Longtime Racialicious readers know this time on the calendar has prompted the R to read someone (or several folks) about their racist costumes or some other Halloween-related foolishness. Well, this year, Ohio University’s Students Teaching about Racism in Society (STARS) put on posters what we’ve been putting into words for quite a while.

I think that, for the most part, the campaign deserves the accolades, coverage, and support it’s been getting around the web, from Angry Asian Man to the 17,575 (and counting!) responses on the STARS president’s Tumblr to The Root to Bitch to the former Racialicious owner Carmen Sognonvi .

Of course, we can argue, among other things, that phenotypes don’t equal culture and cultures aren’t static or even talk about the historical-religious appropriation of Halloween itself.

My only quibble with the campaign is that I may have chosen photos where the models conveyed different body language. Not that the models didn’t pose how they wanted, being a student-driven campaign. What I do think is quite a few photographers rarely get The Shot in one shot; in fact, several photographers submit several photos for clients/collaborative partners to choose from.

I would have chosen, say, the Latino looking down at the photo, the East Asian woman giving the “geisha” picture the side-eye. Or all of the models giving their respective photos the side-eye. Or all of them looking out at the viewer. Or all of them looking down. As is, the photo of the East Asian woman looking down may suggest non-confrontation (“meek Asian girl”)

juxtaposed with the men of color (the photo at the top of the post and this one)

and the Black woman

may  inadvertently suggest stereotypes of anger and aggression (“angry Arab,” “Latino with a temper,” “aggressive Black woman”). Just a thought if and when STARS decides to tweak this incredible campaign.

But, again, that’s my only quibble. STARS did a wild-applause-and-rose-tossing job with this campaign.

Others, however, have taken this serious and timely message and parodied—if not downright attacked–it. (Color me unshocked by this, Racializens.) Now, some of the parodies made me chuckle, like this Avatar-based one

and the zombie one

mostly due to the ideas of the creatures being symbols for people of color.

The ones about white people, especially poor whites, produced mixed results mostly because the parodies don’t quite grasp that, yes, poor white people do have a mitigated privilege via their skin color and that white people of various class standings making fun of poor whites may be viewed as “inside joking,”

but white poverty is also thoroughly ridiculed and dismissed—and, therefore erased–in US society by that very same mitigated privilege.

Oh, and let’s not forget the sexism and the fatphobia in these parodies.

As we’ve witnessed in our posts about racism in costuming, people have rushed to defend their choice to dress up in racially offensive Halloween garb in some of the comment sections about the campaigns, with the usual mixture of the “I got my rights!”, “my best [insert race and/or ethnicity here] friend/partner/co-worker/neighbor didn’t find my costume offensive,” (bonus points if the person saying this is a person of color wears the stereotyping costume of a PoC culture), “y’all are being oversensitive/overemotional/hostile,” “you’re the racist for calling out my racism,” and other derailing techniques.

Some of the Derailing/Apologist/Other-Blaming hits and remixes?

From “Jerry Stein” at Autostraddle

OMG, get a life. This is pathetic. Would an Asian woman be OK to go as a Geisha on Halloween? If not why not? And if so are we now saying that only people of the exact origin or race can have fun dressed as a CHARACTER on Halloween? Stop being so sensitive. If America is to get passed all of this nonsense then it needs to get some perspective and start smiling again.

Watch any movie or TV show and you will see a racial stereotype. Are all stereotypes negative NO! Why is it that this campaign only sees that.

This country is dividing itself. Nobody wants to be American. Everyone is so narcissistic and self important it makes me sick to my stomach. Bring back people with humility and a sense of humor before we all end up selfish deluded idiots thinking the world owes them something.

Based on this all costumes which feature Cowboys, Irish Leprechauns, Michael Jackson, Lady GaGa, Bin Laden, OJ Simpson, Madonna, Jersey Shore cast members will all now be banned because they offend the Irish, African Americans, Italians and Muslims. Thats pretty much Halloween cancelled.

This country is becoming a laughing stock for the wrong reasons.

Mohamhead from GOOD

I am not white myself but I don’t see what’s wrong with people doing that kind on stuff on Halloween. I might even dress up as a white guy. Is that racist too? Or is it only racist if white people do it? Hypocrites.

didimydoe3, also at GOOD

I don’t mind stereotypical costumes of my race because I’m mature enough to know it’s a costume.

Sometimes it is offensive. Mine is. It’s the only reason I’m doing it. I’m going blackface.

Oh, I could go on and on and on with these kinds of comments–because these comments are out there ad nauseum–but you get the jist.

But see, here’s the thing, People Who Defend Racist Costumes: you all are proving STARS’—and Racialicious’—point…and quite well. You’re welcome.

As Bitch’s headline says, don’t mess up as you dress up, and have a Happy Halloween!

Image credits: Uproxx and Hard to Be Humble When You Stuntin on a Jumbotron

I seem to have found a rather telling typo on Temperley London’s website. Temperley, if you do not know is a couture house that clothes stars for red carpet events (like Jennifer Lopez), and while perusing their website (I was curious about how much Molly Sims dress was on The Rachel Zoe project) I found something called “Latino Leather” pants in a…. very tan… hue…

Am I hallucinating? Or…

See the above image. I also see them spelled as “Lantino leather pants” so I was hoping Lantino was a type of fabric… or something in another language… so I googled.

0 relevant results.

I yahoo-ed.

0 relevant results.

For god sakes, I even bing-ed.

0 relevant results.

Shouldn’t someone at Temperley explain this? Are there no people of color viewing their website other than me? Jennifer? Jennifer’s people?

Out of exasperation I google translated. “Lantino” is Latin for Lantin (say that three times fast).

Lantin is a word meaning “radiant wrapping” in Inca. I found that little gem in an online Inca dictionary. I doubt that’s what they meant, but even if that’s what they did mean, it still leaves the INTENSELY unfortunate “Latino” typo. Am I being crazy or is this actually something? Did they actually name these leather pants after the skin tone of a race of people? And even if they didn’t and this means something relating to fabric, why didn’t they name them something else?

By Arturo R. García

DC Comics has added to the buzz surrounding its’ relaunch with the announcement that Teen Titans will feature a gay POC character starting with the series’ third issue.

On one hand, this is something to be happy for, and Titans artist Brett Booth has already expressed his support for gay marriage and gay rights in discussing the new character, Miguel Jose Barragan, a.k.a. Bunker. But, as Booth wrote on his blog, he’s aware that he and series writer Scott Lobdell are wading into a complicated issue.

We wanted to show an interesting character who’s [sic] homosexuality is part of him, not something that’s hidden. Sure they are gay people who you wouldn’t know are gay right off the bat, but there are others who are a more flamboyant, and we thought it would be nice to actually see them portrayed in comics. Did we go over the top, I don’t think so. I wanted you to know he might be gay as soon as you see him. Our TT is partly about diversity of ANY kind, its about all kinds of teens getting together to help each other. It is a very difficult line to walk, will he be as I’ve read in some of the comments ‘fruity’? Not that I’m aware of. Will he be more effeminate than what we’ve seen before, the ‘typical’ gay male comic character, yes. Does it scare the shit out of me that I might inadvertently piss off the group I want to reflect in a positive way, you’re damn straight (pun intended!)

Booth also described other gay superheroes as looking and acting “like regular heterosexuals … they just happen to have sex with people of their own gender, under the covers and in the dark.” He did not specify which characters he was observing, but Booth’s view of what constitutes “regular” behavior is problematic, as The Mary Sue’s Christopher Holden points out:

Booth starts out his quote by implying that out “gay people who you wouldn’t know are gay right off the bat” are “hiding” their sexuality, without acknowledging that we live in a society that assumes straight until proven gay, where the attempts of gay men and women to only bring up their sexuality when it is actually relevant to a conversation, as when talking about significant others, and not when it isn’t, as when buying a shirt (a luxury enjoyed by all straight people), is interpreted as “hiding” by those they interact with. Perhaps Booth is self-consciously as worried as he needs to be.

Booth is also not accounting for one of comics’ big limitations as a medium: everything is rendered in still frames, so, while we can see heroes like Obsidian, Batwoman, Renee Montoya, Apollo and The Midnighter, we don’t get their voices and body language. So there’s nothing marking their sexuality other than what the creative team chooses to show us. It’s far trickier to use different kind of characterization techniques – vocal inflection, gestures, etc. – in a comic than in, say, a cartoon or a live-action setting.

Bunker will not be DC’s first “out” gay hero. In 1988, the company introduced Extraño, a character who would refer to himself as “auntie” and was played for laughs more often than not. The character was even infected with HIV by an “AIDS vampire” before his series, The New Guardians, was canceled.

It will also be interesting to see how Bunker’s backstory is addressed. On his blog, Booth mentioned this description from Lobdell:

He was raised in a very small Mexican village called El Chilar. He was very loved by his family and the village as well — and they were as accepting of his homosexuality as they were to his super powers when they first manifested. To that end he grew up in an angst-free environment. He was born out of the closet and so he has a very refreshing outlook on life.

Given that description, it’s possible that Bunker’s powers – as yet unnamed, but which seem to involve Miguel being able to create protective, brick-like shells not unlike Marvel Comics’ Armor – might factor into his acceptance in the kind of community that, as several commenters at sites like Bleeding Cool have mentioned, is usually highly religious and homophobic.

That kind of intolerance was highlighted in a study released last year by Mexico’s National Council to Prevent Discrimination, which was created in 2003 to enforce a national anti-discrimination law passed by the National Congress that same year.

According to the report, which is accessible as a PDF in both English and Spanish, 52 percent of all lesbian, gay or bisexual respondents reported discrimination as the main problem for their community. Spread across the socio-economic spectrum, more than half of respondents who identified their status as “low” or “very low” – no income levels were provided – said discrimination was still their primary obstacle. The police was cited as the primary source of that discrimination, followed by members of respondents’ church or congregations, which underscores concerns that, even for a comic-book character, Miguel’s background might be too fantastical.

But on the other hand, as blogger Son of Baldwin said in an e-mail interview with Racialicious Monday, such a portrayal could also be a nice change of pace for readers.

