Grad student explores questions of race through digital technology

Posted in Articles, Arts, Canada, New Media on 2010-02-11 23:45Z by Steven

Grad student explores questions of race through digital technology

News & Events
York Univeristy, Toronto, Ontario
2010-01-28

The technology to turn oneself into a mixed-race avatar might be confined to movies, but Brian Banton plays with racial manipulations of himself online, wrote the Toronto Star (online) Jan. 27 [2010] in a story that included five photos of him.

As a York graduate student, he explores questions of racial hybridity as related to corporate design. Much of the work is obscurely theoretical, Banton says. “But I also want to be playful. (Mixed race) is a serious issue but I don’t want to be heavy-handed.”..

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Multiracial Matrix: The Role of Race Ideology in the Enforcement of Anti-Discrimination Laws, a United States – Latin America Comparison

Posted in Articles, Caribbean/Latin America, Law, Media Archive, United States on 2010-02-11 02:53Z by Steven

Multiracial Matrix: The Role of Race Ideology in the Enforcement of Anti-Discrimination Laws, a United States – Latin America Comparison

Cornell Law Review
Volume 87, Number 5 (July 2002)
Cornell University Law School

Tanya Katerí Hernández, Professor of Law
Fordham University

This Article examines the role of race ideology in the enforcement of antidiscrimination laws.  Professor Hernández demonstrates the ways in which the U.S. race ideology is slowly starting to resemble the race ideology of much of Latin America.  The evolving U.S. race ideology is a multiracial matrix made up of four precepts: (1) racial mixture and diverse racial demography will resolve racial problems; (2) fluid racial classification schemes are an indicator of racial progress and the colorblind abolition of racial classifications an indicator of absolute racial harmony; (3) racism is solely a phenomenon of aberrant racist individuals; and (4) focusing on race is itself racist.  Because the multiracial matrix parallels much Latin American race discourse, Professor Hernández conducts a comparative analysis between U.S. and Latin American anti-discrimination law enforcement practices.  Professor Hernández concludes that the new race ideology bolsters the maintenance of race hierarchy in a racially diverse population.  Consequently, an uncritical embrace of the new race ideology will hinder the enforcement of antidiscrimination law in the United States.  Professor Hernández proposes that a greater focus on racism as a global issue that treats race as a political identity formation will assist in the recognition of the civil rights dangers of a multiracial matrix.

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