• Compassion in the Movement | VivirLatino
  “Is there a place for human compassion and human right in the immigration debate? Is there a place to say–I feel for Pedro as a human being and I don’t want him or his family to suffer in this manner over an unjust law? I think the way the debate is run today, the answer would be no. Fox news, Michelle Malkin, Lou Dobbs–all of the people of that ilk, have made it a sign of weakness, of shame, something to mock, for caring about other human beings who are hurting. And of course, all of the reasoning on why we shouldn’t care about other human beings carry very strong undertones of anti-gay hysteria and nationalism (Oh, wah wah, bleeding heart pussy liberal! Love your country before any human! Weak response! We don’t want to be weak! We want to be manly strong men!).”
  (tags: via:cruelsecretary immigration humanrights)
• SB1070 Trickledown: Undocumented Residents Leave Arizona for New Mexico | CNN.com
  WARNING: Continuous references to “illegal immigrants.”

  “It’s easy to see why New Mexico could be seen as a comfortable atmosphere for [undocumented residents]. Here, [undocumented residents] can get driver’s licences; in Arizona, they can’t. They can also get in-state tuition at colleges; in Arizona they can’t. But here’s something they’re also finding out: there are far fewer jobs than in Arizona.”

  (tags: via:cruelsecretary newmexico sb1070trickledown arizona)
• Aryan Nations Leader Runs for School Board in California | imagine205.com
  “Daniel Schruender, the director of publications and information for the California chapter of the Aryan Nations 88, has filed papers (scroll to page 58) to run for a school board position in Rialto, California. Schruender announced his plans on his blog in which he stated, ‘Today, August 2, 2010, the Aryan Nations has moved from talking about running for political office to actually doing it. Many of you read a previous post on the forum, and an article in the last issue of the Quarterly where I said I was considering it. I decided to put my money where my mouth is, so to speak.’”
  (tags: via:cruelsecretary california whitesupremacy schools)
• Judge Walker’s Decision to Overturn Prop 8 Is Factual, Well-reasoned, and Powerful | Slate
  “It’s hard to read Judge Walker’s opinion without sensing that what really won out today was science, methodology, and hard work. Had the proponents of Prop 8 made even a minimal effort to put on a case, to track down real experts, to do more than try to assert their way to legal victory, this would have been a closer case. But faced with one team that mounted a serious effort and another team that did little more than fire up their big, gay boogeyman screensaver for two straight weeks, it wasn’t much of a fight.”
  (tags: via:robschmidt california gaymarriage LGBTQ proposition8)
• O_O Files: Candidate Sues to Use Racial Epithet about Herself | Chicago Sun Times
  “Randa did not rule the merits of the lawsuit. Griffin is fighting a decision by the state Government Accountability Board barring her from using the phrase ‘NOT the ’whiteman’s bitch’ to describe herself on the ballot.

  “The judge said Griffin’s claims should be brought in a civil rights lawsuit.

  “Griffin told The Associated Press on Thursday she intends to refile the lawsuit as a civil rights action as the judge recommended as well as appeal his order rejecting the original lawsuit based on how it was filed.”

  “’A lot of people are telling me they support my stand,’ she said.”

  (tags: via:robschmidt wisconsin blackwomen politicians)

By Guest Contributor Aymar Jean Christian, cross-posted from Televisual

Here in the US, it’s pretty safe to say, most if not all of the Hong Kong films we see are big budget, triad-themed or auteur-centered. We see Johnnie To, Wong Kar-Wai, films from stars like Tony Leung, Andy Lau, and Jackie Chan. While film production in Hong Kong has slowed way down from the highs in the 80s and 90s, there are still a number of independent and local filmmakers making films about and within the Special Region.

Among these filmmakers, relative newcomer Jennifer Thym is in a category unto herself, making films in English, directing web series, filming locally while distributing and raising funds globally.

Thym’s first major project, Lumina, a Webby Award-winning and Streamy-nominated web series, debuted in the fall 2009 on KoldCast TV. Lumina is a fantasy series of sorts, exploring the story of a woman named Lumina who finds a man in her mirror. The series goes to show Lumina increasingly entangled in an epic battle of forces beyond her world and imagination, roaming throughout Hong Kong’s cluttered streets and austere central district. Hong Kong’s glass buildings provided an appropriate backdrop for a series about the mystique of mirrors.

