Mixed Race Studies

One Drop of Love: Fanshen Cox discusses mixed race in America

The Williams Record
Williamstown, Massachusetts
2017-05-03

Alex Medeiros, Opinions Editor

Fanshen Cox discusses her new work, ‘One Drop Love,’ while exploring history, family, class and love. Photo courtesy of Fanshen Cox

Last Thursday, the Students of Caribbean Ancestry (SOCA) coordinated a one-woman show produced and written by Jamaican-American Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni. This performance was part of “Heritage Week” celebrating SOCA heritage. Cox’s interactive show, called “One Drop of Love,” explores history, family, class, justice and love. It challenges the audience to recognize the enduring power of the “one drop rule.”

In the 18th century, when the slave trade was in full force, many of the colonists who came to the Caribbean islands raped their slaves, resulting in mixed race children. Although some of these children were lighter skinned, like Cox, the “one drop rule” pronounced that one drop of African blood meant that the child was of African descent and therefore could not benefit from being the son or daughter of a white man. In fact, many millions of people in the United States still endure the repercussions of such an arbitrary rule, centuries after it was created.

Cox’s performance, also produced by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, aimed to address this issue of the “one drop rule.” As a half-Jamaican half-Caucasian woman, Fanshen has experienced her fair share of racial confusion…

Read the entire article here.

How Census Data Mislead Us about Ethno-Racial Change in the United States: A Response to Mora and Rodríguez-Muñiz

New Labor Forum
2017-04-28

Richard Alba, Distinguished Professor of Sociology
Graduate Center, City University of New York

I am pleased to open a conversation with G. Cristina Mora and Michael Rodríguez-Muñiz about census data and what they indicate about ethno-racial change.

In this issue of New Labor Forum. To forestall misunderstandings, I think it advisable at the outset to make clear the framework within which I am operating. I take it from the way that Mora and Rodríguez-Muñiz formulate their critique that their starting point is critical race theory, with its normatively inflected concerns about the deep and persisting structures of American racism and the pathways to eventual racial justice. That is fine. But I am operating from a different standpoint, that of sociological realism, which has the goal of identifying and understanding important ongoing social processes and discerning their implications. This, it should be obvious, does not mean that I am unconcerned about racial justice, just as critical race theorists generally are not unconcerned about empirical patterns and their consequences.

It does not help the conversation that Mora and Rodríguez-Muñiz tend throughout to downplay the significance of the concerns behind my analysis, which they characterize as narrowing “debates to the issue of ‘methodological accuracy’.” I find this an unfortunate attempt to reduce my argument to mainly technical issues (granted, these are part of the story); they miss that I, too, am talking ultimately about social power, even if I do not place it in the foreground in the piece I wrote for The American Prospect (it is more clear in other writings, some currently under review [1])….

Read the entire article here.

Embodying the Oppressed and the Oppressor: Critical Mixed Race Studies for Liberation and Social Justice Education

University of San Francisco
April 2017
71 pages

Gwendlyn C. Snider

A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the School of Education International and Multicultural Education Department In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in International and Multicultural Education

This study will focus on the educational and social experiences of mixed race Filipinx PEP (Pin@y Educational Partnerships) instructors in the San Francisco/Bay Area and the connection of these various, lived experiences to their teaching pedagogy and praxis in Ethnic Studies curriculum. The main purpose of this research is to create additional evidence for the need of critical mixed race studies and acknowledgement of mixed race students’ unique experiences to be valued and included in Ethnic Studies curriculum. In addition, the research will also serve as reaffirmation of not only the efficacy of Ethnic Studies curriculum but also the need for Ethnic Studies at a national and global level for every student regardless of race or cultural background. This research will also examine the ways in which knowing ourselves in connection to our personal histories, ethnicities, and traditions can not only create a stronger sense of identity but also provide the transformation needed for social justice education and activism. When an individual is able to self-actualize and evolve through education, decolonization, and identity formation, they are potentially in a space where they can utilize this knowledge through education and social justice initiatives to teach youth along with connecting and contributing to their local communities.

