By Fashion Correspondent Joseph Lamour

Thanks to the Obamas are in order, fellow African Americans! Black people–like me!–can look in a closet and not immediately reach for the saggy jeans and other “street wear codes.”

At least, according to Elle France.

For the first time, the chic has become a plausible option for a community so far pegged [only] to its street wear codes…

-Nathalie Dolivo, in French Elle
Tendance [Trend] – Black Fashion Power

Nathalie Dolivo, a writer for the magazine’s blog, seems to think that since the Obamas are so fashion-forward, they serve as a public forum to inspire African Americans to dress more fashionably in 2012. First of all, lady, this is the fourth year of Barack’s term. You’re a little late with this intensely racist idea, aren’t you?

That’s not even the worst of it. Dolivo goes so far as to coin the term, and this hurts me to type it, “black-geoisie”.  Now, we really should institute a “Sh-t Fashion Magazines Say” to add to the hundreds of others on YouTube. We have a wealth of material to work from. First we had Slave Earrings. Then we had the whole Rihanna, N*ggabitch debacle. To which Rihanna herself replied with a heartfelt “F*CK YOU”. And now this. It seems like American magazines are on their best behavior! Good work.

Dolivo uses a picture of Janelle Monae in the post to show how far we’ve come from over-sized pants, but Monae is a musician who’s particular style existed since her music was first released in 2003, well before this “black fashion renaissance” (Dolivo’s words, not mine) was to have taken place. And of course, much before public consumption as well.

The post has since been removed from Elle France’s website. Without an apology, I believe the magazine is hoping they can deny the post was published–or published in error, at least , if caught (too late for that!). Elle, you can’t un-ring a bell.

By Guest Contributor Roxie Moxie, cross-posted from Nerdgasm Noire Network

Last week the Hunger Games character posters were revealed to fans.

There were the usual complaints of actors not meeting book loyalist expectations.  However, among the usual complaints of “She doesn’t look as young as I thought” or “Where are Effie’s pink curls?”  There was a different kind of shock and surprise toward Rue & Cinna, who will be played by Amandla Stenberg and Lenny Kravitz, respectively.

”And most hauntingly, a twelve-year-old girl from District 11. She has dark brown skin and eyes, but other than that, she’s very like Prim in size and demeanor.“―Katniss Everdeen, while watching Rue’s reaping

- The Hunter Games Wiki

She is 12 years old, with dark brown hair, skin, and “golden brown” eyes.

- Wikipedia

Rue is pretty clearly described as African-American which has been confirmed by director Garry Ross and author Suzanne Collins.

Entertainment Weekly: In the books, Katniss is described as being olive-skinned, dark-haired, possibly biracial. Did you discuss with Suzanne the implications of casting a blond, caucasian girl?
Ross: Suzanne and I talked about that as well. There are certain things that are very clear in the book. Rue is African-American. Thresh is African-American.

So then, why did comments like these show up on the Hunger Games Facebook when Rue’s poster was posted? (SPOILER ALERT: IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE BOOKS, STOP AT GRACE’S COMMENT.)

Everything from the innocuous ”She’s not how I pictured her” to “I was all sad and like “she’s black!’”

Seriously? My good nerds, what in the entire f-ck?

While it is true that Rue is described maybe only twice in the entire book, she is described as having brown satiny skin that is darker than Katniss’ own tan skin.  While it is also true that the Hunger Games books are a very quick and absorbing read I don’t find that any of this an excuse to post on Facebook ”Shes Black?”

It makes me wonder if we all read the same book.

How is it, when Rue is so clearly described that fans insist they believed her to be white? White people are considered the norm in society; the default person.  It’s as simple as when you hear the words “All-American”, I can say with certainty that you are not picturing a minority person of color.  This is white privilege.

I’m a longtime Hunger Games fan and have followed many conversations on the internet concerning the casting of the film. Whenever the conversation comes to Rue there is always (1) person who is surprised to find out Rue is black and (2) another person who is upset that Rue is black. Upset as if they have been tricked or as if something has been stolen from them. Upset as if they now have to reevaluate how they feel about Rue–a character many fans love dearly because of her incredible courage.

“OMG, THERE IS A BLACK PERSON IN MY BOOK!?”

And the one that really kills me is {SPOILER AHEAD–HIGHLIGHT TO READ} “Where’s Prim? Her death is the one that gets to me most.” As if Rue’s death is not even worth this poster, and it should belong to Prim.

The reaction to Cinna is even more harsh.

Cinna:

Most people who live in the Capitol follow very absurd fashion trends. This is not the case for Cinna. The first time he is seen in the book, he is described as wearing a simple black shirt with matching pants. His one strange fashion choice is gold eyeliner, which brings out the gold flecks in his green eyes and which Katniss describes as attractive. Other than that, Cinna looks very normal, with close-cropped natural dark brown hair and slightly dark skin. {The Hunger Games Wiki}

Cinna is very different from the other inhabitants of the Capitol; he does not use surgery to alter his features, wears simple black clothes, and leaves his hair its natural dark brown color, close cropped. His only evidenced feature is a slight touch of gold eyeliner that brings out the gold flecks in his eyes. {Wikipedia}

It’s true that Cinna’s description is vague. Cinna could be absolutely any race. I felt the lack of description was purposeful. Cinna could be a hero that looked like anyone. I can’t fault anyone too much for thinking he might look like them, however …

Really, fandom? You nearly make me want to revoke my love of this series with these comments! Especially those who pictured Cinna as “sweet and loving”–A statement that implies that Kravitz doesn’t look that way.

However, many fans get it

By TV Roundtable Member Kendra James

Did anyone else know that Emmy and Oscar nominee Taraji P Henson is the third lead this season on Abrams’ and CBS’ new thriller Person of Interest?

No? Don’t be ashamed, because you certainly wouldn’t know given the advertising. The New York billboards feature the white male leads, Jim Caviezel and Michael Emerson, and that same poster is the one you’ll see featured in magazines and papers all over, including this morning’s free Metro in NYC. As far as I was concerned these two men were the show’s only leads. I had no idea that an Oscar and Emmy nominated actress was the female star.

When TV Guide gave more of the same on the cover of their latest issue, Taraji took to her Facebook fanpage to speak to her fans:

WOW!!!! TV Guide is NOT including me on the cover with my cast members……..I am the female lead of a 3 member cast and I’m not included on the cover!!!!!! Do you see the shit I have to deal with in this business…..I cram to understand!!!!

The post was removed later and replaced with:

I swear you guys keep my spirit lifted cause it ain’t easy AT ALL for a sister in Hollywood. Your love is God sent!!!! Thank you ALL from the bottom of my heart. Wanted to tell you all this on live TV at the Emmys (if I’d won) but……oh well. Muah!!!!!

Normally, I’m the first to applaud CBS for their diverse casting on their procedural series. CSI, Criminal Minds, Cold Case, Hawaii Five-0, and NCIS: LA each feature(d) staring men and women of color. Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior was also led by Forest Whitaker before being cancelled. However, the omission of an Academy Award nominated lead actress from an entire advertising campaign is more than an accidental oversight.

Both Taraji and Forest are the latest actors of color to follow in a trend I have mixed feelings about. While award winning and popular white film actors often make guest spots on network television  you don’t often find them leading shows outside of HBO (and that’s not television, it’s HBO). Award winning Actors of color, on the other hand, seem to be making the transition from their Oscar nominated and critically acclaimed movies and parts to network and cable television. Forest Whitaker, Sandra Oh (Greys Anatomy), Terrence Howard (Law and Order: LA), Lawrence Fishburne (CSI), Viola Davis (United States of Tara, one season), Djimon Hounson (Alias, recurring role) and Don Cheadle (House of Lies), come immediately to mind. Out of the group Sandra is the only one not nominated for Oscar, though she does have a SAG to her name.

While each of these talents certainly deserve to work, why is it they’re taking jobs on network and cable television their white counterparts never would, especially if they’re not going to get the exposure? (Another question to muse on: why are so any of them men?) If we look at the year Taraji was nominated for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, we’ll see that she was nominated against Amy Adams, Viola Davis, Marisa Tomei, and Penelope Cruz. Of the five who are the two who’ve had recurring television work since? Viola and Taraji. The same thing happens if we look at Forrest Whitaker, who was nominated against Will Smith, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ryan Gossling, and Peter O’Toole.

For all intents and purposes their fellow nominees are their peers (after all, they’re nominated by their fellow actors and actresses … or at least their assistants) and we can clearly see that they’re not getting the same type of work. (Can you imagine DiCaprio deciding to do a Showtime series, much less a Criminal Minds spin-off? Can you imagine him needing to do so?) Then, when actors and actresses of color are chosen to headline or co-headline a show, are they ever the face of the show? Are they out doing publicity and taking photos for magazine covers? Both Terrance Howard and Forrest Whitaker were given a huge promotional push and CM: SB and L&O: LA were cancelled in the middle of their first seasons. A search for Sandra Oh magazine covers reveals one result for a Marie Claire (Sara Ramírez has two covers to Latina to her name). I counted nine for Ellen Pompeo before I stopped, and didn’t even bother with Katherine Heigl or Patrick Dempsy. Taraji’s beef with CBS’ and TV Guide’s exclusion is hardly a unique one.

