Eating disorders are illnesses most frequently found in young women, although boys and young men are also victims. We often hear of high school and college girls plus fashion models being afflicted with these disorders, but we don't often hear about the problem in women of color. Click the link below to watch the stories of two black women comabting eating disorders:
http://www.letstalkhonestly.com/blacknewsblackviews.html
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Friday, October 09, 2009
OK Cupid and Racism in the Romantic Sphere
I agree with J. Chang at Racialicious. People may have romantic/marital preferences yet at at the same time want to deny that their decision are based upon racial/ethnic bias. America is incresingly segregated by race and ethnicity. It shows in school statistics, where one lives, plays, worships, and even shops(whole malls are coded as upscale/downscale/black/white/Hispanic).
We all know that Black women are the last picked by nonblack men across the board and that White women are more race-picky when it comes to choosing lifemates.
Before you say anything - it’s actually well done and an interesting read.
The OK Cupid staff processed some raw data to find out exactly how users matched across race and subsequently, how users respond to others across races. The results weren’t particularly shocking as I am living it everyday, but still, to see this chart I get a very real physical reaction. A general malaise. In short, Black women are the least desirable women on the site. And overwhelmingly so. I mean look at that sad pink/orange bar.
In the comment’s section of the post, hundreds of faux scholars (idiots) drolled on about how this data doesn’t mean anything, and maybe it’s just CULTURAL differences, maybe more black women are fat. Maybe more black women use bad grammar/text speak. It’s totally not racist to not want to date one race. It’s just a preference!
I wish there were a sound associated with plainface, blank stare blinking - the sound of eyelashes going up and down. Because that’s what you’d hear from me right now. Toothsuck.
I agree that a preference and inclination to your own race is not racist. But the buck stops there. EXCLUDING races is, in fact, fucked up. It’s not racist in the sense that Blacks riding in the back of the bus was institutionally racist, but I mean, come on.
In the article, they also display users’ answers to the question “Would you prefer to date someone of your own race?” Non-whites answered around the 25% yes, 75% no range while white men and women were around 45% yes. To this one man replies:
“The second question was worded as “Would you strongly prefer to date someone of your own skin color/racial background”. I answered that question “No”, because I’d be fine dating white, middle-eastern, latin-american, native-american, and asian women, but I’d simply not be attracted to african-american women. That is NOT racism, however – I work and socially interact with black women, and don’t have any problem with it. Developing an intimate relationship, however, is a very different thing.”
I would date every race except black bitches. BUT I KNOW BLACK LADIES SO I’M TOTALLY NOT A BIGOT. A lot of people think this way. A fucking lot. On the one hand it’s hard to fault people for being products of their environment - that is, finding attractive the people we are TOLD to find attractive. But on the other, I’m not about to give everyone a pass because “that’s just how things are”. My ass, you can kiss it.
It’s hard for me to really explain how it feels to be a part of the group that is overwhelmingly undesired. To be seen as universally unattractive. Of course there are so many factors that led to how this data came to be, geography, age, culture and so on, but let’s not kid ourselves. The data would tell a similar story no matter how you slice it.
The one group that has it worse that us - Indian men. Where my Indian fellas at? Let’s commiserate.
This is so fucked up. It’s just so depressing, yet I am not completely shocked about the results that were found. Damn.
These findings are a reflection of who we are as Americans. If anyone has something to say, please say it.
We all know that Black women are the last picked by nonblack men across the board and that White women are more race-picky when it comes to choosing lifemates.
Before you say anything - it’s actually well done and an interesting read.
The OK Cupid staff processed some raw data to find out exactly how users matched across race and subsequently, how users respond to others across races. The results weren’t particularly shocking as I am living it everyday, but still, to see this chart I get a very real physical reaction. A general malaise. In short, Black women are the least desirable women on the site. And overwhelmingly so. I mean look at that sad pink/orange bar.
In the comment’s section of the post, hundreds of faux scholars (idiots) drolled on about how this data doesn’t mean anything, and maybe it’s just CULTURAL differences, maybe more black women are fat. Maybe more black women use bad grammar/text speak. It’s totally not racist to not want to date one race. It’s just a preference!
I wish there were a sound associated with plainface, blank stare blinking - the sound of eyelashes going up and down. Because that’s what you’d hear from me right now. Toothsuck.