Continue Reading »

By Arturo R. García

Thanks to the folks at Racebending for the heads-up on this one: Yesterday a casting call went out for a film adaptation of the Runaways comic-book series, and there’s a red flag as regards the casting Nico Minoru.

The series follows Nico, a Japanese-American – that’s her in the black coat and pink shirt – and a group of teenagers who run away from home after discovering their parents are supervillains, and inherit their powers. Later in the series, Nico, a sorceress, assumes leadership over the group. But here’s the open call breakdown for “Girl 1,” who is presumably based on her character:

Uniquely beautiful, nurturing but guarded
Female, must play 16-18
Must be at least 16 by January 2011

Continue Reading »

• Oprah costs Discovery $100 million to launch her OWN network – NYPOST.com
  "With each delay of OWN's launch — from 2009 to mid-2010 to January 2011 — Discovery has had to crunch some numbers and figure out a whole new cost plan.

  "We're in the process of revising that contract," Singer said. "[The budget] likely will go up . . . the cost to launch the network, it will be higher than we had originally contemplated."

  He declined to specify what the new anticipated total cost will be. Still, Discovery is content with OWN, which it owns 50/50 with Winfrey."

  (tags: via:wmc Oprah tv production)
• Why "Mad Men" is bad for women – Mad Men – Salon.com
  "But our sympathy for Betty is undermined by the extreme simplicity of her character, which is that of a child in a beautiful woman’s body. How much more powerful would this show be if she were a smarter, more mature woman who found herself trapped in suburban hell, instead of a shallow princess who can’t come up with more than "I have thoughts" when composing a love letter and who consistently behaves like a petulant 5-year-old, albeit one armed with a cigarette and a glass of wine?

  Being stuck in a life of mind-numbing domesticity is tragic only when the person is capable of — and desirous of — much more. But Betty seems less limited by her situation than by her intellect and character. We have no sense of what she’d do with her life if she hadn’t married, other than perhaps be a Holly Golightly party girl in Europe. Even when she finally leaves Don, it’s not to become independent but only to go to another man who wants to marry her and take care of her every little need."

  (tags: MadMen feminism gender sexism)
• 6 Teens Drown While Wading in Louisiana's Red River – ABC News
  "While 40 percent of white children were found to have low or no swimming ability, the same was true for nearly 70 percent of black children, according to a recent survey by USA Swimming, the governing body of competitive swimming in the United States.

  Latino children also lag behind in their swimming levels, with 58 percent at low or no swimming ability."

  (tags: race swimming news media tragedy)
• Chicago White Sox Manager Ozzie Guillen: Asian Players Treated Better | ESPN
  "White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen thinks Asian players are given privileges in the United States that Latinos are not afforded.

  "In his latest rant, the outspoken Guillen also said he's the "only one" in baseball teaching young players from Latin America to stay away from performance-enhancing drugs and that Major League Baseball doesn't care about that."

  (tags: via:arturo chicago baseball latin@s asian kyriarchy)
• Little Tokyo Library Feels Impact of Budget Cuts | Rafu Shimpo
  In an attempt to deal with the city’s budget crisis, all Los Angeles public libraries will now be closed on Sundays and Mondays, a move that went into effect three days ago.

  In addition to the new five-day schedule, some branch libraries, like the one in Little Tokyo, also face reduced hours.

  Nevertheless, Ohta said the change in library hours would greatly affect patrons.

  “Closing on Mondays will be bad for the community – we get lots of people on Mondays,” he said. “And since the Central Library will be closed, they’ll have nowhere to go.”

  (tags: via:cruelsecretary japaneseamerican japanese library community)
• The Feds Looking Into Amusement Park Game Where Contestants Try And Kill President Obama | Hip-Hop Wired
  "The game depicts a Black man in a suit holding a piece of paper entitled “Health Bill” and a belt buckle similar to the presidential seal. To top it off the man also has antennas coming out of his head and a troll doll on his shoulder.

  "The game cost $1 per shot or $5 for 6 shots for players to fire foam darts at the Obama look-a-like's head and heart for their chance to win a stuffed animal."

  (tags: via:cruelsecretary games obama violence)
• Anchor Babies Ahoy | VivirLatino
  "Even in this space, haters have come and sought information about my and my children, calling them anchor babies. And the point is not what their status is or what my status is (although I have been clear about that) but that this comes down to where ethnicity and gender meet. That now Latina mujer = anchor baby factory.