It’s bad enough that actors of color aren’t always given the same credit (or role choice) as their peers within the film industry (the publicity department for The Adjustment Bureau would have preferred that you didn’t know Anthony Mackie had a starring role– he was in a good two thirds of the movie. Certainly more than John Slattery). As television leads and co-leads, the opportunities to represent themselves and be represented by the shows they work for should be provided, and yet they don’t seem to be. Women of color especially are pushed to the side of the advertising table; CBS and NBC at least tried with Forest Whitaker and Terrence Howard.

I used to joke that after the failures of Undercovers, L&O:LA, and CM:SB in a one, two, three punch no network show would ever use a black face and the main face in their campaigns again. Given how quickly CM:SB came and went, there might be merit in wondering if CBS chose not to make Taraji part of the ad campaign focus because of the show’s failure and the direction of that particular campaign.

Whatever the reason, for Taraji and others the reality is mostly this: I’m sitting here watching The Big Bang Theory premiere and I’ve seen three ads for Person of Interest so far (two short, one full length). Two ads didn’t feature Taraji at all, and the thirty second ad featured her for a total of three seconds — I timed it. Worse, I know that had it not been for Taraji publicly calling out TV Guide I wouldn’t have known she was on this show. And that’s a shame because there’s no reason that should be the case. They took a shot of the three cast leads. They made the poster. Why aren’t they using it? Because Jim Caviezel and Michael Emerson are obviously meant to be the stars of this show.

No one can blame Taraji for taking to Facebook to express her displeasure, and it’s important that even though the post was eventually deleted she had the chance to make her opinion public. It’s especially important for actresses of color like Joi Bryant (Parenthood), Annie Ilonzeh (Charlie’s Angels — who isn’t even listed as a “star” of the show on its IMDB page), Naturi Naughton (The Playboy Club), Maggie Q (Nikita), and Jasika Nicole (Fringe) who don’t have the prestige of an Academy Award nomination behind them, and continue to be underrepresented in advertisment and promotion by the networks that depend on them to show up on set each day and deliver quality work.

Taraji’s experience with Persons of Interest is no more than the latest example of Hollywood’s continuing issue with race and, as the actress her self said, “the shit” a person of color has to deal with in the entertainment industry even when they’d accomplished as much or more as their white counterparts.

As Andrea noted in Monday’s links, there’s a whole lot of ridiculousness going around as the world watches the events in Japan unfold. But there’s also been a couple of positive notes among the weirdness.

The Good

The #prayforjapan hashtag, which spread over Twitter, has spawned its’ own collection of tweets from the scene, well-wishes, and first-person accounts, including this:

“I received an email from my Korean friend: “The only country to have experienced nuclear attacks. The country that lost the WWII. The country that suffers from typhoons every year and the earthquakes. However, isn’t Japan the country that always stood up and overcame such difficulties? Gambare. Gambare.” FYI, I am crying right now.”

Also, CouchSurfing.org has created a group specifically for members who can either use temporary housing during the crisis, or make their own homes available for those displaced. This note has been added to Monday’s Open Thread on fundraising efforts, which we encourage you to visit for donation options, or if you know of any charity efforts going on in your area.

The Bad
Call it a collision of tension and media “accessibility”: Even as she tried to report on the opening earthquake and tsunami early Friday morning, CNN anchor Rosemary Church found herself becoming the story after criticism surfaced online accusing her of making light of the situation. Here’s some Mediaite video of Church’s live report:

Based on that, said Chris Taylor at Mashable, at least one infamous statement made during the telecast was attributed to Church by mistake:

The anchor in question, Rosemary Church of CNN’s International Center in Atlanta, did not make any “Godzilla jokes.” One of her guests, an American eyewitness named Matt Alt, describing the video footage, said “these waves of debris, it is almost like a monster movie.”

Tweets at around this time slammed Alt, misidentified as a CNN reporter or anchor, for making a “Godzilla-esque” reference. Later retweets removed the “-esque.”

Church’s words could not be accurately described as “joking”. Her tone, clearly irksome to many viewers, is another question. An anchor with some serious news chops — she covered 9/11 and the fall of Slobodan Milosevic, among other major events — Church also has a bubbly, Australian-accented voice. Some of her statements around 2:15am ET, according to the Twitter stream, may have sounded inappropriately jovial. That’s when the earliest cluster of results for “CNN laughing” appear:

Far less ambiguous was CNBC’s Larry Kudlow’s error. In (apparently) trying to explain to viewers that the stock market had not been affected too negatively by what had happened, Kudlow said, “The human toll here looks to be much worse than the economic toll and we can be grateful for that.” Kudlow subsequently apologized – via Twitter, of course, and not on the air.

The Bizarre

When disaster hits, it doesn’t take too long before people start victim-blaming “in the name of God.” And sure enough, you had your Glenn Becks of the world grasping at thorned straws. But as Phillip at YOMYOMF noted, in this case it’s also hitting closer to home:

Senior pastor David Yonggi Cho of South Korea’s Yoido Full Gospel Church (the largest church in the whole world for those keeping score) told an online newspaper that the quake may have been punishment for the Japanese people’s refusal to accept Christ: “Japan sees a lot of earthquakes, and I think it is regrettable that there has been such an enormous loss of property and life due to the earthquake. Because the Japanese people shun God in terms of their faith and follow idol worship, atheism, and materialism, it makes me wonder if this was not God’s warning to them…I hope that this catastrophe can be turned into a blessing and they take this opportunity to return to the Lord. We in Korea look at Japan and think that at this juncture, more than a physical earthquake, it is in need of a holy spiritual earthquake.”

Even Shintaro Ishihara, the governor of Tokyo, got into the act yesterday when he told reporters that the earthquake and tsunami were divine punishment (tenbatsu) for the Japanese people’s sinful lifestyle.

Even the faux-religious tried to get in on the act, like “tamtampamela,” the YouTube user who sought – and got – plenty of attention with a rant of her own, which included this breathless declaration:

On Wednesday at the start of Lent, believers all over the world came together and we have been praying specifically for God to open the eyes of Atheists all over the world, literally in every corner in every direction; any place that there is an Atheist we’ve been praying for God to open their eyes and to see that there really is a God that he does exist and that he loves them and that he is the God of the Bible – that the Bible is true.

And just a few days, not even a few days later, God shook the country of Japan. He literally grabbed the country by the shoulders and said “Hey look, I’m here.”

Oh it’s just so amazing to see how God can just answer prayers like this and I am just so overjoyed and so encouraged for the rest of this Lentle season, I am going to be praying even harder than I have ever before.

On Monday night, though, she … well, she didn’t exactly show remorse. She released a brief, rambling video saying she had been “trolling for a year,” which apparently meant the whole thing was supposed to be a joke, before closing her account.

And speaking of bad jokes:

Keep it classy, gentlemen.

There is no excuse for this behavior. It is pure, unbridled bigotry. There is no way to explain it away, and muddying the waters by saying there was anti-Semitic speaker there does not make it OK to call charity “terrorism,” or to terrorize young children.

The video also shows elected representatives speaking about a Muslim event—although it’s unclear if it is the same event. However, the point of these politicians is made succinctly by Villa Park Councilwoman Deborah Pauly, who said, “I know quite a few Marines who would be happy to help these terrorists to a, uh, early meeting in paradise.”

This is an elected representative presumably telling some of her constituents that US Marines should kill some of her other constituents—US citizens. For her, the people at the meeting were not human, were not citizens, were not constituents, but were “terrorists,” tried and convicted by her; and that is enough for her to call on the Marine Corps to exterminate them.

- Read the full post at Religion Dispatches

By Guest Contributor Tami Winfrey Harris, cross-posted from What Tami Said

Respecting and honoring all persons and their cultures is hard work in a society that privileges the majority culture. It requires honest acknowledgement that privilege allows some Americans to be knowledgeable and care only about their own beliefs and rituals. It requires dedication to learning about traditions beyond your own. And it requires resisting the temptation to see other cultures only within the context of your own. (i.e. believing Hanukkah is Jewish Christmas)

This all takes work. And, frankly, I don’t think most Americans wish to work hard at understanding other cultures. This time of year, the War on Christmasers balk at “Happy Holidays”–just a gentle acknowledgement that some Americans celebrate winter holidays other than or in addition to Christmas. But even the more evolved among us stumble, because rather than learning, say, what Winter Solstice or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa really are and what they mean to those who celebrate them, we prefer to simply be “inclusive.” And by “inclusive” I mean folks throw in a mention of these holidays from time to time during the season, usually conflating them with Christmas. Shove a Kinara or Menorah in the background of a talk show set or on a holiday graphic. Include other winter holidays in the consumerist frenzy that Christmas has become. And indiscriminately shout “Happy Kwanzaa” long before December 26.