“As a gay person of color, I actually don’t have a problem with the backstory,” he wrote. “The aspect that would seem cliche to me is if he was the typical gay teen who endured homophobia in his home and community. Besides, it would function as a nice bit of wish fulfillment for all of those gay teens out there. And it opens up a LOT of story potential for the character to encounter homophobia in his new community as a gay teen who never imagined he should feel shame about who he is.”

Titans writer Scott Lobdell was the creator who outed Marvel Comics’ Jean-Paul Baubier, aka Northstar in Alpha Flight (Vol. 1) #106, published in 1992. Writer/artist John Byrne, who created Alpha Flight, has said that he had always conceived of the character as a gay male, but was not allowed to mention it openly by both the Comics Code Authority and the company’s Editor-in-Chief, Jim Shooter.

In July 2007, Lobdell told Comic Book Resources that he linked the revelation of Northstar’s sexuality to his characterization up to that point – an arrogant speedster with a short fuse:

While I certainly don’t think all closeted gay men are angry, I’m speaking specifically about Jean Paul. He used his anger to keep people away from him, from getting close, from discovering who he was. If you disliked him for being an arrogant prick, then you were not going to be able to get close enough to learn who he really was. If you didn’t like him for who he pretended to be, then you wouldn’t be able to judge him for who he was.

However, while praising Northstar’s coming out, AfterElton said Lobdell’s story – where Jean-Paul defends his adopted daughter, who is infected with HIV, from the bereaved superhuman father of an AIDS victim – “falls into so-bad-it’s-good territory.” It also pointed out that Lobdell left Alpha Flight before the story was even published. Lobdell told CBR Northstar’s sexuality was not behind his departure, instead citing “distinctly different views” between himself and incoming editor Rob Tokar.

At this point, editorial support doesn’t seem to be an issue for Bunker. DC co-publisher Dan DiDio had told The Advocate in July that the company planned to introduce a new LGBT character; of all the changes involved in DC’s revamped continuity, the sexualities of Batwoman, Apollo and The Midnighter have been left untouched; and at least one more upcoming series, Voodoo, will feature a bisexual creole protagonist, though there’s already concerns in the blogging community about how her career as a stripper will be presented.

On his blog, Booth does at least offer one positive sign for Miguel’s development: he won’t be the comic relief. But what he does become, and if he sticks around if/when DC reorganizes its’ continuity again in the figure, are still very much up in the air.

By Arturo R. García

In promoting the new Ultimate Spider-Man comic, which features a black Latino protagonist in Miles Morales, Marvel pulled out the kind of pull-quote driven advert you’d expect for a high-profile launch.

Unfortunately, the ad short-changes what proves to be a compelling, if not particularly exciting, story.

As seen above, the ad uses the first sentence in this story from ComicsBeat, which opens, “All of you folks who have been crying about diversity in comics had better be all over this!”

While the rest of the story is played straight, for Marvel to validate such blatant Othering of progressive comics fans – characterizing calls for diversity as “crying;” the Tropic Thunder-esque use of “you folks,” and the ransom-note language (“you had better be all over this!”) – is a questionable choice. Particularly since The Beat’s Editor-In-Chief, Heidi McDonald, has written more sensibly about Miles in other posts:

That panel of Miles demasking was everywhere yesterday. And the more I saw it, the more I loved it. It’s iconic (I wish the dialog were a little more iconic but so be it.) It’s a beautiful drawing full of character that draws me in. It reminds me a little of Velazquez’s portrait of Juan de Pareja, which is surely too high praise as that painting is one of the greatest of all times, but they share that sense of humanity which informs the best art.

Moving on to the story itself, McDonald’s critique of the artwork still holds up in USM #1. The tandem of Sara Pichelli (pencils) and Justin Ponsor (colors) shines best in the story’s city settings. Their Brooklyn looks lived in, and authentically, refreshingly diverse. This should be the norm by now, of course, but … well, you know. Comics.

Pichelli and Ponsor’s art also elevates writer Brian Michael Bendis’ riskiest creative choice: positioning Miles’ background as far away as possible from that of his predecessor, Peter Parker.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Set before Miles’ first appearance in Ultimate Fallout #4, Bendis spends USM #1 showing us how Miles got his powers, in an accident not unlike the one that granted Peter his abilities, and introducing us to his family. While it’s never said outright, it’s strongly suggested that Miles’ parents are having trouble making ends meet, a feeling that comes out most heavily in a sequence where the Morales clan attends the lottery for entry into a charter school.

According to former Marvel EIC Joe Quesada, the lottery scene was inspired by the documentary Waiting For Superman, and it could have veered into Poverty Porn pretty easily, but a crucial piece of direction by Bendis, along with the artists’ work, saves it: as Miles’ mother tells him, “Oh, my God, you have a chance,” we cut to a close-up on Miles’ eyes, then to two separate shots of kids whose names didn’t get called.

“It shouldn’t — all these other kids,” Miles says. “Should it be like this?” This show of empathy helps ground Miles for the readers at a crucial moment. He revisits these emotions later on, while visiting his uncle Aaron, something Miles’ dad doesn’t like – especially after Miles faints after his fateful accident, the consequences of which start to dawn on him as the story closes.

This kind of decompressed story – or “writing for the trade,” as fans often call it – might disappoint some of the new readers Bendis and Marvel want to hook with the new USM; after all, for a book selling for $3.99, it’s not unreasonable to suggest that after all the hype, it would have been nice to see Miles out “learning on the job” like we saw him doing in Ultimate Fallout.

But at this point, USM #1 accomplished what Bendis and company set out to do – show us a young hero worth getting invested in. The key now is to follow up: not just in the key details about Miles’ regular life (what are Miles’ parents’ names? What’s going on that has them so worried about their living situation?) but about the touches that will eventually make Miles his own Spider-Man; the tagline for the next issue, “Who Is Miles Morales?,” could hardly be more apropos.

I’ve been on such a light blogging schedule as of late that I haven’t even written about passage of the marriage equality law in New York State last month or the legal marriages between same-sex couples that began last week. I have no doubt, though, that readers of this blog caught wind of the developments elsewhere.

But there remain some interesting angles that haven’t been covered or have gone under-reported in English language media and the following story is one of them.

Last April, as foes of marriage equality in New York ramped up efforts to convince state legislators not to bring a marriage equality bill up for a debate, news filtered out that New York State Senator and Reverend Ruben Diaz, Sr. (D-Bronx) would be headlining a rally in his home borough in opposition of the bill. The rally, which I attended on May 15th, wasn’t the first or last rally Diaz would lead on the issue, but something new emerged: A call to boycott the leading Spanish language newspaper in New York City, El Diario La Prensa, over their long-standing editorial support for marriage equality.

News of the boycott first surfaced in a Spanish-language Dominican Republic newspaper in which the Reverend promised that it would lead to a single-day newspaper stand sale drop of 20,000 copies. Here is what Diaz said about the boycott at the Bronx rally…

Diaz implied to the crowd that it was God who ordered the boycott (at the :54 second mark):

Our God has indicated to me to ask you to send a message to El Diario La Prensa. The fifty cents that you spend in buying the newspaper – with those fifty cents you are contributing to the promotion and the promulgation of marriage between a man with a man and a woman with a woman and abortion. And you are a son of God… You are a daughter of God… You are child of God. Starting tomorrow Monday, I am calling on all of you not to dare give fifty more cents to El Diario La Prensa. Kick them out! It’s out they go! Out! Out! Out!

I must be jaded and gotten used to all the other homophobic religious nuttery that took place that day because the call to censure the press in the name of God was one of the most chilling things I heard on that day. Days earlier, Diaz – true to his disregard of the separation of church and state – posted a diatribe against El Diario on his Senate website in which he directly quoted the Bible (“He who is not with us, is against us – Luke 9:50″). On May 28th, Diaz also appeared on New York 1 en Español’s weekly political show “Pura Política” defending his attack on freedom of expression to the show’s host Juan Manuel Benitez ( at the 4:23 minute mark):

JUAN MANUEL BENITEZ: This freedom of expression, to say what you want to say, you don’t extend it to El Diario La Prensa? You’ve been organizing a boycott based on the editorial content of El Diario La Prensa because they back same-sex marriage…
SEN. RUBEN DIAZ, SR.: And abortion, and abortion, because…
JMB: So you want to silence El Diario La Prensa’s freedom of expression.
DIAZ: No, I want to be granted equality. I want to be granted equality.
JMB: And what is equality. Which is the equality.
DIAZ.: Equality means that El Diario La Prensa doesn’t cover any of our activities. They don’t cover our children’s parades…
JMB: They did cover your rally from a couple of weeks back…
DIAZ: Nooooo, oh, man, it was just miniscule coverage. They don’t cover the Day of the Pastor, they don’t cover religious activities, they don’t cover a thing. They only cover…
JMB: Perhaps they only cover what they consider to be newsworthy…
DIAZ: So us… the Evangelical people don’t have the right… We don’t have to spend fifty cents to buy it. That doesn’t… that doesn’t… we are in America!
JMB: You are taking away their freedom of expression.
DIAZ: Ah! So is it an attack… for… for… for us to inhibit our right to express our position. Give me equality, and let’s say we’ll be on even keel. I’m not saying ‘Do not write about that’. What I’m saying is: Why is it that you write only about that side… and don’t write about this side. Journalism should be impartial. Which is what I just told you about Blabbeando.

Yes, Diaz plugged this blog as an example of the ‘fair and balanced’ coverage he should get at El Diario. Sigh.

Diaz, of course, lost big time when it came to blocking the recognition of marriage equality in New York State. Question is, having pulled out all his forces to hurt the sales of El Diario La Prensa, did his supposedly God-mandated boycott work?

