Black people have always accepted mixed-race people as part of their community.

Posted in Excerpts/Quotes on 2017-12-20 22:26Z by Steven

Black people have always accepted mixed-race people as part of their community. With [Barack] Obama, I think white people needed to be OK with voting for him. They needed to feel that he would look out for them. One way to do that was to emphasize the white part of his identity … With Meghan Markle, people want to correct the cognitive dissonance where [in their minds] black women aren’t princesses or duchesses. If she’s half-white, then that’s closer to the reality that makes sense. There’s a lot of people who are uncomfortable with the idea of a black person in such a position. It’s a way to set the world back right for them [by focusing on her white heritage]. —Camille Z. Charles

Valerie Russ, “In an increasingly mixed-race America, who decides what we call ourselves?,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 18, 2017. http://www.philly.com/philly/news/meghan-markle-race-camille-charles-biracial-post-20171218.html.

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In an increasingly mixed-race America, who decides what we call ourselves?

Posted in Articles, Census/Demographics, Media Archive, Politics/Public Policy, Social Science, United Kingdom, United States on 2017-12-20 17:59Z by Steven

In an increasingly mixed-race America, who decides what we call ourselves?

The Philadelphia Inquirer
2017-12-18

Valerie Russ, Staff Writer


(Andy Stenning/Pool Photo via AP)
Prince Harry and his fiancee Meghan Markle speak with teachers at the Nottingham Academy Dec. 1.

Last week, the Meghan Markle controversy was her anticipated visit with Prince Harry to Queen Elizabeth’s estate at Sandringham for Christmas, an unprecedented invitation for an unmarried couple.

Before that, the debate was about Markle’s mixed-race identity: Do her African American mother and white father make her white, black, or biracial? After her engagement to Harry, some women celebrated the notion of a “black princess” — although she’ll actually be a duchess — while others argued she should be described as biracial, not black.

How to define, describe, and label mixed-race identity has been a brewing controversy in recent decades as the country becomes more racially diverse. Since the 2000 census, when Americans were first able to choose more than one race, the Census Bureau reported that people of color will be the majority in the nation by the 2040s and that more than half of American children will be part of a minority race or ethnic group by 2020. In fact, as of last year, the census said minority or ethnic-group children under the age of 1 are already in the majority.

The sociologist Herbert Gans blamed Census Bureau data for the increase in white nationalism and alt-right fear “that they are being threatened and overwhelmed by a growing tide of darker-skinned people.” He predicted that mixed-race Latinos and Asians will eventually identify themselves as white.

Camille Z. Charles, the director of the Center for Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, is the daughter of an African American mother and a white father. Charles identifies as black. She is working on a book exploring the intra-racial diversity among black Americans who identify either as African American, mixed-race/biracial, or black immigrant, tentatively titled The New Black: Race-Conscious or Post-Racial?

Read the entire article here.

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When Change Doesn’t Matter: Racial Identity (In)consistency and Adolescent Well-being

Posted in Articles, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Social Science, United States on 2015-03-26 14:54Z by Steven

When Change Doesn’t Matter: Racial Identity (In)consistency and Adolescent Well-being

Sociology of Race & Ethnicity
Volume 1, Number 2 (April 2015)
pages 270-286
DOI: 10.1177/2332649214552730

Rory Kramer, Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology and Criminology
Villanova University, Villanova, Pennsylvania

Ruth Burke
Department of Sociology
University of Pennsylvania

Camille Z. Charles, Professor of Sociology
University of Pennsylvania

Most theories of racial self-identity argue that a racially inconsistent identity indicates emotional distress and internal turmoil. However, empirical research on racial identity and consistency indicates that racial inconsistency is more common than previously believed, and some argue that it can be a positive adaptation for individuals. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, we explore the degree to which racial identity inconsistency is associated with emotional, social, and academic outcomes. We find that racial inconsistency is not associated with negative outcomes for individuals and, via access to white privilege, may be associated with benefits for some individuals. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for theories of racial identity.

