Mixed Race Studies

Obama and hip-hop: a breakup song

The Washington Post
2015-09-25

Erik Nielson, Assistant Professor of Liberal Arts
University of Richmond

Travis L. Gosa, Assistant Professor of Africana Studies
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York

Erik Nielson is an assistant professor of liberal arts at the University of Richmond. Travis L. Gosa is an assistant professor of Africana studies at Cornell University. Their book, “The Hip Hop & Obama Reader,” will be published in October.

In 2008, Barack Obama flipped the script on more than three decades of conventional wisdom when he openly embraced hip-hop — a genre typically viewed as politically radioactive because of its frequently controversial themes and anti-establishment ethos — in his campaign. Equally remarkable was the extent to which hip-hop artists and activists, often highly skeptical of national politicians, embraced him in return. As a result, for the first time it appeared we were witnessing a burgeoning relationship between hip-hop and national politics.

As we approach the 2016 election, however, this relationship is all but gone. Ironically, Obama — often called the first “hip-hop president” — largely is to blame.

This is especially disappointing in light of Obama’s 2008 run for office, when he encouraged artists such as Jay Z and Sean “Diddy” Combs to campaign for him, referenced rap music in his interviews and speeches, played rap at his events and openly contemplated a space for hip-hop in an Obama White House. In one of the lasting images of the campaign, Obama stood in front of an audience in Raleigh, N.C., and referenced Jay Z’s 2003 track “Dirt Off Your Shoulder” to raucous applause. In that moment, voters had every reason to believe that hip-hop indeed would have a seat at the table in an Obama administration…

Read the entire article here.

The Marketization of Identity Politics

Sociology
Volume 47, Number 5 (October 2013)
pages 1011-1025
DOI: 10.1177/0038038513495604

Catherine Bliss, Assistant Professor of Sociology
University of California, San Francisco

Sociology has begun to question how new genetic sciences affect older ways of constructing and contesting social identity, including forms of identity politics that have brought women and minorities significant gains. This article presents US debates on genetics, identity politics, and race in order to theorize emergent transformations in light of the genomic revolution. Examining recent developments in the realms of pharmaceuticals and ancestry estimation, I argue that traditional forms of identity politics are still actively at work, though they are being marketized in novel ways. This article combines theories of racialization and medicalization to detail how genomics ushers in a subtle new version of identity politics: a pharmaceuticalized citizenship wherein health rights and political participation are co-envisioned in individualistic molecular terms.

Read the entire article here.

France’s Approach to Fighting Racism: Pretty Words and Magical Thinking

The Huffington Post
2015-05-07

Crystal Fleming, Assistant Professor of Sociology
Stony Brook University, The State University of New York

I first came to France twelve years ago during my junior year abroad. I was the first person in my family to get a passport and I could barely contain my excitement. In the winter of 2003, two years before the riots that followed the untimely deaths of 15 year old Zyed Benna and 17 year old Bouna Traore, I landed in Paris bright-eyed and bushy tailed, armed with a very shaky grasp of French and a naive fascination with this beautiful country.

As an African-American, I was vaguely aware that France did not deal with issues of race the way we do in the United States. And when I happened to forget, French white people were keen to remind me. In one of the sociology classes I took at a university in the south of France, I hesitantly raised my hand to ask a question. The white French professor had been lecturing on youth and delinquency. I asked, in my broken French, if the dynamics he described had any relation to racial or ethnic belonging. “We don’t have that kind of problem here,” he said, adding: “This isn’t the United States.” Embarrassed and flustered, I nodded and continued taking notes. After class, one of the only other black students pulled me aside: “We do have those kinds of problems here. Hang out with me and I’ll tell you about it.”…

…In France, it is illegal for the government to include race or ethnicity on the census, as doing so is framed as a violation of so-called “Republican” values, which insist that the French Republic is “indivisible” and should not be distinguished in terms of race or ethnic origin. The problem with this is that the majority population fails to acknowledge that the Republic has been making racial and ethnic distinctions for a very long time. This, too, stems from denial and ignorance. The truth is that French people who cherish dominant interpretations of “colorblind” Republicanism help maintain the racial status quo. By refusing to support the collection of statistics that could be used to generate policies and measure their effectiveness, they undermine the work of minorities and activists who are working hard to counteract the tide of Republican denial.

