By Fatemeh Fakhraie

Welp, we knew it was coming and now it’s here. It only took a little more than two minutes for Shahs of Sunset to pique my interest – and make me nervous.

Producer Ryan Seacrest’s “Persian Version” of Jersey Shore will follow MJ, Reza, Asa, Sammy, Mike, and GG through their fabulous lives as Persian-Americans in Los Angeles (known as “Tehrangeles” in the Persian community). I’m interested because it’s hitting the air at a time when saber-rattling between Iran and the U.S. is ramping up again and because the show features an openly gay cast member (Reza), when homophobia is just as rampant in the Persian community as it is any other.

While Reza’s inclusion doesn’t behoove him to break every gay stereotype in the book, his visibility alone could be encouraging and comforting to LGBTQ Persians. There’s a chance that he could shore up gay stereotypes, but there’s also a chance that we could see some honest intersections of sexuality and culture. However, I realize that this is asking a lot from a Seacrest reality show, especially given that Ryan has a history of using Middle Eastern characters to boost his show’s ratings.

How will a program featuring first- and second-generation Iranian-Americans (or Persians, as they prefer) affect public opinion on Iran? On one hand, Iran is presented as evil, nuclear, and menacing in news reports and pop culture. On the other hand, Shahs features a bunch of vapid, rich Americans with Iranian ancestry—many of whom are refugees from the 1979 revolution. In the opening credits, cast members relate that, “When the revolution happened, we all had to pick up and flee the old country,” and “I’ve been a refugee since I was eight.”

The contrast itself is interesting, but the likely outcome won’t be positive. Just like Sara Yasin wrote about the differences between herself and her cousins last week, this group of Persians couldn’t be more different from people in Iran—the very fact that they volunteer their private lives for television consumption would never fly in “the old country.” Especially since Iranian censors actively works against things the regime considers criminally sinful, like booze, sex, and ostentation.

I worry that the show will set up this cohort of Persian-Americans as “good” Iranians (i.e., Americanized ones without traces of religious or cultural baggage) and “bad” ones (the ones “over there”). If this happens, the show will likely stress the disconnection between the two on a regular basis. And while it may be politically beneficial in the short term to distance themselves from Iran, it’s harmful in the long-term—not just for politics’ sake or for these kids’ individual “branding,” but for the sake of every Iranian-American or Persian-American who still visits Iran, who still has family there, and who identifies his/her ethnic heritage publicly.

Instead of improving Persian-Americans’ image, it seems likely this show will instead subject viewers to more examples of the “Persian Princess” stereotypes W magazine featured in an article on Persian Jews a few years back. It looks like GG has made it her mission to embody the trope, and I’m sure we’ll be taken along on her husband hunting expeditions and temper tantrums. In fact, several of cast members revel in it: “To outsiders, it probably looks like we live a very glamorous life,” she says at one point. “And, in fact, we do.” Reza explains that “We’re all about cash, flash, Cristal …”

I’m also worried that this will turn out to be a terrible mash-up of Jersey Shore meets Keeping Up with the Kardashians, with a more ethnic spin on privileged, rich jerks. While Kim Kardashian has a vague ethnic “otherness” about her, it’s just that—vague and non-threatening. Snooki has harnessed her vague Italian-ness into a successful narrative, but a hollow one with no substance.

In the sneak peek above, the only ethnicity used in the show is superficial: the santoor plays over shots of incense burning that are intended to elicit a “look at those kooky ethnics!” from the audience. I doubt that any Persian culture will seep in – Reza’s point about how “we’re always there for each other” may hit on some of the collectivism and closeness in Persian culture, but will more likely be chalked up to vague “ethnic-ness” and get discarded in a show of who has more designer sunglasses and wears more cologne.

Given that most Americans already have Snooki and the Kardashians to go to for dramatic behavior and wealth without the ethnic baggage, the Persian-American community may be the only one to have interest in a show like this. But by solidifying Persian stereotypes, Shahs of Sunset may likely alienate the only audience that could keep it on television.

By Guest Contributor Anurag Lahiri

During my four months of funemployment after grad school I became hooked on a list of TV shows. A couple of my queer desi friends had been raving about The Chicago Code a while back and when I finally watched it I enjoyed it. So of course when the same friends started tweeting about The Good Wife, and specifically about one character, Kalinda Sharma, I decided to take the hint and marathon it.

The same things drew me to both shows: aside from the suspense and drama, they’re both set in Chicago. As a girl from the Midwest, I enjoy watching a show whose city politics I can relate to.

There is a difference between the two shows though: Chicago Code was mostly special for me because Jennifer Beals was in it and, for an L Word fan, she will always be Bette Porter. Yes, even if she is playing a superintendent of a police department. On the other hand, I will gladly embrace Archie Panjabi as Sharma, a queer, desi, private investigator on The Good Wife.

When there are so few reasonable representations of South Asians in the mainstream media, my first reaction was pure excitement to see Panjabi playing a queer character. I am still extremely impressed that a TV network as mainstream as CBS came up with this character when many more underground producers haven’t been successful, in my opinion. Furthermore, the show hints at the complexity of South Asians with only one desi character/actress, which is more than shows like Outsourced have done even with a whole cast.

On the show, Kalinda’s personality is presented as being multifaceted; she is tough and opinionated. While these attributes are not often paired with Asian women on TV, they are often the reality for women who grow up being underestimated and under-appreciated.

Kalinda’s position–the very opinionated, privately queer, guarded desi girl–resonates very loudly with me:  when I was interning as a social worker in a criminal justice setting, much like her, I tried to stay private while others shared stories about their personal lives. Staff at my internship made heteronormative assumptions about me. The show challenges such assumptions about brown women, and people in general, while offering reasons for why women, regardless of sexual orientation, are often private in the workplace.

While I don’t necessarily believe that Kalinda’s work–digging up dirt for her boss’ law firm, Lockhart/Gardner–was ever underestimated, I would argue she was still under-appreciated. She regularly goes above and beyond to help the firm, yet she struggles to ask for a raise. I know that it takes a lot of thick skin and hard work to prove oneself in that type of environment.

I admire Kalinda for discussing race at work and her immigrant family background, yet refusing to be tokenized. She uses her knowledge and experience to enhance her work and her job, yet she remains in control of her identity. It’s very easy to be turned into a token when you speak up as a minority, so I have looked at Kalinda to see how she does it.

In real life, this balance is very difficult and tiring to maintain. In the U.S. it is especially difficult because South Asian women struggle to find appropriate mentors in the workplace. There are some peer support systems for women in professions like engineering, medicine and law, but it is a struggle if you feel you have no one to turn to for advice and a mentor. Being able to visually relate to a brown woman on TV is helpful for me and, I assume, other desi women who are trying to establish themselves in a workplace.

Aside from her professional character, I am also impressed with the treatment of Kalinda as a personal and sexual character. Kalinda’s sex life is exhibited as much as the other characters and, while the manner of it tip-toes around exoticism at times, it is impressive considering the frequent shaming of brown women’s sexuality on TV. The show speaks to me by creating a South Asian character in the media that does not feel the responsibility to prove her sexuality and womanhood to people. While Kalinda confidently told one interested woman that she “follows through” when she flirts, she pulled away from another as soon as she found out she is married.

I’m still struggling with this unnecessary need to validate my sexuality, since queer desis’ existence has so often been denied and mistreated. Healthy and realistic media representation, like in The Good Wife, can certainly help queer women like me. I now have a character on TV who is reminding me, each episode, to just be. These types of reminders help us come into our smoother, more natural identities. They also remind others that there is more than just tragic queer desis living double lives, and triumphant queer desis marching in Mumbai Pride.

With Kalinda, the show gives the U.S. public a chance to see how an adult desi can be confidently queer whilst handling her imperfections. Her personal vulnerability is not portrayed in a way to make her seem like the “weak Asian girl” archetype, but rather, it is acknowledged as a major part of her complex history. Her vulnerability is always bubbling under her surface, in her extremely rare smiles and tense stature. Her strength is also evident, and it took an extremely dramatic plot twist – which I won’t spoil here – for Kalinda to cry even once. Her mysterious past serves to complicate her character beyond her appearance and challenge the audience. Just like any woman of color, I hope people realize that while Kalinda’s strength is admirable, it may not have been gained out of choice.

From death row to deportation, the show takes on some difficult issues in a way that is accessible. I appreciate watching the characters challenge each other personally and politically, because they each add something meaningful, but I am clearly partial to Kalinda. I’m so accustomed to the media being an exaggeratedly unhealthy version of reality, especially for queer and minority people, so Kalinda makes me really happy. Panjabi has come a long way from playing “standard” desi roles to opening doors for much more.

Is “overweight underachiever with an endless arsenal of clever one-liners” a euphemism for sassy fat black girl? Why yes it is. Enter Sidibe, or Andrea, a student who cuts class, uses foul language, and proudly does not exercise. She is all attitude and doesn’t give a flying expletive what you think of it. When she was first introduced, I audibly expelled air – seriously? This again? Don’t we already have series’ with a largely white-cast flanked by sassy black tropes? Hiya, Mercedes from Glee, Donna from Parks & Recreation, Ava on Up All Night, Raineesha on the now defunct Reno 911!, Miranda on Grey’s Anatomy!

And please don’t say “quit hating”, I am a loyal fan of all of these shows, The Big C included. It is beautiful in its poignant portrayal of a woman living with cancer, yet deeply flawed in its characterization of a young black woman. To critique is to love, it comes from setting a higher standard of expectation, from a desire to push boundaries or at the very least, allow flexibility within tightly constrained norms. Alas, the overweight black, testy, unhealthy, irritated black woman archetype is far too normalized to even be given a second thought. Of course, the fact that actresses like Sidibe are given supporting roles in shows about confident, capable women is vital, but it too often comes at a cost: The show’s writers bestow upon Andrea qualities that have potential to give her depth, but ultimately she is more trope than fully realized.

Andrea’s tepid story arc in season 1 is almost unbearable to watch at times: she has to attend Cathy’s summer school class because she’s failed it already, she’s hopelessly overweight, and she’s openly defiant to the one person who shows her kindness. Andrea is a supporting role, but there are three major tenets of the Sassy Fat Black woman trope that she personifies: her issues with weight, her hyper-awareness of race and “playing the race card”, and her rather antagonistic attitude toward everyone.

