June 8, 2013 • 3,534 notes • alienswithankhs

Six years ago, I had a deal with Lifetime Television to develop my bestselling novel, The Dirty Girls Social Club, as a TV series. It soon became clear that the relationship wasn’t going to work, when two executives insisted that my pilot outline “wasn’t Latin enough,” because it told of middle class, educated American women who happened to be Latina.

“This reads as if it were about me and my friends,” complained one executive in disgust.

I didn’t know how to respond, so I asked her what she’d prefer.
“Why don’t we make the girls debating whether or not to date men in prison? I know that’s what Latinas talk about, just like it’s what black women talk about.”

Opinion: The problem with “Devious Maids” goes far beyond Hollywood

people always want to talk shit about us when we complain about f—-d up representation…but these are the conversations happening in board rooms….

(via alienswithankhs)

(via aragingquiet)

May 30, 2013 • 20,236 notes •

Cheerios Ad Starring Interracial Family Predictably Summons Bigot Wave

A nice Cheerios advertisement whose only discernible difference from other Cheerios commercials is that it depicts an interracial family was forced to disable its YouTube comments section today after it became inundated with virulent racism.

Despite the hate, Camille Gibson, vice president of marketing for Cheerios, told us in a statement, “Consumers have responded positively to our new Cheerios ad. At Cheerios, we know there are many kinds of families and we celebrate them all.”

Read more at Gawker

May 7, 2013 • 14,563 notes • divorcedreality

takealookatyourlife:

★ Who is your favourite villain?

Whoa.

[Additional context: It is unclear if Cho is referring to the character or Montalban. Montalban was a Mexican American actor of Spanish descent who was often cast to play characters of color by Hollywood; as Charlie Jane Anders points out, when he was working in Hollywood he felt he experienced racism and as a result founded an organization to support Latino actors. The character of Khan was South Asian and a character of color.]

(via euglassia--watsonia)

April 29, 2013 • 15,776 notes • brofiling

brofiling:

white privilege radically changes the appearance of Tsarnaev bros

This is how brofiling actually works in real life. The Week Magazine ran with this image as their cover sketch.

Just so it is said, clearly and unambiguously: the Tsarnaev brothers are white guys. They are white. The FBI’s own wanted poster for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev lists his race as “white”, but you would never know it from the cover image on The Week.

Hold up the cover to someone else, and ask them how many white people they can see on the cover. Chances are they will identify Gabby Giffords on the top left and the image of the Boston policemen (all white men) on the top right, but how about those two guys in the center? Nope, not a chance that anyone would say these caricatures look white.

Why? Because in addition to being white they are also “Muslim”, which is the current dehumanizing “Other” that whiteness has constructed as a sanctioned target for violence in US popular culture.

This is how white privilege works in media representations and everyday life: when the criminal suspects are demonstrably white men, seize upon any aspect of difference and magnify it such that they become Othered, non-white, and menacing. If it is too hard to do so, simply dismiss them as aberrations and isolated cases of insanity. This is also how white culture, specifically the process of whiteness in conjunction with white privilege, portrays several non-white identities, including those that are now considered white but at one time were decidedly not so. For example, see here for how the Irish were depicted as violent apes or lazy drunks in the late 1800s to early 1900s.

Addendum, posted 4.29.13:

As Tim Wise said on April 18, there are consequences for these kinds of things. Here are a few reasons why this is important:

Making white criminals who are Muslim appear to be more ‘brown’ than ‘white’ has serious consequences for brown people. Indeed, as we saw right after the Boston bombings, people that simply “looked” brown and Muslim were profiled and assaulted. Two men were escorted off a plane in Boston simply for speaking Arabic and thereby somehow making passengers “uncomfortable”. A Bangladeshi man in NYC was beaten up because he looked ‘Arab’. And this affects women too: a Muslim woman doctor in Boston who wears a headscarf was attacked by a man while she was out walking with her baby. And the white Muslim wife of the older brother has been demonized for simply being a Muslim American woman, especially after Ann Coulter called for women who wear hijabs to be arrested.

