Image via The Aerogram.

Usually, this space at this time is reserved for the Racialicious Crush Of The Week. But sometimes we gotta keep our Fridays light by giving some side-eye to some face-palming foolishness.

This week’s features some old-school kyriarchy from former Disney star Selena Gomez, who’s been styling out with bindis since the MTV Video Awards in mid-April. Before folks jump in the comments and talk about how that’s impossible for a woman of color to appropriate from another culture of color…as we say around these parts, “If you’re not part of the group, then you’re more than likely appropriating.” And Gomez, who is the child of a Mexican-American dad and a white mom, wears the bindi with the privileges of a non-South Asian woman born and reared in the US.

The Aerogram’s Jaya Bedi wrote a great post eloquently summing up what’s all wrong with Gomez putting on a bindi:

 It is a problem when religious symbols become widespread and therefore lose their religious significance. But the fear of dilution isn’t really an issue here — the bindi has lost whatever religious significance it once had to Hindus some time ago, and is now used mostly for decoration. Madonna and Gwen Stefani didn’t turn the bindi into a fashion statement when they adopted it in the 90s — we desi women already did so years before that.

What makes the non-South Asian person’s use of the bindi problematic is the fact that a  pop star like Selena Gomez wearing one is guaranteed to be better received than I would if I were  to step out of the house rocking a dot on my forehead. On her, it’s a bold new look; on me, it’s a symbol of my failure to assimilate. On her, it’s unquestionably cool; on me, it’s yet another marker of my Otherness, another thing that makes me different from other American girls. If the use of the bindi by mainstream pop stars made it easier for South Asian women to wear it, I’d be all for its proliferation — but it doesn’t. They lend the bindi an aura of cool that a desi woman simply can’t compete with, often with the privilege of automatic acceptance in a society when many non-white women must fight for it.

I understand being a little flummoxed at the rage that the bindi issue inspires in our community. The anger always seems disproportionate to the crime. But will I celebrate the “mainstreaming” of a South Asian fashion item? Nope. Not when the mainstream doesn’t accept the people who created it.

—

Related posts:

Cultural Appropriation: Homage Or Insult

Indigenous Feminism And Cultural Appropriation

On Cultural Appropriation: Halloween And Beyond

Miss(ed) Representations, Part One: “I’m A Culture, Not A Costume” Campaign

Open Letter To the PocaHotties And Indian Warriors This Halloween

Fifteen years ago, the stardom of then-23-year-old Lauryn Hill had peaked when she released what would become her defining musical legacy.  After rising to popularity as part of the hip-hop trio The Fugees, with fellow members Wyclef Jean and Pras, she later released her solo album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, which went on to garner multiplatinum sales and five Grammy Awards for the recognizably brilliant singer-rapper.  Such accomplishments made her the first female artist to be nominated for and to win the most Grammys in a single night and her album the first hip-hop-themed work to win the Grammy’s top prize of Album of the Year.

Interestingly, the same year of Lauryn’s solo album debut, a 16-year-old who would later be known only by her first name – Beyoncé – also emerged on the pop scene when Destiny’s Child released their self-titled debut album.  And in a curious one-degree-of-separation of the two icons, Destiny’s Child’s collaboration with Wyclef on their song “No No No” led to the group’s first successfully released single, which topped R&B charts.

In retrospect, it seems easy to trace what would become a commingled narrative: one star rises while another one declines.  One star (Ms. Hill) presumably declined a starring role in the Hollywood faux-feminist blockbuster, Charlie’s Angels, while the other star (Beyoncé), along with fellow group members, provided the necessary “girl power” anthem – “Independent Women, Part I” – for the movie’s soundtrack.  One star virtually disappeared from the mainstream media while the other star appeared ubiquitously, covering every magazine from Sports Illustratedto Vogue to GQ to the feminist publication Ms.

One star proved a lyrical genius – rapping and crooning on politics, love, religion, and the resistance of corporate media – while the other preferred more superficial fanfare concerning clubbing, looking fabulous, and having her own money to spend as she fends off heartaches and trifling lovers, while occasionally championing women’s empowerment.  One star refused the pop-culture make-over, preferring instead to rock her natural hair and bask in her dark-skinned beauty, while the other has made a signature look out of blond weaves and other variations on white beauty standards that her light-skinned beauty can more easily appropriate.

Still, it’s complicated. For while Ms. Hill occasionally appeared at concerts in deliberately unattractive getups – to fend off any sexual objectification of her natural beauty – Beyoncé played to the male gaze and crafted a nuanced portrayal of black female desirability: at once appropriating “blonde ambitions” while simultaneously undermining those same white beauty “model-thin size-zero” standards by embracing a “bootylicious” aesthetic of her (and by extension other black women’s) natural curves.  And then there’s the contrast in their personal choices: Ms. Hill eschewed the music industry and traditional marriage to produce six children with long-time partner Rohan Marley, while Beyoncé experienced a meteoric rise on the pop scene and adhered to the traditional standards of marriage and motherhood, when partnering with Shawn “Jay Z” Carter and becoming a mother to a young daughter, Blue Ivy.

In a perfect world, both Lauryn Hill and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter would have their different choices celebrated, would share the spotlight, and would make alternate appearances in mainstream media.  Instead, the ascendancy of one star and the decline of another reveals what Patricia Hill Collins describes as the “politics of containment” concerning the hypervisibility of African American women – in which certain icons are singly, rather than simultaneously, promoted – which is also used to render invisible the multiple forms of oppression that intersect in the lives of the majority of black women in this country, and throughout the world.  By placing the two icons alongside each other, we have an opportunity to examine the treatment of high-profile black women in the public sphere and intersect racial and sexual politics.

Currently, in 2013, both icons are now positioned with the state in different yet analogous ways.  Beyoncé certainly seems to wield political power–having financially contributed with her husband to the successful re-election campaign of President Barack Obama and singing the National Anthem at his inauguration earlier this year.  However, this did not prevent her from being highly criticized in a “lip-synching” scandal or from being scrutinized on the legitimacy of her wedding-anniversary vacation on the island of Cuba last month.

Still, these criticisms are rather trivial when compared to the trouble Lauryn Hill has faced this year as she must later serve a three-month prison sentence, with follow-up home-confinement and counseling for her mental health (re: her “conspiracy theory” rants), after pleading guilty to tax evasion.  Whatever one may think of Ms. Hill’s actions, it comes as no surprise that she is now held up in the public sphere as a “criminal” and typical “angry”–even “crazy”–black woman.  That she would now be criminalized at the same time that the FBI has listed former Black Panther Party member Assata Shakur as the first woman among their “Most Wanted Terrorists,” while an inquisitive and intelligent high-school student, Kiera Wilmot, was recently expelled and charged with a felony for a science experiment gone wrong in a Florida school, reminds us all of the continued labeling of black women’s “outsider” and “outlaw” status and the societal need to frame us as “examples” for discipline and punishment.

Lauryn Hill and Beyoncé may be very different in their image production and in their career and personal choices, but what binds them together is their function under the high-surveillance gaze as public black women who are being disciplined and contained.  What we can learn from both, however, is their political maneuverings under such a powerful gaze and how they have circulated their rage against the forces of white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism.  Both icons have released some of their angriest expressions on the Internet – Beyoncé’s “Bow Down/I Been On,” coupled with her childhood photo as a teen beauty pageant winner with numerous trophies, and Ms. Hill’s “Neurotic Society (Compulsory Mix),” produced under duress at the demand of her record company, SONY, to pay off her fines.  In these moments of rage, one might read between the lines and take note of their refusal to be undermined by excessive criticism or to be boxed in by the corporate and mainstream expectations of pop music artists.

They may be simply egotistical or “neurotic” or even criminal (in the legal case of Ms. Hill or what was alluded to in the criticism of Beyoncé’s trip to Cuba, for which the pop diva expressed “shock” at the public condemnation she received). However, a black woman who assimilates to cultural standards will still find herself just as scrutinized in public as the ones who don’t. They have nonetheless resisted wider narratives of oppression, which expect black women to remain safely in lanes of servitude and invisibility. While most of us, who listened to both artists 15 years ago, perhaps never predicted their present states, at least they had demonstrated then – and demonstrate today – that they will not play it safe.  Regardless of the corporate and state structures that attempt to contain and control these artists, they refuse to relinquish control of their image and their art.

Janell Hobson is an associate professor in the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University at Albany. She has authored two books–Body as Evidence: Mediating Race, Globalizing Gender (2012) and Venus in the Dark: Blackness and Beauty in Popular Culture (2005)–and regularly blogs and writes for Ms. Magazine, including the cover story, “Beyonce’s Fierce Feminism,” in the Ms. Spring 2013 issue.

Teyonah Parris walks in beauty like the night…which is probably why she wasn’t on Mad Men this week.

Since Tami, Womanist Musings’ and Fangs for the Fantasy’s Renee Martin, and I noticed the dearth of Black folks and other people of color in the episode, we had to compensate with the above photo of actor Teyonah Parris, who plays Dawn on Mad Men. In the meantime, we chat about Don’s continued dick-swinging and its bad aim. So y’all know how this goes: Spoilers and thangs.

Tami: Sooo…since we’ve passed the King assassination, I suppose we’re done showing black people on Mad Men?

Am I wrong or did I hear this dialog when the creative team was waiting for Don?

Peggy: I spoke to Dawn?

Ted: Black or white?

Hee.

Andrea: I guess so. Again, this is a world that mitigates how marginalized groups enter its world. Dr. King’s assassination was such a galvanizing event that to not address it would’ve been too strange. In other words, for how much the show may not deal with race and racism, Dr. King is the Black man that they had to deal with.

But, damn, where was Dawn–meaning Don’s executive assistant–at? I do miss her. And have we beheld the splendiferousness of Teyonah Parris’ natural-haired self? If I make a flick about Shakespeare’s “Dark Mistress,” it would have to be her in that role.

Tami: It’s official. I like Ted Chaough. When we first “met” him it was through Don’s biased eyes. And I think it has become clear, though this episode, that Don is threatened by Ted and his more modern approach to working and relating to people. He is caring toward his dying partner. And he would never throw dollar bills in Peggy’s face. I just hope that smooch he shared with Peggy was a momentary lapse and he (and Peggy) is not a cheater.

Mad Men‘s Studly Dude of the Week: Ted Chaough,.

You rock those aviators, Ted!

Andrea: He was full of “unf” in that piloting scene, even though, every other time I see him, he reminds me of a slightly dissolute, more wide-eyed James Spader.

Tami: Speaking of Don…he really is a terribly damaged and awful man, who ultimately hates women or, at least, is mistrustful of them. I knew the deal when he bought Sylvia that red dress (‘cause, like Joe, I, too, read Tom & Lorenzo). Don is all about the Madonna/whore complex. And while Don may choose strong and smart women for his dalliances, ultimately he views them as whores for being with him. His little dominance play was not just a harmless sex game, as Sylvia first thought when his barked orders that led her to a little pre-Hitachi self-pleasure. She eventually saw his sickness and to her credit decided to exit stage left.

