Mixed Race Studies

Mixed-race Rose contestant snubs racist websites

Sunday Tribune, Dublin, Ireland
2008-08-03

Ken Sweeney

A mixed-race contestant who is competing in this year’s Rose of Tralee says she has no fears about travelling to Ireland to take part in the contest despite a series of racist remarks made against her on a website.

London Rose Belinda Brown (25) has been targeted by users of race hate website Stormfront.org since being selected in Cricklewood last month.

Born in Jamaica but raised in Ahoghill, Co Antrim, Irish-based racists have questioned Brown’s right to compete in the beauty pageant because of her mixed-race parentage.

“This mixed female is indeed no Rose of Tralee,” posted one member, War Maiden, on the site. “Last time I checked our women were pale-skinned maidens from our Emerald Isle, not some mud from London.”

Another, with the name White Patriot, wrote: “The London entrant for this year’s Rose of Tralee is a half caste mongrel. What the hell are the organisers thinking of? Whites who mix with blacks shouldn’t be surprised when they get treated like animals themselves. They are traitors to their race, culture and family. We have no sympathy for them.”

However in an interview with the Sunday Tribune, Belinda Brown said she was proud of her mixed-race ancestry and said she had no fears about travelling to Tralee for the contest which takes place in Kerry from 22-26 August…

Read the entire article here.

With DNA Testing, Suddenly They Are Family

The New York Times
2011-01-24

Rachel L. Swarns

ST. LOUIS — Growing up, Khrys Vaughan always believed that she had inherited her looks and mannerisms from her father, and that her appreciation for tradition and old-fashioned gentility stemmed from her parents’ Southern roots. But those facets of her self-image crumbled when she was told, at age 42, that she had been adopted.

She began searching for her origins, only to find out that her adoption records had been sealed, a common practice in the 1960s. Then Mrs. Vaughan stumbled across an ad from a DNA testing company offering to help people who had been adopted find clues to their ancestry and connections to blood relatives.

About five weeks after shipping off two tiny vials of her cells from a swab of her cheek, Mrs. Vaughan received an e-mail informing her that her bloodlines extended to France, Romania and West Africa. She was also given the names and e-mail addresses of a dozen distant cousins. This month, she drove 208 miles from her hometown here to Evansville, Ind., to meet her third cousin, the first relative to respond to her e-mails. Mrs. Vaughan is black and her cousin is white, and they have yet to find their common ancestor. But Mrs. Vaughan says that does not matter…

…Within minutes of receiving the names of her distant relatives, Mrs. Vaughan, a freelance project manager, was admiring their photographs on Facebook. Another adoptee who found family through DNA testing, Kathy Borgmann, a 49-year-old corn farmer in New Palestine, Ind., exchanged e-mails with cousins who delighted her by saying, “Welcome to the family.”…

…Not everyone is hoping to find new relatives. Some adoptees who have found genetic matches have been rebuffed by their distant kin. Most people take genealogical DNA tests to fill gaps in their family trees, not to find new members of their clans. Mr. Bogner said several cousins identified through DNA testing stopped communicating once they learned he was adopted. “It was horribly disappointing,” he said…

Read the entire article here.

“Race” & Ethnicity in Society in Social-Historical Context (AAS-SOC 338)

Lehman College, City University of New York
Spring 2012

Mark Christian, Professor & Chair of African & African American Studies

The idea of “race” since the 18th Century, and up to the present, has brought forth tremendous social inequality and, not to be over-dramatic, “social death” in a global sense. The ironic thing about “race” is that, from a scientific-biological sense, most authoritative commentators note that it is a problematic concept with little validity if one is arguing for “distinct races” among humankind. In other words, there are no distinct racial types of humans that can be separated from one another. Yes, there is some minor genetic difference among humans, such as skin color, hair texture, eye shape, lip-size; but when measured by what it is to be a human being these add up to only minor genetic differences. However there are still those who will try to put difference between humankind via pseudo-scientific racial theories. Some biologists use modern genetic science to distort the truth that we are all basically the same in humanity. A recent book by Dorothy Roberts called Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-Create Race in the Twenty-First Century (The New Press, 2011) gives a powerful insight into the abuse of modern genetics.

What is significant about “race” and ethnicity (ethnicity is largely related to shared cultural experiences of a specific racialized social group) is the reality of its social significance over time and place. Indeed, “race” has changed from one place to another. For example, what it is to be Black in South Africa is not the same in a social-historical context to what it is to be Black in the United States over time. We can make this point even more complex by stating what it was to be Black in the United States could once change from one state to another. The point here is to comprehend that “race” has been a socially constructed concept over time that has wielded a great amount of human misery and pain for certain social groups, and a great amount of power and privilege for other social groups. Our task is to come to an understanding of this complex topic and for this to be worthwhile intellectually we shall have to comprehend the idea of “race” from a social-historical context.

