"Asher Roth and the Racial Crossroads"

A commentary about Asher Roth that turned into a discussion about race relations. Cool vid!

From What You Are ...

... to what you did. I'm diggin' this clip.

Quick Thought

I was at the supermarket the other day when I saw the cover of the latest TIME cover featuring a split image of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton with the title, "There Can Only Be One."


By the way, the idea for that cover was ripped from the NBA's playoff campaign where basketball superstars are perfectly aligned side-by-side (see BenMVP.com for more). Their campaign called, "There Can Only Be One," seems to be a slight variation of a very popular tagline from the movie, Highlander (1986). The actual line is "In the end, there can be only one." Anyways, I digress ... again ...

I get the idea that the Democratic Party ought to choose a presidential nominee now but the race between Obama and Clinton is so tight that choosing one will be enormously difficult. Such a decision will come down to the nitty gritty details in order to make the distinctions clearer. Fine. I get that. But I remember back in late March of another cover from The New Republic of a morph between Obama and Clinton. I think TNR called it "HillarACK" which sounds like someone was saying Hillary's name before barfing his dinner out.

So this I also "get" but it's extremely problematic. Again there's a similar dynamic that because Hillary and Obama are extremely popular, very resourceful, strong candidates in their own right that making a decision is proving to be much harder than anticipated. There are consequence in the long run if no candidate emerges with a definitive lead especially for the Presidential race against John McCain. But through the beauty of morphing graphic technology, instead of choosing one, we can take the best of both candidates and create the super-candidate for the presidential nomination for the Democratic Party. What do we get when we blend Obama with Clinton?

A white guy. WTF???? So instead of embracing the specific identity of race through Obama or the identity of women through Clinton, this representation positions "white male" as not only the "best of both worlds" but also reinforces it as the default subjectivity for all matters regarding race and gender. This is more than an inability to choose between one or the other; it's a dangerously misguided and idealized representation about discourses of race and gender.

So what makes the TIME magazine cover so interesting, and subversive, in juxtaposition to TNR? We still have to choose between two candidates; it's a choice that is also intimately bound up in questions about race and gender. Either one will still be a political and historical exclamation point for the US.

But the TIME cover still uses the same visual strategy where the head, hair lines, eyes, nose, and lips are, for the most part, perfectly aligned, instead of morphing the facial elements together. There is still an echo of an idealized candidate though it is not as distinct as TNR's representation. Instead, the visual and political effect is more pronounced in TIME's cover and the tagline. Suture theory (Yes, I'm playing around with film theory) describes the process whereby subjects ( "us" ) are "drawn into" a film (identification), taking up positions as "subjects-within-the-film," so that our meanings and experiences become defined by the film's narrative. OK so the cover is not a film but it is a representation that demands textual analysis. I'm sure there's a communication studies theory that is applicable but I'm more familiar with film theory and suture theory is what popped into my head. I imagine hearing the anguish and utter horror from a psychoanalytic film theorist as I butcher a well established film theory. But I'm a cultural studies scholar and we're trained to use theory in less than traditional ways. So deal with it. Anyways ...

So if suture theory describes a process of subjectification then what the TIME cover has done was to not only force a character identification, but also a choice. It is a demand on the viewer (that is, "us") to choose a friggin' candidate. The world encapsulated in the representation of the TIME cover is the same world that we inhabit. This is the major difference from the TNR cover because the morph is an imaginary completeness that functions to disguise an inherent lack (Yes, this is my best use of psychoanalytic film theory). There is no demand on the viewer to do anything more other than to abide by a fictionalized narrative that is politically problematic as a discursive construction and as question of agency. The TIME cover on the other hand is not at all ambiguous or ambivalent about what is at stake. It reads as a kind of refusal to an idealized candidate and the misguided appeals to a race-less/gender-less utopic narrative. Instead, it compels a very pragmatic and deeply political act: choose one.

I thought that this was going to be a quick thought but apparently it went further than I anticipated. Oh well.

"Word Association"

A SNL classic with Richard Pryor and Chevy Chase. Written by the preeminent comedian Paul Mooney, it's about a job interview and a word association test that really gets out of hand.

