There is way too much awesome in this piece about K-pop stars from Ree at Seoulbeats:

2NE1 has always been somewhat the ‘black sheep’ of the girl group family. Where Wonder Girls are like the independent, chic, college-going older sister, SNSD is the preppy popular freshman cheerleader sister who gets all the guys, and 2NE1 is the rebellious middle sister who knees the guys in the balls if they ever decide to screw with her. And 4Minute would be that neglected problem-child youngest sister who goes out with fifty guys a month and gets scolded by the parents everyday– when really, all they actually want is affection and love.

If K-Pop was ‘Ten Things I Hate About You‘, SNSD would be Bianca, and 2NE1 would be Kat. You know, Kat– the one who has the tough girl exterior and rams into other people’s cars. But you know what, most people tended to like Kat better, because Kat was cool, Kat was different. And I could only imagine how disgruntled the audience would be if the movie ended with Kat doing a 180 and kissing puppies and moving into a fluorescent pink house. Just to make Patrick fall in love with her or something. Well, this is exactly what’s happening to 2NE1. Japan is Patrick. And I am the disgruntled audience.

In other K-pop news, The Grand Narrative posts an interesting musing on Korean pin-up girls. The GN also posts a link to Soompi, which discusses the controversy over an adaptation of one of my all time favorite manga series, Kimi Wa Petto. The Korean Men’s Association believes the premise (where a woman essentially adopts a stray ballet dancer as her pet – but treats him like a dog, literally) is demeaning to men. Which to me is fascinating – the whole series is an exploration of gender roles, societal expectations, with some compelling commentary on what “the perfect man” actually means. No idea what they actually did with the film, but if it follows the Japanese versions , they may want to see it before knocking the set-up.

Coates says it all on Cain:

Herman Cain has spent the past year peddling a thin tax policy, fumbling the names of foreign countries, and extolling his love of cornbread. Now, today, he stands accused of crudely fondling a white woman. Surely this is someone’s portrait of blackness, but not anyone who would feel at home in Harlem.

Via Sojo’s Trumpet, here’s a really cool project on Mapping Global Stereotypes by Yanko Tsvetkov. (Peep the country in Africa renamed “Madonnaland.”)

Is it unconstitutional to sentence minors to life without parole? SCOTUS debates these cases:

In the Alabama case, Evan James Miller was convicted of killing a neighbor in a trailer park, the Country Life Trailer Court near the small town of Speake in the rural, north-central part of the state. In July 2003, Miller and another youth had been drinking with Miller’s 52-year-0ld neighbor, Cole Cannon, when a fight broke out. Miller was later convicted of beating Cannon so severely that he could not get up from the floor, and died of inhaling smoke after Miller had set fire to the trailer, apparently to cover up evidence of the crime.

In the Arkansas case, Kuntrell Jackson, who had grown up in crime-ridden housing projects in Blytheville, decided in November 1999, along with two other boys, to rob a local video store. The two boys, older than Kuntrell, went into the Movie Magic store, and one of those two allegedly shot and killed the clerk, Laurie Troup, after she had refused a demand for money. Kuntrell had entered the store after the other two boys, and claimed that his only role was to be a lookout; after the shooting, the three fled without taking any money.

Is Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter an exploration of death – or an examination of Western ideals? Omar Shaukat holds court at KABOBFest.

Here’s a thought provoking vid checking out the connection between racism and deaths on the US-Mexico border.(Via Latino Like Me)

Raquel Z. Rivera posts a working paper on “Perreo & Power: Explicit Sexuality in Reggaeton Dance”.

What do Latinos want?Mayonesa! .

Wondering who is Occupying Everything? Check out the first personal narratives from folks in San Jose. Occupy Wall Street tries to figure out what to do with the growing sexual assault problems. Betsy Leondar-Wright at Classism Exposed makes a compelling argument for Occupy to target specific actions for societal change. And progressive ideals are put to the test as a growing number of homeless people find companionship, safety, and food within the Occupy Movements.

Al Jazeera launches Africa Investigates. In their words:

In a world first, this hard-hitting project gives some of Africa’s best journalists the opportunity to pursue high-level investigative targets across the continent – using their unique perspective and local knowledge to put corruption, exploitation and abuse under the spotlight.

All too often in the past, African reporters have not been able to pursue wrongdoing because it involves powerful figures who wield undue influence over local media – financial, corporate or political – or because it is simply too dangerous. Investigative journalism is a perilous profession in many African nations, where intimidation, beatings, imprisonment and death threats can be an occupational hazard. As a result they have often had to sit idly by while Africa’s story has been told by Western correspondents, “parachuted in” for the purpose, who reinforce stereotypical views about African peoples and their supposed inability to face up to and solve their own problems.

Now, determined to tell their own story, Africa Investigates reporters will correct that impression.

Bianca Laureno at VivrLatino reports on The Afro-Latin@s Now! Conference Plenary:

The first question that was posed to the panelist were “why is there this interest in Black Latin@s at this time?” Responses included an increased interest in Blackness, the diaspora. Torres-Saillant shared that when he was growing up Blackness was something one had to apologize for in the Dominican Republic. Rosario Jackson shared that with the browning of the US being more local yet there is still a crisis which she believes may lead to more creative opportunity. Laurent-Perrault mentioned the term “coyuntura” and how there is an increase in energy within particular communities that is leading to this attention. Bonilla-Silva shared that we are living in a “new racial order” which is how the US is moving towards a more Latin Americanist perspective on race, which he believes is NOT a good thing. He states we, in the US, are living in a “multi-racial white supremacist regime” and that there is a three point racial consciousness for Black Latin@s which includes: being racially Black, being ethnically Latino and being US citizens as well.

A Belgian judicial adviser thinks that TinTin in the Congo is not racist, based on the plot, not the images.

Aymar explains Why Americans Will Ruin British Teen Shows.

The Root featured a stellar piece by Kellee Terrell on being Black and Transgender, documenting high rates of poverty, legally sanctioned employment discrimination, elevated rates of homelessness and harassment, and a prevelance of sexual and physical assualt. The report also noted high rates of attempted suicide, which are disturbing, but not suprising given our climate of hatred.

Reader C points us toward this Atlanta-Journal Constitution article on the whiteness of Occupy Atlanta, and how the movement there reflects racial tension in the larger movement. Related is this great piece from Kung Li at Colorlines on Atlanta’s history with social justice movements.

Speaking of OWS, we have this great piece from Kevin Alvarez on Why Occupy Wall Street should matter to POC; Mike at Rortybomb parses the data and stories being shown on the We Are the 99% Tumblr; and reports on how Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Baltimore are dealing with reports of sexual assaults in the encampments.

Clutch Mag has a fascinating four part series on coping with infidelity. For readers who liked Love, Anonymously, that link is for you. There’s even an interesting racial twist.

Hyphen posts a lovely deepthink on how to talk about North Korea, particularly with all the competing narratives at play, from Sylvie Kim.

There’s a fascinating conversation in the comments at Jezebel about Sarah Silverman’s new special “Live from Niggerhead: Stripping the Paint Off Good Ol’ Fashioned Racism” and the sticky racial politics of comedy.

Some good news on the Hollywood development front. Queen Latifah’s Flavor Unit is backing a feature film called Percentage, a drug drama; Shonda Rhimes sells a ton of new shows; Lee Daniels is doing a series with Showtime based on the Ball subculture in NYC, with the last milestone exploration being Paris is Burning.

Tigerbeatdown had three stand out pieces. Two from Flavia, one exploring how multinational corporations are turning anti-immigrant sentiments into cash and her declaration that her feminism “will be intersectional or it will be bullshit.” Sady provides an interesting musing on class.

NPR looks at the change in attitudes around interracial marriage.

Interesting considering our previous convos on terms and appropriation: Johnny Depp likens being photographed to being raped. Great analysis at the Awl. (Aside: I used to do string work for a tabloid – while I wouldn’t say it’s like being raped, but it is definitely an assault – I was on the side behind the photogs and it was still really painful to watch happen. And that was at a sanctioned press event. I can’t imagine what this is like day in and day out. I don’t think that is similar to rape. However, I do know that I better not hear a single objection to Depp’s analogy from so-called feminists who argued in favor of the Slutwalk sign. Because yes, it’s the same idea – that you have the right to appropriate an experience that has not applied to you because you think it makes your point stronger.)

Yep, I’m stepping out of my Sexual Correspondent role for a hot minute.  My other job at the R is to help in compiling the Links Round-up you see here almost every day. 

I just want to give a big bouquet of gratitude to everyone who contributes to and comments on them. I want to give a special shout-out to Carleandria, who not only gives us quality links on the daily at delicious but also provides great international links.  Also special thanks to Rob Schmidt, InfodivaMLIS415, molecularshyness, Restructure!, ananser, Jasmine, and Just Checking, who also pass along fantastic links to us.  If you want to contribute links and story ideas, click here.

I also want to give love the R crew, who share the duties, especially to Latoya and Thea, who taught me everything I know about linking.   

Photo credit: Be Exquisite

The OhioDaily blog reports on a “rogue” dispatcher from the North Canton Police who recently sent out a racist e-mail from her work account. Dispatcher Anita Malachowski forwarded this message:

“New “Air Force One” Tail Number and yes, please forgive me, I’m really sorry, I really, really tried not to laugh, but …………………..!”

Attached to the e-mail was an Photoshopped image of Air Force one with NI66ER written on the plane’s tail.

From CNN.com:

An African-American man has pleaded guilty after being accused of impersonating a white supremacist in a fictitious Facebook account to make death threats against an African-American university student. [...]

Hart admitted creating the fictitious account in November, pretending to be a white supremacist outraged by the election of Barack Obama as the nation’s first African-American president, the statement said.

He then transmitted a death threat via Facebook to an African-American student at Nicholls State University in Louisiana, saying he wanted to kill African-Americans because of Obama’s election, according to the statement.

A court document provided by the U.S. attorney’s office said Hart told an FBI interviewer that he intended the threat to be a prank “to get a reaction.”

From the LA Times:

I’d heard of Klan quilts, though they’re surprisingly uncommon — particularly considering that the wives and daughters of “Kluxers” during the early 20th century often got together to socialize and support the cause.

The Michigan State University Museum, I knew, had accepted the gift of a Klan quilt several years ago. According to the donor, his grandfather had won it at a raffle held at a KKK meeting. The white fabric in the blue and white quilt, he said, was recycled Klan sheets, and attendees at the meeting where it was raffled had paid 10 cents each to have their names stitched on the fabric.