For an answer let’s go back to Friday’s edition of “Pura Politica” in which El Diario La Prensa’s long-time Chief Operating Officer and Editor Rossana Rosado sat down to publicly address the issue for the first time. I have a feeling you might be surprised…

In the clip Rosado discusses the Diaz boycott somewhat reluctantly and seemingly hesitant to give it more publicity than it’s worth. She explains why they chose not to address it directly initially and also reveals, for the first time in a public venue, why passage of the marriage equality law in New York State hit so close to home. Here is the full transcript:

JUAN MANUEL BENITEZ: An elderly couple made history on Sunday when they became New York City’s first gay marriage. Phyllis Siegel, a 77 year old retired librarian, and her wife Connie Kopelov, an 84 year old retired activist and labor leader, sealed their 23-year old relationship by getting married – legally. Hundreds of same-sex couples did the same and have continued doing so all week long. This historic event and the debate that preceded and led to it was followed closely by the oldest Spanish-language publication in the city, EL DIARIO LA PRENSA. With us, today, is their Editor and Executive Director ROSSANA ROSADO, many thanks for being with us [RS: Thank you for the invitation]. ROSSANA, why this issue and the way it was covered by EL DIARIO and, in particular – to get started – how did you experience the news at EL DIARIO LA PRENSA once it became a reality on Sunday…

RS: It’s not the first time. People seemed to take it as something unique but at EL DIARIO we have spent years backing gay marriage. It wasn’t something new. We have always been in favor of civil rights – and that aspect of the debate – and I think it became news because EL DIARIO’s stand became so widely known. But we – as Latinos and New Yorkers – have always have always backed marriage rights for gays.

JMB: But you must know that there is the perception – in this country and in this city – that the Hispanic community is very conservative, very religious, and is not in favor of homosexual marriage. How is the experience at an institution such as EL DIARIO LA PRENSA – which has existed for almost a century – that goes against the grain of what people think the Hispanic community is like.

RR: Well, nevertheless, we have always been a very inclusive community. If someone says that they are against gay marriage based on their religious beliefs they more than likely have a gay son, brother or cousin who opposes [their view]. In other words, as a community we are a little more complex than that. Conservative? Perhaps. But we always have… – for example – the gays have always marched at at the Puerto Rican Parade. We never had the issues, for example, that have existed with the St. Patrick’s Parade. And… look, we have never seen any backlash from our readers or public as a reaction to our editorial position or the support we gave it on this occasion.

JMB: And what many people have been asking: Did you sit down at the editorial room in EL DIARIO LA PRENSA and said “We’ll go along… we will choose this path… we will support homosexual marriage openly and will we do it in such and such a way”? In other words, was there such a meeting? Was it decided that this would be the editorial line?

RR: Well, as I said, our editorial line isn’t something new. We have always had it. I believe our editorial line is consistent with our support for civil rights, immigration rights, social justice, so it’s part of our trajectory of fighting for rights we believe to be civil rights. So it’s not only a religious debate. If one believes certain rights are civil rights, how can you be opposed to marriage rights… that doesn’t make sense. And for me, this is consistent with the trajectory we have set; what could be described as a progressive policy.

JMB: Sunday, June 26th, was a very special day for you professionally and personally. Two days earlier, Governor Cuomo had signed the marriage equality law for which your newspaper fought so hard and in an editorial you titled “Because in the End, It’s Love that Counts”, you finally broke your silence and wrote, in part: “This newspaper was the target of a boycott based on our support for what we consider to be an issue of civil rights, but the end result of the matter were the calls of support from our family and activists throughout the tri-state area; many of them don’t know how to speak or read Spanish and, despite this, they wanted to subscribe to EL DIARIO to insure and protect our editorial independence.”
As a business woman, separate from your role as a journalist, what was your experience with this boycott over the editorial stand in favor of gay marriage?

RR: EL DIARIO is what we call in English a ‘single-copy’ newspaper: It’s a newspaper that is sold every day – during ninety-eight years – every day, on the newspaper stand. In other words, we do not offer a subscription rate. So for me it’s like a daily survey, whether people will buy it or won’t buy it. Therefore we didn’t feel the boycott in an economic way. Nevertheless, those who called for a boycott brought a lot of attention to EL DIARIO and, as a result, we seem to have new fans who didn’t know us before – who also thought it was something new, that it was a novelty – our support for gay marriage – which it wasn’t. And it was also an overwhelming reaction, for them to call us and say ‘We don’t read in Spanish but we want to subscribe so this boycott won’t have an impact on EL DIARIO or do any damage to EL DIARIO; so we gained – through Facebook and Twitter – we gained more.

JMB: But before you received the show of support, I imagine you as a business woman, as the leader of an organization that provides employment to many families, deep inside you must have been worried. You might have said ‘Well, we might have to rethink this issue, this stand, this editorial line…’

RR: Neither I nor Erica Gonzalez who is the Editor… we never worried about an economic impact or… we understood and always felt we were on the right side and… I never worried at any moment. What could they do? Stop buying EL DIARIO? We cannot do the work we do – in terms of our causes and the support we provide – we cannot do it on the basis of public surveys. We cannot do it on the basis of threats or the fear-mongering of losing our advertisers. We wouldn’t do it on other issues and we won’t do it for this issue. So we didn’t feel fear, we just said “OK, let’s see what happens…’. The strategy was to ignore it and, if there was an impact, to address it later. And there wasn’t.

JMB: Because we haven’t yet spoken about the person who called the boycott, but he was here a few weeks ago and this is what he said…

NYS SENATOR RUBEN DIAZ, SR.: I want them to grant me equality…
JMB: And what is equality; which equality…
RD.: Equality means that EL DIARIO LA PRENSA doesn’t cover any of our activities. They don’t cover our children’s parades…
JMB: They did cover your rally from a couple of weeks back…
RD: Nooooo, oh, man, it was just miniscule coverage. They don’t cover the Day of the Pastor, they don’t cover religious activities, they don’t cover a thing. They only cover…JMB: Perhaps they only cover what they consider to be newsworthy…RD.: So us… the Evangelical people don’t have the right… We don’t have to spend fifty cents to buy it. That doesn’t… that doesn’t… we are in America!
JMB: You are taking away their freedom of expression.RD: Ah! So is it an attack… for… for… for us to inhibit our right to express our position. Give me equality, and let’s say we’ll be on even keel. I’m not saying ‘Do not write about that’. What I’m saying is: Why is it that you write only about that side… and don’t write about this side.

JMB: Your reaction…

RR: OK, look. There are people in our community who not only dress like a cowboy but also act as such. They want everybody to do whatever they want them to do. They want to impose their morals. In Puerto Rico we say they preach morality in their underwear, in other words, they want to preach morality. I’ll say that if that religious sector would like to ‘protect marriage’ why don’t they attack divorce – because many of them are divorced. I got married 21 years ago, been with the same man, I’ve been loyal, and I’m in love with him and I believe in marriage. So I’m not about to deny someone else the right to marry. If they want to use the power of their religious congregations for the public well-being why won’t they attack absent parents, those who do not pay child support; why won’t they attack domestic violence. Why won’t they use their alleged power to boycott those organizations, city and state agencies, or corporations that do so much damage to our families. Why won’t they use that energy in that way. I believe that we – both in our community and our newspaper – we should celebrate love in all its forms.

JMB: With that response, it’s obvious that you feel personally affected. As we said earlier, all these few weeks have also marked a very special moment for you…

RR: Yup. Because one of the first gay weddings will take place at my home… it will be between our friends Nelson and Juan who have spent 36 years together and who will get married – at last! – they’ll have the right to do it in this state. We – my husband and I – are very happy that it will happen at our home…. and also because this year was the year in which my daughter revealed to us that she is gay – and she is 17 years of age. And for her and her generation – her friends, her cousins, our family – everyone has given her their full support. There has not been a single negative reaction. I think that’s… that’s the world we should pass on to our children so that they won’t have to suffer, for example, through what Juan and Nelson or my uncles or my relatives went through.

[COMMERCIAL]

JMB: New York became the 6th state in the country to allow these unions. One thing is certain, these marriages do not enjoy legal recognition on the national level since they are not recognized by the federal government. Why? It’s due on a law signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996 named “The Defense of Marriage Act”. It defines marriage as the exclusive union between a man and a woman and allows the states to deny the legal recognition of homosexual unions if they wish to do so. Thanks to this law many bi-national marriages are in danger since foreigners married to U.S. citizens do not enjoy immigration benefits. President Barack Obama thinks this law is unconstitutional and has asked his team to stop defending it in the courts. On his part, the general attorney of the State of New York, Eric Schneiderman filed a petition of unconstitutionality this week which might provoke a chain-reaction leading to the law’s revocation. ROSSANA, do you think this will take place soon. In other words, New York is the 6th state and not the 1st, but perhaps it has more visibility than perhaps all the other states that allow homosexual marriage in the country. Do you think there’ll be a chain-reaction and that a great majority of the states will slowly begin to recognize homosexual marriages?

RR: Well, I think New York is decisive due to its size and, of course, because we as New Yorkers continue to believe we are the center of the world [laughs]. But New York does have a large representation of all groups and all ideologies so it does have a larger impact, particularly on what happens in Washington. So, yes, the fact that it happened in New York, the fact that we have people like Schneiderman and Cuomo who have [political] aspirations beyond New York is important as well and I believe that, yes, we will see it. And I hope so because I want to stop dealing with this issue and deal with others I believe are much more important in terms of day to day life: The economy, job creation and other issues that need to be resolved.

JMB: Because, on a deeper level, do you think it will take a long time for the community in general to get used to other family models? Because defenders of traditional marriage say that they defend the institution of marriage as that of a father, a mother and their children – but when it comes to the truth that model doesn’t…

RR …it’s that it’s been a long time since that model actually existed. I believe the figure is that more than 60% of today’s families in the United States are not like that traditional family. My children – my daughter is 17 years old, my son is 20 years old – and from the time they were little, they were always in the minority as being from a family that had a father and a mother, in other words, a nuclear family. The topic of conversation during the school lunches was divorces, it was what other children did when they went to visit their [separated] parents. That [family] structure had already changed a decade ago, in other words, more than a decade ago. Sometimes when these debates come to the surface that’s the focus and the people who talk about it do it as if this was something new. But take a look at research and the statistics: The concept of “family” already changed years ago. And what about children raised by grandparents? Extended families? We are in an era in which that nucleus already changed a long time ago.