Given the social significance of White privilege in terms of “race” grouping and hierarchy, this course will focus on the how “whiteness” creates both a conscious and sub-conscious reality that is born out of the historical exploitation of people of color from the period enslavement and the plantation economy (17th – 19th Centuries) experience right through to the present. Even though we now live in a world whereby racism is largely outcast and a forbidden entity in social discourse and interaction, it still lurks beneath the surface in all things social. The current US statistical data on health, wealth, and other societal disparities between so-called “races” makes the comprehension of “whiteness” an important, indeed essential, part of our studies.

Although the course is taught primarily from a social-historical perspective, it is at bottom an interdisciplinary course involving aspects of knowledge from the humanities and social sciences. Having a positive and open mind that has a willingness to learn and work hard will be the key to your success in this class. We shall combine sociology, history, film & documentary to give a dynamic learning experience. The course will be taught via an interactive perspective whereby students will engage with the material and present in individual and group formats. Moreover, it is essentially a reading and writing class with interactive discussion. RESPECT for all in the classroom environment is imperative; regardless of one’s philosophical views or social background, gender, racialized self, or other human attribute.

Learning outcomes:
By the end of this course students should be able to demonstrate an understanding of:

• “Race” as a social construct and therefore “racialized” issues that produce social inequality in the US.
• “Race” as a problematic concept if put to biological scientific inquiry.
• The fallacy of “racial typology” classification.
• Whiteness in the social imagination.
• White privilege and white ethnic groups.
• Sociological theories of “race” & ethnicity.
• How to think critically about “race” & ethnicity.
• The “cultural minority” problematic in regard to peoples of color.
• Multicultural issues in a hierarchical “race” and social-cultural framework.
• Social inequality in terms of “race,” class and gender.
• How to talk about “racial issues” effectively, and get beyond racialized stereotyping.

Key Reading:

• Mark Christian. (Ed.) Integrated but Unequal: Black Faculty in Predominately White Space. (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2012)
• Nell I. Painter. The History of White People. (New York: Norton, 2010)
• Paula S. Rothenberg. (Ed.) White Privilege: Essential Readings on the Other Side of Racism. (New York: Worth, 2011)
• Barbara Trepagnier. Silent Racism: How Well-Meaning White People Perpetuate the Racial Divide, 2nd Edition. (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2010)

Developing identity formation and self-concept in preschool-aged biracial children

Early Child Development and Care
Volume 111, Issue 1, 1995 (Special Issue: Focus on Caregivers)
pages 141-152
DOI: 10.1080/0300443951110110

Johnetta Wade Morrison, Professor of Human Development and Family Studies
University of Missouri, Columbia

Eleven mothers of biracial preschool-aged children were interviewed regarding identity formation, self-concept development, developmental issues and problems for their children. The racial attitude levels of their children were ascertained using PRAM II. Analysis includes the presentation of variables the mothers identified as a part of the child rearing practices to promote the dual heritages of their biracial children. Results indicate these mothers form two perspectives in promoting identity development. Self‐concept was viewed as a paramount issue for development. These findings have implications for practitioners.

Read or purchase the article here.

Study provides first genetic evidence of long-lived African presence within Britain

University of Leicester
Press Release
2007-01-24

Research reveals African origins in the UK and US

New research has identified the first genetic evidence of Africans having lived amongst “indigenous” British people for centuries. Their descendants, living across the UK today, were unaware of their black ancestry.

The University of Leicester study, funded by the Wellcome Trust and published today in the journal European Journal of Human Genetics, found that one third of men with a rare Yorkshire surname carry a rare Y chromosome type previously found only amongst people of West African origin.

The researchers, led by Professor Mark Jobling, of the Department of Genetics at the University of Leicester, first spotted the rare Y chromosome type, known as hgA1, in one individual, Mr. X. This happened whilst PhD student Ms. Turi King was sampling a larger group in a study to explore the association between surnames and the Y chromosome, both inherited from father to son. Mr. X, a white Caucasian living in Leicester, was unaware of having any African ancestors.

“As you can imagine, we were pretty amazed to find this result in someone unaware of having any African roots,” explains Professor Jobling, a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow. “The Y chromosome is passed down from father to son, so this suggested that Mr. X must have had African ancestry somewhere down the line. Our study suggests that this must have happened some time ago.”

