Mixed Race Studies

1st Black President Wins a 2nd Term

The Root
2012-11-07

Keli Goff, Political Correspondent

Here’s who gave it to President Obama, and what he might do with it.

(The Root) — Four years after making history by becoming the first black president elected in the United States, Barack Obama has been elected to a second term. Bolstered by wins in key swing states, among them Ohio, Virginia and Pennsylvania, the president was declared the winner by multiple news outlets just after 11 p.m. EST. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney took the stage to concede the race shortly after midnight.
 
Some Obama supporters feared that newly enacted strict voter-identification laws, and the controversy surrounding them, might suppress key segments of the president’s base of support — namely young people and voters of color — and tip a close race in the direction of Republican challenger Mitt Romney. That did not happen…

…After Vigdis Finnbogadóttir became the first female president of Iceland in 1980 and was re-elected, it was observed that there were young Icelandic children who grew up assuming that the presidency was a female role. Many wonder what long-term impact the re-election of a black president will have on how American children, as well as adults, ultimately view race, equality and power…

Read the entire article here.

Viva Obama! – How Spain Views The US Elections

International Business Times
2012-11-06

Palash R. Ghosh

Spain, reeling from a paralyzing economic crisis that has thrown one-quarter of the workforce onto the streets and crippling budget cuts, may not have its full attention upon Tuesday’s presidential elections.

However, given the widespread approval of Barack Obama across much of western Europe, some Spaniards may indeed be cast a glance across the Atlantic.
 
The financial collapse in Spain ended the tenure of the Socialist government of former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, supplanted by the conservative administration of Mariano Rajoy of the People’s Party.

International Business Times spoke to an expert on Spain to discuss how the beleaguered Spaniards view the U.S. Presidential election,
 
Laura Gonzalez-Alana is Assistant Professor of Finance and Business Economics at Fordham University in New York City.

IB TIMES: Do you sense a great deal of interest in the 2012 U.S. presidential election among the Spanish public? Or has it waned since 2008?

GONZALEZ-ALANA: The Spanish press has been widely covering the campaign. I could actually read summaries and opinions about the outcomes of the debates earlier in Spain than on CNN. Clearly the European press prefers Barack Obama, despite the disappointment regarding the expectations raised by his 2008 victory..
 
Spaniards, like other Europeans, are worried about how foreign policy and diplomatic relations with the United States could change if Mitt Romney becomes president. They do not trust the current moderate tones in Romney’s speeches after the very conservative stances he took during the primaries to appeal to the far-right Tea Party.

In general, the majority of Europeans believe Obama could be a more efficient negotiator with them and with the Middle East nations.

Another armed conflict [in the Mideast] would be particularly difficult to support given the economic crisis in Europe.

Also, Europeans, and Spaniards in general do not believe that open confrontation with China over trade issues would be the most effective manner to handle such abuses. And Europeans still resent having been dragged into the armed conflicts waged by George W. Bush…

…IB TIMES: Does Spanish media describe Obama as “black” or “mixed race” (given that his mother was white). Is this distinction important to Spaniards?
 
GONZALEZ-ALANA: People in Spain are aware of his being half-white and half-black, but not much is said about his racial profile, other than it makes extremist groups more nervous about him, given that in the European mind, the U.S. is still quite uncomfortable with racial diversity.
 
Europeans have some racial issues, too, but they see Obama as an “American” leader, and as a person to admire, like other famous black or half-black famous US people, like singers, actors, sports figures and so on.

If you asked Spaniards to pick a word to describe Obama, they would say “black”—in a sense, not being ‘fully white’ means ‘black.’

Now, the word ‘negro’ in Spain is not politically incorrect, but it all depends on the context and intonation…

Read the entire interview here.

Barack Obama Reelection Signals Rise Of New America

The Huffington Post
2012-11-07

Howard Fineman

NEW YORK—President Barack Obama did not just win reelection tonight. His victory signaled the irreversible triumph of a new, 21st-century America: multiracial, multi-ethnic, global in outlook and moving beyond centuries of racial, sexual, marital and religious tradition.

Obama, the mixed-race son of Hawaii by way of Kansas, Indonesia, Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, won reelection in good part because he not only embodied but spoke to that New America, as did the Democratic Party he leads. His victorious coalition spoke for and about him: a good share of the white vote (about 45 percent in Ohio, for example); 70 percent or so of the Latino vote across the country, according to experts; 96 percent of the African-American vote; and large proportions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

The Republican Party, by contrast, has been reduced to a rump parliament of Caucasian traditionalism: white, married, church-going—to oversimplify only slightly. “It’s a catastrophe,” said GOP strategist Steve Schmidt. “This is, this will have to be, the last time that the Republican Party tries to win this way.”…

Read the entire article here.

