A New Year

Newslinks for 1-5-2007:

Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi said that this year is going to be a good year for the Democratic congress. Click here.

Current Color Q Pet Sins issue discusses cross-cultural interests and how those translate into respect for diversity and cultures. Click here.

Donna Britt wrote an article on coolness. Click here.

This is all I have for this week.

Gerald Ford, R.I.P.

Former president Gerald Ford dies at 93.

Former president Gerald R. Ford, who inherited the daunting task of calming a divided nation when he assumed the presidency at the height of the Watergate scandal, died Tuesday at the age of 93

More on the late Gerald Ford, please go to:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-12-26-ford-obit_x.htm

Bush Remembers Ford's Integrity
Ford pardon sealed Watergate shut
Important Dates in Ford's Life

USA Today's Tribute To James Brown

Here are several more James Brown tributes:

http://blogs.usatoday.com/listenup/2006/12/james_brown_a_2.html

http://www.newarkadvocate.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061227/NEWS01/312270003

http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2006-12-25-brown-obit_x.htm?csp=34

James Brown, R.I.P.

The Godfather of Soul James Brown died today at age 73. His music influenced generations of people around the world. Many artists today owe their success to Mr. Brown. His influences reached to funk, rap, R&B, rock, and hip hop. He is best known for his songs such as "Papa's gotta Brand New Bag", "A Man's World," "I'm Black and I'm Proud," "Living In America," "Please, Please, Please," among his many songs. May he rest in peace, always.

James Brown (1933-2006)


Links on the late singer James Brown:

http://news.yahoo.com/fc/entertainment/james_brown
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/scp_v3/viewer/index.php?pid=1
http://music.yahoo.com/ar-289615---James-Brown
James Brown's 'Soul on Top' Reissued
A Legend Dies from CNN News Network
The influence of soul 'Godfather'
James Brown Top 10 singles
James Brown- The Godfather of Soul Official Site

Bunch of Links 12-22-2006

Here are a bunch of links to various issues of the day:

On Blackprof.com, there are several postings regarding race, aesthethics and interracial marriage, esp. the one on Taye Diggs and Idina Menzel. Click here.
Then there's one on one grandmother's objection to the casting of a black dancer in a Christmas ballet, The Nutcracker. Click here.

Sailerfraud writes an entry on a xenophobic congressman who doesn't want to see Muslims aspire to higher political offices of this nation. Click here. The article also appears in Crooks and Liars. Check here.

David "the bigot" Yeagley is at it again with his bigotry and is lashing out at fellow Native Americans who don't share his racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic, and misogynistic views he espouse on a daily basis on his website. The article at the counter-Yegley website is "What's Wrong With David?"

Xenophobes just can't take a break from their insecurities!

Mr. David "The Hater" Yeagley on Barack Obama

His stupidity gets worse every time he writes anything about people of Color. His latest target of hate is our Senator Barack Obama. He said, among many things, that he's not Black enough and that African-Americans and multiracial African Americans despise Africans. When did he get information like that? He got it from right wing conservatives anxious to divide and conquer people of Color. Here's his rant:

"The Obama Dilemma, the Obama Effect
The Democrat senator from Illinois, Mr. Barak Hussein Obama faces some interesting identity challenges. As Bad Eagle continues to examine the power of linguistics, the usurpation of words, and American political process and American society in general, Mr. Obama provides an opportunity to look at words and names even more closely.
Mr. Obama has been billed as an "African-American," but some commentators have noticed that this isn't exactly true, because Mr. Obama is half white. I say this is still missing the deeper point: Mr. Obama's father is Kenyan, that is African. From Africa. Even Sam Francis (VDARE.com) failed to make this point in his astute assessment of Mr. Obama. African-American, as used in this country, means American Negro--descendent of slave. This is a special heritage, not one that can be or should be manipulated. Mr. Obama is not "African-American" at all, in the American sense of the world. (And, after all, we are in America, lest we forget.)
On the other hand, Mr. Obama accentuates the fact that the name "African-American" for the American Negro is really a misnomer. American Negroes, for a number of generations now, are from America, not from Africa at all. They have no connect but for their genes. Most American Negroes know little or nothing about Africa, and couldn't care less, usually. (Some, like Keith Richberg, actually despise Africa.) "African-American" depicts no connection with Africa, but for historic origins of the race. American Negroes have outgrown all meaningful linguistic, religious, or cultural associations with anything nominally African. Their behavioral characteristics, though maintaining some possible similarities, have come to be understood as "American" Negroe, not African.
So, Mr. Obama is technically truly African-American, but in a sense of the word entirely foreign to way the American Negro uses the word. "

For more of his BS, click here.

Can he keep his pen to himself for once!

Rudy Youngblood

Awww... Isn't he just the handsomest new actor on the block? He's Rudy Youngblood in Mel Gibson's Apocalypto.

Already, we have some haters who are so jealous of him. David "the bigot" Yeagley is one. He's so resentful that a person of color is making it in Hollywood and is good-looking. He make so much of his race that he's blind to see talent when it's in front of him. So resentful that he writes not one, but two articles disparaging him.

Memo to Dave: If you don't have anything nice to say, be quiet and keep your evil thoughts to yourself. He's going to be a bigger star.

