[MEory] Me. Theory. Together.

Launched. http://abrainybeautyblog.wordpress.com/

2009-02-27T07:50:00.000-08:00

So I started a new blog. Again. But let me defend myself in saying that I made another blog in an effort to pare down the number of blogs that I have. I am converting to wordpress. So find me on that site now, please.

And learning how to use it was mildly confusing, but I think I have the hang of it now.

Anyway, I like the title of my new blog- "A Brainy Beauty Blog". Since I am altering my plans to go from academia to become a fictional writer, I figured I would write a blog more personal and hitting topics closer to me. Hence the birth of "A Brainy Beauty Blog".

Please go there and keep me in check. I don't want to be another self-important and pedantic blogger. =P

http://abrainybeautyblog.wordpress.com/

Teaser of the new blog (from the "Brainy Beauty Beginning" Post)

Origins
The title “A Brainy Beauty Blog” was inspired by a discussion between myself and a friend regarding the film. She suggested that I create a blog with a theme that I felt represented me and my views.

What does “Brainy Beauty” mean?
By placing the words brain and beauty together, I am challenging the notion that beauty is only surface deep. Also, I contend that brains/intelligence can be beautiful.

What is “A Brainy Beauty Blog” about?
The Brainy Beauty Blog will then analyze and discuss concepts pulled from everyday media, books, and anything else that I come across and deem worthy of a blog post (I am, after all, only one person).

Alright, here’s the Brainy Beauty Mission (from the "About" Section):

The Brainy Beauty Mission

The Brainy Beauty Blog was inspired by the documentary, “America the Beautiful”. While a powerful and insightful look into America’s obsession with beauty, I felt a sense of emptiness at the end of the documentary. I believe the documentary was created to start America’s dialogue with beauty.

This blog then, is a continuation of that dialogue. As a woman of color, what does “beauty” mean? What are things that affect the concept of beauty? I believe as a woman of color “beauty” itself is a problematic concept because it is informed by preference. And that preference could be informed by race, gender, political views, etc.

You, as a reader of this blog, then should come to expect a range of articles and views. Perhaps by me, perhaps by others. But what I’m going to try to do is engage in the discussion of “beauty” both inner and outer. Thus, the “outer” part is pretty simple- what you see. The “inner” part is somewhat more nebulous. I could talk about anything from religion, to politics, to art, or whatever else catches my attention.

I am no means an expert on these subjects. But I am an expert in my own opinion. Which may or may not change, but I will be open to a multitude of views.

I’m sure this blog will grow and change as I, myself, grow and change.

California and Proposition 8 - What I Would Like to Have Said/What I'm Saying Now

2008-11-05T06:42:00.001-08:00

As Bush makes ready to leave the White House and Barack Obama moves in- I can't help but feel a little twinge of feeling something that is just a little bittersweet. Prop 4 is not going to be passed. But a law that the California courts enacted and California voters rejected- that of Proposition 8 - has passed and has effectively banned gay marriage.

This post will not be an blame game and I apologize if my earlier post hurt anyone's feelings. But I envisioned today, a day if Proposition 8 passed, and I thought what I would feel and how friends I knew would feel. And I thought I would feel angrier, but really I just feel a great sense of dissappointment and loss. President Barack Obama and the millions of people who voted for him made history today. Yet, I can't help but think this election year was another case of "one step forward, two steps back" for gay marriage.

I can't help but feel that it was a combination of messy advertisements, word of mouth, and possibly bad wording for the proposition. I can envision some people thinking "oh yes on 8 means I support gay marriage!". Marriage is a privilege. A privilege that I have (and everyone should they choose to marry someone of the opposite sex). Yet, this privilege has now been restricted to a certain section of society.

Don't tell me that is not discrimination.

A friend mentioned that "marriage" itself is a messy term with religious affiliations. This is true, but the word marriage also has social and cultural affiliations. And like it or not, marriage also has perks. A blogger on a website called "right pundits" (suprisingly enought, right?) states:

With both fits and starts, the long history of mankind is one of more and more individual liberties. A ban on gay marriage would be a fit rather than a start.
And that is because without gay unions in some form, same sex couples do not share the same societal perks and handouts from the government. Those who think that an equal standing with married couples can be obtained through contractual arrangement make a disingenuous argument or are simply uninformed. Just as one small example among many, social security survivor benefits are available to married spouses but not unmarried domestic partners. “Marriage” means something in the law.
One can argue that these perks, most of them wasteful government handouts, should not exist at all. I tend to agree, but exist they do and so everyone should be entitled to the same line at Big Brother’s wasteful pork window. (1)

It is the question of those marriage rights and not the challenge to marriage rites- which is at stake. And argue if you will, but marriage within the government is NOT a religious institution (or shouldn't be at least). Why? Because a person who is an atheist can get married.

Now, what is difficult is to separate ideas of religious marriage and government marriage. But again I challenge you to think - if an atheist can get married, is it not about religion. Just at Prop 8 is not about the "gay" part of gay marriage so much as the "marriage rights" part. Florida and Arizona and other states have struck down gay marriage. But look at Arkansas, who voted to ban adoption for unmarried couples. UNmarried. And it didn't say heterosexual or homosexual couples - it said ALL couples who are unmarried. That means unmarried people who have been with each other for 10, 20, 30 years, but do not have a marriage will be unable to adopt.

And so the discrimination continues. And look, it's not just affecting gay people either.

I will concede that gay marriage and Proposition 8 really isn't just about marriage. I am now going to address the elephant in the room that No on Prop. 8 supporters really haven't addressed. In fact they have said that Prop. 8 ISN'T about this, but in fact is really is the cornerstone to supporters of Yes on Prop. 8. It's about heterosexism and homophobia (to quote a infosheet I once made at the Gender Equity Resource Center). That is that marriage (and a lot of other government rights) should be for heterosexual (straight) people ONLY. And the other layer of people being uncomfortable with homosexuality in general.

However, no matter how you feel about homosexuality- it is not a government's place to mete out rights to certain sections of society. You can be racist, homophobic, heck even a satanist but that should not be reflected in the government. As the previous article indicated what is important to Americans is our FREEDOM to have our individual rights. And those rights and that freedom is not available for homosexuals.

Once the government curtails these freedoms - it gives people the freedom to discriminate and commit heinous acts of violence. I think of the murders of people just because they happen to be gay in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or I think of people protesting at these same people's marriage- a murdered person doesn't even get the respect for a peaceful burial. That's the sick underbelly and the results you can't see when you vote on a law.

Anti miscegenation laws prevented interracial marriage. And these laws were based on concepts of racism. Because these laws merely reflected other's racism and bigotry there were riots, murders, and all around violence. We had a period of civil instability. It tooks years and years of pain, protests, and violence against those who fought for civil rights to overturn these laws and many others.

I can't help but smile my ironic smile and think a little ruefully that maybe we were asking for too much. No, we aren't asking for too much (to those who voted no on Prop. 8), but what we were asking for - other people aren't ready to accept. Afterall, it took 42 years after the Civil Rights Act to elected Barack Obama into presidency (it also took - a failed war and a broken economy).

I urge people not to give up.

In percentages it was 52 to 48 percent with a yes majority. Which means that odds are only slightly in favor of Yes on 8 supporters.

I'll take that.

In the media, it said that everyone would be looking toward California to create a state platform into a national one (2). Which means that the battle for gay marriage has lost, but we have yet to win the war.

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1 http://www.rightpundits.com/?p=2328

2 http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20081105-9999-lz1n5marriage.html

This is Your Nation on White Privilege & Addendum Article

2008-09-21T08:24:00.000-07:00

Since I've graduated Berkeley- I've felt a significant lack of communication. The workplace is really a difficult, if not impossible, place to have discussions. For those who are lucky to still be in college, enjoy your time having the ability to truly have freedom of speech. Because where I am- I would say it might even be detrimental to my job status if I were to voice my opinions freely (which is, in part, why I am considering getting another job).

This following article and the one after are articles brought to my attention by friends. Silly me for not reading sooner.

I invite you to read it and should you feel significantly- discuss openly.

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This Is Your Nation on White Privilege (Updated) by Tim Wise

http://www.redroom.com/blog/tim-wise/this-your-nation-white-privilege-updated

For those who still can't grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because "every family has challenges," even as black and Latino families with similar "challenges" are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

White privilege is when you can call yourself a "fuckin' redneck," like Bristol Palin's boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll "kick their fuckin' ass," and talk about how you like to "shoot shit" for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.

White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don't all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you're "untested."

White privilege is being able to say that you support the words "under God" in the pledge of allegiance because "if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it's good enough for me," and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the "under God" part wasn't added until the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.