Andrea: All I could think of is who on Weiner’s staff had 9 ½ Weeks on repeat while writing the script for this ep? At the same time, I thought that, once again, there’s an insididous conflation about BDSM-ish sex games and abuse. From Don, the domme-ish role really came off as abusive, and Sylvia made it into a consensual sex game. The more subtle message is that women are responsible for making abuse acceptable in relationships.

 Renee: That scene with Don was all about him needing to express power.  Even the he was central to the merger between the two companies it left him feeling lost and he didn’t know where he stood in the power structure. He knew exactly what kind of woman Sylvia is and so his power games help to alleviate his anxiety about not knowing exactly where he stands.  In the end the fact that begged her to stay says a lot about who he is.

Tami: I think Don is mistaken if he thinks the Peggy that is returning to the office is the same on that left. He’s going to need to “move forward” or else.

Andrea: Don needs to take Peggy’s advice and apply it to all the parts of his life, bless his heart.

Tami: Of course, Don is no more fond of strong men that he views as competition. Ted isn’t the first victim of his “drink him under the table to show him who’s boss” gambit. Roger has been at the wrong end of that one twice. Thing is, in this new post-Rat Pack era, manhood isn’t gauged by how much scotch one can hold.

Don Draper is a weak man under a hyper-alpha facade.

Renee: What I don’t understand is why Ted fell for it.  He sat there saying that he needed to eat and yet he continued to drink.

Tami: Did someone say weak man? Hello, Pete Campbell! He did have one of the best lines of the episode: “My mother can go to hell and Ted Chaough can fly her there!”

Maybe in the ultimate episode of Mad Men, Don and Pete will jump off the building holding hands.

“Don, in the immortal words of CeCe Peniston, you can just keep on walking.”

Andrea: I think he fell for it, Renee, because he wanted to bond with Don over some display of manliness just as much as not wanting to lose to Don.

You know, Tami, I never thought of Pete as the shadow self of Don, but I think you’re onto something, sis.

Tami: Okay, since Mad Men officially ends next season, might I suggest a new show for Matt Weiner and crew? It involves Roger Sterling firing people each week.

Andrea: Then taking a nap and waking up with bed hair.

Renee: Okay, that actually had me cracking up, but I did feel a little bit sorry for the man who was fired. I feel like Roger has been brought back from the brink of being irrelevant in the last few episodes, and it is certainly a good thing.  The morose troubled Roger that we have been seeing is boring, though it advances his character.

Tami: Could it be that Bob Benson is one of the very few decent men at SCDPCGCXYZ? (Sidenote: Did we ever find out the name of the new agency?)

I hope he’s not some spy or other sinister character because Joan might be sweet on him, and it’s about time for Joan to have someone sweet in her life.

Renee: I think it was telling that Joan warned that he just wanted to keep his job safe and, in the end, she saved his job.  It would however be nice to see Joan end up with a man who actually cares about her for a change.  She has been disposable for far too long. In fact the two characters I want to see have a happy ending are Joan and Peggy.

Tami: Is anyone surprised that RFK’s assassination was just a coda to the episode? I suppose it’s not advisable to craft two whole episodes around high-profile murders. I think I may be okay with it.

Andrea: At the same time, RFK’s assassination fills out the trinity of political murders that galvanized the country and heralded the end of the 60s youthful zeitgeist.

Renee: I have to admit that I was a bit because of how they treated the death of JFK. Everyone was overcome and Don was actually forced to parent his kids and get them away from the television for awhile.  I don’t think we can say for sure about the fallout until the next episode though.

Gasby Movie Poster

So I haven’t done a movie review for this site in forever, and I probably will never again.  That’s because before I started this gig, I watched movies like this:

Because Michael Jackson picked good movies.

And now I watch movies like this:

No one is impressed with this film. McKayla and Barack agree.

But the other Knights wanted to go, it looked pretty, Hova did the soundtrack, and I was hoping it would be as much fun as Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette. (Huh? Plot? We ain’t got time for alla that. That’s what the book is for.)

So, Gatsby was fun–as one of my friends noted, it’s “Art Deco Porn.”  But of course, there’s also race things.  Some quick observations after the jump. *SPOILERS TOO!*

 The Good

Nick Carraway is wondering what the hell happened.

I love those rare moments when a casting director or someone on set looks around and is like “hmm…it’s too pale in here.”  Maybe it was Baz, maybe it was Jay-Z, maybe it was casting, but someone stuck as many black folks as possible in this film. Yes, the first folks we see are the stablehands and butlers. But then we see coal workers, hip apartment dwellers, jazz musicians, shake dancers, a Muhammed Ali clone, and a car full of rich black folks with a white driver. (That last one is particularly interesting given the source line: “a limousine passed us, driven by a white chauffeur, in which sat three modish Negroes, two bucks and a girl. I laughed aloud as the yolks of their eyeballs rolled toward us in haughty rivalry“)

With all the whitewashing that goes on with historically set movies, one would think all black people ever did before the 1970s was be oppressed/and or serve white people.  Gatsby exceeded (admittedly low) expectations by taking the time out to show fleeting glimpses of another New York happening in the same time and place –especially as Tom Buchanan revealed his obsession with the coming “Colored Empire.”

The Bad

Gatsby, Carraway, and Wolfsheim.

A Bollywood actor playing a Jewish character that’s all stereotype? Holy Hollywood hot mess Batman! While Amitabh Bachchan reportedly stepped into the role with great enthusiasm, Kenneth Rapoza of Forbes notes : “Dust off your post-colonial film and literary theory from college, people: Wolfsheim is “the other” who leads Jay Gatsby astray, and is the source of his illicit wealth in New York back in the Roaring Twenties.”

Dan Bloom at The Wrap quotes Martin Hindus’s 1947 essay on “Literary Anti-Semitism”:

“The Jew who appears in ‘The Great Gatsby’ is not the villain of the piece, but he is easily its most obnoxious character. His name is Meyer Wolfsheim. He is a gambler by profession. The way Fitzgerald writes the story, Wolfsheim’s nose is flat and out of both nostrils two fine growths of hair “luxuriate.” His eyes are “tiny.” When he talks he “covers” Gatsby with his “expressive nose.” We first glimpse him in a mysterious conversation with Gatsby about a man named Katspaugh. When, at this point, the narrator, Nick, comes in and meets him, Wolfsheim mistakes him for somebody else whom Gatsby has mentioned and he immediately begins to talk of a business “gonnegtion.” That “gonnegtion” runs like a theme through the whole book whenever Nick thinks of Wolfsheim.”

Wolfsheim’s character is barely on screen during this adaptation, but his generally shady air came through loud and clear.  The portrayal is a bit more tame than in the novel, but it’s interesting that the casting choice was to make Wolfsheim a bit browner.

The Missing

Ellen Chinn’s majorette routine, from FoundSf.com

Gatsby is set in 1922, smack in the middle of Anna May Wong‘s ascension to international stardom. So I was shocked to see no Asian Americans in New York or at these parties, especially considering the ’20s taste for all things illicit, forbidden, and “exotic.” While the heyday for Asian American nightclubs is widely considered to be the late ’30s to early ’60s, there was enough happening in pop culture to justify at least a glimpse.

As always, much more to discuss–drop your thoughts in the comments.

Might want to keep your ears open, Liv.

Greetings Scandalizens!

And thanks to Kendra and Joseph for allowing me to follow in a proud tradition of San Diegan closers by being your guest recapper for the season finale. But enough about me.

Previously, on Scandal:

Spoilers under the cut, and they will be thorough.

While this episode began with the Gladiators seated around the table together dealing with the emergence of Billy Chambers as the (most visible) Big Bad, what ensued was a numerologist’s dream: the 22nd episode of the 2nd season was decided by teams of two. Accordingly, let’s break down the disparate duos who ended up forming the core of this episode:

Olivitz: I don’t know if this episode was trying to show us Fitz in a better light, but it ended up showcasing exactly why he’s the wrong guy for anybody. And especially Mellie, who we need to discuss before getting to Olivia.

As he enters a summit of sorts with Cyrus, Mellie, and Hollis to decide how to put down the threat suddenly posed by Chambers and the Citron card (Hollis, of course, takes that in a literal sense), Fitz immediately shouts Mellie down. Not only that, but she and the rest of the table is cowed–except for Olivia, who is apparently turned on watching him leverage the privilege he literally did not earn.

It’s not until she’s out of earshot that Mellie reiterates her justifiable feelings (“I will not be humiliated anymore”) while Cyrus continues to play his weird mix of Iago and Dr. Phil, reassuring her that Fitz wants to be back by her side (“He’s a child…we just have to show him the way”). But after weeks of building up righteous steam, Fitz does indeed get to humiliate her again, as he lays out, without objection, the road map for her life out of the White House. The way it’s explained to her, she gets to sit on the sidelines while Fitz goes on play dates before the coast becomes clear for him to formally date and move Liv into the White House. And to throw in the threat of a feminist backlash? C’mon now: if anything, it might make her a key asset for Sally to deploy in her plan to re-curry favor with the socially conservative set.

While this is presented as Olivia’s plan, it’s still Fitz who sets the agenda, based on a conversation focusing what he wants to accomplish (re-election, co-habitation, marriage). He also gets to butter Olivia up enough to get her to clean up the mess he incited. And so, just a few days in canon after telling him, “You want me? Earn me!”, Liv is more or less conned into “using her superpower” to earn him. So what does she get out of this? Apparently…

This was approximately the first moment of the night when Twitter gasped, too, for different reasons.

But even as his presidency is saved–more on that shortly–Fitz ends up losing. To a point. He’s forced to scurry back to Mellie (and give Tony Goldwyn credit for playing the moment with the precise mix of sadness and humiliation) when Olivia finally backs away from their re-relationship. But despite finding out that he killed her mentor and was of sound mind in doing so, Liv says she’s leaving him because of her team. She may be their “gladiator,” but it’s still Huck who sees that’s not enough of a shield, and it’s good of Shonda Rhimes to both allow him to play viewer surrogate (“I worry about you with him) and her to acknowledge it (“I worry about me, too.”) But perhaps there’s some hope on the horizon for her.

 James and Cyrus:  Speaking of uneven power dynamics, James still can’t get any respect from the Chief of Staff, despite (mistakenly?) doing him a solid in tipping him off to Sally’s planned desertion to begin with. Cyrus, of course, swoops in to stomp a mudhole in that plan and walk it dry before another clandestine meeting with Evil Joe Morton Rowan. All that gnashing and stomping takes its toll, though, landing Cyrus in an ambulance, a sequence that provides some much-needed (intentional) levity to the proceedings.

Cyrus goes to work.

