Go Kip Fulbeck!!!!! Kip has taken portraits of mixed race kids. His theoretical framework is similar to the one that I am working through. He is fabulous! Check it out!
http://www.mixedkids.com/
Newly Minted
Right after I was hooded
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Diversity, Equity and a Whole Lot of Yelling...
My department hosted its first student conference on diversity, equity and social justice: “Imagining Communities without Walls”. One panel was made up of students of mine from last year and this year who are studying in my “Examining Mixed Race Identity” class. The students had decided the content of their panel entirely on their own. I do believe my influence was present in the way they chose to share their lived experiences through a narrative articulation. They started with part of my area project documentary that many of them had been part of. After the documentary and music montage of mixed race families, the students shared each of their own mixed race identity stories. On the panel were “mixed race”, “mono-racial”, and “transracial adoptee” representations. All of the students spoke of mixed race from a place of lived experience and intimacy. Clay, a young man who identifies as monoracial and white, spoke of how he has experienced his race shift as he nears his wedding day with a mixed race African American and Puerto Rican female student. Clay talked about how his love for her and his growing love for her family and theirs' of him has changed his relationship to whiteness. This closely mirrors the experiences my husband and his family have had as well as that of my adopted family. It is this intimacy that allows a white man (enter any other race and gender here) to let go of the binary social conditioning that separates, categorizes and perpetuates the hierarchies that we understand as the racial continuum of the west. It is found in loving a child so much that it hurts when they are the victims of racism and subordination.
I had not prepared my students well. I had not told my students of the vicious attacks I have experienced in the academy by the radical black scholars who find it necessary to not only subordinate my identity and lived experience, but to negate both entirely. I can remember my first graduate class when a class mate, an African female, told me my mother could not have possibly loved me because she was white. What I know now, and wish I had been strong enough to say then is, yes, yes she does. In fact, love in its purist form and often in its more problematic forms (dating, marriage, community) is transcendent. Not only is the intimate transcendent, it is transformative. Sadly, my students were attacked as well as called confused. One student burst into tears when her lived experience was negated and labeled confused. After the panel session that student told me she was not confused; she knew what love was and that the intimate reality of her mixed race-ness could not be taken from her.
The attack that day came from an academic colleague of mine from another institution. I felt blessed that she came down to our conference, but I experienced harm from the way she chastised and belittled my students. This colleague is an aesthetically white Latina female who has invoked a politically black identity. She and I have talked about how her journey was shaped and part of that journey to blackness was, which I chose not to throw in her face, through the intimate. This colleague also experienced, and my guess is that she still experiences, resistance to her invocation of a black identity. What I want to speak to in this moment is that even though I and my students accepted her blackness without question; she refused publically to accept ours. Even after I lovingly pointed out that her argument about historical realities was not invalid; it was simply incomplete, she continued to discipline and to demean my students who were trapped behind the panel table unable to get a word in edgewise. She kept saying “there is a confusion here”. She was correct but she failed to see that the confusion was hers.
I am proud of my students. I am proud that they decided to participate in their first conference and put their intimate realities out there for what turned out to be an inquisition. What my colleague doesn’t understand is that my students left more certain that what they are thinking and writing about has merit. Their certainty comes from the reality that what they experienced was simply a validation of what they have been experiencing their whole lives. My students and I learned more than anyone else in that room. We learned that when someone reacts with such fury, you may very well have discovered a truth – yours - and theirs. I would also offer that such a performance of negation also suggests that it is an intimate truth as those have proven in my life to be the most painful.
I had not prepared my students well. I had not told my students of the vicious attacks I have experienced in the academy by the radical black scholars who find it necessary to not only subordinate my identity and lived experience, but to negate both entirely. I can remember my first graduate class when a class mate, an African female, told me my mother could not have possibly loved me because she was white. What I know now, and wish I had been strong enough to say then is, yes, yes she does. In fact, love in its purist form and often in its more problematic forms (dating, marriage, community) is transcendent. Not only is the intimate transcendent, it is transformative. Sadly, my students were attacked as well as called confused. One student burst into tears when her lived experience was negated and labeled confused. After the panel session that student told me she was not confused; she knew what love was and that the intimate reality of her mixed race-ness could not be taken from her.