White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you. White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was "Alaska first," and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she's being disrespectful.

White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor--and people think you're being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--you're somehow being mean, or even sexist.

White privilege is being able to convince white women who don't even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a "second look."

White privilege is being able to fire people who didn't support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.

White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God's punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you're just a good church-going Christian, but if you're black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you're an extremist who probably hates America.

White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a "trick question," while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O'Reilly means you're dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.

White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it a "light" burden.

And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren't sure about that whole "change" thing. Ya know, it's just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain.

White privilege is, in short, the problem.

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Explaining White Privilege to the Deniers and the Haters

http://www.redroom.com/blog/tim-wise/explaining-white-privilege-deniers-and-haters

September 18, 2008, 7:52 am

Explaining White Privilege (Or, Your Defense Mechanism is Showing)

Sigh.

I guess I should have expected it, seeing as how it's nothing new. I write a piece on racism and white privilege (namely, the recently viral This is Your Nation on White Privilege), lots of folks read it, many of them like it, and others e-mail me in fits of apoplexy, or post scathing critiques on message boards in which they invite me to die, to perform various sexual acts upon myself that I feel confident are impossible, or, best of all, to "go live in the ghetto," whereupon I will come to "truly appreciate the animals" for whom I have so much affection (the phrase they use for me and that affection, of course, sounds a bit different, and I'll leave it to your imagination to conjure the quip yourself).

Though I have no desire to debate the points made in the original piece, I would like to address some of the more glaring, and yet reasonable, misunderstandings that many seem to have about the subject of white privilege. That many white folks don't take well to the term is an understatement, and quite understandable. For those of us in the dominant group, the notion that we may receive certain advantages generally not received by others is a jarring, sometimes maddening concept. And if we don't understand what the term means, and what those who use it mean as they deploy it, our misunderstandings can generate anger and heat, where really, none is called for. So let me take this opportunity to explain what I mean by white privilege.

Of course, the original piece only mentioned examples of white privilege that were directly implicated in the current presidential campaign. It made no claims beyond that. Yet many who wrote to me took issue with the notion that there was such a thing, arguing, for instance that there are lots of poor white people who have no privilege, and many folks of color who are wealthy, who do. But what this argument misses is that race and class privilege are not the same thing.

Though we are used to thinking of privilege as a mere monetary issue, it is more than that. Yes, there are rich black and brown folks, but even they are subject to racial profiling and stereotyping (especially because those who encounter them often don't know they're rich and so view them as decidedly not), as well as bias in mortgage lending, and unequal treatment in schools. So, for instance, even the children of well-off black families are more likely to be suspended or expelled from school than the children of poor whites, and this is true despite the fact that there is no statistically significant difference in the rates of serious school rule infractions between white kids or black kids that could justify the disparity (according to fourteen different studies examined by Russ Skiba at Indiana University).
As for poor whites, though they certainly are suffering economically, this doesn't mean they lack racial privilege. I grew up in a very modest apartment, and economically was far from privileged. Yet I received better treatment in school (placement in advanced track classes even when I wasn't a good student), better treatment by law enforcement officers, and indeed more job opportunities because of connections I was able to take advantage of, that were pretty much unavailable to the folks of color I knew growing up. Likewise, low income whites everywhere are able to clean up, go to a job interview and be seen as just another white person, whereas a person of color, even who isn't low-income, has to wonder whether or not they might trip some negative stereotype about their group when they go for an interview or sit in the classroom answering questions from the teacher. Oh, and not to put too fine a point on it, but even low-income whites are more likely to own their own home than middle income black families, thanks to past advantages in housing and asset accumulation, which has allowed those whites to receive a small piece of property from their families.
The point is, privilege is as much a psychological matter as a material one. Whites have the luxury of not having to worry that our race is going to mark us negatively when looking for work, going to school, shopping, looking for a place to live, or driving for that matter: things that folks of color can't take for granted.

Let me share an analogy to make the point.

Taking things out of the racial context for a minute: imagine persons who are able bodied, as opposed to those with disabilities. If I were to say that able-bodied persons have certain advantages, certain privileges if you will, which disabled persons do not, who would argue the point? I imagine that no one would. It's too obvious, right? To be disabled is to face numerous obstacles. And although many persons with disabilities overcome those obstacles, this fact doesn't take away from the fact that they exist. Likewise, that persons with disabilities can and do overcome obstacles every day, doesn't deny that those of us who are able-bodied have an edge. We have one less thing to think and worry about as we enter a building, go to a workplace, or just try and navigate the contours of daily life. The fact that there are lots of able-bodied people who are poor, and some disabled folks who are rich, doesn't alter the general rule: on balance, it pays to be able-bodied.

That's all I'm saying about white privilege: on balance, it pays to be a member of the dominant racial group. It doesn't mean that a white person will get everything they want in life, or win every competition, but it does mean that there are general advantages that we receive.

So, for instance, studies have found that job applicants with white sounding names are 50% more likely to receive a call-back for a job interview than applicants with black-sounding names, even when all job-related qualifications and credentials are the same.
Other studies have found that white men with a criminal record are more likely to get a call-back for an interview than black male job applicants who don't have one, even when all requisite qualifications, demeanor and communication styles are the same.
Others have found that white women are far more likely than black women to be hired for work through temporary agencies, even when the black women have more experience and are more qualified.

Evidence from housing markets has found that there are about two million cases of race-based discrimination against people of color every year in the United States. That's not just bad for folks of color; the flipside is that there are, as a result, millions more places I can live as a white person.

Or consider criminal justice. Although data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration indicates that whites are equally or more likely than blacks or Latinos to use drugs, it is people of color (blacks and Latinos mostly) who comprise about 90 percent of the persons incarcerated for a drug possession offense. Despite the fact that white men are more likely to be caught with drugs in our car (on those occasions when we are searched), black men remain about four times more likely than white men to be searched in the first place, according to Justice Department findings. That's privilege for the dominant group.
That's the point: privilege is the flipside of discrimination. If people of color face discrimination, in housing, employment and elsewhere, then the rest of us are receiving a de facto subsidy, a privilege, an advantage in those realms of daily life. There can be no down without an up, in other words.

None of this means that white folks don't face challenges. Of course we do, and some of them (based on class, gender, sexual orientation, disability status, or other factors) are systemic and institutionalized. But on balance, we can take for granted that we will receive a leg-up on those persons of color with whom we share a nation.
And no, affirmative action doesn't change any of this.

Despite white fears to the contrary, even with affirmative action in place (which, contrary to popular belief does not allow quotas or formal set-asides except in those rare cases where blatant discrimination has been proven) whites hold about ninety percent of all the management level jobs in this country, receive about ninety-four percent of government contract dollars, and hold ninety percent of tenured faculty positions on college campuses. And in spite of affirmative action programs, whites are more likely than members of any other racial group to be admitted to their college of first choice.* And according to a study released last year, for every student of color who received even the slightest consideration from an affirmative action program in college, there are two whites who failed to meet normal qualification requirements at the same school, but who got in anyway because of parental influence, alumni status or because other favors were done.

Furthermore, although white students often think that so-called minority scholarships are a substantial drain on financial aid resources that would otherwise be available to them, nothing could be further from the truth. According to a national study by the General Accounting Office, less than four percent of scholarship money in the U.S. is represented by awards that consider race as a factor at all, while only 0.25 percent (that's one quarter of one percent for the math challenged) of all undergrad scholarship dollars come from awards that are restricted to persons of color alone. What's more, the idea that large numbers of students of color receive the benefits of race-based scholarships is lunacy of the highest order. In truth, only 3.5 percent of college students of color receive any scholarship even partly based on race, suggesting that such programs remain a pathetically small piece of the financial aid picture in this country, irrespective of what a gaggle of reactionary white folks might believe.**

In other words, despite the notion that somehow we have attained an equal opportunity, or color-blind society, the fact is, we are far from an equitable nation. People of color continue to face obstacles based solely on color, and whites continue to reap benefits from the same. None of this makes whites bad people, and none of it means we should feel guilty or beat ourselves up. But it does mean we need to figure out how we're going to be accountable for our unearned advantages. One way is by fighting for a society in which those privileges will no longer exist, and in which we will be able to stand on our own two feet, without the artificial crutch of racial advantage to prop us up. We need to commit to fighting for racial equity and challenging injustice at every turn, not only because it harms others, but because it diminishes us as well (even as it pays dividends), and because it squanders the promise of fairness and equity to which we claim to adhere as Americans.

