference in research studies on lung function

Posted in Articles, Health/Medicine/Genetics, Media Archive on 2013-06-03 01:30Z by Steven

Defining race/ethnicity and explaining difference in research studies on lung function

European Respiratory Journal
Volume 41, Number 6  (June 1, 2013)
pages 1362-1370
DOI: 10.1183/09031936.00091612

Lundy Braun, Royce Family Professor in Teaching Excellence and Professor of Medical Science and Africana Studies
Brown University

Melanie Wolfgang
Brown University

Kay Dickersin, Professor, Director, Center for Clinical Trials
Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

The 2005 guidelines of the American Thoracic Society/European Respiratory Society recommend the use of race- and/or ethnic-specific reference standards for spirometry. Yet definitions of the key variables of race and ethnicity vary worldwide. The purpose of this study was to determine whether researchers defined race and/or ethnicity in studies of lung function and how they explained any observed differences.

Using the methodology of the systematic review, we searched PubMed in July 2008 and screened 10 471 titles and abstracts to identify potentially eligible articles that compared “white” to “other racial and ethnic groups”.

Of the 226 eligible articles published between 1922 and 2008, race and/or ethnicity was defined in 17.3%, with the proportion increasing to 70% in the 2000s for those using parallel controls. Most articles (83.6%) reported that “other racial and ethnic groups” have a lower lung capacity compared to “white”; 94% of articles failed to examine socioeconomic status. In the 189 studies that reported lower lung function in “other racial and ethnic groups”, 21.8% and 29.4% of explanations cited inherent factors and anthropometric differences, respectively, whereas 23.1% of explanations cited environmental and social factors.

Even though researchers sought to determine differences in lung function by race/ethnicity, they typically failed to define their terms and frequently assumed inherent (or genetic) differences.

Read or purchase the article here.

Tags: , , ,

Mixed Ethnicity, Hidden Identity

Posted in Articles, Arts, Interviews, Media Archive, United States on 2013-06-02 17:28Z by Steven

Mixed Ethnicity, Hidden Identity

The New York Times
2013-05-24

Kathryn Shattuck

With his long-lashed chocolate eyes and inviting lips, used to seductive effect in “Rescue Me,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and “The Devil Wears Prada,” Daniel Sunjata has the kind of face not easily forgotten, or so you’d think

“If I’m exposed to crowds repeatedly, I could count on my hands the number of times people are going to say, ‘Hey, aren’t you Adam Rodriguez from “CSI: Miami”?’ ” he said, his laughter tinged with what might have been a touch of ruefulness. Especially since Mr. Sunjata, 41, a high school linebacker in Chicago who traded in dreams of business school for the stage, has supported himself by acting ever since he earned an M.F.A. from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 1998. No waiting tables. No tending bar.

He might finally kiss Mr. Rodriguez’s ghost goodbye with “Graceland,” a new series that premieres on June 6 at 10 p.m. on the USA Network. Mr. Sunjata stars as Paul Briggs, a legendary undercover agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation living in a Southern California beach palace with a motley crew from the F.B.I., the Drug Enforcement Agency and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Then Mike Warren, a rookie played by Aaron Tveit, arrives from Quantico where, like Briggs, he graduated at the top of his class. Soon Mike discovers that his assignment — to infiltrate the local underworld with his housemates — is camouflage for a more important task: to investigate Briggs himself.

Recently Mr. Sunjata — his casual outfit in contrast to his elegant, thinking-man’s demeanor — spoke with Kathryn Shattuck about living large and letting it all hang out. These are excerpts from their conversation…

….With roles ranging from a Nuyorican firefighter on “Rescue Me” to a fashion designer in “The Devil Wears Prada,” you seem to have defied stereotyping.

When I was coming out of graduate school, I wasn’t really sure if my ethnic ambiguity [Irish, German and African-American] was going to be a help or a hindrance, but I think that ultimately it has helped me. It’s set me apart from other guys who might be considered leading-man types in the sense that I don’t necessarily look like everybody else. But a lot of it depends on the open-mindedness of the casting director…

Read the entire interview here.

Tags: , , ,

Race Appeal: How Candidates Invoke Race in U.S. Political Campaigns

Posted in Barack Obama, Books, Media Archive, Monographs, Politics/Public Policy, United States on 2013-06-01 20:18Z by Steven

Race Appeal: How Candidates Invoke Race in U.S. Political Campaigns

Temple University Press
January 2011
272 pages
6 x 9
38 tables, 23 halftones
paper ISBN: 978-1-43990-276-9
cloth: ISBN: 978-1-43990-275-2
e-Book ISBN: 978-1-43990-277-6

Charlton D. McIlwain, Associate Professor of Media, Culture and Communication
New York University

Stephen M. Caliendo, Professor of Political Science
North Central College in Naperville, Illinois

Why, when, and how often candidates use race appeals, and how the electorate responds

In our evolving American political culture, whites and blacks continue to respond very differently to race-based messages and the candidates who use them. Race Appeal examines the use and influence such appeals have on voters in elections for federal office in which one candidate is a member of a minority group.

