I grew up in this town, left in 1997 to go to college only coming back during the summers. Left Pennsylvania completely in 2004 after I had come out as a lesbian and we (my partner and I) moved to Delaware to be with her family. I love my hometown, I loved growing up there; but I don't like the narrowmindedness that still infects the town and area. This makes me sick that something like this happens there more often than not, maybe not to this extent but the intimidation against people who aren't the "norm" for the town is rampant.
Congressional Democrats, and the White House, have no interest in engaging in a racial arguement.Congressional Democrats, and the White House, have no interest in engaging in a racial... more
I have to admit that I would be mildly annoyed if I saw two people get in two separate lines and then join each other in the faster moving line. However, that does not excuse the actions of Kennett Police department and their alleged KKK participation.I have to admit that I would be mildly annoyed if I saw two people get in two separate... more
This is a sensitive subject for me since I am a scifi fan and black. I have and had high hopes for District 9. And while I believe that the film had huuuuuge problems I also think that the film was a harbinger for good things to come wherein People of Color in scifi is concerned. I've gotten a lot of flack for saying this amongst some of my friends. (Actually, I've had my head taken off a few times.) And while I see their points--and they *do* have a point--I look at the film for the door it opens and not just for the inflammatory images that it presented.
There seems to be two drastically different reactions to the film. One of complete pleasure ("This film is awesome!") and one of complete hate ("That film sucked eggs! Boooo!"). It comes down to the images. The depiction of the Nigerians was the main problem. And that was very problematic. A lot of people found the voodoo rituals quite insulting. So did I. But I also saw what the film was trying to do. Though slightly misguided, they were trying to depict ALL humans as disgraceful, bloodthirsty, greedy individuals. The message got garbled along the way. That is the fault of the director. He needed to have more control over the images he used. I may have understood. MANY did not.
I hope that the film will open the door for many scifi films to be made in Africa. But for this to happen the RIGHT way, this discussion about how Africans are depicted HAS TO HAPPEN. We have to argue this out and LISTEN to each other. Don't dismiss one side or the other because you disagree. BOTH sides have valid points and by expressing them I think will make the scifi genre stronger, more relevant, and much, much better.
Justine Larbalestier's new book, "Liar," which is scheduled to be released in the US this year, has gotten a new cover. Why is this a big deal? Well, the book is about a black girl who is supposed to be dark-skinned, with short "nappy" hair, and the ability to "pass" for a boy. And the publisher, in their infinite wisdom, was about to release the book with a white girl on the cover. When asked why they chose to do this, the publisher responded that black people on covers do not sell books. Yuck!
--via http://justinelarbalestier.com/blog/2009/07/23/aint-that-a-shame/
The author, who is a white Australian, has made a conscious choice to write protagonists that are people of color. She was shocked when she first saw the cover for her book and raised a protest. When asked why her protagonist are not usually white Larbalestier answers:
"Because a young Hispanic girl I met at a signing thanked me for writing an Hispanic character. Because when I did an appearance in Queens the entirely black and Hispanic teenage audience responded so warmly to my book with two non-white main characters. Because teens, both here and in Australia, have written thanking me for writing characters they could relate to. 'Most books are so white,' one girl wrote me."
--via http://justinelarbalestier.com/blog/2009/07/22/why-my-protags-arent-white/
Because of the protests of many in the SF&F community and others, the publisher relented and changed the cover. It will now feature a black woman, though some still complain that she still looks very little like the girl described in the book. I say hooray for baby steps!! At least the publisher folded and there will be one more book on the YA shelves feature a person of color.Justine Larbalestier's new book, "Liar," which is scheduled to be released in the US... more
The girl, from Doomadgee, had been ill for days and was turned away from the Doomadgee Hospital several times in the past week before being admittedThe girl, from Doomadgee, had been ill for days and was turned away from the Doomadgee... more
A series of promotional packages designed to hawk Disney’s The Princess and the Frog to its core demographic were broadcast during The Princess Protection Program TV movie on Sunday evening. As is always the way with these things, they found their way to YouTube. See all five embedded below the break.
What’s most interesting, at least if you’re not that fussed about The Princess and the Frog (though, in fact I am - I’m really quite fussed about it) is the mild controversy surrounding one newly unveiled character.A series of promotional packages designed to hawk Disney’s The Princess and the Frog... more
Diversity in the Workplace is always fun. This article goes over some stereotypes about the workplace that have never occurred to me.
Here's number 2:
2. "You're not diverse"
Diversity includes white people. It is incorrect and insulting to use the word "diverse" to refer to people other than white heterosexual men with no ADA-defined disabilities. All people are included in the concept of "diversity." As a result, properly executed diversity management benefits all people in an organization.
Also, too often, non-white people assume whites don't come from a diverse background or have any experience with different cultures. Some white people also make this mistake. But Peacock points out that while his skin might be "white," his background is diverse, even more so than many people from traditionally underrepresented groups.
