Chantelle Lewis: De-essentialising Mixed Race

How do we have more nuanced conversations about being mixed race that account for more than an internal struggle with the binary Black and white? Chantelle Lewis is an activist, researcher, sociologist and podcaster based at Goldsmiths – and this her beat. Chantelle’s work is focused on structural racism, accountability, and class inequality and her doctoral research explores Black mixed race families in a predominantly white town in the Midlands. She takes us through some of the initial findings in her research, including how a lack of racial literacy in these families results in children who don’t speak about the racism they encounter in the world. We discuss what led her to this research, what she’s learned about how she navigates the world as a mixed-Black woman and names the people and comrades who have helped expand her understanding and her scholarship. She says that we must look beyond our individual identities to understand what our mixed-race identities afford us, what our proximity to whiteness subjects us to and her thoughts on why it’s important that we mixed Black people reflect and think critically about our mixed-ness.

https://discoversociety.org/2019/08/23/please-can-we-stop-talking-about-mixed-race-identity-on-its-own/

https://leadingroutes.org/

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