I give you semi-homemade goddess Sandra Lee’s Kwanzaa Cake:

There. Are you happy Kwanzaa-celebrating black folks? You have been “included” in a holiday baking segment on a popular cooking show. Never mind that Kwanzaa is not traditionally celebrated with loads of baking and that there is no such thing as a Kwanzaa Cake. Never mind that Kwanzaa was specifically designed to celebrate African American culture and that nothing about this cake , save the red, black and green candles, has anything to do with the traditions of the African diaspora. What exactly does this cake have to do with Umoja, Kujichagulia, Ujima, Ujamaa, Nia, Kuumba or Imani? And lastly, never mind that the cake looks hella nasty. Inclusiveness, baby!

Controversy surrounding the Kwanzaa cake was reignited on Dec. 16, when recipe-writer Denise Vivaldo disavowed the dreaded thing and claimed on Huffington Post that she was strong armed into creating the recipe for it. (The post has since been removed.) Vivaldo’s post prompted Salon to ask “Just how offensive is Sandra Lee’s Kwanzaa cake?” Of course that question prompted Salon’s usual parade of hideous commenters to chime in, including cib, who offered:

Kwanzaa was made up out of thin air. So I suppose you could make up anything and say it’s a Kwanzaa cake. Sandra Lee is annoying but at least she made an effort to acknowledge this fake “holiday”.

When will we ever be happy? (Read Spark in Darkness’ great post on this sentiment at Womanist Musings.)

Sigh.

First, someone needs to do some reading up on the origins of Christmas. Second, note the implication that those who celebrate Kwanzaa should be happy to have their (lesser) holiday included. Sandra Lee’s cake isn’t so much offensive as silly, but this idea–that being included is enough and that being asked to do more is mere “political correctness”–is problematic.

“Inclusive” has become the mantra of people wishing to be sensitive to people of all races, ethnicities, religions, etc. (And even some, like cib, who really don’t give a damn.) But being inclusive, I think, is the wrong object of focus. Or, at least, it is not enough of a focus on its own. It is not enough to include. Indeed, inclusiveness without thought or knowledge demonstrates a lack of caring and a display of privilege that is offensive.

Photo courtesy of Pete Campbell

By Guest Contributor Tami Winfrey Harris, cross-posted from What Tami Said

I am (blessedly) very close to finishing British comedian Russell Brand’s second memoir Booky Wook 2. While Brand’s first foray into writing, Booky Wook, was funny, literate and self-aware. The continued story feels self-aggrandizing and cobbled-together to capitalize on the star’s growing fame (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Him to the Greek). Two books in, Brand’s “beautiful fucked-up man” (TM Sarah McLachlan) schtick begins to wear thin.

Ultimately, you win no points for admitting that you are a predatory, selfish, womanizing asshole (albeit using flowery, anachronistic turns of phrase) if these self-revelations don’t lead to changed behavior. I was struck last night that Booky Wook 2 stands as a testament to society’s double standard regarding male and female sexuality. A young (white, straight) man can write two books regaling readers with tales of two-, three- and foursomes; obsessive masturbation; spitting in a woman’s face; hiring prostitutes (and making one cry through aggressive behavior); carelessly dispatching sexual partners; and, famously, calling an aging sitcom star to slyly allude to having had sex with his granddaughter.

And this all makes him just a lovable cad–one who gets much shine over on the ostensibly feminist site Jezebel. And folks buy in to the notion, advanced in Booky Wook 2, that Brand has been saved by the sweet, sweet love of a “good” woman–wide-eyed pop star and Christian-when-it’s-convenient Katy Perry, who Brand recently married. Brand can wear not just his promiscuity, but misogyny, as a badge of honor and be feted not just by the media at large, but in spaces reserved for women.

What woman has that sort of freedom? Consider Georgina Baillie, the victim of “Sachsgate,” the controversy that ended Brand’s BBC radio show and which he writes about in Booky Wook 2.

From Wikipedia:

In a previous Russell Brand Show episode, Brand’s guest co-host David Baddiel recalled having met “the Satanic Sluts” [a burlesque troop] at Brand’s home, one of whom told Baddiel that her grandfather was actor Andrew Sachs and said “Don’t tell him I was here!”[4]

On Thursday 16 October 2008, Sachs, best known in Britain for his portrayal of Manuel in the television comedy Fawlty Towers, was scheduled to be a phone-in guest on Brand’s evening radio show.

On opening the segment of the show due to feature Sachs, Brand stated “In a minute we’re going to be talking to Andrew Sachs, Manuel actor. The elephant in the room is, what Andrew doesn’t know is, I’ve slept with his granddaughter.”[5] After being unable to reach Sachs on his home phone, Brand and his guest, fellow Radio 2 DJ Jonathan Ross, left four messages on Sachs’ answerphone. During the calls in question, Brand spoke of his prior sexual relationship with Sachs’ granddaughter Georgina Baillie, burlesque dancer “Voluptua” with the dance group “The Satanic Sluts”.[6] Ross also shouted out “he f-cked your granddaughter”.[7] Later messages included further claims of the nature of the sexual encounters, and then sung apologies to Sachs, and Brand jokingly asking to marry Baillie.[5]
Read more…

In the furor that followed, which included debates about obscenity on public airwaves, the humiliation of a comedic icon and an edgy comedian’s right to be edgy, lost seemed to be the fact that a young woman’s sexuality was being leveraged in a dick-swinging contest between two famous men. That the episode was, in Baillie’s own words “humiliating,” because society does not afford her the sexual freedoms of men. The tale of Brand cavorting with a troop of women who call themselves “sluts” simply reinforces his stature as a master “swordsman.” The fact that the comedian did so, as Baddiel’s story went, with his mother also present in his home, makes him even more bad ass. But the very same situation is used to sully the women involved and their families. How is it that Brand’s mother should feel proud of, or at least benign, about her son’s sexuality, but Georgina Baillie’s grandfather should feel ashamed of hers?

Long after the so-called Sexual Revolution and several waves of feminism, men remain the only ones who are truly free to make sexual choices without concern for reputation. And race adds another layer to the way sexuality is perceived. For instance, while black men have far more sexual freedom than women do, no black man could blithely write, as Brand does, about procuring a prostitute and terrifying her by becoming angry and throwing her mobile phone against a wall without triggering all kinds stereotypes about black men’s sexuality and aggressiveness.

Women of color remain, arguably, the most constricted of all. I debated using the name “Superhead” in the title of this post, because I think it is a demeaning nickname that reduces its owner, self-proclaimed “video vixen” Karrine Steffans, to her sexual prowess. But I wanted to make clear the gap between how straight, white, male promiscuity is privileged.

Steffans has also written several memoirs. They explain how she has exploited her own sexuality, but also how, at a young age, her sexuality was exploited by wealthy and more-powerful men–up-and-coming hip hop stars and their entourages. And while a lot of ink has been spilled on Steffans’ past, no one thinks her story is charming. And I would be surprised if the public will offer Steffans redemption, even if she “reforms” and settles down with a “good” man. She will always be the video chick who gives “super head.”

I am not advocating for chastity or promiscuity. Whatever my thoughts or your thoughts on “acceptable” sexuality, our values ought to be applied across the board — equally for men and women, regardless of race. What is the difference between Russell Brand and Karrine Steffans? There is no fundamental difference. (Well, except that, based on his books, many of Brand’s past sexual relationships seem demeaning to his partners.) The difference is how we view these media figures through the lens of gender and the color of their skin. These biases dictate that, in the eyes of society, one remains a superstar, the other a slut.

By Special Correspondent Jessica Yee

Does anyone ever wonder when “Columbus Day” will no longer be a nationally “celebrated” holiday? I mean really and truly – when do y’all think that will happen?

In my opinion, it’s not as if the information does not exist out there which explicitly states that no, Columbus was never even near the continental mass of what’s now known as “America”. The “great” navigator that he was didn’t even know where he was going and never washed up here – ever.

What he did do with the full backing of the voyage was ensue genocide, apartheid, and colonization – all whose affects are deeply entrenched in existing assimilative federal policies, hierarchical societal structures, and the realities of Indigenous communities here and around the world.

Several movements have reclaimed this day to be “Indigenous Peoples Rights Day” as well as “Reconsider Columbus Day” (in Canada it’s Thanksgiving although my friends call it “Thanks-taking” or “Thanks-genocide” because no matter what you call it- it’s still wrapped up in the pilgrims/Indian/discovery of America falsehood and no one gets bonus points in my book for thinking of a polite way to detract from the truth).  Today in Oneida where I live and work part-time we have organized our own “Indigenous Rights Day Oneida – Reconsider Columbus Day”. And in fact for many Indigenous nations this was always the time of the year to honor the harvest. South Dakota has also renamed the holiday as “Native American Day” along with a few cities in California who have taken it back as “Indigenous Peoples Day” as well as other Native American tribes throughout the country. Much respect to anyone who takes this day back for what it truly means to them.

