Mixed Race Studies

Tough lessons in CTC’s play about community destruction

MPR News
Minnesota Public Radio
2012-03-15

Nikki Tundel, Reporter

St. Paul, Minn. — A century-old story of discrimination is the basis for a world premiere production opening Friday in Minneapolis.

“Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy” is the Children’s Theatre Company’s adaption of the real-life events of a forbidden friendship during the social segregation of 1912.

It’s a dark tale. But it’s one the theater company believes should be shared – especially with school children.

Actress Traci Allen was a bit wary when she first heard of Minnesota’s Children’s Theatre Company.

“I’m thinking of puppets and, ‘Hello, boys and girls,'” Allen pantomimed before a recent rehearsal.

Her preconceived notion didn’t last long. Today, she is the lead in the CTC’s “Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy.” The children’s play wrestles with various adult themes, from economic turmoil to mortality.

Twenty-six-year-old Allen plays 13-year-old Lizzie. When afternoon rehearsal begins, she’s mourning the death of her grandfather in a song.

The story chronicles the forbidden friendship between Lizzie, who is black, and Turner Buckminster, who is white. It highlights the challenges they face in socially segregated 1912.

“Is there transition music there?” asks CTC artist director Peter Brosius, who directs the play.

The production is based on a Newbery Award-winning book [by Gary D. Schmidt], which in turn is based on the real-life history of Phippsburg, Maine. When the small coastal town was hit by an economic downtown, community leaders looked to the nearby island of Malaga to solve their financial woes.

“The idea,” said Brosius, “Was that the population that was on Malaga, which was a black and mixed-race population, should be removed from that island and that both the coastline and Malaga be turned into a resort. What happened, in fact, was the island was evacuated, people’s homes were moved.”…

Read the entire article and listen to the audio here.

Just Between Sisters: Gender, Race, Class, Sexuality, and Relationships of Mixed-Race Women and Girls (AMS) (HRJ) (GEN) (HUM) HUMN 7302

Southern Methodist University
Fall 2012

Evelyn L. Parker, Associate Professor of Practical Theology

In 1967 the US Supreme Court ruled state miscegenation laws unconstitutional. Instituted in 1691, the state laws sought to prevent sexual mixing across racial lines protecting the “purity” of European Americans. Since 1967 the population of mixed-race children has more than tripled. Among the demands of mixed-race people have been new census policy that recognizes various ways of expressing their identity. Additionally, the mixed-race movement has raised awareness about their experiences and inspired the development of Mixed-race Studies in academic settings. Among the many issues of Mixed-race Studies there are questions about female relationships and intersectional questions of race, gender, class, and sexuality that merit examination. The intersectional questions refer to Kimberle Crenshaw’s concept of intersectionality, ways in which race and gender interact to shape the multiple dimensions of black women’s lives. Crenshaw argues that the intersection of racism and sexism operate in black women’s lives in ways that a single dimensional analysis fails to reveal. This course builds on Crenshaw’s concept to explore the various ways race, gender, class and sexuality intersect in shaping the identity of mixed-race women and girls and their relationships with other women and girls. Through the use of novels, memoirs, and film, this course focuses on intersectional and relational questions of first generation African/African Diasporic (black) and European (white) mixed-race women and girls. This course may be applied to the following curricular field concentrations: American Studies, Gender Studies, Human Rights and Social Justice, and Humanities.

Mix-d: Museum

Mix-d:™
2012-02-27

Chamion Caballero, Senior Research Fellow
London South Bank University

Peter Aspinall, Reader in Population Health at the Centre for Health Services Studies
University of Kent, UK

The overall aim of the project is to explore the potential of translating knowledge through technology. Working together with Mix-d, the team will draw on findings from the British Academy project to develop the ‘Mix-d Museum’, an online repository of material and interactive resources.

Hello and a big welcome to our blog! We are delighted to be working with Mix-d: to share the findings of our research on mixed race people, couples and families in early 20th century Britain through the creation of the Mix-d: Timeline. The Timeline will provide highlight many key events in the history of racial mixing and mixedness in twentieth century Britain, as well provide an insight into the everyday lives and experiences of mixed race people, couples and families during this time.

