• Jeff Yang: Mightier Than the Sword | sfgsate.com
  "'Quest for Length' was accepted into Sundance, and was dubbed one of the year's best comedy shorts by American Cinematheque. It also launched Fan's acting career, although he notes that in Hollywood, he's what's known as a 'hard cast.'

  "'If you just look at my description, I come off as an all-American leading guy,' he says. 'But if you turn on the TV or go to the movies, you don't see Asian actors playing all-American leading guys.'

  "And the mini-member caricature may be part of the reason why. It's hard to make a romantic lead seem believably virile and sexy when the full force of centuries of pop culture suggests that, uh, his iPod is a Nano."

  (tags: via:cruelsecretary asianamerican men sexualstereotypes)
• Would Legalising Sex Work Help Fight AIDS? | guardian.co.uk
  "Reynaga is General Secretary of the Latin American and Caribbean Sex Workers Network (RedTraSex) and I met her when she was in Europe at the invitation of the International HIV/Aids Alliance and anticipating a meeting with the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria. She is taking the argument to the Fund. It is of little use giving condoms and HIV prevention advice to women who are harrassed by the police and abused and cheated by their clients because of their illegitimacy, she says. If you want sex workers to negotiate with their clients, you have to give them status. They have to have some rights."
  (tags: via:cruelsecretary sexwork justice hivprevention women health)
• University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Student Yells At Students, Professor and Arrested | Huffington Post (With Video)
  "Campus police arrived and took Foster to the ground when she refused to leave the classroom. Foster now faces a charge of disorderly conduct. A witness told WTMJ radio that before calling police, Foley Winkler gave Foster "four or five chances" to leave the classroom on her own."
  (tags: via:monianne college police black white)
• Jessica Simpson Skimming the Surface of "Inner Beauty" | RHRealityCheck.org
  "In the first episode, set in Thailand, however, we're treated to a disappointing abundance of American cultural voyeurism. Simpson squeals after trying to eat fried insects and giggles in a Buddhist temple. She visits the Kayan tribe, whose women wear gold rings that elongate their necks. For a dose of seriousness, she meets a woman whose skin has been disfigured from bleach creams. To Simpson, for whom time spent under the tanning lamp is a normal everyday thing, the idea that women in other cultures would want to lighten their skin is a revelation (to anyone who has even glancingly looked into the effects of racism on beauty standards, not so much)."
  (tags: race beauty celebrities whitening)
• Sikhs Regain Right To Wear Turbans In U.S. Army | NPR
  "While Sikhs used to serve in the Army while observing their religion's requirements for wearing turbans and not shaving their hair and beards, the Army eliminated the exemption in 1984.

  Until now. After much advocacy from the Sikh community, the Army relented for Rattan and for a fellow Sikh who will be trained as a medic this summer. "

  (tags: via:carleandria religion military discrimination)
• 'Ethnic Rhinoplasty' Popular Gift for Persian New Year | StyleList
  "Dr. Ghavami has written textbook chapters and professional essays on the difference between 'ethnic' rhinoplasties and the 'regular' nose job, and is considered an expert in the field.

  "The key is to recognize the ethnic features that make that person unique and not create a nose that is 'cookie cutter' and Westernized. For the past 30 years, there have been nasal proportion and guidelines that have been taught to plastic surgeons, but this approach in ethnic patients may create what I call 'racial incongruity. I'm sure you can think of multiple examples among African-American celebrities who have noses that don't fit with the rest of their ethnic features. There are special techniques of using suture shaping along with cartilage grafting to create ethnically balanced noses," says Dr. Ghavami."

  (tags: via:carleandria plasticsurgery beauty ethnicity)

By Deputy Editor Thea Lim

We are late on picking up the story of Nazia Quazi, a Canadian woman being held against her will in Saudi Arabia.

The Coast recently ran an interview with Quazi, explaining her situation:

A Canadian woman being held against her will in Saudi Arabia says the Canadian government is not taking her plight seriously.

