Mixed Race Studies

Beyond race: towards a whole-genome perspective on human populations and genetic variation

Nature Reviews Genetics
Volume 5, Issue 10 (October 2004)
pages 790-796
DOI: 10.1038/nrg1452

Morris W. Foster, Professor of Anthropology
University of Oklahoma

Richard R. Sharp, Director of Bioethics Research
Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio

The renewed emphasis on population-specific genetic variation, exemplified most prominently by the International HapMap Project, is complicated by a longstanding, uncritical reliance on existing population categories in genetic research. Race and other pre-existing population definitions (ethnicity, religion, language, nationality, culture and so on) tend to be contentious concepts that have polarized discussions about the ethics and science of research into population-specific human genetic variation. By contrast, a broader consideration of the multiple historical sources of genetic variation provides a whole-genome perspective on the ways in which existing population definitions do, and do not, account for how genetic variation is distributed among individuals. Although genetics will continue to rely on analytical tools that make use of particular population histories, it is important to interpret findings in a broader genomic context.

Read the entire article here.

Black and white in America: The culture and politics of racial classification

International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society
Volume 7, Issue 2 (Winter 1993)
pages 229-258
DOI: 10.1007/BF02283196

Ernest Evans Kilker

The sociological imagination enables its possessor to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and external career for a variety of individuals . . . The first fruit of this imagination —and the first lesson of the social science that embodies it—is the idea that the individual can understand his own experience and gauge his fate only by locating himself within his period, that he can know his chances in life only by becoming aware of all those individuals in his circumstances . . . The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society. —C. W. Mills

It is in race that the postmodern world today finds its most exemplary vanishing point. Race appears as if it is fixed and permanent, immune to being altered by the ideas or expressions used to address or comprehend it. Yet what does it really mean? To what extent does it have anything to say about specifiable differences between peoples, cultures and histories? The point here is when we talk about race we are never sure what we are referring to: a dilemma which posits many contradictory futures and opportunities. —Timothy Maliqualim Simone

THE POLITICS OF RACIAL CLASSIFICATION

Who is Black? Is there any “scientific” and “objective” answer or simply a cultural and “subjective one? In a racist culture, the answer to this question is fraught with political, economic, legal, familial, psychological, and sexual intended and unintended consequences. Surprisingly, the first book length sociological survey treatment of this subject, by F. James Davis appeared only last year (Davis, 1991: ix). Davis himself admits that the theoretical connections, to phenomenological, symbolic interactionist, structural, and conflict theories, which his excellent work implicitly suggests, go unexplored (Davis, 1991: x). Although we take for granted our definition of “black” which pivots on the Louisiana “one drop” or “any known black ancestry” rule (Dominquez, 1986), cross culturally its definition and meanings are extremely variable (Adams, 1969; Hoetnik, 1967; Lowenthal, 1969; Pierson, 1942; Freyre, 1963). In addition, historical studies of racial miscegenation and mulattos in the United States are few and far between (Williamson, 1980: xi; Reuter, 1918).

Because of the amount of interbreeding that has taken place over the last several thousand years, the scientific status of the biological concept of race is an especially dubious one (Simone, 1989). What exists is a spectrum and continuum of human types which share certain physical traits in an almost infinite variety of combinations (Kuper, 1975; Montagu, 1965). However, from a cultural point of view, the American belief in the biological reality of race is still a pervasive one. In our racist culture, any known black ancestry (i.e. “one drop”) can lead to the societal designation of the individual genetically as “black” — even if the individual is overwhelmingly “white.” As a result of this cultural rule, many black leaders, who were significantly and even predominantly white, were defined and defined themselves as “black.” The most dramatic example on this longand illustrious list (which would include Frederick Douglass, Booker T, Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, A. Phillip Randolph, and Adam Clayton Powell) is Walter White, head of the NAACP from 1931-1955, who anthropologists estimate could not have been more than one sixty-fourth African black (Davis, 1991:7). Walter White “passed for white” when he went “undercover” while investigating lynchings in the South for the NAACP. In addition in 1923 he deceived Edward Y. Clark, a Ku Klux Klan recruiter, into inviting him to Atlanta to advise him on recruitment. However his cover was blown before the trip could take place (Lewis, 1979: 131). In the same year he managed to embarass many a federal legislator, while lobbying for an anti-lynching bill. When they discovered White was Black, they regretted their candor (Lewis, 1979: 132). Even Malcolm X, the individual most responsible for the black consciousness and black power movement in the United States, had a white rapist for a grandfather and a mother who, for employment purposes, regularly “passed for white” (Haley, 1964: 2). Malcolm’s mother, Louise, claimed that if she scrubbed the young Malcolm hard and often enough, “I can make him look almost white” (Perry, 1991: p. 5). Once Malcolm himself converted to the nation of Islam, he regularly took “skin baths” in the sun to deepen his self-described “light” skin tone (Perry, 1991: 117)…

