Mixed Race Studies

President Barack Obama: A More Perfect Union

Routledge
2010
272 pages
Paperback ISBN: 9781594514777

John K. Wilson

Barack Obama’s “improbable quest” has become a fact of American life and a benchmark in American history. Striving now toward “a more perfect union,” Obama and the nation confront obstacles unforeseen at the outset of the 2008 electoral campaign. John K. Wilson tracks the sweep of this progress from the beginning of Obama’s political career through his move into the White House. With his critical journalistic eye and his sympathetic “native son” perspective, Wilson shows us a side of Obama we haven’t seen as well as a view of the media we need to understand-even more now as the Obama administration begins to govern. The paperback edition of this popular book includes a new introduction, updates throughout, and two new chapters on the electoral victory and the transition from campaigning into governing. New photos and new insights include a focus on the continued importance of race in American politics.

Table of Contents

• Introduction to the Paperback Edition
• Chapter 1: Generation Obama: The Youth Movement for Barack
• Chapter 2: Are You Experienced? Obama and the Media
• Chapter 3: Race and the President: Is Obama Black Enough?
• Chapter 4: The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy: The Conservative Attack on Obama
• Chapter 5: Why Leftists Hate A Liberal: The Far Left Attacks on Obama
• Chapter 6: “This Is My House, Too”: Obama and the Liberal God
• Chapter 7: From Quest to Reality: Politics and Policy in an Obama Administration
• Chapter 8: The Victory: Barack Obama’s Improbable Triumph
• Chapter 9: The Obama Administration: Turning Hope into Change Conclusion: Obama’s Hopes and Dreams
• Notes
• Index
• About the Author

On Obama

Routledge
2015-11-04
134 pages
Paperback ISBN: 9780415525473
Hardback ISBN: 9780415525466

Paul C. Talyor, Associate Professor of Philosophy and African American Studies
Pennsylvania State University

On Obama examines some of the key philosophical questions that accompany the historic emergence of the 44th US president. The purpose of this book is to take seriously the once common thought that the Obama presidency had ushered in a post-historical age. Three questions organize the argument of the book: What’s living and dead in the idea of post-racialism? Did Mr. Obama’s preference for problem-solving over ideological warfare mark him not just as a post-partisan figure but as a philosophical pragmatist? Did the US become post-imperial when the descendants of slaves and of British imperial subjects inhabited the White House? In addition to taking up these questions, the book considers Mr. Obama’s own relationship to the post-historical idea and explores the ethical implications of certain ways of entertaining that idea.

Table of Contents

• Introduction: The Post-Historical Presidency
• 1. On Post-Racialism: The President as Racial Project
• 2. On Post-Partisanship: The President as Pragmatist
• 3. On Post-Imperialism: The World’s Moses, America’s Zipporah
• 4. Conclusion: The End of the End

Mothering, Mixed Families and Racialised Boundaries

Routledge
2014-02-10
120 pages
Paperback ISBN: 9781138953697
Hardback ISBN: 9780415733748

Edited by:

Ravinder Barn, Professor of Social Policy
Royal Holloway, University of London, United Kingdom

Vicki Harman, Senior Lecturer
Royal Holloway, University of London, United Kingdom

This pioneering volume draws together theoretical and empirical contributions analyzing the experiences of white mothers in interracial families in Britain, Canada and the USA. The growth of the mixed race population reflects an increasingly racially and culturally heterogeneous society, shaped by powerful forces of globalisation and migration. Mixed family formations are becoming increasingly common through marriage, relationships and adoption, and there is also increasing social recognition of interracial families through the inclusion of mixed categories in Census data and other official statistics. The changing demographic make-up of Britain and other Western countries raises important questions about identity, belonging and the changing nature of family life. It also connects with theoretical and empirical discussions about the significance of ‘race’ in contemporary society.