In other words, just as Reverend Diaz’ decades-long opposition to marriage equality in New York led to ultimate failure, his late-game call to boycott El Diario also seems to have failed miserably as well. Good job, Reverend Diaz! Please keep up on riling against El Diario since it worked so well for them!

And, by the way, if you’ve read this far, I also urge you to read Rossana Rosado’s full OpEd piece on this issue by clicking here.

Reader Keisha tipped us to a new joint initiative between Michael Bloomberg and George Soros. The New York Times reports:

The administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, in a blunt acknowledgment that thousands of young black and Latino men are cut off from New York’s civic, educational and economic life, plans to spend nearly $130 million on far-reaching measures to improve their circumstances.

The program, the most ambitious policy push of Mr. Bloomberg’s third term, would overhaul how the government interacts with a population of about 315,000 New Yorkers who are disproportionately undereducated, incarcerated and unemployed.

To pay for the endeavor in a time of fiscal austerity, the city is relying on an unusual source: Mr. Bloomberg himself, who intends to use his personal fortune to cover about a quarter of the cost, city officials said. A $30 million contribution from Mr. Bloomberg’s foundation would be matched by that of a fellow billionaire, George Soros, a hedge fund manager, with the remainder being paid for by the city.

Starting this fall, the administration said it would place job-recruitment centers in public-housing complexes where many young black and Latino men live, retrain probation officers in an effort to reduce recidivism, establish new fatherhood classes and assess schools on the academic progress of male black and Latino students.

Talk about a jump start. While many of the experts quoted remain overwhelmed and slightly pessimistic at the turn of events, there are some really great ideas in the initiative: a focus on practical needs, like payment for participation in programs, retraining parole officers, and creating school based initiatives around the achievement gap. I hope Bloomberg and Soros can make a dent with this plan – however, they are throwing millions and millions of dollars at what is a billion dollar problem. The racial wealth gap and the opportunity gaps take an outsized toll on children of color, and the Insight Center for Community Economic Development has published dozens of studies on how everything from access to child care to the nature of low wage work contribute to many of these issues. And even if this program succeeds in NYC, is there enough political will to replicate it in needed areas?

Still, it’s easy to get overly worried about the future. Bloomberg’s other initiatives have done exceedingly well and translated to other, nationwide projects and legislation – here’s to hoping the program is successful and it reignites a national conversation on the resource gaps in our communities.

(Image Credit: New York Times)

Now this is the kind of horror movie I can get behind. What’s a guy to do when he finds himself up against a zombie apocalypse?

Why, make a little freelance money, of course.

That’s at least one of the plots driving the upcoming Cuban release Juan De Los Muertos (a.k.a. Juan Of The Dead,) which borrows the title, but seemingly not much else from Shaun Of The Dead. Director Alejandro Brugues told the BBC the film is about how Cubans react to a crisis (“we’ve had a lot of them over the last 50 years”), and the title character’s pragmatism comes across early on in the film’s trailer.

“I am a survivor,” Juan tells us. “I survived Mariel. I survived the Special Period and that thing that came later, and nothing’s gonna change that.”

Needless to say, he’s already more world-weary than Simon Pegg’s naive Shaun. But Juan’s philosophy also gets challenged in a big way when the undead spread across the land. Suddenly, his country is being torn apart, the government is blaming the U.S., and the market is growing for the disposal of “dissidents.”

Viva Capitalism? Not quite, according to executive producer Inti Herrera. She told The Guardian, “Zombie films are typically in an Anglo-Saxon context and we wanted this one to be contextualised here in Havana.”

Juan is also making waves because it’s the first full-length horror movie to emerge in 50 years from the otherwise ineffectual Cuban film scene, where scripts must meet government approval. According to CNN, Brugues’ film is backed by not only Cuba’s Institute of Cinematographic Industry and Arts, but a Spanish production company. Even with a relatively big $2.3 million budget, though, there’s a DIY verve all over the trailer. Well, that and blood splatters. So if your workplace doesn’t mind some gore, check the trailer out below:

The more you read about Antonio Mendez, the more his exploits make Burn Notice look like Get Smart: the Colorado native who grew up in a single-parent household went from answering a random want ad to a 25-year career in the CIA as an “espionage artist,” specializing in helping assets get out of tough situations.

“I would say the whole thing was like James Bond but even better. I was involved in Moscow creating tradecraft, knocking the socks off the KGB,” he told Open Your Eyes magazine in 2008. “If you are surrounded by an army of that kind of counterintelligence and you can still do your business, Bond doesn’t even get close to that.”

Mendez went on to write two memoirs about his experiences in the field. But his most celebrated operation, an extraction of six U.S. diplomats from Iran in the first days of the regime of the Ayatollah Khomeni, was the subject of a 2007 article in Wired Magazine. As Joshuah Bearman wrote, this particular plan would take a more cinematic turn – literally – than the usual covert actions: Mendez actually created a fake movie production.

To build his cover, Mendez put $10,000 into his briefcase and flew to Los Angeles. He called his friend John Chambers, the veteran makeup artist who had won a 1969 Academy Award for Planet of the Apes and also happened to be one of Mendez’s longtime CIA collaborators. Chambers brought in a special effects colleague, Bob Sidell. They all met in mid-January and Mendez briefed the pair on the situation and his scheme. Chambers and Sidell thought about the hostages they were seeing each night on television and quickly declared they were in.

Mendez knew they had to plan the ruse down to the last detail. “If anyone checks,” he said, “we need that foundation to be there.” If they were exposed, it could embarrass the government, compromise the agency, and imperil their lives and the lives of the hostages in the embassy. The militants had said from the beginning that any attempted rescue would lead to executions.

In just four days, Mendez, Chambers, and Sidell created a fake Hollywood production company. They designed business cards and concocted identities for the six members of the location-scouting party, including all their former credits. The production company’s offices would be set up in a suite at Sunset Gower Studios on what was formerly the Columbia lot, in a space vacated by Michael Douglas after he finished The China Syndrome.

Bearman’s article chronicling Mendez’s faux production, Argos, has now been adapted into a screenplay of the same name, to be produced by George Clinton’s Smokehouse films and directed by Ben Affleck. Great opportunity for a Latino actor, right? Well, according to Variety magazine, Affleck’s already found the perfect leading man:

Yup. Himself.

Given Affleck’s much-hyped involvement in the Project Greenlight series years ago, where he helped make the career of fledgling directors, it’s disappointing to hear he won’t take the same chance with a Latino actor for Argos. As shown on the graph at right, taken from a 2006 study by UCLA’s Chicano Studies Research Center, shows that only Latino actors are requested only 5.2% of casting breakdowns, and get 1.2% of lead roles. Unless Affleck and company reverse course, Argos could go down as a missed opportunity on par with 21, which erased the real-life Asian-Americans who inspired the film in favor of “more marketable” white leads.

Thanks to reader Mike G. for the tip and the links!

If someone did a study of the subject matter of prime time television shows, I guarantee that the crime drama would come out on top. If young people of color are, as the study suggests, disproportionately watching television over dinner, they are probably watching a crime show. In shows about crime, courts, and the law- I wonder what races most of the criminals are? I wonder how it impacts children to watch police be the hero over and over again? I wonder… alas, I have seen no such recent study, so I can only speak from my experience. I am a “crime time” junkie, and I see are Black and Latinos over-represented as criminals in this so-called “post-racial” environment. Also, most crime dramas are rendered from the perspective of the police, narrowing the frame further. The over-arching message is that over-incarceration is the result of crime not inequity, and that crime is a fact of life that requires the brutal intervention of well-meaning police.

But TV isn’t the only problem. According to the study, young people of color spend more time than white kids listening to music too. Given the corporate takeover of the music industry over the last 30 years, the messages of crime time dramas are echoed in mainstream hip hop. Add to that the decline of journalism in general, and specifically the elimination of news on music stations resulting from the 1996 Telecommunications Act, and the inference is clear.

Young people of color are bombarded with images of their inhumanity, denied basic access to information, and excluded from the educational opportunity computer and Internet access brings. I think this lowers self esteem and raises their tolerance for inhuman conditions. But we also have power. Did you know that “ethnic consumers” (what telecommunications companies call people of color who buy their products) are the major buying power in the telecom market? By 2009, 1 out of every 3 dollars spent on telecommunications services came from U.S. “ethnic” communities. It’s up to us all, not just the few media justice groups among us- to fight back.

- From the Center for Media Justice, June 15

By Guest Contributor Ay-leen The Peacemaker, cross-posted from Beyond Victoriana

In California at the turn of the 20th century, a community grew in southern California with an interesting history: Punjabi-Mexican families of the Imperial Valley. This unique community stemmed from the effects of British colonialism, transnational labor immigration & American economic opportunity (and American anti-Asian discrimination laws). Many multi-generational families in the area today can trace their multicultural and multiethnic histories back over a hundred years, and refer to themselves as “Mexican Hindus”, “Hindu” or “East Indian” today.

During the 19th century, many Punjabi families sent their sons abroad to earn a living outside the British Raj; most of these sons had served as part of the British army and police force in China. Eventually, these men saved enough for passage to America to work in manufacturing, lumber, or agriculture, with a majority of this immigration happening between 1900 and 1917. These bands of travelling workers were known in America as “Hindu crews.” Others from the middle to upper-middle classes sough educational opportunities in American universities. These Punjabi immigrants typically entered America through Angel Island, the entry point for overseas immigration on the US West Coast. According to Professor Karen Leonard, “Some 85 percent of the men who came during those years were Sikhs, 13 percent were Muslims, and only 2 percent were really Hindus.”

At the time of immigration, these men hoped to bring over their families once they’ve settled in America. But because of changes in American immigration laws, they were unable to send for their families. Many Punjabi immigrants, however, soon formed their own communities with the other ethnic group that shared the farming work with them: Mexican laborers. In 1910, refugees fled the violence of the Mexican Revolution and sought out a new life across the border.