Andrea is fat: The underscoring of Andrea’s obesity is a central theme of her personhood in season 1. From the viewer’s perspective, her unhappiness with her body leaves her wrought with melancholy. In the pilot it’s established that Andrea is overweight, hates it, and Cathy wants to help her slim down; Cathy even offers to pay her $100 for each pound that she loses when she catches Andrea smoking to curb her appetite. “I’d rather be skinny and die young than be fat forever,” she declares. I wonder what it was like for Sidibe to recite this line even though she has openly declared her body-positive self image.
- From “‘The Big C’s’ Big Black Problem,” in Clutch Magazine

By Guest Contributors Kendra James and Jordan St. John

Never seen The Vampire Diaries? Here’s a synopsis (with spoilers). There’s Elena (Nina Dobrev) the “average” popular orphan girl in Mystic Falls, VA. Caroline ( Candice Accola) her blond haired, blue eyed cheerleading frenemy and Bonnie (Kat Graham) her requisite black best friend and side kick. Elena also happens to be the spitting image of a vampire, Katherine, who loved Damon and Stefan Salvatore (brothers played by Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley) in the same town during the Civil War. Come 2009 the brothers return to Mystic Falls, only to both fall in love with Elena – a plot that makes just as much sense now as it did when TVD actually debuted as a book series in the early 1990s. But hey, let’s go with it.

Elena fell in love with Stefan during the show’s first season, but now things are heating up between her and Damon. It’s a crazy ride of a show but one of the most fascinating things is its strange dance with race. Set in the current south but with self-professed ties to the Civil War era and more recently precolonial America, as Dr. Sayantani DasGupta wrote for Racialicious last year, the show sometimes doesn’t know what to do with pesky issues like racism and slavery. As the show’s third season resumes this week, let’s look back at the racial implications and issues of the residents of Mystic Falls since the Season 2 finale.

Why We Love It

Kendra: In a media world saturated with vampires, werewolves, witches, and other secret societies, the show, now a mainstay on The CW network, has gone on to easily become my favorite hub of angsty supernatural teenage adventures. The cheesy premise disguises a surprisingly smart show that, once it found its’ stride during the first season, keeps me hooked with its nearly weekly cliffhangers and lead female characters who usually go out of their ways to be the anti-Bella Swan.

Jordan: I second that. TVD moves faster than any other show on television. Some subplots most series would spend half a season developing, unfold in the course of one episode (such as last season’s finale, where Elena’s Aunt/Guardian, father and brother all died in about a 15-minute span). And in a teen pop-culture landscape that is sometimes obsessed with female frailty and chastity, Elena isn’t even asked to apologize for simultaneously dating two brothers, and neither is Katherine. Yes, the women sometimes require saving but with a powerful female witch and vampire in the mix, they do the saving as well.

Why It’s Still A CW Show

Kendra: Like we said earlier, the show anchors itself in the American past and deals with it in some curious – and problematic – ways, often featuring flashbacks to the Civil War and present-day town events influenced by it. I wish I could understand why everyone’s decided vampires are all Southern these days, but that’s where we are, and TVD will always, to me, be a younger and better version of True Blood. But it’s not perfect. The show’s writers could have easily acknowledged the racial and social issues that come with placing yourself within the context of war and tackled the issues head on, instead of dancing around as True Blood tends to do.

Jordan: Alas, TVD goes a couple steps forward – adding Bonnie as a main character (and a whole line of black witches) and including a Civil War era Asian vampire, Pearl, and then stumbles back by shying away from addressing the legacy of slavery in the American south and falling into stereotypes. I usually applaud color blind casting in fantasy or supernatural (the only reason I watch Merlin is because they made the future Queen Guinevere multiracial. If you are in a fictional place where dragon’s talk, I applaud it when producers do not carryover our preconceptions of race) but that only works when the setting is another world – not the current American south.

The Mystic Falls Civil War Fetish

Kendra: Moving the Salvatore brothers’ history into the Civil War had to be an extremely conscious decision on the part of series creator and producer Kevin Williamson and his team, because none of that is actually a part of author L.J. Smith’s original books, in which the Salvatores were both supposedly turned during the Italian Renaissance.

Now, I can understand why he did it: True Blood was already popular by the time TVD premiered, and the public showed it loved them some southern vampires. And a war on American soil is something the main TVD audience (Americans in the 18-35 demographic) is going to know more about and possibly find more relatable than something going on in Italy. But it never fails to amaze me how a well documented period in American history can be glossed over so thoroughly, and I always wonder why it’s a period chosen so frequently as a media plot device when no writing staff is actually brave enough to use it for what it really was.

A friend of mine jokingly said to me that the show must take place in some sort of alternate America where the War somehow didn’t end as badly, no one in the south is resentful about it, and it wasn’t a complete disadvantage to be a person of color in the south during and before the 1860s. Mystic Falls is presented as an idyllic town where attractive men dress in Rebel Greys and the women dress in Southern Belle gowns for various town occasions, where Black servants during the war were referred to as ‘handmaidens’, and where a fully multicultural town (including Asians!) was perfectly normal for Virginia in 1865.

So why obsess over the conflict if you’re not going to acknowledge it for what it was?

Jordan: TVD seems to be pulling a Bagger Vance – and if you ever want to see a movie with a black main character in the south completely gloss over race, it is a truly striking example; I literally wrote a paper on it. In most of the flashbacks, we have Bonnie’s ancestor, Emily Bennett serving Katherine: She provides her with a ring to walk around in the daylight and also provides daywalking ring for the newly turned Salvatore brothers. While I understand the need for Emily to assist with a number of plot points, I am disappointed that they never take the time to look at Emily as a dynamic character. What is her backstory? Why is a black witch who has the power to control humans and vampires, staying with an evil, murderous vampire in the Civil War era south? Why is she helping her? Emily does always put her own family first whenever her or any of her descendants are threatened, but the lack of time spent looking into her motivations is a glaring omission.

All I need is a nod to slavery – an acknowledgement that there is another facet to the plantation era American south that was not about bonnets, balls and “servants” who all happened to share a skin tone. True Blood has its own faults, but the scene when Tara asked if Bill ever had slaves will always have a place in my heart.

TVD has rare instances of this kind of honesty that I appreciate. I love that earlier in the series, when a southern matriarch is asked by her son about a dungeon on their old plantation property (which actually was used to chain up werewolves) she assumed it had been used to hold slaves and told him in terse terms that it wasn’t something the family liked to discuss before quickly moving on to other things. There are ways to incorporate the darker parts of southern history into the plot but they take a little effort and creativity. All too often, the show shirks from the challenge and opts to gloss over the realities of the Civil Was era. For example, the Salvatores were people of stature in a southern, plantation town, meaning they would have certainly owned slaves. I would love for at least one person to acknowledge that – preferably Bonnie.

Kendra: While watching the mid-season premiere, I was asked, “Why is Emily Bennett still holding that grudge against the Salvatores? It’s been over a century!” a question that pinpoints the problem with dodging the town’s history of slavery. To me, even peeling away the vampiric elements of the story, I have absolutely no problem imagining why Emily, a powerful Black woman would continue to hold a grudge against two rich (potentially slave holding), southern white men from she’d known in 1865. I wish there was someone in that writer’s room willing to take a non-white perspective into account. Not only do I find it problematic that my own view isn’t acknowledged, it’s concerning to me that this idyllic view of the Confederate South is presented without question or discourse to a large swath of young, white CW-watching America.

Romanticizing and whitewashing the African-American experience isn’t a new occurrence (see: Gone With The Wind or Douglas Sirk’s remake of Imitation of Life, to name a few), and it’s troubling to see the trend surface again in 2012. To be fair, this show isn’t the only pop culture phenom guilty of peddling a “safer” version of Southern America and Confederate history to the American youth. It’s simply the most recent. Acts like Taylor Swift and Lady Antebellum, and programs like its’ CW compatriot Hart of Dixie all conjure up images of the “Safe South” in their descriptions (lyrically) and depictions (visually) of the region.

Now, I’m not recommending that today’s youth get their history lessons from the CW and Taylor Swift, but the fact remains that even I, as a young Black kid, was drawn into the romanticism of the Old South. A visceral book description (visceral for an 8-10 year old, at least) of my American Girl Doll, Addy, being forced to eat grubs off a tobacco leaf by her overseer fixed that up right quick, and I suppose I worry that others –white and Black– aren’t going to receive the same historical wake up call if Lady Antebellum, Taylor Swift, and TVD are the only influences to shape their impressions of the South. Paying attention in history class plays a part, yes, but a visual and a pretty face go a long way.

Elena Gilbert as Scarlett O’Hara

Kendra: Elena is clearly supposed to be the Scarlett O’Hara of the Civil War-obsessed Mystic Falls. They’re positioned next to each other in the season two finale: two dark haired, strong, southern women of different periods. As the season two finale progresses into chaos, so does Scarlett’s world on the screen in the town center. At one point Elena is literally shown as Scarlett, with the crumbling Mystic Falls taking the place of Scarlett’s burning Atlanta.

The writers had to know what they were doing. I understand that they were trying to highlight the idea of Elena being a strong female character, but was that really the message conveyed through Scarlett? A woman who (forgetting her numerous other flaws), is in the end left crying over a man on a staircase? It seems to go against the character Elena’s been built to be so far, and drags her back into Bella territory.

Jordan: The Gone with the Wind picnic viewing party in the season 2 finale left me deeply conflicted. As usual, there was a lot going on: Elena was fresh off of her resurrection, Damon was dying, his brother Stefan was bargaining for Damon’s life, Katherine was prowling about causing mischief, and there was a murderous ancient vampire/werewolf hybrid on the loose. Also, I know many black people like Gone with the Wind. It’s romantic, dramatic and an epic in every sense of the word. Clark Gable looks dashing as Rhett Butler and Vivien Leigh is a breathtaking Scarlett. Hattie McDaniel’s Mammy even earned her an Academy Award, making her the first African American woman to get one (another conversation for another day, especially with all attention The Help is getting this awards season.) I will also confess to having some baggage with the film that probably stems from first being exposed to it in a fourth grade social studies class when my teacher tried to pass it off as a “supplement” to our chapter on the Civil War (my mother flipped out).

