Courtesy Bossip.com

Moments after Joel Ward’s overtime goal secured a playoff victory for the Washington Capitals over Boston last month, the twittersphere exploded with a barrage of racial epithets, threats of violence, and stereotypes.

Editor’s Note: Trigger Warning under the cut–pictures of racist slurs

Here is but a sampling of the vitriol and hostility resulting from his goal (for complete list, go here):

Receiving national attention, such racism was dismissed through narratives of fan ignorance, fan drunkenness, fan anger, and a myriad of other excuses that explain the situation as of little importance to understanding race in contemporary society. For example, at DCist, shawnwhiteboy offered the following response to an article about these tweets:

The obvious problem with twitter is that any drunk asshole with a smart phone can use a hashtag and get ‘hits’. The problem with the media is that you cover these drunk assholes as news. When will this end? Is this comment I am typing news worthy? No! What’s worse, the last sentence of this article lumps all bruin fans together with those drunk assholes. Boston fans are passionate and sometimes obnoxious but not racist. Having lived in boston and dc for 5 years each, people are not more enlightened in one place over the other. Okay, rant over.. . Those racist comments are terrible, how server going to get back at those fuckers listed here?

In an ESPN story covering the backlash against Ward, another commenter offered a similar refrain, identifying the Internet as the reason for such outbursts: “It isn’t at all surprising to see the slew of racist comments after the game,” he wrote. “Social media allows total anonymity if the user desires; these things can be said with no fear of reprisal. Such bravery!” These explanations were commonplace not only in the aftermath of Ward’s game winning goal, but following a game less than two weeks later.

With less than a minute to go in a game versus the New York Rangers, with his team up by a goal, Ward committed a penalty that sent him to the box for four minutes. Before he would be able to step back onto the ice, the Rangers would score two power play goals, sending the Capitals to a crushing defeat. Less than two weeks after facing a barrage of racial taunts and epithets from Bruins fans, Ward now faced similar violence from Capitals fans.

A common response to both of these incidences has been to link them to hockey; that above all else, the hostility embodies racism in hockey culture. Seemingly ignoring and erasing online racism of all kinds and those particular to virtual sports landscapes, hockey fans have become the problem rather than a symptom. Ironically, such a narrative imagines hockey as the “South” of sports culture.

Given its whiteness and even the working-class demographic of its fan base, commentators have sought to identity this as reflective of hockey culture, rather than sports or even society at large. Race and nation have a particular history within hockey. As I wrote a couple months back following an incident where fans threw a banana at Boston’s Wayne Simmonds, whiteness, privilege, and racism are all part of the hockey story:

Others connected to the sport were not so willing (despite their having greater power and privilege) to reflect on the racial realities and hostilities of the NHL in this moment or elsewhere. While describing it as a “stupid and ignorant action,” Commissioner Gary Bettman made clear that incident was “in no way representative of our fans or the people of London, Ontario.” Maxine Talbot, a teammate of Simmonds, summarily dismissed the incident as “isolated” that said little about the state of hockey: “It’s not like there’s a problem with racism in our league. It’s one person!”

Dismissing it as an aberration and the work of some ignorant fans, the response fails to see the broader history of the NHL, not to mention the larger racial issues at work. While Bettman and others sought to isolate the incidence as the work of a single person who isn’t representative of hockey culture or society at large, others pointed to the persistence of racism within the NHL. Kevin Weeks, who had a banana thrown at him during the 2002 Stanley Cup Playoffs, noted his lack of surprise that Simmonds was subjected to such racism: “I’m not surprised. We have some people that still have their heads in the sand and some people that don’t necessarily want to evolve and aren’t necessarily all that comfortable with the fact that the game is evolving.”

Yet, it would be a mistake to link these visible instances of racism to the whiteness of hockey, its racial politics, or resistance to integration given the ubiquity of racism online and offline. While comforting to construct racial hostility through hockey in that it allows to preserve the myths of integration and breaking down social distance as a weapon against racism, similar racial hostility and tweeted racial epithets can be seen with other sports as well. In the last week, these tweets have been sent out:

While the incidents involving Ward have received ample coverage in parts because of the comfort of blaming hockey, online racism directed at black athletes is not particular to one sport. Integration or greater presence has not led to full acceptance.

At the same time, while one can dismiss these comments as outliers, as representative of trolls or extremists, or even link these comments to the whiteness of hockey, it is crucial to reflect on the larger context. These comments reflect broader trends online, within contemporary racial discourse, and within American sports culture.

From recent tweets from model/actress Jessica Leandra Dos Santos to those directed at webseries showrunner Issa Rae and those following the release of The Hunger Games, Twitter has become rife with racial epithets, sexism, and other forms of hate speech. The level of vitriol and the ubiquity of epithets and violence language have been well-documented: therefore, the tweets directed at Ward reflect a larger pattern of racism online, as opposed to a hockey-specific manifestation. At one level, racism online reflects the technology and aesthetics that define an online environment.

Whether emboldened by anonymity, or the fact that millions of people now have a platform to disseminate their views, ideologies, and world view, the nature of online racism merely reflects the available technology. A 1993 cartoon in The New Yorker captured the appeal of virtual reality for people to voice and show the worst in themselves and society at large.

As Northwestern University professor Pablo Boczkowski told NewsOne, “We always had people shouting on the street. It was a handful of people, and the sender of the message could be clearly identified. Now the audience is much bigger, it’s more unknown, it’s more diverse potentially, and this has changed the dynamics of the game.”

The existence of avatars, online handles, and twitter accounts that can be deleted in a moment notice fosters a culture where epithets and racist pronouncements are seemingly detached from the real-body giving voice to them. The author is unclear, yet the consequences are daily evident. Brendesha Tines, professor African-American studies and psychology at the University of Illinois, describes an online world rampant with racism. In her study of high school youth, she found that 29 percent of African Americans and 42 percent of those identifying as “other” or mixed race experienced racial epithets or other forms of racism online; some 71% of African Americans and 67% of whites and mixed-race youth “witnessed discrimination experienced by same-race and cross-race peers.” It would be a mistake to look at the tweets directed at Joel Ward as an aberration but rather a visible manifestation of the daily realities of online racism.

It would also be a mistake to particularize these tweets as evidence of the sordid debauchery of online spaces. While reflecting online culture, and the presence of “trolls,” the racism directed at Joel Ward, as with other examples, reveals the nature of racism within contemporary society.

“Like the loudest ambulance siren you’ve ever heard,” sociologist Joe Feagin has said. “All this stuff was already there. It’s just the Internet has opened a window into it that we normally would not have had.” Feagin, who along with Leslie Picca, wrote a book exploring the ways white youth talked about race, concluding that two distinct conversations, ways of talking, and linguistic choices, exist: one on the frontstage (those integrated, often public spaces) and the backstage (those private exclusively white spaces).

As one imagine, the backstage has been place rife with racial epithets, jokes, stereotypes, and other white racial frames that don’t mesh with the post-racial narrative. The advent of the Internet, the hegemony of Facebook, and the power of Twitter have merely provided glimpses into those backstage conversations. The online world merely recapitulates the racism, sexism, homophobia, and violence of the “real world.”

The racism directed at Ward from opposing-team fans and his hometown fans is indicative of the position of black athletes. While celebrated, lionized, and position as economic and ideological commodities, these same black bodies are subjected to the realities of American racism.

Angela, who seems like she is the core friend holding the group together, is mixed Thai-German. She’s also got an amazing (and tragic) connection to some major players in pop culture. In 2001, Angela was paralyzed in the same car wreck that killed Thuy Trang (who was famous for playing Trini, the original Yellow Ranger on the popular Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers series). At the time of the accident, she was married to 21 Jump Street star Dustin Nguyen. People Magazine did a write up on the couple in 2007, noting:

For Dustin and Angela, it was the beginning of a different kind of love story. All but abandoning his career, Dustin devoted himself to Angela’s care, bathing her, feeding her, tending to all her needs. The first time Angela cried was six months after the accident as Dustin inserted her catheter. “It hit me what our life was about,” she says. “I said, ‘You don’t have to live this life. You can just go.’”

Six years later, he’s still there. “The idea of leaving is ridiculous,” says Dustin, 45. “I’m not trying to be saintly or noble. But there is only one thing to do: take care of the wife I love. Things happen. You react and move on.”

Sitting in their cozy, wheelchair-friendly 1920s-era house in L.A., the couple laugh easily and trade affectionate gazes.

But as the story opens, it is revealed that Dustin and Angela separated in 2011, and there are many tense conversations about where each wants the relationship to go.

In the sneak peak, Angela notes “she’s got a mortgage to pay” and throws herself back into her work, but the producers hint at more personal drama to come.

Auti Rivera (stage name: Auti Angel) is the other woman of color heading up the series, who is married and about to have her first child with her husband Eric. Getting to this point, wasn’t easy though–in an interview with Disaboom, her past is revealed:

Auti has found the strength to rise above tough situations in her life. She grew up in a gang-infested neighborhood in Torrance, California.

“I’ve dealt with it all: child abuse, molestation, and rape. When I married at 18, I went through a living hell and then escaped him,” Auti details. “I’m lucky to be alive.”

With growing attention from the record industry, Auti Angel was headed on the fast track in the Hip Hop, R&B world.

“I was J.Lo before J.Lo,” Auti says with a laugh, “I danced with LL Cool J. I went on tour with Rap artists and I was about to sign a record deal as part of an all-Latin female Hip Hop group. Then, the tragic car accident happened, severing my spinal cord and leaving me wheelchair bound. That was May 3, 1992, a day I will never forget. The record company wasn’t willing to wait, but I told them, ‘I’m still me!’

Auti moved on and carved out a niche for herself, but then began battling with drugs and alcohol, culminating in a high-speed police chase and spent three months in jail before committing herself to God and service.

Still, she managed to recover yet again and move her life forward. In the June/July issue of Latina, Auti explains how she rebounded:

I started going to clubs and would get on the dance floor. People were mesmerized. It was exhilarating to see their faces light up. Your average person doesn’t think a person with disabilities can party, but we’re still normal people.

I started auditioning again. I went to an agency that looked at me with pity. They said, “We’re sorry, we don’t think we’ll ever have anything for you.” I went home and told God, “I want to get back in the game and do what I used to do.” Three days later that same agency called me and said they were looking for a Latina in a wheelchair who could do tricks. I was cast in a music video for Ludacris, and when I heard the name of the tack, “Stand Up,” I couldn’t help but laugh. God has a funny sense of humor.

I have been a paraplegic for 20 years. I currently teach a hip-hop dance workshop at an adaptive sports camp in San Diego. My students rage in age from 3 to 18 years old and have spinal cord injuries, spina bifida, cerebral palsy, and other disabilities. In that kind of atmosphere we empower each other to push the limits, something I was born to do.

Here’s a quick mash up video of Auti’s life and performances:

Courtesy: Associated Press

It was only fitting, in this modern age, that news of the death of Mexican author, diplomat, and social critic Carlos Fuentes, spread via Twitter. And it was just as befitting of his stature that the person who broke the news was the President of México himself, Felipe Calderón.

That kind of acknowledgement from the highest political circles might’ve amused Fuentes; as recently as the 1980s, his name and works were practically verboten in the public-school curriculum mandated by the country’s ruling party of seven decades, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Far from being a loyal party subject, Fuentes, the son of a diplomat, resigned from his post as Mexico’s ambassador to France in 1977 after the PRI named Gustavo Díaz Ordaz–the former president who sanctioned the 1968 massacre of student protestors at Tlatelolco Plaza in Mexico City–to be his colleague. The party also hovered over one of his more celebrated works, The Death of Artemio Cruz.

“There was no need to mention the PRI,” he once told The Associated Press. “It is present by its absence.”

In his absence, Fuentes’ presence will be remembered not just because of his sheer dedication–he published more than 50 works spanning literature, theater, and film,  beginning with La Región Más Transparente (Where The Air Is Clear) in 1957–but because of his influence on the other writers who would fuel the Latin American “Boom” movement. As University of California-Riverside Professor Raymond L. Williams told the AP, Fuentes was responsible for galvanizing other preeminent authors, like Gabriel García Márquez, Julio Cortázar, and Mario Vargas Llosa into a collective.

“It took Fuentes’ vision to say if we unite forces and provide a common political and literary voice, we’ll have more impact,” Williams told the AP. “His home in Pedregal (an upscale Mexico City neighborhood) was the intellectual center what brought a lot of writers together.”

Fuentes was creative, almost literally, to the very end: not only is his latest book, Vlad, scheduled for release this July (“I loved the old Dracula movies,” he told Publishers Weekly)–but an essay he penned on the recent presidential elections in France was published in the Mexican newspaper Reforma the day he died, just 24 hours after his interview with the Spanish newspaper El Día was printed, in which he revealed that he had completed another book, and planned to start another.