I agree that a preference and inclination to your own race is not racist. But the buck stops there. EXCLUDING races is, in fact, fucked up. It’s not racist in the sense that Blacks riding in the back of the bus was institutionally racist, but I mean, come on.
In the article, they also display users’ answers to the question “Would you prefer to date someone of your own race?” Non-whites answered around the 25% yes, 75% no range while white men and women were around 45% yes. To this one man replies:
“The second question was worded as “Would you strongly prefer to date someone of your own skin color/racial background”. I answered that question “No”, because I’d be fine dating white, middle-eastern, latin-american, native-american, and asian women, but I’d simply not be attracted to african-american women. That is NOT racism, however – I work and socially interact with black women, and don’t have any problem with it. Developing an intimate relationship, however, is a very different thing.”
I would date every race except black bitches. BUT I KNOW BLACK LADIES SO I’M TOTALLY NOT A BIGOT. A lot of people think this way. A fucking lot. On the one hand it’s hard to fault people for being products of their environment - that is, finding attractive the people we are TOLD to find attractive. But on the other, I’m not about to give everyone a pass because “that’s just how things are”. My ass, you can kiss it.
It’s hard for me to really explain how it feels to be a part of the group that is overwhelmingly undesired. To be seen as universally unattractive. Of course there are so many factors that led to how this data came to be, geography, age, culture and so on, but let’s not kid ourselves. The data would tell a similar story no matter how you slice it.
The one group that has it worse that us - Indian men. Where my Indian fellas at? Let’s commiserate.
This is so fucked up. It’s just so depressing, yet I am not completely shocked about the results that were found. Damn.
These findings are a reflection of who we are as Americans. If anyone has something to say, please say it.
Saturday, October 03, 2009
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Missing woman Mia Lynn Nichols found dead.
The body of a missing woman Mia Lynn Nichols of Baltimore has been found almost a year after she dissapeared.
I would like to give my condolences to Mia's family whom I had the chance to meet last year at Mia's vigil and to all of her family and friends. This one hurts a little more than the rest. If her family and friends were any indication Mia was a great person.
Read more on this story and here:http://www.letstalkhonestly.com/missingblackwomen.html
I would like to give my condolences to Mia's family whom I had the chance to meet last year at Mia's vigil and to all of her family and friends. This one hurts a little more than the rest. If her family and friends were any indication Mia was a great person.
Read more on this story and here:http://www.letstalkhonestly.com/missingblackwomen.html
Monday, September 28, 2009
Chinese Idol Controversy
Can a Mixed Race Contestant Become a Chinese Idol?
By SIMON ELEGANT AND CHENGCHENG JIANG
In many ways, Lou Jing is a typical young Shanghainese woman. Pretty and confident, she speaks Mandarin heavily accented with the lilting tones of the Shanghai dialect and browses the malls of this huge city for the latest fashions.
But there is one thing that distinguishes this 20-year-old from her peers, something that has made her the unwitting focus of an intense public debate about what exactly it means to be Chinese: the color of her skin. Born to a Chinese mother and an African-American father whom she has never met, the theater student rocketed into the public consciousness last month when she took part in an American Idol-esque TV show, "Go! Oriental Angel." (See pictures of modern Shanghai.)
The marketing gurus for the series could hardly have dreamed of a better promotional gimmick when they started to investigate the backgrounds of the dozens of pop star wannabes to root out the competitors' mushy stories of triumph over adversity that are a well-worn staple of the genre. Here was a tale guaranteed to attract eyeballs - a girl of mixed race brought up by a single Chinese mother struggling to gain acceptance in a deeply conservative, some would say racist, society.
The strategy worked - perhaps too well. In August, Lou's appearance on the show not only boosted viewer numbers, but sparked an intense nationwide debate about the essential meaning of being "Chinese." Over the last month on Internet chat rooms, where modern China's sensitive issues are thrashed out by netizens long before they reach the heavily censored mainstream media, Lou's ethnicity has been the subject of a relentless barrage of criticism, some of it crudely racist. They think she should not have been allowed to compete on a Chinese show, or at least not to be selected to represent Shanghai in the national competition. She doesn't have fair skin, which is one of the most important factors for Chinese beauty. What's more, her mother and her biological father were never married. Morally, this kind of behavior shouldn't be publicized, so she shouldn't have been put on TV as a young "idol."
