Real World: Sydney’s Looking White White White

by Racialicious special correspondent Wendi Muse, originally published at Does Race Matter?

Find the person of color. It’s a bit like playing “Where’s Waldo?”

I was excited when I heard that the next Real World would be set in Sydney, Australia. I tend to like the international seasons mainly because I get to see a bit of the country in which they are staying. However, the smile fell off my face when I checked out the cast. It’s aaaaall white, with the exception of one girl, Parisa, an American of Middle Eastern descent (more on that in a minute) and the daughter of Muslim parents. Maybe they felt like throwing a brown Muslim girl into the vanilla pot would liven it up a little, but honestly, I feel like this is MTV’s as-per-usual approach to diversity: do something controversial, put the people (or person, in this case) of color in an awkward position that makes them react in an outrageous, albeit usually justified, way, then sit back and watch the ratings go up.

I am still feeling a little excited about watching the show, however, mainly because I just so happen to know the one person of color on the show. Parisa, who is of Persian (Iranian) descent is an NYU alum who went to the same undergraduate college (Gallatin) as I did. She and I also were in a class called Women in Islam, and I am happy to note that she is incredibly nice and intelligent. SO I am hoping that all the BS MTV will throw at her for ratings’ sake won’t break her spirit. I think it will be good for the average Americans out there watching to see a woman of Middle Eastern descent who breaks the mold. It also may appease some of the viewers who posted on the message board, lamenting the lack of black characters and general diversity on MTV reality show. Nevertheless, congrats to Parisa, but a big fat boo on MTV for making her a tv token!

By the way, this is Parisa. Note that she is not wearing 10 lbs of makeup like the other women on the show:

Some final notes:

Um, I am also tired of the Southern person always being dumb as fuck. Lastly, I wonder how white women feel when they watch The Real World considering that the white girls are almost always slutty, overly made-up drunkards. I recall there being a really good interview/set of articles regarding the issue of misogyny and sexism in reality tv (usually the women are promiscuous, but in that out of the control scary way, have substance abuse and/or psychological problems, and are belligerent and overly competitive toward the other women in the house). It looks like this one will definitely fit the bill.

I guess we’ll all find out on August 8th.

Trailer for The Real World: Sydney

Parisa also happens to be an awesome singer, so her dream to be a singer/songwriter will probably be realized quite soon:

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Parting Shots / Stereohyped on 26 Jul 2007 at 5:01 pm

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Comments

Kaywilz wrote:

White women don’t bear the burden of their entire gender-race composite, so it’s easy for them to dismiss it as “that stupid girl” rather than “hey, they’re trying to say that about me too!”. That makes it much easier for Execs to reinforce to stereotype, because technically it’s “just that one girl”…

Posted 26 Jul 2007 at 9:46 am ¶
Kenny wrote:

Kaywilz is right ,there are so many White women on tv that they don’t have to feel as if they are representing anything.
Last season after being on the air since 1992 MTV actually had two straight Black males in the house on the Real World and all their fears came true. Stephen slept with two White women.His friend slept with one and Brooke and Tyrie shared a kiss. So now they will go to being lilly White , even more than they actually were. The show has always been diverse, but in a very calculating, thought out way. All the Asians have been female. Until recently all the Hispanic men were gay. I think MTV is more comfortable with any hot ,steamy, action to involve White men , quite frankly.

Posted 26 Jul 2007 at 10:44 am ¶
CI wrote:

“The Real World” is on its last legs, neither real nor representative of the world at large. Ratings have been on the downslide since Las Vegas, and hopefully after their 20th season, MTV will just do some sort of “Real Word:Where are they now?” reunion, and call the show a day. It’s one dimensional fluff, and should be taken as such, like soap operas. If you can’t do that, don’t watch. The show hasn’t been real since the San Francisco season over 10 years ago so don’t expect to watch and be enlightened. That said, I wish Parisa luck. I hope she’s not portrayed unfairly.

