The answer is that Warren, like millions of other Americans, is mixed-race, and percentages shouldn’t matter when we consider such ancestry.

Posted in Excerpts/Quotes on 2017-11-30 00:47Z by Steven

The answer is that [Elizabeth] Warren, like millions of other Americans, is mixed-race, and percentages shouldn’t matter when we consider such ancestry.

Martha S. Jones, “Why calling Elizabeth Warren ‘Pocahontas’ is a slur against all mixed-race Americans,” The Washington Post, November 29, 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/11/29/why-calling-elizabeth-warren-pocahontas-is-a-slur-against-all-mixed-race-americans.

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Why calling Elizabeth Warren ‘Pocahontas’ is a slur against all mixed-race Americans

Posted in Arts, History, Media Archive, Native Americans/First Nation, United States on 2017-11-29 21:43Z by Steven

Why calling Elizabeth Warren ‘Pocahontas’ is a slur against all mixed-race Americans

The Washington Post
2017-11-29

Martha S. Jones, Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor and Professor of History
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland


Elizabeth Warren’s embrace of her mixed-race ancestry has become a political weapon in the hands of her opponents. (AP)

It’s part of the long history of erasing people of mixed heritage.

President Trump’s assault on Sen. Elizabeth Warren descended to a new low Monday. Calling the Massachusetts leader “Pocahontas” during a ceremony honoring Native American code-talker veterans, Trump not only slurred Warren — he slurred all American families whose histories include ancestors of differing races.

By now Warren’s story is familiar. When registering with the American Association of Law Schools between 1986 and 1995, she checked an “Indian” box to describe her ancestry. When pressed by critics who questioned her background, Warren explained that she was “proud” of her Native heritage as passed down to her by stories told by her parents and grandparents.

Critics accuse Warren of leveraging her “minority” status to snag a job at Harvard Law School in 1992. Others charge that Warren’s self-identification was strategic and, even worse, illegitimate. How, they ask, could a woman who is by her own telling no more than 1/32 Native American claim to be anything other than white?

The answer is that Warren, like millions of other Americans, is mixed-race, and percentages shouldn’t matter when we consider such ancestry…

Read the entire article here.

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‘If Meghan Markle had darker skin there would NOT be a wedding’ – BBC guest blasts Royals

Posted in Articles, Communications/Media Studies, Media Archive, United Kingdom on 2017-11-29 02:15Z by Steven

‘If Meghan Markle had darker skin there would NOT be a wedding’ – BBC guest blasts Royals

The Daily Express
2017-11-28

Nicole Stinson

PRINCE Harry and Meghan Markle’s engagement sparked a heated debate on racial identity on BBC’s Newsnight following the couple’s wedding announcement on Monday.

The ginger royal and American actress’ engagement was officially announced by his father the Prince of Wales in a statement from Clarence House.

Prince Harry had popped the question to Ms Markle earlier this month in London and their engagement has sparked a debate on race – the Suits actress is the first person of mixed race origin to marry into the royal family.

Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff, who writes for the online magazine “by women of colour” gal-dem, told Newsnight: “I think if she was darker skinned it would be very unlikely that she would be marrying Prince Harry.”

Her comments were backed by columnist Georgina Lawton who added that if Harry had been next in line to the throne: “I definitely think there would have been more racism.”

She added: “The people who are commenting on this issue and saying we don’t need to discuss race and it is just two people who have fallen in love – I think you need to look at the Prince’s statement last year condemning the racial undertones of the press coverage…

Read the entire article here.

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WSW: Crispus Attucks And A “Blank Slate” In History

Posted in Articles, Audio, Biography, History, Interviews, Media Archive, United States on 2017-11-29 01:56Z by Steven

WSW: Crispus Attucks And A “Blank Slate” In History

WestSouthwest
WMUK 102.1 FM
Information + Inspiration for Southwest Michigan from Western Michigan University

Gordon Evans, Host


First Marty of Liberty: Crispus Attucks in American Memory
Credit Oxford University Press

Western Michigan University History Professor Mitch Kachun says his book is about Crispus Attucks, one of the men, killed at the Boston Massacre in 1770. But he says First Martyr of Liberty: Crispus Attucks in American Memory also raises questions about who’s included in history, and who is ignored.