It's about responsibility, not guilt. And if one can't see the difference between those two things, there is little that this or any other article can probably do. Perhaps starting with a dictionary would be better.
*U.S Federal Glass Ceiling Commission, Good for Business: Making Full Use of the Nation's Human Capital. (Washington DC: Bureau of National Affairs, March 1995); Fred L. Pincus, Reverse Discrimination: Dismantling the Myth. (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003), 18; Roberta J. Hill, "Far More Than Frybread," in Race in the College Classroom: Pedagogy and Politics, ed. Bonnie TuSmith and Maureen T. Reddy. (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press), 169; Sylvia Hurtado and Christine Navia, "Reconciling College Access and the Affirmative Action Debate," in Affirmative Action's Testament of Hope, ed. Mildred Garcia (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1997), 115.
**U.S. General Accounting Office, 1994. "Information on Minority Targeted Scholarships," B251634. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, January; Stephen L. Carter, "Color-Blind and Color-Active," 1992. The Recorder. January 3.

SFGate: ASIAN POP/Opening the box

2008-06-20T00:31:00.000-07:00

Apparently, June 12 is the anniversary of the Loving v. Virginia decision which cancelled anti-miscegenation laws. June 12 is also the anniversary of Philippine Independance.

Coincidence? ....maybe not

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Wednesday, June 18, 2008 (SF Gate)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/g/a/2008/06/18/apop.DTL

ASIAN POP/Opening the box
By Jeff Yang, Special to SF Gate

Where race meets sex, angels fear to tread. Jeff Yang dives into Asian America's favorite taboo topic: interracial romance and the "gender divide."

I remember when, the week before I left for college, my parents sat me down to tell me about the facts of life. The lecture wasn't about sex — my father, a physician, was prone to oversharing the grosser aspects of human anatomy, so I was horrifyingly aware of the mechanical aspects of reproduction as early as elementary school. No, the wisdom they sought to impart related to the Theory of Dating Relativity. Which is to say: The more similar your partner is to you without actually being a blood relative, the better.

Children of close family friends? Perfect. If that's not possible, try someone whose parents are from the same hometown. Taiwanese is better than mainlander or Hong Konger, Chinese of any type is better than other Asians, but if you must stray outside of Greater China, focus on East Asia before Southeast or South Asia ... and so on and so on, in an ever-expanding series of concentric circles.

My parents weren't being racist (or at least not maliciously so): Their beliefs were shaped by the reality in which they were brought up, and the culture to which they'd immigrated. They'd seen the challenges faced by people in mixed relationships, and they wanted my sister and me to have an easier life. Things weren't easy for mixed couples in the 1970s, particularly among immigrant groups, where social networks were critical yet fragile, and most community support systems were contingent on "insider" versus "outsider" status.

But have things changed? With last week marking the anniversary of Loving v. Virginia, the landmark June 12, 1967 Supreme Court decision that upheld the right for men and women of different races to marry, it seemed like anappropriate time to explore that question.

Statistics support the notion that interracial relationships are on the rise in the Asian American community: Mixed couples represented over a quarter of all marriages among Asian Americans in 1980, and over a third of Asian American marriages in 2006. And interracial couples with Asian partners are increasingly depicted in movies, TV and other popular entertainment, to the point where their racial differences are often not even germane to their characters' storylines.

What many commentators have pointed out, of course, is that both the numbers and popular culture reflect a reality in which only half the Asian American community — the female half — are players. Call it the doubletake test: Seeing an Asian American woman with a non-Asian man is no longer noteworthy, but an Asian American man with a non-Asian woman still turns heads. That gender gap is reflected in interracial marriage statistics as well: According to the U.S. Census' 2006 update, 19.5 percent of Asian American women outmarry, compared with 7.2 percent of Asian American men. And that, to some, speaks volumes about the sexual desirability and social status of Asian men in America.

As blogger Dialectic wrote on the popular Asian American online forum TheFighting44s (where four out of the top five most popular posts relate to interracial relationships): "If heterosexual white male patriarchy and what it did in the world were not so powerful, I think it would be fair to say that Asian American women and men would be 'out-dating' or 'out-marrying' at similar rates, and that we wouldn't elevate whites, denigrate ourselves, or worry about whether we're sexually and personally worthy of others to nearly the same extent that we do now."

Lover of another color
That's what makes it so intriguing that a small but thriving subculture has emerged (where else?) online, of non-Asian women whose expressed romantic preferences are for Asian men. They're represented by communities like AznLover.com, a social networking site dedicated to celebrating "AM/XF" relationships — romances between Asian men and women of any background.

The site is no recent novelty; it's been around since 2004, and, having expanded dramatically from blog to forum to full-fledged social networking community, now has over 6,000 active registered members and a constant flow of lurkers. According to Tom C., the site's owner, about 60 percent of the site's 30,000 unique visitors per month are Asian males, with the rest being "females who admire them." The site isn't unique — Tom admits that there is a surprisingly large number of online communities dedicated to similar interests — but AznLover is among the oldest and largest, and distinguishes itself, its members assert, by not being focused on making romantic connections.

"It goes without saying that relationships happen here," says Tom. "But AznLover's real mission is to help debunk the common stereotypes associated with Asian males, to provide community between people with similar issues, questions and curiosities, and to foster interaction between females of all races and Asian males, so that they realize that, yes, they too are 'sought after items.'"

Some who sign up for the site are women already part of AM/XF couples, seeking to become more informed on the cultural and social issues that they're confronting, and to connect with females in a similar situation. Kristina Nicholas of Santa Cruz joined AznLover hoping to better understand her Japanese American fiance: "We'd just become engaged, and I was looking for other women in my situation to gain insight and even support for the challenges that might arise from marrying into a different culture," she says.

Others, like San Francisco resident Elizabeth M., joined the site hoping to make new friends (and more). "I joined the site to find like-minded individuals who understood my love of Asian men," says Elizabeth. "In the process, I feel like I've grown a lot as a person — I've learned from many people's experiences in travel and relationships, I've learned more about different cultures. And I feel like I've made a difference in helping people cross boundaries that most people don't discuss and aren't even aware of."

That includes psychological boundaries, like the ones faced by Melissa Palmer, an AznLover from Detroit, MI who calls herself a "white chick from the whitest-white background imaginable." "My vast knowledge of the Asian male was based on John Hughes movies and influenced by the regional racism toward Japanese at the time, so I'd already made my decision regarding Asian men; I just wasn't attracted to them," she says. "But fast forward to the near present: What started as a friendship with a Chinese male grew into love. One day, it all came flooding out — we admitted to each other that the pull was there. God, I love that day!"

For Asian American men, AznLover feels like a kind of parallel dimension, where their status is inverted: Rather than being exiled to the margins, Asian males are at the center of this particular universe; not just "accepted," but revered. "I love the fact that people on the site acknowledge the beauty in Asian men," says Harry Li, a Malaysian American member living in Texas. "Society still makes women feel self-conscious about saying they like Asian features, or particularly, Asian guys, so even if they do, they won't let their attraction out in public. At AznLover, we all know why we're there — we share a common bond, in that one group has the qualities, physical and otherwise, that the other appreciates."

The politics of desire
Appreciation can be a double-edged sword, of course. Being rejected is problematic, but so is being objectified. "There's a type of privilege in being sexually desirable, but that can come at a cost," says Carmen Van Kerkhove, proprietor of Racialicious.com and host of the podcast "Addicted to Race." "Asian women have been dehumanized by being put on a pedestal, and I'm wary of the same thing happening to Asian men. Some guys may roll their eyes and say, it'll take a long time to get to that point, but there's a fine line you have to tread in not trading one set of racist assumptions for another." (That's something that's long been an issue in the LGBT community, where activists have long protested the exotic imagery that pervades the depiction of Asian men — imagery all too similar to how Asian women have historically been stereotyped in mainstream media.)

And objectification, meanwhile, is a two-way street: There's also the question of whether some Asian men who seek to level the romantic playing field are less motivated by racial justice than male entitlement: the desire to jump to the top of the social totem pole by bagging sexual big game. "I do find it disturbing that some of the more extreme views I've seen are focused less on social equality than on Asian men attaining the same set of privileges as white males, whom they see as having the pick of women," says Van Kerkhove.

The "pick of women" generally has its own racial dimension. As Alicia Powell, a 24-year-old, black female AznLover member says, "I think Asian men are brainwashed to want white women. And it's too bad, because I'm attracted to Asian men, and I think black female / Asian male couples are beautiful. It's messed up that many Asian American men dismiss women of other races. But they see stereotypes of black women in the media, and they see white women depicted as glamorous, so that's what they think is right for them."