  "What I worry about, as this rhetoric keeps building, is what about the babies, the children. How can we guarantee their safety? We have already seen that they don’t care about our hijos."

  (tags: via:cruelsecretary latinas children immigrationlaw stereotypes)
• Feds to Arpaio: Cooperate in Civil Rights Case or We'll Sue | Colorlines
  "The DOJ's Civil Rights division has been investigating Arpaio's use of racial profiling, national origin discrimination and unconstitutional searches and seizures for the past 16 months. But from the beginning Arpiao has refused to hand over documents to aid investigators, and now the Justice Department's had enough."
  (tags: via:carleandria arizona racialprofiling immigration justice)
• Diversity Debate Engulfs Hunter High in Manhattan | NYTimes.com
  "Then he shocked his audience. 'More than anything else, I feel guilty,' Mr. Hudson, who is black and Hispanic, told his 183 fellow graduates. 'I don’t deserve any of this. And neither do you.'

  "They had been labeled 'gifted,' he told them, based on a test they passed 'due to luck and circumstance.' Beneficiaries of advantages, they were disproportionately from middle-class Asian and white neighborhoods known for good schools and the prevalence of tutoring.

  “'If you truly believe that the demographics of Hunter represent the distribution of intelligence in this city,' he said, 'then you must believe that the Upper West Side, Bayside and Flushing are intrinsically more intelligent than the South Bronx, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Washington Heights. And I refuse to accept that.'”

  (tags: via:molecularshyness education testing diversity)
• Challenging Traditional Burlesque–Plus-size Asian Punk Style | The Scavenger
  "I have a rare and golden opportunity to actually represent a very different ideal, not just of burlesque, but also of womanhood, sexiness, and femininity – the woman I wished I could see in magazines or fashion shows or cabaret stages. A woman like me.

  "Me." 

  (tags: via:katrinafox burlesque womenofcolour beauty sexuality)
• Michelle Obama Walks into Race Row on Spanish Holiday | Guardian (UK)
  "Hours before the first African-American first lady of the US and her daughter were settling into the luxurious Villa Padierna hotel on the outskirts of Marbella, the US state department removed a warning about police racism in Spain from one of its websites.

  "'We have received isolated reports that racial prejudice may have contributed to the arrest or detention of some African-Americans travelling in Spain,' the bureau of consular affairs had warned on its travel advice website."

  (tags: via:carleandria spain racialprofiling michelleobama)

By Jessica Yee, cross-posted from Ms. Magazine

As a Native feminist without apology, I’m thrilled that the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 has been passed to protect Native women from violence. I have fellow Native woman warrior and feminist to thank for coining that exact phrase, and in fact, the bill itself: my shero Ms. Sarah Deer.

Sarah and I first met through Facebook, then face-to-face at the Tribal Policy and Law Institute of America in St. Paul, MN. It was Indigenous feminist love at first sight.

A Mvskoke (Creek) from Kansas, Sarah is a Tribal Law Professor at William Mitchell College of Law and served on the advisory committee (while undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer) for Amnesty International’s 2007 report “Maze of Injustice: The Failure to Protect Indigenous Women from Violence“–the fire behind getting the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 passed.

It’s been a whirlwind three years–from the Amnesty report to the bill signing just days ago–but as Sarah says here it’s really been 500+ years in the making. And since women are the life-givers, matriarchs, and center of our communities, we all have a responsibility to keep fighting.

JY: How are you feeling right now?

SD: I’m feeling exhausted and exhilarated. We–the five or six of us women who were connected in making this happen–kept saying to each other outside the White House, “This is so surreal!”

JY: When did it become real for you?

SD: It became very real when Lisa Marie Iyotte–a Lakota woman from the Rosebud Sioux tribe in South Dakota who is a rape survivor–spoke [at the bill's signing] and said unequivocally, “If the Tribal Law and Order Act had existed 16 years ago, my story would have been very different.”