In exploring mothering across racialised boundaries, this volume offers new insights and perspectives. The notion of racialisation is invoked to argue that, while the notion of race does not exist in any meaningful sense, it continues to operate as a social process. This crucial resource will appeal to academics, researchers, policy makers, practitioners and undergraduate and postgraduate students.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction / Ravinder Barn and Vicki Harman
2. ‘Doing the right thing’: transracial adoption in the USA / Ravinder Barn
3. The experiences of race in the lives of Jewish birth mothers of children from black/white interracial and inter-religious relationships: a Canadian perspective / Channa C. Verbian
4. Researching white mothers of mixed-parentage children: the significance of investigating whiteness / Joanne Britton
5. Social capital and the informal support networks of lone white mothers of mixed-parentage children / Vicki Harman
6. Narratives from a Nottingham council estate: a story of white working class mothers with mixed-race children / Lisa McKenzie

Intergroup Dialogue: Engaging Difference, Social Identities and Social Justice

Routledge
2013-05-13
24 pages
Hardback ISBN: 978-0-415-81970-1

Edited by:

Ximena Zuniga, Associate Professor in Social Justice Education
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Gretchen Lopez, Director of the Intergroup Dialogue Program and Assistant Professor of Cultural Foundations of Education
Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York

Kristie Ford, Director of the Intergroup Relations Program and Associate Professor of Sociology
Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York

Intergroup dialogue is a form of democratic engagement that fosters communication, critical reflection, and collaborative action across social and cultural divides. Engaging social identities is central to this approach. In recent years, intergroup dialogue has emerged as a promising social justice education practice that addresses pressing issues in higher education, school and community settings. This edited volume provides a thoughtful and comprehensive overview of intergroup dialogue spanning conceptual frameworks for practice, and most notably a diverse set of research studies which examine in detail the processes and learning that take place through dialogue.

This book addresses questions from the fields of education, social psychology, sociology, and social work, offering specific recommendations and examples related to curriculum and pedagogy. Furthermore, it contributes to an understanding of how to constructively engage students and others in education about difference, identities, and social justice.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Equity & Excellence in Education.

CONTENTS

• Part I. Introducing The Practice of Intergroup Dialogue
  • 1. Intergroup Dialogue: Critical Conversations about Difference Ximena Zúñiga, Gretchen E. Lopez and Kristie A. Ford
• Part II. Intergroup Dialogue in Higher Education
  • 2. “I now harbor more pride in my race”: The Educational Benefits of Inter- and Intraracial Dialogues on the Experiences of Students of Color and Multiracial Students Kristie Ford and Victoria Malaney
  • 3. From Dialogue to Action: The Impact of Cross-Race Intergroup Dialogue on the Development of White College Students as Racial Allies Craig Alimo
  • 4. Fostering a Commitment to Social Action: How Talking, Thinking, and Feeling Make a Difference in Intergroup Dialogue Chloé Gurin Sands, Patricia Gurin, Biren (Ratnesh) A. Nagda and Shardae Osuna
  • 5. Engaged Listening in Race/Ethnicity and Gender Intergroup Dialogue Courses Ximena Zúñiga, Jane Mildred, Rani Varghese, Keri DeJong and Molly Kheen
  • 6. White Educators Facilitating Discussions About Racial Realities Stephen John Quaye
• Part III. Intergroup Dialogue in Schools and Communities
  • 7. Raising Ethnic-Racial Consciousness: The Relationship Between Intergroup Dialogues and Adolescents’ Ethnic-Racial Identity and Racism Awareness Adriana Aldana, Stephanie Rowley, Barry Checkoway and Katie Richards-Schuster
  • 8. Writing the Divide: High School Students Crossing Urban-Suburban Contexts Gretchen E. Lopez and A. Wendy Nastasi
  • 9. Critical Education in High Schools: The Promise and Challenges of Intergroup Dialogue Shayla R. Griffin, Mikel Brown and Naomi M. Warren
  • 10. Racial Pedagogy of the Oppressed: Critical Interracial Dialogue for Teachers of Color Rita Kohli
  • 11. Supporting Critical Dialogues Across Educational Contexts Tasha Tropp Laman, Pamela Jewett, Louise B. Jennings, Jennifer L. Wilson and Mariana Souto-Manning
  • 12. Speaking Across Difference in Community Dialogue on Affirmative Action Policy Kristen L. Davidson and Michele S. Moses
• Part IV. Considering Directions for Intergroup Dialogue: Research and Practice
  • 13. Intergroup Dialogue: Research Perspectives Across Educational Contexts Gretchen E. Lopez, Kristie A. Ford and Ximena Zúñiga

