CVK
This is too appalling. I caught wind of this over at Slant Truth. Click over to read Kevin’s breakdown of what exactly happened, but basically this photo was used to illustrate a post over on Huffington Post criticizing Joseph Lieberman for supposedly engaging in “race baiting.”

The comments on the original Huffington Post entry make for amusing reading. I particularly like this one, from Bob1520 at 2:15 pm yesterday:

It doesn’t bother me from a racist perspective - I’m above that - but I just don’t see the point or the objective achieved here.

Gee I wish I was as evolved as him, to be “above” racism.
And they wonder why people of color aren’t more politically engaged. Just look at the welcoming environment they’re creating for us!

UPDATE: Today (Friday’s) New York Times covered the debacle:

In Conn. Race, Bloggers Throw Curves and Spitballs

CVK
FYI - I just installed a new plugin to combat comment spam, since the old one I was using was being less and less effective. So you may experience some delay in seeing your comments show up after posting. Please bear with me. Thanks!

• Black Mayor Accused of Racial Profiling - DiversityInc
  The national American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday accused the city’s black mayor of civil-rights violations including racial profiling in his crusade to stem crime in Mississippi’s capital city.
  (tags: africanamerican racialprofiling politics crime police)
• More Racist and Inappropriate Comments Directed at IRs - Rachel’s Tavern
  What is the sex like? Couldn’t you find a person of your own race? Well you can’t help who you fall in love with. And Rachel’s great analyses of what each statement really means.
  (tags: racism interracialrelationships raciststereotypes)
• Racist and Inappropriate Questions and Comments About Multiracial Families and Individuals - Rachel’s Tavern
  Does your family approve of your relationship? Is that your husband/wife/child? (usually followed by a drawn out “Oooh”) What about your children? Is he/she adopted? What are you?
  (tags: mixedrace interracialrelationships transracialadoption racism raciststereotypes)
• Michael Eric Dyson Explains Why Black-Specific Media Isn’t Racist and Exclusionary - TheThink
  “It bothers me deeply when people ask why there has to be a separate Black Entertainment Television… when people would get upset if there was a White Entertainment Television (WET, anyone?)
  (tags: africanamerican white caucasian tv intellectual)
• Mark Cuban, meet Tyler Perry - Hip Hop Blogs
  “Mark Cuban … is offering a job to anyone who can come up with a way for him to sweeten the tough economics of profiting upfront from a movie while in the theaters. Cuban should set up a meeting with Tyler Perry…”
  (tags: africanamerican caucasian white movies hiphop)
• Casinos Winning Big by Betting on Asians - Washington Post
  Connecticut casinos Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun market aggressively to Asians, sending more than 100 buses to predominantly Asian neighborhoods in Boston and New York.
  (tags: asian asianamerican gambling casinos marketing)
• Why MMW Has Been So Slow or Down Lately - DreamHost Blog
  Our hosting company, Dreamhost, is killing me. MMW has been either down or unbearably slow every day for about 2 weeks straight now. See their blog for an explanation.

CVK
I gotta give props to The New York Times for tackling a subject we discuss a lot on this blog and on our podcast, Addicted to Race. Check out, for example, the rant I did in episode 8 where I counted down the top 8 most racist stereotypes of black men and women perpetuated by the media.

The article discusses the fact that the archetype of the loud, sassy, overweight black woman continues to pop up time after time, especially in advertising. The latest example is a Dairy Queen commercial (I haven’t seen this yet - anyone want to weigh in?) in which one of these black women freaks out after someone accidentally drops luggage on her head.

I’m shocked — shocked! — that Dairy Queen, inventor of the oh-so-cleverly-titled MooLatte (coffee + milk = brown + white, get it?) would be capable of racial insensitivity. Their ad agency, Grey Worldwide, of course claims that the writing and casting process was colorblind:

…the script was not written with a black actress in mind.

“We basically cast the funniest person,” he said. “We didn’t specifically cast for a black woman. We said, ‘Wow, she’s really funny.’ And she happened to be black.”

Uh huh. If the “I can’t be racist, I’m in an interracial relationship!” excuse was the top trend of 2005, then the emerging top trend of 2006 must be using “colorblind” casting as a way to sidestep accusations of racism. We’ve already seen David Crane, producer of the new CBS show “The Class” defend his all-white cast by claiming that they used a colorblind casting process and that the final cast just happened to be the best actors, regardless of color. As I told MacLean’s magazine, I don’t think there is such a thing as “colorblind casting.” All these casting decisions are very, very deliberate. More after the jump…

Continue Reading »

justin (a new MMW guest contributor!)
There’s going to be an intercultural conference in Auckland, New Zealand on the 11th and 12th of this month. I think they are going to focus on New Zealand Chinese Identity as hybrid. Hybrid in the academic sense where everything and everyone is mixed.

