Mixed Race Studies

How the Use by Eugenicists of Family Trees and Other Genealogical Technologies Informed and Reflected Discourses on Race and Race Crossing during the Era of Moral Condemnation: Mixed-Race in 1920s and 1930s Britain

Genealogy
Volume 2, Issue 3 (September 2018)
Special Issue “Genealogy and Multiracial Family Histories”
2018-07-05
15 pages
DOI: 10.3390/genealogy2030021

Peter J. Aspinall, Emeritus Reader
Centre for Health Services Studies, University of Kent, Canterbury

In the 1920s and 30s, significant empirical studies were undertaken on mixed-race (‘hybrid’) populations in Britain’s seaport communities. The physical anthropologists Rachel Fleming and Kenneth Little drew on the methods of anthropometry, while social scientist Muriel Fletcher’s morally condemnatory tract belongs to the genre of racial hygiene. Whether through professional relationships, the conduct of their work, or means of disseminating their findings, they all aligned themselves with the eugenics movement and all made use of pedigree charts or other genealogical tools for tracing ancestry and investigating the inheritance of traits. These variously depicted family members’ races, sometimes fractionated, biological events, and social circumstances which were not part of genealogy’s traditional family tree lexicon. These design features informed and reflected prevailing conceptualisations of race as genetic and biological difference, skin colour as a visible marker, and cultural characteristics as immutable and hereditable. It is clear, however, that Fleming and Little did not subscribe to contemporary views that population mixing produced adverse biological consequences. Indeed, Fleming actively defended such marriages, and both avoided simplistic, ill-informed judgements about human heredity. Following the devastating consequences of Nazi racial doctrines, anthropologists and biologists largely supported the 1951 UNESCO view that there was no evidence of disadvantageous effects produced by ‘race crossing’.

Contents

• Abstract
• Introduction
• Genealogical Technologies
• Case Studies of the Eugenic Use of Genealogical Technologies in Studies of Mixed-Race
• Intersections between Eugenicists’ Use of Genealogical Technologies, Discourses on Race, and the Biological Consequences of ‘Race Crossing’
• Conclusions
• Funding
• Conflicts of Interest
• References

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“My Sister Tried to Kill Me”: Enactment and Foreclosure in a Mixed-Race Dyad

Psychodynamic Psychiatry
Volume 43, Number 2 (June 2015)
pages 229-241
DOI: 10.1521/pdps.2015.43.2.229

Teresa Méndez, MSW, Clinical Social Worker
The Retreat at Sheppard Pratt; Private Practice
Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Maryland

How is treatment complicated when both patient and therapist bring into the room multiracial identities that stand in contrast to their visible race or ethnicity? Using relational psychoanalysis’s concepts of dissociation, enactment, and relational trauma, this article examines the way multiple racial realities, beyond the more familiar black/white binary, can coexist in the consulting room. The implications and potential pitfalls of a cross-cultural dyad, in which each participant carries a mixed-race identity, are considered through a clinical vignette.

Read or purchase the article here.

Emma: On What It Means to Be “Attracted to Black Girls”

Ask Emma: Navigating race and identity in Ireland
Dublin InQuirer
Dublin, Ireland
2018-04-24

Emma Dabiri

Image by Rob Mirolo

In her regular column, Emma Dabiri fields your questions on race and identity in contemporary Ireland. Got something you’ve been pondering? You can send her your questions through this form.

Hi Emma,

I’m a white male Dubliner who is very attracted to black girls. I’ve never been with a black girl, and don’t actually know any black women at all to be honest, but whenever I see a pretty black girl on the street or in the office, I melt.

I’m trying not to sound too weird. I know it’s not good to exoticize. I do watch lots of black porn. I have had no chill on the few opportunities I’ve had to speak to black girls. I feel like flirting is hard enough, but with race, identity, etc. it all becomes overwhelming.

What should I do?

We deliberated quite a lot as to whether or not this was a serious question or the work of a troll. However, as a black woman who grew up on the receiving end of attitudes such as yours, I am pretty convinced of its veracity.

The ideas about what blackness is that inform your “preferences” are centuries old, and sadly are not going away anytime soon. What I write should help you, although I have to admit that in this instance helping you is not my main priority.

Rather, I want to take this opportunity to expose the mechanics behind this way of thinking, and the ways in which these attitudes are damaging and dehumanizing to black people.

What is it about black girls that you find so attractive? We come in all different shades and sizes. Amongst all of the women who could be identified as black, there exists such a huge diversity of features and appearances that it is hard to talk about what a “black woman” looks like in any meaningful way, yet you reduce us to a monolith?…

Read the entire article here.