Honeybee love
If the central concern of Asian American men were truly equality and universality rather than social status, Asian male/black female couplings would seem to be natural, given that the black community has its own gender disparity in outmarriage rates — in the other direction: Black men are twice as likely as black women to have a nonblack spouse. Yet statistics show that "Asian man/black woman" is the least common of all interracial combinations, representing less than 0.01 percent of all marriages in the United States — a total of just 6,000 couples across the entire country.

That's led some people to call for an active love connection between these two underrepresented romantic populations. In April, New York sex, dating and relationships columnist Twanna Hines decreed in a hilarious (and much quoted) post on her blog FunkyBrownChick that it was "time for the Asian American male community to get down with the brown."

"My inspiration for the post was a friend back in Chicago, who was always completely against dating anyone who wasn't black, period," says Hines. "I'd invite her to parties, and because my friends are such a diverse bunch of people, she'd always ask me first, 'Well, are any men whom I'd want to date going to be there?' Which was a code word for black men. Anyway, she called me up, and began the conversation, 'Guess what? I have a new boyfriend ... and he's Chinese.' And it really got me thinking, hey, if even Karen's doing it, maybe she's on to something. Maybe we're seeing the beginnings of a trend."

Maybe Hines is right: Small but vibrant informal social networks are springing up, like the "Black Woman and Asian Men Interracial Connections" group on Meetup; "Asian Men that love Black Women" on Facebook; and the Yahoo group "Asian Men Who Love Black Women" — which suggests in its introduction that "As the number of (available) Asian women and black men declines, the Asian man is left without a pool of wife material. The black woman is in the same category. It is only natural that the two should seek each other out to form a loving relationships."

Pop equals hot equals sexy

Ultimately, however, it's hard to see these disparities as being anything but temporary — and local. Any sexual imbalances that exist due to the unique alchemy of sex, race and class in the United States fade in the face of a globalized world; one in which the playing field is different, and so are the players and rules. In the Caribbean, for instance, intermarriages between black women and Asian men are relatively common. In fact, asserts AznLover member David Nghiem, a globetrotter who recently completed an epic bicycle trip across the entire length of Latin America, "Outside of the 'anglosphere' — North America, England, Australia and New Zealand — things are completely different. Asian men are in general seen as dateable, sexy and interesting. Most of the world has their own media, in their own languages and subtleties, and Hollywood's attempts to spread stereotypes about Asian men and their sexuality literally stops at the anglosphere's edge, simply because the rest of the world doesn't understand it and doesn't care."

There are, after all, billions of Asian men in Asia, and in the pop culture coming out of Japan, Korea, China and India — the pop culture that increasingly rules the universe — their sexual desirability is hardly in question. As the balance of economic and social power shifts outward beyond America's borders, the political aspects of race and romance inevitably become secondary to the personal. Which points the way to a new Grand Unified Field Theory of Dating, if you will, which I'll have ready for my sons when I send them off to college: Date whoever the hell you want, and stop worrying so much about what it means.

Susan Del Vecchio, a 31-year-old AznLover member in a long-term committed relationship with a San Jose-based Vietnamese American she met on the site, agrees. "I think people overthink and overanalyze the nature of romance," she laughs. "I grew up in a little 200-person town in Missouri, where there wasn't an Asian person for hundreds of miles. But even as I was growing up I found myself preferring guys with dark hair, who had certain kinds of features. Once I got out and started to see the world, I narrowed my tastes down, and by the time I hit my 20s, I found myself only going out with Asian guys. It was a purely aesthetic choice: I just think Asian men are beautiful. And if you don't, too bad. As I used to say back in my dating days, 'That just means more men for me!'"

PopMail
For interracial couples of all backgrounds and combinations, June 12, the anniversary of the Loving v. Virginia decision, marks the day that made the consummation of their love possible. It's no wonder, then, that there are those who think it should be a day for rejoicing. Ken Tanabe, a graphic designer and biracial issues advocate living in Brooklyn, has been working for the past four years to do just that.

"My father is Japanese and my mother is Belgian," says Tanabe. "I first encountered the Loving case purely by accident. I was Googling something unrelated and it came up; I couldn't believe I had never heard of it. I was a good student, yet I never learned about it in school. And to me, the case was up there with Brown v. Board of Ed. The laws that Loving v. Virginia struck down could have easily prevented my own existence."

Inspired by the grassroots efforts that led to the creation of Juneteenth — June 19, Emancipation Day, now a holiday in 29 states, including California — Tanabe decided to build a campaign to establish June 12 as a holiday — Loving Day — remembering that landmark case, and celebrating freedom of the heart. Loving Day events have sprung up across the country (Tanabe has created a free celebration kit with materials to help people plan their own, downloadable as a .pdf file at the LovingDay.org Web site), but the largest is still in New York: Last week, over 1,000 people attended the festivities, presided over by renowned DJs Spooky and Rekha and sponsored by Asahi beer, Zipcar and Puma.

But Loving Day isn't just about having a party. "Things are getting better for interracial couples and multiracial individuals," says Tanabe. "However, social acceptance might not matter that much to you if your best friend or your mother is threatening to cut you out of their lives. We hear a lot of those stories: Racism against couples often occurs behind closed doors. The Loving Day Project is about counteracting the prejudice you might not immediately see."

That prejudice extends far beyond interracial couples, as those fighting for the full legalization of same-sex marriage know. Those advocates will also readily affirm that Loving v. Virginia is a critical precedent in the road map guiding that fight as well. Love knows no color, no shape or size, no age or gender — in fact, love knows nothing but love. Which maybe makes Loving Day something all of us should celebrate.

See you in two weeks!

This story has been changed since its original posting. --Ed

Jeff Yang forecasts global consumer trends for the market-research company Iconoculture (www.iconoculture.com). He is the author of "Once Upon a Time in China: A Guide to the Cinemas of Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mainland China," co-author of "I Am Jackie Chan: My Life in Action" and "Eastern Standard Time," and editor of the forthcoming "Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology" (www.secretidentities.org). He lives in New York City. Go to http://altreviews.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi to join INSTANT YANG, Jeff Yang's biweekly mailing list offering updates on this column and alerts about other breaking Asian / Asian American pop-culture news, or connect with him on Facebook: www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1074720260, LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jeffcyang, or Twitter: http://twitter.com/originalspin. ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2008 SF Gate

Only In America

2008-06-07T01:22:00.000-07:00

I'm excited that the democratic party has finally resolved it's presidential candidate back and forth. However, I hope that now it's decided, the people who voted for Clinton will vote for Obama. I wonder if it was going to be difficult either way (I mean if Clinton won).

I found the article below (from Newsweek) really interesting. I believe Newsweek kind of skirts the elephant in the room (race)- it does point out the way Obama's image is a double edged sword (accessible/not accessible enough).

I'll see you in November at the polls, folks.

---

Only in America:
Barack Obama is a Niebuhr-reading ESPN watcher. The origins of his troubles with the 'other' tag.

Evan Thomas, Holly Bailey and Richard Wolffe
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 3:19 PM ET Apr 26, 2008

There was a time, not so long ago, when the advisers to John McCain worried a great deal about running against Barack Obama. "We'll never get those kind of crowds," a McCain aide admitted, almost mournfully, to a NEWSWEEK reporter as they stood watching television coverage of a packed Obama rally in South Carolina last January. Obama seemed to have a kind of transcendent power, an ability to convince voters that he was not just another politician. Most McCain aides at the time wanted to run against Hillary Clinton, whom they regarded as a traditional tax-and-spend Democrat with unusually high negative ratings.

But lately, McCain aides have been making gleeful jokes about Obama. On the campaign trail, at dinner with reporters, they sometimes order the arugula salad, poking fun at some comments Obama made last summer in Iowa ("Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula?"). "Do you see how much they are charging for this?" a McCain aide asked a reporter at one such dinner at a restaurant, pointing to the menu and feigning shock. Following Hillary Clinton's lead, the McCain team sees an opportunity to paint Obama as an out-of-touch elitist, a Harvard toff who nibbles daintily at designer salads while the working man, worried about layoffs at the plant, belts another shot. Though the McCain advisers are divided about who would make the more beatable candidate in November, they see a chance to peel off Reagan Democrats—older working-class voters—in key swing states of the rust belt if Obama is the Democratic nominee. While McCain himself is publicly neutral on which Democrat he would prefer to oppose, in recent weeks he has noticeably gone easier on Clinton than Obama, perhaps out of hopes of winning over some of her working-class base.