The attack that day came from an academic colleague of mine from another institution. I felt blessed that she came down to our conference, but I experienced harm from the way she chastised and belittled my students. This colleague is an aesthetically white Latina female who has invoked a politically black identity. She and I have talked about how her journey was shaped and part of that journey to blackness was, which I chose not to throw in her face, through the intimate. This colleague also experienced, and my guess is that she still experiences, resistance to her invocation of a black identity. What I want to speak to in this moment is that even though I and my students accepted her blackness without question; she refused publically to accept ours. Even after I lovingly pointed out that her argument about historical realities was not invalid; it was simply incomplete, she continued to discipline and to demean my students who were trapped behind the panel table unable to get a word in edgewise. She kept saying “there is a confusion here”. She was correct but she failed to see that the confusion was hers.
I am proud of my students. I am proud that they decided to participate in their first conference and put their intimate realities out there for what turned out to be an inquisition. What my colleague doesn’t understand is that my students left more certain that what they are thinking and writing about has merit. Their certainty comes from the reality that what they experienced was simply a validation of what they have been experiencing their whole lives. My students and I learned more than anyone else in that room. We learned that when someone reacts with such fury, you may very well have discovered a truth – yours - and theirs. I would also offer that such a performance of negation also suggests that it is an intimate truth as those have proven in my life to be the most painful.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Oreos and Banana Splits
Yesterday I did a residence hall diversity training. We did an exercise where we wrote out our names and shared where we came from and what the history of our name is. I always start at Baby Girl and work through my marriage. I offer Mom, Bird, and Professor for nicknames. As we made our way around the room, a young woman of color ended her sharing by saying one of her nicknames is Oreo. Later in the training we shared one unique thing about ourselves. This same young woman shared that she was unique because she had a black father and a white mother. This student wore her mixed raceness like a heavy, wet sweater; wet to the point that the sleeves had come down over her hands and she could not move. This student's mixed raceness was not a blessing to her, she wasn't invoking it as her identity as much as succumbing to it. I spend a lot of time talking about mixed race identity as a liberating political, emotional and intimate choice; but there are individuals who feel put upon by their mixed raceness and it plagues them for the rest of their lives. My sense of it is that the way mixed race is subordinated, as well as the mixed race person, is what makes mixed race a prison for some. Often the community of color that helped produce a mixed race individual subordinates that person, othering and often isolating them. Mine and my children's experience with this could be summed up as never being “black enough”.
The positioning of mixed race is not and should not be a subordinate position. I am not only arguing that mixed race is a separate identity, lived experience, and intimate reality; I am arguing that mixed race is an equally weighted identity to those considered mono-racial. I am suggesting that mixed race is not half this, and half that. Mixed race is not a by-product or derivative of mono-race. Mixed-race has substance and weight of its own and must be ordered as a whole identity which pushes against the recipe narrative (1/2 this, 1/4 that, 1/16 the other) articulation of mixed race most commonly understood. Kip Fulbeck's 1991 video "Banana Splits" is a well produced articulation of the mixed race subordination my student was expressing. In "Banana Splits" Fulbeck pokes some fun at a system of racial subordination and racial understanding that would allow a person to be called or considered an oreo or a twinkie. I have given this student some reading, Fulbeck's "Hapa..." among them to help her understand that she is not having a singular experience. Mixed raceness and mixed race subordination is not restricted to her or to the african american mixed race person.
Of one thing I am certian, I prefer my Oreos to remain cookies ... not people.