"The Style, But Not the Substance" by Baraki Kitwana

OK, one last one and that's it. But I came across this article by way of Oliver Wang at Poplicks. It's an excellent piece by Baraki Kitwana at Newsday about Imus, black popular culture, and consumerism. It's one critical analysis that hits it on the mark.

The Style, But Not the Substance
Baraki Kitwana, Newsweek

When Don Imus put his foot in his mouth on the air last week with a dirty and derogatory reference to young black women, he was articulating a message that had been clearly voiced by Michael Richards, Rush Limbaugh and countless others long before him. Ditto the white law students at the University of Connecticut who donned big booties and blackface this year on Martin Luther King Day, as well as the rash of undergraduates across the country, from Michigan to South Carolina, who somehow imagine that hosting "pimp and ho parties"is a good idea.

That message is this: The aesthetics of hip-hop culture - from the language and clothing to the style and sensibility - can be absorbed into American popular culture like any other disposable product without any effort or responsibility on the part of the consumer.

It is an idea in part ushered in by the marginal voices of black youth themselves, youth so eager to be visible that they gave up far too much of their identity in the interest of partnering with the corporate music industry. Together, and all the while green-lighted by the Federal Communications Commission, a handful of rap artists packaged and commodified rap music (not to be confused with hip-hop culture lived daily by countless youth around the globe at a local level, from graffiti and break dancing to deejaying, spoken word poetry and political activism.).

Encouraged by the quick bucks, this partnership was quickly reinforced by additional peddlers of one-dimensional images of young black men as violent, and women as oversexed bitches and hos - from filmmakers and television producers to music video directors, comedians and beyond.

These snake oil salesmen marvel at the gravitational pull that hip-hop exerts over American youth and see dollar signs. Drawing necessary distinctions between the various lifestyles (street culture, prison culture and the traditional culture of black America) that converge on the national stage isn't even an afterthought.

The result is what cultural critic Greg Tate addressed in his 2005 book, "Everything but the Burden." That is, far too many American consumers of black popular culture don't take the time to decode the complexity of black life that produces a 50 Cent, a Jay-Z or a Russell Simmons, multi-millionaires all, who peddle rap music riddled with the language of the street.

When I interviewed Jay-Z as I was completing my book "Why White Kids Love Hip-Hop: Wankstas, Wiggers, Wannabes and the New Reality of Race in America," he put it this way: "Hip-hop is not clothing or a place you go, this is people's lives, people's culture."

But who picks up the slack when this gets lost on the consumer?

Imus - and his defenders who claim they learned this language from hip-hop - are only partly correct, even as they are wholly dishonest. They would do themselves and the country a service by owning up to at least three facts. 1) Imus took liberty with a culture that he didn't fully understand, and when he got called on it, rather than coming clean, he pointed the finger at hip-hop to take the weight. 2) Clearly those far more powerful than rappers are complicit in bringing pimp and ho talk to the American mainstream. 3) If indeed Imus is a hip-hop fan, innocently consuming its language and aesthetics, that doesn't remove him from the responsibility to understand hip-hop cultural and political roots in all their complexity.

Rather than an ignorant fan chopping it up in the living room with one of his buddies, he's a public figure whose voice is heard by millions. His responsibility then is even greater.

That is why he had to be removed from his radio and cable TV networks. Lest folks inside the hip-hop activist community who were calling for such be deemed hypocrites, let the record show that media justice advocates such as Davey D Cook (of the organization daveyd.com), Rosa Clementes (of R.E.A.C.H. Hip-Hop) and Lisa Fagers (of industryears.com) have for years been very loudly challenging the music industry and rappers to raise the bar.

Hip-hop's internal criticism is something that a 2007 study by the Black Youth Project recently documented. In a survey of 1,600 young people it found that the "overwhelming majority" of young people agree that rap music videos contain too many references to sex, and "the majority" agree rap music videos portray black women and black men in bad or offensive ways.

Maybe the flak over Don Imus' mean-spirited, sexist and racist comments can help to raise the volume of those voices. Our failure to hear them, like our failure to check Imus, can mean the difference between our ability to escape America's old racial politics and our historical tendency to drown in them.

Did I Read That Right? Imus is Gone?!

Wow he's really fired! I'd never thought it would go this far, but I guess, as one of my students remarked, this was a "perfect storm."

I'm still in a state of disbelief, surprise, and awe. Go figure.