Of course, the lulz are short-lived, as Cyrus’ increasingly desperate need to keep Fitz a “happily” married man lead to him being the one to narc Olivia and Fitz out to each other. Now she knows what he did to Velma, and he knows what she was getting up to with 00-Nothing Jake (which, of course, shouldn’t really count; even before backing off, she could’ve easily cited the Geller Defense.) Still, he got what he wanted in a roundabout way. And James even came back, in a hospital scene that was more sad than touching. Poor James. Maybe he’ll meet a guy who really does support his news-hounding career track. But let it not be said that America doesn’t respect Cyrus’ willingess to go that extra low-down mile, right, Jeff Perry?

Huckleberry Quinn: It’s their super-sleuthing that allows Team Pope to (inevitably) get the drop on Chambers and Gov. Reston before they can implement Billy’s master plan. But Huck also sees another problem brewing: Quinn is starting to enjoy the dirtier side of his job along with the clean. Despite that bit of foreshadowing, it’s still a bit surprising to see Quinn’s turn to the Dark Side come to fruition so quickly:

The non-couple that hacks together—uh, hacks together.

As Huck freezes up when called upon to wrest the information out of Billy, Quinn doesn’t just takes over; she gleefully and literally drills Chambers and boasts enough about it afterward to not realize that Huck is hit by another trigger over the whole incident. While “Seven Fifty-Two” and Guillermo Díaz did a good job of bringing the character’s frailties to light, let’s hope the switch in attitude–and, perhaps, in power–in this relationship gets explored in some more detail next season. (At the same time, if I were a fan of Harrison and Abby, I’d start sweating it a little; for them to have almost no influence on a pivotal episode tells me they’re…you know, not essential to services.)

While Quinn seems to be inheriting the old Huck’s zest for (ahem) interrogation, it’s Jake who is forced to revisit the uglier side of The Job, as Rowan punishes him for saving Olivia by putting him in the Hole. But without having a nominally stabilizing environment to return to like Huck has, Jake’s journey could end up becoming darker still, should he be asked to “redeem himself” by B6-13.

Billy and David: This partnership of convenience was probably doomed as soon as Billy used his sales pitch on David. Sure, it makes little sense for David to have the Citron card and not make his own deal to get his professional life back and some glowing words from President Grant, but it sounds like it was Billy’s monologue that drew him back to the side of the angels–and away from that of the Gladiators, which is the safest place where anybody could be.

Now he’s just pushing his luck.

Olivia and …

Say what you will about this episode–heck, about this season–but the last minute was a brilliant trap by Rhimes. There we all were, enjoying Olivia’s victory lap, “Higher Ground” playing, when all of us walk into a phalanx of Beltway press, who have just now been told that she was sleeping with Fitz. Only now she’s not. And now both of them need to prove it.

Beyond that, Rowan’s insistence on “bringing her in” now takes on a different dimension. What if this is his version of tough love?

But hey, we’ve got at least one more season to gnash out those answers.

Potpourri:

• Assuming that next season will hone in on Fitz’s re-election bid, is anybody else curious to see how Shonda Rhimes writes not only Candidate Fitz, but right-wing politicos beyond Sally?
• How did Billy survive that encounter with Quinn? How was he able to walk?
• Bad time for Mellie not to have her fixer around, don’t you think?
• If you’re wondering about Olivia’s white jacket, Kerry Washington has got you:

• Now the big one: Who do you think is going to play Olivia’s mom? My (unwitting) guess was a little…beyond right field. Way beyond.

Thank you very much for reading our crew’s recaps this season–and don’t forget, the Roundtable convenes once again on Thursday the 23rd!

Image via Net-a-Porter.

The levels to which I would like to see Lucy Liu, Eva Mendes, or Aisha Tyler as the next Rom Com Queen knows no bounds. It’s nice to know Ms. Liu feels the same way. From The Edit magazine:

“I wish people wouldn’t just see me as the Asian girl who beats everyone up, or the Asian girl with no emotion. People see Julia Roberts or Sandra Bullock in a romantic comedy, but not me. You add race to it, and it became, ‘Well, she’s too Asian’, or, ‘She’s too American’. I kind of got pushed out of both categories. It’s a very strange place to be. You’re not Asian enough and then you’re not American enough, so it gets really frustrating.”

I have so many (read: so many) ideas in the works for romantic comedies, each starring a lead of color. And, one gay one- starring me, of course. If Lena Dunham can do it, so can I. I just want to see someone like Lucy fall in love in a movie lit like a Dannon commercial. Doesn’t everyone want that?  Fellow lovers of Hitch, The Wedding Planner, and Something New: who would you like to see meet-cute, wardrobe montage, and run towards (or away from) an airport in a romantic comedy? Make your case in the comments.

Chef Daniel Klein and co-producer/filmmaker Mirra Fine are the creators of The Perennial Plate, a weekly online documentary series that tells the stories of food and the people who make it, with a focus on socially responsible and adventurous eating. The first season took place in Minnesota, and the second took them across America. For its third season, the series is going global and traveling to China, Japan, India, Sri Lanka, Spain, Morocco, Italy, Turkey, Argentina, Mexico, South Africa and Ethiopia.

In recent months, the series has been posting episodes from the South Asian leg of their world tour, including a fast-paced and musical montage video “Day in India.” It compiles footage from their Indian stay during which they filmed several episodes, including “Dabbawalla” and another featuring an interview with environmental activist Dr. Vandana Shiva. The film-making pair, who recently announced their engagement, also spent time in Sri Lanka where they visited an organic tea farm, a coconut plantation and met a fishing family.

The vegetarian co-producer of Perennial Plate, Mirra Fine, took time from her packed itinerary to entertain a few questions by email from The Aerogram.

What’s involved in making a popular montage video like “A Day in India”? 

For a montage video such as that one, we spent three weeks in the country and filmed everything we saw, ate, and experienced. We came home with at least 15 hours of footage and had to try to figure out a way to condense it into three minutes. We figured that creating “one day” from all the footage would be a great way to do so. Sometimes videos with “themes” have a better chance of going viral. Pretty much, we had to comb through all of the film and take just the beautiful shots, and then find an amazing song (or songs), and then sit for 3-4 hours putting the images to music.

We were in Sri Lanka for two weeks (we went there straight from India). We filmed three stories there: “Tea Farmers”, “Coconut: Nose-to-Tail” (about a family on a coconut plantation), and “Do Not Blame The Sea” — which came out on Monday and is about a stilt fishing family who lost six members in the tsunami but still fish every day. It’s quite beautiful.

The “Tea for Two” episode offers an intimate look at a Sri Lankan couple who farm organic fair trade tea, and you mention that you didn’t expect to be so taken with their relationship. What kind of video were you expecting to end up with? 

When filming a new story, we never really go into it with a clear vision of what the story will be. We just have a vague idea. Especially when filming overseas, we have limited access to information due to lack of a common language, internet access etc. All we knew about Piyasena and Ariwatha (the two farmers) is that they were part of the Sri Lanka Small Organic Farmers Association meaning they were organic and fair trade.

We went to the farm hoping to see a day in their lives… hear about what it’s like to be an organic tea farmer in Sri Lanka, and hear about their lives. When we got there, we saw that there was something else even more powerful going on — and that was the relationship between the two of them. So we decided to focus on that. I’ve got a TON of footage on the editing room floor with information about tea farming, etc. But this story just touched us. So we went with that. I think we spent four hours with them.

The Perennial Plate has a video on How to Make Chopped Roti and Dal. Did you learn to make any other foods in Sri Lanka? Which foods were your favorites to eat there? 

We actually didn’t learn how to make chopped Roti in Sri Lanka. Instead, we just ate it a lot and then came home and Daniel tried to make it. (He’s really good at that sort of thing). We did visit a family who showed us how to make string hoppers, which are delicious. Have you tried them? String hoppers are amazing with curry.

Sri Lankan food is really incredible. Rice and curry is the main staple, but the street food was also wonderful. Daniel loved the fried fish in chickpea flour (I didn’t try it as I’m a vegetarian). We both loved this chickpea dish that we happened upon when we saw a man in Galle selling it from a cart on the street. It is warm chickpeas with fresh chili, coconut, and spices. It was presented to us on a piece of folded up newspaper. It was amazing.

Is there any particular South Asian ingredient that you enjoy using when preparing food?

Daniel is a chef who trained for some time in India, so he loves all the spices that go into Sri Lankan and India cuisine. And he does say that the most prized ingredient that is the most difficult to find in the US is the fresh curry leaves.

Years after Katrina, I lived in Evanston, Illinois and learned about the warm weather massacres in Chicago that happen every spring break or beginning of summer where dozens of high school kids get shot within matters of hours. And how nobody seemed to care. Living in New Orleans and near Chicago has left me jaded to what America prioritizes or chooses to ignore.

So I shouldn’t be surprised that the Mother’s Day Parade shooting has largely been forgotten. On Sunday, shots were fired into a crowd during a parade in the New Orleans 7th ward. Police said they saw three suspects running from the scene.

This is the largest mass shooting in the United States where the shooters were still at large after the crime was committed. Think about that for a minute. From Columbine to Virginia Tech to Fort Hill to Aurora, all the shooters were either killed or apprehended on site. But the person or people responsible for shooting 19 Americans are still free.

So why am I allowed to go outside? Where’s the city quarantine or FBI and Homeland Security presence for this act of “terrorism”?

• Hispanic High School Graduates Pass Whites In Rate Of College Enrollment (Pew Research Hispanic Center)

This milestone is the result of a long-term increase in Hispanic college-going that accelerated with the onset of the recession in 2008 (Fry and Lopez, 2012). The rate among white high school graduates, by contrast, has declined slightly since 2008.

The positive trends in Hispanic educational indicators also extend to high school. The most recent available data show that in 2011 only 14% of Hispanic 16- to 24-year-olds were high school dropouts, half the level in 2000 (28%). Starting from a much lower base, the high school dropout rate among whites also declined during that period (from 7% in 2000 to 5% in 2011), but did not fall by as much.

Despite the narrowing of some of these long-standing educational attainment gaps, Hispanics continue to lag whites in a number of key higher education measures. Young Hispanic college students are less likely than their white counterparts to enroll in a four-year college (56% versus 72%), they are less likely to attend a selective college, less likely to be enrolled in college full time, and less likely to complete a bachelor’s degree.

• Star Trek’s History of Progressive Values–And Why It Faltered on LGBT Crew Members (Wired)

In the future, Roddenberry envisioned race and gender as non-issues. He put Japanese-American George Takei, as Lt. Hikaru Sulu, at the helm; African-American Nichelle Nichols, as Lt. Nyota Uhura, in the communications chair; and even attempted to make the Enterprise’s first officer a woman (studio executives rejected that unsavory idea, so the alien Spock took the job). The equality on the U.S.S. Enterprise’s bridge was a watershed moment, both in television history and in Americans’ understanding of social equality.

