• Louis CK Hits on a Black Girl: Race, Sex, and Unwanted Male Attention | The Loop 21
  “Louis makes a point of knocking himself off his own high horse, and this is the kind of self deprecation everyone loves. Sure he’ll fight with friend and fellow comedian Nick DiPaulo over anti-Obama racism, but his frenzied tip toeing around race when courting a black woman will betray his own latent racial bias. In his interaction with Tarese, Louis reminds us that as miserable, sexless, and fat as he claims to be, he remains white and male. With that comes certain power and privilege, as well as a sense of entitlement that you may not always realize is at work.

  “The last two sentences Tarese says are the ones that get to the heart of the interaction:

  “You don’t get what you want. Not all the time.”

  (tags: via:kartinarichardson race sexualstereotypes television)
• Refitting Korean dramas for U.S. TV | Korea Herald
  “The production company signed a deal with the Korean broadcasting network, optioning the rights to two KBS dramas, ‘Resurrection’ (2005) and ‘Lucifer’ (2007), for the purposes of transforming them into television shows that will cater to an American audience.

  “This is big news for Korean television dramas, because if Kapital succeeds in producing and selling these remakes to a U.S. network, ‘it will be a first,’ said Sung Tae-ho, KBS Content Business Office senior manager.”

  (tags: via:carleandria korea television US)
• Deal Would Provide Dialysis to Undocumented Residents in Atlanta | NYTimes. com
  “The deal, if completed, would end a yearlong impasse that has come to symbolize the health care plight of the country’s uninsured immigrants and the taxpayer-supported hospitals that end up caring for them. The problem remains unaddressed by the new health care law, which maintains the federal ban on government health insurance for [undocumented residents].”
  (tags: via:carleandria atlanta immigration healthcare healthdisparity)
• Grief Across Latin America for Migrant Killings | NYTimes.com
  “Both the United States and Mexico say migration is down, because of the economy and the toughening security at the American border. But the true flow is impossible to determine, and it continues to be strong enough that Guatemala recently opened a new consulate near the Mexican border, in conjunction with El Salvador, and plans to open two more, including one in the area where the migrants were killed.”
  (tags: via:carleandria latin@s immigration violence)
• New York Is Trying Again to Tax Indians’ Cigarette Sales | NYTimes.com
  “The last time New York State tried to collect cigarette taxes on Indian lands, 13 years ago, protesters blocked highways upstate and clashed with State Police troopers, who had surrounded reservations to keep cigarettes and other taxable goods from flowing in. After a standoff that dragged on for days, the state relented and scrapped its plan.

  “On Wednesday, the state will try again to impose taxes on cigarettes sold in Indian stores, but this time it hopes to avoid any violence. Last week, leaders of the Seneca Nation, which led the protests 13 years ago, vowed at a meeting with law enforcement officials to keep their fighting confined to the courts.”

  (tags: via:carleandria newyork firstnations taxation money)
• Fidel Castro on persecution against gays in Cuba: “If someone is responsible, it’s me” | Blabbeando
  He believes all was the result of a spontaneous reaction in the revolutionary ranks, which came from tradition. In earlier Cuba blacks were not the only ones discriminated against; women were also discriminated and, of course, homosexuals…

  - Yes, yes. But not in the Cuba of the ‘new’ morality, the pride of those revolutionaries on the inside and on the outside…

  - Who, then, was directly or indirectly responsible for not putting a stop to what was happening in Cuban society? The Party? Because the Communist Party of Cuba still does not ‘explicitly’ ban discrimination based on sexual orientation.

  - No – says Fidel – If someone is responsible, it’s me…

  (tags: LGBTQ discrimination)

by Latoya Peterson

The quest is over, aspiring writers, you can go home. Jonathan Franzen has been crowned the Great American Novelist by Time magazine.

The writer gushes:

In a lot of ways, Freedom looks more like a 19th century novel than a 21st century one. The trend in fiction over the past decade has been toward specialization: the closeup, the miniature, the microcosm. After the literary megafauna of the 1990s — like David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest and Don DeLillo’s Underworld — the novels of the aughts embraced quirkiness and uniqueness. They zoomed deep in, exploring subcultures, individual voices, specific ethnic communities.

Franzen skipped that trend. He remains a devotee of the wide shot, the all-embracing, way-we-live-now novel. In that sense he’s a throwback, practically a Victorian. His characters aren’t jewel thieves or geniuses. They don’t have magical powers, they don’t solve mysteries, and they don’t live in the future. They don’t bite one another, or not more than is strictly plausible. Freedom isn’t about a subculture; it’s about the culture. It’s not a microcosm; it’s a cosm.

Yet, there were those of us who were not moved.

The anointing of Franzen has sparked a round of what is being termed “Franzenfraude,” with major writers Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Weiner coining the term after hearing the accolades surrounding Franzen. Picoult commented on Twitter, “NYT raved about Franzen’s new book. Is anyone shocked? Would love to see the NYT rave about authors who aren’t white male literary darlings.”

