Mixed Race Studies

Situating “Race” And Racisms In Space, Time, And Theory: Critical Essays for Activists and Scholars

McGill-Queen’s University Press
2005-04-27
256 pages
6 x 9
Paper: (0773528873) 9780773528871
Cloth: (0773528865) 9780773528864

Edited by

Jo-Anne Lee, Associate Professor of Women’s Studies
University of Victoria

John Sutton Lutz, Associate Professor of History
University of Victoria

A resource for anti-racist scholars and activists.

Grounded in real life and theoretically charged, the nine essays in this interdisciplinary collection explore how race, racisms, and racialization are changing and suggest strategies for reading their emerging forms and discourses. Race has historically been defined by visible difference, but the slippery nature and malleability of racisms and racialising processes challenge scholars and activists to remain vigilant, responsive, and critical in their analyses and actions.

This collection explores the strengths and weaknesses of postmodern social theory in the struggle against racism. Recognizing diversity as a conduit for resilience, endurance, and strength, the editors have tried to encourage coalition building by bringing together historians, sociologists, cultural theorists, and literary scholars in dialogue with artists and activists. Topics considered include nation formation, racialized states, cultural racism, multiculturalism, hyphenated and mixed-race identities, media and representation, and shifting identities.

Contributors include Jeannette Armstrong, director of the En’owkin International School of Writing in Penticton, Canada; Frances Henry, professor emirita at York University; Yasmin Jiwani, assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Concordia University; Paul Maylam, chair of the Department of History at Rhodes University, South Africa; Minelle Mahtani, assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Planning, and the Program in Journalism, University of Toronto; Roy Miki, professor of contemporary literature in the English Department at Simon Fraser University; Roxana Ng, professor in the Department of Adult Education, Community Development and Counselling Psychology at the Ontario Institute of Secondary Education/University of Toronto; Ali Rattansi, retired professor of sociology at City University London; Ann Stoler, distinguished professor and chair, Department of Anthropology, New School University in New York; and Carol Tator, course coordinator in the Department of Anthropology, York University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Preface

Introduction: Toward a Critical Literacy of Racisms, Anti-Racisms?
and Racialization
Jo-Anne Lee and John Lutz

Deconstructing Race? Deconstructing Racism (with Postscript 2004)
A Conversation Between Jeannette Armstrong and Roxana Ng

On Being and not Being Brown/Black-British: Racism, Class, Sexuality?
and Ethnicity in Post-Imperial Britain (with Postscript 2004: The Politics of Longing and (Un)Belonging, Fear? and Loathing)
Ali Rattansi

Mixed Metaphors: Positioning ?Mixed Race? Identity
Minelle Mahtani

Turning In, Turning Out: The Shifting Formations of ?Japanese Canadian? from Uprooting to Redress
Roy Miki

Racist Visions for the Twenty-First Century: On the Banal Force of the French Radical Right
Ann Laura Stoler

Unravelling South Africa?s Racial Order: The Historiography of Racism, Segregation? and Apartheid
Paul Maylam

A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Globe and Mail Editorials on Employment Equity
Frances Henry and Carol Tator

Orientalizing ?War Talk?: Representations of the Gendered Muslim Body Post-9/11 in The Montreal Gazette
Yasmin Jiwani

Contributors
Index

Working with children of mixed parentage

Russell House Publishing
2005-03-01
160 Pages
ISBN:978-1-903855-64-5

Edited by

Toyin Okitikpi, Professor
University of Bedfordshire

Table of Contents

• Introduction: mixed responses: working with children of mixed parentage.
• Looking at numbers and projections: making sense of the census, emerging trends.
• Mulatto, marginal man, half-caste, mixed race: the one-drop rule in professional practice.
• The social and psychological development of mixed parentage children.
• Identity and identification: how mixed parentage children adapt to a binary world.
• Practice Issues: working with children of mixed parentage.
• Direct work with children of mixed parentage.
• Exploring the discourse concerning white mothers of mixed parentage children.
• Permanent family placement for children of dual heritage: issues arising from a longitudinal study.
• Mixed race children: policy and practice considerations.

The American Prejudice Against Color: An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got Into An Uproar

Northeastern University Press
University Press of New England
2002 (originally published in 1853)
224 pages
5 1/2 x 8 1/2″
EAN: 978-1-55553-545-2

William G. Allen, Professor of Classics
New York Central College

Mary King

Louisa May Alcott

Edited by

Sarah Elbert, Professor Emerita of History
The State University of New York, Binghamton

A compilation of the explosive reactions to interracial love and marriage in antebellum America.

In 1853, William G. Allen, the “Coloured Professor” of Classics at New York Central College, became engaged to Mary King, a student at the coeducational, racially integrated school and daughter of a local white abolitionist minister. Rumors of their betrothal incited a mob of several hundred men armed with “tar, feathers, poles, and an empty barrel spiked with shingle nails.” Allen and King narrowly escaped with their lives, married in New York City, and then fled as fugitives to England and Ireland.

