Thursday, April 4, 2013

Multiracial Movement Part 2




Multiracial Movement Suicide? Part 2

Now that we know from Part 1 that I never had a picture of Newt Gingrich in my home, let’s move on to my politics instead of personal attacks about my home decorating savvy. Alicia Castagno in “’Founding Mothers:’ White Mothers of Biracial Children in the Multiracial Movement (1979-2000)” calls me a conservative Republican.

Oy, where do I start? I’m actually a pretty liberal Democrat—always have been except for a short time when I was a registered Libertarian; hardly a radical moment. I do admit that I vote in every election, but I’m sure Alicia does too, along with all the academics.

The plain Jane truth is that before I came along, everyone in the multiracial movement was terrified of politics, especially the men for some reason. Alicia criticizes me endlessly about not having studied enough about multiracial politics before starting Project RACE. The following are just a few of the reasons for that:

1.     There wasn’t much available about multiracial politics. The groundbreaking book Who is Black? By F. James Davis was published in 1991. I called him one day and we not only had a lovely chat, but he and his wife came to visit me and my family. On a lovely evening in Atlanta, we talked into the night and the academic and I actually spoke the same language.

2.     The Nature of Prejudice by Gordon W. Allport was in its 25th Anniversary Edition printing by the time I founded Project RACE, but it was an important classic. Most of today’s “multiracial academics” were probably still in diapers back then.

3.     Shelby Steele and Cornel West were starting to put out more mainstream books for the academics and us poor advocates who had learned to read, spent some time with those publications. Yes, the “privileged white women” read books by black men.  

4.     I had to make some quick choices, and the first one was whether to spend precious time reading what there was to read about the history of race relations from the time of the cavemen or learn all I could very quickly about public policy and the concerns of the interracial community. I chose to put my time where I could do the most good for the most multiracial children. I was born in Detroit and spent my formative years there; I lived in Atlanta when I started Project RACE and hung out with an Abernathy, a Portier, a King, CNN folks, and a lot of other people who were as happy to take credit as I was to give it to them. I think I had a pretty good background in race relations, civil rights, and discrimination. We at Project RACE also took crash courses in demographics, data analysis, non-profit status, law, business, government (local, state, and federal) and so much more.

5.     I think my political “wins” for the multiracial community came from the fact that I was fearless.  People have asked me for years how I got Senator Abernathy to champion our bill in Georgia and I still reply, “I called him on the phone, explained what was needed and he said, ‘Let’s do it.” Tada. The stories about what came about in the next THREE years that we worked that bill in Georgia will be in the book I am writing.

6.     You might want to keep in mind that this was well before we were all on the Internet, and it wasn’t as easy as googling information or taking an online class. Not many of us plain folk had email, but the academics were among the first to get it, and the first to abuse the public forum.

Alicia confesses on page 10 that “I focus specifically on the group Project RACE and its founder, Susan Graham, to illustrate the ways in which Graham’s racial identity informed her political decisions.” Wow. I bet she doesn’t even know my birthday or that I’m a redhead, but she does know how I was raised, my full racial and ethnic heritage, my religion, and my deepest private political thoughts. The girl is amazing! I happen to know that Alicia is part Asian, but I don’t think that says anything about her politics. I just can’t lump people of any racial or ethnic heritage into one box and I would never even think to make such assumptions.

Honestly, the rest of this disaster of a thesis is pretty boring same old shit, just re-quoted. It isn’t even well written. It’s more genuflecting to Rainier Spencer and his favorite mouthpiece and librarian, Steve Riley. Alicia even mixes in a little Eric Hameko, which is always good for a few laughs. There are more quotes <yawn> from academics I don’t recognize, and never spoke to, but who apparently had webcams on me for 23 years.

Also keep in mind that the lofty period of time this was supposed to cover was 1979-2000. I came on the scene in 1990 and the Census Bureau/Office of Management and Budget (OMB) fiasco was pretty much a done deal by 1997. So Alicia didn’t cover 21 years, she actually tried to delve into 7 years, and never did write a word about Project RACE’s huge victories in many states and other venues. And by the way, we’re not done yet. I recently received a letter from OMB advising me of their plans for race and ethnicity up to and including the 2020 Decennial Census. Did you get yours?

