crossedwires:

niqaeli:

I admit, I don’t know Cho that well, so I am glad there are other readings to be had!

And if he is just calling it out simply because he’s tired of it and he feels comfortable doing so even on his own films now, I think that’s fantastic. There’s certainly plenty for him to be calling out.

Heh. Well, I don’t know John Cho either. But he has talked about race & representation before* (and not in a ‘we’re all human, it doesn’t matter’ way), so it’s not completely ‘out of character’ for him to bring it up. I think it probably would be easier on him if he didn’t say anything, but I’m glad he does.

*Re Harold & Kumar (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHEkLBZI1IM 4:07 mark): If you have a Korean and an Indian guy as your leads, you must address race at some point in the movie. You must, because the audience is noting it, really. The other thing is, I think, comedy at its best, treads in taboo waters a little bit. It has to have that transgressive quality to it, and race is the biggest taboo in America. I mean, people are very reluctant to talk about race and yet when you do jokes about race, uh, that work, people are very happy to release tension and laugh about it. But it has been interesting. I’ll make an observation. During the first tour for the first movie, we were talking about race all the time with journalists. It was almost like a process— looking back, the first movie was more concerned with race, but we talked about it so much, I felt that it was in a way…a way of justifying our presence in a motion picture.

And from an interview in 2009 http://www.asiaarts.ucla.edu/090703/article.asp?parentID=110145&gt:

JC: I recall from the Harold and Kumar movies is my struggle with the advertisers.

APA: What happened there?

JC: There was all this racial humor in the movie, and the advertising department wanted to say “Starring the Asian guy in American Pie, and the Indian guy from Van Wilder…” and they did go with that, and they submitted that to me for approval, and I said, “I don’t like it.” They asked me why, and I explain it to them, and that was tricky because it’s difficult explaining to my own representatives, why that didn’t jibe with me, because everyone kind of felt like it was keeping in tone with the movie. And I said, “I don’t like it. We’re poking fun at racism in the movie all the time, but it puts the audience on the wrong side of the racism joke.” So they were playing with the wording a little bit in the edits, and they kept coming up with versions to make me happy, but they were essentially the same thing, and I finally said, “you are not going to make me happy. You’re dancing around it, and you’re clearly attached to this idea, and I want you to know that no version of this idea will make me happy. And if you’re afraid that I won’t show up to do promotion because of this bitterness, you can rest assured that that’s not true. I consider promoting a movie part of my duties, and I will show up nevertheless. But you can either use this campaign and know that I’m unhappy, or you can change it and know that I’m happy. That’s it. Stop trying.” And eventually they went with it, and it’s one of those things where I look back and I’ve very proud of the movie, but that’s the thing I remember.

APA: Last question…for Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay, Viva La Union recorded a song for the soundtrack with the line, “I want my own Chinese baby” — what’s that about?

JC: When I was thinking about it, I thought of a literal baby. There’s a kind of lack that children fill, that’s just the dark side of being a parent, I think. And there’s an accessory quality to Chinese babies in America, and I just think it’s funny. I just liked it. And you know, I would know people who would fawn over Asian babies more, and it got me to thinking, there’s this belief that Asian babies are really cute, and it got me thinking that our whole race is infantilized to some degree, and it manifests itself in different ways. You infantilize a woman, and she becomes eroticized. You infantilize a man, and he becomes emasculated. You infantilize a baby [laughs] — and it’s possible, it appears that you can infantilize a baby even more. [laughs] The babies need to be cuter than white babies. And it’s just a weird thing that I felt like said something about mainstream America’s relationship to Asians in general. So that’s where it came from.

Also this interview: http://blog.angryasianman.com/2008/04/q-with-john-cho.html

“And yes, I do feel a responsibility, and always have, and it’s been an odd burden for me. Even when I started and no one gave a shit, I was trying to avoid doing roles—and it’s no accident that I’ve never done something with a chop suey accent. It’s no accident that I’ve never played those parts. I strongly believe there are a lot of Asian American actors who think that that’s the price to pay before you get to wherever you’re going. And I take real issue with that. Because you have to maintain integrity from the start, and on a personal level, you have to not do something that’s going to make you sick to your stomach.

But on a political level, how are things supposed to ever change if there’s someone willing to do it? I can tell you now, having worked in the business, that you can gather an army of people to hold picket signs and stand outside the studio, and say, “we destest this portrayal”… but it doesn’t matter if there’s a guy—who they know, a peer—who’s willing to do it, who stands in front of the crew and does the buck-tooth accent. If he or she is willing to do it, it makes the protestors look like extremists. It makes this guy look like the normal guy. Because we all work in the same industry. So the willingness of one actor negates a thousand protestors and a thousand angry letters.”

