There have been thousands of words written about Stockett’s skills, her portrayal of the black women versus the white women, her right to tell this story at all. I won’t rehash those arguments, except to say that I found the novel fast-paced but highly problematic. Even more troubling, though, is how the structure of narratives like The Help underscores the failure of pop culture to acknowledge a central truth: Within the civil rights movement, white people were the help.

The architects, visionaries, prime movers, and most of the on-the-ground laborers of the civil rights movement were African-American. Many white Americans stood beside them, and some even died beside them, but it was not their fight — and more important, it was not their idea.

This isn’t the first time the civil rights movement has been framed this way fictionally, especially on film. Most Hollywood civil rights movies feature white characters in central, sometimes nearly solo, roles. My favorite (not!) is Alan Parker’s Mississippi Burning, which gives us two white FBI agents as heroes of the movement. FBI agents! Given that J. Edgar Hoover did everything short of shoot Martin Luther King Jr. himself in order to damage or discredit the movement, that goes from troubling to appalling.

Why is it ever thus? Suffice it to say that these stories are more likely to get the green light and to have more popular appeal (and often acclaim) if they have white characters up front. That’s a shame. The continued impulse to reduce the black women and men of the civil rights movement to bit players in the most extraordinary step toward justice that this nation has ever known is infuriating, to say the least. Minny and Aibileen are heroines, but they didn’t need Skeeter to guide them to the light. They fought their way out of the darkness on their own — and they brought the nation with them.

–Martha Southgate, The Truth about the Civil Rights Era

This book will not just quietly die.

We first were notified about Kathryn Stockett’s The Help back in 2010. A few readers asked us if we had read it. If we had heard the NPR interview. One blogger, Onyx M, started a critique blog. We’ve been silent for a while on the book world – outside of Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao, we haven’t reviewed a book in a long time. Probably because the stack of books that people have sent in still teeters on my desk. And all of the books are good, so they deserve a thorough discussion. But stealing time away to read a book, analyze it, and write about it doesn’t come easy.

And that process is even harder when one enters a book with as much trepidation as I enter The Help. Now that ads for the movie adaptation are all over TV, it’s time to go ahead and put this to rights. I have a new book review format that may help with timeliness. Now, if I can only get over my reluctance.

Even skimming the reviews makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little bit.

The Huffington Post checks out the controversy, noting:

Writing for Ms. Magazine, Erin Aubry Kaplan wonders, “Why must blacks speak dialect to be authentic? Why are Stockett’s white characters free of the linguistic quirks that white Southerners certainly have?” The Christian Science Monitor notes the same problem, wondering about the “decision to convey only black voices in dialect, with nary a dropped ‘g’ among her generally less sympathetic Southern white characters.”

Still, the Monitor and others generally seem to find that the novel rises above these flaws, and others don’t see them as flaws at all. In The Washington Post, Sybil Steinberg finds that one of “Stockett’s accomplishments is reproducing African American vernacular and racy humor without resorting to stilted dialogue.”

Why do I get the feeling that Steinberg’s idea of African American vernacular and a linguist’s opinion on the matter would be two entirely different things?

Over at White Readers Meet Black Authors, Trisha R. Thomas puts up a review of The Help noting:

It’s true that readers are a narcissistic bunch. We find the characters who most resemble us and our thoughts to agree with, cheer for, and feel for in their deepest pain. We celebrate their victories as our own. The Help tells an honest story of women taking a chance and stepping out of old beliefs. You can’t help but love a story when the ones you care about win in the end. Caring whether or not the author is black or white seems of no substance now. Would a black author have experienced living with a maid all her life and know the life of Skeeter, Abilene, or Minny? I don’t know about you, but my only care giver was my mother and the public school system. I’m black, an author, and could not have written The Help. We are who we are. This novel struck the nerves of both black and white readers. It especially hit mine remembering my first novel and being judged as not “black enough” What did I know about nappy? How dare I write on the subject at all? I soldiered on, ignoring the critics. I wrote what I knew to be true from my experiences. We write what we know. If we’re lucky, we do it well. Judging a book by it’s color has to end somewhere. We have to be the change we want to see in others. Open minds mean open pages. The door needs to stay unlocked for all of us. Freedom to write whatever we want. Freedom to read whatever, whomever we want.

Thomas brings up a good point – of empathy and honest storytelling. One does not need to have the same experience as a character to be able to identify with them. There are many books I love, stories of people I am not. I loved Oscar Wao, though I am not Dominican-American or from Jersey. It spoke to me anyway. I loved Free Food for Millionaires, though I am not Korean-American, nor did I go to college, nor do I work in finance. Spoke to me anyway.

But there is a difference, I think, between allowing yourself to embrace lives and experiences not ones own and being forced through what is essentially literary waterboarding. Thomas mentions the Secret Life of Bees as a book she enjoyed – I didn’t make it all the way through the book. There was something about being repeatedly plunged into the character of Lily, but being kept arm’s length from August, June, and May was aggravating for me. This didn’t happen when I re-read To Kill a Mockingbird – but perhaps it is because Scout’s world started white and stayed white. She merely observed what was happening most of the book, and did not act as an agent, until far later. In some ways, I found that less condescending. Mockingbird is still problematic, but in some ways, for the same reason I enjoyed it – it used scenes to describe what was happening to the black characters, instead of trying to recreate their voices in an extended, intimate narrative. I remember that my thoughts kept straying while reading the Secret Life of Bees – how Lily’s actions were dangerous, why she was so reckless when the lives of others could be on the line, what was going on in the minds of the other women? I kept drifting away from the character, my own experiences, past readings, and thoughts keeping me from sinking into her. So in that way, Lily’s narrative was like a straight-jacket I couldn’t escape from.

I think that’s my hesitancy about The Help. I have read stories where white authors can convincingly craft characters of color. When they do it well, I forget who is writing. But I generally that is not the case. I used to hate reading Patricia Cornwell writing black characters in her narrative. They were generally jerky side characters, and did things that were inexplicable to me, like “unraveling [their] long dreadlocks.” After I read that line, I spent hours trying to figure out what the hell she was trying to say. Did she mean braids? Unraveling was a weird word. Did she even know the difference between dreads, braids, and twists? It’s these little jarring moments that remind me that a writer is creating a world, and that world may not actually include me. James Patterson is better with Alex Cross. His portrayals were a bit lopsided at times – I remember the whole “blood and bones of my ancestors” speech in one of the early Cross novels that had me also perplexed. The way many white writers discuss and interpret racism is just straight up different – and it’s rarely ever subtle. Whereas reading Benilde Little’s Good Hair, the protagonist is trying to confront her white boss about favoring less seasoned white reporters over her without setting off the angry black woman alarm. Needless to say, she presses her boss, but race doesn’t come up in the actual conversation. Too risky. Just like in real life. Your boss may be racist, but you are the one dealing with the consequences.

This isn’t to say The Help does any of this – I can’t judge a book I haven’t read, full stop.

But I am not really looking forward to the experience. I hope I’m wrong, and we’ve come to a point in America where a white woman can write in a real authentic way about race, and other white women will love it, not because it’s been “properly translated” but because it allows them to access their thoughts and memories of a time in the not-too-distant past. Maybe this is a way of healing. To admit that things were fucked up and white women did their share in perpetuating that while still being oppressed by white men, and as we acknowledge this part of our pasts, we can start shaping our present and correcting for the future.

Then I read “Ten Issues that Tarnish the Help” (complete with citations from the text) and realize that I’m going to need a big bottle of wine for this one.

Sometimes there’s love in laughter. And the cast and crew bringing the new web series East Willy B have a lot of love for the real-life neighborhood of Bushwick, Brooklyn, and (most) of the fictional characters.

The series’ heart is Willie Reyes, Jr. (Flaco Navaja) the 30-something Puerto Rican-proud bar owner who inherited the business from his dad, including the barfly crushing on him, Giselle (Caridad “La Bruja” de la Cruz). Wille is trying to keep his bar, which has served as the nabe’s hangout and nerve center, from closing down due gentrification in the form of his ex-girlfriend Maggie (April Hernandez) and her new white beau (and Willie’s longtime rival), Albert (Danny Hoch), and the incoming white hipsters looking for cheap(er) rent.

Transcript of the premiere episode after the jump.

(Music plays in the background. Willy and Gisele laugh. )

Willie: What do you need, Gisele?

Gisele: What I need or what I want? ‘Cause, if you ask me what I want, I’ll tell you.

Willie: OK, what do you want?