And here is the crux of the argument. It isn’t so much that Franzen is or isn’t a good writer – but rather the question of who represents the American experience, and what critics make that determination.

As Michelle Dean writes:

So let’s look at the phrases that have been used to justify the effusive levels of praise being directed at Franzen. Tanenhaus, for example, says that Franzen’s book was great because it spoke to “our shared millennial life.” Grossman, the Time critic, admires the way Franzen “remains a devotee of the wide shot, the all-embracing, way-we-live-now novel.” Even the Brits agree that Franzen has tapped into some kind of shared experience psyche: the Guardian called The Corrections “a report from the frontline of American culture.”

It seems a fair question, in that context, to ask: “What’s this ‘we,’ white man?” Continue Reading »

Via Sociological Images, student Samantha Figueroa created an awesome mash-up of Adriel Luis’ Slip of Tongue, and images from Pocahontas.

You can read Luis’ full piece here, but my favorite excerpt is:

“Fine. I’ll tell you bout my ‘ethnic makeup.’
I wear foundation,
not that powdery shit,
I wear the foundation laid by my indigenous people.
It’s that foundation that makes it so that past being globalized,
I can still vocalize with confidence that i know where my roots are.
I wear this foundation not upon my face, but within my soul,
and I take this from my ancestors
because I’ll be damned if I’d ever let an American or European corporation
tell me what my foundation
should look like.”

• New York Asks Schools to Avoid Pupil Immigration Status | NYTimes.com
  "The memo, titled 'Student Registration Guidance,' followed months of pressure from the New York Civil Liberties Union, which had discovered that some 139 districts — about 20 percent of the total — were requiring children’s immigration papers as a prerequisite to enrollment, or asking parents for information that only lawful immigrants could provide. The group repeatedly asked the Education Department to stop those practices."
  (tags: via:carleandria newyork immigration education)
• The Arrogance of Being President while Being Black (Updated) | Daily Kos
   "'Obama's Arrogance' is the talking point of the day.

  "Oh, those talking points. He is arrogant (because he knows the facts better than all of them combined). He is an elitist (because he uses big words that they don't understand). He is weak on national security (because he actually thinks about the consequences). He divides the country (well, he did that the day he had the audacity to win the election). Worst of all, he actually thinks that he's the president. He even dared to say so on Thursday. How arrogant of him. You'd think that previous presidents didn't have any ego. Somehow it turned out that the one president who treats even his biggest opponents with the utmost respect – is the arrogant one. I wonder why."

  (tags: via:robschmidt obama stereotypes black)
• A School of 290 Students, 289 of Them Black–and They Are Not Allowed to Leave | Haaretz.com
  "The process by which the Ethiopian students became the school's majority took place over a period of years, and is due to the large number of Ethiopian families in the underprivileged neighborhoods for whom this is their default school, and partly because the parents not of Ethiopian background removed their children from the school.

  "While some moved their children to independent Orthodox schools (most of them associated with Shas), while others moved their children to other state-religious schools, with the approval of the municipality.

  "Another source said that Ner Etzion provided a convenient solution for everyone involved – everyone, that is, except the parents who wanted to move their children to a different school. "The existence of a school that contains nearly 300 children of Ethiopian background means other schools don't need to take them," the source said."

  (tags: via:katrin ethiopian israel education schoolsegretation)
• Josh Eastman Arrested for Paying Child to Recite Racial Slurs on YouTube Video | Deeply Problematic
  "Eastman recorded and posted a video called 'Swearing Kid' in which an eight-year-old boy swears and hurls racial slurs while being coached from off-camera. When the boy's mother caught wind of this video, she was appropriately horrified by this apparently uncharacteristic behavior from her son, who claims that Eastman paid him $1 for his grim performance. She called the police, who picked Eastman up and held him on an $2,500 bond on charges of impairing the morals of a child. Eastman said:
  "'If they didn't like the video they could have just asked me nicely to take it off, and I would have taken it off. They didn't have to go call the police and have me arrested for it.'
  Eastman felt comfortable paying their child to spew hate and promote it to the general public without asking, but he apparently expects the consideration and courtesy of a polite phone call when the offense is against him. Nice.
  (tags: via:rmj whitesupremacy whiteprivilege racism video)
• Native Women Disappear in Canada | Al Jazeera English
  PREACH, Jessica!–AP

  "When framed purely in numerical terms, the disappearances in Canada pale in comparison to the 15,000 who vanished during Peru's battle with Shining Path fighters in the early 1990s and come nowhere near to the estimated one million who have disappeared in Iraq during 30 years of dictatorship and occupation. 

  "But these facts provide little comfort to the families of the missing women.

  ""The measurement of what is worse is a pointless question,' Jessica Yee, an indigenous youth activist in Ontario province, says. 'Do you really brush something off because it is not open war?'"