It is true that the McCain team still expects Obama to be their opponent in November. It is also true that on the electoral maps of many prognosticators, Obama lines up better against McCain than does Clinton. Still, there can be no doubt after last Tuesday's 9-point loss in Pennsylvania that Obama is having trouble "closing the deal," as Hillary tauntingly put it, with the Democrats. Pennsylvania voters may just admire Hillary's grittiness and prefer her relentless focus on the needs of ordinary voters who clamor for health care and better schools and worry about losing their jobs to overseas competitors. She may seem more down to earth than her competitor, who is better known for his generalities, however uplifting. But in Obama's failure to lock up the nomination, there may be something more disturbing going on as well.

Americans do not like to talk about class, and they want to believe racism is a thing of the past. Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, paragons of the people, were decidedly upper class in background, style and habit, and no one seemed to mind (except some other members of the upper class, who regarded the Roosevelts as "traitors" for wanting to tax and regulate the rich). JFK and Ronald Reagan were princely in their own ways (of Camelot and Hollywood) and yet could touch the hearts of common men and women. We want our presidents to be everyman (or every woman), of the people for all the people. When Richard Nixon dressed the White House guards in uniforms more appropriate to the late Austro-Hungarian Empire, everyone hooted.

The most successful presidents have always been open and hopeful, sunny and optimistic about the promise of American equality and opportunity. But there has long been a dark side to democratic politics, a willingness to play on prejudice, to get men and women to vote their fears and not their hopes. Those prejudices fade and seem to die down, but they never quite go away. They remain embers for cunning political operatives to fan into flames.

An exit poll of Pennsylvania voters included a chilling number that makes one wonder if Americans, or at least some groups in some parts of America, are ready to elect a black president. In the poll, 12 percent of whites said that race was a factor in deciding their votes. To be sure, a quarter of those voted for Obama, and gender was also a factor (for 14 percent of women and 6 percent of men). Polling on race is tricky. In the new NEWSWEEK Poll, 19 percent of American voters say that the country is not ready to elect an African-American president. Yet when asked if Obama's race makes a difference, only 3 percent of whites say Obama's race makes it less likely they would support him, while 5 percent of whites (and 16 percent of non-whites) say his race would make it more likely they would support him. What people will do in the privacy of the polling booth remains mysterious. In the NEWSWEEK Poll, more than half the voters said they think "most" (12 percent) or "some" (41 percent) of the voters will "have reservations about voting for a black candidate that they are not willing to express." In close elections, decided on the margins, it is discouraging to think that a small minority of racists could make the difference.

What is just weird is this: how can it be that a black man running for president is accused of being too elitist? For the first century of the nation's existence, blacks were kept in chains. For the next century, they were sent to the back of the bus and kept away from whites-only lunch counters and restrooms throughout the South—much less allowed to join the white elite in their schools and clubs and prestigious institutions. Then, starting in the 1960s, American society began to make a concerted effort to open up those doors. Barack Obama is not so much the beneficiary of that effort as the proof that blacks can make it on their own, if given the chance. He was, despite a modest upbringing, elected editor of the Harvard Law Review, a position at the very tip of the meritocratic ziggurat.

Yet to pockets of America, he still seems to be the "other." He seems a little strange, exotic; those cracked e-mails whispering about his middle name (Hussein) and declaring, fictitiously, that he is a Muslim who insisted on being sworn into office on the Qur'an rather than the Bible, keep buzzing around the Internet. To some, his manner is haughty; he is a bit of an egghead, one of those pointy-headed intellectuals whom George W. Bush liked to ridicule as a Deke brother at Yale and even later as president of the United States (and, long before him, demagogues like the anti-Semitic right-wing radio priest of the 1940s, Father Charles Coughlin; Red-baiter Sen. Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin, and race-baiter Gov. George Wallace of Alabama).

Demagoguing, even in the subtle ways enabled by new media, can have an impact over time. In the NEWSWEEK Poll, 13 percent reported that Obama is Muslim. NEWSWEEK reporters on the campaign trail could hear the wariness, even fearfulness, of voters as they spoke about Obama. Secretly taped by a "citizen journalist," then reported online, Obama's remarks to San Francisco fund-raisers—that some voters in economically depressed towns "cling" to religion and guns out of "bitterness"—did not sit well, nor did the endlessly replayed YouTube videos of Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., ranting against America. Richard Vallejo, 65, of Bristol, Pa., a typical working-class town, has voted Democratic all his life. But of Obama, Vallejo says: "He's prejudiced against white people. I'm in a small town and if I own a gun, it's not because I'm bitter. It is because of the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms." In Indiana, the next stop on the primary trail on May 6, Brenda Spreitzer, 42, told a NEWSWEEK reporter at a Clinton rally: "I think Barack's viewpoints and his past is too flamboyant. It's more radical than I want to go … I'm just not comfortable," she said, adding that she is concerned about Obama's practice of generally not wearing an American flag pin. (None of the candidates wear flag pins.) She has been researching Obama on the Internet and discovered that he wants to tear out the bowling alley in the White House (Obama has kiddingly said he wants to replace it with a basketball court). "That freaked me out because no matter if he bowls or not, it's a historic thing that should never be changed."

Hillary Clinton has described Obama's remarks about small-town bitterness as "elitist, out of touch and frankly patronizing." Clinton strategist Harold Ickes tells NEWSWEEK "she clearly has established a connection with people who work hard for a living and are having difficulty making ends meet." One Clinton ad, featuring a waitress in a diner, says, "She's worked the night shift, too" (never mind that she is a graduate of Wellesley and Yale Law). McCain's advisers, meanwhile, have enjoyed watching Clinton attack Obama over his remarks. "Manna from heaven," said one McCain aide, who did not wish to be identified gloating. Come the fall campaign, GOP operatives can be counted on to caricature Obama as a gutter-ball-throwing populist phony who is far more at home in a sherry-sipping faculty club than at a bowling alley.

The Republican Party has had a field day over the past half-century making fun of Democrats who are "effete"—first Adlai Stevenson, a cultivated brainiac who lost twice to Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s; then Michael Dukakis, a former professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government who made the mistake of being ludicrously photographed in a tank helmet and allowed himself to be cornered as somehow soft on crime (read: black crime); then John Kerry, a Yale man who seemed to enjoy windsurfing in Nantucket a little too much (forget that he was decorated for valor in Vietnam). Now there is Obama, a man who seems to want to think before he speaks and lacks Hillary Clinton's enthusiasm for hoisting a beer glass or throwing back shots of Crown Royal Canadian whisky for the ever-present cameramen.

Obama has had the misfortune to run for the presidency in an age when reporters are watching, it seems, every time the candidate picks up a fork or orders a meal. Here is The New York Times's Maureen Dowd on Obama's efforts to appear to be a regular guy through carbohydrate consumption: "In the final days in Pennsylvania, he dutifully logged time at diners and force-fed himself waffles, pancakes, sausage, and a Philly cheesesteak. He split the pancakes with Michelle, left some of the waffle and sausage behind, and gave away the French fries that came with the cheesesteak. But this is clearly a man who can't wait to get back to his organic scrambled egg whites …"

Imagine what reporters would have written about the dining habits and tastes of patricians like Franklin Roosevelt or John or Robert F. Kennedy—had reporters written about such things. With his cigarette holder and martini shaker and Groton accent, FDR was almost a parody of a rich swell. JFK, who had Palm Beach tastes, liked a daiquiri before dinner; on the campaign trail, at the end of the day, RFK relaxed, not with a boilermaker, but with a Heineken and a bowl of chocolate ice cream (by unwritten rules in a more decorous age, such details were either not mentioned or not dwelled upon by reporters in their daily dispatches).

Obama himself is more than a little vexed by the charge that he is elitist. Of course, there are privileged African-American families; his own daughters, Sasha and Malia, are being educated at a Chicago private school. Obama suggested to ABC's George Stephanopoulos that they did not need affirmative action at a university. "I think my daughters should probably be treated by any admissions officer as folks who are pretty advantaged," said Obama. But his own story is much more hardscrabble. He was raised by a single parent, his mother, who lived on food stamps for a time. He graduated from an Ivy League college—Columbia—but worked as a low-paid community organizer in Chicago. After Harvard Law, he turned down the high-pay, high-prestige jobs in corporate-law firms to work in a small civil-rights firm, mostly on voting-rights cases. He talks about his experiences helping the poor in the shadows of shuttered steel plants in Chicago. "Politics didn't lead me to working folks," he says, "working folks led me to politics." His wife, Michelle, is more emphatic. "I am a product of a working-class background," she says. "I am one of those folks who grew up in that struggle. That is the lens through which I see the world." (A close read of her Princeton thesis suggests where her heart lay even after four years in the Ivy League: the paper is a paean to staying in touch with her black working-class roots.) "So," Michelle recently told a high-school audience in Evansville, Ind., "when people talk about this elitist stuff, I say, 'You couldn't possibly know anything about me'."