Nazia Quazi was taken to Saudi Arabia by her father in November 2007. Because of that country’s archaic gender laws, women of any age are subject to male “guardianship.” In the 24-year-old Quazi’s case, her father has taken her passport, and refuses to sign an exit visa allowing her to leave the country…

Her family moved to Canada in 2001, although Quazi says her father has maintained a residence in Saudi Arabia, where he works for a bank, for 25 years. Quazi went to high school in Canada and became a citizen in 2005.

In 2007 she traveled on holiday to Dubai to visit her boyfriend. But when her parents learned of the trip, they flew to Dubai to intervene. Her father took her to India, and then to Saudi Arabia on a three-month visa. But, without her knowledge or consent, Quazi’s father changed the visa to a permanent visa.

Ever since, she says, she has been pleading with the Canadian embassy to intervene, but has gotten next to no response.

“When I try to contact them, I don’t get a positive response of any kind. They always say, ‘we’re still trying, we haven’t heard anything yet, but when we do we will let you know.’ There’s never a real straight-up answer to me, to my face. I’m just waiting for them to do something, waiting for something to happen.

Continue Reading »

Hosted by Special Correspondent Arturo R. García

SPOILERS AHEAD

Call it injury piled onto insult: not only did ABC choose to bring Flash Forward back opposite the opening day of the NCAA Tournament, but it ended up being arguably the best – and by best, I mean “bracket-shredding” – NCAA opening day in history. Seriously, my particular bracket looked like L.A. on Blackout Day.

That said, the two-part “Revelation Zero” gets points for at least trying to seem important, as the creative team busted out seemingly every narrative trick at its’ disposal and brought in more characters to bolster its’ biggest revelation: that the man we’d come to identify as Suspect Zero was in fact Charlie The Hobbit – which made the shot of him wielding a ring somewhat funnier than it probably should have been. But what did your Friendly Neighborhood Roundtable make of all these revelations? Well, we’re glad you asked …

I’ll say this about these episodes: at least the show looked more forceful than it had been before its’ extended hiatus. Even if very little of the plot holds up if you think about it for a minute (more on this later). What’d you think?
Diana: I was surprised to see the Hobbit’s storyline step up a bit. But honestly, I’m not sure if the show is going to last for much longer.
Andrea: I agree, Diana, that Charlie Hobbit’s storyline is stepped up, but his villiany–and to a lesser extent, Lloyd’s–make my eyes glaze over because their evil, be it intentional (Hobbit) or by abbetting (Lloyd), seems to stem from the fact that they have British Isle accents and are erudite. That makes spotting Teh Baddies just that much easier ’cause ya, know, that’s how stereotypes rock.
jen*: Evil Brit tropes might be tired, but they’re more fun to watch than what-really-should-be-side-story-Benford (IMO). Maybe that’s why I was more into the first half than the second. I’m not really into the Hobbit, but I can’t not love Steve. Continue Reading »

• Völklingen Journal – In Germany, Xenophobia Diverted by Open Doors – NYTimes.com
  "But after a quick turn in the media spotlight, the pending furor fizzled out. A neighborhood group recently issued a statement with mosque leaders calling for “peaceful and constructive” cooperation, while the mosque’s leadership agreed to temporarily shelve the plan for the minaret.

  They will spend the rest of the year reaching out to the non-Muslim community, opening their doors to promote understanding before moving ahead. “Whether it comes to building the minaret or not, we’ve started the dialogue and we’re going to continue it,” said Atnen Atakli, the mosque’s chairman."

  (tags: via:carleandria religion xenophobia culture community)
• Tough Bill Advances in Arizona on Illegal Immigrants – NYTimes.com
  "The Arizona Legislature gave preliminary approval Tuesday to a proposal that would allow the police to arrest illegal immigrants on trespassing charges simply for being in the state.

  The provision, which opponents and proponents call a first in the nation, is part of a wide-ranging bill whose sponsors say they hope will make life tougher for illegal immigrants."