Raising Mixed Race: Multiracial Asian Children in a Post-Racial World

Routledge
2015-12-11
240 pages
Hardcover ISBN: 9781612058481
Paperback ISBN: 9781138999466

Sharon H. Chang

Research continues to uncover early childhood as a crucial time when we set the stage for who we will become. In the last decade, we have also seen a sudden massive shift in America’s racial makeup with the majority of the current under-5 age population being children of color. Asian and multiracial are the fastest growing self-identified groups in the United States. More than 2 million people indicated being mixed race Asian on the 2010 Census. Yet, young multiracial Asian children are vastly underrepresented in the literature on racial identity. Why? And what are these children learning about themselves in an era that tries to be ahistorical, believes the race problem has been “solved,” and that mixed race people are proof of it? This book is drawn from extensive research and interviews with sixty-eight parents of multiracial children. It is the first to examine the complex task of supporting our youngest around being “two or more races” and Asian while living amongst “post-racial” ideologies.

Table of Contents

• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1. Foundation
• 2. Framing
• 3. Wiring
• 4. Insulation
• 5. Walls
• 6. Textures
• 7. Mirrors & Exteriors
• 8. Final Inspection
• 9. Conclusion

“Mixed Race” Identities in Asia and the Pacific: Experiences from Singapore and New Zealand

Routledge
2015-10-28
188 pages
2 B/W Illus.
Hardback ISBN: 978-1-13-893393-4

Zarine L. Rocha, Managing Editor
Current Sociology and The Asian Journal of Social Science

“Mixed race” is becoming an important area for research, and there is a growing body of work in the North American and British contexts. However, understandings and experiences of “mixed race” across different countries and regions are not often explored in significant depth. New Zealand and Singapore provide important contexts for investigation, as two multicultural, yet structurally divergent, societies. Within these two countries, “mixed race” describes a particularly interesting label for individuals of mixed Chinese and European parentage.

This book explores the concept of “mixed race” for people of mixed Chinese and European descent, looking at how being Chinese and/or European can mean many different things in different contexts. By looking at different communities in Singapore and New Zealand, it investigates how individuals of mixed heritage fit into or are excluded from these communities. Increasingly, individuals of mixed ancestry are opting to identify outside of traditionally defined racial categories, posing a challenge to systems of racial classification, and to sociological understandings of “race”. As case studies, Singapore and New Zealand provide key examples of the complex relationship between state categorization and individual identities. The book explores the divergences between identity and classification, and the ways in which identity labels affect experiences of “mixed race” in everyday life. Personal stories reveal the creative and flexible ways in which people cross boundaries, and the everyday negotiations between classification, heritage, experience, and nation in defining identity. The study is based on qualitative research, including in-depth interviews with people of mixed heritage in both countries.

Filling an important gap in the literature by using an Asia/Pacific dimension, this study of race and ethnicity will appeal to students and scholars of mixed race studies, ethnicity, Chinese diaspora and cultural anthropology.