I was eager to see what promised to be a fascinating — if disturbing — historical artifact, so one afternoon this spring I met the teacher, Linda Brant, at her school, and we laid out a red, white and blue quilt on a large table. The quilt’s 18 primary blocks each carried a fiery-red cross surrounded by white and blue squares in what quilters call a nine-patch pattern. Each small blue and white square of fabric had meticulous white stitches that formed an “X,” bringing to mind the Confederate flag. The quilt could easily have been seen as simply having a Christian theme. But the story Linda told — along with the bright red crosses often used in Klan imagery — suggested otherwise.

Quilters have longed used their skills in the service of political, social and religious affiliations. Quilts have celebrated sororities and garden clubs; they’ve memorialized AIDS victims and honored subjects of the Tuskegee Experiment. And there was this quilt, celebrating the chilling Klan practice of burning crosses at outdoor meetings or near the homes of those the group wanted to intimidate.

Over the last few decades, I have conducted research on and taught about the role the KKK played in American history. I have seen and handled Klan ephemera before, and it can be unsettling. But seeing this quilt unfolded by the hands of woman who rallied support for Hurricane Katrina victims and who was a staunch supporter of Barack Obama’s candidacy did not unduly disturb me. My thoughts focused on how useful the quilt would be in teaching about the contrasts and connections between early 20th century and early 21st century racial mores. Later, when I took it to a black photographer to document it, we both found it troubling. But that first time, hearing Brant’s candid recollection of her family’s past, my emotions took a back seat to my academic interest.

(Thanks to reader Anna for all the tips!)

The description?

“For their RS&A chess set commission, the Chapman Brothers chose to create a game played by postapocalyptic adolescents, the one side white with Arian haircuts and the other side black with Afro hair. The set is displayed in its own handcrafted games box, the board inlaid with white and black double-headed skull and crossbones.”

Fatemeh sends in the news that Representative Keith Ellison was arrested in a Darfur protest:

Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota and four other members of Congress were arrested Monday [April 28th] in front of the Sudanese Embassy in Washington as they protested the expulsion of aid groups in Darfur.

It was an apparently unprecedented act by a member of Minnesota’s congressional delegation and somewhat out of character for Ellison, a Democrat who has generally avoided controversy since he arrived in Congress, attracting international attention as its first Muslim member.

Minnesota Republican Party officials, while saying they respect Ellison’s advocacy against genocide in Darfur, criticized his decision to get arrested as a “publicity stunt unbecoming of the office he holds.”

Keeping in tradition of the racist sock, we now have a racist camera:

We got our Mom a new Nikon S630 digital camera for Mother’s Day and I was playing with it during the Angels game we were at on Sunday.

As I was taking pictures of my family, it kept asking “Did someone blink?” even though our eyes were always open.

(Thanks to reader Mandy for sending this in!)

Piecing the story together, it seems that the tabloid entrapped the family by posing as an Arab couple (being Arab increases the pathology, get it?), and offered to adopt Rubina and pay $300,000 to the family. This exchange took place via a translator since Rubina’s father doesn’t actually speak English. Rubina’s parents are divorced and the relationship between her parents is far from cordial. The mother wants custody of her daughter, the papers say after the film came out, but it could be an ongoing conflict, we don’t know.

There are a couple of interesting things in this story, firstly everyone is outraged at the father for considering adoption. This is hardly unusual, poor people have often given up their kids up to foster care for a time (the example of filmmaker Stan Brakhage comes to mind, he was in an orphanage for a while), and in India, its not unusual for kids to grow up in places other than their parents house – I lived with my aunt for a while, and my brother grew up at my grandparents place. The ideal of the soccer mom based nuclear family is quite recent. Yes, I get it, the proposed exchange of money is what really bothers people and everyone is sickened by the avariciousness of the family. Now if most people look into their family histories, they’re sure to find that uncle who took everything the other siblings should have inherited a fair share of. Yes, its terrible that people are greedy and criminal, but its hardly the province of the poor. So I wish people would take their outrage to where it belongs – a grossly unjust world where some countries are far richer than they deserve to be, and some people have the luxury of taking the moral high ground without every having to interact with the poor.

Guanabee – Dallas Morning News

The problem is not that Woolley fails to use statistical date or examples beyond the existence of Spanish-language Wal-Marts in her rebuttal… it’s the fact that her column is a rebuttal, referring directly to Linda Chavez’s column:

If, as Linda Chavez seems to think, the intent of those who come to America illegally is simply to raise a family, send the kids to college and assimilate into American society, then where’s the problem? The problem is – that’s just simply not the case.

This doesn’t create a conversation or dialogue about the topic, nor does it seem fair that the Dallas Morning News’ editors chose which columnist would have the privilege of getting the “last word.” So was the purpose of running both articles to present opposing views on the lives of illegal immigrants… or simply to refute Linda Chavez’s points?

Comment is Free – Tamils Have Nowhere to Turn (via Anna)

The Tamils have suffered terribly both at the hands of the LTTE and successive Sinhala-dominated governments. Reconciliation with them will take a government that has greater reverence for secularism than the present one. Sri Lankans have become inured to the pervasive Sinhala-supremacist racism and religious bigotry that the present government has brought to Sri Lanka.

It is this racism and bigotry more than any passionate belief in the LTTE that has now pushed a desperate Tamil community towards the LTTE.

Indeed, it is an insult to the Tamil people that all they have to represent their cause for emancipation are the Tamil Tigers. A group that not only systematically eliminated the political leadership of the Sri Lankan Tamils but wiped out the entire moderate Sinhala leadership and prevented Tamils from voting in elections.

Siditty – The Fear of Minority Rule

Once a few years back, me and the husband were talking about race, and I was rallying against the white power structure as per usual, and he responded with, if blacks were ruling, they would do the same things whites do and did. I then proceeded to curse him out and get silent on him, thinking that is the most racist thing he has ever said to me. I still think it is. The assumption is if whites lose their power, minorities, blacks in particular set out the revenge on whites. Call this racist, but my mother once said that blacks could never get to the level of cruel that whites did to us in America. We could never treat them as livestock, we couldn’t rape them and then sell the offspring to someone else to further exploit, we couldn’t see them as less intelligent, ignorant, and “beneath us”. I think to an extent this is true.

Not the cruel part, but the fact that if a minority “rule” was ever to take place we simply couldn’t do that because of the existing history as it stands now. The white power structure is in place, and the stays in the minds of people. Even if the white majority were to go away, no one is going to question white people’s intelligence as a group because the level of intelligence is based upon the white power structure. Minorities use these very tests to determine our own intelligence. No one is going to equate them with being a cow, chicken, or donkey, because we know that to not be the case. Even with more minorities in the country, overwhelmingly white people have positions of power, be it political, corporate, and financial. Whites run it, they have the money, they have the power. They are at an advantage. Am I saying all white folks are rich and in power. No. What I do believe is that those in power, they continue to relate and put people in power who look like themselves, which means if they hold power now, they will continue to hold power.

Newsweek – Raising Katie (via anitra_larae)

As a black father and adopted white daughter, Mark Riding and Katie O’Dea-Smith are a sight at best surprising, and at worst so perplexing that people feel compelled to respond. Like the time at a Pocono Mountains flea market when Riding scolded Katie, attracting so many sharp glares that he and his wife, Terri, 37, and also African-American, thought “we might be lynched.” And the time when well-intentioned shoppers followed Mark and Katie out of the mall to make sure she wasn’t being kidnapped. Or when would-be heroes come up to Katie in the cereal aisle and ask, “Are you OK?”—even though Terri is standing right there.

Is it racism? The Ridings tend to think so, and it’s hard to blame them.

Editor & Publisher – Minority Journos: Lack of Diversity a Cause of Newspaper Industry’s Crisis (via Fatemeh)

“Years of progress were erased, and now newsrooms are moving in the opposite direction from the demographic composition of the communities they serve,” said Seattle Times reporter Sharon Chan, president of the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA).

The leaders of associations representing black, Hispanic, Asian American and Native American journalists said they well understand that newspaper employment is shrinking. But they said they are alarmed about numbers showing minority newsroom employment falling faster — and that the idea of employing newsrooms that reflect the ethnic and racial diversity has been a principal victim of industry cutbacks.

LA Times – High School Exit Exam Hinders Female and Non White Students, Study Says (via Rob Schmidt)

California’s high school exit exam is keeping disproportionate numbers of girls and non-whites from graduating, even when they are just as capable as white boys, according to a study released Tuesday. It also found that the exam, which became a graduation requirement in 2007, has “had no positive effect on student achievement.”

The study by researchers at Stanford University and UC Davis concluded that girls and non-whites were probably failing the exit exam more often than expected because of what is known as “stereotype threat,” a theory in social psychology that holds, essentially, that negative stereotypes can be self-fulfilling. In this case, researcher Sean Reardon said, girls and students of color may be tripped up by the expectation that they cannot do as well as white boys.

Here’s the forum thread. (via Black Enterprise)

Geist Magazine has an interesting piece on wealth stratification and social status at the border (via Utne):

This Berlin Wall for the twenty-first century reflects the ironic era of its construction. Built to protect a territory defined in terms of culture rather than ideology, it is breached thousands of times a day by cleaning ladies and manual labourers who turn its meaning on its head. Indeed, the United States government encourages certain categories of people to ignore the border. In this, as in other areas, the economics of globalization heightens social stratification. Mexicans who live close to the border can receive a visa that authorizes them to work in U.S. border towns but forbids them from penetrating deeper into the U.S. or residing there. Many Mexicans take advantage of this system to travel at dawn every day to San Diego, where they clean houses or work in gardens. Unlike millions of other poor Mexicans—those who risk their lives trying to cross The Wall—these workers earn cash dollars and pay taxes to neither the U.S. nor Mexico. Professionals like Dr. Portillo, who do pay taxes, can apply for a sentri (Secure Electronic Network for Travellers’ Rapid Inspection) pass for their car windshields. This allows them to take the express lane at the border, sweeping past the two-hour lineup of cars waiting to reach U.S. Immigration, with no questions asked.

Melissa Harris-Lacewell is at The Kitchen Table sharing her Reflections from South Africa, Installment # 2:

These moments have pushed me to think more carefully about what black Americans are exporting to the rest of the African world and African Diaspora.

Political struggles of black Americans have been inspirational for anti-colonial and anti-Apartheid movements here on the continent, and our ability to voice discontent against continuing racial inequality is an important model of political agency. But, it is stunning to hear that this discontent may create the impression that the United States is a harsher racial environment than post-Apartheid South Africa.

