BlogHer - An introduction - Comments

It's great to be here!

CarmenVanKerckhove — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 19:08:37 -0600

Thank you so much for the warm wishes, everyone! And Kim, thank you for sharing that historical perspective. Yes, race has always been a tool used to oppress and divide. It's important that we learn about the past to understand our present.

Carmen Van Kerckhove
NEW DEMOGRAPHIC
carmen@newdemographic.com
www.newdemographic.com

Welcome Carmen!

Maria Niles — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 11:50:06 -0600

It was so wonderful to meet you last year at BlogHer on the Identity and Obligation panel. I'm thrilled that you are joining Laina here. Welcome!

Nice to meet you, Carmen!

Zandria — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 11:36:54 -0600

I think your take on this subject will be a great addition to BlogHer, and I look forward to reading your contributions. :)

Keep Up With Me

Welcome

Kalyn Denny — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 09:03:37 -0600

Welcome. It sounds like you're involved in some very interesting and worthwhile projects. Look forward to your posts.

Kalyn Denny
Kalyn's Kitchen

The US neurosis over racial classification has deep roots

Kim Pearson — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 07:43:53 -0600

Welcome Carmen.

As I'm sure you know US obsession with race has its roots in the 18th century dilemma of how to create a democracy without granting equality to people that the framers thought were unequal. One solution was to valorize the fictitious identity of "white" and define everyone else as inferior to that. This was the basis of the Naturalization Act of 1790, and led to 160 years of tortured case law known as the "racial prerequisite cases." Professor Ian Haney Lopez has this to say about the impact on Asian immigration in the early 20th century:

". . . Although now largely forgotten, the prerequisite cases were at the center of racial debates in the United States for the fifty years following the Civil War, when immigration and nativism were both running high. Naturalization laws figured prominently in the furor over the appropriate status of the newcomers and were heatedly discussed not only by the most respected public figures of the day, but also in the swirl of popular politics. Debates about racial prerequisites to citizenship arose at the end of the Civil War when Senator Charles Sumner sought to expunge Dred Scott, the Supreme Court decision which had held that Blacks were not citizens, by striking any reference to race from the naturalization statute. His efforts failed because of racial animosity in much of Congress toward Asians and Native Americans. The persistence of anti-Asian agitation through the early 1900s kept the prerequisite laws at the forefront of national and even international attention. Efforts in San Francisco to segregate Japanese schoolchildren, for example, led to a crisis in relations with Japan that prompted President Theodore Roosevelt to propose legislation granting Japanese immigrants to right to naturalize. Controversy over the prerequisite laws also found voice in popular politics. Anti-immigrant groups such as the Asiatic Exclusion League formulated arguments for restrictive interpretations of the "white person" prerequisite, for example claiming in 1910 that Asian Indians were not "white," but an "effeminate, caste-ridden, and degraded" race who did not deserve citizenship...."

The laws may be gone, but their legacy lingers...

Kim Pearson
BlogHer Contributing Editor
Law and Journalism/Media

Contributing Writer,Online Journalism Review

Welcome!!

lainad — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 07:18:01 -0600

Great to have you on board!

An introduction

CarmenVanKerckhove — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 00:13:35 -0600

Hi everyone,

My name is Carmen Van Kerckhove and I'm thrilled to join the amazing Laina Dawes as a Contributing Editor to the Race, Ethnicity & Culture section.

I'm co-founder and president of New Demographic, an anti-racism training company. I host Addicted to Race, a podcast about Americaâ€™s obsession with race and I edit a network of blogs, including Racialicious, a blog about the intersection of race and pop culture, Anti-Racist Parent, a blog for parents committed to raising children with an anti-racist outlook and Race Changers, a community of people working towards an anti-racist future, one week at a time.

Okay, now that I have the boring resume part out of the way, let me tell you a little bit about myself.

I was born in Hong Kong to a Chinese mother and Belgian father and my family moved around quite a bit when I was a kid. We spent a couple of years in Belgium, four years in Shanghai (back when women still rocked nylon ankle socks with sandals and The Peace Hotel was the fanciest spot in town) but I spent most of my youth in Hong Kong.

When I moved to New York City for college, I experienced some pretty severe culture shock when it came to race.

Growing up in Hong Kong, I knew a lot of other mixed kids like me. And while I won't pretend that I never experienced any issues surrounding my identity, one thing I can say is that people always knew right away that I was mixed. It was never something I had to explain or justify.

But when I moved to the U.S., I found that the attitude towards mixed race identity was completely different and that the one-drop rule was very much in effect.

When people would ask me about my race and I'd explain my background, they would say something like, "Oh so you're really just Asian." I never knew how to respond to this. If I rejected the statement, it would seem as if I had some problem with being labeled as Asian. But if I didn't challenge the statement, I would be allowing them to redefine my identity for me.

Experiences like this made me realize that the United States had a long way to go when it came to understanding mixed race identity. I became involved in activism surrounding mixed race issues, eventually partnering with the wonderful Jen Chau to co-found New Demographic.

Our original mission was to encourage people to reject the stereotypes surrounding mixed race identity and interracial relationships. But we soon realized that we were actually using these topics as a filter through which to discuss race and racism in general. So we refocused our mission and introduced the core beliefs that guide our work.

I'm really glad to see that BlogHer recognizes the importance of discussing race and ethnicity. Over the last twenty years there's been an emphasis on diversity and multiculturalism in schools and workplaces, but that has often been accompanied by a severe reluctance to discuss race or even a willful blindness towards racism (e.g., "I don't see color, I just see people!").

Talking about race doesn't have to be such a scary thing. In fact, there's so much absurdity involved in race that it can often be pretty damn funny. (Did you know, for instance, that there are actually people out there who believe Asian women have horizontal vaginas?)

I look forward to getting to know you and I'm sure we're going to have some great conversations. Talk to you soon!