The positioning of mixed race is not and should not be a subordinate position. I am not only arguing that mixed race is a separate identity, lived experience, and intimate reality; I am arguing that mixed race is an equally weighted identity to those considered mono-racial. I am suggesting that mixed race is not half this, and half that. Mixed race is not a by-product or derivative of mono-race. Mixed-race has substance and weight of its own and must be ordered as a whole identity which pushes against the recipe narrative (1/2 this, 1/4 that, 1/16 the other) articulation of mixed race most commonly understood. Kip Fulbeck's 1991 video "Banana Splits" is a well produced articulation of the mixed race subordination my student was expressing. In "Banana Splits" Fulbeck pokes some fun at a system of racial subordination and racial understanding that would allow a person to be called or considered an oreo or a twinkie. I have given this student some reading, Fulbeck's "Hapa..." among them to help her understand that she is not having a singular experience. Mixed raceness and mixed race subordination is not restricted to her or to the african american mixed race person.
Of one thing I am certian, I prefer my Oreos to remain cookies ... not people.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Being...
What I remember most clearly from my conversations about race with my mother was her telling me not to worry so much about “being” black. My mother always told me that what was most important, now I know it was most important to her, was “being” a good person. My husband often suggests that I view everything, past and present, through this critical race lens. I have trouble getting him to understand that the critical race lens really only provides a language for the things I already know. Even as a child, my mother's shaping of “being” upset me. I experienced race, since I had no community of color to process with, in my belly. It is funny, both of our daughters get tummy aches. I know now that it is anxiety and so I can only guess that my processing of race, at three and five, and nine was with an anxiety so intense that I took it for granted. I understood my “being” as abnormal to the rest of the world. But my mother kept telling me that “being” different was not only acceptable but a gift to the world. My mother gave me Martin Luther King Jr. and through that I came to believe that world peace, rather racial peace, was my job and my job alone.
My mother was fond of talking about how all the races could and should live as one and she held up our family as the perfect example. While we were by no means perfect, we were a family and we were different races and race was not the thing that held us together or tore us apart. I was very aware that my mother and my sister experienced pain, much in the same way my husband experiences our children's pain, when my race and other people's reactions to my race impacted me negatively. I can remember people asking my mother if I was hers and the anger that question evoked in her and then the sadness I saw in her eyes. I often feel like the only time I knew my mother truly loved me was when she was defending my blackness.
There were inconsistencies, in reconcilable behaviors and speech that occurred around me every day. My mother could sit and tell me what an amazing person I was, or was going to be; how I was going to bring the races together one day, and then call someone on TV a nigger. My mother was a very biased and racist person, yet she held up people like MLK and myself as the ambassadors of world change. I can remember wincing as my step-father talked about “the damn Jews” and “the greasy Italians” and I can remember clearly thinking “what does he think about me”. And so, the very sense of racial harmony and justice that my mother had instilled in me became my burden.
I have a sister and brother I don't speak to and I am pretty sure they have no idea it is because of their racism. I could no longer tolerate their racist banter. The final straw was my brother's face book bumper sticker that read “Speak English or Go Home”. My sister had written on his wall “Yeah, that is what I am talking about”. I wrote under her comment “you are both racist asses” and defriended them. I don't think they have noticed. No, I am sure they noticed, but I don't think they have a clue what I was talking about. For my family, racism is against black people. No, racism was against me. There was never anything there that abstracted racism to the rest of the world nor connected it to other isms. I can remember my sister in grade school addressing racist speech with “hey, my sister is black”; instead of something more universal about blackness and black people. I was the only black person we knew. For my sister and brother, and probably my mother, I am still the only black person they know.
My mother was fond of talking about how all the races could and should live as one and she held up our family as the perfect example. While we were by no means perfect, we were a family and we were different races and race was not the thing that held us together or tore us apart. I was very aware that my mother and my sister experienced pain, much in the same way my husband experiences our children's pain, when my race and other people's reactions to my race impacted me negatively. I can remember people asking my mother if I was hers and the anger that question evoked in her and then the sadness I saw in her eyes. I often feel like the only time I knew my mother truly loved me was when she was defending my blackness.
