On Wed, Mar 14, 2012 at 3:53 PM, Max Sawicky <sawicky at verizon.net> wrote:
> I don't know about Cuba or other places in Latin/South
> America, but in Haiti the classifications of mulatto and
> the starkly distinct black (the latter mostly slaves),
> played crucial roles in the politics of their revolution.
> Alliances among groups (white, mulatto, black) shifted
> around a good deal.
>
> In the U.S., I'd say the archaism of the term underlines
> the old racist distinctions, as Carroll notes. Today one
> form of racist contempt for Obama is expressed in the
> charge that is a "half-breed," an effort to delegitimize him
> as a person, as in, he is neither one thing nor another,
> he is nothing.
>
> To some extent in the U.S. I'd say the descriptions depend
> on one's appearance. I know people who are the product
> of a mixed marriage who, I think because they are light-
> skinned, don't identify particularly as African-American as
> much as "bi-racial." The binary distinction between black
> and white gets murky when there are lots of latin people
> around who are no lighter than some bi-racial people.
>
> Of course I agree race is a social construct, not a biological
> type, but many still have not evolved to that view.
>
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 14, 2012 at 3:27 PM, ken hanly <northsunm at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> While "mulatto" may not be applied to Obama because it is not
>> politically correct being racist etc. Obama is not ever identified as of
>> mixed heritage a description surely even bland enough for the sternest
>> members of the Dept of Linguistic Virtues Police. Apparently as in the
>> paintings there are the noble whites and noble African Americans (pure
>> blood in spite of their association with slavery) but not mixtures please
>> as they pollute the pure categories. At least the Spaniards did not fear to
>> express their prejudices in their art. The present U.S. situation is as the
>> article is named which originally led me to pose the question::
>>
>> http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/11708686-americas-dirty-little-secret
>>
>> ""To get an inkling of what it means to be a person of color in America
>> today, you must first understand and accept that the person elected to
>> occupy the White House for four years, is really a half-black man.
>> Despite this undisputed fact, there is not a major publication or media
>> outlet that characterizes Barack Obama’s true ethnic heritage as
>> mulatto, mixed, or bi-racial to the American public ""
>>
>>
>> Cheers ken.
>>
>>
>> Blog: http://kenthink7.blogspot.com/index.html
>> Blog: http://kencan7.blogspot.com/index.html
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: Dennis Claxton <ddclaxton at earthlink.net>
>> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>> Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2012 12:14:51 PM
>> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Why is Obama never identified as a mulatto?
>>
>> On 3/14/2012 8:51 AM, Carrol Cox wrote:
>>
>> > The word carries the implication that there is such a thing as "race,"
>> and
>> > that premise is central to racism. There is and should be a stigma
>> attached
>> > to the word. It's racist.
>> >
>> > Carrol
>>
>> Yup. And paintings helped:
>>
>>
>> http://www.artnet.com/magazine_pre2000/features/ramirez/ramirez12-02-96.asp
>>
>>
>> Casta Painting and Colonial Latin America
>>
>>
>> by Yasmin Ramirez
>>
>> Walter Benjamin's dictum that every work of
>>
>> art is also a work of barbarism comes to
>>
>> mind with "New World Orders," an exhibition
>>
>> of Spanish colonial casta paintings
>>
>> currently on display at the Americas
>>
>> Society. "Casta" is Spanish for caste and
>>
>> these "casta paintings" are incredibly
>>
>> frank documents--unparalleled by anything
>>
>> in our time--of the race-based social
>>
>> hierarchy that existed in colonial Latin
>>
>> America during the 17th and 18th century.
>>
>> However much these paintings can be seen
>>
>> today to suggest harmonious coexistence of
>>
>> Indian, Spaniard and Black, in 18th-century
>>
>> Mexico they also elaborated relations of
>>
>> social power and control.