  (tags: via:carleandria firstnations womenofcolour violenceagainstwomen jessicayeeROCKS)
• Comment Is Free: Saudi Ban on Moroccan Women Is a Stereotype Too Far | Guardian (UK)
  "Instead of diverting resources to investigate and tackle the problem within Saudi Arabia, the blame and responsibility for the problem has been placed squarely on the shoulders of Moroccan women. This, if I may indulge in a little generalisation myself, is a characteristic way of dealing with issues that touch on morality. Sweep under the carpet, blame the other, and if all else fails, ban something."
  (tags: via:carleandria saudiarabia morocco women sexualstereotypes)

Hosted by Thea Lim and featuring Joseph Lamour, Tami Winfrey Harris, Latoya Peterson and Andrea Plaid

Thea: Another sort of lackluster episode, though better than last week’s. Though I have to say this eppy sure had lots of good oneliners:

I used to drink hot sauce straight out of the bottle…that was a good time.

Dagnabit Shit Fuck!

So you turn into a panther! What the hell! That ain’t so bad.

Tami: What no love for Pam calling Bill an “infatuated tween”? That was the quote of the night. It perfectly captured the essence of the Bill and Sookie romance.

Andrea: Oh! My! Gawd! Pam aced the ep with that line. I so heart that vamp (pun intended).

Thea: Well, I didn’t want to steal all the good lines…I wanted to give y’all a chance to list your own fave oneliners Also I just read on the internet that Mama Hoyt actually said Dagnabit Shit Fire! I truly hope not, Shit Fuck is just so wonderful.

Thea: But to get down to the really really important business: poll – do we prefer LaLa as a pet name for our favourite, or Laffy? I can’t decide.

Joe: I love it when Ruby calls him Lala, but not when anyone else does. My vote goes for Laffy.

Tami: Co-sign, Joe. I love “Lala,” but it feels like one of those special names within friends or family that only one person is allowed to use. I’m going for Laffy.

Latoya: Team Lala. It makes me squee to think of 6 year old Lafayette. But Laffy works too.

Andrea: Honestly, I like Laffy or even Lafette, which is my fam’s nickname for my uncle, who shares the same name. I’m with Joe: let “Lala” be his mom’s nickname for him. Though, to be honest, I don’t like it coming from her mouth because there’s a homophobic bite to it.

Thea: Hm…that’s an interesting point about Lala having a homophobic bite…especially since every episode since its intro, Laffy has been addressed as such. This week, it was by the religious icons during a bad trip. Aiyeee..but more on that later, of course.

A Black Panther?

Thea: So here, for once, I would like those of you Charlaine Harris fans who’ve been sitting on your hands in the corner for fear of spoiling anything for the rest of us, to step up: is Crystal a black panther in the books, or is that just a choice they made for the visual medium of TV? Actually, wait a sec, are all panthers black? Since this is True Blood, master of dabbling foolishly in serious historical shit, I can’t help but wonder why they would choose a black panther, an animal which is, as professorjawn put it in the comments last week, “a uniquely racialized animal in the US psyche.”

Joe: Other than the Pink Panther, panthers are all black, otherwise they’re called something else, like jaguars, leopards, cheetahs, and cougars (another loaded word, this day in age.) While reading the book I definitely assumed the (spoiler alert!) Hotshot people were all panthers, and that those panthers were of this variety: and not of the beret-ed variety. Also, to my (cursory, at best) knowledge, a panther is not actually a type of cat like a lion, but it refers to the color. For instance: a black jaguar is a panther, and a black cougar is a panther. There is a such thing as a white panther, but its rare, like a white tiger. Confusing enough? Yes, yes it is.

Interestingly enough, the reason that panther cats of any variety turn out black is because of- take a guess- an abundance of melanin. The writers, and Charlaine for that matter, probably didn’t think too hard about which species of cat to go with. Willful ignorance strikes again, I guess.

Tami: The folks in Hot Shot were panthers in Charlaine’s Harris’ books, though I don’t recall her specifying black panthers. II always assumed they were the sort of panther found in America–the cougar. I think the choice of using a black panther for Crystal was stylistic–they certainly look cool lurking in the shadows. It’s just that given True Blood’s sketchy racial imagery this season, even the most benign choices seem to mean something more sinister.

Sookie & Bill Are Boring; Pam Breaks Our Heart with her Anti-Immigrant Sentiment

Thea: So Latoya totally called it last week when she said, “But again, it’s Sookie who gets the creepy chain basement to herself, and she’ll probably be saved in a day or so, so whatever, I can’t drum up any concern.” OMG, try saved in like, fifteen minutes. More and more I am just writing the word “BOOOORING” in my notebook during all the Bill-Sookie scenes.’

Latoya: I hate being right. There isn’t even time to fake concern anymore.