These kinds of posts on the most popular chat rooms have attracted thousands of comments. A few have been supportive of Lou, but the rest range from expressions of fear and ignorance to outright racism. One of the most popular posts about Lou Jing on the KDS Life forum asks in mock-seriousness: "Is it possible that she is Obama's daughter?" Another poster said: "I can't believe she's so shameless that she would go on TV." Most of the critics are agreed on one point - that this black woman cannot be regarded as a "real" Chinese.
As recently as the 1970s, foreigners were largely barred from living in China, let alone marrying a local. China does not easily accept mixed race children as "true-blooded" Chinese: As soon as a child is born, Chinese parents are required to register with the authorities as to which of the 56 government-approved ethnic groups their child belongs; there are no mixed-race categories. For her part, Lou feels she is very much Chinese. "When I meet somebody for the first time, they'd often ask me how I can speak Chinese so well, and I tell them 'Because I'm a Chinese, of course I can speak my mother-tongue well.'" Lou says defiantly. "I don't like to be treated differently."
As China undergoes an astonishing demographic shift and more foreigners make their homes in the Middle Kingdom, Lou is by no means the only one being treated differently.
Recent decades have seen a surge in the number of mixed-race couples. According to the data offered by Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau, from 1994 to 2008, each year, there are about 3,000 more mixed race marriages in Shanghai. But as the children of that first generation of mixed-race marriages now come of age, their moves to gain acceptance in society - like Lou's participation in the TV show - have exposed a deep-running vein of xenophobia in Chinese society. Last year, Ding Hui, a young man of African-Chinese ethnicity, caused a stir when he was called up to the national volleyball team, prompting much soul-searching about whether this athlete should be allowed to represent China alongside other 'pure-blooded' Chinese competitors.
Eventually, Ding Hui did go on to play in the national team.
"As China continues to open up, this kind of phenomenon will become ever more prevalent," says David Zweig, a professor of Humanities & Social Sciences at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. "This is part of the process of internationalization, but we can only hope that Chinese people, including netizens and the people whose views tend towards extremism, can come to accept that there are many mixed-race people both in China and worldwide."
As for Lou, she found the whole experience more than a little disturbing. She did well in the show, ranking in the top 30 contestants before she was eliminated. Now she's back to her normal life as a college junior - with a little new insight into her home. "Through this competition, it's really scary to find out how the color of my skin can cause such a big controversy."
It's just another controversy involving Black women from racially biased media and society in general. Can Black women be just people instead of making our race an issue?
By SIMON ELEGANT AND CHENGCHENG JIANG
In many ways, Lou Jing is a typical young Shanghainese woman. Pretty and confident, she speaks Mandarin heavily accented with the lilting tones of the Shanghai dialect and browses the malls of this huge city for the latest fashions.
But there is one thing that distinguishes this 20-year-old from her peers, something that has made her the unwitting focus of an intense public debate about what exactly it means to be Chinese: the color of her skin. Born to a Chinese mother and an African-American father whom she has never met, the theater student rocketed into the public consciousness last month when she took part in an American Idol-esque TV show, "Go! Oriental Angel." (See pictures of modern Shanghai.)
The marketing gurus for the series could hardly have dreamed of a better promotional gimmick when they started to investigate the backgrounds of the dozens of pop star wannabes to root out the competitors' mushy stories of triumph over adversity that are a well-worn staple of the genre. Here was a tale guaranteed to attract eyeballs - a girl of mixed race brought up by a single Chinese mother struggling to gain acceptance in a deeply conservative, some would say racist, society.
The strategy worked - perhaps too well. In August, Lou's appearance on the show not only boosted viewer numbers, but sparked an intense nationwide debate about the essential meaning of being "Chinese." Over the last month on Internet chat rooms, where modern China's sensitive issues are thrashed out by netizens long before they reach the heavily censored mainstream media, Lou's ethnicity has been the subject of a relentless barrage of criticism, some of it crudely racist. They think she should not have been allowed to compete on a Chinese show, or at least not to be selected to represent Shanghai in the national competition. She doesn't have fair skin, which is one of the most important factors for Chinese beauty. What's more, her mother and her biological father were never married. Morally, this kind of behavior shouldn't be publicized, so she shouldn't have been put on TV as a young "idol."
