Over at Sepia Mutiny, Anna writes about the fact that the new Facebook trend of replacing your profile pic with a photo of the celebrity who looks most like you poses a unique problem for some people of colour. She quotes from a number of friends who couldn’t find a celeb that looked like them:

“I’ve noticed that most of my friends of South Asian descent have changed theirs to Kal Penn when they don’t resemble him in the least… “all look same” syndrome, perhaps? “

“I’m only half-brown, and I hate that my doppelganger is white. I feel like I’m insulting my Dad with that picture. I’m not just white, even if I look it. I’m Indian, too!”

“I don’t look like Apu or that girl from the “Office”, so I guess I can’t play. Bummer.”

“I know I do not resemble anyone in the small group of desi celebs familiar to most Americans (e.g. Mindy Kaling, Padma Lakshmi, etc.). I couldn’t instantly think of a Latina/Persian/Arab/other brown-skinned celeb familiar to most Americans that I might resemble. (This is a small pool too! How many can you think of? The Kardashians don’t count ! Therefore, the number of potential possibilities seemed much larger in celebs more famous in South Asia than in the US. “

Personally I put up a picture of Pee Wee Herman. Unless it is hidden somewhere on his Wikipedia profile that he has some Chinese or Anglo-Irish heritage, I believe we don’t have any ethnic commonality.

Anyone else struggling to take part in the celeb doppelganger meme?

From the annoying “hey shorty” and vulgar comments about my pouty lips to the more polite “Good morning, beautiful,” catcalls are a nuisance. Much like stereotypes, even the so-called “positive” ones can be frustrating and equally as demeaning as they reduce one’s existence solely to the physical. In addition, they remind those on the receiving end of the comments or calls that they are there for the speaker’s visual—and in some extremes, physical— indulgence. Despite whatever clever or biting retort the receiver of the comments or calls may deliver, the person is still only reacting, not having delivered the initial blow that can have long term effects on one who is often subjected to engaging in such an unwarranted exchange of words.

Yet beyond catcalls and more public displays of adoration, there is the party approach. More intimate and certainly holding more potential, being approached at a party makes the stakes go up a bit. The possibility of seeing this person again or something real developing from a conversation, even if it just means a good friendship, is far more likely in this case than in an exchange with some stranger on the corner or someone ogling you on the train.

The negative side of this is that in the development that comes from this closer contact, there’s also more of a likelihood for things to get deeper in a way that far less enjoyable. One of those uncomfortable topics for me is race.

I’ve written about this before— from being mistaken for other ethnic or racial groups to being mislabeled and forced to defend my own heritage both here and in other countries. In other words, it happens a lot. Questions like “What are you?” “Are you certain you’re not____?” and “Are you part______?” come up all the time, contingent on little phenotypic changes like my hair, my skin color, and facial features to even more superficial things like my makeup choices, my accessories, and my outfit. Going further, however, even things like my speech pattern, education level, and group of friends can contribute to the outside world’s determination of which ethnic/racial group(s) I belong for the day. As frustrating as this may be, it’s telling of something that extends far beyond a mistaken identity. It’s also a testament to the changing way we determine racial groupings in this country—particularly in ways we often attribute to other countries but rarely give thought to our having used in our own.

At a show/party I attended recently, someone used the ambiguous race topic as a segue into a compliment of sorts, if you want to call it that at all. After jokingly pointing out that I was the only black chick and one of the few black people at the party, noting that the exceptions were the bouncers and one of the performers, the person to whom I was speaking looked at me and said, “What? There is NO WAY you are all black! I mean, look at you.” And then went on to tell me how I pretty I was, not recognizing that following a comment on how I don’t look all black with a comment on my level of attractiveness was a little . . . poorly timed?

I often give people the benefit of the doubt, and I did in this case as well, recognizing that sometimes people don’t realize what they’re saying until after it has already come spewing from their mouths, now impossible to return to its rightful owner. I made my usual joke about being the end result of a long line of folks who fell under the category of “slavery era remix” (my nice way of hinting at plantation rape without all the historical baggage) in order to let my social suitor off the hook, knowing that if this didn’t happen ALL THE TIME I’d have been ill-prepared.

While there is certainly privilege that comes with looking a certain way and falling a certain place on the color spectrum between white and black, including but not limited to greater social acceptance, coming closer to the ideal standard of beauty, and even subsequent socio-economic benefits, these types of interactions make me wish that my place on race line were a little bit more defined in a visual sense. All the questions and classification guessing games get old. The reality is that despite being classified (and usually self-identifying) as black, many people of African descent living in the United States who possess lighter skin tones and features that veer closer to whiteness have historically been afforded greater opportunities and more of a chance at social mobility. This privilege has had its limits of course, but it does exist in ways we sometimes forget because we use “black” as such a blanket term, allowing for little statistical differentiation and thus analysis of the variance of opportunities between the subcategories among black Americans.

What also puzzles yet fascinates me is that the way people read my race is how much of a role class, education levels, and other signs of assimilation or association with whiteness, if you will, factor into my “not possibly being all black.” I wonder if my accent more easily offered to the listener my location of origin or fit into a stereotype of what black people supposedly all sounded like, would my race then be easier to determine (at least once I opened my mouth)? Or if I remained silent and dressed a certain way—less “hipster” and more “hood”— would I then all of a sudden gain more “black” points?

This issue has been drawn into the national forefront countless times with comments surrounding Obama’s success and its connection to his ability to string together potent sentences (wait, an articulate person of African descent, you say? GASP). Certainly, being well-spoken helps win an election, but so do many other factors, like personality (George W. Bush being a perfect example here—not well-spoken, but seemingly someone with whom you could go out for beers after work and catch a football game).  While such comments are overly simplistic and insulting, they point toward the greater issue of life opportunities and factors that have little to no relation to appearance lending themselves to an interpretation of one’s racial and/or ethnic background (many of those who hint that Obama’s success is assimilation-based are also quick to point out that his claim to “blackness” is empty as his mother is white).

