CVK
(Thanks to Ariah for this tip!) Julian Bonds, Chairman of the NAACP, made an appearance on The Colbert Report last Thursday. I guess I found this clip to be mildly amusing, but at the end of the day, kind of useless and pointless. But hey, at least Colbert acknowledges that people of color exist — which is more than I can say for The Daily Show.

Ok my attempt at embedding the video totally messed up the whole blog, so never mind. Here’s the link to the Colbert video if you want to check it out.

JC
Word on the street is that a new book and film about Bruce Lee are in the works…this time, produced by his own family. Some thoughts from Robert Lee. Not only is he Bruce’s brother, but also the president of his fan club: 

“To this day, many stories about Bruce Lee continue to be told, many of which are fabricated or exaggerated,” Robert Lee, president of the Bruce Lee Club, said in a statement.   

“Today, as Bruce’s brothers and sisters are getting older, and in order to help the public understand the real life of Bruce Lee, Robert has been appointed a very heavy responsibility from the family to clarify the legend of Bruce Lee,” the statement added.

I’ve never seen any of the films out there that claim to tell his life story, but it will be interesting to see what his family wants people to know about him. I can’t even imagine having my family represent my life…. actually, I can, and it would scare me. But maybe if my brother spearheaded the project…and he was also President of my fan club….lol.

JC
…I would have wanted to be at the NAACP annual convention where Bush recognized that racism still exists.

President Bush acknowledged persistent racism in America and lamented the Republican Party’s bumpy relations with black voters as he addressed the NAACP’s annual convention Thursday for the first time in his presidency. “I understand that racism still lingers in America,” Bush told the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Now read that again….clearly the most important part of this is that he “lamented the Republican Party’s bumpy relations with black voters.” Basically, yes, y’all are still discriminated against, and that sucks. But how can we get you to the voting booths to back us up? Smooth, Dubya, real smooth…especially for your first interaction with the NAACP. Some people just get smarter by the day….

JC
Guardian Unlimited featured a brief story on a brawl that involved a couple of groups of men — 40 people total — some white, some Asian. It hasn’t necessarily been classified as a racially motivated fight, but that is what people are assuming. The police say, don’t jump to conclusions!

Police investigating a fatal stabbing during a mass brawl between white and Asian men played down suggestions of racial tensions in the area. Shezan Umarji, 20, was stabbed when 40 people began fighting on the Callon estate in Preston, Lancs, in the early hours. Some of the men were armed with knives, bottles and baseball bats.

Superintendent Peter White, Operations Manager for the force’s Central Division, said there was no suggestion so far that the brawl was racially motivated. “We are currently working to establish a motive but do not have one yet, and we are not ruling anything out. “I can understand why people might think there is a racial element at play but so far, as far as I know, there is nothing to indicate that this was a race crime. “The community here are very shocked and concerned that this will be made out to be a racist crime, when there is no evidence that it was.” Mr Umarji’s family were said to be “traumatised and shocked” by his death, but appealed for calm.

Whether or not this was racially motivated — whether or not any fight is racially motivated, I think it’s a sad commentary that race is automatically assumed to be the cause of conflict between people of different races. Not saying anything new here, but again, this just shows how very charged race still is. We always think it’s the reason for our problems. (Of course, many times it is at the center of our conflict …see the vicious cycle? :()

CVK
Our regular MMW guest contributor Luke Lee has a great post over on his blog, real men are not, breaking down the Maxim.com screencap you see to your left.

It shows a photo of featured celebrity Persia White (she plays Lynn on “Girlfriends”) and the caption reads: “Everyone agrees this Persia should be invaded.” From Luke:

Now, let’s take a look at the dictionary definition of “invade”

1. To enter by force in order to conquer or pillage.
2. To encroach or intrude on; violate: “The principal of the trusts could not be invaded without trustee approval” (Barbara Goldsmith).
3. To overrun as if by invading; infest: “About 1917 the shipworm invaded the harbor of San Francisco” (Rachel Carson).
4. To enter and permeate, especially harmfully.

So basically, the message from wordplay is “this babe is so hot, you should just rape her” along with some “she’s one of those colored African chicks, just rape her because ‘everyone’ thinks you should, it’s like a time of war!” topped off with “just look at her, she’s asking to be raped with her sexy pose and revealing outfit.”

And people say there’s no such thing as a rape culture.

CVK
Check out this Oakland Tribune story on Jamie Tibbetts, founder of Like Minded People and also the creative genius behind our fabulous Addicted to Race t-shirts! Congrats on the media coverage, Jamie!