  (tags: via:carleandria immigration police politics)
• Years of racial slurs 'scarred' Japanese American gunman charged in teacher's slaying, attorney says | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times
  "A lawyer representing a Westlake Village man who was charged Tuesday in the fatal shooting of a Pasadena art college instructor said his client had become upset after hearing his wife subjected to "a racial and sexual slur."

  Dmitry Gorin, whose law firm is representing Steven Ronald Honma — arrested Sunday in connection with the weekend slaying at a Persian new year's party — said the 54-year-old engineer had been traumatized from years of insults targeting his Japanese heritage."

  (tags: via:carleandria news racialslurs racism violence)
• What to say about … the Olivier awards | Leo Benedictus | Culture | guardian.co.uk
  "The award is not only a significant boost for black playwrights and small theatres," he says, "it also gives new life to the whole awards circus, which has become monstrously repetitive and wearisomely predictable."

  And, lest we forget, Benedict Nightingale points out that, "the choice of Katori Hall's excellent The Mountaintop as Best Play isn't just bold but significant. Sir David Hare recently deplored the absence of female dramatists from English-language stages and, hey, a black American woman wins the British theatre's prime award."

  (tags: via:carleandria black playwrights awards race)

by Latoya Peterson

Please note, this is part five of a multi-part series on the Lifting As We Climb: Women of Color and Wealth report released by the Insight Center for Community Economic Development. Please carefully read part one and review our comment moderation policy before participating in the comments.

Over the course of the Women of Color and Wealth series one question has come up time and time again – what about Asian women? Native women?  Other, more specific breakdowns of different racial/ethnic groups?  Is there data for queer women of color?  For transgender women of color?  Sadly, the answer is no.

The report includes a separate break out discussion of Asian and Native American women, saying (all emphasis mine):

Because Asian Americans and Native Americans comprise a much smaller proportion of the U.S. population than blacks and Hispanics and because most surveys that measure wealth do not oversample these groups, our knowledge about their wealth is less robust—particularly for Native Americans.

According to 2004 data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation, Asian Americans have a higher median net worth than white non-Hispanic households ($144,000 and $137,200, respectively).  Much of this is due to their home equity, as the Asian population is concentrated in a few cities with very high home values. When data is adjusted for these and other factors, Asians have less wealth than whites on similar socioeconomic characteristics. In interpreting the high home equity of Asian Americans, it is also important to bear in mind that they are likely to own and occupy the home with extended family members and are more likely than whites to contribute more than half of their household income to housing costs.

Continue Reading »

Natalie Hopkinson over at the Root posted a fascinating conversation with Dolen Perkins-Valdez on Toure’s twitter comments, among other things.

The Root: What was your reaction to Toure’s comments?

Dolen Perkins-Valdez: My initial reaction was ‘here we go again with the stereotypes.’ [During slavery] black women were portrayed as seducing men. The ‘wenches’ were so sexual that the white men couldn’t resist them.

The use of the phrase “good-good” objectifies women in the same way that slavery objectified women. It reinforces the idea that women were just bodies to be used in any way. The last line in my book was, “She was more than eyes, ears, lips, and thigh. She was a heart. She was a mind.” The sort of flip-ness of the comment was unfortunate. My feeling is we need to educate ourselves about what really happened.

TR: But Lizzie, one of the main characters, does love her master and specifically use sex to curry favors for her children and other slaves.

DPV: I think there was a lot of gray. Yes, surely women who were favored by the master used whatever little power they could gain from that favor. I think it is a little bit reckless to say that black women intentionally seduced masters. The power they gained was still so small. To call Lizzie a seductress, fooling Massa with her ‘good-good’ is not accurate. He seduced her when she was a 13-year-old orphan. [...]

[Public rapes] definitely happened in the slave quarters in broad daylight. It happens in Toni Morrison’s Beloved. The men are made to give oral sex to the overseer. The way she writes it is very oblique. [In the rape scene in Wench] these two Northern women thought they were coming to see a beating and the master got carried away in the frenzy of the moment. But the master wasn’t doing it for them, he was doing it for the other slaves as a warning.