Andrea: LOLOLOL I think we’re supposed to either 1) conveniently ignore that she was rescued or that 2) we’re supposed to get all “yeah girl-power!” that another human–especially a woman–rescued her. I think Ball and Co. wanted us to focus on the fact that she “whupped Pam’s ass” (with said woman’s help) to save her man. What peeved me is Pam’s xenophobic plea regarding Sookie’s sex-worker rescuer, “Don’t leave me here with this idiot immigrant!” The woman response, “I’m a cardiologist!” missed the humor mark because it turns back on her: the stereotyping questions become, “Why is a cardiologist hanging with vampires? Don’t they get good pay in that line of work?” Which can play either way: 1) thoughts about why people go into sex work (basic answer: the reasons are myriad) and 2) the stereotypes of female immigrants as victims of sex trades. Too much hung on that joke, which is why it fell flat for me.

Continue Reading »

By Arturo R. García

The conclusion of If God Is Willing And Da Creek Don’t Rise stays a little closer to home than Part 1 did, but, again, Spike Lee succeeds at telling this set of new stories through the connections not just in New Orleans, but throughout the Gulf region, before heading home for an uncompromising conclusion.

This time around, Lee starts his story with an examination of the New Orleans school system, where a look at the efforts to rebuild the Dr. King Jr. Charter School – now the only school in the Ninth Ward – segues into a discussion over the state of Louisiana’s take-over of New Orleans schools and the opening of the Recovery School District.

As the Dr. King School gets a visit from President Obama, and former Chicago school CEO Paul Vallas is brought in to serve as superintendent, we learn the recovery is far from easy: there’s mistrust of both Vallas’ approach and the teachers now working in the district; and allegations that the lingering traumas from Hurricane Katrina are still going untreated, leading to not only health issues but an increase in crime and violence: “The criminals are getting younger and younger.”

Continue Reading »

• New Dissent in Japan Is Loudly Anti-Foreign | NYTimes.com
  "More significantly, the protests also signaled the emergence here of a new type of ultranationalist group. The groups are openly anti-foreign in their message, and unafraid to win attention by holding unruly street demonstrations.

  "Since first appearing last year, their protests have been directed at not only Japan’s half million ethnic Koreans, but also Chinese and other Asian workers, Christian churchgoers and even Westerners in Halloween costumes. In the latter case, a few dozen angrily shouting demonstrators followed around revelers waving placards that said, 'This is not a white country.'"

  (tags: via:carleandria japan china korea xenophobia protests)
• African Americans Talk and Text the Most | Black Web 2.0
  "This is also one of the reasons why there are so many black people on Twitter, if you missed the point. Even as some data suggests that African Americans are heavy mobile data users as well, it is imperative that we do not ignore talking and texting as options for communication. This is important whether you’re trying to run a business or start a movement.

  "It’s about lowering the bar to accessibility. One could argue that Twitter owes much of its success and growth to the fact that they supported SMS early on. No need for a special app or a data plan. It just worked on everything from the latest smartphone to the free Nokia with the monochrome screen. On the flip side, because so much of our community is into texting, Twitter and other platforms for SMS remain relevant and useful."

  (tags: via:cruelsecretary africanamerican technology socialmedia)
• Alum Cuts Brooklyn College out of Will over 1st-Year Reading Requirement: Stories by and about Young Muslims post-9/11 | New York Daily News
  "That book was a poor and insulting choice. I'm sure Brooklyn College is still a great avenue for education, but I don't think that I should send it any more money."

  "The book that upset Kesler is called 'How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America' by a Swiss-born Brooklyn College professor named Moustafa Bayoumi.

  "It chronicles the stories of seven Arab-Americans in post-9/11 Brooklyn."

  (tags: via:cruelsecretary brooklynny islamophobia education arabamerican)
• Too Few Women in Tech? Stop Playing the Blame Game | Fast Company
  All the tips work well for diversity and inclusion. – LDP "Break Out of your Comfort Zone: "If you spend time in a homogeneous social network like Silicon Valley's VC community, then you will only get white, male ventured back candidates," said Geoff Livingston who has organized several conferences such as Blog Potomac. "It's your job to go beyond the comfort zone. Victimization maybe an easy out, but it won't stop the criticism of your inability to break out of limited social circles."
  (tags: women gender tech diversity)
• Overwhelmingly White Media Criticize Conservative Rallies as 'Overwhelmingly White' | NewsBusters.org
  "[E]ven as the media criticize Tea Party and other conservative rallies for an apparent lack of diversity, they struggle to bring minority voices into their own operations.

  All three broadcast networks have described the Tea Parties as "overwhelmingly white." So have CNN, MSNBC, NPR, the Agence France Presse, The Washington Post, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, National Journal and US News & World Report. Many of those organizations are the very ones the news industry discusses as having failed to make diversity goals for staff."

  (tags: media diversity politics reporting)

By Arturo R. García

The best, most brutal thing about Spike Lee’s If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise is how it flows, showing us not just how the various residents and systems in New Orleans are connected, but how the breakdown of help for it and the state of Louisiana in the wake of both Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill has infected the community on a variety of levels.

