Links for 9-7-06

Devon Carbardo has written a post at BlackProf about racial profiling in dating/marriage ads. It's entitled Race and Desire

There's another article in Blackprof regarding racial stereotypes and academic achievement, Stereotypes and the Achievement Gap. This article appears around the same time news reports keep telling us that there's a real gap between Whites and People of Color with regards to internet access. In my hometown of Dayton, Ohio, city leaders are doing their best in making sure that internet access is available to all. I give Dayton Public Schools and the Dayton Metro Library System my props for making internet access available for all people. Keep up the good work! This is all I have for today, folks.

Rachel's Excellent Post on Transracial Adoption

Rachel's post on Reframing Transracial Adoption on her blog is excellent. She tells about mainstream media's tendency to posit transracial adoption in dichonomous terms such as good white parent vs. bad black parent, etc. She also wrote that media outlets have gone overboard on the black/white aspect of TR adoption while ignoring Asian, Latino, Native American children adopted by White couples. In fact, while Whites overwhelmingly adopt children from their own race, they adopt far more nonblack children of color than Black/Biracial Black ones. The media has it all wrong on that account.

Fetishizing Multiracials- Tired Junk

The media never gets it. Here they go again perpetuating such nonsense. Can academia and media pundits accept the humanity of multiracial people without resorting to fetishism and objectification? This book, Breeding Between The Lines by Mr. Ziv not only fetishize multiracials but sexualizes them as well. Mixed Media Watch has the good sense to reject it but bigoted pseudoscientists such as Steve Sailer endorsed it. There's a thread at AABLC.com regarding this stupid book.

I've seen enough fetishization of multiracials from Hollywood, mainstream media, BET, MTV, Madison Avenue, and, of course, academia. They cannot accept the fact that multiracials are human beings like everyone else. It's time to accept the humanity of all!

Aaliyah- Five Years Later

I really missed my Aaliyah. She would have been 27 this year and have a very successful music/acting career by now. Her life was cut terribly short by a plane accident in 2001. Aaliyah's influence is still felt in the music world, with singers such as Beyonce, Ashanti, Ciara, Christina Milian, Keyshia Cole, Cassie, and Teirra Mari today.
Here are several websites dedicated to Aaliyah's memory:

Aaliyah.com

A weeping willow tree in Aaliyah's memory at Central Park

AaliyahOnline.com

May Aaliyah rest in peace, always in our hearts and minds!

Negative Views on Black Women

I came across a conservative website on the internet just to be curious. One of the articles deal with the attractiveness of Black women. It's an old entry but let me tell you, it's racist, sexist, and offensive. Here's the link:

Black Chicks


and this one. Click Here

These people have perfected the fine art of Black woman bashing. We're not gold-digging predators, okay?

Then read the article by one author defending Black women:

Click here

Hurricane Katrina- One Year Later

Here are some articles on Hurricane Katrina and its effects upon the national soul. I hope people get a chance to read these articles. Spike Lee has a movie documentary on Katrina. I hope people go home and watch it tonight. Over the past year, there were and still divisions, mean spirted commentaries by powerful media pundits on the behavior of Black, Brown, Creole, and poor people of Southern Louisiana, the nasty comment by House speaker on the condition of New Orleans.

Here are just several of the articles:

Spike Lee Turns Camera on Katrina

A Year Later, Hurricane Katrina Evacuees Call N.C. Home

Summary Box: Hurricane Katrina evacuees in Michigan

Wynton Marsalis organizes Hurricane Katrina anniversary event in New Orleans

MTV Draws Fire for Cartoon Depicting Black Women on Leashes

More devaluation of Black women. How low can pop culture and society in general can get? MTV is known for its rampant sexism, racism, and homophobia. Here, they no-good network is showing a cartoon depicting black women on leashes. Here's the article from Black America Web:

MTV Under Fire For Cartoon Depicting Black Women on Leashes

Disgusting display of misogyny and racism inherent in the cartoon.
Do yourselves a favor, don't watch MTV or BET. Maybe they'll get the message.

Fashion and Diversity

From Mixed Media Watch.

Please go to: Fashion and Diversity, From Mixed Media Watch

Lack of Food Options in Black Chicago Neighborhoods

In Chicago, Black neighborhoods are far more likely to have fast food restaurants than a grocery store, according to the news article:

In South, West Chicago, More Fast Food Restaurants than Grocery Stores.

Links for this week 8-7-06

Here are a few posts worth looking at for this week:

From Mixed Media Watch:

Military Nicer to IRs

Condoleeza Rice Under Attack in Palestinian Media

From Rachel's Tavern:

Sterotyping and Racism

Breastfeeding Controversy

More Racist and Inappropriate Comments Directed at IRs

From Kim Pearson:

Race and Journalism

Suheir Hammad's Exotic

This poem is my favorite. This one really touched many women of color as we all face everyday sexualized racism, whether from family, work, school, the general public, and the ever-present mass media in one form or another.