There were inconsistencies, in reconcilable behaviors and speech that occurred around me every day. My mother could sit and tell me what an amazing person I was, or was going to be; how I was going to bring the races together one day, and then call someone on TV a nigger. My mother was a very biased and racist person, yet she held up people like MLK and myself as the ambassadors of world change. I can remember wincing as my step-father talked about “the damn Jews” and “the greasy Italians” and I can remember clearly thinking “what does he think about me”. And so, the very sense of racial harmony and justice that my mother had instilled in me became my burden.
I have a sister and brother I don't speak to and I am pretty sure they have no idea it is because of their racism. I could no longer tolerate their racist banter. The final straw was my brother's face book bumper sticker that read “Speak English or Go Home”. My sister had written on his wall “Yeah, that is what I am talking about”. I wrote under her comment “you are both racist asses” and defriended them. I don't think they have noticed. No, I am sure they noticed, but I don't think they have a clue what I was talking about. For my family, racism is against black people. No, racism was against me. There was never anything there that abstracted racism to the rest of the world nor connected it to other isms. I can remember my sister in grade school addressing racist speech with “hey, my sister is black”; instead of something more universal about blackness and black people. I was the only black person we knew. For my sister and brother, and probably my mother, I am still the only black person they know.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Oh Harry...and other random tangents
I am watching MSNBC's Morning Joe, my husband watches so I watch against my will. In the process of reviewing the new book Game Change: Behind the 2008 Election, Harry Reid's comments were front and center. Morning Joe had the good Reverend Sharpton on this morning talking about the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's racialized indiscretion. Sigh... The allegation leveled by the republican co-host is that both the President and the good Reverend consistently forgive democrats for their racialized indiscretions; while someone like Imus is held accountable for his racism. Reverend Sharpton tried to argue that what Reid said, and was forgiven, could not be compared to what Imus said, which was unforgivable. Granted, I am at the beginning of my new relationship with the word Negro, but how in any context is what Reid said...forgivable. I cannot tell others what to forgive, but Joe gave a really good argument that might call both the White House and the NAACP to better examine their 'forgiveness policies'.
I may be missing the point on ALL of this, but why isn't anyone talking about why our President has to make the decision to forgive anyone at all? Morning Joe actually said at one point "Reverend, shouldn't you be more concerned about what those in your own party are saying". The reverend's response, honestly, made absolutely no sense to me but he ended it saying something like "I am concerned...he [Reid] consistently ends up on the right side of important issues..." So saying racialized things about our President is apparently not an "important issue". Moving on...
What President Obama endures as a man of color and the first black president; in particular a mixed race multicultural black president, is heart breaking to me. The reason I specifically mention Obama's mixed race and multiculturalism is because of the particular way those of us who occupy that socio-racial location are called on to be that bridge and to be the forgivers. My empathy for the president comes from being that bridge myself. One day I told my husband I wished I had become a botanist. Many days I feel battered. I study race. I teach race. I mediate race. and I live race. Flowers would just be less painful and less personal. I know what it is like, as do most people of color in social/political positions, to choose moving forward over personal social justice. Why don't we say "America, we are killing this man" or a simple "knock it off it is 2010 damn it". And Reverend Sharpton, I am talking to you too.
It seems to be endless, and I really need to turn the TV off, but I can't. At one point Morning Joe offered up a quote from Bill Clinton to Senator Kennedy; something like "a few years ago this guy would be getting our coffee" wherein Clinton is alleged to be referring to Obama. Even Blagojevich got some play with his comment "I am blacker than Barack Obama" which was simply dismissed by Morning Joe, because...well, "it's Blago". I had to get off my elliptical and throw up. This weird framing of these comments and the lack of empathy for President Obama's emotional well being? If I am throwing up, what is he doing? AND DON'T suggest he has or needs to have a thick skin. Thick skin can only protect the soul from spears that are unable to pierce that skin. Thick skin can only keep you from bleeding in public.
