Marley class inspires UM students

Posted in Articles, Biography, Campus Life, Media Archive, United States on 2012-01-04 03:04Z by Steven

Marley class inspires UM students

South Florida Times
2009-09-08

Juliana Accioly

CORAL GABLES — On a recent weekday, students at the University of Miami watched a screen in front of a blackboard ignite with lively performances of music legend Bob Marley.

Then, suddenly, those images were juxtaposed with graphic footage of segregation and violence.

When it comes to English lectures, the ones given by Professor Rachel Panton are far from routine.

Panton’s course, titled “Mix Up, Mix Up: Reviewing Bob Marley as the Militant Mulatto” has been a recurring hit among UM undergraduates.  Since 2006, more than 400 students have enrolled in the class.  They examine Marley’s life and music through his social and political times, and his contribution to the international recognition of reggae and Rastafari as empowering black power movements.

“There is all this iconography of Bob Marley just floating out there,” Panton told the South Florida Times. “This course analyzes the context in which he became a luminary.”

The class also explores the singer’s mixed heritage. He was born the son of a Jamaican black mother and an English white father at a time when intermixing of races was not rare, but still not welcome.

Marley chose to identify himself as black.

“Marley is an interesting figure because most biracial people don’t see the dichotomy ‘either or,’ but think of themselves as ‘both and,’” said Panton, alluding to her own black-white heritage…

Read the entire article here.

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HIS 3015: Intermarraige in the U.S.: Race, Sex and Power in a Multicultural Society

Posted in Course Offerings, History, Media Archive, United States on 2012-01-04 02:00Z by Steven

HIS 3015: Intermarraige in the U.S.: Race, Sex and Power in a Multicultural Society

Castleson State College, Vermont
Fall 2011, Fall 2014

An overview of the historical evolution of intermarriage and sexual relations among the various racial and ethnic groups comprising the population of the United States, and the myriad ways in which “miscegenation” has affected the national cultural of the United States from colonial times to the present.

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“The Case Was Very Black against” Her: Pauline Hopkins and the Politics of Racial Ambiguity at the “Colored American Magazine”

Posted in Articles, History, Literary/Artistic Criticism, Media Archive, United States, Women on 2012-01-04 01:45Z by Steven

“The Case Was Very Black against” Her: Pauline Hopkins and the Politics of Racial Ambiguity at the “Colored American Magazine”

American Periodicals
Volume 16, Number 1 (2006)
pages 52-73

Sigrid Anderson Cordell, Librarian for History, American Literature, and American Culture
University of Michigan

When Pauline Hopkins’s short story. “Talma Gordon,” appeared in the October 1900 issue of the Colored American Magazine, it ran opposite a photograph of a young smiling African-American boy balancing an American flag across one arm with the other arm raised in a salute (Figure 1). By linking the black child and the American flag, this picture, entitled “The Young Colored American.” attempts to align U.S. interests with those of the black community and reflects the magazine’s aim to recover the role of African Americans in American history. The figure of the child evokes both a sense of optimism and an historical link to America’s infancy. Likewise, the photograph of the  “Young Colored American” echoes the revisionist themes of “Talma Gordon.” a story which calls into question the hagiography of the American elite and instead celebrates the figure of a mixed-race woman who has been scorned by her white father, a scion of New England society. In this story. Hopkins reflects the Colored American Magazine’s mission to “perpetuat[e] … a history of the negro race” and re-write the triumphal narratives of traditional American history. As I will argue, however, the interweaving of gender and racial politics in the narrative structure of this story both reflects and complicates the politics of the journal itself.

Throughout her literary career. Pauline Hopkins (1859-1930) deliberately incorporated politics into her work and claimed a voice for African Americans, particularly African-American women. Rather than publishing in the mainstream literary journals such as Harper’s and the Atlantic that dominated the American cultural scene at the turn of the twentieth century, Hopkins wrote for periodicals specifically targeted to the black community, such as the Colored American Magazine. What sets her fiction and journalism apart from that of her female contemporaries—both black and white—is her blunt depiction…

Purchase the article here.

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Crossing the Color Line: Racial Passing in American Literature

Posted in Course Offerings, Literary/Artistic Criticism, Media Archive, Passing, United States on 2012-01-03 20:57Z by Steven

Crossing the Color Line: Racial Passing in American Literature

Wesleyan University
AMST 322 / ENGL 319
Fall 2015

Amy Cynthia Tang, Assistant Professor of English

Narratives of racial passing having long captivated readers and critics alike for the way in which they provocatively raise questions about the construction, reinforcement, and subversion of racial categories. This course will consider several examples of the “literature of passing” as it has been established as a category within African American literature alongside more ambiguously classified 20th-century narratives of ethnic masquerade and cultural assimilation as a way of exploring how literary and film texts invoke, interrogate, and otherwise explore categories of race, gender, class, and sexual identity.