Jamie Tibbetts wouldn’t mind it if you wore your identity on your sleeve.

The Berkeley High and UC Santa Cruz grad may have learned philosophy in a classroom, but is now putting theory to practice by making T-shirts.

“Definitely, a lot of my shirts are political,” says Tibbetts, 25, a former philosophy major who stands a towering 6 feet 5 inches.

CVK
If anyone is planning to attend the BlogHer Conference this weekend at the Hyatt San Jose in San Jose, CA, please drop me a line! I’ll be speaking on a panel on Day Two about identity. Here’s the description:

Identity & Obligation: Do you control which parts of your identity are exposed? Do you feel an obligation to represent for your gender, race or culture? Do you feel you’re not allowed to comment on issues facing a group to which you don’t belong? Maria Niles moderates a discussion with Karen Walrond, Dawn Rouse, Marisa TrevinoCarmen Van Kerckhove and on how we slice and dice our identity.

I’m really looking forward to the discussion since each of the panelists takes a very different approach in the way they do or don’t reveal their identities online. The whole purpose of Mixed Media Watch is to discuss race and pop culture, so of course Jen and I are very open about our racial and gender identities. Other bloggers, like us, make their identities an explicit part of their writings while others deliberately stay away from discussing it at all. You can read more about each of the panelists on this page.

Francis Jacquerye (a new MMW guest contributor!)
The Economist published an article about two controversial bills that some Brazilian lawmakers would like to introduce in order to fight the alleged discrimination against black people in the largest South-American country.

Brazil is often described as a “multiracial democracy”. To begin with, 16th century Portuguese “explorers” started mixing with locals almost immediately. In the following 500 years, immigrants from around the world streamed to Brazil. Today, most Brazilians possess a combination of Amerindian, European and African ancestry with minorities of Asian and Middle-Eastern (2000 DNA study by the Federal University of Minas Gerais). Most Brazilians consider themselves as “mixed” and they actually determine race based on looks (phenotypes) rather than ancestry (genotypes). Brazil can boast as many as 139 terms commonly used to describe skin complexion from “snow-white” to “cinnamon” (according to a national survey).

However, some believe that the reality of the loose racial system is not as polished. Drawing upon statistics, it is tempting to conclude that the Brazilian society is indeed racist: dark-skinned Brazilians, who mostly come from the North-East, still make up to 63% of the poorest section of society (according to a recent UN study); and there is a stark difference in child mortality, life expectancy and illiteracy rate between light-skinned and dark-skinned Brazilians.

This is perhaps why the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics took a census in 2000 and classified the population as white, multiracial (mostly mixed black and white), black, Asian, Amerindian and unspecified. Now, some lawmakers want to introduce the Racial Quota Law and the Racial Equality Statute, which should both guarantee a quota of civil-service jobs and university vacancies to those of African or Amerindian ancestry and the physically handicapped. According to the article, the bills would be “making four decades of American job-preferment policies pale by comparison”

A few of the universities that started using quotas have had to create evaluation committees to spot possible “race frauds”. The opponents of the bills argue that a system of universal incentives would reach all poor Brazilians without distinction of skin complexion.

CVK
Wow, just spotted this on Gawker. I’ll just copy and paste it. No comment required, really.

————

Today in Racist Public Relations Work

The following flackery, courtesy of a major public relations firm, has indirectly landed in our box:

SOUTHERN SELL-OUT

Offspring to one of the wealthiest southern political black families, Congressman Harold Ford Jr. of Tennessee has stated in the past that he believes he personally benefited from the affirmative action at the University of Michigan. But last night, the young bachelor was seen kissing and holding hands with a white brunette woman at the hot meatpacking restaurant Sascha the other night. The two were dining on the Gansevoort terrace with another inter-racial couple and passersby on Gansevoort who are familiar with the representative were upset at the jungle fever since the Ford political family pride themselves on their black southern heritage and obtaining more rights for the black citizens in the backward state where many blacks still feel discriminated.

This is real, and it did not come from Alabama. Someone in New York City actually wrote this shit, put their name on it and sent it to media outlets. We’ll leave it to you to figure out what, exactly, is being pitched, but here’s a hint: the publicist really isn’t flacking white hoods.

