Binghamton Shooting 12-13 thought Dead

A prayer for those involved in and affected by the shooting in Binghamton, New York today. We hope that as many people as possible are untouched, at least physically, by today's events. I am thankful my family is safe, but my classmates' families might not be. I will never understand what makes people do this kind of thing. All we can do right now is hope, pray, and lend support. Yes, these things do happen in our neighborhoods too. We are ALL a community, we have all lost brother's and sister's today.

More soon...

Are we joking right now?

I went to a seminar today, not at Binghamton University I must add. I was very excited about the topic - Obama. I am a bit of a fanatic, I am not going to lie. But, that is another blog. So I sit down excited to hear a non-critical race studies or politics of race take on Obama. I got one. So the speech itself was odd, I left with the lyrics "how bizarre, how bizarre" ringing in my head. It was this surreal combination of passion and ignorance wrapped in to a neat little professorial ball. I thought about walking out but I was riveted to my seat breathlessly waiting to see if it could get worse, and it did. After complaining that he, the speaker, couldn't get time to speak because of "that black history month" and then "they had to have women's month (I think that is women's history month, but whose paying attention)", he went on to talk about things loosely related (IMHO) to media and race. At one point he likened the way media handles ratings and advertising to slavery... He pointed out that until Obama spoke he was just another black guy who could shoot a ball into a hoop. Apparently, for the speaker, all Midwesterners are tall and white. I could fill this space today with these examples, I will refrain. Suffice it to say this was the way the whole hour went. At one point I wrote in my notes that I had no clue what the topic was and I wanted to go home. What I left with was this...simple black and white is complicated. The speaker also told us that Obama's seat in the white house is proof that America has conquered our obsession with race. I would suggest that his speech was proof to the contrary. I could dismiss all of this, if it had not been for this comment (loosely related): "There is only black and white. Yeah, we make noise about yellow, and red and this mixed race stuff... You know, some people write papers to get tenure or promotions, they write some mixed race "stuff" but it comes down to black and white" Yikes, my dissertation, life study, and identity dismissed in one lame uninformed statement. I beg to disagree, but I won't waste my energy disagreeing with that level of insensitivity. Instead, I will share it with you.

In closing, I have to say, the most profound or rather profane, part of this talk was that the speaker was a person of color. I realized that I need to re-evaluate my level of expectations as I enter academia. I have to accept that my peers still will find my research "lame stuff" that I am only producing to get a promotion. I also have to learn how to process and reconcile these views - scholarly product - that denounce and diminishe what I have chosen to do with my scholarship. The whole experience made me sad and tired. I don't think I will be going to anymore Obama speeches any time soon.

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Should we be talking about something else?

My students are exceptional. I have one young man who really challenges me to think harder about race and mixed race. He asked me in class the other day why I would be advocating for the addition of another racial identity. He went on to express his concern that our conversations about a mixed race identity further perpetuated ideas of race, which he disagreed with. His feeling is that if race doesn't exist, scientifically at least, why would we "create" another "race" - mixed race? Great question. The conversation continued as each student talked about how they would identify if race did not exist. While my students who identified as white, mixed race, and raceless had little trouble embracing the idea of abandoning race, my students who identified as black resisted. One of my students said he would not abandon race because being a proud black man has been a life goal "who would I be without my race" he asked? "Nothing!" he answered. A fellow student shared his sentiment. "It is our culture, being black is a culture" he said. I am thinking about my own racial identity. I have to admit, I think I am attached to my race in a way that I was not aware of. Giving up my race, and my right to racially categorize myself as I see fit, is particularly important to me. I have to think more about why that is. An immediate guess is that I have become used to being the black girl (brown girl, mixed race girl, biracial girl, Sharon's black daughter) and that is how I know myself. I will have to think about how I would redefine myself without race. (And what the HELL would I study? :) Maybe I am just concerned that, without race, I would not be identifiable at all. This exercise, thinking about abandoning race, is starting to help me understand why my students who identify as white tell me they have no race or culture. I think that in the absence of exceptionality, if we are all the same, defining oneself inside of sameness does not make sense. I will have to really think about that one. Make today great!!!!!

More soon...

Things I should have known about my children...

As further proof that even though you study something you don't know it all, I made yet another shocking discovery today. I was going through still pictures to add to my documentary. I decided I would use some family pictures. As I went through and started to extract pictures of my sons, Matthew 18 and Joshua 16, I realized something huge. Both of my children are in mixed race relationships!!!! Not only are they in mixed race relationships, both of their girlfriends ARE mixed race. One might think I would have been keenly aware of this already...not so much...I guess I am too busy raising them. I wish I had realized this LAST WEEK when I was shooting. I guess that will have to happen in phase two. The neat thing is, other than realizing that I am still human and clearly flawed, there is still so much to learn right inside my own family. I wonder if my sons' choice of girlfriends is in anyway affected by being a) in a mixed race family and b) in a family that talks constantly about race and mixed race. My eldest son's girlfriend is Mexican/Caucasian and my youngest son's girlfriend is Puerto Rican/Caucasian. I cannot figure out if this means that I stink as an academic or just as a mother...

