By Andrea Plaid
Janet Mock (2nd row, far left) makes it on The Out List!
Y’all know I love me some Janet Mock, so I’m too thrilled that she’ll be in Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’ (The Black List) upcoming HBO documentary, The Out List. The doc, premiering Thursday June 27–just in time to close out Pride Month this year–features her life story and the wisdom gained from so far, as well as the stories of other renowned cisLGBQ and transgender people. And, from the number of the R’s Tumblizens liking and reblogging it, I can see you share the excitement!
And check out who and what else we’re sharing some excitement about on the R’s Tumblr!
By Guest Contributor Crystal Xia, Blogger at There’s Nothing Here
Mindy Kaling’s show, The Mindy Project, wrapped up its first season on Tuesday. In its first year, the show picked up critical attention and found an audience. More importantly, the show found confidence and its voice, and it developed characters and relationships true to Kaling’s signature comedic style. While the majority of the main cast is white, the show cast Utkarsh Ambudkar to play Rishi, Mindy’s little brother, for a couple of episodes in the first season.
Rishi is a hilarious, complex, and multifaceted character, a strong role for an Indian American male. He can be considered The Mindy Project’s take on the emerging stereotype of an Indian American “faux-gangster” male. Although he is studying science at Stanford University, Rishi is more interested in moving to New York City and becoming a rapper. Interestingly enough, Rishi isn’t just a “typical American kid trying to make it in a creative field”, a trap that many writers who want to normalize the minority experience fall into. He’s actually cool. Instead of being another corny wannabe, Rishi is a great rapper who can command a room, be it a break room full of Mindy’s coworkers or a “Battle of the Rappers”.
The Mindy Project does a great job of making Rishi more than his ethnicity without ignoring it. Jokes about Indian Americans have punch lines that make mainstream society and its misunderstanding of minorities the butt of the joke, not the minority Indian Americans. For example, Rishi manages to convince Mindy’s building manager to let him into Mindy’s apartment because “a well-spoken Indian can get into anywhere he wants”. This is a play on the idea that Asian Americans are stereotypical “model minorities”.
Image via ABC.com.
So Scandal last week. Like… OMG, right? So much to say, so much to spoil in this introduction if you haven’t watched last week. I ask, however: why haven’t you? Go, now. I’ll wait.
If you’re back, (or if you’ve never left,) join Kendra James, Jordan St. John, Zach Stafford, Loree Lamour, Johnathan Fields and I as we talk about last weeks game changing episode and our expectations for tonight’s finale.
By Guest Contributor Cecile Lusby, cross-posted from Hyphen Magazine
Image courtesy of Cecile Lusby
How can anyone explain a man who lived two lives? I try to unravel the mystery of Richard Aoki, because in 2012 Seth Rosenfeld reported that Richard served as an FBI informant. I view Richard’s life as having two turning points: one in 1956-7, and then again in 1966-1967, as he formed a new identity through the ‘60s activism that transformed and radicalized him.
Disclosures about Richard’s work with the FBI have been hard for his contemporaries, his students — and for me — to accept. My knowledge of Richard began in 1966 as he was leaving the Socialist Workers Party and joining the newly organized Black Panther Party. He joked about his earlier conservatism and his vote for Nixon in 1960 before his political ideas evolved. He voiced contempt for the student socialists who read, but never risked action. “I’m down for the struggle,” Richard would say. He did have a history. Continue reading »
By Guest Contributor Shae Collins
“So you’re going to twerk right?” was a common question my sorority sisters and I got when we entered a dance competition this year at our school.
Not too long ago, the university I attend welcomed its first historically black Greek-letter organization. I had the privilege of becoming a member of this sorority and was curious to see how the students of a predominately white university in a wealthy area would receive a historically black organization on its campus.
The university was widely accepting of the sorority; however, as we became more visible on the campus, we experienced much cultural insensitivity.
This year, for the first time, we participated in a sorority dance competition that raises money for charity. During the week leading up to the dance-off, several people approached us asking if we were going to twerk — as if twerking is the only style of dance a black woman can do.
By Arturo R. García
I want to keep rooting for Wayne Brady. But while (rightly) defending himself against Bill Maher’s lazy accusations on Monday on HuffPost Live on Monday, Brady chose to travel an equally low road. Continue reading »
By Guest Contributor Jha; originally published at Silver Goggles
So some of you readers have discovered my Tumblr Ask Box is available for Anonymous questions. I don’t respond to every single one if they don’t ask a question specifically, but I do try to answer questions as much as possible.
Today I got this question:
Hi, I hope I’m not bothering, but I need advice, in regards to writing and race, and I hope it’s alright to ask! My white friend and I are trying to write a steampunk novel and she’s failing so bad at race issues. She’s the white liberal – racism is bad people doing bad things (but always redeemable once they ~understand~!), racism is caused by stupid people, always look forward never address the past grievances, interracial marriage solves everything! It’s so frustrating.
I’m afraid of correcting her because I don’t want to hurt her feelings, and afraid that she’ll see me as “one of those POC” and hate me. I’ve tried to get her to read your steampunk blog (which I love and thank for its existence!), but she is…weird about it. I know that at this point our friendship is suspect, but she is someone I love dearly and I can’t help it. And I’ve put so much effort into this project, I don’t want to give up now. Is it at the point where I should let her be, or is there something I can do to approach this topic? Thank you so much, sorry for the length. Have a good day!
It is an unfortunate state of affairs when you have to ask people on the internet for advice on how to deal with racists on such an intimate basis. We all know people like this. Hell, I’ve been that colorblind liberal! How does one deal with that kind of person? I don’t have all the answers, not having all the details, so here’s my general tack on the situation:
Firstly, you have my deepest sympathies. This is where it’s clear that it’s the people closest to you who cannot be trusted sometimes.