So, it’s only fitting to let this consummate man of words speak for himself. Under the cut are selections and videos from several interviews Fuentes has given over the years. Today, we join readers, writers, and fans of the written word all over the world in celebrating Fuentes’ singular vision.

The simple answer is that there were no other voices, especially as we had to deal with dictatorships, semi-feudal conditions, and illiteracy. It was incumbent on the writer to say what otherwise would not be said; it’s what would be left unsaid. Pablo Neruda once said, do you realise we are all carrying the bodies of our countries on our backs? It’s a great weight we have. He was right at that moment, but society has evolved. There is freedom of the press, political parties, unions, social organisations – others are taking on the solitary duty of the writer. Thank god! So now, more and more, we participate in the life of our countries as citizens. If you don’t do it, nobody is going to demonise you, because if a writer is already working seriously at the level of language and the imagination, he or she is already accomplishing a political mission.
- Open Democracy, 2006

I decided I had to write the novel of the Mexico I was living. The Mexican novel was locked into certain genres: there were Indian novels, novels of the Revolution, and proletarian novels. For me those were like medieval walls constraining the possibilities of Mexican fiction. The Mexico City I was living in belied those restraints because it was like a medieval city that had suddenly lost its walls and drawbridges and sprawled outside itself in a kind of carnival. You had European nobility stranded in Mexico because of the war, an up-and-coming bourgeoisie, unbelievable bordellos lit up in neon near the fish markets where the smell of the women and the smell of the fish mingled. The writer Salvador Elizondo would go there and slit the prostitutes’ armpits while he made love to them so he could make love in a gush of blood. Then mariachi music all night long. Mexico City found in the late forties and fifties its baroque essence, a breaking down of barriers, an overflow. I remember dancing the mambo in astounding cabarets and that was the origin of Where the Air Is Clear: Mexico City as the protagonist of postrevolutionary life in Mexico. I felt that nothing had been said about that in a novel.
- The Paris Review, 1981

I was very, very amazed that I would be denied a personal visa to enter the United States when one of my books was published in translation. In 1963, my publisher — Roger Strauss of Farrar Strauss — invited me, and I was promptly denied the visa. And I said, “The real bombs are my books, not me. I’m not going to put a bomb in a post office in the U.S.A. But my books may be more dangerous than I am. They maybe should ban the books, not the person.” It was logical.
- Academy Of Achievement, 2006

U.S. foreign policy is Manichaean. It’s like a Hollywood movie. You have to know who has the white hat and who has the black hat and then go against the black hat. It’s “Moby-Dick.” The genius of Melville is that he saw that this is a country that needs a monster. The delusion of one madman, Captain Ahab, meant that the white whale had to go. But as Katrina showed, there are great, great problems within the U.S. without it constantly having to create crusades against the rest of the world.
- The New York Times, 2006

With Gabriel García Márquez, 2008. Courtesy: Associated Press.

I’m fascinated by the changes we’re experiencing [this century]. Who could have told you about the changes that would be taking place in North Africa? And from there they’ve extended to the better part of Europe and the United States, where many of my students have told me, “I’m a doctor and I can’t find a job,” or … “My father ascended to the middle class, and I feel I’m sliding back into the working class.” There have also been big changes in Latin America, although a certain stability has been maintained. Before, the problems began in Latin America. Now it looks like they’re headed there. And it’s [now] a world we don’t know how to name. If one would have asked Dante, “How does it feel to be in the midst of the Middle Ages?,” he would tell us, “And what are the Middle Ages?” We don’t know what to call this age, but we feel everything is changing. The Renaissance knew it was the Renaissance. The Middle Ages did not know they were the Middle Ages.
- El País (via Excelsior), May 2012 (translated from Spanish)

“There must be something beyond slaughter and barbarism to support the existence of mankind and we must all help search for it.”
- Twitter, May 2011 (translated from Spanish)

… for crying out loud … good grief.

I had lots of thoughts about this op-ed, simply because I struggle with the reality that so much of women’s body issues are tied up in dating and mating, not their own health. I’m not downing those who have made that decision–that’s not my place–I just wonder if those women truly wind up getting what they originally wanted in the end.

I’ll explain that later. For now, on to the article.

I had to chop this up into bits and pieces. It’s so hard to read, that every time I go to paste a new paragraph, I feel like sticking my virtual finger out and saying “B-b-but …” because it misses so much of the point.

Maybe I’ve been writing about this stuff for too long.

At any rate…the article starts out with a photo of Josephine Baker, with the caption “Josephine Baker embodied a curvier form of the ideal Black woman.” This highlights a huge problem with a lot of Black women as it is today: we don’t understand sizes, our bodies or “curvy” because “curvy,” like “thick,” has been misappropriated so many times that it no longer has any meaningful definition.

Courtesy: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss

“Curvy” simply means that you have curves. Josephine Baker–and, by correlation, Marilyn Monroe–does not have the same kind of curves that many Black women (hell, women period) refer to when the say “curves” today. Josephine’s waist isn’t any larger than a 28; her hips, no larger than 40 inches. Not by a long shot. She might be curvy, but she was small. Petite women and smaller women are also afforded the ability to be curvy. Maybe if we embraced and accepted that idea, we’d stop clinging to the notion that “curves” can only accompany a larger frame. It simply isn’t true, and I’m annoyed by the author’s attempt to use Baker’s photo to imply such.

Four out of five black women are seriously overweight. One out of four middle-aged black women has diabetes. With $174 billion a year spent on diabetes-related illness in America and obesity quickly overtaking smoking as a cause of cancer deaths, it is past time to try something new.

Surely, we don’t believe that all $174 billion of that is spent on the Black community, right? I mean, we’re what–13% of the population? With approximately 60% of the entire Black population suffering from at least being overweight, we’re maybe 7% of the obese population. Do we really think $174 billion is being spent on us?

All I’m sayin’ is that this isn’t a necessary guilt trip. We know the numbers are bad. But taking it to this comparison… there’s a reason it hasn’t been done before.

What we need is a body-culture revolution in black America. Why? Because too many experts who are involved in the discussion of obesity don’t understand something crucial about black women and fat: many black women are fat because we want to be.

The black poet Lucille Clifton’s 1987 poem “Homage to My Hips” begins with the boast, “These hips are big hips.” She establishes big black hips as something a woman would want to have and a man would desire. She wasn’t the first or the only one to reflect this community knowledge. Twenty years before, in 1967, Joe Tex, a black Texan, dominated the radio airwaves across black America with a song he wrote and recorded, “Skinny Legs and All.” One of his lines haunts me to this day: “some man, somewhere who’ll take you baby, skinny legs and all.” For me, it still seems almost an impossibility.

So…are we “fat” because we want to be or because “our men” want us to be? Wait…there’s more:

How many white girls in the ’60s grew up praying for fat thighs? I know I did. I asked God to give me big thighs like my dancing teacher, Diane. There was no way I wanted to look like Twiggy, the white model whose boy-like build was the dream of white girls. Not with Joe Tex ringing in my ears.

How many middle-aged white women fear their husbands will find them less attractive if their weight drops to less than 200 pounds? I have yet to meet one.

But I know many black women whose sane, handsome, successful husbands worry when their women start losing weight. My lawyer husband is one.

Another friend, a woman of color who is a tenured professor, told me that her husband, also a tenured professor and of color, begged her not to lose “the sugar down below” when she embarked on a weight-loss program.

A dancing teacher doesn’t have “fat” thighs, she has muscular ones. You don’t have to pray for them…you have to work for them.

How many men legitimately know what 200 lbs. looks like on a woman? If your husband is weighing you every morning and buying you super sized burgers and fries every time you hit 201lbs, your husband might be creepy. Regardless of how handsome, “sane,” tenured and successful he is, he is not excluded from being a scumbag.

Unless you are upwards of 5’9″, you’re going to experience problems due to your weight and the means by which you’re keeping it on, provided that it’s mostly fat. And if you aren’t experiencing them now, you may look forward to them in the future. The fact that a husband, who is supposed to want you around long enough and healthy enough for you both to live together forever, doesn’t know that and holds his wife to such a silly standard (does he want her literally above 200lbs, or does he simply want her to maintain a curvy figure? Must her curvy figure be a 43-35-50, or would a 38-26-40 suffice?) even if it risks her health…. he’s a creeper. If your husband has the audacity to hinge the health of your marriage on you remaining a way that results in your jeopardizing your health, he’s a creeper… and you might wanna change the beneficiary on your policies. Sorry.

And really…“the sugar down below?” The food you eat might affect how “sweet” your “sugar” is, but unless his “stuff” is the size of a tree trunk, he’s not going to notice anything sexually that can’t be fixed with–yep, you guessed it, a little hard work. Emphasis on “hard.” Emphasis on “work.” Separately…and together.

…but I digress.

To get a quick introduction to the politics of black fat, I recommend Andrea Elizabeth Shaw’s provocative book “The Embodiment of Disobedience: Fat Black Women’s Unruly Political Bodies.” Ms. Shaw argues that the fat black woman’s body “functions as a site of resistance to both gendered and racialized oppression.” By contextualizing fatness within the African diaspora, she invites us to notice that the fat black woman can be a rounded opposite of the fit black slave, that the fatness of black women has often functioned as both explicit political statement and active political resistance.

Now, I actually ordered this book and, with any luck, will have it by Thursday. It’s a short read, but I don’t want to disparage a thesis I haven’t even read yet. However…this feels [clueless to me]. If a “fat Black woman” is supposed to serve as a political statement against the idea of the “fit Black slave,” where does that leave “fat Black men?” It’s far more likely to me, at this point, that the invisibility of Blacks to predominately white marketing teams contributed to the fact that Black women don’t get the “message” to hyperextend themselves in the quest to be thin. Not that we passed down this idea that Black women “need to be fat to protest against the idea that we should simply be workhorses,” because if that were the case, then we would’ve stopped being nannies, midwives, or even…ahem…portraying them on film.

I’m still gonna read the book, though.

I live in Nashville. There is an ongoing rivalry between Nashville and Memphis. In black Nashville, we like to think of ourselves as the squeaky-clean brown town best known for our colleges and churches. In contrast, black Memphis is known for its music and bars and churches. We often tease the city up the road by saying that in Nashville we have a church on every corner and in Memphis they have a church and a liquor store on every corner. Only now the saying goes, there’s a church, a liquor store and a dialysis center on every corner in black Memphis.

…which is no different from Alabama, Mississippi, Virginia, Oklahoma, Texas or any other state that’s a part of the Bible Belt. Overlay a map of The Bible Belt…

Courtesy: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss

…with a map of obesity rates…

Courtesy: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss

…with a map of where Blacks are living in the US…

Courtesy: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss

…and then overlay that with a map of poverty in the United States.

Courtesy: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss

If you wanted to refute your own point about Black women being fat “because we want to be,” this was a great way to start.

The rest of the essay was all over the place–apparently, according to Mrs. Randall, fat Black women are the reason the $1 trillion will go towards obesity-related illness (not, say, poor prioritizing on behalf of the government…because we sure can find trillions of dollars when it comes to the defense budget or, say, our politicians’ own inflated salaries and benefits), “sliced cucumbers, salsa, spinach and scrambled egg whites with onions” is a great “go-to family dinner” worthy of mentioning in her essay, and mentioning the “six” almonds she eats with her greek yogurt was also important–but a few things stand out for me.

For starters, as the wife of a lawyer and a “writer in residence” at Vanderbilt,I can tell you that she has access to far more money than most Blacks in America. Why? Because approximately 50% of all Black wage earners are making less than $25,000. In fact? The number of individual Blacks making more than $50k? I can’t even remember the number, but I’m almost certain it’s not high enough (edited to reflect). (And before you rattle off all the affluent and upwardly mobile Blacks you know, also think about how small those circles are and how there are still well over 32 million self-identified Blacks in America. There’s a reason you wind up seeing the same folks at the same events.) The fact that she has that money is a large part of why real, legitimate issues like “lack of fresh produce” or “affordability” or “the time it takes to learn about cooking and actually cook” don’t make an appearance in her op-ed. This is the contingent that merely worries about their husbands leaving them, should they lose their collective booty (or, maybe not, because if he hasn’t left her over that “go-to dinner,” then…I’own know. He might love her more than she thinks.)

Secondly, can we briefly discuss the fact that there’s no legitimate information in this essay that we didn’t already know? Those of us who have the free time to commit to reading the New York Times already know the dire straits the community is in when it comes to health, but was it supposed to be some epiphany that she chose to correlate “lack of education funding” to “fat Black women” (not, mind you, health concerns in the Black community, even though dialysis centers were mentioned)? Because we legitimately think that if the government was surprised with a windfall as a byproduct of the success of the “no fat Black chicks” campaign, it’d spend it all on education? Chile, please.