Posted 26 Jul 2007 at 12:35 pm ¶
Rob wrote:

MTV runs under the guise of racially enlightened liberalism when, in actuality, is one of the most racist channels on the air.

Posted 26 Jul 2007 at 1:09 pm ¶
Wendi Muse wrote:

tell me about it, rob. i feel like every show furthers one stereotype or another… can you say “adventures in hollyhood”?

Posted 26 Jul 2007 at 1:22 pm ¶
Blue Steel wrote:

I probably watch way too much MTV….

But does anyone else notice that the one show that may actually OVERrepresent minorities (especially african-americans) on MTV is “My Super Sweet 16″?

I swear at least half of the shows are about some hip-hop mogul’s spoiled kid.

Does anyone else notice this?

I guess MTV likes to pick and choose exactly when they decide to practice diversity.

Posted 26 Jul 2007 at 2:39 pm ¶
nadia wrote:

i do not envy her being the sole person of color in a houseful of white people. her inclusion does create interest in the show for me; i’m going to have to make friends with someone who has cable!

this seems like part of a trend of increased representations. it seems more and more that we (muslims, middle eastern people) are being represented on TV as other than terrorists, and named for what we are (vs. previous years when arab actors played characters who were white or who’s ethnicity was never mentioned). i think the general public is really interested in us right now, and i’m interested (but skeptical) to see what our representations in the next few years look like.

Posted 26 Jul 2007 at 2:43 pm ¶
Jason wrote:

Well, Middle Eastern people are usually white, just wanted to point that out. Or at least caucasian. Must be painful to see white people. But don’t worry, we’re disappearing fast.

Posted 26 Jul 2007 at 2:56 pm ¶
B wrote:

Is this the season where the participants were chosen by viewers? Just curious, as I thought I heard something to that effect.

Anyway, I wish Parisha luck; “Real World” has always been quick to illustrate how its minority participants fill the expectations of stereotypes, and hasn’t done much to illustrate the ways in p.o.c.s are varied and complex.

NYU-alum w.o.c.s represent!

Posted 26 Jul 2007 at 3:01 pm ¶
Wendi Muse wrote:

jason, i wasn’t really sure what you were getting at with your comment (”Well, Middle Eastern people are usually white, just wanted to point that out. Or at least caucasian. Must be painful to see white people. But don’t worry, we’re disappearing fast.”) and wanted to address a few points within it…

1. Middle Eastern people are “usually” multiracial, a combination of asian, african, and european ancestry. considering the closeness of the region to all three continents, and hence the name, it’s odd that you say that most people who identify as such (middle eastern) are white.

2. i am not in any way knowledgable of racial terminology in the middle east, and i am sure, much like in other regions, it varies by country, language, and possible even religion. i don’t know of white, at least in the way we think of it, being one of the categories, however, as white here usually applies to people of direct european descent, or bearing the phenotype of such background. “caucasian,” as you note, may be more applicable here, but as we now recognize,terms of race created at that time or given new meaning (which some people continue to use) were based on racist concepts and classifications dictated by wealthy white supremacists parading as scientists, and are fairly inaccurate when applied to the present.

3. (a little more on that)…the american press certainly does not classify middle eastern people as white, particularly as our terms of race are heavily steeped in skin color and geographic location. i.e. someone in colombia may be considered “white” there, but in the united states, the rubric applied to read race may lead to interpretation of a different sort, leading us to classify that person as simply “latino/a,” which in inaccurate as latino/a is an ethnicity, and not a race, but nevertheless, what we would use…ignoring the issue of whiteness altogether. black latinos, thanks to the one drop rule, are subject to a different sort of instant categorization, their latin-ness often being superceded by their skin hue…

4. in american (meaning US here) popular media, people of middle eastern descent are portrayed as their own racial catgeory of sorts, not so much for the sake of being respectful to their anthropological roots, but in order to portray “them” as different from “us.” if middle easterners were considered white, we might be a little more sympathetic before we dehumanize them. but that is, as most of us recognize, not the case. for now, they are the infamous “other”

i think what is good about parisa’s involvement with the show is that it may break up some of the “otherness” that has been created by the news and via negative stereotypes of people of middle eastern descent.