These kinds of posts on the most popular chat rooms have attracted thousands of comments. A few have been supportive of Lou, but the rest range from expressions of fear and ignorance to outright racism. One of the most popular posts about Lou Jing on the KDS Life forum asks in mock-seriousness: "Is it possible that she is Obama's daughter?" Another poster said: "I can't believe she's so shameless that she would go on TV." Most of the critics are agreed on one point - that this black woman cannot be regarded as a "real" Chinese.
As recently as the 1970s, foreigners were largely barred from living in China, let alone marrying a local. China does not easily accept mixed race children as "true-blooded" Chinese: As soon as a child is born, Chinese parents are required to register with the authorities as to which of the 56 government-approved ethnic groups their child belongs; there are no mixed-race categories. For her part, Lou feels she is very much Chinese. "When I meet somebody for the first time, they'd often ask me how I can speak Chinese so well, and I tell them 'Because I'm a Chinese, of course I can speak my mother-tongue well.'" Lou says defiantly. "I don't like to be treated differently."
As China undergoes an astonishing demographic shift and more foreigners make their homes in the Middle Kingdom, Lou is by no means the only one being treated differently.
Recent decades have seen a surge in the number of mixed-race couples. According to the data offered by Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau, from 1994 to 2008, each year, there are about 3,000 more mixed race marriages in Shanghai. But as the children of that first generation of mixed-race marriages now come of age, their moves to gain acceptance in society - like Lou's participation in the TV show - have exposed a deep-running vein of xenophobia in Chinese society. Last year, Ding Hui, a young man of African-Chinese ethnicity, caused a stir when he was called up to the national volleyball team, prompting much soul-searching about whether this athlete should be allowed to represent China alongside other 'pure-blooded' Chinese competitors.
Eventually, Ding Hui did go on to play in the national team.
"As China continues to open up, this kind of phenomenon will become ever more prevalent," says David Zweig, a professor of Humanities & Social Sciences at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. "This is part of the process of internationalization, but we can only hope that Chinese people, including netizens and the people whose views tend towards extremism, can come to accept that there are many mixed-race people both in China and worldwide."
As for Lou, she found the whole experience more than a little disturbing. She did well in the show, ranking in the top 30 contestants before she was eliminated. Now she's back to her normal life as a college junior - with a little new insight into her home. "Through this competition, it's really scary to find out how the color of my skin can cause such a big controversy."
It's just another controversy involving Black women from racially biased media and society in general. Can Black women be just people instead of making our race an issue?
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Racist White Man beat a Black Woman in front of her kid at cracker barrel restaurant
this one fell under the radar but didn't fall to far from RACISTWORLD
ATLANTA - The beating of a black female Army reservist outside a Georgia restaurant is being investigated as a possible hate crime, federal authorities said Wednesday.
Tashawnea Hill was kicked and punched by a white man Sept. 9 as he screamed racial slurs outside a Cracker Barrell in Morrow, about 15 miles southeast of Atlanta, police said. Troy D. West, 47, became enraged when Hill told him to be careful after he nearly hit her 7-year-old daughter while opening the restaurant's door, police said.
FBI spokesman Stephen Emmett said the Justice Department's civil rights division has initiated a probe into the incident.
Hill, who was taken to the hospital after the incident, said Wednesday that she is still in shock.
"I haven't been able to sleep since then," she said in a telephone interview on the way to the doctor's office. "My major concern is that my daughter is OK. Mommy will heal up. Mommy will get better, but she's the future."
West was charged with battery, disorderly conduct and cruelty to children, and is currently out on on $5,000 bond. A hearing has been set for Sept. 24 in Clayton County.
West, of Poulan, hasn't returned several calls seeking comment, and it wasn't clear if he had an attorney.
West told Morrow police he became upset because Hill spit on him after accusing him of trying to hit her daughter, according to the police report. But several witnesses said they never saw Hill spit on West.
His mother said in a brief phone interview Tuesday that her son would never hurt a mother, especially in front of a child.
"This just doesn't sound right," said Johnny West from her Poulan home.
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