Thank you for making CMRS 2012 and Mixed Roots Midwest a success

Laura Kina
2011-11-04

Laura Kina, Associate Professor Art, Media and Design and Director Asian American Studies
DePaul University

We’ve just finished four days of the Critical Mixed Race Studies conference and Mixed Roots Midwest festival hosted by DePaul University in Chicago, IL. Thank you to all of the volunteers and sponsors who made this possible. I look forward to seeing you again in 2014…

Read the entire article here.

Rejuvenated Obama reelected as president after bruising campaign

The Washington Post
2011-11-07

David A. Fahrenthold

Barack Obama was elected to a second presidential term Tuesday, defeating Republican Mitt Romney by reassembling the political coalition that boosted him to victory four years ago and remaking himself from a hopeful uniter into a determined fighter for middle-class interests.

Obama, the nation’s first African American president, scored a decisive electoral college victory by stringing together a series of narrow wins in hotly contested states. Of the election’s seven major battlegrounds, he won at least six…

Read the entire article here.

Divided U.S. Gives Obama More Time

The New York Times
2012-11-06

Jeff Zeleny and Jim Rutenberg

Barack Hussein Obama was re-elected president of the United States on Tuesday, overcoming powerful economic headwinds, a lock-step resistance to his agenda by Republicans in Congress and an unprecedented torrent of advertising as a divided nation voted to give him more time.

In defeating Mitt Romney, the president carried Colorado, Iowa, Ohio, New Hampshire, Virginia and Wisconsin, a near sweep of the battleground states, and was holding a narrow advantage in Florida. The path to victory for Mr. Romney narrowed as the night wore along, with Mr. Obama winning at least 303 electoral votes.

A cheer of jubilation sounded at the Obama campaign headquarters in Chicago when the television networks began projecting him as the winner at 11:20 p.m., even as the ballots were still being counted in many states where voters had waited in line well into the night. The victory was far narrower than his historic election four years ago, but it was no less dramatic…

…Mr. Obama’s re-election extended his place in history, carrying the tenure of the nation’s first black president into a second term. His path followed a pattern that has been an arc to his political career: faltering when he seemed to be at his strongest — the period before his first debate with Mr. Romney — before he redoubled his efforts to lift himself and his supporters to victory…

Read the entire article here.

President Barack Obama defeats Romney to win re-election

BBC News
2012-11-07

President Barack Obama has been re-elected to a second term, defeating Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

America’s first black president secured more than the 270 votes in the electoral college needed to win.

In his victory speech before supporters in Chicago, Mr Obama said he would talk to Mr Romney about “where we can work together to move this country forward”.

Mr Obama prevailed despite lingering dissatisfaction with the economy and a hard-fought challenge by Mr Romney…

Read the entire article here.

Call for Proposals—Special AALR Issue on Mixed Race

The Asian American Literary Review
1110 Severnview Drive
Crownsville, Maryland 21032
2019-09-17

Editors-in-Chief
Lawrence-Minh Bùi Davis
Gerald Maa

Thanks to political organizing, scholarship, and the arts, not to mention media coverage, mixed race has become hyper-visible. So what’s next? AALR’s special issue on mixed race, due out in Fall 2013, won’t simply be a reexamination of race or a survey of mixed voices, important as both are. We envision our role as that of provocateur—inspiring new conversations and cross-pollinations, pushing into new corners.

What are the nerve centers of mixed race? How does mixed race mark fault lines the world over? We invite you to be the curators of this special issue, to tell us what about mixed race we need to address—and how.

All contributions to the issue will be collaborative, “mixed” in nature, bringing together folks across racial and ethnic boundaries, across disciplines, genres, countries, languages, and generations. We see the issue as a meeting point for visual artists and writers, filmmakers and activists, students and teachers and scholars of every stripe—an incubator of new ideas and fresh approaches. Multilingual exchanges and formal innovations welcome.

In Fall 2013 and Spring 2014 the issue will be a focal point for a multi-institution synchronous teaching program that connects students and faculty across the world. So far 54 classrooms in universities and colleges in seven countries have signed up. Our goal is an international, livetime, region to region, country to country conversation that builds academic, social, and civic community, a conversation that challenges and grows our understandings of race and mixed race as well as the tools and lenses we use to understand them.