To do this, Lee brings back many of the residents viewers met in his last foray to the Crescent City, When The Levees Broke; Phyllis Montana-Leblanc (who also appears in Treme) opens the film with the eponymous poem seen above. From there, Lee veers into what might have been used as a “happy ending” for another film: a look at the local celebration of the New Orlean Saints’ Super Bowl win. From there, the bloom off the rose starts falling, and the reality of the situation is brought home by local activist M. Endesha Jukali: “After the Superbowl on that Sunday,” he tells us. “I was gonna have to get up and figure out how I was gonna eat the next morning, how I was gonna pay my bills, how I was gonna be able to survive. I’m not a who dat. I’m a who is that?”

Continue Reading »

• Revisiting Black History on Martha’s Vineyard | NYTimes.com
  "The island has often been called self-segregated, with most African-Americans here in Oak Bluffs. Its harbor drew freed slaves, laborers and sailors in the 18th century, and white locals sold them land. In the late 19th and 20th centuries, middle-class blacks bought or rented summer homes; many descendants returned annually. Most affluent whites live in Edgartown to the southeast or on farms and estates to the west, where Mr. Obama stays.

  "But many African-Americans here, year-rounders and summer visitors alike, insist it is not segregated. 'This is one of the most integrated communities, racially and economically, that there is,' said Vernon Jordan, the lawyer and former civil rights leader, who has rented a summer place for years."

  (tags: via:InfodivaMLIS415 black history class marthasvineyard)
• African American Albino Model Takes Industry by Storm | ABC News (VIDEO–No transcript)
  Struggling with ridicule, Diandra Forrest capitalizes on unique beauty.
  (tags: via:katrin albinism race)
• New York Taxi Workers Alliance
  "On Tuesday, August 24th, 2010 Mr. Sharif picked up the perpetrator at 24th Street and Second Avenue, his first fare for the shift, and headed toward Times Square. The man, 21, started out friendly, asking Mr. Sharif about where he was from, how long he had been in America, if he was Muslim and if he was observing fast during Ramadan. He then first became silent for a few minutes and then suddenly started cursing and screaming. There, at about 6:15pm at Third Avenue between 40th and 41st Streets, he yelled, “Assalamu Alaikum. Consider this a checkpoint,” and then slashed Mr. Sharif across the neck. As Mr. Sharif went to knock the knife out, the perpetrator, continuing to scream loudly, cut the taxi driver in the face (from nose to upper lip), arm and hand.

  “While a minority of has-been politicians spew ignorance and fear, it’s the working person on the street who has to face the consequences,” said NYTWA Executive Director Bhairavi Desai."

  (tags: via:jihadpunk77 hatecrime racism bigotry islamophobia xenophobia)
• Living In the Land Of Anybody But "King" Adrian Fenty | Danielle Belton's The Black Snob
  "Washington, D.C. is a city of contradictions. It has great wealth, but lots of poverty. It is the seat of our Federal government, but the people who live here aren't represented in that federal government. (But everyone still pays taxes.) The city government is limited in their power because the founding father's never thought people would live here on a permanent basis — you know? Other than their servants. Who couldn't vote when the country was founded, because they were slaves. So it shouldn't be particularly surprising that while this is a transient city whose professional class often changes with the Presidential Administration, the population that has always lived here, who was born here and will die here is mostly black."
  (tags: race politics DC history)

by Latoya Peterson

Our own Fatemeh Fakhraie, the amazing editor of Muslimah Media Watch and a contributing editor to AltMuslimah, just showed up on CNN to talk about portrayals of Muslim women in the media:

Muslim women are more high profile than ever in 2010. However, a problem remains: news stories about them are fixated on appearance.

Most major stories about Muslim women revolve around how they look and what they’re wearing — not who they are and what they are doing.

A flurry of articles came forth in both repudiation and defense of the burqa ban, focusing on that little piece of cloth that covers some women’s faces.

Other articles lauded it as “a comfortable garment” and “part of our identity,” condemning the ban as an erosion of personal freedoms and counter to the principles of the French republic.

Very few of the articles included viewpoints of women who wear the niqab, and none of the articles included the perspectives of the French Muslim women who would be directly affected by the ban.

High visibility does not directly translate into having your voice heard.

Read the rest, and show her some love…

by Latoya Peterson

“Can anyone help? Anyone?”

Last Thursday, standing underneath the hot noon day sun, I yelled out to the large crowd waiting in line for the monthly food aid provided by the mayor’s office. The crowd stretched for blocks, and my team and I set out with bottled water, candy, and bags full of surveys. We had hoped to harness the 200+ person food line for the Public Media Corps survey of the digital environment in DC. The crowd was composed of people who are generally overlooked when talking about online innovation – many of the people there were low-income, most speak Spanish as a primary language, and many did not have internet access at home.

