We’re doing it again! This year we’re excited to offer a special goodie bag for the first 100 attendees! Want one of these awesome Mixed Remixed Festival water bottles? Then get there when the doors open at 9:30am and be one of the first 100 people at Mixed Remixed this year! You’ll also have a chance to receive Festival stickers and special discounts from our sponsors! Be there and claim your goodie bag first thing on June 10! See you soon!
Day 40 Fun Fact Countdown to 50th Anniversary Celebration of Loving v. Virginia at Mixed Remixed Festival
Chief Justice Ear Warren wrote the unanimous Loving v. Virginia. “To deny this right on so unsupportable a basis as racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment,” wrote Warren , “is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law.”
Thurgood Marshall would join the Supreme Court a few months after the Loving v. Virginia decision. Marshall who married his second wife, Cecilia Suyat who is of Filipino descent, in 1955 was in an interracial marriage himself. In a 2016 Washington Post interview, his widow Cecilia “Cissy” Marshall said that when he first proposed she responded:
“‘No way. No way. People will think you are marrying a foreigner’ . . . He said, ‘I don’t care what people think. I’m marrying you.’ He was so persuasive. So we got married. And, actually, there was no repercussion because people knew me.”
Join us June 10, 2017 at the Mixed Remixed Festival at the Los Angeles Theatre Center in downtown Los Angeles for a celebration of the 50th anniversary of Loving v. Virginia. FREE!
Day 41 Fun Fact Countdown to 50th Anniversary Celebration of Loving v. Virginia at Mixed Remixed Festival
Richard Loving died in a car accident in 1975 when a drunk driver struck his car. Mildred lost an eye in the same accident. Mildred never re-married. She lived the rest of her life in the Virginia home Richard built.Join us June 10, 2017 at the Los Angeles Theatre Center in downtown Los Angeles for the 4th Annual Mixed Remixed Festival, the biggest celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Loving v. Virginia decision with a film, book and performance festival that showcases stories of the mixed-race and multiracial experience. FREE!
Day 49 Fun Fact Countdown to 50th Anniversary Celebration of Loving v. Virginia at Mixed Remixed Festival
Mildred Loving Was Mixed Race
I was surprised to learn last year that that Mildred Loving did not consider herself African-American. While researching her excellent book That the Blood Stay Pure: African Americans, Native Americans and the Predicament of Race and Identity in Virginia, Arica Coleman had a chance to interview Mildred Loving. Loving told Coleman emphatically: “I am not black . . I have no black ancestry. I am Indian-Rappahannock. I told the people when they came to arrest me.”
Arica Coleman has done some great writing about this subject and all of the implications. You can read her Time Magazine article The White and Black Worlds of Loving v. Virginia and her scholarly piece Mildred Loving The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Woman.
What do you make of that fun fact? Let us know by leaving a comment or email us at info(at)mixedremixed.org.
The countdown continues!
Join us for the 4th Annual Mixed Remixed Festival June 10, 2017 at the Los Angeles Theatre Center in downtown LA. FREE!
Day 50 Fun Fact Countdown: the 50th Anniversary Celebration of Loving v. Virginia at the Mixed Remixed Festival
Today we kick off our 50-day Fun Fact Countdown until the Mixed Remixed Festival where we are hosting the nation’s largest celebration of the 50th a
nniversary of Loving v. Virginia. We thought it would be fun to highlight a different aspect of the case and how it has changed America each day for 50 days. Do you have a fun fact about the case or the way it affected your life? We want to hear about it! Email us at info@mixedremixed.org with your story and we will feature it in one of our posts.
Today’s fun fact is:
The law Richard and Mildred Loving were accused of violating was the Virginia Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which prohibited interracial marriage and defined a white person as someone with “no discernible nonwhite ancestry.”
Okay, this is not a “fun” fact. But can you believe it?
4 Lies About Why People Identify as Biracial or Mixed Race
Identifying as Biracial or Mixed Race is Not a Pathological Stance
1. We think we are (or really want to be) white.
If only I had a nickel for every time I’ve read a comment like this. It’s really an offensive comment too. How on earth do YOU (read random hater) know what I want for myself. When I say that I am biracial or am specific about my racial and cultural background, it means that I want to be all of what my experience makes me. Period.
2. We are uncomfortable around people of color.
This comment is also so thoroughly offensive. Half of my family is made up of people of color. In fact, I’m a person of color. Just because I don’t buy into the idea of race as America insists I should doesn’t mean that I feel alienated from my own family or my own people.
3. We don’t understand the reality of white or light-skinned privilege.
Yes, we do. Can we just start the conversation there?