“Most television shows, at best, follow cultural trends. Star Trek had clear-cut ideals of its own,” wrote Joan Winston, Jacqueline Lichtenberg and Sondra Marshak in their 1975 book Star Trek Lives!, the first and most definitive chronicle of the early years of Trek fandom. “No one would claim that Star Trek was the cause of all the improvement [we've made with problems like racism and sexism]. But it is still harder to believe that it had no effect, when twenty million people tuned in to Star Trek and saw Mr. Spock being treated as friend and brother by Captain Kirk, saw the black and the Russian and the Oriental [sic] and the Southerner and the others treating each other with respect and love.”

This heritage makes it all the more unfortunate that the progressive values of the original series seem to have faltered—and even begun trailing the mainstream—with the increasingly pointed absence of LGBT members in later iterations of the franchise, and their failure to treat sexual orientation like the same sort of non-issue that Roddenberry once envisioned for race and gender on the bridge of the Enterprise.

• There Still Aren’t Any Racists In America (The American Prospect)

Remember, this isn’t an idle accusation—Richwine is part of a community of race and IQ researchers who maintain that IQ differences between racial groups are partially explained by genetics, despite the fact that there’s nothing genetic that makes someone “black” or “white.” It’s historical and social circumstance that places Barack Obama and Denzel Washington (or Ted Cruz and George Lopez) into the same category, not biology.

In other words, Richwine’s work—his premise that racial IQ differences have biological origins tied to the particular “races”—is racist by definition. There’s no other way to describe it.

• How ‘Scandal’s’ Shonda Rhimes Became Disney’s Primetime Savior (Forbes)

It’s not yet halftime in another 13-hour workday for the hottest woman in American television: having a dress-fitting for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner; picking songs and approving script edits for two of the most watched programs in prime time; taking her 1-year-old daughter to the doctor to investigate a mysterious bump.

And, most important of all, she’s got to finish writing the season finale to ABC’s hit Scandal, which draws 8.3 million viewers each week and brought in an estimated $100 million in ad revenue this season.

“If I don’t get the finale written today, someone’s going to blow my head off,” Shonda Rhimes jokes. It’s an apology for cutting short an interview at Sunset Gower Studios, the Hollywood lot where the show–about a Washington, D.C. “fixer” who’s sleeping with the President–is shot.

But the truth is they’ll wait as long as they have to for Rhimes–and for good reason. At 43 this single mother of two has become the Walt Disney Co.’s indispensable creator of an increasingly dispensable product: network television.

Janet Mock (2nd row, far left) makes it on The Out List!

Y’all know I love me some Janet Mock, so I’m too thrilled that she’ll be in Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’ (The Black List) upcoming HBO documentary, The Out List. The doc, premiering Thursday June 27–just in time to close out Pride Month this year–features her life story and  the wisdom gained from so far, as well as the stories of other renowned cisLGBQ and transgender people.  And, from the number of the R’s Tumblizens liking and reblogging it, I can see you share the excitement!

And check out who and what else we’re sharing some excitement about on the R’s Tumblr!

Mindy Kaling’s show, The Mindy Project, wrapped up its first season on Tuesday. In its first year, the show picked up critical attention and found an audience. More importantly, the show found confidence and its voice, and it developed characters and relationships true to Kaling’s signature comedic style. While the majority of the main cast is white, the show cast Utkarsh Ambudkar to play Rishi, Mindy’s little brother, for a couple of episodes in the first season.

Rishi is a hilarious, complex, and multifaceted character, a strong role for an Indian American male. He can be considered The Mindy Project’s take on the emerging stereotype of an Indian American “faux-gangster” male. Although he is studying science at Stanford University, Rishi is more interested in moving to New York City and becoming a rapper. Interestingly enough, Rishi isn’t just a “typical American kid trying to make it in a creative field”, a trap that many writers who want to normalize the minority experience fall into. He’s actually cool. Instead of being another corny wannabe, Rishi is a great rapper who can command a room, be it a break room full of Mindy’s coworkers or a “Battle of the Rappers”.

The Mindy Project does a great job of making Rishi more than his ethnicity without ignoring it. Jokes about Indian Americans have punch lines that make mainstream society and its misunderstanding of minorities the butt of the joke, not the minority Indian Americans. For example, Rishi manages to convince Mindy’s building manager to let him into Mindy’s apartment because “a well-spoken Indian can get into anywhere he wants”. This is a play on the idea that Asian Americans are stereotypical “model minorities”.

Contrast Rishi with previous attempts to portray this new stereotype like Ambudkar’s role in Pitch Perfect or the Kevin G character in Mean Girls and it’s easy to see that Kaling’s Rishi represents the most responsible, complex, and accurate approach to depicting an Indian American male. Previous iterations of the stereotype reduced these characters to bit parts that functioned as cheap, tired, and one-dimensional comic relief. Mean Girls’ Kevin G was sex crazy, yet inept and nerdy. Pitch Perfect’s Donald was better, but mostly just shows up to rap and play sidekick to Adam DeVine’s Bumper. One can argue that both Pitch Perfect and Mean Girls are just lighthearted fun, but their minority characters end up serving the journeys of their white, main character counterparts. Furthermore, The Mindy Project clearly demonstrates that it’s possible to be fair to minorities without sacrificing the laughs.

The Mindy Project highlights the need for giving minorities the opportunity to create art for a broader audience. When minorities are placed in leadership roles, more multi-faceted minorities of all types emerge on-screen as well. As a black woman, Shonda Rhimes successfully made the Grey’s Anatomy’s cast diverse without sacrificing quality. When minorities create media, they pay more attention to giving nuanced portrayals of people of color. Though the episode “Mindy’s Brother” was written by Chris McKenna, a white male, Mindy Kaling’s presence and influence is obvious. With an Indian American woman in charge and in the lead role, it becomes much more difficult to reduce her character and the role of her brother to stereotypes.

This is especially important in the realm of television sitcoms and comedy. Tired and overplayed racial stereotype jokes have been a constant presence for too long with Mean Girls and Pitch Perfect only minor examples in a long lineage. Sitcoms have a long history of portraying Indians, Indian Americans, and Asian Americans as background characters that are used to further the experience of the mostly white main characters. Anyone remember Outsourced? Kaling has stated that she does not think of her work in political terms and that talented writers can write for anyone. However, it’s hard to look at characters like Rishi and deny that the backgrounds of writers shape their scripts.

Recently, it was announced that Xosha Roquemore, a black actress, will be joining the cast in the second season as a series regular. The news demonstrates a commitment by the show to have a truly diverse cast. While her role in the first season was limited, The Mindy Project’s track record is a reassurance to viewers that Roquemore’s Tamara will be further developed and treated with a certain level of respect.

As this primetime television season wraps up and pilot season hits its stride, television networks have already started announcing series renewals and new series pickups. The Mindy Project has already been picked up for a second season. For both current shows and possible new shows, it is absolutely imperative that television executives not only pay attention to ratings and the strength of ideas but also look to the people in charge. The new slate of freshmen series looks somewhat promising; ABC Family, for example, has green lit The Fosters, which is being produced by Jennifer Lopez and tells the story of a bi-racial lesbian couple. Minorities need visibility on screen, but they also need autonomy behind the camera. Only with more minorities in charge of writing rooms can minorities really achieve true visibility — flaws, strengths, and all.

Image via ABC.com.

So Scandal last week. Like… OMG, right? So much to say, so much to spoil in this introduction if you haven’t watched last week. I ask, however: why haven’t you? Go, now. I’ll wait.

If you’re back, (or if you’ve never left,) join Kendra James, Jordan St. John, Zach Stafford, Loree Lamour, Johnathan Fields and I as we talk about last weeks game changing episode and our expectations for tonight’s finale.

Jordan: In love or not, Fitz can’t just decide he wants to stay in Olivia’s bed and not show up for work. Regular people can’t do that, I would think that if you are THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES you would have little more respect for your job. Then again, maybe that is why he was never, you know, elected to be president.

Zach: Did y’all just catch THE SHADE Jordan just threw? YES! And I do agree. The whole time he was in bed I was thinking: Doesn’t he have, like, a country to run? Fitz is a little intense to say the least. It’s one big emotion to the next.

Joe: BOOM, roasted.

Loree: I know, right? I mean seriously Olivia has become his drug of choice. He’s tried to give her up, insulted her, and broke her heart yet he just can’t let go.

Johnathan: I’m interested in what’s going to happen in the season finale. What if it comes out that Fitz had enough votes had Olivia and company not rigged the election? Sidebar: how many times has Cyrus walked in on Fitz having sex?

Jordan: Telling Olivia to stay out of this would be about the only smart thing Fitz has ever done.

Joe: Cyrus needs a big glass of Chamomile tea. Perhaps a quaalude. Jeff Perry is going to get an ulcer from all the anger he has to act out on this show.

Jordan: I am mesmerized by the chin cleft on Mellie’s fixer. Also, I am continually impressed by the show’s depiction of Mellie’s Fitz targeted anger. Olivia’s name is there to be dragged in the mud only if it ultimately suits Mellie’s goals but they never turn it into a cat fight. It is not about Olivia for Mellie. Her issue is with Fitz.

Joe: That’s Captain Jack Harkness! Oh, the wonderful world that is John Barrowman. He’s a great actor. I think his casting signals a bigger plot involving him, as inept as he seems at his job. Him and Mellie could compare chins…

Loree: I love the fact that Mellie’s fixer is so handsome It could’ve easily been a person she (or we) could have no attraction to. I’m not sure she is attracted to him, but I see that Mellie may be getting hers soon. Everyone deserves true love, and honestly Mellie is way past due in that department.

Jordan: Isn’t that the question? Why is Mellie doing this and other than her husband behaving and back with her, what does she want. I hope they let the drama play out long enough for us to explore the possibility.

Johnathan: Mellie had her panties in a bundle about the fixer referring to himself as a hairdresser. It was when he called himself her priest that I stopped. Sir, you may be Mellie’s priest but you can’t fix nearly as well as Olivia Pope can. Your priesthood won’t trump the Pope.

Joe: Ooo, Johnathan, one for the books.

Loree: Johnathan, that was awesome. I couldn’t have said it better.

Jordan: In what world does Ftiz think he will stop being President and then just be able to go around with Olivia Pope. Also, what about Olivia Pope?! Her life would be over. She would be the punchline in a joke and never taken seriously. Her career would be over. Why doesn’t she answer Harrison? is it because she doesn’t know or because she can’t say it aloud. Is she imagining babies in the suburbs, a new power couple, what do we think her end game is?

Johnathan: This is precisely the type of Hollywood fairy tale logic we always see in film and television when it comes to love. Love is purely emotional; love without logic, as if we can’t (or shouldn’t) have both.

Joe: I was wondering the same thing. Why is no one bringing up Lewinsky again? Or, more pertinent to the show, Amanda Tanner?

Jordan: Cyrus and Fitz have a lot in common. This cruel, hurtful speech Cy gives James in his office about how he is essentially nothing and no one is positively Fitzian.