(So I can see why Butawhiteman Cantbekhan playing Khan would be deeply upsetting to him, even if Cho wasn’t in this movie.)

(Source: whitelaws, via stopwhitewashing)

thepeoplesrecord:

NYPD to restart ‘stop and frisk’
January 25, 2013A

Manhattan judge said she will allow the NYPD’s “stop-and-frisk” program to go on in the Bronx until she comes up with a solution to prevent police officers from violating the rights of their subjects.

Manhattan federal Judge Shira Sheindlin on Tuesday lifted an order to stop the program after agreeing with city lawyers who argued that ending the stop-and-frisk program would be a burden on the New York Police Department. The lawyers said that if the program were brought to an end in the Bronx, thousands of NYPD officers and their supervisors would have to be retrained to figure out how to halt trespassers outside the borough’s “Clean Halls” buildings without acting unconstitutionally.

The case will go to trial on March 18, but until then, the NYPD will be able to continue using the stop-and-frisk program in the Bronx to prevent suspicious-looking people from trespassing onto the grounds of public housing.

The judge said that if she were to stop the program immediately, then “a certain number of unconstitutional stops are likely to take place that would not have taken place in the absence of a stay,” which could lead to further lawsuits against the NYPD.

“On the other hand, allowing a longstanding unconstitutional practice to persist for a few months while the parties present arguments regarding the appropriate scope of a remedy is quite distinct from allowing such a practice to persist until the competition of a trial,” she said.

The judge initially ordered a halt to the trespass stops outside the Bronx “Clean Halls” on Jan. 8, but will once again allow them until she decides on the measures required to prevent unconstitutional human rights violations ahead of the upcoming trial.

The stop-and-frisk program allows officers of the NYPD to stop and search any person they suspect of criminal activity. Most of the people who were stopped and frisked under the program have been African-American or Hispanic, prompting concerns over racial profiling.

The stop-and-frisk program came under intense scrutiny in mid-2012, when thousands of people marched in opposition to the policy on June 17. Protesters also released a number of videos of police stopping minorities for their activism. Even some NYPD officers have expressed opposition to the program, which they believe encourages their fellow officers to exercise too much power and create heated tensions between them and their subjects.

In 2011, 684,330 people were stopped and questioned by the NYPD, which is a 600 percent increase from the year 2002. Of those stopped in 2011, 87 percent were African American or Latino.

The NYPD has argued that their program reduces crime, but only 12 percent of those stopped in 2011 were found violating the law and received  summons.

Allowing the stop-and-frisk program to continue in the Bronx will subject more New Yorkers to police stops and interrogations, nearly 90 percent of which involve innocent people and 87 percent of which involve African-Americans or Latinos.

Source

(via amyleona)

tsotchke:

green-street-politics:

cresscross:

knowledgeequalsblackpower:

blackaudacity:

RASHIDA: I wouldn’t trade my family for anything. My mother shocked her Jewish parents by marrying out of her religion and race. And my father: growing up poor and black, buckling the odds and becoming so successful, having the attitude of “I love this woman! We’re going to have babies and to hell with anyone who doesn’t like it!”

KIDADA: We had a sweet, encapsulated family. We were our own little world. But there’s the warmth of love inside a family, and then there’s the outside world. When I was born in 1974, there were almost no other biracial families–or black families–in our neighborhood. I was brown-skinned with short, curly hair. Mommy would take me out in my stroller and people would say, “What a beautiful baby…whose is it?” Rashida came along in 1976. She had straight hair and lighter skin. My eyes were brown; hers were green. IN preschool, our mother enrolled us in the Buckley School, an exclusive private school. It was almost all white.

RASHIDA: In reaction to all that differentess, Kidada tried hard to define herself as a unique person by becoming a real tomboy.

KIDADA: While Rashida wore girly dresses, I loved my Mr. T dolls and my Jaws T-shirt. But seeing the straight hair like the other girls had, like my sister had…I felt: “It’s not fair! I want that hair!”

PEGGY: I was the besotted mother of two beautiful daughters I’d had with the man I loved–I saw Kidada through those eyes. I thought she had the most gorgeous hair–those curly, curly ringlets. I still think so!

KIDADA: One day a little blond classmate just out and called me “Chocolate bar.” I shot back: “Vanilla!”

QUINCY: I felt deeply for Kidada; I thought racism would be over by the eighties. My role was to put things in perspective for her, project optimism, imply that things were better than they’d been for me growing up on the south side of Chicago in the 1930s.