Yes I know the history texts and whatever else mainstream don’t tell you about who Columbus was and what he symbolizes today – but at a certain point of shouting, screaming, ranting, raving, and organizing about what really happened in 1492 from the usual suspects – the work needs to be taken up in a more concerted effort by others who DO know (or want to know or could know) to do the truth telling. I’m a lot more concerned about Indigenizing efforts within our own communities because I think all the time about what it really means for us as living, breathing Indigenous people today that a day like this would still be purposely “celebrated” on so national a level.

So what are you doing this Columbus/Thanks-taking day? And where is our community accountability to tell the truth?

By Guest Contributor Flavia Tamara Dzodan, cross-posted from Red Light Politics

Here in The Netherlands, racial matters and subsequent discussions are framed very differently from those in North America. I suspect that due to the fact that The Netherlands has lacked an equivalent to the Civil Rights Movement, race issues are still stalled in a colonial phase where oppressive language and the relevant discourse have never been properly deconstructed and challenged (and hardly analyzed at all outside academic circles).

To give a bit of background, the Dutch state has a classification system for those of us who live here. This classification is not necessarily framed on ethnicity but on place of birth (both for the classified subject and her parents). The Dutch state uses a word appropriated from biology, “allochtoon” to refer to us. This term originally denotes any organism which is non native to a given ecosystem. They have, in turn, created a scale of “foreignness” in which a Native Dutch (known as “autochtoon” in Dutch state parlance) is at the top of the food chain, followed by “Western foreigners” (i.e. Americans and other Caucasian Europeans) and then at the bottom of the foreignness pyramid, “non-Western foreigners” (i.e. everyone who comes from a country classified as non Western or underdeveloped).

This foreignness is determined not only by the place where one was born but also by the place where one’s parents come from. So, someone could be born in The Netherlands, but still be classified as a non Western foreigner because one of her parents hails from such place. Because I am South American, I am one such “Non Western Foreigner”. My status as an ethnic foreigner is also made evident by the way I look (I am consistently addressed in Arabic or Turkish because of my completion).

The laws of the country are such that I am obliged to disclose my “Non Western foreigner” status in a multitude of ways: if I am to apply for a job, I am obliged to tell; if I am to take a language course, I am obliged to tell; my healthcare provider demands to know this and I am obliged to tell (supposedly for statistical purposes); education plans and programs are put in place specifically for people like me (and my children if I had any).

So today, I was trying to explain the concept of “White Privilege” to a Dutch person but half way through the discussion, realized that there is no such concept in The Netherlands. At least, the equivalent to such concept, “Autochtoon Privilege” (autochtoon bevoorrecht in Dutch, which are the terms I googled for) is not used at all in media or discussions on racial or ethnic matters. I googled the term, hoping to find a Dutch equivalent to Peggy McIntosh’s seminal “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”, but after scouring the first one hundred or so results, I came to the conclusion that this framework doesn’t exist at all over here. In particular, I would like to address “Autochtoon Privilege” within these variables (quoted from McIntosh):

I see a pattern running through the matrix of white privilege, a pattern of assumptions which were passed on to me as a white person. There was one main piece of cultural turf; it was my own turf, and I was among those who could control the turf. My skin color was an asset for any move I was educated to want to make. I could think of myself as belonging in major ways, and of making social systems work for me. I could freely disparage, fear, neglect, or be oblivious to anything outside of the dominant cultural forms. Being of the main culture, I could also criticize it fairly freely.

In proportion as my racial group was being made confident, comfortable, and oblivious, other groups were likely being made inconfident, uncomfortable, and alienated. Whiteness protected me from many kinds of hostility, distress, and violence, which I was being subtly trained to visit in turn upon people of color.

I think that given the current government negotiations including the PVV (Geert Wilders party) and the talks on burqa bans, ethnic registrations for non Dutch, discussions to close Muslim schools, prevalent Islamophobia, etc, the concept of “Autochtoon Privilege” is fundamental to frame the discussions in the current political climate. In addition, mainstream media seems very keen on perpetuating the myth of “reverse racism” or “reverse discrimination” to point out the emotional reactions that some people within certain minority groups display towards what they perceive as “Dutch oppression.”

These myths of racism or discrimination supposedly perpetrated by the minority groups constantly targeted by the media as the “the reason for the downfall of Dutch culture” almost always go unchallenged. The popular discourse is such that it has been widely accepted by the local autoctonous population that they, too, are being victims of racism. The fact that “autochtoon privilege” or “white privilege” are not at all part of the narrative dissolve the fact that, in order for racism to happen, a combination of privilege + prejudice need to exist. Without this combination, all we have left is prejudice, which is indeed bad, but hardly oppressive or capable of affecting the policies and regulations of a country at all.

Inspired by “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” I have tried to put together a list to describe the myriad manners in which “Autochtoon Privilege” manifests:

• Because I am an autochtoon, I am not obliged by law to attend an integration course to learn not only the language but the prevailing culture in a curriculum that enforces traditions and practices I am told I must embrace or else risk my legal status.
• Because I am an autochtoon, my culture is always portrayed as “the proper one” in mainstream media
• My religion is not being discussed as a breeding ground for terrorists and a destabilizing force in the country
• My children will be accepted in any school of my choosing without being singled out as minorities that can potentially affect the school’s reputation in a negative way
• My children’s school curriculum will not be “dumbed down” because the expectation is that they cannot make it to university *
• My clothing will not be subject to legal debates, including the prohibition of my attire because it offends Dutch dominant culture
• When I go to my healthcare provider, my complains will not be dismissed because it is assumed that I am ignorant about healthcare practices due to my cultural and ethnic background
• If my language skills are poor, it will not lead to the assumption that it is because I come from a “backwards country” and as such, I am developmentally disabled.
• Media representations of people like me are varied and nuanced. I have a number of role models to identify with.
• My ethnic group will not be used as a caricature during the biggest national children’s festivity
• I can speak in public and my statements will not be used against the entire ethnic group I belong to.
• My religion will not be used negatively to further politicians careers
• If I speak negatively about The Netherlands, I will not be called “unpatriotic” and my legal status will not be questioned or risked
• If I make mistakes on my job, those mistakes will not be attributed to the poor working ethics of the minority group I belong to
• If an employer does give me a job, they are not going to use my employment as a way to get tax breaks due to me being a minority
• The foods I eat and prepare are never singled out as an oddity or a nuisance
• The way in which my culture celebrates festivities and events will not lead to neighbors calling the police due to the perception that my celebrations are a public nuisance
• When discussing youth related issues, my teenage children are not being used as an example of the need for specific laws to target the problems they create **
• If I am in any way involved in politics, my ethnic background will not be used as proof of my incompetence or inability to be impartial to the needs of the country, nor will I be accused of being against the country’s best interest.
• If I am a woman and decide to become a stay at home mother, I will not be used as proof that the totality of my gender within the minority I belong to is being oppressed.
• If I am a woman, the way in which I choose to exercise my right to be sexually active will not be used as further proof that I am not liberated or emancipated
• If I express unpopular opinions, I will not fear deportation

I see this list as a work in progress and I intend to expand on it and elaborate further. However, I also insist that it is crucial that we start to understand that there is no such a thing as “reverse racism” and that “Autochtoon Privilege” is a reality, even though one that is hardly questioned, if at all.

* Dutch school system is such that non Western children attend schools with curriculums that do not enforce the path towards University education, and, instead, are encouraged to go into vocational training education paths.

** Hangjongeren is a Dutch term that denotes “Youth hanging out” and special ordinances have been enacted in different municipalities to discourage these groups from forming. Since the groups are prevalently either Moroccan, Turkish, Surinam or Antillian, the laws have been passed to target the phenomenon described as “threatening and a nuisance to the public order”.

By Thea Lim

I heard about Molly Norris for the first time last week, on Fatemeh’s blog. Fatemeh wrote that she had signed a petition in support of Molly Norris, and gave this reason:

I was unhappy to read that “Draw Muhammad Day” creator Molly Norris had voluntarily gone into hiding. While I thought the concept of “Draw Muhammad Day” was ridiculous and viewed it in the same light as the South Park episode that supposedly depicted the prophet, I recognize that Norris’ intent wasn’t to be offensive or malicious. In Islam, intentions count for something just like actions, and no one should be punished for simple naïveté. It’s atrocious that Norris has received threats and feels unsafe enough to go incognito.

I have to say that after doing a little bit of reading about Norris, “Draw Muhammad Day” and the outpouring of support for Norris, I am finding it difficult to be as generous as Fatemeh.