"I come from a family with two different histories, from different sides of the world," says Peacock, who is from England and whose mother was originally from Iran. "I am more multicultural than a lot of people who have never stepped outside of this country. By saying [you're not diverse], all you're doing is switching people off."
Peacock adds that in today's society, being exclusionary by any standard should not be tolerated. It is also not the best method of building networks. "Anything that is exclusionary you have to avoid," says Peacock. "The reason Sen. [Barack] Obama is so successful is … because he's getting the white vote. Why is he getting this? Because for the first time, someone is talking about how all of us will achieve this American dream, and the important word is 'all' of us."
Furthermore, Visconti makes the point that in today's America, many white people have a personal involvement with traditionally underrepresented groups. "Twenty-two percent of American households have a biracial component," says Visconti. "Practically every family has an LGBT component, and many people have a non-visible disability and/or will develop an ADA-defined disability in their lifetime."
Moreover, Visconti affirms that to assume a white person cannot have a true, heartfelt connection with diversity is historically wrong.
"Benjamin Franklin was the president of the Anti-Slavery Society, William Lloyd Garrison founded the abolitionist newspaper 'The Liberator' and was a mentor to Frederick Douglass, and Lyndon Johnson had a profound change of mind and became an advocate of civil-rights and anti-poverty legislations. Many white people have been and still are at the forefront of societal change to eliminate oppression and increase equity," says Visconti.
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However, this is more of an issue of language than Visconti makes it out to be — measuring the company's "percentage of diversity" is misleading, and calling a single person diverse or not diverse is just bizarre. The assumption that white people can't be included in diversity at all is a bad one, but we're not sure how often people actually make it.
An interesting read, fo sho!Diversity in the Workplace is always fun. This article goes over some stereotypes... more
Growing up in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago’s South Side, Liz Toussaint straddled a musical divide.
“In front of my friends, we listened to Biggie Smalls and Tupac,” she recently recalled, sliding into a stage whisper. “I never told anybody that at home I was listening to the Dixie Chicks.”
Toussaint’s crush on country began on her family’s summer road trips — when that high lonesome sound was all their station wagon’s radio could dial in. Once back home, the teenager kept quiet about the passion she felt would ostracize her, and country music was a cultural curse made worse by the fact that Toussaint was a promising pop singer, performing alongside a young Jennifer Hudson.
“You’re supposed to be Mary J. Blige — a hip-hop queen!” her brother Mustafa Abdullah remembers telling Toussaint when she first informed him that her heart ached not for Nas, but Nashville.
“No,” Abdullah pleaded with her, pointing out that the family had a musical pedigree to maintain — he works as a popular Chicago hip-hop DJ and uncle Allen Toussaint is a well-known R&B pianist.
“You cannot do country music!”
But Toussaint couldn’t help it.
“I was dead set: I’m not singing unless I’m singing country,” the now-30-year-old Toussaint said last week, wearing a cowboy hat, boots and a pearly grin.
Still, “it took a while before I could actually sing my original material in front of people without (wetting) myself.”
This summer, Toussaint plans to release an album titled, “My Name is Liz,” where she sings of being a “City Girl with a Country Soul.”
Like other country records, the album is full of songs about tough times, lost love and gunfighting — although this single mother of two ain’t just whistling Dixie.
“Someone was shot down on my corner just last week,” said Toussaint, who now lives in the city’s West Pullman neighborhood. “It’s real out here!”
If Toussaint’s forthcoming album manages to succeed, it’ll put her in rarefied company as a black country singer: Only two of the Country Music Hall of Fame’s 105 members are black, and the last time an African-American artist had a hit on the country charts — before Darius Rucker this year — was Charley Pride in 1983.
“And let’s be honest, Darius Rucker wouldn’t be there if he wasn’t in Hootie & the Blowfish,” said Frankie Staton, who runs the Black Country Music Association out of her Nashville home.
“I’ve seen (black performers) come and go, I’ve been at the bedside of those who died trying to make it happen and didn’t, but that shouldn’t dissuade Liz from trying.”
Toussaint said she’s no stranger to discrimination: When she first sent her demos and head shot to country-friendly clubs, no one responded.Growing up in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago’s South Side, Liz Toussaint... more
One of the more provocative critiques to come from conservatives concerning the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court has been the charge that her nomination is racial politics at its most cynical. But in the past, Republicans were eager to play up the diversity of their own nominees.
She is "an affirmative action pick," declared Pat Buchanan on MSNBC's Hardball. "Clearly the president was down to four choices, all of them woman, and he picked the Hispanic." Earlier in the day, Rush Limbaugh ramped up the rhetoric even further, proclaiming Sotomayor "a reverse racist" who was appointed by "the greatest living example of a reverse racist" -- Obama.One of the more provocative critiques to come from conservatives concerning the... more
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."