By conducting detailed qualitative interviews with mixed race PEP teachers, I aim to further reconcile what it means to be a mixed race Filipinx individual specifically teaching Filipinx history and culture in connection to the larger conceptualization of mixed race identity being integrated into Ethnic Studies curriculum. Through the various experiences of PEP instructors, what does it mean to be a mixed race PEP teacher, teaching Filipinx history while grappling with their own identify formation, and how does that play a role into how they teach? Because of the complex nature of mixed race individual experiences, research suggests that mixed race experiences are not yet fully captured by the existing critical theories because a majority of these theories cater to monoracial identities and realities. This study aims to disrupt and dispel stereotypical notions of race, recognize the lived experiences of mixed race individuals, and push forward Ethnic Studies curriculum for all students at all levels.

Read the entire thesis here.

Save Your Mixed Tears™ and Other Tips for Mixed Living

Psychology Today
2017-04-28

Jonathan Fisk

Source: Jonathan Fisk

I want to start by prefacing that this article is mostly written with white-POC mixed people in mind. As a white-Puerto Rican mixed person who strongly claims their Black and Taíno backgrounds, this is what I am, this is what I know, and so this is what I felt capable of writing about. Conversations about non-white mixes are definitely needed, and something being had, but not the focus of this article. That said, many themes here run true for other mixed people who might not fit this category, as well as for white-passing Latinx people.

Know that this has all been written all out of love. I’m writing this with not a hint of shade in my words, but as someone who wishes they heard these words earlier on in their exploration of identity as a mixed person.

1. Don’t feel the need to downplay your non-white identity…

Read the entire article here.

Chris Hughton: ‘I have a thirst for knowledge. I won’t always be a manager’

The Guardian
2017-04-28

Donald McRae

Chris Hughton says he is hoping to ‘tweak the squad and make some improvements’ before starting life in the Premier League. Photograph: Peter Cziborra/Action Images

In an exclusive interview, the Brighton manager talks about the ‘shocking’ imbalance between white and BAME managers in England and his hopes for Brighton in the Premier League next season

“‘It is shocking and the more we speak about it, and reflect on it, the more it hits home that there’s an incredible imbalance,” Chris Hughton says as he addresses the grievous lack of black managers in English football. His only current managerial contemporary is Keith Curle, in charge of Carlisle United in League Two, and Hughton’s quietly spoken words carry even more impact now that he has led Brighton & Hove Albion into next season’s Premier League.

Brighton’s inspiring promotion, after decades of strife in which the club became homeless, bankrupt and on the brink of losing their place in the Football League, was guaranteed last week. Their 58-year-old manager has two games remaining of this Championship season, starting with Bristol City at home on Saturday. But first, on a cold evening at the Amex Stadium, before his players participate in their annual awards, it is striking how he sidesteps beaming celebrations or personal vindication. Hughton, instead, confronts more important issues with a social conscience that is often missing from English football.

The “incredible imbalance” has long been, as Hughton says, “between those of ethnic backgrounds playing football, often at very good clubs, having good careers, being captains of their teams, and an absence in senior management. There have been some changes and it has been encouraging at academy and grassroots level – but still not at the top level. The game has a responsibility to redress the balance.”…

Read the entire article here.

The Many Lives Of Pauli Murray

The New Yorker
2017-04-17

Kathryn Schulz, Staff Writer

It was Pauli Murray’s fate to be both ahead of her time and behind the scenes. CREDIT COURTESY SCHLESINGER LIBRARY / RADCLIFFE INSTITUTE / HARVARD UNIVERSITY

She was an architect of the civil-rights struggle—and the women’s movement. Why haven’t you heard of her?

The wager was ten dollars. It was 1944, and the law students of Howard University were discussing how best to bring an end to Jim Crow. In the half century since Plessy v. Ferguson, lawyers had been chipping away at segregation by questioning the “equal” part of the “separate but equal” doctrine—arguing that, say, a specific black school was not truly equivalent to its white counterpart. Fed up with the limited and incremental results, one student in the class proposed a radical alternative: why not challenge the “separate” part instead?

That student’s name was Pauli Murray. Her law-school peers were accustomed to being startled by her—she was the only woman among them and first in the class—but that day they laughed out loud. Her idea was both impractical and reckless, they told her; any challenge to Plessy would result in the Supreme Court affirming it instead. Undeterred, Murray told them they were wrong. Then, with the whole class as her witness, she made a bet with her professor, a man named Spottswood Robinson: ten bucks said Plessy would be overturned within twenty-five years.

