Allure’s “Faces of the Future” Promotes Stereotypes About Mixed People

by Latoya Peterson

Alongside the tragic mulatto myth, the idea that being mixed is somehow “futuristic” or modern, and the idea that mixed people will be better, faster, and stronger (also called the “hybrid vigor” myth), one of the enduring features about discussions of mixed race individuals is that “hotness” always surfaces.
Allure serves up a [...]

GQ’s Jim Nelson Frankly Talks About Race in His Editor’s Letter

One quiet evening, my boyfriend broke the relative silence in the living room by reading aloud:
Remember a long, long time ago – it almost seems like a recession and a half ago – when Barack Obama first came (via Kenya, of course) to power?  Remember how certain hope-doped commentators predicted that his election would [...]

Big, black booties “intrigue” Jezebel readership

by Guest Contributor Tami, originally published at What Tami Said

Some folks (including me, sometimes) quibble over whether the blog Jezebel qualifies as “feminist.” Having lurked around the joint for awhile, I would say it definitely has a third-wave feminist ethos. That means the site’s bloggers regularly lay a smack down on media that exploits women. [...]

Parsing the Politics of Caricature, e.g., Rich Lowry Is a Moron

by Guest Contributor Jeff Yang, originally published at the Secret Identities Blog
Oh, man. As if we needed another reminder as to why cartoon art is a medium that can be used for evil as easily as good, comes now the next installment in a series of racist National Review covers trafficking in Asian stereotypical imagery.
You’ll [...]

Should black folks save Ebony and Jet magazine?

By Guest Contributor Tami, originally published at What Tami Said

This weekend, I received the following breathless entreaty through a listserv that I subscribe to:
Ebony/Jet Magazine on The Verge of Financial Collaspse (J P)
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 2009 07:45:31 -0400
One of the most notable permanent fixtures in every [...]

Racialicious Responds to “The End of White America”

A Racialicious Roundtable
Whether you describe it as the dawning of a post-racial age or just the end of white America, we’re approaching a profound demographic tipping point. According to an August 2008 report by the U.S. Census Bureau, those groups currently categorized as racial minorities—blacks and Hispanics, East Asians and South Asians—will account for a [...]

ALO Again: New Lifestyle Magazine More of the Same Old Orientalism

By Special Correspondent Fatemeh Fakhraie. An expanded version of this piece can be found at Muslimah Media Watch.
Last summer saw the launch of ALO Hayati, “America’s Top Middle Eastern Lifestyle Magazine.” Thanks to a gracious donor, I finally got my hands on a copy of the July 2008 issue.

All lifestyle magazines have an aspirational feel [...]

African-American Transgender History-50’s Style

by Guest Contributor Monica Roberts, originally published at TransGriot

One of the beauties of surfing the Net is that from time to time, you’ll stumble across a nugget of history or some photo that you weren’t even aware existed.
I’ve mentioned that JET, EBONY and the now defunct HUE magazines when they first started back in the [...]

Diversity and the “Cultural Elite” of New York

by Guest Contributor Joanna Eng

The September 25 issue of Time Out New York (TONY) featured a list of their favorite 40 New Yorkers who have made an impact on the city in the past 13 years. I was appalled to see that out of the 40 cultural leaders that they highlighted, only three were people [...]

Vibe Magazine Asks That You Barack the Vote

by Latoya Peterson

In this month’s issue of Vibe, Barack Obama receives a formal endorsement from the magazine. Danyel Smith’s Editor’s Letter is an impassioned plea to get involved and help push Barack all the way into the White House. She writes:
We value freedom and aspire to be better than we are, and to [...]

Glamour wants to know if you have friends of other races

by Carmen Van Kerckhove
The October issue of Glamour magazine, on newsstands now, has a feature story on race and friendship among women. Read the PDF here.
It’s the second in a series of conversations the magazine has been hosting about race, at least partially in response to the controversy last November surrounding a beauty editor’s alleged [...]