Posted 26 Jul 2007 at 4:17 pm ¶
Brian wrote:

If MTV is looking to cook up some hot tempers to boost their ratings they may have picked the perfect locale and season to have their first female Muslim cast member (is it their first Muslim cast member? Can’t say I follow the show so I’m not sure). I lived in Sydney for a year between July of ‘04-’05 and the anti-Arab/anti-Muslim sentiment there was not only significant, but prevalent and blatant among much of the population…and only increased when there was a large group of inebriated ‘true-blue’ aussies talking about current events in their city. The Cronulla riots of 2005 (they happened a few months after I left) shoved the simmering animosity between the considerable Lebanese, and other Middle Eastern populations, and the majority white European populations into the spotlight, and subsequent world and Australian national events have only added to an already delicate dynamic.

I also want to say, however, that Australians in general do get a (sometimes) unfair rap for being backwards when it comes to issues of race and gender equality. Some of my best mates who I still talk to on a regular basis attended the rally, denounced the violence that erupted but are understandably frustrated with the way some of the initial causes of the tension were handled by the government (a number of racially motivated attacks earlier that year, as well as a string of horrific and high-profile gang rapes that happened a number of years ago). These are some of the most stereotypical aussies you can probably imagine, and when we would get into candid conversations they displayed a much more reasonable temperment and full understanding of the issues that were really at hand, yet there was still a widely accepted racist terminolgy that stemmed from a mixture of Australian humor (which I guess you really need to immerse yourself in to keep yourself from calling it outright discrimination) and simple racism.

Anyway, the point is that they will almost definately push the Islam card as far as it will go as Australia just happens to be one of the most tempermental places around when it comes to relations between the Western world and the Muslim faith, and for a whole plethora of reasons (notwithstanding it is 200 miles away from the most populous Muslim nation on Earth, which also just so happens to be the site of a number of drug-related incarcerations of some white Austrlians — see Schapelle Corby and the Bali 9).

Just want to add by the way that Australia, and Sydney specifically, just so happens to be one of my favorite places in the world and is a city and country filled with absolutely incredible people…just in case this came off as giving people who may not know about the place and the people who live there a bad first impression of the place (and as far as general racism reputations go there, I am part Hispanic and never once felt any overt racism towards me, and in fact the friends I spoke about above and I were able to comfortably make plenty of jokes about race with each other…which is pretty much the Australian way of accepting people).

And for anyone interested, here’s the wikipedia article about the Cronulla Riots (and there’s a link at the bottom for info on the gang rapes and other pertinent events shaping the Australian mindset on this issue):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cronulla_riots

Posted 26 Jul 2007 at 4:49 pm ¶
Mina wrote:

“in american (meaning US here) popular media, people of middle eastern descent are portrayed as their own racial catgeory of sorts, not so much for the sake of being respectful to their anthropological roots, but in order to portray ‘them’ as different from ‘us.’”

Likewise, weren’t Irish people considered non-white for some years?

Posted 26 Jul 2007 at 7:04 pm ¶
Leann wrote:

What difference does it matter if there is a black person on this show? I’m tired of Real World reinforcing the same ole stereotype of the angry black man, the confused snotty bi-racial girl, or the millitant black bitch. Let the white people make an ass of themselves for one season….
sheesh.

Posted 26 Jul 2007 at 9:43 pm ¶
Jay wrote:

I think MTV is more comfortable with any hot ,steamy, action to involve White men , quite frankly.

This is just limited to MTV?

