This dissertation responds to the notion that the economic success and social integration of one imaginary figure, the “model minority,” can explain the downward mobility of another, the “white working class” in post-Brexit Britain. Through intersectional readings of Black and Asian British fiction written during and after Margaret Thatcher’s prime ministership, I examine the model minority myth as providing a racist explanation for rising inequality, but also as a burdensome imperative of neoliberal aspiration to which racialized British subjects are increasingly subject. I trace the origins of this exclusionary account of racialized belonging to the account in Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses of the political possibilities resulting from the collapse of anti-racist solidarities under the sign of Black British identity in the 1980s. I show that the author’s non-fictional responses to the subsequent controversy known as the Rushdie Affair work to close off these possibilities, serving instead to justify Islamophobia one specific means by which racial neoliberalism functions as what David Theo Goldberg calls “racism without racism.” I develop this analysis of Islamophobia as form of racial neoliberalism by turning to two novels that depict coming of age for diasporic Muslim British women, contrasting Monica Ali’s Brick Lane as a normative narrative of feminist becoming through assimilation with Leila Aboulela’s Minaret, which complicates the agency assumed to be conferred on “Third World Women” who migrate to the Global North. In my third and final chapter, I trace the model minority trope across differences in Black and Asian British communities as evidence of the empty aspiration of “post-racial” Britain, contrasting the attempt in Gautam Malkani’s Londonstani to posit the figure of the “rudeboy” as an alternative “outsider” figure of aspiration, with Zadie Smith’s “insider” depiction of the social alienation that results from approaching the embodiment of this racialized ideal in NW. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This dissertation discusses the influence of neoliberalism—the idea that capitalism represents the ideal model of organization for every aspect of human life—on Black and Asian British writing from the 1980s to the present. In the context of mainstream analysis of the June 2016 Brexit vote as an expression of “white working class” disaffection with rising inequality, I focus on how coming-of-age narratives by Black and Asian writers complicate an unspoken implication of this popular explanation: that neoliberal reforms have unduly advantaged so-called “model” racial minorities. Through readings that emphasize how the Muslim and/as racialized protagonists of these texts experience the recoding of racism either in the covert guise of Islamophobia or through the aspirational idea that Britain is “post-racial,” I demonstrate the highly tenuous nature of what social and political belonging racialized subjects can find amid the increasing individualism of contemporary British society.

More people than ever before are living significant portions of their social lives online due to advancements in internet technology. Over the last few years, we have begun to see the most public discussions of racism increasingly occur online, to be later embedded in the public’s consciousness. It is therefore important for race critical scholars to observe how digital spaces affect racial discourse in the United States. Utilizing a race critical perspective, I explore comment section reactions to counter-framing articles to examine contemporary racial discourse. Through a discourse analysis, I find that counter-framing articles initiate the racial dialectic by inviting white racial frames, thereby structuring contemporary racial discourse. My research suggests race critical scholars should explore the internet as a racialized institution and a site of racial contestation. Race critical theorist must begin to grapple with how such a racialized institution will alter the experiences of racism in social life.

This thesis focuses on the patterns of racial formation, and epistemological points of entry that are salient to the mulatta experience in the United States, through the use of life writings. The results gleaned from this research are utilized to problematize revived political and social assertions of a post-feminist, post-racist United States.

In the United States, the largest group of educators, historically and presently, are white middle-class women, yet there is a rising population of racially diverse students creating a persistent dissonance and disconnect between the culture of the white teacher and their students. In this study, I sought to discover how the racial identity development of novice white female educators evolved, given their common participation in the Teach for America program. Using the conceptual frameworks of critical race theory, critical feminist theory, and the body of scholarship in critical whiteness studies, I conducted a critical narrative inquiry of eight novice white female educators. From the participants’ stories, three themes emerged: (a) relationships matter; (b) the privilege to want something different; and (c) intersection of whiteness and power. Further analysis was conducted to address the ideas of race-consciousness building through defining moments and sustained connection, and white dominance through an ascription of power and an analysis of gender. This study represents an effort to address the phenomenon of white teacher dominance by listening to the voices of white educators who experienced race-based development. Ultimately, this study aimed to contribute to the scholarship that informs how white educators develop their own racial identities so as to not do additional harm and trauma to racialized communities.

