Articles by Arica Coleman
Arica L. Coleman teaches an array of courses relating to the history, politics, and culture of people of African descent and race relations in the United States. Her research focuses on the complex negotiations of race and identity within the historical and contemporary realities of people of African-American Indian ancestry. More specifically, she is interested in identity reconfiguration within the context of tribal sovereignty and the ways in which historical and contemporary anti-black racism effects tribal enrollment. How does mainstream racial formation influence the federal recognition process? To what extent does the reconstruction of tribal histories affect the historical consciousness of those within and without the tribes? In what ways do present federal recognition policies disrupt the historical relations between African Americans and American Indians? How will new DNA technologies impact federal recognition policies? These are the central questions guiding her research. Coleman has participated in a number of conferences, seminars, panel discussions, and workshops that focus on issues of racial identity, diversity and social justice. In April 2007 she appeared as a guest on BET's Meet the Faith, to discuss the current Cherokee Freedmen crisis (descendents of Cherokees slaves were expelled from the nation in March 2007). She is currently involved in projects to preserve two historic Virginia cemeteries: the Spy Hill Plantation Slave Cemetery and the Rappahannock Indian Cemetery located in King George County and King &Queen County respectively.
I understand that Obama, as the first African American to assume the presidency, has to walk a racial tight rope, a burden no other American president has had to bear. But as an African American woman who cried the night he was elected and cried the day he was inaugurated, I feel a deep sense of betrayal.
“Barack has a handicap the other candidates don’t have: Barack Obama has a black wife. And I don’t think a black woman can be first lady of the United States. Yeah, I said it! A …
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