————

UPDATE: Gawker just revealed who the press release came from and what it was trying to promote. I’m not surprised. Rubenstein PR (the spin-off started by Richard, not the flagship firm that Howard and his other son Steven) flacks for people like Don King and Star and Buc Wild. Not surprising they’d attempt this kind of race-baiting bull:

So what in God’s name was this publicist trying to promote, other than racism? One Gawker commenter guessed correctly: this awful gibberish was actually a pitch for Sascha, disguised as some sort of horrid gossip item. And Sascha is represented by — wait for it — Rubenstein PR. Good thing they’re so renowned for their crisis management skills.

ADC (a new MMW guest contributor!)
In this cellphone advertisement from Helio, a girl bringing a boy home to meet her parents seems innocuous enough, but the advertisement sort of plays on American’s perception of interracial couples as something unusual (or is it the commercial that makes it seem unusual in the first place?).

In this case, the issue is not played to high drama (like in the movie Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner with Sidney Poitier and Katharine Houghton, which was relevant because it actually was taboo at the time), but the commercial seems to “work” for the advertising executive who greenlighted it based on the following assumptions:

• One, that young women are always emotionally prone to hysterical breakdowns when it comes to issues of their sexuality.
• Middle class white Americans are racially insensitive and believe that all Asians are experts in martial arts or are Japanese.
• Older people are technologically inept.

Another part of the message that Helio seems to be sending to whoever they market these cellphones to is that they are an edgy company who are able to co-opt racial stereotypes in order to sell their goods. See for yourself.

JC & CVK
Check it out over at Irrational Point’s Soapbox.

Also, apologies that this site has been painfully slow or just down the last couple of days. Our hosting company has assured us that everything’s fixed now. So hopefully things will be fine moving forward. Thank you for your patience, everyone!

CVK
(Thanks to Tami for this tip!) Someone out there is making racial stereotyping an equal opportunity thing. Apparently this bulletin has been making its rounds on MySpace.

You’re asked to check off the items that apply to you, multiply that number by 5, and that is your score for “how white” you are:

1. You went to a private school.
2. You watch the show Laguna Beach.
3. You watch the show American Idol.
4. You watch the show O.C
5. You don`t cheat on almost anything in school.
6. You live in the suburbs.
7. You know what a poncho is.
8. You have heard a song from Panic! At The Disco.
9. You shop at American Eagle/Aeropostale/Hollister/A&F
10. You have/had a dog that is NOT a pitbull.
11. You have owned more than 1 dog.
12. You bend the bill of your hat.
13. You own a pair of DC`s/etnies/vans.
14. You would get jumped if you said the “N” word.
15. You have lived in more than one house.
16. Your neighborhood is considered to be very nice.
17. You have nice hair.
18. You say the word DUDE a lot.
19. Your mom went to college.
20. You think cops are good.
21. You have absolutely no idea what twista is saying when he raps.
22. You have or have had a river/beach house.
23. You listen to rock.
24. You know who willie nelson is.
25. Your grandparents are over the age of 60.
26. Your parents give you money when you ask.

CVK
One of the big myths out there is the idea that interracial relationships are inherently good for ending racism. We’ve all heard the utopian notions that “we should keep mixing and soon we’ll all be mixed and there will be no more racism!”

The problem with this idea is that it assumes interracial couples and mixed race people themselves cannot be racist. And of course, we all know that’s not true. Check out former Nebraska Senator John DeCamp’s description of his Vietnamese wife as a “war trophy” for just one example.

As I wrote in a post last year, just because you sleep with/live with/marry/date someone of another race doesn’t make you automatically not racist. After all, slave masters had no problem maintaining their racist beliefs against blacks while raping their slaves and fathering mixed children with them. Neither did Strom Thurmond. And all you have to do is read Susan Crain Bakos’s article to see that sex doesn’t cancel out racism. If anything, sex and intimacy have always been intricately intertwined with oppression.

But people continue to use their interracial relationships or their mixed race children as proof that they can’t possibly be racist. We’ve documented quite a few cases of this before on Mixed Media Watch:

• June 2005: Barry Bonds defends himself against allegations of racism by using his white wife as evidence that he doesn’t hate white people
• December 2005: Officer Andrew “Drew” Cohen of the San Francisco police department was disciplined for producing an in-house video that was full of racist and sexist stereotypes. His response?“I’m a liberal Berkeley Jew with two biracial children” and therefore “the notion I’m racist is ridiculous.”

In the last few weeks I’ve heard about a few more cases of this defense.

A woman named Barbara Harris in Oregon is head of Project Prevention, a foundation that offers $300 to drug users willing to be sterilized or use long-term birth control. Critics have called the program a form of modern-day eugenics. Her response?