This thesis aims to explore how identity takes shape within mixed race persons whom have Latin American background, in today’s Sweden, based on four individual in-depth interviews. The central characters in this paper were found through a convenience sample within my circle of acquaintances, due to the limited framework of this thesis. Six themes were found through coding and thematising: questioning Swedishness, invisible camouflage, it is positive to be mixed, internalized racism, to (en)counter racism and nothing to 100 %.  By means of a feminist phenomenological approach, this thesis has shown that being mixed race creates an ethnic insecurity and a contingency in one’s own identity formation, since the experience of being Swedish constantly is questioned based on physical appearance and/or name. However, all of the informants also experienced joy in having several backgrounds; it was seen as empowering, a possibility and a contribution to the generally white Swedishness. In that way the informants’ refusal to conform to the limiting norms of Swedishness, can be seen as a transcendency of the Swedish hegemony and an expansion of what it means to be Swedish. / Esta tesis trata de explorar como la identidad se crea dentro de personas de raza mixta, quienes tienen origen de América Latina, en Suecia hoy, basado en cuatro entrevistas profundas. Las personas centrales en este ensayo los encontré usando una muestra de conveniencia, ya que el esbozo era restringido. Yo conozco a lxs informantes. Seis temas se cristalizaron a través de codificar y tematizar: Suequidad que es dudoso, camuflaje invisible, ser mixto es positivo, racismo internalizado, enfrentar racismo y nada hasta 100 %. Por lo medio de un enfoque fenomenológico feminista, esta tesis ha encontrado que ser raza mixta crea una inseguridad étnica y contingencia en la formación de identidad en ellas, ya que la experiencia de ser suecx constantemente es dudosa basado en apariencia física y/o nombre. Sin embargo, todas lxs informantes también sintieron alegría en tener varios orígenes; era visto como un poder, una posibilidad y una contribución a la suequidad, que en general es blanca. De esa manera el rechazo de adaptarse a las normas de suequidad limitativas de lxs informantes, puede ser visto como una trascendencia de la hegemonía sueca y una expansión de lo que significa ser suecx.

This study analyzes the representations of five bi-ethnic women characters in U.S. mass media both before and after U.S. “post-racial” era, to find and expose evidence of the continuity and perpetuation of racist stereotypes against biracial/bi-ethnic women. I utilize a thematic textual analysis, supported by the theories, ideas, and critical views of postcolonial theorists Frantz Fanon, Gayatri Spivak, and Edward Said, and composed of three prominent themes which expose the nature of the representations of lead bi-ethnic characters in current mass media entertainment (TV programs and films). The themes further explored through this project are: bi-ethnicity (one Black parent and one White parent) as a) over exoticized or hypersexualized; b) inherently problematic; and c) destined for non-existence through invisibility, elimination, and even death. In a second step, I critically examine the theme of the tragic mulatta present in Imitation of Life (Hunder & Sirk, 1959), a film released during the epoch of the African-American Civil Rights Movement (1954-68), and the TV mini-series Alex Haley’s Queen (1993) to then highlight how it becomes immortalized transmedia (across diverse media platforms and historical moments) and ever-present in current “post-racial era” entertainment media film. To examine this, I compared one modern film and that portrayed a leading bi-ethnic woman–Dear White People (2014)– to then compare to the film mentioned above. I then compared TV programs that portray supporting bi-ethnic women characters in Suits (2011), Black-ish (2014), and Empire (2015) to then compare to the TV miniseries mentioned above. Finally, I contend that the presence of transmedia storytelling of the fixation, and manipulation of the supposed political correctness of the tragic mulatta archetype stands to reinforce its dominance in media portrayals. Moreover, the fragmentary existence is based on a lack of research and the indolent borrowing from previous archetypes.

Graphic Intimacies: Identity, Humor, and Trauma in Autobiographical Comics by Women of Color examines works of comics art about the lived experience of the comics’ creator. These graphic narratives address racialized difference and the construction of identity while also using humor to negotiate their narrations of traumatic events. I argue that these creators employ the structure of comics to replicate the fragmentary nature of memory. Comics allow for the representation of trauma as being intimately linked to corporeality. The comics medium allows creators to make visible and present fractured versions of the self, a product of traumatic fragmentation. Drawing traumatic memories becomes a symbolic enactment of transformation. Comics become a way of coping with the fragmentary nature of traumatic memory, permitting a consolidation of memory even when a totality is impossible. Graphic Intimacies examines representative texts by four autobiographical cartoonists: Lynda Barry, Belle Yang, MariNaomi, and Whit Taylor. Each of these cartoonists engages in critiques of social issues through the negotiation of a multilayered identity. For instance, Barry’s One Hundred Demons (2002) explores her identity as a white-passing Filipino American growing up in a low-income neighborhood. In Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale (2011), Yang a Taiwanese born Chinese American artist, tells the story of her father’s family in order to heal from the trauma of intimate partner abuse. Biracial Japanese American artist MariNaomi explores her disconnection from her Japanese heritage while chronicling her experiences working in Japanese-style hostess bars in Turning Japanese (2016).