Their love story and brave resistance were recorded in engrossing detail by Allen in two pamphlets-The American Prejudice Against Color: An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily the Nation Got into An Uproar (1853) and A Short Personal Narrative (1860). Reproduced here in their entirety, Allen’s forthright, eloquent, and ironic accounts, which include excerpts from abolitionist and anti-abolitionist newspaper reports about the incident, drew renewed threats against the exiled pair as well as support from the couple’s circle of antislavery friends and allies, a diverse group including Harriet Beecher Stowe, Beriah Green, Gerrit Smith, Reverend Samuel J. May, and George Thompson.

The experiences related by Allen vividly illustrate the rampant fears of “amalgamation” that sparked violent protests in antebellum America. He also reveals white abolitionists’ contradictions regarding mixed-race relationships. Also contained in this volume is Louisa May Alcott’s M.L., a fictional tale of interracial love based on her familiarity with the Allen-King episode through her abolitionist uncle, the Reverend Samuel J. May. Alcott’s story was refused by The Atlantic magazine because, she said, it “might offend the dear South.”

An insightful introduction by editor Sarah Elbert places the writings within a historical and cultural context. She details William G. Allen’s notable career as a graduate of the Oneida Institute and as an active abolitionist in the network reaching from New York’s North Star Country through Boston, Canada, England, and Ireland. In exile, William and Mary King Allen, important members of the trans-Atlantic movement, continued their struggle for “free association” and supported their family by teaching poor children in London.

Read the entire book here or here.

Louisa May Alcott On Race, Sex, And Slavery

Northeastern University Press
University Press of New England
1997
160 pages
EAN: 978-1-55553-307-6

Louisa May Alcott

Edited by

Sarah Elbert, Professor Emerita of History
The State University of New York, Binghamton

The passionate supporter of abolition and women’s rights speaks out on the most controversial issues of the day.

Louisa May Alcott championed women’s causes in gothic tales of interracial romance and in newspaper articles published during the Civil War. Drawn from her service as a nurse in a Union hospital as well as from her radical abolitionist activities, these writings allow Alcott to comment boldly on unstable racial identities, interracial sex and marriage, armed slave rebellion, war, and the links between the bondage of slaves and the conditions of white womanhood. A comprehensive introduction situates Alcott and her family within the network of antebellum reformers and unmasks her personal and literary struggles with the boundaries of race, sex, and class.

The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy

Carolina Academic Press
January 2010
ISBN: 978-0-89089-085-1
Hardback

Robert F. Turner, Associate Director at the Center for National Security Law
University of Virginia School of Law

In 2000, the newly formed Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society asked a group of more than a dozen senior scholars from across the country to carefully examine all of the evidence for and against the allegations that Thomas Jefferson fathered one or more children by Sally Hemings, one of his slaves, and to issue a public report. In April 2001, after a year of study, the Scholars Commission issued the most detailed report to date on the issue.

With but a single mild dissent, the views of the distinguished panel ranged from “serious skepticism” to a conviction that the allegation was “almost certainly false.” This volume, edited by Scholars Commission Chairman Robert F. Turner, includes the “Final Report”—essentially a summary of arguments and conclusions—as it was released to the press on April 12, 2001. However, several of the statements of individual views—which collectively total several hundred carefully footnoted pages and constitute the bulk of the book—have been updated and expanded to reflect new insights or evidence since the report was initially released.

Black Europe and the African Diaspora

University of Illinois Press
2009
368 pages
6 x 9 in. 
15 black & white photographs, 1 map
Cloth: ISBN 978-0-252-03467-1
Paper: ISBN 978-0-252-07657-2

Edited by

Darlene Clark Hine, Board of Trustees Professor of African American Studies
Northwestern University

Trica Danielle Keaton, Associate Professor of African American and Diaspora Studies
the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

Stephen Small, Associate Professor of African American Studies
University of California, Berkeley

Multifaceted analyses of the African diaspora in Europe

The presence of Blacks in a number of European societies has drawn increasing interest from scholars, policymakers, and the general public. This interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary collection penetrates the multifaceted Black presence in Europe, and, in so doing, complicates the notions of race, belonging, desire, and identities assumed and presumed in revealing portraits of Black experiences in a European context. In focusing on contemporary intellectual currents and themes, the contributors theorize and re-imagine a range of historical and contemporary issues related to the broader questions of blackness, diaspora, hegemony, transnationalism, and “Black Europe” itself as lived and perceived realities.

