Mixed Race Studies

Representing Mixed Race in Jamaica and England from the Abolition Era to the Present by Sara Salih (review)

Eighteenth-Century Fiction
Volume 25, Number 4, Summer 2013
pages 777-780
DOI: 10.1353/ecf.2013.0025

Nicole N. Aljoe, Assistant Professor of English
Northeastern University

Sarah Salih, Representing Mixed Race in Jamaica and England from the Abolition Era to the Present (London, New York: Routledge, 2010)

Sara Salih offers a welcome and rigorous analysis of the relationships among the development of the law, notions of subjectivity, and discourses of race and sexuality in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in England and Jamaica. This book makes a productive contribution to ongoing critical conversations about the complexity and nuance of race in the British past by responding explicitly to David Scott’s suggestion that we consider more carefully the stories we assume we know, particularly about slavery. One such story concerns the mulatto and his/her tragic outsiderness as exemplified in the trope of “tragic mulatto.” Numerous scholars, including Werner Sollors and Eve Raimon, have explored this trope within the context of the United States, and Salih’s study builds on this work and extends it by considering representations of mixed-race individuals in the British-Jamaican context. In addition, by making clear the different ways in which the mulatto was treated and represented outside of the US context—for example, noting that neither interracial sex nor marriage were ever outlawed in Jamaica or England, unlike in the United States—Salih’s study offers a corrective to uncritical conflation of the distinct cultures of enslavement. Most specifically, her study reveals the ways in which, in the British-West Indian context, although mulattos were frequently figured as being inside particular aspects of national and subject-constituting discourses—mulattos could “pass” for white, and in the eighteenth century they could legally petition to be designated as white—they were simultaneously and persistently represented as isolated and “firmly outside the heterorepronormative narrative paradigm” (125).

This book is invested in illustrating the “processes of normalization and the consolidation of norms” about the legal status, nature, and character of mixed race individuals in Jamaica and England from the eighteenth century through the twentieth century by considering cultural representations alongside juridical and colonial documents. Salih argues that all of these texts—the fiction, nonfiction, legal writings, and judicial statutes—contribute dialogically to creating and sustaining societal norms and subjects. The study traces the ways in which these texts inform the legal identity “mulatto” that eventually comes to be defined and understood as a cultural/political identity. In tracing this movement, she is “less interested in ‘race’ as interiority and affect than in the specific ways in which it is produced and enacted legally and performatively” (123–24). And although the study scrupulously sets itself against those studies of race in the eighteenth century that deal with questions and issues of identity, it is best seen as a complement to these other studies. In particular, by attending to the ways in which discussions of the mulatto were also discussions of interracial sex, Salih illuminates the impact of sexuality on notions of race.

Salih begins her close readings with Marly, an 1828 novel about a Jamaican slave plantation. After providing an intriguing reading of the relationship between fiction, the law, and power grounded in the novel’s initial image of a slave driver exchanging his whip for a pen (56), Salih outlines how the novel, by offering fiction as well as history in its description of life on the plantation, contributes to the creation of societal norms. In so doing, according to Salih, novels can reveal “narrative investment in the disciplining of subjects” (57). For example, society wants mixedrace women to disappear, and hence they are novelistically relegated to the background. However, the novel Marly also reveals the complicated positioning of mixed-race individuals. Although women are relegated to the background, a mixed-race man is foregrounded in a chapter in which he offers a long harangue on how similar brown or mixed-race people are to whites and therefore should be allowed more freedoms in Jamaica (68–70). Although the brown man gets to proclaim his proximity to whiteness, at the end of the novel he too is isolated like the brown women, Salih argues, and is placed in a non-reproductive category.