KIDADA: I had another hurdle as a kid: I was dyslexic. I was held back in second grade. I flunked algebra three times. The hair, the skin, the frustration with schoolwork: It was all part of the shake. I was a strong-willed, quirky child–mischievous.

RASHIDA: Kidada was cool. I was a dork. I had a serious case of worship for my big sister. She was so strong, so popular, so rebellious. Here’s the difference in our charisma: When I was 8 and Kidada was 10, we tried to get invited into the audience of our favorite TV shows. Mine was Not Necessarily the News, a mock news show, and hers was Punky Brewster, about a spunky orphan. I went by the book, writing a fan letter–and I got back a form letter. Kidada called the show, used her charm, wouldn’t take no for an answer. Within a week she was invited to the set!

KIDADA: I was kicked out of Buckley in second grade for behavior problems. I didn’t want my mother to come to my new school. If kids saw her, it would be: “your mom’s white!” I told Mom she couldn’t pick me up; she had to wait down the street in her car. Did Rashida have that problem? No! She passed for white.

RASHIDA: “Passed”?! I had no control over how I looked. This is my natural hair, these are my natural eyes! I’ve never tried to be anything that I’m not. Today I feel guilty, knowing that because of the way our genes tumbled out, Kidada had to go through pain I didn’t have to endure. Loving her so much, I’m sad that I’ll never share that experience with her.

KIDADA: Let me make this clear: My feelings about my looks were never “in comparison to” Rashida. It was the white girls in class that I compared myself to. Racial issues didn’t exist at home. Our parents weren’t black and white; they were Mommy and Daddy.

RASHIDA: But it was different with our grandparents. Our dad’s father died before we were born. We didn’t see our dad’s mother often. I felt comfortable with Mommy’s parents, who’d come to love my dad like a son. Kidada wasn’t so comfortable with them. I felt Jewish; Kidada didn’t.

KIDADA: I knew Mommy’s parents were upset at first when she married a black man, and though they did the best they could, I picked up on what I thought was their subtle disapproval of me. Mommy says they loved me, but I felt estranged from them.

While Rashida stayed and excelled at Buckley, Kidada bumped from school to school; she got expelled from 10 in all because of behavior problems, which turned out to be related to her dyslexia.

KIDADA: We had a nanny, Anna, from El Salvador. I couldn’t get away with stuff with her. Mommy knew Anna could give her the backup she needed in the discipline department because she was my color. Anna was my “ethnic mama.”

PEGGY: Kidada never wanted to be white. She spoke with a little…twist in her language. She had ‘tude. Rashida spoke more primly, and her identity touched all bases. She’d announce, “I’m going to be the first female, black, Jewish president of the U.S.!”

KIDADA: When I was 11, a white girlfriend and I were going to meet up with these boys she knew. I’d told her, because I wanted to be accepted, “Tell them I’m tan.” When we met them, the one she was setting me up with said, “You didn’t tell me she was black.” That’s When I started defining myself as black, period. Why fight it? Everyone wanted to put me in a box. On passports, at doctor’s offices, when I changed schools, there were boxes to check: Caucasian, Black, Hispanic, Asian. I don’t mean any dishonor to my mother–who is the most wonderful mother in the world, and we are so alike–but: I am black. Rashida answers questions about “what” she is differently. She uses all the adjectives: black, white, Jewish.

RASHIDA: Yes, I do. And I get: “But you look so white!” “You’re not black!” I want to say: “Do you know how hurtful that is to somebody who identifies so strongly with half of who she is?” Still, that’s not as bad as when people don’t know. A year ago a taxi driver said to me, That Jennifer Lopez is a beautiful woman. Thank God she left that disgusting black man, Puffy.” I said, “I’m black.” He tried to smooth it over. IF you’re obviously black, white people watch their tongues, but with me they think they can say anything. When people don’t know “what” you are, you get your heart broken daily.

KIDADA: Rashida has it harder than I do: She can feel rejection from both parties.

RASHIDA: When I audition for white roles, I’m told I’m “too exotic.” When I go up for black roles, I’m told I’m “too light.” I’ve lost a lot of jobs, looking the way I do.

PEGGY: As Kidada grew older, it became clear that she wouldn’t be comfortable unless she was around kids who looked more like her. So I searched for a private school that had a good proportion of black students, and when she was 12, I found one.