By Guest Contributor AJ Christian, originally published at Televisual

This post suffers from a disease characteristic of most lifestyle/entertainment news: two’s a coincidence, three’s a trend.  Blame it on my past as a reporter. It’s an illness not easily cured.

I don’t know what caused it, but white supremacy is back on television! Of course, by “back” I mean white supremacists have returned as villains in several cable dramas, most recently on FX’s new drama Justified, another FX series Sons of Anarchy and in Martin Scorsese’s forthcoming – and extraordinarily expensive – Boardwalk Empire, premiering this fall.

Color me naïve — it’s a color I’ve worn before — but I always thought serious consideration of white supremacy was a no-go for television: it would alienate liberals and minorities and doesn’t win anyone else. But the search for more provocative programming to cut through the TV clutter, along with the general tendency among certain cable networks – the premium channels, along with FX, TNT, AMC, etc. – toward “cutting edge” narratives, has allowed some room for the KKK and their ilk.

It’s not for me to say what can or cannot be filmed or represented. If it exists in society – even if it doesn’t – there’s little reason to ban it in our media. But you do wonder what makes these “bad guys” so appealing to viewers.

Justified’s Supremacists Are Bumpkins!

Justified, the latest in a decade-long string of “renegade anti-hero” dramas on cable which began with The Sopranos, gives us white nationalists who are mostly idiots. The story in the well-rated pilot is simple: Raylan Givens is a US Marshall relocated by the federal government to his home state of Kentucky after shooting, under dubious circumstances, a gangster in Miami. Upon returning home he meets some old enemies, mostly a band of neo-Nazis. Their leader, Boyd Crowder, is the most sophisticated of the band of rebels, smart enough to nearly catch our hero in an impromptu duel (Justified is a neo-western).

We doubt whether Boyd Crowder is a true believer, despite the swastikas adorning his lair and his body. Our hero Raylan (Timothy Olyphant) has us question his motives: maybe he’s just a guy who likes to shoot people and blow things up! Has our hate-mongering leader assembled a ragtag group of unemployed losers just so he has an excuse to create mayhem in eastern Kentucky? We don’t know yet. Continue Reading »

Race and Sexuality: A Discussion with Latoya Peterson (DC)

Tuesday, March 23 2010
Time: 8:00pm – 10:00pm
Location: Georgetown University, White Gravenor 201A.
Co-Sponsored by: The LGBTQ Resource Center, Lecture Fund, GU Women of Color, GUMBO, SCU

This event is free and open to the public. Latoya will discuss the similarities, challenges, and parallels between organizing around race and organizing around sexuality and gender identity.