Murray was right. Plessy was overturned in a decade—and, when it was, Robinson owed her a lot more than ten dollars. In her final law-school paper, Murray had formalized the idea she’d hatched in class that day, arguing that segregation violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. Some years later, when Robinson joined with Thurgood Marshall and others to try to end Jim Crow, he remembered Murray’s paper, fished it out of his files, and presented it to his colleagues—the team that, in 1954, successfully argued Brown v. Board of Education…

Read the entire article here.

Understanding Our Roots – White Supremacy is More Than the KKK

TEDxWCC
TEDx Talks
2017-04-05

Hephzibah V. Strmic-Pawl, Assistant Professor of Sociology
Manhattanville College, Purchase, New York

Several strong experiences with the complexities of race as a child led Hephzibah to wanting to escape these problems by becoming a business major and ‘marrying well’. As she embarked on that path she found that solution incomplete and unfulfilling and so move into studying economics and sociology. Since then, she has developed an understanding of how White Privilege and White Supremacy shaped the structures not only of her childhood, but also of our country.

Dr. Hephzibah V. Strmic-Pawl is a sociologist who specializes in the study of race and contemporary racial inequality, and has a focus on American multiracialism. She is the author of the book Multiracialism and Its Discontents: A Comparative Analysis of Asian-White and Black-White Multiracials and co-editor of the reader Race and Ethnicity: Constancy in Change. In addition to her research on multiracialism, she is invested in the pedagogy of race and is beginning new work on gentrification. Dr. strmic-pawl is also the founder of the campaign to create a holiday in honor of the Civil Rights Movement activist, Ella Baker (www.supportellabakerday.com). She is currently an assistant professor at Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York and resides in Brooklyn.

Walter White and the Atlanta NAACP’s Fight for Equal Schools, 1916–1917

History of Education Quarterly
Volume 7, Issue 1 (April 1967)
pages 3-21
DOI: 10.2307/367230

Edgar A. Toppin (1928-2004), Professor of History
Virginia State College

In 1917 a delegation of negroes went before the Board of Education in Atlanta, Georgia, to demand equal facilities for colored school children. This marked the beginning of the work in Atlanta of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The youthful branch secretary who sparked this drive, Walter Francis White, called this “our first fight and our first victory and … we have only begun to fight.” Despite his enthusiasm, Atlanta moved at a glacial pace toward parity in the dual school systems.

Read or purchase the article here or here.

How I Got Over: ‘One Drop of Love’ Performance and Conversation

The Greene Space
44 Charlton Street (corner of Varick Street), New York, New York
Thursday, 2017-04-06, 19:00 EDT (Local Time)

One Drop of Love (Photo by David Scarcliff)

Join us for a special presentation of “One Drop of Love,” a multimedia solo performance that explores the intersections of race, class and gender in search of truth, justice and love.

Written and performed by Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni, the interactive show parallels the history of changing demographics in the U.S. with DiGiovanni’s own family history, traveling from the 1700s to the present.

The ultimate goal of the performance is to encourage the discussion of race and racism openly and critically, and to commit to making the world more liberated for all.

WNYC editor Rebecca Carroll hosts a post-performance conversation with DiGiovanni as part of The Greene Space’s ongoing How I Got Over series.

For more information, click here.

Colin Kaepernick Saw This Coming

Complex
2017-03-30

Dria Roland

Image via USA Today Sports

In pop culture years, 2012 was ages ago. But try to remember. That was the year quarterback Alex Smith suffered a concussion in the first half of the Niners game against the Rams in Week 10, and a backup QB named Colin Kaepernick had to fill in. The game ended in a tie, the NFL’s first in four years. The next week Kaepernick started, and led the team to victory. And even after Smith was declared healthy, Kaepernick continued to start—and to win. A “quarterback controversy” brewed, but coach Harbaugh went with the guy “with the hot hand,” as they say.

With that, a star was born. A second-year, backup QB led the Niners all the way to Super Bowl XLVII, and even though the Ravens came out on top, all people could talk about was Kap. His spread in the ESPN Body Issue made women swoon all around the nation. He signed endorsement deals with Jaguar, Nike, Beats, and Electronic Arts. Feature stories were written about his tattoos, his pet tortoise named Sammy, his being a biracial kid adopted by white parents…

Read the entire article here.