Mixed Race Studies

Under the Skin

Finch Publishing
August 2012
210 pages
Paperback ISBN: 9781921462801

Marion van Dyk

This beautifully written and evocative memoir is a fascinating insight into the lives of her family, living under apartheid, who struggled to create a sense of identity and personal worth. It’s a book of historical relevance in its revelations about resistance to Apartheid by South Africans of mixed race; and it is also a book of social relevance to the debate on racism today, in Australia, South Africa, and elsewhere in the world.
 
Marion van Dyk’s absorbing memoir submerges the reader in the world of South Africa in the 1950s through to the 1980s. Classified as a ‘coloured’ (being neither black nor white) by an apartheid government, she and her family are forced to live as second-class citizens, caught between two worlds. Marion and her family struggle to make ends meet after they are forced to leave their family home when their area is redesignated for whites only.
 
After relocating to a small ‘coloured’ township, Marion attends a school where, despite severe restrictions, her teachers fight tooth and nail to give her an education. She becomes head of a computer programming department, breaking through racial and gender barriers in the process, before emigrating to Australia with her husband and son.
 
Marion van Dyk was a finalist in the 2012 Finch Memoir Prize for this, her first book, the memoir Under the Skin.

Jackie Kay and Sebastian Barry: Identity and struggle

The Guardian
2011-08-15

Sarah Crown

In our inaugural podcast from the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Sebastian Barry and Jackie Kay talk to us about the themes that power their work

In our first podcast from the 2011 Edinburgh International Book Festival, we explore questions of identity and struggle as played out in the 20th-century…

…The poet and novelist Jackie Kay turned memoirist last year with her book Red Dust Road, an account of her search for her birth parents: a white Scottish woman, and a Nigerian man. Her writing reflects her grappling with the thorny issue of her own identity, and she reveals how this podcast has reconnected her with her family…

[Jackie Kay reads “Burying My African Father.”]

Read the entire article here.  Listen to the audio here. Download the audio here.

Who Is Black In America? Soledad O’Brien, CNN Find Out In ‘BIA 5’

NewsOne: For Black America
2012-12-07

Navarrow Wright

This Sunday at 8 p.m., CNN airs its fifth installment of the “Black In America” series, which is hosted by Soledad O’Brien. In this episode, O’Brien asks the question, “Who is Black in America?” as they tackle the issues of colorism and racial identity. The documentary centers around young women who are part of a poetry program in Philly who are dealing with these issues. I had the opportunity to sit down with Soledad to get her take on what may be one of the most talked about “Black in America” episodes yet.

[Note from Steven F. Riley: Ms. O’Brien also mentions what topics are not discussed in the hour-long documentary.]

Why isn’t ‘colorism’ gone?

Cable News Network (CNN)
2012-12-05

Has “colorism” disappeared? CNN’s Soledad O’Brien asks author and Activist Tim Wise.

A Hapa Family in Chekhov’s Three Sisters

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies
Volume 3 (2012), Special Issue: Mixed Heritage Asian American Literature
pages 130-146

Elizabeth Liang, Actress, Writer, Producer and co-host of “Hapa Happy Hour”

It is an act of courage or foolhardiness to produce theatre in the heart of the film world, depending on your point of view and how large the houses turn out to be. In the fall of 2005, I produced Three Sisters in a 60-seat theatre in Burbank, California (home of Disney and Warner Bros.). The odds were stacked even higher against the show’s success when I stipulated that the main characters, the upper-class and highly educated Russian Prozorov siblings, had to be played by hapa actors. This essay describes my attempt to interpret the play through a multi-ethnic lens while working with a monoracial director, and the challenges this posed, both on the stage and off.

Read the entire article here.

Annette John-Hall: CNN series cuts to the core of black identity

Philadelphia Inquirer
2012-12-07

Annette John-Hall, Inquirer Columnist

No surprise that Black in America, Soledad O’Brien’s documentary series on African American life and culture, was among CNN’s most-watched programs. No other show has offered a deeper look at what it means to be black, in all its complexities.

As provocative as the previous four broadcasts were, I dare say that nothing will cut to the core of black identity more than O’Brien’s fifth installment, Who is Black in America?, at 8 p.m. Sunday on CNN.

If you know Philadelphia, you’ve got to tune in. The documentary is flush with Philly folks.

Students Nayo Jones and Rebecca Khalil of the Philadelphia Youth Poetry Movement explore racial identity, sometimes painfully, under the compassionate guidance of instructor Perry “Vision” DiVirgilio. Drexel professor Yaba Blay—whose (1)ne Drop project gave O’Brien the impetus for the documentary—shares her own story.

Along with O’Brien, all attended a packed screening this week at Drexel.

Like any good documentary, Who Is Black in America?left me pondering fundamental questions: Just who is black in America? Is blackness predicated on skin color or a cultural state of mind? And who gets to decide?

One little drop

Through the years, skin color has been politicized and racialized. Just look at President Obama. Even though he identifies as a black man of mixed race, his identity is the topic of endless public debate. As if he’s going to change his answer.