For this first blog entry, we thought we’d say a bit about why we started the research project that the Timeline will draw on and what we found along the way.

As researchers interested in mixed race people, couples and families, we were aware that the little history that had been told about this group—particularly around the interwar period—had assumed that theirs was an inherently negative or problematic experience. We were also aware that such perceptions continued to influence how mixed people, couples and families were seen in Britain today…

…We had hoped to find some records and personal accounts relating to these families and people, but what we found far exceeded our expectations. The project sourced a fantastic range of archival material, including official documents, autobiographical recordings and photo and film material, which has helped us to understand more about the experiences of these families and the effect that official attitudes to racial mixing and mixedness had on their lives…

Read the entire blog post here.

Being mixed: Who claims a biracial identity?

Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology
Volume 18, Number 1 (January 2012)
pages 91-96
DOI: 10.1037/a0026845

Sarah S. M. Townsend, Visiting Assistant Professor of Management and Organizations and Postdoctoral Fellow
Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

Stephanie A. Fryberg, Assistant Professor of Psychology and Affiliate Faculty in American Indian Studies
University of Arizona

Clara L. Wilkins, Assistant Professor of Psychology
Wesleyan University

Hazel Rose Markus, Davis-Brack Professor in the Behavioral Sciences
Stanford University

What factors determine whether mixed-race individuals claim a biracial identity or a monoracial identity? Two studies examine how two status-related factors—race and social class—influence identity choice. While a majority of mixed-race participants identified as biracial in both studies, those who were members of groups with higher status in American society were more likely than those who were members of groups with lower status to claim a biracial identity. Specifically, (a) Asian/White individuals were more likely than Black/White or Latino/White individuals to identify as biracial and (b) mixed-race people from middle-class backgrounds were more likely than those from working-class backgrounds to identify as biracial. These results suggest that claiming a biracial identity is a choice that is more available to those with higher status.

Read or purchase the article here.

Black identity in biracial Black/White people: A comparison of Jacqueline who refuses to be exclusively Black and Adolphus who wishes he were.

Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology
Volume 7, Number 2 (May 2001)
page 182-196
DOI: 10.1037//1099-9809.7.2.182

Angela R. Gillem
Arcadia University

Laura Renee Cohn
Arcadia University

Cambria Thorne
Arcadia University

Two biracial college freshmen (17 and 19 yrs old), both of whom identify as Black, were chosen from a larger sample of participants in a qualitative study of biracial identity development to exemplify the differences in the paths that 2 biracial individuals could take to achieve racial identity resolution. Through the case study method, the authors describe the course and progression of racial identity development (RID) in these 2 individuals and discuss some key themes in their lives that have contributed to the development of their RID. The purposes are fourfold: to describe, nonclinical subjective experiences of being biracial in the US, to explore the differences in the paths that 2 biracial individuals can take to achieve what looks superficially like similar Black racial identity resolution, to demonstrate how identifying as Black can have different meanings and consequences for 2 biracial people, and to contribute to the differentiation of Black RID from biracial Black/White RID. The authors raise questions about the generalizability of monoracial Black and ethnic identity theories to biracial individuals.

Read the entire article here.

Miscegenation: The Courts and the Constitution

William and Mary Law Review
Volume 8, Issue 1 (1966)
Article 7
pages 133-142

Cyrus E. Phillips IV

MISCEGENATION: THE COURTS AND THE CONSTITUTION

Miscegenation is generally defined as the interbreeding or marriage of persons of different races, but the term will here be used in reference to miscegenetic marriages only. That is, this paper will concern itself only with the aspects of the marriage laws of various states that relate to miscegenation. The purpose of this paper will be to show the antecedents of miscegenation in the American legal system, the methods of constitutional justification of miscegenation statutes in state courts, and the change in regard to their validity given by the federal judiciary.