From SFGate.com: "Don Imus Loses Job in Stunning Fall" (David Bauder)

Don Imus' racist remarks got him fired by CBS on Thursday, the finale to a stunning fall for one of the nation's most prominent broadcasters.

Imus was initially suspended for two weeks after he called the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos" on the air last week. But outrage kept growing and advertisers kept bolting from his CBS radio show and its MSNBC simulcast, which was canceled Wednesday.

"There has been much discussion of the effect language like this has on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society," CBS President and Chief Executive Officer Leslie Moonves said in announcing the decision. "That consideration has weighed most heavily on our minds as we made our decision."

Imus, 66, had a long history of inflammatory remarks. But something struck a raw nerve when he targeted the Rutgers team — which includes a class valedictorian, a future lawyer and a musical prodigy — after they lost in the NCAA championship game.

I also liked this article from the NY Times as a reminder of our political obligations: "Our Prejudices, Ourselves" (Harvey Fierstein)

AMERICA is watching Don Imus’s self-immolation in a state of shock and awe. And I’m watching America with wry amusement.

Since I’m a second-class citizen — a gay man — my seats for the ballgame of American discourse are way back in the bleachers. I don’t have to wait long for a shock jock or stand-up comedian to slip up with hateful epithets aimed at me and mine. Hate speak against homosexuals is as commonplace as spam. It’s daily traffic for those who profess themselves to be regular Joes, men of God, public servants who live off my tax dollars, as well as any number of celebrities.

In fact, I get a good chuckle whenever someone refers to “the media” as an agent of “the gay agenda.” There are entire channels, like Spike TV, that couldn’t fill an hour of programming if required to remove their sexist and homophobic content. We’ve got a president and a large part of Congress willing to change the Constitution so they can deprive of us our rights because they feel we are not “normal.”

So I’m used to catching foul balls up here in the cheap seats. What I am really enjoying is watching the rest of you act as if you had no idea that prejudice was alive and well in your hearts and minds.For the past two decades political correctness has been derided as a surrender to thin-skinned, humorless, uptight oversensitive sissies. Well, you anti-politically correct people have won the battle, and we’re all now feasting on the spoils of your victory. During the last few months alone we’ve had a few comedians spout racism, a basketball coach put forth anti-Semitism and several high-profile spoutings of anti-gay epithets.

What surprises me, I guess, is how choosy the anti-P.C. crowd is about which hate speech it will not tolerate. Sure, there were voices of protest when the TV actor Isaiah Washington called a gay colleague a “faggot.” But corporate America didn’t pull its advertising from “Grey’s Anatomy,” as it did with Mr. Imus, did it? And when Ann Coulter likewise tagged a presidential candidate last month, she paid no real price.

In fact, when Bill Maher discussed Ms. Coulter’s remarks on his HBO show, he repeated the slur no fewer than four times himself; each mention, I must note, solicited a laugh from his audience. No one called for any sort of apology from him. (Well, actually, I did, so the following week he only used it once.)

Face it, if a Pentagon general, his salary paid with my tax dollars, can label homosexual acts as “immoral” without a call for his dismissal, who are the moral high and mighty kidding?

Our nation, historically bursting with generosity toward strangers, remains remarkably unkind toward its own. Just under our gleaming patina of inclusiveness, we harbor corroding guts. America, I tell you that it doesn’t matter how many times you brush your teeth. If your insides are rotting your breath will stink. So, how do you people choose which hate to embrace, which to forgive with a wink and a week in rehab, and which to protest? Where’s my copy of that rule book?

Let me cite a non-volatile example of how prejudice can cohabit unchecked with good intentions. I am a huge fan of David Letterman’s. I watch the opening of his show a couple of times a week and have done so for decades. Without fail, in his opening monologue or skit Mr. Letterman makes a joke about someone being fat. I kid you not. Will that destroy our nation? Should he be fired or lose his sponsors? Obviously not.

But I think that there is something deeper going on at the Letterman studio than coincidence. And, as I’ve said, I cite this example simply to illustrate that all kinds of prejudice exist in the human heart. Some are harmless. Some not so harmless. But we need to understand who we are if we wish to change. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should confess to not only being a gay American, but also a fat one. Yes, I’m a double winner.)

