Mixed Race Studies

Were the riots about race?

The Guardian
2011-12-08

Reading the Riots: Investigating England’s summer of disorder
In partnership with the London School of Economics
Supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Open Society Foundations

Hugh Muir, Diary Editor

Yemisi Adegoke, Freelance Journalist

Some commentators were quick to call them ‘race riots’, but the true picture was more complicated

Amid the chaos and confusion of this summer’s riots, a few commentators felt the benefit of certainty. “These riots were about race. Why ignore the fact?” chided the Telegraph columnist Katharine Birbalsingh. Abroad, there seemed no need for deeper reflection. “Over 150 arrested after London hit by huge race riots,” said one US business website. “Let’s talk about those race riots in London,” urged talkshow hosts in New Zealand. Those on the other side of the debate could appear just as certain. “This is not about race at all,” Max Wind-Cowie of the left-leaning thinktank Demos told the Huffington Post…

…Of the 270 rioters interviewed by the Guardian and the LSE, 50% were black, 27% were white, 18% of mixed race and 5% Asian…

Read the entire article here.

Born Along the Racial Fault Line

The New York Times
2011-11-06

Janet Maslin

My Long Trip Home: A Family Memoir By Mark Whitaker. Illustrated. 357 pages. Simon & Schuster.

As a social studies major in his junior year at Harvard, Mark Whitaker attended a debate on the subject of ethnicity. One participant was the chairman of the department. Mr. Whitaker stood up to raise some questions.

“What would you tell someone who didn’t have a clear ethnic identity?” he asked. “For example, what would you tell someone who had one parent who was black and another who was white? Who had one parent who was American and another who was European? Who had moved dozens of times as a child and didn’t have a specific place to call home?” Everyone in the room knew that Mr. Whitaker was talking about himself.

“I guess I would say that that’s too bad,” the professor answered. “In the future I hope we don’t have too many more people like you.”

Mr. Whitaker recounts this story in “My Long Trip Home,” a book filled with as much family tumult as Jeannette Walls described in “The Glass Castle” and a racial factor to boot. It’s a story that registers not only for its shock value but also for the perspective and wisdom with which it can now be told…

Read the entire review here.

The Retreat of Scientific Racism: Changing Concepts of Race in Britain and the United States between the World Wars

Cambridge University Press
September 1993
396 pages
228 x 152 mm
ISBN: 9780521458757
DOI: 10.2277/0521458757

Elazar Barkan, Professor of International and Public Affairs
Columbia University

This fascinating study in the sociology of knowledge documents the refutation of scientific foundations for racism in Britain and the United States between the two world wars, when the definition of race as a biological concept was replaced by a cultural notion of race. Discussing the work of the leading biologists and anthropologists who wrote about race between the wars, Dr. Barkan argues that the impetus for the shift in ideologies of race came from the inclusion of outsiders—women, Jews, and leftists—into the mainstream of scientific discourse.

Table of Contents

• Preface
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction
• PART I: ANTHROPOLOGY
  • 1. Constructing a British identity
    • Colors into races. A transition to modern British anthropology. The founding fathers. Mummies, bones and stones. The shift in British archaeology. A British glimpse at race relations.
  • 2. American diversity
    • Haunted sentinels. European skulls and the primitive mind. The Boasians. American physical anthropology. The politics of coexistence. Dionysia in the Pacific.
• PART II: BIOLOGY
  • 3. In search of a biology of race
    • NewGenics. The statistician’s fable. Race crossing in Jamaica. A Canadian in London: rigid Reginald Ruggles Gates.
  • 4. The limit of traditional reform
    • A racist liberal: Julian Huxley’s early years. Herbert Spencer Jennings and progressive eugenics. A conservative critique: Raymond Pearl. Bridging race formalism and population genetics.
  • 5. Mitigating racial differences
    • Lancelot Hogben. “Africa view” – Huxley’s changing perspectives. J. B. S. Haldane: a defiant aristocrat. Medicine and eugenics: expanding the environment. Eugenics reformed.
• PART III: POLITICS
  • 6. Confronting racism: scientists as politicians
    • 1933 – Early hesitations. Britain – Race and Culture Committee. We Europeans. The American scene. An international interlude. The Paris Congress. The population committee. Out of the closet.
• EPILOGUE
• Bibliography
• Index

