Hottentot Minaj

This is a photo of Sara Baartman, also colloquially known as the Hottentot Venus. In 19th Century Europe, she was exhibited as a "freak show" where white Europeans marveled at the (alleged) size and shape of her buttocks. So what does the Hottentot Venus have to do with Nicki Minaj?  The commonality is that Minaj embodied the past stereotype of the Hottenton Venus of the 21st Century on last week's Saturday Night Live.

What Are the Rules for Celebrity Forgiveness?

A conversation I saw on Facebook caused me to think: what are the rules for celebrity transgression (and subsequent forgiveness)?  Last night's BET Awards featured performances by both Kanye West and Chris Brown.  For those who have been living under a pop culture rock, Kanye West famously interrupted Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the MTV Music Awards and ended up looking like an asshole to just about everyone.

Is The Color of Beauty White?

A friend hipped me to this video and it is truly heartbreaking.  Apparently the color of beauty is still white (and will always be if we are to believe those people interviewed in the video. 

Before I am accused of being too Afrocentric, I am not advocating that the fashion industry is "blackened" just for the same of having black people on the runways and in the pages of mainstream fashion magazines. Rather, I am advocating at least an openness to representing blackness rather than having designers request "no black girls."  Particularly when they are willing to allow white models to don blackface or act as props to showcase white beauty.  Which recalls one of the quotes in the film that says people in the industry essentially want white girls dipped in chocolate. 

Xenophobia Reins Supreme in Arizona

I sometimes cannot believe my eyes.  I knew this legislation was in the works, but for it to be signed into law is a completely different thing. (Deep breath!)  OK, in Arizona it is now illegal to teach ethnic studies courses because, well, let me just put a quote here from State schools chief Tom Horne who says:

"...A Tucson school district program promotes 'ethnic chauvinism' and racial resentment toward whites while segregating students by race.'"

The first problem is that these "ethnic studies" programs are the only place where minority students can get a comprehensive history of their ancestors. When I was in elementary school, black history in the larger history books consisted of Harriett Tubman (she helped free slaves) and Martin Luther King, Jr. (he led the Civil Rights Movement) -- pretty insufficient. 

Contrary to belief, American isn't a melting pot.  Rather, we demand that people assimilate -- which adapting to "the American Way."  But even as people of color, we are constantly reminded (particularly in today's political climate) that we are different and in the eyes of those who largely hold power, inferior.  As such, ethnic studies is a necessary part of educating students.  (Not to mention that there are non ethnic students who take these courses as well because they want to expand their knowledge -- isn't that what education is supposed to be all about?)

Police Brutality in Seattle

In what can only be described as an abuse of power, a Seattle Police Officer kicked a suspect in the head once he was already on the ground and being compliant.  As if that weren't enough, it turns out that the man, who was suspected of committing a robbery by the police, was innocent.  Now, of course, the office has gone on his "I'm Sowwy Tour" apologizing for saying he would "kick the Mexican piss" out of the suspect (but not for kicking him in the head).  There is a line between doing your job and being an asshole and this office crossed that line. Is it any wonder that many members of minority groups dislike and/or fear the police?    

Rip out the Front Page: Breaking News! Journalism isn't Neutral Says Professor

I mean, really?  Did we really need someone to tell us that the "news" we receive isn't neutral? Despite the claims of shows and networks to have "No Bias, No Bull" and be "Fair and Balanced" the opposite is true. This goes for both right and left media.  As Pierre Bourdieu tells us in his fantastic book On Television

"It explains why real information, analysis, in-depth interviews, expert discussions, and serious documentaries lose out to pure entertainment and, in particular, mindless talk show chatter between 'approved' and interchangeable speakers."

WWW: The White Women's Workout; or So Funny, It's Kinda Sad

I saw this video and was torn -- it's actually laugh out loud funny, but also incredibly sad, particularly as I inhabit my black male skin daily.  Certainly media, including music, movies, television (both the news and television shows) and even art to a certain degree (and the Reagan administration) has helped to perpetuate the idea of the menacing black man.  But at the same time, this manages to skewer the sheer absurdity of a monolithic idea of black male menace (as well as monolithic ideas about any group of people).

Framing Homosexuality via Archie

The comic strip Archie announcing that it would introduce a gay character to Riverdale was met by me with a yawn. But then I saw this video and this video



and then I realized the damage that media can do and that homosexuality is (and will always be) othered in our allegedly unbiased media culture.

