Links – 2008-10-31
Sad news for Jennifer Hudson – her mother and brother were murdered; the shooting has been categorized as domestic violence. An Amber alert has been issued for Hudson’s nephew, Julian King.
Stereohyped reports on an ING survey that states black women give away too much of their income.
Transgriot points our attention to the story of Cindy Thai Tai, “the most famous transgender person” in Vietnam.
Racewire brings news of a new project by Josefina Lopez:
You probably know the Chicana feminist Josefina Lopez as the writer behind the play that went on to become the hit movie Real Women Have Curves starring America Ferrera. [...]
Her new play Trios Los Machos chronicles the lives and friendships of three men who first meet during World War II as guest workers under the bracero program.
As young men, Nacho, Paco and Lalo suffer the humiliations of being sprayed with DDT before being sent to work the fields. They find refuge in the music of Trio Los Panchos and start their own band, singing for the other braceros and embarking on careers as musicians.
Raquel Cepeda publishes an interesting article in the Villiage Voice on how “The N-Word is Flourishing Among Generation Hip-Hop Latinos”:
With Nas threatening to name his latest album Nigga (he relented, eventually, but most fans still call it that anyway) a few months ago, and iconic Latino artists from the authentic urban native Fat Joe to one of my favorite internationalists, Immortal Technique, still flinging it about freely, the word, its meaning, and our sense of who can and cannot use it still dominates public conversation. The palpable racial tension that’s been rearing its head this historic presidential election, the subject of race and who is truly considered black or white in this black-and-white race, is something Latinos need to pay attention to. For many of us, especially those of Caribbean descent who make up a sizable chunk of New York Latinos, race should matter, and so should that one particular word.
Personal feelings, premonitions, and politics aside, I took the two young boys’ exchange as an interesting opportunity, an exercise in thinking about Afro-Latino identity in an unlikely way: through a hip-hop lens. Aside from the fact that we’re in the thick of a predominantly Dominican enclave (for now) in our beloved Uptown Manhattan, and the first guy I’d overheard wore an oversized white T-shirt emblazoned with our motherland’s flag, homeboy could’ve passed for an African-American man on any other stretch of blocks stateside. By comparison, his comrade looked more like Fat Joe’s skinnier brother, with light eyes and pale skin. Was it OK, or more OK, for the darker-skinned kid to use the term?
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
Black vs White Saving Habits | cinna.mn on 19 Nov 2008 at 5:41 pm
[...] Is it because African-Americans have a stronger culture of sacrificing themselves for their kids and families? (A recent study talks about how black women give away too much money (via Racialicious).) [...]