Key texts will include James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, Nella Larsen’s Passing, Douglas Sirk’s film Imitation of Life, Richard Rodriguez’s memoir Hunger of Memory, Chang-Rae Lee’s novel A Gesture Life, and Philip Roth’s novel The Human Stain.

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Agents of Change: Mixed-Race Households and the Dynamics of Neighborhood Segregation in the United States

Posted in Articles, Census/Demographics, Media Archive, Social Science, United States on 2012-01-03 02:49Z by Steven

Agents of Change: Mixed-Race Households and the Dynamics of Neighborhood Segregation in the United States

Annals of the Association of American Geographers
Available online: 2011-12-08
DOI: 10.1080/00045608.2011.627057

Mark Ellis, Professor of Geography
University of Washington

Steven R. Holloway, Professor of Geography
University of Georgia

Richard Wright, Professor of Geography
Dartmouth College

Christopher S. Fowler Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow in Applied Spatial Statistics
Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology
University of Washington

This article explores the effects of mixed-race household formation on trends in neighborhood-scale racial segregation. Census data show that these effects are nontrivial in relation to the magnitude of decadal changes in residential segregation. An agent-based model illustrates the potential long-run impacts of rising numbers of mixed-race households on measures of neighborhood-scale segregation. It reveals that high rates of mixed-race household formation will reduce residential segregation considerably. This occurs even when preferences for own-group neighbors are high enough to maintain racial separation in residential space in a Schelling-type model. We uncover a disturbing trend, however; levels of neighborhood-scale segregation of single-race households can remain persistently high even while a growing number of mixed-race households drives down the overall rate of residential segregation. Thus, the article’s main conclusion is that parsing neighborhood segregation levels by household type—single versus mixed race—is essential to interpret correctly trends in the spatial separation of racial groups, especially when the fraction of households that are mixed race is dynamic. More broadly, the article illustrates the importance of household-scale processes for urban outcomes and joins debates in geography about interscalar relationships.

Read or purchase the article here.

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Genome Study Points to Adaptation in Early African-Americans

Posted in Articles, Health/Medicine/Genetics, New Media, United States on 2012-01-03 00:37Z by Steven

Genome Study Points to Adaptation in Early African-Americans

The New York Times
2012-01-02

Nicholas Wade, Science Reporter

Researchers scanning the genomes of African-Americans say they see evidence of natural selection as their ancestors adapted to the harsh conditions of their new environment in America.

The scientists, led by Li Jin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai, report in the journal Genome Research that certain disease-causing variant genes became more common in African-Americans after their ancestors reached American shores—perhaps because they conferred greater, offsetting benefits. Other gene variants have become less common, the researchers say, like the gene for sickle cell hemoglobin, which in its more common single-dose form protects against malaria. The Shanghai team suggests the gene has become less common in African-Americans because malaria is much less of a threat.

The purpose of studying African-American genomes is largely medical. Most searches for variant genes that cause disease take place in people of European ancestry, and physicians want to make sure they have not missed variants that may be more common in African-Americans and helpful for developing treatments or diagnosis.

Such searches often reveal events in a population’s history by pinpointing genes that have changed under the pressure of natural selection…

…The Shanghai researchers used a method for studying admixture, a geneticist’s term for when two populations or races intermarry; China has several such populations, perhaps accounting for the team’s interest. Using gene chips that analyze common variations in the human genome, researchers can deconstruct the chromosomes of an African-American, say, assigning each chunk of DNA to an African or European origin.

The scientists found that of the African-American genomes in their sample, 22 percent of the DNA came from Europeans, on average, and the rest from African ancestors, a figure in line with other estimates…

Read the entire article here.

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Profile: Sheena Gardner

Posted in Articles, Asian Diaspora, Campus Life, Identity Development/Psychology, Mississippi, New Media, Social Science, United States on 2012-01-02 23:10Z by Steven

Profile: Sheena Gardner

Our People
Mississippi State University
2012-01-02

With a Japanese mother and an African-American father, Gardner has lived in Japan and Mississippi, experiencing a world of two cultures. Her dark skin complemented by her long, thick and curly hair distinguishes her from most other people almost everywhere she goes. Her background of growing up in a military family exposed her to many mixed-race families.

Through the years, Sheena Gardner has become comfortable answering the question, “What are you?”