Continue Reading »

• BP's Dumping Oil-Spill Waste in Communities of Color, Study Finds | Colorlines
  "More than one hundred days into the BP disaster, folks are wondering where all the oil has gone–much of it seems to have crept under the water's surface, or maybe evaporated into thin air. But, as officials scramble to assess the pending damage, we do know the destination of around 40,000 tons of the spill waste: it's headed for the families that have been getting dumped on for years. In what may be yet another calm before the storm, BP's colorfully advertised waste management plan appears to follow a haunting pattern of environmental racism."
  (tags: via:carleandria BP environmentalracism)
• The Difficult Role of the Strong Black Woman | The Scavenger
  "Other women said they started out of love of children, community or race; theirs was not the sentimental and fragile love too often associated with women, but protective, compassionate and fierce love. 

  "The role of the Strong Black Woman can be difficult, even dangerous. Black women die of stress-related disease more than other women, even when they are affluent and take preventive care. It is most dangerous when they are not in control of their own energies, when the role is co-opted as it often is. 

  "The black women I interviewed were fully aware of the costs of the role. They were tired and they knew it. They did the work they felt they had to do anyway." 

  (tags: via:katrinafox blackwomen stereotypes selfidentity selfcare)
• Voices from Brooklyn: Racial Profiling's Part of Everyday Life Here | Colorlines
  "New York Gov. David Paterson signed legislation this summer prohibiting the NYPD from keeping names and other information on the people cops stop but don't arrest or cite. He allowed the stops themselves to continue, however. Meanwhile, House Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers has introduced the End to Racial Profiling Act. The bill's not likely to see congressional action soon."
  (tags: via:carleandria brooklynny racialprofiling)
• For-Profit Colleges Mislead Students, Report Finds | NYTImes.com
  "The fast-growing for-profit education industry, which received more than $4 billion in federal grants and $20 billion in Department of Education loans last year, has become a source of concern, with many lawmakers suggesting that too much taxpayer money is being used to generate profits for the colleges, instead of providing students with a useful high-quality education."
  (tags: via:carleandria college education)

Hosted by Thea Lim, featuring Joseph Lamour, Tami Winfrey Harris, Latoya Peterson and Andrea Plaid

Dearest Commenters, please refrain from sharing spoilers that come from the books. Feel free to talk openly about anything that has been already aired, but don’t share storylines from the books that have not yet made their way into the show, just for the sake of fans of the TV show who haven’t read the books.

Tara Would Never Turn Her Back on Her Friend

Thea: Once again Tara saves the day by kicking Bill in the face. Ok, maybe it was the arm but I like to think it was the face.

You know, as much as I don’t really mind Bill, I was like “yeeah!” when Tara did that, just because it moved the plot forward in a non-simpering way. I also really like this Getting Shit Done version of Tara. I do NOT care for the way we keep getting scenes with Tara telling Sookie how Bill betrayed her, and Sookie screaming “wahh wahh two wrongs don’t make a right.” Is the idea that an aggregation of these scenes will give the viewer closure for what Bill did to Tara? I think not. It’s infuriating.

I really dislike the way that Sookie is written. I believe (though I could be wrong) that her heartlessness towards Tara (while she accuses Tara of being insensitive) is not so much built into the character herself, but more the product of TB’s writers’ inability to write women who aren’t shallow and self-centered. For example, the only way that Sookie can think of to distract Debbie is by screaming? Can you be any more Damsel in Distress? C’mon.

Andrea: My eyes rolled when she did that. But–as y’all know–I’ve disliked the way Sookie’s been written and portrayed since I started watching this show. She becomes brattier and brattier as each week passes. Her reaction to what Tara expresses about Bill turning his back on her simply fortifies my opinion of her. As Tami rightfully pointed out last week, this is childishness masquerading as sassiness….which, as Sookie proves, has a tendency to curdle into said temper-tantrum throwing state.

I mean, Tara is supposed to be Sookie’s homegurl from back in the day, right? It would seem to me that Sookie could have at least paused when Tara told her what happened just to acknowledge that her dearest friend not only has gone through some atrocious shit but that the shit was exacerbated by her man. And that Tara still–still!–helps Bill out because Tara knows how much Bill matters to Sookie, then even kicks her man’s ass for almost killing Sookie. On the other hand, Sookie “not leaving without Bill” almost gets her supposed bestie Tara (not to mention her protector Alcide) killed. And that doesn’t register anything in Sookie but “two wrongs don’t make a right.” Again, Tara keeps proving she’s the better friend. I just think Tara needs better friends….like Alcide, who at least gave her the space to “relax” (and Tara nearly starts crying, which is a beautiful acting moment by Rutina Wesley) and put his arm around her when the doctor told Tara about Sookie’s condition and that Tara had to notify Jason’s dumb ass. Alcide barely knows Tara and still knows how to act like a friend.