Read the entire article here.

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The color of Black: Professor explores racial identity in college students

Posted in Articles, Campus Life, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Social Science, United States on 2012-02-07 04:57Z by Steven

The color of Black: Professor explores racial identity in college students

Scope: Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education
Stanford University
2011-10-10

Barbara McKenna

There are lots of different ways to be Black and to have a strong Black identity,” says Camille Charles. But, she adds, research and social definitions of Black identity don’t generally consider those multi-faceted dimensions.
 
Charles discussed her research on identity in Black college students on October 3 in a talk titled, “Say it Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud?): Understanding the Racial Identities of Upwardly Mobile Black College Students.” The talk was the first SCOPE Brown Bag Seminar of the 2011-12 year.
 
Charles, the Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor in the Social Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania and director of the Center for Africana Studies, says that traditional academic theories on Black identity have changed in the face of shifting demographics and politics. Throughout the 20th century, the one drop rule was the measure of race; any person with one drop of Black blood was socially and legally Black. More recently, Black racial identity was generally based on one’s political views. Black individuals were labeled as either assimilationist (for those who valued integration into the larger American society) or nationalist (for those who renounced efforts to integrate with white peers or institutions). “When, in fact,” Charles says, “one can hold aspects of both at the same time.”
 
Ironically, she notes, in recent times the one drop rule has been flipped to bring into question the authenticity of mixed-race people identifying as Blacks—a conversation heard often during the 2008 presidential campaign.

But this “unidimensional” definition is out of step with both current demographics and mindsets, she says. According to the 2010 Census, 10 percent of the Black U.S. population was immigrant and there was an increase as well in those identifying as mixed-race Black. “Two fields of study challenge the traditional unidimensional definition of Black identity: studies of multiraciality and of Black ethnic identity,” Charles says. These changes have helped broaden definitions of identity somewhat, but both academic and lay depictions of black identity continue to apply outdated unidimensional definitions of black identity…

Read the entire article here.  View the slideshow presentation here. View the video of the lecture here.

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Fluid or Fixed: Which is Better? Multiracial Identity Consistency and Emotional Well-Being in Adolescence

Posted in Identity Development/Psychology, Live Events, New Media, Social Science, United States on 2010-08-14 17:44Z by Steven

Fluid or Fixed: Which is Better? Multiracial Identity Consistency and Emotional Well-Being in Adolescence

American Sociological Association
Annual Meeting 2010
Regular Session: Multi-Racial Classification/Identity
Atlanta Marriott Marquis
Monday, 2010-08-16, 16:30-18:10 EDT (Local Time)

Session Organizer: Rebecca C. King-O’Riain, Senior Lecturer of Sociology
National University of Ireland-Maynooth 

Presider: Carolyn A. Liebler, Assistant Professor of Sociology
University of Minnesota

Ruth H. Burke
University of Pennsylvania

Rory Kramer
University of Pennsylvania

Camille Zubrinsky Charles, Professor of Sociology and the Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor in the Social Sciences; Director, The Center for Africana Studies
University of Pennsylvania

Traditional theories of multiracial identity propose that multiracial individuals go through a period of “crisis” in which their racial and ethnic identity is fluid and inconsistent. These theories argue that such fluidity leads to emotional stress. Recent research has shown that this fluidity is more related to socioeconomic status and background and that racial consistency is not a necessary or ideal goal for multiracial individuals. At the same time, others have shown how to measure consistency of identity in survey research such as Add Health but have not yet studied whether or not consistency is related to negative emotional outcomes. In this paper, we expand those measures to include Hispanic ethnic identity in our measure of consistency and test whether or not inconsistency of racial and/or ethnic identity is related to depression. We find that the older, more linear theories of multiraciality are not correct and that fluid identities are not significantly related to higher scores on a standard measure of depression. The paper concludes by discussing how these findings highlight the importance of producing new theories of racial identity that consider fluidity and multidimensionality of racial identity as a natural and neutral part of an individual’s identity.

For more information, click here.

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