Racialicious - the intersection of race and pop culture

Barack Obama as our first Asian American President?: Part I

Guest Contributor — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 16:00:03 +0000

Barack Obama with his sister Maya Soetoro-Ng from their earlier days

By Guest Contributor Jennifer; originally published at Mixed Race America

It has been two months since I last wrote a post in this blog–which is embarrassing (sigh). For all my good intentions, I have not felt compelled to write in this space, even though I, ostensibly, have the time since I’m not teaching.

But this is, perhaps, the reason why I haven’t been writing in this space–because I have been immersed in trying to finish my book manuscript on racial ambiguity and Asian American culture (which also happens to be the title of the book). I’m fortunate enough to have a research and study leave, which means I’ve been reading and thinking and writing and trying to make the most of my time out of the classroom.

And then, of course, as I realized how much time had passed from when I last blogged, the pressure to write something meaningful or at least intelligible increased after so much silence (sigh)–always the dilemma of the writer–the blank page and wondering if there is an audience out there.

But as I tell my students, sometimes, whether you’re feeling it or not, you just have to write it. Good advice. So I thought I should share what I’m working on, since it has applicability to this blog. For the last few weeks I’ve been thinking about the coda to my book–which is also the title of this blog post. If race is a social construction–if it doesn’t have a basis in biology or blood, then could we imagine that Barack Obama is not only our first African American president, our first (openly) mixed race president, but our first Asian American president of the United States?

This might seem like an odd way to end a book on racial ambiguity and Asian American culture. Yet if we think about taking the idea of racial ambiguity to its furthest extremes, if race is not just limited to what you “look” like–if you can be Asian American without Asian American family (as transracial adoptees would seem to prove), if one’s racial identity is as much about culture and community as anything else, then it would seem that there are clear markers of Asian American racialization that correspond to Obama’s life narrative. For example:

*He was born and spent his formative adolescent years in the only state in the union that has a majority Asian American population. The local culture in Hawaii is steeped in Asian American culture from the various Asian immigrants who have come to the island archipelago from the 19th C. He can speak pidgin, he eats local food, he grew up with his grandparents preparing sashimi for guests and with Asian American neighbors and classmates.

Obama’s fifth-grade class photo from The Punahou School

*He is the child of an immigrant father who came to the US to be educated (first, a BA at U of Hawaii and then a PhD at Harvard), and his name reflects these immigrant roots, with people who find it odd, foreign, and hard to pronounce (something many children of Asian immigrants with Asian names understand all too well).

*He lived for four years in Indonesia (from the ages of 6-10) thus experiencing life in an Asian country.

*He has family members–a sister (Maya Soetoro-Ng–Indonesian-white), a brother-in-law (Konrad Ng–Chinese-Malaysian from Canada) and nieces who are Indonesian-Chinese-Malaysian-white–who are Asian American.

The Soetoro-Ng family

In October 1998, writing for The New Yorker’s ”Talk of the Town” about the ways that President Bill Clinton was being targeted by special prosecuters for potential impeachment after revelations of his affair with Monica Lewinsky became public, Toni Morrison famously (or infamously) wrote:

Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald’s-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas.

Until Barack Obama was elected to office in 2008, it was believed, in certain quarters, that Morrison had claimed blackness for Bill Clinton, thus dubbing him our first black president. But if you read the above quote (and the entire article) carefully, you will see that it is the “trope of blackness” that Morrison refers to rather than claiming that Clinton’s identity is that of an African American man.

In similar fashion, claims for Barack Obama as our first Asian American president have been made by Rep. Mike Honda and Jeff Yang – mine is not the first observation made in this regard.

Yet what does it MEAN for me to imagine, that Barack Obama could be considered Asian American based on the trope of Asian-ness–the ways in which parts of his life narrative contain similarities to those of Asians in America? Is this an anti-racist move, one that can remind us that race is a fiction, a social construction designed to elevate one racial group above others? Can knowing that race is this fluid and flexible become a means to dismantle structures of institutional racism?

Stay tuned for Part II (which I promise to write this weekend!) and, of course, if there are any readers out there, I welcome your thoughts and comments, your agreements and disagreements. I welcome dialogue, because that’s the reason I started this blog to begin with–and Barack Obama was the topic of the third blog post I wrote back in May 2007.

Read Part II of this post at Mixed Race America

It’s Time to Recognize All Dads on Father’s Day

Guest Contributor — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 14:00:08 +0000

Image Credit: USAG Humphreys on Flickr

Image Credit: USAG Humphreys on FlickrBy Guest Contributor Dori Maynard; originally published at the Maynard Institute

Dear Sheryl Sandberg,

You advise women to lean in and speak up. I’m taking your advice.

I can’t tell you how disappointed I was in the Father’s Day feature on which your Lean In Foundation collaborated with Time magazine. Not one African-American father appears on the Time website. I know it shouldn’t have shocked me.

Content audits, such as one by The Opportunity Agenda, tell us that even in the age of President Obama, the media continue to pigeonhole black men, consigning them to coverage about crime, sports and entertainment, out of proportion with their actual involvement. Equally important, the media rarely show black men in all of their humanity as doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, politicians, and yes, fathers.

Sadly, this feature is a stark example of the gap between coverage and reality, and not just because it ignores black fathers. There were also no Asian-American or Native American fathers in Time. I note that the magazine did a good job of presenting a cross section of white and Latino fathers.

Unfortunately, the other dads of color— one black and the other Asian-American — are relegated to your foundation’s website.

The problem with portraying such a narrow slice of fatherhood is threefold.

My first reaction on reading the list of fathers was, “Oh, no.” This is why I don’t read Time very often. It’s not that I don’t like Time; it’s just that it’s rarely relevant to my life. In today’s world, I don’t think any publication wants to so visually remind potential readers why they don’t read it.

I wasn’t alone. A quick look at the comments section finds others also clearly disappointed.

A commenter identifying herself as Claire Rodman wrote:

“TIME, it’s been said, but it’s worth saying again: There are plenty of black dads with daughters, and famous ones to boot: Mr. Poitier, Mr. Cosby, Denzel Washington, etc. Did you think we were all raised by single mothers? A lost opportunity, and likely some lost subscribers/online readers.”

The second problem is inaccuracy. As Rodman and other commenters noted, there are plenty of prominent African-American fathers. The same is true of Asian-American and Native American men with daughters. Yo-Yo Ma and Ben Nighthorse Campbell, the Senate’s first Native American, come to mind. Not including the wide range of fathers in this country perpetuates false stereotypes and gives readers a misleading sense of how their neighbors live and interact with family.

That brings us to the third reason. We’re in the business of giving the public credible, reliable information. A feature suggesting that only some men participate in raising daughters fails to meet our ethical and moral standards.

For those who question the necessity of diversity, this should be a reminder that having people with different perspectives in the room can help us see what we are missing. In 2011, Richard Prince, a columnist for the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, noted that Time magazine was losing its only black correspondent.

That loss increased the chance that no one at Time would flag the omissions. All of us need someone to prod us because it is so easy for us to fall in with people who reinforce our world view. It’s called homophily, otherwise known as “birds of a feather” or “love of the same.” I work in diversity every day and still find that I must push myself not to make that same mistake. Nevertheless, I sometimes do.

I have also developed a diverse network of people willing to call me on mistakes so I can fix them. That’s really why I’m writing to you. The beauty of online features means that they can easily and quickly be fixed.

Sheryl, it’s not too late to remedy this by reminding African-American, Asian-American and Native American girls that they, too, have fathers who love them and are worth noting.

Sincerely,

Dori Maynard

Casting Call: Lucy, the Mutant Human/Angel Hybrid Who Speaks with an Asian Accent (But is not Asian)

Guest Contributor — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 12:00:11 +0000

Image Credit: Schmector on Flickr

by Guest Contributor Angry Asian Man; originally published at Angry Asian Man

Uhhh… what the hell? Got this casting call passed along to me for an indie film called It’s Gawd!, described as an irreverent comedy about what happens when the almighty gets his own television show.