People have pointed out to me that The Week Magazine’s cover images are regularly caricatures/sketches of the main events of that week’s news. I know this—I read their print edition every week, and all their previous cover images are available online. But there are two main problems with this argument: (a) why caricature them in a way that makes them so explicitly ‘darker’ and ‘Arabized’ in their appearance? Contrast the way they look on that page with the other white faces on that same page—would anyone say that these men look ‘white’? So why is the caricature done in such a ‘racializing’ way (as if ‘white’ bodies have no race, but that’s point #3 below)? How is this any different from the more overt media racism that was used by Time Magazine (h/t @sarahkendzior), for example, to make OJ Simpson appear way more menacing? And (b) if The Week is simply trying to put a caricature of criminals who committed mass violence on their cover, then here are the covers for the weeks when Newtown happened, when Aurora happened, and when Tucson happened — where were their ‘racialized’ caricatures of Adam Lanza, James Holmes, and Jared Loughner? How come the ideologies and ethnicities and religions of those particular mass criminals were not profiled?

And so here is the more subtle consequence: when white criminals are treated as if they are just aberrations, and when white criminals who are Muslim are portrayed as more brown than white not just by The Week but by mainstream propaganda outlets like Fox News, then the problems of white supremacist violence and extremism become hidden, unaddressed. Indeed, as reports have shown, of the terror attacks/plots since 1995 in America, 56% of them were by right-wing extremists and only 12% by Islamist/jihadist groups — and yet the DHS was told to back off reporting on that or on analyzing right-wing violence for fears of backlash from conservative political groups.

So, my main point is that such a willful blindness hurts all people.

April 28, 2013 • 43 notes

Q

Also, Disney has pose guides for what poses the designers can draw the princesses in, and, I forget the actual number, but Cinderella and the other white princesses had about an average of 40, while Tiana had more like, 5

nothisdate

A

That would explain why the non-white princesses are always in the same poses!

March 13, 2013 • 3,668 notes • sumney

In case you missed it, there's a movie being made in which white liberals go to South America to "protest," only to end up getting kidnapped and eaten by a tribe of Brown savage cannibals.

sumney:

In 2013. Directed by Eli Roth, who said:

“So I wrote about these student activists who want to save these un-contacted tribes in the Amazon… They chain themselves to trees and protest and stream it and hash-tag, and it works… Then on their way home, their plane crashes. And the very people they save are like ‘Ah, food – that’s great!’ It’s like a free lunch, and they are brought back into the fold of absolutely barbaric, primitive man. People that have had no contact with the outside world.

“So when we shot it, I wanted to film somewhere that was really, really, really in the Amazon. Really, authentically off the grid. We scouted in the summer-time and went up the river for hours and hours and found this village where there was no electricity, no running water, grass huts. Ten people in a shack. And it looked incredible; it looked like a village from another time, so we asked if we could film there. But I was told that we have to tell them what a movie is because they have no idea. They’ve never seen one. They’ve never even seen a television. So they went back with a television and a generator and showed the village Cannibal Holocaust, which I couldn’t believe. And the villagers – thank god – thought it was a comedy. The funniest thing that they’d ever seen. And they wanted to play cannibals in the movie. So we had the entire village acting in the film. And they speak Quechua – which is like another language from another time.”

I don’t have much commentary, but I want you to pay close attention to the coded language he uses. You might think “this is inappropriate” or “this is rude” or “this is racially insensitive,” but let’s not beat around the bush. This is what white supremacy looks like in 2013 — the idea that a group of people not living by Western standards are automatically “primitive savages.”

The mere fact that he was taken in by an indigenous village, unharmed, and decided to turn around and portray the people who opened their home to him as cannibalistic savages is a disturbing effort to create colonial propaganda. The fact that he listened to a current language spoken by an existing people and called it “another language from another time” proves that he doesn’t view them as real, equal human beings, but as a concept to be exploited for a cheap film.

I’m done.

March 10, 2013 • 298 notes • schoolmeetlife

The promise of America is that those who play by the rules, who observe the norms of the “middle class,” will be treated as such. But this injunction is only half-enforced when it comes to black people, in large part because we [Black people] were never meant to be part of the American story. Forest Whitaker fits that bill, and he was addressed as such.