• Harlem's New Political Elite | latimes.com
  "Yet the election of the first African American president happened in spite of Harlem's clubhouse — and was a sign of its power fading. The landscape had been shifting for years. Black voters had been moving to the outer boroughs and suburbs, and Harlem's political heirs came to prominence in places like southern Queens and central Brooklyn."
  (tags: via:robschmidt blacks politics harlem)
• Students Risk Dreams–and Deportation–In Walk for Recognition | CNN.com
  "The greatest opportunity for young people like Felipe lies in the passage of the federal Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, also known as the Dream Act. In a 2009 report, The College Board estimated 65,000 undocumented students graduate each year from high school. The legislation would enable those who arrived in the United States before 16 and have lived here at least five consecutive years to obtain residency."
  (tags: via:cruelsecretary dreamact students immigration protests)
• Cut off by Caste and Gender | Frontline
  "Social acceptance and the multilayered nature of the caste system inform not only the social but also the economic and occupational aspects of the lives of Dalit women. Their occupational pattern is impacted by resource rights such as land and credit, access to education and modern skills, and restrictions on labour mobility. Several village studies (Thorat, 2005) have pointed to exclusion in the hiring of labour and low wage rates, the discrimination being greater in the case of Dalit women than men."
  (tags: via:cruelsecretary india dalit women)
• Police: Arrest in NJ Walmart Racial Comment Case | Yahoo! News
  "The incident was the latest in a series of problems the retailer has had in its dealings with minorities and women.
  "There have been several past instances of black customers claiming they were treated unfairly at Walmart stores, and the company faced lawsuits alleging that women were passed over in favor of men for pay raises and promotions."
  (tags: via:naylahknee racism commerce walmart)
• Bias Called Persistent Hurdle for Women in Sciences | NYTimes.com
  “My professors were not that excited to see me in their classes,” said Mae C. Jemison, a chemical engineer and the first African-American female astronaut, who works with Bayer’s science literacy project. “When I would ask a question, they would just look at me like, ‘Why are you asking that?’ But when a white boy down the row would ask the very same question, they’d say ‘astute observation.’ ”
  (tags: via:robschmidt women womenofcolour science stereotypes)
• Locked Out: Black Women Suffer Most From Eviction | Clutch Magazine: The Digital Magazine for the Young, Contemporary Woman of Color
  "Black women suffer the most from being locked out-of their apartments. According to a recent Milwaukee study, in every one in every 20 renters are evicted each year. But in neighborhoods where most residents are Black, the numbers change significantly. One in every 10 renters is evicted every year, and those evicted are usually Black women, 40% are Black single mothers. This has been referred to as the “feminine equivalent to incarceration.” While much focus has been paid to foreclosures and its devastating effects in recent years, eviction can have just as crippling an impact to one’s life as well. Not only does eviction go on your credit report and lowers your FICO score, but it will make it harder for you to find another apartment, as most landlords won’t rent to you. Higher rental rates, security deposits and penalty fees are to be expected too."
  (tags: race finances eviction gender)
• LEBANON: Online Serial 'Shankaboot' Brings Arabic Drama into the New Millenium | Los Angeles Times
  "A beautiful girl with a checkered past and the poor delivery boy who loves her – it could be any soap opera on one of hundreds of Arabic channels, but it's not. "Shankaboot" is a digital experiment in storytelling made for the Web, and its success could usher in a new genre of serial drama in the Arab world.

  "In the first 10 episodes, we are introducing lovely, interesting characters that young people can identify with," producer Katia Saleh told The Times. "Down the line, [we'll] introduce other topics that would appeal to Arab youth and are not brought up in the mainstream media, something appropriate for the Web.""

  (tags: via:carleandria web tv arab culture)

By Special Correspondent Arturo R. García

Thanks to Racialicious reader Tomas for tipping us off to this: this May, Dynamite Entertainment’s Green Hornet comic-book line will focus on the titular hero’s companion in Kato: Way Of The Ninja. The Kato character has been part of Hornet canon since the character’s beginnings in the radio era, but his most memorable incarnation came in the 1960s, when he was played by Bruce Lee. Even there, though, Lee’s character had to play second banana. Ninja writer Jai Nitz told Newsarama that in the comics, Kato is played more as the Hornet’s equal, and this particular mini-series will take him places the Hornet can’t go.

Nitz also said the story will focus on Kato’s somewhat-forced racial ambiguity:

The first actor to play Kato on the Green Hornet radio program was a Japanese actor named Raymond Hayashi, and Kato was explicitly referred to as “Japanese”. Then Kato was ambiguously changed to Filipino as American/Japanese relations deteriorated in the face of World War II (remember, Pearl Harbor wasn’t the first blow struck in the escalation to WWII, it was the last). Then after Pearl Harbor Kato was explicitly Filipino (and you have to remember the closeness of the Philippines and the US at the time to understand why). Whew. All that said, [Green Hornet: Year One writer] Matt Wagner sets Kato as a Japanese soldier that becomes disillusioned with how the Japanese conduct themselves during the war with mainland China. But, like the real-life radio dilemma, Kato hides his identity, in our story as Korean, when he and [the Green Hornet] return to the States due to the tensions with Japan.

Continue Reading »

by Latoya Peterson

I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop in the matter of South Philadelphia High School. And it did.