Latoya: Yes, this episode was full of friendship fail.

I’m going to wash my brain out:

Continue Reading »

By Guest Contributor Alex Raymond, cross-posted from Border House

Trigger warning: Street harassment.

So, recently a Flash game was released that caused a bit of a stir on a number of gaming (and feminist) websites. The game is called Hey, Baby, and it is a game about street harassment. It is a first-person shooter where you play as a woman walking around a city fighting off waves of men who approach you while repeating “classic” street harassment lines, everything from the notorious “Smile, baby” to shouted rape threats. Killing the harassers results in a gravestone popping up with their line engraved on it. There are also both male and female bystanders who do nothing and can’t be killed. If possible, I do recommend playing the game a little before reading this post; it’s a Flash game and only takes a minute to play, although it is quite violent.

There have been a number of different reactions to the game around the internet. It has started a conversation in the gaming online community about street harassment (and in the feminist blogosphere about satirically violent video games), and for that alone, I think this is a win. But I’d like to take a closer look at the various reactions surrounding the game.

Continue Reading »

• Tools That Assess Bias in Standardized Tests Are Flawed | IU News Room
  "'Our findings are significant because we proved that bias can be present but not be detected by even the top experts in the field, which could result in inaccurate prediction of outcomes such as job and academic performance for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of individuals,' Aguinis said."
  (tags: via:restructure bias standardizedtesting)
• ESPN Announcer To Black NASCAR Crew Member: "Tap Dance For Us" | Jalopnik
  "'During the rain delay, an ESPN broadcaster asked a black crew member if he could tap dance. Oddly enough, I can't recall any white crew members being asked to do so.'
  "Funny, we can't either."
  (tags: via:carleandria sports racism black)
• Representing Arabs in Video Games | Sociological Images
  "On the other hand, the game Under Ash (Tahta al-Ramad), based on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (from the Palestinians’ point of view), humanized Palestinians by giving them significant backstories that explained how they came to be involved in the Palestinian resistance. It presented Israeli soldiers as the enemy but specifically prohibited players from harming either Palestinian or Israeli civilians (in a sequel to Under Ash, titled Under Siege, Tahta al-Hisar, killing a civilian automatically leads to a “game over” message). It doesn’t allow any type of peaceful interaction with Israelis, but it is one of the few games based on the Middle East that presents cities as full of inhabitants whose lives are valuable, regardless of which side of a conflict they’re on."
  (tags: via:carleandria arab images videogames)
• Obama Signs Bill Reducing Cocaine Sentencing Gap | CNN.com
  "The Fair Sentencing Act repeals a five-year mandatory sentence for first time offenders, and for repeat offenders with less than 28 grams of crack cocaine. The old law set the mandatory sentence for conviction at five grams.

  "Under the old statute, mandatory minimum sentences involving crack — a drug more commonly used by blacks than whites, according to government statistics — led to far more severe penalties than for offenses involving powder cocaine, generally preferred by whites."

  (tags: via:cruelsecretary drugpolicy obamaadministration black whiteprivilege latin@s)
• The Not-So-Secret Bigotry in Plus-Sized Fashion | A Black Girl's Guide to Weight Loss
  "Why won’t Chanel and the others publicize the fact that they make plus sized clothing? Simple. Because they know damned well that there is a certain type of woman identified as being plus sized – she is poor, cannot afford quality, is so unattractive that surely she wouldn’t wear my clothing anyway, whatever… the plus sized woman simply is not respected. 'Her mere presence in a store must offend the sensibilities of the average size 2… thus why other labels had to force her to resort to shopping online only. We must keep them out of our stores, so that thin people won’t think our store only caters to big people!'

  "To me, this is the bottom line.. and it sucks."

  (tags: via:cruelsecretary beautystandards fatphobia)

By Guest Contributor Aymar Jean Christian, cross-posted from Televisual

Watching the previews for Salt, I had what appears to be a common experience. The trailer for an elevator-themed film came on. It seemed strange: what is this movie? What’s it about? My confusion grew into clarity when the words “From the Mind of M. Night Shyamalan” preceding the title Devil came on the big screen. I sighed, recognizing the trademark “things are not as they appear” quality to the trailer. The rest of the audience, however, groaned.