Gisele: I want me…a little bit of what you got going on right down there.

Willie: You’re crazy! You want another one?

Gisele: You asked me what I need? (Laughs)

Willie: (under his breath) Jesus!

Gisele: (Grabs for Willy) Oooo-hooo—

Willie: Hey hey heeeey! I’m working here!

(Gisele laughs)

Maggie: …yeah. (Laughs.) Si, mi amor. I’ll talk to you later. ‘Bye. (Blows kiss. Sighs.) I saw you, Willie.

Willie: Maa-ggiiiie!

Maggie: We need to talk.

Willie: Yeah, I’m sure we do.

Maggie: So. I was thinking: I have some ideas on bringing this bar alive.

Willie: Yeah, where’d you get ‘em? From your mom?

Maggie: Funny. OK? You know I’ve been taking classes—

Willie: Where at? Nuyorican College? That shit ain’t school.

(Maggie sighs)

Willie: That’s like ghetto babysitting or something.

Maggie: (exasperated) OK, anyway. Listen: I’m thinking…we can make this bar? More. Emo.

Willie: What the fuck is “emo”?!

Maggie: “Emotional!” You know: slightly depressive dive. We can have some 80s video games, some confederate flags. You also need to start selling $6 malt liquors. Those rich white hipsters love that shit!

Willie: This is still a Latin bar, aiight? I don’t know why everybody’s trippin’.

Maggie: Because no one cares, Willy. OK? You need to let go.

Ceci: Oh hell no! The dog run is around the corner.

Maggie: Whatever, Ceci.

Ceci: Por favor, Willie. You’re not still sweating this bougie-ass bitch, are you? She dumped your ass! Really?

(To Maggie) Looook, whatever it is you’re selling? We ain’t buying it.

Maggie: Shouldn’t you be chasing dudes with tattoos and bulldogs?

Ceci: Are you going to kick her out or do I gotta to do everything around here?

Maggie: Look! Mama? I own half this bar, and I’ll come here whenever I want.

(To Willie) This is what I’m talking about. If you want more people, get rid of these hoodrats.

Gisele: You bitch! (Screams)

Maggie: You know what? I don’t need this ghetto shit anymore! As a matter of fact, I’m gonna sue your ass.

Willie: For what?!?

Maggie: I am going to get controlling interest in this bar.

Willie: Like hell you are!

Maggie: Yeah? OK. You’ll be hearing from my lawyer.

Willie: Fine! All right? ‘Cause I got your Colby and Meyers, and they got TV commercials and all that. So bring it!!

Ceci: Yeah? When you gonna grow your balls back?

Gisele: Don’chu worry, Willie. I’ma get her next time!

I’ll admit it: it took me a minute to get into East Willy B. Part of it is simply being an ethnic outsider: I’m not Latina and felt odd laughing with—and sometimes at—the jokes. Then I had to check myself: like I couldn’t recognize That Alcoholic Lecherous Auntie in Giselle (don’t lie: I know some of y’all Racializens have a Giselle in your fam and y’all love her antics at the family gathering); got-your-back (and sometimes gotta-be-in-your-face) Ceci (played by EWB co-creator Julia Ahumada Grob) ; or even soft-hearted-though-over-his-head Willie. And like I couldn’t recognize laughing in the face of New York City’s ongoing gentrification.

What I think East Willy B does best is put a biting laugh on the class politics aggravated by gentrification, ongoing colorism and “authenticity”, and ethnic pride (which comes out sometimes as ethnic chauvinism). Yes, there’s the leitmotif of the white hipsters seen as invading Bushwick, but for the most part, they are a joke in absentia. (And we can argue about the presence of hipsters and other gentrifiers of color.  However, it’s also real that the face of this demographics shift is white for quite a few communities. This definitely holds true for Bushwick.)  And Albert, the “token white guy,” isn’t viewed as “white” (the website describes him as “browner-than-thou,” complete with Latina girlfriend). White gentrification, says East Willy B, is aided and abetted by people from within the community who may see the financial and social upsides of it but may get caught up in some form of false consciousness due to getting some post-high school education (Maggie) or just overall sleaze (John the Realtor). (It’s also that awkward relationship with education that’s my biggest critique of East Willy B.)

And what I love about East Willy B is that it’s a complete online experience, reflecting Internet use among Latin@s. Yes, there’s the show and a vid of the on-camera and off-camera crews, but there are spot-on commercial spoofs and an emerging web series about the real Bushwick, with local activists speaking about the changes. (I like what Jesus says in the vid: “We’d love to have more people come by and see us, but don’t replace us.” I think the same holds true for enjoying East Willy B.) More importantly, the viewer is invited to be a part of East Willy B, both online and offline: the creators asks us to get the word out about the new web series (they have more episodes lined up for the summer) by hosting viewing parties and attending upcoming East Willy B-related events during the summer.

If the events (and the viewing parties) are anything like the series, then I think you’ll have a great time.

Photo Credit: John Walder

By Arturo R. García

Yesterday, Moviefone’s Gabrielle Dunn wrote that this image of Jennifer Lawrence in character as Katniss Everdeen from the planned Hunger Games movie adaptation “calmed” any concerns about her casting. We beg to differ.

To be fair, Ms. Dunn was referring more to questions about the 20-year-old Lawrence playing a 16-year-old character. But the concerns regarding a white, blonde actress being hired to play a character many fans considered to be multi-racial won’t go away soon, as Racebending’s Michael Le illustrated on Twitter:

Meanwhile, movie blogger Ms. Go identified Lawrence’s unspoken “co-star”:

This isn’t to diminish Lawrence’s talents, but it’s not hard to figure that she required some cosmetic help to play Katniss, because even accounting for camera discrepancies, her skin tone on that Entertainment Weekly cover does not match the one seen in this picture she took for Elle:

Both the film’s director, Gary Ross, and Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins have gone out of their way to assure both fans of the book series and potential audiences that Lawrence is the only person who could play Katniss. But the truth is, while Katniss’ ethnicity was undefined in the books, the casting call for the movie called for Caucasian actresses from the get-go. That would seem to contradict Ross’ statement to EW that there was no “doctrine” regarding the character’s race.

The truth is, the doctrine has always been there in Hollywood, and – again, through no fault of Lawrence’s – it’s designed to give people like her a pass. And those concerns should not be ignored by anyone anymore.

Watching black folks on Twitter tells no more about African American culture than watching the forums at Salon or Gawker reveals about white culture. Sure, among certain Twitter groups, black folks relax and use vernacular and call on experiences that are unique to us. But attempting to assign deep cultural meaning to trending topics like #hoodhoe is a reflection of racial bias. We do ourselves no favor by buying into the thinking that topics like this and #itaintrape reveal something particularly significant about black people. Don’t get me wrong, these memes are misogynist. But anyone who has spent more than two seconds online knows that misogyny and sexism are everywhere–a reflection of American…no…world culture, not that of any particular race. Consider the deeply sexist conversation surrounding the Julian Assange sexual assault accusations and the trolling on the #mooreandme hashtag. These were hardly driven by black Twitterati.

If some white people are amazed at what black folks do on Twitter, it is a sign of their own ignorance and prejudice. Williams laments that on the anniversary of the disaster in Haiti, the #haiti hashtag peaked at number 76 on the Twitter trend list, far below a slew of vulgar and sexist tags. But are black people solely to blame for that? Were all the white people on Twitter discussing Haitian relief efforts? Why should black people be more or less ashamed of the idiots among us than people of the majority culture? Why should silly and profane Tweets written by black folks hold more weight than the equally silly and profane Tweets written by everybody else?

I, for one, refuse to be burdened with the actions of @lilduval, some dude I’ve never heard of who created the  #itaintrape meme, nor those of @slimthugga, who waxed yesterday about sleeping with white women in honor of MLK Day.

~~Tami Winfrey Harris, “Rejecting the Notion of “Black People Twitter“

Image credit: Boing Boing (via Portfoli)

Compiled by Arturo R. García

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is really a large matter – it’s the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
- Mark Twain, author, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Seems to me I’m doing something constructive by simply eliminating a word that’s a clear barrier for many people.
- Dr. Alan Gribben, Twain scholar, Auburn University.

We’ve got our first official race flap of 2011—and it involves something published in 1884.
- Kai Wright, editorial director, Colorlines

All it does is feed the American aversion to history and reflection. Which is a shame. If there’s anything great about this country, it’s in our ability to account for and overcome our mistakes. Peddling whitewashed ignorance diminishes America as much as it does our intellect.
- Ta-Nehisi Coates, senior editor, The Atlantic.

