The Mixd Project: Recent Episodes
Jeff Cooper
A Collection of Photographs and Narratives of Black Folks of Mixed Race. Check out the accompanying photography for each guest at www.themixdproject.com
Bronx native Shoshana A. Brown is the daughter of an African American father and Jewish American mother. She is an ordained Kohenet (Jewish Priestess), practitioner of an Indigenous Earth-based practice and a healer in the West African religion of N’Deup. She brings all of these practices with her, in all of her work, wherever she goes, whether that be to Synagogue or to secular community. It’s an approach that she calls spiritual multiplicity where no one religion is ever left behind for the sake of another. For Shoshana this insistence on spiritual co-existence is a response to her life prior where she siloed the different parts of herself to survive as a mixed-raced person. This movement away from compartmentalization into un-compromised wholeness is a powerful way of looking at mixed identity. Shoshana’s interview is one of my favourites thus far. So please have a listen.
The Mixd Project is BACK! And this week we’re coming with another feature from NYC. Recorded pre-pandemic at the end of 2019, in this episode I sit down with artist Zach Grear. Zach, through his work, subverts beauty standards by putting ink to photos of pin-up boys and pop-culture icons. His art combines tattoo imagery and vintage gay erotica to distort our ideas of what’s considered desirable. It’s a twisting of the conventional that asks the viewer to examine how they’ve been taught to lust. In our interview we get into his artistic practice but start by diving into Zach’s life growing up a mixed, Black, Queer boy in his hometown of San Francisco. We talk about the journey he’s taken to become comfortable with all of his identities and what self-actualization means to him. Have a listen. Also Happy Pride and All Black Lives Matter!
Organizations to donate to:
The Marsha P. Johnson Institute https://marshap.org/
For The Gworls Party https://www.instagram.com/forthegworls/?hl=en
Hogan’s Alley Society https://www.hogansalleysociety.org/
In this episode of the Mixd Project, I had the opportunity to sit down with Dennis Norris II, reader, writer, and co-host of the popular podcast Food 4 Thot (https://food4thotpodcast.com/). Seated in their Brooklyn home, we had an in-depth conversation about their mixed-race heritage. Like many African Americans, Dennis has significant European and Indigenous heritage in their family’s lineage. However, non-black ancestry doesn’t always fit neatly into the construct of the African American identity. The one-drop rule, the painful history of slavery, and the continued oppression of Black people by whites are just some of the reasons why.
Yet in spite of this, the injection of European ancestry into the African American genome has real implications for the community and its individuals. In my interview with Dennis we talk about how their family’s specific European ancestry has impacted their lives, including what it has afforded them and how it has complicated their existence. We also go beyond the genetics of white identity and get into the social aspects of whiteness. What does it mean to be socialized white and what are the implications for brown-skinned bodies socializing and existing in predominantly white spaces.
Jaimee was born and raised in Eastern Washington, Spokane to be specific, to adoptive parents who raised them in a multicultural home. Jaimee’s parents were loving and affirming and provided them with a safe backdrop from which to navigate the often complex world as a queer, mixed race youth. Jaimee quickly gravitated towards organizing politically around their identities and found peers and allies in queer, black and multiracial spaces. This early introduction into activism led to a life and career of social work that Jaimee continues today in their work as Executive Director of FEEST, an organization led by youth of colour in South Seattle and South King County. FEEST works to improve health in schools by pushing for access to nutritious, affordable and culturally relevant food for students (https://www.feestseattle.org/). During our interview Jaimee tells us all about her journey from the moment of her adoption to her life now in Seattle. We get into what grounds them and the importance of self care. They also provide thought provoking information on the incredibly racialized landscape of Seattle and South King County’s food system, a system she describes as a Food Apartheid. Have a listen.
Karen Ortiz was born and raised in the Bronx, New York to Dominican immigrant parents. Growing up in an Hispanic community, Karen provides us with an intimate perspective on how Blackness works in the Latinx community. Being mixed and Afro-latina herself, Karen has first hand accounts on how the Black identity is at times diluted or even totally erased from the Latinx identity. This, in spite of the millions of Africans brought to Spanish colonies through the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the many Afro-Latino people who still exist and contribute to society today. For Karen, she experienced anti-black sentiment in the form of subtle (and not so subtle) messages from her family to suppress the parts of her physical appearance that were undeniably Afro. In the community at large, intentional distancing or denial of Latin America’s Afro people and their influence can be seen in nearly all elements of the culture, from food, to music, to fashion. In recent years, voices have been getting louder to reclaim Afro heritage in Latin America and celebrate the community’s Afro roots. Karen’s thoughts, perspective and intentional efforts to decolonize herself provide for an invaluable and riveting interview that I was honoured to record. Have a listen below.
Kareem didn’t have an easy go growing up. His family’s income was inconsistent and things like housing, having food in the kitchen, and access to basic utilities were often in flux. To add to this Kareem went through periods of time as a child when his Senegalese immigrant father was absent. As a result, Kareem developed a sort of compulsion where he would approach Black men that he saw on the street and address them as “Dad”. This was a not so subtle way of calling for a paternal figure and for black male representation. What Kareem’s father did provide him was a strong sense of pride in his African heritage. Exposure to literature on Black civil rights leaders, Black scientists, and Black inventors, armed Kareem deep knowledge of his people. However, it also made him all the more aware of the parts of history that were chronically missing from school curriculum. We talk about the emotional distress that this caused him and about how general anti-blackness from his peers caused him to want to shut down, put up walls, and disappear. Kareem tells these story and his eventual story of triumph with an impressive amount of insight and articulation. This interview is a good one.