We often attribute this social practice of whitening someone on the basis of his or her educational or class background, romantic partner, or occupation to nations that have long acknowledged their multiracial heritage (though with a clear preference for whiteness) for the sake of promoting national unity. The most notable examples considered in these discussions on racial classification beyond the United States deal with those that are closest—the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. However, this practice is one I have witnessed people in the United States utilizing more frequently in recent years, especially in their interactions with multiracial people and/or people who may identify as “monoracial” (for political purposes or otherwise) who do not necessarily fit the physical and personality-based stereotypes and expectations the observer may hold.

I find it to be a humorous phenomenon, particularly considering that where I grew up and within my family and many others, people who share an appearance similar to mine are rarely assumed to be far beyond whatever their monoracial category would be (in my case, black) simply because there is not enough racial and ethnic diversity in the area to assume anything otherwise. The human mind, in its attempt to categorize, to box, to create a neat space for a clear answer to its inquiries, is far simpler than it seems. People in the United States do not yet seem fully able to account for all those spaces of ambiguity without attempting to exoticize them. And on the opposite end, there is an equally limited ability to process information beyond the norm, the ready-made categories, even if said information may fit rightfully there (i.e. someone can identify as a member of one specific racial group while possessing a phenotype generally associated with another—an aspect of self-identification that seems to always be forgotten).

I wait in anticipation for a time when there is be adequate space for us to discuss the lines that are not so clearly drawn, the areas of identity that exist in boxes of dotted lines. Beyond discussion, I look forward to a societal realization that the racialized world in which we seem to be stuck—one that is constructed for us, by us, and that we accept and then go on to apply to others—is fabricated. Just as the guy from the party’s comment was rife with ignorance, then so too is our society’s relentless reliance on stereotypical physical traits and behavioral characteristics to pinpoint race. And as our population grows increasingly more diverse (and that diversity is to be accounted for in better ways during this year’s census), hopefully our society will learn to make more room for the otherness that doesn’t quite fit its expectations without accounting for it by way of racist assumptions on beauty, class, education levels, and other more superficial characteristics.

By Special Correspondent Arturo R. García

Hmm HR?
- caption for this image, as posted by Questlove, drummer for The Roots, on Twitpic, Feb. 5

When i saw the sign i have to admit….i was DYING. like literally LMAO!!! maybe it was juxtaposition of the words: collard & history, jalapeno & honor, fried, black and nbc?? maybe it was the acculturative stress of having 28 days for this food that represents you but come march…pot roast for life kid!

Whatever the case, I found this funny and when I find something funny I like to let the world in on the joke (twitpic anyone??). in NO way did i ever think that this was some cruel insensitive joke on behalf of jeff zucker and his comrades at nbc (the cafeteria isn’t even owned or operated by nbc).

I kinda get where leslie calhoun (our culinary rosa parks) was coming from; fried chicken as a fragrant, tasty, honorable metaphor for the struggles and accomplishments of america’s black masses.

The problem is..in the blogosphere, things can take on a life of their own….. my twitpic was just me poking fun, a Questlove still life that was clearly intended as a joke. What’s even funnier: race issues in post racial America. Potluck anyone?????
- Questlove, as quoted in a release, Feb. 7

Actually, a bigger problem in just about any online forum isn’t taking things out of context – it’s not giving them one to begin with. With just a few more tweets, Quest might have been able to save his network and a well-intentioned woman a lot of grief.

To recap the saga: the image going up Friday afternoon stirred up even more bad buzz for NBC, which already showed a clumsy hand in the Jay Leno/ Conan O’Brien debacle. And as far as diversity issues … well, we’ve talked about Heroes enough on this site.

But it turned out the source of the menu was a black woman: chef Leslie Calhoun said she had been pushing to serve these dishes for years as part of a weekly special during February. According to The New York Post, her menu was approved and served without incident last year. Enter Questlove. As Calhoun told The Post:

“Questlove, who I serve every day and who enjoys my food, requested the neck bone [cooked in] the black-eyed peas and fried chicken, then got off the line, saying, ‘This is racist.’ The next thing you know, people were taking pictures of the sign and asking all the other black people in the cafeteria if this was racist. They said that it wasn’t.”

That quote isn’t included in The Post’s video for the story, but her reaction doesn’t seem to match up with the joking tone Quest presents in his statement. Nor did this post from him, issued shortly after the image went up:

i think i need a twitter break. i done started something. and now i must put out fire.

And this is where Quest lost his chance to set the record straight: At no point in his twitter feed – before or after posting the picture – does he mention that Calhoun is black, that the menu was her idea, or that it had already been well-received by other patrons.

They might not have stopped the image from generating discussion, but as The R’s Andrea Plaid pointed out when she sent me the link to The Post’s story, those facts could have led to some more well-rounded discussions:

* Could Calhoun have thought of something else besides fried chicken and greens to commemorate Black History Month?
* Has Questlove considered from whom in the blogosphere the criticism came?
* Does he himself really believe in “post-racial” America?

Discussing any of these questions, one would think, would be preferable to speculation about a joke that, at the time, only Quest was in on. So at that point, that lack of context or people “not getting it” is his bad. Twitter might be fun, but if you tweet the punchline without the set-up, the LOLZ end up on you.

Or, in Quest’s case, on the people who air his band’s show; NBC moved quickly to remove the sign as debate picked up during Quest’s “break,” but still couldn’t save itself from becoming a punchline: on The Jay Leno Show, Wanda Sykes said, “That’s how [NBC] celebrates. Oh, no, no, ya’ll don’t need to know about Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass. Here’s some fried chicken.”

At least the story has a happy ending, as Quest also documented: he gave Calhoun a spa certificate and flowers for her trouble. And, presumably, everyone can eat lunch safely at NBC again. Unless Leno decides he wants the cafeteria, too.

President Obama says the stimulus saved or created 2 million jobs in 2009. But is the recovery really working? The American dream of good jobs and strong communities is still just a dream for too many. The unfair economy hurts certain groups more, and that ends up hurting everyone. From the bottom line to the unemployment line to the color line, watch a new in-depth program from Link TV and Applied Research Center for a closer look — ColorLines: Race and Economic Recovery.

Tune in to Link TV Friday, February 12, for ColorLines: Race and Economic Recovery on DIRECTV Channel 375 or DISH Network Channel 9410 at 6:30pm Pacific, 7:30pm Central and 8:30 pm Eastern. After the show, join us on Twitter @racialjustice, as we host a roundtable discussion on what we’ve seen.