One of the parts in question is a character called Lucy, “a mutant human/angel hybrid who speaks broken English with a strong Asian accent.” But she apparently isn’t Asian, so the part is open to actors of all ethnicities… except Asians. Wait, what?

Yeah, I don’t get it either. Here’s the full breakdown:

IT’S GAWD!
Feature Film
Wow and Flutter Post / Wow and Flutter Media
SAG-AFTRA (SAG terms) – Pending
Producer: Ryan Rees, Gerald Brunskill
Director: Gerald Brunskill
Casting Director: Jennifer Birn
Interview Dates: 6/17-6/20
Callback Dates:
Shoot/Start Date: 7/11/13
Pay Rate: SAG-AFTRA MLB
Location: Los Angeles area
SUBMIT ELECTRONICALLY
IF POSSIBLE, PLEASE SUBMIT ACTOR’S ONLINE DEMO CLIPS ALONG WITH EACH
ACTOR SUBMISSION.
Currently casting ONLY these two roles:

[LUCY] Mid 20s. Funny, quirky, and cute. Shorter is better! Lucy is a mutant human/angel hybrid who speaks broken English with a strong Asian accent. She is not Asian in appearance so all ethnicities (except Asian) are welcome. Childlike and innocent yet has a sharp tongue that can appear harsh at times. Very facially expressive.

[BUDDHALICIOUS / BRAWD] 20s-30s age not as important as ability to be “bigger than life in every way.’ All ethnicities welcome. Must be a plus-size female who is bigger than life in every way. Uninhibited by her size. Funny and loud. Speaks urban slang and although appears to be a cliched stereotype she is actually a wise, all-knowing being.

LOGLINE: Desperate to save the world (and his job), the creator of Earth journeys to the planet to reconnect with mankind — via a nightly variety show.

“Buddhalicious” sounds like a laugh riot too. This does not sound good. Damn, are you telling me that Asian actors don’t even get to do the fake accent anymore? We used to run that. So unfair — us Asians never get to play the mutant human/angel hybrid thing. (Thanks, J.)

Quoted: The problem with “Devious Maids” goes far beyond Hollywood

Kendra James — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 16:00:05 +0000

The cast of Devious Maids via Lifetime

Six years ago, I had a deal with Lifetime Television to develop my bestselling novel, The Dirty Girls Social Club, as a TV series. It soon became clear that the relationship wasn’t going to work, when two executives insisted that my pilot outline “wasn’t Latin enough,” because it told of middle class, educated American women who happened to be Latina.

“This reads as if it were about me and my friends,” complained one executive in disgust.

I didn’t know how to respond, so I asked her what she’d prefer.

“Why don’t we make the girls debating whether or not to date men in prison? I know that’s what Latinas talk about, just like it’s what black women talk about.”

Right. Because all middle class, college-educated professional women talk about dating prisoners.

In her dreams.

I got out of that deal because of this idiocy, and never looked back.

…

It is not wrong to be a maid, or even a Latina maid, but there is something very wrong with an American entertainment industry that continually tells Latinas that this is all they are or can ever be.

My grandmother was a maid in Cuba; my biological grandfather was her employer. My father, never claimed by his bio-dad, was a janitor when he first began working in the United States, as a teen immigrant. My father went on to get his PhD, sort of a real-life Good Will Hunting, and became a leading sociologist. He raised me to believe in myself and my voice; I went to Columbia, and I’m a bestselling author Tom Wolfe called one of the most important social critics of our time.

We don’t see stories about people like me or my dad. Indeed, network executives say to my face that I don’t exist. That’s the problem.

Ten years ago, Mexican American actress Lupe Ontiveros lamented to the New York Times that she had been cast as a maid 150 times in her career. The astounding number of times this one (outstanding) Latina actress has been cast as a maid destroys Longoria’s defense of Devious Maids as “Latina maids deserving to have their stories told, too.” According to academic research on Latino roles in mainstream US film and TV, the maid is pretty much the only Latina story being told, other than seductress, whore, dying immigrant and gang member.

There is more to stereotyping of Latinas than laziness or lack of information.

– Alisa Valdes, “The problem with “Devious Maids” goes far beyond Hollywood” via NBCLatino, June 7, 2013

Open Thread: Kanye West and Yeezus

Kendra James — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 14:00:14 +0000

Kanye West via The New York Times

It wasn’t five minutes after I posted the New York Times’ profile of Kanye West on my Facebook wall that someone commented about how racist he was in claiming that he’d never won a Grammy against a white artist. That seemed to be a general reflection of the way the internet as a whole consumed the interview– disseminating it from a whole piece into several tweet-sized quotes that sounded even more outrageous when taken out of context. On a larger scale it’s reflective of the way we’ve consumed his music.

I’m not a Kanye apologist by any means. Jay Smooth summed up one aspect of Yeezus pretty well in this tweet:

Put lightly, Yeezus is not the most feminist of albums. I’m not sure I can even replicate the face I made at the already infamous “sweet and sour sauce” line. That said, the early reviews are interesting, in that people seemed shocked at how much race, power, and his supposed hatred of women are referenced on the album. “Dark” and “abrasive” are two words being consistently repeated to describe it.

The record, which overtly addresses issues of race in three song titles – “New Slaves,” “Black Skinhead” and “Blood on the Leaves” – is the hardest, most abrasive record, both musically and thematically, of his career … This is not a man concerned with offending women or racial activists. It’s an otherwise thoughtful man in pure id mode, thinking with his groin and worrying little about the ladies’ vote. - The LA Times

“You see it’s leaders, and it’s followers,” Kanye West tells us. “But I’d rather be a dick than a swallower.” And Yeezus, Mary and Yoseph, does he mean it. Yeezus is the darkest, most extreme music Kanye has ever cooked up, an extravagantly abrasive album full of grinding electro, pummeling minimalist hip-hop, drone-y wooz and industrial gear-grind. – Rolling Stone

“It presents Kanye as nothing less than the Johnny Rotten of his generation… The raw, dark and minimalist reliance on stabbing, bristling synths recalls a sound pioneered by acts like Ministry, Skinny Puppy and Nine Inch Nails 20 years ago. – The New York Daily News

The album is definitely different. It’s harsh. It’s not an album to launch 4-5 radio singles. But the themes in his music aren’t new if you’ve actually been listening to the lyrics. In his times profile, Kanye seems to agree:

I wonder if you see things in a more race-aware way now, later in your career, than you did then. The intensity of the feelings on “Watch the Throne” is much sharper.

No, it’s just being able to articulate yourself better. “All Falls Down” is the same [stuff]. I mean, I am my father’s son. I’m my mother’s child. That’s how I was raised. I am in the lineage of Gil Scott-Heron, great activist-type artists. But I’m also in the lineage of a Miles Davis — you know, that liked nice things also.

Just as Monster, Gold Digger and The New Workout Plan have lyrics as offensive towards women as I’m In It, Never Let Me Down, We Don’t Care, and Jesus Walks have as much to say about race as New Slaves and Black Skinhead. If anything, Kanye’s lyrical themes –race, family, Chicago, and his own materialism– are fairly dependable, leading me to believe that by “articulate yourself better” he means that he’s done disguising his messages behind Top 40 friendly beats that allow the listener to ignore what he’s saying in favour of concentrating on a catchy hook.

The messages may be more direct and, perhaps to some, more offensive, but they’ve always been there. Your thoughts?

True Blood Recap 6.1: “Who Are You, Really?”

Joseph — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 12:00:40 +0000

By Joseph Lamour

Image via True-Blood.net.

Last season on True Blood: chaos! This season on True Blood: chaos!

The Walking Dead is off for the summer, and Racialicious needs its fix of Sci-Fi fantasy well stocked with hot people and questionable plot lines, so here we are. This year our Sookie coverage will be two-headed: a recap on Monday, and a True Blood roundtable featuring deeper discussion at the end of the week. Without further ado, let’s dive in.