ASU student explores how parents in multi-racial families communicate about race

ASU Now
Arizona State University
2017-10-27

ASU doctoral student Annabelle Atkin

It’s First Friday at the Children’s Museum in Phoenix, Arizona. Amid the kids exploring giant bubbles, a kiddie car wash, and a paint maze, there is an 8×4 folding table with a red tablecloth draped over it. Behind the table sits the smiling face of Annabelle Atkin, a doctoral student at the T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University. An assortment of children’s books featuring characters with diverse racial backgrounds is spread before her. To her right is a colorful poster describing her multiracial families project.

Atkin is working on recruiting multi-racial families for her research. She is exploring how parents of multi-racial families communicate with their children about race, as well as the effects those conversations have on their children’s racial identity and development. Her excitement and interest in this topic shines through when she talks about the families she’s met so far…

Read the entire article here.

Black mixed-race men, perceptions of the family, and the cultivation of ‘post-racial’ resilience

Ethnicities
First Published 2017-11-02
DOI: 10.1177/1468796817739667

Remi Joseph-Salisbury
School of Education and Childhood
Leeds Beckett University, Headingley Campus, Leeds, United Kingdom

Historically and contemporarily, popular discourses have pathologised Black mixed-race men as the embodiment of a ‘clash of cultures’. In centring the voices of Black mixed-race men in the UK and the US, this article offers a refutation to these discourses. With a specific focus on secondary schooling, the article draws upon accounts from semi-structured interviews in order to demonstrate how Black mixed-race men perceive their families as offering a source of strength and support. In order to understand how the family supports Black mixed-race men in overcoming the challenges posed by a hostile, ‘post-racial’ white supremacist environment, I develop a conceptualisation of ‘post-racial’ resilience. Through this concept, I highlight the creative and innovative ways Black mixed-race men and their families respond to the lived realities of pervasive racial inequities that are occluded by ‘post-racialism’. The article considers the role that parents play in three, inextricably linked, aspects of Black mixed-race men’s lives: schooling, identity formation, and experiences of racism.

Read or purchase the article here.

‘I’m not racist. . . . My grandkids are biracial’

The Philadelphia Inquirer
2017-08-29

Helen Ubiñas, Staff Columnist

istockphoto.com Having biracial grandkids doesn’t give you a free pass to say racist things.

There was no hello. Just an angry voice on the other end of the line yelling obscenities about blacks and Latinos in North Philly. The man grew up there, he shouted, back when it used to be “a great white neighborhood.” Then “the blacks” and “the Puerto Ricans” moved in and ruined it. They’re garbage, he yelled. No, he seethed, garbage is better than them.

Oh, and before I or anyone else called him a bigot, he wanted me to know something.

He’s no racist. His grandchildren are half-Puerto Rican.

My heart sank. Poor kids…

…Family doesn’t inoculate anyone against racism.

Tanya Hernandez, professor of law at Fordham University and author of a forthcoming book, Multiracials and Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories of Discrimination, said it fits into a larger societal idea that having closer relationships with people of other races can make people more empathetic.

It’s a nice thought – especially after the post-racial fantasy we all fed on for the last eight years, and the ongoing myth that as the country’s demographics become more diverse, racism will be eradicated. But the reality can be much more complicated, and painfully personal…

Read the entire article here.

Residential Racial Diversity: Are Transracial Adoptive Families More Like Multiracial or White Families?^*

Social Science Quarterly
Volume 97, Issue 5 (November 2016)
Pages 1189–1207
DOI: 10.1111/ssqu.12242

Rose M. Kreider, Chief
Fertility and Family Statistics Branch
Social, Economic and Housing Statistics Division
United States Census Bureau, Washington, D.C.

Elizabeth Raleigh, Associate Professor of Sociology
Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota

^*The views expressed on statistical and methodological issues are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Census Bureau. Doctors Kreider and Raleigh contributed equally to this publication.

• Objective: The purpose of this article is to examine whether and how the residential racial diversity of transracially adopted children (i.e., nonwhite children adopted by white parents) varies from those of biological children in white monoracial families and biological children in mixed-race families.
• Method: Using the restricted access 2009 American Community Survey, we take advantage of the large number of adoptive families not only to investigate differences among these families, but also to explore whether racial socialization within transracial adoptive families varies by the race and nativity of the child.
• Results: We show that the context of racial socialization for transracially adopted children is more similar to that of white children in monoracial families than that of children in mixed race families.
• Conclusion: This article adds a quantitative, nationally representative picture of the context of racial socialization for specific groups of transracially adopted children, complementing existing research published in this area.