At NewSouth, we saw the value in an edition that would help the works find new readers. If the publication sparks good debate about how language impacts learning or about the nature of censorship or the way in which racial slurs exercise their baneful influence, then our mission in publishing this new edition of Twain’s works will be more emphatically fulfilled.
- Suzanne LaRosa, publisher, NewSouth Books.

Yeah, it’s a tough book. Which is an excellent reason for teaching it.
- Millie Davis, Anti-Censorship Representative, National Council of Teachers of English

If some teachers have the audacity to believe that Mark Twain’s work is still meaningful, even absent the words “nigger” and “injun,” more power to them. If other teachers think keeping those epitaphs in is worth the pain they will cause students of color, I understand that too. This isn’t about censorship, it’s about choice. Either choice will have unfortunate consequences.
- Professor Paul Butler, associate dean and Carville Dickinson Benson Research Professor of Law, George Washington University.

5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
- Ranking on 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000, American Library Association.

If a teacher is not prepared to have a social and historical conversation, and place this masterpiece in context, is she prepared to teach that text? Should it be to those students? So, when we get into changing words, unwriting history, rearranging art, we start to put our democracy in danger.
- Michaela Angela Davis, former fashion editor, Essence magazine.

We recognized that some people would say that this was censorship of a kind, but our feeling is that there are plenty of other books out there—all of them, in fact — that faithfully replicate the text, and that this was simply an option for those who were increasingly uncomfortable, as he put it, insisting students read a text which was so incredibly hurtful.
- Suzanne LaRosa.

The idea that we can somehow make any of these cultural products clean and nice is foolish. The whole point of culture and of literature is to challenge us.
- Professor Melissa Harris-Perry, associate professor of Politics and African-American Studies, Princeton University.

For a single word to form a barrier, it seems such an unnecessary state of affairs.
– Alan Gribben.

By Arturo R. García

Good news from Racebending yesterday: Marvel Studios responded to questions over the casting of Nico Minoru in the best possible way.

As you’ll recall, the character is one of the core characters of Marvel’s Runaways comic-book series. But the original open call, while specifically asking for African-American actors to audition for Alex Wilder, left Nico’s description open, aside from the problematic description of “uniquely beautiful.”

But as posted on Racebending Thursday, the company sent them this statement:

Thank you for reaching out regarding your concerns over Marvel’s recent casting notice for THE RUNAWAYS. We appreciate your interest in our production and with Marvel Entertainment.

To address your concern over casting for the role of Nico, as we do with all of our films, we intend to stay true to the legacy and story of the comic when casting these parts. Thus, our goal is to cast an Asian American actress as depicted in the comic series and the casting notice will be adjusted accordingly.

We thank you again for your correspondence and the opportunity to clarify our process.

Marvel Studios

And it’s true: the film’s casting call website now specifies that the “Girl 1″ character is not only “uniquely beautiful” (whatever that means), but Asian-American. Also, the audition deadline has been pushed back to Sept. 15 to give applicants more prep time. So why does this matter? As we did in the case of The Last Airbender, we’ll let Racebending break it down:

In Hollywood parlance, when ethnicity is not clearly stated in a breakdown, the default assumption that the character is intended to be white. Because nondescript listings are frequently used to cast white characters, a nondescript listing does not guarantee actors of color a fair chance. Casting calls interested in seeing actors of all ethnicities are usually more emphatic (i.e: “submit any ethnicity,” “submit all ethnicities,” “all ethnicities welcome.”) [source]

The Hollywood view that a nondescript breakdown defaults to a white character is so entrenched that casting director/producer Rueben Cannon estimated in an interview that 85-95% of agents would not think to submit a black client for a role that does not explicitly say “black” or “African American” in the breakdown. [source]. When Racebending.com spoke with people working in the entertainment industry about the breakdown, they also confirmed that without the keywords “Asian” or “Asian American,” actors of Asian descent would face barriers in accessing the role. Including the keywords would mitigate systemic discriminatory factors prevalent in Hollywood.

“While this is a comic book character, the public has always seen this heroine as an Asian American,” Floyd Mori, National Director of the Japanese American Citizens League, said. “Staying true to the story as it is known is critical in helping the American public to understand that heroines are not always white, but that all ethnicities can and do play that role in real life. This is a giant step in the right direction.”

Congrats to Racebending on this victory, and kudos to Marvel for doing the right thing. Now let’s see if we can convince them to add Luke Cage to that upcoming Iron Fist flick.

Spoiler Alert + Any use of inappropriate cultural terms or conflation with the original movie is entirely intentional.

The Karate Kid (Jaden Smith) and his Mom (Taraji Henson) are leaving Detroit. Lest you think this is a single black mom/deadbeat dad scenario, we’re told upfront that the Karate Kid’s Dad is dead…period. Detroit is portrayed as a gray, dismal city full of shuttered storefronts. This is America in our continued state of joblessness, America in the 21st century, America on the decline. But China, where they’re headed for Mom’s work, is the land of opportunity, the land of now, the land on the up-and-up, or, as the Karate Kid’s Mom puts it, “a magical new land,” like unicorns live there or something.

The Karate Kid tries out his Mandarin on the Asian dude sitting across the aisle from him on the plane. “Dude, I’m from Detroit,” the Asian dude says. Light laughs from the audience, which is mostly made up of families with tween children and some creepy older loners who probably wanted to be Daniel-san back in the day. My Hardass Asian Mom (HAM) approves of this joke: “Not all Chinese or Asian looking guy speaks Chinese, this is true.”

Meanwhile: Where is my Bananarama remix???

When the Karate Kid and his Mom arrive at the airport, their lady driver is holding a sign for “Mrs. Packer.” Mom corrects the lady driver, telling her the name’s “Parker.” Ah, Engrish!

After settling into their new flat and discovering that they don’t have hot water, the Karate Kid goes looking for their super, who turns out to be Jackie Chan. Jackie Chan ignores the Kid and, instead, picks up a dead fly with his chopsticks, chucks it on the ground, and keeps eating his cup o’ noodles with the same chopsticks. (Which my HAM says would totally happen in China although she told me not to write about it, so, of course, I had to write about it.) The Karate Kid leaves to check out the local park, where we meet his love interest, Meiying. Meiying, aka Mini-Tamlyn Tomita, has the jankiest hybrid haircut–a bob with pigtails–which is sorta cute if you’re into mullets.

And what is Mini-Tamlyn doing in the park? Tuning her violin! And listening to Bach! NATURALLY.

AWKWARD MOMENT ALERT: Speaking of hair, Mini-Tamlyn asks to touch the Karate Kid’s cornrows. Eep.

That’s when the Chinese Billy Zabka comes over, all jealous, and tells Mini-Tamlyn that she should be…practicing the violin. OMG NERD!!! Then Chinese Billy Zabka beats the Kid’s ass, upping his badass quotient considerably. At which point, my HAM takes off her glasses and covers her eyes.

The next day, the Karate Kid covers up his bruises with his mom’s makeup. He looks like he knows what he’s doing. Something tells me his real-life mama Jada’s taught him a trick or two in this department and he may be a few years away from “guyliner,” which means he may be a few years away from being a total Hollywood douche-nozzle. But for now, as much as I hate to admit it, he’s kinda adorbs.

At school, the Karate Kid flirts with Mini-Tamlyn, despite the previous day’s ass-beating.  Even though you can practically smell Chinese Billy Zabka’s RAGE COLOGNE coming around the corner.

AWKWARD MOMENT ALERT #2: She touches his hair again.

But, hey, at least the cultural exchange cuts both ways: Mini-Tamlyn then helps the Karate Kid use chopsticks at lunch. A plot point that my HAM finds unconvincing: “School cafeteria should have serving spoons. Chopsticks is not the only thing Chinese uses.” (Yes, Hollywood, she is available for script fact-checking.) After all that, Chinese Billy Zabka comes over and throws the Karate Kid’s lunch on the floor. Oh well, there was no way he was going to eat that without a fork anyway!

On another day, the Karate Kid and his Mom walk by a kung fu school, where the Karate Kid rushes in, hoping to pick up some mad skillz to battle Chinese Billy Zabka. Little does he know that he’s walked into Chinese Billy Zabka’s lair–aka the Cobra Kai Dojo 2.0, where his Sensei preaches, “No Weakness, No Pain, No Mercy.” The Karate Kid runs out, dejected. His Mom doesn’t get his reaction, but mine does: “Kids usually do not want tell parents what happened in school, sometimes they do not want to worry the parents and try to prove to the parents they can solve their own problem.”