I urge you to look around, or better yet, listen around and become aware of the prejudice in everyday life. We are so surrounded by expressions of intolerance that I am in shock and awe that anyone noticed all these recent high-profile instances. Still, I’m gladdened because our no longer being deaf to them may signal their eventual eradication.

The real point is that you cannot harbor malice toward others and then cry foul when someone displays intolerance against you. Prejudice tolerated is intolerance encouraged. Rise up in righteousness when you witness the words and deeds of hate, but only if you are willing to rise up against them all, including your own. Otherwise suffer the slings and arrows of disrespect silently.

Harvey Fierstein is an actor and playwright.

Imus Follow-Up

Media Matters, a non-profit progressive research and information center dedicated to monitoring and dispelling conservative misinformation in US media, came out with a really awesome timeline over the events leading up to NBC dropping him. Check it out and it's aptly titled "A Week in the Life of Imus in the Morning."

Excerpt:

In the wake of MSNBC's decision to drop its simulcast of the Imus in the Morning radio show, Media Matters for America has prepared the following timeline documenting events from Imus' slur of the Rutgers University women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos" on April 4 to MSNBC's announcement on April 11.

Wednesday, April 4

• On Imus in the Morning, host Don Imus referred to the Scarlet Knights, the Rutgers University women's basketball team -- which is made up of eight African-American and two white players -- as "nappy-headed hos" after executive producer Bernard McGuirk called the team "hard-core hos." Media Matters for America noted Imus' comments at the time.
• The New York Times later noted that "Imus's remarks were picked up ... by the Media Matters for America site," and Salon.com's Jonathan Miller similarly credited Media Matters for posting video of Imus' comments. In an article about MSNBC's decision to drop the show, the Los Angeles Times identified Media Matters as "the liberal media watchdog group that first spotlighted Imus' remark last week." USA Today also reported that Media Matters "originally called attention to Imus' remarks."

WHOA!

I knew the outpouring of support for the students and anger against Imus was tremendous, but I never thought I would see something like this!

NBC News Drops Imus Show Over Racial Remark

NBC News dropped Don Imus yesterday, canceling his talk show on its MSNBC cable news channel a week after he made a racially disparaging remark about the Rutgers University women’s basketball team.

I blinked several times just to make sure. CBS Radio is still maintaining their two week suspension, but this is really a major development. Come to think of it, I can't recall a major media personality losing his job in this manner (and thank goodness for that because if there were more I think I'd go nuts!). I'm not talking about Rush Limbaugh and his idiotic episode on ESPN awhile ago. He still has a job and he's still on the airwaves though on a limited degree. I'm talking about a clear cut, slam dunk, career-ending firing. I do remember ages ago about Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder losing his job as a television sports announcer for CBS in 1988 for saying racist remarks about the athletic ability of blacks as a product of selective breeding during slavery:

Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder is fired after 12 years as a CBS football analyst for remarks he makes to a Washington, D.C, television reporter about the physical abilities of black and white athletes. Among other things, Snyder, 70, says the black athlete is "bred to be the better athlete because, this goes all the way to the Civil War when ... the slave owner would breed his big woman so that he would have a big black kid." Snyder later apologizes for the comments but his career as a broadcaster is over.

NBC dropping Imus is an important political statement. That these kinds of remarks for radio and television will not be condoned, and more importantly, there will be real severe consequences. After all, if the average person uttering these remarks at the workplace will get fired, why not someone like Imus? There are professional standards of conduct that exist and there are limitations to what you can do.

So why am I still bothered by this? Something is troubling me and I can't exactly pinpoint it. I know I do consider this a powerful demonstration against this kind of patently offensive conduct. It was also an amazing national response against Imus, and it was a fairly diverse response even though all we see are Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. But there were whites, Latinos, Asians, women, parents, children, religious groups, and the like all speaking out against Imus. It was a broad and beautiful cross-section of America that came out. And I'm aware of the fact, and question, if the same thing would've happened if the players were not black, but white, or Latino, or Asian? It's a legitimate question, but it's not the one that's been bothering me.

And forget this nonsense about how this is a blow to free speech crap. It's beyond that now.

But something still does not sit well with me. It's that feeling I get when something that should be obvious to me but isn't. It's what cultural studies scholar, Stuart Hall, once described as "in plain view, but out of sight." And right now, I can't see it ... just yet.