Read or purchase the article here.

Genetic Bio-Ancestry and Social Construction of Racial Classification in Social Surveys in the Contemporary United States

Demography
September 2013
32 pages
DOI: 10.1007/s13524-013-0242-0-0

Guang Guo, Professor of Sociology
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Yilan Fu

Hedwig Lee

Tianji Cai

Kathleen Mullan Harris

Yi Li

Self-reported race is generally considered the basis for racial classification in social surveys, including the U.S. census. Drawing on recent advances in human molecular genetics and social science perspectives of socially constructed race, our study takes into account both genetic bio-ancestry and social context in understanding racial classification. This article accomplishes two objectives. First, our research establishes geographic genetic bio-ancestry as a component of racial classification. Second, it shows how social forces trump biology in racial classification and/or how social context interacts with bio-ancestry in shaping racial classification. The findings were replicated in two racially and ethnically diverse data sets: the College Roommate Study (N = 2,065) and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N = 2,281).

Read or purchase the article here.

Skin pigmentation, biogeographical ancestry and admixture mapping

Human Genetics
Volume 112, Issue 4 (April 2003)
pages 387-399

Mark D. Shriver, Professor of Anthropology
Pennsylvania State University

Esteban J. Parra
Department of Anthropology
University of Toronto at Mississauga

Sonia Dios
Department of Anthropology
Pennsylvania State University

Carolina Bonilla
Department of Anthropology
Pennsylvania State University

Heather Norton
Department of Anthropology
Pennsylvania State University

Celina Jovel
Department of Anthropology
Pennsylvania State University

Carrie Pfaff
Department of Anthropology
Pennsylvania State University

Cecily Jones
National Human Genome Center
Howard University, Washington, D.C.

Aisha Massac
National Human Genome Center
Howard University, Washington, D.C.

Neil Cameron
Takeway Media, London

Archie Baron
Takeway Media, London

Tabitha Jackson
Takeway Media, London

George Argyropoulos
Pennington Center for Biomedical Research, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Li Jin
Department of Environmental Health
University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio

Clive J. Hoggart
Department of Epidemiology and Population Health
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Paul M. McKeigue
Department of Epidemiology and Population Health
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Rick A. Kittles
National Human Genome Center
Howard University, Washington, D.C.

Ancestry informative markers (AIMs) are genetic loci showing alleles with large frequency differences between populations. AIMs can be used to estimate biogeographical ancestry at the level of the population, subgroup (e.g. cases and controls) and individual. Ancestry estimates at both the subgroup and individual level can be directly instructive regarding the genetics of the phenotypes that differ qualitatively or in frequency between populations. These estimates can provide a compelling foundation for the use of admixture mapping (AM) methods to identify the genes underlying these traits. We present details of a panel of 34 AIMs and demonstrate how such studies can proceed, by using skin pigmentation as a model phenotype. We have genotyped these markers in two population samples with primarily African ancestry, viz. African Americans from Washington D.C. and an African Caribbean sample from Britain, and in a sample of European Americans from Pennsylvania. In the two African population samples, we observed significant correlations between estimates of individual ancestry and skin pigmentation as measured by reflectometry (R²=0.21, P<0.0001 for the African-American sample and R²=0.16, P<0.0001 for the British African-Caribbean sample). These correlations confirm the validity of the ancestry estimates and also indicate the high level of population structure related to admixture, a level that characterizes these populations and that is detectable by using other tests to identify genetic structure. We have also applied two methods of admixture mapping to test for the effects of three candidate genes (TYR, OCA2, MC1R) on pigmentation. We show that TYR and OCA2 have measurable effects on skin pigmentation differences between the west African and west European parental populations. This work indicates that it is possible to estimate the individual ancestry of a person based on DNA analysis with a reasonable number of well-defined genetic markers. The implications and applications of ancestry estimates in biomedical research are discussed.