It is powerful and wonderful to hear the music of my young adulthood pumping in the middle of the night in a South African club. (Girl, Mos Def was even on my flight here from JFK airport) I can remember when many believed that hip hop would not survive a decade; now it is the global cultural expression of urban youth. But my enjoyment of hip hop’s cosmopolitan reach is tempered by the anxiety I have about hearing so many young, black South Africans grooving to the N-word.

Alternet posts a collection of questions (originally compiled by New American Media) for the President from various community based news sources:

What specifically will be done in this first year of your administration to address the disparities in education for black students, such as higher dropout rates and lower college enrollment rates? Also, what will be done to ensure these students in particular are fluent in the technology needed to succeed in a modern, global economy?

-Annie Gldzhyan, TheLoop21.com

What is tribal sovereignty? It is the basis for all Indian tribes and their relationship with the U.S government, so we want to know how President Obama’s views sovereignty.

-Duane A. Beyal, The Navajo Times

One of America’s dirtiest secrets is its hunger problem. There are millions of Americans who suffer from hunger and they are not just the homeless. Other than increasing money for food stamps, how do you plan to tackle hunger in this country?

-James Wright,Washington Afro

Marisol is busy being awesome:

I’m on a panel entitled “Queer Intimacies in Hip Hop and Reggaeton” with Elliott Hunter Powell and Laurence Ralph, and Gayatri Gopinath who will be responding and moderating.

Peep the panel abstract:

The papers in this panel address the rich and vibrant queer relationality and intimacies that exist within hip hop and reggaeton. Dominant discourses construct an image of hip hop and reggaeton that depict these genres as spaces of unabashed homophobia and misogyny. In attempting to address the ways in which misogyny functions in hip hop and reggaeton, scholars have largely failed to interrogate heterosexism and privilege in their critiques of these genres. Furthermore, when queerness and queer desire are made visible, it is typically through the problematic representations of DL/Homo Thug identity and practices. The panelists seek to expand the discussion of queerness in hip hop and reggaeton by exploring spaces and performances that on the surface seem to exude contradictory ways of being and embodiment, but actually enable the development of queer(ed) intimacies. We use queer not only to describe same sex relationships, pleasures, and desires, but also to describe disruptions to normative practices and structures. Marisol LeBrón focuses on reggaetonera and hindi-vocalist Deevani as a case study for examining the complicated roots/routes of “socio-sonic circuitry” and affinity that operate in reggaeton. Placing Gujarati American vocalist Raje Shwari at the center hip hop’s recent engagement with South Asian music and artists, Elliott Powell explores the ways in which a turn to the sonic opens up possibilities for South Asian female queer desire and subjectivity in this post 9/11 era. Finally, Laurence Ralph examines the epistemology of the closet in hip hop and forms of homosocial intimacies among rappers.

My paper has changed quite a bit from when I submitted the abstract, so while in the larger paper I do discuss Deevani, in this conference paper I will be looking at how bhangraton queers reggaeton by disrupting the normative logic of cultural nationalism that surfaced during 2005-2006 at the height to reggaeton’s boom.

Sepia Mutiny put Rush on blast for the continuation of an ignorant trend:

RUSH: It might. No question about it. But the whole thing about outsourcing, even President Obama slipped up. I love this, ‘cause the teleprompter, that teleprompter sometimes sneaks things in there that are not in Obama’s best interests to say, but the teleprompter nevertheless makes him say them. Obama got a call during his virtual town meeting about outsourcing jobs, he said, “Look, those jobs aren’t coming back.” There’s a reason they aren’t coming back. They’re outsourced for a reason, an economic reason, and they’re not coming back. If you’re sitting out waiting for a job that’s now being done by a slumdog in India, and you’re waiting for that job to be canceled, for the slumdog to be thrown out of work, and you to get the job, it ain’t going to happen. It’s not the way economics works. Even Obama’s teleprompter got him to admit that. (link)

The odd thing is, I agree roughly with what Rush Limbaugh is saying about some outsourced jobs. He has Obama all wrong, of course (see an excerpt of Obama’s Virtual Town Hall Meeting below). The real problem here is the contemptuous way he’s throwing around the word “slumdog.” But then, contempt is Rush Limbaugh’s only working emotion.

I’m not going to start a letter-writing campaign or a boycott, or anything; there’s no point tilting at this particular “Windbagmill.” But it still needs to be said: Rush, for your information, many of the jobs that have been outsourced in recent years involve high levels of skill and training. The people who do them are not “slumdogs”; they are professionals.

New America Media asks “Can Black Men Survive Falling U.S. Economy?”

A recent study indicates that of the major ethnic groups impacted by unemployment during the current U.S. recession, Black men have experienced the greatest job losses since the crisis officially began in November 2007.

“What’s missing from national media coverage of this recession is plainly a great deal of dishonesty about who’s losing their jobs. This is overwhelmingly a blue collar, retail sales, low level recession,” said Andrew Sum, professor of economics and director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston, Mass., which published the study.

I never, ever, ever wanted to bring up Sarah Palin ever again post-election. I don’t want to hear from her, talk about her, NOTHING. But damn it, this needs to be repeated:

In March, Palin nominated Wayne Anthony Ross for attorney general. Ross, a colorful far-right lawyer and longtime Palin ally who sports his initials, W.A.R., on his Hummer’s vanity plates, was once considered a shoo-in for confirmation. However, his nomination was thrown into grave peril when his opponents presented evidence that he called homosexuals “degenerates,” leveled invective against an African-American student offended by a statue of a Klansman, vowed to undermine the sovereignty of Native American tribes, and allegedly defended men who rape their wives. According to two sources close to the confirmation hearings, Palin may ask Ross to withdraw before his appointment comes to a vote.

Off-Topic but Worth a Look

Andrea on Amazon Fail:

So, I’m sure everyone has heard by now, but Amazon has recently made the decision to remove the sales rankings of so-called “adult” books in order to ensure that they don’t show up in some searches (like the default search) and bestseller lists.

Their rationale? The censoring books primarily written by and for queer people (and, in the case of erotica, some non-queer women as well) was done “[i]n consideration of our entire customer base”:

“In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude “adult” material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.”

Just to be clear, the criteria for the “adult” material that they’re using is pretty damn sketchy:

But as an online petition points out the following publications remain on the sales ranking system:

-Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds by Chronicle Books (pictures of over 600 naked women)
–Rosemary Rogers’ Sweet Savage Love” (explicit heterosexual romance);
–Kathleen Woodiwiss’ The Wolf and the Dove (explicit heterosexual romance);
–Bertrice Smal’s Skye o’Malley which are all explicit heterosexual romances
–and Alan Moore’s Lost Girls (which is a very explicit sexual graphic novel)

while the following LGBT books have been removed:

–Radclyffe Hill’s classic novel about lesbians in Victorian times, The Well of Loneliness, and which contains not one sentence of sexual description;
–Mark R Probst’s YA novel The Filly about a young man in the wild West discovering that he’s gay (gay romance, no sex);
–Charlie Cochrane’s Lessons in Love (gay romance with no sex);
–The Dictionary of Homophobia: A Global History of Gay & Lesbian Experience, edited by Louis-George Tin (non-fiction, history and social issues);
–and Homophobia: A History by Bryan Fone (non-fiction, focus on history and the forms prejudice against homosexuality has taken over the years).

Links near the end of the post.

Salon has an interesting piece on feminism, class, and Helen Gurley Brown:

One reason for this omission, Scanlon believes, is social class; Brown spoke to and for aspiring secretaries and other working women who shared neither the background nor the desires of college-educated movement feminists. Brown may look like a social X-ray, but she grew up in Little Rock, Ark. (also the hometown of Lorelei Lee, “just a little girl from Little Rock”), the daughter of a promising local politician who died in an elevator accident when Helen was 10. In the midst of the Great Depression, she was raised by an intermittently depressed single mother and helped care for a sister stricken by polio. According to Brown, her adolescence was circumscribed by poverty and average looks (she had acne), although Scanlon finds evidence that even in high school Brown had plenty of friends and the kind of social success (club presidencies, class valedictorian, etc.) that comes from sustained effort. She would later coin the term “mouseburger” to describe herself: average in most respects, but willing to “work like a wharf-rat” to better herself. [...]

Underlying all of the tension between Brown and other feminist leaders was, Scanlon believes, a drumbeat of unacknowledged class prejudice. Friedan and Steinem were graduates of Smith, a Seven Sisters college, and their constituencies, at least initially, were middle-class housewives and college graduates looking for more meaningful lives and work. Brown’s designated readers were secretaries, receptionists and file clerks working to survive and hopeful of getting ahead so they could sample the very luxuries — pretty clothes, cosmetics, sex (and possibly marriage) with generous, professional men — from which Friedan and Steinem had become alienated. When a New York Times article praising Steinem dismissed the Cosmo Girl as “little more than a Playboy bunny with a clerical job,” Brown wrote in to say that there was nothing wrong with being a Playboy bunny (or, by implication, holding a clerical job). It wasn’t always clear where scorn for Cosmopolitan’s signature flashy style left off and contempt for the pink-collar vulgarity of its readers began.

WireTap – Ask a Sex Goddess: How Do I Address Privilege with My White Partner?

I am a brown-skinned woman of color, and I have been dating a white man for almost 8 years. Our different ethnicities have never really been a problem, but lately I have been noticing a disparity in the way we see each other that really bothers me. We went to college together, and after we graduated, I worked really hard, long hours with a number of different non-profits, and because of that I now have a successful career as a consultant. My partner, on the other hand, worked as a bartender for 2 years. When he decided he did want to work at a non-profit, he got the first job he applied for, and within a year he received a promotion.

And yet, when we argue, he accuses me of always getting what I want. He says that everything comes so easily to me, that I don’t have to try. And yet he clearly has more social privilege than I do. He doesn’t see how hard I work because he doesn’t have to work hard. And because I feel that this is very much about our backgrounds, I don’t know how to address the issue. How do I have this conversation with him? How do I help him see this disparity?

Racewire – The Numbers Game

Counting people is harder than it looks. The 2010 census is morphing from sociological project into a political one: conservatives are crowing about the dangers of tallying “illegals,” and activists are seeking policy changes to guard against undercounting.

Immigrant advocates are leveraging the threat of an undercount to press for immigration reforms, warning that aggressive crackdowns drive undocumented immigrants further underground. An estimated 3 percent of the Latino population was undercounted in the 2000 census.

The Women’s Media Center – Intervale Green Apartments: Green, Affordable—and for Low-Income Women

By 2004 Nancy Biberman believed it was the right time to take on another daring venture. This time it would be a new green low-income apartment building with beautiful amenities.

Welcome to Intervale Green Apartments. Quietly but clearly it engages in a dialogue with the old psychology and social policies that say the poor don’t need beauty—just basics. But Biberman understands that beautiful places change people’s attitudes, reduce stress, improve productivity, and also give people hope.