I really believe that their intentions are good and want them to do well, but I have to express some cynicism; I don’t like the name of the conference or the circumstances that brought it about. In 2004 an attack on a Vietnamese girl named Chi Phung initiated a protest rally highlighting NZ’s inability to address hate crimes. The news media did everything they could to dismiss the core issues while exploiting the typical discourses.

The conference is involved with Roseanne Liang’s Movie/documentary Banana in a Nutshell, which gained nation wide distribution following those incidents. It’s about an interracial relationship where an understanding white boy comes to terms with domineering Asian parents. It deals in model minority stereotypes that belong to Asian Americans, or stereotypes that the majority of New Zealanders know from the American media (I can’t decide which). My feeling was that the documentary supports the hegemony while the anti-racism rally pointed out some fairly obvious, but fundamental, problems that the government is yet to address.

I don’t believe that Liang is a sell out; I just think that the political abuse of miscegenation should not be ignored or taken for granted. In response to the rally, instead helping to get racism legally differentiated from random acts of violence, the Mayor of Christchurch spent a few thousand dollars so that some upper middle class families could play guess who’s coming to dinner.

I hope that this conference will readdress some of those issues or that it will accumulate into something much bigger and better.

The conference website

Rose Liang’s banana film

Cultural Signals is an art group. I believe they are doing the majority of the groundwork for this event

One of my Heroes Tze Ming Mok will be speaking at the conference. This is a link to her blog.

• Rape of Nanking Documentary Will Be All About White People - reappropriate
  The film will tell the story of a dozen westerners who used their influence to create a safe zone to protect 250,000 Chinese people - not the story of the millions of Chinese who died in this horrific war crime.
  (tags: movies china asian white)
• “Global China” Paves Way for Racist Caricature - reappropriate
  Jon Favreau will direct a film based on Marvel comic Iron Man. The film will include The Mandarin, a racist, Fu Manchu-style villain as Iron Man’s nemesis.
  (tags: movies comics china chinese yellowperil raciststereotypes racism)
• Burn the Cork - reappropriate
  “In the past five years, I can count many instances of blackface, brownface, and yellowface in pop culture, none of which receive nearly the kind of outcry that one might expect.”
  (tags: yellowface blackface brownface racism raciststereotypes passing movies tv)

JC
The Chicago Tribune talks with William Frey, a highly acclaimed demographer. He talks about how the country is only (obviously) moving towards more diversity…and predicts that in 2026, we will find ourselves in a world where the ways that we talk about race and categorize ourselves will be drastically different. Of course, if you look at the national Census throughout the decades, the race question has been an ever-changing one…so I don’t doubt that the ways we racially classify will change even more.

Talk of race will have changed dramatically, Frey says. By 2026, “federally discussed racial categories,” as they are used today, will be far less meaningful, he predicts. In Los Angeles, 25 percent of the population will be mixed race, with 20 percent in New York. One in six babies born that year will most likely not fall into a single category, he says, citing a rising number of relationships between Hispanics and Asians and other races.

…but 2026? If it only takes 20 years, I will be happy. :) Any other predictions? Let’s take bets…. ;)

• Honda’s All-American Sundown Town
  Article about Greensburg, IN - site of Honda’s new factory and a “sundown town.” Sundown towns derive their name from the fact that many of them posted signs telling blacks not to “let the sun go down on you” while inside their corporate limits.
  (tags: diversity business racism)

• To Keep or Not to Keep Your Nose - Los Angeles Times
  Increasing numbers of people of color are going to the plastic surgeon for “westernization.” Today’s patients are seeking a look that could almost be called mestizo, and a kind of racial syncretism seems to be the goal of many.
  (tags: cultural appropriation western beauty ideals plastic surgery womens issues)

JC
The Akron Beacon Journal mentioned the Cleveland Indians’ Grady Sizemore III on their celebrity page just recently. It mentions that Grady didn’t have any issues growing up mixed…

His dad, Grady II, is an insurance agent and his mother is an accountant. Despite growing up in a mixed-race family — dad is black, mom is white — Grady tells the mag there’s no baggage attached, no issues to overcome.