Groaning at the sight Shyamalan’s name has been reported from screening to screening. The phrase “box office poison” is now repeatedly being associated with the director’s name. Shyamalan is only credited as creating the story for Devil, but already people are asking if the film can redeem his credibility. Shyamalan has hit a nadir, causing people to question his career and brand him a failure, a has-been riding off The Sixth Sense. My question: is it true? Continue Reading »

• Senate Pulls Money From Black Farmers | Colorlines
  ""But last week the Senate quietly voted to strip funding for the case, known as the Pigford II settlement. The move came on the heels of the Shirley Sherrod scandal, as conservative opposition to the settlement grew after conservative lawmakers learned that a farm collective founded by Sherrod and her husband was set to receive $13 million from the case.

  "On a conference call earlier today, John Boyd, Jr., president of the National Black Farmers Association, announced that that Senate will vote on a stand-alone authorizing funds for settlement claims."

  (tags: via:carleandria blackfarmers congress)
• Mongolian neo-Nazis: Anti-Chinese sentiment fuels rise of ultra-nationalism | Guardian (UK)
  "A new strain of Nazism has found an unlikely home: Mongolia.

  "Once again, ultra-nationalists have emerged from an impoverished economy and turned upon outsiders. This time the main targets come from China, the rising power to the south."

  (tags: via:carleandria mongolia neonazis chinese kyriarchy)
• First Black Elected to Office in Russia | Washington Times
  "In June, Mr. Sagbo became the first black to be elected to office in Russia.

  "In a country where racism is entrenched and often violent, Mr. Sagbo's election as one of Novozavidovo's 10 municipal councilors is a milestone. But among the town's 10,000 people, the 48-year-old from the West African country of Benin is viewed simply as a Russian who cares about his hometown."

  (tags: via:InfodivaMLIS415 russia black government)
• Debate Heats Up About Mosque Near Ground Zero | NYTimes.com
  "In New York, where ground zero has slowly blended back into the fabric of the city, government officials appear poised to approve plans for the sprawling complex, which would have as many as 15 stories and would house a prayer space, a performing arts center, a pool and a restaurant.

  "But around the country opposition is mounting, fueled in part by Republican leaders and conservative pundits. Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee, has urged 'peace-seeking Muslims' to reject the center, branding it an 'unnecessary provocation.' A Republican political action committee has produced a television commercial assailing the proposal. And former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has decried it in speeches."

  (tags: via:carleandria newyorkcity islam islamophobia republican)
• Attacks on Mexicans Leave Neighborhood in Turmoil | NYTimes.com
  "This is not the first time Latinos in Port Richmond have been victimized in bias attacks. Ms. Troia, executive director of Project Hospitality, an interfaith organization that serves the poor of Staten Island, said the violence dates back to 2003. In one attack, a Mexican immigrant who worked as a cook at an IHOP restaurant was killed by three assailants in 2006, according to local activists and the Mexican Consulate in New York.

  "The Rev. Dr. Tony Baker, pastor of St. Philip’s Baptist Church in the neighborhood’s heart, said the attacks pointed to deep-seated problems. 'I think we’ve gone to sleep on the conditions we find ourselves in,' he said. 'And we woke up in the midst of a racial war.'”

  (tags: via:carleandria latin@s newyorkcity racism racerelations violence)
• Asking the Wrong Question? | Cynthia Coleman's Blog
  "Another form of bias occurs over who gets to speak.  Folks in the uppermost echelons of social strata, government officials, well-known celebrities, doctors, lawyers, politicians and scientists typically receive much more deference than other sources. And the greater the expertise of the source, the less likely the journalist will question what she says.

  "So when a news story pits 'scientists' against Indians, and it the story is framed as science, it is predictable which groups will gain instant legitimacy. In all the conflicts I’ve mentioned, scientists and government officials get a head start in the legitimacy race. Indians are left at the starting gate and are forced to voice their opposition within an already-established framework that journalists sanction, even if they’re unaware of their complicity."