Examiner.com – Can Pilates Help Reduce Cellulite?

Moreover, studies have shown that caucasian women are more susceptible to cellulite development, whereas African American and Asian women are less susceptible. Just as darker skin tones — those with more melanin — display a stronger resistance to UV rays, so to do darker skin tones show more resistance to cellulite development. As the levels of melanin, and thus skin tones, can vary greatly among caucasians, an individual’s susceptibility to cellulite development will depend on genetic make-up. The more an individual tans naturally, the more melanin in their body, and the more resistant to cellulite development they naturally are. Redheads with blue eyes have the least amount of melanin in their bodies, while African American women with dark eyes have the most.

Sepia Mutiny – We Are Fatter Than We Think We Are

An African-American friend of mine on Facebook recently jubilantly posted a link to this article about a recently-discovered problem with the BMI Index, a number widely used to determine body fat levels — whether people are underweight, healthy, overweight, or obese.

The BMI index was calculated with reference to caucasian body types. But people from different ethnic backgrounds have bodies that might be constructed slightly differently, so one BMI might not accurately determine everyone’s body fat level. [...]

The good news for African Americans and bad news for Asian Indians [in, in short] people who are ethnically “Asian Indian” (desi, South Asian, etc.) are on average approximately six percent more overweight than they previously might have thought.

Washington Monthly – Black and Blue

The violence perpetrated by the P.G. cops is a curious development. Usually, police brutality is framed as a racial issue: Rodney King suffering at the hands of a racist white Los Angeles Police Department or more recently, an unarmed Timothy Thomas, gunned down by a white Cincinnati cop. But in more and more communities, the police doing the brutalizing are African Americans, supervised by African-American police chiefs, and answerable to African-American mayors and city councils. In the case of P.G. County, the brutality is cast against the backdrop of black America’s power base, the largest concentration of the black middle class in the country.

[Latoya's Note - The above article was published in 2001, but I felt like we should bring this one back out, considering the nature of the news being submitted.]

Salon – Oakland Mourns

The four officers’ murders stunned and saddened the broad Bay Area community, but there had been a few discordant notes. There’s long been tension between the Oakland Police and the city’s low-income black community, as in most other big cities. It was inflamed most recently by the New Year’s Day killing of unarmed Oakland resident Oscar Grant, who was shot by BART police, not Oakland cops. Despite this tense background, most Oakland residents of every race and class were horrified by the killings, but there were a few examples of callousness and cruelty. The Associated Press reported that about 20 residents taunted police when they came to retrieve their fallen comrades in East Oakland on Saturday. The irrelevant resistance group Uhuru House even held a poorly attended rally Wednesday to defend Lovelle Mixon and criticize the police who killed him.

Friday was the day the rest of Oakland spoke for itself. Waiting in line to enter the Arena, I found myself next to a bunch of middle-aged and older men and women in motorcycle gear — black leather jackets, badges, leather caps. They looked like respectable, aging Hell’s Angel’s — law-abiding but still formidable. I asked the big, bald-headed, muscular guy next to me what the group was.”We’re the Patriot Guards,” he explained. “It’s a motorcycle group, made up mostly of ex-vets who go to funerals and homecomings of veterans, policemen and firemen.” The big guy’s name was Jay Cobb and he was a law enforcement officer at the Lawrence Livermore Lab. He had known one of the slain cops, Mark Dunakin, had played football with him, and had come with a bunch of his colleagues to pay his respects. He said that on the way in, people were lined up on overpasses showing their support.

Dennetmint – Web 3.0

*Profiling by leveraging existing technology: This was by far the most disturbing. The panelists mentioned there was existing technology already used by law enforcement to capture criminals by recognizing race, gender and many other features. What if this could be leveraged online to direct users to relevant suggestions and material? We are far from being beyond the constructions of race and gender. Why is it so important for demographic questionnaires to further subdivide”‘white” into “white/non-Hispanic” or “Hispanic?” The classification has more to do with U.S. immigration than universal truth; every country defines race differently.

* In a recent example of institutionalizing race, SXSW offered a t-shirt with a white woman listening to her iPod. This was the only t-shirt they sold with any human figure on it, and instead of leaving the skin tone blank, they colored it in with a soft peach. “White” has become the new racelessness.

As far as gender and sex is concerned, which would image recognition be trying to identify? So many problems with gender and sex come from their dichotomies. Many contemporary human rights movements are trying to move beyond that. How might this technology reinforce what we’re trying to leave behind?

Associated Press – North Korea says two US Journalists Will Stand Trial

SEOUL, South Korea — Two American journalists detained at North Korea’s border with China earlier this month will be indicted and tried for illegal entry and hostile acts, Pyongyang’s state-run news agency said Tuesday.

The Korean Central News Agency report did not say when a trial might take place, but said moves to indict the Americans are under way as the investigation continues.

“The illegal entry of U.S. reporters into the DPRK and their suspected hostile acts have been confirmed by evidence and their statements,” the report said, referring to the country by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Euna Lee and Laura Ling, reporters for former Vice President Al Gore’s San Francisco-based Current TV media venture, were detained by North Korean border guards March 17.

Salon – Crime, Punishment…and MTV

[T]he show [T.I.'s Road to Redemption] was also easy viewing because all the episodes are of a piece; show after show it’s “same formula, different troubled teen.” Each episode is structured around the rapper’s (er, MTV producer’s) “four-step process” to adolescent reform, which T.I. recites: 1) sneak up on the wayward youth; 2) show ‘em what they’re doing wrong; 3) show ‘em the likely outcome of said wrong; and 4) inspire change by exhibiting alternative choices.

At the crux of the show’s formula sits a tactic that’s hardly new: the “scared-straight” approach. T.I. takes his young charges to funeral homes, prisons or backyards of bullet-scarred former O.G.s, which usually makes the kids shed a tear and rehearse penitent platitudes. Ever since its ’70s-era inception at Rahway State Prison, after all, the Scared Straight Program has been ready for its close-up: From the 1978 Oscar-winning documentary “Scared Straight!” to the 1999 MTV series of the same name, it has produced many a TV-friendly moment — but little more. Various studies, including one by the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, suggest that Scared Straight-style programs were not just unproductive but counterproductive: Recidivism rates for those who participated in the program proved higher than for those who hadn’t, and Scared Straight-type intervention increased odds of offending by 1.7 percent.

The Village Voice – Another Love TKO: Teens Grapple with Rihanna vs. Chris Brown

[W]e’ve moved into a viral world without boundaries, where more voices are heard, raw and uncensored, because of the anonymity the Web offers. And now, nearly two decades later, the conversation about misogyny among young people, hip-hop culture, and society in general needs to address another very real facet: the hatred of women by women. “By definition, misogyny is about the hatred of women. It’s not gender-specific,” says Morgan, who saw gender-trumping violence when covering the Mike Tyson rape trial for the Voice in ’91. “So there are men who hate women, and other women who hate women.” The teenage girls’ unconditional, sometimes puzzling support of Chris Brown isn’t necessarily misogynistic; their acrimonious contempt for Rihanna—their hatred—is.

One thing is clear: Educators must incorporate the issue of gender violence into the curriculum on a national scale, because many families are finding it difficult to talk about it at home. “Only two states, Texas and Rhode Island, have mandated educational programs around relationship abuse,” says Mendez Berry. “But I think it’s clear that young people really need to learn how to have healthy relationships and how to resolve conflict in a constructive way.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates – These Streets, No Game. Can’t Ball, Don’t Play…

The other thing I learned in the conscious community was the value of critical thinking. The idea was that you live in a world where the Tuskegee experiments actually happened, where the FBI did plot to destroy the Panthers, where J. Edgar Hoover terrorized black leaders from Garvey to Huey Newton. In that vein, you should be skeptical of what you see and hear. This is the perspective of Mos is coming from. (Note the Assata reference.) But here’s the thing–if you really get that message, it ultimately leads you to be critical, not just of the larger white narrative, but of the narrative put forth by those around you.

So here’s the deal–I was was a history major at Howard University. I came to that school believing very much in an Afrocentric view of history. From that perspective, my first semester was just devastating. I had a professor, Dr. Linda Heywood, who specialized in taking on kids like me (the ones who believed ancient Egypt built fighter jets) and forcing us to face facts. She was, of course, a trained historian who was used to debating kids like me, and for every Chancellor Williams or Diop I whipped out, she had a David Brion Davis or a Eugene Genovese.

I couldn’t escape by dismissing her as part of a white plot–she was not just a black woman, but a black woman with a PhD in African History, who was teaching at the most storied black university in the country. I couldn’t attack her street cred, and so I had to engage the argument. I found her infuriating–which led me to take two more classes from her. A buddy of mine recalls the most poignant moment for us under her tutelage. At the end of a particularly debilitating lecture, she looked at us and said, “So with all the evidence I’ve given you, explain to me why blacks are not inferior to whites.”

Hyphen – Women’s History Month Profile: Mary Tape

Anyway, last week I attended a reading of the book that accompanies the exhibition, Asian American Art: A History, 1850-1970, by two of the book’s brilliant editors, SFSU art professor Mark Johnson (who led the whole effort and curated the exhibition) and former Smithsonian curator and art critic Paul Karlstrom. (Will they marry me, in aggregate?) During the Q & A Mark mentioned a letter written by Mary Tape to the San Francisco Board of Education in 1885 on behalf of her eldest child, Mamie, who was refused entry into a white public school. Here’s an excerpt:

I see that you are going to make all sorts of excuses to keep my child out off the Public schools. Dear sirs, Will you please to tell me! Is it a disgrace to be Born a Chinese? Didn’t God make us all!!! What right have you to bar my children out of the school because she is a chinese Decend. They is no other worldly reason that you could keep her out, except that. I suppose, you all goes to churches on Sundays! Do you call that a Christian act to compell my little children to go so far to a school that is made in purpose for them.

Of course, she goes on to distinguish her children from the rest of the Chinese thus:

My children don’t dress like the other Chinese. They look just as phunny amongst them as the Chinese dress in Chinese look amongst you Caucasians. Besides, if I had any wish to send them to a chinese school I could have sent them two years ago without going to all this trouble. … See if the Tape’s is not same as other Caucasians, except in features.

Yes sah, ABC/FOB tensions already in 1885! I’m sure Frank Chin would have trenchant things to say about this letter! Nevertheless, Mary Tape and her family made history with an early school desegregation lawsuit that was one for the books.