Welcome to Confederate History Month

Here's a fantastic editorial by Frank Rich that in many ways illuminates the "new racial" times in which we live.  All of the talk about Obama ushering in a new phase of post-racial-ness has been bunk. In many ways, I think we live in a far more racist society than we did before the Civil Rights Era. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/opinion/18rich.htm

Health Care Reform Post Script

My head is still reeling from watching C-SPAN for most of the day yesterday and watching the "debate" unfold about health care reform. What I think became abundantly clear over the weekend (and arguably through the whole debate process) is not just a difference in ideology, largely going along party lines, and not just the suspicion that we have elected a bunch of 3 year olds to represent us (could they have been less mature) or that our political process is really a time drainer (did it really take all day to get to the vote when largely no one was moved to change their vote by debates, but rather by deals).

Rather, a real socio-economic ideological rift was exposed. I believe health care reform isn't really about access to health care as much it's about the classic American battle between the haves and the have nots. Those who have, want to keep things they way they are because "they work hard for their money and don't want to give it away to those lazy ne'er do wells who only want government handouts." Those who have not, just want access to healthcare for themselves and their family members.

This was crystallized this morning when I went on Facebook and a "friend" invoke the old Reagan line about "the welfare queen" and how she lives on the southside of Chicago (which implies that she's black) and gets $150,000 per year from the government through handouts and use of her four assumed names. Sure, there may be "welfare queens" who do abuse the system and I in no way condone their behavior, but there are also hardworking people who simply cannot afford health care coverage. There are also hardworking people with life threatening diseases who are either uninsurable or are forced to keep jobs for fear of not being able to get coverage from a new employer.

For those who opposed (and still oppose) healthcare reform, I'd be interested to see how they feel about "socialized" medicine and government handouts if they lose their jobs. Or when (and if) they reach age 65 and want to take advantage of "socialized" medicine in the form of Medicare and/or Medicaid.

Perhaps I'm a bleeding heart liberal, but I don't mind paying a little more in taxes to ensure that all American citizens have access to adequate health care. The racial and sexuality-based epithets that were thrown around over the weekend illuminated how important and necessary this reform really is. If it wasn't people would not have been so passionate about it. It wouldn't have been so divisive. This legislation has a 50/50 chance of failing. But if it fails, at least we know that we tried to fix a broken system.

Are White Dolls Worth More than Black Ones?

For our allegedly being in "post-racial" times (if we're supposed to believe the line the media feeds us), I am routinely astounded by some of the things I see/hear. We've seen/heard about studies that demonstrate that when presented with a black doll and a white doll, black girls most frequently chose the white doll. But these studies can often be dismissed because they happened "back in the day." Which is why I was so shocked to hear that Good Morning America replicated the study in 2009 and found that some, not all, of the devaluing of black dolls by black girls still existed in "modern times."



It's quite easy to shake our collective heads and discuss how fashion and fashion magazines often advance a Eurocentric image of beauty which can perhaps lead to lowered self esteem -- a nod to Charles Cooley's looking glass self concept which asserts that a person's sense of self is derived from the perceptions of others. Just like the reflections in a mirror, the self depends on the perceived responses of others. It was just a few months ago that many were outraged that Vanity Fair featured all white actresses on its "The New Hollywood" cover.

But then comes this story, also from ABC that showed that a Walmart, presumably in Louisiana, set the price of a Black doll at 50% of the cost of the White doll. The spokesperson quoted in the story asserts that the Black doll was on clearance while the White doll was not citing anecdotal sales lower sales figures for Black doll. In addition, the spokesperson cited a desire to clear out the inventory of the Black doll to make way for new spring inventory.

I tend to believe everything Walmart does is evil, but in this case their stated reasons may be true and their intentions may have been innocent, but it's important to realize the message delivered -- The Black doll is worth less than White doll. It's important to know that the message sent is not always the message received (remember the game of telephone from childhood?).

The White Savior in Hollywood

Last night I got into a discussion about Sandra Bullock winning an Oscar(R) for her role in The Blind Side. The person with whom I had this argument railed against Sandra Bullock's win because she felt that it reinforced the idea of the "helpless black" waiting for a good white person to come and make their lives better.