When Fatemeh writes that she supports Norris, what I understand is that Fatemeh supports Norris’ right to live a life free of violence and threats.  That, I find entirely reasonable – I too support Norris’ right to safety, as I support anyone’s right to safety.  But what I am struggling to understand is exactly what all the other people who say they support Norris, are actually in support of.

Aaron Goldstein at The American Spectator writes:

Freedom of expression in America took another step closer to a slow death last week when the Seattle Weekly announced it would no longer be publishing the work of cartoonist Molly Norris because she had gone into hiding…I cannot help but wonder that if Norris had been more assertive in her own defense then others would have been more eager to stand beside her…So given the current political climate regarding Islam in America who among us could be the next Molly Norris?

James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal writes:

Where is President Obama? Last month, speaking to a mostly Muslim audience at the White House, the president strongly defended the right of another imam held up as a moderate to build a mosque adjacent to Ground Zero. The next day, and again at a press conference last week, Obama said he was merely standing up for the First Amendment. As far as we recall, it’s the only time Barack Obama has ever stood up for anybody’s First Amendment rights.

Now Molly Norris, an American citizen, is forced into hiding because she exercised her right to free speech. Will President Obama say a word on her behalf? Does he believe in the First Amendment for anyone other than Muslims?

Abigail R. Esman at Forbes writes:

Let me repeat: The U.S. government is suggesting that Ms. Norris change her name, strip away her past, possibly even change her appearance, because she has been targeted by Muslim extremists who are not amused by her work or her ideas. Rather than protect her, rather than defend her, rather than stand up for her Constitutional and democratic rights, declaring their intention to route al-Awlaki out and bring him (and others who are threatening her life) to justice, the American government, as it were, is itself in essence allying with him by taking away her freedom and her life.

Now listen. I will say this again: I emphatically support Molly Norris’ right to safety. I think it is terrible that she has to go into hiding, and I can only imagine the fear and distress that she is feeling right now.

But. I 100% do not support Norris’ right to mean-spirited mockery. I do not support anyone’s right to belittle, poke fun at, show insensitivity or thoughtlessness towards anyone else’s system of belief – but especially at Islam, seeing how it seems to have become some sort of Liberal American pastime to see who can make the most Islamophobic joke.  And this is while the rights of Muslims to pursue their system of belief is under attack, all across the Western world.

And of course I support free speech. I support informed dissent. But what Norris did – and South Park, and Jyllends Posten and any other fool who carries on creating images of Muhammad as if to do so is some act of inspired and noble rebellion – was not informed dissent.  It was a nasty and childish response to being told, for once, that there was something we are not allowed to do, or cannot have.

In her letter of apology distancing herself Draw Muhammad Day, Norris writes:

My one-off cartoon does not work well as a long-term plan. The vitriol this ‘day’ has brought out, of people who only want to draw obscene images, is offensive to Muslims who did nothing to endanger our right to expression in the first place. Only Viacom and Revolution Muslim are to blame, so…draw them instead!

I apologize to people of Muslim faith and ask that this ‘day’ be called off…

That part of the letter I liked. This part of Norris’ letter I did not like:

My cartoon was the beginning and end of what I had to say about this creepy, historic censorship.

Creepy, historic censorship? How is a religious idea about how to show respect to your deity “creepy”? All religions have rules and ideas about the best way to show respect to God. In Judaism God’s name is never pronounced.  In Catholicism you must bow before the altar every time you walk in front of it.  I am sure any religion in existence has strict rules about addressing God and his messengers – after all, isn’t the very backbone of religion the idea of the sacred, where “sacred” means that which is entitled to veneration or respect?

Sometimes it appears as if  any benign request made by another power to the Western, white, (culturally) Christian world (WWCCW), is received as an affront. As in, how dare anyone else tell us what to do? WE RUN THIS PLACE! As in, this refusal is an extreme manifestation of the way that certain Western, white, cultural Christians think they are entitled to do anything and consume anything, because they are the West, the boss of this town, and ain’t no one ever going to tell them what to do.

Even if “what to do” is a rule relating to something that doesn’t concern the WWCCW at all – for example, depictions of Muhammad.  It is like watching a kindergarten bully stamp around the playroom knocking over other kids’ desks, because they have dared to do or have something that doesn’t include the bully – and then dared to ask that the bully respect the preciousness of those things. This is the core of entitlement.

Absolutely nothing entitles any non-Muslim to an opinion about depictions of Muhammad. If Islam had laws about the depiction of universal symbols, say, like any manifestation of God, and threats of violence were made whenever anyone drew these things, that would be one thing. But it is beyond me why the depiction of a solely Muslim entity concerns anyone who does not follow the teachings of Muhammad. And yet it feels like every few months another scandal rears it head where some a-hole decides to draw Muhammad. For what? For the pleasure of causing hurt and pain to Muslims by showing them you completely disrespect their beliefs, simply because you can?

I do not confuse my support and sympathy for Norris’ right to safety, with support and sympathy for her right to be disrespectful and mocking.  I do not believe that the latter right, is a right.

And if supporting only some rights to free speech and not others (namely, I don’t support the right to free speech that is arrogant and mocking) means that I don’t truly support free speech…well then, eff it. I don’t support free speech. Honestly, I’d rather be called a draconian censor than join the ranks of my fellow, select Westerners who have never truly learnt what it means to respect someone or something beyond their own worldview.

–
Photo Credit: Ikhwan Web

Even by Fox News standards, the amount of FAIL on this segment from Money Rocks is staggering. But oh, does it on on a funny note.

In discussing why the U.S. Postal Service should be privatized – a foolish idea, but just roll with it here – GOP “strategist” Jack Burkman lets fly with this beauty:

“Most of these guys working in the Post Office should be driving cabs, and I think we should stop importing labor from Nigeria and Ethiopia. That’s about their skill level. They’re only in there because of massive union protection.”

Now, the host, Eric Bolling, lets him off the hook. And columnist S.E. Copp, not to be outdone, brags, “I can deposit a check by taking a photograph of the check with my phone and e-mailing it to my bank!” (Where does she bank, Narnia?). But attorney Tamara Holder – who seconds earlier defends privatizing national security(?!) is the first to call Burkman out on his remarks. And when Burkman tries to defend his assertion that postal workers are “unskilled labor,” former Sen. Al D’Amato (R-NY) lets loose around the 5:19 mark. Language is NSFW, but well worth it.

D’Amato’s certainly had his own share of dumb moments in the past: 15 years ago, in the midst of the O.J. Simpson trial he used a mock-Japanese accent to make fun of Judge Lance Ito. But at least he shows some decency here. Disconcertingly, though, Bolling allows Burkman to close the segment with some more frightening remarks:

“… The reality is that many in the American ‘Middle,’ like postal workers, are really unskilled labor who should have been pushed down for market reasons, but because of union and government pressures, we import labor at the bottom and keep these people here. That’s a very true statement.”

Of course, in cases like this it’s always good to remember The Daily Show’s lesson on how this guy became one of those That Guys:

By Guest Contributor Shannon Joyce Prince

Note: The Houston Zoo uses the term “pygmy” and specifies no particular so called p*gmy ethnic groups.  According to the Indigenous Peoples of Africa Co-ordinating Committee, “This term [‘pygmy’]is used by some communities and organisations, but is considered pejorative by others.”  When I first began writing about the Houston Zoo it was my research-based understanding that as there is no one word that names all the African ethnic groups racialized as “p*gmies” the term wasn’t offensive when speaking of the groups collectively while the names of the different ethnic groups should be used when speaking of them in particular.  In my writings on the Houston Zoo I continue to navigate this issue. Since some communities consider “p*gmy” to be pejorative, I use an asterisk when employing the word when not quoting another source.  When speaking of a particular ethnic group, I use the group’s name, clarifying that the group is labeled as “p*gmy.”  When speaking of the ethnic groups collectively I refer to them as labeled as rather than as being “p*gmy” as I have never been able to find a comprehensive list of all the ethnic groups.

The Houston Zoo has proudly announced a new project, The African Forest, which is set to open December 2010 if we don’t halt it.  According to the Zoo’s website, The African Forest is not just about exhibiting “magnificent wildlife and beautiful habitats.  It’s about people, and the wonderful, rich cultures that we all can share.”  Actually, The African Forest is about exhibiting and teaching inaccurate Western conceptions of African indigenous cultures in a place designed to exhibit and teach about animals.  The African Forest is also about displacement in the name of conservation.

Fairs, exhibitions, and zoos that showcase, market, or teach about Africans and other non-white peoples as though they were animals are called “human zoos.” Only non-whites are exhibited as or alongside animals. Human zoos allowed and still allow targeted non-whites to be redefined as animals in Western, European, or First World spaces in order to justify white past, current, or planned mistreatment of non-white peoples in the non-white peoples’ homelands.