4. We harbor self-hating beliefs.
Okay, I did struggle with that growing up hearing that I didn’t belong anywhere. But as an adult I understand that my psychic health demands that I embrace and accept all of who I am–even if that identification makes other people uncomfortable!
5 Things That Will Make You Feel Like You Can Embrace a Mixed Race or Biracial Identity
1. Recognize that your psychic health may require self-acceptance of your mixed race and multiracial identity.
A study published in 2015 in Current Directions in Psychological Science by Sarah Gaither found that multiracial children who are “raised to identify with both parents and to understand their complex racial heritage [can] have higher self-esteem than mono-racial people. They are adaptable, able to function well in both majority and minority environments. They are more likely to reject the conception that race biologically predicts one’s abilities, which may, in turn, insulate them from the negative impact of racism or bias.” Source: New York Magazine.
2. Learn about historical figures who were mixed.
One of the things that helped me start to accept the fact that I could not hide from my complicated cultural and racial identity was learning about other mixed-race people of the past. For me, Nella Larsen who also wrote about being black and Danish (like me) back in the 1920s became an important figure. I saw her bravery about talking about being mixed in a racially divided world as a kind of permission. It’s important to feel like you have a history. Seek out mixed historical figures. Here’s one fun resource in The Mixed Experience History Month.3. Read books about biracial people (fiction and non-fiction).
There is an ever-growing literature about biracial and mixed-race characters and people. Read those stories and find yourself! We have a couple of resources here if you’re looking for memoirs or kids’ books. The Mixed Remixed Festival also has its own on-line book club. You should join us and read some great books!4. Watch films featuring biracial and mixed race characters.
Ditto films! It’s an amazing experience to be in a theater and see families that look like your own like the wonderful film, Loving, and now more recently A United Kingdom. Heck, you can find our stories on Netflix too. Stream one now! 5. Connect on-line and in-person with other mixed race and biracial people.
It’s been so amazing to connect with other mixed folks and families on line in various Facebook groups and on Twitter and Instagram. Our favorite way to connect though is the Mixed Remixed Festival. It’s the largest nationwide gathering of mixed families and people held each year in June. You should join us! It’s free! 5 Great Videos About Growing Up Biracial and Mixed Race
1. The Struggles of Being Mixed Race via Buzzfeed Yellow
This video has been incredibly popular. It has its fans (because it tells hard truths) and detractors (because, well, you tell us). What do you think?
2. Mixed Kid Problems: Growing Up Multicultural via Liza Koshy
Liza is fun and funny. We know that you will agree!
3. Being Multiracial in America via New York Times
This video is almost 10 years old now! But you’ll be surprised at how much the conversation has stayed the same.
4. What’s So Funny About Being Mixed? via Mixed Remixed Festival
This will make you laugh and remind you that no, we are not tragic mulattos. Mixed folks got jokes too.
5. What Are You? via Mixed Remixed Festival
This great video features Festival favorites Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele as well as the cute as a button Cheerios girl!
3 Clever Tools to Simplify Your Curly Hair Days
3 Clever Tools to Simplify Your Curly Hair Days
Some days I wonder why people use the term “naturally curly” when talking about my hair. I have been in a life-long search to figure out how to make my naturally curly hair look curly. These are some of the tools that have helped me on my curly hair days.
1. Mixed Chicks Hair Products
Mixed Chicks Hair Products have worked wonders on my hair. The products define my curls without weighing them down. And the product doesn’t flake off like other products can. My favorite product is the leave-in conditioner, but check out the whole line of shampoos, conditioners, and now hair brushes and hair accessories too!2. Fast-drying hair towel
If you have long, thick curly hair, a fast-drying hair towel is a real life saver. In the past, my hair has been damp up to five hours after I’ve washed it. And maybe you too have experienced that ring around the shoulders of a tshirt when your hair was still wet? Your curls will dry happily in a fast-drying hair towel without getting smushed. Try it.
3. Lavender Water in Spray Bottle
You know how you finally have a great curly hair day and you want it to last forever. Well, you don’t have to wet your hair completely to make that happen. Why not just use a little lavender water in a spray bottle to spruce it up. Here are tips on how to use it from Naturally Curly.
Join us for the largest gathering of multiracial and mixed-race families and people in June 2017 for the 4th Annual Mixed Remixed Festival.
Mixed Love Notes: I’m pro human . . . I’m a mixed child . . .
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Join us for the largest gathering of multiracial and mixed-race families and people in June 2017 for the 4th Annual Mixed Remixed Festival.
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