According to the online news magazine Daily Beast(thedailybeast@e.thedailybeast.com)"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid engaged in some serious damage control Saturday, after a leaked passage in an upcoming book said he called Barack Obama a "light-skinned" African American who lacked a 'Negro dialect.'" The good Reverend's position is that within the context of Mr. Reid's entire comment this was not the racialized indiscretion republicans are trying to make it out to be. Lawrence O'Donnell, who suggested playing a tape of Jesse Jackson and Obama to see if there was a difference. "We would hear a certain "black cadence", and Pat Buchanan appear to agree with Rev. Sharpton. Maybe racialized statements about our President is the only place our politicos can build consensus? I need to tell you that my position, since I am not invited on national TV (probably a good thing), is that this comment and all the other comments President Obama has endured - including a few from our black leadership if I am not mistaken - are not okay.
More soon...
I may be missing the point on ALL of this, but why isn't anyone talking about why our President has to make the decision to forgive anyone at all? Morning Joe actually said at one point "Reverend, shouldn't you be more concerned about what those in your own party are saying". The reverend's response, honestly, made absolutely no sense to me but he ended it saying something like "I am concerned...he [Reid] consistently ends up on the right side of important issues..." So saying racialized things about our President is apparently not an "important issue". Moving on...
What President Obama endures as a man of color and the first black president; in particular a mixed race multicultural black president, is heart breaking to me. The reason I specifically mention Obama's mixed race and multiculturalism is because of the particular way those of us who occupy that socio-racial location are called on to be that bridge and to be the forgivers. My empathy for the president comes from being that bridge myself. One day I told my husband I wished I had become a botanist. Many days I feel battered. I study race. I teach race. I mediate race. and I live race. Flowers would just be less painful and less personal. I know what it is like, as do most people of color in social/political positions, to choose moving forward over personal social justice. Why don't we say "America, we are killing this man" or a simple "knock it off it is 2010 damn it". And Reverend Sharpton, I am talking to you too.
It seems to be endless, and I really need to turn the TV off, but I can't. At one point Morning Joe offered up a quote from Bill Clinton to Senator Kennedy; something like "a few years ago this guy would be getting our coffee" wherein Clinton is alleged to be referring to Obama. Even Blagojevich got some play with his comment "I am blacker than Barack Obama" which was simply dismissed by Morning Joe, because...well, "it's Blago". I had to get off my elliptical and throw up. This weird framing of these comments and the lack of empathy for President Obama's emotional well being? If I am throwing up, what is he doing? AND DON'T suggest he has or needs to have a thick skin. Thick skin can only protect the soul from spears that are unable to pierce that skin. Thick skin can only keep you from bleeding in public.
According to the online news magazine Daily Beast(thedailybeast@e.thedailybeast.com)"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid engaged in some serious damage control Saturday, after a leaked passage in an upcoming book said he called Barack Obama a "light-skinned" African American who lacked a 'Negro dialect.'" The good Reverend's position is that within the context of Mr. Reid's entire comment this was not the racialized indiscretion republicans are trying to make it out to be. Lawrence O'Donnell, who suggested playing a tape of Jesse Jackson and Obama to see if there was a difference. "We would hear a certain "black cadence", and Pat Buchanan appear to agree with Rev. Sharpton. Maybe racialized statements about our President is the only place our politicos can build consensus? I need to tell you that my position, since I am not invited on national TV (probably a good thing), is that this comment and all the other comments President Obama has endured - including a few from our black leadership if I am not mistaken - are not okay.
More soon...
Sunday, January 10, 2010
The 2010 Census, Negros, and Me
Apparently I stand corrected, at least on my initial reaction to the "Negro" category. It would seem that a) there is a portion of our community that does prefer "Negro" as a self identifier; and b) that most Americans do not find "Negro" offensive or are not sure if it is offensive as evidenced in the online poll below.