The recap (positively filled with SPOILERS) for True Blood 6.1 “Who Are You, Really?” is under the cut!

When we left our merry band of misfits last season, Bill had just reunified after melting into a pile of goo. The episode opens with Eric and Sookie running away from Bill, who just stands there till they get far enough away, I guess? Maybe the pile of Old Bill he was standing in was sticky. After a tense (not really) moment in the elevator where Sookie uses her powers like I use my iPhone during a blackout, they make it out of the building and meet up with the others (Pam, Tara, Jason, and Nora). As they all drive away from the now exploding Vampire Authority building, Bill Compton emerges, does his best Carrie impression, and then disappears into the sky.

Image via True Blood Wiki.

Meanwhile, Sam and Emma escape with a weakened Luna, but then she dies in the most anticlimactic way ever. Was it just me, or was it like “Oh hey Luna! You seem sick… oops! Now you’re dead. Okay, bye!”?

While driving, we hear that there is an edict in effect in Louisiana for vampires. They aren’t allowed to go outside? This plan is surely going to go well for everyone involved.

We see rather quickly after their introduction that Pam and Nora don’t get along. Pam also didn’t know Nora existed, which begs the question: What do vampires do when they’re not eating, getting it on, or running away from blood-covered demigods? Do they not have conversations? Did Pam and Eric just stare at each other for 100 years? The sister revelation hits Pam hard, so Tara sits down with her and they share a touching moment, talking about love and family on the sand… in Louisiana? Where was that Vampire Authority building anyway? Dare I say these two seem well matched? I mean if I forget that Pam is racist. Regardless, I think its time for a couple name, cause they’re not breaking up anytime soon I bet. Para? Tam? Patara? Tarp?

Eric: Who the fuck is Warlow?

Jason pulls a gun on Nora after they trade information on what they both know about Warlow, which is nothing, basically. Sookie stands in front of her so her brother doesn’t kill Nora for not answering a question to his liking. As a result, Jason has some harsh words for his sister — in fact, he disowns her and runs away. The writers are really upping Jason’s local yokel shtick. I mean he was adjacent to the stereotype before but now… sigh. I miss his candy-land-vampire-blood-fantasy sex romps. How things change.

Image via True-Blood.net.

Bill summons Jessica, and since he has superpowers now, the summoning almost kills her. I feel like recording a “Leave Britney alone” YouTube video for this poor lady. I mean. Will she ever get a BREAK?!? Eric tries to stop her but Super Bill is too strong. Sookie goes with her, though, because she is the main character of this show — or she cares about Jessica, I guess.

Apparently after melting, reconfiguring, and flying naked from a burning building, Bill just went home and took a shower. Sookie and Jessica tiptoe through the Compton household, and find Bill on the porch. Eric and Sookie both try to kill him because unfamiliar things are scary. Then, they discover a stake can’t kill Super Bill. Oh, great.

After everyone banishes everyone from everywhere (Bill and Jessica send everyone home, Sookie rescinds Eric’s welcome after he gives her his house) Jessica and Bill share a heart to heart. Was that scene supposed to be awkward? Because it was. What made it even more awkward was the revelation that Bill has telekinesis now. I wonder what other powers he has — certainly not the power to keep anyone around him at ease.

And Furthermore…

Image via True-Blood.net.

Lafayette! I thought this episode would lack your delightful repartee. It looks like he’ll be the caretaker of Merlotte’s* while Sam is on the run with Emma — why they’re running, I’m not sure. Russell is dead. Is Martha Bozeman really that bad?
Why in the world would the Governor Truman Burrell (Arliss Howard) hold a press conference at night while talking about denying the rights of an entire species of people that are only awake at night and can rip you in half? And, to the protestor who throws a blood-filled balloon at the Governor of Louisiana: aren’t people running short on that stuff? Wouldn’t a red glitter bomb be more judicious and fabulous? Later in the episode, he offers True Blood executive Ms. Suzuki (Tamlyn Tomita) a partnership in the form of a defunct iced tea factory. He is a complete and utter liar and he’s obviously going to taint the supply that comes from that factory and I can see this comin from a mile away, so why cant Ms. Suzuki?
Arlene and Andy share a Full House moment on parenting his four faebies. Then they turn into toddler quadruplets overnight. This is going to be a fun plot. Comic relief FTW!
Alcide is now the pack master, and he ate an arm. This whole wolf storyline is a yawn sandwich to me. Is it just me? And who wrote all the wolf stuff this episode? Was it a 14-year-old? Or someone who only watches Game of Thrones for the brothel scenes?
I immediately knew that the guy who picked Jason up was Warlow (Rutger Hauer, who also played a vamp in Buffy The Vampire Slayer). Of course Jason doesn’t realize this until he’s alone in the passenger side of a Volvo careening into a tree. Also: Is Jason schizophrenic? Or are his parental visions magic at play? And if he realizes that his ghost parents have gotten “racist and scary” why hasn’t he noticed those traits in himself?

* My iPad keeps correcting “Merlotte’s” to “merlot yes”. I think True Blood is driving my Apple product to drink.

Racialicious Crush Of The Week: Jose Antonio Vargas’ Documented

Andrea — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 16:00:58 +0000

By Andrea Plaid

Second week of Pride Month, and I have some great documentary news!

Journalist/activist/filmmaker Jose Antonio Vargas casually mentioned his newest documentary, Documented, to me when we gathered to petition the New York Times to completely stop using the terms “illegal” and “illegal immigrants.” But I thought he was in the throes of shooting or at the beginning of post-production. In other words, the movie was a long way off from being in the theater.

Well, documentary-fan me is so happy to announce that the movie will make its world premiere next Friday, June 21, at Washington, DC’s American Film Institute’s documentary festival!

Vargas talke about the film in a May 2013 interview with Univision:

His own story illustrates the struggle that many families who have been split up by immigration laws are undergoing in America, he says. Every month, Vargas sends remittances back to his family in the Philippines to help his mother and half-sister, as well as his half-brother, who he has never met.

“They know me only through YouTube videos and Facebook,” said Vargas.

“Publicly, I try to be put together, I want to come across as strong, and as if I can talk to anybody,” Vargas said. “There isn’t anybody in this country that I would not talk to about immigration…. but me talking about my mom is the hard stuff and dealing with how I have to have a life without her, it isn’t easy.”

“I have seen my mother more on screen in the editing process than I have in the last 20 years,” Vargas said. “It’s been very intense and the hardest story we tell is the story about ourselves.”

The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, who self-identifies as gay, ties together how current immigration policies meld with the fight for same-gender marriage.

Vargas told HuffPost Live’s Jacob Soboroff that one reason immigration laws are broken today is because they threaten to separate same-sex binational couples, even those who have married legally under state law.

“I can’t marry my way into citizenship like straight people can,” Vargas said. “I can get married in the state of New York where I live, but because of the Defense of Marriage Act, the federal government, which hands out visas, won’t recognize my marriage.”

If you have a chance, please go see this film about a great journalist fighting to define what home means–and to have those whom he loves to be there with him.

Retrolicious–Mad Men 6.11: “Favors”

Andrea — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 15:00:32 +0000

Hosted by Tami Winfrey Harris and Andrea Plaid

Wait…what’s going on with Bob Benson’s knee?

Not the move for Bob Benson, Matt Weiner. So not the move.

Okay, not such much his knee but the unrealistic scenario Matt Weiner and his crew created in which Benson’s knee would come into play. This week, as the roundtable became a Table For Two, Tami and I talk about the Notorious Knee, the possibility of D & D (Don and Dawn), and Sally, with a good helping of spoilers.

Andrea: Now, we know one thing about Bob Benson: he’s interested in the blatantly homophobic Pete Campbell. I know that you, Tami, think Benson is sketchy, but the one thing I’m thankful for is that, unlike Thomas on Downton Abbey, Benson’s alleged sketchiness isn’t tied to his sexual identity. Mad Men has been decent on that tip regarding cisgay male characters.