Contributors are Allison Blakely, Jacqueline Nassy Brown, Tina Campt, Fred Constant, Alessandra Di Maio, Philomena Essed, Terri Francis, Barnor Hesse, Darlene Clark Hine, Dienke Hondius, Eileen Julien, Trica Danielle Keaton, Kwame Nimako, Tiffany Ruby Patterson, T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, Stephen Small, Tyler Stovall, Alexander G. Weheliye, Gloria Wekker, and Michelle M. Wright.

New Perspectives on Racial Identity Development: A Theoretical and Practical Anthology

New York University Press
Paperback
2001
296 pages
Paperback ISBN: 9780814793435

Edited by

Charmaine Wijeyesinghe

Bailey W. Jackson, Associate Professor of Education
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Decades have passed since our original theories of racial identity development were formed, bringing with them changes in our society and in our understandings of race and racism.

New Perspectives on Racial Identity Development seeks to update these foundational models. The volume brings together leaders in the field to deepen, broaden, and reassess our understandings of racial identity development among Blacks, Latino/as, Asian Americans, American Indians, Whites, and multiracial people.

Contributors include the authors of some of the earliest theories in the field. Bailey W. Jackson, Jean Kim, and Rita Hardiman here take stock of their original theories and offer updated versions of their models. Other theorists, such as Perry G. Horse, Charmaine L. Wijeyesinghe, Bernardo M. Ferdman, and Placida Gallegos present new paradigms and consider future issues which may come to challenge existing theories. Later chapters present examples of the ways in which these models may be applied within such contexts as conflict resolution and clinical counseling and supervisory relationships, and address their utility in understanding the experiences of other racial and ethnic groups. In addition, William E. Cross and Peony Fhagen-Smith present a revised and expanded version of nigrescence theory.

Multiracial America: A Resource Guide on the History and Literature of Interracial Issues

The Scarecrow Press, Inc.
March 2005
264 pages
Paper ISBN: 0-8108-5199-7; ISBN-13: 978-0-8108-5199-3

Edited by

Karen Downing, Foundation and Grants Librarian
Hatcher Graduate Library, University of Michigan

Darlene Nichols, Psychology Librarian and Coordinator of Instruction
Hatcher Graduate Library, University of Michigan

Kelly Webster, Associate Librarian
Hatcher Graduate Library, University of Michigan

Multiracial America addresses a growing interest in interracial people and relationships in America. Over the past decade, there have been numerous books and articles written on interracial issues. Despite the rampant growth in publishing, locating these often-scattered and inaccessible materials remains a challenge. This resource guide provides easy access to the available literature. Topical chapters on the most often researched themes are included, such as core historical literature, books for children and young adults, hot-button issues (passing, identification, appearance, fitting in, and blood quantification), interracial dating and marriage, families, adoption, and issues pertaining to race and queer sexuality. Each chapter includes a brief discussion of the literature on the topic, including historical context and comments on the breadth and depth of the available literature, and followed by annotations of books, popular and scholarly journals, magazines, and newspaper articles, videos/films, and websites. Other useful sections include a chapter on the depiction of interracial relationships in film, teaching an interracial issues course, and how to search for materials given changing terminology and classification issues. Indexes by race and non-print media are included.

Table of contents

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction

1. Accessing the Literature by Karen Downing
2. Teaching an Interracial Issues Course by David Schoem
3. Hot Button Issues by Karen Downing and Kelly Webster
4. Core Historical Literature by Chuck Ransom
5. The Politics of Being Interracial by Karen Downing
6. Interracial Dating and Marriage by Alysse Jordan
7. Interracial Families by Renoir Gaither
8. Transracial Adoption by Darlene Nichols
9. Books for Children and Young Adults by Darlene Nichols
10. Multiracial Identity Development by Kelly Webster
11. The Intersection of Race and Queer Sexuality by Joseph Diaz
12. Representations of Interracial Relationships and Multiracial Identity on the American Screen by Helen Look and Martin Knott

• Appendix I. Subject Heading/Descriptor Vocabularly to Assist in Searching by Karen Downing
• Appendix II. Definitions of Terms Used in Interracial Literature by Karen Downing
• Appendix III. Sociology 412 — Ethnic Identity and Intergroup Relations Syllabus by David Schoem
• Appendix IV. OMB Directive 15
• Appendix V. Resources by Race
• Index
• About the Contributors

Harriet Wilson’s New England: Race, Writing, and Region

University of New Hampshire Press
University Press of New England
2007
272 pp. 18 B&W illus., 4 appendixes 6 x 9″
Paper ISBN: 978-1-58465-642-5
Cloth ISBN: 978-1-58465-641-8

Edited by

JerriAnne Boggis, Director
Harriet Wilson Project

Eve Allegra Raimon, Associate Professor of Arts and Humanities
University of Southern Maine

Barbara A. White, Professor Emerita of Women’s Studies
University of New Hampshire

Forward by

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., W. E. B. Dubois Professor of the Humanities
Harvard University

This volume, with a foreword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., advances efforts to correct the historical record about the racial complexity and richness characteristic of rural New England’s past.