Read the entire article here.

Luck and a Shrewd Strategy Fueled de Blasio’s Ascension

The New York Times
2013-09-11

Michael Barbaro, Political Writer

The commercial that changed the course of the mayor’s race almost never happened.

Bill de Blasio’s campaign team had mused about building an ad around his wife, Chirlane McCray, a telegenic African-American poet, then abandoned the concept.

They then turned to his 15-year-old son, but nothing seemed to go right. The de Blasio family kitchen in Brooklyn was not big enough for the camera crew, so they borrowed a bigger one from a neighbor.

The neighbor’s kitchen turned out to be too fancy, sending the wrong message for a populist candidate. So a long lens was used to blur out the expensive fixtures.

But when the commercial was finally shown to the candidate and his wife, they seemed overcome, instantly recognizing the power of its message: that the aggressive policing of the Bloomberg era was not an abstraction to Mr. de Blasio, it was an urgent personal worry within his biracial household.

“This,” predicted the campaign’s pollster, Anna Greenberg, “will be huge.”…

Read the entire article here.

One of the Family: Métis Culture in Nineteenth-Century Northwestern Saskatchewan by Brenda Macdougall (review)

Canadian Ethnic Studies
Volume 44, Number 3, 2012
pages 147-148
DOI: 10.1353/ces.2013.0012

Frits Pannekoek, President and Professor of History
Athabasca University, Athabasca, Alberta, Canada

Brenda Macdougall, One of the Family: Metis Culture in Nineteenth-Century Northwestern Saskatchewan (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2010)

For the last several decades, scholarship in Métis genealogy has matured to the point that it can proudly claim a leading position in the field of prosopography, a field first identified in medieval studies. It has become an instrument to divine an understanding of Métis society, its construction, its past and its continuity. Macdougall has built carefully on the scholarship of amongst others: Jennifer Brown, Sylvia Van Kirk, John Foster, Gerhard Ens, Doug Sprague, Heather Devine, and Nicole St. Onge. Her book deals with Métis culture in 19th century Northwestern Saskatchewan largely around Ile a La Crosse, a real and symbolic centre to the people of the Northwest. It is organized into seven chapters with introduction and conclusion, for a total of nine chapters.

The book argues that the Métis families of the Northwest are “wahkootowin.” This, according to Macdougall, is a Cree “worldview linking land, family, and identity in one interconnected web of being.” The first chapter deals with the social landscapes of the Northwest, the second with the social construction of the Métis family, the third with residency and patronymic connections across the Northwest, the fourth with family acculturation and Roman Catholicism, and the fifth with family labor and the Hudson’s Bay Company. Two later chapters deal with free trade and the culture it contributed.

Macdougall’s contributions are significant and considerable. As noted, she used “wahkootowin” to explain the complex set of interrelationships amongst a people. She explains how marriage patterns, work lives, and religion were all mutually reinforcing and how these complex relationships or “wahkootowin” defined life. Family mattered a great deal and a study of the family structures evidences a pattern that persisted and deepened over four generations. The volume is rich in detail and anyone with roots in Northern Saskatchewan will leave with a deeper understanding of themselves. It is, to a degree, an insider’s study, but for the scholar of Métis genesis, it is now the best explanation of how a people and an identity emerged in the Saskatchewan interior.

The book is, however, not without its problems, although some will consider these its greatest strengths. First, it will be very difficult for people outside the region or new to Métis studies to read the book with any real enjoyment. The genealogical data is dense and will be in the eyes of some a major obstacle to understanding “wahkootowin.” Others, however, will find the nuanced tapestry of family information a highly compelling background to the family networks that Macdougall argues are so foundational to an understanding of the Métis. Most Métis scholars will ponder these connections and will use the questions Macdougall asks to further their own family reconstructions regardless of region or Aboriginal cultural roots.