Despite cultural and religious differences, both groups shared similar working lives and their communities became integrated with each other. Additionally in California, miscegenation laws preventing racial intermarriage existed until 1948, but that applied to only white and non-white unions; thus marriage between other non-white groups wasn’t prevented.

Many of these marriages were arranged by Mexican families to Punjabi bachelors; the brides were mostly considerably younger than their husbands. Not only were there marriages out of love, but Punjabi men were seen as more financially stable, since by the time of Mexican immigration, most Punjabi men have become successful businessmen. Mexican-American women were allowed to own land, while Punjabi men were denied US citizenship and could not, and a compromise was constructed that allowed Punjabi-Mexican families to own land for themselves. Women who married lost their land rights, but legal loopholes were worked out with white landowners who would hold their property in trust until American children were born and the land agreements could be placed under their names.

Unlike expectations of assimilation, Mexican-Punjabi families had difficulty being accepted by Mexican-Americans and formed a distinct community of their own. Because of different religions, these marriages were civil unions, and most wives kept their Catholic heritage and passed it onto their children. Spanish was predominantly spoken in the home and most Punjabi men added Spanish nicknames. They passed on little of their Punjabi heritage to their families with exception to funeral customs and food. Another aspect that impacted the evolution of Punjabi-Mexican culture is the fact that many Punjabi fathers were denied US citizenship and legal rights, despite being successful businessmen and firmly established in America. As a result, many Punjabi fathers chose not to pass on their cultural heritage on which they had been discriminated against:

The original Punjabi immigrants refused to transmit elements of Punjabi culture that they judged inappropriate in the United States, according to their children. Many fathers felt that the immigration laws and other discriminatory policies against Asians had made it useless to teach the children Punjabi, or even to tell them about Punjabi society. Social practices from the Punjab, life cycle ceremonies, and caste and religious distinctions and observances, were consciously discarded; when interviewed, several children remarked on their father’s refusal to talk to them about the Punjab, refusals justified by the uselessness of such knowledge and by the need to become American. (Source)

Nevertheless, many Punjabi-Mexican families found ways to express their background in ways that celebrate the hardship and determination of their immigrant ancestors, and this community still thrives in California today, especially as later generations have come to call themselves the “Sikh pioneers of North America.”

More information:

Punjabi-Mexican Americans on Wikipedia

Half and Halves: The Punjabi-Mexican-Americans of California

Roots in the Sand: a PBS documentary

Excerpt from California’s Punjabi Mexican Americans by Karen Leonard

More info on Karen Leonard’s book California’s Punjabi Mexican Americans

Photo courtesy of Steven Williamson

By Arturo R. García

The phrase I used above is Spanish for “(An)Epic Fail(ure).” And that’s exactly what Casa De Mi Padre promises to be. Because if there’s anything the world did not need, it’s a film in the tradition of Nacho Libre.

As with Jack Black’s forgettable, nigh-execrable film, one of the film’s “hooks” is that it features Will Ferrell speaking Spanish. Here he’s playing a ranch hand named Armando, who falls for his brother’s fiancee while landing into trouble with a local drug kingpin.

HE’S SPEAKING SPANISH, YOU GUYS, AND HE’S WHITE! ISN’T THAT F%#!$^ING AMAZEBALLS?

But wait, there’s a twist! Since the film is set in Mexico, just about everybody speaks Spanish. So – wait, this is totally high-concept ish -  instead of adopting a ridiculous accent, Ferrell’s Spanish actually isn’t bad! IT’S LIKE HE TOOK CLASSES OR SOMETHING!

A subtitled trailer, for those of you with strong stomachs, is under the cut.

The other gimmick behind Casa is that it’s allegedly done in the style of Mexican soap operas. From the looks of this trailer, this is bullshit.

Oh, sure, the dialogue is a little too formal, and there’s overblown close-ups and whatnot. But one could say the same about American soaps. If this movie were really going to be done telenovela-style, we’d be getting the story from the point of view of the fiancee, Sonia (Genesis Rodríguez). It’s possible that both Ferrell and a Mexican showrunner would define Sonia as a small-town girl living in a lonely world torn between loving Ferrell’s character and his more successful brother Raúl (Diego Luna).

But on a proper Mexican soap, the story would hinge on her choices, not the mens’. So, not only is Ferrell using whiteface as a selling point for his movie, he’s also seemingly ignoring one of the key aspects of the genre he’s reportedly parodying. If anything, this is Ferrell taking a stab at making a “so bad it’s good” Robert Rodríguez flick – without half of Rodríguez’s usual wit, from the looks of it.

But perhaps the saddest aspect of the film to deal with is the involvement of not only Luna, but Gael García Bernal. I can’t blame them or Rodríguez for wanting to make a go at films made for the multiplex crowd. And each of them should be able to lift some of the material. But … really, this had to be their attempt at a crossover vehicle? For their sake, I hope it works, and that they can find better parts because of it. But for the first time in a long while, they won’t get a dime from me in support.

By Arturo R. García

Toward the end of Down & Delirious In Mexico City: The Aztec Metropolis In The Twenty-First Century, author Daniel Hernandez talks about encountering a group of seven muses. It’s a credit to his craft and this book that he’s able to weave the entire septet together skillfully, not just with each other, but with the whole other array of characters that inhabit the worlds he encounters as part of his own journey.

The title of Down & Delirious calls to mind Hunter S. Thompson’s more famous stories, and the similarity comes through in the content: the stories we get are part-journalism, part-diary and part-history lesson. But whereas HST dove headlong into chronicling the excesses of things he despised, Hernandez’s stories show him on the path toward becoming not just a visitor to Mexico City, but a full-fledged capitalino, is one of reconciliation: “Mestizaje became a material truth operating inside me, inside all of us,” he writes. “So Mexico City, teeming with millions and millions, as surreal as Los Angeles, as majestic as New York, a mighty city all its own, became both my crossroads and my destination.”

Along the way, in Hernandez’s hands, the megacity itself becomes a character, not just because of its’ size or its’ multitude of places to be and to do – though those get visited in depth – but because its’ somehow has produced a population of smoking enthusiasts despite its’ reputation as one of the world’s smoggiest cities:

During this extra-smoggy weekend in January, residents in my building make an effort to go outside as little as possible. We open beers and talk. In the darkened interior of an apartment upstairs, my neighbor Ponce, a cartoonist and illustrator born and raised in the capital, calmly explains the air of normalcy while smoking a few singles. “We’re mutants,” Ponce says.

I down my can of beer, ask for an extra smoke, and retreat back to my apartment. What Ponce says makes my eyes pop in recognition. To be raised in Mexico City, or to willingly assimilate yourself to it, is to relinquish control over your natural state. The environment physically alters you. Because we’ve physically altered it. Ponce has uttered a cosmic truth. The Mexico City mutation is real.

Hernandez’s own assimilation grounds the rest of his stories. He finds fast friends in the Federal District’s fashionista crowd (“I have never seen posing like this in Los Angeles, and people in Los Angeles carry posing in their DNA”); he joins the city’s old-school punk community in their hoyo fonquis; he watches people mourn their dead, then finds himself in mourning. Love and religion, crime and music, all collide around him. But somewhere in the middle, Hernandez manages to find the seven muses, add them to his own, and give us portraits of a city, and a people, on a constant search for its’ own redefinition.

When I first started in EMS, I was struck by how many domestic violence calls we got. Within weeks, it became a regular part of the night, just another bloody dispute amongst the asthma attacks, strokes, shootings etc.

I’d like to say there was a moment that shook me out of complacency – the woman whose father had beat her so badly she couldn’t open her eyes but she still wouldn’t go to the hospital or press charges, the decayed body of a nameless girl we found wrapped in trash bags in the backstreets of East New York – but revelations don’t usually come in single sudden bursts. It was a slow and painful movement towards recognizing that the everydayness of men’s violence against women, the sheer normalcy of it, is the most insidious, dehumanizing part. That something must change.

They say that understanding privilege is a process much like accepting death – you cycle through a haze of stages from Denial to Bargaining to Blame and finally Acceptance. But of course, nothing’s ever that linear. As the ugly truth about what men do played out in my ambulance night after night I got angry, I tried to separate myself from all that mess by holding tight to some concept of being a “good man,” I tried to invent some perspective that would make it all a little more okay, make it make sense, rationalize it. My social scientist side kicked in and tried to fit it into some theories that’d water down all that blood but I kept going in circles, bouncing between all the stages, overlapping a few at once and getting nowhere.

Acceptance came when I finally shut up and listened to what women around me were saying, what they’d always been saying, what my own life was telling me: that the physical, mental, spiritual violence that men commit against women is so wrapped in the fabric of society that it seeps into our subconscious, poisons our relationships to each other and ourselves. It’s a matter of life and death, not just because of the enormous amount of men that kill women every year but because of the lethal fallout of the patriarchal mindset, which asks us to make insanely unhealthy choices in the name of ‘manning up.’

Even though it’s the last stage, Acceptance is only the beginning of the struggle. I finally got to a point where I could put words to my process, make some more sense of privilege and responsibility than just being speechless or awkward, move forward. Fell into a collective of like-minded people of color working on intersecting oppressions – true, brave hearted people that I learned along side, laughed with and argued with and stayed up all night unfurling crazy plans with – and we started doing workshops in schools, churches and community organizations around Brooklyn.

We used the Gender Box exercise that they outline in Beyond Beats and Rhymes, which looks at the way we play out stereotypes even today and what forces keep us in those boxes. We broke down how male privilege plays out on institutional and interpersonal levels and how white power plays on images of manhood to turn us against ourselves. We taught in Riker’s Island and the District Attorney’s office, spoke with judges, doctors, business people, priests and gangmembers, but mostly we worked with young black and brown kids, and this is what i learned:

Despite what we’re told, people are hungry to talk about how privilege and power keeps us apart and holds us back. Young men know what’s going on, feel the strain of what they’re supposed to be, but our institutions won’t give them the language of how to talk about it, how to make sense of it, how to survive. What we’re left with is locker room banter and bad tv, an epidemic of crap media culture telling us how to be who we are.