ColorLines: Race and Economic Recovery follows communities making ends meet in The Great Recession. The program narrates the moving story of Tisha, mother of three in Connecticut, facing a social safety net shredded further by the crisis. Then the program goes to Los Angeles, where community-based organization SCOPE has mobilized to win green jobs for communities of color.

In the middle of January, American Idol scored a huge ratings win when they decided to air a tryout clip of an elderly black man named General Larry Platt, singing his original composition “Pants on the Ground.” The song took off and is now a part of American pop culture…at least for the next few months.

The first time I saw the clip I couldn’t help but feel torn. I felt joke discomfort: the uneasiness I often get when someone makes a joke that I sense is not quite right, yet I still feel like laughing. “Pants on the Ground” does seem inherently absurd and there is something really adorable about Platt. Yet how should we feel about the way American Idol used his clip? Does it encourage us to laugh with Larry Platt? After watching several different Platt appearances, I’m still not sure if Platt is funny because he’s trying to be, or just by accident. If we’re laughing at Platt instead of with him, how much of this is about race?

Reader Gavin Jones sent us an email about Platt, lamenting the way Platt was the butt of jokes on Youtube and the late-night show circuit. Gavin says

It just seems like we live in a Bizzaro world where the more virtuous artists are fake blonds, singers whose subjects are ultimately selfish, and Soulja Boy types, and someone like Larry Platt is somehow not legitimate. Simon Cowell said he had a ’sinking feeling it would be a hit’. Mary J. Blige couldn’t stop laughing DURING his audition. I wonder how her (and all of our lives) would be different if he didn’t exist. SOMEONE, ANYONE should mention some of this after one of those clips or in some commentary.

In a greater sense I wonder how much this has to do with race. Obviously there’s no immediate way to quantify that but it’s curious that of all the thousands of applicants to American Idol over the years, the only objects of ridicule are William Hung and Larry Platt.

What rankled Gavin is particular is that Platt is actually a hero in Atlanta, thanks to the work he’s done for the civil rights movement. From Yahoo:

But Platt is not just some William Hungian TV clown angling for 15 minutes of YouTube fame. His real legacy in fact extends all the way back to the ’60s, when he was a teenage crusader for the Civil Rights Movement in Georgia…The man was even honored with his own holiday in Atlanta, Larry Platt Day, on September 4, 2001, for his “priceless and immeasurable contributions to society” and “his great energy and commitment to equality and the protection of the innocent and for his outstanding service to the Atlanta community and the citizens of Georgia.”

On that fateful day, the Georgia General Assembly declared: “For the past 40 years, Larry Platt has given of himself in service to the people of the City of Atlanta, the State of Georgia, and the nation…Larry Platt merits the highest recognition for his many valuable contributions to the Civil Rights Movement and his dedication to the struggle for equality and human rights.”

Platt was actually a student of Martin Luther King Jr. back in the day, which makes the timing of his sudden fame quite interesting, given that next Monday is MLK Day. In the early ’60s when he was only 16 (see the 16-year-old Platt in the photograph here; he’s the one on the far left), he worked with activist groups like the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and Southern Christian Leadership Conference to fight racial segregation in the South. He was even beaten while participating in the infamous “Bloody Sunday” protest march from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama.

While Jimmy Fallon might not have recognised Platt’s proud history, The View (surprise!) did. In the clip at the top of this post, Platt performs “Pants on the Ground” on MLK day with a picture of MLK pinned to his outfit, and Sherri tells the audience about his history, then Platt’s nephew talks about how proud he is of Platt and what an inspiration Platt is.

But even if Platt’s accomplishments are becoming better known, this still doesn’t answer the question – when we see “Pants on the Ground” and laugh, why are we laughing and what are we laughing at?

So often when we see people of colour do comedy in spaces that are not anti-racist – or not controlled by people of colour – the framing of the scene encourages us to laugh at the person of colour, not with them. Think William Hung. Think Long Duk Dong. Think Virginiaca*.

Part of the joke discomfort that I spoke about earlier has to do with context and audience. Some jokes that I would happily laugh at in the comfort of my home, make me feel uncomfortable or even unsafe when I am in an environment where others don’t share my racial politics. We’ve talked about “in house” jokes before with reference to Bernie Mac. So often the appropriateness of race-based comedy depends on who the joke is for. In a discussion about Russell Peters vs Esther Ku, I argued that Peters’ jokes are funny because they are clearly made for an audience of colour, while Ku’s jokes are just plain offensive because they are about Korean people, but for white people.

Along with the fact that [Ku's] jokes are offensive (and not really funny), they send the message that audiences of colour are not important enough to write jokes for. In fact, all they’re good for is the butt of jokes. Just like ye olde status quo, Ku’s jokes place white folks at the center of everything.

Peters on the other hand talks about relationships between Indians and Chinese folks, between Indians and Jamaicans, between Indians and Latinos. More than this it really seems like Peters is simply trying to make people like himself laugh. There’s something sorta subversive about the fact that he’s playing to himself, instead of pandering to an audience that doesn’t share his experience at all.

When we hear a large group of non-black people or white people laughing at General Platt – do you think it was a coincidence that it was Sherri, rather than Elizabeth who did most of the interview with Platt? – it’s very different from when we see black folks laughing at “Pants on the Ground.”

Last weekend I went to a massive step competition, with a DJ battle in the middle. One of the DJs slayed the crowd when, in between the usual repetoire of club hits, he dropped “Pants on the Ground.” The entire crowd stopped dancing to sing along at the top of their lungs. When I wondered (via email with the Racialicious team) whether the exuberance in that moment was based in affection or mockery, Andrea had this to say:

But affection and mockery can coincide in the same communal laughter, Thea. For example, some older Southern Black folks, in quoting the Bible, say “God is not marked.” The actual quote is “God is not mocked.” When my moms and I go into giggles about it, we’re laughing at the pronounciation (stemming from our educational privilege, which is, more than likely, higher than those older Black folks we’re giggling about), but have a deep affection for the folks who said it because we understand those elders helped get us to this historical moment, as imperfect as it is.

I suspect the same dynamic may be at play with what happened at the step show, affection through the laughter. But I also wonder about context: Jimmy Fallon and other white late-night hosts mocking Platt may be construed differently than, say, an all-Black party laughing at and dancing to the song.