According to the Zoo’s website, The African Forest includes an “African Marketplace Plaza” selling gifts from “from all over the world” and offering dining with a “view of giraffes;” a “Pygmy Village and Campground” showcasing “African art, history, and folklore” where visitors can stay overnight; “Pygmy Huts” where visitors will be educated about “pygmies” and “African culture,” hear stories, and be able to stay overnight; a “Storytelling Fire Pit;” an “Outpost” where visitors, while getting refreshments, will view posters “promoting ecotourism, conservation messages, and African wildlife refuges;” a “Communications Hut and Conservation Kiosk” where “visitors will use a replicated shortwave radio and listen in on simulated conversations taking place throughout Africa;” a “Rustic Outdoor Shower” representing the fact that the fictional “Pygmy Village” “recently got running water” where children can “cool off;” a section of the “Pygmy Village” where children can handle “African musical instruments and artifacts;” and “Tree House Specimen Cabinets” that showcase “objects, artifacts, and artwork.”[i] (This information is difficult to find on the Zoo’s website, so use the web addresses at this endnote if you want to look it up.)

The African Forest is problematic for several reasons.  For example, Africa is not a monolith.  Africa is a continent of fifty-three nations and even more cultures.  So while one may speak of a Ugandan forest, Yoruba marketplace, or Xhosa culture, Africa is such a diverse continent that the idea of, for example, an “African marketplace” is meaningless.

The Zoo’s website specifies that “The African Forest” is really the “central African forest,” but beyond the fact that Africa is not a monolith, central Africa is also not a monolith.  Central Africa contains Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rwanda.  Therefore, it’s problematic that in a website video the Zoo refers to “the culture of central Africa” as though there were only one.  (Furthermore, the Zoo doesn’t bother to name the village it’s creating a Baka, Mbuti, Twa, etc. village.  But as the Zoo is educating its visitors that all Africans are the same and all central Africans are the same, perhaps all so called p*gmy groups are the same, too.)

The ironic part of representing all Africa in the context of the central African forest is that certain aspects of both Africa in general and central Africa in particular are conspicuously absent from this “everything but the kitchen sink” approach.  For example, why are the large cities, skyscrapers, boutiques, and movie theaters of Africa missing while The African Forest shows off the village that just got running water?  I am emphatically against the idea that there is anything less modern about a “Pygmy hut” than a glass and steel tower, but the Zoo is only showing aspects of Africa that fit Western stereotypes of “primitivism.”[ii]

I said earlier that non-white peoples are the peoples deemed worthy of being placed in the zoo – but whites place one particular people in the zoo more frequently that any other – so called p*gmies.  If Africans in general are seen as being exotic, less than human, and physically different from whites, those labeled as p*gmies are viewed as Africans par excellence.

What’s particularly chilling about the frequency with which so called p*gmy culture is placed in zoos is that people labeled p*gmies, like Jewish people, are victims of genocide.  Up to fifteen million people, including six million Jewish men, women, and children were killed in the Holocaust, and up to fifteen million so called p*gmy and other black Congolese men, women, and children were killed under King Leopold.  Both Jews and so called p*gmies, at the time of their holocausts, were being compared to animals to justify their treatment, and so called p*gmy culture was being exhibited in zoos – p*gmy-labeled culture is still being exhibited in zoos.

The Southern Poverty Law Center states that racist websites “offer a window into some of the most important ideological and other discussions going on in the racist movement.”[iii] Members of Stormfront, a major neo-Nazi/white supremacist forum, liken blacks to all manner of non-human primates and other animals, and it is frequently said that we belong, of all places, in the zoo.  Special opprobrium is directed at Africans, and, naturally, so called p*gmies.  On Stormfront threads members celebrate historical and contemporary human zoos.[iv]

So what does the Zoo explicitly say about The African Forest and Africans?  1) The Zoo says on its website, “The African Forest will transform the way Houstonians view the world providing visitors with a glimpse into the remote forests of central Africa and the distinctive people that call it home. By understanding and appreciating the challenges these people face, we will be better equipped to work with them to preserve our fragile world and to make it a better place for future generations.”[v] 2) A spokesperson for the Zoo stated in the Houston Chronicle, “This delves into habitat; conflict between man and the wild.”[vi] 3) The Zoo also said in its description of The African Forest that the project contains an “Outpost” where visitors, while getting refreshments, will view posters “promoting ecotourism, conservation messages, and African wildlife refuges.”

4) Finally, the Zoo’s blog states, “To that end, the Houston Zoo’s conservation efforts will focus on developing wildlife, habitat, and human community support programs in central Africa in 2010…There are also few national parks and protected areas on earth where humans did not co-exist with wildlife before these park boundaries were put in place. And there are even fewer places where the decision to designate a protected area does not somehow intimately affect the human population living around its borders.

“If the ability for native people to coexist with their habitat is taken away from them without offering a sustainable solution, then wildlife and habitat conservation efforts are bound to fail…

“Model community initiatives lead to socioeconomic and conservation gains by establishing and strengthening alternative community initiatives for sustainable development which can be compatible with the long term conservation of local natural resources…”

There’s so, so much egregiously wrong and wrongheaded in the Zoo’s discourse on Africans that it’s necessary to analyze the Zoo’s words piece by piece.

Let’s start with the Zoo’s first quote which basically exhorts visitors to take up the White Man’s Burden.  Africans have millennia of knowledge on how to care for their environments, but we’re the ones in the position to tell them what to do.  The Zoo states that the reason we should learn about central Africans is so that we can understand Africans’ challenges and help them.  The only reason to learn about African cultures is to control them.

The next problem with that quote is that it is gallingly hypocritical.  Is it primarily Africans or Westerners who own polluting industries, mining industries, the corporations that use the resources that are mined, and the corporations that create toxins – all of which threaten the well-being of animals and people alike?

The hypocrisy of the Zoo’s quote is tied to the fact that when Western entities decide they want to “help” the environment or animals, too frequently they do not change their own behavior but rather declare they are helping by dominating Africans’ and/or indigenous peoples’ lives and behavior.  In “Reflections on Distance and Katrina,” Jim Igoe of Dartmouth College[vii] tells how Tanzanians are being displaced by “networks of private enterprise, NGOs, and government officials.”  He says, “Exxon Mobil is also sponsoring part of conservation interventions initiated by the African Wildlife Foundation” which meant that “local people targeted by this intervention are being encouraged by the African Wildlife Foundation and the Tanzanian government to enter into agreements and sign things that they don’t fully understand.”  This “transforms these landscapes from peopled landscapes to those dominated by wildlife, which has made them attractive to private investors at the expense of locals.  It also provides Exxon Mobil, and many other corporations that sponsor conservation interventions, with tax breaks and a valuable green public image enhancement.”

Instead of respecting African sovereignty, human zoos perpetuate the myth that non-whites don’t mind being dominated.  The Houston Zoo’s website describes the various ways in which the Zoo and Zoo patrons can “help” indigenous Africans to protect wildlife, but just as non-white peoples resisted imperialism in the past, they continue to resist the West’s imperialist environmental practices – including those promoted by the Zoo.  I’ll delve into that further in a moment, but first, please refer to the second quote.

The African Forest dares to teach Zoo patrons that indigenous Africans are in conflict with wildlife, but falsely claiming that indigenous Africans harm animals is a well known tactic to violate their human rights and drive them from their traditional lands – often in cahoots with organizations such as the World Bank, NGOs, and corporations.  Let’s look at the culture The African Forest is exhibiting – so called p*gmies.  The Batwa, a so called p*gmy people, according to tribal rights group Survival International, “had lived for generations before and after 1930 without destroying the forest or its wildlife, and even had historical claims to land rights… Despite legal provision for Batwa to use and even live within the national parks (Ugandan Wildlife Statute, No. 14, 1996, sections 23-6) they remain excluded from them. Access to the parks… is negotiated through ‘multiple use committees’ which include almost no Batwa representation. This exclusion is encouraged by the stereotype which represents the Batwa as destroyers of the gorillas. In fact, however, Batwa do not eat gorillas, and they have coexisted with them for centuries….[viii]

Survival International also notes “the Aka, like all of the ‘Pygmy’ peoples in Central Africa, are under threat. More and more of the forest is being depleted by logging companies, while huge areas of good forest have been turned into parks or wildlife reserves that are guarded by armed thugs who beat up the Pygmies and drive them out of their ancestral hunting grounds. And yet the Pygmies are the real guardians of the forest. As their proverb explains: ’We Aka love the forest as we love our own bodies’ ” (italics mine.)[ix] To learn more about so called p*gmy and other African and indigenous peoples’ views on conservation see this endnote.[x]

Now refer to the third quote.  Let’s examine ecotourism first. According to Lee Pera and Deborah McLaren,[xi] tourism “has been promoted as a panacea for ‘sustainable’ development. However, tourism’s supposed benefits … have not ‘trickled down’ or benefited Indigenous Peoples. The destructiveness of the tourism industry … has brought great harm to many Indigenous Peoples and communities around the world…”

They say, “It is no coincidence that those who have lost their lands or have no market for their crops are forced into service-sector employment in the tourism industry and are increasingly dependent on the whims of the global market and the corporations which run it” (italics mine.)