Contents

• 1. Finding the “Mixed” in “Mixed Race”
• 2. Mixed Histories in New Zealand and Singapore
• 3. The Personal in the Political
• 4. Being and Belonging
• 5. Roots, Routes and Coming Home
• 6. Conclusion

Blacks, Mulattos, and the Dominican Nation

Routledge
2015-05-08 (orginally published in 1969)
122 pages
Paperback ISBN: 9781138785007
Hardback ISBN: 9781138784994

Franklin J. Franco (1936-2013)

Introduction by:

Silvio Torres-Saillant, Dean’s Professor in the Humanities
Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York

Blacks, Mulattos, and the Dominican Nation is the first English translation of the classic text Los negros, los mulatos y la nación dominicana by esteemed Dominican scholar Franklin J. Franco. Published in 1969, this book was the first systematic work on the role of Afro-descendants in Dominican society, the first society of the modern Americas where a Black-Mulatto population majority developed during the 16th century. Franco’s work, a foundational text for Dominican ethnic studies, constituted a paradigm shift, breaking with the distortions of traditional histories that focused on the colonial elite to place Afro-descendants, slavery, and race relations at the center of Dominican history.

This translation includes a new introduction by Silvio Torres-Saillant (Syracuse University) which contextualizes Franco’s work, explaining the milieu in which he was writing, and bringing the historiography of race, slavery, and the Dominican Republic up to the present. Making this pioneering work accessible to an English-speaking audience for the first time, this is a must-have for anyone interested in the lasting effects of African slavery on the Dominican population and Caribbean societies.

Table of Contents

• Series Editor’s Introduction
• Introduction to Franklin Franco’s Blacks, Mulattos, and the Dominican Nation Silvio Torres-Saillant
• Prologue Juan I. Jiménez Grullón
• 1. The Black Population
• 2. The Black Population and the National Consciousness
• 3. The Constitution of 1801
• 4. The Other Face of the Reconquest
• 5. “Foolish Spain” and “Rebellious Africa”
• 6. Complete Unity and National Unity
• Bibliography

In the Shadow of Race: Growing Up As A Multiethnic, Multicultural, and “multiracial” American

Routledge
1998
280 pages
Paperback ISBN: 978-0805825756

Teja Arboleda, President/Creative Director
Entertaining Diversity, Inc.

My father’s father was Filipino-Chinese…
My father’s mother was African American-Native American…
My mother’s father was German-Danish…
My mother’s mother was German…
I was born in Brooklyn, New York, but I grew up in Japan…

For once it’s not just black and white. In this compelling chronicle of his journey through life as a multicultural and multiethnic American, Teja Arboleda uniquely and personally challenges institutionalized notions of race, culture, ethnicity, and class. Arboleda has presented his story around the United States through his one-man performance-lecture Ethnic Man! Now, in this book, he fleshes out the depth of his experience as a culturally and racially mixed American, illustrating throughout the enigma of cultural and racial identity and the American identity crisis.

To facilitate its use as a course text, In the Shadow of Race is offered with a Teacher’s Guide written by Christine Clark. Topics for discussion include:

• the social construction of race
• racial separatism vs. diversity
• racial, ethnic, and cultural identity development
• the politics of racial categorization
• mixed “race” peoples
• cultural identity vs. identity by heritage
• the concept of a “cultural home
• changing identities within cultures

Contents:

• Preface
• Chapter 1: Race Is a Four Letter Word
• Chapter 2: Among the Trees
• Chapter 3: Four Walls and a Cellar
• Chapter 4: Checkmate
• Chapter 5: Carrots?
• Chapter 6: Plastic Armies
• Chapter 7: Old Fence, New Paint
• Chapter 8: Paper Houses, Horses, and Swords
• Chapter 9: Squares in a Circle
• Chapter 10: Shuffle
• Chapter 11: The Connection
• Chapter 12: The Adjustable Pedestal
• Chapter 13: Hokkaido
• Chapter 14: Two Steps Back
• Chapter 15: The Official Proxy
• Chapter 16: “You’re From China, Right?”
• Chapter 17: The Awakening
• Chapter 18: This Land Is Your Land
• Chapter 19: Top of the Hill
• Chapter 20: Letting Go
• Chapter 21: Check One Only
• Chapter 22: Losses
• Chapter 23: The Testimony
• Chapter 24: One
• Chapter 25: Cool Winds Return Home
• Chapter 26: Home
• About the Author
• Ancilary Materials for Educators