Why did black southern migrants during the Great Migration not get off the train along the migratory corridor that connected the points of departure and arrival, i.e. the Jim Crow South and the urban North? How did midwestern small-towns and black America come to be understood as polar opposites? Based on archival and ethnographic research, this project answers these questions by disrupting grand narratives about the Great Migration and the Midwest: 1) it disrupts the idea of predefined destinations of southern black migrants by illustrating that not all wanted to settle in big cities; 2) it disrupts the midwestern whiteness by displaying resilience and resistance of minorities in the same landscape; and 3) it disrupts stereotypes of midwestern friendliness by uncovering the self-perceived understanding of midwestern hospitality of Hoosier communities that stands in stark contrast with the unwelcoming environment as experienced by outsiders. Together, the chapters in this dissertation record the racialized geographies of Indiana and provide a nuanced understanding of identity and belonging in the Midwest. Analysis of the data identifies cultures of exclusion prevalent in midwestern small towns.

Social work imagines itself as a site of goodness and justice. My thesis illustrates the ways in which commitments to the profession’s social justice-oriented ideals are ruptured when racialized social workers name the operation of racism within everyday sites of professional practice. I show how colonial and imperial constructions of helping (moral superiority and goodness) continue to shape the hegemonic scripts about the role and practices of social work, reinscribing white dominance in social work knowledge production. Historically, racialized bodies have been constituted as Others, subjects to be regulated, controlled and ‘saved’ within the colonial project. I examine the dilemmas that emerge when racialized Others become the helpers and attempt to perform a normative identity that is constructed through white dominance. In this study, I provide a detailed analysis of twenty-three semi-structured interviews with racialized social workers. I trace the production of the profession’s values and notions of good practice within their narratives. I specifically explore the moments in which ‘good’ practice and commitments to the values of the profession break down in everyday work with clients and co-workers. Racist encounters with clients appear as overwhelming occurrences within workers’ narratives, and a complex paradox is revealed: the discursive arrangements within social work that constitute good, social justice-oriented practice, are the very same discourses that disavow the operation of racism. Within these moments workers are left questioning whether or not they can be ‘good social workers’ because the act of naming racism appears to be incompatible with their commitments to the values that shape what is recognized as good social work practice. The narratives presented in this thesis point to the trespasses, erasures and individualizing discourses that secure whiteness at the exact moments in which race is made invisible. I contend that, when workers name racism, their very presence is destabilizing to a social work profession that needs to construct an image of itself as a site of goodness. Social work must examine the colonial continuities that construct contemporary practices, and to make visible the ways in which hegemonic scripts shaping justice and goodness reinstall whiteness and collude with racism.

Social work imagines itself as a site of goodness and justice. My thesis illustrates the ways in which commitments to the profession’s social justice-oriented ideals are ruptured when racialized social workers name the operation of racism within everyday sites of professional practice. I show how colonial and imperial constructions of helping (moral superiority and goodness) continue to shape the hegemonic scripts about the role and practices of social work, reinscribing white dominance in social work knowledge production. Historically, racialized bodies have been constituted as Others, subjects to be regulated, controlled and ‘saved’ within the colonial project. I examine the dilemmas that emerge when racialized Others become the helpers and attempt to perform a normative identity that is constructed through white dominance. In this study, I provide a detailed analysis of twenty-three semi-structured interviews with racialized social workers. I trace the production of the profession’s values and notions of good practice within their narratives. I specifically explore the moments in which ‘good’ practice and commitments to the values of the profession break down in everyday work with clients and co-workers. Racist encounters with clients appear as overwhelming occurrences within workers’ narratives, and a complex paradox is revealed: the discursive arrangements within social work that constitute good, social justice-oriented practice, are the very same discourses that disavow the operation of racism. Within these moments workers are left questioning whether or not they can be ‘good social workers’ because the act of naming racism appears to be incompatible with their commitments to the values that shape what is recognized as good social work practice. The narratives presented in this thesis point to the trespasses, erasures and individualizing discourses that secure whiteness at the exact moments in which race is made invisible. I contend that, when workers name racism, their very presence is destabilizing to a social work profession that needs to construct an image of itself as a site of goodness. Social work must examine the colonial continuities that construct contemporary practices, and to make visible the ways in which hegemonic scripts shaping justice and goodness reinstall whiteness and collude with racism.