McLaren adds, “Global tourism threatens indigenous knowledge and intellectual property rights, our technologies, religions, sacred sites, social structures and relationships, wildlife, ecosystems, economies and basic rights to informed understanding; reducing indigenous peoples to simply another consumer product that is quickly becoming exhaustible” (italics mine.)
Georgianne Nienaber writing for central African (Rwandan) newspaper The New Times states, “Finally, the detritus of ‘civilization,’ in the form of excrement, garbage and detergents, is discharged into the once pristine environment…  The story of tourism in Africa causes one to weep. In Kenya, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe the story of tourism is a tragedy in which western businesses sent most of the money back home to the colonialist developers… Foreign workers held the most lucrative management positions (Pera and McLaren, Globalization, Tourism and Indigenous Peoples: What You Should Know About the World’s Largest Industry, www.planeta.com), reducing the local ‘service providers’ to little more than slave labour…”[xii]

A paper published by the Forest Peoples Programme in conjunction with the United Organisation for Batwa Development in Uganda – the Batwa people’s own organization – quotes a Mutwa (so called p*gmy) as saying, “Don’t mix us with other people, leave us separate and help us.”[xiii] It’s odd that The African Forest plans to promote ecotourism as a way to help Africans and African wildlife despite how devastating some Africans, specifically central Africans and so called p*gmies, and allies of indigenous people find the industry for Africans and African wildlife.

Now let’s examine the last two things the “Outpost” in The African Forest promotes: “conservation messages and African wildlife refuges.”  Conservation in Africa and the creation of wildlife refuges on the continent are notorious for the frequent creation of “wildlife refugees.”  That means that African governments, with the help of Western businesses and NGOs, violate the human rights of Africans, decide they have no right to their traditional lands, and literally make them refugees alongside, for example, refugees of war.  In other words, in Africa it’s common for conservationists to create refuges to conserve wildlife by simply kicking Africans out.

Five of the world’s most important wildlife conservation organizations are guilty of stealing land from indigenous people and making them refugees: World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International, Wildlife Conservation Society, and the World Conservation Union.[xiv] The aforementioned African Wildlife Foundation is yet another conservation organization that steals land from indigenous people.  As I noted earlier, the African Wildlife Foundation partnered with Exxon Mobil to displace Tanzanians.  An employee representing Exxon Mobil Corporation is on the Houston Zoos’ Board of Directors.

Exxon is known for the Valdez Oil Spill, the Brooklyn Oil Spill, and the Greenpoint Oil Spill, and despite its eagerness to support the Houston Zoo and create a wildlife refuge in Tanzania, the company is currently harming endangered gray whales.  If its crimes against nature weren’t enough, the company is currently being accused of sharing responsibility for ” Indonesian Military Killings, Torture and other Severe Abuse in Aceh, Indonesia” such as rape and murder according to the International Labor Rights Forum.

An employee representing Shell Downstream, Inc. is another of the Zoo’s board members.  Royal Dutch Shell is a multinational petroleum company notorious for committing crimes against humanity, abusing African indigenous people, torturing people, and poisoning the environment.  This is the company that is widely believed yet never has admitted to helping facilitate the execution of legendary environmental and indigenous rights leader Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other indigenous Ogoni Nigerians who protested the theft of Ogoni land for oil extraction.  (Exxon settled for millions to the victims’ families.)[xv] The company was condemned by the Nigerian High Court and activists as recently as 2005 and 2008 for “violating the constitutional ‘rights to life and dignity.’ ”  Shell, in addition to its other crimes against human rights, creates conservation refugees.[xvi]

And lest I forget, one of the Zoo’s donors is Chevron.[xvii] As you might expect, Chevron also makes indigenous people conservation refugees.[xviii] Furthermore, Chevron is currently being sued for 27 billion dollars by an indigenous Amazonian community whose rainforest was polluted by the corporation’s oil-drilling.[xix]

The conservation refugee problem is so bad that, according to Martha Honey, in her book Ecotourism and Sustainable Development, conservation refugees “are roughly estimated to number between 5 millions and tens of millions of human beings.”    Beyond the fact that making people refugees in the name of conservation is evil – it doesn’t even help conservation.  As Mark Dowie says in Paradigm Wars, “More and more conservationists seem to be wondering how, after setting aside a ‘protected’ land mass the size of Africa, global biodiversity continues to decline…  90 percent of biodiversity lies outside of protected areas.  If we want to preserve biodiversity in the far reaches of the globe, places that are in many cases still occupied by indigenous people living in ways that are ecologically sustainable, history is showing us that the most counterproductive thing we can do is evict them.”[xx]

Refer back to the Zoo’s fourth group of quotes.  The Zoo freely states that indigenous people’s right to coexist with their habitat is being “taken” from them.  And, as can be expected, they promise to offer a consolation prize.  But what do “sustainable solutions” for indigenous people often mean?  As Jim Igoe says, after being made refugees in the name of conservation by one of the Zoo’s donors, Exxon Mobil, Tanzanians were then told “their only way out of poverty is to become junior partners in conservation-oriented business ventures on grossly unfavorable terms.”  This treatment is the rule, not the exception, when it comes to treatment of conservation refugees according to Mark Dowie.

Stephen Corry, the Director of Survival International, says of the situation of conservation refugees, “What is happening to these people is not some kind of inevitable doom; it is a crime, and must be resisted.”[xxi]

So let’s sum things up: The Houston Zoo, which is funded by corporations notorious for destroying the environment, harming wildlife, violating human rights, and creating conservation/wildlife parks by making Africans and other indigenous peoples conservation refugees, is creating a human zoo called The African Forest that supports and promotes the creation/continuation of conservation parks and the attendant displacement of Africans.  This paper was not meant to be a journey through historical and present day manifestations of prejudice, but a call to action.  Please consider opposing The African Forest, human zoos, and the creation/perpetuation of the conservation refugee crisis in one or more of the following ways:

1.    Tell the Houston Zoo you are against The African Forest human zoo and the creation of conservation refugees as well as the continuation of the conservation refugee crisis by contacting the Houston Zoo here: http://houstonzoo.com/contact/.  Tell the Houston Zoo that you will boycott zoos that host human zoos and/or make/keep Africans conservation refugees.  If you have an affiliation, credential, or detail about yourself you feel is relevant, feel free to mention it i.e. a university you work for, a social justice group you work with, being indigenous (black or not), African, or of African descent, being a parent or educator, etc.  Be sure to send a copy of your message to nohumanzoo@yahoo.com so that we have a record of your letter in case the Zoo doesn’t respond and to prevent the Zoo from deciding to claim that no one is protesting.

2.    Send your name and, if you want, affiliation to nohumanzoo@yahoo.com if you want to be put on a petition stating, “We, the undersigned, do not support The African Forest human zoo, the creation of conservation refugees, or the continuation of the conservation refugee crisis.”

3.    Raise awareness about The African Forest through your website, blog, email list, livejournal, twitter, etc. and encourage others to write the Zoo and sign the petition.

·       Please be aware that, naturally, the letter you send or your signature on the petition may be made public.

·       The original version of this paper is thirty nine pages long and has much more information.  If you would like the full version of this paper email nohumanzoo@yahoo.com.

Thank you so much for your help!

[ii] Some might argue that features of urban life wouldn’t be appropriate to include as urban dwellers do not live in harmony with nature.  That argument ignores the fact that The African Forest teaches the lie that rural indigenous Africans in fact don’t live in harmony with nature either.

[iii] http://www.splcenter.org/search/apachesolr_search/forums

[iv] http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php?t=480150, http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php?t=317405, http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t210716/, http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t210993/, http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t409931/

[v] http://www.houstonzoo.org/en/photos/albums/v/63

[vi] http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/breaking/6551657.html

[vii] At the time his paper was written, he was affiliated with the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.

[viii] http://www.survivalinternational.org/material/20

[ix] http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/93

[x] http://www.forestpeoples.org/documents/conservation/uganda_review_cbd_pa_jan08_eng.pdf, http://www.forestpeoples.org/documents/conservation/bases/p_to_p_project_base.shtml#english, http://www.forestpeoples.org/documents/ifi_igo/wb_ips_uganda_may00_eng.shtml, and other resources on http://www.forestpeoples.org/index.shtml

[xi] http://www.planeta.com/planeta/99/1199globalizationrt.html

[xii] http://www.nextbillion.net/news/ecotourism-greedy-lover-or-savior

[xiii] http://www.forestpeoples.org/documents/ifi_igo/wb_ips_uganda_may00_eng.shtml

[xiv] Conservation Refugee by Mark Dowie

[xv] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8090493.stm

[xvi] http://commonsblog.org/archives/000578.php

[xvii] http://www.houstonzoo.org/donors/

[xviii] http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/161/

[xix] http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9EPOS7O0.htm

[xx] Again, in the interest of keeping this long essay from being any longer than necessary, I encourage those wanting more information on conservation refugees to read Mark Dowie’s work in Orion Magazine, and his book Conservation Refugees: The Hundred-Year Conflict Between Global Conservation and Native Peoples.