I also don’t know how to reconcile this idea that “our men want us fat” with the conversation we had a couple of weeks ago, discussing the fact that losing weight actually opens up your opportunities in dating, and women’s pursuit of such. It sounds much more like men trying to protect themselves from having to compete with other men for a woman’s affection…and for that to spill over into a marriage, where [ostensibly] you’re there ’til death do you part? It’s creepy.

And, lastly. I know, I know, I get it. We’re unique. We’re special. We’re Black. We’re different. But there’s not a single damn reason that applies to us that doesn’t apply to the rest of America, either. Everyone is affected by lack of knowledge. Everyone is affected by the lack of access to fresh produce and healthy meat. Everyone was bitten by the processed food bug and, although poverty disproportionately affects Blacks, everyone is affected by issues of time and affordability. Singling us out and then applying foolish reasons that sound more like Sheena Easton songs than legitimate husbandly concerns winds up harming us all, leaving those of us with legitimate concerns rendered invisible and severely discredits those of us who simply don’t know better. It makes us look like the “burdens on the system” we’ve always been painted out to be and plays right into the hands and mentalities of those who think we are lazy, shiftless, and foolish. Stop trying to separate us from the rest of society, and for goodness sakes, stop blaming Black men for our weight…because, truth be told, they’re just as overweight as we are.

I sat on this post for a long time, because I really wanted to get my thoughts together on this and wait until a few episodes into the season. However, it’s painfully clear that I am not the only in the ‘Game of Thrones’ fandom to take issue with the sexism and the race issues being brought up in the show this season.

From ONTD to well-written essays on the topic, it seems like one or both of the aforementioned issues I am wrestling with regarding the show are being discussed, whether people like it or not. Does ‘Game of Thrones’ have a race and sexposition problem?

Sexposition is defined as the using sex to give the characters something to do, or grab the audience’s attention, as opposed to really contributing something major. Don’t get me wrong, sex scenes can be quite vital, but in this season of Game of Thrones, there tends to be a trend to add sexually graphic scenes to grab our attention, not develop the characters I mean, in season two, there were women wiping some man nectar from their mouths in a flagrant show of sexposition. What was the point in that?

Sex in The Seven Kingdoms: Where’s the Beef(cake)?

Sex in HBO’s version of the Seven Kingdoms seems to be a primarily male pastime, with the women on the fringes or on the receiving end of a piping down.

As a fan of the ASOIAF books, I know that sex is not taboo but isn’t as prevalent as in the series. Sexist and misogynist men are, but that’s natural because that’s keeping with the time and attitudes of the world. For example, Brienne of Tarth encounters grief for having the nerve to be a woman in armor and mail because she’s actually very good at fighting, seems vastly uninterested in sex—even though she was in love with Renly, she wanted to protect and defend him by force, not by providing him a womb and her bosom—and she’s rejected the idea that only men are powerful and in control of their destinies while other women in Westeros just have children and hope for the best.

Yet, it seems like the series adds lots of boobs and lady parts just to titillate the audience. My question to the producers, the writers, and the HBO honchos who approve this is who in the audience are you trying to tantalize? It doesn’t titillate me at all, but leaves me wanting to go smoke a cigarette or post on Twitter because it’s like watching a Divas match on the WWE (the TNA Knockouts are much more enjoyable, by the way)… It’s just there for the people who, for whatever reason, need to see tits and ass (and more) and get all hot and bothered for it. I have plenty of sex in my own life. I don’t need an already built in plot from the books usurped by sex scenes that don’t make sense or waste time. We wasted time on Roslyn and the man nectar scene when we could’ve learned more about Catelyn, Robb’s trials as a new king, Tyrion, Sansa, even Arya… Game of Thrones’ doesn’t need to be softcore period porn for me to enjoy the show.

Then again, I don’t think the producers or the writers are catering to me. I think they are courting a male demographic that they believe will enjoy that kind of thing. Sex is not taboo to George R.R. Martin when it comes to writing it into the books. We’ve got all manner of incestuous relationships going on, along with hetero and non-hetero relationships. I was and am able to enjoy the books easily. The problem is the series is clearly doing too much. It’s the TV equivalent of girls who kiss each other in a nightclub, not because they enjoy it, but because they think it looks “hot.”

To add insult to injury, we see women’s bodies constantly on display for the male gaze, but what about the female gaze? NEWSFLASH: We like seeing cute guys with nice bodies. Yeah, we got one to two episodes where there was one scene with Theon and Gendry showing their well-built bodies off. We saw Theon topless in episode one—but then again, we also got a whole lot of naked wench in the bed with him… But what about Jon Snow, Robb Stark, and Tyrion Lannister? Hell, even the Kingslayer at this point. I’d even take Littlefinger. We are watching too, and we are legion. If we are going to be flagrant with the sexposition, then we could at least make it equal. We don’t even get that much of Renly and Loras, and they are canon characters who are (although implied in the books thus far) a couple, albeit a forbidden one.

Sometimes the sexposition goes into very brutal territory, which seems to be an extreme effort to really distract the reader, as we saw in the “Garden of Bones” episode. In “Garden of Bones” (read my recap here), Joffrey enters his room only to find two prostitutes, one of them being Ros (of course!) and the other named Daisey. Tyrion had sent them to his room so that they could maybe loosen up Joff sexually, and then maybe he’d be a softer person. Why? There’s really no way that the Tyrion I know from the books would’ve have made such a misstep because he knows Joffrey is a rat bastard and the worst human being alive, aside from Cersei and Littlefinger. He’s Joff’s uncle for God’s sake. Yet, the writers opted to put that in there for reasons I really can’t understand or get behind because it was obvious pandering.

While I don’t agree with everything, Myles McNutt from Cultural Learnings explained my issues with Ros going down on Daisey for Joff’s “enjoyment” more eloquently than I could parse:

Without perhaps getting into the whole conversation, I do agree that sexposition often says something about sex. However, I’d also argue it says something very problematic about sex, at least in its most common manifestation. There is a logic to using sex as a space for exposition, as it’s an environment which takes place in private and shows people often at their most vulnerable, thus making them more likely to open up. The sequences also often reveal something about the sexual politics of Westeros, which are a key part of Martin’s books even if he explores them through language more often than through the carnal act in and of itself.

The problem is where that lesson about sexual politics actually lands. Scenes between characters who are both tied into the story, like Renly or Loras, end up developing those characters in relation to those sexual politics. By comparison, scenes in which Ros or another prostitute are effectively tools to be used to reveal information doesn’t allow for that lesson (about the power dynamics of Westeros as they relate to gender and sexuality) to develop within the female party. Ros was featured in countless exposition sequences, but we never really learned anything more about her character even through her cumulative – oh jeez, that unintentional pun is too terrible to delete – appearances would create that potential. Ros was being positioned as an object within this world, but the fact that she was simultaneously functioning as a narrative object seemed to devalue any larger political statement that could be made here.

He’s more generous than I. I didn’t really find Ros necessary at ALL because she was not necessary in the books. She’s not a canon character. Ros was a prostitute that Theon was fond of before she left for King’s Landing to service richer clients. That is the last we should have seen of Ros according to the books. I certainly don’t remember much mention of Ros because she was just a character mentioned here and there to illustrate the sexuality of the male characters like Theon and Tyrion and their ability to do whatever they want sexually. We could’ve gotten an idea as to what was happening to the common folk through Arya or maybe even Davos (or others). Instead, we get a medieval/TV equivalent of a Girls Gone Wild scene that did nothing but state the obvious. We get it. Joff is a punk.

Where’s Chataya and Alayaya?

In A Clash of Kings, the book that this season is *loosely* based on, Tyrion deals with Chataya and Alayaya. Chataya, a Summer Islander, is implied to be a woman of color. In fact, she’s quite clearly black and so is her daughter, and employee, Alayaya. Where Ros caves and bends to the whims of men and alternately hates, then enjoys her job, Chataya and Alayaya own the brothel, they own their sexuality and they like sex. We can argue how this could be potentially problematic, but that is best for another post.

I wonder if the producers and writers on the show were worried about how the viewers would deal with the fact that Tyrion was not only attracted to Chataya, but extremely attracted to Alayaya (he pitched a tent in his pants in the book). Were the producers and writers afraid that people would run from an interracial attraction? If so, who cares what those people think?

I found the excuse to get rid of canon POC characters for Ros (Esmee Bianco) utterly unacceptable. We met Salladhor Saan very briefly and we were fine. And I wasn’t the only person to find their exclusion from season 2, but the addition of Ros, to be irritating and extremely disconcerting.

I don’t even want to get started on Salladhor Saan’s foaming at the mouth for Cersei. Yes, he definitely wanted to get it in with Cersei in ACoK, but he was foaming at the mouth in the scene where he talks with Davos Seaworth, enough for me to cringe because the implications and the way most people–regardless of race–understand the scene are far less innocent and a lot more racially charged.

So either they are completely oblivious to what’s going on with the viewers and the fans (especially readers of the books) or they don’t care, which is a problem for me. I love GRRM, but the way sex and race are being executed in the show is troubling and a disservice to the books.

Will there be changes in the next few episodes? I don’t think so, but hopefully they will learn for next season. But as long as these issues remain ignored, the show might find itself creating a rift within the fandom, as well as losing those who would remain loyal without having to use sex as a tool to bring in views.

Courtesy: Tampa Bay Times

Take a minute to walk to your limousine in my Gucci shoes, and you’ll realize that I’m just trying to make people smile. Mickey Rooney with buckteeth and a crazy accent in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”? It’s so much funnier than finding a real Chinese actor just talking like himself. Then you’d have to get a screenwriter to actually write genuinely funny lines for that character. You get so much more comedy bang with buckteeth and a funny accent. I mean, it made me laugh.

Many people, including myself, were also convinced that Charlton Heston truly was a Mexican/Native American/Egyptian/Ape who talked to God. And I think I convinced a lot of Asians that Genghis Khan really did look like John Wayne back in the ’60s. Short Circuit was one of my biggest hit movies and I was completely convinced that Fisher Stevens was Indian. Who knew he was a Jewish guy from New York? That accent was spot on!

My point is, I’m not the bad guy. I’m just the rich guy. When you look at it through my studio executive lens, you understand how important it is that both white people and non-white people believe that Indians, Asians, Mexicans and Arabs are truly just white people in brown makeup. I don’t like thinking that way. I just don’t have the luxury not to. I’m a businessman.

- From “Whitewashing, A History,” in Salon

Update: via Racebending & Mediaite, check out Mandvi’s interview with CNN on the practice:

Courtesy: Christianity Daily

Recently, while attending one of the most ethnically diverse evangelical seminaries in the nation, I found myself in an environment where I had to defend the argument that race still matters. Don’t get me wrong; students and faculty alike openly discussed ethnic and societal culture; and, although all were unanimous that racial prejudice is wrong and diversity is good, when it came to America’s original (and continuing) sin of racism, there were choirs of crickets.

I, in partial reaction, left. After stepping back from my enmeshment in the evangelical world, I gained some clarity for why I felt so isolated. Personal reasons aside, my qualm with the (white) evangelical community was its hesitancy to analyze–much less struggle against–the historical and continuing racial bias in America. This “don’t go there” mentality is further compounded within evangelical churches that are predominantly Asian American. Here are my speculations why.

1. Unity in Christ, aka Colorblindness

Firstly, we who seek to discuss race in the Asian American church go head-to-head against the banner of colorblindness. Colorblindness, while it may value ethnic diversity, seeks to ignore one’s race in order to avoid giving differential treatment on account of it. In other words, it attempts to treat all people equally regardless of race.

This thinking is interwoven into the Christian doctrine of the primacy of one’s Christian identity. Common phrases such as “unity in Christ” or “children of God” shape American evangelicals to value their Christian identity over any other. Tim Tseng, in his article “The Young Adult Black Hole,” explores how Asian American young adults leave their immigrant-ethnic churches for white or multiethnic ones because the influence of colorblind thinking. The message of one’s Christian identity as most important, combined with assimilation into American culture as good and being too ethnic (i.e., too Asian) as bad, is thoroughly ground into these young people’s minds. The result: many Asian American evangelicals believe “the goal [of Christian identity formation] is to shed, not affirm their [racial] identities.”

In 2009, the Urbana Missions Conference hosted around 16,000 attendees, 30% of which were Asian American. I was shocked and disturbed when I, along with three other conferees were the only ones who attended the Asian American prayer workshop, a session devoted to exploring how racial identity shapes the way one prays. Asian Americans flocked to workshops on international and missionary issues in Asia, but when it came to the single workshop focused entirely on Asian American issues, their attendance was extremely minimal.