That said, even the staunchest GWTW fan has to admit that its portrayal of African Americans and African American women is flawed to say the least. Mammy and Prissy are one dimensional and stereotypical. They exist only to be Scarlett’s support system and comic relief. Rather than an oppressive, brutal institution where one set of people owned another, slavery comes across as a mutually beneficial, codependent relationship infused with friendship and loyalty and lacking any trace of violence and negativity.

Sure, the people of Mystical Falls might want to gloss over all of that and get caught up in the fabulous costumes, but Bonnie should know better. I can’t buy that she had not a moment of discomfort seeing women who look like her ancestors lampooning themselves on the screen. Even in this crazy town, she’s a teen and she wants to fit in, but for the souls of her dead ancestors, I needed her to say something. Not a whole rant – just a comment and side eye.

Kendra: And that’s what, once again, proves that there’s no one with our eye writing this show. You’re right– it didn’t need to be much. We didn’t need a speech, or a neck roll, or anything else obvious or elaborate. If Bonnie had just raised an eyebrow as she sat down at that picnic and said, “really though?” that would have been enough for me. It would have showed that yes, she’s grown up here, and she’s used to their foolishness, but she knows what’s up and she has a voice. Color blind casting is wonderful, but if you’re going to turn a character who was a white Irish-American Druid in the books into an African-American descendant of slaves in the American South, don’t half-ass it.

White Settlers, Native Werewolves, and one Black Witch: Is Anyone Parenting Bonnie Bennett? And Other Pertinent Questions

Jordan: I find it interesting that all of the main characters are given some backstory on their parents, home life and support system. While Bonnie is connected to her witch ancestors, after her grandmother’s passing there has been little to no talk of Bonnie’s home life. We never see a sibling, mother or father. Where she lives and who is looking after her seems to be a non issue. While other characters are given plenty to rely on, Bonnie is given no one and her strength is taken for granted. She asks for help when she needs it but leans on no shoulders and looks after herself. Why is it assumed that in a cast of characters including ancient and immortal beings, the lone black character can go it alone? Another insidious example of the strong black woman archetype playing out or a plot point they have been a little lazy about?

One of the most fascinating things about the series is that just about every black character who emerges from the background is a witch or warlock. In flashbacks showing us the ancestors of the current vampires in the TVD-verse, Ayanna, a witch of African descent warns them not to cast the spell that turns them into vampires but even before doing so, she appears to be helping them while they’re human, for reasons unknown. Likewise, one of the series’ key plot points – where there are vampires, there are witches – is never explained. Why are the witches, like Emily and Bonnie, placed in this position? They’re described as “servants of nature,” but they aid and work for creatures that are seen as abominations, with no explanation as to what is in it for them. Why are they situated as servants, and who exactly are they serving?

Kendra: You mentioned Mammy and Prissy from GWTW before, and I would argue that Bonnie, while not a slave, is essentially fulfilling that role as a support system. Bonnie is the one that every white character, even Stefan, runs to when they need help. This isn’t unique to her, since, as you’ve said, every vampire who appears on the show seems to have their very own Black witch or warlock in their back pockets, but very rarely do we find out anything else out about these characters. Bonnie’s father’s family is usually mentioned towards the beginning of the new season (she apparently spends her summers with them) but we’ve never met them, or her mother. Among the younger characters, Elena and Caroline both found parental figures, as did minor characters like Jeremy Gilbert  and Tyler Lockwood still has his mother. Yet Bonnie gets nothing, aside from my dreams where Stacy Dash and Shemar Moore are cast as her parents.

Aside from a father and son unit we saw last season, these witches and warlocks often have no families, no support, and no motivation aside from serving the vampires they’re called to. All the vampires have allies. Bonnie, on the other hand, consistently acts as an ally while having none of her own. Regardless of race, I have to imagine that this would be hard on any teenager, and it’s a strange choice to not address the toll it takes on her.

I do think that the show has tried to explain this relationship off with the introduction of one of the original vampires, Klaus and his family into the new world and his mother’s friendship with Ayanna (who, by the way, seemed to be a very unfortunate knock-off of Pirates of the Caribbean‘s Tia Dalma). Ideally, the show would give us further explanation rooted in the fact that the witch was there when the first vampires were created. Granted, now that they’ve introduced the Fell doctor (rumored to be a witch, which begs another question: where do White witches come from in this universe?) I worry that they’ll completely ignore giving us an explanation now that they have shiny new white toys to play with. But for it to not become just another analogy about Blacks serving whites in the South, they really do need to fill in the holes in the show’s mythology.

My last point of interest involving the mid-season flashback was the implication that Tyler’s family comes from a long line of werewolves that were there before Klaus’ family showed up, as hinted by the cave drawings below Tyler’s family’s property. The show is obviously not committed to staying within a proper historical context, but does that mean that the Lockwoods are of Native descent? Are we talking skin-walkers instead of werewolves (forgetting the fact that Virginia would be the wrong area for the prevalence of that belief; I assume they just wouldn’t care)? And if we are going to learn anything about the Lockwood family history, is the writing team’s handling of it going to make me want to shoot my television?

Jordan: Yeah, the jury is still out on that one. I am not holding my breath for a thorough exploration of Native American skin-walker mythology. That episode is probably as likely as one explaining why most of TVD’s African American witches have distinctly light coloring. The writers might feel that takes too much time away from their picturesque plantation flashbacks. Snark aside, I was pleased to see that we’re finally supposed to see Bonnie’s mother soon. I am looking forward to meeting that witch – it’s a start, right?

By Guest Contributor Kendra James

The bias in reporting the stories of missing children and people of color is nothing new. The names Elizabeth Smart, Shondra Levey, Kaley Anthony, Adam Walsh, Jaycee Dugard, and even the Lindbergh Baby roll off my tongue easily, but how many Pam Butlers, Hassani Campbells, or Jakadrien Turners can I name?

Two weeks ago on The Today Show, Ann Curry sat with the mother and sister of George Smith, a white Connecticut man who vanished on a cruise during his honeymoon in 2005. The same morning, I was following the story of Jakadrien, the 15-year-old runaway from Texas who went missing for eight months, before being found recently in the country of Colombia where she had been mistakenly deported.

After being featured on Today, Smith’s story was covered by Dateline NBC that evening. Turner’s, I read about on Tumblr and, later, Gawker. A search for the girl’s name that day revealed no articles on the New York Times website, and nothing on the Today Show site. Maybe the saddest part about that is my Tumblr dashboard regularly features pictures, signs, and descriptions for missing children of color who aren’t getting any attention at all aside from a few thousand reblogs via the site’s social justice blogs.

It’s thanks to TVOne’s new news magazine show, Find Our Missing, that I can add Campbell and Butler to my list.

Like other news magazines, the show, which debuted this week, focuses on the unsolved mysteries of missing persons that any crime junkie will find thrilling. The only difference between the cases featured on this show and programs like Dateline and 20/20 is the color of the victims’ skin. Host S. Epatha Merkerson (of Law and Order) focuses solely on the oft-ignored ignored cases of missing people of color. Aside from the victims, it’s important to point out that there is absolutely nothing about Find Our Missing that codes it as a ‘Black Show’. Yes, the cases are about our own [African-American] missing, but there is nothing about them that should prevent them from getting the same attention from the network programs.

As a viewer, you become infuriated while watching the show if you’re not from the areas where Butler and Campbell lived, because it’s likely you’ve never heard their names, and each story leaves you wondering why. Butler, a Washington DC native, has an intricate video surveillance system surrounding her home, yet she vanishes almost into thin air in 2009, possibly through the one window not covered by a camera. Her boyfriend is caught on surveillance leaving the home with a bulging, black garbage bag a few days later.

In California, Hassani, a five year old with cerebral palsy and braces on his legs, is supposedly driven to meet his aunt at work by her fiance, who claims to have left the child in the back parking lot while he visits her at work. But when they return five minutes later he’s vanished. Later, after finding a series of text messages from his aunt’s fiance, authorities suspect that the boy had been missing even before the drive. Like Butler, Hassani has been missing since August 2009, and despite living in a country that seems to devour media stories about missing children, his plight never caught the national media’s attention.

The show’s production value looks no different than an episode of NBC’s Dateline. The format is the same, the investigation is no less thorough, the cases are just as baffling to solve, and the production values are just as good. It could be featured on any network, not just a ‘niche’ channel like TVOne. But would my fellow MSNBC junkies of the American public be interested? They should be.

I don’t begrudge anyone getting their due attention and diligence when they go missing. The coverage they receive more often than not helps in their eventual recovery, or at least leads to finding the parties responsible, and by no means is that a bad thing. More troubling is the lack of that kind of attention leveled on the missing African Americans. After all, we make up a a third of all missing persons cases in the United States, while being only 12 percent of the population.

The stories Find Our Missing features don’t make for less compelling television — can you imagine the uproar America would be in if the media caught wind of a kidnapped, disabled, white five year old? — and they don’t lack substance or quality. Why isn’t Ann Curry talking about Hassani or Pamela? Are we still seen as such an Other in this country that the heartstrings that tug at Elizabeth Smart’s name won’t also tug for Hassani Campbell? Or is it that kidnapping and mysterious disappearances simply aren’t seen as crimes that happens to Black people? Gang, drug, sexual, and domestic violence are ‘our’ crimes, and the media struggles to break away from that mold when giving coverage to stories of the missing.

It’s almost as if they’re confused when a comfortable, middle class black woman goes missing with no hints of the average ‘Black crime’ elements involved. (The common perception that there are ‘no black serial killers’ certainly helps explain the difference in the amount of national coverage Anthony Sowell received in comparison to other recent serial killers like Dennis Rader in yet another case involving several missing Black women in the Cleveland area.)

When it comes to shows profiling crimes and criminals, you’re more likely to see a person of color starring on Lock Up than you are on Dateline, and that’s one of the reasons I’ll be watching Find Our Missing every week. If given a platform and the exposure it deserves, I firmly believe that the program can help solve some of the cases it features.

Even if the cases aren’t solved, at least they’ll get people thinking and remembering that there aren’t just the white women disappearing in Aruba to worry about. If there’s 20 minutes of a telecast to devote to Natalee Holloway and Robyn Gardner, then there should be twenty minutes to dedicate to Pamela Butler and Jakadrien Turner. Hassani Campbell should have received the same amount of coverage as Elizabeth Smart. In a perfect world Find Our Missing wouldn’t need to exist, but until we’re there and a tumblr dashboard is no longer the prime resource for information about missing Black children*. I encourage you to tune in to TV One on Wednesdays at 10pm EST and check out new episodes.