Charlton McIlwain and Stephen Caliendo use various analysis methods to examine candidates who play the race card in political advertisements. They offer a compelling analysis of the construction of verbal and visual racial appeals and how the news media covers campaigns involving candidates of color.

Combining rigorous analyses with in-depth case studies-including an examination of race-based appeals in the historic 2008 presidential election—Race Appeal is a groundbreaking work that represents the most extensive and thorough treatment of race-based appeals in American political campaigns to date.

Contents

  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction. The Political Landscape of Race-Based Appeals
  • Part I The Empirical Evidence on Race Appeals
    • 1. Producing Race Appeal: The Political Ads of White and Minority Candidates
    • 2. The Advantages and Disadvantages of Deploying Racist Appeals among Black and White Voters
    • 3. Neither Black nor White: The Fruitless Appeal to Racial Authenticity
    • 4. Competing Novelties: How Newspapers Frame the Election Campaigns of Blacks, Latinos, and Asian Americans
  • Part II: Case Studies in Race Appeal
    • 5. Racializing Immigration Policy: Issue Ads in the 2006 Election
    • 6. Harold Ford Jr., Mel Martinez, and Artur Davis: Case Studies in Racially Framed News
    • 7. Barack Obama, Race-Based Appeals, and the 2008 Presidential Election
  • Epilogue. Racialized Campaigns: What Have We Learned, and Where Do We Go from Here?
  • Notes
  • References
  • Index
Tags: , , , , ,

OMB’s Preliminary Recommendation & an IV Commentary

Posted in Articles, Census/Demographics, Media Archive, Politics/Public Policy, United States on 2013-06-01 19:34Z by Steven

OMB’s Preliminary Recommendation & an IV Commentary

Interracial Voice [1995-2003]
July 1997

Charles Michael Byrd

The Office of Management and Budget announced last Wednesday (07-09-97) that Americans could choose more than one racial category on Census and other federal forms but would have no new “multiracial” box to check under new rules the agency proposed. OMB rejected creation of a multiracial category because “there is no general understanding of what the term means,” said the federal task force that made the recommendation in a report being published in last Wednesday’s Federal Register. OMB has also called for a sixty-day public comment period, during which you may voice your support or opposition for this proposal. The OMB website has detailed information concerning email and snail-mail addresses to which you may forward messages.

This is not a multiracial category per se, rather a scheme where the government requires the individual to parcel out portions of his or her identity to two or more of the established racial groups. Not only is there no consideration or understanding that the individual may not recognize these groups as valid in terms of identity and affiliation, there is no symbol or icon—specifically a multiracial header—representative of a self-determined, integral being who self-identifies other than monoracially.

Even for those of mixed-race who do view the current racial groups as valid, there is still no specific multiracial designation. According to OMB, “When the data are reported, counts should be provided of the number of persons who checked two races, three races or four races, and information on the combinations should also be provided.” In other words, the government will effectively disperse the individual’s identity in two or more directions and at day’s end will have reduced it to a mere mathematical computation—a cleverly negotiated line segment along the political color continuum.

To not be totally cynical and negative, let me add that this “check all that apply” format is a step toward a recognition of multiraciality—albeit not a huge one

Read the entire article here.

Tags: ,

Why the multiracial community must march on July 20!

Posted in Articles, Census/Demographics, Media Archive, Politics/Public Policy, United States on 2013-06-01 19:29Z by Steven

Why the multiracial community must march on July 20!

Interracial Voice [1995-2003]
July 1996

Charles Michael Byrd

Any group needs and deserves to know why someone makes a particular decision, especially when that person asks them to act upon that decision, to contribute and participate. So, too, you need to understand the reasons behind the calling for a march—the Multiracial Solidarity March—scheduled for Saturday, July 20, 1996, on the Mall in Washington, D.C.

There has never been an attempt to bring together large numbers of mixed-race individuals to petition the government for anything—in this case, a multiracial Census category that would allow millions of Americans to, for the first time, legally self-identify. This march will be the first ever devoted to multiracial rights and to offering the perspective of racially mixed people on racial issues…

Read the entire article here.