White Weddings- Part Two

Here are several links dealing with the ideology of white weddings:

Interview with Chrys Ingraham. Click here

Chrys Ingraham's book, White Weddings

An old Slate magazine article concerning the history of antimiscegenation laws in the United states at: White Weddings: The incredible staying power of the laws against interracial marriage.

An analysis on the the popularity of Western-style weddings at Westminster Papers. Click

here

The original ReviewJournal article on the lack of Black brides in bridal magazines. Click here.

Love Has No Color Website. An excellent website that has a wealth of resources regarding racial/ethnic intermarriage and its history in the United States.

Medieval Miscellany peers into class/gender aspects of marriage.

WHITE WEDDINGS

Here's an article from the Las Vegas Review-Journal saying that Brides of Color are rare in bridal magazines.



WHITE WEDDINGS: Bridal magazines reflect white world Study finds no black women on covers, fewer than 2 percent of brides in ads were black By LAWRENCE MOWER REVIEW-JOURNAL

UNLV assistant professor Erika Engstrom, above, along with University of Missouri assistant professor Cynthia Frisby, conducted a study that found that black brides are severely underrepresented in conventional bridal magazines. Photo by Craig L. Moran.
Thoughts of getting married generate images of white -- white dresses, white flowers and white wedding cakes.
But according to a recent study, they also generate images of white brides. White, thin and attractive brides, to be precise.


Women of different ethnic groups, particularly black brides, are continuously left out of advertising and content of the three major bridal magazines, creating a reflection of which group of people should get married in American society, according to Cynthia Frisby, an assistant professor at the University of Missouri at Columbia.
Frisby, along with Erika Engstrom, assistant dean of the Greenspun College of Urban Affairs at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, conducted a study that found fewer than 2 percent of brides featured in the three major bridal magazines were black.
The sampling consisted of covers and advertisements in 57 randomly selected issues of Bride's Magazine, Modern Bride and Elegant Bride published between 2000 and 2004.
Of the more than 6,000 ads, fewer than 2 percent featured a black woman as a bride, the study found. No black woman was featured on the cover, and the most frequent image of a black woman in the magazines was as a bridesmaid.
The phenomena points to a larger problem in society and could have negative effects on black women, according to Engstrom.
"It kind of tells black women who is supposed to get married, and basically re-establishes the concept of a white wedding being white," Engstrom said.
Statistics show that black women are less likely to get married than other women.
According to a 2005 U.S. Census report, 43.4 percent of all black women have never been married, a rate that is far higher than for whites, Hispanics and Asians. The national average for women who have never been married is 25.8 percent. Figures from 2004 show that 12.8 percent of the U.S. population is black.
The study, published in the fall 2006 issue of the journal Media Report to Women, also says the lack of black brides in the magazines communicates "a negative assumption that it is better for African Americans to stay in background roles as opposed to positions equal in status and power to their White counterparts."
Bridal magazines, because they consist almost entirely of advertisements for dresses and other wedding products, are an accurate projection of what group of people businesses cater to, according to Engstrom.
"Bridal magazines are basically a specialized form of publication. It kind of tells us something about society in general."
The results were little changed since a similar study looked at bridal magazines in 1999, she said.

"Despite significant improvements in media representations of African Americans," the study stated, "images appearing in popular bridal magazines are fairly homogenous, and contribute to the notion African American women seem to be socially unimportant in this form of media."
Bridal magazines are available that cater to women of color, such as Brides Noir, but the report said those were insufficient and shouldn't be viewed as substitutes.
"We believe such demarcation between 'White' bridal magazines and 'Black' bridal magazines only emphasizes segregation of races," the report stated.
The study suggests advertisers, not readers, could be the only party interested in seeing only white brides.
"Whether bridal industry advertisers and those who publish bridal magazines believe this or not remains to be seen," the report stated.

For more reading on the racial/class/gender aspect of the bridal industry, please read Chrys Ingram's White Weddings.

Update: Keith Turner Sentenced

Keith Turner Sentenced to 90 Years in Prison
01:20 PM CST on Monday, December 11, 2006
From 11 News staff reports

A 17-year-old suburban teen was sentenced Monday to 90 years in prison in the brutal attack of a Hispanic boy who was beaten, kicked, stomped, burned and sodomized with the plastic pole of a patio umbrella.

For more information on the sentencing of the teen in the hate attack, please go to:

http://www.khou.com/topstories/stories/khou061211_ac_turnertrial.1a991b54.html

He got what he deserved!

Links for 12-11-2006

Links for 12-11-2006:

Writer/activist Sonia Sanchez and ten grandmothers were arrested in Philly for trespassing while protesting against the war. Cindy Sheehan isn't the only one protesting against the war. Click here.

Dartmouth's Conservatives (Try to) Demonize Indians by Rob Schmidt

Read that, David Yeagley! Since he's too quick to judge other people except himself.

A suburb of Houston objects to the building of a mosque within the city limits. Click here.

Black Women's Beauty

Why is Black and Mixed Black women's beauty politicized, demeaned, and so controversial to mainstream america?

Two articles discusses what America is so afraid of, i.e., Black women's beauty:

The "Batty" Politic: Toward an Aesthetic of the Black Female Body Janell Hobson.

Venus in the Dark: Blackness and Beauty in Popular Culture - Review

What are your thoughts?