Love that…. *Despite* growing up mixed, he didn’t have baggage. Right now, it’s clear that the common perception is that if you are mixed, then the default is to have tons of issues. Hopefully that perception will be challenged with more and more stories out there. Some people have struggles, others don’t. There’s not one way to be mixed. It’s this diversity within mixed identity that needs to be understood.

CVK
I just got back late last night from the BlogHer Conference in San Jose, CA. This is the first tech-related conference I’ve ever been to, and to my surprise, I had SUCH a great time! It was really inspiring to meet so many cool women who write passionately on such a wide variety of topics. I think I’m going to try and attend more blogging and/or podcasting conferences in the future, because being able to connect with other people in this space in person is such a unique experience.

Jen and I are actually gearing up to launch a bunch of new blogs this fall, and after attending this conference, I’m even more excited about the possibilities!

I have to admit though, that it was a little embarrassing to apparently be the only blogger without a laptop. ;) As you can see in this picture, most attendees had their laptops out at every session. But I am saving up for a MacBook Pro. :) If or when I get one, it’ll be my first foray into the world of Macs. I figure that with all the audio/video stuff I’m doing nowadays, it makes sense.

So I was invited to be a panelist for a session on “Identity and Obligation.” It ended up being an awesome conversation that wasn’t just the usual top-down Panelists talking down to Audience, but a genuine discussion amongst all the women (and some men) in the room. We discussed what aspects of our identity we reveal in our blogs, whether we actually have multiple identities, whether we feel obligated to represent for our race/gender/sexuality/religion, etc., what assumptions our readers make about us, what assumptions we make about our readers, and so on.

More after the jump…

Continue Reading »

JC
Call me ignorant, but I had no idea that there was an expiration on the provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. I remember a friend mentioning to me a few months ago, with concern, “Oh my god, no one is talking about this…blacks aren’t going to be able to vote if it expires!” Well, there is some truth to that. While all would still legally have the right to vote, without the renewal of the bill, we would have to fear inequality and discrimination at the voting booths. Some say we still have to worry (I would agree!). Just because Bush has approved this, it doesn’t mean that it will be enforced (enforcement looks like equal access and no voter intimidation and suppression — all would be welcomed equally to the voting process, anywhere).

“Today, we renew a bill that helped bring a community on the margins into the life of American democracy,” Bush said. “My administration will vigorously enforce the provisions of this law, and we will defend it in court.”

Noting the president’s words on enforcement, civil rights activist Al Sharpton said: “You can bet we’ll make sure that he keeps his pledge.” Sharpton called on Bush to meet immediately with civil rights leaders to talk over how the Justice Department will monitor the enforcement of the act. “Today’s events represent a significant victory for African-Americans, but a complete victory it is not,” Sharpton said.

Civil rights activists accuse the Bush administration of politicizing the Justice Department’s civil rights division, and say it has turned a blind eye to voter suppression tactics, such as photo identification provisions and citizenship requirements, in states across the nation.

All I know is that I saw quite a bit of intimidation and suppression going on in this last Presidential election (I participated through Swirl’s campaign to get people of color to the polls as a way of standing up against voter intimidation and suppression…during Election Day, I was in Madison, WI, helping out there) — as I recall, Bush was President then too… and wasn’t doing too much to help. But that’s probably because it worked in his favor not to enforce fairness. There were many reports of unfriendliness in certain areas, polling places opening late and closing early…all in areas that typically had large populations of voters of color. Not coincidence, I tell you. It’s going to take vigilance and more of us getting involved to ensure that the right people are at the polls — people who believe in the right for all to participate in each and every election.

FJ (a new MMW guest contributor!)
A July 4, 2006 article on Wikinews reported about a controversial commercial released despite objections of New Zealand diplomats.

To sell the new FIAT Idea, a city car made by Europe’s third automotive company, the advertisers wanted a crowd of black-clad Italian women to perform a Maori Kapa haka to simulate the atmosphere of an All Blacks rugby match.

Quite intimidating for the other team, the action chant with hand gestures and foot stamping comes from Maori warriors, who used to proclaim their strength and prowess before a battle. Maori still use haka today as a passing of blessings in graduations, weddings, funerals and official events. Shown overseas for the first time around 1888, haka is still performed by New Zealand’s current international rugby team: the All Blacks.