While some argue that France doesn’t need more data to fight racism, this almost argument is never made concerning sexism. Most people are aware that sexism exists, but it would be absurd to say: “We already know sexism exists and therefore don’t need data on gender discrimination..” Yet, this is the same kind of magical thinking that prevails in much of the so-called “anti-racist” discourse one encounters in France…

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Review: Trevor Noah Keeps ‘Daily Show’ DNA in Debut

The New York Times
2015-09-29

James Poniewozik, Television Critic

The post-Jon Stewart version of “The Daily Show” that Trevor Noah and Comedy Central unveiled on Monday night was a bit like a new iPhone. It was sleeker, fresher and redesigned. There were tweaks here and there — look, even a new font!

But it still does essentially the same thing.

Sure, the 31-year-old, South African-born Mr. Noah is a new face and voice. Likening Mr. Stewart to a comedic father, he joked: “Now it feels like the family has a new stepdad. And he’s black.” Assured, handsome and with a crisp delivery, Mr. Noah was a smoother presenter than Mr. Stewart, who made an art form of sputtering and exasperated facepalming.

But if Mr. Noah’s debut was largely successful, it was also because of the operating system — the show’s writing — running under the surface. That algorithm, capable of processing a day’s media inputs into a satirically argued package, is what makes “The Daily Show” “The Daily Show.” This first outing was about proving that he could run the software without crashing…

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A Global Look at Mixing: Problems, Pitfalls and Possibilities

Journal of Intercultural Studies
Volume 35, Issue 6, 2014
pages 677-688
DOI: 10.1080/07256868.2014.968305

Erica Chito Childs, Associate Professor of Sociology
Hunter College, The City University of New York

The importance of studying mixed race in a global perspective is gaining momentum. The global economy, growing rates of immigration, and rapidly advancing information and communication technologies have brought diverse groups in closer contact in more areas of the globe, even those previously regarded as racially and ethnically homogenous. Intermarried couples and mixed race celebrities are often heralded in media reports as examples of a growing phenomenon where race, culture and color are argued to no longer matter, even when that is far from the reality. Amidst these widespread claims of a post-racial or colorblind world, the othering of certain groups and racialized discourse remains, and is often most clear in debates over the possibility or perceived threat of intimacy and sex with racialized Others. Mixing across established boundaries of race, ethnicity, religion or tribe is still dangerous, and these realities need to be studied globally. While countless academic studies and media reports have been devoted to investigating, documenting and/or explaining this phenomenon of mixed identities and relationships, many questions remain unanswered. Who can marry whom? What are attitudes toward “mixing?” How do the children of mixed couples identify? What differences matter? How are these differences articulated and what are the underlying reasons that these perceived differences matter, particularly when it comes to intimate and familial relations? And in an ever-changing globalised world, is there a way to understand the experiences of mixed people and families in a global context, or is there too much difference—different histories, different populations and different contexts to find common ground? Therefore this article will briefly review the current state of “mixed” research, why it is important to study this issue while highlighting the problems with existing approaches and emphasizing the need for a global framework for understanding mixed marriage and mixed identities.

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Black No More? The Recent Recognition of Mixed-Race Identity

Acta Philologica
Issue 45 (2014)
pages 78-84

Joanna Chojnowska, Assistant Professor
American Literature Section, Department of Modern Philology
University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland

Artykuł omawia relatywnie niedawną zmianę, jaka zaszła w kategoryzacji tożsamości rasowej w USA. Tradycyjnie postrzegani i identyfikujący się jako podgrupa Afroamerykanów zgodnie z zasadą „jednej kropli krwi”, dawni „Mulaci” zyskali w ciągu ostatnich dziesięcioleci nowe możliwości definiowania swej tożsamości rasowej dzięki teoriom postetniczności i hybrydowości, tożsamości „new mestiza” i wpływom świata latynoskiego. Jednocześnieujawniły się głosy krytyki wobec porzucenia esencjalistycznego postrzegania rasowości. Porównując przeciwstawne stanowiska w tej sprawie, artykuł przedstawia różne możliwości (auto)identyfikacji rasowej w USA.

For most of the history of the United States, the racial categorization of mixed black/white persons was illogical and often contradictory (Sollors, “Introduction” 6). Generally speaking, people with any percentage of black ancestry were most commonly classified simply as black (according to the “one-drop rule” imposed by whites), and, at times, recognized as a separate subgroup within this category. Interestingly, black and biracial people internalized the “one-drop” thinking, and by the 1920s people were unlikely to identify themselves as mulattoes (Pabst 199–200; Morton 116). This situation remained largely unchanged until the 1990s, which witnessed a noticeable shift towards acceptance and even celebration of mixedness (Hollinger 1370). This article aims to demonstrate how the new approaches to mixed race – postethnicity, hybridity and “mestizaje” – have complicated the traditional “either-or” racial division in the United States. It also argues that the long-established racial ideas – the “one drop” thinking and essentialism (albeit in a modified form) – are still strongly present in the American racial discourse. Comparing opposing stances on this matter, the article illustrates different possibilities of racial self-identification in the United States.