  (tags: via:robschmidt indigenous media authority)
• Why White People Like Ayaan Hirsi Ali | The Scavenger
  "Her comments elicited a large round of enthusiastic applause. And if the people sitting at my table were anything to go by, audience members were not uneducated rednecks or right-wing conservatives, but liberal, left-leaning folk who would proudly reel off their support for equality and social justice in most other contexts.
  And that’s when my epiphany happened. Where once I would have been clapping vigorously along, pleased to have my long-held assumptions confirmed by ‘someone who knows’ and who ‘you can’t really argue with’, I felt sick."
  (tags: via:sobiaali islamophobia christianity)
• On Time’s “Courageous” Cover | Feministing
  "I have been stewing over the implications of TIME’s decision to run the face of a mutilated Afghani woman on the cover of the magazine to raise awareness about women’s rights in Afghanistan. Many have applauded TIME’s decision to do this calling it courageous and effective, all while recognizing this is also a cheap plea for magazine sales. I am taking issue specifically with the use of the image on the cover, not the article itself which was not available online in its entirety (but trust I will steal my dad’s copy of TIME asap). My inquiry is two fold: first, the assumption that military presence in Afghanistan has made women’s rights better is a complicated one that shouldn’t be taken for granted and the second is, using the faces and bodies of women to make a generalization is objectifying. It is rare that women’s bodies have been used to understand their voices, especially when discussing the “other.” Instead they are often used to create mystique and reify colonial fantasy."
  (tags: afghanistan sexism women images media)

By Arturo R. García

Reginald Hudlin summed up a lot of fans’ concerns about DC Comics’ recent storylines during his annual “Black Panel” in his response to a fan’s question: “DC Comics is very much into the nostalgia business,” Hudlin said; later in the hour he called it “bad business.” No one in the room packed full of POC fans disagreed with him.

And make no mistake – POC fans and cosplayers abounded at the convention. From my perspective there were more of us at the convention compared to last year. The sad thing, however, is that heroes of color were under-represented, either in cosplay (Isaiah Bradley there was an exception) or in the news; the biggest announcement regarding a POC superhero – unless you’re counting Robert Rodriguez’s Machete, and that character’s a whole other ball of wax – concerned DC’s kicking off a new Static ongoing series next year, with a black writer, Felicia D. Henderson (Fringe, Teen Titans) at the helm. But Henderson’s run on Titans garnered several negative reviews, prompting an equally bad response on DC’s own website.

With the Teen Titans themselves going through a cast white-washing under Henderson’s replacement, J.T. Krul, the status of most diverse cast in the DCU now falls to Eric Wallace’s Titans For Hire, a series which generated its’ own share of controversy when the Atom, Ryan Choi, was murdered in the first issue. I got the chance to talk to Wallace about Choi’s death, his own experiences as a black comic-book fan, and on diversity in DC’s stories.

By Guest Contributor Daniel José Older, originally published on View from the Crossroads of Life and Death

I took this white dude to the hospital seven years ago; he’d left his apartment door unlocked and then got pistol whipped when he came home to find someone going through his stuff.

Now why would I so clearly remember a minor injury from ages ago? Because in my eight years working EMS in Bed-Stuy, East New York, Harlem and the Bronx, that was the singular, solitary white patient I’ve had who was a victim of violence at the hands of a person of color.  I remember sitting in the Woodhull ER with him. He was holding an ice pack to his little forehead gash and going “God! I can’t believe I got pistol whipped! It’s like…it’s like a movie!” At that point I had already given up checking the newspapers in the morning to see if any of my crazy jobs from the night before would show up. They never do; the patients are all black and brown and their tragedies, no matter how gruesome, are automatically deemed run-of-the-mill and unworthy for news attention.

In general, the white patients we get are either little old ladies; drunks who tried to play frogger across McGuinness Boulevard; college kid anxiety attacks and overdoses. We also get the occasional “All these Black people are trying to rape and kill me so I can’t leave my apartment!!” and sometimes “I stopped taking my meds and I’m about to do something really really bad.”

All this is to say that the amount of time and energy that white culture puts into being afraid of the crimes that will be committed against them in the ghetto could be better spent thinking about something that actually happens.