When the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade was told about the FIAT female haka project in April 2006, they advised that “the use of Ka Mate in this way was culturally insensitive and inappropriate“, suggesting to either use a Maori group or a haka composed for women.

Kwame Anthony Appiah, interviewed by Addicted to Race in the January 30, 2006 pod cast, writes that Culture is either considered as the intellectual property of a people or a universal property. Culture can’t be copyrighted, so is it okay to appropriate traditions from other cultures or should a people have a say in which part of its culture is disseminated and how?

John Tamihere, who has been a Member of the New Zealand Parliament until 2005, said that the idea of European designers like Thierry Mugler and Paco Rabanne taking Maori culture to the world stage was wonderful and “not an insensitive act at all“. Similarly, haka has been featured in commercials: a hypothetical Scotsman’s response to haka respectively won an award in 2000 and 2001. An All Black commercial for Adidas was elected ad of the year in Italy.

On the other hand, in December 2000, a beer ad showing beach babes “going native” (doing a haka) was withdrawn from British television after being branded insensitive and racist. In the case of Turin-based FIAT, the advertising company proceeded despite the advice of the MFAT. Unsurprisingly, the release of the commercial in early July 2006 raised a lot of criticism in New Zealand.

Here is a link to the controversial FIAT female haka commercial.

CVK
I’ve been meaning for a couple months now to do a roundtable on Addicted to Race about the politics of hair. But I just noticed that Slant Truth has organized a Politics of Hair Carnival, gathering the best posts from around the blogosphere on the subject. Hey, why reinvent the wheel? :) Go check it out here.

I especially enjoyed TheFreeSlave’s post on the issue of cultural appropriation and why whites should not wear dreadlocks and mohawks:

Being an anti-racist white person is counter-culture. Trying to present a counter-cultural image by appropriating other cultures is not…

But, I wear my hair this way as a statement against oppressive cultures and governments. How is that racist?

You can take a stand against oppression and dominant cultures without appropriating the cultures of the people being hurt by them. Appropriation actually enforces oppression, it does not stand against it. Appropriation is part of the problem, not part of the solution…

CVK
Hey all you aspiring actors and film folks out there, director Mike Kang (”The Motel”) needs cast and crew for his new film, “West 32nd.” It will be shooting in New York City in August and September. There’s a lot of big names attached to this film already, including John Cho (the Harold in “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle”):

The film is being produced by Teddy Zee (Saving Face, Hitch) and CJ Entertainment (A Bittersweet Life, The King And The Clown). We already have cast attached including John Cho (Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle, Better Luck Tomorrow), Kim Jun Sung and Han Yeo-rum (Samaritan Girl, Hwal). The film is being directed by Michael Kang (The Motel). The script was written by Michael Kang and Edmund J Lee.

Head over to Mike’s Xanga page for more details. Good luck!

CVK
(Thanks to Susan Ayoob for this tip!) Slate.com film critic Dana Stevens’ ode to Keanu Reeves is a must-read. :) Stevens argues that Keanu’s whole appeal as an actor is his “blurriness” and of course, yes, this blurriness is related to his mixed race. Emphasis mine:

Right from the “dude-no-way” days of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989), Reeves has always been the baffled misfit, the lost soul in a disorienting labyrinth. His specialty is the addled wander—dark eyes a tad unfocused, perfectly formed mouth hanging just slightly slack. His simple, high-contrast face and long, floppy body seem drawn in a few brush strokes by a Japanese cartoonist. His inexpressive baritone voice has a could-be-from-anywhere quality (in fact, the part-English, part-Chinese-and-Hawaiian Keanu was born in Beirut, Lebanon, and raised in Canada). Keanu is not just blurry within movies; he’s blurry within his career, amiably wandering from romantic drama (A Walk in the Clouds, The Lake House) to die-hard action (Speed, The Matrix) to stoner comedy (the Bill and Ted movies, Parenthood).

Also hilariously spot-on is Stevens’ observation that Keanu is most effective not when he himself has a lot of lines, but when he gets to deliver one-liners in response to others’ frantic dialogue:

But Keanu’s best directors have found ways to exploit his cipherlike quality. One brilliant method, on display in this clip from the Wachowski Brothers’ The Matrix, is simply to limit how much Keanu has to say. Give the bulk of the dialogue, all the philosophical ramblings and spiritual hocus-pocus, to another character. Just let Keanu affirm it thusly: “There is no spoon.” The let-somebody-else-talk technique serves a dual purpose: It shuts Keanu up, and it adds to his sphinxlike mystique. After all, if Neo needs only four words to comprehend the ultimate nature of reality, he must indeed be the One.