What is sort of nice about Platt is that, whether or not he intended to be comedic, it seems like a lot of audiences are reacting towards him with affection and joy, more than contempt; even though his overnight success may also be based in the fact that laughing at men of colour (or even elderly men) is just par for the course in our culture.

What do you think – is Platt funny because there is just something inherently delightful about his routine, or do we just like to laugh because it maintains a racial hierarchy where people of colour are always the fools?

*In the case of Virginiaca, we are actually encouraged by Keenan Thompson to laugh at a group of colour to which Thompson doesn’t belong: black women.

Awhile back, Ghetto Manga reported that the Black Panther animated series, long in development for BET, had finally aired … but in Australia.

Awesome, I thought. And sure enough, ABC3, the Australian Broadcast Company’s kiddie channel, has Black Panther listed on its’ website. Surely BET would be happy to follow up on this, right?

Not quite. Instead, over the past two weeks, calls to both the media affairs and programming offices in both D.C. and Los Angeles either were not returned, or passed around to various names in both departments. In one instance, someone in the D.C. media relations dept. said the initial report was incorrect because BET didn’t air in Australia. In the meantime, if any of our Aussie readers have caught the show – Hexy, are you there? – please feel free to send us a review.

In the wake of the Reggie Bush controversy and this month’s Vanity FAIL, it’s worth spreading the word that magazines like Giant Robot & Hyphen are still in need of aid in order to stay afloat. As Jessica Lum notes::

Many of the organizations that were started to reach out, broadcast, and appreciate the amazing work of Asians and Asian Americans (or Asian Canadians, Asian Brazilians, etc.) are struggling under the financial burdens of the economic environment, especially in the journalism and print media industry.

So, while encouraging you to help those magazines out, I ask: what culture mags – Asian or otherwise – are you reading these days? What should we be reading?

By Special Correspondent Arturo R. García

Chris Sims at The Comic Alliance highlighted the cover to Archie #608, which points in the direction of a decidedly different type of crossover between Archie and his gang and Josie & The Pussycats – specifically, the eponymous Mr. Andrews and Valerie, so uh, memorably played by Rosario Dawson in the 2001 Josie live-action film.

As Sims points out via a column by former Milestone Comics editor-in-chief Dwayne McDuffie, this isn’t the first time a member of the Archie creative team has tried to introduce an inter-racial romance to the staid Riverdale scene, only the first successful attempt. In 1992, McDuffie says, Betty & Me writer Matt Wayne wanted to give Betty Cooper a beau of her own to give Archie some competition for her affection (a twist on Betty and Veronica’s never-ending battle for Archie’s heart).

Wayne’s candidate was to be college freshman Dexter Howard, a young black co-worker of Betty’s. As another twist, Dexter wasn’t going to be a “bad guy,” but would instead befriend Archie despite their competing interest in Betty. Unfortunately, McDuffie says, the idea never got off the ground, as Wayne’s editor, Daryl Edelman, had the story soundly rejected by one of Edelman’s superiors:

[Edelman's superior] hated the stuff, wanting to know why Dexter was so much more accomplished than Archie, “What is he, super-Negro?” (at least, “Negro” is what everyone who told me this story reported him as saying. I have a sneaking suspicion that they were trying to save my feelings). Darryl was very upset and told off his boss, but to no avail. He was ordered to change the story in the cheapest way possible: Dexter was to be re-colored white. Unfortunately, this fooled approximately no one. Archie’s offices were flooded with four or five letters congratulating them on their progressive move of adding that “cool, black guy” to Betty’s cast. Uh oh.

Wayne was subsequently fired after only two issues.

But as Sims points out, the Archie world has slowly moved in a more progressive direction, through more attention to longtime characters like Ginger Lopez and Chuck Clayton and the introduction of new characters like Raj Patel, Kim Wong and Tomoko Yoshida:

Are these characters one-dimensional? Well, yes, but they’re one-dimensional in the way that all Archie characters are, like Raj, who is frequently described as — wait for it — “out-Raj-eous.” He’s defined by one thing — in this case, his aspirations as an amateur filmmaker — but no more than Archie, who’s defined by being a girl-crazy klutz. It’s a reduction of a character to one note, but it’s a rare case of that one note being completely unrelated to their race.

The pairing of the series’ franchise player with Valerie, who has been part of Archie canon for just over four decades, might well be received positively by fans – Sims notes that fans responded positively to a BM/WF potential pairing just two years ago before editors scuttled it – but it’ll be interesting to note how long this romance is allowed to bloom after the book’s release in April.

Speaking of McDuffie, some of his own characters are getting some much-delayed love this month, as Milestone and DC collaborated on the release of Milestone Forever #1, the first half of a story which will reportedly spell out the final fate of its’ primary characters and storyline hub, Dakota. This particular issue, though, didn’t spend much time on that issue, aside from some musings by the usually omniscient Dharma, who, for once, is stumped as to how to save his universe.

Instead, nearly the whole issue focuses on the Blood Syndicate settling its leadership issues after a run-in with Icon, Rocket, Static and Hardware. The original Milestone artists are on-board for Forever, and John Paul Leon and Mark D. Bright effectively highlight the split in the action between the fisticuffs in Dakota and Dharma’s lair. Meanwhile, McDuffie’s story hums along at an enjoyable pace, given the sheer volume of characters he has to deal with.

Fittingly, given his status as Milestone’s biggest success story, Static gets the best lines; it’s a relief to see him away from the emotional minefields in Teen Titans, and his Electric Company callback is sincerely funny. Forever might have come out too late to build on any momentum from the Milestone mini-crossover with DC’s Justice League (also written by McDuffie), but this issue should encourage fans of this universe to stick around and see what happens.

Elsewhere in the DCU, this month’s issue of The Great Ten mini-series is writer Tony Bedard’s best case yet for why this team – if not the series – should be kept in the company’s spotlight for the forseeable future.

Originally created by Grant Morrison and J.G. Jones for the company’s maxi-series 52, the Ten are China’s first super-team, a delayed response by the People’s Republic to the rise of the JLA and other such teams. This sets up a crucial distinction between them and their American colleagues, in that the Ten regularly report to party leaders, as opposed to running amok.