Reader Carleandria points us to an article in The American (the American Enterprise Institute’s Journal) which wastes no time with the headline: “Are Some Races More Equal Than Others?”

Readers, if my eyes rolled any harder, they would be stuck permanently at the top of my brow.

Abigail Thernstrom and Tim Fay feel like they understand the real reason why South Philadelphia High School isn’t getting any play from the press:

Will the Obama administration act aggressively to ensure Asian rights to a public education free of intimidation and actual violence—surely a basic civil right? Or will such action be taken only when blacks are the victims rather than the perpetrators? If the administration acts in the interest of the Asians, black students will be singled out as racially hostile troublemakers—a conclusion that neither the Department of Education nor the DOJ will welcome, if Duncan’s announcement means what it says. [...] Continue Reading »

By Guest Contributor Jacque Nodell, originally published at Sequential Crush

Part I

I was going to wait on posting this very important story, “Black + White = Heartbreak!” from Girls’ Love Stories #163 (November 1971) until a later date, but fellow romance comic blogger KB did a post yesterday at Out of This World that has encouraged me to post this story now instead of later.

The story KB covered, “Full Hands Empty Heart!” from Young Romance #194 (July/August 1973) tells the story of the love between a young African-American nurse and a white doctor. At the end of his post, KB posed the question:

Were there any earlier inter-racial kisses, romances, or relationships, especially between an African American and a Caucasian, anywhere in comics before this?

To that I can say a resounding yes! Though I do not know if “Black + White = Heartbreak!” is the first interracial relationship in the entirety of the comics medium, it does predate “Full Hands Empty Heart!”

In this Girls’ Love Stories feature, we meet the fathers of our two main characters Chuck and Margo. After working together during World War Two, the two men decide to continue their relationship as civilians by starting an auto dealership together.

Not only are the two men business partners, but friends that share the most joyous of life’s occasions.

As their two small children grew up into good looking teenagers, and then into thoughtful young adults, it was only natural for handsome Chuck and beautiful Margo to fall in love. Their life-long friendship blossomed into romance and the only thing that kept them apart was their attendance at different colleges. When reunited during summer vacation however, they make their love known to the world.

But the world wasn’t understanding. At first it was merely strangers that would ridicule and shun Chuck and Margo.

Continue Reading »

• School Suspensions Lead to Legal Challenge – NYTimes.com
  The fistfights at Southside High School involved no weapons and no serious injuries, and in some ways seemed as old-fashioned as the country roads here in eastern North Carolina. But the punishment was strictly up-to-date: Sheriff’s deputies handcuffed and briefly arrested a dozen students. The school suspended seven of them for a short period and six others from the melee, including the two girls, for the entire semester. As extra punishment, the girls were told they could not attend Beaufort County’s alternative school for troubled students and were denied aid to study at home. Their punishment was typical of the get-tough, “zero tolerance” discipline policies that swept the nation over the last two decades, resulting in an increase in suspensions that are disproportionate among black students.
  (tags: via:caseyhall zerotolerance disproportionatesentencingbyrace schools schooldiscipline)
• Killer of Malcolm X Is Granted Parole – NY Times
  "Thomas Hagan has been held since moments after shots rang out in the Audubon Ballroom in 1965. He has been on work release for more than two decades, but he still spends two days a week locked up at the Lincoln Correctional Facility on West 110th Street in Manhattan. "
  (tags: via:carleandria history criminaljustice)
• Those patients clogging up the ER? They're not all who you may think … – LA Times
  "The patients that emergency room docs call "frequent fliers" — regular visitors to the Emergency Department — are predominantly white, have insurance and tend to be sicker than most patients who visit the ER less often."
  (tags: via:carleandria race healthcare)
• Cops in beating get jobs back, free FOP beer; Suspects were cleared …
  "Two years ago, eight Philadelphia police officers drew national scrutiny when a news helicopter caught them kicking and beating three murder suspects.