I may never be able to “prove” why there were only four of us at that workshop. But it saddens me to know that Urbana’s Asian Americans were quick to delve into other issues yet not into themselves. For those who attended the prayer workshop, it was a sacred and healing space. We were able to share openly, honestly, forgivingly about the ways we have been treated as Asians in America, about how our Asian American-ness affects and shapes our everyday lives, and how to find solace from being misunderstood about this topic. That, in my understanding of spirituality, is both unity and solidarity.

2. Personal Religion, aka Bootstraps

The second perspective that restricts race-talk is the common notion that spirituality, much like life in America, is a personal matter. From prayer, to worship, and even to acts of compassion, American evangelicals find their worldviews thoroughly enculturated in individualism.

One of the hallmarks of individualism is what many racial scholars call “the bootstraps model.” This states that the key factor for an individual’s or groups’ success is their value system. Ethnic minorities achieve via hard work and sacrifice; Christians through effort and growing in the “Fruit of the Spirit.” The former perspective is usually espoused by those who believe America is a land of equal opportunity, where all people, regardless of their racial, gender, or economic backgrounds can attain the American Dream by pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.

Asian Americans are held up as the bootstraps’ poster children. Since I will address this more in the next section, I’ll only say this here. Wonder why Amy Chua, author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, rose to Time Magazine’s 2011 Top 100 People List? My speculation: to maintain the belief that hard work, sacrifice, and helicopter parenting are the “keys” to success. And Asian Americans, like Chua, have a monopoly on it.

Please don’t misinterpret me: value systems that include the aforementioned qualities are extremely important to progress. But this argument, when applied to America’s racial dynamics, works by ruling out all other external factors from why certain groups succeed and others don’t. It does not analyze how racial groups are treated differently on account of their race, both historically and presently.

Michael Emerson, in Divided by Faith, wonderfully demonstrates how this bootstraps argument is one of the main culprits for American evangelicals’ lack of racial concerns. As his research studies white Americans, he shows how they often perceive moral choices (i.e., value systems) as the root cause for why whites and Asian Americans do well while Latinos and African Americans do poorly. They are, thus, never taught to look at other institutional culprits that affect certain racial groups’ opportunities, access, and lives. For example, how Bank of America intentionally charged Blacks and Latinos higher interest rates than whites on home loans; or how research shows “blacks and whites use drugs at about the same rate, yet African Americans are 10 times as likely to be imprisoned for drug offenses.”

Despite American evangelicalism’s individualistic history, it brings me great joy to know that much of the American Church is returning to its roots of biblical justice. In particular, addressing the vast disparity between rich and poor is becoming a priority. Christians’ understandings of the causes of poverty and all its residual effects are becoming more complex than the oversimplification of poor life choices.

If Christians can make the connections between how structures of power shape and (can) determine the outcomes of people’s lives, perhaps they can expand this understanding to American racial politics. Forty Catholic leaders recently released a rebuking open letter to some of the Republican presidential candidates, challenging them to “reject the politics of racial division, refrain from offensive rhetoric, and unite behind an agenda that promotes racial and economic justice.” These Catholics understand how racialized and disparaging comments can perpetuate and reinforce the way race shapes our views, categorizations, and treatment of certain groups.

3. Middle-Class Asians as the Norm

This brings me to a final point about racial discourse within the Asian American Church. Perhaps the most restrictive factor in these communities is the portrayal of Asian Americans as hardworking, self-sufficient, non-complaining “model minorities” who vindicate the American Dream.

While this stereotypical portrayal may have aspects of truth in it, my intention here is not to critique its problematic dimensions. Others, Wayne Au and Benji Chan, Frank Wu, Stacy Lee, have done tremendous work to uncover its myth-like existence as a political and divisive tool.

What troubles me most is how many Asian Americans (not all, but many) buy into this self-perception. In mid-January, with Youtube’s explosion of the “Shit Girls Say” meme, the “Shit Asian Girls Say” counterpart saw little critique in its depiction of Asian American young women as spoiled daughters who benefit off model-minority parents/boyfriends. Perhaps worse is how some respondents confirmed this stereotypical portrayal with responses such as, “one of my friends says that all the time,” or “OMG so true, LMAO.” No one from the Asian American community took the time to sufficiently challenge these insensitive images, while other communities of color were in an uproar about their respective videos, as shown by Latoya Peterson’s blog post. I know this meme is nowhere near overwhelming evidence for my point. However, the video–and Asian Americans’ silent assent to it–could indicate that our society is at the point where viewing Asians as middle class is normal.

The effect of internalizing this middle-class identity is a critical mindset towards other low-income racial minorities. In my own experiences in Asian American evangelical circles, I occasionally hear racialized criticisms towards certain “people:” welfare recipients, day-laborers, and single-mothers, to name a few. The speaker often comments towards these faceless (yet highly racialized) people as if she/he is above them. It’s as if their discipline, responsibility, and middle-class values make them morally superior.

It pains me to know that this community who was once included in those dehumanized categories now perceives itself as better than, just because we think we’ve “made it.” Not even 60 years ago, Asians’ existence in this country was formally marked by fear, hostility, and exclusion. They were ranked as second-class citizens, and in some cases, deemed sub-human. It baffles me that many Asians now hoard their relative privilege when there is a nation of hurt continuing because of the racial bias etched onto America’s consciousness.

Perhaps the study of American racial dynamics offers a narrow, limited path by which to view the world. Not everyone, especially in their faith journeys, will travel through the ism of race as I have. But as I reflect back, it troubles me that I feel I must end with a defense that racial discourse is a legitimate area of study. I expect hesitation–even disagreements–from those who read this post’s title and disregard it as unworthy of attention. But for me, and perhaps for many other Asian Americans, the area of race is where I am most deeply wounded and where I find healing. This is the avenue I learn compassion towards those unlike me, even those who reject me simply because I’m “Asian.” My hope is that evangelicals, especially Asian American evangelicals, will learn the brokenness and tragedy in America’s racial history so that they’ll be challenged to heal their wounds, confront their errors in thinking, and be moved towards racial justice.

See also:

The Epistemology of Race Talk

—

What’s Racialigious? Check these older posts:

Racialigious? [Series Introduction - Racialigious]
Confessions From A Christian [Racialigious]
Off and Running Toward My Own Identity [Racialigious]
The Dead, River Spirits, & a Magic Hat [Racialigious]

Courtesy: Examiner.com

The comics world lost a pioneer last week with the passing of artist Tony DeZuniga, who died in the Philippines from complications from a stroke. DeZuniga is best known for being the co-creator of DC Comics characters Black Orchid and Jonah Hex.

DeZuniga’s association with Hex would span almost four decades: 38 years after introducing the character in All-Star Western in 1972, DeZuniga returned to draw Hex for a stand-alone graphic novel, Jonah Hex: No Way Back.

DeZuniga began working as an artist in his native Philippines as a teenager in the 1950s, during the country’s boom period for comics (or Komics, as they were called). In the early 1960s he moved to New York to study graphic design and advertising, a career he would pursue for a few years before returning to the U.S. toward the end of the decade and earning art assignments from DC editor Joe Orlando. DeZuniga became the first Filipino artist to break into the American comics market.

But more importantly, DeZuniga made sure he wasn’t the last to do so, as Comic Book Resources’ Kevin Melrose noted:

He used the opportunity to open the door for other Filipino creators, convincing Orlando and DC Editor-in-Chief Carmine Infantino to visit the Philippines in 1971 to recruit such artists as Alex Niño, Alfredo Alcala, Nestor Redondo, Fred Carrillo, Vicatan and Gerry Talaoc.

That same year DeZuniga collaborated with writer John Albano to create Jonah Hex, the disfigured Western antihero with whom the artist is so closely associated. “[John] asked me to draw the concept for the character, and one day I was at the doctor’s office and I saw this chart with a man, showing him half muscle and half skeleton,” DeZuniga recalled in a 2010 interview with Comic Book Resources. “I thought to myself, ‘This is neat,’ and I got the concept. When John Albano saw it, he was very happy.”

Under the cut you can find just a few examples of DeZuniga’s work with a variety of characters.

Storm From The X-Men. Image: Keaneoncomics.tumblr.com

Conan The Barbarian. Image: thecomixverse.com

Jonah Hex. Image: Comicartfans.com

Red Sonja. Image: Marvel.Wikia.com

Black Orchid. Image: Comicartfans.com

Page from "Jonah Hex: No Way Back." Courtesy: DC Comics & Los Angeles Times.

Harry Belafonte’s music moves in my mind and life like a childhood memory: I know he’s there and smile or dance when I hear one of his songs just for the little-kid joy it brings to me. (My personal cut: “Jump in the Line,” made famous again by Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice.)

But he moves through my own political consciousness (budding back in the 80s) as one of the first celebrities to organize efforts to aid and stand in solidarity with African countries, from speaking out against apartheid in South Africa and co-organizing the musical benefit record “We Are the World” to now, where he’s harshly criticized former president George W. Bush’s policies about Iraq.

However, Ms. Owner/Editrix, Latoya Peterson, who saw Belafonte’s documentary not too long ago, breathlessly said at a recent Racialicious editorial meeting, “He is Racialicious.”

To give some context to his stories: Belafonte’s career and activism developed before and during the US Civil Rights movement. He was born in Harlem in 1927. His mom’s side came from Jamaica, and his dad was from Martinique. Belafonte lived with his grandmom in Jamaica from the ages of five to 13, when he returned to Harlem for high school. (He said at the event that the songs he would later sing came from the people he heard during his childhood as well as researched calypso music.) While working as a janitorial assistant, he met actor Sidney Poitier, with whom he would attend theater performances and relay the storyline up to the point where they’d switch off between acts the single seat they bought together to see the play or musical. Knowing that the stage was going to be his thing, Belafonte studied at the New School’s Dramatic Workshop (two of his classmates were Poitier and the late Bea Arthur from The Golden Girls) while working at the American Negro Theater, where he said he discovered that he loved singing. That love translated into a Tony Award in 1954 for his role in the musical revue John Murray Anderson’s Almanac.

During this time, Belafonte said he discovered Paul Robeson, of whom Belafonte said, “The way he used his strength, his life as an artist had an impact on me.” When they finally met–Robeson became his mentor–Robeson gave Belafonte the following advice: “Get them to sing your song, and they’ll want to know who you are.”

Belafonte, from his subsequent fame with his most famous song “The Banana Boat Song (Day-O)” (he was the first performer to sell over a million copies of a single record, especially on the British charts, thanks to that song) and the above-mentioned “Jump in the Line,” he’s had generations singing his songs. With that fame, people also started knowing Belafonte as an advocate.

“At the time, we weren’t just climbing the career ladder…there were bigger concerns,” Belafonte said in the dcoumentary.  ”All of us were battling the walls of the racist existence.”

While touring with an integrated theater group, he recounted being told told to live in the black section of Las Vegas and eat in a different dining room. He refused but was informed the only way he would leave the town without honoring the contract would be in “a box.”  One day, Belafonte went to a pool–despite racist hatred (the band leader’s wife talked about guys on the balconies having had guns)–looked at the pool with a smile and did a perfect dive. The whites cleared the pool before he resurfaced.  Men came back to the pool with cameras…and asked Belafonte to pose for pictures with their wives.  The men who stood on the balconies disappeared.

That racism also tainted his views as he became a movie actor. While filming his first feature, Bright Road (1953), with his future Carmen Jones co-star Dorothy Dandridge, he stayed at a friend’s home in Beverly Hills.  On a walk after dinner, police officers pursued him. After that, he commented, “I always looked at Hollywood through tinted glasses.”

Even the Carmen Jones (1954) production experienced Hollywood’s low expectations for a “Black film.” Belafonte’sco-star Diahann Carroll (who was originally cast in the lead role before backing out) said, “We all knew we were renting space.  We couldn’t go on to film careers.” Belafonte and Dandridge, both accomplished singers, wanted to sing their parts, as per the opera upon which it’s based. The creative crew and higher-ups nixed the idea because they felt the stars were “pop singers” and couldn’t “do opera.” Instead they hired other opera performers to handle that duty. Later, Belafonte just happened to run into the man whom the studio hired to sing his part: the baritone singer, a Black man, was working in the men’s bathroom at a restaurant.

Courtesy: bossip.com

During the production of his next movie, Island in the Sun (1957), depicting an interracial relationship with Belafonte and white actor Joan Fontaine, the original script depicted them explicitly showing affection for each other. However, the idea was nixed to the version now seen of Fontaine drinking out of a straw and handing it to Belafonte, who placed his lips in the same spot as Fontaine’s and looks into her eyes. It didn’t matter: the movie garnered controversy, with whites in the US South protesting it. Yet, the same controversy grew ticket sales.