The Daily Beast – Obama’s ‘Third Culture’ Team

John Quincy Adams lived in France, and young Franklin Delano Roosevelt visited Europe often enough to master French and German, but Barack Obama is the first modern American president to have spent some of his formative years outside the United States. It is a trait he shares with several appointees to the new administration: White House advisor Valerie Jarrett was a child in Tehran and London, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was raised in east Africa, India, Thailand, China and Japan as the son of a Ford Foundation executive, and National Security Advisor James L. Jones was raised in Paris. (Also, Bill Richardson, tipped as Secretary of Commerce, grew up in Mexico City.) [...]

This is more than a trivial coincidence. So-called “Third Culture Kids”—and the adults they become”—share certain emotional and psychological traits that may exert great influence in the new administration. According to a body of sociological literature devoted to children who spend a portion of their developmental years outside their “passport country,” the classic profile of a “TCK” is someone with a global perspective who is socially adaptable and intellectually flexible. He or she is quick to think outside the box and can appreciate and reconcile different points of view. Beyond whatever diversity in background or appearance a TCK may bring to the party, there is a diversity of thought as well.

The F-word.org – New Study Refutes Bulimia as “Rich, White Girl’s Disease”

Eating disorders are often thought to be a “rich white girl’s disease,” but a new study shows that black girls and girls from low-income families are more likely to develop bulimia than their wealthier white counterparts. The study is based on information from a government database of 2,300 girls from schools in California, Ohio and Washington D.C. The girls were surveyed annually about their eating habits and body image between the ages of 9 and 20. The study included an equal number of blacks and whites.

About 2.6 percent of black girls were found to be bulimic, compared to 1.7 percent of whites. Bulimia affected 3.3 percent of girls whose parents had a high school education, compared to 1.5 percent of girls in households where at least one parent had a college degree. In other words, black girls are 50 percent more likely than whites to develop bulimia, while girls in low income brackets are 153 percent more likely to develop bulimia than girls in the highest income bracket.

Real Media Ethics – The Usage Panel: “Illegal Immigrant”

“Illegal aliens” and “illegals” are two answers that can be dispensed with pretty easily. When used in journalism, the legal term “aliens” suggests an exaggerated sense of strangeness, and the connotation with martians is unavoidable. Although it’s relatively rare to find uses of “illegal aliens” in major news organizations (cable news, as always, excepted), except in quotes, a quick Google news search found numerous examples from local news organizations. “Illegals” dehumanizes, defining a diverse group of people by one (negative) characteristic by employing the reductive practice of noun-ifying an adjective. In a 2006 press release addressing immigration terminology, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists states that “using ["illegals"] in this way is grammatically incorrect and crosses the line by criminalizing the person, not the action they are purported to have committed.” “Illegals” is increasingly unusual even in headlines (where more accurate and ethical, but longer, phrases are sometimes eschewed for space considerations), though the AP seems to have few scruples about using the word, in headlines, the body of a story, or both. I don’t know how much control publications that use AP stories have over style issues like that, but it would be interesting to know to what extent they are allowed to impose their own style guildelines.

The interesting question for me is whether “illegal immigrant” is an ethical/accurate way to refer to people who enter or reside in the country illegally.

Politico – Oh, the snark bites

Then we get to the part where they blow the whistle and order everyone out of the snark-infested waters:

“What should be avoided in all [blogs] is any hint of racist, sexist or religious bias, or any suggestion of nasty, snide, sarcastic, or condescending tone — “snark.”

A suggestion to the author: Toss a period between the no-racism-bigotry-or-sexism section and the anti-nastiness decree. This would have avoided the impression that the Times places a racial rant on the same ethical plane as, say, a cheeky story on Kirsten Gillibrand.

Enough – On Downward Mobility

A couple weeks ago I was having a talk with somebody at a coffee shop in my neighborhood, and I noticed some graffiti on the bathroom wall that said: “Downward mobility is not radical.” Incidentally, the talk I was having that day was with a young white class-privileged person who was struggling with what to do with some inherited money, and we were talking about wealth and social justice and giving away inheritance and all of these things, and the whole time I kept pondering the graffiti and thinking that actually, downward mobility is radical. Wouldn’t it be very radical if all wealthy people gave away their money and spent only what they needed to live?

[I'm talking here about the kind of downward mobility that's chosen and intentional, not the job-loss/cuts-to-social-services/increasing-wealth-disparity kind.]

But I know what the graffiti means – it means that the writer is sick of people who act like they don’t have money when actually they do. Personally, I lived this problematic phenomenon for several years after high school, which I spent hitchhiking, trainhopping, and dumpster diving my way around the country in the company of other freewheeling punk youth who (like me) often lacked a particularly tight race and class analysis. I have a multifaceted critique of this time in my life – on one hand, it was defined by the bad type of ”downward mobility” that rightfully gets a lot of criticism. Many of us had access to wealthy parents, private educations, and all the other safety nets common to privileged young people, which we generally never talked about. Does anyone else remember that Crimethinc book that said something like, “Poverty, homelessness, unemployment: If you’re not having fun, you’re not doing it right”? That attitude characterized a lot of the worst manifestations of punk traveler culture: privileged white kids temporarily rejecting middle- and upper-class lifestyles without much real critique about poverty and white supremacy, and then getting really self righteous about our subcultural choices. In retrospect, I feel so regretful about the arrogant glorification of poverty that was common in that scene, and how it contributed to invisibilizing the struggles of poor people and the real violence of poverty.

Moscow Through Brown Eyes – Race, Gender, and More Violence in Moscow

SOVA reports:

On 27 January 2009, a twenty-four year old Nigerian was beaten at a bus stop near Metro Station Aviamotornaia.

As the Nigerian was talking with his Russian girlfriend, a young man approached him and asked what was going on. Then the man called out to two of his friends and, with cries of “Russia, Russia!” they started to beat the Nigerian.

The attacked man incurred minor wounds to his face. He is certain that the attack was racially motivated.*

Serious question: does this type of virulent nationalism ever NOT come in a package deal with sexist ideas about the protection of women?

Living in Barbados – Race to Where?

Within the world of race and racial issues, Barbados can often seem peculiar–not unique. The country is predominantly black (of African origin), and for centuries was run by whites (Britons of various origins). Over time, economic and political power resided in the hands of whites. From its independence in 1966, political power was transferred from whites to black as the British withdrew as colonial masters and handed this over to elected representatives who were mainly from the black majority. Economic power in Barbados, however, tended to remain concentrated in the hands of a few white families. In recent years, that has changed to some degree as one of Barbados’ neighbours, Trinidad, gained economic power and looked to expand and diversify its economy: Trinidadian-owned companies have been buying into the Barbadian economy. While that has changed the colour of some economic power in Barbados, it has also introduced a different racial element, which is illuminating because it shows that racism is not first and foremost about colour.

In Barbados, one sees very little public animosity between the races. But you see very little public mixing in large groups.

Marlon James – The Bigots on My Bookshelf

It’s an old argument but not a tired one. What should a black reader do if he finds out that one of his favourite authors was racist? I made that question specific, because it’s too easy to weaken the idea by broadening it with something like, “what if an author/poet/artist/ musician turned out to have done something or believe in something that was anti you? What if he hated Jews? Indians? What if he used to hit women? Do we forget the artist and look at the art? After all, isn’t the reverse just another way that we read writers and not books? These questions are all valid, but who feels it knows it and it’s easy to dismiss a writer’s bigotry (alleged or no) when you’re not the one being bigoted against. It’s easy to look past a homophobic genius like Dylan Thomas if you’re not a homosexual. [...]

The problem with this of course is that if you start exhuming the dead and brilliant for their grievous character flaws, you’re going to find yourself neck deep in a lot of bones. Should I stop wearing Allure Homme because Coco Chanel was a Nazi Collaborator? It’s not long before you become appointed judge and jury of all, even if the court is in your own mind. We also end up cheating art. Once an artist, or writer or even dancer creates something it’s not really theirs anymore.

(Thanks to GlobalistGirl and MattBastard for the tips!)

A high school in Pennsylvania banned students from wearing the keffiyeh after an escalation of tensions between Jewish and Muslim students. After a few days, the high school rescinded the ban.

Speaking of clothing issues, Urban Outfitters has done it again with new levels of offensive appropriation: the Allah bracelet. Uh-huh.

Ghostface Killa releases a track in support of Rihanna and victims of domestic violence.

ABC has given the green light for a sitcom pilot based on Firoozeh Dumas’ book Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America.

GetReligion discusses Tyler Perry’s black female demographic.

Danish students will be getting some diversity in their literature classes: a new textbook will focus on literature that comes to Denmark from its immigrants’ countries of origin, including Somalia, Croatia, Iraq, etc.

Ali Eteraz looks at the Pakistani diaspora and its issues.

The Boston Globe looks at the dangers of losing “ethnic media.”

The Root also discusses the changing face of newsrooms in their “Broadsheetless in Seattle” piece.

For Tahirih Brown, an editor at the Seattle P-I for more than five years, newspapers have reduced their opportunities for non-white journalists.

“When I started in journalism in the early ’90s, the big change was diversity—making the newsroom look more like the community they were covering,” she said Tuesday night, at the raucous P-I farewell at Buckley’s, the paper’s unofficial watering hole. “And I feel that in the past couple of years, that’s kind of gone by the wayside. There are some stories that just aren’t going to ever get told because of a lack of diversity in newsrooms in general.”

KABOBfest takes a look at Arabs in Hollywood: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The discovery of the remains of Cleopatra’s sister sheds new light on their ethnicities.

The NAACP has been walking a tightrope on gay rights. Polls show that African Americans overwhelmingly oppose gay marriage, but much of the high-level leadership of the nation’s oldest civil-rights organization opposes legal efforts to deny gays the right to marry. Last week, the national office of the NAACP leapt into the fray when it sent a letter to California legislators urging them to support legislation that would repeal Prop. 8. After meeting with the National Black Justice Coalition, a black LGBT-rights group, and the leadership of the California State Conference, NAACP Chairman Julian Bond and NAACP President Ben Jealous agreed to come out publicly in support of repealing Prop. 8.

Newsweek – Man Bites Slumdog

I still ask myself how I finally broke out. Jamal, the slumdog in Danny Boyle’s award-winning movie, did it the traditional cinematic way, via true love, guts and good luck. People keep praising the film’s “realistic” depiction of slum life in India. But it’s no such thing. Slum life is a cage. It robs you of confidence in the face of the rich and the advantaged. It steals your pride, deadens your ambition, limits your imagination and psychologically cripples you whenever you step outside the comfort zone of your own neighborhood. Most people in the slums never achieve a fairy-tale ending.