Tags: ,

Winning the Race

Posted in Articles, Barack Obama, Health/Medicine/Genetics, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Politics/Public Policy, United States on 2013-06-01 18:45Z by Steven

Winning the Race

NYU Alumni Magazine
Fall 2012

Andrea Crawford

As the first African-American president runs for reelection, researchers examine the subliminal influence of political ads

 In 1990, longtime North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms was trailing challenger Harvey Gantt, an African-American who supported affirmative action, when the Helms campaign produced the infamous “hands” commercial. As the camera focused on the hands of a white person holding a letter, the narrator said: “You needed that job, and you were the best qualified, but they had to give it to a minority.” Helms went on to win the election.

In another famous appeal, an ad for the 1988 Republican presidential candidate George H.W. Bush featured the menacing mug shot of convicted murderer Willie Horton. The spot explained how the African-American had committed assault while on furlough from a Massachusetts prison—a program supported by Michael Dukakis, the state’s governor and the Democratic presidential candidate. Bush won the presidency in a landslide.

It was into this environment that Charlton McIlwain, associate professor of media, culture, and communication at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, came of age. These types of appeals clearly work, he thought, and he set out to determine how and why. Around the same time, David Amodio was first exploring research that showed self-avowed egalitarians actually exhibited unconscious biases. Now an NYU associate professor of psychology and neural science, he began his career asking how such automatic types of prejudice could exist in opposition to one’s beliefs. Until recently, these kinds of questions were complicated by a reliance on often-flawed self-reports—people simply feel uncomfortable admitting bias and are sometimes not even conscious of it. But today, McIlwain and Amodio have come together in a timely pursuit. As the first African-American president runs for reelection, they are investigating the power of racial appeals in political ads by turning to neuroscience…

Read the entire article here.

Tags: , , , ,

Aisha Sabatini Sloan

Posted in Articles, Interviews, Literary/Artistic Criticism, Media Archive, United States on 2013-06-01 02:15Z by Steven

Aisha Sabatini Sloan

Trop
2013-05-14

Zoe Ruiz, Saturday Editor for The Rumpus and staff member of FOUND

In The Fluency of Light, Aisha Sabatini Sloan’s essays read like meditations on themes of identity, race, and family. Her writing is sharp—one might say spare—and her descriptions, clear and beautiful. Her essays are a guide that help me navigate my way through my own writing. I study her essays in terms of their structure, I study her craft. Her essays sparked memories of my father, of my mother, and of growing up biracial in Los Angeles, memories that were once buried. Her work is a map to my memory.

I felt grateful and delighted to have the opportunity to talk to Aisha about her writing. I found her to be sensitive, smart, and sincere, and I appreciated that after I asked a question, she would take a long pause and then respond in a way that seemed thoughtful. We met at LACMA on a weekday afternoon; the day was dry and sunny, a typical LA day. We sat in the middle of the courtyard surrounded by people and art.

ZOE RUIZ: Why did you decide to write a book of essays and how did you decide to organize the essays by location?

AISHA SABATINI SLOAN: In college I started interviewing people. I did interviews in Los Angeles, Paris, London, New York, Northfield, Detroit, and eventually South Africa. The project had different manifestations of “doneness” over the years. I wrote a lot to make that project coalesce, including these essays that attempted to capture the cultural/emotional/historical backdrop in each city. But one day, I sat down at my desk, and the interview portion of the project just slumped out of my arms and onto the floor. I took a deep breath, and I weeded out the portraits of my interviewees just to see what was left, and it was the essays about place. I felt like I was seeing the framework of a coherent project for the first time. Maybe ever…

Read the entire interview here.

Tags: , , , ,

Backlash greets Cheerios ad with interracial family

Posted in Articles, Census/Demographics, Communications/Media Studies, Media Archive, Social Science, United States on 2013-06-01 02:07Z by Steven

Backlash greets Cheerios ad with interracial family

The Washington Post
2013-05-31

Mary C. Curtis

Here we go again, with more proof, if anyone needed it, that the post-racial American society some hoped the election of an African American president signified is far from here.

Who would have thought that breakfast cereal would trigger the latest racial battle line? In this case, a Cheerios ad much like every other homespun Cheerios ad — with a heart healthy message and loving family – ran into trouble from some commenters because of the kind of family it featured. Mom is white, dad is black and their cute little daughter is a mix of the both of them.

That’s it.

Cheerios had to disable comments on YouTube – I’m not going to repeat them but you can imagine the general witless racism with stereotypes about minorities and warnings of race-mixing as the end of civilization.

I didn’t take any of it personally, though my family’s morning breakfast ritual – black mom, white dad, son who is a mix of both of us – looks a lot like the ad if you subtract the general cheeriness before we get that first cup of coffee down…

Read the entire article here.

Tags: , , , , ,