In episode 102 of Overthink, Ellie and David discuss diverse ideas of racial mixedness, from family-oriented models of mixed race to José Vasconcelos’ and Gloria Anzaldua’s idea of the ‘mestizo’ heritage of Mexican people. They work through phenomenological accounts of cultural hybridity and selfhood, wondering how being multiracial pushes beyond the traditional Cartesian philosophical subject. Is mestizaje or mixed-race an identity in its own right? What are its connections to the history of...
Hello and welcome to Overthink, the podcast.
Where two philosophers help you think through your own complicated experience in relation to big ideas.
I'm Ellie Anderson.
And I'm David Pena Guzman.
Ellie, as you know, I love playing tennis, and I wanted to begin today's episode by mentioning Naomi Osaka,
who is a black Japanese tennis player who has become a very well known figure in the world of tennis, of course, but.
Also outside of it.
She had her own sweet green bowl a couple of years ago, I remember well.
And she's been also in the news for political reasons because she's also been politically engaged,
which is not typical for athletes.
But the reason that I wanted to mention her today is because Naomi Osaka is a.
A black and Japanese player.
So she is a biracial.
She identifies as a biracial person and she has faced a lot of discrimination
and obstacles in the world of athletics precisely for that reason.
She talks about, for example,
how many reporters after a tennis match will insist on asking her whether she deep down feels more black or Japanese,
which is not A, related to sports, and B, is not a question that any biracial person can answer one way or the other.
I also think it's telling, as you're describing this,
that her identities as black and Japanese are what get focused on because that's a sort of odd mismatch.