My recommendation is that you skip the next 80 pages or so and go right to the absurd conclusions that start on page 99 titled, “CONCLUSION: THE THWARTED UTOPIAN POTENTIAL OF MULTIRACIAL POLITICS.” Yeah, that’s where I’ll be for Part 3, just as soon as I can get to it.
-Susan Graham






11 comments:

  1. Susan, I'm glad to hear that you are writing a book. Most of the history of the multiracial movement is being lost because our academic enemies are making sure that academia and the media are deluged with false histories. Hardly anyone ever questions the fact that they almost never refer to primary documents from actual multiracial movement activists or tell their students where they can find those documents and read for themselves. I hope that you find a mainstream publisher for it who will provide extensive publicity.

    What our enemies are trying to do is preserve a blatantly racist idea (the "one drop rule") and present it to a gullible academic and media as something positive. This is really like reviving the old Nazi classifications of "Aryan" and "non-Aryan" and pretending that the terms should be glorified and made into something "positive." When fools embrace the idea that the "one drop rule" and forced hypodescent in general are "positive" and morally demonize multiracial activists who oppose that nonsense, they are effectively promoting racism in one of its purest forms.

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  2. Many who think of themselves as multiracial activists don't know the difference between a friend and an enemy:

    http://mixedamericanlife.wordpress.com/tag/alicia-doo-castagno/

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  3. You are correct, Anon-II. For those who keep harping on white privilege and how the whites are "doing it wrong," please think who it has always been who stood, sat, and marched along with a rainbow of color to protect your rights as well as the rights of every individual in this country. Alicia needs to grow up and begin to think for herself. She certainly did NOT use primary sources for her paper and if she did, it was only one and even then she misquoted the only legitimate source she had. "Mandy" and "Anonymous" are not properly cited. This thesis, if you want to call it that, is more like a high-school child's attempt at his or her first term paper. Shame on whomever allowed it to see the light of day. It is disgraceful. If something like this were to make it to my desk it would be handed back immediately with a big red F. How can anyone with any common sense openly quote this piece of trash and take it seriously?

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  4. Thank you for the thoughtful comments. It really is sad that those folks are trying to re-write history. Part 3 will be coming up soon! -Susan

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  5. Alicia Doo Castagno's ridiculous work is labeled an "honors thesis." If she were writing about a powerful ethnic or social group, her inferior "scholarship" would not be tolerated. Universities allow these people to say anything they want about us without challenge because we are unable to reward our friends and punish our enemies.


    http://wesscholar.wesleyan.edu/etd_hon_theses/935/

    http://wesscholar.wesleyan.edu/etd_hon_theses/

    Assistant Professor of English and American Studies Amy C. Tang is the faculty "advisor" for Alicia's inferior "thesis."

    http://www.wesleyan.edu/amst/faculty.html

    http://atang.faculty.wesleyan.edu/

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  6. If you ask me, and you didn't, a more proper name for her botched assignment should be a "Dishonored Thesis." Her faculty advisor needs to be called to task. I have never seen such shoddy work and I am appalled that people who consider themselves "academics" have not done so already. If this person (Alicia) attends "honors" classes at Wesleyan, I sincerely hope more parents refuse to send impressionable offspring there because their children won't get the education they have paid through the nose for. It is blatanly obvious Alicia has not been schooled in how to write a research paper let alone a thesis.
    ac

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  7. Tang's inferior teaching should be an issue when she's up for tenure.

    The Chair of the American Studies program at Wesleyan University can be found here:

    http://www.wesleyan.edu/amst/faculty.html

    and the English Department Chair can be found here:

    http://www.wesleyan.edu/english/people/index.html

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  8. Thanks, Anonymous. Many people have suggested that I make Wesleyan University aware of this thesis, but you have made it easy for me to do. Thank you! -Susan

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  9. Marcia Alesan Dawkins is another enemy posing as a friend. Here she joins a host of black-identified and white liberal elites who denounce those who question the "one drop" myth as "racists."

    http://www.theroot.com/views/has-white-male-privilege-run-amok

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  10. I see Marcia Dawkins as just another self-promoter who has fallen under the spell of Rainier Spencer.

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  11. Ha, Kelly! But thanks for asking :)

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