Meet the contributor who will recap The Office, Degrassi, and Boondocks
by Carmen Van Kerckhove
I’m excited to announce that Jasmine will be recapping three shows for us starting this week! Here’s a little bit about her, and her thoughts on the shows.
My name is Jasmine, and I’ll be recapping The Office, Degrassi: The Next Generation, and The Boondocks for Racialicious.
I watch The Office because its cringe-worthy plots often address racial, gender, and office politics in a manner both humorous and thoughtful. Degrassi: The Next Generation is the descendant of the original “Degrassi Junior High”, and like its predecessor pushes dialogue on critical issues that affect today’s youth as well as adult society: drugs, violence, discrimination, homophobia. The Boondocks is the animated version of Aaron McGruder’s seminal comic strip, an unabashedly sharp and cynical look at the challenges faced by a politically aware African-American boy trapped in predominantly White suburbia.
What attracts me to these shows are how their stories can be rooted in a question of racial discrimination or sexual harassment are given due attention, but without crossing over into “Very Special Episode” territory often found in other less adept shows.
A Philippine-born native New Yorker who has been living in Chicago for the last 13 years, I blog about myself (infrequently) and television (interminably). The question of race and how it is portrayed both the large and small screens has weighed on my mind ever since I first saw Mickey Rooney in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”. Butterfly McQueen in “Gone with the Wind”. Gedde Watanabe in “Sixteen Candles”.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of 
Undercover Black Man wrote:
Umm… “a Philippine-born native New Yorker”?
Posted 24 Oct 2007 at 12:14 pm ¶
Jasmine wrote:
UBM: Well, okay the “native” part can come out of that description. But seriously — my family moved to Queens when I was eight years old, and by the time I left for college ten years later, I felt as native a New Yorker as anybody else on my block.
Posted 24 Oct 2007 at 1:21 pm ¶
Wendi Muse wrote:
yay for the office recaps! i love that show and look forward to your commentary. welcome!
Posted 24 Oct 2007 at 1:24 pm ¶
Lyonside wrote:
Not speaking for Jasmine, but she probably means born in the Phillipines, but raised completely in NYC. If all her memories are of being a New Yorker, and she didn’t move until adulthood, she’s “native” in my book.
Posted 24 Oct 2007 at 1:31 pm ¶
Undercover Black Man wrote:
Clarification appreciated, Jasmine. ;^)
I’ll be looking forward to your “Boondocks” recaps.
Posted 24 Oct 2007 at 3:59 pm ¶
frankye wrote:
I love the show, but come on–every epispde of Degrassi is a Very Special episode of Degrassi!
Looking forward to one of my favorite guilty pleasures getting the old once over!
Posted 25 Oct 2007 at 10:54 am ¶
Bianca Reagan wrote:
I love the show, but come on–every epispde of Degrassi is a Very Special episode of Degrassi!
Hee!
I watch all of these shows, so I’m excited.
Posted 25 Oct 2007 at 4:38 pm ¶
Lynne wrote:
For another take on “The Office” from a legal/HR perspective (as in “How much would this cost a company if this happened in real life?”), check out this blog:
http://www.hrheroblogs.com/thatswhatshesaid/
Posted 26 Oct 2007 at 11:02 am ¶