While awkwardly phrased, she understands what they mean, and the Ocean Springs native loves talking about it. However, many people still feel uncomfortable having serious discussions on race…

Read the entire article here.

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2011 Brigitte M. Bodenheimer Lecture on Family Law by Professor Angela Onwuachi-Willig: “According to Our Hearts: What Does the Rhinelander v. Rhinelander Case Teach Us about Race, Law, and Family?”

Posted in Family/Parenting, Law, Media Archive, United States, Videos on 2012-01-02 17:34Z by Steven

2011 Brigitte M. Bodenheimer Lecture on Family Law by Professor Angela Onwuachi-Willig: “According to Our Hearts: What Does the Rhinelander v. Rhinelander Case Teach Us about Race, Law, and Family?”

University of California, Davis
School of Law
Kalmanovitz Appellate Courtroom
2011-11-08, 16:00-18:00 PST (Local Time)
Run Time: 01:05:58

Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Charles M. and Marion J. Kierscht Professor of Law
University of Iowa

The 2011 Brigitte M. Bodenheimer Lecture on Family Law features Professor Angela Onwuachi-Willig. She delivers a lecture entitled, “According to Our Hearts: What Does the Rhinelander v. Rhinelander Case Teach Us about Race, Law, and Family?”

Professor Angela Onwuachi-Willig explores the social and legal meanings of the Rhinelander v. Rhinelander case by examining its various lessons regarding law and society’s joint role in framing the normative ideal of family as monoracial.

The Rhinelander trial of 1925 involved a lawsuit in which wealthy, white Leonard Kip Rhinelander sued his wife, Alice Beatrice Rhinelander, for an annulment based on fraud. Leonard alleged that Alice claimed to be white when she was actually “of colored blood.” Legend has it that the two were madly in love, but Rhinelander’s father encouraged the annulment proceeding because he did not approve of the relationship.

Professor Onwuachi-Willig analyzes the case as a representation of the simultaneously tragic and inspiring story about race and race relations in the United States.

A former member of the UC Davis law faculty, Professor Onwuachi-Willig is the Charles M. and Marion J. Kierscht Professor of Law at the University of Iowa. She specializes in the areas of Employment Discrimination, Family Law, Feminist Legal Theory, and Race and the Law.

Established in 1981 in memory of Professor Brigitte M. Bodenheimer, this endowed lecture brings scholars and practitioners to King Hall to discuss recent developments affecting the family.

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Public Mothers: Native American and Métis Women as Creole Mediators in the Nineteenth-Century Midwest

Posted in Articles, History, Media Archive, United States, Women on 2012-01-02 06:03Z by Steven

Public Mothers: Native American and Métis Women as Creole Mediators in the Nineteenth-Century Midwest

Journal of Women’s History
Volume 14, Number 4, Winter 2003
Special Issue: Revising the Experiences of Colonized Women: Beyond Binaries

Lucy Eldersveld Murphy, Professor of History
Ohio State University, Newark

During the early nineteenth century, the largely Francophone, mixed ancestry residents of the western Great Lakes region were faced with massive immigration of Anglophone whites who colonized the region, imposing a new U.S. government, economy, and legal system on the old Creole communities. Many of these immigrants from different cultural backgrounds in the eastern United States brought their prejudices and fears with them, attitudes that had the power to alienate and marginalize the old residents. This article explores the ways in which some women of color found techniques to mediate between cultural groups, using hospitality, charity, and health care to negotiate overlapping ideals of womanhood common to both Anglos and Native-descended people. In so doing, they won praise from both new and old neighbors, as they used Creole patterns of network-building to smooth community relations.

Read the entire article here.

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The Case of Loving v. Bigotry

Posted in Arts, History, Law, Media Archive, United States on 2012-01-01 21:18Z by Steven

The Case of Loving v. Bigotry

The New York Times
2012-01-01

Julie Bosman

Photography by: Grey Villet

In 1958, Richard and Mildred Loving were arrested in a nighttime raid in their bedroom by the sheriff of Caroline County, Va. Their crime: being married to each other. The Lovings—Mildred, who was of African-American and Native American descent, and Richard, a bricklayer with a blond buzz cut—were ordered by a judge to leave Virginia for 25 years. In January, the International Center of Photography is mounting a show [2012-01-20 through 2012-05-06] of Grey Villet’s photographs of the couple in 1965. That exhibit is complemented by an HBO documentary, ‘‘The Loving Story,’’ directed by Nancy Buirski, which will be shown on HBO on Feb. 14…

Read the entire text and view the photographs here.

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