Posted 26 Jul 2007 at 10:36 pm ¶
Meg wrote:

firstly – i can’t believe they were allowed in the country, i’m ashamed of my government
second – am actually curious how/if they deal with indigenous australians. From (vague) memory Survivor had contestants throwing boomerangs, not all that cultually aware. Do they do tasks or something? I’m not all that familiar with real world.
third – If sydney gets focused on between all the fighting and drinking, it will be interesting to see how it’s portrayed. Either a white-washed version (Sydney I don’t really know) or more multicultural (the Sydney i know and love).

Posted 26 Jul 2007 at 11:58 pm ¶
nadia wrote:

i can assure jason and anybody else that while the census might classify us as ‘white,’ we don’t actually live the lives of white people. uh, at least i don’t. this should be obvious to anyone who’s watched ten minutes of american news in the past six years, or seen almost any recent hollywood movie.

as wendi pointed out, middle eastern people are multiracial, but, while discrimination against us is institutionalized, we are classified as white on the US census. this is a pretty comprehensive history and explanation of it here: http://www.aaiusa.org/foundation/355/not-quite-white
(it is specific to arab americans, but the same applies to other middle eastern groups):

“The current classification system under which Arabs and other persons with origins in the Middle East and North Africa fall under the same white category that identifies the European majority, has been a source of confusion and challenge. The pervasive influence of the four race/one ethnic categories promulgated in 1978 has affected Arab Americans in differing degrees. Since racial categories permeate nearly every bureaucracy, public and private alike, for those Arabs who contest, resent or misunderstand their white classification, the reminders of this identity disconnect are constant. From school and medical forms, job and loan applications, to political caucuses, polls and even market surveys, the race-consciousness of American demographics is such that some Arabs have become accustomed to perennial “other” status, or to straddling their technical white identity with their practical affinity to “people of color” – i.e., every other non-European national origin group.”

Posted 27 Jul 2007 at 1:58 am ¶
Renaldo wrote:

Based on the Real World’s track record with black folks, shouldn’t we be happy there are no blacks on there? No diss, but black folks got way bigger fish to fry.

Quite honestly, I’d rather us not be portrayed on TV at all if it’s going to come out looking bad.

And also, what black person in his/her right mind would want to be on this show in the first place? I would consider this a victory. I’m sorry, but not only is the Real World irrelevant, but it should not be saddled with the responsibility to toss a black cast member in there just to gain a black viewership.

Posted 27 Jul 2007 at 8:12 am ¶
Wendi Muse wrote:

ay, so many comments to address:

1. Brian, Nadia, and Meg: Thanks for offering more historical/regional background info. I think that’s really important, especially when dealing with intersections of race, religion, and nationality.

2. Mina: Yes, Irish immigrants and their descendants in this country faced considerable discrimination during the late 1800s and early 1900s mainly due to the psuedo-science of racial categories that I referred to in an earlier response to Jason. Someone usually ends up bearing the brunt of national issues as a scapegoat, and it just so happened that Irish, Italians, and Eastern European immigrants at that time were considered culturally foreign to white Americans who, at the time, were predominately of Anglo-Saxon origin. A lot of the previous tensions between white ethnics were realized at that time because America was trying to redefine itself. . . via imperial exploits in other regions (SE Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean), cementing the otherness of blacks (as we entered into Reconstruction), and expanding the category of whiteness…eventually to accept white ethnics (or non-Anglo whites). Remember the term “the melting pot” ? That’s what that was all about–assimilating as many immigrants as possible… it just happened to be easier to expand the white umbrella to reach Irish, Italian, and Eastern European white immigrants because of how they looked. Others weren’t so “lucky,” even after going the legal route to the declare their whiteness. For more basic info on this, check out wikipedia entries on the melting pot, white americans, whiteness, and google search court cases like US v. Singh Thind and Ozawa v. US

3. Leann and Ronaldo: I am not sure how black people got thrown into this, but that is not what the article is really about. People of color, in my eyes, as a term, refers to more than just whites, and not-white does not mean only blacks. I think this cast lacks the usual racial diversity MTV’s RW appears to try to include…hence my writing about it and happily noting Parisa’s presence as a person of color and one with a connection to the faith tradition of Islam, but also my fear that they may tokenize her presence and she may feel that her appearance on the show might be interpreted by some as her speaking for the group with which she personally idenfities (as minorities often feel pressured to do).

