CVK
NPR’s All Things Considered did a story on Mavin’s Generation Mix tour. You can listen to the feed online here: A Generation of Mixed Race Youth Speaks Out. The story is pretty basic, but at least it doesn’t further reinforce any of the awful stereotypes out there about mixed folks. Sometimes, that alone is […]

CVK
California paper Red Bluff Daily News covers Ward “Moneybags” Connerly’s recent speech at a Republican fundraiser. Interesting that the paper refers to affirmative action as “racial preferencing.” Anyway, here’s Ward’s usual load of bull:
“It shouldn’t be controversial for me to say that giving a person 250 bonus points simply because of his or her race […]

CVK
Sad that this kind of thing is still so commonplace. An interracial couple in Charlotte, NC found a cross burning in their backyard recently. Police are trying to determine if it’s a hate crime. By the sounds of it, this isn’t the first act of intimidation the couple has faced:
Kim and Robert Mackey say […]

CVK

Last week’s New York magazine had an interesting article about how gentrification is affecting one single block in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a neighborhood long known as one of the most dangerous slums in Brooklyn, but now being prized for its supply of well-maintained brownstones and proximity to Manhattan.
The article points out that many of the neighborhood’s new […]

JC

The NY Times featured an article in their Sunday Styles section about Mavin’s Generation Mix tour and some of the other activism that is coming out of the mixed community. We were especially excited to have Mixed Media Watch mentioned! This is definitely one of the better articles we have seen written about the mixed […]

JC
Nicholas Jones of the US Census Bureau has just released a report on the multiracial respondents of the 2000 Census, We the People of More Than One Race in the United States.
This report provides a portrait of the Two or More Races population in the United States and discusses the twelve largest race combinations within […]

CVK
The Philadelphia Inquirer interviews former NBA star Charles Barkley, who is promoting his new book, Who’s Afraid of a Large Black Man? in which he interviews 13 influential Americans - from Bill Clinton and Barack Obama to Tiger Woods and George Lopez - who speak frankly about race and racism:
Barkley’s complexity enhances his controversial nature. […]

CVK

Woah. Last night’s episode of America’s Next Top Model was… interesting. They did a photo shoot where each model was transformed into an ethnicity different from their own, and were supposed to emote that ethnicity from within, or something. In one priceless moment, Tyra berated a model for not emoting “Eskimo” enough, saying: “Think about […]

CVK
The Office for National Statistics has published a new report on inter-ethnic marriage statistics in the U.K:
Two per cent of marriages were between people from different ethnic backgrounds (219,000). Of these inter-ethnic marriages, most (198,000) included a White person…
The most common inter-ethnic marriages were between White and Mixed race people, 26 per cent of all […]

AUM (a new MMW contributor!)
In this article from the NY Times Opinion pages, Armand Marie Leroi argues that the concept of race as a genetic reality, a concept which we had all replaced with the easier-to swallow “race as a social construct” model, may actually have biological basis.
“The idea that human races are […]

JC
UCBerkeley News follows up on their article of last week about four mixed students in order to highlight some additional thoughts from other members of the Berkeley community.
Thus, for me, race is an artificial construct, which isolates me from those unknowledgeable of the biracial experience. At the same time, my races help me […]

CVK
This is the letter I wrote to Essence magazine, complimenting them on their profile of Mariah Carey. Historically, Essence has not been the most forward-looking in the way they’ve handled mixed race issues or interracial relationships. Therefore, it was refreshing to see a very different take on the topic in their April 2005 issue. In […]

CVK
Mariah Carey graces the cover of Essence’s April issue. Though the coverline takes a one-drop stance (”Mariah Carey: America’s Most Misunderstood Black Woman”), the article inside deals almost completely with her mixed identity, and makes for pretty interesting reading. Here are some excerpts:
So this isn’t a twenty-first-century version of Imitation of Life. Still, race and […]

JC
The St. Paul Pioneer Press reports on the shutting down of Panzerfaust. This white-supremacy record label has gotten a lot of attention for their proactive distribution of hateful anti-ethnic messages to teenagers across the country. In September, Panzerfaust announced plans to pass out 100,000 copies of a “pro-white sampler CD.” Now they are in the […]

RN

Years ago filmmaker Cheuk Kwan was in Istanbul and came across a Chinese restaurant. Kwan had heard that the owner had actually walked from China. The discovery and amazing story sparked a life-long obsession that resulted in a 13-part documentary series that took Kwan and his crew to more than 13 countries. Kwan’s camera […]

JC
Diversity Inc. interviews Nina Tassler, President of CBS Entertainment. She appreciates her own mixed heritage and considers it a tool that has helped her to be more proactive in showcasing diverse talent.
Developing diversity from within is the philosophy Nina Tassler, president, CBS Entertainment, applies to her inclusive stable of writers, producers, directors and actors. […]

CVK

There’s a good article on UC Berkeley’s NewsCenter that explores what it’s like to be a mixed student at that school, where 22.9% of undergrads self-identified as mixed in a 2004 survey. (Across the UC system, the average was 25.8 percent. ) The article details the divergent experiences of four students, but also does a […]

JC
Mixed artist Laura Kina will have one of her pieces from Hapa Soap Opera displayed at the Korean Cultural Center as part of their 2005 Group Exhibition (March 11-24). At her site, Laura describes her motivation for creating the Hapa Soap Opera series:
My works draw inspiration from Asian film posters as well as European history […]

JC
A story in the Kalamazoo Gazette takes a look at the rising numbers of interracial marriages, the changes in anti-miscegenation laws, the attitude shifts, and then asks, have things really gotten better?
Davidson said it might be hard to determine how big an impact interracial marriages are having on race relations as a whole, but if […]

JC
Dallas News ran an interview with Iman about her make-up line for women of color. She created Iman Cosmetics and Skincare Collection eleven years ago.
“I realized there wasn’t a makeup product on the market that met my needs or the needs of the majority of women of color,” says the daughter of an African diplomat […]