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By Guest Contributor Daisy Hernandez, cross-posted from Colorlines

Every once in awhile, a Hollywood movie hits such a perfect note of familiarity that you leave the theater feeling like you just watched a film about your white friends and it was funny, sweet–marvelous, even. And, as you’d expect, messed up on race. Not messed up in a Mel Gibson sort of way. It’s nothing outright hateful, but rather annoying and mundane, like when the white gay guy says his décor is, ya know, “Asiany,” and you debate whether to spill red wine on his new, white rug or give him an Edward Said book.

This is the charm of Lisa Cholodenko’s new summer hit, The Kids Are All Right. Her white characters are so familiar and even so likable that you want to believe all they need is a better reading list. If only race relations were so easy.

Ostensibly, The Kids Are All Right is about two lesbian moms and their teenage kids who want to meet their sperm donor dad. It’s an all-star cast with Julianne Moore playing Jules, the flaky, new age mom, opposite Annette Bening, who delightfully remade herself into the soft butch mom Nic. There’s Oscar buzz and critics are rightly praising Cholodenko (High Art, Laurel Canyon) for the film’s solid script and the actors for stellar performances. Salon’s Andrew O’Hehire declared that the movie “ranks with the most compelling portraits of an American marriage, regardless of sexuality, in film history.”

It’s true. This is a film about two married people who are bored by their middle age sex lives, worried about their son’s choice of friends, and still recounting with giggles how they first met while arguing about how much one of them is drinking. They’re complicated, self-involved and, in their best moments, genuinely loving.

From another perspective though, The Kids Are All Right is also a revealing portrait of where the gay movement has been headed for some time now: white suburbia, Mexican gardener included.

The film is set in Southern California, where Nic and Jules have a comfortable, three-bedroom home, arguments about composting, a glass (or three) of red wine with dinner, a daughter (Alice in Wonderland’s Mia Wasikowska) and son (Josh Hutcherson) testing the limits of parental authority. They’re the all-American, white family next door.

The political reference point for their home life is not a group of pissed-off drag queens circa 1969. It’s a Mad Men-style 1950s nostalgia. Jules is the stay-at-home mom trying her hand at a landscaping business and feeling that her doctor wife doesn’t appreciate her. Nic is the breadwinner who has to have a drink when she gets home from work. The scenario is inviting, familiar, a storyline about American family life that we want to believe, gay or het.

Like cinematic white heteros and gays in San Francisco’s Castro district, Nic and Jules’ contact with people of darker hues is limited. There’s a black restaurant hostess (Yaya DaCosta, a runner up from America’s Next Top Model), a Mexican gardener (Joaquín Garrido, Like Water for Chocolate), and an Indian teenage love interest (Kunal Sharma, The Cheetah Girls). By the end of the film, the three people of color have been dumped, fired or left behind in confusion.

To be fair to Cholodenko, she was probably just following Hollywood’s race rules. The moment a main character is darker than white bread, the movie becomes about race and doesn’t appeal to a wider (read: white) audience.

But it’s also a portrait of the white gay movement, which has struggled with its race issues for some time now, most publicly after Prop. 8 passed in California and hysterical white gay boys blamed black voters for keeping them from the joys of registering at Tiffany’s. If that happened though it was largely because the movement has failed to build institutions where people of color, like those in The Kids Are All Right, play more than minor roles.

A few months ago, a friend recounted walking into a meeting with the directors of statewide LGBT organizations. It was a majority white room. That the convening looked more like a Tea Party gathering than a 2008 Vote Obama youth rally should have been on the top of the agenda. It wasn’t.

Part of the success of Cholodenko’s movie rests in that, intentioned or not, she’s rendered on the big screen the racial realities of this new gay world order. When Jules is struggling with guilt about what she’s doing outside her matrimonial bed, she thinks Luis, the Mexican gardener she’s hired, is smirking at her, which he is. With comedic self-righteousness, Jules points out that he blows his nose too often. “I have allergies,” Luis explains. Fumbling through her words, Jules accuses of him having a drug problem and fires him.

The audience laughs. I laughed. At Jules, at her hysterical reaction, at how uncomfortably true it is that behind the white lesbian niceties can sit the old racist stereotypes of a Gov. Jan Brewer.

It’s a small moment in the film but a reminder of how the gay world mimics the straight one, where economic power goes hand in hand with a racial hierarchy. Were Luis, the Mexican gardener, to get home, take off his overalls and turn into a flaming queen, it would be hard to argue convincingly that he and Jules have a political struggle in common these days. Not impossible, but certainly a stretch.