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(thanks Caroline!) NBC is looking at a pilot script from Chris and Paul Weitz for a comedy project that evolves around an interracial family… Writing the script is Angela Nissel, who is the daughter of an African American mother and a Caucasian father.
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(thanks Ryan!) George “macaca” Allen responds with ferocity when a reporter asks if he might have Jewish ancestors. Was he concerned that Jewish roots wouldn’t play well in parts of Virginia?
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Society wants to see multiracials fail so as to buttress the belief
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She was respectable, decent, and a talented actress. And then she decided to try to do the transition to America. All of a sudden, Yunjin Kim is being put on display like some sort of pet, wearing practically nothing, and all with that same vapid “fuck me
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…McGreevey is given an opportunity to openly discuss his struggles and failures without having to carry the stigmatizing labels of “down low,” “predator,” and “pathological” that accompany Black men who engage in similar practices…
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Clearly, black movement politics has entered the geriatric stage — if, indeed, anything worthy of the term “movement” still exists… All too often, critics dismiss the lack of younger activists at the podium as a function of a black “generational divide
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When closeted black gay and bisexual men cheat on their wives, the evil “down low” term inevitably comes up in the discussion… But when white guys do it, we kind of call it by a different name, try to empathize with them, and resist generalizations abou
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(thanks daddyinastrangeland!) A Maine couple accused of tying up their 19-year-old daughter, throwing her in their car and driving her out of state to get an abortion were upset because the baby’s father is black, a Maine sheriff said Tuesday.
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“…It began in high school, when I was first exposed to different landforms. It was then that I realized my deep attraction to the remote, demure, but utterly entrancing continent of Asia. In college, I double-majored in geography and earth science, but
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For some reason, studies and reports featuring Latinos surface with such regularity during Hispanic Heritage Month…maybe they think they’re giving the community a gift by telling us which cancers we’re more prone to die from or just how much time we spe
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“Morgan Wilkins, an independent contractor hired to draw students into the GOP, had envisioned an event where volunteers would pretend to be illegal immigrants and hide somewhere on campus while others try to find them. The winner would receive a prize…
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“…writer Alisa Gumbs profiles former African American models who transitioned from runway divas to savvy businesswomen-from the legendary Barbara Smith of B. Smith Enterprises to the flamboyant Kimora Lee Simmons, president and creative director of Baby
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“…For the second time in a year, Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling is facing charges of housing discrimination for not renting apartments to African Americans. Yet Sterling is making money from his mostly black basketball team…”
Stephanie B. wrote:
Thanks for publishing the story. To be honest, media, academia, and society are working together to get the twisted view out to the American public, warning them of the dangers of interracial relationships and multiracial children. The oft phrase,”what about the children?” ratifies the fear Americans have toward multiracials. It’s a way to put multiracials, especially those of black/nonblack ancestries, “in their place” so as not to disturb the white American power structure as they have done(and still do) with People of Color.
Stephanie
Stephanie’s Journal at:
http://httpjournalsaolcomjenjer6steph.blogspot.com/
Posted 20 Sep 2006 at 10:40 am ¶
IkoIko wrote:
I’m curious why a number of key items were played up on the blog post to the exclusion of others…
The University of Chicago Magazine is not an academic journal, but merely a standard university PR vehicle to highlighting the work of faculty, students, etc. So the level of detail about the work in question would be different.
Dr. Yoonsun Choi, the academic with whom issue is taken, is an assistant professor at the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago, who also is a faculty member at the university’s interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture (the former affiliation was mentioned in the actual U.Chicago article, the latter was not).
The work in question was an analysis of a 1997 federal survey of 2,082 Seattle middle-school students published this past spring in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry.
The original survey was aimed at improving minority-youth health. 20% of the respondents self-identified as multiracials, and were asked to candidly self-report about a number of problem-related helath behaviors in lower-income neighborhoods.
So given the timeframe, that means all this data collected under the Clinton Administration. Dr. Choi’s analysis of the 20% multiracial subset, therefore was not an actual study, merely a review of the numbers for patterns from the responses.
Dr. Choi herself clearly states in the magazine piece that she “had yet to decipher all the factors that exacerbate multiracial youths’ ‘bad outcomes’. Again not things that make them bad because they are multiracial, but the factors that are more likely to correlate because they are multiracial youth. That’s where any study actually kicks in.
That no commentary bothered to pick up her three thoughts on the impact of the problem from the study, would seem to suggest an agenda in an of itself.
Dr. Choi clearly stated her view towards the end of the same article that:
(1) racial discrimination by other ethnic groups is part of the hurdle multiracials face
(2) with kids being prone to act out in response to ridicule or ostracism, other kids will push others out if the encounter others of any racial combination. She however compared findings from similar surveys in Hawaii with multiracial youth, noting that there were not more problems than monoracial classmates. That key difference she attributed to:
(3) strong ethnic identity, racial or cultural pride providing a sense of belonging and in turn confidence that protects kids from destructive behavior
The intriguing, though controversial afterthought and implication Dr. Choi hints at– again left untouched– is how does one orient towards an identity that provides favorable grounding however mixed you are while navigating the reality that the assimilation happens pretty rapidly.
So yeah, it’s “yet another academic study about multiracials”. But at a time when good data, solid research, and clear messages are underscoring how complex the issues are and what’s needed to support youth as they assert their identity however they choose to– is it not more of a disservice to dismiss the people trying to do more than simply raise the issues, before actually reviewing and processing what’s said on its worth and merits by not even framing the work in full?
(No affiliation with U.Chicago in any way shape or form…)
Posted 20 Sep 2006 at 12:48 pm ¶