Optical Allusions: Textual Visuality in Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet Neary
Keyword(s):  
Racial Identity ◽  
Skin Color ◽  
Visual Image ◽  
Slave Narrative ◽  
Complex Interactions ◽  
Interpersonal Recognition

This chapter reads William Craft’s Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom (1860) as an emblematic text that depends upon a series of complex interactions between the Crafts’ cultivation of their image and their use of dialogue and narration in different contexts. Examining how the visual image Ellen cultivates is juxtaposed with the couple’s use of double entendre, the chapter argues that William Craft places the ambivalence of language and the ambivalent language of skin color side by side to unsettle popular notions of racial identity and identification. The narrative illustrates that phenotypical characteristics such as complexion are not facts with fixed meanings, but, rather, are discursively defined social symbols that can be manipulated to various ends. I argue that Craft turns this revelation back on the authenticating requirements of the slave narrative, offering interpersonal recognition as a mode of visuality which counters the objectifying gaze of slavery.

race

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denise Eileen McCoskey
Keyword(s):  
Racial Identity ◽  
Skin Color ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Distinct Group ◽  
Reception Studies ◽  
Racial Groups ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Ethnographic Writing ◽  
Classical Studies ◽  
Racial Thought

Contrary to the assumptions of previous eras, since the late 20th century, race has been widely regarded as a form of identity based in social construction rather than biology. The concept of race has experienced a corresponding return to classical studies, although this approach gives it significant overlap with terminology like ethnicity and cultural identity. The ancient Greeks and Romans did not consider human biology or skin color the source of racial identity, although the belief that human variation was determined by the environment or climate persisted throughout antiquity. Ancient ethnographic writing provides insight into ancient racial thought and stereotypes in both the Greek and Roman periods. Race in the Greek world centered in large part around the emergence of the category of Greek alongside that of barbarian, but there were other important racial frameworks in operation, including a form of racialized citizenship in Athens. Modes for expressing racial identity changed in the aftermath of the campaigns of Alexander the Great, a figure whose own racial identity has been the subject of debate. In the Roman period, Roman citizenship became a major factor in determining one’s identity, but racial thought nonetheless persisted. Ideas about race were closely correlated with the Roman practice of empire, and representations of diverse racial groups are especially prominent in conquest narratives. Hellenistic and Roman Egypt provide an opportunity for looking at race in everyday life in antiquity, while Greek and Roman attitudes towards Jews suggest that they were perceived as a distinct group. Reception studies play a critical role in analyzing the continuing connections between race and classics.

Passin' for Black: Race, Identity, and Bone Memory in Postracial America

2010 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Signithia Fordham
Keyword(s):  
Racial Identity ◽  
School Environment ◽  
Skin Color ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Interracial Relationships ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Female Competition ◽  
Race Identity ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Black Person

Signithia Fordham challenges the notion that we are living in a "postracial" society where race is no longer a major social category, as indicated by the rising incidence of interracial relationships and the popularity of biracial identities. On the contrary,she contends, a powerful fusion of historical memory and inclusive kinship compels Americans whose ancestors were enslaved to embrace a Black identity even when they have White as well as African ancestors. Fordham identifies this socially constructed racial identity as "passin' for Black." She argues that virtually every socially defined Black person connected to enslavement—regardless of skin color, hair texture, facial features, or paternity—must perform Blackness. Using narratives obtained from a recent ethnographic study of female competition and aggression in a racially "integrated"suburban high school, Fordham's essay documents how the complex, charged matter of racial identity—concurrently biological and social—inflames the lives of adolescents and impairs their ability to navigate the school environment.

scholarly journals Reflections on the Experiences of Turbaned Sikh Men in the Aftermath of 9/11

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 116-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kiran S.K. Arora
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Skin Color ◽  
Visual Image ◽  
September 11 ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Black Skin ◽  
Trayvon Martin

The murder of Trayvon Martin is a painful reminder of the violence perpetuated towards subjugated groups who are often deemed suspicious because of the color of their skin and/or clothing. The association of the hoodie and Black skin with being a member of a violent group is an association that is familiar for Sikh men. Many today are unaware of how Sikh men have been vilified because of their skin color and turbans. The terrorist attacks, which occurred on September 11, 2001, had a significant impact on turbaned Sikh men living in North America. These men have been targeted since then because of their shared visual image with the perpetrators of 9/11. This brief reflection discusses the experiences of discrimination these men have experienced, gives examples of psychological and relational injuries related to 9/11, and offers personal and professional lessons learned through conversations with turbaned Sikh men on their experiences.