Everyone was willing to help with the survey, particularly honing in on key words like “free,” “courses,” “training,” “jobs,” and “media.” But we soon realized we had a much bigger hurdle to jump – between the four of us, there was only one fluent Spanish speaker (as well as one “fluent in Spanglish”), and our survey was not designed for people with low literacy rates. In English, administering the survey was difficult enough – as one of the fellows surveying Ward 8 noted, what took fully literate people about 5 minutes to blow through took about 20 for those with lower rates of reading comprehension. In Spanish, with the difficulties translating technical terms and low levels of Spanish fluency among the team, that task was damn near impossible.

A sweet-faced tween girl volunteered to help translate, freeing up the other fellows to try to piece together the survey. I asked the girl the questions, she shouted back to her parents, and other people on the line chimed in when they could to help translate. In the end, we had about fifteen people all collaborating with bits of English and snatches of Spanish to get the questions answered. But it still wasn’t enough to capture as many people as were moving through the food line. Ultimately, we left frustrated – out of more than 200 people, we only got 30 surveys answered between us. Those surveys were illuminating, and spoke to the needs of having a variety of community access points and more Spanish language programming, but it also spoke to a gnawing fear that had been growing in all of us tasked with working in ward one – can we really capture the essence of the community in Columbia Heights – Shaw – Mount Pleasant – U Street – Adams Morgan from our tiny, language-limited viewpoints?

We have a reason to be concerned. The Washington DC council’s official website states:

Ward One is diversity – From the majestic Victorians of upper Columbia Heights, to Adams Morgan’s renowned entertainment district, to Howard University, historic U Street and LeDroit Park, the ward is home to some extraordinary places—and some extraordinary people. The neighborhoods of Ward One have a familiar ring to many people – LeDroit Park, U Street, Adams Morgan, Columbia Heights, Mount Pleasant, Shaw, Park View, and Pleasant Plains.

Ward One is the smallest, most densely populated ward in the District of Columbia. It’s also the only ward where you’ll find no population group with a majority. Thousands of African Americans, whites, Latinos, Vietnamese, Ethiopians and others make their home here. In just one of our ZIP codes, 20009, 136 countries are represented. The Brookings Institution says that’s the most diverse ZIP code in the entire region. And more than 40% of the public school students in Ward One do not speak English as their primary language. Indeed, according to an Urban Institute study in 2003, DC’s most diverse neighborhoods are within Ward One.

This diversity brings a lot of amazing things to the neighborhood, but poses a particular challenge to inclusion – namely, how can we meet the needs of so many different people, particularly when the needs are so great?

That question weighed heavily on my mind into the weekend, which was enough to push out all the noise about the coming events. Thinking about Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally invading Washington, DC made me feel a bit ill. Luckily, it was easily avoided, especially since I live near the ever-so-dangerous yellow/green line. In the interest of my own sanity, I chose to stay close to home.

Friday night, after another day of survey gathering and site visits, I headed over to the 9:30 club for DJ Dredd’s dance party to celebrate Michael Jackson’s birthday. As we swayed with the crowd rocking along to Michael’s (and Janet’s!) greatest hits, an observation kept pushing to the forefront of my mind, one I had wanted to write about last year when he passed. While much was written about the racial politics of Michael Jackson, particularly in reference to his skin color/plastic surgeries, there was little discussion of the most striking part of Michael’s racial politics: the worlds he created in his music videos. Most folks are familiar with two of his most political hits, “Black or White” and “Man in the Mirror.”

But what always stood out to me was the populations of Michael’s created worlds – which were overwhelmingly multicultural, featuring a lot of different types of people all rolling with the King of Pop. Continue Reading »

By Guest Contributor quadmoniker, cross-posted from PostBourgie

Top Chef’s contributions to the reality show genre don’t come from exciting cliff-hangers or the evil machinations of those who would only win by cheating: the ingredients that make it work best are good chefs cooking food that looks pretty and makes you want to eat it. Occasionally, there’s a key rivalry or a chef you want to hate. The two chefs everyone hated are now gone: possible-pea thief Alex left last week, and Amanda, the overly-intense, scatterbrained former addict who never seemed to get anything right, was finally voted off last night. But before that, another source of drama this season ended prematurely when Kenny Gilbert, whose long-simmering rivalry with Angelo made him seem more talented than he probably was, was voted off after the Restaurant Wars episode. (Restaurant Wars is the show’s bread and butter: two groups of chefs start restaurants and compete to win.)

Kenny inspired a lot of inappropriately racist, pimpish nicknames, like chocolate bear and big daddy, and, when he was kicked off, an unfortunate number of outdated South Park  jokes (I think you know the one). But mostly he was a gregarious, lovable self-promoter; fans believed he was the big cheese because he said he was every week. In truth, his cooking skill seemed uneven. But whether you think he deserved to go or not, his absence highlights a longstanding problem with the show:  there hasn’t been enough diversity, and it is particularly problematic in the way it portrays its black chefs. Diversity on a reality TV show might not seem the most important topic, ever, but it evidences two things: one, the dearth of people of color at the top of many fields extends to reality contests that purport to propel novices to the top of those fields; and two, shows like this in which contestants are judged subjectively still often pick white male winners.

