by guest contributor Meera Bowman Johnson, originally published at Our Kind of Parenting
Sisters are miffed about about Angelina Jolie’s upcoming starring role in a film about part Afro-Cuban journalist Marianne Pearl. Many resent that a white girl would even attempt to use self-tanner to portray a woman of color. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not […]

Harlem Renaissance Man - Chronogram Magazine
“African-American literature felt like an intellectual home, this place where I fit and belonged,” he says gratefully. Like the late playwright August Wilson, Johnson seems to identify almost exclusively with the African roots of his biracial family t
(tags: africanamerican black literature mixedrace)

Roman descendants found in China? - Telegraph
Thanks Tariq! “Residents […]

Stanley Crouch: Black history now: demagoguery vs. decency - New York Daily News
“it is important that we recognize what Sean Bell’s intended wife represents. It is she who reflects the heart of the civil rights movement. She wants nothing less than justice and holds no malice toward the NYPD as a whole. She is too […]

by Carmen Van Kerckhove
David Mills just wrote a great post for Poynter Online (thanks Timothy!) that asks:
Ever notice how black people are often misidentified in newspaper and magazine photo captions? I mean famous black people. It’s a weird phenomenon.
(Remember when Vogue mislabeled the photo to the right as Zadie Smith?)
I was actually talking about this […]

by Carmen Van Kerckhove
Thanks to daddyinastrangeland for sending this to me!

Muslim leaders condemn CW Post video - Newsday.com
Hat tip to Rachel. “A video by five students at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University depicting ski-masked “hostage-takers” speaking in cartoonish Middle Eastern accents has drawn condemnations from local Muslim leaders.”
(tags: campusracism muslim college)

Rejecting Stereotypes, Athletes Embrace Size - New York Times
“the weights of amateur […]

by Carmen Van Kerckhove
Click on the pic to find out what it’s all about. Hat tip to Angry Asian Man.
I feel like I need a “ching chong” tag.

by Carmen Van Kerckhove
Just read on Gawker about a pilot MTV is working on, based in my part of the city:
MTV’s newest soon-to-be hit show is Brooklyn. The premise is to paint an accurate picture for America of what life is like for the average Brooklyn high school student. Brooklyn, New York is made up […]

by Carmen Van Kerckhove
The latest in the rash of racist incidents sweeping across college campuses come from William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri (hat tip to Rachel) and Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota.
From KMBC-TV:
Last Wednesday night, one student at William Jewell College is accused of painting his face and hands black, and then jumping […]

Report: Supremacist activity flourishes - MSNBC.com
Hat tip to Angry Asian Man. “Groups linked to the Ku Klux Klan, skinheads and neo-Nazis grew significantly more active…distributing leaflets and increasing their presence on the Internet — much of it focused on stirring anti-immigrant sentiment”
(tags: immigration whitesupremacy racism)

‘Mouse’ report makes pol roar - New York Daily News
Hat tip […]

by guest contributor Kai Chang, originally published at Zuky

Every time we go through one of these high-profile “racial gaffes”, the corporate media ridiculously blathers and clunks its way through the same hollow-suited charade, probingly asking for an up-or-down yea-or-nay one-dimensional vote on whether or not a particular word or phrase is “a slur”, presumably to definitively determine, yea-or-nay, whether the person who uttered that word or phrase is “a racist”. Once fuzzy mass media judgment has been rendered, the unpleasant matter is thankfully resolved, white folks try to remember not to use certain words around people of color, and the subject of race (not to mention a broadly anti-racist agenda) can return to the back of the national-political-priorities bus until the next blow-up. [ Artwork courtesy of The Unapologetic Mexican]

Impatient dismissals from Tim Dickinson at Rolling Stone (”hyper-PC hyperventilation … is what’s wrong with American politics”) and Bob Felton at BlogCritics (”Biden got it right”) are, I think, pretty representative. But here’s what escapes the grasp of the sagacious corporate-media deciders-of-racism: most people of color don’t necessarily have a problem with any isolated word (well okay, “articulate” is getting a little old, but anyway) that Biden used in his little riff on the shining virtues of Barack Obama (cue tooth-sparkle, ding!). Here’s the thing: it’s not about epithets, it’s about narratives.

Immigrant Entrepreneurs Shape a New Economy - New York Times
“As the flow of immigrants to suburban and small-town America outpaces the growth of bustling ethnic centers in New York, many foreign-born entrepreneurs like the Mirandas are facing an unfamiliar crossroads…”
(tags: immigration business)

More On The Wu-Nobay Vows: The Leprous Truth - Gawker
“…he told numerous lies and […]

by guest contributor Philip Arthur Moore, originally published at TheThink

While getting my noodle pie fix last week, I came across a video of a young (24) Latina woman named Anjelah Johnson. Anjelah’s comedy routine, which features a reenactment of her experiences at a Vietnamese nail salon, has been causing some waves on the internet lately. Terry Ng and his commenters over at Kineda approved of the bit, saying that Johnson’s “rendition of ‘Mai Ling’ doing her nails is perfect.” Angry Asian Man wrote that he’s not sure what to make of the video. Some people have been telling him “I’m Vietnamese and I think this is dead-on hilarious!”, while others have been saying “I’m Vietnamese and I think this is so racist!” I have also received mixed reactions about the video from my friends who grew up in Vietnamese households.

by Carmen Van Kerckhove
A brand-new episode (No. 58) of Addicted to Race is out! Addicted to Race is New Demographic’s weekly podcast about America’s obsession with race.
Carmen is joined by guest co-host Liam McGrath in this episode. Liam is a long-time listener of the show, and is the man responsible for the voiceovers in our […]

by Carmen Van Kerckhove
Oh boy. Looks like another um, hard-hitting expose on race is forthcoming from The Tyra Banks Show today. Whiteface and all. I wonder how Dyson got reeled into this hot mess.
From the web site:
Monday, February 5th
“Focus on Race: I Hate My Own Race”
Imagine being so disgusted with your race, you wish you […]