Obama and the complexities of identity

The San Diego Union-Tribune
2008-06-19

Bey-Ling Sha, Professor of Journalism and Media Studies
San Diego State University

In a recent commentary titled “What He Overcame,” Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson described Barack Obama as a “young, black, first-term senator.” In her campaign-suspension speech, Hillary Clinton said, “Could an African-American really be our president? . . . Sen. Obama has answered that one.” These descriptions of Obama are typical of many others offered by and reported in the news media.

What’s wrong with these descriptions of Obama as being black or African-American? As others have already noted, these descriptions reify the supposedly outdated “one-drop rule,” whereby any individual with even “one drop” of African heritage was considered black.

A second, related problem is that these descriptions are instances of identity ascription, whereby one person assigns an identity to another person, usually based on physical characteristics. Thus, someone with blond hair and blue eyes is usually called “white,” even if that person has African, Asian or Native American heritage somewhere in his or her background…

Read the entire article here.

Although I am representing the reality of black mixed heritage being closely linked, if not almost the same, to the “full black” experience of British footballers, this does not mean that a black mixed heritage player cannot or should not celebrate his multiracial identity. Of course individuals should define themselves how they want to, and many may prefer to lean toward the whiteness of their heritage and even detest the blackness. This is to be comprehended as personal preference over societal, yet while noting that there are also various social pressures that would influence one’s predilections-both consciously and unconsciously. The contention here is that regardless of one’s personal point of view, British society will deem a black mixed heritage person most often as “nonwhite” and therefore the person is automatically subjected to the various caprice forms of racism found in the broader society (Small 1992, Christian 2000).

Mark Christian, “Mixing Up the Game: Social and Historical Contours of Black Mixed Heritage Players in British Football,” in Race, Ethnicity and Football: Persisting Debates and Emergent Issues, ed. Daniel Burdsey, (London: Routledge, 2011): 139-140.

Baseline Study on Diversity Segments: Multirace Americans

Institute for Public Relations
Gainesville, Florida
January 2008
15 pages

Bey-Ling Sha, Ph.D., APR, Professor of Journalism and Media Studies
San Diego State University

Sponsored in part by ConAgra Foods, Inc.

Public relations practitioners and scholars need to consider multirace Americans as an increasingly important public, with identities, motivations, and concerns unique unto themselves. This project benchmarks extant scholarship and government data regarding multirace Americans, and it articulates the implications of the research findings for public relations practice in the areas of long-term, strategic planning; new market opportunities; and respect and sensitivity.

Read the entire report here.

Racial Politics in Contemporary Brazil

Duke University Press
1999
232 pages
9 tables
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8223-2272-6
Cloth ISBN: 978-0-8223-2252-8

Edited by

Michael Hanchard, Professor of Political Science and African American Studies
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland

Bringing together U.S. and Brazilian scholars, as well as Afro-Brazilian political activists, Racial Politics in Contemporary Brazil represents a significant advance in understanding the complexities of racial difference in contemporary Brazilian society. While previous scholarship on this subject has been largely confined to quantitative and statistical research, editor Michael Hanchard presents a qualitative perspective from a variety of disciplines, including history, sociology, political science, and cultural theory.

The contributors to Racial Politics in Contemporary Brazil examine such topics as the legacy of slavery and its abolition, the historical impact of social movements, race-related violence, and the role of Afro-Brazilian activists in negotiating the cultural politics surrounding the issue of Brazilian national identity. These essays also provide comparisons of racial discrimination in the United States and Brazil, as well as an analysis of residential segregation in urban centers and its affect on the mobilization of blacks and browns. With a focus on racialized constructions of class and gender and sexuality, Racial Politics in Contemporary Brazil reorients the direction of Brazilian studies, providing new insights into Brazilian culture, politics, and race relations.

This volume will be of importance to a wide cross section of scholars engaged with Brazil in particular, and Latin American studies in general. It will also appeal to those invested in the larger issues of political and social movements centered on the issue of race.