Definitely click over to the article to check out all the film clips she provides as examples. The Point Break clip (mmm… the pinnacle of Keanu’s physical perfection :P - it was all downhill from there) is a great example of Keanu’s one-liner prowess.

But my personal all-time favorite one-liner is that scene in Speed when Sandra Bullock thinks she just ran over a baby in a stroller, but Keanu says, “Cans. Just… cans.” The stroller was baby-less - just filled with cans collected by a homeless person.

CVK
(Thanks to Brittney and David for this one!) The Best Week Ever blog has been cracking us up so much. First they showed us Barbara Walters entranced by black womens hair, and now she’s calling black children “creatures.” Good thing Mo’nique called her on her bullshit.

Ok, was planning to embed this one too but clearly the blog template we’re using is not conducive for that. So you’ll have to click here to watch the video .

JC
You probably all know this since you were all clinging to the edges of your seats waiting to see who would win Miss Universe, right? Haha. Yea, me too. :| Well, it was Zuleyka Rivera Mendoza, Miss Puerto Rico! I think that she weighed an eighth of a pound less than anyone else, and that really tipped the scales in her favor (pun intended! nudge nudge…[sigh] i just can’t help myself). :) ANYway…instead of airing my extreme bitterness about the culture of pageants, I will just do what I came here to do. And that is to let y’all know that Miss Puerto Rico won. And she made mention of being a mix of races. Ha. How transparent and obvious of me. Thanks to Anitra for the heads-up…

In her pageant biography, Rivera explained what made her different from the other contestants. “Physically, I have been told by modeling agencies and friends that I represent the consummate Latino look,” she said. “Everything in my face expresses our heritage, our music and the wonderful mixes of races that we are.”

Ok, great. But I just have to comment on the pageant and the state of beauty in our world (I guess I do have to rant a bit after all). MISS UNIVERSE FAINTED RIGHT AFTER WINNING. Blame it on her heavy dress made of metal chains, or the bright lights. Sure, avoid the real problem. Hello? These ladies were toothpick thin except in places where they had implants. I don’t know if it was just me, but they seemed especially emaciated this year. One was skinnier and — sorry — dumber than the next. What the hell are we valuing? Intelligence isn’t really important, but looks are. Ok. Maybe I am getting worked up (and come on, this isn’t even a new issue). Someone please tell me not to care because who really buys these pageants anyway?! Someone… tell me… anybody? :(

All I know is that I watched as a little girl…actually, I am a bad example because they obviously didn’t impact me negatively. Anyway, I would watch as a little girl with my mom….and I think the only reason I don’t buy into these standards now is because my mom would laugh at all of it. We watched and scoffed. But what if we watched and my mom was in awe of how thin and made up they were? Would I then aim to be that? Would I sometimes have a hankering to wear an elaborate headpiece and walk around like a robot with a plastered smile on my face? Would I be really eager to answer questions like “What is the one defining moment of your life?” and “What is your wish for the world?”

Eh, the whole thing sucks. Don’t believe the hype! All that said, does anyone want to see my impression of a newly crowned Miss Universe? I have the watery-eye-with-violently-shaking-hand-in-front-of-open-mouth look DOWN! :) No, seriously. I do.

While we work on the Addicted to Race anniversary episode which will come out next week, please go over to Podcast411 and check out the interview that Rob did with us. Podcast411 is a show where Rob interviews other podcasters, it’s sort of like the Inside the Actor’s Studio of podcasts. We had a lot of fun talking to Rob, so listen and enjoy! :) You can right-click the grey button to download the MP3.

JC
SFGate features a story about the Chinese government sponsoring about 42 Chinese adoptees on a trip back to China. It is meant to be a learning opportunity — and one that will make them feel closer to their Chinese heritage.

Yeung, who owns Prince of Peace Enterprises Inc., in Hayward, which manufactures and imports products including the analgesic Tiger Balm, said he talked to Chinese adoption officials he knows about sponsoring the trip.

“If these kids know the Chinese government is interested in them and supports them, it will make a big difference. Otherwise, they may have a bitter feeling: ‘My own country abandoned me, gave me away,’ ” said Yeung, who arranged the trip for children adopted through Mountain View’s Bay Area Adoption Services, which helped him adopt his daughter. More than 100 local residents will take the two-week trip, which will include official banquets and cultural exchanges with Chinese students.