POLL - Do you think the term “Negro” on U.S. Census forms is offensive?(1159)
(42.28%) YES - It's offensive
(43.49%) NO - It's acceptable
(14.24%) I'm not sure
http://www.thegrio.com/2010/01/the-word-negro-in-2010-census-form-offends-some-blacks.php
I have had some fantastic conversations in the last three days about the census form. I for one am still overwhelmingly upset. I get a knot in the pit of my stomach every time I think about it; not the word per se, but the power that I believe this word will give racism at the local level. I imagine, as a student affairs professional, the following scenario:
A young person of color ends up in my office via judicial affairs. There has been a fight and in this fight the student of color has physically assaulted a white student. Upon further investigation we find out that the student of color alleges that the white student had uttered a racial epithet which resulted in the physical assault.
I have experienced this scenario over and over; both at the institution I work at and with my own sons. Different interpretations of the law, and application, have yielded different results legally. What I can say is, regardless of consequence, every incident has deemed racial epithets unacceptable AND inciteful.
How and where do we locate "Negro" when that is the word that was used in the above scenerio instead of "Nigger". I tread softly here as I have heard compelling reasons NOT to blithely connect those two words. However, my initial reaction and that of most of my peers suggests that the interpretation of "Negro" by the bottom three generations might well equal the interpretation of the word "Nigger". What I am certain of is that we don't want to create a social acceptance of generally calling people of color "Negro". But, now that the United States Government has reintroduced "Negro" as an acceptable term, in a way it has not been since about 1960, can we stop "Negro" from sliding over into contemporary and acceptable linguistics.
A wise woman, a couple generations ahead of me in her life journey, pointed out a couple important facts about the word "Negro". First, that her own birth certificate lists "Negro" as the race of herself and her parents. Second, Martin Luther King's (as well as other civil rights writers) writings use the word "Negro" as an acceptable term. If nothing else I have come to see this conversation/debate/concern as an intergenerational one. I tip my hat to the generations before me who have seen things and endured things that I never have. I do live in fear, however, that in my or my children's lifetimes we may suffer those same events again. Going back in time strikes me as a particularly dangerous proposition for the Black, African Am., or Negro community.
The one thing I will NOT take my claws out of, regardless of the excellent reasons offered by my mentors and peers for including "Negro" in teh 2010 Census, is that congress made this choice in relative secrecy. I am completely unable to find any mention of this move to add "Negro" to the 2010 Census before about January 4... 2010. I am talking about a popular culture, quasi-political, media trail of this conversation/debate; like the one we usually see when race intersects with social behavior and/or consequence. I am unable to find mention of the bill passing in congress; let alone any mention of a public/private or legal debate about the matter. I also am unable to find mention of the study that produced the data that is loosely referred to in the Census Bureau's response to inquiry in the past week. This I am not going to accept. The addition of "Mixed Race" or "Other" to the 2000 Census was public and unavoidable.
All I am asking is who had the conversation preceding the inclusion of the "Negro" on the 2010 Census? Who are we representing in the addition of "Negro"? Finally, if the intention is to make sure more people are represented accurately and in a way that compels them to self-report via census why do I have to write in my racial identity - Mixed Race, still, because it is not represented on the Census and never will be. Mixed race is NOT acceptable. Negro is???? Apparently myself and my family don't deserve the same representation in the counting of brown bodies as those who identify as "Negro" and I want to know WHY!
More soon...
POLL - Do you think the term “Negro” on U.S. Census forms is offensive?(1159)
(42.28%) YES - It's offensive
(43.49%) NO - It's acceptable
(14.24%) I'm not sure
http://www.thegrio.com/2010/01/the-word-negro-in-2010-census-form-offends-some-blacks.php
I have had some fantastic conversations in the last three days about the census form. I for one am still overwhelmingly upset. I get a knot in the pit of my stomach every time I think about it; not the word per se, but the power that I believe this word will give racism at the local level. I imagine, as a student affairs professional, the following scenario:
A young person of color ends up in my office via judicial affairs. There has been a fight and in this fight the student of color has physically assaulted a white student. Upon further investigation we find out that the student of color alleges that the white student had uttered a racial epithet which resulted in the physical assault.
