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“A crime wave is intensifying in this city already beset by a flagging recovery from Hurricane Katrina, and Hispanic immigrants helping to rebuild are common targets, according to police and to statistics released Thursday.”
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“without asking questions they ordered her to leave. Except the woman was Rigoberta Menchú, the Nobel peace prizewinner, Unesco goodwill ambassador, Guatemalan presidential candidate and figurehead for indigenous rights.”
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“More often than not, such racism goes unnoticed primarily because antagonism towards Arabs and Muslims has become so commonplace and acceptable in American discourse. … Receiving hate mail has just become a part of being Arab in America.”
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“Raids during the population count would make an already distrustful group even less likely to cooperate with government workers who are supposed to include them, the Census Bureau’s second-ranking official said in an Associated Press interview.”
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“MisQuinceMag.com will featuring planning advice, tips and other information on quinceaneras, a family event for celebrating a girl’s 15th birthday, comparable to sweet sixteens for the Latin community.”
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“CARE’s decision is focused on the practice of selling tons of often heavily subsidized American farm products in African countries that in some cases, it says, compete with the crops of struggling local farmers.”
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“Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to the Defense and Treasury secretaries late Monday, calling on them to award more advertising contracts to small, disadvantaged and minority-owned businesses.”
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“a new form of school segregation has taken hold in which in post-affirmative action California, the best way for a black or Latino student to get into a University of California campus is to attend a “white” high school.”
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“exploring the psychic aftershocks of Maya’s rape and its effect on her senses of autonomy, sexuality and ethnic identity. All three are symbolically annihilated by Jared, who ravages her while grunting sexist and racist epithets in her ear.”
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“An array of books, mostly self-published, are exhibited at the L.A. event, where prospective authors can reach other African Americans.”
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Watch out Asians! Mexicans are coming after your model minority status!
” in the Mexican state of Puebla: a 12-year old named Andrew Almazán just finished high school and is off to study medicine and psychology at the university level.”
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“Many people haven’t heard of Max Roach, because he’s not quite as famous as Bird, Dizzy or Miles, but the article points out just how present he was. Max Roach is also part of a musical tradition stemming from one of America’s most famous Brooklyn Neighb
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“I find that many films that use boys dressed like girls or girls dressed like boys use cheap homophobia gags and gender stereotypes to get laughs, but instead this movie deconstructs a lot of the belief systems around male and female roles.”
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of 
Wendi Muse wrote:
i saw descent tonight with rosario dawson and marcus patrick, but no worries, i don’t plan on putting a spoiler here…
i was interested with the nytimes’ author’s use of the term african american to refer to the character patrick portrays. though i initially couldn’t get a firm grasp on his accent (it wavered from being inflected with a brazilian portuguese accent, a quasi colombian accent, a tinge of jamaican, and a bit british), but throughout the film, the implication seems to be that he is a latino man of multiracial descent…
which i think is odd for the author to have ignored…especially considering that dawson herself identifies in that way (multiracial background, connection to latino/a community through parentage and childhood environment, etc)…
and i wonder if the story’s writer and casting director had that matching in mind…to show patrick as the sadistic side of dawson’s initially submissive side (submissive by way of being victimized by rape, but not in other aspects of her life prior to the rape). is he supposed to be her alter ego? my guess is yes…
so i was disappointed after seeing the film and re-reading the article that the author may have missed this, as well as seeing brown skin and immediately assuming marcus patrick, who was born in bath, england, funny enough, was african-american…it’s kind of like calling kate winslet a white american b/c she does an american accent in some of her films. homegirl is a brit…they need to do their research before they print it in the times.
Posted 18 Aug 2007 at 10:51 pm ¶
Wendi Muse wrote:
ok i did some research….just as an fyi, which i am providing a) just to show how over-simplified the times’ represention of his ethnic/racial background was and b) b/c i contend that his multiracial heritage may be linked to the themes of the film:
Marcus Patrick: ” His father was of English, Irish, & French descent, while his mother is of Jamaican, Cuban, & Cherokee descent.” (wikipedia)
Rosario Dawson: puerto rican, cuban, african american, irish, and native american (bust magazine interview)
one last thing of note. there is a scene in the movie in which patrick’s character consistently uses a spanish-inflected accent when speaking english on top of using spanish words (puta) and signifying that despite his momentary position as a “top
” with another man, he is “not a faggot.” i think considering the treatment of homosexuality historically in a lot of latin-american countries, that being that if a man is a top as opposed to a bottom, he is not gay (of course this is accepted socially in a lot of countries/communities, but from what i have learned, it was more of a prevalent in countries throughout latin america).
so with that said, it seems to provide even more hints that the character is supposed to be of latin origin and not african-american in the typical sense (meaning someone black who is born in the US)…
Posted 18 Aug 2007 at 11:08 pm ¶
hoo_boy wrote:
Saw it weeks before the Times review. Dug it, and heard the buzz. Few thoughts (wont give away the spoilers).
(1) Actually your comments echo *precisely* what the director (who co-wrote with her cousin) wanted audiences to feel in terms of ambiguity and distance (note the jock’s attraction to her because she’s multiracial in the first place, parallel’s little white boy’s attraction to him, etc.). No specifics, much messed-uppededness to set the stage for what follows…
(2) I think you mean “dominant” to “submissive”, though there’s definitely enough sadism of all types to go around.
(3) Solid point on the “male top”. No different than going “down low” or prison mentality (was he an ex-con?). His character is pure narcissistic power, sex as self-pleasure through others. Nice that the seductive charisma is/isn’t more dangerous in it’s sensuality than an awkward athlete’s direct physicality and lack of grace?
(4) I’ve told folks who liked Gaspar Noe’s “Irreversible” (which I found amazing but also hard to watch) to go see this. I also think “Straw Dogs”, “The Accused”, and “I Spit on Your Grave” belong as part of group. It’s very hard to create an “enjoyable” film with rape as the subject, especially one graphically and violently depicted, without crossing into exploitation. These films, however, do something different by taking the politics of sex and gender motives in different ambiguous directions. With “Descent” and “I Spit on Your Grave”, I notice not much has changed despite 33 years, multiracial casting, and the NC-17 vs. X rating.
Male critics still squirm uncomfortably unless the film involves a guy saving the woman’s honor os there’s a way to show she could have stopped “it” (assuming it has to be about women), women still cheer when revenge is on the table, and folks of color still are on the attack.
Posted 19 Aug 2007 at 2:43 pm ¶
Wendi Muse wrote:
yeah hoo_boy, i did mean submissive/dominant as opposed to submissive/sadistic…that’s the type of typo that happens when are thinking of too many things at once!
Posted 19 Aug 2007 at 3:13 pm ¶