Since the 1990s, popular and academic interest in multiracialism has been growing (Elam xiii). For the first time since 1920, mixedness was also officially recognized by the state in the National Census 2000 (Zack 15). In the words of Patricia Morton, “American scholars are not only exploring the contemporary role of mulattoes, but also recognizing their historical existence and roots. [. . .] Americans of mixed black-white ancestry are no longer the most invisible ‘invisible man’ of American history” (122). Studies and anthologies on mixed race published in the last decade of the 20th century include such important works as: Racially Mixed People in America (1992) and The Multiracial Experience (1996) by Maria P. P. Root, Race and Mixed Race (1993) and American Mixed Race (1995) by Naomi Zack, as well as Neither Black nor White yet Both (1997) and Interracialism (2000) by Werner Sollors. The critical attention to the notion of mixed race continues unabated into the new millennium. Recent works include: Mixing It Up (2004) edited by SanSan Kwan and Kenneth Zack, Complicating Constructions (2007) edited by David Goldstein, The Souls of Mixed Folk (2011) by Michele Elam and Crossing B(l)ack (2013) by Sika A. Dagbovie-Mullins. Significantly, a growing body of such critical works is written by multiracial persons…

Read the entire article here.

Mixed-race students struggle to find their identity

The Daily Pennsylvanian
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
2015-09-28

Elizabeth Winston

Many students seem to effortlessly fit into cultural groups at Penn [University of Pennsylvania], but for some, it’s more complicated than simply choosing one.

For mixed-race students, finding racial or cultural groups to identify with can be more of a challenge. Being from a mixed cultural background comes with unique experiences that are more complex than simply combining the two — or more.

College sophomore Emily Marucci is Chinese, but was adopted into a white family at a very young age. She said people “are always confused [why] my last name is Italian. It’s too long to be Asian.”

“I feel like sometimes I’m expected to be in different circles than I am,” Marucci added. “Racially, I’m supposed to be Asian-American, but I identify more as white. No one ever thinks that when they look at me.”

Wharton sophomore Deena Char also identifies with this frustration. With a mix of Japanese, French and Native-American backgrounds, she finds it insulting when people pigeonhole her into one identity.

“Just because I’m Asian, it doesn’t mean that I want to be in an Asian organization,” Char said.

One of the struggles mixed-race people face is formally identifying their ethnicities on demographic forms. Often they must fill in a bubble marked “other,” choose one identity over the other or occasionally have the option to choose a “multiracial” or “mixed” bubble.

“To lump us all into one ‘none of the above’ category just doesn’t feel right,” Wharton sophomore Avery Stephenson, who identifies as Filipino and black, said…

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Emmanuelle Saada. Empire’s Children: Race, Filiation, and Citizenship in the French Colonies

The American Historical Review
Volume 118, Issue 2
pages 468-470
DOI: 10.1093/ahr/118.2.468

Gary Wilder, Associate Professor of Anthropology
The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Emmanuelle Saada, Empire’s Children: Race, Filiation, and Citizenship in the French Colonies. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2012. Pp. xv, 339. Cloth $81.00, paper $27.50, e-book $27.50.

In this carefully researched and sharply argued analysis of disputes over the status of abandoned mixed-race children (métis) in the French Empire, Emmanuelle Saada demonstrates how gendered racial logics came to subtend French republican law. Rather than seek to understand a supposed contradiction between metropolitan republicanism and colonial racism, Saada offers a persuasive account of France as an imperial republic organized partly around a form of republican racism that operated through families on embodied subjects. Drawing masterfully on archival history, legal scholarship, and political theory, she provides a welcome critique of works that treat colonial domination as mere violence as well as those that accept republican states’ own discourses about abstract universal legality being incompatible with racial particularity and concrete communities.

