Reminisces of Participants in the Struggle against Apartheid about Studying in the USSR (1960s–1980s)

This article is a review of South African cadets’ and students’ memoirs that received political or/and military education in the Soviet Union as a part of Soviet assistance in solidarity against the apartheid. Most of them were fighters of the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC) “Umkhonto we Sizwe”. This paper examines and cites the curious aspects of Soviet life noted by the arriving students, among whom was the ex-President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki, as well as many former and current high-ranking authorities of this country. It is worth saying that the authors of the published recollections highlighted not only the positive aspects of their stay in the Soviet Union, but also did mentioned some negative sides, thus providing a more “complete” picture. However, one should not forget that in many ways the description of certain events was directly related to the student’s outlook and could differ from the real state of affairs. The authors of this article were especially interested in what trainees expected to see in the USSR, how their relations with Soviet citizens were built, and what experience they kept in mind at the end of their studies. The authors tried, partially quoting the memoirs of some freedom fighters, to answer these questions. It is worth pointing out that as one of the main results of cooperation Soviet officers and other instructors, by their own example, were able to change the racial perceptions of South Africans by showing how “white” people could be.

Contested Indigenous Landscapes: Indian Mounds and the Political Creation of the Mythical “Mound Builder” Race

Between 1790 and 1840, a constructed belief system arose arguing that the numerous Indian mounds were constructed by a separate, more “civilized” “Mound Builder” race. The multiple Mound Builder myths corresponded with a rising nationalism and romanticism in the United States that posited an ancient connection to the Old World. These myths reflected contemporary racial perceptions of American Indians, thus denying American Indian’s ownership of the land and their rightful place in history. Furthermore, the histories of the mounds serve as a modern-day warning against nationalism and pseudo-history for political purposes.

Asian American Experimental Theater and Solo Performance

Beginning in the 1960s and continuing into the present day, a wide range of performers and playwrights have contributed to Asian American experimental theater and performance. These works tend toward plot structures that break away from realist narratives or otherwise experiment with form and content. This includes avant-garde innovations, community-based initiatives that draw on the personal experiences of workshop participants, politicized performance art pieces, spoken word solos, multimedia works, and more. Many of these artistic categories overlap, even as the works produced may look extremely different from one another. There is likewise great ethnic and experiential diversity among the performing artists: some were born in the United States while others are immigrants, permanent residents, or Asian nationals who have produced substantial amounts of works in the United States. Several of these artists raise issues of race as a principal element in the creation of their performances, while for others it is a minor consideration, or perhaps not a consideration at all. Nevertheless, since all these artists are of Asian descent, racial perceptions still inform the production, reception, and interpretation of their work.

LATINOS AND THE PRINCIPLES OF RACIAL DEMOGRAPHY

U.S. federal agencies should treat Latinos as a racial or quasi-racial group in demographic data collection, rather than an ethnic or pan-ethnic group, as they do currently. Survey data must rely on self-reported racial and ethnic identification. But people often identify their own race differently from how others perceive them. In order for self-reported survey data to be useful for the enforcement of antidiscrimination law, it is important that it tracks how others perceive the respondents’ race and ethnicity, not just how they see themselves. To capture racial perceptions of Latinos, government surveys need to balance three subsidiary criteria: the promotion of self-reported racial identifications that are useful as a proxy for the perceptions of others; the ability to measure intra-group differences in how Latinos are racially perceived; and the extent to which Latinos are collectively perceived as a race. A survey format that treated Latinos as a racial group would likely be more amenable to these goals than the current format, but there are some areas, which this paper identifies, where further empirical research is needed in order to be sure.

“No Japanese in the Cockpit”

This article examines the techno-cultural process of accommodating, training, and qualifying the Japanese as pilots responsible for Pacific flights in the decade after the end of the allied occupation of Japan in 1952. There were two related modes of qualifying Japanese pilots, both of which created traffic of people, knowledge, and machines across the Pacific: One was the slow, politicized process of permitting Japanese pilots to fly again and training them with reference to American models of flying. Another mode of qualification consisted of measuring and recording the bodily differences between Japanese and American pilots, so that Japanese bodies could fit into American-designed cockpits and flying garments. Under the postwar technopolitical regime and given lingering racial perceptions, the terms and norms of the flying body and practice were mostly set by the American system, to which the Japanese worked hard to adapt. In this process, the cockpit and the Pacific served as crucial frames of reference for the Japanese. With its focus on pilot training and qualification, this article aims to bring together the histories of aviation, science, and U.S.-Japan relations and to situate them in the Pacific as a physical, imaginary, and technopolitical space.

Race and the Law in the Genomic Age

Despite the ‘Age of Genomics’, many scholars who study race and the law resist biological insights into human psychology and behaviour. Contemporary developments make this resistance increasingly untenable. This chapter synthesizes recent findings in genomics and evolutionary psychology, which suggest cause for concern over how racial concepts function in the law. Firstly, racial perceptions engage a ‘folk-biological’ module of psychology, which generates inferences poorly adapted to genomic facts about human populations. Racial perceptions are, therefore, prone to function in ways more prejudicial than probative of many issues relevant to criminal and civil liability. Secondly, many folk biological inferences function automatically, unconsciously, and without animus or discriminatory intent. Hence, current equal protection doctrine, which requires a finding of discriminatory intent and is a central mechanism for guaranteeing people equal treatment under the law, is poorly suited to that task. These facts support but complicate several claims made by Critical Race Theorists.