I am trying to imagine a white president forced to show his papers at a national news conference, and coming up blank. I am trying to a imagine a prominent white Harvard professor arrested for breaking into his own home, and coming up with nothing. I am trying to see Sean Penn or Nicolas Cage being frisked at an upscale deli, and I find myself laughing in the dark. It is worth considering the messaging here. It says to black kids: “Don’t leave home. They don’t want you around.” It is messaging propagated by moral people.

Ta-Nehisi Coates’s NYTimes Op-Ed “The Good, Racist People” reflecting on how Oscar-winner Forest Whitaker was stopped and frisked in a Manhattan deli.

Read the whole thing.

(via schoolmeetlife)

February 3, 2013 • 69 notes

“Being an Ally”

The following is taken from some slides presented at an educational workshop held at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs called “Overview and Myths of Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking and survivorship.” It was helpful to conceptualize and I think can be applied to a number of other scenarios and movements.

BEING AN ALLY

What is an ally? To be an ally is to unite oneself with another to promote a common interest. People who are allies are not only helpers, but also have a common interest with those who have different identities. In an alliance, both parties stand to benefit from the bond or connection they share.

“Master Status” is the idea that one part of a person’s identity (being a woman, a survivor, a person of color, etc.) defines and explains everything about that person. It doesn’t. Acknowledge the complexity of survivors and take our cues from the individual themselves.

Know and Tell Why If you need to ask something that seems invasive or insensitive, acknowledge this and explain why it’s necessary information to obtain. This is not a way to educate yourself about “those people” or to satisfy your curiosity. Do your homework; take your curiosity elsewhere.

Action. Survivors need to be central to any awareness/prevention effort.

If a survivor can’t stay through an event or participate fully in the action you are making (usually on their behalf)… then there’s a problem.

Non-survivor allies sometimes create well-intentioned prevention efforts that totally miss the mark by objectifying survivor’s experiences. (eg. super graphic accounts of oppression with hardly any focus on prevention.)

Overlooking survivors altogether (in other words, focusing solely on perpetrators, which sometimes leads to over-sympathizing with their “plight.”)

Keeping survivors centered in our efforts helps us stay on track.

January 16, 2013 • 11 notes

That ad campaign

There is an ad campaign on tumblr in the “racebending” tag advertising an app. It is posting a series of racist ads and claiming to “recracify” and “anti-racist” the ads through photo filters.

(Not linking by name because I don’t want to give them any extra publicity. It is actually relieving to see they have no reblogs.)

At the same time, all I can see is racist ad after racist ad, advertisements that use racism to advertise for profit, every time I open the “racebending” tag. Scrolling past these images.

And it frustrates me, because no, a cell phone app cannot “fix” or “deracify” or “anti-racist” or otherwise undo a racist ad (or act, for that matter.)

But the company that makes that app can propagate those racist ads as part of their advertisement campaign. They can even do it in the noble-sounding but misguided name of somehow redeeming those ads, or saving us from those ads by deactivating the racism in them.

Yet, all I see is another advertisement campaign that is using racism (in this case, outcry against racism) to try and profit.

-M

January 13, 2013 • 141 notes • fuckelle

fuckelle:

‘Why does this show have nobody representing minorities’

‘Ugh, why is this white person writing for minorities. They don’t know the struggle we go through’

Bloody help, make up your fucking mind!?

Why are people of color expected/given/repeatedly told they only have two options (and that they should be grateful for them)?

Why are these two options essentially: “Be represented poorly or don’t be represented at all! (And stop complaining you are never pleased!!!)

Maybe people of color aren’t pleased because the vast majority of the time, people who are white are both represented frequently and represented well.

Why stop at white writers writing characters of color? Why can’t people also want writers of color to write characters of color (and also white characters)?

(Granted this is coming from someone who calls PoC who are upset about lack of media representation: “bloody help.”Help. )

December 11, 2012 • 109 notes

Questions to be used for racial identity exploration

How do I deﬁne myself racially?

When did I ﬁrst become aware of race/skin color in general, and mine in particular?

What messages did I learn about race?

What direct and indirect messages did I receive about race/skin color from my family and friends throughout my childhood? Adulthood?

How did the messages that I received about race/skin color affect how I thought and felt about myself racially? Others?

What beneﬁts did I gain because of my race/skin color?

What did I lose because of my race/skin color?

Have I ever dated cross-racially? Why or why not?

How many friends of a different race do I have?