After tangling with Hollywood, he created HarBel to do independent black films.  The World, The Flesh, And The Devil (1959) was about the last three people to survive nuclear holocaust. MGM stopped production and changed the script: again, Hollywood could not permit the black leading man and a white leading lady to have a love scene.

And folks weren’t having it with Belafonte having a white woman being a leading lady in his personal life, either. Belafonte’s first wife, Marguerite Byrd, and he stayed married for nine years, with her supporting his career as a nurse. However, Belafonte stated that his marriage essentially ended after two years due to his traveling and his activism…and Byrd not understanding it. According to Belafonte, “What I didn’t know [was] I was being caught in a net of scrutiny.  [The FBI] came to my home and scared Marguerite.” He said that she had a hard time believing that he was truly innocent of the FBI’s accusation of his being a Communist. That, he said, ultimately ended their marriage.

During the marriage’s seven-year decline, he met Julie Robinson, a dancer in Katherine Dunham’s troupe who stayed in the same segregated quarters as her stagemates when they toured. Belafonte said, “One of the things that was binding was that [Julie] came to the table fully political,” which gave them common ground in their talking about race, labor unions, and economics. By the time Belafonte divorced Byrd, he was ready to marry Robinson. In his mind, the relationship with Robinson was, as Latoya described it, a “slow burn.” But the public, especially some within Black communities, perceived it as sudden and called Belafonte a “sell-out” for divorcing Byrd and marrying Robinson. In response, Belafonte gave Ebony an exclusive piece called “Why I Married Julie.” When she was in the hospital post-birth, she remembered a note saying, “Congratulations on your nigger baby.”

Then the fateful call came from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dr. King called Belafonte to chat. Four hours later, Belafonte said, “I knew I would always be in his service, and I knew the length of that journey.” With that relationship came his involvement with the John F. and Robert Kennedy in helping move the Civil Rights struggles further into the national consciousness by helping make it a presidential matter. How Belafonte helped with this is appealing to Robert. After seeing how he appealed to state official to get Dr. King out of serving on a chain gang over a traffic violation, Belafonte said of Robert, “”If there was going to be a moral conscience [within the Kennedy family], it would be Bobby.” And Robert worked with John to gain support from Black communities. (Latoya is planning to do a post about this part in Belafonte’s life.)

In the meanwhile, Revlon offered to sponsor Belafonte for an hour-long TV special. “The question for me was where could television be taken,” Belafonte said. His answer: the heart of black folklore.

“For our daring adventure, we got an Emmy” in  1959 for Tonight With Harry Belafonte. Revlon funded five more specials. The president of NBC had an issue, though: the show was mixed racially and the southern stations were going to pull out.  They did not mind Harry, said the edict, but did not want to see race mixing.  So Belafonte ended the show.

And Belafonte faced similar racism in television that he did in film: fourteen years after Island In The Sun, on the Petula Clark Show, Clark touched his arm on TV as a friendly, platonic gesture while they sang…and the sponsor freaked out. He was a  guest on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and did a calypso medley against riot footage. “That piece never saw the light of day. They took that whole chunk out of the show and put in a political commercial for Richard Nixon,” said Tom Smothers in an interview. “We were fired.  Not cancelled, fired.”

His politics moved across the sea, specifically to the African continent. Through this interest, he became friends with Eleanor Roosevelt. In the documentary, Belafonte talks about experiencing “Africa” through the movies. Thanks to the bone-in-the-nose stereotyping, he said the last thing he wanted to be was an African. Through his self-education about the continent, he met Tom Mboya, a young Kenya liberator. Baseball superstar Jackie Robinson brought young Kenyans to America–one of them was Barack Obama, Sr. In return for education, they were to go back and rebuild.

He began to hear about former South African president Nelson Mandela, at the time one of the early leaders for South African resistance to apartheid.  “When I heard about the arrest I committed to using the power of art for resistance.” He also saw Miriam Makeba on the film from South Africa and recorded an album together, An Evening with Belafonte/Makeba, in 1965. The South Africa government, however, banned the record. Makeba said she met people who asked to hug her, and then say, “I went to jail for listening to your album with Belafonte.”

His politics also became pan-PoC. Canadian Cree singer Buffy Sainte Marie did a stand at Wounded Knee in 1973. Belafonte performed after becoming aware through the human-rights movement. When Oglala Sioux activist Russell Means was arrested, the American Indian Movement asked Belafonte and actor Marlon Brando to come to the trial and try to influence the jury.

Belafonte brought back masks from his travels to Guinea. For his guest stint on The Muppet Show in 1978, creator Jim Henson and his team created Muppets from those masks, which accompanied Belafonte singing his memorable “Turn The World Around,” which wasn’t a paean to colorblindedness, but to understand that people “see one another clearly” and understand how those differences function in the human family. Reportedly, this episode was Henson’s favorite. Belafonte sang “Turn The World Around” at Henson’s memorial in 1990, and the creations are still seen on occasion.

In the 80s, Belafonte and musical producer Quincy Jones wanted to help bring attention to people in Ethiopia who were starving.  Belafonte masterminded the 1985 recording “We Are The World,” with the idea that the entire world played the same song at the same time. The proceeds from the song went to food and medicine drops in the region. The song itself won a Grammy.

In the 90s, Belafonte’s solidarity with Haiti and the Clinton administration’s miltary occupation of that nation led Belafonte to decline an invitation from then-President Bill Clinton to be a part of the South African delegation. Belafonte believed American politics were to blame for what was happening in Haiti. Clinton awarded Belafonte the Presidental Medal of the Arts. In his speech, Clinton noted Belafonte “occasionally rebuked me as President.”

Which brings us to the new century and his 80th decade on this earth. During this time, Belafonte and Robinson divorced for the same reasons of his first marriage: his activism. (He’s since remarried.) As for his children–Shari, Adrienne, David, and Gina–their reactions to their father’s activism and life are mixed. According to the documentary, Shari takes in resigned stride. David remembers hellos and goodbyes. David said,  ”You’ve got two families–us and the family of man.  And you’re running back and forth between the two of us like a lunatic.” Gina Belafonte felt like he wasn’t there; he was preoccupied with other things.

With all of this, Belafonte reflects: ”I examine my journey…and I wonder where we went wrong.  Why is the world still in [chaos] and violence after so many invested so much to change that? The last thing I thought I’d be doing in the last years of my life, is trying to fix those things we thought we fixed 50 years ago.”

“I contemplated living out the rest of my life in the luxury of reflection…but there’s just too much to be done.”

Instead, I’m going to clear my head and start with a head nod to Elle Varner. I spotted her in Elle Magazine a few months back and eagerly checked out her mixtape on SoundCloud. She’s most famous for “I Only Wanna Give It To You:”

But I like other tracks a bit better – her lyrics are far more complicated than what we normally hear in pop songs. Varner creates songs out of real life situations, so it’s a almost stunning exploration of brokeness and insecurity on the way to the top. Check her conversation with a purse-snatcher toward the end of “WTF”:

I also just rewatched Labyrinth for the 10th time. This go-round gave me a new found appreciation of the soundtrack, especially “As The World Falls Down” – the song Jareth (David Bowie) sings to Sarah (Jennifer Connelly) during the goblin ball.

(Can we just side bar for a minute? How epic is David Bowie as Jareth? How epic is J.Conn’s hair game in this scene?)

That scene was so influential, I keep ascribing it to other songs, like “At The End of A Slow Dance” by Van Hunt:

I’m generally not a fan of nerdcore, but when I got the email from Tokyopop containing the best of Otaku sourced hip-hop, I had to take a listen. And Richie Branson brought it:

I haven’t turned on Cartoon Network in some years now, but it was there I discovered Inuyasha and Samuari Champloo, so I guess I can support.

And that’s it – happy Friday y’all!

“I can’t find a Mother’s Day card that looks at our identities in a way that is sentimental for me and my mom,” says Shanelle Matthews, communications coordinator at Forward Together, an Oakland-based organization that’s leading the e-Card drive through its Strong Families initiative. Matthews grew up as one of three kids in a single-parent black household, and wants to celebrate her mother’s hard work. “This campaign is personally close to be because I can finally say something to my mom on Mother’s Day that’s actually of cultural relevance and value.”

(Thanks Perez for the tip!)

Yesterday (May 2nd, 2012), Latoya Peterson of Racialicious published my post about “Queen Chief Warhorse” at her site. In it I questioned the use of “Queen.” Latoya also posted an essay by Gyasi Ross and one of her own. The three generated many comments. Some people question the import of federal recognition. Some people see the discussion as racist. This is my response to that conversation.

In Part One (below), I return to the remarks made by “Queen Chief Warhorse” that night in New Orleans. Here’s the video, and beneath it are her remarks, followed by my thoughts (then and now) about what she said. In Part Two, I address some of the Latoya’s questions.

PART ONE

“All glory go to the Creator. It’s an honor to be here today, but I love the theme: America Healing. But first, let’s think about something. Where did America come from? Have it always been America? Or was it just created to be America? Who are the real Americans? America keep changing and changing and changing.”

Debbie’s response:
With her “let’s think about something,” she asked the audience to hit the pause button and be critical thinkers. That’s a good thing for any speaker to do.

I invite you (and her) to think critically about her question “Who are the real Americans?” It is factually incorrect for her to call the Indigenous peoples of this land Americans. When Europeans arrived here, they entered into diplomatic negotiations with leaders of Indigenous nations. The outcome of those negotiations were treaties, just like the treaties the US makes today with nations around the world. They didn’t make treaties with “First Americans.” They made treaties with hundreds of Indigenous nations. None of them were called “America” and their citizens didn’t call themselves “Americans.” (If you’re interested in treaties, you can read some of them online, but I urge you to get the two-volume set, Documents of American Indian Diplomacy, edited by Vine Deloria, Jr. and Raymond J. DeMallie. It is more comprehensive and it provides context for reading the treaties.)

We were, and are, sovereign nations. Categorizing us beneath the multicultural umbrella obscures our status as sovereign nations and leads people to think that we want to be Americans, just like everybody else. In some ways we do, and some ways we don’t. For the most part, that multicultural umbrella is about people of color. We (Indigenous peoples) might be people of color, but we are, first and foremost, citizens of sovereign nations. Some of us look the way people think Indians should look, but some of us don’t. Some of us look like we ought to be called “African American” instead, and some of us look White. What we look like doesn’t matter.

Some might think that the “we are not people of color” statement is racist, I hope you see it isn’t about race. It is about sovereignty.

Any nation–the U.S., or Canada, or Spain–has the power to decide who its citizens are and what criteria they will use to made such determinations. We might not like the criteria, and we can work to change that criteria…but until it is changed, it is pretty much what we abide by. Indigenous nations in the United States also have that power. Most people in the United States don’t know that, because most people in the United States think we vanished, that we came to the end of the trail. We’re still here, however; and when we see errors, some of us point them out. If you were in France and someone said something incorrect about the United States, you might speak up and correct that error.

By the way, “Queen Chief Warhorse” isn’t the only person to make that error. President Obama made it, too, in his children’s book wherein he writes about “thirteen groundbreaking Americans.” Among those thirteen is Sitting Bull. One of Sitting Bull’s grandson’s said emphatically that Sitting Bull did not consider himself “American.” That error is made a lot because people don’t know enough about who we were–and who we are. Given Racialicious’ audience, I’m glad to see the conversation because having it creates the opportunity for knowledge to be gained, and spread.

Warhorse:

“Let’s go back in time when the American Indians look like I look…”

Debbie’s response:
Does she really think that all Indigenous peoples were phenotypically Black? Or did she misspeak?

Later on (her remarks went far longer than the minute-long video), she said that reservations are “prison camps” and like the “projects.” There is a kernel of truth in that statement. There was a time when one had to have permission from a federal agent to leave the reservation, but that isn’t the case today. Does her audience know that? Does she? There is poverty and substandard housing on reservations but, for some of us, they are far more than that. We (at Nambe) are on a reservation, but we were never moved. We are on the land we’ve been on for hundreds of years. (Through carbon dating, our current village is dated to 1300, and ones we were in before are far older than that.) Our traditions are strong.

Warhorse:

“…and roamed the southeast part of the United States, freely.”

Debbie’s response:
Her use of “roam” is another indicator (to me) that she is steeped in stereotypes of American Indians.

Think critically about that word, who uses it, and when it is used. Basically, what she is describing is the movement of a people. That movement may be due to seasonal changes, or to follow herds, or to go where water or resources are more plentiful at a given time of the year. That movement is different than what the word “roam” means. You can look it up if you wish. It means to move about without purpose or plan or to wander over or through. See why it doesn’t work when applied to the movement of a people?