[xxi] http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/93

–

Ed note: a version of this piece appeared at Stuff White People Do

Lately I’ve had my fair share of run-ins with the hipsters and hippies, as well as the hippie/hipster “culture” at large, and have become increasingly annoyed at their depiction/co-option of my ethnicity as a First Nations person.

Kelsey pointed me to this post on Sociological Images last week which rounds up some of the latest and greatest of this ever continuing trend.

I know my parents, grandparents, aunties and uncles have had to deal with this in their time and it’s certainly not a new thing –but it’s 2010 and not only does it still continue strongly to this day – it’s taken some interesting turns down the erasure of true origins road. This isn’t a hate letter, or reverse racism (as if there were such a thing!). It’s also not an attempt to discourage you from finding out more about Native people – and in fact I strongly ENCOURAGE you to do some actual research and knowledge seeking so you might get our culture right and think twice about things like permission and respect before you act on your appropriation.

So to the hipsters/hippies who appropriate Native culture but aren’t First Nations/Aboriginal/Indigenous, I’m asking you nicely now, to PLEASE stop annoying (the fuck out of) me with the following:

The clothing. Whether it’s headbands, feathers, bone necklaces, mukluks, or moccasins – at least put some damn thought into WHAT you are wearing and WHERE it’s from. I know our people sell these things en masse in gift shops and trading posts, and it seems like it’s an open invitation to buy it and flaunt it, but you could at least check the label to see A. If it’s made by actual Indigenous people/communities B. What does this really mean if YOU wear it?

Organic living and environmentalism as “new” concepts. One of my friends jokes that all Native people should get green energy for free because that’s how we’ve been living for centuries and also taught the colonizers how to live (which may or may not have screwed us in the end). I really do love the resurgence of the green movement and how things are becoming more environmentally friendly – but I don’t need certain members of the movement pretending like they started this or ignoring extreme realities we’re facing like environmental racism and justice. I also think we need actual Native people being in charge of and leading the responses to environmental degradation that are happening in our own territories. It’s not to say we don’t need allyship and support – but it’s also rather irritating when I read an event posting for a cause of some sort for a First Nation where there’s like two Native people in the whole place (who either barely say anything or are supposed to go along with the way the hippies organize without complaint because they’re “doing something for us”).

The appropriation of and silence about our medicines and teachings. I see direct examples of this in some of the alternative feminine and menstrual cycle products that are on the market now. I’m not hating on the DIVA cup or suggesting that the “divine goddess” isn’t a great story to hear, but I am wondering where your assertion of Indigenous midwifery knowledge is – and that in fact the absence of acknowledgment of where periods not being a bad thing or the blood from our menstrual cycles being sacred originates, is a direct erasure of Indigenous truth. It’s not enough to romanticize our medicines and teachings about women’s bodies and power and say, “Look at how thousands of years ago they used to do that!” and then capitalize your product or book off of some ancient-seeming fluff you are trying to present as en vogue. No! We are STILL doing this, we STILL believe in this, and damn it, you need to HONOR where this comes from!

We’re all one race. I’m not here to burst your bubble of unity and friendship, those things are great – but I am here to remind you that while some of you want to be our friends and ignore so-called “cultural differences” – you can’t ignore the history and current day presence of colonialism and racism. I don’t need to list off the statistics of health disparities and poverty in Native communities today to prove this fact to you – just consult the facts. I don’t want to be the angry Indian you won’t be friends with, so do me a favor and when you talk about “earth-based” things and your “right” to participate in whatever culture you want because we’re all human, know that there is such a thing as cultural protocol and that many of us are in crisis now of how to protect Indigenous knowledge.

Your grandfather’s, sister’s, cousin’s great-grandma was a Cherokee princess. This is an old one that we’ve been hearing for decades now – but it’s especially bothersome when I’m on the plane and you want me to educate you about blood quantum systems and status for the next 2 hours of the flight. I won’t do this, and I’m tired of you getting upset at me if I don’t initially present myself as Native (because no, we don’t all have braids and brown skin) but then you look at my laptop stickers and are like, “Mohawk. Hey my third cousin’s sister’s best friend is Native!” and then I just turn the volume on my IPod louder because I don’t always have the answers to your incessant questions – which are really just one question to me – why are we so invisible to you?

–

Image by Jenn Mussari, featured at the Native Appropriations Blog

WARNING: VIDEO CONTAINS NSFW IMAGES

By Special Correspondent Arturo R. García

At least she can sorta carry a tune.

After two viewings, that’s about all I can glean from Kirsten Dunst’s cover of “Turning Japanese,” which premiered late last year as part of an exhibition by Takashi Murakami at London’s Tate Museum. According to Anime News Network, the video is a collaboration between Murakami and director McG, which makes this – to give everyone the benefit of the doubt – somewhat puzzling as an interpretation of anything close to fandom.

Dunst, to her credit, has a history with the medium: she voiced the title character in the English-language adaptation of Kiki’s Delivery Service, and has expressed an affection for Sailor Moon – which explains the costume – in past interviews. But instead of presenting her as a Majokko (“Magical girl” or “Witch Girl”), MCG here threw her under the same bus Scarlett Johansson rode in on for Lost In Translation.

Start with the musical selection: to be sure, “Turning Japanese” isn’t about actually being Japanese (nor is it about masturbation. Well, apparently.). And inter-cutting shots of her with hentai imagery – like, say, the upskirt shot on the billboard seconds after the one on Dunst – takes Dunst’s character out of the sympathetic realm and into Male Gaze territory. And as someone who had to sit through Terminator: Salvation, I don’t think McG thought it through that thoroughly.

Finally, there’s the “interactions” with the locals. The vast majority of them are wordless Others, watching the camera with blank looks. The guys in the jumpsuits, it seems, are members of a local dance troupe, and they at least get to be active. But otherwise the actual Japanese people here are either spectators, or look like they’re wondering who this girl is who’s ripping off Gwen Stefani’s act.

My friend Ay-Leen the Peacemaker is putting together a project called Beyond Victoriana, which will focus on examples of steampunk beyond the typical Eurocentric sampling at the moment, which is predominantly centered around England. Ay-Leen is also taking examples of North American steampunk, and people are citing Wild West/Weird West examples, such as Wild Wild West (TV show and movie).

I myself suggested some Japanese examples which could be counted as steampunk, although I have several reservations about them myself. Mainly because when I think non-Eurocentric, I keep this in mind:

“… By Europeans, we refer not only to Europe per se, but also to the “neo-Europeans” of the Americas, Australia, and elsewhere. … The residual traces of centuries of axiomatic European domination inform the general culture, the everyday language, and the media, engendering a fictitious sense of the innate superiority of European-derived cultures and peoples.” (Ella Shohat / Robert Stam, Unthinking Eurocentrism, pg 1)

Somewhere on the next page:

“… [Eurocentric discourse] … renders history as a sequence of empires: Pax Romana, Pax Hispanica, Pax Britannica, Pax Americana.”

Which brings me to the question: are Wild West/Weird West examples really non-Eurocentric examples?

Geographically, this may well be the case since they’re not in Europe.

However, if we take into account all parties involved – the Chinese labourers, the Native Americans, the black slaves, and the descendents of Europeans (neo-Europeans), the power dynamics indicate very strongly that no matter how geographically removed America is from Europe, the power dynamics remain rested in the hands of the neo-Europeans, which renders Wild West examples that do not prominantly feature visible minorities still Eurocentric.

(Which is also why even the Japanese steampunk examples I cite may be Eurocentric after all – they tend to be Japanese interpretations of the Western steampunk aesthetic. This doesn’t make them non-Japanese steampunk examples – they were produced by Japanese people. As kaigou points out, these works are part of a body of literature by members of a specific group – in this case, Japanese (and thus, not European, nor even neo-European). So, it is Japanese steampunk. But does it mean they’re non-Eurocentric? Question for another day!)

Of course, detractors will disagree with me and accuse me of messing with details. But the fact remains – Eurocentrism doesn’t just mean geographically centered in Europe. Eurocentrism refers not just to geopolitical space, but also to narratives, culture, and discourse. Wild West / Weird West narratives which feature neo-European main characters, narratives and discourse are, thusly Eurocentric. However, it means that a Wild West narrative which features Native American / Aboriginal culture / discourse would be non-Eurocentric.

Hmmmm….. must seek such Native American appearances in steampunk media.