The Washington Post – Top Officials Expand the Dialogue on Race

Nearly six in 10 Americans said Obama’s presidency will do more to help race relations in this country, according to a January Washington Post-ABC News poll. But whites and African Americans start out with widely divergent views on the racial climate in the country. Overall, about three-quarters of those surveyed called racism a problem in society today, with one-quarter labeling it a “big” problem. Twice as many blacks (44 percent) as whites (22 percent) called it a big problem.

Shapely Prose – On Squeaky Wheels

Kate recently defined privilege as “the luxury of not thinking about it much,” which I think is perfect. One of the consequences of privilege, then, is that if you want people to be inclusive of you, you often have to remind them that you exist. It sucks to have to do this all the time, which is part of why so many people — particularly those struggling to understand their own privilege — confuse privilege with prejudice or ignorance. Even if you’re not actively oppressing those who lack the privileges you have, you are oppressing them by failing to consider them part of the status quo, by requiring them to make explicit requests for basic representation or consideration. We need to be aware of that when it comes to the privileges we have — do you, by default, consider everybody or only the people whose experiences you find familiar? But when it comes to privileges we lack, it’s worth remembering that as much as it may suck to have to ask explicitly for consideration, you get to ask for it. Even if you’re not a born activist, you can still be an advocate — for others, and just as importantly for yourself.

Shakesville – The Language of Immigration, continued

Last night, Iain and I were talking about yesterday’s thread on immigration, and how he isn’t called (or regarded as) an immigrant, when he made this well-observed point: “Oof coourse I’m noot an immigrant,” he said wryly, with one raised brow. “I’m an ex-pat.”

Such a spot-on observation. In between the disparate uses and meanings of “immigrant” and “ex-pat” (expatriate) falls everything that underlines the racism, classism, and xenophobia of the immigration debate in America.

White, (relatively) wealthy, and English-speaking immigrants are ex-pats, with intramural rugby leagues and dues-drawing pub clubs and summer festivals set to the distant trill of bagpipes.

Non-white, poor, and non-natively English-speaking immigrants are just immigrants.

The Kitchen Table – Chris Brown and Rihanna

March is Women’s History Month and there is no historical thread more consistently visible in tapestry of women’s lives than violence.

I know I am copping out a little by not providing a deep feminist, political analysis of the multiple issues involved and evoked by this celebrity drama, but I am having a very hard time writing about this issue. Instead of analyzing I am just admitting that it is hard, that it hurts, and that I am exhausted and angry that black women must watch a young sister be beaten. I am pissed that other men are brokering the mending of this relationship (P. Diddy apparently had the couple in his home to talk and reconcile). And I am devastated that Rihanna’s soul and spirit are so broken that she is returning to her abuser.

Over at Resist Racism, there are two excellent posts up discussing the damage racism does to white people.

The first talks about a loss of empathy:

I often think that one way racism does serious damage to white people is by stripping them of their empathy. Privilege has long taught them that white is right. White people are given constant, regular reinforcement that their opinions are superior. They receive validation for their viewpoints. And they typically live in environments in which they do not have to pay any attention to people of color.

Subsequently, when people of color talk about racism, white people are quick to issue denials. Not only do they deny that the opinions or feelings of other people are valid, but they deny even the right to have those opinions. Look at some of the comments people made after Miley Cyrus’ racist “slant-eye” gesture. Remember the one about the rabbits?

What about kids who hold up their fingers and do bunny ears in photos? Should rabbits start holding town meetings to cry racism??

Translation: Asian Americans complaining about racism is as ridiculous as if rabbits began to talk. In other words, Asian Americans are not fully equal. They are being equated with rabbits. And who would imagine that rabbits might dare to bring up racism?

The second discusses critical thinking skills:

Another way that racism harms white people is by denying them the ability to develop their critical thinking. This is due in part to the constant, regular reinforcement that white is right. White people are raised in an environment in which they are regularly assured of their superiority. Their experts are white, like them. And they often live in segregation, thus denying them the opportunity to be exposed to other viewpoints.

What happens in a culture of white supremacy? White people assume that they are the experts. Even in the absence of any history, education or knowledge.

The most blatant example of this is when a white person (typically a white man) is pontificating about a subject and is challenged when a person of color expresses an opinion. The white person will assume that the person of color knows nothing about the subject and will strive to “correct” him or her. I’ve had this happen when a white person who was not in my field was speaking with authority about something in my field. They never assume that you might actually be knowledgeable on the subject, nor do they assume that you might have professional credentials. (I’d also note that this is a very common experience on the part of people of color. And I recently heard a anecdote about this happening to a writer of color with a white man who was discussing her book. Only he didn’t know she had written it.)

It does not cross their minds. This is racism.

Go check them both out. Just make sure you read “We’ve heard it before” and “Racism 101” before commenting.

Here are a couple items I’ve come across in my internet reading.

Valleywag: Was an ‘Anarcho-Transexual Afro-Chicano’ Behind the IM Worm?

Yesterday’s ViddyHo worm, which spread over Google Talk and Gmail, has been linked by some to Hoan Ton-That, a San Francisco software developer. A very San Francisco software developer.

Ton-That owns the domain name viddyho.com, now offline, which hosted a form asking people to log in with a Google account in order to watch a video. The ViddyHo worm then seized control of their chat and email accounts and sent contacts a disguised link.

Even if Ton-That had nothing to do with ViddyHo, he (or she? how am I supposed to respect this person’s deeply nuanced personal concept of gender without hearing explicitly the gender narrative he or she has constructed around a completed sense of self?) would still be an interesting character — a classically quirky yet herd-following San Francisco Web-software entrepreneur. His Twitter profile describes him as an “Anarcho-Transexual [sic] Afro-Chicano American Feminist Studies Major.”

Marisol spent all part of last weekend at TakeBack NYU, which is described as: “Take Back NYU! is a coalition of nearly two dozen groups and hundreds of students at New York University demanding budget disclosure, endowment disclosure, and student representation on the Board of Trustees.” The protest ended; many of the students who participated where suspended.

Marisol provided blog updates about the situation, including live video footage:

I highly suggest everyone check out Marisol’s blog and the TakeBackNYU blog – the assembled narrative provides an interesting look at the dynamics of campus organizing.

My boyfriend and I have been talking about this article for a couple days now. It’s a piece on the Sexist Blog for the Washington City Paper about a transgendered sorority brother. Yes, I said sorority brother. It appears to be the only title that fits:

From the time that Devin Alston-Smith became involved in George Washington University’s Zeta Phi Beta sorority, he made it clear that he was not your typical sorority sister. In spring 2008, Alston-Smith began what Zetas refer to as the “intake process.” He knew his sisters would have a lot to take in: He asked them to call him Devin instead of his legal name, Chanise. He told them he preferred male pronouns—”he” and “his” instead of “she” and “her.” At sorority events, he wore a button-down shirt and tie and a fedora over his long dreadlocked hair.

The sorority’s sisters were initially welcoming, friendly, and confused. At the initiation ceremony, all sisters were required to dress in head-to-toe white. Alston-Smith had white pants, shirt, and tie, but he didn’t have any white shoes, so one Zeta offered to buy him a pair. He told her he wore men’s shoes, size 6½. She returned with white women’s flats. “I tried to get a low heel,” the Zeta explained.

“That’s when I sort of knew that they didn’t really get it,” says Alston-Smith. He wore the women’s shoes anyway, the flats uncomfortable on his feet. “I felt degraded, like I was dressing in drag or something,” he says. “I know that all my signifiers, except for my clothes, indicate that I’m female. So I try to be really understanding.” [...]

Over the summer, the sisters hung out regularly as friends, eating lunch together or planning step routines for the fall semester. During one choreography session for a sorority “Step and Stroll,” Alston-Smith saw how his new sorority sisters’ discomfort with his gender identity would be enforced. “We were learning new steps from an older [sister], and I was doing the moves differently,” says Alston-Smith. “One of the routines was to a Beyoncé song, ["Get Me Bodied"] and it involved a lot of feminine gestures. I was just tweaking them so I didn’t have to bend over really sexy, stuff like that,” he says. “They told me I had to do it—that we were going to look stupid if I didn’t.” Alston-Smith stopped dancing. “I’m not going to pop it like a girl,” he told them. According to Alston-Smith, they shot back: “You are a girl. You have to stop acting like a boy.”

It continued that way throughout the summer—friendly interactions would inevitably devolve into critiques of Alston-Smith’s clothes, his dance moves, “the way he was.” Gender pronouns were a particularly sore spot. “At first, everyone seemed accepting, and it seemed like it was something that they would work on,” says Alston-Smith. By the time the administration change was complete, it became clear that the resistance was more than just confusion. “I tried to compromise, because Vanessa says she doesn’t feel it’s morally right to call me by the male pronoun,” says Alston-Smith. “I said, ‘OK—don’t call me by any pronoun. Just refer to ‘Devin’ whenever you speak about me.’ But she just didn’t want to budge.”

The people who say these things appear to think that racism occurs rarely, and that when a non-white person complains about allegedly “trivial” instances of racism, it means that she is like a young child who hasn’t yet learned that not everyone in the world is obligated to be nice to her. In reality, however, I have experienced racial microaggressions since childhood, and I am well aware that the world is not a safe space for people of colour with respect to race. I point out racism not because I’m noticing it for the first time, but because I want to bring it to the attention of others who have grown up shielded from the daily realities that people of colour have to endure. I point out racism because I want to point out injustice, not because I am some selfish oversensitive child who wants the world to revolve around me and my feelings.

Instead of “I’m offended!”, I tend to say, “That’s racist!” However, this method has its own problems, because although you are not calling someone a racist, the accused perceives it that way, that you are personally attacking their character. Calling someone racist, they argue, is an ad hominem and therefore not a valid argument. They say that you are characterizing them as a bad person so that anything they say is characterized as illegitimate. They make it all about them instead of about the action being criticized. They claim that they are being silenced if I use the word “racist”, so that I even considered using the terms “racialist” or “racial discrimination” instead to make the criticism more acceptable. Sometimes I did this, until I realized that even if you use a less offensive word, they still became defensive because they could not accept the idea that racism isn’t over, or that they could be racist (adjective, which is a different concept than being a racist, noun). I also realized that I was bending over backwards as to not hurt their feelings, instead of the other way around, the latter being the illusion that they maintain through repetition.

Lisa Zhu attended an open casting call for Avatar:

[C]asting director Deedee Rickets advised prospective extras in Friday’s Daily Pennsylvanian article “to dress in traditional cultural ethnic attire. … If you’re Korean, wear a kimono. If you’re from Belgium, wear lederhosen.” Unlike the original series, which features almost exclusively Asian cultural influences, Shyamalan’s version will depict the four worlds as “ethnically and culturally” different, according to Rickets.