An integral component of developing racial awareness and sensitivity involves undergoing an in-depth exploration of one’s own racial identity. Before one can fully appreciate how race shapes reality, it is necessary to understand one’s self as a racial being.

This can be a challenging and at times painful process. However, confronting what it means to be ‘‘this’’ or ‘‘that’’ provides the most intimate and concrete example of the ways in which race shapes reality…

…The process of racial self-exploration is essential to achieving racial sensitivity in particular. Most often, the greatest barrier to racial sensitivity stems from a deep sense of anxiety that individuals possess about themselves as racial beings.

For example, white people often are uncomfortable talking about race and racism in mixed-race company because they fear they will say something racist. Many whites say they ‘‘fear the reactions of black people.’’ However, whites only fear this possibility to the extent to which they unconsciously fear the parts of themselves that are racist. Individuals who understand and are resolved about their racial identity, are comfortable discussing race and racism because they do not live in fear of discovering and/or exposing parts of themselves which they or others would ﬁnd objectionable.

Excerpt from ”Uncommon Strategies for a Common Problem: Addressing Racism in Family Therapy” (2000) in Family Process Vol 39:1 by Laszloffy and Hardy.

December 5, 2012 • 301 notes • nbclatino

Penn State sorority apologizes for having offensive Mexican-themed party

invisiblelad:

theonetaylordetroye:

invisiblelad:

nbclatino:

A sorority having a Mexican-themed party seems harmless. But a Penn State sorority party photo surfaced Monday showing a group of girls wearing sombreros, ponchos and fake moustaches and holding signs saying “will mow lawn for weed” and “I don’t cut grass, I smoke it,” reports the Onward State.

Read More

You stay classy.

some of the comments on this article i swear

“We suffer more racism than any of you, not to mention we have no one to defend us”. I’d feel worse about anyone who genuinely felt that way, but there’s something fascinating about a social structure that protects those of the dominant culture while at the same time making those with less social power expecting humane treatment seem like “barbarians” at the gate.

Seriously side-eyeing NBCLatino’s lede, too.

November 28, 2012 • 178 notes • theboyprincessdiaries

The biggest challenge in teaching about racism is to hold double vision. On the one hand, to continually point out that the seemingly real, obvious and biological foundations of racial categories are completely fabricated, constantly shifting and, in spite of their widespread acceptance, not obviously at all. On the other, to explicitly map, over and over again, the devastating injuries brought about by racism, and expose the ways that ideas of race are used to justify gross economic and social inequities. It’s a tightrope walk requiring dexterity in handling contradiction. To expose the notion of biological race as fraudulent, to look at the actual genetics of human diversity and see that there is no such thing as race, no human subspecies, without allowing any quarter to the liberal pretensions of color blindness, to the literal whitewashing of real differences in culture, experience, power, resources. To demolish the idea of fundamental biological difference and refuse to let anyone get away with “we’re all human beings,” meaning “we’re all like me.

Aurora Levins Morales, Medicine Stories: History, Culture and the Politics of Integrity (via boyprincessdiaries)

November 24, 2012 • 183 notes • hollywoodreporter.com

The Hollywood Reporter’s Actress Roundtable interview brings together seven amazing stars, and they talk about issues that affect actresses in Hollywood like sexism and ageism. At the same time, a vital perspective is being glaringly left out, and that is the inclusion of actresses of color.

It’s hard to believe that it’s 2012, and women of color are still not being included at the table.

November 19, 2012 • 204 notes • damnlayoffthebleach

damnlayoffthebleach:

Oppressed groups are frequently placed in the situation of being listened to only if we frame our ideas in the language that is familiar to and comfortable for a dominant group. This requirement often changes the meaning of our ideas and works to elevate the ideas of the dominant groups.

OPPRESSED GROUPS ARE FREQUENTLY PLACED IN THE SITUATION OF BEING LISTENED TO ONLY IF WE FRAME OUR IDEAS IN THE LANGUAGE THAT IS FAMILIAR TO AND COMFORTABLE FOR A DOMINANT GROUP. THIS REQUIREMENT OFTEN CHANGES THE MEANING OF OUR IDEAS AND WORKS TO ELEVATE THE IDEAS OF THE DOMINANT GROUPS.

— Patricia Hill Collins