The study then moves to a reading of The Woman of Colour (1808), edited by Lyndon Dominique for Broadview Press (2007). Salih addresses how in the novel, despite a positive representation of Olivia (its interracial character), she too is isolated and unmarried…

Two Cities: Guangzhou/Lagos

Nokoko
Institute of African Studies
Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
Volume 2 (Fall 2011)
pages 174-197

Wendy Thompson Taiwo, Assistant Professor of African American Studies
San José State University, San Jose, California

I was in Nigeria in May, the year I turned twenty-nine. And aside from the few hours of electricity per day, the way most of the food twisted my stomach or burned my tongue, and that the terrible stifling heat made life difficult at times, I was excited to be exactly where I needed to be: Lagos. Once the political center of Nigeria, it is still reigning as the financial and economic capital. And from what I saw, it was a thriving, bustling, chaotic metropolis where swindling police officers, savvy market women, racing okadas, and the occasional goat shared the streets with everyday Lagosians.

I was pursuing the second leg of a research project devoted to examining the everyday lives of Yoruba traders I had met in Guangzhou. In 2009, a series of news reports shifted focus to a sizable West African trading community in southeastern China following a protest by an approximated two hundred African men in front of a police station that drew a crowd and shut down traffic. The protest was in response to earlier events in which an immigration raid staged by Chinese police in a clothing mall frequented primarily by Nigerian traders led to at least two reported injuries, one critical…

…I had so many questions and saw this as a once in a lifetime opportunity to sort out some of the anxieties I had about race, borders, and the bodies of my parents—one black and one Chinese. I assumed that many African traders would have had to interpret and negotiate these same themes and embarked on my journey to encounter these new global citizens…

Read the entire article here.

Two worlds… One reflection

IDEATE: The Undergraduate Journal of Sociology
University of Essex, Colchester, England
Volume 10, Summer 2013
19 pages

Yasmin Currid

Introduction

I went through most of my childhood believing that my family was just the same as everybody else’s. I did not realise that there was something slightly different about the dynamics and the structure of my family as opposed to, I suppose, what people would call a “normal” family. Even now, I still consider my family to be just like anyone else’s… Why should the colour of our skin matter? Let me start from the beginning: my mum and my biological father, Jimmy, broke up before I was born. Then when I was a few months old she met Jason, the man I call my dad. They eventually got married and had my two brothers, Kyshon and Kofi. The only thing that happens to be slightly different about this situation is that I have a multiracial family. Both my mum and I are white, my dad is black, and my two brothers are mixed race, so half of my extended family is white and half is black. I do not consider the dynamics of my family to be weird, if anything, I believe I am lucky to be brought up in a multiracial family- I get to experience the best of both… Although I am sure not everyone sees it that way.

I do not remember exactly how old I was when I started questioning the difference in our skin colours, all I know is that I was a lot older than you would expect. I assume it just never occurred to me as it was not as big a deal as some people would make out. We were still a family. My dad was still my dad, and my brothers were still my brothers, no matter what we looked like from the outside and how much we differed in skin colour. However, what I do remember, down to the very last minute detail, is where we were and exactly how I phrased it. I know we were in the car, my dad was driving and I was in the back, between my two brothers and before I knew what I was saying, I just blurted it out “Why is dad black and I’m white?” The answer, however, I do not remember…

…It is quite difficult because there is no one else I know or have even heard of who has the same type of family dynamic as I have. When I type “inter-racial families” into Google, thousands of websites come up advertising a black and white couple who have mixed race kids… But never families where a white child has a white mum, a black dad and mixed race brothers. The lack of sociological research in this particular field has challenged me in finding different sociologist’s ideas I can use to analyse my own experience of belonging to an inter-racial family. Due to this lack of research I have had to look at specific sociologists, such as Mills, Goffman and Cooley, and try to adapt and apply their theories and perspectives to my particular situation regardless of whether they intended it in the same way which I have interpreted it. Throughout my journal, I am going to attempt to take my family biography and link it to the larger social structures within society…

Read the entire article here.