Alas, my Korean ancestors failed to leave me any kimonos – or saris for that matter – and my authentic Belgian lederhosen happened to be in the wash at the time. So, clad only in a mundane sweatshirt and pair of jeans, I looked around the room. There were about 50 to 60 people in this particular group (more aspiring actors were waiting in line outside), and they were all listening intently to Rickets.

“We’re trying to create these four different nations so we’re looking for different skin tones, and features, and bone structures,” she said. As she spoke, I counted about a dozen small children – as well as two grown men – who were wearing karate outfits. Another handful of prospective extras wore traditional Nigerian outfits (most at this particular casting call were African American), but the vast majority thankfully had on boring, contemporary Western clothing.

One middle-aged black woman, clad in a denim jacket and black slacks, raised her hand. “Are you at a disadvantage if you didn’t wear a costume?” she asked, evidently concerned about her “non-ethnic” outfit.

“Absolutely not!” Rickets reassured her. “It doesn’t mean you’re at a disadvantage if you didn’t come in a big African thing. But guys, even if you came with a scarf today, put it over your head so you’ll look like a Ukrainian villager or whatever.”

Jezebel asks “Why Has it Taken So Long for Disney to Create a Black Princess?”

In any case: Looking at this timeline of “Disney’s multicultural royalty,” something seems off. The “Princess” movies started in 1937 with Snow White, and the first non-white princess was Jasmine, in 1992. Then Pocahontas in 1995 and Mulan in 1998. More than ten years later, Princess Tiana, of The Princess And The Frog. Why did Disney have a Middle Eastern princess before a black princess? Or an Asian princess before a black princess? Sure, the Disney films tap into fairy tales, folklore and myths — most of which come from European sources — but there are plenty of myths and fables involving black people. American stories, tales from Nigeria, Egypt and South African/Zulu folk tales. Yoruba goddesses of love, Caribbean legends. Why has taken Disney 72 years to come up with a black princess? And will this movie — especially the toothless firefly character — insult, or uplift?

Catherine over at Hyphen has two interesting entries on myths. The first is on “Asian Girls and the Guys who Fetishize Them:”

But for a parody of pervy old white men, we sure don’t get much of the pervy old white men. Instead, we get a pretty intense collection of hyper-sexual descriptions of 17-year-old Misaki’s miniskirt and “alabaster” skin. In fact, after a few paragraphs expounding on the bizarre sexual fantasies of this “virgin nymph,” the article starts to read less like a parody and more like the beginning of Asian-fetish erotica written specifically for “balding Midwesterners who carry most of their weight in their stomach.”

Maybe the Onion writers just can’t keep track of their own punchlines anymore — or maybe this fetishized image of the submissive Asian woman is so pervasive that even satire intended to criticize it becomes, itself, a source of the objectification.

And then the follow up, Debunking the White Man Fetish:

Since writing my last entry on the Asian Fetish Myth, I’ve received some interesting responses. Most of them have implied that, while Asian women are fetishized by white men, Asian women perpetuate the fetish by favoring white men in the dating game (I believe Neela commented on this as well).

One person even asked if I was, while writing the post, reminded of my own parents (an older white man with a much younger Filipina wife) — as though the circumstances of their relationship somehow undermine my initial claims about the ways in which the Asian Fetish plays out in the media.

To that, in particular, I respond: Certainly, I had that in mind. But my mother’s marriage to my father (like other interracial relationships) doesn’t undermine my assertion that the Asian Fetish is one perpetuated onto, rather than by, Asian women. In other words, it is characterized by the sexual objectification of Asian women by non-Asian men due to the latter’s (mis)perceptions about the former’s nature and culture (not the other way around).

And finally, I have a piece up over at Comment Is Free (The Guardian) on sexism and racism in gaming:

I’ve been gaming for close to 20 years now. In that span of time, we’ve gone from 16-bits to 64-bits to no longer using bits to describe the amazing level of graphic detail appearing on screen. The world of side-scrolling action games like Contra has given way to sandbox-style games like Grand Theft Auto and the bullet-time pioneer Max Payne. We’ve seen the rise and fall of arcades, and each year expands the capacity for online play, expansions and party linking.

Gaming has evolved in every way but one – the level of acceptable conversation regarding gaming and gaming critique. It never fails to amaze me how a debate can break out over the number of strings on a certain guitar used in Rock Band or other items of gaming trivia, but the very concept of talking about race or gender in videogames is considered verboten.

In two steps back news, Renee brings word that PeTA has decided to dress up like Klan members to protest the AKC.

Does this outfit remind you of anything? PETA will stop at nothing to push its agenda no matter who it marginalizes, no matter who it hurts.

The associated press reports,

“Crowds gawked at a table set up outside Madison Square Garden on Monday afternoon, where People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals was protesting the start of the Westminster Kennel Club show. PETA contends that the American Kennel Club promotes pure-breeding of dogs that is harmful to their health.
“Welcome AKC Members,” read a banner hanging from the table — with AKC crossed out and KKK written above it. Two PETA protesters dressed as Ku Klux Klan members, while other volunteers handed out brochures that read: “The KKK and the AKC: BFF?”
“Obviously it’s an uncomfortable comparison,” PETA spokesman Michael McGraw said.
But the AKC is trying to create a “master race,” he added. “It’s a very apt comparison.”

The amount of insensitivity it takes to dress up like the KKK and attempt to draw a link between the breeding of animals to the terror that blacks have lived with for generations can only be described as the audacity of whiteness.

Middle East Online reviews The Uncultured Wars: Arabs, Muslims, and the Poverty of Liberal Thought, by Steven Salaita, which looks at anti-Arab racism in American liberal media.

Loretta Ross writes about the Hyde Amendment, which disproportionally affects poorer women and often women of color:

As an organization that represents both pro-life and pro-choice women of color, SisterSong believes that poor women should have the same rights and access as middle class women in making decisions about our bodies. But the Hyde Amendment and other federal rules prohibit federal funding for abortion services for poor women on Medicaid, for Native American women in the Indian Health Services, for women in the military and in the Peace Corps. As a first step, the Hyde Amendment should be repealed — immediately!

Oh brave new world… Erykah Badu and Jay Electronica twittered the birth of their baby. (Please do not disrespect Erykah’s Queendom in the comments. Word to OK Player.) (Via.)

The Washington Post has an interesting graphic called “The Red, the Blue, and the Gray” comparing Obama and McCain wins to Confederate and Union States.

But there is another striking parallel: Obama carried every state that Lincoln won 148 years earlier — and the percentage of the white vote that he received, or didn’t receive, in all the states that existed in Lincoln’s day suggests that 144 years after Appomattox, the legacy of slavery and the Civil War continue to cast a heavy shadow over the South.

Aziza Margari has some great thoughts on gender and authority to speak in the Black American Muslim community.

The BBC asks, “What if you had a racist friend?”

The Just Seeds blog has an interesting indictment of appropriation in advertising focusing on the Obey brand:

Fairey’s digging up of the visual elements of political history does more to hide that history than illuminate it. Fairey depends on the source of his work being perceived of as “authentic” or “real.” At the same time, he does nothing to let people know the images are taken from actual historical moments and struggles. I’m much less concerned with this tendency being labeled “theft,” than with the lack of attribution of the source material, or even acknowledgment that there is source material. Our society is pretty seriously fucked up, hundreds of millions are hungry, homeless or in prison, and those are just the most base of factors to judge the health of a community. The history of people struggling to change these things is important, and is largely removed from popular culture and public education. In order to create a better world, we need to have an understanding of the successes and failures of those that came before us. Unfortunately Fairey’s work simply skims the “cool” parts of these struggles off the top, and buries the rest back into the books he took the images from. For anyone that thinks I’m overstating my point, and believe people really do know where Fairey’s images are from, I’m sorry to say you are very wrong. I was recently in a room of University of California students (college students in one of the best university systems in the US), and not a single one of them recognized an image of Angela Davis, who teaches in the University of California system! Fairey’s work is not bringing attention to Davis, the Black Panthers, or any of the struggles in the Black community, but instead uses the image of a self-confident and militant Black woman to sell sweatshop-made OBEY winter caps at department stores.

Obama has moved to appoint a senior White House adviser for tribal issues.

“He’ll soon appoint a policy adviser to his senior White House staff to work with tribes and across the government on these issues such as sovereignty, health care, education — all central to the well-being of Native American families and the prosperity of tribes all across this country,” the first lady said.

Renee Martin has a piece up at GlobalComment about “fauxgressives“:

Everyone knows one of these people. You know the type that reads the coles notes, never the original books but thinks somehow that original thought is their expertise. You know the “it’s not sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, etc., because of the I-R-O-N-Y” person.

The East Bay Express covers an issue of discrimination by a community bank:

Oakland’s Community Bank of the Bay has apologized to one of its Muslim customers for refusing to serve her until she took off her headscarf. [...] Here’s the weird thing: the Community Bank of the Bay was explicitly set up to provide microlending to nonprofits and low-income customers who can’t get access to credit elsewhere.

Erin Aubrey Kaplan continues earning her checks at Salon by examining Michelle Obama’s blackness for a white audience. This week: black hair moments.

Elle, PHD has an excellent piece up about why it does matter:

A symbol of a collective knowing: According to the National Black Women’s Health Project, 40% of us “report coercive contact of a sexual nature” by the time we’re 18. (Note that’s just what is reported.) And no matter our age, we are less likely than white women to report the assault, less likely to seek medical and psychological help [...].

When her mother was asked what she had taught her daughter about sex, she replied, “Not to have it.” That is a response, I believe, rooted in the influence of religion in African Americans’ lives and a defense mechanism, an attempt to combat the persistent Jezebel stereotype that haunts black women. For example, in the first two minutes of this clip from “Luke’s Parental Advisory, Luther Campbell not only tells his daughter to abstain under threat of disease, but also explains to her how many partners will put her in “H-O territory,” delivering a double-threat of fearmongering and slut-shaming.

So, what happens when we do “have it?” How many of our parents tell us simply not to have it and leave it at that? I mean, there are plenty of people out there telling girls that having sex makes them “used” or “soiled,” that virginity is a gift, something that belongs to a future husband long before they’ve even met him. Once it is gone, they are dirty and have nothing to offer. They are less desirable as partners.

They are worthless.

(Thanks to readers jvansteppes, Rob Schmidt, ananser, InfodivaMLIS415, and LyraTorg for sending tips!)

On Amreeka, a Sundance film that examines the lives of Arab Americans.