Tami: You know I’m ‘bout to go off, right? Andrea, we talked about this on Facebook. I am not feeling Bob Benson’s “coming out” to Pete Campbell.

I have a very hard time believing that years before Stonewall, a closeted gay man–a junior associate–would make a pass at a partner at his job, seconds after that partner calls gay people “degenerate” and with no indication that his coworker is interested in same-sex relationships and every indication that he is not.

Bob took a tremendous chance. And it didn’t ring true. I also need him to have better taste in men, ‘cause Pete? No.

Also, gayness does not explain why Bob is always skulking around. Another shoe better hit the ground. I’m crossing my fingers that Bob does not become a Thomas.

Andrea: I totally feel what you’re saying about Bob, Tami. At the same time, I’ve heard about gay men–from gay men–who’ve hit on blatantly homophobic guys. It’s damn rare because of the very real possibility of escalating harm, but not out of the range of possibility. Now, will Pete get Bob fired because of his pass remains to be seen because that’s not out of the range of possibility–and that would be a more realistic ending to Bob’s tenure at Sterling Cooper & Partners, if the show’s history regarding gay men holds true.

Let’s chat about something Racializen nicthommi talked about in last week’s thread. In discussing Don, nicthommi said:

“There are some aspects of the change that I think he’s indifferent to (like having a black [secretary]; I do think that despite being cute she’s safe from his sexual advances).”

Mad Men‘s Dawn, giving us some lovely Uhura Greeting Face. You’re welcome.

Thoughts about that, Tami?

Tami: I agree, Andrea. I think we have been shown that Don’s womanizing is at least partially about erasing his past as a poor, rural, orphan boy, and replacing it with the image of the strong, powerful, rich businessman–a rainmaker that men (allegedly) want to be and women (allegedly) want to be with. Part of crafting that image involves being with women more idealized than a black secretary like Dawn.

And I think it is important to note, Don is a serial cheater, but not a sexual libertine. He was turned off by the idea of swinging and likely would put race-mixing in that category. Unlike, say, Roger, I can’t see him getting his kicks from some exotic, colored strange. And a “respectable” women like Dawn wouldn’t be the place he’d go to get it if that did turn him on.

Andrea: My confusion this week is with Peggy. I’m not quite sure what Weiner is trying to do with Peggy: a couple of weeks ago, she was kissing on bosses and co-workers; last week, she accidently stabbed her boyfriend, and he broke up with her while they rode to the hospital; now, Peggy is screaming about mice and calling up the dude who grabbed her ass at the job to come take care of it–and wound up getting a cat. Are we looking at Weiner reframing Peggy as the crystallized fear that fuels a thousand romantic comedies and self-help books–The Cat Lady?

Tami: Maybe she’ll start writing Peggy Olson’s Diary: “Dear diary, today I weigh 130 pounds. Ugh! Going on a diet…”

Andrea: And Sally…aye, Sally. Walking in on her father getting naked with Sylvia, the mother of her crush, only to have her dad gaslight her about what she clearly saw. I reminds me a lot Eve’s Bayou, when Cicely does the same thing to Eve when Eve told her about seeing their father with another man’s wife. If Sally becomes a creative person, that event will be the cornerstone of a her work as it may shape her ideas about sexuality.

Tami: The last part of Sunday’s Mad Men was like a horror film. From the moment Sally began walking toward the Rosens’ door with those keys, I was hiding my eyes and murmuring “Don’t go in there, girl!”

And as Don received accolades for being a good man, while Sally sat by fuming…Oh! I think this might be the thing to make Don unravel. It is one thing for Betty to know his true self; it is another to have Sally, who always so admired him, to know. Jon Hamm played the hell out of Don Draper last night. Him tucking and adjusting while chasing after Sally, looking as if he were about to pass out…And Sally is too old to fall for Don’s “I was comforting her” dodge. And that, I’m sure, makes him look even more pitiful in her eyes–a cheater, a liar, and a coward.

Do you think Sally will keep Don’s secret?

Andrea: I think Sally, being Betty’s child, will find a way to cruelly remind dear ol’ Dad about his fucking her crush’s mom. Even if it’s in her memoir that she’ll write in her 30s.

Why Can’t Black Women Claim Sluttiness, Again?

Guest Contributor — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 14:00:12 +0000

By Guest Contributor Laura K. Warrell

In the June issue of Glamour magazine, spunky rock chick Pink declares herself a “reformed slut,” describing her brush with whorishness as an “unsophisticated” attempt at taking back her sexual power from men.

“I’ve always had an issue with [the idea that]: ‘Okay, we’ve both decided to do this,’” she says. “‘Why am I a slut and you’re the player? You didn’t get anything from me that I didn’t get from you.”

This “anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better” attitude has been key to the burgeoning cultural narrative around slutdom, and it’s an attitude I’m mostly down with. Still, I found myself bristling when I read Pink’s interview. At first I thought my politics were offended: is Pink suggesting that sexual experimentation for women is a moral crime that ultimately requires “reform?” But then I realized, as a black woman, what I was really feeling was resentment, even envy–what a luxury is has to be able to publicly declare her sexual independence without having to worry how the declaration might affect her credibility, career, or romantic prospects.

In recent years, scads of books and other commercial works of art have been tossed onto the pop-culture landscape by white women reminiscing about their “phases” of sexual promiscuity, often told from the comfort of their fulfilled, easy-peasy lives as wives and mothers. In March, comedienne and NPR host Ophira Eisenberg published Screw Everyone: Sleeping My Way to Monogamy about banging everything in Manhattan with a bulge before settling down with her handsome, comic book-writing husband. In 2010, Jillian Lauren published Some Girls: My Life in a Harem about kicking it with the Sultan of Brunei before marrying a rock star and adopting a cute kid. And since 2005’s My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands, Chelsea Handler and many of her sassy gal pals have built thriving careers around being drunk and easy. Then of course, we have the fictionalized slut phase Hannah braves through on Girls in order to bring her creator, Lena Dunham, cultural relevance and Emmy awards.

So why aren’t these stories by or about Black women?

Maybe because slut phases–at least declaring them publicly–aren’t in our best interest. (And, to bring up some history, here’s another explanation why some Black women felt uncomfortable with the word “slut” as used in the SlutWalk campaign.) Sleeping around then being able to tell the world about it without suffering serious damage to your rep is hardly a major feminist achievement. But considering the current slut-shaming trend–along with the age-old expectation to be a lady in the streets regardless of how freaky you are in the sheets–it’s a luxury I doubt most sexually liberated black women believe they can afford.

Certainly, many straight women, regardless of their race, enjoy an exploratory period of brazen hussiness. But if the stats are to be believed, Black women’s tartish journeys toward monogamy aren’t ending as often at the altar. Recent census data suggests that the number of black women living without a spouse is three times as high as white and Asian women in similar circumstances. In 2010, twenty percent of Black women aged 45 and older had never been married compared to only seven percent of white women of the same age.

Certainly, there are all kinds of reasons why black women aren’t marrying at the rate of other women, including the many benefits to remaining single. But for those straight Black women who do want to pair up, it does seem more challenging for them, and the messages from various segments of media in this country about how undesirable they are don’t help: remember the 2008 UC Irvine study telling us white men are apt to exclude Black women from their dating pools, the 2009 OKCupid.com report saying Black women get fewer online dating responses than other women, and the debunked 2011 Psychology Today blog post suggesting Black women are just plain uglier? Published reports, like a 2009 research study from Yale, also try to convince us that high-achieving Black women have an even rougher time of finding a partner often because their Black male counterparts want to settle down with white women. And although the rate of intermarriage in the US is on the rise, Black women made up only nine percent of the newlyweds who married someone outside their race in 2010 compared to twenty-three percent of black men, twenty-five percent of Latinas, and thirty-six percent of Asian women (whites, both male and female, are least apt to date outside their race, clocking in at nine percent of newlyweds). For black women, boasting about the sexy skeletons in their closets might mess up what already seem to be slim romantic chances.

