CVK
Personally I’m sick to death of the whole Strom Thurmond / Essie Mae Washington-Williams thing, but it is my duty to report that yet another book is coming out soon on the topic later this month. Dateline Alabama reviews Strom: The Complicated Personal and Political Life of Strom Thurmond by Jack Bass and Marilyn W. […]

CVK
Sex, Murder And A Double Latte sounds like it would be a fun summer read. The protagonist, like the author herself, is black and Jewish. Here’s the book description:
When a mystery writer cries bloody murder, everyone blames her overactive imagination . . .
Thriller scribe Sophie Katz is as hard-boiled as a woman who drinks […]

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
The Contra Costa Times interviews Emily Raboteau, author of the newly released novel, The Professor’s Daughter. The article is pretty cheesy (the doll metaphor they start off with is STRAIGHT out of “Imitation of Life”) but the book sounds good. Like the novel’s protagonist, Raboteau is a young biracial woman. Here’s part of the Publisher’s […]

JC
Deborah Santana, wife of Carlos Santana, discusses her experiences, relationships, and mixed identity in new memoir, Space Between the Stars.
Born Deborah King in San Francisco in 1951, Santana is the daughter of a biracial marriage. Her father, African-American blues pioneer, guitarist, and distinguished tenor, Saunders King, cut the first significant electric blues record, 1942’s “SK […]

JC
The Los Angeles Times talks race with Senator Barack Obama. The interviewer assumes that Barack will have a hard time should he ever decide to run for the US Presidency, due to the things he discloses in his memoir, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. In this book originally published before […]

JC
The New York Times reviews new release, Angry Black White Boy - Or, The Miscegenation of Macon Detornay, by Adam Mansbach. Main character Macon Detornay is a “down whiteboy” who attempts to atone for his people’s sins and find acceptance within the black community by attacking and terrorizing other white people.
A graduate of Newton South […]

JC
A reporter for the Ledger discusses race and identity with some teens from Lakeland High School in Florida. What she found is that diversity is much more a part of their life now than for teens in generations past. They are more likely to “blend”. Why? Well, just look around!
Now, when black kids hang […]

CVK
The LA Times reviews renowned black film historian Donald Bogle’s new book Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams: The Story of Black Hollywood:
Heavyset and dark-skinned, with a beatific smile and nurturing demeanor, Louise Beavers forged a career playing domestic servants in such films as “Imitation of Life” (1934) and the 1950s TV show “Beulah.” But the real […]

JC & CVK
Media watchdog organization Mixed Media Watch announces that Jennifer Beals, The Rock, Showtime’s The L Word, UPN’s Girlfriends, and Verizon’s “The Elliotts” ad campaign are among its Image Award honorees.
New York, NY, February 9, 2005 — Mixed Media Watch, an organization that seeks to promote more realistic, three-dimensional portrayals of mixed race people, […]

CVK
The Canadian Press has an article about a new childrens book publishing company called Printakid, which offers parents the ability to personalize books, so that the protagonist of the book has the same name and physical characteristics of their child. The child’s family members’ names can also be inserted into the book. And of course, […]

JC
Janet Stickmon explores themes of identity through her new memoir, Crushing Soft Rubies.
Description:
Crushing Soft Rubies is the place where spirit, culture, and survival meet. It is the story of a Filipino-African-American who is caught between the death of her parents and the desperate need to define herself—not as an orphan, but as a strong woman […]

CVK
The New York Times was pretty harsh on Essie Mae Washington-Williams’ memoir “Dear Senator,” but today’s Washington Post review is even more damning.
“Dear Senator” shows no concern about Thurmond’s inappropriate, abusive appropriation of a vulnerable young household servant; instead, it offers only the hearts-and-flowers version of the story. (The corner of each page is adorned […]

CVK
VH1 will mark Black History Month with an array of original documentaries and specials including “Ego Trip’s Race-O-Rama,” which will air February 21-23 at 9 PM.
I’m looking forward to it, as I thoroughly enjoyed VH1 and Ego Trip’s last collaboration, “TV’s Illest Minority Moments,” a hilarious look at the way minorities have been misrepresented […]

CVK
Heidi Durrow’s story “Light-Skinned-ed Girl” beat out more than 800 other works for this year’s prestigious Lorian Hemingway Short Story award from the New York Foundation for the Arts. Here’s her artist’s statement on the NYFA site:
“As a biracial, bicultural woman, I write to discover my place in the world and literature. What is the […]

JC & CVK
Thanks to everyone who nominated our site for the 2005 Bloggies!
Mixed Media Watch is currently a FINALIST for the Best Kept Secret award, so please vote for us!
Please vote for us here.
(”Best Kept Secret” is the 4th category from the bottom.)
Thank you for your support, and please ask your friends and […]

CVK
The New York Times reviews “Dear Senator,” the new memoir by Essie Mae Washington-Williams, the illegitimate biracial daughter of the late segregationist Strom Thurmond. The review does little to offset the widespread impression of Ms. Washington-Williams as…how do I put this…a total pushover?
Now she also has a ghostwriter: William Stadiem, who recently made himself […]

CVK
Vermont publication Out in the Mountains profiles Phyl Newbeck, who has written a book called Virginia Hasn’t Always Been for Lovers: Interracial Bans and the Case of Richard and Mildred Loving. Her interest in the subject was piqued by the film Mr. And Mrs. Loving, and when she found that there was no book on […]

CVK
The Indianapolis Star reviews “The Bondwoman’s Narrative,” the earliest known novel by an African-American woman. Reviewer Frederick McElroy argues that the unedited manuscript can be disconcerting at times, revealing that classism and “colorism” among African-Americans existed even back then:
[Writer Hannah Crafts] describes herself as a biracial, whose “complexion was almost white, and the obnoxious descent […]