Johnathan: We’ve pointed to the general unhealthy relationships on Scandal before. Cyrus and James were no exception. However, I was screaming at the television, asking James what the hell he sees in Cyrus.

Joe: Seriously. Maybe James is attracted to power? Or terrible human traits? Who knows.

Jordan: Are we annoyed at Olivia for shrugging off “her rights” especially because he has a point. Not about the Republican Party (not shedding tears for them) but it would be the horseman of the apocalypse at her door. She is not naive enough to think her race will not be an issue. Again, Harrison is right. She is tied to nothing, no one has her back, they would crucify her. Is that why he was the one to give the speech to her about being her anchor? Thinking back, I feel like there was a moment of racial solidarity there.

Joe: True. I like the fact that the racial solidarity comes without a “I got your back, girl.” or any mention of race at all. As many of us know, all it takes sometimes is a look across a crowded space in Bowery Ballroom to acknowledge the only other person like you in the entire building.

Jordan: What the hell does Cyrus believe in Fitz to do. I agree with everyone who has said this before, the great promise of a Fitzgerald Grant presidency is lost on me

Jordan: This line by Jake about how he wants a lot of things Ftiz gets to have first certainly hints at some history but again, I hate that the language removes all agency from Olivia. There is no discussion of her choice in the matter and it seems like he is forgetting (or choosing to forget) that Olivia chose Fitz. She is not a prize to be won (although that is exactly the way she is positioning her self).

Jordan: Fitz is such a whiny little baby. He wasn’t going to win because he is afraid to lose. Man up dam–
Joe: Oh, look, Carrie’s dad again. OMG! David Rosen?!

Jordan: Damn Shonda and her cliffhangers. She got me again. David Rosen?! What?!

Image courtesy of Cecile Lusby

How can anyone explain a man who lived two lives? I try to unravel the mystery of Richard Aoki, because in 2012 Seth Rosenfeld reported that Richard served as an FBI informant. I view Richard’s life as having two turning points: one in 1956-7, and then again in 1966-1967, as he formed a new identity through the ‘60s activism that transformed and radicalized him.

Disclosures about Richard’s work with the FBI have been hard for his contemporaries, his students — and for me — to accept. My knowledge of Richard began in 1966 as he was leaving the Socialist Workers Party and joining the newly organized Black Panther Party. He joked about his earlier conservatism and his vote for Nixon in 1960 before his political ideas evolved. He voiced contempt for the student socialists who read, but never risked action. “I’m down for the struggle,” Richard would say. He did have a history.

Richard’s father disappeared in 1956, so he moved to Berkeley to live with his mother. Sometime during 1956 Richard “cut a deal” with the court to expunge his juvenile offenses so he could graduate and enter the military. Leaving Berkeley High in January 1957, Richard saw his future and his options open up in the Active Reserves. He needed money and a path to a career or college that the Army could provide.

Rosenfeld mentions an FBI agent, Burney Threadgill, who claimed to have developed Richard in 1957, after picking up his voice on a wiretap talking to the son of Communist Party members. The agent suggested that Richard go to political meetings and report back personally. Threadgill’s revelation leaves the possibility that Richard could have been coerced into working as an informant. It is also possible that curiosity led Richard to the FBI voluntarily while still in his teens. Later, curiosity would change his course again.

My Connection to Richard

I met Richard Aoki when I was a divorcee of 24 and he was a bachelor of 27. In autumn 1966 he was preparing to leave the Socialist Workers Party over what he believed was its inattention to the struggle for Black liberation in the USA. Richard was an attractive paradox: Asian in appearance, he spoke like a Black man. Six months later we began a romance lasting from late April 1967 to 1968. We drifted apart over his long absences in the Third World Liberation Strike at UC Berkeley late in 1968, but we remained friends for the next 40 years. I found him conscientious and sincere in his dedication to the Black Panthers.

As far as his FBI file goes, there is nothing much to see — since most pages are whited out. I looked for dates from the years when I was with Richard and tried to match events in my life. A June 1967 entry shows a cluster of initials on the page, with FBI number “p. AOKI 189.” The initials appear beside a demand for an overdue report and a series of postponements — with a final extension to November 24. It was pretty clear that the FBI was not getting the reports it wanted from him.

I googled November 24, 1967; it was the day after Thanksgiving. On November 23rd, Richard showed up in full Panther uniform and under the influence to pick me up after dinner at my father’s house. He was simply crazy that night, barking orders in front of my father, demanding that I get my children in his car if I wanted a ride home. I rushed outside and Richard drove from Richmond to Berkeley like a madman, bumping into two cars along the way. When I got home, I rushed inside, locked the door, and did not speak to him again for weeks. The FBI’s long postponed deadline would have been the next morning. I am now certain that his extreme and out-of-character behavior was due to alcohol intake over that deadline, the weight of his resistance the night before the report was due, and his unwillingness to inform on the Panthers.

A few weeks later we were back together. Richard always had news and dramatic tales of what he’d been up to. To be near Richard was to approach the heart of The Movement.

He would show up some weekends to take the kids out for pancakes. He could never tell what the day might bring, so he loved to be fortified by a big breakfast. We made quite an entrance: a Japanese American male, a white female, and two little African American toddlers. It was an unusual picture of America, even in Berkeley.

My son remembers Richard teaching him to tie his shoes; my daughter recalls him showing her how to spell “Free Huey” on her blackboard, and in the last year, many of the students he mentored have pondered his generosity and humor. We all thought we knew him.

All these gifts, upon reflection, are the best of the man. The Ethnic Studies Department still exists at UC Berkeley, and Richard’s memory endures. Richard explained himself in a series of interviews filmed by the Peralta Colleges in October of 2008, six months before he died, to review his legacy (anyone can see them on YouTube). He says not a word about his other life, but there was always more to Richard than we ever knew.

Cecile Lusby is a freelance writer who moved from Berkeley to Sonoma County more than forty years ago. She is a retired English teacher and school counselor who has written a memoir, Lullabies From Liberty Street. Her website is at cecilelusby.com.

By Guest Contributor Shae Collins

“So you’re going to twerk right?” was a common question my sorority sisters and I got when we entered a dance competition this year at our school.

Not too long ago, the university I attend welcomed its first historically black Greek-letter organization. I had the privilege of becoming a member of this sorority and was curious to see how the students of a predominately white university in a wealthy area would receive a historically black organization on its campus.

The university was widely accepting of the sorority; however, as we became more visible on the campus, we experienced much cultural insensitivity.

This year, for the first time, we participated in a sorority dance competition that raises money for charity. During the week leading up to the dance-off, several people approached us asking if we were going to twerk — as if twerking is the only style of dance a black woman can do.

Yes, most of the pleas for us to twerk on stage were jokes—you know, those obnoxious, not so funny, purposefully racist jokes—the same jokes many people shrug off and laugh along with because they are believed to be harmless.

Yet, there is a serious problem when we idly allow people to make ignorant and unacceptable comments, especially those that trivialize issues of class and race. As we read in the article, “Let’s Get Ratchet! Leave Your Privilege at the Door,” also featured on Racialicious, views about twerking employ certain bigoted ideas about poverty and black culture.

These comments and jokes about our sorority twerking relate to the effects of a black woman’s image based on media coverage. With the countless Twerk Team videos on Youtube and the glorifying of a “bad bitch” who can “bend it over and touch her toes” in commercial hip hop lyrics,this style of dance has become a fabricated indicator of “authentic” black womanhood. Essentially, the conversation about the style of dance becomes: all “real” black women can twerk.

This expectation is progressed through the numerous videos of young black women popularizing the dance style online (They aren’t the only ones doing it, but they are a significant majority). On one hand, if a woman chooses to dance sexually that is her choice. However, I find it problematic if her decision to twerk comes from commercial hip hop’s ideas about women (none of which are uplifting) and the songs that accompany the dance, such as French Montana’s “Pop That” and Juicy J’s “Bandz A Make Her Dance,” which demand a woman’s complete submission in order to sexually please her male company. Type “twerk” into youtube and you’ll find several young women accepting the sex-object role that the music demands of them. These demands become increasingly problematic when they involve race and gender. Notice that no expectations are placed on men or women of other ethnicities to twerk. People are often shocked when white women do it.

As it is extremely provocative, twerking suggests a lot about black sexuality. As feminist theorist Patricia Hill Collins discusses in Black Sexual Politics, African Americans’ use of their bodies is heavily promoted and celebrated above other abilities, such as intellect.

Maybe that is why there aren’t many stereotypes about black women being smart.

The focus on black bodies is not a new concept. Author Norman Kelly explains in Rhythm and Business that these ideas date back to slavery, when bodies were used to cut sugarcane and harvest tobacco, and raped to produce more bodies for labor. Yet, too much use of the mind was prohibited, as reading was illegal.

This use of bodies, specifically, the focus on what twerking accentuates, a woman’s behind, dates even further back to the 19th century, when Saartjie Baartman first made her appearance in Europe as the freak show Venus Hottentot. People visited the show to gawk and mock her huge behind and peek under her clothing to look at her vagina.

These 19th century views continue to exist in the comments about twerking. When people expect or demand that we twerk, black women are once again reduced to a piece of ass.

Unfortunately, many people of color have adopted some of these external views on black sexuality, as several of the jokes about our sorority twerking came from other African American students on campus. During the preparation for another show, one black student who saw us practicing also asked if we would twerk for our half-time basketball game performance. In asking this, he and other students of color who made similar comments participate in progressing harmful stereotypes of black women. Because this guy’s mind went right to twerking when he heard we were dancing, his views of women how black women should appear on stage have been influenced by disgusting stereotypes of black women in popular culture.

As leaders and promoters of equality, we must amend the incorrectly-deemed “harmless” jokes and comments about black sexuality, as they further the idea that black people are only good for physical activities such as manual labor, dancing, and sex. These jokes suppress ideas about successful black scholars and intellectual leaders.

When these dehumanizing ideas circulate in popular culture, I am concerned about how they affect our self-narratives and self-esteem. Growing up, my friends and I wrestled with what it meant to be authentically black. Our music interest, sense of fashion, and ways of dancing were all influenced by external ideas about black culture that we saw in music videos, on the radio, and from our peers (this was just before Youtube and Twerk Team became popular). As much of my teenaged perception about what “authentic” blackness meant came from BET, where currently Nicki Minaj acts as an updated Venus Hottentot (as much of her brand, appearance, clothing and lyrics point to the same two body parts Europeans gawked over at Baartman’s freak show: her ass and vagina). I eventually had to unlearn a lot of the demeaning ideas of black womanhood I was exposed to. I am still in the process of unlearning.

Calling people out on their rude jokes and comments aids this unlearning process and teaches them about the stereotypes they uphold when they make such comments.