Race Reconciled Re-Debunks Race – Anthropology 1.6

Living Anthropologically: Anthropology – Understanding – Possibility
2013-02-27

Jason Antrosio, Associate Professor of Anthropology
Hartwick College, Oneonta, New York

In May 2009, the American Journal of Physical Anthropology published Race Reconciled, a special issue with cutting-edge work by biological anthropologists. These researchers have read the critique of Richard Lewontin, and some have been in the forefront of re-examining Lewontin’s work (see previous section Attacking Anthropology and the Race Revival and see also the post on Teaching Race Anthropologically). These researchers do not agree on everything, and they have pointed debates. They are from the number-crunching and bone-measuring side of anthropology. Some of the articles are dense and difficult reading, with enough numbers, statistical tables, and computer simulations to make it hardly like reading at all.

Still, it is important to plow through the findings, because it is what our best bone measurers and number crunchers can accomplish. They very clearly recognize human biological variation. They see variation and measure it every day, examining things people cannot even visibly discern, like tiny bone markers and genetic material. And with all the disagreements, number-crunching, and consideration of how much humans vary, they agree,

“Race is not an accurate or productive way to describe human biological variation” –Heather J.H. Edgar and Keith L. Hunley, Race Reconciled, 2009:2

Why?…

Read the entire article here.

CERS hosts Critical Mixed Race Studies postgraduate symposium

School of Sociology and Social Policy
Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies
University of Leeds
2013-08-08

Peter Edwards, Faculty Web Development Officer

Mixing Matters: Critical Intersectionalities

The Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies (CERS) held its first interdisciplinary, international postgraduate symposium on the 18th May 2013 entitled ‘Mixing Matters: Critical Intersectionalities.’ This symposium aimed at engaging with ideas from the field of Critical Mixed Race Studies (CMRS) was the first of its kind in the UK and enabled national, international and Leeds based postgraduate students to present their research in this dynamic field. The debates within CMRS have been circulating for some time within various disciplines but which simultaneously have remained marginal within broader studies on ethnicity and ‘race’. Furthermore, the debates have largely been centred on the United States context and not taking into account the globality of mixed-race identity which varies across time and space, an idea which the keynote speaker (Rebecca King O’Riain) discusses in her book Global Mixed Race. This symposium was developed in response to this marginalisation focusing on describing and analysing mixed-race identities in both the UK and international contexts.

It was well attended and received by staff and students from within the faculty and beyond. There were a significant number of non-academic participants who travelled from far afield to engage with the day’s presentations and debates. Dr Rebecca King O’Riain (National University of Ireland, Maynooth) gave a keynote addressing the importance of expanding mixed-race studies beyond US borders and explored the dynamics of mixing in Zambia, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Brazil, Germany and Japan, among other locations. Dr. Shirley Tate (University of Leeds) who conceived of the idea of the symposium gave a second keynote on the mixed race question in regards to Black beauty.

The symposium was also comprised of two panels with papers on a variety of topics which reflect the diversity of research interests in the field:

• Theory, experience and activism in CMRS
• Mixed race male experiences in UK education
• Chicano epistemology
• Mixed-heritage in fostering and adoption policy
• Bio-power and the politicisation of mixed-race in East Africa
• Dougla identities in Trinidad
• The influence of hip hop on mixed-race identity…

…Speakers: Emma Dabiri, Remi Salisbury, Veronica Cano, Julia Koniuch-Enneoka, Angelica Pesarini, Kav Raghunandan, and Jenn Sims

Read the entire report here.

Study analyzes ambiguities in the works of Aluísio Azevedo

Agência FAPESP: News Agency of the Sao Paulo Research Foundation
2011-06-08

Karina Toledo

Agência FAPESP —The Mulatto, by Aluísio Azevedo, is a title that refers to the collective human state. It does not mention a character or a specific situation, but rather a human category that is very important for understanding the process of Brazil’s formation.

