Identity Wars: Mixed Separatists v. Black Gatekeepers

Posted in Articles, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, United States on 2023-03-19 02:48Z by Steven

Identity Wars: Mixed Separatists v. Black Gatekeepers

Mixed Auntie Confidential
2023-03-16

TaRessa Stovall

Does this fight or fuel racism?

A growing trend has Mixed-race Separatists on one side, insisting that we have to identify ONLY as Mixed or we’re criticized as “One-Droppers” for refusing to separate our Mixedness from our Blackness, and rejected as problematic, inauthentic enemies of “true” Mixed identity.

On the other side, there’s a growing number of young Black folks—seemingly mostly women—who proudly self-identify as Gatekeepers. They’re adamant that Mixed-Black people aren’t Black, can’t call themselves Black, and aren’t welcome in Black spaces. This gatekeeping includes Mixed-Black people who very much identify with Black culture and community…

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The Cumulative Effects of Colorism: Race, Wealth, and Skin Tone

Posted in Articles, Economics, Media Archive, Social Science, United States on 2023-03-19 02:23Z by Steven

The Cumulative Effects of Colorism: Race, Wealth, and Skin Tone

Social Forces
Published online: 2023-03-13
DOI: 10.1093/sf/soad038

Alexander Adames, Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Sociology
University of Pennslyvania

Researchers have long documented a persistent Black–White gap in wealth. These studies, however, often treat race as a discrete category, eluding its socially constructed nature. As a result, these studies assume that the “effect of race” is consistent across all individuals racialized as Black. Studies that make this assumption potentially obscure heterogeneity in the size of the Black–White wealth gap. Research on skin color stratification suggests that it is possible that the Black–White wealth gap varies by the extent to which a racial subgroup is deemed to fit the broader racial umbrella. In turn, I adopt a more complex operationalization of race that is based on both racial and skin tone appraisals. Drawing on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, I find that the Black–White wealth gap does vary by the Black skin tone subgroup. Generally, the Black–White gap in assets is smallest when focusing on lighter-skin Black people and largest when focusing on darker-skin Black people. These differences are not only the result of initial disadvantage but also cumulative disadvantage in the rate of wealth accumulation. Lastly, the findings suggest that the Black–White wealth gaps grow at a faster rate than the skin tone wealth gaps. I found that differences were robust to adjustments for parental socioeconomic status, childhood background, and interviewer characteristics. I conclude by discussing the theoretical implications for our understanding of the mechanisms undergirding Black–White disparities in wealth attainment.

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That Time I Clapped Back at Langston Hughes

Posted in Articles, Autobiography, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, United States on 2023-03-13 03:34Z by Steven

That Time I Clapped Back at Langston Hughes

Mixed Auntie Confidential
2023-03-05

TaRessa Stovall


Me at age 3

Even as a child, I balked at the stereotype of the Tragic Mulatto.

It didn’t make sense to me.

And I straight-up resented its implication: that my existence was tragic and my whole life worthless because I was “this close to” but not completely white.

Neither I nor any of the Mixed folks I grew up with seemed the least bit miserable about our ancestry or identities.

I was a young “bookworm”—today I’d be called an avid reader—regularly devouring the works of many fine poets and authors including Langston Hughes, who was one of my favorites…

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‘Moral electricity’: Melvil-Bloncourt and the trans-Atlantic struggle for abolition and equal rights

Posted in Articles, Biography, History, Louisiana, Media Archive, Slavery, United States on 2023-03-13 03:20Z by Steven

‘Moral electricity’: Melvil-Bloncourt and the trans-Atlantic struggle for abolition and equal rights

Slavery & Abolition: A Journal of Slave and Post-Slave Studies
Volume 40, 2019 – Issue 3
pages 543-562
DOI: 10.1080/0144039X.2018.1539459

Bryan LaPointe, Ph.D. Candidate in History
Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey

Little known to historians, the Guadeloupean-born antislavery and equal rights activist Sainte-Suzanne Melvil-Bloncourt exemplified the complex trans-Atlantic networks forged for the abolitionist cause across the nineteenth century. As a contributing journalist for a Parisian political and literary publication, Melvil-Bloncourt produced numerous pieces on the history and politics of slavery and emancipation around the Atlantic world. The American Civil War especially galvanized Melvil-Bloncourt into more fervent antislavery action, prompting him not only to connect with activists based in New Orleans and the famous abolitionist Frederick Douglass, but also to raise money in France for former American slaves. This project explores the depth of Melvil-Bloncourt’s emancipationist sensibilities and activism, guided by what he deemed ‘moral electricity,’ highlighting the influence of the otherwise overlooked Francophone world in the age of emancipation.

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Colin Kaepernick calls out adoptive parents’ racism as he promotes new graphic novel

Posted in Articles, Autobiography, Biography on 2023-03-13 03:07Z by Steven

Colin Kaepernick calls out adoptive parents’ racism as he promotes new graphic novel

CNN
2023-03-10

Matt Foster

Colin Kaepernick’s graphic novel memoir details his high school years before he entered professional sports, according to the publisher. Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images

Former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick accused his White adoptive parents of perpetuating racism in their household in an interview with CBS’ Adriana Diaz on Thursday.

“I know my parents loved me, but there were still very problematic things that I went through,” the 35-year-old said.