This is what I believe: in our heart of hearts, men are not the monsters we’ve allowed media to make us. We are infinitely wiser, more compassionate and more complex than that. Fighting against gender violence really means ending patriarchy, which for men means finding that place beyond what we’re told we’re supposed to be, beyond “manning up,” and becoming what we really are.

by Latoya Peterson

I thought I knew Oedipus Rex.

The first time I read Sophocles’ masterful Greek tragedy was in the 11th grade.  There, scribbling out an analysis as part of a 40 minute timed writing, I focused on what epitomized Oedipus for me – the struggle between fate and free will. After hearing from the Oracle that he was fated to murder his father and to sleep with his mother, Oedipus does what any rational person would do – he tries to put as much distance as he can between himself and the only family he knows. Unfortunately, prophecies are not so easily averted – Oedipus never knew he was adopted, and thus did not know the man he slew on the road to Thebes was his father; nor did he know the beautiful widow he would eventually marry was his birth mother.

Back then, I wrote about the icy hand of irony in Oedipus’ journey -  how he closed himself to what would have revealed the truth because of his hubris, but once he finds out he literally blinds himself.  But what really stuck with me was the idea of fate.  If your life is predestined – and all roads will lead to your eventual path – what is the point of having free will? Life never promised to be fair, but the fates are needlessly cruel, especially in Greek mythology.  And so, when I heard about a retelling of Oedipus Rex, set in the barrios of LA with a Chicano protagonist, I could immediately see the connection.

Indeed, the idea of being trapped by larger, unseen forces makes a lot of sense when thrust into a modern context. Oedipus El Rey bases its narrative in California’s penal system, with the title character Oedipus (also nicknamed patas malas due to the torture inflicted by his father at his birth) growing up in juvenile detention.  At one point, Oedipus confesses that after he was released at the age of seventeen, he robbed a Costco without a gun, just so he could be returned to jail.  It was a powerful admission – that so many boys who go into the criminal justice system at an early age come out without any sense of what it means to function in society, that there are people who come to prefer the steady monotony of incarceration than be forced to cope with the unstructured chaos of real life. The idea that regardless of your own intentions, one might still end up ensnared in forces beyond your control resonated with me. I could understand that.

So, playwright Luis Alfaro threw me for a loop when he replied to one of my questions, saying the play, at its core, was “about love.”

I stumbled over my next question, mind reeling. Love? Oedipus isn’t about love! It’s about the cruelty of the Gods! Man vs. spiteful assholes who would happily smite you to punish your father! It’s about hubris! Incest! Patricide! Defilement! What the fuck is love in the time of oracles?

But there is a reason why Luis Alfaro won the MacArthur Genius Grant. Having delved deeply into the works of Sophocles before, producing the Electra send up Electricidad, he knew the source material – and saw more than the obvious message.  Alfaro explained to me that the whispers of longing, of need, of separation and pain in the text were all about love.  From what I remember, Oedipus married Jocasta as a sort of thank you – “We, the people of Thebes, appreciate you killing the Sphinx, and hey, here’s our king’s widow! She’s a total MILF!” But Alfaro’s take was informed by the time he spent learning about the toll that California’s penal system had on people.  In an interview on the Woolly Mammoth blog, he explains:

Recidivism, it seems to me, is a symptom of a larger issue. Why is it that more than half of all Americans who end up in jail, when released, go back? A lot of times this happens within hours. My state, California, has the highest recidivism rates in the nation. As a playwright, interesting facts like this sort of lodge in my brain when I hear them. When they are coupled with some fascinating images or one’s own history—I have worked in the Juvenile Detention System as a poet and writer since I was young—they start to form the thread of an interesting story. When I think about recidivism among prisoners, I wonder not about what’s ahead, but what one leaves behind when they get out. The comfort of a family one never had, a structure where one might not have lived with rules, the need for protection in a world that seems unsafe. What fascinates me most about prisoner recidivism is that there might be an alternate society out there—actually in there—that functions differently from the one we live in, and for some this is a better place. [...]

I studied with Maria Irene Fornes, who in my first day of workshop asked me what kind of plays I wanted to write. I had already been arrested for civil disobedience a number of times, and I said that I wanted to write political plays. She laughed and said that she hated political plays! I was ignorant and didn’t know her work, so I didn’t realize she was lying. She said I should stop writing and go live these political ideas and then come back and write a play about nothing, a rock, and she promised me it would be political. So, I did just that. I spent over ten years protesting, working with at-risk youth in the California Youth Authority. At one point, I even worked for the ACLU teaching protesters how to get properly arrested! But sure enough, I came back to writing and wrote from my heart, and politics and humanity were simply part of a larger organic mix. People who have made really big mistakes in their lives are very complicated people. They represent the complexity we are looking for in our work. Incarcerated children are missing elements that many of us take for granted—a notion of family, security, love, or even intelligence about the world. The first gig I had in a youth prison was a poetry workshop with teen felons, 12-17 years old. Five minutes into it I realized that none of them could read and few could write—which didn’t seem to matter because I couldn’t use pencils or pens anyway. No one told me this beforehand. Out of sheer terror and desperation, we stood in a circle, created a rhythm with our hands and bodies, and each student had to tell their life story through rap. I set some parameters about language and violence, and they were able to adapt. I could not ask them to write down their lives and crimes, but there was no law saying that they could not say out loud their histories. And they did, and the stories were extraordinary and sad and full of regret and fear and lack of hope. And that is when I realized that everyone is a playwright. Some of us just have training.

Alfaro infuses this complexity with wit, heart, and inside jokes – definitely intended for the Chicanos in the audience. Oedipus El Rey has been produced before in other cities – here is a clip from an earlier production:

Still, the beauty of live theater is that you never truly see the same performance twice. The clip above is not familiar to me – the Oedipus El Rey I watched was a bit slower in pace and delivery. Michael John Garcés, directing this version chose a more contemplative mood, shot through with music and sound director Ryan Rumery’s selections of eerie, single voice a capella renditions of classics like “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” providing the background for Oedipus and Jocasta’s ill-fated tryst. Andres Munar’s Oedipus flows through yoga poses, holding plank while other men do chin-ups, balancing in shoulder stand until his body gives out, conscious of, but not defined by his disability, which Jocasta likens to “a cholo walk.” (Side note: I would love to see a PWD analysis of Oedipus El Rey.) And this interpretation marks the only tragedy where I’ve seen the chorus break to deliver a physical beat down to match the verbal one they normally spout from the sidelines.

Still, Oedipus El Rey isn’t quite perfect.  I never felt as if I connected with Jocasta, in all of her grief and sorrow.  Her character has the potential to be rich – and yet, Sophocles’ original also left her as a question mark, a tragic, devoted figure, but with little else underneath.  This may be due to Sophocles’ to the societal norms in his age.  In Aristole’s treatise on writing, Poetics, he refers to Oedipus, as well as other classic works. Being a fan of Sophocles, it is interesting that Aristotle makes a point to note (emphasis mine):

In respect of Character, there are four things to be aimed at. First, and most important, it must be good. Now any speech or action that manifests moral purpose of any kind will be expressive of character: the character will be good if the purpose is good. This rule is relative to each class. Even a woman may be good, and also a slave; though the woman may be said to be an inferior being, and the slave quite worthless. The second type of thing to aim at is propriety. There is a type of manly valour; but valour in a woman, or unscrupulous cleverness is inappropriate.

If Aaron Sorkin is correct in his assertion that Artistotle laid out all the rules of writing in Poetics, then it kind of makes sense that representations of women on screen and stage are still stuck in the hookers-victims-doormats loop, so eloquently exposed by Shirley MacLaine.

Other than those minor gripes, the update just works, providing a beautiful retelling of the quintessential tragedy. But still, I found myself sitting in the theater and relating most to Creon – brother to Jocasta, next in line for the throne before Oedipus showed up. While Alfaro’s interpretation revolved around the love between Oedipus and Jocasta, it is Creon’s anguished cry protesting the idea of a pre-destined life that stays with me:

If it is all simply fate, then why not me?

Oedipus El Rey, written by Luis Alfaro, is currently playing at the Woolly Mammoth Theater in Washington, DC. The show closes March 6th.

(Image Credit: Luis Alfaro)

In a happy coincidence, one of DC Comics’ more talked-about characters last week, Bane, made another appearance in cartoon form over the weekend, as one of the featured villains in the company’s new Young Justice show – with voice-acting done by Danny Trejo, no less.

(Not saying I called this, but … I am just saying.)

Trejo’s performance underscored at least one good reason why his ethnicity matters. The opening sequence saw the character communicating bilingually without a hitch.  – well, almost. The Spanish-language dialogue Trejo was asked to deliver was cringe-worthy; Andrew R. Robinson, who is credited with the script, should have done better than merely “translating” English dialogue.

But I digress. The Bane we met here carried himself and spoke like what you would imagine a native Santa Priscan would. Like all of the character’s other animated incarnations, he bore no hint of a British accent, and his lucha libre-style mask concealed his face. This character is a Latino. And as I’ve written before, if Tom Hardy is asked to “do an accent,” it’s not going to help his case when The Dark Knight Rises is released.

The episode was also notable for showing viewers a more clearly-defined role for one of the series’ original characters, Aqualad. After the YJ team nearly blows its’ mission on Santa Prisca, it comes together after voting to appoint Aqualad, the oldest and most clear-headed member, team leader. It’s a nice touch, too, that the character is voiced by a POC, Khary Payton. It should also be pointed out that with his hair grown out, Payton sort of resembles the Aqualad currently appearing in comic-book continuity.

So far, so good, except for one misstep: after being named leader, Aqualad spends about a minute assuring Robin (and presumably the viewers) that the Boy Wonder “was born” to lead the team. Considering that, so far, Robin has only taken after Batman’s worst habits – impulsiveness and outright arrogance – it’s a bit much to swallow only three episodes into the series. But, at least Aqualad is in charge for right now. And maybe, if he catches on on this show, his comics counterpart can find the same kind of success. Here’s to hoping.