Before I dive into any argument, I like Sandra Bullock and most of her work. I also liked her work in The Blind Side. That having been said, the movie, while based on a true story, does work to continue the stereotype that white people, and white people alone hold the power. The Touhy family, as depicted in the film, introduced Michael Oher to football (also perpetuating the myth that black people -- especially black men -- excel at sport, not academics) and gave him the tools to be able to succeed. In the film, he also came from a broken home where the father was not present and the mother was a drug addict. In fact, no black person was shown as being "upstanding" setting up what Herman Gray calls black exceptionalism as difference in his book Watching Race. "blackness is figured as cultural and personal qualities that transcend and, from the position of dominant spectatorship established... reinscribe whiteness as the normative site of everyday life... this exceptional blackness has to be harnessed and ultimately placed in the service of good (Gray, 168). In other words, in the cinematic adaptation of the story Michael Oher is made "good" by "white saviors" rather than by other blacks within the community from which he comes. And we must assume that the film largely gets it right as Michael Oher hasn't publicly said otherwise (at least not to my knowledge).

In movies like The Blind Side, blacks continue to be portrayed in ways that became ingrained in our cultural fabric during the Reagan era: uneducated, violent, and "welfare queens." That is certainly not to say that this is the only representation of black people in film, but with two of the most high profile movies of the year featuring black actors (Precious and The Blind Side) featuring the Reagan-ist depictions of blacks, it is worth paying attention to the images we are being shown and the ideology that is being reinforced by the film industry.

Framing Phobias

Whether we will admit it or not, media, at its core, works to frame events for us. Most often, news media works to frame blackness as a symbol of deviance, destruction and generally all things horrible. And as sociologist Herman Gray notes in his fantastic book Watching Race, "... the demonization of blackness -- welfare queens, the aggressive black female, the menacing black criminal -- in the public sphere of media spectacle... enables[s] the mobilization of counterimage of blackness -- the figure of individuality, competence, exceptionalism -- as difference." (See Harry Reid's comment about President Obama for more on how educated blacks are framed as different than "others."

In addition to this framing of blackness as menacing, the news media also work to frame phobias for us. Erica Chito Childs, in her book Fade to Black and White, asserts that the media frame fear of interracial relationships for us and that whenever these unions occur three things happen:

1) The relationship is often doomed from a long-term perspective;
2) The white person in the relationship is shown to be somehow deviant; and
3) The opposition to the interracial relationship is centered on black opposition rather than white opposition.

It's this third point that is most important for the purposes of this post. This framing can also be used as a way to look at homophobia. There is, without a doubt, homophobia that exists among white people. We see it nearly everyday in evangelicals and conservatives using scripture to denounce gay rights or by using "slippery slope" arguments about how gay rights will create a social Apocalypse. And one can either agree or disagree on their position by saying they are right or wrong -- and it is largely determined on where you stand on social issues. But it's the framing of black opposition that is sometimes the most telling.

While the video embedded below does not feature blacks, it's important to know that most people (particularly Americans) make no distinction for black skin and blacks are thereby implicated by the video. In addition, while homophobia among whites is framed as being either a religious issue or one related to income or education level, all blacks are often stereotyped as being homophobic. Despite efforts like the ad campaign launched last week on Long Island, there is still a long way to go to get the media to stop framing events so that we can stop relying on stereotypes to label people.

The Super Bowl and Stereotypes of Gay Black Men

I visited the blog Joe.My.God as I often do on a daily basis for gay news and came across a post that featured a video from In Living Color and their Men On... skit with a Super Bowl Theme.  One on hand, I must admit that when watching this skit as a young child, I never thought twice about it.  The skits made me uncomfortable as a gay young man (although I couldn't yet articulate that I was gay) but I thought nothing of the depiction the show constructed of gay black men.



My problems with the skit originated much later in life when I began to study representations of minority groups on television. Some people, on the rare occasion that I post comments on blogs, dismiss me as being overly analytical and in the case of this video assumed that no one looked to In Living Color to provide role models. And while that may be true that no one is actively seeking a role model from the show, the reinforcement of negative stereotypes about gay men (and black gay men specifically) cannot be brushed aside.

Noted cultural scholar and sociologist Herman Gray in his fantastic book Watching Race says, "This sketch and others features Antoine and Blaine activate and engage crucial debates about identity, sexuality, and desire within the discourse of blackness. Although the sketches are not specifically about gay black men, the body, dress, language and gestures are deliberately organized to construct and covey something about the characters' identities. Moreover, and perhaps this helps to account for their resonance, these parodies and the strategies of representations on which they depend join historical contemporary debates and representations in the black community about homophobia, black men, masculinity, sexuality and drag queens."