Obama's chief campaign adviser, David Axelrod, bridles at the elitist charge: "In terms of his personal habits, this is a guy who is an ESPN sports fanatic, who plays basketball for relaxation. When he's out and about, he's more solicitous of the people around him, the people on the street and the kitchen workers and the police officers than almost any politician I have known. Anybody who advances the argument that he's an elitist simply doesn't know the guy. It's generally the elite who advance the argument."

It is possible to overstate the damage done by Obama's elitist image. It is an old shibboleth that blue-collar voters are a mainstay of the Democratic Party. The paraphernalia of working-class politics have become central to campaign imagery —sharing a beer, going bowling and standing in the back of a pickup truck. The catch is that blue-collar workers make up a much smaller percentage of the population than in the heyday of the New Deal Democrats. Since 1940, white-collar workers have grown from 32 percent to 60 percent, according to a Brookings Institution study. In 1940, three quarters of adults older than 25 were high-school dropouts or never went to high school at all. By 1960, 59 percent still lacked a high-school education. By last year the figure was down to 14 percent.

In Pennsylvania, Obama lost to Clinton among voters earning less than $50,000 a year by 8 points, 54 to 46 percent. But his performance among lower-income voters actually improved in the six weeks between Ohio and Pennsylvania, despite the flaps over Wright and the "bitter" remark. In Ohio, he lost the lower-income vote by 12 percent. But Obama's aides are quick to point out that Obama won among voters earning less than $50,000 in another key industrial Midwest state—Wisconsin, in early February—and that indeed, he has defeated Hillary Clinton among low income voters in 14 of 30 states where there were exit polls. (In many of those states, there are large numbers of poor black voters.) Obama's bigger problem is with older voters, say these aides. Obama's newness and "otherness" seems to be a concern with older, poorer, less-educated female voters. Some elderly voters may have a harder time shedding old prejudices.

It is also worth noting, the Obama-ites say, that in a recent Gallup poll, when asked if each presidential candidate "looks down upon the average American" or "respects the average American," only 26 percent responded that Obama "looks down." That was 4 points more than McCain but 6 points less than Hillary. (In the NEWSWEEK Poll, Obama did better than both McCain and Clinton: 25 percent said Obama "looks down on people like you," versus 26 percent for McCain and 32 percent for Clinton.) In Pennsylvania exit polling, on the critical question of which candidate is "in touch with people like you," 67 percent said Clinton was, versus 66 percent for Obama—a virtual tie.

Figuring out who might do better against McCain in November requires a certain amount of guesswork and often reflects the wishes and hopes of who's doing the guessing. Eyeing those Reagan Democrats, the McCain camp believes that if Obama wins the nomination, the Republicans might have a shot at some states considered to be safe Clinton territory, like New York and New Jersey. Those big former industrial states—Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan—could all go Republican if the Democrats pick Obama. On the other hand, the Obama advisers argue that by appealing to independents and registering new young voters, Obama could take states in the West like Colorado and Nevada that seem unreachable to Clinton. By energizing his black base, Obama could even take away two or three Southern states— Virginia and the Carolinas, perhaps—from the GOP. The Obama-ites also predict that once the hard fighting of the primaries finally ends, the Democratic Party will come together, and Democrats alienated by all the feuding will come home.

Obama's promise of success depends on more than soothing the Democratic base, however. He will not be able to re-create the magic of those huge, idolatrous rallies in January and February by drinking beer chasers and eating more waffles. What he had—and what he has lost, at least for the time being—is something more ineffable, a hope of changing politics as commonly understood, and disdained, by voters of all classes and races.

The arc of New York Times columnist David Brooks is illustrative. The widely read and influential Brooks, a onetime neocon who had moved somewhat to the middle or at least become unpredictable in his politics, first seemed to fall in love a year ago. He was interviewing Obama and asked about foreign-aid programs. "His voice was measured and fatigued, and he was taking those little pauses candidates take when they're afraid of saying something that might hurt them later on," wrote Brooks. "Out of the blue, I asked, 'Have you read Reinhold Niebuhr?' Obama's tone changed. 'I love him. He's one of my favorite philosophers.' So I asked, 'What do you take away from him?' " Obama went on to dazzle Brooks with his grasp of Niebuhr's "The Irony of American History." The junior senator from Illinois showed a subtle feel for the need for America to act humbly but not passively in the wicked world, to be prudent but also bold and tough. At times Obama lapsed back into vacuous generalities, but Brooks's interest had been piqued.

By March of this year, Brooks was writing about Obama's "defining moment," how in November 2007, a couple of months before the Iowa caucuses, Obama had showed Clinton up. Hillary had given a rousing partisan harangue ("We are here tonight to make sure that the next president is a Democrat!") and used the word "fight" or "fought" 15 times in one passage of her speech. Obama, on the other hand, ignored partisanship. He described a whole new order, way beyond politics as usual—a theory of social change that was not top-down, dictated by the old party hacks, but bottom-up. Obama sounded like "a cross between a social activist and a flannel-shirted software CEO—as a nonhierarchical, collaborative leader who can inspire autonomous individuals to cooperate for the sake of common concerns." The audience, particularly the younger members described by Brooks as raised on "Facebook, YouTube, open-source software," loved it. Brooks loved it.

Yet, just five weeks later, Brooks was writing "How Obama Fell to Earth." The columnist was discouraged by Obama's performance in the pre-Pennsylvania primary debate. "Obama has emerged as a more conventional politician and a more orthodox liberal," Brooks wrote. "He sprinkled his debate performance Wednesday night with the sort of fibs, evasions and hypocrisies that are the stuff of conventional politics."

Obama might win Brooks back if he returned to his high-mindedness and stopped pandering. But winning over the great mass of American voters is tricky. Obama has stood for change, and when it comes to changing politics, many Americans are with him. But change, more broadly imagined, is threatening to a lot of people, and not just high-school dropouts who own guns and live in rust-belt states. McCain, too, is out preaching change—attacking the political arena of Washington, where he has worked for more than two decades. But McCain drapes himself in red, white and blue; he is a thoroughly familiar figure, the war hero. Obama represents something newer and stranger in presidential politics, a black man with a Harvard degree who reads Niebuhr but is perfectly at home shooting hoops on a Chicago playground. To get the Democratic nomination, and to win the presidency, Obama has to show that he is not just a rock-star speechifier—or a worn-down pol trying to limp over the goal line without saying something that could possibly be used against him. He has to show voters who he really is. Most of them still don't know.

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/134398

Graduation Day Reflection

2008-06-01T09:17:00.000-07:00

There is something I still can’t get over. And this is my attempt to capture it in words:

May 21, 2008

I was in the apartment by myself. Most of my furniture moved to the new apartment in SF. And I am sitting in this bare apartment empty of furniture and full of echoes with the morning light streaming through the windows. I put on the inky black gown. Around my neck I placed the Filipino stole – the stole that is red on one end, blue on the other, the middle is white, and embellished with stars to represent the Philippine flag. And I take in my hand the cap about which hangs the ’08 tassle and raise it to the top of my head and affix with bobby pins. I take a look at one of the remaining pieces of furniture of mine in the apartment- a mirror that is leaning against the wall. And in that moment I see myself in cap and gown with the Filipino stole around my neck. And even though I have curled my hair and put on makeup- these compare naught to the image of a proud graduate: who receives a Bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley; a first generation Filipino American college graduate.

This moment has occurred before when I walked last year in Zellerbach Theatre. Last year, it was fun, bittersweet, and not just a little ironic. I walked with my fellow Sociology graduates because I was done with my Sociology major. I had one year left to finish my American Studies degree. However, last year that moment was slightly anticlimactic. I had one year left of school. College wasn’t quite over yet.

This year, I gazed into the mirror and I didn’t see myself in a cap and gown- I saw the culmination of 5 years of will, determination, and growth form this person who I barely recognized from 5 years prior. How do you sum up relief, joy, sadness, excitement, fear all in a moment? I do not know, but that moment did. One emotion triumphed over all of them though- that of joy. And that lightness and happiness I felt made every negative emotion I went through college worth it. Tears, sleepless nights, months and months of stress and anxiety, and questioning myself to the point where I reduced myself to someone who was worthless were all erased and lifted by this moment. I felt validated. The glow of accomplishment is transformative.