What distinguishes the film from others is its sense of humor. Laughter, not tragedy is the watershed of Munah’s life. “I wanted to tell a story that’s lighthearted,” Dabis said. “There’s a side to the experience that’s funny, that’s all about family. The film is really about the larger struggle for belonging that applies to everyone. It’s about a woman who is trying to start a new life and a kid who desperately wants to fit in and distance himself from his family.”

The International Herald Tribune describes Kabul’s growing interest in skateboarding:

Among those who look forward to his visits is Maro, an elfin 9-year-old girl who was terrified of skateboarding at first.

“It gives me courage, and once I start skating, I completely forget about my fears,” she said.

Maro’s glittery Mickey Mouse shirt indicated middle-class status. She stood out from the street children in muddied clothes who shared the skate space. Because the sport is so new and unusual here, Percovich said, it may help mend the country’s deep social and ethnic divisions.

But for Hadisa, a 10-year-old girl from a conservative family, skateboarding has not been accepted. She said two older brothers beat her with wires for skating with poorer children in September. Several friends said they had seen blood flowing from her leg.

“I’m not upset with my brothers for beating me,” Hadisa whispered on a recent day when she did not skate because her oldest brother was nearby. “They have the right.”

Nashwa Al Ruwaini, Kuwaiti TV personality, aims to tackle Arab stereotypes in the Western media:

Through her company, Pyramedia, Nashwa aims to tackle negative Arab stereotypes through the media and establish more authentic representations of Arabs and Muslims while establishing an internal dialogue between the Islamic World and the West.

‘If we can highlight to the world that our part of the world has more to offer its people than oppression and terrorist sentiments then people in the West will start to view the Arab World in a different light.’

Culture in the Blender has an interesting take on Barack Obama’s inauguration:

It’s not just the wow factor of a TCK getting elected in a fantastically nationalistic country – his attitude and approach feel so intimately familiar. He is averse to burning bridges and acts as if he himself can be one at any time. He understands that any of his words may be picked up by news media and broadcast anywhere in the world, and addresses a global audience accordingly. He thinks about whom he’s talking to and makes changes to make them comfortable – by, say, wearing a silly American flag pin.

Also at Sundance, Chris Rock takes a second to get serious and talks about his new movie Good Hair.

And take a minute to check Afrobella’s take.

Parents are angered that Latino and African American students are targeted for pep talks.

The NY Times explores the growing hip-hop movement in China:

Mr. Wong, who became interested in hip-hop when he heard Public Enemy in the mid-’90s, said rapping helps him deal with bitterness that comes with realizing he is one of the millions left out of China’s economic boom.

The Washington Post covers the mixed reception for Slumdog Millionaire in India:

Some of Mumbai’s poor also are taking offense. On Thursday, a small band of slum residents, organized by a social activist, held up banners reading “Poverty for Sale” and “I am not a dog” outside the home of Anil Kapoor, one of the film’s stars.

But many more slum residents — the people who keep this teeming metropolis running by working as drivers, tea wallahs (or vendors), cobblers, laundry men and tailors — say it’s about time they received some attention in a country that tries to present itself as a success story, better known for its booming economy and its growing roster of millionaires than for the mayhem of its slums, among the world’s largest. They say slumdogs are underdogs who deserve a film about their lives.

The Root uncovers a secret about those ubiquitous Obama cardboard cut outs:

The only problem? Everyone’s favorite cardboard president is not our president at all. Look closely from the neck down. Look at the hands poking out from the sleeves. They are white. Yes. That’s right. Look. The ubiquitous Obama cutout seems to have a white body—one that’s about 30 pounds heavier, with clearly white, wedding band-less hands, holding glasses that Obama doesn’t wear—beneath the head of the real 44.

Just when we thought the nation was finally in black hands!

Jezebel asks: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Michelle Obama?

She’s fashion’s latest muse, and yet…not. Says New York, “There lurks an unspoken, uneasy relationship between the industry and its newest icon.” To put it bluntly, Michelle Obama makes fashion feel bad about itself.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (via Alternet) provides more proof that we aren’t post-racial:

Now, these groups have begun to turn their attention to Obama – distributing racist propaganda, filling Internet message boards with threats and messages of hate, and, in some cases, taking more direct action against minorities. Here is a sampling of racial incidents reported in the wake of the election:

* Police in Riverside County, California, said five attacks on minorities were likely related to the election and were believed to have been carried out by a local white supremacist gang.
* In Shreveport, La., a black man wearing an Obama T-shirt was brutally beaten by a group of white men screaming “f–k Obama” and “n—–r president.” The attack left the man with a broken nose, broken eye socket and broken tear duct, requiring multiple surgeries.
* In Springfield, Mass., a black church was burned hours after the election was called for Obama. Authorities later arrested three white men.
* In Staten Island, N.Y., a black teen was bloodied and bruised by two white teens who shouted “Obama” while pummeling him with a bat and pipe.
* In Rexburg, Idaho, second- and third-graders on a school bus chanted “assassinate Obama.”
* In Torrance, Calif., swastikas and racial slurs were spray-painted on homes and cars of people who displayed Obama signs or bumper stickers.
* In Milwaukee, a poster of Obama with a bullet going through his head was discovered in a police staion.
* In Maine, a sign at a convenience store invited customers to join a betting pool on when Obama would be assassinated. The sign said, “Let’s hope we have a winner.”

Gay Persons of Color discusses “Gaza, Israel, Homosexuality, and Complexity and Contradictions on the Left:”

Recently, two call outs, organized as a Pink Block, were made for a protest to denounce what was called the “Israeli apartheid” in Gaza. I declined both invitations feeling like I couldn’t participate in a movement that vilified the only country in the middle east in which gay people have legal rights. As I discussed in another post, gay Palestinians have a difficult time living in Gaza or the West Bank and are in a position to either be quiet about who they love or risk homophobic violence from an Islamic government that would rather see them put away or dead.

(Thanks to Elton, William, and Lydia for contributing.)

Sarah Jaffe writes for Global Comment about our Superhero President: The Commodification of Barack Obama

Obama has become something you have to have a piece of–a commodity for sale, sometimes on eBay to the highest bidder, other times for the bargain price of way too much for whichever tacky design was slapped on some material that will last long enough for your kids to sell it back on eBay twenty years from now.

Middle East News reports Israel bans Arab political parties:

Arab Israeli politicians warned of rising anti-Arab sentiment in Jewish public opinion, vowing Wednesday to appeal a majority decision by the Knesset Monday to disqualify Arab political parties in Israel’s from running in the Jewish state’s upcoming elections.

The Yahoo Group NatNews provides an action alert – “Native Americans Outraged Over Twilight Fraud”

With the commercial success of Twilight, Hollywood is abuzz with agents molding, fitting, and pushing their celebrity actors to pass as Native Americans.

“The Twilight Series is one of few commercial films, a script, and a story with Native American roles.” said Lydia Ponce. “It is a sad day to see that the big power agents are marketing Filipino and Asian celebrity actors to play Native Americans. These are such rare opportunities. When films like Twilight knowingly and willfully select non-Native American actors to play Native roles, it sends the message that we’re not good enough to represent ourselves.”

CNN posts a commentary: Race is still an issue in America

Sherrilyn Ifill offers the most useful characterization of successful solutions in race relations in her book “On the Courthouse Lawn.” Ifill argues that conversations on race are often stymied because they attempt to include the whole of racial history in one conversation.

Thus we try to discuss the Middle Passage, Jim Crow segregation, and Don Imus’ comments simultaneously and therefore end up solving nothing. The most productive conversations — and the ones that occur the least, Ifill suggests — are local ones.

The need for such locally focused, community-based conversations is tied to a basic principle of social change: effective social change occurs by focusing on local issues, using grassroots, nonviolent strategies.

KABOBfest continues wading into the Israel/Palestine issue by discussing The One State Solution:

The one state solution has been gaining credence among intellectuals and the general populations in Israel/Palestine (especially Palestinians) because the two-state solution looks increasingly impossible to implement. Dividing Jerusalem, dismantling Jewish settlements in the West Bank, establishing a Palestinian state bisected by Israel are all insurmountable obstacles to a two-state solution that immediately disappear in a one-state solution.

In a one-state solution reconciliation can truly begin and Jew and gentile Israeli, Muslim and Christian Palestinian, Arab, Mizrahi and Ashkenazi can all coexist. Jews don’t have to be evacuated from Hebron and other holy cities in the West Bank, Palestinians can live in Tel Aviv, Yaffa, or Nazareth. The Holy Land will finally retain its sacred status once more.

The Washington Post reports on how DC’s social segregation is being challenged by an Obama presidency:

With a black first family in the White House and a diverse group of appointees and Cabinet nominees, the all-white dinner party feels all wrong. Certain hosts are suddenly grappling with a new reality: They need some black friends. Overnight, black politicians, lawyers and journalists are hot properties, receiving engraved invitations from people they never got invitations from before.

Blacks have gone from barely being on the list to being in charge of the list.

The International Herald Tribune reports that the “Gaza Crisis may be fomenting violence against Jews in Europe:”

Signs are mounting that the conflict in Gaza is starting to spill over into violence in Europe’s towns and cities, with assaults against Jews and arson attacks on Jewish congregations in France, Sweden and Britain.

Assailants rammed a burning car into the gates of a synagogue in Toulouse, in southwest France, on Monday night. A Jewish congregation in Helsingborg, in southern Sweden, also was attacked Monday night by someone who “broke a window and threw in something that was burning,” said police spokesman Leif Nilsson. Neighbors alerted rescue services before the fire took hold.

The Detroit News notes that “Dearborn Schools urged to ban Arabic:”

A recommendation to bar Arabic speech in the city’s most heavily Arab public high school unless it is absolutely necessary has sparked a sharp debate between those who say it’s necessary to help students perform better and those who say it only helps alienate them.

Frank Rich reflects on being “White Like Me” in the New York Times:

Our new neighborhood included the Sidwell Friends School. My mother, a public school teacher, decreed that her children would instead enroll in the public system that had been desegregated a half-dozen years earlier, after Brown v. Board of Education. In reality de facto segregation remained in place. Though a few African-Americans and embassy Africans provided the window dressing of “integration,” my mostly white elementary, junior high and high schools had roughly the same diversity as, say, today’s G.O.P.

I wish I could say we were all outraged at this apartheid. But we were kids — privileged kids at that — and out of sight was out of mind. Except as household help, black Washington was generally as invisible to us as it was to the tourists who were rigidly segregated from the real Washington while visiting its many ivory marble shrines to democratic ideals.

(Thanks to readers Rob Schmidt, zazel, shygirlj, and ignoblus for submitting links.)