Top image courtesy of Toonbarn

A “Latina spin on Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility,” Pantelion Films (a collaboration between U.S. distributor Lionsgate and Mexico’s Televisa) is hoping that From Prada to Nada will inspire a Latino demonstration of box office force. According to an article in Fast Company:

Released at the end of January, Pantelion’s first film, From Prada to Nada, focuses on two formerly rich sisters — one of whom proudly quips “no hablo español” with an Anglo accent — who are forced to move in with relatives in a scrappy, Latino part of East Los Angeles. While the movie is in English, many of the punch lines are in Spanish.

Hollywood’s previous attempts to market Spanish-language and Latino-centric films have largely failed. Even though movies in Spanish like IFC’s Y Tu Mamá También and Focus Features’ The Motorcycle Diaries found success in the art-house market, they did not broadly appeal to the Latino population. Those teenagers McNamara chats up in movie-theater lobbies generally opt to see commercial blockbusters in English. Language is not the company’s key strategy — only about half of Pantelion’s releases will be in Spanish.

“When a movie is in Spanish, if a Puerto Rican is speaking Spanish, or a Mexican is speaking Spanish, it identifies them,” Pantelion’s chief executive, Paul Presburger, says of the language’s countless dialects and geographically diverse slang. “Whereas when we do a film with Latino stars in English, it unifies.”

From the looks of the trailer could either upend stereotypes or confirm them. The story backdrop is one of class, family, and culture – but there are also more than a few border and immigration jokes that could either play into stereotypes or work as intimate commentary on current events. Still, there is cause for alarm – Lionsgate wants to apply the Tyler Perry model to Latino films, which could stoke more controversy:

Pantelion will let the target audience decide if something is offensive, executives say. “African-Americans are going to see Perry’s films; they’re the ones enjoying them,” Presburger says. Nonetheless, the Pantelion staff reads scripts with a careful eye for hackneyed images of Latino life and culture. “We get out of the stereotypes of narco kings and drug dealers and gang members,” Presburger adds.

From Prada to Nada opens January 28th.

By Arturo R. García

Okay, so we know Tom Hardy can play someone who’s physically intimidating, based on his role in Bronson. But is casting him as a biracial Central American national problematic? … It could be. Assuming that’s the case at all.

In the next Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises, Hardy will be playing Bane, introduced in the comic-book world as a native of the fictional Caribbean country of Santa Prisca. The character was developed as a less-privileged mirror to Batman/Bruce Wayne, growing up in prison, serving the life sentence his father escaped from. Bane later goes on to terrorize Gotham City, and famously break Wayne’s back. Years later, Bane finally meets and battles his father, Sir Edmund Dorrance, a British assassin.

So on the surface, it appears that parenting plot-point could be used to hand-wave not just the character’s relatively light-skinned appearance (seen at right), but Hardy’s casting. The character’s mother, presumed to be Santa Priscan, has never been featured in any media.

But it’s worth noting that when Bane has been included in a cartoon format, his voice-acting was done by two mixed-race New Yorkers: Henry Silva (Sicilian and Spanish; in the clip below, he comes in at 1:07) and Hector Elizondo (Puerto Rican and Basque), and the character is played as a POC.

It is possible, of course, that we don’t get any backstory for Bane at all in Rises; he could just be portrayed as a Mysterious Thug who just happens to have a British Accent. But while one can understand director Christopher Nolan and writer David Goyer, the team behind the latest Batman film series, wanting to re-team with Hardy, who gave them a well-received turn in Inception. But in the bigger picture, there’s almost no way for this move to be more than another missed opportunity: if the character’s English side is played up, half of his presumed racial identity will be effectively erased for the general public; and if Hardy is asked to affect a “Central American” accent for the role, it would only highlight the overwhelming whiteness of Nolan’s casting choices in this series, especially if the rumors of Rachel Weisz getting cast as Talia al Ghul, a character with a multi-racial background, are indeed true; no POC women have even been connected with the role of Talia so far.

Worst of all, the casting and potential white-washing involved in the Hardy decision will lead to yet another round of racial drafting, like this comment over at the Comics Alliance thread on the casting:

What’s the problem with Bane being white? Heimdall is black.
And just because someone’s white, doesn’t mean they can’t be South American, right? Have you seen the Brazilian football team?

The problem being, of course, that when we see the Brazilian football team, we see them – not Brits hired to play them. Somehow that would be seen as “acceptable casting,” while casting Idris Elba as Heimdall … well, you know how that goes.

Top image courtesy of MovieBuzzers
Comic-book image courtesy of Comic Book Movie

By Guest Contributor Konju Oruwari, cross-posted from Vegans Of Color

What follows is the last letter traded in an exchange between a couple of 26 year-old black dudes regarding my last post on “Liberation Veganism.” My comrade is not vegan, and is concerned about “the problem with the displacement of bread and butter struggle with raw foodisms,” etc, due to my attempt to mix veganism with human liberation, or in our case black liberation.

It is an important concern for all of us, whether or not thinking about or bringing up veganism in a context like African liberation discourse is appropriate. Or the problem with making something like going vegan or trumpeting ecological awareness THE issue or THE revolution, rather than just an aspect of it. And the problem of having advocacy of those causes which are “on the periphery for me, masking as if it is at the core,” as my friend challenged. He stated that to bring up veganism at a hypothetical “cop watch” meeting and try to make the meeting about veganism would be problematic, from which I gathered that something like “cop watch” to him was a “bread and butter” ‘hood issue (as opposed to, given the tenor of our exchanges, dietary, environmental, lifestyle, quality of life, sanitation, etc. issues, which to him are more associated with white liberal green/ vegan activists for whom those things are THE issue).

Lastly we had a disagreement on this point, and I quote my brotha: “one day you said to me the first responsibility of a revolutionary is to be healthy. That was the crucial difference for me, i thought you were wrong. Our health is not the priority, the people are, when the struggle becomes for our own person health (or morality) we are distant from the people.” In subsequent retorts from myself (because I believe the exact opposite of what he asserts) I struggled with this contradiction until he later stated, “a revolutionaries health is not an end to me, it is a means to the end which is revolution.” I play with this idea as well down below.

Without further ado, then, here’s my letter to my good brother comrade in struggle, on the “bread and butter” issues of liberation struggle as pertain to defining health, priorities of concern, “revolution” and so on.

Bro,

In between running ’round town, meeting folks, preparing food, listening to the radio and other daily bizness, I wondered about how we might define “health” anyway. And that how we define health may determine our relationship with whatever that commodity is. And if there are elements in contemplating health that we may not exactly see eye to eye on, it may be because we haven’t gotten around to building a consensus – a definition to begin with – of what that concept means.

But I also came upon the thought that revolution, which is another notion we may have to define more concretely, nonetheless is fundamentally about health. No? I mean, it seems people like us would only come to acquire and espouse our deep discord, alienation and criticism of the world because there’s an element of it that is so odiously sick and unhealthy, to us and people who look like us. If economic systems are preventing our people from excelling, those economic systems are killing them, ruining their economic and by extension personal health, ruining their sense of self-worth and thus compromising their mental health. If occupational labor standards where they work are consistently dangerous but that danger goes un-remedied by profit-hungry bosses, i.e. undocumented Mexican migrant farm laborers in California or Michigan constantly exposed directly to heavy overflight pesticide spraying with no protective gear, or conditions in meat-packing plants in Chicago where lots of poor black folks once worked and now many more Latinos, etc – then those capitalist labor conditions are ruining their health.

If our schools indoctrinate ignorance and fear and division, and our mass media propagate the same, and our youth imbibe a bitter hopelessness and “act out” against one another, our whole social system is preventing us from being healthy. Same for exposure to high concentrations of lead and other toxic fine particulates, leading to higher asthma rates, in parts of the Bronx and Harlem where MTA’s bus depots are, and where the sanitation transfer stations are, such that the straight filth of our infrastructure kills us.

If one’s housing conditions promote insecurity and pest infestation while being exorbitantly priced so as to suck up half a person’s income, that person has that much bigger a hurdle towards being healthy, including psychological anxieties and stress which increase stress hormones like cortisol and norepinephrine levels which compromise metabolism and immunity to disease.

If Daewoo and other Korean and wealthy Persian Gulf corporations can sign 99-year leases for land in places like Madagascar or Ethiopia to grow food explicitly for their own populations and not the indigenous African populations who live where the food is grown, that type of neo-colonialism is going to decrease food security for people at home, thus ensuring more malnutrition, infant mortality, maternal mortality, and other stark miseries which prevent effective and productive living of a life, or just health said succinctly. Even indigenous regimes of patriarchy, machismo, etc. compromise women’s health, and by extension that of the children, elderly, and whole families.

I mean, that’s one way I tend to see it. I don’t like seeing the misery and desperation out there – it’s disgusting and unhealthy. My innate disgust with this crap is why I’m like this, even why I’m vegan. I don’t like cruelty. I think human beings are capable of far more than what we’ve got here. That’s why I keep striving.

So in terms of this other undefined concept – “bread and butter” issues, no one of us will see exactly eye to eye as to what’s number one or whatever. As for me, and this is a fluctuating, ever changing bunch of things that most frequently preoccupy a person like me, but education of the youth, health, quality of life, labor and cooperative economics/ black business (business doesn’t have to mean capitalist acquisitive stuff, just organizing our own economics internally), domestic violence and black on black crime, the environment, access to land/ housing/ ownership of where we live and even grow food, food security – these might be just some of my top five concerns, and I think I named more than five things here.

What’s interesting (and not I hope a point of conflict but just worth contemplating for the both of us) is that something like “cop watch” is not on my top five, and just might barely make my top ten, of “bread and butter” issues. This is because, as I hinted at in the last message, there is a hell of a lot more domestic violence and black on black crime than there is police on black crime. Said another way, which effects how I prioritize either concern in my thoughts – someone living in an oppressed and crime-ridden community is far more likely to suffer physical strife from someone who looks like them and lives near them than by the police – in for instance Newark, NJ. So a lot more of my attention is grabbed by “stop the violence” and anti-rape, anti-domestic violence “take back the night”-type work than anti-police brutality work. Just because rape and horizontal violence are a much greater existential threat to everyday people than police violence.