In 2009, I did some research on the use of the word “roam.” It is often used to describe the movement of Indigenous peoples. Here’s what I found:

On the web—

Search phrase: “Pioneers roamed”: 129 hits
Search phrase: “Cowboys roamed”: 938 hits
Search phrase: “Indians roamed”: 9,910 hits

I repeated the search in Google books—

Pioneers roamed: 23 hits
Cowboys roamed: 135
Indians roamed: 688 hits

Obviously, pioneers and cowboys were doing the same thing Indians were doing (moving from one place to another), but I think the discrepancy in use of the word is worth noting. The Indigenous peoples in the southeast part of the United States weren’t roaming. Using that word takes away from their intellect, their agency, and their humanity. It lets us think of them as “primitive” or animal-like.

Warhorse:

“I love what the Mayor said… We have to tell the truth. We cannot heal America till we fix the foundation. Can we start right there?”

Debbie’s response:
I agree. We do have to tell the truth and fix the foundation, but given her lack of substantive knowledge about Indigenous peoples, we can’t start with her.

PART TWO

Latoya poses the question: Who gets to say if “Queen Chief Warhorse” is Native? She, like anyone in the world, can say anything they want to. My guess is that she (like Elizabeth Warren) learned about a Native ancestor from stories handed down from family members. And with that story, she built a way of “being” Indian that is based on stereotypes. That’s too bad. It undermines the work she is trying to do to get recognition.

“Queen Chief Warhorse” has organized a group of people who share that story. They’re trying to get recognized but they’ve got a long way to go. As Gyasi pointed out, it is a difficult process but an important one. Among other things, it protects all of you (Americans) from being ripped off by someone who claims they’re a tribe and then charges you for performances or products that aren’t, in fact, accurate or authentic.

Do you know about the Indian Arts and Crafts Act? It is a federal law that says that items marketed as being American Indian must be supported by documentation that the maker is a citizen of a federally recognized tribe. There’s a lot of pushback on that law because a lot of people who are Native can’t get enrolled due to the way that a tribe’s criteria is laid out. It isn’t fair, as many point out, but changes can be made to those criteria. Many tribes are making those changes, and many have other ways of recognizing individuals who don’t fit the criteria for enrollment.

The thing is, there’s a lot of hucksters out there, claiming American Indian identity.

Do you remember when that Sacajawea coin came out? There was a group in the Midwest who said they were a tribe, and, they marketed a small bag in which you could store your coin. When they were called out as fake, they had to return the money to people who bought those bags (I didn’t bookmark the page. I’ll look for it but, in the meantime, if anyone finds it, please let me know).

And do you remember that group that said it was a tribe, and was selling “citizenship” to people in other countries (particularly Mexico)? Those individuals bought that citizenship and came to the US, only to find out they’d been the victims of a fraud.

Latoya points to the idea of sovereignty and how a group decides. “Queen Chief Warhorse” has a group, and, she’s Queen and Chief of that group. Apparently, they think that’s fine. Therein is the key. Who is “the group” and what are they doing to become recognized? If Latoya has Native ancestry in her family line and she starts researching it, I don’t think she would create a tribe and start wearing a headdress at various functions. I don’t think “Queen Chief Warhorse” is like the two fraudulent tribes I noted above, but I do think her speech and adoption of stereotypes is undermining her claim and chance of recognition. “Queen Chief Warhorse” says she is Chahta, which is Choctaw. Does she have any contact with the Choctaw Nation in Mississippi? Or the one in Oklahoma ? If she and her group want to learn what Chahta’s culture was/is, they could go to either one of those nations and learn from them. Have they done that? If you’re trying to recover something you lost, where do you start looking?

Latoya also says that the conversation leaves us “not much further than before” but I think she’s wrong about that. She knows a lot more, as do her readers. Prior to this, I think the conversations at her site (regarding identity) were grounded in pop culture, and Gyasi and I are trying to ground them in the politics of Indigenous nations.

If you want to learn more, the Cherokee Nation has an excellent video:

If you read Gyasi’s piece and you’ve read this far on mine, I hope you feel that you know a lot more now than you did before. Carry that information with you, and share it with others. And the next time you could across someone who says she’s the queen of an Indian tribe, I think you’ll hear that claim in a different way than you did before.

Part of why you accepted the idea of an Indian “Queen” is due in large part to what you learned in school. Most children’s books you read were full of errors. The stories might have been page-turners or award-winning, and they might have felt accurate, but they weren’t. American Indians in Children’s Literature, in publication since 2005, has been providing readers with critical analysis of those books, and, tools to help you spot the problems yourself. If you’re reading this essay at another site, please visit American Indians in Children’s Literature, and let parents and teachers know about the site, too. In the top right are lists of books that accurately represent American Indians. For your convenience, they are grouped by grade level.

Update: Sunday, May 6, 2012, 4:38 PM

Over the last couple of days, I’ve watched several videos in which “Queen Chief Warhorse” talks about her group. To view them, search Youtube and Google videos using “Chief Warhorse” as your search term. In watching them, I found some answers to questions I posed above:

When she said “Let’s go back in time when the American Indians look like I look” she means it. By watching the videos, I understand that she means it just as she said it. She believes that this continent was first populated by Africans who came here on entrepreneur ships. The people of federally recognized sovereign Native nations today, she says, are descendents of her people who came here from Africa and mixed with people who weren’t from Africa. The real Indigenous people, she says, look like her. To use her words, real Indigenous people would look “cocoa brown” like her and not “vanilla.” We (federally recognized sovereign nations), she says, are not legitimate and the federal government is being ripped off by us.

She says she is from a long line of royal chiefs. Hence, she believes it is correct for her to use “Queen” as her title.

Above, I wondered if she has made efforts to visit the Mississippi Choctaw or Oklahoma Choctaw Nations to reestablish connections with them. By watching the videos, I understand that she doesn’t feel the need to do so. She says that the Oklahoma Choctaws use of “Choctaw” is incorrect. She says that the people who moved to Oklahoma started using “Choctaw” and then went down to Louisiana to observe her people and how they did things. Then, they went back to Oklahoma and mimicked the ways of her people.

My thoughts on that? I find it interesting and, when I have time, will look into it. In some ways she seems to be determined to discredit and even usurp the federally recognized tribes, putting her people in place as the “First Americans” who have rightful claim to this continent. On one hand, she seems to dismiss us and, on the other, she adopts stereotypical Plains Indian ways of being, but it is possible she addresses that in one of the videos and I didn’t see it. (Several people have written to me privately about horses, and how they weren’t in the swampland.)

Why do I bother, some of you might wonder, with any of this?!

Here’s why… In the 1950s, the federal government instituted the “Termination” program through which it hoped to be rid of federally recognized tribes. In American Indian Politics and the American Political System, David Wilkins writes that over 100 tribes were, in fact, terminated. Carrying out the policy proved disastrous and it ended in the 1960s. Some tribes have been successful in having their sovereign status restored. In comments at Racialicious, someone pointed to a news article that reports that U.S. Department of Interior officials met with her in Louisiana, and that it is the first time the government has met with a group that doesn’t have federal recognition. I also found an article about her success in getting a three-digit code from the U.S. Census by which to count the members of her group. It seems she is making inroads with the federal government, but to what end, and what does the federal government stand to gain by meeting with her?

Update, Monday, May 7, 6:13 PM

Indian Country Today ran a story today about Elizabeth Warren. Here’s an excerpt:

“The mainstream media definitely has added to this controversy due to their well-known ignorance about tribal citizenship and other tribal issues,” says Julia Good Fox, a professor at Haskell Indian Nations University. Good Fox notes that the media has largely failed to explain tribal citizenry and blood quantum issues to give context to the situation because these aren’t easy stories to tell. It’s easier to label the case “convoluted,” blame Warren, and move on to the next political gotcha story.

“Unfortunately, for the most part, their coverage is just adding to the confusion and threatens to feed racism or anti-Indianism,” Good Fox says. To do better, she says the media should start by noting that tribal nations have a right to determine who their citizens are, rather than focusing on the misunderstood notion that tribal citizens can only be determined by U.S.-imposed mathematical fractions.

To read the entire article, go to Elizabeth Warren Finally Teaches a Lesson on Native Identity.

On the surface, these shows couldn’t be more different. VH1’s “Basketball Wives” is a reality show centered on working and lower middle class black and brown women who have been in relationships with NBA players. “Girls,” as many critics have noted, is a dazzling display of millennial white privilege.Still, I see parallels in the way these programs use racism and sexism. And I’m chagrinned to report how numb I’ve become to these hijinks. In the interest of detoxing, I’m going to point out what is likely obvious to professional observers of race and pop culture and vaguely nauseating to others. Here, three ways “Basketball Wives” and “Girls” are disturbingly similar:

1. “Basketball Wives” and “Girls” deploy casual racism:

On “Fantasy Island,” last night’s episode of “Basketball Wives,” resident party girl Suzie Ketchum repeatedly asks if the indigenous people of Tahiti are “still cannibals.” While her cast-mates dismiss her question, the producers are sure to reinforce her racist air-headedness by showing a group of Tahitian dancers and singers trailing “the girls” all the way to their suites.

• The Dark Side of Positive Stereotypes (Psychology Today)

Asian Americans are often thought of as the “model minority”—smart, hardworking, obedient and humble. Lin is only the fourth American-born basketball player of Asian descent to make it to the NBA, and all of these “positive” stereotypes have been invoked to explain his success on the court. His intelligence is frequently noted (e.g., ESPN’s Hubie Brown referencing Lin’s “high basketball IQ”), as is his diligence and proclivity for hard work. Lin’s successes have also been framed in terms of his obedience, citing his ability to follow orders and execute former Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni pick ’n’ roll system, and his interest in interpersonal harmony with his teammates.

Although these may seem like compliments, both to Lin and to Asian Americans more generally, positive stereotypes are not as positive as the name implies. Psychological research shows that positive stereotypes, just like their negative counterparts, have a host of harmful effects. According to our recent research, many people (including Asian Americans) dislike positive stereotypes because these stereotypes make them feel like they are only being seen for their race and not for the unique characteristics that they may possess. Lin’s success, instead of being attributed to his natural talent, fearlessness and athleticism, is attributed instead to traits seen as inherent in his race. Positive stereotypes can also perpetuate discrimination against other groups who are blamed for not achieving the same standards (“If they made it, why can’t you?”).

• ABC News, Univision To Launch English-Language News Network (Latino Times)

The as-yet unnamed television network is expected to launch in 2013, covering issues of relevance to the audience, the companies said in a joint statement. A website, along with mobile and social media content, is scheduled to debut this summer _ in time for the upcoming presidential elections.

“This exciting joint venture represents the latest example of our long-term strategy to broaden the reach of ABC,” Anne Sweeney, co-chair of Disney Media Networks, said in a statement.

Latinos represent 16 percent of the total population in the United States, a number that is projected to increase to 30 percent by 2050. The demographic group wields considerable spending power, over $1 trillion.

• NFL Bounties and the Criminal Justice System: Not So Different? (Ebony Magazine)

These suspensions have made clear that “bounties” have no place within football. But as the NFL’s crackdown on paid smackdowns takes hold, what about the bounty system that exists throughout our culture? If encouraging violence with financial incentives, if promises of cash and fame are unacceptable within football, can we say the same about the criminal justice system? If risking people’s lives and potentially destroying their careers violates the values of sport, can we not agree that it is also antithetical to justice and democracy?

What is bad for football is surely bad for a system committed to justice and equal protection under the law. And yet ours is a criminal justice system that rewards officers for arrests and tickets, that provides financial incentives for the “war on drugs”, that encourages racial profiling and “stop and frisk” programs.

Our government’s efforts to fight drug sales and distribution is also a bounty system of sorts. In cities throughout the United States, police forces have relied on drug tasks forces to generate budgetary support from the federal government.  Federal grants and other financial rewards come with successful arrests and prosecutions.  “Federal funding flows to those agencies that increase dramatically the volume of drug arrests, not the agencies most successful in bringing down the bosses.  What gets rewarded in this war is sheer numbers of drug arrests,” writes Michelle Alexander.  “To make matters worse, federal drug forfeiture laws allow state and local law enforcement agencies to keep for their own use 80% of the cash, cars, and homes seized from drug suspects, thus granting law enforcement a direct monetary interest in the profitability of the drug market.”

• Why RNC’s Hispanic Outreach Gaffe Shouldn’t Be a Surprise (Politic365)

When Bettina Inclan, the RNC Hispanic Outreach director, recently made a splash in the news over GOP presumptive nominee Mitt Romney’s position on immigration, the press bubble went apoplectic.  ”As a candidate, to my understanding, he’s still deciding what his position on immigration is,” said Inclan.

The day proceeded to get worse for Inclan.

The RNC then attempted to take back the remarks, and Inclan sent out a tweet saying that she “misspoke” on the issue and then linked to Governor Romney’s campaign page on immigration.