After all, the “one-drop rule,” a law adopted by some Southern states in the early 20th century, designated a person black if s/he possessed even a trace of black heritage – in effect, only one drop of black blood. By that rule, our biracial president would have had no chance to enjoy the privileges conferred on pure-lineage whites.

Today, multichoice census forms allow us to check off what we truly are. Yet colorism continues to shackle us in a racialized society.

Fortunately for O’Brien, her parents made it easy for her. Growing up in a white community on Long Island, María de la Soledad Teresa O’Brien, fair-skinned, freckle-faced, big-Afroed daughter of an Afro-Cuban mother and an Irish-Australian father, never had to grapple with the “What are you?” questions.

“My parents made it very clear: Do not let people tell you you’re not black and not Latino,” O’Brien, 46, told me. “They understood the hostility of the environment. … You needed to be steeled.”…

Read the entire article here.

CNN Contributing Producer Probes Lingering Pain of the ‘One Drop’ Rule

ColorLines: News for Action
2012-12-07

Akiba Solomon, Columnist, Gender Matters
New York, New York

Keep the concept of privilege-clinging in the back of your mind as you check out the work and words of Dr. Yaba Blay, the driving force behind “Who Is Black in America?” the fifth installment of CNN’s “Black in America” series. Using Blay’s Kickstarter-funded multimedia collaboration with photographer Noelle Theard as a starting point, the show focuses on how people of African descent practice colorism, enforce identities based on appearance and the challenges of self-definition for multiracial people who aren’t recognizably black. I caught up with Blay, an assistant professor of Africana Studies at Philadelphia’s Drexel University (and, full disclosure, a Facebook-buddy-turned-friend), a few days after she co-hosted a special screening of the program on campus. Here, an edited, condensed version of our discussion.

So what’s the origin of the (1)ne Drop Project?

Oftentimes we do research that’s reflective of our lived experiences. So I’ve been personally impacted by colorism growing up as a West African, dark-skinned girl in New Orleans where you’ve got [self-described] black, white and Creole [cultures] and skin color politics are at the forefront of our social relationships there. I’ve always been very aware that I’m dark-skinned, in fact very dark-skinned. … I looked at colorism from the standard direction as far as how we look at the disadvantages of having dark skin in a racialized society. But there was always a part of me that wanted to explore the other side of this. … And actually, the first iteration of this project was called “The Other Side of Blackness,” but “(1)ne Drop” just emerged [as a] more catchy name. I’ve always known that light-skinned people were having their own experiences with skin color politics, but I wasn’t necessarily sure how to approach the question. There are black people all over the world, but the imagery connected to [blackness] has been more nebulous. If I take my students on study abroad, say in Brazil, will they be able to recognize the black people? Or are they just living with the idea that the black people are the ones who look familiar?…

Read the entire interview here.

Soledad O’Brien: Who is black in America? I am

Cable News Network (CNN)
2012-12-07

Editor’s Note: In today’s United States, is being black determined by the color of your skin, by your family, by what society says, or something else? Soledad O’Brien reports “Who Is Black in America?” on CNN at 8 p.m. ET/PT this Sunday, December 9.

Yaba Blay, Professor/Scholar

Soledad O’Brien, Host

(CNN) – Yaba Blay, Ph.D. created the (1)ne Drop Project, a multiplatform endeavor that hopes to challenge perceptions of black identity. Blay, a consulting producer for “Who Is Black in America?” spoke to hundreds of those who may not immediately be recognized as “black” based on how they look, including CNN Anchor Soledad O’Brien.  In this edited excerpt from her forthcoming book, Blay spoke to O’Brien about what makes a person black, and why the conversation is important.

Yaba Blay: How do you identify? Racially and culturally?

Soledad O’Brien: I’m black. I’m Latina. My mom is Cuban. Afro-Cuban. My dad is white and Australian. And I think because of my job, often a question like “How do you identify?” is really not about the question. It’s always “What side are you on?” “What perspective to you bring?”

Blay: I remember when “Black in America” first came out, and a lot of people being like “Who is she and why is she doing this?”…

…Blay: So what makes a person black?

O’Brien: I certainly don’t think it’s skin color. And I certainly don’t think it’s how well you speak the language. And I’m not sure I can answer that question thoroughly because my consciousness about race was really implanted in me by my parents. I would say I’m black because my parents said I’m black. I’m black because my mother’s black. I’m black because I grew up in a family of all black people. I knew I was black because I grew up in an all-white neighborhood. And my parents, as part of their protective mechanisms that they were going to give to us made it very clear what we were…

Read the entire article here.

Dismantling the Race Myth

Kyoto International Conference Center
Kyoto, Japan
2012-12-15 through 2012-12-16

Poster (PDF, Japanese)

Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University presents International Symposium.
 