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• I Can't Files: "Tuesdays with Morrie" Mitch Albom Says Out-of-Wedlock Birth Is "Cultural" for African Americans | Detroit Free Press
  "No, African Americans aren't the only ones having kids out of wedlock. But, yes, the news is worst in that community, where, in recent data from the National Center for Health Statistics, 72% of new babies were born out of wedlock, versus 28% among whites and 17% among Asians. This is not in the skin. It is not about color. It's about culture.

  "And if the culture doesn't change, neither will the pattern."

  (tags: via:monianne africanamerican sexualstereotypes racism icantfiles)
• Bob Herbert: Glenn Beck in Washington | NYTimes.com
  Facts and reality mean nothing to Beck. And there is no road too low for him to slither upon. The Southern Poverty Law Center tells us that in a twist on the civil rights movement, Beck said on the air that he 'wouldn’t be surprised if in our lifetime dogs and fire hoses are released or opened on us. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few of us get a billy club to the head. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of us go to jail — just like Martin Luther King did — on trumped-up charges. Tough times are coming.'”
  (tags: via:katrin civilrights appropriation whitesupremacy thisissomebullshit)
• Being Black Jews Without Dividing Loyalties | NYTimes.com
  "At his funeral and in interviews afterward, a portrait emerged of a small, insular but energized community that is proud but underpinned by a constant tug of race and religiosity.

  "Nobody keeps track of how many black Orthodox Jews are in New York or across the nation, and surely it is a tiny fraction of both populations. Indeed, even the number of black Jews over all is elusive, though a 2005 book about Jewish diversity, “In Every Tongue,” cited studies suggesting that some 435,000 American Jews, or 7 percent, were black, Hispanic, Asian or American Indian."

  (tags: via:katrin newyorkcity blackjews religion race)
• Gunfire Silences a Jamaican Hip-Hop Artist and Convert ‘Kidnapped by God' | Forward.com
  "Born in Spanish Town, Jamaica, Robinson moved to Brooklyn at age 12, eventually turning to drugs and street crime. A close friend shot him seven years later, leading him to abandon drugs. He took up hip-hop and invested in a record company in Los Angeles, living a life he described as indulgent. When he was 23, a request for a Bible elicited a Torah and that led eventually to a life of Orthodox Judaism and a return to Brooklyn — where he was murdered August 19.

  "Robinson, 34, fell at the hands of the lifestyle he had abandoned: He was shot while trying to save his girlfriend from a masked robber who attacked her in the Brooklyn liquor store where Robinson worked as clerk. Police said they were questioning a suspect they did not name."

  (tags: via:hillary57 blackjews hiphop violence RIP)
• Five Years Later, a Richer, Whiter New Orleans | Salon.com
  "New Orleans now hosts 354,850 residents, almost 78 percent of its pre-Katrina population. At the same time, the city has become significantly whiter since the storm: It is now only 60 percent black, compared to 67 percent black, pre-Katrina. And many of the poorer black people who left town after the storm have yet to return."
  (tags: via:katrin neworleans white black housing katrina)
• What's in a Name? Your faith, Apparently | MiamiHerald.com
  "So while it has become quite unfashionable these days to believe that race could play a role in anyone's success or failure, it would seem by process of elimination that the only 'evidence' his blogging detractors hoped to woo the gullible with are the facts that Williams is black, and shares a first name with Elijah Mohammed, late founder of the Nation of Islam sect of African-American Muslims."
  (tags: via:robschmidt religiousintolerence names xenophobia racism)
• A Failure to Communicate | NYTimes.com
  "The trick is figuring out whether a person’s distrust of non-native speakers stems from prejudice or incomprehension. To tease these factors apart, the researchers designed two experiments. First, they asked a group of 35 people to judge the truthfulness of trivial statements, like 'Ants don’t sleep' and 'A giraffe can go without water longer than a camel can,' recited by people with various accents — Turkish, Polish, Korean, Italian and Austrian-German — as well as native English speakers. In all cases, the subjects were told that the speakers were merely reciting statements provided by the experimenter and were not the source of the material. Yet even when speakers were 'only the messenger, listeners distrusted non-native speakers more than they did native English speakers."
  (tags: via:carleandria language xenophobia)

• Middle School Segregates Class Elections by Race | Gawker
  "Thinking about running for eighth grade class president at Nettleton Middle School in Nettleton, Mississippi? Well… are you white? Because only white kids are allowed to run for president. Black kids can be vice-president, though! But only black kids."
  (tags: via:carleandria racism election school)
• President Obama, 'The View' and Race in America | latimes.com
   What was less forgivable was that the president missed — or consciously passed up — a racial teaching moment that he is uniquely suited for. He started off in a promising direction: He told Walters that early in his life, he decided that if he was going to be called an African American, he "wasn't going to run away from that." Not exactly a ringing endorsement of African Americans, but all right. But in a rhetorical triangulation of the sort that has become all too familiar, he went on to say colors were 'labels' that were far less important than how people treated each other, a sentiment that got predictable applause."
  (tags: via:robschmidt barackobama race television)
• New Life in U.S. No Longer Means New Name | NYTimes.com
  For many 19th- and 20th-century immigrants or their children, it was a rite of passage: Arriving in America, they adopted a new identity.