Secondly, you need to ask yourself if you really need her input on this novel, or if there is someone else you can collaborate with without so many issues.
Thirdly, if the answer is, yes, you need her, you need to ask yourself what your boundaries are: what can you continue to tolerate from her? What will you continue to tolerate from her?
Then lay out your boundaries. Sit down with her and have a firm talk about it. Tell her to read my blog and stop being weird about it, or else it will damage your trust level and raise your anxieties about this project.
Because as much as you are afraid of hurting your feelings? It’s also really clear that she’s continuously hurting yours. If you keep letting this continue, it will irrevocably destroy your friendship because you will feel constantly fatigued at having to deal with her racism.
You need to be honest with her about the fact that her racism, which is getting to the point where it’s just flagrant ignorance and dismissal of PoC perspectives and no longer microaggressive, is hurting you, and you don’t want this friendship to die.
You don’t have to give up on this project; in fact, it sounds to me that the final result will be a lot stronger and more powerful without her racism tainting its process.
If she flounces, you will know where you ever stood in her esteem.
Good luck! There are other folk out there willing to help you along if you need it.
If you were one of those colorblind liberals in recent times, what made you think differently about PoC’s struggle? If you’re a PoC who has one of these friends, what did you do, or would have done differently?
By Guest Contributor Andreana Clay; originally published at Queer Black Feminist
I’ve watched the video for Janelle Monáe’s new song, “Q.U.E.E.N “(featuring Erykah Badu), just under a hundred times in the last 24 hours. Um, really. It’s on a loop. When I’m not 
watching it, I’ve been streaming it online, posting it online, and downloading the single. Then I spent a good 10 minutes telling my musical soulmate friend Holly about it this afternoon on the phone. This is all par for the course when I like a song and here’s why:
Like other feminists, songs like these by Black women stop me in my tracks and make me take notice (maybe you could tell that already). See, right now I’m standing in the BART station twerking as I type and wait for the train. Can’t help it. Serious. Believe, I’m twerking because the drums are so tight but, more so, because almost every single lyric makes my bones shake.
Even if it makes others uncomfortable.
(I will love who I am)
What I like most about the song are the questions that Monáe, who says she knows what it’s like to feel like the other, asks throughout the song; often starting with “Am I a freak?” As in,
Am I a freak for dancing round?
Am I a freak for getting down?
Am I a freak cause I love watching Mary?
I’m cutting up
So don’t cut me down
Every once in a while she’ll give answers to her questions: “is it true that we’re all insane? (I just tell them no we ain’t and get down).” But mostly, she leaves it for us to decide. No matter the answer, I will always love freaks–like a real deep love–so just the question pulls me into the song. And not a freak as in, “Let your freak flag fly because nobody understands me,” Gaga-style; but more a freak in the sense of blending past and present, funk and protest, which many of us have long embodied.
Some have begun to speculate that this song may be about her (queer) sexuality, which may be true, and that’s ok. But, I’m more interested in the ways her freak status is about weaving in a politic that is specific to this generation, her generation, our (hip-hop) generation(s). This is most exemplified in the rap lyrics at the end of the song. Some surprise as in, ”I’m tired of Marvin asking me ‘What’s Going On;” while others challenge ”Categorize me, I defy every label;” and my favorite–as a Missouri girl with roots deep–stays grounded, ”Gimme me back my pyramid, I’m tryna free Kansas City.” Those lyrics, that (brown girl) insurgency explored through a simultaneous connection and refusal to be pinned down are indicative of the margins many of us have have been relegated to. Have celebrated in. Created alliances through. Where we’ve landed and where our true possibilities lie. As Lorde states, Monáe gives a nod to ”those of us who stand outside the circle of this society’s definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference.” Whether it’s because of our sexuality, our political stances, our backgrounds, or our hairstyle, what we have forged on our bodies and in our collaborations are the tools, the communities we depend on. Not throwing out one piece in favor of or deference to another.
And this is also evident in the sonic flow from Monáe to Badu without missing a beat. The change in pace and music refer back to Baduizm with lyrics that build on the themes of qwerk, solidarity, and what Shana Redmond refers to as “a sound/sight corpus of black feminist knowledges that take advantage of social movement methods” (Redmond 2011: 406) As Badu sings,
Shake til the break of dawn
Don’t mean a thing, so duh
I can’t take it no more
Baby, we in tuxedo groove
Monáe and E. Badu
Crazy in the black and white
We got the drums so tight
Baby, here comes the freedom song
Too strong we moving on
Dance ’til the break of dawn
Don’t mean a thing, so duh
I can’t take it no more
Baby, we in tuxedo groove
Monae and E. Badu
Crazy in the black and white
We got the drums so tight
Baby, here comes the freedom song
Too strong we moving on
Complete lyrics:http://www.directlyrics.com/janelle-monae-queen-lyrics.html
Um. Love.
Love. In particular, I love the displays of solidarity: the love of music, the tight drums. As much as I also love the difference in style, presentation, age, and cadence. And I especially love love love how it’s all brought back together by the unifying “the booty don’t lie.”Reminding us that this blend is the (Afro)future for Black girls in the margins.
So I ask and end with another Monáe question:
“Electric Ladies, will you sleep? Or will you preach?”
In the meantime, for your pleasure:
The Octavia Butler Book Club
(Click the book for the latest conversation) Feminism for Real – Jessica, Latoya, Andrea
Yes Means Yes – Latoya
Sex Ed and Youth – Jessica
OMLN