[*By which I do not mean to discount the importance of any signal boosting that the tumblr dashboard does do. As it stands now, Tumblr is one of my number one stops for news of the missing and that’s not something to be taken lightly. If you have any interest in the plight of missing African-Americans and other people of Color who aren’t catching the attention of the local or national news and don’t get TVOne at home, I encourage you to check out this post. In some cases, Tumblr is the only tool these people and families have working for them.]

By Arturo R. García

Nobody said Sofía Vergara was sleeping with producers after Modern Family won a Golden Globe Sunday. Not with producers, anyway.

As you can see in the vid above, the joke starts around the 20-second mark, when Vergara, speaking Spanish, is mock-pulled by castmate Julie Bowen. At that point she announces that, because the Globes are an international award, her group’s acceptance speech for the Best Comedy/Musical Television Series would be done in Spanish and English. Which got laughs because, you know, Spanish. Or something.

Then the bit truly kicks off, with executive producer Steven Levitan “translating.” After they both thank the Hollywood Foreign Press, and Vergara thanks ABC Entertainment head Paul Lee and Disney CEO Bob Iger – was she thanking them for canceling Work It? One can only hope. But I digress – Levitan tells the audience she’s thanking the show’s writers, “who are so funny and so sexy.”

Then, Vergara thanks 20th Century Fox chairmen Dana Walden and Gary Newman, while Levitan continues, “Film actresses, please do them a favor at the parties tonight and give them your numbers.” Vergara thanks the whole production team, Levitan says, “They may look pasty and nervous and out of shape, but they’re the greatest lovers I’ve ever had.” With a rather sour look on her face, Vergara thanks the audience and presenters Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek, and wishes everyone goodnight. Levitan, ever classy in front of his younger cast members, closes with, “Seriously.”

So there. Doesn’t that sound so much better in context?

As if that wasn’t enough, this remark by Vergara’s castmate Jesse Tyler Ferguson made E!’s list of “Great Quotes From The Red Carpet”:

Sofia’s always a lot of fun because she is really like her character, I mean she messes up English all the time. She has no idea. Like, she calls stewardesses on the plane “plane waiters.”

While it’s admirable for the cast and producers to publicly defending its gay characters, directing this kind of humor at Vergara – not at her character – in such a public setting undercuts that good will. Vergara’s television career started, let’s not forget, as a presenter on the Univisión travel show Fuera De Serie, years before that network became a power player in U.S. television circles. She’s played Mama Morton in a Broadway production of Chicago. And this year she will become the new face of CoverGirl cosmetics. By any measure, her professional journey deserves some respect on what’s supposed to be one of her industry’s biggest stages. Or would that be too Modern for this “family” to consider? It’s telling that Bowen was spared Levitan’s “jokes.” And it’s becoming more apparent – Vergara can do better than this. Let’s hope she does sometime soon.

By Arturo R. García

Hola mi gente. Seems like a few of you felt uncomfortable with a line my character said on #Workit. I understand your feelings. The show is a comedy and is meant to be viewed in that context. Soy Boricua de pura sepa. I am proud of our culture and I’ve always strived to uphold the positive image of my beautiful island and our people in both my career and personal lives. Pa’lante mi gente.
- Jan. 11 statement by Amaury Nolasco posted on WhoSay, as quoted on LatinoRebels

As his show Work It continued to get skewered by both activists and critics, Amaury Nolasco released the statement above in an attempt to defuse some of the tension.

To be sure, Nolasco’s in a tough spot, seeing as how he’s still under contract. But there’s no way not to consider the statement a missed opportunity. The best he could do here was to hide behind the “it’s a comedy” card, a tactic which is especially unhelpful when nobody’s laughing at any of the jokes – let alone the line, “I’m Puerto Rican. I’ll be great at selling drugs,” which he was forced to deliver in the premiere.

And make no mistake, the chorus against the show is growing. The New York Daily News’ Dolores Prida called it “gratuitously offensive and, worse yet, not funny.” And Time magazine has chimed in by collecting more scathing reviews of the program.

Nolasco’s bosses aren’t doing him any favors, either: after days of silence from ABC executives, ABC Entertainment head Paul Lee took a tone-deaf tack on the topic on Wednesday, according to Entertainment Weekly:

While talking to reporters at the annual Television Critics Tour in Pasadena [Wednesday,] Lee said he was stumped by a campaign from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and the Human Rights Campaign that accuses the cross dressing comedy of being harmful to transgenders. “I didn’t really get it,” he said. “I loved Tootsie. I still love Tootsie. I didn’t get it. But that’s probably me.”

But he clearly realizes the polarizing show remains a hot topic — which is why he began his morning panel with his idea of a joke: “So what do you think of Work It?” The Brit was loath to say exactly how he feels about the comedy’s (dreadful) performance so far, other than to stick to his original mantra about developing “ambitious” shows. “We thought there was room for a very very very silly show.”But apparently, there isn’t room for another light comedy.”

These continued public-relations gaffes have done little to stop what could be a sizable protest scheduled for 5:30 p.m. today at ABC corporate headquarters in New York City – specifically 77 W. 66th Street and Columbus Avenue. Organized by the National Institute for Latino Policy, the demonstration will continue calls for a public apology from ABC for the show’s content.

If any Racializens are going, we’d be very interested in hearing from you, be it on this thread, or by contacting us on Twitter or e-mailing your pictures and notes to team@racialicious.com.

By Arturo R. García

I won’t lie – I was skeptical when I first heard George Lucas was appearing on The Daily Show to promote his new Tuskegee Airmen story Red Tails. On the surface, it represented a missed opportunity: the film centers around four black characters, with a cast that includes Terrence Howard, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Ne-Yo – why weren’t any of them getting some face-time with Jon Stewart?

Lucas’ appearance ended up being a pleasant surprise. But, both he and Stewart left one important question hanging.

In the interview, Lucas reiterated some arguments he made to USA Today last week: Tails, it took 23 years for the film to reach the big screen, was an effort he financed himself – and one he said studios refused to get behind.

“I figured I could get the prints and ads paid for by the studios,” Lucas said, “and that they would release it and I showed it to all of them and they said, ‘No, we don’t know how to market a movie like this. It’s not green enough.’ They only release green movies.”

By “green,” of course, he means money-makers – and in Hollywood parlance, that really means … well, you know. Not Black.

Stewart, unfortunately, dances around the issue. He asks Lucas, “Is it because of the pedigree of it?” and talks about Lucas discussing it in terms of an “economic and political reality” without noting any of the factors that go into forming that reality. While Stewart would be quick to point out that he’s a comedian first and a “newsman” far down the list, it’s a moment that might have benefited from Stephen Colbert’s willingness to push the envelope. (Though Lucas sneaks in a nasty little dig: “It’s not Glory, where you have a lot of white officers run these guys into cannon fodder.”)

To his credit, Lucas admitted to USA Today that his efforts could have an adverse affect on black filmmakers:

“I realize that by accident I’ve now put the black film community at risk (with Red Tails, whose $58 million budget far exceeds typical all-black productions). I’m saying, if this doesn’t work, there’s a good chance you’ll stay where you are for quite a while. It’ll be harder for you guys to break out of that (lower-budget) mold. But if I can break through with this movie, then hopefully there will be someone else out there saying let’s make a prequel and sequel, and soon you have more Tyler Perrys out there.”

But Lucas also seems to be challenging – or at the very least, counting on – his well-established fanbase in selling the movie. Instead of distancing Tails from his defining work, Lucas says, “It’s exactly like Star Wars,” in terms of the size of the story he ultimately wants to tell, and later says, “This is as close as you’ll ever get to Episode VII.” Those efforts have carried over into social media; the official Star Wars Twitter account was posting images from the film’s premiere. And that now becomes the key question: will the Lucas fanbase rally around to support him? Or is it more willing to watch aerial dogfights when they’re based on a galaxy far, far away, rather than on a step forward in U.S. military history?

By Arturo R. García

Last fall, MSNBC told Pat Buchanan to go have fun selling his new book. Today, it looks more likely the network changed the locks behind him.

The network’s president, Phil Griffin, was content to leave Buchanan twisting in the wind this past weekend, when he told The New York Times,“The ideas he put forth aren’t really appropriate for national dialogue, much less the dialogue on MSNBC.”

Of course, it’s been apparent for years that Buchanan’s views weren’t “appropriate” for any place outside of the right-wing fringe. But despite what Griffin said, his latest book might not have been the only factor in his apparent dismissal.

It’s not like Griffin had any room to be surprised by Buchanan’s latest round of printed bile, called Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025? Really, it’s the same tune he’s been singing since the 1970s. Because not much separates this speech:

There is a religious war going on in this country. It is a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we shall be as the Cold War itself. For this war is for the soul of America. And in that struggle for the soul of America, Clinton & Clinton are on the other side, and George Bush is on our side. And so to the Buchanan Brigades out there, we have to come home and stand beside George Bush.

From this passage in Superpower:

If that is what a nation is, can we truly say America is still a nation? The European and Christian core of our country is shrinking. The birth rate of our native born has been below replacement level for decades. By 2020, deaths among white Americans will exceed births, while mass immigration is altering forever the face of America.

At every turn, Buchanan has blamed the same groups of people – immigrants, LGBT people, Jewish people – for, in his mind, sullying his idea of what America should be. During his political career, the press at large gave giving Buchanan a wide berth, according to Slate:

Since Buchanan first ran for president in 1992, the press has largely treated him as a legitimate candidate rather than an extremist canker on American politics, á la David Duke or Louis Farrakhan. Part of the explanation for this is that he’s one of us. Though few journalists have any sympathy for Buchanan’s views, some find it hard to reconcile evidence of his bigotry with the friendly guy they know. For those covering his campaigns, there are other disincentives. Once you brand him an anti-Semite, a racist, and a fascist, it’s not much fun riding around New Hampshire with him in a minivan. What’s more, there is a dimension of self-conscious theatricality to Buchanan’s performances that makes his views easier to dismiss. He’ll uncork a zinger about not buying any more chopsticks until the Chinese quit dumping cheap imports, and then cackle at his no-no. You can write this kind of thing off as just Buchanan tomfooling around and building his brand for TV, rather than dyed-in-the-wool bigotry.