"Trash Talk Radio" by Gwen Ifill

Just adding another excellent article about the verbal attack from "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" against the Rutgers women's basketball team. I like this piece, "Trash Talk Radio," from Gwen Ifill of the NY Times who tells it like it is. That the "cinderella story," one that can be shared by everyone especially from those who have been there, was defiled by a 60-year-old relic who's rants and raves are as anachronistic as they are patently insulting and offensive:

Let's say a word about the girls. The young women with the musical names. Kia and Epiphanny and Matee and Essence. Katie and Dee Dee and Rashidat and Myia and Brittany and Heather.

The Scarlet Knights of Rutgers University had an improbable season, dropping four of their first seven games, yet ending up in the N.C.A.A. women’s basketball championship game. None of them were seniors. Five were freshmen.

In the end, they were stopped only by Tennessee’s Lady Vols, who clinched their seventh national championship by ending Rutgers’ Cinderella run last week, 59-46. That’s the kind of story we love, right? A bunch of teenagers from Newark, Cincinnati, Brooklyn and, yes, Ogden, Utah, defying expectations. It’s what explodes so many March Madness office pools.

But not, apparently, for the girls. For all their grit, hard work and courage, the Rutgers girls got branded “nappy-headed ho’s” — a shockingly concise sexual and racial insult, tossed out in a volley of male camaraderie by a group of amused, middle-aged white men. The “joke” — as delivered and later recanted — by the radio and television personality Don Imus failed one big test: it was not funny. The serial apologies of Mr. Imus, who was suspended yesterday by both NBC News and CBS Radio for his remarks, have failed another test. The sincerity seems forced and suspect because he’s done some version of this several times before.

I know, because he apparently did it to me.

I was covering the White House for this newspaper in 1993, when Mr. Imus’s producer began calling to invite me on his radio program. I didn’t return his calls. I had my hands plenty full covering Bill Clinton.

Soon enough, the phone calls stopped. Then quizzical colleagues began asking me why Don Imus seemed to have a problem with me. I had no idea what they were talking about because I never listened to the program.

It was not until five years later, when Mr. Imus and I were both working under the NBC News umbrella — his show was being simulcast on MSNBC; I was a Capitol Hill correspondent for the network — that I discovered why people were asking those questions. It took Lars-Erik Nelson, a columnist for The New York Daily News, to finally explain what no one else had wanted to repeat.

“Isn’t The Times wonderful,” Mr. Nelson quoted Mr. Imus as saying on the radio. “It lets the cleaning lady cover the White House.”

I was taken aback but not outraged. I’d certainly been called worse and indeed jumped at the chance to use the old insult to explain to my NBC bosses why I did not want to appear on the Imus show.

I haven’t talked about this much. I’m a big girl. I have a platform. I have a voice. I’ve been working in journalism long enough that there is little danger that a radio D.J.’s juvenile slap will define or scar me. Yesterday, he began telling people he never actually called me a cleaning lady. Whatever. This is not about me.

It is about the Rutgers Scarlet Knights. That game had to be the biggest moment of their lives, and the outcome the biggest disappointment. They are not old enough, or established enough, to have built up the sort of carapace many women I know — black women in particular — develop to guard themselves against casual insult.

Why do my journalistic colleagues appear on Mr. Imus’s program? That’s for them to defend, and others to argue about. I certainly don’t know any black journalists who will. To his credit, Mr. Imus told the Rev. Al Sharpton yesterday he realizes that, this time, he went way too far.

Yes, he did. Every time a young black girl shyly approaches me for an autograph or writes or calls or stops me on the street to ask how she can become a journalist, I feel an enormous responsibility. It’s more than simply being a role model. I know I have to be a voice for them as well.

So here’s what this voice has to say for people who cannot grasp the notion of picking on people their own size: This country will only flourish once we consistently learn to applaud and encourage the young people who have to work harder just to achieve balance on the unequal playing field.

Let’s see if we can manage to build them up and reward them, rather than opting for the cheapest, easiest, most despicable shots.

Gwen Ifill is a senior correspondent for “The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer” and the moderator of “Washington Week.”

Is He Gone Yet?

