Instructions: Focus on ONE of the topics below. You do not need to answer all of the questions. You do need to have a strong argument, a balanced argument that examines more than one perspective, and a well-supported argument that uses quotes and facts from the readings to support each point. I encourage you to try to utilize the Key Words from both Module 1 and 2 in your essay. Guidelines: 2-3 pages (not including title or reference pages), 12 point font, double-spaced, 1-inch margins, APA or MLA format if possible. You must use one other text from Module to AND Rebecca Walker’s Black, White, and Jewish. Options for other texts are: 1.) Caroline Streeter, Tragic No More: Mixed Race Women and the Nexus of Sex and Celebrity Introduction (1-9) 2). Caroline Streeter, Tragic No More Chapter 4: “Faking the Funk: Mariah Carey, Alicia Keys, and the Politics of Passing” 3). Velina Hasu Houston, “Rising Sun, Rising Soul: On Mixed Race Asian Identity That Includes Blackness” in Red and Yellow, Black and Brown (21-31) 4). Alicia Keys “Fallin” 5). “Brown Skin Girl” in Black is King Topics: You do NOT need to answer ALL of the questions within the topic. The questions are just intended to help get you thinking about key words that you might want to explore in your paper. The only requirement is that you analyze TWO of the texts listed above. 1). Hypodescent is a social practice in the . that assign a mixed-race individual the racial identity of the less socially dominant race. The “one drop rule” of hypodescent is the social practice of designating a mixed-race child with any African ancestry “black.” How does Rebecca Walker deal with the issue of hypodescent? Is there an evolution in her relationship to this concept throughout the book? Compare with how a mixed-race celebrity like Alicia Keys navigates hypodescent to make political statements in her music for example about mass incarceration. 2). Double Consciousness: Rebecca Walker describes her mixed race experiences as a kind of “double consciousness” where she’s always also seeing herself through the eyes of others. Look more closely at how Walker explores the “mask” that she wears as a mixed race person. Caroline Streeter dismisses Walker as reproducing the narrative of the “tragic mulatta.” Yet how does Walker’s doubleness possibly challenge this representation? In other words, are there moments where Walker challenges the notion that mixed race women are doomed to become the sexual objects of white men? You might compare and contrat Walker’s text with how Velina Hasu Houston examines the double consciousness of mixed race identity. 3). Intersectionality: Mixed race scholarship tends to normalized mixed race “through a focus on interracial marriage and healthy biracial identities, at the expense of deeper analysis of the ways contemporary culture draws on the traumatic historical archive of interracial sexuality” (Streeter, 5). Streeter instead wants us to focus on how mixed-race identity comes out of a history of racial/gender/sexual inequality and oppression. Streeter references racialized sexual stereotypes of black women and men that function to uphold the stereotype of white women as “pure” and “chaste.” How does Rebecca Walker address the intersection of racial/gender/sexual/class identities and how these identities are reflective of ongoing power inequalities and oppression? How does Walker challenge the tendency to “normalize” and celebrate mixed race identity through intersectionality? 4). “Tragic Mulatta” stereotype. Do you think Walker is able to resist the “Tragic Mulatta” stereotype? How so? Compare and contrast how Walker navigates this stereotype with Streeter’s analysis of mixed-race celebrity. Streeter seems to think that it is possible to construct a resistant hybrid identity, but mixed-race performing artists are always at risk of being commodified, their gender identities and sexualities being normalized for a white mainstream audience.
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