And that column was written in 1999, three years before MSNBC and Griffin gave him a national platform, where he would go on to claim that America “has been a country built, basically, by white folks;” that “only white men” died in the Battle of Gettysburg; and so on.

So what changed? According to an InsideCableNews column at Mediaite, it sure wasn’t Buchanan – it was the platform around him:

On the other hand, MSNBC has changed. It openly courts Progressive views and news. It puts out job ads asking for candidates with a progressive news background. Its pundit host class is all progressive and the network lets them show up en masse at the White House for off the record get togethers. The network is openly and aggressively courting the African American viewing audience so much so that it now notes how big it is in African American viewership in its releases.

Add all these things together and you now have a scenario where MSNBC, which used to be able to handle a Pat Buchanan and his intransigent controversial views, can no longer afford to do so without alienating core constituencies it covets.

The theory makes more sense now than it would have a few years ago: even after Keith Olbermann’s acrimonious departure, MSNBC has rebuilt a good portion of its’ talk show brand around Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell, and Chris Hayes, and has added Melissa Harris-Perry, even if it keeps Joe Scarborough around in the morning.

Unfortunately, the nature of cable punditry virtually guarantees that even if Buchanan gets tossed on his duff by MSNBC, some other network will scoop him up and tout him as being “hard-hitting” or whatever the euphemism du jour is for reactionary bigotry. But even if this respite is brief, hopefully it leads to something better for his (apparently) former employers.

• Top image courtesy of Crooks & Liars
• For a more thorough collection of Buchanan’s views over the years, please visit Media Matters

By Arturo R. García

It’s not hard to imagine that, on some level, actor Amaury Nolasco knew his new show, Work It, would catch flack after his character, Angel, told his friend and fellow job-seeker Lee , “But I’m Puerto Rican. I’ll be great at selling drugs.”

If that was the case – and in the wake of the show’s disastrous premiere, Nolasco isn’t saying – then those instincts were right, and then some. Nolasco’s “drug dealers” joke is only the latest problem series creators Ted Cohen and Andrew Reich have brought upon themselves, and now their actors.

As Latino Rebels’ Jose Martí reported, the show, which follows Angel and Lee (Ben Koldyke) as they seek employment by dressing as women, has inspired a protest in Chicago by the Puerto Rican Alliance for Awareness, founded in part by actress Darlene Vazquetelles, who posted:

Right now I am in Chicago filming a movie. The director of the movie is also Puerto Rican and after discussing what happened [this week on ABC] we decided to do something about it.

This weekend we have off from filming so we have decided to do a mini-documentary in protest of what happened. The way we are doing it is by putting every Puerto Rican we know and come across here in Chicago in front of the camera stating their names, occupation and stating that they do not sell drugs.

This will be airing on You Tube. We already have the support of the Puerto Rican Parade Committee of Chicago. We are also receiving videos from all over the USA and Puerto Rico through email which will be included in the video.

Vazquetelles also reached out directly to Nolasco on Twitter:

In her tweet, Vazquetelles asks Nolasco to contact her – if he can – to take part in the PRAA’s project, calling it “sweet and positive.” And the truth is, such a move would be the first positive thing associated with Work It. Before the show even aired, its’ premise – an updated take on Bosom Buddies, with Nolasco’s character, Angel, and another man dressing as women – had set off warning flags for both the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and the Human Rights Coalition, who collaborated on a full-page ad in Variety asking ABC to not air the show:

At the very least, “Work It” is offensive and insulting. At worst, the show is downright dangerous and sends a message that transgender people are to be laughed at, or are somehow less-than. This show would be a setback for transgender Americans, and for everyone who believes that all people deserve to be treated with respect and dignity.

The ad ended up gaining traction with media outlets, creating the kind of backlash that could only be counteracted with a premiere that wowed critics.

That, to put it mildly, did not happen; the show was vilified for being “poorly written, broadly acted and apparently produced without any shame,” and “an early front-runner for the worst show of 2012.” And one of the stars of Work It’s obvious inspiration, Bosom Buddies‘ Peter Scolari, while calling Nolasco’s performance  “wholesome and funny” in Entertainment Weekly, observed that “nuance and subtlety are locked in the trunk of the head writer’s car, some of the bits predate the written word.”

Even sportswriters are getting into the fray: Latino Sports’ Cesar Díaz posted a column Sunday saying point-blank he “could care less if ABC issues an apology or not”:

I just want to inform the Creators of ABC’s Show “Work It” that I wouldn’t be good at selling drugs. And neither would the people I associate myself with and the communities we’ve volunteered our time serving over the years. And when I say people, I mean the diverse pool of friends and family who are Latinos and non-Latinos.

Hey, I cover soccer and it’s definitely the one of the most diverse sports in the world today. Of course, I’m realistic enough to know that negative portrayals of our culture will continue to happen but I don’t have to stay silent about it.

One thing we can agree on is that we’re sick of tired of seeing how our culture is time after time distorted by these shows. From the over-exaggerated accents to the menial roles created because our characters appear unintelligent is simply absurd.

Martí also noted that, after tweeting steadily going into the show’s premiere, has kept quiet while the anger surrounding Angel’s problematic remark has grown, a strategy Martí suggests he discard:

A social media blitz is as devastating as any bad reviews, and “Work It” has gotten its sizeable share of such negativity. It is perplexing to us that Amaury won’t even respond to all this. It is a mistake, and we hope he reconsiders, because if there is anything that is true about social media, no one person or profile or brand is better than any other person, profile or brand. Celebrity is no longer elevated. Amaury is now one of us and we want to know.

At this point, Work It‘s days appear to be numbered, and rightly so. The least ABC can do is take note of the anger the show has brought on and cancel it – if nothing else, it would allow Nolasco the chance to take on projects that won’t infuriate multiple communities, and get himself out of the social media morass Cohen and Reich have instigated.

The yet-to-be-titled show will start on Saturday, February 4, and will air Saturdays and Sundays 10AM to noon.

Well, Twitterville wasted no time in helping Dr. Harris-Perry christen her new program. Hashtagging as #NameMHarrisPerrysNewShow, some people chimed in with monikers tying into Rick Santorum’s ridiculous backtrack on saying people misheard him saying “blah people” instead of “black people” in discussing Black people and public assistance.

@cnmoffat Blah Like Me.

@paulhlin How about “Blah with Melissa”?

and even the R’s Managing Editor Arturo chimed in with:

Good Morning Blahmerica.

Other were inspired by her well-known love for New Orleans (and the city’s football team). Several chimed in with “Who Dat?” or some variation with the word “bayou.”

Some others came up with some play on popular vernacular:

@AngryBlackLady Is MHP Gonna Have to Choke a Bitch?

@AngryBlackLady Keepin’ It Real w/ MHP

@thesadredearth “S’up with Melissa Harris-Perry

@Besnaz Quit Playin’

@problemwiththat Hard in the Paint

or one that Dr. Harris-Perry said she likes: “Represent with Melissa Harris-Perry.”

Quite a few of us thought of phrases that reflects her role as an academic/writer/public intellectual:

@MagicLoveHose Surveying the Wreckage with Melissa Harris-Perry

@RandomExcess Front and Left

@RufferinAK Civil Discourse

@RLM1911 Politics 101

@Shoq Politics Matters, with Melissa Harris-Perry

@Besnaz Think Twice

A couple of people (including friend of the R Rob Fields) suggested using the name of her latest book, Sister Citizen. I came up with “The Intersection.” (I even have the opening sequence: panorama shot of Dr. Harris-Perry coming across a couple of literal intersection. It goes to aerial shot that follows her cross the streets and the words “race,” “class,” “gender,” “politics”,” and so on going by like cars that stop as she passes. It goes back to Dr. Harris-Perry enters the MSNBC studio and readies for her appearing on the air. The final shot is a close-up of the front of her desk with the show’s logo, “The Intersection.” Cut to live shot of Dr. Harris-Perry. And she starts the show.)

Any way we look at it, we think the show will be great.

Here’s what the good professor said about her new gig:

“This is an extraordinary opportunity…[a]ll I’ve ever wanted to be is a teacher. Phil Griffin and MSNBC are giving me the chance to have a much bigger classroom. I’m particularly excited to join the growing weekend lineup where we have a chance to take a longer and broader view of the week’s political news.”

We’re looking forward to seeing this work!

Photo credit: madamenoire.com

By Arturo R. García

It sounds like a weird complaint, but if anything threatens to be the undoing of Don Cheadle’s new show, House of Lies, it’s the fact that he’s not enough of a villain.

Though Lies officially premieres Sunday on Showtime, you can already watch it online – albeit with blurred-out profanity and people-bits. The (NSWF) episode, as well as SPOILERS, are under the cut.

Again, spoilers ahead if you haven’t watched the episode.

Based on a book by marketing mogul Martin Kihn, Lies positions Cheadle’s character, Martin Kaan, on top of his game as a particularly cutting management consultant. The job, he tells his three sidekicks, “is like dissing a really pretty girl so that she’ll want you more.”

What Martin isn’t is a Black Management Consultant, as Cheadle explained to The Wall Street Journal:

It clearly wasn’t written for an African American. I don’t know that I ever want to play those “first-black-man-to” fill-in-the-blank parts, unless it’s very interesting. They always seem to be written out of guilt. We call them “what did your daddy do [wrong]” projects. Wow, all these white people are buying this production. Their families must have owned slaves.

How did you know the character wasn’t intended to be black?

Just from what his name is and the dude it’s based off [author Martin Kihn]. When you read scripts and it describes the character, say, “John Franklin, a 25 year-old business manager,” you say, “Oh, that’s a white guy.” If it’s written for a black guy, it’ll say, “John Franklin, black, 25″. So if it’s not defined, that’s a white guy. Got it. He’s just regular. Like a flesh colored Band-Aid.

Indeed, race isn’t an issue in Kaan’s world so far; he’s less concerned with his ex-wife Monica’s (Dawn Oliveri) whiteness than with her being “a sociopath and an addict,” and better at his job than he is. What is worrying Martin is that his son Roscoe (Donis Leonard Jr.) is now cross-dressing and auditioning for the role of Sandra Dee in Grease.