So while reading the news today I was overcome with dozens of posts and articles regarding radio newstalk host, Imus, and his obviously imbecilic and shallow characterization of the Rutgers Women's basketball team. Talk about serious trouble now that he's been suspended for two weeks, Al Sharpton is on his case, and the usual corporate pinch of withdrawing sponsorship of his show. Since then, he's apologized for his remarks ... profusely ... to the point that every other statement is an apology. It's as Eugene Robinson says in his op-ed piece from The Washington Post: "Imus is in full self-flagellation mode."

Self-flagellation: (noun) 1. The act of severely criticizing oneself. 2. The act of punishing oneself. 3. A form of punishment by a whip, strap, or rope.


Well, not fully. I haven't seen the whips, straps, or ropes yet. But I'm counting on something grander like his resignation or cancellation of his show. Of late, and thanks to internet sites like YouTube, no one can ever get away with uttering derogatory and offensive statements without being punished: Kenneth Eng's anti-black editorial, Tim Hardaway's anti-gay comment, Michael Richards' "n-word" outburst, and so on. No one can ever get away or claim a defense when the proof of their words is broadcast throughout cyberspace, and it's literally there in perpetuity for others to see. Because of the internet, no one will ever forget what happened. What also makes Imus's comments so out of line is that his target was the Rutgers women's basketball team. That seems to be a "disproportionate attack" (if such a thing exists) because they are simply students, playing on a title contending team, and representing their university on the national stage. You don't put students down or ridicule them for failure when they have been the most responsible and dedicated role models. You can tear apart students when they act stupidly by their own initiative. But when a nationally syndicated talk show host throws the first punch without provocation, then that is simply tasteless. I can also see how an event like this will bring the campus community like Rutgers closer together. I just wish it was under different circumstances than this.

Some articles of interest regarding the controversy. It's funny how "... in the morning" seems to be a popular title phrase for the articles:

SFGate.com: Editorial, "Aiming at Imus"I do agree in a sense about how this will simply blow over. But I'm reminded of Rush Limbaugh's explosive "social engineering" comment on ESPN regarding Donovan McNabb's performance for the Eagles. He was ousted rather quickly. I will point out though that it also depends who's being picked on and ridiculed. I still think it's easier to get away with anti-Asian, anti-Latino, and anti-gay commentary than anti-black. That's evidenced with the number of tv and radio personalities like Ann Coulter, for instance, with her lurid use of anti-gay epithets to describe Democratic politicians.

The only thing sorrier than this all-too-frequent cycle of public offense and recovery is the fact that Imus, who shouldn't be talking about anyone else's hair, won't really suffer for his foul mouth. His show is too popular with the right people -- namely highbrow-ish journalists and politicians, who wouldn't be able to expound at length about their wonkish positions to a mass audience in any other way -- for him to stay in trouble. This is rotten, because if he were a politician, he'd be out of a job. The best statement Imus' guests could make would be to avoid him.

Washington Post: Eugene Robinson, "Misogyny in the Morning"
I like Robinson's take on this issue and focusing on gender and race, which everyone seems to subtly acknowledge the gendered politics, but this piece is the first that I've read that makes it explicit. I also like how he analyzes Imus' show as trying to cater to low brow and high brow interests.

If anything, Imus is more substantive and less offensive than many of his competitors. In a sense, that's one reason for his current predicament. Prominent politicians and other notables regularly call in to his show, and sometimes actual news is made -- which brings him greater scrutiny. You can be a shock jock or you can be a respected interviewer, but you can't be both.

Matthew Yglesias: blogger, "Racism in the Morning"
I came across this blog awhile ago and there's some pretty good discussions. In this case, it's the usual example of fight hate speech with more speech which is plainly non-sensical to me.

298 ... 299 ...

300! Yes I saw 300 over the weekend. It was the most visually spectacular, and gripping story of two nations battling each other over ...

... their sexual identities.

And you thought the movie was an accurate representation of the Spartan last stand at Thermopylae? Yeah right! I don't think so. That movie was full of homoerotic discourses. I believe the men of Sparta represent the classic gay community mostly of "white" men with hard abs and chiseled bodies who wear nothing more than a thong to battle. That's 300 Spartans for a grand total of 1800 six pack abs for everyone's visual indulgence. As for Persia, they are the most multicultural of all with not only Persians, but people who look like Chinese, Africans, South Asians, and Mongolians to name a few. They also include livestock with rhinos and pale ape-looking things, as well as non-traditional humanoids, such as goblins, trolls, and ogres (well, to me anyway).