Lichelli is a writer, producer, director and story teller based in Los Angeles. However, her roots go back to the UK, and before that, to the Caribbean Islands of Trinidad and Tobago. Lichelli’s origin story is a fascinating one. It involves her English mother divorcing her afro-Trinidadian father and taking Lichelli and her younger sister back to the UK to be raised. Her story of “The Deal” made between her parents to allow Lichelli to meet her father once she turned 18, went viral when she told it for The Moth. During our interview, Lichelli opens up more about this story and her relationship with her father. She tells stories from her subsequent trips to Trinidad and provides more insight on what is was like growing up Black and mixed in conservative South East England. Lichelli’s story is one of searching for your roots, finding your blood connection and the healing powers of family. Have a listen
Lichelli Lazar-Lea’s “Trini-Dad” Courtesy of The Moth www.themoth.com
Lili is an actor and playwright based in Vancouver, B.C. Her most recent play Mx dives deep into her personal relationship with biracial identity. Met with rave reviews when it premiered at this years Vancouver Fringe Festival, Mx won several awards, including the New Play Award and the Cultchivating the Fringe Award. When we met with Lili at her home in East Vancouver she shared more on her experience growing up as a mixed child raised by a single white mother in a community with very few black people. Lacking a roadmap on how to engage with her blackness Lili took it upon herself as an adult to discover her place and connection to the diaspora.
Guest Co-Host: Hadia Cooper
Desiree Dawson is a Vancouver-based singer songwriter and the 2016 winner of CBC’s Searchlight Talent Contest. In our conversation Desiree opens up about her childhood as a mixed child in a small beach side community with few black people. We talk about the pressures she felt to shut off parts of herself and the careful balancing act she had to play in order to self-preserve. However, the process was not a victimless one. The residual effects of these childhood memories is something she still reckons with today. Have a listen.
Orene Askew is a Mixed Heritage, Two-Spirit, Queer, Indigenous, African Canadian, African American DJ. She’s also The Squamish Nation’s first mixed race spokesperson. When you meet Orene, you meet a distinct, confident, and motivated person. However, in our conversation we talk about the journey it took in order to get to where she is today. Raised in The Squamish Nation by a single mom, Orene grew up facing opposition. Early exposure to racial epithets due to her mixed heritage and the realities of a community marked by the legacy of the residential school system were just a few. As an adult she was again met with adversity when a house fire took nearly all of her belongings, and nearly took her life. Overcoming these obstacles has made Orene the strong person she is today and her upbringing in The Squamish Nation has given her a deep and beautiful knowledge of her people Guest Co-Host: Hadia Cooper
Pearl is an artist, illustrator, animator and author from Vancouver, Canada. Much of her work centres around her mix as the daughter of a Chinese immigrant mother and a Jamaican immigrant father. In our conversation we talk about how growing up steeped in Vancouver’s rich Cantonese culture gave Pearl a strong sense of what it meant to be Chinese. However, her mixed heritage complicated her place in the community. Doubts about her ability to ever be Chinese enough were compounded by expectations from her peers to meet black stereotypes. Negotiating these two distinct cultures created what she describes as ‘tension’, which is fittingly the title of her debut graphic novel. She gives us food for thought on what it means to be Black, Chinese and uncompromisingly whole
Cicely is a young person to watch. They’re a scholarship winning, TED talk delivering, award receiving activist who also co-founded Vancouver’s local chapter of Black Lives Matter. Building on their experience, Cicely has now turned their attention to the professional sphere. In 2018, they founded Cicely Blain Consulting, an entity that brings ideas borne in activist circles of diversity and inclusivity into the workplace via workshops and long term strategies. But getting to where Cicely is now was a journey. In our conversation we talk about their life growing up a mixed child in their native London and how their search for a place to fit in led them to a life and career dedicated to the advocacy of marginalized people.
Isabel is a woman who leads with warmth and kindness. She carries a positivity and openheartedness with her that feels like a warm hug. I felt this comfort and ease with Isabel as she welcomed me into her home to discuss her relationship with her mixed-raced heritage. The child of a white Canadian mother and black Bajan father, Isabel was one of few black children growing up in her East Van community. We talk about how this influenced early identities as a self-described “alty fuck-all-y’all” kid rebelling against black stereotypes and how her current identity as a black woman continues to touch all aspects of her life, from work, to dating to family dynamics. Isabel’s story is a compelling one.
Melanie is a journalist, gardener, chicken mom and self-identified Trinidadian Shit Mix. In our conversation we hear about how perceptions of her race have changed throughout her life as she’s moved throughout spaces and places, including a relocation from Trinidad to the suburbs of Vancouver at 11 years old. For Melanie it has taken time, experience and careful unpacking to integrate the many components of her make up, a journey she says she’s still on. Give it a listen below.