What’s most worrying about the show, though, is how little we’re given to differentiate Lies and Martin from other TV men behaving badly. Like Burn Notice‘s Michael Westen, Martin clues us in on his professional lingo, adding a dash of Zack Morris by doing so while the action freezes behind him. Like Californication‘s Hank Moody, Martin has no trouble hooking up with women – or, in the case of Jeannie (Kristen Bell), at least inciting an intrigued gaze while wrapping up a game-saving pitch.

But through it all, Cheadle’s portrayal is inherently sympathetic – and for this kind of show, that’s probably a liability. For Lies to truly become a “subversive comedy,” we need less Don Draper out of Martin, and more (NSFW) Malcolm Tucker. Hopefully the premiere’s final scene, with Martin seemingly confronting his own demons, leads us somewhere near rock bottom quickly and convincingly.

By Arturo R. García

Nobody’s saying All-American Muslim is perfect, but when was the last time a reality show was attacked for being … you know, realistic?

Yet that seems to be at the heart of the complaint filed by the Florida Family Association, which has resulted in a number of companies, most notably the Lowe’s hardware chain, pulling advertising from the program. On its website, the FFA says:

The first two episodes start off with Muslim youth complaining about non-Muslim Americans’ perception of them as extremists after 911. The show then reports on these youths’ daily, weekly and monthly prayer rituals. Many Imams who are at the head of these prayer rituals believe strongly in Islam and Sharia law. This TLC show clearly failed to connect the dots on this point but then again that appears to be their intent.

Many situations were profiled in the show from a Muslim tolerant perspective while avoiding the perspective that would have created Muslim conflict thereby contradicting The Learning Channel’s agenda to inaccurately portray Muslims in America.

The fear-mongering only goes on from there.

A company spokeswoman, Katie Cody, told The Washington Post it was Lowe’s understanding that All-American “raised concerns, complaints, or issues from multiple sides of the viewer spectrum,” without specifying any of those other viewpoints. Cody added, of course, that it wasn’t the company’s “intent to alienate anyone.”

Well, too late for that.

The FFA is also claiming responsibility for a whole host of companies pulling their ads from the show though at least three denied that allegation to The Post. (A list of sponsors no longer advertising on Muslim can be found here.)

Not only has the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee called Lowe’s out for caving in, but the incident has started to get attention outside television circles: Global Grind is organizing a petition in support of the show, while mogul/activist Russell Simmons took to both the press and Twitter to blast the company:

And the office of California Senator Ted Lieu (D-CA) posted a letter from him to Lowe’s CEO Robert Niblock calling on the company to apologize for its decision:

Lowe’s action is profoundly ignorant. Islam is a peaceful religion practiced by over 1.5 billion people, including Americans across our great nation and Lowe’s own employees. As President Bush declared, and President Obama reaffirmed, America is not at war with Islam.

America is, however, at war with people who pose a clear and present danger, whether they are white separatists like Timothy McVeigh (who happened to be Catholic); mass shooters such as Seung-Hui Cho at Virginia Tech ; or members of the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Army (a Marxist-Leninist group that has targeted US interests with suicide bombings). Lowe’s bigoted action conflates peaceful religions with dangerous people who use peaceful religions (or political ideology) to advance their agenda.

Lowe’s religious discrimination is the equivalent of a company asserting that it is pulling advertising from the Christian Broadcast Network’s 700 Club because the program somehow “riskily hides” the agenda of Christian radicalized groups such as Aryan Nation. That assertion would, of course, be utter nonsense and religious bigotry.

Like many bullies, the FFA doesn’t work alone; it’s an ally of the American Family Association, which was tagged as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center last year. And AFA spokesman lives up to that label at seemingly every turn, whether it be by sounding off on “Muslim turkeys;” arguing that the First Amendment shouldn’t apply to Mormons; or saying Jesus Christ Himself would flog the Occupy Wall Street movement; or offering Muslims a choice: convert to Christianity or die:

So we say to them, look, if you don’t want our missionaries, fine, that’s your choice, we’ll take our missionaries and our Marines, we’ll take them home, but we’re going to let you know we have no hesitation about returning with lethal force if the forces in your country threaten us again. This time it’s Marines and missionaries, next time it’ll be Marines and missiles.

To its credit, a spokesman for The Learning Channel, which airs Muslim, told Entertainment Weekly, “We stand behind the show All American Muslim and we’re happy the show has strong advertising support.”

But you might be wondering, why would Lowe’s kowtow to the views of a discriminating bunch of wingnuts? It might be as simple as sharing political bedfellows: the company makes no bones about being an active contributor … to the Republican party, which actively courts groups like the AFA. “Multiple sides of the viewer spectrum”? Seems more and more like they’re only coming from the right side of the aisle.

By Guest Contributor Nicole Cunningham Zaghia, cross-posted from Muslimah Media Watch

One of the main criticisms of TLC’s All American Muslim was that the show’s characters were representative of only a small part of the American Muslim community.  If you felt that way, then a great antidote is Me, the Muslim Next Door, a web documentary produced for Radio Canada International.  Filmed in Montreal and Toronto in both English and French, Me the Muslim Next Door is over two hours of audio, video, and still photography, broken up into 4-6 minute segments, with each of the show’s participants having several segments.  These segments took place in the participants’ personal landscapes – at home, on the street, with their families.

Me, the Muslim Next Door is cast like a cross between the United Nations and a Benetton ad. I love it.  We have:

• Eduardo, a Brazilian convert who, by his own admission, used to hate Muslims;
• Dania, whose father is Eritrean and whose mother is a convert from  Quebec;
• Mehdi, a Moroccan married to Laila from Afghanistan; they met on Facebook;
• Suad, whose mother is Syrian and whose father is part Palestinian, part Bosnian and, to add some fun to the mix, her husband Karim is part Finnish, part Egyptian;
• Rizwan, of South Asian background, who lives in Toronto and takes us to his neighbourhood masjid.

One of my recurring problems with Muslims in the media is that we are often portrayed answering the same questions in the same ways. Every show has something about polygamy or hijab or “fitting in.” We either go on tape with platitudes (“oh but you can only be polygamous if you afford it, isn’t it great that widows can be taken care of”), with statements designed to shock the middle classes (“jihad is ok for the kuffar!”), or with instant fatwas about how our religion says things in black and white (“Islam says music is BAD”).

These topics show up in Me the Muslim Next Door, but the  “personal landscape” format of the videos allows a fresh, personal light without bringing down the level of the discourse.

Mehdi and Laila, a mixed Sunni-Shia couple, explain that for them, the most important part of Islam is at the level of the shahada. If you say the shahada, you’re ok, and sectarian or other differences don’t matter.  That spoke to me. Jamila, part of a large family, explains why she stays close to her parents – because they made sacrifices for her when she was a child, so she will make sacrifices for them as an adult. Suad and Karim had a marriage semi-arranged by their MSA, “but” played the piano at their wedding. And Dania’s 23^rd birthday party was alcohol-free. She mentions alcohol – that she has never had it, but doesn’t see what it could bring to an already good time. These are people and situations I can relate to and the type of Muslims I want people to see when they ask me about my religion. The show’s participants leave out “Islam says this” and instead talk about these topics in the terms of personal choices they have made in their private lives.

As a francophone Louisianian who lived and studied in Canada, I absolutely LOVED seeing normal Muslim people I could relate to in their living rooms talking about their families, hopes, jobs and dreams. I found my place more in this show than I did in All-American Muslim. The difference is that the goal of Me, the Muslim Next Door isn’t sensational. It nails the fine line between “educating the mass market” and giving Muslim viewers characters who are different enough to be interesting yet similar enough for all of us, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, to find common ground.

Television is really comfortable with showing unrepentant racists in the roles of villians; and playing racism for laughs or shockvalue. But what we don’t normally see in pop culture is the urge toward showing full characters. Including the racist bits.

I’ve been following Sons of Anarchy since the beginning of Season 3, and I was initally going to write about how the show treats whiteness. The world of Sons is almost an unauthorized form of whiteness that is rarely depicted without derision – defiantly lower class, quasi-ethnic, and trapped in the same kinds of systems that count as pathology in communities of color, but get the “trash” label when the conversation shifts to whites in the same situation.

However, that piece was put on hold because the subplot on this season is around a character named Juice Ortiz – and the problems that arise between his identity and the rules of the club.

[SPOILERS for the entire Juice story arc as well as other parts of the series ahead. This is your one and only warning.]

Now, the Sons seemed fairly unconcerned with racism. They went to war with a white supremacist crew, and have made alliances with local black and Latino bike gangs, though with mixed results. The older members are a bit more inclined toward racism, the younger ones a bit less so, but it really depends on the individual. In an early meeting with the new Sheriff, Juice’s mixed race background and black father are put on the table as bargaining chips: If Juice doesn’t cooperate, the Sheriff informs the club – which just so happens has a bylaw banning black members. Panicked, Juice is coerced by the Sheriff to steal a sample of the cocaine, attempts to do so, but falls asleep and doesn’t return the sample before counting. Things get hectic, and Juice ends up killing another member of the club to keep his secret. Increasingly weighed down by the increasing demands, his actions, and the secret, Juice attempts to commit suicide, leading fellow member Chibs to start looking after him. At one point, he tentatively asks about the “no blacks rule” to Chibs, another member of the club, who explains that while he didn’t personally agree, the rules were the rules, and if they stopped following the rules, everything would fall apart.

This part, I loved, because it makes the point about racism that we’ve been making all along – that it isn’t just hooded white supremacists that practice racism. Chibs, by failing to challenge an older racist rule, assisted in shaking Juice’s faith in his club, and isolated him even further, driving him deeper into the devious machinations of Lincoln Potter. In his moment of need, Juice doesn’t hear support. But neither Chibs does actively defend racism. Instead, he does so passively – he essentially slides neutral, and as Desmond Tutu said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” For some people, Chibs’ position may have been unclear – how can he allow racism to continue, but still care about Juice? But that’s easy. Much of racism exists in the abstract – those people over there, not these good people you know, who are the exception. So, of course Chibs could uphold the club’s racist rules – it didn’t affect him. And of course he could then tell Juice not to worry – he’s not one of those abstract people. But notice, Chibs is careful with the language. After Juice’s confession, he assures him things will be alright – not because that rule was wrong and it was racist, or that he had faith that the rest of the Sons are so far removed from racism that they won’t mind, but because Juice’s birth certificate says “Latino.”