Also, Renaldo, I think MTV’s Real World is incredibly relevant, just like any other aspect of pop culture, possibly even more so because they are not supposed to be thought of as characters, but as REAL PEOPLE. as we know editing distorts a lot of things, and I think that if people interpret the RW as real and don’t think about the editing, they may come away from watching the show thinking that x group/gender acts this way in real life too…instant stereotyping, with little regard to situation altering and editing. Lastly, this is a blog about how race and pop culture intersect, so this issue is completely related…

Posted 27 Jul 2007 at 10:22 am ¶
Wendi Muse wrote:

renaldo* (my apologies for the initial misspelling of your name!)

Posted 27 Jul 2007 at 10:23 am ¶
Wendi Muse wrote:

and…ugh…sorry i can’t type properly in english today, y’all

i meant to say “people of color is a term that refers to more than just blacks” (not “more than just whites”)…uber oops

Posted 27 Jul 2007 at 10:24 am ¶
cw wrote:

Where the Aborigials at?

Posted 27 Jul 2007 at 12:28 pm ¶
Bohemian Writer wrote:

Am I the only glad there won’t be any black folk on this year & yes I am black in case you were wondering!

Posted 27 Jul 2007 at 2:53 pm ¶
Kenny wrote:

Jay you are right , it’s not just MTV that wants 99% of romance on tv to involve White males. However they like to act aa if theyare different, when they are not.I remember the Philly season where they had two straight White guys , a Gay Black guy and a gay Hispanic guy. On top of that they had yet another Black girl who had already dated White in the house. So all the women were there for guess who? The networks don’t pretend to be as liberal as MTV does.I mean as popular as Black music is the Soul Train awards came on at 3 am in my town this year and I was not surprised!

Posted 30 Jul 2007 at 10:34 am ¶
Luls wrote:

I just finished watching the casting special for The Real World Sydney and after hearing Parisa say she is a practicing muslim i really hope she is a good representation of our religion, especially under Real World circumstances which is hard to do. since there arent a lot of modern muslim people on tv, people all over america will assume all young muslims act in a similiar manner, which is far from true, as for the whole arabs are usually caucasian comment, i dont entirely agree but both of my parents are syrian and im extremely fair skinned and consider myself white and so are most if not all of my relatives, although you really cant generalize with arabs because of how mixed each region is, anyway i hope tv finally gives a realistic version of what a modern muslim is but from what i’ve seen of Parisa i can tell its not going to make me happy

Posted 01 Aug 2007 at 9:41 pm ¶
kay wrote:

hello everyone! ****spoiler alert*****i wanted to see if anyone was able to catch the premiere of the real world sydney as i have had the opportunity to watch it with comcast on demand. i was excited to see there was a woman with a strong ethnic background on the show, parisa. I found myself disappointed in her after watching her brush off a story trisha, one of the resident blondes was sharing with the other female roomates about an experience she had at a sydney mc donalds with a cashier who did not speak english. finding the experience laughable she disgusting suggests the cashier get some english lessons. As disgustingly ignorant as this blonde individual is, i found myself even more disappointed in parisa the resident minority who has parents who have had their own personal struggles with english. parisa said nothing, instead she called trisha mean and insensitive in the house confessional. Though this is true of this uneffected white woman. I wanted so much for parisa to stand up and say this to this travesty of a human being how disgustingly ignorant she is. im still rooting for parisa and waiting for her to eliquently and effectively make her voice be heard in a house full of pretty middle class caucasian individuals who have probably never had to work for anything ever unlike the cashier whom was the center of laughs for the ignorant blonde. go parisa!