Although most of Britain’s one million people who define themselves as “Black or Black British” owe their origins to immigration from the Caribbean and Africa from the mid-twentieth century onwards, in reality, there has been a long history of contact with Africa. Africans were first recorded in the north 1800 years ago, as Roman soldiers defending Hadrian’s Wall…

…“This study shows that what it means to be British is complicated and always has been,” says Professor Jobling. “Human migration history is clearly very complex, particularly for an island nation such as ours, and this study further debunks the idea that there are simple and distinct populations or ‘races’.”…

Read the entire press release here.

The decline of Jamaica’s interracial households and the fall of the planter class, 1733–1823

Atlantic Studies
Volume 9, Issue 1, (January, 2012)  (Special Issue: Rethinking the Fall of the Planter Class)
pages 107-123
DOI: 10.1080/14788810.2012.637002

Daniel Livesay, Assistant Professor of History
Drury University, Springfield, Missouri

The theory of planter decline traditionally implied that social and sexual chaos in the West Indies produced a middle caste of mixed-race individuals who destabilized colonial life. This article contends that for most of the eighteenth century, interracial relationships were normative unions that did not undercut the central function of the sugar and slave economy. In Jamaica, colonial regulations against free people of color came with individual exemptions that allowed mixed-race elites to skirt the very laws intended to keep them marginalized. Despite differences of color, these personal and familial connections between free coloreds and white fathers helped to maintain strong social hierarchies among the island’s wealthiest ranks. Abolitionist attacks against these family units, however, along with the ever present threat of enslaved revolt, changed conceptions of the Jamaican household at the close of the eighteenth century. Moreover, as Jamaica’s mixed-race population grew and became more endogamous, personal connections to whites dwindled, escalating political conflict on the island. Interracial relationships, therefore, did not herald planter decline, but rather forestalled it.

In the opening chapter of The Fall of the Planter Class, Lowell Ragatz recited a liturgy of social, economic, and cultural issues which had predestined West Indian elites to failure. An outdated agricultural system, regressive economic policies, and political changes brought about by incessant warfare constituted the core of these problems. Ragatz could not ignore, however, the general sense of dissipation and lecherousness frequently associated with Caribbean planters. Echoing many eighteenth-century observers, he viewed island society as backward and unstable:

The white man in tropical America was out of his habitat. Constant association with an inferior subject race blunted his moral fibre and he suffered marked demoralization… Miscegenation, so contrary to Anglo-Saxon nature, resulted in the rapid rise of a race of human hybrids.

Indeed, it was this very “growth of a mixed blood element [that] offered concrete evidence of the Anglo-Saxon’s moral break-down in the torrid zone.” If the avowed goal of island life was to keep blacks separate from whites, then interracial relationships signified a clear disruption in social order.” Cross-racial pairings, according to this retelling, gave an added push to the crumbling pillars of white planter control…

Read or purchase the article here.

Racial Socialization in Cross-Racial Families

Journal of Black Psychology
Published Online: 2011-08-03
DOI: 10.1177/0095798411416457

Cyndy R. Snyder
University of California, Berkeley

The purpose of this study was to investigate how multiracial people of African descent experience racism in schools and to understand how their parents or guardians prepare them to cope with incidents of racism in school. Through qualitative in-depth interviews with multiracial and transracially adopted adults of African descent, this study seeks to raise awareness regarding the complexity of family racial dynamics and how family racial socialization processes affect students’ ability to navigate racism. Findings suggested that racial socialization processes varied by the racial composition of the family, that is, families in which there was at least one Black parent or guardian present tended to more openly address issues of race and racism in comparison with families in which there was no Black parent or guardian present. Findings from this study hold theoretical implications for how racial socialization is conceptualized and practical implications for programs and policies designed to support families raising children of African descent.

Read or purchase the article here.

Don’t box us in

Focus
Rutgers University
2008-04-09

Ashanti M. Alvarez

Prompted by Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy, The New York Times recently tackled the issue of mixed-race Americans, and did so by profiling a group of students from Rutgers. I read with interest, as I myself am mixed.
 
Common constructs abound in this article, and in most discussions of multiethnic and multiracial individuals. Invariably, these articles and discussions are about identity and the struggle to find one. What box do we check? Which cultural customs do we adopt? Who will accept us? How do we deal with rejection?
 