And the graduation ceremony was a mixture of new and old: anticlimactic that I had done this before, but climatic all the same because I was graduating in the Greek Theatre. The Greek is a concrete construction that is filled with years of university pride such as bonfires, rallies, concerts, and graduations. And as I felt that I was walking across a piece of history- I was also making history. I changed the history of my family and future family to come. I walked across the stage and I saw my family and friends. I shook with my right and grabbed the diploma* with my left.

Yet that lightness of feeling was also tinged with the weight of responsibility. I had already accomplished something great. Yet, there is the expectation that I will continue to do far greater things still. And for one who feels so old and so young at the same moment- that is a heady feeling. This is a feeling full of excitement and possibility. How do you feel light and heavy at the same time?

And so here I sit in my childhood bed in my childhood home. Back to reality and grounded by the day to day. I have seen my grades from this last semester, I know for sure that I have indeed obtained a BA from Berkeley. I keep that day and that moment in mind because that marked the end of one era of my life and the beginning of another.

*not actually a diploma, because those are sent later on in the semester following your graduation. But a diploma for me just the same.

Accomplishment.

2008-05-09T08:49:00.001-07:00

Who just finished a 30 page thesis? That's right, ME!!!

I definitely understand what a "labor of love" means. It was pretty painful and I feel like I just lost a few years of my life. But it's done.

I feel so accomplished. And in a weird twist of fate - instead of scaring me off academia forever - I feel my passion re-ignited.

I read a lot of books about Filipino Americans (and in a short period of time- ahah) and reading about Filipino Americans. Reading those theories. Hearing those voices. It makes me feel proud.

One of the most important things I've learned in my college experience is the power of people's voices. So many times so many dominant powers, ideologies, institutions, and people take away people's voices. Or they discredit or silence those voices.

Stereotypes and controlling media images create these lies about people, e.g. "Asian American men are good at science and math and have no sexuality" "women are stupid and emotional and weak". But it is the power of people's voices that break down these lies. Biography, history, theory, testimony- all told through marginalized voices. Native American's view of Manifest Destiny, Hawaiian people's sovereignty movement, and other stories expose oppressive powers and the systems they construct to hold up these lies.

And what is social justice, but a way to show that these voices matter? Marginalized people's voices matter. Marginalized people matter. Filipino veterans and supporters called out for US recognition because their histories are being erased. But with activism, these people managed to finally pass the Filipino Veteran's Bill through Senate. Rigoberta Menchu told the story of her people and revealed the horrendous exploitation of indios in Guatemala.

I don't think academia is so separate. It is not a direct service like professions in law, medicine, nonprofit activism, but it is still an important arena for Filipino Americans and all others who are being constructed according to hegemonic power systems. In Poetry for the People, there is a motto- "Write or be written" and the related phrase "write or be erased". I believe academic writing can be just as passionate and just as personal as poetry or other artistic forms. It's just written in a different language. I hear criticisms of academia as "the ivory tower". I don't know if that refers to the heirarchies involved or the race politics (even though I could understand both). But that mean that it is imperative for people of color to infiltrate academia and force these dominant powers to accept our way of understanding the world. To see the world in our eyes.

And we can't do that if we don't speak, if we don't write; if we don't challenge "normal" conceptions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, etc. Now, more than ever, I know that academia is a valid route. I feel sometimes that there is a contention between "academia" and "community", but those tensions are created by dominant powers. "Divide and conquer" versus remembering that we all do work we are passionate about in order to accomplish similar means. I know not everyone I meet in academia (and beyond) will hold my views. Not all academics write for the reasons of improving our world. But I aim to. I know I can incorporate my social justice views into the work I will be doing. Into the research, the theories, the articles, and the books I will be undertaking a labor of love. Love for my people. Love for social justice. Love for equity.

Voices matter. People need to speak. We will not be silenced.

That's what I have learned in my undergraduate career. And I am glad that I did. And I also learned how hard it is to speak in the face of power and privilege. But I will not be stopped. Maybe I will adapt and change like all of us should do when power permeates society so. But just because one approach does not work doesn't mean I/we fail. We are powerful because we can speak. We need to speak because there are so many that cannot speak.

Pinay Feminism

2008-05-05T16:45:00.000-07:00

While doing research for my thesis (freedom after Wednesday! Freedom after Wednesday!), I stumbled across this section in Pinay Power, an article by Perla Paredes Daly called "Creating NewFilipina.com and the Rise of CyberPinays":

... I came to realize I was a feminist. In my own life, I had never taken up women's studies or read about the lives of feminists. I broke down my own previous hang-ups of "what a feminist was" by coming to know "who a feminist was" and what a feminist's work was about. Thus, by the time I heard about Pinay power and so forth, the varying terms' linguistic aspects did not concern me as much as their core meaning. To me, they all signify the Filipina faces of feminism, a sense of power within being Filipina, and a feminism that addresses the challenges facing Filipino women wherever they are in the world. I believe that all forms of resistance by Filipinas against exploitation fall under the category of Filipina feminism. (233)

Asian Backlash/Satire/Hate

2008-02-21T21:31:00.000-08:00

Why is it that it is ok to make fun of Asians? It is not ok to make fun of African Americans, Chicanos, Latinos, etc. Yet it is ok to make fun of Asians.

http://media.www.thecampuspress.com/media/storage/paper1098/news/2008/02/18/Opinion/If.Its.War.The.Asians.Want-3216954.shtml

If it's war the Asians want...
It's war they'll get
Max Karson

Issue date: 2/18/08 Section: Opinion
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Since I transferred to CU last year, I've noticed some tension between the white students and the Asian students. There's never any outright conflict, but I notice little things. Like, Asians always seem surprised whenever I talk to them. They stare at me for a few seconds as though I must have made some mistake, and once they realize I'm intentionally speaking to them, they aren't always thrilled.

On the other hand, white people are quick to ridicule Asians. They have no problem with making demeaning remarks about their looks, mannerisms, and accents-things they would never say about black people.

So when an Asian refuses to make eye contact with me or dismisses me with a one-word sentence, I just say to myself, "Max, Asians are not evil cyborgs. They're human, just like you. And if you were a minority student in a sea of walnut-brained business majors and skiers, you'd be crabby, too."

But last week, I had an epiphany.

After my friend and I finished working our abs at the Rec Center, we decided to head upstairs to tighten our buns on the StairMaster. As we walked down the hallway, a rubber ball bounced out of one of the racquetball courts and landed at the feet of an Asian in front of us. He picked up the ball and leaned over the railing of the court nearest to him.

"Hey, that's not ours," I heard a guy call up from the court. The Asian stared down at him for a moment, and then held the ball out to him. "That's not ours," the guy said again.

Then another voice called out from a different court, "Hey, does anyone see a ball up there?"

The Asian looked over, confused.

"I think it goes to that court," I said, pointing to the one nearest to me.

The Asian stared at me blankly for another second, and then he looked back down into the court next to him and offered them the ball again.

"That's not our ball," the guy called up.

"Excuse me," I said. The Asian whipped his head around and scowled at me. "I think it goes to that court."

He paused a few seconds, and then he said, in a perfect American accent, "Okay," and tossed the ball into the court next to me.

That's when it hit me.

The Asian was so jaded by his experiences with the whitebread, brainless tree sloths of CU that even though three people had explained to him that he was trying to return the ball to the wrong court, it was inconceivable to him that we might be right.

And when he looked into my eyes, it wasn't just irritation and disgust that I saw-it was hate. Pure hate.

I'm such a fool for not realizing it sooner. I can't tell you how many times the Asians have treated me like a retarded weasel and I've forgiven them. But now I know that Asians are not just "a product of their environment," and their rudeness is not a "cultural misunderstanding."

They hate us all.

And I say it's time we started hating them back. That's right-no more "tolerance." No more "cultural sensitivity." No more "Mr. Pretend-I'm-Not-Racist."

It's time for war.

But we won't attack their bodies or minds. We will attack their souls.

The first step, or "Phase 1," is to find them all. Anyone who is interested in signing up to volunteer can do so by e-mailing me. Next Sunday at noon, we will all meet at Farrand Field. Each volunteer will be issued an extra-large butterfly net.

The hunt will then begin.

When I blow my whistle, we will scatter in every direction and catch as many Asians as possible. Make sure to pay special attention to the Rec Center, the UMC, the math and engineering buildings and Lollicup. If you're not sure if someone is an Asian, give them a calculus problem to do in their head. If they get it right, net 'em.

Captured Asians will be dragged to my apartment on the Hill and hog-tied. Once they're all secured in my living room, "Phase 2" will come into effect.

The Asians' reformation will begin with a 100-round beer pong tournament. They will listen to "It's a Small World" on repeat while they play.