Posted 03 Aug 2007 at 4:00 am ¶
Wendi Muse wrote:

hi kay,

despite the spoiler (ahem your comment is really valuable in that it relates specifically to what people of color and, in general, any marginalized group (class, sexual orientation, gender, you name it) deals with quite often. Should we stand in as de facto anti-racist police? Is it our job to educate people who don’t understand why some things they say/do may be considered offensive, insensitive and hurtful simply because we are of such a group? The phrase pick your battles comes to mind here. It’s overwhelming sometimes to bear the burden of educating others and then even in attempting to do so, being completely shut down and called insensitive, attention hungry. Where do we draw the line? Is that the person of color burden?

Posted 03 Aug 2007 at 8:59 am ¶
Lance wrote:

Diversity has never really been the main goal for “The Real World.” I have to say I am a bit shocked they did not cast anyone from Austrailia to be on the show. I miss the format of the first four seasons where they put seven strangers, some from the city in which it is filmed and some from other places and followed their lives as they interacted with the city and the people they lived with. Today they cast people not from the location in which it is filmed.

Posted 03 Aug 2007 at 4:15 pm ¶
Wendi Muse wrote:

that’s true, lance. i recall that the real world: london season had 2 people from the uk, someone from australia, and someone from germany (along with the american cast members), so it is a shame they didn’t take the opportunity to cast any australians (white or otherwise).

Posted 07 Aug 2007 at 11:36 am ¶
Nias wrote:

I think people get a little too serious about the whole “Real World” title. Poor Parisa doesn’t have to carry the burden of being the sole representative of Middle-Eastern/Semetic/Persian/Arab/Muslim/non-Muslim peoples on this show. I actually hope not since the idea is to make the situation as annoying as possible so we can be entertained. I mean basically the show is the “Jackass” of social interaction.

Parisa seems like her values are pretty good by my measure:

She’s interested in guy
He has a GF so she’s not happy, but lays off.
She’s put off by roommates drunken antics.
Not thrilled by guy’s behavior while in relationship and jacuzzi.

Seems like she’s level headed. If Parisa or anyone on the show plays their cards right, who knows what kind of endorsements or boost to a music career she could gain. The possibilites aren’t bad for being a token.

As far as correcting and educating anyone you come into contact with…that’s a full time job. I’d be pretty ineffective in life if I made it a point to pick a fight with every smartass comment I hear.

I like the drunk girl better. She’d be fun.

Posted 15 Aug 2007 at 5:33 am ¶
Fatima wrote:

I’m really disappointed in this cast. They are all boring … the young, naive girl who’s never been exposed to anything, the country southerner who’s in his own world, the “beef cake” who all the girls are attracted to (but I can’t figure out why for the life of me), the flirt/tease, the girl who wants to be known for her mind but has her breasts plastered out for the world to see all the time, and the token Muslim who is super-Americanized. [the smoking and the boy-crazedness really bother me]

It’s sad that Parisa will have to go through her RW experience without having another “token” to talk to. BTW, PARISA IS NOT THE FIRST MUSLIM ON THE REAL WORLD. Mohammed (from the San Francisco cast, I think) and Coral (from back to New York) claimed themselves as Muslims as well … oh yeah, and Stephen (the crazy black guy, can’t remember his cast, was ONCE a Muslim) …

She’s the first Middle Eastern Muslim. If MTV wanted a real winning formula to bring the RW out of the hole, they’d hire me to do casting but … all they want is to have sex, drugs, jealousy, fights … all which can be interesting but aren’t enough to carry a show. They need people with MINDS who talk about REAL ISSUES SOMETIMES, not just I like this boy but my roommate likes him too so I hate her…

Posted 17 Aug 2007 at 4:53 pm ¶
ilham wrote:

when i first heard that the real world was going to have a muslimah i thought great i want to watch this!! i haven’t watched mtv for a very long time until an acquaintance brought the attention to me about real world having a muslimah i thought finally have a real woman on a show so she can represent muslim girls…after watching the first episode and second i thought parisa a MUSLIM??!!!? i said absolutly NOT! she is not a real muslimah and it shocks me that you took a class called “Women in Islam” what exactly do they teach you in that class?? it disappoints me watching her on t.v. making a mockery out of her Deen
The Qur’an states

Say to the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty: that will make for greater purity for them: And Allah is well acquainted with all that they do.