The anti-black rule still stands, unchallenged. And while Chibs may think it’s what’s in your heart that counts (as long as you aren’t black on your birth certificate), that doesn’t mean the rest of the club will agree.

Over at Kurt Sutter’s blog, he explains the seed for the story line:

There seems to be some confusion about Juice’s discomfort and fear regarding the discovery of his black father. This is a racial reality in outlaw motorcycle clubs. We’ve touched on the issue lightly over the first three seasons of SOA. The fact is that most of the bigger MC’s do not have African American members. There are black clubs and there are white (Caucasian, Latino, Asian) clubs. Most live in harmony. HA and the East Bay Dragons have been friends for decades. That relationship inspired the Grim Bastards in season 3. We delve into the delicate why’s and how’s of this racial bi-law later in the season, but it was one of those odd, historical barriers that I’ve wanted to explore. It’s a throwback to a different era that is still in practice today. I can honestly say that none of the guys I know in the life are racist, yet they function within a structure that is built upon a form of segregation. To me, that’s fascinating and fertile story turf. The depth and weight of this rule varies from club to club and this season we see how it’s handled by the Sons of Anarchy.

And Sutter does this, beautifully. Perhaps this is the freedom provided to creators who put antiheroes at the forefront of their work. Freed from the idea their characters need to be upstanding citizens to be likeable, they are able to explore more of the contradictions and complexities of human nature. It amazed me to see all the people on Sutter’s post saying that the Sons couldn’t be racist. Why not? Have you been paying attention for the last few seasons? The Sons are thieves, drug runners, murders, philanderers, wife-beaters, and backstabbers. A few episodes ago, Jax led a woman on to get her alone, face slammed her into a table, choked her, and spit in her face while calling her a whore. Did she fuck with the wrong people? Yes. Was it still really horrible to watch sexualized violence? Yes! Can my feminist brain hate that scene, but my fan brain simultaneously root for Jax protecting his club and family? Yes!

So why can’t viewers accept a character that is supposed to be seen as sympathetic that is racist or holds racist views?

For far too long, writers have been using racism a way to practice lazy characterization. It perpetuates the lie that all racists are horrible and hateful people – and not folks who happen to harbor irrational biases toward people of different racial or ethnic backgrounds. However, by using racism as a lazy way to make someone evil, writers have painted themselves into a corner. Audiences have been conditioned to see characters who hold or express racial biases as inexplicably evil. So allowing a character in a work to express or defend racist views is to automatically mark that character as irredeemable. Interestingly, sexism in a character doesn’t quite work the same way – people will excuse that behavior as being true to the character. But a racist is too much for people to try to identify with, so writers normally push that messy aspect of people’s characters to the side. (This has been my ongoing beef with Mad Men. Especially now that a series that takes place during the height of Jim Crow, and a series that focuses on a predominantly white motorcycle club in Northern California made it work.) So while racism is a part of daily life, the idea that we have racism without actual racists has permeated our screens in the same way it has permeated society.

But here’s the thing. Characters are not required to be perfect.

The Sons don’t have to be anti-racist to be awesome characters. Over the last few weeks, personal relationships are frayed to the hilt. Everyone is struggling with the ideas of love, fealty, and protection. Gemma is lying to everyone, trying to protect everyone a little differently. Jax committed himself to a plan he didn’t believe in, in hopes of trading it for a future he would never see. And let’s not even get started on Opie. Everyone is being manipulated, lied to, fighting on a playing field that has irrevocably changed. This is beautifully written drama, because everyone is committing little betrayals for reasons they feel are right. So I wouldn’t be surprised, after this week’s non-resolution, that we shift away from the racism plot to wrap up one of the other dozen plot lines tightening around the Sons. But, as we’ve learned from the past few seasons that nothing is ever really laid to bed. Clay and Tig’s dirty deeds from the first season were just revealed (Edited: See ETA) to Opie in the last episode, so I think that Juice’s parentage may come up yet again.

If anyone survives to the fifth season, that is.

ETA: Welcome, SOA fans. As I mentioned at the very beginning of the post, I’ve been watching from Season 3. Many people have written in to correct the timing – Opie was made aware of Clay’s treachery and Tig’s murder of Donna back in Season 2, it was just revisited after Clay murders Piney. Part of the reason I am holding off on writing the other two pieces on Gender in Sons and on Whiteness in Sons, is because I haven’t been able to catch up on the first two seasons.

By Arturo R. García

There’s been something ugly brewing in Silicon Valley, and now it’s starting to seep to the surface, following preview screenings for Soledad O’Brien’s latest CNN special.

The clip up top is an excerpt from her interview with TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington. The interview was taped in July, and is slated to air during the Nov. 13 episode of her Black In America documentary series focusing on the eight black entrepreneurs taking part in the NewMe Accelerator program.

In a commercial for the show, Arrington describes Silicon Valley as “a white and Asian world,” and in the interview, he goes so far as to tell O’Brien that he doesn’t know any black entrepreneurs.

Except that he really did. And Arrington’s been digging himself – and seemingly the tech industry around him – into a deeper hole ever since.

Here’s a transcript of the clip:

O’Brien: Who would you say is the Number 1 black technology entrepreneur?
Arrington: You know, that’s a weird question. Who would you say is the Number 1 black technology -
O’Brien: I don’t cover technology.
Arrington: I’m trying to think of any black CEOs in Silicon Valley, and I’m not even coming up with any.
O’Brien: Okay, so the entrepreneurs – the people who are making companies.
Arrington: I don’t know a single black entrepreneur.
O’Brien: And you cover the industry.
Arrington: I mean, there aren’t -
O’Brien: What does that say?
Arrington: It means there just aren’t any. It’s not a perfect meritocracy, but generally speaking, it doesn’t matter what your education is, it doesn’t matter who your parents are here. You can become very successful, based purely on your brain size and how you use it.

According to CNN’s Laurie Siegall, however, Arrington did correct himself at another point in the interview, telling O’Brien about one black entrepreneur who launched his company at a TechCrunch Disrupt event, at Arrington’s urging:

“His startup’s really cool,” Arrington said. “But he could’ve launched a clown show on stage, and I would’ve put him up there, absolutely. I think it’s the first time we’ve had an African-American [be] the sole founder.”

Arrington might be surprised to know, then, that there happens to be (gasp!) more than one black person running their own company in Silicon Valley, and as ZD Net’s Violet Blue has reported, they are furious with Arrington over his comments. One of them, consultant Adria Richards, knows who he was referring to:

The guy he had on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC, he’s known for several years…and he basically called him a clown. Clarence Wooten sold his company, ImageCafe, for $23 million to Network Solutions in 1999, that’s over 10 years before Arrington sold TechCrunch to AOL for the same amount.

I’ve now likened it to Southern White male slave owner saying he has no idea why there are mixed babies cropping up on this plantation even though he damn well knows he’s been creeping down to the sheds at night.

Arrington has since compounded his gaffe on various online platforms, thanks to tweets like these:

And on his blog, where he uncorked this doozy of self-congratulation:

See, my brain database doesn’t categorize people in terms of skin color. Or hair color. Or sexual orientation. When I queried that database, under stressful circumstances, I got zero results.

That kind of statement would barely sound cute coming from a kid cosplaying a Cylon. Coming from a man who makes his living writing about and investing in the tech industry, it sounds skeevy and arrogant at best. And according to Mitch Kapor – an investor in NewMe, who has also been involved in developing seminal programs ranging from Lotus 1-2-3 to UUNET to the Mozilla Foundation to the company behind Second Life – it’s also, to borrow Arrington’s techno-babble, working from a deeply corrupted operating system:

A recent study, The Tilted Playing Field, indicates there are practices in recruiting, promotion, and retention within the IT sector which are problematic for women and under-represented people of color, and reduce their participation. Specific experiences of exclusion, bullying, difficulty balancing work/family are reported at much higher rates by underrepresented groups — i.e African Americans, Latina/o/s, and women of all backgrounds. Another vicious cycle at play. “If I’m not going to be valued or respected, then I’m outta here.” Meanwhile, Caucasian and Asian male engineers and managers report that their companies spend the right amount of time on diversity.

Silicon Valley likes to think it operates as a pure meritocracy, e.g., it’s the best teams and ideas which get funded. In practice, as luminaries from John Doerr to Ron Conway acknowledge, key decisions are often guided by a combination of pattern-matching based on superficial characteristics and the network of people you already know. More on this here and here.

If “young, white, geeky, and Stanford/Harvard/MIT dropout”, then “invest”, is a kind of mental shortcut that is anything but objective. This is mirror-tocracy not meritocracy.

Being meritocratic is a really worthy aspiration, but will require active mitigation of individual and organizational bias. The operation of hidden bias in our cognitive apparatus is a well-documented phenomenon in neuroscience. We may think we are acting rationally and objectively, but our brains deceive us.

Arrington has also accused CNN and O’Brien of sandbagging him, writing that the network did not mention race in its’ original interview request from O’Brien’s producer for Black In America, Kimberly Arp Babbit, which read in part:

We are producing, what we think is the first major broadcast news documentary on the Silicon Valley accelerator phenomenon and start-up culture. In this culture, Michael Arrington is God and TechCrunch is the bible.

The CNN “In America” documentary unit, led by special correspondent and anchor Soledad O’Brien, has produced a number of award winning long form documentaries.

This particular documentary will be told through the experience of a group of digital entrepreneurs who travel to Silicon Valley to chase their dreams.

He also wrote that, when O’Brien asked him if he’d heard of the NewMe program, to which he answered, “Nope. But [Arrington] said that sounded awesome.” Another TechCrunch writer subsequently covered NewMe’s inaugural demo event.

However, O’Brien has posted another e-mail sent to someone working with Arrington sent four days before the interview, at least one of which specifically mentioned NewMe and the program O’Brien was interviewing him for. So either Arrington’s memory storage capacity is limited, or somebody didn’t upload the proper talking points for him. Or maybe, like a lot of people before him, Arrington has only just realized his default setting was on Privileged this whole time, and doesn’t want to fess up to it.

By Guest Contributor Aymar Jean Christian, cross-posted from Televisual

If you pay attention to web shows by and about people of color, you probably have come across 12 Steps to Recovery, a romantic comedy series about Parrish Diaz, a jingle composer and actor dealing with a hard break-up. In the show, Parrish’s friends decide the only way he’ll get over his ex is to do a romantic “12 step” program: go on dates with 12 different women.