“Race” still has social reality even though it has no biological reality. This symposium aims to dismantle the race myth by bringing together scholars in a wide range of disciplines from Japan and abroad. While race studies have hitherto been confined to trans-Atlantic experiences, we will shed lights on “invisibility,” “ambiguity,” and “in-between-ness” with special reference to Japanese and Asian experiences.

Schedule

• Saturday, December 15, 2012
  • Part I. Invisibility: Representation of Invisible Race
    • Takashi Fujitani (Toronto University) / Appearances Can Be Deceiving: Tennosei, Global Modernity, and the Anxieties of Ocular-centric Racism
    • Ayako Saito (Meiji Gakuin University) / Note on the Film Representation of the “Hisabetsu Burakumin”
    • Joong-Seop Kim (Gyeongsang National University) / The Formation of an Invisible Race: the case of the Korean “Paekjong”
    • Ariela Gross (University of Southern California) / Laws of Blood: The Science and Performance of Race in U.S. Courtrooms
    • Relay Talk and Poster Session by Junior Researchers
    • Social Hour
• Sunday, December 16, 2012
  • Part II. Knowledge: Co-production of Science and Society
    • Arnaud Nanta (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) / Critique on the Idea of “Race” in French Anthropology, 1930s-1940s
    • Wataru Kusaka (Kyoto University) / American Colonial Public Health and the Leprosy Patients’ Revolt: Discipline and Desire on Culion Island, Philippines
    • Miho Ishii (Kyoto University) / Blood, Gifts, and “Community” in India: Betwixt and Between Marking and Anonymisation
    • Yasuko Takezawa (Kyoto University), Kazuto Kato (Osaka University), Hiroki Oota (Kitazato University) / Population Descriptors in Genetic Studies and Biomedicine
  • Part III. Hybridity: Beyond the Politics of “Blood”
    • Ryuichi Narita (Japan Women’s University) / Politics of “Mixed Race” in Modern Japan
    • Mika Ko (Rikkyo University) / Cinematic Representations of “Mixed-Race” People in 1930s Japanese Cinema: The Two Faces of Japan’s Modernity
    • Masako Kudo (Kyoto Women’s University) / Border-crossing and Identity Construction by Children of Japanese-Pakistani Marriage
    • Duncan Williams (University of Southern California) / Japan and Its Global Mixed Race History

This is part of a joint research project, a Japan-based Global Study of Racial Representations with Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (S). The organizers are grateful to Japan Society for the Promotion of Science for its sponsorship of this event. We are also thankful to Science Council of Japan for their support.

For more information, click here.

Race in a Bottle: The Story of BiDil and Racialized Medicine in a Post-Genomic Age

Columbia University Press
December, 2012
336 pages
Charts: 4, B&W Illus.: 1
Cloth ISBN: 978-0-231-16298-2

Jonathan Kahn, Professor of Law
Hamline University, Saint Paul, Minnesota

At a ceremony announcing the completion of the first draft of the human genome in 2000, President Bill Clinton declared, “I believe one of the great truths to emerge from this triumphant expedition inside the human genome is that in genetic terms, all human beings, regardless of race, are more than 99.9 percent the same.” Yet despite this declaration of unity, biomedical research has focused increasingly on mapping that .1 percent of difference, particularly as it relates to race.

This trend is exemplified by the drug BiDil. Approved by the FDA in 2005 as the first drug with a race-specific indication on its label, BiDil was originally touted as a pathbreaking therapy to treat heart failure in black patients and help underserved populations. Upon closer examination, however, Jonathan Kahn reveals a far more complex story. At the most basic level, BiDil became racial through legal maneuvering and commercial pressure as much as through medical understandings of how the drug worked. Using BiDil as a central case study, Kahn broadly examines the legal and commercial imperatives driving the expanding role of race in biomedicine, even as scientific advances in genomics could render the issue irrelevant. He surveys the distinct politics informing the use of race in medicine and the very real health disparities caused by racism and social injustice that are now being cast as a mere function of genetic difference. Calling for a more reasoned approach to using race in biomedical research and practice, Kahn asks readers to recognize that, just as genetics is a complex field requiring sensitivity and expertise, so too is race, particularly in the field of biomedicine.

Contents

• Acknowledgments
• INTRODUCTION: Race and Medicine: Framing [Is] the Problem
• 1. ORGANIZING RACE: Paths Toward the Re-Biologization of Race in Modern Biomedical Research, Practice, and Product Development
• 2. THE BIRTH OF BIDIL: How a Drug Becomes “Ethnic”
• 3. STATISTICAL MISCHIEF AND RACIAL FRAMES FOR DRUG DEVELOPMENT AND MARKETING
• 4. CAPITALIZING [ON] RACE IN DRUG DEVELOPMENT
• 5. RACE-ING PATENTS/PATENTING RACE: An Emerging Political Geography of Intellectual Property in Biotechnology
• 6. NOT FADE AWAY: The Persistence of Race and the Politics of the “Meantime” in Pharmacogenomics
• 7. FROM DISPARITY TO DIFFERENCE: The Politics of Racial Medicine
• CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
• Notes
• Index