by Guest Contributor SLB, originally published at PostBourgie
In an effort to eradicate the myth of the “seductive/sexually-empowered slave mistress” (most recently perpetuated by Touré on Twitter, apparently), new novelist Dolen Perkins-Valdez has penned a work of historical fiction set in a real location: Tawawa House, a summer resort that catered to white slaveholders and their [...]
By Guest Contributor Ninoy Brown, originally published at FOBBDeep
More on UCSD’s most recent “post-racial” moment.
Within the last week, much public outrage has come upon UCSD as a result of the disgusting display of ignorance from the “Compton Cookout”. National attention has been placed on the campus, and NAACP has recently spoken out against the incident.
With this, [...]
by Guest Contributor CVT, originally published at Choptensils
In the first part of my “Broken System” series, I addressed the need for a landmark Supreme Court decision to be able to adequately affect the inequalities inherent in our public school system. In response, the inevitable debate began: what would actually fix these problems? A lot of [...]
by Latoya Peterson
When you see a headline like “30 Asian Students Attacked,” one would think there would be massive rage. An outcry about violence in schools. A discussion of why our kids aren’t safe. But in the wake of the attacks and continuing coverage by outlets like the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Asian-American blogosphere, the [...]
by Latoya Peterson
All conversations on race are not created equal. Many of them, quite frankly, suck. Whether it is the endless “nigga vs. nigger” conversation which for some reason is still kicked around by bored people, to the oppression olympics, to derailing and stonewalling in real life, we have all been a part of “discussions” [...]
by Carmen Van Kerckhove
Back in 2004 when I first started speaking and blogging about race, I was invited to facilitate a phone discussion with a group of parents who had adopted children from outside the United States.
One of the mothers in the group was white and Jewish. She adopted her son from an African country, [...]
By Special Correspondent Arturo R. García
For a review of Part 1, click here
No way around it: Latino In America was a failure.
At the very least, Thursday’s conclusion, “Chasing The Dream,” seemed equal parts melodrama and bait-and-switch, with the broadcast component weakened by a lack of questions that undercut even its’ more compelling segments.
For instance, [...]
By Special Correspondent Arturo R. García
Soledad O’Brien says she wants Latino In America to “start a conversation.” Unfortunately for viewers, the series’ message seems to be, what? Woe is us? Abandon ship? What did Brown ever do to you?
Grounded in depressing case studies and missed questions, the series’ first installment was less “Latinos In America” [...]
By Special Correspondent Jessica Yee
It’s no secret that many Native American reservations and Aboriginal territories seem like far off, remote, out of reach places to the general population and society. I suppose that when the mainstream news media does report about our communities it often suggests that these are all immensely impoverished, violence infested, alcohol [...]
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 [...]
By Sexual Correspondent Andrea (AJ) Plaid and Guest Contributor Fiqah
Fiqah:All right, full disclosure. I loathe Birth of a Nation. L-O-A-T-H-E, my friends. In my short time on this planet, I have been forced to endure two (!) viewings of the flick–twice the Recommended Lifetime Limit for Black people. The last time I watched this film [...]
By Special Correspondent Arturo R. García
Scenes from a Roundtable Conversation
Mahsino (before watching the show):Am i the only one troubled by the new NBC show the Philanthropist? I’m seeing a lot of “white guy saves defenseless colored folks” in the promos.
maybe it’s just the Heroes announcer that’s making me suspicious, maybe I’m just itching’ to snark [...]
Excerpted by Latoya Peterson
In a January 2006 article published by the Village Voice, Jon Caramanica ended a largely celebratory piece on reggaeton with a somewhat sudden, cryptic remark: “Fuck a Slim Shady,” he quipped, “Hip-Hop’s race war begins here.” Caramanica thus suggests that the most prominent “racial” tensions around hip-hop are not between African [...]
by Guest Contributor Jehanzeb Dar, originally published at Broken Mystic
Over the past week, my friends and I have been playing on a new roller hockey court that isn’t too far from my house. Prior to that, we’ve been playing on a relatively unused basketball court (pictured above) for months, which has been fun for [...]
by Latoya Peterson
In the April/May issue of Audrey Magazine, Susan Soon He Stanton takes a look at the decline of Hawaiian family-run restaurants in her piece “The Closing of Tradition.”
The article opens on a sad note:
A disappointed woman shakes her head as she reads the out-of-business sign in the window of the Flamingo [...]