Hats off to Ms. Hammad!

exotic
by suheir hammad


don't wanna be your exotic
some delicate fragile colorful bird
imprisoned caged
in a land foreign to the stretch of her wings
don't wanna be your exotic
women everywhere are just like me
some taller darker nicer than me
but like me but just the same
women everywhere carry my nose on their faces
my name on their spirits
don't wanna
don't seduce yourself with
my otherness my hair
wasn't put on top of my head to entice
you into some mysterious black voodoo
the beat of my lashes against each other
ain't some dark desert beat
it's just a blink
get over it
don't wanna be your exotic
your lovin of my beauty ain't more than
funky fornication plain pink perversion
in fact nasty necrophilia
cause my beauty is dead to you
I am dead to you
not your
harem girl geisha doll banana picker
pom pom girl pum pum shorts coffee maker
town whore belly dancer private dancer
la malinche venus hottentot laundry girl
your immaculate vessel emasculating princess
don't wanna be
your erotic
not your exotic

Overweight, sassy black woman thrives in advertisements

The following article is from the Mixed Media Watch:

Overweight, sassy black woman thrives in advertisements
CVK- Mixed Media Watch

I gotta give props to The New York Times for tackling a subject we discuss a lot on this blog and on our podcast, Addicted to Race. Check out, for example, the rant I did in episode 8 where I counted down the top 8 most racist stereotypes of black men and women perpetuated by the media.

The article discusses the fact that the archetype of the loud, sassy, overweight black woman continues to pop up time after time, especially in advertising. The latest example is a Dairy Queen commercial (I haven’t seen this yet - anyone want to weigh in?) in which one of these black women freaks out after someone accidentally drops luggage on her head.

I’m shocked — shocked! — that Dairy Queen, inventor of the oh-so-cleverly-titled MooLatte (coffee + milk = brown + white, get it?) would be capable of racial insensitivity. Their ad agency, Grey Worldwide, of course claims that the writing and casting process was colorblind:

…the script was not written with a black actress in mind.

“We basically cast the funniest person,” he said. “We didn’t specifically cast for a black woman. We said, ‘Wow, she’s really funny.’ And she happened to be black.”

Uh huh. If the “I can’t be racist, I’m in an interracial relationship!” excuse was the top trend of 2005, then the emerging top trend of 2006 must be using “colorblind” casting as a way to sidestep accusations of racism. We’ve already seen David Crane, producer of the new CBS show “The Class” defend his all-white cast by claiming that they used a colorblind casting process and that the final cast just happened to be the best actors, regardless of color. As I told MacLean’s magazine, I don’t think there is such a thing as “colorblind casting.” All these casting decisions are very, very deliberate. More after the jump…


The NYT article lists other recent commercials that rely on the big, sassy black woman archetype: Pine Sol, Captain Morgan, Twix, Universal Studios, etc. It also does a good job of pointing out that these images are particularly disturbing because for the most part, they are created for white people by white people:

The lack of diversity on Madison Avenue has been a long-standing issue. In fact, the New York City Commission on Human Rights is investigating the hiring practices of advertising agencies in the city and is looking at how they have approached employing blacks…

Ms. Gumbinner and Mr. Cusato of Grey Advertising, however, said no black writers were involved in either of their campaigns.

And because that’s the case, it’s important to look at why people are laughing. Are they laughing with the image or at the image?

Some whites, Ms. Dates said, may laugh thinking, “Wow, she’s so ridiculous. My people aren’t like that.” She added: “They wouldn’t consciously feel that way. But there is something going on subconsciously because that’s what advertising is all about. They’re trying to tap into some feeling, some emotion, some psychological hang-up.”

Blacks, meanwhile, might laugh because they can identify with the character, Ms. Dates said. “It’s for both the people who want to snicker and say, ‘See, that’s how they are.’ And for people to say, ‘There’s one of us.’ ”

As I discussed in episode 21 of Addicted to Race, this issue — who is laughing at racial humor/satire and why are they laughing — is exactly why shows like The Boondocks and The Chappelle Show make me uncomfortable. Of course, Chappelle himself became uncomfortable with this as well and it’s one of the reasons he was driven to walk away from the show. Don’t these types of representations simply give people permission to laugh at and enjoy racist stereotypes?

Check out what other bloggers are saying about this story.

TheThink makes an interesting point about the vague headline NYT chose for the article:

I find it odd that the Times, a U.S. based company, wouldn’t use the word ‘black’ in this title, but an international newspaper, with publishing partnerships in Israel, Greece, South Korea, Japan, Lebanon, Thailand, and Spain (to name a few), would have no problem using the phrase ‘big black women’. Interesting, to say the least.

Shavar Jeffries, writing for blackprof.com, says:

Media is the principal contemporary means through which society transmits cultural norms. Mass media is especially salient on racial matters: because of continued residential segregation, the country comes to know itself, cross-racially, through media. One’s values; one’s political beliefs; one’s family structure: media signals provide cues for us all, cues that concretize into caricatures the longer we live with them.

Ann sums it up in her post:

“What do you think about the white man who is repeatedly stealing the guys frosty oh so good drink ? (the white man is sneaky and steals, and has not self control?)

I would think that all white men are thieves by nature.

For all my life I thought that white men were natural-born rapist because of the racist treatment they dealt out to black women by singling out and targeting black women for rape.

Not white women.

Not Native American women.

Not Latino women.

Not Asian women.

Black women.

I thought this way about white men up to only a few years ago, but, then can you blame me?

America popular culture is rife with stereotypes of black women. Either we are fat, sassy women or the oversexed jezebels. Examples: Bringing Down the House, Monster's Ball, Soul Plane, and the more recent movie, Prairie Home Companion. Remember Maxim's use of caption in describing Persia White? When do we ever get any kind of relief from the haterades in pop culture? Ever? Never? Now? When?

Thanks Carmen V.K. of Mixed Media Watch for being aware and tackling vicious stereotyping black women go through day in and day out.