I have experienced this scenario over and over; both at the institution I work at and with my own sons. Different interpretations of the law, and application, have yielded different results legally. What I can say is, regardless of consequence, every incident has deemed racial epithets unacceptable AND inciteful.
How and where do we locate "Negro" when that is the word that was used in the above scenerio instead of "Nigger". I tread softly here as I have heard compelling reasons NOT to blithely connect those two words. However, my initial reaction and that of most of my peers suggests that the interpretation of "Negro" by the bottom three generations might well equal the interpretation of the word "Nigger". What I am certain of is that we don't want to create a social acceptance of generally calling people of color "Negro". But, now that the United States Government has reintroduced "Negro" as an acceptable term, in a way it has not been since about 1960, can we stop "Negro" from sliding over into contemporary and acceptable linguistics.
A wise woman, a couple generations ahead of me in her life journey, pointed out a couple important facts about the word "Negro". First, that her own birth certificate lists "Negro" as the race of herself and her parents. Second, Martin Luther King's (as well as other civil rights writers) writings use the word "Negro" as an acceptable term. If nothing else I have come to see this conversation/debate/concern as an intergenerational one. I tip my hat to the generations before me who have seen things and endured things that I never have. I do live in fear, however, that in my or my children's lifetimes we may suffer those same events again. Going back in time strikes me as a particularly dangerous proposition for the Black, African Am., or Negro community.
The one thing I will NOT take my claws out of, regardless of the excellent reasons offered by my mentors and peers for including "Negro" in teh 2010 Census, is that congress made this choice in relative secrecy. I am completely unable to find any mention of this move to add "Negro" to the 2010 Census before about January 4... 2010. I am talking about a popular culture, quasi-political, media trail of this conversation/debate; like the one we usually see when race intersects with social behavior and/or consequence. I am unable to find mention of the bill passing in congress; let alone any mention of a public/private or legal debate about the matter. I also am unable to find mention of the study that produced the data that is loosely referred to in the Census Bureau's response to inquiry in the past week. This I am not going to accept. The addition of "Mixed Race" or "Other" to the 2000 Census was public and unavoidable.
All I am asking is who had the conversation preceding the inclusion of the "Negro" on the 2010 Census? Who are we representing in the addition of "Negro"? Finally, if the intention is to make sure more people are represented accurately and in a way that compels them to self-report via census why do I have to write in my racial identity - Mixed Race, still, because it is not represented on the Census and never will be. Mixed race is NOT acceptable. Negro is???? Apparently myself and my family don't deserve the same representation in the counting of brown bodies as those who identify as "Negro" and I want to know WHY!
More soon...
Friday, January 8, 2010
Counting Negros in 2010
...Self-identified Negros of course
A student sent me this link: www.nydailynews.com/news/2010/01/06/2010-01-06_census_negro_issue_use_of_word_on_forms_raises_hackles_memories_of_jim_crow.html
This is a link to a brief article about the 2010 census. What is remarkable is that a student from over a year ago was impacted enough by the Examining Mixed Race course to still be concious of the value of such an article. I am feeling pretty good about that. It was the first incarnation of the course and students like Rachael have continued to shape the way I teach and think about mixed race. Thank you Rachael.
In Rachael's email she asked me what I thought about the inclusion of the word negro on the 2010 census. During our class we had spent time being critical of the occurrence and disappearance cycle of the category mixed race, in varying forms, on the United States census. Never in a million years did I think I would find myself talking about the word negro as cyclic or reoccurring beyond the realization of the African American identity.