The series is a nearly-extreme example of decompression, as the story takes place during the course of a single battle against a group calling itself the reincarnation of Chinese gods. In between scenes of the team and its’ handler, Vice-Premier Jiang, trying to handle the situation, each issue focuses on the origin story of a member of the Ten. This month, Great Ten #4 featured the Immortal Man In Darkness, and Bedard effectively balanced the character’s sense of duty with the decidedly morbid nature of his job, even as it turns out to hold a clue to his team’s dilemma.

The only issue with the Ten has less to do with the characters than how DC and Bedard present them to us. The would-be gods (”Yu Huang,” “Kuan Ti,” etc.) get phonetically Chinese names, the Ten themselves are constantly referred to by translated versions of their names. Morrison had reportedly said that names like Thundermind and Accomplished Perfect Physician are close to their actual Chinese names, but not having that acknowledged in the series diminishes the experience just a bit. But give Bedard credit for at least presenting each member of the team thus far as more than a party apparatchik, even if they’re not fighting for the American dream.

We were excited to get this announcement from the Mixed Race Film & Literary Festival in the Racialicious mailbox:

The 3rd Annual Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival will take place at the Japanese American National Museum, 369 East 1st Street, June 12-13, 2010, in downtown Los Angeles.

The Festival is currently accepting film, literary, performance, and workshop submissions.

The Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival, a fiscally sponsored project of the New York Foundation for the Arts, is gearing up once again to celebrate the storytelling of the Mixed racial and cultural experience, from interracial and intercultural relationships, to transracial and transcultural adoptions, and, anyone who identifies as having a biracial, multiracial, Hapa or Mixed identity.

In the last two years, the Festival has showcased many talented filmmakers, writers, and performers including Rebecca Walker, Kip Fulbeck, Danzy Senna, Angela Nissel, Sundee Frasier, Karyn Parsons and many more.

The 2010 Festival will bring together innovative artists, film and book lovers, multiracial individuals and families for two days of writing and film workshops, readings, film screenings, and live performances. Events are free and open to the public.

The call for submissions for films, workshops and readings and performances by writers, actors, comedians and musicians is open now until March 1. There is no submission fee. However, entries received after March 1 and by March 20 MUST pay a $50 late entry fee. No entries will be accepted after March 20. For specific submission requirements and festival information visit: http://www.mxroots.org.

Reader Sanni sent us a link to this article by Joanna Douglas, “Vanity Fair’s “New Hollywood” issue completely lacks diversity“:

While we’d like to think celeb bible Vanity Fair puts a great deal of thought and planning into its annual “New Hollywood” issue, this year the editors really limited their scope when it came to choosing the next big stars. (Or perhaps they overemphasized the “Fair”? ) Every woman on its new cover is extremely thin and very, very white. Unless Vanity Fair considers one redhead to be diversity, we feel the need to cry foul.

Surprising? No. Depressing? Yes.

Douglas makes the excellent point there’s no lack of rising stars of colour for VF to choose from:

We can think of a slew of non-white, non-rail thin actors who made a splash this year (Gabourey Sidibe from “Precious” anyone?). In the accompanying article, Vanity Fair writer Evgenia Peretz calls out the young cover stars by their best attributes: “downy-soft cheeks,” “button nose,” “patrician looks and celebrated pedigree,” “dewy, wide-eyed loveliness,” “Ivory-soap-girl features.” Roles for black, Asian, and Latin actors are scarce in Hollywood, but surely Sidibe, Zoe Saldana of “Avatar” and “Star Trek,” and Freida Pinto of “Slumdog Millionaire” are having their moment.

Sigh.

Reader Linda sent us this link to the website Classy Asian Ladies, “where quality single men can connect with upscale Asian women living in the US.” And that’s just the tagline.

The website’s “Why Date or Marry Asian Women?” page says:

While Asian women are well known throughout the world for their exotic beauty and sensitive nature they are also very smart and well educated, and in many cases high earners in the job market.

We can even speak English now!!!

In case you were worried to site was only racist, it’s also scoring high points on the sexism and misogyny meter:

It seems that in today’s society the average woman is becoming very competitive and even a bit more masculine than their counterparts in earlier generations. All the while it seems to be just the opposite is taking place for Asian women who tend to retain their sense of femininity and well-known cultural attitude of gentle and caring support.

That’s right, non-Asian women are just so mean, and they have such broad shoulders and huge fingers. Only Asian women have retained that sense of what it means to be a woman. It must be because we are just so innately connected to the ancient wisdom of our people, right?

With subject headings like “exotic beauty and sensitive nature” and “Asian women’s unique surprises” (oh I’m full of unique surprises), this would be some of the most hilarious satire I’ve ever seen. Except for the fact that Classy Asian Ladies is 100% for serious.

For me, one of the worst things about Asiaphilia, is that it turns me speechless. It upsets me on such a deep and visceral level, that despite my chattypants nature, when an exasperated non-Asian (usually a white guy) asks me what’s so bad about liking Asian girls, I have no words to explain it.

I’m glad that I can turn to the internet to speak for me. In 2006 Vickie Chang an article for the OC Weekly that is still one of the best breakdowns of the heinous phenomenon known as “Yellow Fever.”

Asian fetishism has a long history of being brushed off as a compliment, rather than offensive or bigoted. I’ve been told I ought to be flattered that so many non-Asian men “prefer” Asians and Asian American women. But the coalescing of an ethnicity into a whole, whether exotic, erotic, oversexed or virginal, is a real issue, collectively and individually. (I guess when it comes to stereotypes, Asian women have it better than Asian men do. There are two main themes when it comes to Asian male stereotypes: virginal and emasculated. Not to mention that super-fun myth that goes something like this: small stature equals small penis equals small chance of pleasure.)

Asiaphilia brings with it a set of more intimate considerations. I get to wonder if the man chatting me up is genuinely interested in me or interested in the idea of what he supposes me to be: demure and submissive, the forever-faithful geisha girl/bedroom toy…

Chang quotes a friend who has been traumatised by Asiaphiles:

“It always crosses my mind,” she says, “that I’m replaceable.”