“I think it was important to show that, no, this can happen in your home, and how you move forward collectively while addressing the racism that is being perpetuated.”…

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‘She had to hide’: the secret history of the first Asian woman nominated for a best actress Oscar

Posted in Articles, Arts, Asian Diaspora, Biography, History, Media Archive, Passing, United States, Women on 2023-03-13 02:27Z by Steven

She had to hide’: the secret history of the first Asian woman nominated for a best actress Oscar

The Guardian
2023-03-07

Andrew Lawrence
Beaufort, South Carolina

Merle Oberon was nominated for best actress in 1936 for The Dark Angel. Photograph: Sasha/Getty Images

Merle Oberon, a pick for best actress in 1936, was born in Bombay and spent her career passing for white

Magazine writers didn’t know what to make of Merle Oberon when she took Hollywood by storm in the 1930s. One writer described her as “bizarre, bewildering, and different”, while others marveled at her “delicate” oval face, “eloquent” emerald eyes, “bright red lips” and “alabaster” skin.

Though her 1936 best actress Oscar nomination for the coming-of-age drama The Dark Angel affirmed her place in a league with Katharine Hepburn and the eventual winner, Bette Davis, the glamor paragons of the day, it was only later that the world discovered Oberon was a south Asian woman passing for white

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BUILDING A MIXED RACE COMMUNITY: The People, Building and Sites of the Winton Triangle

Posted in Articles, Forthcoming Media, History, United States on 2023-03-13 02:10Z by Steven

BUILDING A MIXED RACE COMMUNITY: The People, Building and Sites of the Winton Triangle

Chowan Discovery Group
2023-03-06

Marvin Tupper Jones

The exhibit tells of Civil War escapes on the Chowan River in Tunis, NC.

The history covered in this exhibit spans from 1851 to 1973 and takes the viewer from the antebellum time through the Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow and the modern Civil Rights eras. It tells stories about over 30 people along with photographs and text. Four women are featured, as well as business people, farmers, carpenters, educators, church leaders, soldiers (Civil War and WWII), Civil Rights activists and organizations. One building included among the thirty 20”x30” panels is the exhibit’s first venue, the C.S. Brown Auditorium in Winton, NC

For more information, click here.​

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Racial Fraud and the American Binary

Posted in Articles, Media Archive, Passing, Philosophy, United States on 2023-02-02 02:01Z by Steven

Racial Fraud and the American Binary

Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture
Volume 6, Issue 3 (2022)
pages 44-61
DOI: 10.14394/eidos.jpc.2022.0024

Kevin J. Harrelson, Professor of Philosophy
Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana

In response to recent controversies about racial transitioning, I provide an argument that deceptions about ancestry may sometimes constitute fraud. In order to arrive at this conclusion, I criticize the arguments from analogy made famous by Rebecca Tuvel and Christine Overall. My claim is that we should not think of racial transitioning as similar to gender transitioning, because different identity groups possess different kinds of obstacles to entry. I then provide historical surveys of American racial categories and the various types of passing common in American history, in order to distinguish the potentially fraudulent from the relatively innocent styles of passing.

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Imitation of Life: On Passing Between

Posted in Articles, Communications/Media Studies, Media Archive, Passing, United States on 2023-02-02 01:49Z by Steven

Imitation of Life: On Passing Between

The Criterion Collection
2023-01-10

Miriam J. Petty, Associate Professor in the department of Radio/Television/Film
Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois

In 2005, the National Film Preservation Board of the Library of Congress added the 1934 version of Imitation of Life to the National Film Registry, its roster of “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” films. Archivist Ariel Schudson’s essay marking the occasion touts the film as “a defining moment in the history of women in film and a watershed moment for African American casting in Hollywood.” Directed by John M. Stahl for Universal Pictures, and based on Fannie Hurst’s best-selling 1933 prefeminist rags-to-riches novel of the same name, the film raises issues of gender roles, labor, race, identity, and the American dream in a melodramatic framework that might have otherwise been regarded as that of a mere “ladies’ picture.” Indeed, much of the film’s action focuses on the domestic sphere and the intimate, homey matters regularly dismissed as women’s work. But Stahl, like Hurst, uses domestic spaces to give audiences a closer perspective on such intimacies, employing the themes of interracial friendship and racial passing as metaphor and provocation…

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New ‘Latino’ and ‘Middle Eastern or North African’ checkboxes proposed for U.S. forms

Posted in Articles, Audio, Census/Demographics, Latino Studies, Media Archive, United States on 2023-02-01 17:31Z by Steven

New ‘Latino’ and ‘Middle Eastern or North African’ checkboxes proposed for U.S. forms

All Things Considered
National Public Radio
2023-01-26

Hansi Lo Wang, Correspondent, Washington Desk

New proposals by the Biden administration would change how the U.S. census and federal surveys ask Latinos about their race and ethnicity and add a checkbox for “Middle Eastern or North African” to those forms.
RussellCreative/Getty Images

The Biden administration is proposing major changes to forms for the 2030 census and federal government surveys that would transform how Latinos and people of Middle Eastern or North African descent are counted in statistics across the United States.

A new checkbox for “Middle Eastern or North African” and a “Hispanic or Latino” box that appears under a reformatted question asking for a person’s race or ethnicity are among the early recommendations announced in a Federal Register notice, which was made available Thursday for public inspection ahead of its official publication.

If approved, the changes would address longstanding difficulties many Latinos have had in answering a question about race that does not include a response option for Hispanic or Latino, which the federal government recognizes only as an ethnicity that can be of any race.

The reforms would also mark a major achievement for advocates for Arab Americans and other MENA groups who have long campaigned for their own checkbox. While the U.S. government currently categorizes people with origins in Lebanon, Iran, Egypt and other countries in the MENA region as white, many people of MENA descent do not identify as white people. In addition to a new box on forms, the proposal would change the government’s definition of “White” to no longer include people with MENA origins…

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