“My critics say I’m a racist,” said Harris, who is white. “Well, my husband’s black, my six boys are biracial and I’m ‘Mom’ to four African American kids. I’m the only white face in my household,” she said.

But the best story so far comes from Westchester, NY (thanks to Tariq for this!) about a man named Phillip Grant, who has been charged with the murder of a white woman. Grant confessed to the murder on tape, claiming he was afraid of white people and that he hated them.

During the trial, his defense lawyer attempted to prove that his client was not racist by introducing in court evidence that Grant had a sexual relationship with another white woman: Evidence of the relationship “would belie the truth of any pattern of racism,” according to the lawyer.

JC
Teen People talks to Cassie about her new single and how it was to grow up mixed.

TEEN PEOPLE: You’re of mixed heritage, Filipino and African-American. Was it difficult growing up in a culturally diverse family?

Cassie: Not for me. I was always so proud. I thought it was cool because I didn’t know anyone like me. But when I was younger I definitely looked awkward. When I was growing up my hair started getting really frizzy — it looked crazy. Luckily, it’s not so bad now.

Phew. Good thing she grew out of the awkwardness. Everyone knows that mixed people shouldn’t be awkward.

CVK
Check out this hilarious video montage from Best Week Ever of Barbara Walters’ inability to keep her hands off the hair of recent guests Brandy and Tanika Ray. The expressions on their faces are priceless.

CVK
I just read an interesting column by the ombudsman of The Washington Post, attempting to shed some light on how the paper handled two equally horrific murder cases. A reader had written in to note that the murder of the white man, Alan Senitt (pictured), landed on the front page of the paper, while the murder of the black man, Chris Crowder, only made the front of the Metro section. The reader asked:

“Can you think of a reason why the white man would get front-page treatment while the black man wouldn’t? Why does the white man merit a photo with the story but the black man doesn’t? Did geography and skin color have any impact on where these two stories were placed in the newspaper? I don’t see anything about the Senitt story that would merit front-page treatment over that of Crowder.”

more after the jump…

Continue Reading »

CVK
This past Sunday evening, Comedy Central finally aired the sketch that created the crisis of conscience for Dave Chappelle. You can watch them for yourself on YouTube: part 1 and part 2, which includes the audience Q&A.

A May 2005 Time magazine article described it this way:

He was taping a sketch about magic pixies that embody stereotypes about the races. The black pixie–played by Chappelle–wears blackface and tries to convince blacks to act in stereotypical ways. Chappelle thought the sketch was funny, the kind of thing his friends would laugh at. But at the taping, one spectator, a white man, laughed particularly loud and long. His laughter struck Chappelle as wrong, and he wondered if the new season of his show had gone from sending up stereotypes to merely reinforcing them. “When he laughed, it made me uncomfortable,” says Chappelle. “As a matter of fact, that was the last thing I shot before I told myself I gotta take f______ time out after this. Because my head almost exploded.”

I just watched it last night and am still formulating my thoughts, so in the meantime, here are a few other bloggers’ opinions on the sketch. First up, Jenn from Reappropriate:

…The racial pixies are incorrigible: Chappelle should not have been surprised that people would be laughing at the wrong thing. The sketch is designed to depict racial stereotypes at their worst, and place them as commentary to modern-day situations. What’s funny is not the commentary that the minstrelsy is making on reality, but the minstrelsy itself. This is no more apparent than the punctuations of laughter we hear from the studio audience as the sketch airs. There is no question that, in the first sketch, the audience is laughing not at Chappelle confronted with a blackface pixie, but the pixie’s cooning…

More after the jump…

Continue Reading »

CVK
The alternative title for this post could also be, our MMW guest contributor Geraly is really, really into fashion designer Ozwald Boateng, who has his own reality show right now on the Sundance Channel. And yes, of course I watch it! Looooove the fashion reality shows.

It’s nice to see that he’s using his position in the fashion industry (creative director for Givenchy men) to promote the fact that France is much more multicultural than it ever has been before.