Meanwhile, I’m kinda inappropriately crushing on Chinese Billy Zabka’s best friend, Liang (pictured right), and thinking he’s my Taylor Lautner?

AWKWARD MOMENT ALERT #3: Some Chinese kids at the kung fu school want to touch the Karate Kid’s Mom’s hair. OH GOD MAKE IT STOP.

One day after school, the Karate Kid decides to get back at Chinese Billy Zabka by throwing a drum of dirty water on him while he’s hanging with the other Cobra Kai. The Cobra Kai give chase until they corner the Karate Kid in an alley and beat his ass. My HAM takes off her glasses again. Even when Jackie Chan appears out of nowhere to save the day, she’s still got her eyes shut. At one point, Jackie ties up three guys with one jacket. Jackets, as it turns out, are very important in this movie.

Jackie takes the injured Karate Kid back to his house and uses, and I quote, “Ancient Chinese Healing” on him. Calgon, take me away! And then, I shit you not, fire comes out of Jackie’s hands! FIRE. OUT. OF. HIS. HANDS. Maybe this is a magical land?

So WHERE ARE THE UNICORNS?

And WHERE IS MY BANANARAMA REMIX???

When the Karate Kid is better, an angry Jackie takes the Kid to the Cobra Kai Dojo. Jackie explains to the Karate Kid: “No such thing as bad students, only bad teachers.” HUH?! Try using that excuse on your HAM when you bring home less than an A. Sorry, Jackie, I am not understand the words that are a-coming out of your mouth. Meanwhile, the Cobra Kai 2.0 Sensei turns out to be a real baaaaaaaad teacher. Or, in the words of my HAM: “What an asshole.” Brava, Mama.  Jackie makes a deal with the Asshole Sensei that if Sensei’s boys will leave the Karate Kid alone, the Kid will enter this Open Kung Fu Tournament thingy.

Then, they train. Basically, Jackie makes the Kid take his jacket on and off for months. It’s the new Wax On, Wax Off, only it’s as tedious to watch as it looks to do, and it doesn’t get anyone’s car all nice and shiny. Jackie and the Kid then climb a mountain together, where they see a lady doing some kind of freaky-deaky mind-control martial arts on a cobra–as in, snake–on top of a cliff, a move that looks a whole helluva lot like the Crane from the original movie.

Oops, did I give away too much?

Back in Beijing, the Karate Kid and Mini-Tamlyn play hooky together, which involves them running all around the city with her violin. OMG IS EVERYONE IN THIS MOVIE A NERD??? But that almost makes her late for her big audition for the Beijing Academy of Music, which pisses off her parents, which makes them give the Karate Kid funny looks when they meet him. (Or is it because he’s black? Hmm.) Anyway, my HAM thinks the ambiguity of Mini-Tamlyn’s Hardass Asian Parents’ disapproval makes Chinese people look bad (and by bad, she means, “racist”). Meanwhile, what’s up with Mini-Tamlyn’s white violin teacher only wearing PJ’s all the time? It’s just…creepy. After her audition, Mini-Tamlyn is forced by her parents to tell the Karate Kid: “We can no longer be friends. You are bad for my life.” At which point I just want to hug him and say: Dude, don’t take it personally. Asian parents NEVER like their children’s friends, you know?

Anyway…

One night, Jackie Chan gets shit-faced on the bai jiu. We find out his wife and son were killed a few years back in a car accident and it was kinda his fault. DUDE. This is when the solution to all of these people’s problems dawns on me. Jackie’s wife and child are dead. The Karate Kid’s dad is dead. Eff Karate…the Karate Kid’s Mom and Jackie Chan should totally make out and get married!!! Instead, the Karate Kid and Jackie share a good cry together. Then another thing dawns on me: these two are horrible actors. Awkward tingles ensue as a result of witnessing bad fake crying. I turn to my HAM, who’s holding her nose and sniffing. “Are you crying?” I ask her. She nods yes.

The kung fu tournament is almost upon us. The Karate Kid has been jacketing on and jacketing, er, off this whole time and he’s gotten riiiiiiiiipped. But still, against Cobra Kai, he’s totally effed. Before the tournament, Jackie tells the Kid that “Win or lose, doesn’t matter.” Again…HUH?! Did an Asian person just say that? My HAM isn’t buying it either: “No, no, no, this is so un-Chinese. It matters every thing. Winning is so important to competition, crucial for survive and to have face!” Amen, Mama!

The Karate Kid has one thing to do before the Big Day, and that’s apologize to Mini-Tamlyn’s Hardass Asian Parents for being black. Kidding! Or not. Anyway, he apologizes for something, and Mini-Tamlyn’s parents seem to get over their racism it quickly, and promise that their daughter will be at the Kid’s tournament to cheer him on.

And then, finally, the tournament is here! And even though we know what’s going to happen…OH THE SUSPENSE. As a montage of fight scenes begins, my HAM covers her eyes over her glasses. Chinese Billy Zabka fights this punk with a bitchin’ Mohawk who smooths his own hair instead of bowing at the beginning of each fight. Needless to say, Chinese Billy Zabka totally effs up Mohawk’s shit. Then my Tween Boyfriend, Liang, has to go up against the Karate Kid, and his Sensei tells him to break the Kid’s bones. Some time during that fight, my HAM’s glasses come off and she leans back in her chair like she’s the one who just got kicked in the face. My Tween Boyfriend does some illegal move on the Kid’s leg, gets DQ’ed, and the Kid gets carted off the mat. Mini-Tamlyn and the Karate Kid’s mom follow him and Jackie Chan into the locker room.

A doctor examines the Kid and tells him he’s done, but that he brought honor to his family. The Karate Kid then asks the women-folk to leave. At which point, Jackie repeats the lie, “Win or lose, doesn’t matter.” OMG JACKIE I’M TAKING AWAY YOUR CHINESE CARD FOR THAT. Then he adds, “I cannot watch you get hurt anymore.” Awww. But the Karate Kid wants back in. So Jackie does his Ancient Chinese Healing again, with a little less fire coming out of his hands this time.

There’s only one fight left, and it’s the Karate Kid versus–who else?–Chinese Billy Zabka. As soon as the fight starts, my HAM’s glasses are off again. The Kid somehow gets things tied up at 2-2, at which point, the Evil Sensei tells Chinese Billy Zabka to break the Karate Kid’s leg. “No mercy,” he says. Now that right there, that shit’s Chinese. I resist the urge to whoop.  My HAM takes off her glasses, shuts her eyes and leans back in her chair again. Then Chinese Billy Zabka kicks the shit out of the Karate Kid’s leg. My HAM’s freaking out at this point, her face is in her hands. As the Kid writhes on the ground and tries to recover, my HAM twirls her glasses in her hand like she wants to put them back on, but she can’t. She’s in as much agony as the Kid. Even as he gets up, my mom can’t look. The Karate Kid’s crying from the pain, my HAM’s massaging her chest like she’s feeling his pain in the center of her ribs.

It’s only when a gimpy Karate Kid busts out that Cobra mind control thingy, aka the Crane 2.0, that my HAM opens her eyes a little, and then finally, almost reluctantly, puts on her eyeglasses. Just in time to see the Karate Kid do an impossible backflip thingy into a kick right to Chinese Billy Zabka’s face.

YAY AMERICA!!! AMERICA WINS!!! USA! USA! USA!

The Karate Kid’s Mom and Jackie make out. (Actually, no.)

My Mom, despite spending half the movie with her eyes shut, gives the Karate Kid remake a thumbs-up.  Her final analysis?

“At the end the Evil Master from Kung-fu school, no matter how dirty he wanted his student to do to win, his student lost, and He loss his face big time, but don’t expect he will learn the lesson. He will never change I can guarantee it.”

And my final analysis?

WHERE IS MY GOT DAM BANANARAMA REMIX???

These are strange days indeed. We are firmly into the 21st century, and yet the 80s are haunting us. For African Americans it is yet again a decade of dream and deferral.

Back in the ‘80s, for the young Black and college educated, the doors of corporate America and other professions opened up and broadened the spectrum of the Black middle class like never before. But also, back in the ‘80s, crack cocaine and the aftermath of deindustrialization crippled areas of concentrated blackness in major urban centers.

Now in the 21st century, a new Black elite floods the popular imagination as Capitol Hill, the president and his administration become more and more colorful. But also now, in the 21st century, the recession hits Black communities hardest, and at the intersection of devastating rates of imprisonment, joblessness, and inadequate education lie a critical, hurting, mass of Black Americans.

