CVK
I thought it might be fun to look back through the archives and see what stories we were blogging about a year ago today. Okay, maybe not today specifically, but last August. Here’s what was on our radar:

DUDE, WHERE’S MY WHITE PRIVILEGE?

This is when we first started to notice the phenomenon of neo-blackface. Neo-blackface is the trend of white people (mostly boys and men) engaging in virtual blackface through “Kill Whitie” parties, or the “ghetto” or “thug” parties where kids would attend dressed up in afro wigs, sporting gold teeth, and wearing baggy jeans. Or sometimes it would be literal blackface, as in this very disturbing YouTube video where a white girl blackened her face and stuffed her butt, lipsyncing to Michael Jackson’s “Black or White.” Or as in Blackface Jesus, a fixture on the New York hipster party scene.

BILL MAHER: I’M NOT INTO BLACK WOMEN

I guess this is when Karrine Steffans’ book, Confessions of a Video Vixen just came out. She was dating Bill Maher at the time and since she was not the first black woman Maher had dated, he felt it necessary to tell the New York Daily News gossip column that no, he did not have a thing for black women, he wasn’t like Robert de Niro. In the post I wrote: “Hmmm… I guess this is the age-old question. At what point do you go from just “happening” to have dated several people of a certain ethnic group, to being complete fetishist? And what’s wrong with having a racial fetish–or “preference,” as defensive people will usually put it–anyway?”

WHAT MAKES A PERSON INDIAN?

The New York Times Magazine ran a really interesting article about how Native American/American Indian communities are being forced to confront the question of what exactly makes a person Indian: genetics? or culture? both? or neither? The article talked about how many white people are tracing back their lineage to find their Indian ancestry and then identifying just as Indian.But then they’d be hyper-sensitive to being made fun of for doing exactly that.

ARE BLACK WOMEN UNDESIREABLE BECAUSE THEY HAVE BEEN MASCULINIZED?

Debra Dickerson wrote a provocative article for Salon.com titled I Want You to Want Me. She started off by noting that in “The Wedding Crashers,” Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn “seduced their way through every culture and every ethnicity but mine”–that is, they didn’t sleep with any black women. She then went on to link this to the fact that–in her opinion–black women are unloved in this country. Much of it has to do with the countless media representations of black women as “harridans,” “harpies” or “bitches.” But Dickerson argued that on a deeper level, it is caused by the masculinization of black women

KEANU DATING DIANE KEATON?

And finally, the single most important story from August 2005 was this rumor that Keanu Reeves was dating Diane Keaton. Here’s what I wrote:

What on earth is going on? This is the latest from the Hollywood rumor mill… and it’s not the first time I’ve heard it. Can this possibly be true? I guess when Keanu was all cute and lovey-dovey in “Something’s Gotta Give,” he wasn’t just acting. Geez… what am I? Chopped liver?

LOL! And this post garnered 20 comments, no less. This post probably kick-started the Keanu Watch on MMW. Hehe…