Attucks himself was ignored for long periods of American history. Kachun says while the Boston Massacre was remembered in the 1770’s into the 1780’s, those killed were rarely mentioned by name. But Kachun says around the time of the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, more attention was paid to the role of the working class in the American Revolution. Then as the anti-slavery movement became more active, the story of the mixed-race man killed in 1770 was told more often. By the end of the 1840’s and in the 1850’s, Kachun says Attucks was often referred to as a figure in the Revolution.

If Attucks had not been mixed race, Kachun says his name may not have come so much over time. He says that very few people can name any of the others killed at the Boston Massacre. Kachun says Attucks was identified as mixed-race or “mulatto,” but the initial newspaper accounts and the coroner’s report identified him as “Michael Johnson.” Kachun says that had led to theories that Crispus Attucks was hiding his identity because he had escaped slavery in 1750. But Kachun says there is no evidence to support that claim…

Read the entire article here. Listen to the interview (00:29:27) here.

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Everything You Need to Know About Meghan Markle’s ‘Level of Blackness,’ Explained

Posted in Articles, Arts, Media Archive, United States on 2017-11-29 01:38Z by Steven

Everything You Need to Know About Meghan Markle’s ‘Level of Blackness,’ Explained

Very Smart Brothas
The Root
2017-11-27

Damon Young


Prince Harry and Meghan Markle (Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

Who is Meghan Markle?

She’s my second-favorite alum of USA Network’s Suits, the possessor of an alliterative name that kinda, sorta sounds like the name of a women’s hosiery brand sold only at Macy’s and the new fiancee of Prince Harry.

Your second-favorite alum of Suits? Who would be first?

Gina Torres, of course. I sincerely believe they actually called the show Suits because of a pitch meeting years ago where USA asked the pitch guy for the premise of the show, and the pitch guy was like, “Five words. Gina Torres in power suits.” And the USA people were like, “Sold! Let’s do it.” And then they built that whole lawyer-drama mess around that premise…

There’s also been a conversation about whether Meghan Markle even deserves this type of specifically black-ass attention because she might not identify as black. Basically, she’s not black enough to get any love from black people.

Yeah, I know. And that’s fucking dumb. Meghan Markle was born black and is gonna die black. Her mom is from freakin’ Crenshaw, Calif., for Chrissake. If your mom is from the exact-same place where “I hate the back of Forest Whitaker’s neck” was said, any offspring she has will be blacker than a bottle of S-curl activator. It’s science…

Read the entire article here.

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A mixed-race princess is just what the Royal family needs

Posted in Articles, Media Archive, United Kingdom on 2017-11-29 01:21Z by Steven

A mixed-race princess is just what the Royal family needs

The Spectator
2017-11-27

Linden Kemkaran
Sevenoaks, Kent, United Kingdom

We’ve had a brown president in the White House and today, that palest of institutions, the Royal family, is formally admitting a mixed-race girl into its bosom. Wow, just wow.

I do wonder, speaking as a mixed-race girl myself, does this acceptance of colour into one of the world’s oldest monarchies mean that brown people have finally been acknowledged as being an integral part of the fabric of modern society?…

Read the entire article here.

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Britain’s black queen: Will Meghan Markle really be the first mixed-race royal?

Posted in Articles, Biography, History, Media Archive, United Kingdom on 2017-11-29 01:10Z by Steven

Britain’s black queen: Will Meghan Markle really be the first mixed-race royal?

The Washington Post
2017-11-17

DeNeen L. Brown, Feature Writer


A portrait of Queen Charlotte, the wife of King George III, and American actress Meghan Markle, who is engaged to Prince Harry. (Print Collector/Getty Images and Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images)

When Britain’s Prince Harry and American actress Meghan Markle announced their engagement Monday, Twitter erupted with the news that the newest princess in the royal family would be biracial.