But, given that Romney has been compared by his own campaign to an Etch A Sketch toy, should we be surprised that Inclan wasn’t completely clear on his immigration position?

What we do know about Romney’s immigration position is what he has stated in debates and on the campaign trail. Back in January, he told us that he would advocate for “self deportation.” And back in December in Iowa, he said that he would veto the DREAM Act if it passed in Congress. Romney also has said that Arizona is a “model” for immigration policy and that he would drop lawsuits against the state for its controversial SB 1070 law.

Even though it’s a primary, the public record won’t go away.

• How to Get To Sesame Street (By Their Strange Fruit)

Actually, Sesame Street was originally created with a focus on educating inner city and low-income families. The creators wanted a show that children could relate to, but also expose them to images they may not experience in the city. Since its creation, “Sesame Street” has won awards for its conscientious treatment of sensitive subject matter and been lauded for handling topics such as poverty, HIV-AIDS, divorce, etc. in a thoughtful, inclusive and age appropriate way.

After the enormous success of “Sesame Street,” most pre-school children’s TV shows follow this same model. These shows tend to have truly “neutral” characters (such as animals or fantasy creatures) and often feature diverse casts. There are also more shows with minorities in major roles, or from cultures other than white, upper middle class suburban America. The PBS and Nick Jr. shows demonstrate this point well.

Contrast this with the lineup on network television. Currently, there are zero shows with a cast of all minorities on the major television networks, and a few shows with POCs at all. The few that do, are relegated to minor and/or stereotypical roles.

Date: Thursday May 10th
Time: 6pm to 9pm
Location: Museum of Tolerance New York City – 226 East 42nd Street, (between 2nd and 3rd Avenues) New York

Food will be served!

The roundtable will include:

Erin Konsmo, Native Youth Sexual Health Network
Andrea Carmen, International Indian Treaty Council
Danika Littlechild, International Indian Treaty Council
Viola Waghiyi, Alaska Community Action on Toxics
Speaker TBA, Indigenous Environmental Network

Full event description:

In July of 2010 The INTERNATIONAL INDIGENOUS WOMEN’S ENVIRONMENTAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH SYMPOSIUM created the first “Declaration for Health, Life and Defense of Our Lands, Rights and Future Generations”. This declaration was accepted at the 10th session Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. The declaration recommended that international UN bodies focus attention and collect information from Indigenous Peoples on the links between environmental contamination and reproductive health and justice.

Given this year’s Permanent Forum theme of the Doctrine of Discovery, this panel of speakers will speak to the specific ways “environmental violence” is impacting Indigenous women, children, and future generations. Looking at the patriarchal roots of the doctrine we will unpack how the domination of our lands as Indigenous Peoples results in numerous reproductive injustices for Indigenous women, child-bearing women, as well as higher rates of violence against Indigenous women and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). We will discuss current strategies to identify and resist the disproportionate affects on reproductive health for Indigenous women, and how these strategies can move forward the larger environmental justice movement. We will also report back from the 2nd Indigenous Women’s Environmental and Reproductive Health Symposium held in Alaska in April 2012 and the environmental violence report given at the UN International Expert Group Meeting on Violence Against Indigenous Women in January 2012

Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/events/242334702540534/

Courtesy artwallpapers.biz

By Arturo R. García

Ok, so The Avengers–pardon me, Marvel’s The Avengers–is a well-made summer blockbuster-type movie, well worth catching at least once. To no one’s surprise, the film’s gargantuan opening weekend has made a sequel inevitable. Which means it’s officially time to start speculating on which characters will be next to make the jump to the big screen.

This would be a great chance for Marvel to give fans a more diverse super-team, right? Maybe include Black Panther or Luke Cage? It’s a nice thought, but with the comic-book industry involved, it’s … best not to get too optimistic. Still, it’s not hard to see the opportunities Marvel is almost assuredly going to neglect because of some behind-the-scenes moves.

Ultimate Janet Van Dyne
Way back in 2008, Samuel L. Jackson’s surprise appearance as Nick Fury in Iron Man served as an elegant signal to viewers and readers: the nascent Marvel movieverse would be adapting material from the company’s Ultimate line of comics, which presented more diverse versions of the company’s core characters. Ultimate Nick Fury’s character design, for example, was specifically modeled after Jackson. And Ultimate Janet was depicted as an Asian-American woman.

Over the years, however, the company has transferred that corporate synergy toward its primary line of comics: Tony Stark looks more like Robert Downey Jr; Hawkeye looks more like Jeremy Renner; and most recently, a black Nick Fury was introduced in the Battle Lines miniseries.

If that pattern holds, it’s not hard to imagine Ultimate Janet not getting a movie counterpart, while her Caucasian counterpart gets the nod. But if Joss Whedon returns to direct an Avengers 2 movie, here’s to hoping he can do right by another Dollhouse alum–blink and you’ll miss Enver Gokaj as a cop in Avengers–and cast Dichen Lachman instead.

Miles Morales
It’s worth noting that Marvel doesn’t own the film rights to the Spider-Man brand; right now they’re controlled by Sony Entertainment. And even if the upcoming Andrew Garfield vehicle The Amazing Spider-Man doesn’t do well at the box office (which isn’t likely; it honestly doesn’t look bad at all), all Sony has to do is keep making movies to retain those rights. Which is bad news for fans of Miles, who was introduced in Ultimate Spider-Man last year, when he took up the mantle of the dead Ultimate Peter Parker.

Even if we indulge in some wild speculation, and argue that Marvel and parent company Disney can use some of that Avengers money to buy back the Spider-Man and Fantastic Four brands, it won’t help Miles. After all, the traditional Peter Parker is still alive and well, and a featured player in two Avengers titles.

Courtesy Marvel Comics

Monica Rambeau
Monica is perhaps still best known for being the second character to take on the name Captain Marvel (in Marvel canon, anyway), and for being written to not only appear in the Avengers comic book in the 1980s, but become the team leader.

As we’ve mentioned before on Racialicious, the key words there are “being written to ____.” Because ever since her run with the Avengers, not only have Monica’s appearances dwindled to a few miniseries, but she’s been written to give up her superhero name twice to the original Captain’s son, Genis-Vell, leading to Monica getting rebranded from Captain Marvel to Photon to Pulsar, with less emphasis on her along the way.

That doesn’t figure to change with the news that there will be a new Captain Marvel series, where Carol Danvers, the character formerly known as Ms. Marvel, will get the benefit of not only the Captain Marvel brand, but a new costume, and Marvel’s promotional muscle behind her. In other words, the Danvers character is being positioned to be all but a cinch for inclusion in the next round of Marvel films.

This isn’t a knock on the new Marvel’s creative team, writer Kelly Sue DeCormick and artist Dexter Soy. But Marvel editor Steve Wacker did shed some light on the company’s thought process in this piece by Comics Alliance’s Laura Hudson, where he told Hudson he “has been trying to get this name change since my first day editing the book about five years ago, so this has been a long time coming.”

Think about that for a second. Wacker had been working on raising the Danvers character’s profile for five years. All the while, Carol has been written to be a part of at least one Avengers team, on top of getting her own solo series. Has anybody given such consideration to an audience for Rambeau, even as she was part of the cult hit miniseries Nextwave?

Apparently not, because ever since Nextwave, Rambeau has only been written as a supporting players in miniseries like Marvel Divas, Heralds, and Young Allies, none of which was promoted as a major event by Marvel. Why could that be?

Oh, right. Silly me.

Aside: I feel it’s absolutely necessary to point out that while the Avengers film is good for what it is, but none of it would have been possible without the efforts of Jack Kirby, who co-created many of the characters featured in it and won’t see a dime of the box-office take. CA’s David Brothers has an excellent column detailing how little Kirby received for his contributions to Marvel Comics:

For most artists, the form was a one-page contract. For Kirby, it was four pages. You can read the form here on The Comics Journal site, and get a good background on the fight for Kirby’s artwork by Michael Dean here. Marvel offered to return eighty-eight pages to Jack Kirby. Kirby’s regular schedule for in the ’70s was fifteen pages a week, depending on how much outside animation work he was doing. But even then, he’d worked for Marvel for years, generating thousands of pages of work. There is a gulf as wide as the Grand Canyon between what Kirby was legally owed and what Marvel offered. Marvel’s offer was an insult, at best.

In exchange for those 88 pages, Kirby would have to give up several rights. Here’s an incomplete list of Marvel’s requests:

• Kirby was to agree that Marvel was “the sole and exclusive owner of all copyright in and to the Artwork throughout the worid,” and if the art somehow wasn’t already copyright Marvel, Kirby was to cede copyright to Marvel for that, too.
• Kirby was to receive no royalties for future use of the work by Marvel.
• Kirby was forbidden from assisting others in questioning Marvel’s copyright.
• Kirby was forbidden from objecting to future use or modification of his work, no matter the form it took.
• Marvel was to receive the rights to Kirby’s name, likeness, and biographical info to use in their marketing or publishing as they wished.
• Kirby was not allowed to copy, publicly display, or even give away any of his artwork.
• Kirby was to give Marvel unfettered access to the artwork at Marvel’s sole discretion.
• Kirby was forbidden from saying that Marvel had possession of any more of his art.

In light of this injustice, I’d like to invite our readers to make a donation to Avengers to The Hero Initiative, a non-profit group that helps comics creators pay for medical aid and other essentials as needed. Another standout piece from CA on why this matters can be found here.

Top Row (l-r): Bella Evangelista, Agnes Torres Sulca, Amanda Gonzalez Andujar, Chanelle Pickett, Angie Zapata

Second Row: Emonie Spaulding, Deoni Jones, Duanna Johnson, Myra Chanel Ical, Gwen Araujo

Third Row: Rita Hester, Sanesha Stewart, Paige Clay, Ruby Ordeñana, Robyn Browne

Fourth Row: Stacey Blahnik Lee, Taysia Elzy, Victoria Carmen White, Venus Xtravaganza, and Tyli Mack.

All trans women. All killed by hate crimes. This work was done to recognize them, and it’s one of the many works Andrea Plaid curates for us every week on the Racialicious Tumblr.

So, HBO has a problem with Girls. Mainly, that a lot of smart people are really pissed the show is so white! And they’re right. I’ve refrained from writing extensively about this because (a) so many other people (links above!) are doing it well, (b) I think the show is smart, and (c) I agree with Seitz: race is the industry’s problem, not Lena Dunham’s. She is privileged, yes, but–let’s be honest–also got lucky with a sweetheart Louie-like deal: cheap production and relative freedom in lieu of high ratings (Girls‘s paltry 0.4 rating in the demo would get it canceled everywhere but HBO, and maybe FX**).

In the spirit of shifting blame back on the industry and being constructive, I’ve decided to link to some web shows mainstream TV critics might not know about because there are so many.

The Girls imbroglio, which was easy to see coming but surprised and heartened me in its scale, has shone a light on the ugly side of Hollywood most people forget about. Mainly, that mostly everyone is white, and most people in power are male. Alyssa Rosenberg has done a really great job highlighting this in the past week (see: her posts on women of color already writing for TV and her stats on their employment).

There’s been some discussion about how the Internet figures into all of this, with a number of people mentioning Awkward Black Girl, hugely popular and shopped to networks only to stay online (following The Guild, that might be a good call for Rae). Latoya Peterson linked to my black, gay and latino web series pages–links at the top–in her great critique of Girls.

I thought I’d make it easy, and, in the spirit of “put up or shut up,” spotlight a few shows, past and present, which could use an FX-style pick-up. A lot of these shows would be cheap to do but could benefit from the little bit of low-risk cash TV networks can deliver (I’ve highlighted shows by men and women, because the problem isn’t just with female-led shows on TV, far from it).

As always, this is the tip of very large iceberg. Please put other suggestions in the comments!

The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl

An obvious mention, Awkward Black Girl isn’t a perfect show–what show is?–but it’s smart, fresh and incredibly adept at speaking to specific concerns of black women, young black professionals, and anyone who’s ever worked in an office or had to choose between two romantic interests.

Black and Sexy TV

Dennis Dortch’s online network features a number of relationship dramas and comedies. They’re pretty made-for-web, but I’d be intrigued about what a TV version would look like.

BJ Fletcher: Private Eye

This lesbian detective series ended its run last week–final episode embedded above. It built a sizable cult following and almost made it to television, but the producers decided to end it on the web.

I emailed the show and creator Regan Latimer told me why:  ”It was a very conscious decision for us to bring the show back to the web–it’s an amazingly creative and open format for telling the stories we want to tell. It’s a new industry that is quickly opening up as a new standard for traditional media. And we’re excited to have been in on the ground floor.” For its part HBO is not foreign to lesbian web shows, having funded years ago the short-lived Time Traveling Lesbian.