Tumbling further down into the rabbit hole, we find an uncomfortable truth, which is that sexual adventure can be–not always, but often–a markedly different experience for Black women and even more politically loaded than the power tussle dominating the dialogue currently. As sexual partners, Black women, like many women of color, are often considered by white and other non-Black men as an exotic other, fetishized as wanton. So a man-loving black woman fulfilling her and/or her sex partner’s needs may be being used to fulfill an even bigger fantasy, including the common (though easily sated) urge to “try out a Black chick” (or Asian chick or Latina). Perhaps one of the greatest challenges for the sexually liberated Black woman is avoiding this tendency some men have to turn her into a fetish object while she expresses her erotic power in whatever way feels healthy and satisfying.

Not only does the fetishized woman lack human dimension in the eyes of her beholder–as a device with a purely sexual function she can usually only trigger a purely sexual response–she lacks power. ”Reformed slut” Eisenberg told the New York Post she enjoyed her sexual adventures, in part, because she wondered, “Why did the guys have all the power? I just wanted to take them down. Refuse them so they could be put in their place.” The dating game is not a titillating power struggle for the fetishized object who has no power to take back.

The other maddening aspect of this “reformed-slut narrative” is how the default setting for white female sexuality continues to be purity and sexual propriety. Meanwhile, animalistic exoticism continues to be both the fantasy and the default of Black female sexuality…when their sexuality is talked about at all. Perhaps the fear for some Black women is that deviating from sexual norms, or letting the cat out of the bag once they have, contributes to an already oversexualized mythology. Managing one’s public image and maintaining an air of “respectability” becomes more important for Black women as we try to build relationships, careers, and lives. The slut phase may be the liberated white woman’s coming-of-age, both its moments of bliss and humiliation. But ultimately, so says the narrative, it’s an undesirable situation from which they will undoubtedly be rescued by the love of an understanding man. The same narrative says that Black women with a similar past might remain in their (sometimes gilded) cages without the prospect of marriage, depending on the race of the man who’s doing the courting.

Thus, the “reformed slut” narrative becomes more complicated when race is an issue, though the culture doesn’t appear comfortable digging deeper into it. Considering the flak shows like Girls get for excluding Black women from their casts–and the lack of interest the producers of these shows have in answering to it–one can’t help but wonder whether Black women’s sexual adventures just aren’t as compelling to the general population. Fifteen years have passed since the debut of Sex and the City, yet few if any of the sassy, sexually open single-chick shows that have cropped up since then have featured prominent Black players. Even the dating reality shows have stirred controversy for failing to include Black people in their casts.

Like many women, I have a past, one that includes struggling to find long-term love (including with Black men) and, thus, fearing the scary stats and reports are true. I have failed on more than one occasion to get a man past his fantasies of Black women, which he may voice by telling me how “exotic” I am, how “wild” he expects me to be in bed, how “mysterious” my skin coloring is. Non-black men I’ve loved have told me they “just couldn’t do it” and talked about what people might think or what their babies with me might look like. All kinds of men have approached me with the confession that they’ve “always wanted to be with a black woman,” as if I’d be flattered.

I’ve watched some of the booty-call flings my white girlfriends have had turn into full-fledged, marriage-bound relationships, while zero of my black girlfriends’ flings have gone anywhere but into bed. Zero. All of my black female friends have similar stories, including one pal who, on a first date with a white man, was handed a chestnut off the ground because it reminded her date of her “big black booty.” For black women, embracing the “slut” label may not propel us further on the path to liberation.

Perhaps what I envied reading Pink’s “reformed slut” comments was the white female privilege the singer enjoys to be a woman in whatever way she wants. Statistically speaking, most straight white women will end up in committed partnerships by the time they’re 45, it can be sussed, no matter how promiscuous they are. White women may worry about ladies like Hannah on Girls and her counterparts in the real world. But some of us Black women know those women will more than likely end up with soulmates at some point more quickly than we will. Beneath it all, they’re white women and so, says society, they are redeemable.

I want my white sisters to find love and happiness, and I cheer on their phases of sexy experimentation. I just want my Black sisters to enjoy the same freedom.

Open Thread: A Tale Of Two (Racialized) Spoofs

Andrea — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 13:00:24 +0000

By Andrea Plaid

I really need to figure out why people outside of Black communities stay needing to play around with still-volatile n-word. It just doesn’t go too well, especially when folks want to use it to show how oh-so-edgy they are. Example: here’s a spoof on the going-for-a-hipper-image Kmart commercials that goes for it:

Personally, I’m not here for the hipster racism or the Black person in it as a “The Black Best Friend” justification. But that’s me.

However, below is a parody that I am here for: this fake ad takes on the now-famous Cheerios commercial featuring the mixed-race family. Check it out:

Again, I love it because it further reveals the ridiculousness of the vitriol thrown at the original ad and then dares the racists and homophobes to further reveal their hatred…but that’s just me.

What do you think, readers?

Quoted: Mark Anthony Neal On Black Dads On TV

Andrea — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 12:00:32 +0000

John Amos in Good Times. Via obnug.com.

With Father’s Day this Sunday, I’ve been thinking about how fathers have been portrayed on television over the years.

As a child growing up in the Bronx in the 1970s, the TV fathers who I best remember were Jim Anderson, Robert Young’s character on “Father Knows Best,” and Mike Brady, portrayed by Robert Reed in “The Brady Bunch.” Both men were typical of the kinds of men that many expected to be the “head of the family” in 20th-century American society.

Mr. Anderson and Mr. Brady were also in stark contrast to my father and many of the working-class black men I knew in my neighborhood or saw on TV, characters like Redd Foxx’s Fred Sanford and John Amos’s James Evans, Sr., who was much closer in spirit to my own dad.

That all changed in the fall of 1984, when America was introduced to Bill Cosby’s Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable, who quickly took on the unprecedented role for a black man as America’s “favorite dad.”

There was a need to celebrate a character who challenged historic stereotypes of black men as fathers — often portrayed as absent, shiftless, unemployed and overly chauvinistic. But was an upper middle-class professional not dramatically different than his white male peers really what black audiences were looking for? Where were the black male characters who represented the complexities of what it means to be a black in contemporary America? Would we even know them if we saw them?

In my recent work researching the intersection of African-American and pop cultures, I have been examining the ways that black men are legible to us in the popular imagination. In the ways that seeing a black man on television with a basketball or on a newscast about crime is terribly familiar to us, more complex images of black men as fathers seem few and far between. Indeed, the recent Samsung Galaxy II commercial–featuring basketball star LeBron James engaging with his sons over breakfast–seems almost revolutionary.

–Mark Anthony Neal, “On Occasion, TV Captures Complexities Of Black Men As Fathers,” The Herald-Sun 6/12/13

Meanwhile, On TumblR: The Cheerios Ad Meme That Says It All

Andrea — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 16:00:38 +0000

By Andrea Plaid

The meme not only encapsulates the foolishness of the outrage about the Cheerios ad, but the historical foolishness that banned interracial marriage in the first place–the ban that was overturned 46 years ago yesterday, which is now known as Loving Day.

So many Racializens and other Tumblizens liked and reblogged the post that it’s not only the most popular from this past week, it is–at 11,926 likes and reblogs (and counting)–the R’s most popular tumbl ever!

Thanks so much for the support, and keep checking out the R’s Tumblr!