  Today, most experts agree, that traditional immigrant gambit has all but disappeared.

  Precise comparative statistics are hard to come by, and experts say there was most likely no one precise moment when the practice fell off. It began to decline within the last few decades, they say, and the evidence of its rarity, if not formally quantified, can be found in almost any American courthouse.

  The rationale was straightforward: adopting names that sounded more American might help immigrants speed assimilation, avoid detection, deter discrimination or just be better for the businesses they hoped to start in their new homeland.

  (tags: via:carleandria immigration identity names)
• WTF Files: Sharron Angle Campaigned Against Black Football Jerseys On Religious Grounds | Huffington Post
  While some detractors made the argument that adopting the new color was unacceptable simply as a breach of tradition, Angle — who was in the midst of an eventually successful campaign for school board — and others argued that wearing black jerseys was closer to sacrilege.
  "I cannot quote scripture as they did to justify their point but the gist of their argument was that black as a color was thoroughly evil, invoking the supernatural and especially the devil," Roberts reports. "Whichever argument prevailed, school administrators caved in and prohibited the Muckers from wearing the black apparel."
  The black uniforms were then confiscated and held under "lock and key" by the administration, which refused to compensate the team for the money they had spent acquiring the jerseys.
  (tags: via:robschmidt wtf religion color sports)
• <I>the people I've slept with</i> opens this friday in los angeles (so come party with me and <I>audrey magazine</I>) | angry asian man
  "The hit indie sex comedy The People I've Slept With continues its theatrical run, opening this Friday, August 27 at the Laemmle Sunset 5 in West Hollywood. Make plans, grab your friends, and check out the funny, sexy and feel-good movie that's been making big waves with festival audiences everywhere.

  I do want to throw an extra plug for Saturday night… If you're headed to the 7:30pm screening, you can party with me and Audrey Magazine. I'll be moderating the post-screening Q & A with the cast and crew. I will try my best to ask thoughtful, provocative questions."

  (tags: media movies film sex asianamerican)
• American Apparel's Dov Charney Blames Immigration Reform for Troubles in Team Conference Call | Fast Company
  "In a weekly conference call today with international stores and corporate heads, the AA chief blamed a lack of immigration reform and media misunderstandings for the company's woes. According to a source listening to the call, Charney disputed reports that the company is nearing bankruptcy and out of cash. Rather, he said, one of the core issues is AA's employment troubles. "The real core issue is we lost 2,500 people," Charney said, referring to what American Apparel attorney and spokesman Peter Schey calls a "routine" 18-month investigation and early 2010 immigration and customs enforcement action that resulted in the loss of workers, many of whom didn't have proper immigration documents. (Schey tells Fast Company the number of employees shed after the enforcement action was more like 1,500.)"
  (tags: immigration media)

My fab pal, the incredible Aiesha Turman, is premiering (and fundraising for) her documentary, The Black Girl Project, tonight at 7PM at the Spike Lee Screening Room at Brooklyn campus of Long Island University, Brooklyn, NY.

In Aiesha’s own words, from an interview with Arielle Loren at Zora & Alice:

Z&A: Tell us about The Black Girl Project. What inspired you to film this documentary?
The Black Girl Project is both a documentary film and a non-profit organization. I have worked with young people in New York for over a decade, with the past few years being dedicated primarily to high school students. It was in this work, I began to hear the stories of young women, many of whom were outwardly accomplished, but were dealing with a lot of issues from homelessness to sexual assault and depression. I was lucky enough to be trusted enough by them that they would talk to me. Their lives reminded me of mine as a teenage girl. I was highly accomplished academically, but when it came to dealing with issues, many of which were shared with my peers, I turned inward for fear of embarrassment or disappointing my parents. The non-profit is an outgrowth of the film and my commitment to helping young women reach their fullest potential.

Z&A: Who are the young women involved in The Project? What are their stories and backgrounds?
The young women in the film are all from Brooklyn. They ranged from high school seniors to college sophomores. The girls are very diverse in their experiences; they faced everything from homelessness to poor self esteem and feeling ostracized. However, others had amazing life coping skills and were doing well. My intent was to show Black girls as being more complex than what we see in the media and I think I accomplished that.

A sneak peek of the doc:

Tickets are $25. They can be purchased here and at the door.  Aiesha will also hold a premiere in Washington, DC in September.

BTW, she’s also the mom of one of Racialicious’ favorite reviewers, TH.