Here’s what Geraly had to say on her own blog, Mamazilla:

but when i tuned in, boateng was discussing casting for an upcoming fashion show. he’s perusing model headshots and polaroids and he’s saying, “yes, i’ve seen him all over paris.” or “no, he’s just not right.” and then he says (and i’m sort of paraphrasing because i was just shocked when he said it) “france is multicultural and the show has to represent that. what we really need is more asians. they’re the missing key to the show.” after my initial shock, i laughed ’cause c’mon, can “multicultural france” AFFORD to buy anything boateng?! ha. doubt it. but i digress…

BOATENG NEEDS ASIANS!!!!??? and you shoulda seen the SUPAH FIIIINE asian hotties he found! so, immediately, boateng scores umpteen additional brownie points with mamazilla.

then, THEN! his speechlessly beautiful russian wife, gyunel, brings their totally cute fashion forward toddlers over for what i call the “really, i was just in the neighborhood” visit…

CK (a returning MMW guest contributor!)
I’m a big fan of the FOX show “So You Think You Can Dance,” a show similar to “American Idol,” but in search of America’s best dancer. Once the top dancers are selected after a grueling audition process, they are coupled-off with partners that specialize in a different style to compete every week in choreographed dances. Every week one girl and one guy are voted off with the assistance of the viewers’ called-in votes.

An interesting, but unspoken fact of the show is that almost all of the judge/producer-selected couples are interracial! It is seems obvious that the producers of the show did this deliberately, however, this fact is never addressed on the show. Of course, they are only dancing partners, but they are in constant physical contact and it is not unusual for the couples to dance very sexy numbers.

It is still rare to see interracial couples on TV, with the exception of “Grey’s Anatomy” and “ER” — so it is refreshing to see this, especially on a reality/competition show.

JC & CVK
We’re excited to introduce you to the five wonderful young men (okay, man) and women who are making up our 2006 Addicted to Race intern team! They’ve already done terrific work, and we’re really looking forward to working closely with them this summer. Here they are, in reverse alphabetical order by last name. (Yes, that was Carmen VAN Kerckhove’s idea. )

Shamara Wyllie
Hey everyone, my name is Shamara Wyllie. I am 20 years old. I am a third-year at Sarah Lawrence College and I will be in New York and California this summer. I am African, Jamaican, Trinidadian, American and I grew up in a majority white community. Racism has afflicted me personally since kindergarten; although the forces of evil had been at work long before I was born. Hee, hee. Anyway, I am really excited to be working with the Addicted to Race team and the New Demographic, but more importantly you, the listeners. Talk to you soon…

Alysha Wood
Alysha Wood is a writer, dancer, and daughter of a Thai immigrant from Charleston, West Virginia. She received her BA in Interdisciplinary Asian Studies, Creative Writing and Dance from Hollins University in Roanoke, VA in 2005. She is currently pursuing her MFA in Writing and Poetics from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado.

Jess Motai
Name: Jess Motai
Age: 21
School: Mount Holyoke College, MA
Major/Minor: Architectural Studies/ Women’s Studies
Interests: Traveling! I just returned from studying in Florence, Italy for 9
months
Location this summer: New York/ New Jersey area
I was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan until the age of 13, when my family decided to move to New Jersey. Being biracial, but having more White physical features than Asian, made me “special” during my time in Japan, since White Americans have continuously been idealized. After my move, this view changed little, yet became more complex: now I was being asked the question “what are you?” as well. Because I was treated as a foreigner in Japan and someone whose ethnic identity is deemed ambiguous in America, I often felt and still feel marginalized. Finally in college, I was able to find a group of people whom I could relate with, and where my interest and involvement in multiracial studies and diversity issues as a whole could thrive.

Athena Mari Asklipadis
My name is Athena Mari Asklipadis, I am 22, and will be recieving my Bachelor of Arts degree in Telecommunications/News Broadcasting from Pepperdine University (Malibu, CA) at the end of this summer. I was born and raised in sunny Los Angeles, California, but hope to travel around the world. I am Japanese, Greek, Armenian, Egyptian and Italian and because of my mixed background, I have developed a interest and open mind for all cultures. My favorite color is pink, I love sushi and gyros (not at the same time) and I talk…A LOT. I love meeting new people and having discussions on race, culture and identity. I look forward to this internship and broadening my knowledge on race.

Corbin Laedlein
Corbin Laedlein is 19 years old and lives in Brooklyn, New York. He is currently a sophomore at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ and is majoring in Africana Studies. At Rutgers he is involved with the Galvanizing and Organizing Youth Activism Project, which works to promote global literacy, and helps facilitate discussions at Bridging the Gap, a retreat where Rutgers students discuss issues of diversity, identity and community development. For fun he plays Capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian martial art form that incorporates music, acrobatics and dance. Corbin hopes to help Jen and Carmen change the ways our society views and talks about race as well as promote the acceptance of mixed-race identity. He also hopes to see the day when people stop asking if his hair is a perm.