The Racialicious Links Roundup 6.13.13

Joseph — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 14:00:05 +0000

Image via The Root

Trayvon’s Dad: ‘My Kid Was Perfect to Me’ (The Root)

My kid was perfect to me. As a father, it hurts to see how Zimmerman’s attorney, Mark O’Mara, has tried to twist the truth. And I can’t defend my son, who has been killed. It’s demoralizing. How do you blame the victim?What they don’t understand is that Zimmerman didn’t only murder my son — he destroyed an entire branch of my family tree. I looked forward to the possibility of having grandkids from Trayvon. And that’s something that can never happen now. But as far as the attacks on Trayvon’s character, it certainly isn’t true, and therefore doesn’t affect me personally. I just hope it doesn’t work with the jury and the public.O’Mara has tried to focus attention on whether or not Trayvon had smoked marijuana in the past. First, that’s irrelevant to the facts of the case. I recently read a government report that showed 36 percent of American high school seniors had tried marijuana in the past year. And white kids do it more often than blacks or Hispanics. Is that a reason to shoot a kid? Would Zimmerman have shot a white kid in that neighborhood?
Opinion: The problem with “Devious Maids” goes far beyond Hollywood (NBC Latino)

It is not wrong to be a maid, or even a Latina maid, but there is something very wrong with an American entertainment industry that continually tells Latinas that this is all they are or can ever be.My grandmother was a maid in Cuba; my biological grandfather was her employer. My father, never claimed by his bio-dad, was a janitor when he first began working in the United States, as a teen immigrant. My father went on to get his PhD, sort of a real-life Good Will Hunting, and became a leading sociologist. He raised me to believe in myself and my voice; I went to Columbia, and I’m a bestselling author Tom Wolfe called one of the most important social critics of our time.We don’t see stories about people like me or my dad. Indeed, network executives say to my face that I don’t exist. That’s the problem.
The Dangerous, Infectious Logic of National Security (Colorlines)

It is comforting to believe these things have nothing to do with one another, to insist that the administration’s shocking spying program is a distinct issue from the trends we’ve witnessed in communities of color for years. But the logic used to defend secretly collecting the communications data of people not accused of any crime is the same logic used to defend NYPD’s stop-and-frisk program and Homeland Security’s deportation apparatus. The logic of “national security” was developed and honed by law enforcement practices inside communities of color. It is one of the more striking examples of a basic truth: racial injustice is cancerous; it eats the national body from the inside out.

Book Review: In The Sea There Are Crocodiles

Joseph — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 12:00:11 +0000

By Book Review Correspondent Carly Neely

Recently, I was asked to help a friend’s son prepare for the SATs. One of the practice writing prompts asked for a discussion on the importance of determination and persistence in relation to success. If I had only read this book a little earlier I would have just assigned this book!

In the Sea There are Crocodiles is based on the true story of Enaiatollah (Enaiat) Akbari, translated by Fabio Geda from Italian. The tale follows Enaiat as a 10 year old in Afghanistan to a 15 year old in Italy, traveling on his own. Reading Enaiat’s first person account of his trials creates a feeling of sitting down for coffee with an acquaintance — but before you know it, you’re diving head first into the history of a most unbelievable life. He describes his saga casually despite the unrelenting challenges set before him.

Enaiat’s story begins in a small village in Afghanistan: happily living with his family, playing with friends, attending school, and its all set against an idyllic landscape. Those descriptions strongly reminded me of those in Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner.

Enaiat is a Hazara, an ethnic group that suffers discrimination, most notably from the Taliban. Out of a desire to protect Enaiat from dangers in Afghanistan, his mother abandons him in Pakistan, making him promise to never steal, cheat, take drugs, or use weapons. However, these instructions, while surely influential, don’t seem to be the driving force behind Enaiat’s decency. He maintains a basic standard of treating everyone as equal human beings. He has the ability to reserve judgment and allow for people to make mistakes. In one amusing interaction, Enaiat attempts multiple times to ask a man when their train reached “Rome.” The Italian man cannot understand Enaiat and believes he is saying “rum” over and over again. The Italian explodes saying that he doesn’t have any rum and instead buys Enaiat a coke. Enaiat is bewildered by this man yelling at him and then buying him a soda, but he never once mentions being upset with the man for his outburst or frustration with Enaiat’s benign inquiries. In fact, the man eventually understands and helps Enaiatollah, which may never have happened if the incident had escalated.

Light-hearted moments involving misunderstandings are few and far between in this story. But don’t be frightened off if you are not a fan of heavy subject matter. A very unique feature of Enaiat’s story is his reluctance to embellish or give any superfluous description of the events. Geda reminds the reader of his presence as translator by inserting questions he asks Enaiat throughout the retelling. One of these questions probed Enaiat for details about the people that helped him, information on what kind of people they might have been. Enaiat responds with: “The facts are important. The story is important. It’s what happens to you that changes your life, not where or who with.” It’s this approach that leads to a story that is touching but without sentimentality. Enaiat’s story is very clear and straightforward, without any sort of psychological analysis of the reasons why things played out the way they did. While that may sound a little dry, it isn’t without great feeling — it just leaves you feeling hopeful instead of emotionally wrought. Dark moments such as coming across a seated group of travelers on a mountain pass who had frozen to death, are treated just as that: a haunting image that is introduced and then is passed without any wrenching of clothing or beating of chests. Without the sentimentality, the events are even starker and harder to digest as a reality that is still with us. Human trafficking, discrimination, and immigration rights are no less in the news now (or any better) than they were when this book was published three years ago.

Traveling from Afghanistan to Italy involved extended stays in Pakistan, Iran and Turkey, each with new lessons. While Enaiat learned how to survive and the importance of finding work, another vital lesson was the importance of community. I was incredibly surprised at how connected these communities were despite great distances. Enaiat could name bridges and parks in Rome and London where he knew Afghans were gathered, places where he could find help. Imagine the strength of a community, risen from a great need, to create connections that crossed countries without the facilitation of cell phones or e-mail or snail mail.

One surprise was the lack of issue regarding the attack on the World Trade Center. Enaiat mentions seeing it on television and how coverage of the event had saturated the airwaves, but there is little to no mention of how that event impacted his travels or interactions. The only explicit mention of the news coverage of Taliban activities post-attack come at the end of the novel during his political asylum trial. I anticipated far more discrimination and harassment than he reported. After thinking about it, it’s possible the outright harassment was somewhat mitigated by his youth. The aggression towards transients and immigrants in communities may have disguised the specific racial discrimination as well. Enaiat also doesn’t seem to enjoy giving voice to his complaints, pulling focus away from the how or why and leaving us with the end results.

This book is highly recommended for readers for enjoyed Little Bee by Chris Cleave but wished for a book solely told by Little Bee. It’s very conversational and because it is told so simply, it is very concise. For such a quick read, it is a moving story about the capacity for kindness and inner strength. If you’re in need of help finding your own determination, the story of this remarkable 10-year-old boy will surely inspire you.

‘You Can Touch My Hair,’ But Why?

Guest Contributor — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 14:00:51 +0000

By Guest Contributor Brokey McPoverty, cross-posted from PostBourgie

The website un’ruly held a public art exhibit in New York City this weekend entitled “You Can Touch My Hair.” Three black women stood in Union Square with signs that read “You can touch my hair,” welcoming strangers to come and cop a feel. The women had different hair types: dreadlocks, straightened hair, a big, blown-out afro.

My intent was to have a piece on this event written a couple of days ago, but getting my thoughts together has been tougher than I thought. But now that I’ve had a chance to chew on this for a while, I’ve decided that this is either some amazing real life trolling or a misguided attempt at doing something important. Or maybe both.

I’m a woman with big hair who has had many a strange, uninvited hand in her head, and so my entire body and spirit reacted to this event. There is a special kind of violation that comes with someone putting their hands on you — any part of you — without your permission. When you’re at a club and someone puts his hand on your waist or the small of your back to get your attention. Or you’re at a work function and a happy-faced woman in a business suit sticks her hands in my hair. When someone has decided that their desire to touch you is more important than your interest in being touched, you don’t feel very much like a person. And being asked by a stranger for undeserved permission to touch part of me is exceedingly creepy.

Race is obviously big reason in why the hair-touching phenomenon is such an fraught thing, and it’s that troubling history that caused so many women to balk at this demonstration. Many on Twitter name-checked Saartjie Baartman, aka the Hottentot Venus, whose body was literally put on display for whites to gawk at. It’s an old fascination with black bodies —Look at all these ways in which you’re not white. Why aren’t you like me? Why aren’t you normal?