This analysis is presented by sociologist Rodrigo Estramanho de Almeida in the book A realidade da ficção. Ambiguidades literárias e sociais em ‘O Mulato’ de Aluísio Azevedo (The reality of fiction. Literary and social ambiguities in “The Mulatto” by Aluísio Azevedo), released by Alameda Casa Editorial on March 15. 

The starting point for this analysis is the second book published by Aluísio Azevedo, The Mulatto. The researcher analyzes the contradictions found in this book, as these contradictions marked the entire literary trajectory of the Maranhão author. Critics normally divide Azevedo’s work into two categories: engaged (or activist) romance, filled with social criticism, and feuilletonesque novels. 

“This ambiguity remains throughout the career of Aluísio. The writer himself made it clear in correspondence and newspaper texts that he was conscious of it and struggled with it. But I try to show that there is continuity in his works,” commented Estramanho de Almeida in an interview with Agência FAPESP…

Read the entire article here.

What Do I Tell My Blond Son About Being Black?

Gawker
2013-08-17

Anita DeRouen, Assistant Professor of English and Director of Writing and Teaching
Millsaps College, Jackson, Mississippi

“I think we should teach him to use his privilege to his advantage.”

It’s Sunday morning, July 14, 2013. My husband and I are talking, have been talking, will always be talking about race in our world and how it shapes our understanding of race in our home. Melissa Harris-Perry’s show is on, and she’s wearing black, and she and her guests are subdued-yet-passionate as they do a post-postmortem on that dead black boy in Florida, on so many dead black boys, on what black parents should say to their sons and daughters about dead black boys. Our son is sitting next to me playing with his alphabet game while his father and I talk about him like he isn’t there.

I am not sure where to take my husband’s statement, but the horse is out of the barn, so someone’s gotta ride it.

“Why? He’s never going to be profiled the way Trayvon was.”

And he won’t. My just-about-white-passing child is unlikely to ever have a person cross to the opposite side of the street when they see him coming, is unlikely to be followed through stores as he browses, is unlikely to wonder if a cop’s behavior on a traffic stop is shaped by the color of his skin.

I know these things as sure as I know that a day will come when that sweet dirty-blond headed, blue eyed boy will have to decide whether he will see his half-blackness (and, therefore, me) as a blessing or a curse. My husband disagrees, though, and I find myself having a conversation about skin tones and shades of blackness that leaves me questioning the facts I’ve long just known about race in America…

Read the entire article here.

About Biracials Learning About African-American Culture or B.L.A.A.C.

Biracials Learning About African-American Culture or B.L.A.A.C.
2013-06-18

Zebulon Miletsky, Assistant Professor of Africana Studies
Stony Brook University, State University of New York

The idea for this blog came from several discussions with students and young people who come from mixed-race backgrounds, especially so-called “white and black” biracials who, for whatever reason, grew up without learning very much about African-American life, history or culture. Whether they be trans-racially adopted, grew up in a home without the biological black parent or were perhaps raised in an area without many black people, the probability for people of mixed race descent to grow up without a solid, positive grounding in the black experience is much higher for reasons that will become fairly obvious. Not so obvious at times, however, is the more complicated truth of racism in America, a past deeply rooted in the ugly practice of white supremacy and centuries of stigmatization of African-American culture, heritage and contributions. This phenomenon, known to some scholars as “Anti-blackness”, has done more to confuse and ultimately divide than perhaps any other factor…

Read the entire article here.

Empathetic eye

Agência FAPESP: News Agency of the Sao Paulo Research Foundation
2011-06-08

Fábio de Castro

Agência FAPESP – In 1865, an expedition led by Swiss natural scientist Louis Agassiz (1807-1873) of Harvard University travelled around Brazil for 15 months to study the country. Among the voluntary collectors that participated in the expedition was a 23 year old medical student, William James (1842-1910), who would later become one of the most influential American thinkers, known mainly as one of the creators of pragmatic philosophy. 