Yellow Fever is about rejecting non-Asian women’s sexualities, as much as it is about seeking embodiments of (ignorant) notions of Asian women’s sexualities. When it comes to desiring an Asian women to submit to you, the other side of the coin is that you are rejecting – for example – black women because of stereotypes that black women are shrill, demanding and pushy.

I have to disagree with Chang that Asian men get the worse deal, not because I think Asian women get the worse deal (or that black women who are assumed to be hypersexual or aggressive get the worse deal) but because having any kind of stereotype foisted on you, is a terrible deal. It doesn’t matter what the stereotype is.

What a stereotype is at base, is something that is deeply dehumanising. One minute you are walking down the street, with full of awareness of how you are a human being with thoughts and feelings and dreams and a family and a life. The next minute, all someone has to say is something like “Asian women are well known throughout the world for their exotic beauty and sensitive nature” or “Black women are kinky freaks” and suddenly, you stop existing as a human. You only exist as part of someone else’s two-dimensional vision of you; a vision that really has nothing to do with who you are, or how you are human.

Chang really hits the nail on the head when she writes:

When someone homogenizes an entire race of people—even if that homogenization tends toward desirable—that someone is creating a wall between himself and the person in question. No one likes to be treated as an outsider, especially in the only country she’s ever known as home.

Actually, don’t worry Classy Asian Ladies has a response for that:

While it is true that the Asian women on ClassyAsianLadies.com have learned Western values and become more outgoing, energetic, independent and fun they still retain the best qualities of both worlds. Along with that special female Asian sophistication that makes these ladies so appealing to every man looking for that perfect Asian girlfriend or wife.

Still not convinced that Classy Asian Ladies is a sick force that needs to be stopped – no matter how many real life Asian women may buy into it?* One last quote from Chang:

It’s arguable that Asiaphilia, ironically, stems from legal attempts to exclude Asian Americans from the United States. The criteria by which many Asian women were permitted to enter the U.S. were not exactly morally sound: prostitutes, picture brides, war brides, mail-order brides. Sexuality was a prerequisite for refuge in the United States.

At times like this, I like to visit Big Bad Chinese Mama, or listen to Jen Kwok’s Date An Asian. But watch out, these are not for the faint of heart. These classy Asian ladies are writing some serious satire, and they have a lot of rage.

But can you really blame them?

__
*I’m not saying that individual Asian women should never date white men. It’s rather that the marketing campaign that needs to be stopped.

**Image courtesy of Big Bad Chinese Mama

Patrick Gonder’s work on “the primitive” in 1950s horror films is useful here. Gonder discusses the ‘devolved’ monsters of 50s horror cinema, such as Mr. Hyde and the cavemen-primitives, in terms of race, class, and notions of civilization. He writes that the “hybrid nature of the [devolved monster] asserts white masculinity against and through the fantasy of a primal, animalistic black sexuality.” The beast within (excessive, uncontrollable masculinity run amok) that the werewolf represents for (white) men is always coded in terms of a non-white ethnicity and/or the working class. Cinematic werewolves are almost always associated with non-white ethnicities, from the gypsies in The Wolf Man (1944) to the Indian mystic/scholar in Wolf. [...]

A third text that breaks the pattern of ‘unintegrated heroine = less grotesque body’ is Dark Wolf (2003).  However, this film’s portrayal of the grotesque hybrid body is perhaps the most racialized representation of the female werewolf. The film centers on Josie, a petite blonde played by Samaire Armstrong (Figures 11 and 12) who is being hunted by Dark Wolf, a kind of uber-werewolf; she must avoid mating with him in order to remain human. The film is a fairly straightforward straight-to- DVD release:  monster hunts girl, kills many of her friends, cop protects girl, good triumphs over evil. However, in the last half-hour there is a jarring scene of Josie transforming halfway into werewolf form. In the film’s mythology, Josie is destined to change into a “limbo between human and werewolf form,” and unless she is brought into the light of the full moon when this happens, she will remain in this state permanently. The film’s heroic cop/protector watches in horror as Josie’s short blonde hair and naked, pale body darkens. Her face becomes grotesque and her hair changes first to a spiky fur-like consistency and then darkens to black and grows all down her back. When the transition is finished, Josie crouches and snuffles, with claws and a grotesque snout-like face, naked with dark, hairless skin and black, coarse hair down to her knees (Figures 13 and 14).

She has lost the power of speech, and growls, whines, and sniffs the cop as he tries to help her without hurting her. Eventually, he grabs her and carries her, still naked, kicking and growling, to the fire escape where she writhes under the bright white light of the full moon, which transforms her back to her petite, blonde self. The cop covers her with a sheet and carries her back inside. [...]

The contrast, the in-between hybridity of two oppositions, the becoming of the Other is what horrifies: the white male becomes more primitive and bestial, darker (for men of color, this contrast is not seen as such a huge difference). Woman of-color-as-werewolf is almost inconceivable: if the horror of the female werewolf is the shock of female moving from sexual object spectacle to grotesque/ambigendered spectacle, then the biggest contrast is a move from the most feminine woman (slender, blonde, white) to dark, hairy, muscular wolf.  White women represent the feminine ideal in this culture, and this is what we see in Dark Wolf: it would be impossible for a woman of color to play Josie, since during her
transformation the contrast shown would be minimal.

— Elizabeth M. Clark, “Hairy Thuggish Women”: Female Werewolves, Gender, and the Hoped-for Monsters (PDF)

Which celebrity has earned more bad press for reported acts of domestic violence—Chris Brown or Charlie Sheen?

When gossip Web site TMZ.com criticized Brown Jan. 21 for appearing with designer Jean Paul Gaultier, in makeup that made him look bruised and bloodied for a “warrior-themed runway show,” visitors to the site accused TMZ of vilifying Brown while giving Sheen a pass for allegedly battering his wife on Christmas.

Take a commenter who wrote: “Charlie Sheen beat his wife’s ass and tried to kill her only one month ago!! The only thing you guys seem to want to cover is him visiting the wife he beat in the hospital, but Chris Brown one year later is still being criticized. That is simply racism to the fullest extent. …So my question is, where is all the bad press for Charlie Sheen…?”