By Langston Hughes: Click this link to read entire item.Let America Be America Again
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned... more
ISBN: 1851685553
ISBN-13: 9781851685554
Format: Paperback, 320pp
Publisher: National Book Network
Pub. Date: September 2007
Synopsis
In this controversial new book, a prominent Israeli historian at Haifa University revisits the formative period of the State of Israel. Decisively debunking the myth that the Palestinian population left of their own accord during the War of Independence, he offers archival evidence to demonstrate that a central plank in Israel's founding ideology was the forcible removal of the indigenous population. This book is a passionate plea to acknowledge the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948 as the root cause of the ongoing Palestine-Israel conflict.
Publishers Weekly
In his latest work, renowned Israeli author and academic Pappe (A History of Modern Palestine) does not mince words, doing Jimmy Carter one better (or worse, depending on one's point of view) by accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, beginning in the 1948 war for independence and continuing through the present. Focusing primarily on Plan D (Dalet, in Hebrew), conceived on March 10, 1948, Pappe demonstrates how ethnic cleansing was not a circumstance of war, but rather a deliberate goal of combat for early Israeli military units organized by David Ben-Gurion, whom Pappe labels the "architect of ethnic cleansing." The forced expulsion of 800,000 Palestinians between 1948 and 1949, Pappe argues, was part of a long-standing Zionist plan to manufacture an ethnically pure Jewish state. Framing his argument with accepted international and U.N. definitions of ethnic cleansing, Pappe follows with an excruciatingly detailed account of Israeli military involvement in the demolition and depopulation of hundreds of villages, and the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Arab inhabitants. An accessible, learned resource, this volume provides important insights into the historical antecedents of today's conflict, but its conclusions will not be easy for everyone to stomach: Pappe argues that the ethnic cleansing of Palestine continues today, and calls for the unconditional return of all Palestinian refugees and an end to the Israeli occupation. Without question, Pappe's account will provoke ire from many readers; importantly, it will spark discussion as well. (Jan.)Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
by Ilan Pappe
ISBN: 1851685553
ISBN-13:... more
Offensive? You bet. Youtube members respond to racist video with comments such as
icandynetwork: It's okay because they are white. It is politically correct to bash whites (even if they are female) and men.
Freki619 (10 hours ago) couldn't agree with you more, how outraged would everyone be if they made a commercial about people being too dark? Pale skin is that way for a good reason, and it serves it's purpose perfectly just as dark skin does in it's own way, I hate it when people knock on others for being "too white" Never thought I'd see it in a commercial though, I'm going to send an email to their customer service
antizionistpatriot: Debbie & Kim are perpetrating racial self-hatred because they feel too white, so they want to become part of the multiculturalism by becoming fake 'n' bake beach bunny bimbos.
Miscegenation and multiculturalism are diseases that should be outlawed. North America, Europe and Russia must remain White in race and culture for self-preservation.
Diversity equals death.
Where do we draw the line with racist marketing against white people?Offensive? You bet. Youtube members respond to racist video with comments such as... more
Screenings of the movie 'The Combination', which was about the race riots between Australian Lebanese and white youths in Sydney's western suburbs in 2005, was pulled from Greater Union cinemas in Sydney, Australia, after screenings lead to a violent flare in two of the cinemas.
The Australian Film Syndicate, which are a film distribution company devoted to films made in Australia, said the move was unprecedented.Screenings of the movie 'The Combination', which was about the race riots between... more
Is it a coincidence that that the governors who are rejecting monies from the stimulus plan also have the highest unemployment rates among people of color in their respective states?
Joan Walsh comments, "Bobby Jindal's Louisiana? The black unemployment rate is 9.4 percent; the white rate is 3.3 percent. Rick Perry's Texas? The black rate is 9.7 percent; the rate for whites, 4.3 percent."
Curious? Read the article and comment!Is it a coincidence that that the governors who are rejecting monies from the stimulus... more
Iowa gave the first sign that the American political landscape had changed.
Democrats in an overwhelmingly white state, many from small towns and farms, said an African American man from Chicago was the best choice for president -- and by a convincing margin.
Barack Obama went on to build a broader coalition than any previous black candidate, winning the Democratic nomination on an agenda of "change." John McCain emerged as the GOP nominee, despite a history of breaking from Republican beliefs. He too promised "change" from the nation's current course.
On Tuesday, as results from the presidential election roll in, so will clues to what kind of change the nation wants, and to how much it has changed in the last four years. Who wins, and where, will shed light on the nation's feelings on race, the role of government and the hold of partisanship on the public dialogue. Here are four big questions arising from the 2008 presidential campaign:
Has America's racial divide narrowed?
Is the country still divided into red and blue?
Do Americans want more from government?
Has the electorate changed dramatically?
(details and analysis at the link)Iowa gave the first sign that the American political landscape had changed.... more