Saada begins with a political dilemma that was created for colonial administrators by the 1889 Nationality Law. It held that all children born on national territory to unknown parents were accorded French citizenship. Authorities feared that if this measure were to be applied automatically in the colonies, children whose filiation was uncertain and whose ways of life were more “native” than “French” would automatically become citizens. Alternatively, they worried that if this measure was ignored, biologically and culturally “French” children would be misclassified as natives and pose a potential threat to the colonial order. She argues that the entire system of colonial domination depended on social distance between “French” and “native” and legal distinction between “citizen” and “subject.” (The book provides an indispensable genealogy of these categories in the French Empire.) Administrators believed that immersion in the native milieu could lead métis to acquire dangerous social pathologies. Even worse was the fear that they could become “declassed”—socioculturally French but legally native subjects. This non-alignment of social identity and legal status risked undermining racial “dignity” and French “prestige” in the …

Read or purchase the review here.

The history of interracial sex: It’s much more than just rape or romance.

The Los Angeles Times
2015-09-28

Carina Ray, Associate Professor of African and Afro- American Studies
Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts

Carina Ray is associate professor of African and Afro-American Studies at Brandeis University and the author of “Crossing the Color Line: Race, Sex, and the Contested Politics of Colonialism in Ghana.”

When South African comedian Trevor Noah takes over as host of “The Daily Show” on Monday night, he’ll probably introduce his new audience to his family biography. Born in Johannesburg to a black South African mother and a white Swiss German father in 1984, when apartheid was still firmly in place and interracial marriage was illegal, Noah made his parents’ struggles the subject of his widely acclaimed stand-up routine “Born a Crime.”.

Their story represents an exception to one of apartheid’s harshest realities: White men sexually violated black women with impunity. But neither is it a romantic tale of racial transcendence. Noah has been frank about how his Xhosa mother paid the greater price for her relationship with a white man. Not only did she face social stigma and arrest, she was also left to raise Noah alone when his father exercised his white male privilege and left South Africa.

In my academic research, I grapple with stories like the one Noah tells, of interracial sexual relations that resist neat labels. They’re not uncommon. Yet when power dynamics are so profoundly unequal, there’s a strong incentive to deny the possibility of complexity or murkiness by falling back on binaries like rape or romance…

Read the entire article here.

Between the World and Me: Empathy Is a Privilege

The Atlantic
2015-09-28

John Paul Rollert, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Behavioral Science
University of Chicago Booth School of Business

Barack Obama and Ta-Nehisi Coates have made race and empathy central to their writing, but their conclusions point in radically different directions.

Don’t despair. According to Ta-Nehisi Coates, that’s what President Obama told him at the end of a White House meeting in 2013. Coates had criticized the president on his blog for favoring the rhetoric of black self-help over an honest conversation about structural racism. Having written and reflected extensively on race, Obama made it plain to Coates that he took exception to the critique, ending what must have been a tense conversation with his brief words of encouragement. The president reportedly took along Coates’s new book on his recent trip to Martha’s Vineyard. If he found time to read it, he knows the younger man didn’t take his advice to heart.

Obama is not an acknowledged interlocutor of Between the World and Me, but the book may be read as a skeptical reply to the putative power of empathy to transcend racial divisions—a leitmotif of Obama’s two books and a guiding conceit of his presidency. In The Audacity of Hope, the book Obama wrote in 2006 to test enthusiasm for a possible White House run, he describes empathy as both the “heart of my moral code” and a “guidepost for my politics.” Defining it succinctly as a successful attempt to “stand in somebody’s else’s shoes and see through their eyes,” Obama regards empathy not as an exceptional gesture but an organizing principle for ethical behavior and even a preferred way of being. By cultivating our capacity for empathy, he says, we are forced beyond “our limited vision.” We unburden ourselves of the trivial rigidities that divide us, allowing us to “find common ground” even in the face of our sharpest disagreements…

…Trauma is an irremediable fact of Coates’s work. “I am wounded,” he tells his son. “I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” The sentiment hints at another book Coates might have written, one that sees him transcend the crises of his youth for a new understanding in adulthood. That story is more or less the one Obama tells in Dreams of My Father, his first book and, like Coates’s, a lyrical memoir that presents the author’s life as an allegory for race in America. That the two men draw such divergent conclusions—Coates detects a “specious hope” in the picture of a white cop embracing a black boy after a Ferguson protest, whereas Obama considers the interracial harmony of his own family hope at its most audacious—is not merely the consequence of two very different sets of lived experience, but the lessons drawn from them and their implications for empathic transcendence.

Especially when juxtaposed with Between the World and Me, the chapters of Dreams of My Father that profile Obama’s adolescence are striking for the studied dispassion that has marked the president’s decisions in office and seems essential to his character. When he describes the racist episodes of his youth, it is not merely that they lack the “visceral” menace of Coates’s experience—he revealingly calls them a “ledger of slights”—they seem only to scratch him, they never scar…

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