KIDADA: That changed everything. I’d go to my black girlfriends’ houses and–I wanted their life! I lived in a gated house in a gated neighborhood, where playdates were: “My security will call your security.” Going to my black friends’ houses, I saw a world that was warm and real, where families sat down for dinner together. At our house, Rashida and I often ate dinner on trays, watching TV in Anna’s room, because our dada was composing and performing at night and Mom sat in on his sessions.

RASHIDA: But any family, from any background, can have that coziness too.

KIDADA: I’m sure that’s true, but I experienced all that heart and soul in black families. I started putting pressure on Mommy to let me go to a mostly black public school. I was on her and on her and on her. I wouldn’t let up until she said yes.

PEGGY: So one day when Kidada was 14, we drove to Fairfax High, where I gave a fake address and enrolled her.

KIDADA: All those kids! A deejay in the quad at lunch! Bus passes! All those cute black boys; no offense, but I thought white boys were boring. I fit in right away; the kids had my outgoing vibe. My skin and hair had been inconveniences at my other schools–I could never get those Madonna spiked bangs that all the white girls were wearing–but my girlfriends at Fairfax thought my skin was beautiful, and they loved to put their hands in my hair and braid it. The kids knew who my dad was an my stock went up. I felt secure. I was home.

RASHIDA: Our parents divorced when I was 10; Kidada went to live with Dad in his new house in Bel Air, and I moved with Mom to a house in Brentwood. Mom was very depressed after the divorce, and I made it my business to keep her company.

KIDADA: I wanted to live with Dad not because he was the black parent, but because he traveled. I could get away with more.

RASHIDA: At this time, anyone looking at Kidada and me would have seen two very different girls. I wore my navy blue jumper and crisp white blouse; K wore baggy Adidas sweatsuits and door-knocker earrings. My life was school, school, school. I’m with Bill Cosby: It’s every bit as black as it is white to be a nerd with a book in your hand.

KIDADA: The fact that Rashida was good at school while I was dyslexic intimidated me and pushed me more into my defiant role. I was ditching classes and going to clubs.

RASHIDA: About this time, Kidada was replacing me with younger girls from Fairfax who she could lead and be friends with.

KIDADA: They were my little sisters, as far as I was concerned.

RASHIDA: When I’d go to our dad’s house on weekends, eager to see Kidada, the new “little sisters” would be there. She’d be dressing them up like dolls. It hurt! I was jealous!

KIDADA: You felt that? I always thought you’d rejected me.

RASHIDA: Still, our love for the same music–Prince, Bobby Brown, Bell Biv DeVoe–would bring us together on weekends.

Read more at http://bossip.com/623483/rashida-jones-sister-kidada-agrees-she-passed-for-white-but-did-the-mean-girls-at-harvard-scare-her-away-from-dating-black-men-forever/#AxIHmVqHuf2MRIoj.99

Awesome story. Great journalism.

im glad they interviewed them both, instead of just rashida. I definitely relate to this hard, esp to  “IF you’re obviously black, white people watch their tongues, but with me they think they can say anything. When people don’t know “what” you are, you get your heart broken daily.”

and

“Passed”?! I had no control over how I looked. This is my natural hair, these are my natural eyes! I’ve never tried to be anything that I’m not. Today I feel guilty, knowing that because of the way our genes tumbled out, Kidada had to go through pain I didn’t have to endure. Loving her so much, I’m sad that I’ll never share that experience with her.”

jfc so many feels while reading this. most of this made me cry.

I know this is long but I definitely relate to this. Super glad they interviewed them both as well. I don’t pass for white but my sister does and we both very strongly identify as Latina. I really like how Rashida touched on having half of her identity erased in a lot of instances.

(via thinkspeakstress)

pussyharvest:

Anderson: On the red carpet for the Oscars last year you changed your look… kind of and it seemed to flip people out. People were writing about this, blogging about this. And Gabby at the Olympics recently, when she did really well I saw people commenting about her hair and stuff. I just thought it really odd that people notice this so much. Do you find it strange that people comment on how you appear so much?

(Source: viola-davis, via blackfeministmanifesto)

deafmuslimpunx:

“Open Admissions” (written by Shirley Lauro, published in 1979, premiered on Broadway in 1984)

This is a play about race and speech (speaking/writing) in higher education. I only had the One Act version play available. “Open Admissions” has three versions (Two Act, One Act, and Teleplay). I read the One Act version which was available in Political Playwriting (a book I am currently reading). I will discuss the One Act version.