Barack Obama and the Myth of a Post-Racial America

Routledge
2013-10-04
240 pages
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-415-81394-5
Hardback ISBN: 978-0-415-81393-8
eBook ISBN: 978-0-203-06779-6

Edited by:

Mark Ledwidge, Senior Lecturer of History and American Studies
Canterbury Christ Church University

Kevern Verney, Professor of American History
Edge Hill University

Inderjeet Parmar, Professor of Government
University of Manchester

The 2008 presidential election was celebrated around the world as a seminal moment in U.S. political and racial history. White liberals and other progressives framed the election through the prism of change, while previously acknowledged demographic changes were hastily heralded as the dawn of a “post-racial” America. However, by 2011, much of the post-election idealism had dissipated in the wake of an on-going economic and financial crisis, escalating wars in Afghanistan and Libya, and the rise of the right-wing Tea Party movement.

By placing Obama in the historical context of U.S. race relations, this edited book interrogates the idealized and progressive view of American society advanced by much of the mainstream literature on Obama. Barack Obama and the Myth of a Post-Racial America takes a careful look at the historical, cultural and political dimensions of race in the United States, using an interdisciplinary analysis that incorporates approaches from history, political science, and sociology. Each chapter addresses controversial issues such as whether Obama can be considered an African-American president, whether his presidency actually delivered the kind of deep-rooted changes that were initially prophesised, and whether Obama has abandoned his core African-American constituency in favour of projecting a race-neutral approach designed to maintain centrist support.

Through cutting edge, critically informed, and cross-disciplinary analyses, this collection directly addresses the dimensions of race in American society through the lens of Obama’s election and presidency.

Contents

• Introduction
• 1. Barack Obama, First African American President: Continuity or Change; Mark Ledwidge
• 2. The Obama Dilemma: Confronting Race in the 21st Century; Carl Pedersen
• 3. Republican Mavericks: The Anti-Obama Impulse in the 2008 Election; Robert Busby
• 4. Obama in the Northeast: The Politics of Race in America’s Bluest Region; Kevin J. McMahon
• 5. Obama, the Tea Party Movement and Domestic Dissent; Mark Ledwidge
• 6. The Obama Election and the White Supremacist Movement: How the Rise of America’s First Black President Unleashed a Racist Backlash; Heidi Beirich and Kevin Hicks
• 7. The Final Frontier: Barack Obama and the Vision of a Post-Racial America; Kevern J. Verney
• 8. Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics; Rogers M. Smith and Desmond King
• 9. The Far Side of Jordan: Obama, Civil Rights and the Promised Land Paradox; Jelani Cobb
• 10. Continuity of Deep Structures: Housing Markets and the Increasing Racial Wealth Gap in Post-Racial America; Melvin Oliver, Thomas Shapiro and Hannah Thomas
• 11. Prophet without Honor? Perceptions of Barack Obama’s Leadership at Home and Abroad; Andra Gillespie
• 12. “You Say Obama, I say Osama – Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off”: Race and U.S. Foreign Policy; Lee Marsden
• 13. The Color of Obama’s World: Race and Diplomacy During the Obama Administration; Michael L. Krenn
• 14. First Ladies in Africa: A Comparison of Michelle Obama to Laura Bush and Hillary Clinton; Andra Gillespie
• 15. Postscript: Race and the 2012 U.S. Elections

Philosophy of Science and Race

Routledge
2002-09-20
152 pages
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-415-94164-8
Hardback ISBN: 978-0-415-94163-1

Naomi Zack, Professor of Philosophy
University of Oregon

Contents

• Preface and Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Reason and Method
• 1. Philosophical Racial Essentialism: Hume and Kant
• 2. Geography and Ideas of Race
• 3. Phenotypes and Ideas of Race
• 4. Transmisson Genetics and Ideas of Race
• 5. Genealogy and Ideas of Race
• 6. Race and Contemporary Anthropology
• 7. Philishophical and Social Implications
• Notes
• Select Bibliography