Then came Precious.

The film, released in the Fall of 2009 elicited a flurry of responses. The debates over the film were complex, nuanced, impassioned. In fact, among the Black intelligentsia there seemed to be more discussion about Precious than there was about President Obama’s education agenda, the stimulus package, or rising unemployment and imprisonment. That was troubling. But then again, it is easier to fire off a blog post or provide a commentary about a movie than it is to write a concise response to a complicated web of policy, law, and economics. However, I believe the film elicited so much engaged response precisely because it highlighted the challenge of this moment when it comes to race in America.

The film tells an individual story, a poignant one, about an abused young woman in Harlem in the 1980s. If we attend to the individual story, fictional though it may be, our hearts go out to Precious. We see in her story personal resilience, possibility, healing. Those are good things.

The film tells a collective story. The story it tells is about the devastation that the 80s wrought on Black communities, and the failure of the public school system to provide a path out for “the underclass.”

In both the collective story and the individual story, there is truth. There is a real Precious out there. The story is fictional, but it is human. The problem is that fictional stories, especially ones on film, don’t just stand as individual stories, but they do “representative work.” They become part of the way we make sense of the world in which we live. The story of one novelist or filmmaker’s imagination becomes the story of entire groups of people or “types” of people. This is especially true when the kind of social location depicted in the story is remote from the experience of the majority of the viewers.

On the one hand, many of us who are familiar with the way the story of Black America in the 80s was told, and the way the story of the rise of imprisonment in contemporary Black America is being told, are frustrated with the spectacle of Black violence, deviance, and dysfunction that appears over and over again. We are tired of this story of pathology that we see yet again in Precious. Instead we want a story that reveals the laws and policies and economic conditions that produce concentrated poverty and its violence. We also yearn for the stories of those who sustain humanity and decency in the face of devastating poverty and marginalization. We would prefer for those stories to be told because they are, after all, far more representative of Black life than the wreck that is Precious’ life.

And so, we balk at a film like Precious, rhetorically asking: Doesn’t it just recycle those old images of Black pathology? And isn’t it reviving those stories just when we are beginning to suffer so much again, just when we don’t need a convenient explanation of “they are pathological” to facilitate the nation turning its back on the responsibility to provide conditions for all citizens to lead productive lives as participants in the democracy and economy?

On the other hand, some of us want to embrace a film like Precious because it highlights a kind of suffering that our society fails to respond to. Children who are poor and of color, are inadequately protected in our society. They are more vulnerable to predators, more likely to be victimized on the street and in school, and less likely to have families that are able to marshal resources to deal with trauma, mental illness, and addiction. At the same time, poor, emotionally scarred parents who become abusers have virtually no resources to repair themselves. So when we see a movie like Precious, we applaud it for encouraging sympathy and investment in young women like Precious. We think “yes, the reality of her life deserves to be depicted, maybe it will inspire action.”

The film does both kinds of work on the audience at once. Strange indeed.

Earlier, I referred to how the film reveals the challenge of this moment. The challenge is this: When it comes to race: critically thinking members of this society have to consider the implications of symbolism (like the Black president, or the Oscar worthy dysfunctional sexual abusing welfare mother played by Mo’nique) at the same time as we consider the messy, complicated, content of our society, without assuming that these things have a clear or consistent relationship to each other.

Additionally, the film demands that we bring more to the table than just an analysis of its as a piece of art. If the film stands alone, it gets deployed and interpreted every which way. But if we use the film to open the door to conversations about society, ones that are filled with knowledge, data, and careful analysis, rather than mere anecdote and fiction, then it can do some useful work in our social and political lives. Perhaps it can inspire solutions to problems of representation and policy challenges.

President Obama is on our televisions, and a young Black man is selling drugs on a corner near my home in Philadelphia. Precious is on our movie screen, and my classes are filled with brilliant young Black women pursuing degrees at a world class university. These are realities. But what relationships do these individuals have to each other and to the society at large, and how do those relationships reveal the resilience of inequality or the promise of democracy?

Asking and answering these sorts of questions is key for understanding race in the 21st century United States.

Imani Perry is a professor at Princeton University and regular contributor to Afro-Netizen. She is an interdisciplinary scholar who studies race and African American culture using the tools provided by various disciplines including: law, literary and cultural studies, music, and the social sciences.

I guess there are days when I’m thankful for having been an ice-skating fan in my younger days, though I was absorbing some floaty, dreamy, and cornball heteronormative crap against the white-ice backdrop.  So, as much as I did enjoy figure skaters Oksana Domnina’s and Maxim Shabalin’s technical excellence, I can honestly say they should have applied all that technique—and subsequent press–to another routine that didn’t involve offending people of color.

Here’s their original routine, if you missed it:

Bev Manton, a Worimi woman and chair of the Aboriginal Land Council, sums up the outrage:

From an Aboriginal perspective, this performance is offensive. It was clearly not meant to mock Aboriginal culture, but that does not make it acceptable to Aboriginal people. There are a number of problems with the performance, not least of all the fact both skaters are wearing brown body suits to make their skin appear darker. That alone puts them on a very slippery slope.

Australians know only too well the offence that can be caused by white people trying to depict themselves as black people during performance pieces. Last year’s domestic and international furore over the blackface skit on Hey, Hey it’s Saturday’s Red Faces is a recent case in point.

That said, I don’t think it’s the most offensive part of the performance. That honour belongs to some of the claims by Domnina and Shabalin that have accompanied it.

They are not, as they state, wearing “authentic Aboriginal paint markings”. They are wearing white body paint in designs they dreamed up after reading about Aboriginal Australians on the internet. The designs are no more “authentic” or “Aboriginal” than the shiploads of cheap, “Aboriginal” tourist trinkets that pour into our country from overseas.

This is not a particularly difficult concept. For art to be Australian, it must be painted by an Australian, and for art to be Australian Aboriginal, it must be painted by an Australian Aboriginal. Russian art is not painted by Italians, and I doubt Russians would be impressed if someone tried to pass it off otherwise.

And just as the designs are not Aboriginal, nor is the music to which the dance is being performed.

I acknowledge that Aboriginal people do not own the sound of the didgeridoo. That is one of our gifts to the rest of the world. Everyone is free to use it. But that does not mean it should be sampled and then presented as something it is not — traditional Aboriginal music.

Al-Jazeera English reports :

“The dancers have defended the routine, saying it’s not intended to represent Australian culture, but a mélange of ethnicities.”

Before anyone starts in with “but Domnina and Shabalin are racially ignorant exceptions” or that they don’t “get” racism because they’re Russians (or globe-trotting sportspeople), I’d say that, like many other human societies, Russia isn’t an othering-free country, though people of color in that nation may not call what they’ve experienced “racism” as how USians understand it:

But black skin remains extremely rare in Russia. One estimate says that there are between 40,000 and 70,000 Russians of full or mixed-African heritage.

That distinction has singled many black Russians out for treatment that they say swings between curiosity, at best, and open hostility, at worst.

Grigory Siyatinda, an actor at the Sovremennik Theater in Moscow, grew up as the only black man in his hometown of Tyumen in the 1970s. His experience was that of an object of fascination in an isolated Soviet society where foreigners, and especially black foreigners, were exotic.

“How to put it? It wasn’t racism, what I experienced during my childhood in Tyumen,” Siyatinda says. “I was the only black person in Tyumen — Tyumen is a Siberian city and there were no black-skinned people at all. No one had ever seen one. That’s why there was simply this heightened curiosity toward me. It was heightened so much at times that it crossed over the borders of tact.”
….
Racism, long officially denied under the communist regime, is a reality in modern-day Russia, where nationalist groups and xenophobia are on the rise.

Russia’s Sova center, which tracks issues related to race and ethnicity, reports that 97 people were killed in racist attacks in 2008. Statistically, Central Asian migrants have become the primary victims of attacks in recent years. But African-Russians and African students remain constant targets as well.

…
Khanga notes that there was a very small percentage of mixed-race and black people in the Soviet Union.

“I was part of the first generation — now, of course, there are a lot more,” Khanga says. “But…we did not have the history of racism as they did in America. Not everything was easy, and I can be the first to tell you what kinds of problems we had. But, of course, you can’t compare them to the kinds of things that happened in America.”

Still, the few black Russians who have risen to prominence in their country have done so through sports or the entertainment world.