BACKGROUND

Prohibitions against miscegenation date back to the earliest colonial times, and the first record of sanctions imposed for this act in the Virginia colony appears in Hening’s extract from the judicial proceedings of the Governor and Council of Virginia:

September 17th, 1630. Hugh Davis to be soundly whipped, before an assembly of negroes and others for abusing himself to the dishonor of God and shame of Christians, by defiling his body in lying with a negro; which fault he is to acknowledge next Sabbath day.

That prohibitions against miscegenation have been widespread in the United States can be seen in the fact that they have appeared in the statutes of some forty states. Of these forty, twenty-three have repealed their statutes, half of these having been repealed within the last two decades as a result of the movement for Negro equality as well as the publicity occasioned by a 1948 decision of the California Supreme Court which struck down that state’s miscegenation statute.

Nontheless, it is indeed surprising that seventeen states still retain their miscegenation statutes. Of these seventeen states, six make express provisions in their constitutions either forbidding the passage of laws validating such marriages or else maling them void ab initio. Miscegenation is an entirely statutory crime, generally considered to be of the grade of a felony, the penalty for which ranges up to imprisonment for ten years and fines up to $2,000.

All miscegenation statutes contain general provisions against the intermarriage of Negroes and Caucasians, but others have expanded their scope to include Malays, American Indians, Mestizos, and Half-breeds. Although these statutes in the main do not prohibit intermarriage between members of races other than white, all prohibit intermarriage between a white person and a member of the designated non-white group or groups.

And just as the groups with which intermarriage is prohibited vary from state to state, so also does the definition of “Negro.” One state classifies a Negro as any person of one-eighth or more Negro blood, while others define Negroes as any person of Negro descent to the third generation inclusive.”‘ Two states include every person in whom there is any ascertainable Negro blood within the prohibited group. That these statutes are an anomaly in this period of constitutional and social reform is readily apparent. Nevertheless, their antecedents run deep in the American legal system…

Read the entire article here.

Present Status of Miscegenation Statutes

William and Mary Law Review
Volume 4, Issue 1 (January 1963)
Article 4
pages 28-35

Edmund L. Walton Jr., Founder
Walton & Adams, P.C., Reston, Virginia

With the influx of so called “civil rights” cases in recent years it seems that a reappraisal of state legislation and constitutional prohibitions concerning intermarriage of persons of different races is in order.

A total of twenty-four states currently have prohibitions against miscegeneous marriages, fourteen more have repealed such laws, and the supreme courts of two states have held that their miscegenation statutes are in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution but one of these reversed itself five years later. The highest courts of twelve other” states have affirmed the constitutionality of their respective statutes.  The Supreme Court of the United States has once had the opportunity to rule upon the question in recent years but sidestepped the issue.

The statutes, while varied in scope and legal consequences for violation are unanimous in condemning marriage between Negroes and whites. Three representative statutes are those of Virginia, Maryland, and Arkansas. Both Maryland and Virginia have criminal penalties as well as civil prohibitions and both declare the parties to a miscegenous marriage to be felons. Arkansas declares such a marriage to be illegal and void.” Virginia prohibits the marriage of whites with colored persons;  Arkansas, white persons with Negroes or mulattoes; and Maryland forbids any intermarriage between members of the white, Negro or Malayan races. Virginia describes a “white person” as one with no other admixture of blood other than white or one-sixteenth or less American Indian blood.

The challenge of the constitutionality of these and other state miscegenation statutes has been made and met in the state courts, but as yet the United States Supreme Court has not seen fit to make a final judgment. What are the major factors to be discussed and when will the court meet the challenge?…

Read the entire article here.

Re-searching Metis identity: My Metis Family story

University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon
April 2010
200 pages

Tara J. Turner

A Thesis Submitted to the College of Graduate Studies and Research in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Psychology University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon

This research explores Metis identity through the use of a Metis family story. The participants of  this Metis family were my father and his two sisters and his two brothers. As children, they lost  both their parents at the same time in a car accident. After the death of their parents my participants all encountered the child welfare system, through adoption, orphanage, and foster care. Through adoption, the two youngest participants were separated from their siblings, and any knowledge of their Metis heritage, until they were adults. Individual interviews were conducted with each participant to gather their life stories. Two additional gatherings of the participants were completed in order to share individual and family stories. The second and final gathering was conducted as a talking circle. A culturally congruent qualitative research process was created with the use of stories, ceremonies, and the strengthening of family relationships. Analysis was completed with the use of Aboriginal storytelling guidelines. The themes examined through my family’s story include trauma, the child welfare system, and Metis identity. A significant piece of the research process was the creation of a “Metis psychological homeland” (Richardson, 2004, p. 56), a psychological space of both healing and affirming Aboriginal identity. This dissertation is an example of how research can be completed in a way that does not perpetuate the mistrust between Aboriginal people and researchers, and that works to improve this relationship.

Read the entire thesis here.

Between black and white: Rethinking Coloured identity

African Identities
Volume 1, Issue 2 (2003)
pages 253-280
DOI: 10.1080/1472584032000173139

Pal Ahluwalia, Pro Vice Chancellor of Education, Arts and Social Sciences
University of South Australia

Abebe Zegeye
Goldsmiths College, University of London

Identity who we are, where we come from, what we are is difficult to maintain … we are the ‘other’, an opposite, a flaw in the geometry of resettlement, an exodus. (Said 1986: 16 17)

The photographs

Stephen Greenblatt offers two models for the exhibition of works of art resonance and wonder. Resonance, he argues, equates with the ‘power of the displayed object to reach out beyond its formal boundaries to a larger world, to evoke in the viewer the complex, dynamic cultural forces from which it has emerged and for which it may be taken by a viewer to stand’ (Greenblatt 1991: 42). Clearly a work of art that evokes such resonance creates its own context albeit that it is far removed from its original site. In contrast, by wonder, he means, ‘the power of the displayed object to stop the viewer in his or her tracks, to convey an arresting sense of uniqueness, to evoke an exalted attention’ (ibid.).

Greenblatt argues that what has increasingly happened in the practice of mounting exhibitions is the triumph of resonance over wonder. For an exhibition to have maximum impact, he argues (ibid.: 54), it is important that there should be ‘a strong initial appeal to wonder, a wonder that then leads to the desire for resonance, for it is generally easier in our culture to pass from wonder to resonance than from resonance to wonder’. It is in this context that we urge readers to make acquaintance with Chris Ledochowski’s photographs. First and foremost, they are works of art that evoke wonder. These works of art, however, are deeply resonant with the racial quagmire that has dominated and continues to dominate   South Africa’s culture, history and politics…

Read or purchase the article here.

Multiracial Identity [Film Review by Patricia B. McGee]

Educational Media Reviews Online
2011-07-19

Patricia B. McGee, Coordinator of Media Services
Volpe Library & Media Center
Tennessee Technological University, Cookeville, Tennessee

Multiracial Identity
2010
Distributed by Bullfrog Films, PO Box 149, Oley, PA 19547; 800-543-FROG (3764)
Produced and Directed by Brian Chinhema
DVD, color, 77 min. and 56 min.
Jr. High – General Adult
African American Studies, Anthropology, Multicultural Studies, Sociology

Highly Recommended

Multiracial Identity explores the complexities of what it means to be a person of mixed race heritage in the United States, and how the concept of mixed race “challenges racial perceptions and boundaries.” Race is a concept with its origins in custom and mores; in America persons with both black and white ancestry are viewed as black, a legacy of the ‘one drop rule’ intended to preserve the racial purity of the white race. The film explores the history of how multiracial individuals have been treated in America, how the mixed race class provided a shield between blacks and whites, and how the paper bag, blue vein or comb tests would be used to determine racial membership…

…For multiracial people the lack of a mixed race categorization can be a source of conflict and distress. Many find the categorization “other” on many forms to be dehumanizing, or they feel they “don’t really have a place.” Others, when forced to choose membership in a single group, feel they are denying half their heritage. Sometimes they end up without the strong support of the very cultural group they are forced to identify with. Yet, if the concept of race were eliminated, America would no longer be able to track racial discrimination. Muddying the water still further is the question where to place Hispanics—which is a linguistic rather than a racial group…

Read the entire review here.