I believe that whether we want to believe it or not, television is a major socialization factor for us. It teaches us how to be and how not to be. Representations like those found in the Men On... sketches from In Living Color help to underscore why gay men and women are (and should remain) second-class citizens. Men On... makes gay men effeminate (in both demeanor and dress) and lecherous and helps some in the show's largely black audience reinforce their hatred for all things gay.

Collective Memory

Politicians and television talking heads, particularly right-leaning ones, have often talked about how things were so much better and simpler in times gone by. And while this Daily Show video lambastes Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly, we're all a little guilty of mis-remembering events in our lives.  Cultural theorist Maurice Halbwachs gives us clues about how (and why) we think this were better than they actually are through his theory of collective memory.  Halbwachs was chiefly concerned with the ways in which we recount and mythologize the past.  He believed that the only way that past is made relevant for us is by social institutions (like the media) and collective actions of commemoration and festivals.

Even more disturbing is the opening speech at the Tea Party Convention given by former Republican congressman Tom Tancredo.  He believed that literacy tests as a prerequisite to being able to vote were a good thing.  What he fails to "remember" in his remembering how these literacy tests ensured that we had educated people voting is that blacks were denied all sorts of civil rights in addition to just being prohibited from voting.  Let's see... what could have possibly been happening to blacks when they were being denied the right to vote?  Umm, being routinely hosed down in the streets with high-powered hoses.  Oh yeah, another example is being lynched... and... one last one, having to endure a far inferior educational system (although schools have effectively been re-segregated thanks to differences in socio-economic status and "white flight" from urban schools).

Haiti is another example of collective memory.  This excellent essay remembers the facts of Haiti and why it is one of the poorest countries in the world -- not because Haitians are some kind of slackers, but because America (the very country now coming to its aid and trying to rewrite history) has had their foot on the necks of Haitians for decades.   

What we must work to do is remember events as they were and not as we'd like them to be. That is the best way for us to be more informed world citizens and not be told what to think by "the machine."

Do Blacks Only Earn Awards for Negative Roles?

So read the headline of a story I saw in the Washington Informer. And on one hand, it is an important question to ask when you look at some (and I underline some three times) of the recent Black actors and actresses who have been awarded an Oscar(r) for their work. Halle Berry's win for Monster's Ball could, I believe, be seen as simply awarding a black person an Oscar because there had been so much made of the fact that no black person had won the Best Actress or Best Actor Oscar since Sidney Poitier and Hattie McDaniel. Denzel Washington's Oscar was regarded as an award not necessarily for Training Day, but for his body of work. That largely leaves Jennifer Hudson, who, while fantastic in Dreamgirls, was largely awarded an Oscar because of her back story (booted from American Idol, told she'd never make it, and persevering).

Which brings us to Mo'Nique. Her portrayal can certainly be construed as being a negative portrayal of blacks, particularly inner city blacks, but the fact remains that her performance is riveting and comes from her gut. Personally, I don't like Mo'Nique, but I absolutely have to take my hat off to her for pulling one of the year's best performances out of her hat.

But looking at the number of roles that blacks have played and the number of movies starring black actors, it is shocking that the list of those who have been awarded (or even nominated) is fairly short. I'm still pretty shocked that none of the actors in The Secret Life of Bees were even mentioned during awards season, particularly Queen Latifah or the criminal absence of Idylwild from the award season.

I do believe that black actors garner far less respect in Hollywood, particularly underrated actors like Angela Bassett, Lawrence Fishburn and Alfre Woodard -- just to name a few. I am certainly not an advocate of nominating an actor just because he or she happens to be black, but it'd be nice to see more color at the Oscars.

Race and Ugly Betty

In the interest of full disclosure, I am heart broken that Ugly Betty has been canceled. Yes, the second and third seasons left a bit to be desired, but this season, its last, was really a creative renaissance for the show. When I read the story on Huffington Post, I did something I rarely do -- I read the comments and ran across this comment from SpoooonBK who said: "Ugly Betty is currently the only sitcom on American TV that focuses on an honest and positive portrait of a Latino family. We need shows like this. It is a shame that this is happening."

One of the things I find problematic about the statement is the use of the word positive to encompass the presentation of the Suarez family. Positive is such a subjective term when speaking about any presentation of a group of people on television. And for everything that we might deem positive about Ugly Betty, there are also things that could be construed as negative like the idea that Hilda was an unwed, teenage mother or that Hilda embodies the stereotype of the loud, sassy Latina women.

Whether Ugly Betty is ultimately remembered as a positive or negative portrayal of Latino families is a moot point. What is important is that another quality program is biting the dust and it's a sad day for television viewers.