The real question that will be posed by many is whether the findings are replicable. Are the complex interconnections of Northwestern Saskatchewan to be found in Northern Manitoba at Rossville for example? Macdougall rightfully makes much of the Catholicism of the Ile a La Crosse community, and points out how Protestant mixed bloods were probably purposefully excluded. Would the Methodist community at, for example, Rossville, the community at White Fish Lake, or that at Stanley mission have been equally exclusionary to Catholics? Would English-speaking, Protestant mixed-blood communities have differing structures? Would “wahkootowin” take on a different texture in these communities? Would the Hudson’s Bay Company have a different relationship given the dominance of Protestants in its hierarchy? Would there be Protestant Catholic intermarriages? Macdougall, I would suggest, would likely say not, but were Irene Spry still alive she would suggest that intermarriages would and did occur. A more careful reading of Anglican and Methodist archives might pose new questions. What is important is that Macdougall has moved the discussion on Métis culture from one of class, or one focusing on ethnicity to one that requires an understanding of complex Aboriginal cultural norms rather than one requiring a complex understanding of European or Euro American ones. Macdougall demands much of her readers, and those who accept the challenge will be well rewarded…

Penny Marshall Directing A Dennis Rodman Documentary + Effa Manley Project In Development

Shadow and Act: On Cinema of the African Diaspora
2012-09-25

Courtney Singer

Lately, she has been working on a documentary about the basketball player Dennis Rodman, some of which she has been shooting via Skype. That came up because a) Ms. Marshall is a big sports fan. (“You can yell and scream at a game and no one’s taking you away in a white coat.”) And b) “I have a little radar to the insane,” she said. “They seek me out. Dennis and his agent asked if I would do a documentary.”

That was from a recent Wall Street Journal profile of actress/producer/director Penny Marshall, on account of the publication of her book My Mother Was Nuts.

I must admit that Penny Marshall’s name probably won’t be the first one I’d think of if I were to come up with a short list of directors for a Dennis Rodman documentary. But as the director of memorable films like Big, Awakenings, A League Of Their Own, The Preacher’s Wife (and several others) says of herself, she’s drawn to the *insane;* or rather, the *insane* are drawn to her – the supposition there being that Dennis Rodman is *insane.*…

But what I did find there was a project she has in development to direct titled Effa. I almost ignored it when I looked closer, and read the project’s synopsis which reads:

Effa Manley is a white woman “passing” as black during segregation. Outspoken, dynamic and beautiful, she crashes through barriers in the male-dominated world of sports as the first woman to own and manage a professional sports team.

The name didn’t immediately ring the bell, so I looked up Effa Manley to learn that she was also the first woman inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame; She co-owned the Newark Eagles baseball franchise in the Negro leagues with her husband Abe Manley from 1935 to 1946, and was sole owner through 1948 after his death.

She was also active during the America civil rights movement and was a social activist. She died in 1981 at 84 years old.

It’s said that Manley’s racial background is not fully known. Her biological parents may have been white, but she was reportedly raised by her black stepfather and white mother, which lead to assumptions that her stepfather was her biological father and therefore many thought she was black—or at least, bi-racial.

This calls for further research…

Read the entire article here.

Comorbid substance use disorders with other Axis I and II mental disorders among treatment-seeking Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders, and mixed-race people

Journal of Psychiatric Research
Available online 2013-09-09
DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2013.08.022

Li-Tzy Wu, ScD, RN, MA, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, School of Medicine
Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina

Dan G. Blazer, MD, PhD, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences; Professor of Community and Family Medicine
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, School of Medicine
Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina

Kenneth R. Gersing, MD, Clinical Associate
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, School of Medicine
Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina

Bruce Burchett, PhD, Assistant Professor in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, School of Medicine
Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina

Marvin S. Swartz, MD, Professor in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, School of Medicine
Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina

Paolo Mannelli, MD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, School of Medicine
Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina

Little is known about behavioral healthcare needs of Asian Americans (AAs), Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders (NHs/PIs), and mixed-race people (MRs)—the fastest growing segments of the U.S. population. We examined substance use disorder (SUD) prevalences and comorbidities among AAs, NHs/PIs, and MRs (N=4572) in a behavioral health electronic health record database. DSM-IV diagnoses among patients aged 1–90 years who accessed behavioral healthcare from 11 sites were systematically captured: SUD, anxiety, mood, personality, adjustment, childhood-onset, cognitive/dementia, dissociative, eating, factitious, impulse-control, psychotic/schizophrenic, sleep, and somatoform diagnoses. Of all patients, 15.0% had a SUD. Mood (60%), anxiety (31.2%), adjustment (30.9%), and disruptive (attention deficit-hyperactivity, conduct, oppositional defiant, disruptive behavior diagnosis, 22.7%) diagnoses were more common than others (psychotic 14.2%, personality 13.3%, other childhood-onset 11.4%, impulse-control 6.6%, cognitive 2.8%, eating 2.2%, somatoform 2.1%). Less than 1% of children aged <12 years had SUD. Cannabis diagnosis was the primary SUD affecting adolescents aged 12–17. MRs aged 35–49 years had the highest prevalence of cocaine diagnosis. Controlling for age at first visit, sex, treatment setting, length of treatment, and number of comorbid diagnoses, NHs/PIs and MRs were about two times more likely than AAs to have ≥2 SUDs. Regardless of race/ethnicity, personality diagnosis was comorbid with SUD. NHs/PIs with a mood diagnosis had elevated odds of having SUD. Findings present the most comprehensive patterns of mental diagnoses available for treatment-seeking AAs, NHs/PIs, and MRs in the real-world medical setting. In-depth research is needed to elucidate intraracial and interracial differences in treatment needs.

Read or purchase the article here.

De Blasio First in Mayoral Primary; Unclear if He Avoids a Runoff

The New York Times
2013-09-10

David M. Halbfinger, Reporter

David W. Chen, City Hall Bureau Chief

Bill de Blasio, whose campaign for mayor of New York tapped into a city’s deepening unease with income inequality and aggressive police practices, captured far more votes than any of his rivals in the Democratic primary on Tuesday.

But as Mr. de Blasio, an activist-turned-operative and now the city’s public advocate, celebrated a remarkable come-from-behind surge, it was not clear if he had won the 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff election on Oct. 1 with William C. Thompson Jr., who finished second. At night’s end, he had won just over 40 percent of the ballots counted; thousands of paper ballots had yet to be tallied, which could take days.

…Mr. de Blasio, a white Brooklynite who frequently showcased his biracial family, built a broad coalition of support among nearly every category of Democratic primary voters on Tuesday, according to the exit poll by Edison Research. His critique of a city divided between rich and poor — tried in the past by other candidates in New York and nationally with little success — resonated…

“I love his message about the tale of two cities, the big inequality gap,” said Jelani Wheeler, 19, a politics student at St. John’s University in Queens…

Read the entire article here.

Norma Storch Is Dead at 81; Subject of TV Documentary

The New York Times
2003-09-21

Douglas Martin

Norma Storch, a white woman whose decision to have her 4-year-old mixed-race daughter raised by a black couple became the subject of an Emmy Award-winning documentary made by the daughter in adulthood, died on Aug. 28 at her home in Manhattan. She was 81.

The cause was cancer, said the daughter, June Cross, the producer of the documentary, “Secret Daughter,” which PBS broadcast in 1996.

The film was heralded as a searing look at race relations in the 1950’s and 60’s, and drew praise for its emotional rawness and the bravery of both mother and daughter. Other reviews suggested that the documentary’s power came from a mother’s willingness to reject her daughter and then rationalize it.

Ms. Cross said in an interview last week that this impression properly reflected the documentary but not their real relationship. She said that tensions were exaggerated for dramatic effect.

But for almost 35 years, Mrs. Storch and her husband—the actor and comedian Larry Storch, who starred as Cpl. Randolph Agarn in the 1960’s comedy series “F Troop,”—indisputably lived a lie. They told friends and acquaintances that the black girl who visited them at their Hollywood home was their adopted daughter, who lived with a black family for most of the year…

Read the entire obituary here.