Category Archives: race

Shame Day: Beyonce, Macklemore and the Grammy Backlash

Apparently I should really start watching the Grammys, primarily because they are THE place to find shameful behavior, or at least that’s what I’ve been hearing from the variety of subcultures that I belong to and/or gather interesting information/perspectives from. So for today I will be shaming three different aspects of the Grammy Awards show:

Beyonce and Jay-Z’s “Drunk in Love” Performance

I’ve been reading various blogs and articles on Beyonce’s since she released her visual album as a big surprise to fans. In news that was a little less surprising, it was an instant best seller.


All over the internet, however, feminists were having a heyday trying to figure out if they could really consider Beyonce a feminist. Continue reading

Fame Day: New Girl, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and Diversity

I really like watching TV, you guys [and girls]. To be more specific, sitcoms in particular are my absolute jam. Their format is one that garners fanbases as rabid as Breaking Bad [okay, maybe not that intense], and just because a piece of art’s main purpose is to make us laugh doesn’t mean that it can’t have just as much of an impact as more humorless fare.

In all seriousness, though, I’m going to be writing about racial representation and how New Girl and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, two of my favourite sitcoms, are doing great things in that regard. Continue reading

An Asian Man’s Reaction to AMWW Magazine

amwwmag

I want to write an entire separate post about this logo, which goes against everything I learned in Graphic Design.

To start with, AMWW Magazine is a website, not an actual print publication. The letters in its title stand for “Asian Man White Woman” which makes it sound like it’s a place to find niche pornography; I assure you that it is not. Under its About section the writers describe the work they do as:

“…a resource for both men and women in order to learn how to connect and hopefully meet their romantic, cross-cultural partner. Whether it’s for a brief, passionate and illicit one time liaison to a lifelong romance that smolders well into the twilight of your life, our interracial dating advice blog aims to give both men and women practical and solid information from both sides of the gender lines on how to improve your dating, sex, and love life.”

Now I found AMWW while being linked from race site to race site, probably starting with the racebending tumblr, but when I found it I wasn’t quite sure how to react. After showing it around to friends online and reading through a good number of the articles myself, I arrived at the very vague conclusion that it made me uncomfortable.

Writing this post is a way for me to explore that feeling. Continue reading

Shame Day: Megyn Kelly

If you’ve been sheltered from much of the world’s madness, you’ve probably been fortunate enough to avoid a Megyn Kelly, FOX News’ latest production in their attempt to create the perfect Aryan newscaster.

Seriously, it’s like a “Where Are They Now?” slideshow of the Hitlerjurgend…

For the most part, Kelly has been comparatively benign. Don’t get me wrong, she’s every much a part of the entertainment-news vomit-cycle as anyone else, but Kelly’s always been more or less decent about keeping an even keel (as much as you can at FOX) and she’s certainly hasn’t demonstrated the straight-up malice of pundits like Beck or Coulter.

At least, she didn’t used to… Continue reading

Arizona’s Attack on Mexican-American Studies

It occurs to me that it’s been too long since we actually had an actual “report” here, rather than rabid opinion piece. To that end, we’re going to be examining the state of Arizona’s recent assault on its Mexican-American ethnic studies programs. This story isn’t the freshest (or a full-on report; baby steps, people), but with relatively new developments, and how little attention the story was given in general, it’s worth reviewing.

In spring of 2010, Arizona decided to ban ethnic studies classes in its public schools for grades K-12 (HB [House Bill] 2281). Of course, by “ethnic studies”, the state of Arizona meant “Mexican-American/Chicano” studies, and as Tuscon school board member Michael Hicks clarified:

“Honestly, this law won’t be applied to any other of our [ethnic studies] courses. It was strictly written for one course, which is the Mexican-American studies program.”

-Interview with The Daily Show’s Al Madrigal, 04/02/12 Continue reading

I’m Not Sad About Nelson Mandela Dying

Death, or the thought of death, has been on my mind as of late. Seriously, though, we’ve had two posts in just as many weeks on the demise of a cartoon character, and before that a CWC discussing funerals which was brought on by the passing of Gordon’s grandfather. There was also actor Paul Walker’s fatal car accident two weeks ago.

Which is why, in a way, the following status on Facebook yesterday didn’t really shock me:

statusda

There’s going to be a lot of Facebook in this post; you have been warned.

In part it’s because the fact that people do die has kind of been on my mind, but also because the last time I heard anything about Nelson Mandela he was in the hospital for lung problems. Naturally I was concerned about him and probably even prayed for the guy, but honestly no more than I put in a good word with the Lord for the homeless Chinese woman I saw begging yesterday [I had no change to give her, before you jump to the conclusion that I’m a prayer-over-action kind of person]. Continue reading