Another wrote: “TMZ STOP IT!! Love Gaultier and love Chris Brown!! Leave this kid alone. You sure did a nice write up on Charlie Sheen earlier. You people love to rip black people apart, while you allow white people to redeem themselves. It’s sad…”

And still another remarked: “Give it a rest people…Funny how you constantly slam Chris Brown, but praise Charlie Sheen and attempt to garner sympathy for him. So biased it is ridiculous.”

If you’re wondering why I’m highlighting comments left on a gossip Web site, it’s because TMZ.com played a significant role in influencing public opinion about Chris Brown’s battery of Rihanna. TMZ was the first media outlet to release the photo that the Los Angeles Police Department took of Rihanna following Brown’s beating of her. Moreover, by breaking big news stories (however unscrupulously) such as Michael Jackson’s death or the medications found in Brittany Murphy’s home after her demise—TMZ has come to be seen as a reliable source of information on celebrity news. That said, I think it’s fitting to weigh in on the site’s coverage of Brown and Sheen.

So, is TMZ vilifying Brown in ways that it has failed to vilify Sheen? I’m inclined to agree with commenters who said that TMZ not only hasn’t vilified Sheen but has also tried to garner sympathy for him. After reporting that Sheen’s wife, Brooke Mueller, had accused Sheen of domestic violence on Christmas Day, the Web site first moved to discredit Mueller, reporting that she was legally intoxicated when police showed up to intervene. And the commenters above are correct when they say that there’s been underlying sympathy throughout reports about Sheen needing permission to visit Mueller in the hospital when she developed a high fever related to oral surgery.

But is race to blame for TMZ’s difference in reporting about two entertainers accused of domestic violence? We could argue that Brown has been more vilified by TMZ, or even in the comment threads of feminist Web sites like Jezebel.com (or this web site), because he lacks the star power that Sheen has. The latter has been a household name for decades, with a famous father and brother, to boot. Plus, while Brown’s victim is famous, Sheen’s wife is not. Perhaps there’s been more vitriol for Brown because the public knows who Rihanna is but remains largely unfamiliar with Mueller. Also, the cliché that a picture is worth a thousand words may certainly be true in this case. When TMZ published the picture of Rihanna’s battered face, the pubic was able to see firsthand the horrific violence that Brown inflicted on her. In contrast, no pictures surfaced of the alleged finger marks that Sheen left on Mueller’s neck after reportedly threatening to kill her. Lastly, maybe Brown worsened matters by repeatedly discussing his battery of Rihanna in the media. After each apology, some viewers questioned Brown’s sincerity and were disgusted that he seemed to be trying to garner sympathy for himself in the midst of these apologies. Sheen, however, hasn’t granted interviews about his alleged attack on Mueller.

All things considered, the idea that race factors into how differently Brown and Sheen are being portrayed tugs at me. I can’t help but to agree with the commenter who pointed out that whites are allowed to redeem themselves while blacks are not. White ex-cons, for example, are much likelier to be able to land work than black ex-cons are. That’s because employers are more likely to be forgiving of white felons, to believe that they can be rehabilitated, and give them a second chance. Meanwhile, a black man doesn’t even have to be guilty of a crime to be perceived as guilty. Racial profiling, police brutality and wrongful convictions for blacks all indicate this problem.

Clearly, Chris Brown is guilty—and of a despicable crime, no less. But because he’s African American, will it be harder for him to redeem himself in the public eye than a white celebrity guilty of a similar crime? If he genuinely changes, that is.

Your thoughts?

Although I have been both black and disabled my entire life, for years I lied to myself about being disabled. I could appreciate the pride that accompanied the black experience, the historic and perpetual triumphs and tragedies that inspire the progress of a people. But disability was different. Disability was a curse much worse than the curse of Ham, and instead of accepting it I fled into a lie of being someone I could never be and should have never wanted to be. I became a victim of an able-bodied orthodoxy, one memorialized into my memory, derived from the seeds of my lived experiences and the veil of myths through which those experiences are strained. I believe we all succumb to societal orthodoxies in some way, because the procurement of favor demands it and it allows us to live without troublesome confusion. But for many of us, orthodoxies become a memorial, a shine at which we pray and to which we cling, all the while privately acknowledging that the shrine is not of our making, not to our liking and that it segregates and kills us very casually, very privately and very slowly. This photo helped free me from my denial.

Feeling starved, sunken, gaunt and untouchable, I long held certain conceptions of who or what I had and wanted to be, but could not, and thus did my best to hide it from others and myself. For me, poverty is fundamentally about not only the absence of choices, the impossibility of choices and the consequences of that impossibility. I decided to take this photo as a challenge to myself to confront the poverty of my own body and to better understand the costs of my negotiations with my own public and private identities. Many of us fear how easily we parade and perpetuate our public selves, while at the same time fearing the vulnerable, deviant and shameful self we can only be in private. When I saw the photo for the first time I was both shocked and surprised because even though I had lived with that person my entire life, I could never before accept how spent he was. Nothing had ever frightened me more than having to face the nakedness of my own indigence.

The photo, titled “undesirable,” is essentially about me ultimately beginning the journey of accepting my disability as I have my blackness. More broadly, it is to protest what I refer to as the negative fetishism of poor bodies, bodies that are deemed broke and broken, crooked and criminal, dilapidated and degenerate, ugly and useless. It was influenced in part by depictions of Holocaust victims – persons with disabilities among them – determined by the Nazi regime to be “undesirable” and anathema to the Aryan archetype because they did not and could not conform. “Undesirable” is also meant to invoke sexuality and how poor male bodies navigate the difficulty of being sexually desirable because of the physical valuation males and females deploy to determine sexual attraction. These are issues and feelings that I have dealt with and I used the photo to embody both my struggle and progress.

For me, the photo represents a minimalist confrontation of the intersections of not only race and disability, but also class and sexuality, as seen through my own experiences as a disabled Black man who at one point earned a six-figure salary. At various times and places, one or some of these identities would protrude publicly, others would recede into privacy, not always consciously and not always willingly. Sometimes, however, protrusions and recessions were purposeful. In my own confusing quest for acceptance I could fully embrace being Black, and to a lesser extent being formally educated, but to be disabled was to be diminutive and I could not stand having to crane my neck upward and be forced to be jealous at how tall the world is. I am now coming to realize that there is in fact a difference between being big and being tall. To explore the heights of my own physical vulnerability, I took the photo to make all identities so collectively and simultaneously prominent that I could no longer choose to focus on one and leave another peripheral. At my request, the camera made the choice for me.