Identifying Emma Dunham Kelley: Rethinking Race and Authorship

PMLA ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 122 (3) ◽  
pp. 728-741
Author(s):  
Holly Jackson
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Racial Identity ◽  
American Literature ◽  
Skin Color ◽  
African American Literature ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Her Family ◽  
Racial Categorization ◽  
Critical History ◽  
Rare Opportunity

Though she has long been considered a pioneer of black women's writing, there is no evidence to suggest that Emma Dunham Kelley-Hawkins, author of Megda and Four Girls at Cottage City, was African American. This author considered herself racially white, as did every recorded member of her family before her. Instead of simply asserting her whiteness to correct the “mistake” of her racial categorization in the scholarly reception of her novels, this essay explores the uses of authorial racial identity in critical practice. Reading the obsessive concern with skin color in Four Girls at Cottage City demands not only further consideration of Kelley's work alongside African American literature but also attention to issues of white racialization at the turn of the century. However we identify Kelley, the critical history and continued interpretation of her work provide a rare opportunity to observe the consequences of destabilizing an author's identity or, more precisely, recognizing identity as unstable.

scholarly journals Liberals=Black? Racially Ambiguous People’s Beliefs Determine Others’ Perceptions of Their Racial Identity and Racial Phenotype

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hui Bai
Keyword(s):  
Racial Identity ◽  
Social Perception ◽  
Skin Color ◽  
Memory Recall ◽  
Racial Groups ◽  
Political Values ◽  
Values And Beliefs ◽  
Racially Ambiguous

As the multiracial population continues to grow, the boundaries between different racial groups are becoming increasingly ambiguous. Yet, we might still spontaneously identify racially ambiguous people as Black or White, and treat them differently as a result. This paper identifies a novel variable that determines our identification of someone’s race—the person’s political values and beliefs (i.e., ideology). Six experiments (five pre-registered) with 3369 participants show that we perceive racially ambiguous people more likely to be Black, and, in most cases, to have darker skin color, if they are liberal than if they are conservative. The effects most likely reflect a motivated social perception, as opposed to a motivated memory recall, and the effects are stronger for people who believe in the White=conservative and Black=liberal stereotypes. Together, the current studies reveal a novel cause of our perceptions about race and skin color, suggesting that our values and beliefs can literally change how we look in the eye of others.

Skin Color, Racial Identity, and Life Chances in Brazil

1998 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 90-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peggy A. Lovell ◽  
Charles H. Wood
Keyword(s):  
Racial Identity ◽  
Skin Color ◽  
Life Chances

Where’s the fat? Freeze-fracture analysis of ingredient interactions in food systems

1993 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 48-49
Author(s):  
Jean Fincher
Keyword(s):  
Lipid Droplets ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food Industry ◽  
Freeze Fracture ◽  
Food Science ◽  
Complex Interactions ◽  
Fat Reduction ◽  
Important Trend ◽  
Conventional Foods ◽  
Whipped Cream

An important trend in the food industry today is reduction in the amount of fat in manufactured foods. Often fat reduction is accomplished by replacing part of the natural fat with carbohydrates which serve to bind water and increase viscosity. It is in understanding the roles of these two major components of food, fats and carbohydrates, that freeze-fracture is so important. It is well known that conventional fixation procedures are inadequate for many food products, in particular, foods with carbohydrates as a predominant structural feature. For some food science applications the advantages of freeze-fracture preparation procedures include not only the avoidance of chemical fixatives, but also the opportunity to control the temperature of the sample just prior to rapid freezing.In conventional foods freeze-fracture has been used most successfully in analysis of milk and milk products. Milk gels depend on interactions between lipid droplets and proteins. Whipped emulsions, either whipped cream or ice cream, involve complex interactions between lipid, protein, air cell surfaces, and added emulsifiers.

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