More soon...

An earlier thought...Come think Mixed Race with Me

(previously posted on another site February 2009...)

So far, I have had the most amazing time finding collaborators and doing preliminary interviews with them. Everyones’ stories, regardless of racial composition, are so similar even though the participants are so different. I think it is one of the things that delights me the most about mixed race. It doesn’t seem to matter if folks are Asian/Black/White/Latina/First nations, etc. everyone has similar experiences as mixed race people. “What are you?” seems to be how every one of the folks I have talked to have located their mixed raceness (in that question) - it is kind of how you know you are mixed race. I have hopes - I hope that this blog will invite people to think with me about mixed race. Mixed race for me is not a black and white/Asian and white/native and spanish, etc. type of thing, it is a self-identifying thing. So anyone who self-identifies as mixed race please come think with me. I have fears - I fear the rejection I have already received from some of my “critical race” peers. I have been told that mixed race is a) not an identity; b) not a community; and c) not worth studying. Fortunately, people of mixed race tell me EXACTLY the opposite. I am privileging people of mixed race as being more knowledgeable about their own lives than “we” scholars, so I am eager to hear about mixed raceness from mixed race people. I will be encouraging my students, collaborators, and project participants to start sharing their ideas on this blog as well. Another thing, this is my FIRST blog experience. It is going to be rough, but at least I will be writing every day like my adviser wants me to
Be special always

"Self" Identification: Self Identified by the Others

My husband and I attempted to register our daughter for kindergarten in May of 2003. I happened to be sitting in my “Gender and Race in the Classroom” seminar listening to student presentations. I started to fill out the mandatory forms for our school district. I got to page three. Half way down was the “race” box. I suddenly realize that our box has been ELIMINATED! REALLY? other will no longer be recognized as a race. At the same time I realize that the instructions say I can check only ONE BOX. How do I pick one box for the blue eyed, blond haired, Irish skinned black girl? I was livid! I crossed out the section and wrote things like THIS IS RACIST and THERE IS NO BOX HERE THAT REPRESENTS MY DAUGHTER. they called my husband. The principal told my husband that the race box was mandatory and that our daughter could NOT be registered without her race being documented. bullshit. My husband also refused to pick a box that did not represent my daughter. So after several attempts, the principal PICKED A RACE FOR HER. she picked white. I called the superintendent of schools, our former friend, and demanded that the school district take a stand and refuse to participate in this racist practice. We had been told that both the mandatory tracking of race and the removal of the other box were products of the No Child Left Behind Act and that all schools would have to comply. bush. Our district was a pilot district for this program of tracking and classifying children. The superintendent, after a two hour conversation, informed me that I was being selfish by putting mine and my children’s identity ahead of the financial welfare of the school. During my uprising of one, I also realized that not only were we never told about this “new law’s” impact on the racial categorization of children which single handedly overturned the 2000 census which allowed a person to mark all that apply, but the school had changed my sons’ racial categorization as well. The boys were registered as other. "Other" just did not exist anymore. Apparently someone, who the school would not turn over, had changed the boys races, without ever asking my husband and I what their races were or what we wanted them to be categorized as. I felt powerless. How were other people classifying my children by race? How far have we come? In the end, we left the categorizations alone because they speak for the ignorance of the law and its application. The geniuses in our school district had classified my oldest child as black, my youngest child as white and my middle child as Hispanic.

Sunday, March 29th 2009

I am in the process of completing the first draft of my documentary; a large part of my dissertation. My belief is that the audio-visual, sensory expressions captured in the documentary are more powerful and accessible than written theory. What I have captured is far beyond my wildest dream. My assumptions that mixed race is a chosen political identity is apparent in the deep self-reflection and careful relation of experience produced by my collaborators during interviews. The major themes that are emerging: choice - that mixed race people choose mixed race, unlike historical occurrences of mixed race that originate in oppression, dominance, and coercion. stability - that mixed race is a stable identity with fluid characteristics that are often misinterpreted as confusion and displacement. resistance - that mixed race is a resistant identity that pushes against the binary racial system of categorization that polarizes whiteness and "the other". intimacy - that mixed race is an intimate choice that transcends race, culture, and familial expectations. There are more themes and sub-themes but these are the ones that occur in every single interview. What is most remarkable about these themes is their expression by collaborators no matter the age, race, gender, education, or social class. These themes do not disappear even when the collaborator is bi-cultural; where part or all of the collaborator's ideas of race come from outside of the United States. These themes, and their consistency across collaborators, point to the reality of mixed race as a shared identity and as a global culture not just as an exceptional phenomenon.

More soon...