From Hitch and Knocked Up to The Best Man and (500) Days of Summer, romantic comedies about men have always been popular, if less so than female-driven ones. Producers see them as a good way to get a more balanced male-to-female ratio in your audience.

What makes 12 Steps to Recovery a little different is its use of Parrish’s story to showcase different kinds of women. Viewers end up learning more about the girls than the leading man. Each episode features a new date with a different kind of stock female trope, from transwomen to Southern belles. “Not all of us women are carrying baggage,” Parrish’s friend Dani says in one episode.

The series, which has a bunch of episodes released but is still in post-production for the remaining few, re-launched on KoldCast last month.

“I wanted the launch on Koldcast to be something different, something special,” series creator Tony Clomax said, noting how he re-cut a few episodes for the release.

Clomax said his goal as a producer, director and editor is to raise the bar for black independent content, getting away from the mediocrity he sees on the web. “I’m not going to put something out there that hasn’t been through a sound mix,” he said. ”We’re getting away from our traditions…Don’t just do something to get by.”

Still he believes the web is overall positive for content creators, especially in the black market. It reveals how the likes of Tyler Perry do not represent the full extent of the culture.

“It helps filmmakers build their brand and build an audience,” he said. “That’s been the cry: we want to see ourselves, we want to see our stories.”

12 Steps is sleek, beautifully lit and appropriately paced for a rom-com, though some of its story lines, particularly the plots for the first two dates, might shock and rankle some viewers — it’s on the scandalous side of things. This seems like a strategy to get viewers talking, which might have been a smart move. On the web, the producer never gets the final word, and it’s better if your audience feels compelled to blog or tweet about the latest episode.

Meanwhile, Clomax is staying busy with a number of projects, including directing a series called Disciplinary Actions, a Law & Order-type series on labor and unions (that seems timely!). He has a number of features in the works, including a possible campaign to turn 12 Steps into one, and two others, a documentary called You Only Live Twice about a former gang member who decided to change his life, and a narrative film called Harlem Boils.

The most interesting aspect of 12 Steps for me has been its financing model. Instead of seeking sponsorship from large, corporate brands like many independent web series, Clomax and co-producer Stuart Films, run by Emelyn Stuart, approached smaller national brands and crafted commercials and placements for them. The series initially ran on BBN, the Black Broadcasting Network, giving those companies TV exposure they otherwise couldn’t afford.

12 Steps is also on numerous websites. Many users might find them on YouTube, where they’ve been viewed over 70,000 times. On Blip TV, however, it’s been viewed 800,000 times. Clomax is particularly proud of its deal with a new distributor, Zora TV, which targets black women.

In the end Clomax thinks creators spend too much time angling to get on TV and not enough time exploiting the plethora of opportunities the web has offered.

“There are so many ways of monetizing…instead of waiting for television to say ‘we’re going to give you an opportunity,’” he said.

I’ll end with posting the episode with one of my favorite performances from 12 Steps‘ many actresses, Malikha Mallette, who hilariously caricatures the Southern woman Bernadette in her impromptu blind date with Parrish.

By Guest Contributor Caroline Karanja

A fairly amusing episode of Parks and Recreation left me wondering about the effects of de-racializing the civil rights movement into a simple fight for equality. Since when does hetero-normative white society become the victim?

The show centers around quirky and optimistic Leslie Knop, who is devoted to her job at a local government office in Pawnee, Ind. Alongside her is department head Ron Swanson, a sarcastic-yet-lovable nature lover played as a hipster Alpha male. His
Libertarian political philosophy is the foundation of the show’s sarcasm towards big government.

In the episode “Pawnee Rangers,” Leslie is troop leader of the Pawnee Goddesses. They host fun activities; they eat candy and have puppy parties. Ron’s Pawnee Rangers is an outdoors club that’s really out there “roughing it.” They are the kind of boy scouts that dig their own trenches, live in boxes and eat food from a can. In this episode, everyone learns a lesson about equality during wilderness weekend.

It all begins when out of pure lack of fun one of Ron’s rangers goes to the Goddesses, asking to join their club. Leslie turns him down. The irony is that Leslie started the Pawnee Goddesses because Pawnee Rangers didn’t accept girls. The Younger Goddesses protest, referencing the Brown v Board of Education Supreme Court decision in hopes of getting Leslie to change her mind.

During the group forum, a young white girl Abigail says to Leslie, “Isn’t it like Brown v Board of Education? Separate but equal is never really equal. We should let the boys in” Casey, a young black girl responds, “I disagree. I think there is a benefit to educating the genders separately.” Casey, of course, is a very conscious decision on the part of the writers. Her words constitute the only non-white voice in the whole debate.

Leslie, in a “talking-head” interview segment, playfully dismisses the two well-articulated points made by the girls, essentially avoiding the issues of gender and race presented, a signature move for the show. Although the show rarely devotes a whole episode to social inequality or “isms,” there are always hints of these issues. The show’s eccentric humor helps mask the politically aware and socially conscious undertones found though out the show.

As I was watching this episode, I couldn’t help but think about how the social movements today evoke the civil rights movements in their agenda. An extreme case is the debate surrounding the Slutwalk movement, when some demonstrators tried to call upon black oppression to stress their point. These connections have also been made in the gay community, as some have compared racial prejudice with anti-gay sentiment. In this particular context, Parks and Recreation represents the growing trend of mainstream media commercializing and claiming a stake in the civil rights movement.

In Pawnee, equality is brought by the Brown decision and exhibited through the female Pawnee Godesses. The main goal is to bring equality to the male Rangers, which eventually emasculates the hyper-masculine Ron. Once he loses his Rangers, he can no longer “Be a Man” – a statement, which as we learn in the beginning, is the only rule in the Pawnee Ranger guidebook.

Considering how Ron’s “plight” was portrayed, it begs the question: how can mainstream movements that call for social and political equality such as the recent feminist and anti-capitalist demonstrations relate to the fights, struggles and victories of non-white communities without offending, devaluing or co-opting them?

Pawnee’s wilderness weekend slightly complicates and humors the idea of equality. It commodifies the movement, creating a platform through which, the audience must laugh at the issues of “inequality.” This episode demonstrates the complexities of these issues that require, if nothing else, a passing thought.

by Guest Contributor RVC Bard, originally posted at Ars Marginal

What do Martha Jones, Tara Thornton, Guinevere, and Mercedes Jones have in common?

• If you answered that they are major supporting characters in hit TV shows, give yourself 1 point.
• If you answered that they are among the few fictional representations of Black women on major network television shows, give yourself 2 points.
• If you answered that fandom, for some mysterious reason, hates the shit out of them, give yourself 5 points.
• If you answered that fandom’s hatred of these characters are particularly gendered and racialized along stereotypes about Black women, hand yourself the internet.

The level of hatred spewed at these characters sometimes even manages to spill over onto the actors who portray them. Poor Rutina Wesley can’t do anything right in True Blood fandom. And according to some Merlin fans, Angel Coulby is probably the Antichrist. OK, I exaggerate. But not by much.

If you watch Merlin or True Blood, you’d know that some of the more melanin-challenged characters deserve that sort of vitriol waaaaaaay more than the characters it’s directed at, particularly if you consider reckless endangerment of innocent lives to be morally reprehensible. These are the same people who swoon over Franklin – a psychopathic vampire kidnapper/rapist/murderer – but wish all sorts of hellfire and brimstone onto Tara Thornton. Let’s not talk about how, in the eyes of Doctor Who fandom, Martha Jones’ chief flaw is not being someone else*. Gleeks seem to hate Mercedes just because she’s competition for Rachel. And Merlin fandom seems to believe that Morgana’s treacherous magical White girl ass is a more empowering role model for women than Guinevere’s steady, quiet strength**.

What’s so wrong with these characters according to fandom? Hm, let’s see:

• They have an attitude problem.
• They’re lazy.
• They’re mean.
• They’re stupid.
• They’re ungrateful.
• They’re selfish.
• They’re sluts.

Why do I feel like I need to puke and take a shower every time some of this shit shows up on my Tumblr, my LJ, or some other social media? Oh yeah, because this shit ain’t new, and it makes me sick.

I’m not going to break down the history of stereotypes against Black women because, hello, Google is your friend (until it enslaves us all to its will). This is Ars Marginal. We’re beyond that 101-level bullshit. Instead, we’re going to talk about how it affects real Black women in the real world. You know, the Black women you live with, work with, play with, love with, and so on.

When I see fandom reacting to fictional Black women this way, I wonder what they’re saying about real Black women while our backs are turned.

• If we react angrily to being repeatedly ignored, disrespected, and/or abused, will our White co-workers say we have an attitude problem?
• If we are open about seeking and enjoying sex, will our White friends call us slutty?
• If we demand recognition of our talents and gifts, will our White counterparts say that we’re looking for a handout or are getting too uppity?
• If we achieve better results with less work, will the White people in our lives call us lazy?
• If we speak our truth without apology, will White people call us mean?
• If we take care of ourselves, will we be called selfish?
• If we act, speak, or think without prior White approval, will we always be seen as stepping out of line?

What about you? When you see fandom talking about Black women characters in certain ways, how does that make you feel? How do you deal with it? What do you say (if anything)? What would you like to see change about this?

(*This reminds me way too much of The Color Purple, where Celie reveals that Mister beats her because she’s not Shug. Ugh.)

(**Funnily enough, this sort of subtle fortitude is something that I only see Black and Brown actresses pull off.)

By Arturo R. García

Big thanks to our friends at Racebending for sharing this with us – it’s our panel from San Diego Comic-Con, “Diversity and Fandom 102: How You Can Make A Difference,” in its’ entirety. From left to right, our panelists were:

• Racebending’s Michael Le served as moderator
• Actor Dante Basco (Avatar: The Last Airbender)
• Showrunner/writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach (The Middleman)
• Author Malinda Lo (Huntress)
• Professor Henry Jenkins from the University of Southern California (CivicPaths Project)
• Phil Yu, from AngryAsianMan
• And that’s yours truly at the far end in the tie, looking slightly flustered at being among such a group of sharp folks.

And don’t forget, if you’re in the NYC area this weekend, Latoya and Andrea will be hosting a meet-up Sunday, Oct. 16, at Jing Fong in Manhattan, at noon. Enjoy the vid!