Organized by professor Maria Helena Toledo Machado of the History Department of Universidade de São Paulo’s (USP) Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences School (FFLCH), the book Brazil through the eyes of William James covers  the large volume of writing and drawings produced by the young James during the expedition. Unlike the travel logs typical of the period, the material left by James reveals a sensitive and empathetic traveler with unique perspectives on the nature and society of Brazil.

The book was launched on April 7 at the USP’s Maria Antônia University Center, during the opening of the exhibition Rastros e raças de Louis Agassiz: fotografia, corpo e ciência (Traces of Louis Agassiz: photography, body and science), a collection of a series of photographs obtained during the expedition on Brazilian racial types…

…James’ perspective also significantly contrasts with the bias expressed by the expedition. Agassiz, founder of Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, intended to collect fish specimen and data on their geographic distribution in Brazil, with a view to contesting Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, which he opposed.

During the trip – known as the Thayer Expedition because it was financed by magnate Nathaniel Thayer-, Agassiz became interested in studying the population, taking the initiative to document Brazilian racial types through photography with a view evaluating the results of miscegenation. The work is one of the main photographic registers of Brazil in the 19th century.

“Agassiz was a creationist and the scientific and racial focus of the expedition is a bit backwards. But this did not affect James’ perspective. Highly sensitive, he developed what I would characterize as empathy, which would be manifested throughout his work. He shows a great capacity to understand the world from the other’s perspective. Instead of the paternalistic and pious approach common among other travelers of the time, he got involved with people and managed to understand the profound differences of this unfamiliar society,” affirms Machado.

Miscegenation

According to the historian, the position James exhibited in his expedition diaries are reflected throughout the life of the thinker. Later, he would fight against imperialism, defend Darwinism, become a follower of relativism – which garnered much criticism – and would develop the notion of stream of consciousness.

“All these ideas are coherent to his manner of approaching reality, manifested during his time in Brazil. In his writings, he deconstructs the exotic perspective, the incomprehensible other, the foreigner alienated from the codes of local social life,” says Machado…

Read the entire article here.

Obama rodeo clown incident illustrates nation’s continued racial divide

The Washington Post
2013-08-15

Philip Rucker

SEDALIA, Mo. — As some people at the Missouri State Fair see it, the rodeo incident last weekend in which a ringleader taunted a clown wearing a mask of President Obama and played with his lips as a bull charged after him was neither racist nor disrespectful.

It was a joke, they said, overblown by a news media that’s hypersensitive to any possible slight against the nation’s first black president. They said the hooting and hollering from the crowd that night was because of a fundamental dislike of the president.

“I’ve got no respect for him,” said Virgil Henke, 65, a livestock farmer who explained his distaste for Obama with several falsehoods about his background: “Why, he’s destroyed this country. How much freedom have we lost? I don’t care whether it’s a black man in office, but we have to have a true-blooded American. I think he is Muslim and trying to destroy the country, catering to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.”…

…There is a long history of mocking politicians at rodeos, and clowns have donned masks of other presidents as part of their acts. But James Staab, a political science professor at the University of Central Missouri, said last week’s incident “goes beyond the pale — they’re talking about physical injury and racial stereotypes.”…

…“I was raised to think the blacks were bad; I’m not gonna lie. We lived on one side of the tracks, and they lived on the other,” said Margaret Abercrombie, 68, who is white and grew up along the Mississippi River in Sikeston, Mo.

Abercrombie said she voted twice for Obama but didn’t find anything wrong with the rodeo act. As she rode her motorized wheelchair to the grandstands at the rodeo arena, which on this day hosted tractor pull races, Abercrombie said the anti-Obama sentiments she encounters are based on race.

“You hear the farmers here, they just don’t like him because he’s black,” Abercrombie said. Pointing across the fairgrounds to the cattle barns, she added, “I’m surprised they ain’t got a cow over there named Obama.”…

Read the entire article here.