This all seems a little Hines Ward-esque, no? ;) Only kidding. Kind of…. I wonder if his visits back to Korea made an impression. Seems pretty impressive that the Chinese Government is actually reaching out… or do you think I am being too idealistic and missing some hidden motive here? :)

CVK
Is Hip Hop’s Audience Really 80% White?
from Davey D
“…The truth of the matter is that this 80% white Hip Hop fan myth has long been a nice marketing tool used by media corporations to justify ad revenues for Top 40 radio stations. Here’s a little background on this… According to Black radio programmers they avoided playing rap, because it was affecting their advertising…

…What wasn’t stated and this is where this 80% myth comes in, is the fact that the Top 40 stations had this Newsweek quote along with their CHR status that they could present to ad buyers. Essentially they were able to say, ‘yes we’re playing Public Enemy, NWA and 2 Live Crew’ which we (KMEL) was doing at that time, ‘but this is what the mainstream (white audience wants). Look at this Newsweek article. It’s proof positive that 80% of the people who like this aggressive music are the main ones purchasing it. I recall specifically seeing sales kits with that page and quote highlighted…”

The New All-White “Friends”
from blackprof.com
“…The Washington Post reports that this Fall CBS has a new tv show called “The Class.” It is about a group of eight friends in Philadelphia, and has the same producer as the hit show “Friends.” Like Friends, the cast is all white. In what has got to be one of the lamest excuses for apartheid employment ever, the producer David Crane said “When we wrote the script, we wrote it color-blind…and then we auditioned. For six months we saw just a huge range and diversity of actors and at the end of the day these were absolutely the eight actors who were absolutely right for the parts.” I hope nobody watches this show…”

The Afro-Asian Matrix
from Tripmaster Monkey
“…Betamax changed all that. Suddenly, even a kid in West Philly with no connections (except to the Jordanian dude who opened what was probably the first downtown video rental store) and no plane fare to HK could watch Wang Lung-wei deftly swing a gaun dao, a blade-topped pole, across an opponent’s scalp…

…The cowboy myth was remote and overdone. Military machismo had yet to return to fashion and Blaxploitation and Hollywood action films—although entertaining enough and filled with moments in which crooked cops and stereotyped South American drug lords received their comeuppance at the hands of gun-wielding tough guys—lacked a grand heroic vision. But in the Shaw films, the stakes were always high (at times, the very existence of China or, at least, the Shaolin Temple), the fighters were always unbelievably adept and the aura of tragic heroism hung heavily in the air. What more could you possibly want?…”

…Zzer!
from fourfour
“…And that, I think, is my major problem with Timberlake — I typically don’t buy what he’s selling because he pushes it too hard. He puts such an effort into emoting or, like here, copping a swagger, that it’s always like he’s playing some character in a sketch. As R&B is his primary template, I think we can chalk this up to the fact that he’s white. No, I’m not saying that he’s naturally inferior as a non-black R&B singer, but I do think that his awareness of his whiteness makes him feel like he has something to prove (i.e. this is a social problem, not a biological one). I guess what I’m getting at is that Timberlake has a version of double consciousness that makes it difficult to tell the truth, as it were, in his music. (And yeah, I know we’re talking about pop music, which is necessarily false, but the ultimate goal of the soul singer is to make the cliché believable.) Or maybe more simply, he just worries that people won’t think he’s cool. I don’t even know if I’d consider Timberlake a poseur, because as someone who’s been in the spotlight since before he had pubes (much less chin pubes), he really can’t be expected to have formed an identity to rebel against in the first place. Poor guy…”

Ringtone race wars
from Sepia Mutiny
“…I guess I’m behind the times: It hadn’t occurred to me that cellphone ringtones might be a medium for propagating nasty messages. But of course upon thinking about it, it makes sense. Here’s an unpleasant little situation from South Africa, as reported today by the BBC:

A racist mobile phone ringtone has been condemned by South Africa authorities in the city of Cape Town. The lyrics are in Afrikaans and advocate violence against black people in derogatory terms. … The lyrics of the song, according to a local newspaper, refer to a black person as a “kaffir” - an outlawed and derogatory term in South Africa. It describes how such a person should be tied to the back of a pickup truck and dragged around while driving. The chorus has a blatantly racist tone and ends with a call to set dogs on the black person.