  Tonight, their comrades will toast them with free beer and munchies. The officers will be the guests of honor at a bash hosted by the Fraternal Order of Police celebrating their reinstatement.

  "Our Guys Are BACK!" proclaims an FOP flyer inviting officers to the free happy-hour party at the FOP office, on Spring Garden Street near Broad.""

  (tags: via:Sarah police policebrutality criminaljustice)
• The Right to Counsel: Woman Becomes a Test Case – New York Times
  "From the courtroom benches, the few spectators saw a frightened woman who had never been in trouble before and a public defender who was not fighting for her. “She was sitting there looking stunned and confused,” said Daniel J. Freeman, a recent Yale Law School graduate who had been sent to observe by the New York Civil Liberties Union. “I didn’t see him interacting much with her.”

  The story of this one defendant and her public defender, assembled through interviews and court records, is about a woman who was barely making it before the legal system helped shove her off track."

  (tags: via:carleandria criminaljustice courts law equality)
• Arrest in Racial Case at N.J. Wal-Mart – New York Times
  "The authorities in southern New Jersey said Saturday that they had arrested a 16-year-old boy for activating a public-address system at a Wal-Mart store last week and ordering “all black people” to leave. "
  (tags: via:carleandria racism)
• In Nebraska, issues of immigration and abortion collide – New York Times
  "Nebraska long has regarded itself as a staunchly antiabortion state.

  But for months, the state has wrestled with an issue that pits its signature conviction against another belief — that illegal immigrants should not receive tax-supported services.

  So two viewpoints collided with this question: Should Nebraska pay for prenatal care for the unborn children of illegal immigrants?"

  (tags: via:carleandria immigration reproductiverights government policy)

By Special Correspondent Jessica Yee, originally published at Bitch Magazine

A lot of us working/breathing/organizing in feminist/humanist/womanist communities were running from event to event last week during International Women’s Day (IWD) week, and I thought I’d share some of the deconstructing thoughts I’ve been having aloud about what I witnessed and participated in.

There’s been debate over whether it’s the 99th or 100th year anniversary of IWD, and whatever the case, I find myself perplexed and widely critical once again of how the day and week gets celebrated.

Many of you already know all too well the tokenization that happens when we Indigenous and racialized women get invited to things our own communities are not putting together, the envelopes we sometimes have to push, the chastising we get from both white people and people in our own communities who don’t like that we’re calling ourselves feminists/womanists/humanists, so on and so forth.

During IWD last week I talked a lot about the academic industrial complex that mainstream feminism still lies in (which is, btw, part of the working title of a new book I’m working on this year – more about that later) but I fully knew where I was going and who my audience was going to be during these “official” type events – which was, incidentally, white women who were “professionals” mostly having attended post-secondary education.

My biggest musings to myself weren’t the typical “there they go getting upset at me for asking why the women’s rights movement today doesn’t appear to care about all the Indigenous women who are being murdered and going missing” or “now you care ALL OF A SUDDEN since it’s making the mainstream news headlines for some apparent reason when our women have had systemic violence by the thousands for 500+ years”. I’m BEYOND used to that in and outside of the academy and organizational settings, and I already know the many reasons why this happens and why I still get invited to speak so they can “check-mark box” my “inclusion”.

My biggest musing to myself was “why do I, myself, still do this?” Why do I go to this kind of stuff, expend the energy, and waste the time deconstructing it in my mind afterward? Continue Reading »

by Guest Contributor Angry Asian Man, originally published at Angry Asian Man

Yesterday (3/17/10), Asian students from South Philadelphia High School testified at a Student Reform Commission meeting about the daylong series of assaults that sent seven students to hospitals on December 3. Many community members came in support of a 17-year-old Vietnamese student named Hao Luu: Asians tell of anguish over S. Phila. attacks.

Hao Luu’s troubles began Dec. 2 when, Asian activists say, he was accosted in the hall of South Philadelphia High by a student who yanked the earphones out of his ears.

After school that day, Luu was followed by 10 to 15 students and beaten so badly that he vomited. Continue Reading »