I understand that people are curious about things that they don’t have much experience with, but there are different types of curiosity here. There’s the “Wow, can I ask you about your hair?” kind, which I get very often from black women, and the “OMG I LOVE YOUR HAIR AND I AM GOING TO TOUCH IT WHETHER YOU WANT ME TO OR NOT” kind, which — surprise! — I get almost exclusively from white people.

Now the rebuttal here is likely that in holding signs welcoming strangers to touch their hair, the women participating are exercising autonomy in granting permission. Which is cool, but, well … why? Why should there be a safe space to satisfy that primitive curiosity without risk of scold or reprimand? Why shouldn’t acting like black people are aliens be met with some kind of corrective measure? What is gained from giving people access to do something that many feel wrongly entitled to do? Seriously: what is the point of this exercise?

The event page doesn’t give any information other than telling people when and where they can get their hands in some black hair. Intent is important, and I don’t know what the intent is here. It could have been a great chance to use satire to make a point about what the fascination with black hair feels like for black women. They could have had an old-fashioned sideshow barker with a megaphone beckoning people over to the women: Hurry, hurry! Step right up! For just $20 you can run your hands through the hair of an actual, real life black woman! Note the softness! Marvel at the sheen! Be surprised to discover that it’s just hair, and not the magical fabric of an enchanted carpet!

But there’s no context given, just the visages of black women holding signs giving strangers the discretion to touch their hair. And that’s what makes me nervous about it. Is the purpose literally to just let curious people touch black hair and wander off? Is there some sort of disclaimer given, preferably one that says “While touching our hair in this moment is fine, attempting this exercise elsewhere may result in you getting stabbed, slapped, punched, or otherwise assaulted?” Was there actual teaching done in this teachable moment, or was this simply an exercise in appeasing the privileged and entitled?

It seems like a ploy to get attention and cause a stir, which is fine. But what you do with that attention once you get it matters. The message that needs to be drilled in here isn’t that it’s okay for you to touch my hair right now in this particular space; it’s that regardless of your want to touch my hair, you have to ask first because my body is mine and what I want for it. And even more than that, I’d much rather explain to you why your fascination with my hair makes me feel like a pet or a science experiment rather than let you touch at will, because your hands in my hair doesn’t teach you anything.

At least one of the participating women is quoted as saying that she hates it when strangers touch her hair, and was participating because she wanted to be able to explain that to people. That’s awesome if you happened to be one of the people she spoke to. But it looks like most of the people interacting and discussing were other women of color, so the folks who could have really used that education didn’t get it.

So I’ve decided that this is some pretty exceptional trolling to make a few waves and hope for some constructive conversation as a byproduct. Because really, if talking was the intent, there are plenty of ways to make that happen. As it stands, this makes as much sense to me as standing outside with a sign that says “You Can Slap My Ass” in order to spark a conversation about street harassment.

Watch: Racialicious Contributor Tressie McMillan Cottom on Dan Rather Reports

Arturo — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 12:00:39 +0000

By Arturo R. García

Always a joy to watch when our contributors get some shine in other media outlets. Latest case in point: Tressie McMillan Cottom, who has shared some great work with us covering, among other topics, Anne-Marie Slaughter and “trickle-down feminism” and young education activist Aamira Fetuga, featured on Dan Rather Reports for this story on for-profit colleges — and how far they go to make that profit.

“Can you serve public and can you serve the public good simultaneously? I don’t think we’ve answered that, as far as education is concerned,” she says.

The report also shows footage from a federal probe in which undercover agents posing as students were lied to and brushed off when they asked to speak to a financial aid expert before signing up for student loans needed to cover their tuition.

“They’ve even said to me, executives from for-profit colleges, ‘No, Tressie, we are motivating them, and a part of motivating them is to hit their pain points,’ and that’s a direct quote,” says Cottom, a former ITT counselor. “If part of motivating them is to hit their pain points, their objective says, ‘That’s fine, as long as it gets them to start school.’”

The segment is just under 15 minutes long and safe for work, but it does provide a disturbing look at what’s apparently going on behind all those smiley commercials many of us have probably seen. Congrats, Tressie!

Quoted: All Hail the Queen?

Tamara Winfrey Harris — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 16:00:13 +0000

Queen Bey–Too hot for feminism?

In Bitch magazine, Racialicious senior editor Tamara Winfrey Harris weighs in on feminist criticism of singer Beyonce:

Dr. Sarah Jackson, a race and media scholar at Boston’s Northeastern University, says, “The idea that Beyoncé being sexy is only her performing for male viewers assumes that embracing sexuality isn’t also for women.” Jackson adds that the criticism also ignores “the limited choices available to women in the entertainment industry and the limited ways Beyoncé is allowed to express her sexuality, because of her gender and her race.”

Her confounding mainstream persona, Jackson points out, is one key to the entertainer’s success as a black artist. “You don’t see black versions of Lady Gaga crossing over to the extent that Beyoncé has or reaching her levels of success. Black artists rarely have the same privilege of not conforming to dominant image expectations.”

Solange, Beyoncé’s sister, who has gone for a natural-haired, boho, less sexified approach to her music, remains a niche artist, as do Erykah Badu, Janelle Monáe, and Shingai Shoniwa of the Noisettes, like so many black female artists before them. Grace Jones, Joan Armatrading, Tracy Chapman, Meshell Ndegeocello—talented all, but quirky black girls, especially androgynous ones, don’t sell pop music, perform at the Super Bowl, or get starring roles in Hollywood films.

Black women (and girls) have also historically battled the stereotype of innate and uncontrolled lasciviousness, which may explain why Beyoncé’s sexuality is viewed differently from that of white artists like Madonna, who is lauded for performing in very similar ways.

Read more…

Don Cheadle, Kerry Washington talk race, activism, gender and Hollywood

Tamara Winfrey Harris — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 14:00:53 +0000

Above, actors Kerry Washington (Scandal) and Don Cheadle (House of Lies) speak with Variety magazine. The conversation includes the following exchange:

When people reference your race when describing your career, is that a point of pride, or is it something that you think is overplayed in the media as part of your story?

DC: I think I’m somewhat defined by my race for sure, and I’m good with that and I actually want that to be a part. … I think that should be fodder for our work — we should use all aspects of ourselves. I’m always trying to find a place where that’s actually an impact on what I’m doing as opposed to going, “Well, we’re all just people and we’re the same.”

KW: I agree. I think it’s relevant. I think gender is relevant. I bring something to the table as a woman; I bring something to the table as a woman of color. So I feel like, if it’s the only thing you focus on, then it’s a danger, and if you never talk about it then it’s a danger.

More excerpts here.

The Web Series: Where are our Black Queer Women On Screen?

Guest Contributor — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 12:00:14 +0000

By Guest Contributor Spoken Pandora; originally published at Elixher

In a three-part weeklong series, ELIXHER examines the Black lesbian web series phenomenon.

It’s human nature to long for reflections of ourselves in our surroundings. Our ability to connect with people, places, and objects is based on a feeling of familiarity. Without this component, the connection is lost. That’s why it didn’t surprise me that I was uninterested in a recent film’s sad attempt to depict a lesbian relationship.

The acting wasn’t bad; nor were the women unattractive. It was more about my inability to connect with the characters. I saw very little of myself within them. I didn’t leave nor did I ask the movie attendant for my money back; instead I sat there purging myself on over-buttered popcorn and large doses of caffeine. I left feeling unsatisfied, as if I have shared the bed of an inexperienced lover.

It has been days and the junk food has left my system. However, I find myself insatiably hungry. My spirit will no longer allow me to be pacified by lesbian-inspired films and television dramas with women who have no resemblance to myself. As a queer woman of color, I long to see my beautiful sisters playing roles that reveal our truth.

What I do not want is to see unstable relationships, the come-save-a-lez male character insertion, or the downward spiral of our brown skin queer women due to their inability to deal with life’s issues. I’m not asking for perfection because I find beauty in imperfection. I am, however, asking to see our truth receive just as much exposure in mainstream media as some of the well-known lesbian flicks that chose to exclude women of our shade.