Table of Contents

• Introduction / Michael Hanchard
• Free African Brazilians and the State in Slavery Times / Richard Graham
• Black Cinderella? Race and the Public Sphere in Brazil / Michael Hanchard
• Ethnic Boundaries and Political Mobilization among African Brazilians: Comparisons with the U.S. Case / Edward E. Telles
• Racial Democracy and Racial Identity: Comparing the United States and Brazil / Howard Winant
• Miguel Reale and the Impact of Conservative Modernization on Brazilian Race Relations / Michael Mitchell
• Women and Racial Inequality at Work in Brazil / Peggy A. Lovell
• Notes on Racial and Political Inequality in Brazil / Carlos Hasenbalg and Nelson do Valle Silva
• The Black Movement and Political Parties: A Challenging Alliance / Benedita da Silva
• My Conscience, My Struggle / Thereza Santos
• Blacks and Political Power / Ivanir dos Santos
• Contributors
• Index

Race Mixture and Physical Disharmonies

Science Magazine
Volume 71, Number 1850 (1930-06-13)
pages 603-606
DOI: 10.1126/science.71.1850.603

W. E. Castle (1867-1962)
Bussey Institution, Harvard

Professor H. S. Jennings in his recent book on “The Biological Basis of Human Nature” devotes a chapter to the subject of race mixture and its consequences. Considering first the purely physical results, he mentions both advantages and disadvantages resulting from wide racial crosses. As an advantage he reckons hybrid vigor and the covering up in the immediate offspring of any recessive defects which may be present in cither parent race. As a disadvantage he mentions possible disharmony in details of structure. It is to this latter point that I wish to give brief consideration, as it is a matter of considerable biological importance apart from its human interest Jennings says, on page 280:

Working probably to the disadvantage of some race mixtures in man is the fact that certain human races differ in such ways that union of their characteristics may yield combinations that are in details inharmonious. In the mixture of races found in the United States, as Davenport has pointed out, some of the stocks differ greatly in physique from others. Some are smaller, having organs that go with a small body—small heart, small kidneys, small jaws, small teeth; such on the whole are the racesj that come from the Mediterranean region of Europe. Others have large bodies, with large kidneys, heart, jaws, teeth, and other organs.

Judging from what occurs in other organisms, when such diverse races are crossed, the offspring, receiving genes from both sides, may well develop combinations of parts that lack complete harmony. If a large body is combined with small kidneys, the latter may be insufficient for the needs of the individual. Or a large body might be combined with a small heart that would not keep the blood properly circulated. Large teeth, resulting from the genes of one parent, may be crowded in a small jaw that results from the genes of the other parent. In consequence the teeth decay. Partly to it, Davenport (by whom the examples) given above are suggested) ascribes the prevalence ut defective teeth in the United States. According to him, crowded and defective teeth are less common in nations with races less mixed.

It is difficult to measure with certainty lack of harmony between body size and size of kidney or heart, so that direct proof that the possible inharmonious combinations mentioned above actually occur in man as a result of mixture of races is not available. But the occurrence of inharmonious combinations of certain bodily parts as a result of race crossing has been observed both in man and in other organisms. A striking case of this kind in the dog—comic rather than tragic in its consequences—is described by Lang. A great St. Bernard dog was crossed with a dachshund. Some of the progeny had the large heavy body of the St. Bernard, resting on the short crooked legs of the dachshund. The result (figure 49) was neither beautiful nor efficient.

Tho occurrence of inharmonious combinational, in human race crosses, has been shown with respect to parts of the body that are measurable, in the recent study…

Read or purchase the article here.