Did I mention the ninjas as well? Anywho ...

All are lead by Xerxes who seems to be an avid member of the S&M/Dominatrix community. Thus, the white gay men of Sparts versus the multicult/S&M/Dominatrix crowd of Persia. Anyways, I thought it was a great movie about happens when sexual diplomacy is abandoned and we have all out sexual war. And if I had a chance, I think I'd live in Persia. Judging from the diversity I saw, I think it'll be a cool place to live, and plus they seem to know how to party.

Here's two spoofs about 300 for your enjoyment. The first is a spoof about 300 as a PG-rated film.

Here's one with some voice-overs to change the dialogue a bit:

Just When I Thought It Was Safe ...

... along comes this freak. I've been trying to avoid mentioning "he-who-really-must-not-be-named" as much as I could, but to no avail. "He" was on FOXNews awhile ago. "He" wrote an op-ed piece in AsianWeek, based in San Francisco, about why "he" hated African Americans. It's a vile piece of reading, and apparently, "he" also hates whites, but loves dragons with guns (don't ask me). Naturally, the community of SF was up in arms over what "he" wrote. But the controversy also caught the ears of FOXNews and of course aired "his" side of the story. And this interview just confirmed how much of a moron, and mental nutcase, "he" really is. Enjoy ... or not.

*raises fist at Kenneth Eng*

Huh? Wha'?

Yes it's been much too long since I've last posted here. That's actually a good thing because I've been productive and writing my chapter and reading more law reviews on Virginia v. Black. At least, I'm trying to fit that in whenever I can on top of teaching classes.

I've been following Tim Hardaway's anti-gay comments and the subsequent outcry which resulted in his banishment from the All-Star weekend in Las Vegas. One in particular, has Charles Barkley not only admonishing Hardaway's comment, but stating that he should've known better. That as an African American and a black man, the history of discrimination, negative stereotypes, and violence should've taught him better than to say something so ignorant and incendiary.

[UPDATE: Yet another video removed for TOS violations.]

I was watching it and to my surprise Barkley seemed like the elder statesman. Well, rough around the edges, but he got the gist of it. Anyways, I came across this clip and consider it as a "different" to the usual public condemnation and subsequent "apology" by Hardaway. It stars George Takei, first shown on the Jimmy Kimmel Show, and I love the fact that it throws the stereotypes back at Hardaway. I think it works quite well.

[UPDATE: Damn this was a good video clip too.]

Ethnic Cleansing in LA? "Little Asian on the Hill?"

Posting an awesome analysis by Oliver, a colleague/friend of mine at Poplicks, about a recent op-ed piece in the LA Times about black/latino race relations. The article, Roots of Latino/Black Anger, was written by Tanya K. Hernandez and it's generated a bit of discussion. Not because of what she raises as an important complex and much needed address on minority-minority relations and conflicts, but how she presents the material. Oliver's critique is right on the mark. There's also an accompanying piece in the New York Times about Asian Americans and higher education focusing on UC Berkeley by Timothy Egan called, Little Asia on the Hill -- I guess it's a derivation of "Harvard on the Hill" when someone goes to a not so great college. Oliver's response raises some insightful points about educational policies like affirmative action and its relationship on Asian American students. It's a damn good read not because he's a sociologist, but because he's an alum of UC Berkeley. It's a really interesting perspective of then when he was an undergraduate, to now at CSU Long Beach as a professor in sociology.

WTF Rosie?!? Follow-Up

So Rosie O'Donnell finally apologized after a week of what appeared to be some intense pressure from her "ching chong" episode. It was the lamest apology which was obviously done on the spot as she was fumbling over words to describe "Asian people." It sounded more defensive than an apology. But the kicker was when one of the co-stars noticed TWO ASIANS in the crowd. Rosie then asked whether the "ching chong" bit offended them, and they said it did not. It's so damn predictable to turn to a "legitimate source" (i.e., Asians) to demonstrate that the slur wasn't all that bad. That is not the point. The point is that she and others on the cast should've known better not to do it. If you're not going to use homophobic slurs on air, then you better not use any others. But props to The Soup for catching and turning it on it's head. Now that was funny.

