How can you call something “BlakRoc” when the black folks on the project only rap and the rockers are all white?
BlakRoc is the name of Damon Dash’s upcoming project, a collaboration between white rockers The Black Keys and rappers such as Mos Def, Q-Tip, Ludacris, and Raekwon, to name a few.  Ordinarily, I could care [...]

By Deputy Editor Thea Lim
Well, it’s almost Halloween.  And every day that we get closer to Halloween, the more our intrepid readers point out for us some of the season’s most ghoulish examples of racism. Sigh.
Reader Joel sent us a link to this Illegal Alien costume being sold by Walgreens and Target (though word on [...]

Though the word Namaste has been a South Asian greeting for centuries, now every yoga student, celebrity (check out Al Gore’s picture in the wiki entry) and creepy guy trying to hit on an Indian woman thinks it’s fine to use it as a way of saying “hey” or “I’m so in touch with what [...]

By Guest Contributor Angry Asian Man, originally published at Angry Asian Man

This is a video clip of Mark Dacascos and his partner dancing the cha cha cha this week on Dancing With The Stars. Longtime readers know that I can’t stand the song “Kung Fu Fighting” — and I loathe any movie trailer, scene or [...]

Compiled by Special Correspondent Thea Lim, with Guest Contributors Robin Akimbo, Alaska B, Michelle Cho and Elisha Lim
…continued from Part 1!

Vogue Evolution is all about getting folks to recognise that queer culture is responsible for sooo much of contemporary dance.  So it’s a radical history lesson – what’s VE’s relationship to Paris is Burning?

Michelle: I [...]

By Thea Lim
First the Cleveland Indians and Atlanta Braves refuse to move forward into ahem, postracial America and change their team names, and now The National Collector’s Mint is cheerfully moving backwards.

The National Collector’s Mint announces the private reproduction minting of the last $5 Indian Head Gold Piece ever minted by the U.S. [...]

By Special Correspondent Thea Lim

A few days ago reader Elton Joe sent us an irritated email with a newsflash that Hollywood and Richard Gere have remade Hachiko, a 1987 Japanese film about a real-life dog beloved in Japanese culture.
A little about this celebrity dog:

In 1924, Hachikō was brought to Tokyo by his owner, Hidesaburō Ueno, [...]

by Guest Contributor Tiara the Merch Girl
Depending on who you ask, burlesque can either be a tool to poke fun at the Establishment by bringing them down to the “low-brow”, or a way to bask in vintage 1940s and 1950s glamour. It’s a growing art form with plenty of enthusiasts jumping in for a chance [...]

by Special Correspondent Wendi Muse

Take a look at this photo. What are your initial thoughts on this tattoo?
After being tipped by reader pinkyloveswhisky, I headed on over to the BMEZine blog to check out what all the fuss was about, and I tried to do the exercise I recommended above. What were my initial thoughts [...]

by Guest Contributor Nezua, originally published at The Unapologetic Mexican

“It’s not like I’m just jumping on some cool rebel cause for the sake of exploiting it for profit.” —Shepard Fairey
Question of Appropriation and Tokenism are areas one must approach carefully. Human beings are involved and there is nuance, to be sure. Good can be done [...]

By Special Correspondent Arturo R. García, also Posted at The Instant Callback

Continuing a semi-yearly tradition of mine since my days working at my college paper, just a few notes about today:
1. This is not Mexican Independence Day
Nope, that’s September 16th. 5/5 commemorates an unlikely Mexican victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla in [...]

by Special Correspondent Wendi Muse
So even though fashion designers have a tendency to appropriate and re-design fashion they witness during their world travels (or, cough, imperialist imaginations), the magazine writers and journalists just can’t seem to find the right words to characterize the collections. Instead of talking about geometric prints, the use of found objects [...]

by Latoya Peterson

Reader Crash Happy tipped me to this provocative article published on SoulBounce, asking “How Can Justin Timberlake Still Objectify Black Women and Get Away with It?”
Contributing editor Ro writes:
Someone please explain why Justin Timberlake continually gets a pass to fetishize and exploit the image of Black women. Right now. Because after watching him [...]

by Special Correspondent Wendi Muse
Before I utter any statements of depth in this piece, I have to present a bias. Though not meant to offend those who believe in proselytizing, I find myself firmly standing on the side of those against it. If you feel that religion and/or a faith tradition of some sort is [...]

by Latoya Peterson

On Saturday, I received this email from regular reader Allison:
I found this article: “For Anime Fansa: Maid For A Day” by Dan Zak. The article talks about American women (read: white women) being hired to work as “Japanese maids” for a DC-area Anime convention. Among other duties, their volunteer responsibilities include [...]