And this point may be controversial, even between you and me, but it is something I take issue with at times and with some groups and individuals, who decry every instance of police brutality, but are a little more muted regarding when we do brutality to each other, senselessly, even as children. This is not a “blame the victim” statement. This is not a statement decrying some innate tendency for irrational violence towards one another in our community. It just acknowledges a statistic, whose generation is due to the lack of resources by which to survive which promotes dangerous and destructive attitudes, lifestyles and practices, which leaves us only with some warped sense of dignity over which we might kill because someone disses us. That’s horizontal violence 101, ala Frantz Fanon or Omali Yeshitela. And I tend to have a lot more affinity with that problem than with vertical violence/ state violence, at least as pertains to those of us in North America for the moment.

And I could be wrong, all wrong in my priorities.

So we should think about what “bread and butter” means very carefully and self-critically before we attempt to declare what ought and what ought not be put on the table. Also, regarding the table, and the fear of things like vegan issues crowding out the more “salient” points of discussion and work: to me that fear is unnecessary and almost irrational. I said it before and I’ll say it again: there’s a time and place for every discussion.

And to the extent that to me health is an upfront “bread and butter” issue, when many black folk think about why there’s so much obesity and diabetes in the community, they look at the food system and the food culture we have to deal with. There are many among those who then look at what’s in the kitchen, and analyze the hormone and antibiotics-infused meats, the empty calorie fattening soda and junk food, and so on, and how they eat corporate-controlled food-like substances mostly, and not really nourishing whole foods. And among folks with that analysis, many, many of them might bring up the ‘v’ word, or the vegetarian/ vegan question. By that line of thought and action, veganism of all things could come straight to the table, the “bread and butter” table.

And it would be very dismissive and paranoid to act like all those voices with those questions and thoughts on their minds are bringing up a parochial, peripheral issue. It is not peripheral to them. It becomes a hood issue to them, a “bread and butter” (or maybe “bananas and avocados”) issue. Their voice is just as valid and ought to be just as welcome to the table as your voice, which might never bring up such a question. If you were the master of the table, when they start to think about health, and then diet, and then nutrition, and then maybe veganism, would you just say “shut up?” I don’t think so.

Please don’t leave this conversation still thinking that of all things “veganism,” and I really mean diet and lifestyle and consumer and quality of life questions and concerns which may inevitably and likely lead to things like veganism being brought up, should be hushed away from conversation, due to fear that to converse or contemplate that takes away from, well, “bananas and avocados” issues. Vegans are less than 1 percent of black folk, but that still makes for a vast multitude. Let them be heard.

If the table of discourse is managed well and with discipline, discussions of veganism won’t manage to drown out other and broader concerns and objectives. Don’t fear and hate any aspect of the discourse, however it may seem like minutia to you.

Anyway, back to thinking about health. If depression is now an epidemic in the US including our communities, if obesity, if heart attack, if premature death or disability are now so monumentally epidemic in the US including our communities, it would behoove us to very aggressively question all that.

Another reason that, if I reverse roll-play your critique of me onto you, I think something like “cop watch” isn’t necessarily as priority “bread and butter” as health, is that more than cops, even more than violent strangers or spouses, what we are eating and where we are living are negatively affecting our outcome as a people.

Let’s break it down to be really clear: years of eating unhealthy food, sedentary living, exposure to toxic materials in the home and workplace, and the stresses of making ends meet in an unstable community – these things very very much are killing us far faster and more unforgivingly than any police.

Yet I think some folks think so much about police-brutality because of how visible that is. All the dietary, environmental and other aspects of our lives which are committing literal genocide on our people – that stuff tends to be more invisible and, to use a little medical terminology, of insidious onset. It’s what’s part of the ambiance, what’s mundane, what’s habitual, that is filling more graves with black bodies in America than anything else. This includes young people like us.

So, study food. Study environment. Study capitalism. Study industries. Study geography. Study sociology. Study it all. It’s all on the table. It’s all bread and butter. Even when subsets of those studies lead to considerations, in any given space or time, of such a rarified topic as veganism.

Everything on the table. “Bread and butter” can be “bananas and avocados” to some, and it’s still valid, still worth respecting of the ideas they may share. Don’t fear ideas.

Lastly, regarding the quote “a revolutionaries health is not an end to me, it is a means to the end which is revolution.” I said that I basically agree with this before. But to make things a little more interesting, I will declare that I do think, as a human being (I know we are not revolutionaries either of us, but even if we were, we’d have to be human beings before being revolutionaries), it is perfectly acceptable to take health as an end. Full stop. Take health as a fundamental goal. We all have but limited time here, and none of us are getting out of this gig alive, and moreover, we may not see the broader changes we want to see in our community happen in our lifetimes.

Might as well at least try to be healthy. Taking one’s health as an end means simply striving to have healthy relationships, live and eat healthily, and have outlets for what interests us, including the act of pursuing revolution or a revolutionary ethos. In other words, one might be able to say “revolution is a means to a revolutionary’s health” because by practicing revolution we get psychological, emotional, mental, physical, social etc. fulfillment and well-being.

So, I’ve problematized that one for ya. Remember, bro, it all depends on how we define “health”! And how we define “revolution”! The two could be one and the same for some of us!

Revolutions,

Konju

By Arturo R. García

After her turns on America’s Next Top Model and various other reality shows, Adrianne Curry has garnered support in geek fandom because of her open affinity for cosplay and Star Wars. But her appearance at last weekend’s Star Wars Celebration V event has led to multiple instances of ugliness.

Earlier this week on MySpace, she blogged that what she initially thought was “a breeze” underneath her Slave Leia costume skirt was in fact a man groping her.

As I tried to push down my skirt I felt an arm underneath it. Then I was grabbed, hard, downstairs. At the time, my mind had trouble computing what had just happened. However, adrenaline kicked in and suddenly my heart was leaping out of my chest. it was like a ray f god shone down and I felt instantly sober. I whirled around and elbowed whoever was behind me to find myself looking eye to eye with a glassy eyed very stocky mexican man. He spoke NO english and was NOT a Star wars fan , nerd, or con goer.

In this case, The Orlando Sentinel reported that the man who groped Curry had allegedly been harassing other guests at the Rosen Plaza Hotel in Orlando that evening, and was booked on disorderly intoxication charges, though Curry herself will not file any charges, citing advice from Orange County deputies on the scene.

But Curry’s insistence on racially profiling the man adds an unsettling air to this tweet: “he kept trying to get to me! so, my friends kept smashing his head in the cement … and i took great pleasure in watching it.” Curry subsequently expanded upon this statement by tweeting that the man was injured because he was “pushed the f-ck away,” and in an interview posted Tuesday, Curry said she told her friends not to harm the man at all. Yet she continues to focus on labeling him as Not American.

It must also be pointed out that this isn’t Curry’s first instance of making questionable statements regarding race. Just under three years ago, she declared her intention of boycotting Black History Month and Black Entertainment Television, on the grounds that they promoted “special treatment”:

Yes, I get it. Black people were slaves here once. You know what? That does suck some major balls, however, it is time to move the fuck on. Do we hear the Jews crying that they were made slaves for thousands of years? Do we hear them whine that they should OWN the pyramids in Egypt because THEY broke their backs making them? Do we hear them bitch and moan about Hitler, etc? (my hubby is a Jew)Nope, we dont. It’s time for us to UNITE AS ONE. I do not think that singling out one race, giving one race opportunities to go to college (I know a TON of poor white.asian, indian, american indian, etc etc that could use that too!), giving one race the EXCUSE to blame things on others for being whatever nationality they are, is a good way at making sure we NEVER kill racism.

Again, let me be clear: I do feel badly for Curry that she was assaulted. But race-baiting comments and the “my [x] is [x race]” card only derail the ensuing discussions about safety and gender issues at conventions. If the assailant had turned out to be a Celebration attendee – let’s say, one attending with a legitimate passport from Mexico, or Argentina, or El Salvador, or any other Spanish-speaking country – it would be just as unfair to use him as “an example” of the Star Wars fanbase, or geekdom in general. And if Curry did/does feel that BHM keeps racism alive, what makes her think pronouncements like these won’t?

By Guest Contributor Ninoy Brown, cross-posted from FOBBdeep

Listening to podcasts alleviates the pain and mundane experience working as a temp office monkey. A daily dose of Fresh Air, How Stuff Works, Marathon Training Academy, Talk of the Nation, Ring Theory and Sherdog provides a decent mixture of current affairs, useless knowledge, health, and some sense of masculine validation.

With the drama surrounding the racially charged elements of Arizona’s SB 1070, it was without coincidence that a caller into Sherdog’s Savage Dog Show would have made a comment pertaining to a certain tattoo on the chest of the next contender for UFC’s heavyweight title. The caller took on a typical “reverse racism” angle by saying that the “Brown Pride” tat on Cain Velasquez would never fly if were it a Caucasian fighter with a “White Pride” tat.

Interestingly enough, “Hawaiian Sovereignty” shirt-wearing BJ Penn’s site has a video with Cain discussing the importance of La Raza as a Mexican-American living in Califaztlan.

“For everything my parents did to come over to this country, all the hardships they had to take, crossing the border. Brown pride when we were growing up man, Mexican pride it’s just something we would say to feel proud about where we came from, ” Cain says. “Another reason I got it was because growing up I had no one to look up to, there was nobody that was my size, that was Mexican, that looked like me, that I could see in the media … Now I’m in that position I put “Brown Pride” on my chest to let people know I’m Mexican, I’m proud to be Mexican, I’m doing good things.”

Having parents who came to America undocumented and having earned his college wrestling chops in Arizona, Cain’s voice would be great to hear in the immigration discourse. Searching the internet for any sign of the Salinas, CA native discussing SB 1070 turns up nothing. With the middle America audience that Dana White tries to reach through UFC, one is tempted to question whether or not Cain’s political voice has been silenced so as not to attract “controversy.” With a strong personal connection to issues of immigration, I hope this isn’t the case.

Here’s the video:

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