Of course, Domnina and Shabalin offered the usual no-intention-to-offend, we-swear-we-researched-this fauxpology and attempted to “lighten” the “tone” of their costumes:

”We heard some opinions about it being offensive, and we tried to do it lighter,” Shabalin said last night. ”We changed it a little bit to make it more authentic and less theatrical.”

The pair lightened the ”skin colour” of their costumes and slightly changed the attempted tribal markings daubed in white paint. The red loincloths were retained but more fake leaves were used.

”We changed our routine about 5 to 10 per cent, but we always do this after every competition to try and improve,” Shabalin said. ”Our whole intention when we chose this music was to be fair and friendly, we didn’t want to offend anyone.”

Domnina and Shabalin said earlier this week that they had wanted to ”pay tribute to the culture of South-East Asia” and said their routine reflected an indigenous culture that was ”1000 years old”.

Shabalin said after performing the routine last night that it had been well thought out and coach Natalia Linichuk had researched the topic thoroughly.

”Natalia had a lot of research with people who know this culture. We did big research in the beginning of the season,” he said before adding: ”You can’t be 100 per cent authentic.”

So, the Russian skating pros aren’t going to apologize sincerely for the mush-mess that is their routine…or for lumping and coding “ethnicities” (and Aboriginal, really) as “You colored folks look and dance alike, all ‘tribally” and stuff.  Ethnic enough for us!  Let’s daaaaaaance!”  And sorry, but lightening the costumes’ skin tone doesn’t equate to an apology…..

…oh yeah, Domnina and Shabalin won the bronze for their interpretive routine.

Now, before we go on (and on and on) with tirades about “those Russians,” Jennifer at Mixed Race America mused about the silver-medal winning American pair, Meryl Davis and Charlie White, who incorporated an Indian folk dance and a Slumdog Millionaire track:

Davis and White Indian folk dance routine

Jennifer sums up my initial feelings:  What’s the difference, really?

And I guess one question I have is, how authentic can any of these skaters actually be? I mean, I’m not trying to quibble for the sake of quibbling–we’re talking about ice dancing after all–not exactly a natural thing. And I do think it was smart for [Davis and White] to hire someone who knows Indian culture intimately and who could provide them with some guidance. But is this authentic? And is this appropriation? I mean, clearly the Russian pair is completely and clearly inappropriate, but the American pair? What do you think?

Because, as Jennifer points out, the potential for the racialized foolishness that Shabalin and Domnina exhibited—and were awarded for–is built into this competition:

…one of the things you have to know is that all the pairs competitors around the world had to develop a routine for their national finals around the theme of “folk dance or ethnic dance.” OK, right THERE is the root of the problem. Because it’s a fine line between honoring a folk or ethnic tradition to parodying that tradition, especially if this is something you are learning rather than something you were raised with.

A while ago, Latoya introduced a series on cultural appropriation by discussing global hip-hop.  While other commenters focused on the who/what/when/where/how/why of global hip-hop—especially the use of the n-word—contributor and frequent commenter atlasien offered an insightful working framework for dealing with cultural appropriation itself, which I think answers Jennifer’s question:

I think it’s much better to define cultural appropriation based on the people it affects. Does it hurt them in some way? If so, it’s probably cultural appropriation. If not, it’s probably just cultural borrowing or cultural drift.

There’s never going to be a 100% sure way of deciding that something is cultural appropriation, because the people being stolen from/borrowed from aren’t always going to agree. But you can make decisions informed by their arguments and weight of numbers.

There was a good conversation about this a while back at Rachel’s Tavern… someone who didn’t believe in cultural appropriation came up with the example “what about cooking Italian food if you’re not Italian?” The counterargument was that there’s nothing wrong with cooking Italian food if you’re not Italian… but if you go to Italy and start lecturing Italians that their way of cooking food is inferior to your more authentic Italian cooking style, then yes, you’ve crossed the line and turned into a rude and obnoxious cultural appropriator.

If you use this standard for global hip-hop, you could ask a series of questions… how is it hurting the group of people from the originating culture? How are these people being damaged or insulted or disrespected or taken away from, and to what extent? Are the people who view it as appropriation versus borrowing a minority opinion, or a majority opinion? And what is the level of power disparity between the originating culture and the appropriating/borrowing culture… the power disparity that determines the relative attention being paid to people who complain?

So, by this standard, Domnina and Shabalin screwed up, full stop. As for Davis and White, wellllll…

Thanks to readers Vanessa and Zora for the links!

In reading the discussion about Morgan Freeman playing Nelson Mandela, it’s interesting to note that South African actors have been protesting the casting of Jennifer Hudson in the title role of a biopic on Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.

“This decision must be reversed. It must be stopped now,” Oupa Lebogo, the union’s secretary-general, told The [UK] Times. The story also quoted a friend of Madikizela-Mandela’s, Udo Froese, as saying,: “There’s a lot of good local talent, why not use them? Winnie herself is not involved in this, and in no way has given any sort of green light.”

At a Dec. 5 press conference, actor John Kani and the Creative Workers Union of South Africa called for tighter regulations on foreign projects, and said the issue wasn’t Hudson personally, but a bigger problem:

“Every time there is a movie that tells a South African story, it is done by someone who must be taught the right way of pronouncing Sawubona. Enough it enough.”

He said if local actors were to be included in such films, they had to be given serious roles to play.

ANC Women’s League deputy president Nosipho Dorothy Ntwanambi said as a struggle veteran, she knew and understood why South African stories had to be portrayed by people who lived and knew them.

“One can’t read a book about our history and claim to know our way of living,” she said.

The Associated Press ran a story Monday quoting two more union officials upset with Hudson’s casting.

“It can’t happen that we want to develop our own Hollywood and yet bring in imports,” the union’s president Mabutho Sithole said in The Citizen newspaper.

“This decision must be reversed, it must be stopped now,” union secretary general Oupa Lebogo said in The Times. “If the matter doesn’t come up for discussion, we will push for a moratorium to be placed on the film.”

The Times also noted that both the film’s source material (the book Winnie Mandela: My Life) and director (Darrell J. Roodt) are local.

Another South African publication, the Daily Maverick, is concerned less about Morgan Freeman playing Nelson Mandela in Invictus – which, the Huffington Post says, features an almost completely South African cast – than , but about how it holds up as a rugby film:

Can Graham Lindemann really demonstrate the awesomeness of Kobus’s arrival at a ruck? Can Rolf Fitschen throw a lineout ball as straight as Naka?

The answer, of course, is no. And because the answer is no, there’s likely to be much sniggering when the film gets released here this month. In fact, the sniggering has been gathering momentum for a while already – honestly, what was your first reaction when you heard that Matt Damon was cast as Francois Pienaar? Did you tell your mates that the guy was born for the role?

Update: You can find a follow-up, clarification and response to the comments on this post here.

Thanks to Carmen, Andrea and Latoya for helping me flesh out my thoughts!

One night last summer, my Vietnamese friend Winston began recounting the number of top world athletes who also happen to be Asian. “Manny Pacquaio…Yao Ming…Ichiro Suzuki…Tiger Woods…”

“Hey wait,” another friend interrupted. “Can Asians really claim Tiger Woods? What, just because his great-grandmother is Asian he’s proof of Asian superiority?”

“Are you kidding?” Winston responded. “He’s more Asian than anything else.”  Immediately, multiple super phones were put to work verifying this.

This is what Tiger Woods’ Wikipedia page says:

Earl, a retired United States Army lieutenant colonel and Vietnam War veteran, was of mixed African American, Chinese and Native American ancestry. Kultida (née Punsawad), originally from Thailand, is of mixed Thai, Chinese, and Dutch ancestry. This makes Woods himself one-quarter Chinese, one-quarter Thai, one-quarter African American, one-eighth Native American, and one-eighth Dutch. He refers to his ethnic make-up as “Cablinasian” (a syllabic abbreviation he coined from Caucasian, Black, (American) Indian, and Asian).

As you know, I am not a fan of referring to mixed race people in terms of percentages and fractions. But I was startled to discover that
1) Tiger Woods is in fact more Asian than anything else.
2) Tiger Woods’ parents are also mixed race – both of his parents can (and probably do) identify as people of colour.

Actually, Tiger Woods is just as Asian as I am.  I was stunned by this information. Why had I not known this? I always assumed that Tiger Woods’ dad was black and his mom was white, and that his Asian connection was a little more indirect, a la Barack.