Shae Collins is a recent college graduate with a bachelor’s degree in English Rhetoric. She is the creator of A Womyn’s Worth, a social commentary blog that addresses interests and cultural issues of black women. Following her undergraduate studies, she will pursue a master’s degree in fiction writing and certification in American Sign Language interpreting.

I want to keep rooting for Wayne Brady. But while (rightly) defending himself against Bill Maher’s lazy accusations on Monday on HuffPost Live on Monday, Brady chose to travel an equally low road.

In the interview with Marc Lamont Hill, Brady justifiably states that Maher’s use of Brady as a “cultural lynchpin” with which to chide President Barack Obama for not being “black enough” is bullsh-t, and mentions Maher’s white privilege. He also levels an excellent shot on Maher’s appearance in DC Cab. But then this happens:

Just because you’ve been with a black woman or two — and I’ve seen some of them; it’s questionable if they were women — just because you’ve done that … now you lived the black experience? Oh, now you’re down? No.

As Brady points out, that’s actually a callback to statements he made on Aisha Tyler’s podcast in July 2012:

… So, that means that’s it’s a diss to Obama to be called me because [Maher] wants a brother-brother, or what he perceives. Just because you f-ck black hookers, just because you have that particular black experience. And I have to stop myself from getting into it with Bill because the thing is, if I would’ve gone on his show or even doing it online, I’m not gonna win. … Now, I’m not saying I’m Billy Badass, but if Bill Maher has his perception of what’s black wrapped up, I would gladly slap the shit out of Bill Maher in the middle of the street, and then I want to see what Bill Maher would do.

So in two instances within a year of one another, Brady can’t call out Maher’s already-shoddy insinuation that he has a “Black pass” without dragging women into it. With respect, transphobic jokes don’t help his case. It’s just substituting one form of prejudice for another in the guise of humor.

Brady’s latest statement also plays out like an over-the-top recreation of his famous guest turn on Chappelle’s Show at a time when we should be celebrating his latest achievements. Brady is now not only the host of Let’s Make A Deal, but he’s set to return as part of a rebooted Who’s Line Is It Anyway? alongside new host Tyler.

It is also disappointing to see that Hill never pushes back. As HuffPo Live becomes a bigger platform — the channel reached a deal last month to air a six-hour block on cable television — Hill and his staff should be thinking of what they want to project as their channel’s values. And allowing these kinds of statements, “comedic” or not, to go by without question does not constitute a good look for Hill (or for Tyler either, for that matter).

And if Brady really wants to “beat Maher’s ass,” he’d do more lasting damage challenging Maher’s inanity directly than engaging in dude-bro rhetoric. The case can be made that Brady could actually benefit from going on Maher’s show. After all, Real Time plays to a studio and television audience that is likely more progressive than its’ predecessor, Politically Incorrect. Brady calling Maher out on the “black enough” jokes and on his privilege would likely win him some support in the public arena, since it’s also heavily featured in news and political blogs.

Being shown up on his home court might finally make Maher realize that playing the Quentin Card makes him look more like Daniel Tosh than George Carlin. And Brady shouldn’t have to make himself look just as bad as Maher to expose that truth.

So some of you readers have discovered my Tumblr Ask Box is available for Anonymous questions. I don’t respond to every single one if they don’t ask a question specifically, but I do try to answer questions as much as possible.

Image Credit: AfroDad

By Guest Contributor  Deesha Philyaw

A few years ago, there was an orchestrated online blogging effort to shame black women for having children outside of marriage.  This effort masqueraded as a movement of concern seeking to reduce poor socioeconomic outcomes for black children.  Talk about a wolf in sheep’s clothing.  As a co-founder (along with my ex-husband) of co-parenting101.org, I was asked to participate in this effort.  I took note of the fact that my invitation to participate came after the movement launched and was found to be wanting.  I mean, after you castigate women and call their children “bastards,” and critics are calling you out for it, it’s definitely time for Plan B (no pun intended).  Well, I wanted no parts of it, and I made my reasons clear when I declined the invitation.  Co-parenting101.org was created to support and encourage parents and their children, not demonize them.

Further, I refused to participate in something that I felt would dishonor the struggles of my single mother, who did not raise me to be ashamed of the circumstances of my birth nor of her marital status.  But for a variety of reasons, I did grow up feeling ashamed about it.  And I know that I’m not the only child of unmarried parents who experienced this shame, or the shame that’s heaped upon people simply because they are poor.  It’s a shame that predates blogging and the internet. Shame clearly isn’t effective birth control.

I also chose not to participate out of respect for my relatives and grade-school classmates who later became young, unmarried mothers unexpectedly.  Because I know that on several occasions, I was just one day in my menstrual cycle or one broken condom away from that same situation. We went to the same free clinics together in 8th and 9th grade, got our “foam and rubbers” to use until the birth control pills were reliable, and had sex while holding our breath.  Nobody said a word to us about HIV and AIDS in 1985.  A lot of them got pregnant before they wanted to; I didn’t.  I don’t feel superior.

That said, I absolutely care about the fact that half of all children raised in single-mother-headed households grow up in poverty.  But shouldn’t we be attacking poverty, instead of attacking people who live in poverty, if that’s really the concern?  Imagine if even a fraction of the $1 trillion in resources and public support for the failed “War on Drugs” of the past 40 years had funded a “War on Poverty?”  But that didn’t happen, of course, because it’s easier to simply blame poor people for being poor.  In the absence of actual solutions comes blame, shame, and the politics of respectability.  

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Here are six alternatives to shaming and blaming unmarried women for having children:

1. Get Your Stats Straight

Here, here, here, and here are some statistics that are often mentioned to highlight concern for children raised by single mothers in the U.S.:

*While half of all children raised by single mothers grow up in poverty, only one in 10 of their counterparts in married households grow up poor.

*Nearly 3 out of 4 black children are born outside of marriage.

*Most babies born to women under 30 are born outside of marriage, and in the last 20 years, the fastest growth for this trend has been among 20-something white women who have some college education.

However, a statistic that’s far less widely known is that most single mothers in the U.S. are separated, divorced, or widowed.  And these moms have higher poverty rates than single moms in other high-income countries, despite working more hours.  Across the board, single US mothers’ employment experiences and support from the social safety-net lag behind that of their counterparts abroad.  

2. Support Public Policies That Support Women And Children

Why are US single working mothers and their children faring so poorly? And why is marriage put forth as a cure-all for their predicament?

Writing in The American Prospect, Amanda Marcotte observes, “To justify obsessing over non-married-ness—at the expense of, say, asking why a single income isn’t enough to be middle class, as it was for huge percentages of the population in the 1950s—requires believing that single women need a bit more scolding…”

And if single women need more scolding, single black women–with our wanton baby-making selves–need 10 times more.  But, oh, right…it’s about the children.  Our children face a harder row to hoe than their white counterparts, hence the urgency of the situation…and the extra heaping of scorn.  

Except scorn never fed a child’s mind or empty belly the way, say, early childhood education and his mom’s equal and higher wages could.  Scorn doesn’t enact better family- and sick-leave policies, and it doesn’t protect the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Child Tax Credit, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), or food stamps (SNAP) from Republicans hell-bent on destroying the social safety-net.

And scorn never gave a woman or girl access to birth control and abortion when politicians on the right want to eliminate access to both…at the same damn time.  

3. Ditch The Marriage Myths About People With Low Incomes

According to a study in the Journal of Marriage and Family, people with low incomes subscribe to more traditional values with regard to marriage and divorce than those with moderate and higher incomes.  Thomas Trail, UCLA postdoctoral fellow in psychology and the study’s lead author, notes that lower-income partners “have no more problems with communication, sex, parental roles or division of household chores than do higher income couples.”  But, according to the study, they may still choose to remain single because they recognize that sustaining a marriage is particularly difficult when you’re struggling to make ends meet, and they don’t want to end up divorced.

The study also concluded that unmarried women with lower incomes have children because while they may have no role models for successful, healthy marriages and may not trust the men they know with their “financial and family future,” they do feel capable of raising a child because they have role models for successful single motherhood.

Unfortunately, government policy is based on false assumptions about what people with lower incomes value and how they relate.  The result? A billion dollars spent on educational curricula to promote marriage to people who already believe in it.

Benjamin Karney, co-director of the Relationship Institute at UCLA and senior author of the study, says increasing social mobility, through educational and career opportunities, is the best way to lower teen pregnancy rates.  In general, government money is better spent helping people with the “day-to-day challenges in their lives” such as transportation and affordable child care, not on relationship education.

4. Remember that Life Doesn’t Always Go As Planned

Relationships and marriages fail.  Birth control fails.  Some women choose not to marry people they deem to be unsuitable mates, while still choosing to have a child. Things happen that we don’t anticipate.  Punishing ourselves or teaching our children that they should feel less-than when life doesn’t go as planned isn’t productive.  As parents, our job is to help our children make wise and healthy decisions.  But it’s also our job to raise resilient children who know how to be resourceful, how to cope, and how to bounce back when bad, difficult, or unexpected things happen.

5. Stop Talking About Single Moms…and Start Listening To Them

Stacia L. Brown, founder of BeyondBabyMamas.com, makes so many excellent points about the diverse social, personal, and economic experiences of single moms in her piece for The Atlantic Sexes, “How Unwed Mothers Feel About Being Unwed Mothers,” that I’m just going to link to it here.

6. Remember That Not All Single Moms Are Parenting Alone

Research, anecdotal evidence, and plain old common sense bear out the fact that children can thrive when their fit and willing parents play an active role in their lives, even if their parents aren’t married to each other.  If the government wants to spend on curricula for parents, then funding ongoing, quality co-parenting classes–not just the handful sometimes required by family courts–would be a wise investment.

Someone can make a terrible mate, yet still be a great parent to their child and a great parenting partner to their ex-mate.  This isn’t always easy, to say the least, and our cultural expectation is that exes will be hopelessly combative.  Yet some co-parents manage to put their animosity side and put their children first.  Some previously absentee fathers do the hard work of re-engaging in their children’s lives.  And some single moms parent with the support of a “village” of extended family, other moms, and friends.

~

Children born to unmarried parents are not a foregone conclusion. Condemnation of single parents doesn’t allow for the myriad of possibilities of their children’s lives.  But for black folks, embracing these possibilities requires us to let go of cultural presumptions about deadbeat baby daddies, child-support-misspending, promiscuous baby mamas, and their “illegitimate” children.  Our children deserve better.  They deserve our advocacy and our activism–not our contempt.

Deesha Philyaw is the co-author (with her ex-husband) of “Co-Parenting 101: Helping Your Kids Thrive in Two Households After Divorce” and the co-founder of co-parenting101.org. She is a remarried mother of four girls–two daughters and two bonus daughters.

Last year, around this time, I was nursing far too high expectations for a little pilot season pickup called Deception. This year I’m just really glad it’s been cancelled so that the actors involved can escape with some dignity intact. One can’t say the same about Community.