These inquiries and expositions almost always echo, however subtly, the persistent “tragic mulatto” meme transmitted through the decades from antebellum United States. The person born to parents of African and European ancestry (usually a woman, more easily portrayed as a sympathetic victim) struggles to navigate the fine line between a predictably privileged life and one relegated to the underclass. Her inability to find acceptance from others or from herself leads to self-undoing through alcoholism, insanity, or suicide.
 
But for me, being multicultural has brought great personal freedom. After all, who wants to be confined to a box? Not me. At times I wonder how it feels to grow up as part of a cohesive community, one with strong religious, culinary, and family customs. That must provide a distinct sense of security, belonging, and identity that I am missing…

Read the entire essay here.

African and American: The Contact of Negro and Indian

Science Magazine
Volume 17, Number 419 (1891-02-13)
pages 85-90
DOI: 10.1126/science.ns-17.419.85

The history of the negro on the continent of America has been studied from various points of view, but id every instance with regard alone to his contact with the white race. It must be, therefore, a new. its well as an interesting, inquiry, when we endeavor to ascertain what has been the effect of the contact of the foreign African with the native American stocks. Such an investigation, to be of great scientific value, in the highest sense, must extend its lines of research into questions of physical anthropology, philology, mythology, sociology, and lay before us tbe facts which alone can be of use. S0 little attention has been paid to our subject, in all its branches, that it is to be feared that very much of great importance can never he ascertained; but it is the object of this essay to indicate what we already know, and to point out some questions concerning which, with the exercise of proper care, valuable data may even yet be obtained.

It is believed that the first African negro was introduced to the West Indies between the years 1501 and 1503; and since that time, according to Professor N. S. Shaler, there have been brought across the Atlantic not more than “three million souls, of whom the greater part were doubtless taken to the West Indies and Brazil.” Professor Shaler goes on to say, ”It seems tolerably certain that into the region north of the Gulf of Mexico not more than half a million were imported. We are even more at a loss to ascertain the present number of negroes in these continents: in fact, this point is probably indeterminable, for the reason that the African blood has commingled with that of the European settlers and the aborigines in an incalculable manner. Counting as negroes, however, all who share in the proportion of more than one-half the African blood, there are probably not less than thirty million people who may be regarded as of this race between Canada and Patagonia.” Such being the case, the importance of the question included in the programme of investigation of the Congrés das Américanistes— “Pénétration des races africaines en Amérique, et specialetnent dans l’Amérique du Sud”—becomes apparent, and no insignificant part of it is concerned with the relations of the African and the native American…

Read the entire article here.

Conversation Of The Week XXII: Mixed-Race Students and The College Experience

USARiseUp
2011-04-18

Amy O’Loughlin

In January, The New York Times published “Black? White? Asian? More Young Americans Choose All of the Above,” a provocative and widely circulated article about college students of mixed racial and ethnic backgrounds, as well as the rise in population of a multiracial America.

As the article states, since 2000, when the U.S. Census Bureau allowed Americans to identify themselves in more than one race category, the number of mixed-race Americans grew by approximately 35 percent. Seven million people reported being of mixed race, making multiracials “one of the country’s fastest-growing demographic groups.”

In turn, the enrollment of multiracial students at colleges and universities throughout the U.S. is also swiftly expanding. In 2004, University of California, Berkeley conducted the UC Undergraduate Experience Survey, and found that 22.9 percent of UC Berkeley respondents identified themselves as multiracial or multiethnic, while throughout the UC system, the total averaged 25.8 percent. “The crop of students moving through college right now,” The New York Times article affirms, “includes the largest group of mixed-race people ever to come of age in the United States.”

Are U.S. institutions of higher learning adapting adequately to this upsurge in student population? Are a representative number of faculty and policy makers mixed-race? Are schools offering curricula relevant to multiracial and multiethnic students?

A look into course offerings at various universities reveals that higher education does in fact provide a framework for the comprehensive understanding of mixed-race heritage in America. The UC Berkeley’s “People of Mixed Racial Descent” class began in 1980, it was the first of its kind in the nation, and is still offered as part of the school’s Ethnic Studies program with between 150 to 250 students attending. The University of Washington in Seattle offers the course “Mixed Identities and Racialized Bodies,” Chicago’s DePaul University lists “Mixed Race America” in its course catalog, and “Mixed Race in the New Millennium” is part of Stanford University’s curriculum.

But even if multiracialism is addressed academically, how do students of mixed race “negotiate the racialized landscape of higher education?” asks Kristen A. Renn, associate professor at Michigan State University (MSU), and author of Mixed Race Students in College: The Ecology of Race, Identity, and Community on Campus (2004). What does being multiracial mean to today’s mixed-race student?…

Read the entire article here.