It seems like I’m not the only one who misconstrued the complexity of Tiger’s roots.  By now we’re all familiar with the outrage around Tiger Woods’ racial taste in women.  Newspapers, blogs and Twitter feeds have blown up with commentary that Tiger’s apparent penchant for white women is just more evidence of how he tries to create distance between himself and black folks.  In essence, because he chooses to bed white women instead of black women, Tiger is not a real black person.

I’m not going to talk about the fact that it is absurd and small-minded to try and mandate the lovelife of an individual by threatening them with explulsion from a racial community.  What I am bothered by is that in all this race vetting, folks can’t even bother to get Tiger’s race right.

In an article alternatingly titled “Tiger Woods alienates black community with white lovers” and “Tiger’s troubles widen his distance from blacks,” Jesse Washington writes

…Woods’ already shaky standing among many blacks took a beating…As one blogger, Robert Paul Reyes, wrote: “If Tiger Woods had cheated on his gorgeous white wife with black women, the golfing great’s accident would have been barely a blip in the blogosphere.”

The darts reflect blacks’ resistance to interracial romance. They also are a reflection of discomfort with a man who has smashed barriers in one of the whitest of all sports and assumed the mantle of world’s most famous athlete, once worn by Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan.

But Woods declines to call himself black, famously choosing the term “Cab­linasian” (Caucasian, black, Indian and Asian) to describe the racial mixture he inherited from his African-American father and Thai mother.

A comment that we didn’t publish on the Tiger Woods piece we ran last week articulated the anger around “Cablinasian,” suggesting it is offensive for Tiger Woods to call himself Cablinasian because most African-Americans are some mix of white, native and black – why does Tiger Woods get to have a special name for it?

Yes, definitely African-Americans in general have mixed heritage.  But there is a distinct difference between having interracial pairings embedded in your family tree, and having a mom who is straight-up Asian.  Look at that adorable picture of Tiger and his mother! If that’s not a picture of a proud Asian mama (she is even wearing the visor, favourite of sun-dwelling Asian ladies worldwide), I don’t know what is.

Here’s the thing.  Sure, I can understand why the black community is hurt that Tiger isn’t more out and out as a black man.  As I non-black person of colour, I share that disappointment.  Here is this black guy who is maybe the greatest golf player ever, and he doesn’t particularly align himself with the black community.  When I asked Latoya about this, she suggested that part of the hurt may come from the fact that Earl Woods was outspoken about racism, black folks and sports.  When Woods Sr. passed away, Tiger didn’t continue the tradition.  Yet reading an old interview with Woods Sr from 2002, it seems like Tiger’s dad was a little murky on the place of racial activism on the golf course:

Asked if he would support the NAACP boycott, Tiger Woods replied… ‘I’m a golfer. That’s their deal, not mine.’

‘Quite right too,’ Woods Snr says. ‘I respect his right not to take up every cause. The media wants poor little Tiger to be a spokesman about everything.’…

‘Tiger is still living his life and he does not want race to be an issue in his life,’ he says, which isn’t strictly true. When Tiger signed his first contract with Nike (for $40m) he was more than happy to read from a script that tackled a race ‘issue’ – denying blacks access to golf course – in the commercial cause of selling golf shoes…’I'll tell you what I think,’ [Woods Sr] says. ‘One guy summed it all up, Rodney King, the guy who was beaten up by the LA police. “Why can’t we all just get along?” he said. That’s the most beautiful thing I have ever heard in my life. Why can’t we all just get along?’

While they have quite different heritages, it strikes me that there’s a parallel between Woods and Obama; while Obama (so far) hasn’t turned into the anti-racist crusader that we all dreamed he’d be, as Cornel West has said, just visually speaking it is a beautiful thing to have “a black face in a high place.”   It seems like that’s all Woods is going to give to the black community – just by standing on the green he represents them.  Beyond that he’d rather pretend (at least according to Woods Sr) that race doesn’t matter.

And considering the pigheaded way that both white and black America treat him, I’m starting to understand potentially why that is.  Maybe Tiger Woods doesn’t talk about race because no one really wants to listen to his experience as the mixed race child of mixed race parents.  Instead white and black America insist that Woods choose one or the other.  It’s bad enough that people are reading out that tired old script about how mixed race black folks always turn out to be race traitors.  But in Woods’ case its not even the right script.

His racial background is not the same as Mariah Carey’s, Alicia Keys’, Drake’s or Barack Obama’s.  He is not “biracial” where “biracial” is code for “black and white.”  He doesn’t have a white parent.  His immediate family members are black, Asian, Native and white.  And also, he doesn’t really look like a black man.  While I find physiognomical discussions kind of gross, Tiger’s face is actually very Southeast Asian.  Know any Thai folks? Filipinos? Malaysians? That’s what Tiger looks like.   He’s designated as black because Americans are not particularly familiar with Southeast Asian looks, similar to how my Arab friends are often thought to be Latin@ when they are in the Southern US.

Is it sort of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic to be complaining that when folks discriminate against Woods’ mixed raceness, they’re not getting the races right? Maybe.  But this inability to see more than two tones it’s pretty indicative of America’s race problem, and the trials that some mixed race folk deal with everyday.

When you are biracial, it’s hard enough for our racist culture to understand how that works.  When you throw two more races in the mix, North American culture’s collective head explodes, and just chooses to decide that two of the races don’t exist.

F. commented on last week’s post:

What’s that joke about when Tiger succeeds at something, the media harps on about him being a part-white “Cablinasian”, but when he screws up, suddenly he’s just plain “black”?

I’m sure it is true that the media considers Woods more black when he screws up.

But the insistence on designating Woods as solely black – and getting mad when he tries to articulate his ethnic heritage in a way that feels true to him – is about more than media bias towards black crime.  It’s about our need to simplify all complex racial phenomenons into the binary of black and white, effectively erasing anyone who doesn’t fit  inside.

Tiger Woods seems like a jackass.  He cheated on his wife in a particularly flagrant way.  But that’s no reason to deny him the right to self-identify.

Even jackasses should get to tell us themselves who they are.

“Invictus,” a film about Nelson Mandela’s efforts to unify post-apartheid South Africa through rugby, opens Dec. 11. The film stars Matt Damon as captain of South Africa’s 1995 rugby team and Morgan Freeman as Mandela.

I’ve little interest in seeing this film, but the commercials for it caught my attention when I noticed someone attempting what I considered to be an atrocious South African accent. That someone was Freeman, an amazing actor, no doubt, but not convincing to me as a South African. A quick trip to the IMDB.com thread on the film, and I realized I wasn’t alone in my criticism of Freeman.

A thread devoted specifically to Freeman’s accent in the film began:

“HOLY CRAP…. Morgan’s accent sucks!! Not even close…. did he even try? Didnt hear to much of Matt but wow Morgan really missed the boat.”

And another poster followed up, “I came here to say the exact same thing after having just seen the commercial. Holy horrible. It sounds like Morgan Freeman in every movie he’s ever been in plus a hokey accent that couldn’t possibly be attributed to any ethnicity or area.”

After pondering how Freeman speaks in the film, I wondered why a South African wasn’t cast in “Invictus.” With Clint Eastwood as director and Damon in a starring role, would it have been that much of a gamble to cast an unknown in the role of Mandela? Then, I thought about other films set in Africa—“Hotel Rwanda,” “Cry Freedom,” “The Last King of Scotland” and “Sarafina!” All feature black Americans in starring roles as Africans. A recent exception would be 2006’s “Blood Diamond” in which Djimon Hounsou has a starring role.

I understand that casting African American film stars likely makes movies about Africa more marketable, but would African Americans be as accepting if roles designed for them were given to whites to increase a film’s marketability? Judging from the uproar surrounding Angelina Jolie starring as Mariane Pearl in “A Mighty Heart,” I think not. So why aren’t more people speaking up about the tendency of African roles to go to black Americans?

On IMDB.com, a poster who challenged the assertion that Freeman was born to play Mandela, arguing instead that an “actual South African” be given the role, received this response:

“There isn’t any South African actors that have Freeman’s acting skills though. Just because someone is from a particular country doesn’t make them automatically better for the role.”

I don’t know the ethnicity or nationality of the person who wrote this, but the idea that South Africa has no quality actors is ludicrous. But, say, we take the poster at his word. South Africa having no actors with the chops to play Mandela shouldn’t rule out the possibility of an actor from another African nation playing the role. Nigeria, for one, has a $250 million film industry, which puts it in the Top 3 film industries in the world, along with India and the United States. Clearly, Africa has its share of actors to go around. So, when will Hollywood shine the spotlight on them, and when will black Americans demand it?

