Today’s Shame Day has a multitude of facets, the first and largest of being that Donald Sterling is a straight-up racist.
To begin with we have the very recent news of TMZ’s recording [since authenticated by his lawyer] of the LA Clippers’ owner talking to his half-Black half-Mexican girlfriend and telling her the following:
– “It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you’re associating with black people. Do you have to?” (3:30)
– “You can sleep with [black people]. You can bring them in, you can do whatever you want. The little I ask you is not to promote it on that … and not to bring them to my games.” (5:15)
– “I’m just saying, in your lousy f******* Instagrams, you don’t have to have yourself with, walking with black people.” (7:45)
– “…Don’t put him [Magic] on an Instagram for the world to have to see so they have to call me. And don’t bring him to my games.” (9:13)
To begin with, I’m not the most unbiased person to be writing about this. “Sk8ter Boi” came out when I was attending a Canadian public school for the first time, and it had a fairly indelible effect on me. My being a fan of Avril Lavigne extended out into high school, and I can still remembering a friend getting me Let Go for my fourteenth birthday. As far as I’m concerned, some of her stuff continues to hold up.
Like most people I liked Under My Skin a fair amount, but wasn’t a huge fan of The Best Damn Thing. Watching the punk-pop star cavort around to the infectious beat felt wrong, like this was some sort of betrayal of who she started as. Of course, people change, and I eventually came around to tracks like “Hot” and “What the Hell”.
Years passed, and eventually she fell off my radar. I noted when she and Deryck Whibley of Sum 41 got a divorce and gawked at her marriage to the widely reviled Chad Kroeger of Nickelback. They recorded a song together and I thought not much of it.
Then I woke up one morning and signed online to a barrage of accusations leveled against her with “racist!” being the common denominator among them. Being fairly invested in this entire thing [as a lapsed Avril Lavigne fan and a person in staunch opposition to racism in any form] I of course had to check out the “Hello Kitty” music video post-haste. I do want to inform you all that I’ve had to watch it several times for the writing of this post and have not enjoyed it once.
We deal with a lot of complicated issues here at Culture War Reporters, with subjects ranging from war to feminism to internet shows about gigantic hamburgers. Every once in a while, it’s nice to return to cover a simple and straightforward subject.
The sky is blue.
Birds go chirp.
Michelle Malkin is an evil, evil person.
I mean seriously. We’re talking about a woman who has written a book defending- I kid you not- the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII.
Two nights ago I posted an article to our Facebook page that listed tweets in response to some sort of White Man March. My first reaction upon coming across it for the first time, as I think most most people’s would be, was not so much what is this as why is this. My second was to ascertain that the tweets were in fact funny so that I could share them on social media and use them as a hook to create discussion [which they did not, but what are you going to do].
In coming up with today’s Shame Day post the march came to mind, but it dawned on me that I knew literally nothing about it besides the fact that the internet thought it was ridiculous.
I did what I consider to be the bare amount of research possible and determined that, yes, the White Man March is indeed worthy of its own Shame Day post. Continue reading →
It’s one of the few holidays we get in the US, and seeing as how the nation’s executive office is as much a part of our cultural identity as it is part of our politics, it’d be remiss if we didn’t cover the topic. Below are some of the most interesting topics about the men who’ve lived in the oval office and how they’re affecting culture even to this day.
George Washington
The Image: Heroic freedom-fighter who bled liberty and could speak to bald eagles.
The Reality: Slave-owner, who was apparently abusive enough that many of his slaves tried to escape to freedom. Also a pretty bad general, in the greater scope of things, having lost the majority of battles in his military career.
The Implications: The idea that our founding fathers were somehow demigods of democracy and equality is shoved down our throats at most every opportunity, and as a result we’ve got a culture that constantly asks “What would the founders have wanted?” whenever any big social debate breaks out. Rather than deal with the problem as-is, both sides of the aisle try to appeal to the interpretations of men who owned slaves. For all the good they did do, I’m not sure I’m going to care too much for their opinion on property rights (or immigration, seeing as how they were huge racists). Continue reading →
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.”