Consequently, the celebration of “both worlds” in terms of black mixed heritage persons has always been problematic in relation to it being a rather superficial exercise, limited to one’s inner circle of family and friends. It is pretty obvious that most persons of black mixed heritage will hold a deep love for a parent that happens to be white, yet to suggest that having a white parent alone can mean having a stake in whiteness does not hold true with the historical and contemporary experiences of racism. So why is this “best of both worlds” promoted? Maybe because it is a way to bring racialised groups together? Yet often it can actually further divide. For example, it is common knowledge among transracial adoption agencies that children of black mixed heritage are over-populated in the foster care system (McVeigh 2008). Does this not give an indication that black mixed heritage persons are not particularly popular when born? Maybe, or it could be that the experience of some white parents of black mixed heritage children is so difficult that they have no choice but to give them up for adoption. This again leads us to the notion that racialised harmony is a myth when it comes to analysing the growth of black mixed heritage persons as being synonymous with racial progress in society. Somewhere in this espoused perspective lurks an insidious anomaly, especially when we consider the socio-economic plight of black communities throughout the UK as still largely suffering higher levels of unemployment and discrimination compared to their white counterparts.

Mark Christian, “Mixing Up the Game: Social and Historical Contours of Black Mixed Heritage Players in British Football,” in Race, Ethnicity and Football: Persisting Debates and Emergent Issues, ed. Daniel Burdsey, (London: Routledge, 2011): 140.

Race, Ethnicity and Football: Persisting Debates and Emergent Issues

Routledge
2011-03-29
288 pages
Hardback ISBN: 978-0-415-88205-7

Edited by:

Daniel Burdsey, Senior Lecturer of Sociology
Chelsea School of Sport
University of Brighton

As the first edited collection dedicated specifically to race, ethnicity and British football, this book brings together a range of academics, comprising both established commentators and up-and-coming voices. Combining theoretical and empirical contributions, the volume will addresses a wide variety of topics such as the experiences of Muslims, the recruitment of African players, devolution and national identities, case studies of minority ethnic clubs, “mixed-race” players, multiculturalism and anti-racism, sectarianism, education, and foreign club ownership. Covering the both amateur and professional spheres, and focusing on both players and supporters, the book elucidates the linkages between race, ethnicity, gender and masculinity.

Contents

• Introduction
  • 1. They Think It’s All Over…It Isn’t Yet! The Persistence of Structural Racism and Racialised Exclusion in Twenty-First Century Football Daniel Burdsey
• Racialised Exclusions and ‘Glocal’ Im/mobilities
  • 2. ‘Dark Town’ and ‘A Game for Britishers’: Some Notes on History, Football and ‘Race’ in Liverpool John Williams
  • 3. Is Football the New African Slave Trade? Colin King
  • 4. Football, Racism and the Irish David Hassan and Ken McCue
• Contested Fields and Cultural Resistance
  • 5. Racisms, Resistance and New Youth Inclusions: The Socio-Historical Development and Shifting Focus of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Football Clubs in Leicester Steven Bradbury
  • 6. What is Rangers Resisting Now? ‘Race’, Resistance and Shifting notions of Blackness in Local Football in Leicester Paul Campbell
  • 7. British Muslim Female Experiences in Football: Islam, Identity and the Hijab Aisha Ahmad
• ‘New’ Ethnicities and Emergent Communities
  • 8. Flying the Flag for England? National Identities and British Asian Female Footballers Aarti Ratna
  • 9. Mixing Up the Game: Social and Historical Contours of Black Mixed Heritage Players in British Football Mark Christian
  • 10. ‘Tough Talk’, Muscular Islam and Football: Young British Pakistani Muslim Masculinities Samaya Farooq
• The Cultural Politics of Fandom
  • 11. The Limits to Cosmopolitanism: English Football Fans at Euro 2008 Peter Millward
  • 12. ‘Wot, No Asians?’: West Ham United Fandom, the Cockney Diaspora and the ‘New’ East Enders Jack Fawbert
  • 13. ‘They Sing That Song’: Sectarianism and Conduct in the Informalised Spaces of Scottish Football John Flint and Ryan Powell
• Equity, Anti-Racism and the Politics of Campaigning
  • 14. Negative Equity? Amateurist Responses to Race Equality Initiatives in English Grass-Roots Football Jim Lusted
  • 15. Football, Racism and the Limits of ‘Colour Blind’ Law: Revisited Simon Gardiner and Roger Welch
  • 16. Marrying Passion with Professionalism: Examining the Future of British Asian Football Kuljit Randhawa