>>
>>
>> Bearing titles such as Espanol con India
>>
>> sale Mulato (Spaniard with Black makes
>>
>> Mulatto), casta paintings display male and
>>
>> female couples of varying ethnicities with
>>
>> their mixed-raced children. The works
>>
>> follow an order premised on the idea that
>>
>> each race carries a distinct kind of blood
>>
>> (with Spanish blood linked to civilization--
>>
>> no surprise--and Black blood associated
>>
>> with slavery and degeneracy). Casta
>>
>> painting cycles therefore typically begin
>>
>> with a depiction of a "pure" Spaniard with
>>
>> a "pure" African or Indian mate that
>>
>> respectively bear a mulatto or a mestizo
>>
>> child. From that progeny onwards, however,
>>
>> the further racial/ethnic mixtures take on
>>
>> Byzantine dimensions. Casta-painting series
>>
>> usually identify 16 racial taxonomies,
>>
>> including zoologically inspired terms such
>>
>> as "coyote and "wolf"--in one bizarrely
>>
>> named racial classification, children born
>>
>> of mulatto and mestiza couples are called
>>
>> "lobo tente en el ayre" (Wolf-Hold-
>>
>> Yourself-in-Mid-Air).
>>
>>
>> In the weird melting pot forged from New
>>
>> World colonialism and Spanish Catholicism,
>>
>> racial mixing was depicted with an intimacy
>>
>> that is absent from British and North
>>
>> American art of that (or any other) era.
>>
>> According to the racialist notions of the
>>
>> day, "purity of blood" was considered a
>>
>> virtue; consequently, Africans and Indians
>>
>> are nobly rendered. Curiously, the mixed-
>>
>> race people in casta paintings tend to have
>>
>> southern European features: slim noses,
>>
>> curly hair, almond-shaped eyes. Backgrounds
>>
>> similarly blend European and indigenous
>>
>> taste. New world fruits and vegetables such
>>
>> as pineapples, avocados and chili peppers
>>
>> are displayed in kitchens and dining rooms
>>
>> furnished with European wares. Landscapes
>>
>> are dotted by fanciful neo-classic
>>
>> fountains and urns. It is with these
>>
>> settings and props that the elitist
>>
>> intentions of this art reveal themselves.
>>
>> Third- and fourth-generation mixed-race
>>
>> couples are clearly poorer, wearing
>>
>> shabbier clothes in more straitened
>>
>> circumstances, than their purer-blooded
>>
>> ancestors. Spaniards and their Indian or
>>
>> African brides sport rich European costumes
>>
>> while Lobo- Mestizo couples wear plain or
>>
>> ragged dress.
>>
>>
>> Curator Ilona Katzew, an art historian at
>>
>> NYU's Institute of Fine Arts, notes in the
>>
>> catalogue that Spanish colonists
>>
>> commissioned casta paintings and sent them
>>
>> abroad, usually as gifts, to display their
>>
>> wealth and to demonstrate that a noble
>>
>> class system prevailed in the New World.
>>
>> Because the colonists wanted to make a good
>>
>> impression, some of New Spain's finest
>>
>> artists were hired to paint casta cycles.
>>
>> However, Europeans did not regard casta
>>
>> paintings as art objects but as
>>
>> ethnographic illustrations. In fact, some
>>
>> paintings entered Spain's first natural
>>
>> history museum, the Real Gabinete de
>>
>> Historia Natural.
>>
>>
>> Although practically all the works on view
>>
>> are marvelous examples of colonial
>>
>> painting, it is still difficult to admire
>>
>> them simply and "purely" for their formal
>>
>> virtues as works of art. Rather, casta
>>
>> painting is an interesting study precisely
>>
>> because the marginal position the genre
>>
>> occupies in art history can be linked to
>>
>> the marginal position that mixed-raced
>>
>> people have held in western culture. The
>>
>> affirmation of casta painting as an early
>>
>> form of identity art--which this exhibition
>>
>> tacitly reinforces--represents a real
>>
>> paradigm shift. Multicultural advocacy has
>>
>> liberated casta painting from the curio
>>
>> cabinet, but the genre's problematic
>>
>> content may later land it in another
>>
>> closet.
>>
>>
>> "New World Orders: Casta Painting and
>>
>> Colonial Latin America" at the Americas
>>
>> Society, Sept. 26-Dec. 22, 1996, 680 Park
>>
>> Avenue, New York, NY 10021.
>>
>>
>>
>> YASMIN RAMIREZ is a New York art historian
>>
>> and critic.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ___________________________________
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>> ___________________________________
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