Week 5, ASA 115, Neil Castro

For Week 5, Traitors Strike Back, Venerations: Hybrid Vigor, Cultural Bridges,Golden People, Race Saviors, and Ideal Beauty, I read "The Impact of Internet Publishing and Online Communications on Mixed-Race Discourses” by Steven F. Riley & Glenn C. Robinson and the “Bill of Rights for People of Mixed Heritage.” by Maria PP Root. They both talked how mixed raced people try to vent out their frustration and try to find other people that have a similar struggle. Tools like a website or some kind of spoken word to express their inner struggle of finding their identity. In Riley and Robinson's article, they used these blogs or websites to "racial bridge" (finding other people that associate with their race comfortably) so people who have these kinds of insecurities of being mixed race or the education of understanding mixed race can be shown. They highlighted that even though making these sites are a great thing (both authors created mixedracestudies.org or mixedamericanlife.us respectively), they lamented that their tools like the use of WordPress and the increased glamorization of race can sometimes create whining outlook of people that are outside of this relationship of mixed race. However, these site are integral to understanding ethnic studies of mixed race people as it is used within college campuses in their curriculum and to help people find their identity if they are mixed race. The Root's piece is a outcry of whoever is mixed race. The author proclaims that mixed race people have a right to be called their preferred ethnicity without the need to be questioned by other people. she also proclaims that mixed people choose freely and love people no matter what ethnicity they are because they are multi-ethnic and they feel proud of being who they are. This piece creates a welcoming embrace for people who are finding what identity they are while telling people in a mono-ethnic society to stop boxing them in one category. It can be seen as a battle cry, a warning or a heartfelt letter to people of different races.

I felt that these pieces are basically telling us that people of all races are welcomed. It doesn't matter how you find them or how to discover their struggle, mixed people are just people but with a unique history. In this class, we have been using blogger to do our assignments but in reality we become educators. We become the bloggers that go to mixedracestudies.org so people from different walks of life will understand people of different ethnicities better. Thus the spoken word piece is the mantra to understand mixed people because even though they are mixed race, they are people which means they also want respect. I wonder though, how can people understand the struggle of being mixed race more without glamorizing it? How can people want to understand the issues of being mixed race in real time?

Note: I chose Black SpiderMan by Logic as my art piece because it mimics the same movements as the piece by Maria PP Root.