A writer friend of mine working on a novel about his Indian experience has lamented to me about a particular response he keeps getting to his work in progress. His non-Asian peers tell him that he can’t write his particular story, because it’s already been told by say, Rohinton Mistry, or Arundhati Roy.

I also get hopping mad when I hear about this. What about the 5 gazillion stories of middle class white family struggle that dominate libraries and schools across this country?

Centers of power who feel political pressure to include the Other in their ranks rarely make room for more than one Other. TV shows like 30 Rock and the Daily Show don’t have room for more than one or two black characters (and they are all men.) Once a publishing press has released one book by a Latin@, they won’t release another one – they’ve already done the Latin thing. And often this kind of dynamic sets up vicious competition between members of marginalised groups vying for the single position allotted to their entire demographic – and people who should be allies become opponents.

Because of all this, I love this talk by novelist Chimamanda Adichie. Adichie talks about the real consequences of only allowing one voice to represent thousands, and makes a very beautiful argument on how the single story impoverishes our lives.

PS For those who can’t access the audio, hit the subtitles button!

Ever since news of The Last Airbender’s casting broke, there’s been a lot of commotion in the Asian American community about casting and how it seems that Asians are losing to white people in playing Asian characters. Now, there are issues present in the overall casting scene that people are picking up on here, but before I go further in depth on how race fits into casting, I want to lay down some groundwork for the discussion so that we know how to properly frame the arguments.

The Actor’s Craft

First and foremost, we need to acknowledge what the actor’s job is. As an actor, I’m aware of the theoretical paradox that we are placed in when playing a role. An actor is essentially taking on the role of someone that they are not. This artifice even extends to the rare case when an actor is playing themselves, as they are still “playing” a character on a stage or in front of a screen, rather than being themselves in real life.

In acting, even core identity matters such as sex, sexual orientation, ethnicity, of the actor, shouldn’t matter. Only that of the character. The actor’s job, their craft, is to play a character that is certainly not themselves. I’m not saying that an actor’s actual identity won’t influence the way they play their character, but that ideally, a talented actor will overcome their own identity to play the character believably.

But this is speaking only of the actual job of acting and not the negotiating between the actor, the audience and the medium.

Cinematic Verisimilitude

In acting’s historic roots on the stage and to this day, actors of varying backgrounds all take on roles of characters that may be wildly different from themselves. Due to the patriarchal attitudes on gender roles, many societies historically actually forbid women from acting, leading to many women originally being played by men. Eventually, women justly got their shot on stage, but as the stage developed, the actually need for verisimilitude on the stage faded as the space became increasingly abstracted and now, actors cross identity roles because of their talent and for art. For example, take the talented Mindy Kaling playing the role of Ben Affleck in the play, “Matt & Ben”, written by herself and Brenda Withers. This works for the stage since the theater is a largely abstracted space and simple symbolism is used to represent the constructed reality (the sets rarely actually appear to be the real thing).

Mainstream film, however, is a different beast. First of all, I’m not going to say that abstraction doesn’t exist in film. You can see it all over the films of Luis Bunuel, Jean Luc Godard or even the recent pseudo-biopic of Bob Dylan, I’m Not There, which features multiple actors (including Cate Blanchett) playing Bob Dylan.

But mainstream film, in particular, calls for a strong verisimilitude to our reality. In its case, the actual appearance matters. Not only do cars actually have to appear to be real cars, car crashes have to look like real car crashes. It’s because mainstream film usually presents a simulated reality. Granted, this simulated reality still lives by its own rules, but being a strongly visual medium, mainstream film lives and dies on visual consistency. If at any point a film fails to adhere to verisimilitude to our reality, it risks losing the audience’s willingness to suspend disbelief and can consequently lose the audience altogether, becoming too much to swallow.

This frequently happens if you happen to be a doctor and watch medical dramas, or any other specialist watching a television show or movie about your specialization. It takes you out of the picture when they get it wrong. And if you do that to the majority of your audience, it’s bad entertainment.

A Dash of Race

Without matters specific to race being present, there is already a tension present when it comes to cinematic presentation. Every actor is not only playing someone who they are not, they’re trying to effectively make their audience believe that they are the same person that they are not. This is the actor’s job. However, mainstream entertainment cinema demands visual verisimilitude. This means the actor not only have to convince the audience that they are capturing the role, but has to visually convince the audience of the same. And this is where race plays into the picture.

Race is predominantly a visual phenomena. While we can discuss the ways that race is determined outside of visual data, at least in immediate impression, most people in America determine race visually. Visual signifiers like skin color, hair texture, and body structure, broadly applied, are the primary indicators of race. When you throw such a visual concept into a world where cinematic verisimilitude is of high important, clearly film and television should care about how closely their actors can fit those identifiers of race. We wouldn’t believe in a Martin Luther King, Jr. played by a white man in a biopic.

So, as we prepare to enter this discussion about casting and race, we should keep both a respect for the actor’s craft, playing a role that is not themselves, as well as the understanding that what makes recorded visual entertainment media work, at least on its most basic level is an adherence to the principle of cinematic verisimilitude.

Next time I’ll dive a little into how casting and race actually play out in the real world and will touch on issues like colorface, cross-ethnic casting and changing characters to suit the actor. I’ll probably also touch on matters relating to actual racial/ethnic representation in casting. Then in a final piece, I will write about what certain casting and consumption practices imply, especially about inter-racial power relations, discuss some possible resolutions and open the floor to practical ideas for bringing justice to casting race.

Any thoughts and/or questions you’d like to see addressed, either directly in comments or perhaps in a later piece?

I have a lot of feelings watching this video, but not quite any thoughts yet. I have had some thoughts on Calle 13 in general recently though.

While I like Calle 13, there is something as of late that makes me completely uncomfortable with how Residente’s blanquito flow and his “art school/class clown attitude,” as Wayne Marshall aptly terms it, are being heralded by reggaeton supporters and detractors alike as shining example of where the genre should go. Calle 13 is being positioned by many as the great white hope that is going to resuscitate reggaeton from its supposed “death.” (pero no con mas gasolina, that’s for sure).

Wanye Marshalll just blogged a fantastic post entitled “Can We Talk About ‘Can We Talk About the Reggaeton Crash?’?”, responding to, among other things, Willie Colon’s assertion that reggaeton has peaked Wayne says,

i think reggaeton’s gonna be around (and popular) for some time to come. we’ll see what it sounds like, though. and whether people still call “it” reggaeton (they did, after all, used to call “it” any number of names).

colon may be right that the “euphoria” has passed, but that doesn’t mean the genre’s days are numbered. plus, this is clearly a bit of self-promotion for his own music, talking bout how people have returned to salsa. they never really turned away.

on another note, isn’t saying “música urbana” basically like saying “música negra”? it is in english — a pretty specious euphemism really. might as well say “race records.” so maybe we’re back where we started, but in a worse place?

I think Wayne makes a good point that “música urbana” basically functions as a (seemingly sexier and less scary euphemism) for reggaeton’s old moniker of “música negra.” So it’s interesting to me that reggaeton’s resident blanquito has appointed himself the gatekeeper of said race music. Check out this clip from Calle 13′s NYC concert at the NOKIA Theater from October 2008:

Residente goes on a whole tirade about the contours and future of “música urbana,” placing himself squarely at the center. I’m curious about the work that placing a blanquito at the center of “música urbana” does. For sure it makes the music palatable to the a wider audience, as so many blanquitos have crossed-over “race musics” in the past. But I think the work that Calle 13 very clearly does is “fuel fantasies about reggaetons inherent latinidad,” as Wayne points out in his chapter “From Música Negra to Reggaeton Latino” in Reggaeton (Duke UP). There is something appealing to the many music critics who have profiled the group in their brand of Latin World music, something in stark contrast with the repetitive samples and versioning of Black music that is central to many other reggaeton acts.

Is it time to think of sampling practices within reggaeton as an overtly political act? Is sampling consciously hailing an audience and interpolating the performer and audience in a specific genre? (I’m sure Joe Schloss would have an interesting opinion on this).

I think this is what makes it difficult for me to situate the video for “La Perla,” it simultaneously dismisses and trafficks in notions of authenticity. Its impossible for me to reconcile all this — the music says one thing, the lyrics another, the video another, and Residente’s public performances and persona yet another — of course maybe I shouldn’t be trying to reconcile any of it.

Anyway, I welcome thoughts on Calle 13 and/or the video for “La Perla,” hit me up.