In the mid-nineteenth century, Harriet E. Wilson, an enterprising woman of mixed racial heritage, wrote an autobiographical novel describing the abuse and servitude endured by a young black girl in the supposedly free North. Originally published in Boston in 1859 and “lost” until its 1983 republication by noted scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Our Nig; or Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, is generally considered the first work of fiction written by an African American woman published in the United States.

With this collection, the first devoted entirely to Wilson and her novel, the editors have compiled essays that seek to understand Wilson within New England and New England as it might have appeared to Wilson and her contemporaries. The contributors include prominent historians, literary critics, psychologists, librarians, and diversity activists. Harriet Wilson’s New England joins other critical works in the emerging field known as the New Regionalism in resurrecting historically hidden ethnic communities in rural New England and exploring their erasure from public memory. It offers new literary and historical interpretations of Our Nig and responds to renewed interest in Wilson’s dramatic account of servitude and racial discrimination in the North.

Table of Contents

• Foreword – Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Making Space for Harriet E. Wilson
• NEW HAMPSHIRE’S “SHADOWS”: CONTEXT AND HISTORY
  • Of Bottles and Books: Reconsidering the Readers of Harriet Wilson’s “Our Nig” – Eric Gardner
  • Harriet Wilson’s Mentors: The Walkers of Worcester – Barbara A. White
  • George and Timothy Blanchard: Surviving and Thriving in Nineteenth-Century Milford – Reginald H. Pitts
  • “As Soon as I Saw My Sable Brother, I Felt More at Home”: Sampson Battis, Harriet Wilson, and New Hampshire Town History – David H. Watters
  • New Hampshire Forgot: African Americans in a Community by the Sea – Valerie Cunningham
• READING “SKETCHES FROM THE LIFE OF A FREE BLACK”: GENRE AND GENDER
  • Slavery’s Shadows: Narrative Chiaroscuro and “Our Nig” – Mary Louise Kete
  • Recovered Autobiographies and the Marketplace: “Our Nig’s” Generic Genealogies and Harriet Wilson’s Entrepreneurial Enterprise – P. Gabrielle Foreman
  • The Disorderly Girl in Harriet E. Wilson’s “Our Nig” – Lisa E. Green
  • Beyond the Page: Rape and the Failure of Genre – Cassandra Jackson
  • Miss Marsh’s Uncommon School Reform – Eve Allegra Raimon
  • Fairy Tales and “Our Nig”: Feminist Approaches to Teaching Harriet Wilson’s Novel – Helen Frink
• “A FAITHFUL BAND OF SUPPORTERS AND DEFENDERS”: PERSONAL REFLECTIONS
  • Losing Equilibrium: Harriet E. Wilson, Frado, and Me – John Ernest
  • Discovering Harriet Wilson in My Own Backyard – William Allen
  • A Conversation with Tami Sanders – Gloria Henry
  • Not Somewhere Else, But Here – JerriAnne Boggis
• Contributors
• Index

A Mixed Race: Ethnicity in Early America

Oxford University Press
March 2003
296 pages
5-1/2 x 8-1/4
ISBN13: 978-0-19-507523-6
ISBN10: 0-19-507523-4

Edited by

Frank Shuffelton, Professor Emeritus of English
University of Rochester

This collection of new essays enters one of the most topical and energetic debates of our time–the subject of ethnicity. The recent vigorous debates being waged over questions raised by the phenomenon of multiculturalism in America highlight the fact that American culture has arisen out of an unusually rich and interactive ethnic mix. The essays in A Mixed Race suggest that American society was inescapably multicultural from its very beginnings and that this representation of cultural differences fundamentally defined American culture. While recent scholarship has looked extensively at the ethnic formation of modern American culture, this study focuses on the eighteenth century and colonial American values that have been previously overlooked in the debate, arguing that a culture shaped by responses to ethnic and racial difference is not merely a modern circumstance but one at the base of American history. Written by a group of first-class contributors, the essays in this collection discuss the representation of cultural differences between European immigrants and Native Americans, the circumstances of the first African-American autobiographical narratives, rhetorical negotiations among different European-American cultural groups, ethnic representation in the genre literature of jest books and execution narratives, and the ethnic conceptions of Michel de Crevecoeur, Phillis Wheatley, and Thomas Jefferson. A Mixed Race offers agile and original yet scholarly readings of ethnicity and ethnic formation from some of our best critics of early American culture. Moving from questions of race and ethnicity to varieties of ethnic representation, and finally to individual confrontations, this volume sheds light on the confrontations of ethnically diverse peoples, and launches a timely, full-scale investigation of the construction of American culture.