The “I AM A MAN” sign represents a protest of how labor, disability and masculinity had come to define my own conception of manhood. It was borrowed from signs held by AFSCME workers at a 1968 Memphis sanitation workers strike. Orthodoxy teaches us that muscles are the currency of masculinity, a constant reproduced through labor, production and provision. Manhood is tightly rolled in wads beneath the skin, casually inspected by others to estimate worth and value. Men work. And for those flimsy and flaccid males who cannot, who cannot pronounce manhood loudly, highly and in concert, but are instead forced to be mute, low and isolated, how are they to define their manhood? Cracked and splintered male bodies cannot perform the masculine ethic, and this inability to perform an identity that is inculcated illegitimately and relentlessly, can place a disabled male at the perilous risk of being emasculated at best and feminized at worst. And for a man, or for a male who wants to be one, convention dictates that the only thing worse than being a eunuch is being a woman because to be a woman is to be an expletive.

The New York Times has an interesting interactive feature out that maps the top 50 rentals for 2009 based on the Netflix queues from a dozen US cities: New York, Boston, Chicago, Washington, Milwaukee, Dallas, Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Altanta, Seattle and Denver. The list is a bit skewed because these are all fairly cosmopolitan areas — Benjamin Button and Changeling are at the top of the list — though that probably reflects what I assume is Netflix’s popularity in urban and suburban communities to begin with.

The list reminds us films have long lives. The press focuses almost solely on opening weekend box office returns and forgets films go to the rental market, DVD sales, pay-cable and OnDemand. Often these venues are great for films that couldn’t get people in theaters but are nevertheless intriguing or enjoyable. Movies by and about minorities sometimes can find audiences unwilling to shell out $6-$12+ for ticket (the gay film market has operated for years on this assumption).

I was surprised to see Traitor on the list — in the middle, but still before many popular Hollywood films. Traitor, a Don Cheadle-starrer about an alleged terrorist who may or may not secretly be working for the United States, made a paltry $27 million in theaters, just $23M in the U.S. Don Cheadle doesn’t have the Box Office pull of a Will Smith or Denzel Washington, despite his role in the Ocean’s Eleven films. Yet in the rental market, it seems black communities have taken a small liking to the film. The New York Times‘ map has it markedly popular in Atlanta — with a strong presence in the middle class/Morehouse area inside the perimeter — in D.C. and in neighborhoods like Bed-Stuy in New York.

I was surprised how clearly along cultural lines some films feel. Lakeview Terrace, which got little love from critics while doing okay in theaters, was similarly popular in the same neighborhoods as Traitor (slightly more popular). In these areas, Tyler Perry films The Family That Preys and Madea Goes to Jail as well as Not Easily Broken, Obsessed, Cadillac Records The Soloist were disproportionately popular in black neighborhoods.

Films like Milk, on the other hand, had wider audiences in these urban areas. Milk made a respectable but hardly amazing $54 million at the box office (Brokeback Mountain made nearly $200 million). Predictably, neighborhoods like Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan and Midtown in Atlanta took to Milk, but these liberal cities liked it overall: it’s 13th on the list.

Take a look at the Times feature. Some things will surprise, some won’t. Renee Zellweger’s mediocre New in Town played well in Minneapolis! For good reason: the film is about an east coast city gal who has to move to rural Minnesota. Westerns like Appaloosa hit a niche in the parts of Los Angeles several hours outside the city (I’ve been there; it feels like the Wild West) and in Dallas. Bourgeois areas like Berkeley, Manhattan and its suburbs ate up art-house gems like I’ve Loved You For So Long and Rachel Getting Married.

As a researcher, I love it when people act against stereotype or try to formulate interesting, resistant identities. But sometimes it’s very clear we act exactly as Hollywood predicts, gay people watch gay movies and urban intellectuals flock to gritty art-house realism. C’est la vie.

I’m in a class at my university that focuses on cult movies and gender issues, and my professor has been describing the cult movie phenomenon as specifically white and middle class. You guys have been running a lot of articles on fans of color recently, and I was wondering whether what my professor said was actually true. Do you know anything about the breakdown of cult movie audiences? Or are we just watching all the white cult movies and paying attention to the white cult audiences? The readings she’s assigned have agreed that audiences are certainly mostly white, but we’re also studying most of the more accepted/acceptable/entrenched cult movies, like Rocky Horror or Bladerunner.

Good question.

I suppose there are two questions at play – what defines a cult classic, and which things are considered cult to what types of audiences?

For the first, a cult movie is determined by its following. Other than that, details are hazy about how a film makes it into the cult cannon. (Any film students/makers/scholars feel free to chime in here.) Entertainment Weekly published a list of the “Top 50 Cult Movies” in 2003. The results themselves are fairly diverse. Akira, Shawshank Redemption, The Warriors, The Mack, Dawn of the Dead, the Wiz, The Harder They Come, and Friday (among others) are all represented.

Also, I don’t think cult films break down neatly among racial lines, especially as much of their popularity is due to genre. For example, I’ve watched Akira, because that was an anime classic. EW mentioned This is Spinal Tap – since I’m a congoing geek, I’ve watched This Is Otakudom. Everyone I knew growing up had seen the Wiz; I really like Jim Henson so I will always catch the midnight showing of Labyrinth. Sometimes, it’s a decade thing – I read the EW list and immediately thought “Where the hell are Purple Rain, Crybaby, Welcome to the Dollhouse and Coming to America?” (They did get Heathers.)

However, I have noticed some things are race-based/ethnicity based cult classics. The majority of the African-Americans in my social circle have watched Love Jones. Regardless if they loved it or hated it, most people get the touchstone, while most of my white friends have no clue what that movie is. So I suppose it depends. However, I would argue your professor is incorrect that cult movies are a middle class, white phenomenon. I would argue they are an outsider phenomenon. The framing of cult hits in the media (which is dominated by white voices, particularly in criticism) may also contribute to this idea. (I’m also toying with post about “coming out” as a fan of color, which as Bao mentioned earlier, isn’t always a great experience. That may also contribute to the lack of visibility of fans of color in explorations of fandom.)

But that’s my two cents. Readers, what do you think?