PROPOSAL GUIDELINES

All proposals should briefly outline:

• who would be contributing to your collaborative project, with a 50-100 word bio for each contributor;
• what subject matter your collaborative project would engage;
• how it would engage that subject or set of subjects in terms of disciplinary approach(s), genre(s), and form(s) or format(s); and
• why your proposed project would be vital to the special issue.

We are accepting proposals from fully formed groups; partial groups requesting to be matched with a writer, scholar, activist, visual artist, illustrator, musician, or filmmaker; and individuals requesting to be matched with a group.

Please direct proposals to AALR.MRI.CFP@gmail.com and any questions or inquiries to editors@aalrmag.org. Deadline for proposal submissions is 11/09/2012. We will inform of decisions by mid-December 2012. Final submissions of collaborative projects will be due February 2013.

AALR is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit arts organization. All donations are fully tax-deductible.

Racial Framing and Superstorm Sandy: A Black Mother Begs for Help While Her Children Drown

We Are Respectable Negroes
2012-11-04

Chauncey DeVega

Superstorm Sandy has made the divisions of class in the New York City area very clear. The “haves” are able to muster the resources to somehow survive. The “have nots” are left to their own devices.

Superstorm Sandy has also reminded us of how race remains one of the main dividing lines in our society. While naked displays of racism are now outside of the norms of “polite society,” racial micro-aggressions, the day-to-day moments of white racial hostility and animus towards people of color, continue onward.

Racial micro-aggressions can impact the lives of black and brown folks in ways that are “just” inconvenient–the store detective that follows you around while shopping; being asked for ID when using a credit card; when your friends or colleagues “complement” you by saying you are one of “the special” or “good” ones.

Alternatively, these racial micro-aggressions can also be deadly in their outcomes.

Superstorm Sandy has yet to provide an iconic example of white racist media framing such as when during Hurricane Katrina, black people were described as “looters,” and whites, also trying to survive, were captioned in news photos as “looking for food.”

A lack of an iconic moment does not mean that race no longer impacts life outcomes, the safety and health of people of color, or how white society chooses to view (or not) African-Americans as full members of the polity and broader community…

Some other thoughts and questions about racial framing and SuperStorm Sandy:

1. Has racial framing become more or less prominent in the media’s coverage of Superstorm Sandy? I have noticed a good number of photos where people of color are shown in line waiting for gasoline and food. I have not seen many similar images of white people. In discussions of looting, the only stories I have seen have featured black men. Have any of you seen stories about social disorder following Superstorm Sandy in white communities?

2. The white victims of SuperStorm Sandy in Staten Island, and the Jersey Shore in particular, have been framed by the media as “hearty” stalwarts and survivors. In comparison to Hurricane Katrina, why is their decision to stay put after an evacuation order, not being interrogated as that of “irresponsible” people?…

…7. Glenda Moore’s two children were fathered by a white man. In many ways, the multiracial movement is prefaced on gaining white privilege for those people who are of a “mixed race” background in order to create a buffer race and colored class.

The white parentage through their father of those two beautiful black children did not extend any privilege, or sense of white kinship to them, through their mother. The boundaries of white community were not broad enough to save those two children.

The “one drop” rule is real in American society. For example, while some white folks are confused (and even offended) by Barack Obama’s claim to a black identity, this tragic event is more proof that in this society African Americans of a “mixed race” background are still stigmatized by their blackness. In total, White privilege, and their “white” lineage, did not save Glenda Moore’s two children. It left them to drown and die.

Read the entire article here.

Fanshen’s Farewell to Mixed Chicks Chat

Fanshen Cox
2012-11-05

In June 2012 we recorded the final episode of Mixed Chicks Chat. Creating and carrying out the podcast each week for the past five years provided me with a consistent, safe, nurturing space in which to share and learn more about the Mixed experience.  I have grown in many ways since I started the show, and now it is time for me to move forward with new and exciting projects—many of which came out of the conversations I shared with the listeners and guests. I want to thank those of you who became a part of the Mixed Chicks Chat community—through your emails, participation as guests, and live-chat-presence, you all made Mixed Chicks Chat the valuable resource it became to so many. If you are looking for a particular episode and can’t find one, feel free to email me at mixedrootsstories(at)gmail(dot)com and I’ll be happy to get you an MP3.

Thank you for sharing your wonderful stories!

Fanshen Cox