Yeah, it’s that time again. Most networks are at least 80% set with their 2013-2014 Fall/Winter lineups. For better worse you will be sitting through another season of potentially Harmon-less Community. As Abed might say, some stations just like to watch the world burn.

The cast of NBC’s Community

NBC: That in mind, let’s start with NBC, whose decisions have actually been marginally less perplexing than in previous years. Aside from renewing Community, they also granted a 22-season run to their drama Parenthood  after a truncated 2012-2013 season and because NBC can’t do a good thing without screwing it up just a little? Parenthood will be airing against Scandal, Thursdays at 10pm this fall. For some it’s the Sophie’s Choice of television. For me? An easy decision.

The Braverman Clan saga is one of my favorite hours on television and there’s nothing to indicate that the high quality of the show plans to change going into it’s fifth season (you know, like the departure of the show runner who happens to be the driving creative force behind the whole thing? Ahem.) Staying with the blended family theme Welcome to the Family, a 30-minute comedy pilot about white and Latino teen couple who decide to marry after the girlfriend’s knocked up (their words, not mine), and About a Boy ( based on the Hugh Grant movie, and developed by Parenthood exec Jason Katims) costarring Al Madrigal and Anjelah N. Johnson-Reyes also received the green light. Between Parenthood, Welcome to the Family, The New Normal (canceled for the Fall), and greenlit pilots Sean Saves The World (about a divorced gay dad!), and The Family Guide (about a divorced blind dad!), NBC really does seem attached to this quirky-modern family thing.

As mentioned, Deception is gone, which isn’t much of a surprise and is way less upsetting than the cancellation of Undercovers — yeah, still bitter. Filling in their dramatic gaps will be The Night Shift, a hospital drama starring Eoin Macken, Ken Leung, Brendan Fehr, Freddy Rodriguez, and Jill Flint. There’s also The Blacklist, which is apparently their highest-tested pilot in years.

Elsewhere, Blair Underwood stars as a paralyzed cop in a new version of the Raymond Burr procedural Ironside, and Alfonso Cuaron’s been tapped to direct the new J.J. Abrams super-powered humans pilot Believe. Unlike last year, it doesn’t look like NBC is going to try and capitalize on Scandal’s success by featuring another show with a Black female lead. Gina Torres’ brief appearances on Hannibal — opposite real-life husband Laurence Fishburne!– will have to suffice…that is, if it’s renewed. We may know about the fates of Hannibal and Craig Robinson’s untitled comedy project co-staring Amandla Steinberg by mid-week.

NBC gets a B for their pilot season pickups. Solid choices in the drama department that may have longevity, but there’s nothing to be hugely excited, about and I wouldn’t say they’ve taken leaps and bounds when it comes to network television diversity. Each cast has one or two  actors and actresses of color peppered throughout in co-starring positions, but the only leading role looks to be Blair Underwood, and The Night Shift seems like the only new show going with a true ensemble feel meaning that everyone could get equal screen and plot time. Picking up Craig Robinson’s show could turn it to a B+, and they did increase their number of Jason Katims shows by one. You get bonus points for that.

ABC: Let’s get the obvious out of the way: ABC picked up Joss Whedon’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D pilot. I’ve shared my thoughts about that here already, so let’s see what that cast is shaping up to look like…

Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Brett Dalton, Elizabeth Henstridge, Chloe Bennet and Iain de Caestecker in Agents of SHIELD via. Zap2net

I’m not going to sit here and act all holier-than-thou and pretend that I’m not going to watch this show every week, write fanfic, track the tags on Tumblr, and generally participate in any number of annoying fangirl behaviors because of it. But, uh, while I’m glad to see Ming-Na Wen standing there, I guess I was hoping for…a little more. J. August Richards is supposedly playing a huge role, though they haven’t released his character name as of yet. This leads me to believe that he’s probably playing someone from the Marvel universe. I never would have cast him as Luke Cage during my online role-playing days, but I wouldn’t completely object if that’s where they wanted to go with that. Especially given the difficulty they’ve had getting a Jessica Jones show on the air. That said, it’s just as likely they’ll pull another Nick Fury and switch up the race of an already existing character. Current casting and casting rumors shows this is obviously something Marvel is open to.

The network made other moves this week including picking up the pilot for Resurrection, about an eight-year-old boy who dies in Arcadia, Missouri and wakes up in China 30 years later. It stars Landon Gimenez as the boy (don’t get too excited; his long-lost parents are being played by two white actors) and Omar Epps as the immigration agent who guides him through solving the mystery of his death. Lucky 7 tells the story of a group of diverse gas station employees in Astoria who never actually thought they’d win the lottery pool they’d been chipping into for months. The ensemble cast includes Summer Bishil, Isiah Whitlock Jr., and Luis Antonio Ramos, meaning that middle-class New York City may actually look like middle-class New York City. Following Freema Agyeman’s footsteps in venturing to America, Being Human‘s Lenora Crichlow grabbed a co-starring role in Back in the Game, and it’s worth noting that Sofia Vergara is producing Killer Women, starring Tricia Helfer as the only female Texas Ranger with Vic Trevino, Alex Fernandez, and Spanish actress Marta Milans. On the comedic side of things Happy Endings is officially dead, to be replaced with (among other things) Super Fun Night, which co-stars Liza Lapira (Don’t Trust the B in Apartment 23, NCIS, Dollhouse) alongside Rebel Wilson.

Nashville, which was easily my favorite network debut of the season, is also returning for a second season meaning they’ll have a chance to diversify their super-white main cast. Wyclef Jean and Robert Wisdom haven’t really done that much in their respective roles, and as far as I can tell Wyclef’s minor storyline is over.

Finally, ABC passed on Big Thunder, the 1870s frontier period piece that had been looking to cast several Native actors for starring roles, and Tracie Thoms’ Gothika, a soap opera about Dracula, Frankenstein, and fellow gothic literature characters.  This means that Tracie Thoms is free to guest-star as Misty Knight on S.H.I.E.L.D. (with Once Upon a Time’s criminally under used Jamie Chung as Colleen Wing– look, ABC, I did all the work for you), and I’m okay with that.

Final grade? B+. Lucky 7 looks promising, it’s good to see Vergara producing, Scandal and Greys stay, there’s still the possibility of a show from Awkward Black Girl’s Issa Rae, and S.H.I.E.L.D. won’t actually need to be good in order to be successful.

FOX: Well, the big rumor this week is that 24 may be on its way back in the wake of Touch‘s cancellation. I can only assume it plans on being instrumental in adding to the deluge of pop culture Yellow Peril propaganda we’ve been subjected to for the past year.

The Following has already been renewed (yes!), and so has Glee (oh boy). Other new hour longs of note include Gang Related, about a gang member tasked to go undercover with the LAPD, starring Ramon Rodriguez, Jay Hernandez and Rza. Then there’s Almost Human from J.J. Abrams and starring Michael Ealy and Karl Urban as an android and human buddy-cop pairing. The only thing I can say for certain that I’ll check out is Sleepy Hollow (yeah, it’s exactly what it sounds like), co-starring John Cho, Nichole Beharie, and Orlando Jones. I’m predictable that way. Otherwise, I have to agree with Deadline in saying that FOX’s comedy and drama lineup for 2013-2014 seems to be skewing what could be seen as very traditionally male audience oriented.

We’re expecting a few more decisions from FOX in the coming week, so the overall grade remains unknown but if they do bring back 24 they’re not getting higher than a C+.

MONDAY MORNING EDIT: 24 is a go, and the pool’s open for bets on which group of non-whites will get demonised this time. My money’s on North Korea and/or China.

Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop via screenrant.com

CBS: The most surprising news so far is the dumping of the Beverly Hills Cop: The Series pilot starring Brandon Jackson, Eddie Murphy, and Judge Reinhold, Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld. It’s still being shopped at other networks, but I’m not getting too excited. This could be an be an overreaction, but it seems like a bad sign when CBS, king of all procedurals, passes on a procedural pilot with a bankable Black Hollywood actor. That’s their bread and butter. Remember that two-bit Criminal Minds spin off starring Forrest Whitaker? Even that aired for half a season. This thing must be terrible (not to mention expensive!), and I need to find a leaked copy immediately.

Golden Boy (starring Chi Mcbride) was canceled (see? It was horrible, but it aired!), along with Rules of Engagement. Otherwise CBS announces their full schedule (which will include renewed shows Elementary and Hawaii Five-0) on Wednesday. Some of the starring names involved include: Robin Williams, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Anna Faris, Allison Janney, Will Arnett, Kal Penn, Tony Shalhoub, Jerry O’Connell, Toni Collette, Dylan McDermott, Josh Holloway, and J.B. Smooth, so we can probably count on the same diversely cast procedural dramas, yet mostly-white comedy lineup they’ve been serving for years. Rating TBD.

The CW: This channel could cancel everything and show nothing but The Originals next year, and I’d be okay with that. Alas, that is not the case. Along with The Originals, which co-stars Charles Michael Davis, we’re getting The 100 with Kelly Hu and Isaiah Washington, about 100 teenagers sent back to a nuclear war ravaged earth in order to repopulate the planet (any excuse for pretty teenagers on a CW show to have sex, amirite?) There’s narry a PoC to be found on the IMDB page for Reign–think, the Tudors, but with teenagers and Mary Queen of Scots) and Star-Crossed (think Roswell, 2013) doesn’t seem to be brimming with diversity either. Over on the renewed Vampire Diaries Bonnie Bennett appears to be (…SPOILERS!!!..) dead prior to this week’s season finale, so it’s looking kind of grim for the chromatic side of The CW. The pushed Wonder Woman pilot would have been a great (though likely squandered) opportunity for some interesting casting, but as things stand now–even with Freema staying on The Carrie Diaries–The CW’s at a D+.

Let’s just take a minute to thank the TV gods for Marcel, though.

Charles Michael Davis as Marcel in The CW’s The Originals

Basic Cable: What to do when the networks are not enough? Head on over to ABC Family for Fosters! I’m looking forward to this project from exec. Producer Jennifer Lopez centered around a lesbian couple, their biological son, their adopted twins, and the troubled teen they take in. AMC hasn’t made a decision on Turn yet, a Revolutionary War drama about the Culper spy ring, and FX is still up in the air over Tyrant, the drama about an American family of some Middle Eastern descent.

Stars of Devious Maids

Devious Maids, starring Ana Ortiz, Judy Reyes, Dania Ramirez, and Roselyn Sanchez, is already getting buzz and controversy and has producer Eva Longoria speaking out about the show’s content. The drama follows four Latina maids in Beverly Hills, and some have called it a waste of exposure for Latina actresses due to the seemingly stereotypical nature of the roles, while Longoria argues that the show deconstructs the stereotype by showing that maids aren’t all they are. We’ll get to decide for ourselves soon enough when it premieres on the Lifetime Network.