It’s funny I came across this play, because there had been a lot of discussion on Tumblr about speech, racism, and level of education. The notion is that if you speak “white,” you are perceived as respectable, well-educated and more intelligent. If you speak “black,” you are perceived as stupid, ghetto, dangerous, and ignorant. There were discussions on Tumblr about upper-class white academics who speak in such academic mumbo-jumbo jargon, that their words are inaccessible to folks everywhere who are not well-versed or well-read. I have provided links below if you want to read.

Links:

“African American English”

“Language is Power”

“If you cannot communicate your ideas…”

“How can you be damn intellectual if…”

“I really despise academics who…”

“Open Admissions” One-Act version only has two characters: Professor Ginny (well-educated white woman and Shakespeare scholar who holds B.A, M.A and Ph.D) and Calvin Jefferson (a 18 years old black male who just entered college three months ago). The play is set in New York City, at an un-named New York City public college.

Calvin has just been granted open admission into college and he is determined to make a good life for himself. He wants to meet with Dr. Ginny (who teaches Speech and English) and asks her one question: why does she always give him a B, and nothing else? Not even a C or F or an A? He asks her how he can improve himself and learn more things. He is determined to improve his writing and speaking skills, and learn new skills. He wants to be graded harshly so that he can be motivated to do better.

Professor Ginny, at first, is dismissive toward him and insists that he did a “good job.” He does not believe her, and for good reason. He says that he’s messed up a lot in class, and doesn’t deserve a B. He also points out that the other black students in class all receive a B, while white students get graded differently. He also brings up another issue: when the students were assigned to perform Shakespeare scenes, Dr. Ginny made all the black students perform scenes out of Othello or other scenes with black characters, while white students had plenty of choices to choose from different Shakespeare plays. Calvin asks her why black students had no choice in what scene to perform. In other words: why are black students expected to perform black characters, while white students could play ANY character, regardless of race? In response to this, Dr. Ginny acts as if Calvin is being crazy.

Dr. Ginny reminds me of racist white liberals who claim they see no race, and that race shouldn’t matter. She doesn’t realize that her internalized racism pushes down black students and she ignores them, while she encourages and motivates white students to do better and improve their skills. She doesn’t care about black students and doesn’t try to push them harder. She just gives them a “B” and says “good job,” while she encourages white students to do better.

As a deaf person of color, I’ve remember this happening too many times in public and private school, both deaf and hearing. In college, I was required to take certain class to fulfill my B.A degree for Theatre. I had to either take 18th century British or 18th century American literature class. I thought I’d take 18th century British literature, because I was born in the UK and I was familiar with British literature. Unfortunately, the class was difficult and inaccessible to me, and the professor always spoke in jargon crap. He made NO efforts to have interesting, lively discussions on 18th century British literature. I was failing and doing poorly. That professor even asked to meet me in private and he told me to consider dropping the class. He brought up my deafness as a possible obstacle to doing well in school. I got deeply offended and angry that he thought I was failing because I’m deaf! No, I was failing the class because he was doing a SHITTY JOB teaching 18th century British literature to us. I was a lover of British literature, yet I was failing.

In the play, Calvin becomes frustrated with the lack of progress in their conversation. Dr. Ginny continues being dismissive toward him and he becomes upset. He asks Dr. Ginny to TEACH him. How can he improve his grades and do better in class? Teach me, teach me. TEACH ME!!! he yells at her, that’s YOUR JOB! YOU ARE A TEACHER. TEACH ME!

Dr. Ginny then relents and she sits him down, and then criticizes his speech. Instead of teaching him, she CRITICIZES him and corrects his speech. Calvin has “street” speech. Dr. Ginny says that people are perceived by others based on how they speak. Calvin is shocked by her patronizing attitude toward him.

It is a teacher’s job to teach, motivate, educate, and give constructive criticism. It is not the teacher’s job to constantly criticize and tear down the student. Or in this case, to whitewash the (black) student and try to teach him how to speak “white.”

Dr. Ginny does not make any efforts to teach Calvin to write and read better. Instead, she just criticizes and corrects his speech. He’s sitting there, dumbfounded by her paternalistic, white-privileged attitude.

During the play, Dr. Ginny bemoans about how she’s being overworked and hasn’t been promoted to a better teaching position despite having teached at the college for over 12 years and holds a Ph.D in Shakespeare studies. At this, Calvin retorts “and I’m supposed to feel sorry for you?” He is an eighteen years old black male who is trying to turn his life around and yet he’s expected to feel sorry for a privileged white woman who holds a Ph.D in Shakespeare studies and teaches at a New York City college!

Open Admissions (One-Act version) is a great example of white privilege and internalized racism in white academia. It’s a good play, and I would like an opportunity to direct this play onstage if I could.

(read my other play reviews)