In my quest, I sent out a call to speak with queer African American women that had been involved in web series. I asked them why they felt that we have shows that meet our standards popping up all over the Internet but not in mainstream media.

My first interview was with Milanda who appeared in the first season of Come Take a Walk with Me with me directed and written by Mina Monshá. Come Take a Walk with Me is a coming out story that focuses on lesbian relationships during the characters’ college years. The cast is comprised of an eclectic blend of queer women of color. This alone had me at hello.

I spoke with Milanda for hours discussing a wide array of topics that included our responsibility as brown skin queer women to educate the masses of our existence, the reason why we may get a bisexual cameo here and there, and why we find it easier to showcase our talents on the web versus television or the movie screen.

The truth is that we have a responsibility to each other to ask for what we want and when we get it, to show up. Often times we hear the cries for something better but when something better presents itself, we don’t always show our support. We will always be stronger in numbers. We must also look at the fact that more often than not, we create the labels and boxes that society tries to stuff us in. Because of this it is our responsibility to educate our heterosexual counterparts about who we are.

We both agreed that it seems to be easier for those outside of our space to tolerate our truth when we wrap it in a bisexual package. It seems that by including a man at some point of the story allows men to continue the fantasy of possibilities; possibly they can have us, possibly they can change us, possibly they can save us. But we don’t need saving. Black women have worn capes since the dawn of time and know how to make a steak out of a honey sandwich. After my conversation with Milanda my head was in a tailspin and that is when I realized that we are a strong force with the power to create change.

Shortly after our discussion, the opportunity to speak with the cast of Lez-B-Honest fell into my lap. This web series was birthed from the minds of its producers Dacia Mitchell, Shannon Todd, and Tonica Freeman and is filmed out of Palm Beach, FL. The show tackles various issues that go on within our relationships and community. Yes there is drama, cheating, and sex, but there is also true love, spirituality, the journey to finding self, and the battle with creating one’s own positive self-image.

These women brave the stigma that we have been imprisoned to and show how life really happens for some of us. After the first five minutes of watching one of the shows my soul felt quenched. And with over 6 million views combined at the end of their second season, it is obvious that I am not alone in my thinking.

I didn’t know what to expect when I sat down to talk with these women, but what I received was a true representation of the queer family unit compiled of intelligent and grinding women.

In my interview, I had the pleasure of speaking with the characters Reese, Tye, Portia, Renee, Alex, and Shawna. All of the women came to the show for different reasons but after coming together found a bond that connected their spirits. I was able to learn a lot from our conversation. The most important thing I learned is that we all want the same thing.

They too would like to see more of us in mainstream media, outside of the stereotypical labels and preconceived notions. They feel that we have the power to make this change. They also expressed the importance of queer women supporting one another in their ventures and educating each other about the resources that are available in order for us to produce more of our brand of work.

See here is the thing: queer women of color come in as many types as we do shades and hair textures. To limit our ability is to kill the spirit that makes us who we are. When we invest in the next big movie or television series, we should invest not only our time and money but our hearts into media outlets that represent us in all of the forms we come in. We, as a unit, must come together because it’s time the revolution be televised.

It’s long overdue.

What’s your go-to Black lesbian web series? Make a commitment to supporting our own! Share your favorite episode on social media, advertise your business on their website or purchase their merch.

Spoken Pandora considers herself a gypsy that has traveled worlds through the literature she writes. Currently she resides in North Carolina with her daughter and partner. When she is not writing, she publicly speaks at LGBTQ events on sexual related topics. Her work can be found on her website.

The Racialcious Entertainment Roundup: June 3-9

Kendra James — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 16:00:56 +0000

By Kendra James

A few weeks back I suggested that you might want to catch up on BBC 1’s Luther, starring Idris Elba and Ruth Wilson, before the premiere of the show’s third series in July. This week brought us the first trailer for the summer season (above), so I repeat: Watch Luther. We’re a country with eighteen thousand different Law and Orders, a million CSIs, and nine seasons of Criminal Minds. This show should be way more mainstream than it is.

(Video heavy under the cut this week, folks, so hold onto your computers!)

I, uh, can’t bring that same level of enthusiasm to the BET trailer for Gabrielle Union’s, Being Mary Jane, which premieres on Tuesday, July 2 at 10:30pm– which is maybe the most awkward time slot ever to expect someone to sit down and commit to watching a feature length film that isn’t The Princess Bride (which I will watch any time, any place, any where). It’s such a bizarre time that I can only assume BET knows the movie is that bad and is doing their best to bury the lead by making me choose between Mary Jane or my bed. I can barely make it to Scandal’s 11pm end time on the best of nights, so I’ll let you guess what I’m choosing here.

J. August Richards’ trailer for his webseries The Hypnotist looks more interesting. I told you he was on the come up! The series’ official synopsis:

“THE HYPNOTIST is a mind-bending web series about a mysterious woman in Los Angeles who performs the ancient art of African Hypnosis. From all walks of life, clients come to her to quit smoking, stop over-eating, be more punctual, etc… However, the habit they seek to cure is often a minor symptom of a darker problem lying underneath the surface. In each episode, The Hypnotist seamlessly enters the subconscious minds of her subjects to uproot the source of their unwanted habits.”

The six episode series stars LisaGay Hamilton (The Practice, Men of a Certain Age) and Sharif Atkins (White Collar) and the first episode is directed by Richards himself.

In other Black-People-Formerly-On-TV news, Percy Daggs III signed onto the Kickstarter funded Veronica Mars movie this week, and the new, revamped Arsenio Hall Show really is happening I guess, because they’ve hired a show director. Over on OWN, July 13th and 20th bring us Wanda Sykes Presents Herlarious, two all female standup comedy specials. And in case you missed it, there was a fab Boy Meets World reunion over the weekend that included appearances by Rider Strong and Trina McGee. It’s all I can do not to get my hopes up that Shawn and Angela may appear on the upcoming Girl Meets World. The most formative fictional relationship of my childhood lives:

Shawn and Angela: My 8th grade OTP

As for casting in general? Well, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Game of Thrones) may be playing the god Horus in a new film The Gods of Egypt. Whether or not there’ll be any actual Egyptians in the movie remains to be seen.

Disney Studios was served with a harassment, gender discrimination, and wrongful termination suit this week from Cecilia Hyoun, a former assistant editor on 2010’s The Muppets. The official complaint reads, in part:

“Defendants retaliated against Plaintiff, created a hostile work environment and treated Plaintiff differently because she was an Asian woman over age 40, and terminated Plaintiff’s employment because of her gender, race and family responsibilities and because she made good faith complaints and opposed Defendants’ unlawful conduct … Defendants also falsely claimed that Plaintiff’s position was being eliminated, whereas in truth and in fact a subordinate male employee with vastly less experience than Plaintiff was promoted to her position.”

Take my advice and don’t read the comments.

Moving from Disney Studios to FOX: Runner Runner is yet another movie I had no idea that Anthony Mackie was involved in. I probably still wouldn’t if I hadn’t forced myself to sit through all 2 minutes and 31 seconds of the above trailer. Mackie doesn’t show up until about the 1:30 mark, and between Justin Timberlake and Ben Affleck it’s a struggle to make it that far. Timberlake and Affleck play two white, gambling addicts running an offshore online gambling scam in Costa Rica. Mackie is the FBI agent on their trail. Despite what the trailer would like you to believe, I’d put good money down that he’s probably in the film just as much –if not more– than the film’s two ‘stars’. That seems to be par-for-course with his career.

I love Anthony Mackie, but I think I’ll wait for Captain America: Winter Soldier. AKA, the only movie I’ve ever known he was in from the start of filming.

And finally, let’s end with an old clip making its way around tumblr from one of Mackie’s Pain and Gain costars, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. I was joking when I suggested he be cast as Doctor Who’s Twelve. I’m being incredibly serious when I say he should be considered for Sky Masterson in that ever-rumoured Guys and Dolls remake. And it’d go a long way towards making up for that Johnny Quest movie that never happened.