Read or purchase the article here.

Ireland’s forgotten mixed-race child abuse victims – video

The Guardian
2017-02-24

Hen Norton, Dan Dennison, Mary Carson, Laurence Topham, Dan Susman and Mustafa Khalili

Rosemary Adaser was one of many mixed-race children considered illegitimate who was brought up in institutions run by the Catholic church in Ireland between the 1950s and 1970s. She tells of the abuse and racist treatment she suffered, and returns to her school in Kilkenny for the first time in 40 years and attempts to answer questions about her past

Watch the video here.

Planning for German Children of Mixed Racial Background¹

Social Service Review
Volume 30, Number 1 (March 1956)
pages 33-37
DOI: 10.1086/639959

Hans Pfaffenberger (1922-2012), Professor of Psychology
University of Trier, Trier, Germany

Translated by Susanne Schulze

On January 1, 1955, there were approximately four thousand mischlingskinder² in the West German Republic. This number is still increasing by 250 to 350 a year. More than 70 per cent of the children are living with their mothers, and about 5 per cent with other relatives—grandparents, aunts, etc. About 12 per cent are in institutions, about 10 per cent in foster homes. The remaining children have been adopted, either by American families or, in a few cases, by German families, or they have emigrated to the United States with their mothers, who have married. According to the social agencies responsible for them, 90 per cent of the children remaining in Germany are well cared for. In 10 per cent of the cases, special services have been found necessary, but these have been general services—better housing, convalescent care, etc.—unrelated to the special situation of these children as children of mixed racial background.

The approximately four thousand children of mixed racial background pose many problems for child welfare agencies, and it is good to know that many attempts are being made to find solutions and to suggest remedies. Not all of these suggestions, of course, are equally acceptable, and it seems that the time is ripe to examine some of them in relation to the situation of these children, as it is known through reliable reports, and in the light of some basic considerations.

EMIGRATION OR ADOPTION?

Many people are suggesting general solutions that would supposedly “clean up” with one stroke all of the emerging problems or at least would cover them up; for example, it has been suggested that the problem be solved through adoption abroad, through emigration of the mothers with their children, through emigration of the mischlingskinder, or through segregation of all these children in order to rear them together. Many strong objections to these general solutions may be raised. Recently several welfare organizations, as well as individuals with long years of experience, have warned against adoption abroad, including in the United States, especially when children of mixed racial background are concerned. A most careful investigation of the potential adoptive family seems definitely indicated.³ When we consider the social and economic circumstances of these children, as well as the attitudes of the community toward them, transplanting them to America through adoption or through marriage of the mother…

Read or purchase the article here.

¹ From Newes Beginnen (New Beginning [periodical of the Workers’ Welfare Association, published by National Headquarters of the Organization, Bonn]), VIII (August, 1955).

² Mishlingskinder refers to children of mixed racial background. The children considered in this article are those born to German women and nonwhite soldiers stationed in Germany.

³ See U. Mende, “Adoption deutscher Kinder durch amerikanische Staatsangehörige,” Unsere Jugend, May, 1955, S. 207; E. Hochfeld and M. A. Valk, “Experience in Intercountry Adoptions” (New York: International Social Service, American Branch, 1953).

Fostering Mixed Race Children: Everyday Experiences of Foster Care

Palgrave Macmillan
June 2016
203 pages
3 b/w illustrations
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-137-54183-3
Softcover ISBN: 978-1-349-71266-3
DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-54184-0

Fiona Peters, Visiting Researcher
Goldsmiths, University of London, United Kingdom

The ‘mixed race’ classification is known to be a factor of disadvantage in children’s social care and this fastest growing population is more likely than any other ethnic group to experience care admission. How does knowledge of ‘mixedness’ underpin policy and practice? How, when and why is the classification ‘mixed’ a disadvantage? Through narrative interviews with children currently in foster care, Fostering Mixed Race Children examines the impact of care processes on children’s everyday experiences. Peters shows how the ‘mixed race’ classification affects care admission, including both short and long term fostering and care leaving, and shapes the experiences of children in often adverse ways. The book moves away from the psychologising of ‘mixedness’ towards a much-needed sociological analysis of ‘mixedness’ and ‘mixing’ at the intersection of foster care processes.

This book will be of interest to academics and practitioners working with families and children. Peters presents a child-centred narrative focus and offers unique insights into a complex area.