I have to admit I am reacting to one online article and will spend a lot more time researching this. And, I have to say that this is what happens when we discount something like the census because we know it is flawed and systemically oppressive. I have not only not been paying attention; I have been ignoring the impending census on purpose hoping that it would not come. This is clearly something that I should have caught as the creation of the race question was being discussed. I was deeply aware of the very public debate about adding "Other" or any of its variations to Census 2000. That said, it is unfathomable to me that this has not been a more high profile conversation that would have caught the attention of even the most disconnected citizen.
I wonder if they discussed this with our new president or if there are statements or thoughts that he has already shared on the inclusion of negro in the census. What about the tenants of civil rights, are they weighing in on this? I am sure my research will uncover either a suppression of this conversation or my complete ignorance. My sense of it though, since 2010 is here, is that my committee or cohort would have rushed this to my attention knowing that I have used the census in my research and that I would be most interested in this. I am very curious about what my research will disclose about how this decision was made and by whom.
The most important thing I want to think about with all of you is this: What are we counting? What I have learned about census' role in socio-racial construction is not what the question on the form is; rather, what was the thought process and intention that led to that question. What we have learned about the race question in the United States, in its current form, is that the race question was added to count slaves; to access human property. Mulatto was added to make sure that mixed race bodies were counted as slaves and were not left out of that count because of aesthetic ambiguity. Mulatto then went away after the one-drop rule made it unnecessary to count mixed race bodies separately from black bodies. So, if negro is being recreated as a category on the 2010 census, what are we counting? If I read this article correctly, it would seem we are simply counting African-Americans over the age of 80.
More soon...
A student sent me this link: www.nydailynews.com/news/2010/01/06/2010-01-06_census_negro_issue_use_of_word_on_forms_raises_hackles_memories_of_jim_crow.html
This is a link to a brief article about the 2010 census. What is remarkable is that a student from over a year ago was impacted enough by the Examining Mixed Race course to still be concious of the value of such an article. I am feeling pretty good about that. It was the first incarnation of the course and students like Rachael have continued to shape the way I teach and think about mixed race. Thank you Rachael.
In Rachael's email she asked me what I thought about the inclusion of the word negro on the 2010 census. During our class we had spent time being critical of the occurrence and disappearance cycle of the category mixed race, in varying forms, on the United States census. Never in a million years did I think I would find myself talking about the word negro as cyclic or reoccurring beyond the realization of the African American identity.
I have to admit I am reacting to one online article and will spend a lot more time researching this. And, I have to say that this is what happens when we discount something like the census because we know it is flawed and systemically oppressive. I have not only not been paying attention; I have been ignoring the impending census on purpose hoping that it would not come. This is clearly something that I should have caught as the creation of the race question was being discussed. I was deeply aware of the very public debate about adding "Other" or any of its variations to Census 2000. That said, it is unfathomable to me that this has not been a more high profile conversation that would have caught the attention of even the most disconnected citizen.
I wonder if they discussed this with our new president or if there are statements or thoughts that he has already shared on the inclusion of negro in the census. What about the tenants of civil rights, are they weighing in on this? I am sure my research will uncover either a suppression of this conversation or my complete ignorance. My sense of it though, since 2010 is here, is that my committee or cohort would have rushed this to my attention knowing that I have used the census in my research and that I would be most interested in this. I am very curious about what my research will disclose about how this decision was made and by whom.
The most important thing I want to think about with all of you is this: What are we counting? What I have learned about census' role in socio-racial construction is not what the question on the form is; rather, what was the thought process and intention that led to that question. What we have learned about the race question in the United States, in its current form, is that the race question was added to count slaves; to access human property. Mulatto was added to make sure that mixed race bodies were counted as slaves and were not left out of that count because of aesthetic ambiguity. Mulatto then went away after the one-drop rule made it unnecessary to count mixed race bodies separately from black bodies. So, if negro is being recreated as a category on the 2010 census, what are we counting? If I read this article correctly, it would seem we are simply counting African-Americans over the age of 80.
More soon...
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