And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands’ fathers, their sons, their husbands’ sons, their brothers or their brothers’ sons, or their sisters’ sons, or their women, or the slaves whom their right hands possess, or male servants free of physical needs, or small children who have no sense of the shame of sex; and that they should not strike their feet in order to draw attention to their hidden ornaments. And 0 you believers! Turn all toward Allah that you may attain bliss.

Surat-un-Nur (24) 30-31

it makes me discomfortable knowing that muslim girls that are not well educated in Islam are watching her and think “hey shes muslim why is she dressing like this drinking intoxicants and throwing herself on a man” making them think its alright to do these things and dress this way Prophet Muhammad (Allah’s blessing be upon him) in a hadith says:
“. . . If the woman reaches the age of puberty. No part of her body should be seen but this – and he pointed to his face and hands.”

its sad now-a-days representation of ones self and of religion is being seen through televison instead of actually reading and studying about your religion and finding your true self through that …especially in the west everyone trys to imitate whats being seen on t.v. this is why i was excited about seening parisa and now us TRUE and REAL muslimahs are ashamed and embarresd to have her as a representation of a real woman..i wonder what trisha thinks since she is from fresno california as am I since all muslim girls here are not like perisa

Posted 19 Sep 2007 at 4:13 pm ¶
PersianGirl wrote:

For everyone who’s talking about Arabs…. Parisa is PERSIAN, which is not Arab. She’s not an Arab, she’s Persian and Persians are Caucasian. Many Persians are naturally light-eyed, fair-skinned, and of medium hair tones (some are even blonde naturally!). I’d hedge to bet that on the show she’s darker than her natural color, ie: tan.

Posted 15 Nov 2007 at 4:19 am ¶
Wendi Muse wrote:

speaking as a person who knows her, no, mtv did not darken her skin. she is actually brown-skinned. it’s not a light trick.

and i didn’t see anyone refering to her as arab up there…unless i missed something

i also mention that she is persian (iranian) in the article…

Posted 15 Nov 2007 at 9:10 am ¶
Nina wrote:

As a young woman who is half Iranian, Iranians *in general* are racially white. The only Iranians who wouldn’t be racially white (only half) are the Arab-Iranians or Turk-Iranians for some examples.

To Wendi Muse: Did you ever hear of suntanning? Parisa is most likely tanned from being in the sun, that doesn’t mean that ethnically she’s “brown”. “Browns” are Indians (from India, again, in general.)

Really, all that matters is ethnicity (and maybe facial features) not so much race, language, place of birth, religion ect…

It’s ironic that I’ve noticed that people who call someone non-white when they actually are white, happen to actually be non-white themselves and/or ignorant. This is one of my biggest pet peeves. When I looked at the photos and went on the website I saw nothing but white people.

White isn’t just restricted to European (Anglo-Saxon white), you know.

PersianGirl’s 100% correct.

Posted 15 Jun 2009 at 10:01 pm ¶
Wendi Muse wrote:

nina,
once again, i went to school with her and know her in real life. she is brown. her skin color is brown. and americans, people born in the states and living within the u.s. view of race, reading whiteness, i.e. the majority of the mtv viewers,would not consider her white.

i am not talking about ethnic whiteness, i am talking about phenotypic whiteness. and sorry, but homegirl’s not passing for white anytime soon.

Posted 15 Jun 2009 at 10:10 pm ¶
Nina Davis wrote:

Wendi Muse: Oh, ok. I get it now. I realize what you mean.

Posted 16 Jun 2009 at 9:49 pm ¶