Her apology:

[UPDATE: Apparently the clip is not available from YouTube anymore.]

And The Soup's version of it:

WTF Rosie?!?

Just because you are a "liberal" and/or identify with a minority that doesn't excuse you from being an intolerant/racist git towards another. That is hypocrisy plain and simple. And by the way, thanks Rosie for reinscribing a denigrating stereotype on national television. As if we needed your help in maintaing racial prejudice.

Here's the original clip and a pretty decent response:

Sentence: Life in Prison

In my research, I come across numerous cases of hate violence from the physically violent to the emotionally traumatic. But I paid particular attention to this case from last year because of the sheer brutality of the attack. As prosecutor, Mike Trent, said, "this was torture." The perpetrator, who is one seriously screwed up kid, had, among other things, a history of violent behavior in particularly towards Latinos, fascination with Skinheads and neo-Nazis, fantasizes about necrophilia, and hears voices in his head. All of which provided the jury enough reason to sentence him to life in prison.

But what moved me, and it seems so rare in these cases, is how both mothers, both families, embraced and mourned together with the perpetrator's mother apologizing repeatedly for the actions of her son.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4344623.html

Has Asian Masculinity Arrived? And to Where Exactly?

Well yes and no. It's a whole lot better than what it was when I was younger -- geeky, dorky, nerdy. Really depressing stuff. But today, we have images and celebrities like Yul Kwon from this season's Survivor, Daniel Dae Kim from Lost, John Cho from Harold and Kumar, and Masi Oka, the sex appeal of dorkiness, in Heroes. And they've made it in the sense that they are ranked in People's Annual Sexiest Man Alive. In case you're wondering, George Clooney topped the savory list of mouth drooling masculinity and I most definitely agree with that result.

At the same time, however, I can't help but notice how the polls are also revealing about the details. One of the polls asks "Which Lost star do you want to share a deserted isle with?" Leading the pack is Matthew Fox (47%) and Josh Holloway (44%). Daniel Dae Kim? He's at 2% and Naveen Andrews at 5%. But Harold Perrineau rounded out the bottom at 1%. I have to keep in mind that the low numbers could be about how their characters were developed in the story and I am not a Lost fan so I'm not familiar with the narrative too well. But to contrast that point, we can turn to the Heroes poll, which does look a bit more promising than the Lost crew. Milo Ventimiglia (30%), Santiago Cabrera (27%), and Adrian Pasdar (23%) lead the index of desirability, while Sendhil Ramamurthy received 18%, but Masi Oka ended up with 2%. Hmmm ... what gives?

It's refreshing, and reassuring, to see a whole new generation of Asian American men defining, and whether they know it or not, challenging preconceived notions about stereotypical representations of Asian masculinity. However, I can't help but notice the near bottom rankings of these men. It confirms for me, yet again, that our sense of desire and fantasy are racially organized. I am not surprised at this outcome but I am not discouraged. I think these polls also reveal how much further Asian American masculinity can go. There's nowhere else to go but up and that's something I can look forward to.

WTF?

So apparently Michael Richards, the dude who played Kramer from Seinfeld, went on a venemous racist rampage Friday night when he performed at The Laugh Factory in Los Angeles. And don't give me this "he completely lost it" crap because he knew exactly what he was doing on stage. It started when Richards was heckled by an African American and several of his friends. That's the usual thing in comedy clubs as a form of linguistic sparring. Comedians are known to push the boundaries because that's the nature of the game, but Richards clearly escalated the situation when he dropped the nuclear bomb of all racial epithets. Whenever "the word" is used and you are not African American, then be prepared for some serious repercussions against you. It's completely offensive to African Americans, and to everyone's sensibilities. It's a word that no one else can use except African Americans, and even then it's quite limited.

WARNING: Do not watch if you're easily offended.

CNN follow up:

Thinking about 2008, Part II

I got the funniest cartoon from a student after we discussed about the possibility of Hilary Clinton and Condoleeza Rice running for President. The jabs at each other are priceless. :D

http://i.euniverse.com/funpages/cms_content/13180/HillaryCondi_HoDown.swf