Also on FX: Saint George and The Bridge, a comedy and drama respectively, both of which follow Longoria’s casting trend. Saint George revolves around a Mexican-American protagonist who rises from working class to a successful businessman. The Bridge stars Demain Bichir and Diane Kruger as detectives from the opposite sides of the Mexican/American border who have to work together to hunt down a serial killer dumping his bodies on the bridge between El Paso and Juarez. FX does amazing work creating interesting crime dramas that don’t fall under the procedural heading (I don’t think I’ve watched an FX drama that I haven’t liked), so I’ll definitely be checking this one out.

Last but not least, we have Nick at Nite jumping in on the pilot game with Instant Mom, starring Duane Martin, Sheryl Lee Ralph, and Tia Mowry. The show centers around a 25-year-old who marries an older man with three kids and has to give up her partying ways.

And that’s it for now. We’ll get more last-minute decisions as the week goes on, and things should be pretty much finalised by Friday. At first glance it seems as though Latino/a actors won the representation game this pilot season in sheer numbers, though I guess we won’t really know until we get to see the quality of the shows themselves.Otherwise, I’m still disappointed about Big Thunder, and I’m really curious to see what that Beverly Hills Cop pilot looked like but, aside from Believe and possibly Lucky 7, there’s nothing here that’s making me fall out of a chair in excitement.

We should be getting some promos out soon (the S.H.I.E.L.D. promo aired Sunday night) which should help enthusiasm build over the summer…only to lead to disappointment 90% of the time.

See you in the Fall!

While race on Rhimes’s shows is omnipresent, it is not often discussed explicitly. This has led to a second-order critique of her shows: that they are colorblind, diverse in a superficial way, with the characters’ races rarely informing their choices or conversations. Rhimes, obviously, disagrees. “When people who aren’t of color create a show and they have one character of color on their show, that character spends all their time talking about the world as ‘I’m a black man blah, blah, blah,’ ” she says. “That’s not how the world works. I’m a black woman every day, and I’m not confused about that. I’m not worried about that. I don’t need to have a discussion with you about how I feel as a black woman, because I don’t feel disempowered as a black woman.”

This season on “Scandal,” race has been more openly discussed. In one scene, Olivia remarked to Fitz that she was feeling “a little Sally Hemings-Thomas Jefferson” about their relationship, one of the first overt references to its racial aspect. Rhimes had written the line into three previous scripts and taken it out each time. She finally included it, but only as a flashback, later in the show’s run but early in Olivia’s relationship with Fitz, when Rhimes knew it would have been on Olivia’s mind. “I don’t think that we have to have a discussion about race when you’re watching a black woman who is having an affair with the white president of the United States,” she explains. “The discussion is right in front of your face.”

– “Network TV Is Broken. So How Does Shonda Rhimes Keep Making Hits?” by Willa Paskin, May 19, 2013

The many covers of Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block, via. thereal90s.tumblr.com

By Guest Contributor Debbie Reese*

Years ago I started reading Weetzie Bat but put it down, in part, because of these passages in the first few pages of the first chapter (Note: To write this post, I read an e-book that doesn’t provide page numbers):

Sometimes she wore Levi’s with white-suede fringe sewn down the legs and a feathered Indian headdress… 

“She” is Weetzie Bat. Her friend, Dirk, who has “chiseled” features compliments her outfit:

Weetzie was wearing her feathered headdress and her moccasins and a pink fringed mini dress.

Weetzie replies:

“Thanks. I made it,” she said, snapping her strawberry bubble gum. “I’m into Indians,” she said. “They were here first and we treated them like shit.” 

“Yeah,” Dirk said, touching his Mohawk.

Weetzie Bat was published in 1989 and won several awards. Reading it today, what comes to mind is the hipster culture of the last few years and its appropriation of Native culture. While writing up this review, I did an image search of “Weetzie Bat.” In the grid of images I got (using Google image search), the first image in the second row I got is this one:

The source for the photo is a Weetzie Bat blog post at an art blog, A Beautiful Party. Dated September 16, 2010, the post is about a screenplay of Weetzie Bat and the photo is of someone playing the part of Weetzie Bat. If I didn’t know it was from Weetzie Bat, I would have thought, “Dang hipsters!”, because I’ve seen a lot of photos of hipsters in headdresses, feathered earrings, fringed clothing, or moccasins. Reading Weetzie Bat now, I wonder if it might have played a role in the 1990s emergence of hipsters and their appropriation of Native culture.

What, I wonder, was Block thinking about when she brought Native culture into her book? What did it mean to her or Weetzie Bat to say “I’m into Indians”?!

In my read of Weetzie Bat there is nothing to suggest that Block knew she was, in effect, having her characters embrace stereotypical “knowledge” about American Indians. (What she does with Jamaican’s gives me pause, too, but I’ll stay on topic.)

In the chapter titled “Jah-Love,” Weetzie meets the guy who will be her boyfriend. His name is My Secret Agent Lover Man (quirky names are everywhere in the book). He makes films of her doing things, like “having a pow-wow.” We aren’t told what she was doing, so we don’t know “having a pow-wow” means. That chapter closes with this:

And so Weetzie and My Secret Agent Lover Man and Dirk and Duck and Slinkster Dog and Fifi’s canaries lived happily ever after in their silly-sand-topped house in the land of skating hamburgers and flying toupees and Jah-Love blonde Indians.

Duck is Dirk’s boyfriend. Slinkster Dog is Weetzie’s dog. “Jah-Love” is, I think, short for Jamaica love but I don’t know what to make of it beyond that. There are, of course, blonde Indians, but the ones in Weetzie Bat are playing Indian–and doing it in stereotypical ways.

Early in the chapter “Weetzie Wants a Baby,” Weetzie, My Secret Agent Lover Man, Dirk, and Duck have finished their third film. It is called Coyote. In it, Weetzie is

a rancher’s daughter who falls in love with a young Indian named Coyote and ends up helping him defend his land against her father and the rest of the town. They had filmed Coyote on an Indian reservation in New Mexico. Weetzie grew her hair out, and she wore Levi’s and snaky cowboy boots and turquoise. Dirt and Duck played her angry brothers…

It is no surprise that the film makes some money for them. In the story–as in real life–white people defending and rescuing Indians from whites is a sure-fire hit.

Weetzie, as the chapter title tells us, wants a baby. My Secret Agent Lover Man isn’t at all interested in having a baby. He thinks the world is too messed up to bring a child into. While he’s away for a few weeks, Weetzie, Dirk, and Duck decide they want a baby together. They climb into bed together, and Weetzie ends up pregnant. My Secret Agent Lover Man returns, isn’t happy with her decision to get pregnant, and leaves. When the baby is born, Weetzie, Dirt, and Duck decide to name the baby “Cherokee.” There’s no explanation for why they choose Cherokee. All we know is that they considered these names: Sweet, Fifi, Duckling, Hamachi, Teddi, and Lambie.

At the end of the chapter, My Secret Agent Lover Man comes back. He gazes at Cherokee and asks who her father is. Weetzie says that she’s got high cheekbones like Dirk, and blonde hair like Duck, but that her eyes and lips are like his.

Ah, yes. high cheekbones like Dirk. Remember—he’s the guy with the Mohawk.

The last line in the chapter is:

Cherokee looked like a three-dad baby, like a peach, like a tiny moccasin, like a girl love-warrior who would grow up to wear feathers and run swift and silent through the L.A. canyons.

What does a tiny moccasin look like when you’re talking about a baby?! I know the book was/is much loved but–the stereotypical othering aside–the style doesn’t work for me.

In the chapter, “Chapter: Shangri-L.A.,” My Secret Agent Lover Man is making another movie. This one is called Shangri-L.A. Weetzie stars in it. She wears strapless dresses and rhinestones. And,

She made fringed baby clothes and feathered headdresses for Cherokee…

Sheesh! Now there’s headdresses for this baby girl?!

They can’t figure out an ending for the movie, so My Secret Agent Lover Man suggests Weetzie visit her dad in New York to see if he has any ideas. While there, he takes them shopping and buys Cherokee a Pink Panther doll at F.A.O. Schwarz.

If you’re buying a doll at F.A.O. Schwarz—well, if you’re even inside that store, you’re of a certain income level. Even though Weetzie’s source of money is never mentioned, the things they do suggests there’s plenty of it.

While in NY, Weetzie thinks her dad isn’t well. Soon after Weetzie goes back to L.A., he dies, and Weetzie struggles with her grief:

Grief is not something you know if you grow up wearing feathers with a Charlie Chaplin boyfriend, a love-child papoose, a witch baby, a Dirk and a Duck, a Slinkster Dog, and a movie to dance in.

Wearing feathers. That’s what Weetzie does. Nowhere do we get any sense that she (or Block) know much about the many distinctions amongst Native peoples. With the use of “papoose” we see more of that ignorance. Papoose is the word for baby in one language. It is not the Indian word for papoose. With over 500 federally recognized Native Nations, there are hundreds of languages, too. The Cherokee word for “baby”, by the way, is not “papoose.”

Cat Yampbell, in “Judging a Book by Its Cover: Publishing Trends in Young Adult Literature” (The Lion and the Unicorn, 29(3)) says:

The text of Weetzie Bat celebrates those who are torn from society, individuals who find each other and find happiness outside of the box that society defines as the norm.

Michael Cart, in “What a Wonderful World: Notes on the Evolution of GLBTQ Literature for Young Adults” (The ALAN Review, 31(2)), calls it a classic of gay fiction, and says:

its largehearted embrace of every aspect of the workings of the human heart, it demonstrates, with art and innovation, that love is love, regardless of what society chooses to label it.

Though I’ve not done an exhaustive look, I’m unable (thus far) to find any critical essays in which the stereotyping of American Indians is discussed. The book is much celebrated for its affirmation of people who are “outside the box” and/or gay, but I wouldn’t hand it to a Native child who was outside the norm or gay. I can’t elevate one part of who they are and slam another part of their identity at the same time.

Granted, some Native readers would breeze past it and shrug it off, but not all would do that, and I wonder, too, about the readers (like Yampbell? Cart?) who didn’t comment on the stereotyping. Did they not see it because it reflects their “knowledge” of American Indians? Or, did they deem that content insignificant? And what does it mean to decide that one culture is insignificant?

Thinking about those questions is ironic, given what Weetzie said at the top of the story. “I’m into Indians. They were here first and we treated them like shit.” Does Block realize that she’s doing the same thing?

Honoring or being “into” anyone in a superficial way is, in my view, treating them like shit because it is lazy. It allows a feel-good moment to stand in for real learning, real understanding, and meaningful action that would make the world we all live in, a better world.

In doing the research for this post, I read that Block has a new book out–a prequel to Weetzie Bat. I’ll pick it up next time I’m at the library.

*Debbie Reese continues to write on the Francesca Lia Block series in her essays, “Indian American” in Francesca Lia Block’s PINK SMOG and A Native Perspective on Francesa Lia Block’s CHEROKEE BAT AND THE GOAT GUYS.