“We got us a Black princess ya’ll,” GirlTyler exulted. “Shout out to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Their wedding will be my Super Bowl.”

We got us a Black princess ya’ll. You really can’t tell me a damn thing for the rest of the day because it won’t matter. Shout out to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Their wedding will be my Super Bowl. pic.twitter.com/WmBnGm5AuZ

— GirlTyler (@sheistyler) November 27, 2017

But Markle, whose mother is black and whose father is white, may not be the first mixed-race royal.

Some historians suspect that Queen Charlotte, the wife of King George III who bore the king 15 children, was of African descent…

Read the entire article here.

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Rachel Dolezal is now an artisanal lollipop saleswoman

Posted in Articles, Media Archive, Passing, United States on 2017-11-28 23:35Z by Steven

Rachel Dolezal is now an artisanal lollipop saleswoman

The New York Post
2017-11-15


Rachel Dolezal has a line of homemade lollipops. Polaris

Rachel Dolezal wants to sweeten her image.

The disgraced NAACP activist — who claimed to be of African-American descent, though she’s a white woman — is now hawking homemade lollipops for extra cash…

Read the entire article here.

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First Martyr of Liberty: Crispus Attucks in American Memory

Posted in Biography, Books, History, Media Archive, Monographs, United States on 2017-11-28 23:23Z by Steven

First Martyr of Liberty: Crispus Attucks in American Memory

Oxford University Press
2017-07-19
328 pages
22 hts
6-1/8 x 9-1/4 inches
Hardcover ISBN: 9780199731619

Mitch Kachun, Professor of History
Western Michigan University

  • Most thorough study of what is known about the life of Crispus Attucks.
  • First extended analysis of the role of Attucks in American history and memory.
  • Figure has been referenced constantly in popular culture throughout the centuries, inc. current series “Luke Cage.”

First Martyr of Liberty explores how Crispus Attucks’s death in the 1770 Boston Massacre led to his achieving mythic significance in African Americans’ struggle to incorporate their experiences and heroes into the mainstream of the American historical narrative. While the other victims of the Massacre have been largely ignored, Attucks is widely celebrated as the first to die in the cause of freedom during the era of the American Revolution. He became a symbolic embodiment of black patriotism and citizenship.

This book traces Attucks’s career through both history and myth to understand how his public memory has been constructed through commemorations and monuments; institutions and organizations bearing his name; juvenile biographies; works of poetry, drama, and visual arts; popular and academic histories; and school textbooks. There will likely never be a definitive biography of Crispus Attucks since so little evidence exists about the man’s actual life. While what can and cannot be known about Attucks is addressed here, the focus is on how he has been remembered–variously as either a hero or a villain–and why at times he has been forgotten by different groups and individuals from the eighteenth century to the present day.

Table of Contents

  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction
  • Chapter 1: Who Was This Man?
  • Chapter 2: The Dustbin of History: Crispus Attucks and American Amnesia, 1770s-1840s
  • Chapter 3: First Martyr of Liberty: Crispus Attucks and the Struggle for Citizenship in the Civil War Era
  • Chapter 4: Crispus Attucks Meets Jim Crow: The Segregation of American Memory, 1870s-1910s
  • Chapter 5: Crispus Attucks Meets the New Negro: Black History and Black Heroes between the World Wars
  • Chapter 6: Crispus Attucks Meets Dorie Miller: Black Patriotism and Activism in the World War II Era
  • Chapter 7: Crispus Attucks and the Black Freedom Struggle, 1950s-1970s
  • Chapter 8: Crispus Attucks from the Bicentennial to the Culture Wars, 1970s-1990s
  • Chapter 9: Crispus Attucks in Twenty-First Century America
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Index
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Do people feel privileged when they are white passing?

Posted in Media Archive, Passing, United States, Videos on 2017-11-28 22:59Z by Steven

Do people feel privileged when they are white passing?

Cut
Seattle, Washington
2017-11-15

Do people feel privileged when they are white passing? Check out the post interview to People Guess Who is White In a Group of People.

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