PS–another lesbian sitcom about two “girls” (and, like Girls, anti-heros as well!): The Slope.

Chick

I’ve spotlighted Chick in the past. It’s still around and new episodes may be on the horizon. Television is perfect for fantasy, why not give it a shot?

Drama Queenz

Drama Queenz went all-out in its third with 20-minute episodes and higher production values. The show wants to be on TV, someone should shepherd it through! (It won’t be Logo).

East WillyB

There’s no better way to balance a comedy about privileged hipsters in Brooklyn than with another comedy about gentrification in Brooklyn. East WillyB is currently raising money for its first full season–visit Kickstarter.

Melody Set Me Free (Note: NSFW language in clip)

Performance and video artist Kalup Linzy’s web series has new episodes out right now! If we’re looking for an arty/avant-garde show by and about people of color, we need look no further.

Queen Hussy (Note: NSFW language in clip)

Pete Chatmon’s under-seen show is high concept: a former (black) party girl pitches her story about being a 70s wild child. The show presents her youthful exploits as proto-reality television in 8mm. Can you beat that?

The Real Girl’s Guide to Everything Else (Note: NSFW language in clip)

This satire of Sex and the City and female-targeted media is arguably the polar opposite of Girls: diverse, politically aware, campy, and silly. A second season is apparently in the works. Why shouldn’t it air on television?

Ylse

This early web series is no longer in production, but when’s the last time we saw a Latina-focused, racially aware sitcom on television?

**Yes, HBO is in fewer homes. You get my point.

Today, voters in North Carolina will go to the polls to decide whether Amendment One–which would define marriage in the state constitution as being only between a cis man and a cis woman, and  outlaw same-sex civil unions and domestic partnerships–will become law. But the wife of a state senator has already been reportedly caught trying to use racial anxieties as a call to arms to support the bill.

The story started to unfold last week, when freelance journalist Chad Nance recorded the wife of state Sen. Peter Brunstetter talking to poll workers in Winston-Salem, as Pam Spaulding noted:

Nance said he recorded a conversation with the woman, whose name is Jodie Brunstetter, on video, and that she confirmed that she used the term “Caucasian” in a discussion about the marriage amendment, but insisted that otherwise her comments had been taken out of context by other poll workers.

… Nance paraphrased the remarks, as told to him by those who were present: “During the conversation, Ms. Brunstetter said her husband was the architect of Amendment 1, and one of the reasons he wrote it was to protect the Caucasian race. She said Caucasians or whites created this country. We wrote the Constitution. This is about protecting the Constitution. There already is a law on the books against same-sex marriage, but this protects the Constitution from activist judges.”

The story comes just over a month after the Human Rights Coalition unearthed an internal report from the National Organization of Marriage detailing how to “drive a wedge between gays and blacks.”

Peter Brunstetter later told Think Progress his wife “does not think like that” and had gotten flustered by someone asking her questions.

“My wife is one of the sweetest, most genuine people you will ever meet,” he said. “Her convictions on the marriage amendment are spiritual in nature, not racial. The individual in question had been quite abusive and intimidating. The Amendment is not racially motivated, is quite simple and straightforward and, in fact, is widely supported in many areas of the African American community.”

Brunstetter might be overstating that assessment. On Monday, Rev. William Barber, the president of the state chapter of the NAACP, denounced the amendment in a sermon to his congregation at Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Greensboro. As The Raw Story’s Andrew Jones reported, Barber is one of 100 church leaders opposing Amendment One:

“I tried to find somewhere where the Lord discriminated against people, even if he didn’t agree with them,” Barber said. “And I found out that God gives every human being certain constitutional rights, that can’t nobody revoke. You know, those rights that just come with being a human. You know, like the one that says that allows to sun to shine on the just and unjust.”

“God gives everybody constitutional rights, to air, and sun, and rain and existence. So your motivation to the polls should be, ‘How dare some human being tried to give folks less rights than God himself? How dare us take our puny little human document and try to write something, an appalling human document, that’s less than God, who made us, does?’ That ought to be your motivation.”

The state chapter also sent out a press release opposing the bill:

The real insult to the Civil Rights Movement is that the same regressive, ultra-conservative Tea Party type folks suing to overturn the 1965 Voting Rights Act, re-segregating and robbing our public schools of valuable resources, blocking workers’ rights to organize, trying to force us all to get photo ID’s to exercise our right to vote and cut back on the time and opportunities to vote, and attempting to repeal the Racial Justice Act, now somehow think the sons and daughters of the Civil Rights Movement cannot see through their Trojan Horse trick.

And now this — the allegation of a blatant reference to a twisted race-based rationale for Amendment One being written in the first place. North Carolinians must reject this ultra-conservative, regressive and mean spirited agenda. We must be better than this as a state and as a people who make glowing claims to our belief in justice and fairness for all. We must vote AGAINST discrimination, division and hate in our Constitution. We must vote AGAINST Amendment One.

So who is supporting Amendment One? According to The New Civil Rights Movement…neo-Nazis. And several other outlets picked up on an endorsement of the bill by the Rev. Billy Graham. But what’s more troubling is a March 29 article cited by Religion Dispatches: while 58 percent of state voters support Amendment One, only 31 percent of them know that it outlaws both gay marriage and civil unions. As Public Policy Polling’s Tom Jensen writes:

When voters are informed that the amendment bans both gay marriage and civil unions their tune changes quite a bit. Only 41% of voters say they’ll support it knowing that, while 42% are opposed. So despite the large current lead for the amendment, there is some hope for those trying to defeat it. It’s just going to take a lot of education and effort over the final six weeks to make sure voters really understand exactly what they’re voting on.

The effort appears to have driven more voters to action, regardless of position: MSNBC reported Monday that 508,000 absentee ballots have already been cast–a new state record, besting the 2008 Democratic party primary contest between Barack Obama and Hilary Rodham Clinton.

By Guest Contributor Tressie McMillan Cottom, cross-posted from Tressie MC

I am writing this very quickly while on the side of Interstate 20. I am also struggling mightily to not use my colorful repertoire of insanely rhythmic and appropriate curse words. Thank me later.

Today The Chronicle of Higher Education published a blog entry from Naomi Schaefer Riley entitled “The Most Persuasive Case for Eliminating Black Studies? Just Read the Dissertations.” I refuse to link. They do not deserve the traffic. Google it or take my word for it.

Schaefer Riley is responding to an earlier Chronicle article lauding the first cohort of Northwestern University’s Black Studies program. So bemused is she by the mere titles of the dissertations of these young black scholars that Schaefer Riley can barely contain her glee as she proceeds to viciously, intentionally, and deliberately insult every single one of the scholars listed and everyone within the field of black studies. You can almost hear her giggling as she writes:

If ever there were a case for eliminating the discipline, the sidebar explaining some of the dissertations being offered by the best and the brightest of black-studies graduate students has made it. What a collection of left-wing victimization claptrap. The best that can be said of these topics is that they’re so irrelevant no one will ever look at them.

What could be so utterly ridiculous of an academic topic to draw such ire from Schaefer Riley? For one, black midwives. I mean can you just imagine a critical examination of how black women give birth? How RIDICULOUS!

That’s what I would say about Ruth Hayes’ dissertation, “‘So I Could Be Easeful’: Black Women’s Authoritative Knowledge on Childbirth.” It began because she “noticed that nonwhite women’s experiences were largely absent from natural-birth literature, which led me to look into historical black midwifery.” How could we overlook the nonwhite experience in “natural birth literature,” whatever the heck that is? It’s scandalous and clearly a sign that racism is alive and well in America, not to mention academia.

Not only is black childbirth beneath her contempt but the very idea of literature about natural birth is also contemptible. It could be argued that is a particularly odd position in an age when public health schools are cropping up at every reputable university imaginable and scholars from across disciplines are attempting to better understand the links between social realities and biological processes. Schaefer Riley will hear none of that! It’s liberal nonsense this whole idea that scholars might want to record the history and experiences of women having babies.

It’s not just childbirth that pisses Schaefer Riley off, though. So, too, does a critical analysis of housing, public policy, and race:

Then there is Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, author of “Race for Profit: Black Housing and the Urban Crisis of the 1970s.” Ms. Taylor believes there was apparently some kind of conspiracy in the federal government’s promotion of single family homes in black neighborhoods after the unrest of the 1960s. Single family homes! The audacity! But Ms. Taylor sees that her issue is still relevant today. (Not much of a surprise since the entirety of black studies today seems to rest on the premise that nothing much has changed in this country in the past half century when it comes to race. Shhhh. Don’t tell them about the black president!) She explains that “The subprime lending crisis, if it did nothing else, highlighted the profitability of racism in the housing market.” The subprime lending crisis was about the profitability of racism? Those millions of white people who went into foreclosure were just collateral damage, I guess.

This, as our nation tries to recover from a protracted economic recession caused, in part, by persistent inequality in the housing market. Nope, not relevant. History happened then and this is now. And what happens to black people can in no way be generalized to any greater white human experience. You know, the only experience that matters.

Schaefer Riley goes on to deride, chide, and condescend to all of Black Studies through a personal attack on the scholarship of three young scholars who have the audacity to treat the black subject as a human subject worthy of interrogation.

The relevancy of Black Studies has never been so clearly proven as it is in Schaefer Riley’s gleeful attack.

But that’s not really what I want to talk about.

I want to talk about how Schaefer Riley constructed her argument.

She begins by responding to an innocuous article highlighting the work of doctoral students who just happen to be black and who just happen to be studying issues that impact black people.

Doctoral students.

That’s Schaefer Riley’s target: a group of accomplished, intelligent black doctoral students.

Schaefer Riley went after, arguably, the most powerless group of people in all of academe: doctoral students who lack the political cover of tenure, institutional support, or extensive professional networks. She attacked junior scholars who have done nothing but tried to fulfill the requirements of their degree program and who had the audacity to be recognized for doing so in academia’s largest publication. Their crime is not being fucking* invisible.

For that–for daring to be seen and heard–Schaefer Riley eviscerates the hard work of doctoral students.

And she does not even afford them the respect of critiquing their actual scholarship. That is beneath her. She attacks the very veracity of their right to choose what scholarship they will do. In effect, she attacks their right to be agents in their own academic careers.

She eschews their dissertation titles as laughable. She pokes fun at their subject matter. She all but calls them stupid.

And The Chronicle of Higher Education let her.

Maybe it has been awhile since you have been a graduate student. Maybe you have never been a black graduate student. Let me tell you a little about my experience of that.

You are almost always perceived as crazy and different for doing something few in your family or peer groups would ever consider doing. Even if you are among the best and brightest in college you are somewhat of an oddity in graduate school. You are either the voice of all black people or the voice of no one. You can be, in any combination and at any given moment: an affirmative action case, an overachiever, lazy, aggressive, scary, and your University’s poster child for diversity.

You are simultaneously invisible and in the spotlight…all the time. For five-plus years. And you pay for the privilege because you care about the scholarship. You do the work. You jump through the hoops. You refine a research agenda, craft a research question that passes muster with your committee members; you spend countless hours reading, writing, collecting data, and learning your craft. Finally, it is time to present your baby to the world. And you do not expect to be coddled but you do expect that professional rules of conduct to which you have been taught to adhere will also apply to your colleagues.

You expect that completing almost all the requirements of your degree program will signal to the greater field that you, at minimum, should be respected as an intellectual peer.

You expect arguments to adhere, however symbolically, to the rules of logic.

You expect critiques to be confined to your ideas and not extended to your person.

You expect that when an academic publication promotes a scholar’s opinion that these very basic rules of engagement will apply.

If you are Ruth Hayes, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, and La TaSha B. Levy you awoke today to find that none of those rules apply when the scholarship is yours.

For that The Chronicle of Higher Education is as much to blame as Naomi Schaefer Riley.

These scholars did not deserve to be publicly attacked in the largest academic news publication for daring to be visible and black with a dissertation title that Schaefer Riley finds hilarious.

It isn’t scholarship when the entire purpose is to ridicule.

I know we’re not using the “r” word after Obama being elected and all but it really is this simple: by elevating Schaefer Riley’s racially tinged attack on three emerging scholars, The Chronicle is legitimizing open season on black scholars for doing Black Studies. That’s racist racism.

It does go to prove that Black Studies remain critical to academe but it also begs the question: with colleagues like The Chronicle and Naomi Schaefer Riley who in the hell needs enemies?

* fine, fine, fine: one cuss word slipped through. Sue me. Just don’t write about me in The Chronicle!

ETA: There’s now a petition because every time I think about it I get angry all over again. Public shaming and bullying is never OK. Please sign and share.

About the author: I’m terrible at bios. I am fairly better at being a friend, daughter, researcher, and eternal hell-raiser.