When the tournament is finished, the Asians will then be forced to eat bad sushi from Hapa-with forks. When all the sushi is gone, they will be permitted to sleep for four hours, but the entire time I will shout through a megaphone, over and over, "Why didn't you make enough Wiis?!"

In the morning, the Asians will arrange themselves in rows, if they haven't naturally done so already. I will stand in front of them and hold up a card with the name of an emotion on it such as, "sad," or "surprised." The Asians must then make a facial expression to match the word on the card. Any Asian who remains deadpan or makes the wrong face will be tickled until they pee. When all Asians make the correct face at the same time, the game will end, but then they will be yelled at for being conformists.

The Asians will then be allowed to play "Dance Dance Revolution." However, the game will be rigged so that the Asians will receive no points, regardless of how robotically they dance.

Any Asian who tries to escape will be butterfly-netted and sent back to my apartment for another "Phase 2." Anyone caught speaking any language other than English will be kissed on the lips.

Once the Asian spirit has been broken, "Phase 3" will begin. Before we let the Asians go, we will go to their homes and redecorate them in a traditional American style. We will replace their rice cookers with George Foreman Grills, their green tea mochi with fried Snickers bars, and their rice rockets with Hummers. And booster seats.

When "Phase 3" is complete, the Asians will be released.

Now, I understand that this plan may upset some of you Asian readers, but the only other way to make peace would be to expel you. If you're smart, you'll turn yourselves in now, and it will all be over in a few days.

Besides, look on the bright side-we're not going to put you through anything we haven't put ourselves through, and we all turned out fine.

Contact Campus Press staff editor Max Karson at max.karson@colorado.edu

The Presidential Debate- Identity Politics?

2008-02-10T19:54:00.000-08:00

I have a shameful secret blogging world. I voted and I had no idea who to vote on or what to base it.

Don't get me wrong, I attempted to watch the presidential debate between Obama & Clinton, but after about 30 minutes of doublespeak and snarky comments from BOTH sides I grew really tired.

In fact, this entire presidential election process is tiring me. Because what has happened is really an airing out of people's dirty laundry. The secrets that the United States tries to suppress (especially with it's ridiculously ironic moniker of "United"). Nothing about our country is "united". The country tries to keep people out, the people in the country fight amongst themselves, each class decries the problems of the other- it's all just very depressing. And while I thought maybe the US was getting better- "look we have a woman candidate AND a black candidate! Look how far we've come!". The real fact is- the presidential candidacy is really just being reduced to identity politics.

Hillary Clinton is constantly under media scrutiny. If she doesn't cry- she's a robot. If she does- she's a fake. Obama is a black man. No- he's not a REAL black man- he was raised by a white woman. Misogyny disguised as support for Obama. Racism disguised as support for Clinton.

What is going on?!?

I can hear it in men of color's voices- Obama is our only hope. He's the only one who understand feminist issues. While white women tell me Hillary Clinton is the only one who understands women's issues.

I remember the last presidential election. One of my friends said- "it's like choosing the lesser of two evils". Yet in this election it is the complete opposite. I think identity politics really affects people's views. As if a vote for Obama ends all race problems- immigration, jobs, healthcare, education, the war. And as if a vote for Clinton ends all gender problems- the war, healthcare, jobs, healthcare, the war, education. (See what I did there?)

Honestly, I don't know if I made the right decision. Either way I voted would have been wrong. But it's interesting because in my search between Clinton and Obama- either is touted at THE HOPE of our country.

Really, in my cyncism, I believe we will find out the character of our president (whoever) when they're actually president. These policies and platforms are just words and (possibly) empty promises.

I know a vote for either won't necessarily be the change that us liberals are looking for. Do you really think someone who can raise enough money and sound palatable to a broad range of people- would stop the war and end corporate global monopolies? The US presidency is step one. But as Barbara Einreich has stated:

But whoever is elected president this year, there won’t be any real change in a progressive direction without a mass social movement to bring it about – either by holding the president accountable or by holding his or her feet to the fire. And a mass social movement doesn’t begin at the top. It begins right now, with you.

And I believe it continues with the rest of the world and the rest of the world's refusal to put up with all the injustice in the world.

But, we're only talking US presidency here, right? Small steps. Small steps.

Food For Thought

2007-11-23T08:33:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone Thanksgiving has come and gone and now it's Black Friday (a whole other thing I would post about if I wasn't in post-Thanksgiving sloth). I got this resource from one of the classes I'm taking and I thought I'd share with you. And this article is from a site I'm starting to get really into also - http://www.classism.org/

http://www.classism.org/article2.php?id=134

The Plymouth Thanksgiving Story
by Chuck Larsen

This article originally appeared at: www.manataka.org

When the Pilgrims crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 1620, they landed on the rocky shores of a territory that was inhabited by the Wampanoag (Wam pa NO ag) Indians. The Wampanoags were part of the Algonkian-speaking peoples, a large group that was part of the Woodland Culture area. These Indians lived in villages along the coast of what is now Massachusetts and Rhode Island. They lived in round- roofed houses called wigwams. These were made of poles covered with flat sheets of elm or birch bark. Wigwams differ in construction from tipis that were used by Indians of the Great Plains.

The Wampanoags moved several times during each year in order to get food. In the spring they would fish in the rivers for salmon and herring. In the planting season they moved to the forest to hunt deer and other animals. After the end of the hunting season people moved inland where there was greater protection from the weather. From December to April they lived on food that they stored during the earlier months.

The basic dress for men was the breech clout, a length of deerskin looped over a belt in back and in front. Women wore deerskin wrap-around skirts. Deerskin leggings and fur capes made from deer, beaver, otter, and bear skins gave protection during the colder seasons, and deerskin moccasins were worn on the feet. Both men and women usually braided their hair and a single feather was often worn in the back of the hair by men. They did not have the large feathered headdresses worn by people in the Plains Culture area.

There were two language groups of Indians in New England at this time. The Iroquois were neighbors to the Algonkian-speaking people. Leaders of the Algonquin and Iroquois people were called "sachems" (SAY chems). Each village had its own sachem and tribal council. Political power flowed upward from the people. Any individual, man or woman, could participate, but among the Algonquins more political power was held by men. Among the Iroquois, however, women held the deciding vote in the final selection of who would represent the group. Both men and women enforced the laws of the village and helped solve problems. The details of their democratic system were so impressive that about 150 years later Benjamin Franklin invited the Iroquois to Albany, New York, to explain their system to a delegation who then developed the "Albany Plan of Union." This document later served as a model for the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution of the United States.

These Indians of the Eastern Woodlands called the turtle, the deer and the fish their brothers. They respected the forest and everything in it as equals. Whenever a hunter made a kill, he was careful to leave behind some bones or meat as a spiritual offering, to help other animals survive. Not to do so would be considered greedy. The Wampanoags also treated each other with respect. Any visitor to a Wampanoag home was provided with a share of whatever food the family had, even if the supply was low. This same courtesy was extended to the Pilgrims when they met.

We can only guess what the Wampanoags must have thought when they first saw the strange ships of the Pilgrims arriving on their shores. But their custom was to help visitors, and they treated the newcomers with courtesy. It was mainly because of their kindness that the Pilgrims survived at all. The wheat the Pilgrims had brought with them to plant would not grow in the rocky soil. They needed to learn new ways for a new world, and the man who came to help them was called "Tisquantum" (Tis SKWAN tum) or "Squanto" (SKWAN toe).

Squanto was originally from the village of Patuxet (Pa TUK et) and a member of the Pokanokit Wampanoag nation. Patuxet once stood on the exact site where the Pilgrims built Plymouth. In 1605, fifteen years before the Pilgrims came, Squanto went to England with a friendly English explorer named John Weymouth. He had many adventures and learned to speak English. Squanto came back to New England with Captain Weymouth. Later Squanto was captured by a British slaver who raided the village and sold Squanto to the Spanish in the Caribbean Islands. A Spanish Franciscan priest befriended Squanto and helped him to get to Spain and later on a ship to England. Squanto then found Captain Weymouth, who paid his way back to his homeland. In England Squanto met Samoset of the Wabanake (Wab NAH key) Tribe, who had also left his native home with an English explorer. They both returned together to Patuxet in 1620. When they arrived, the village was deserted and there were skeletons everywhere. Everyone in the village had died from an illness the English slavers had left behind. Squanto and Samoset went to stay with a neighboring village of Wampanoags.

One year later, in the spring, Squanto and Samoset were hunting along the beach near Patuxet. They were startled to see people from England in their deserted village. For several days, they stayed nearby observing the newcomers. Finally they decided to approach them. Samoset walked into the village and said "welcome," Squanto soon joined him. The Pilgrims were very surprised to meet two Indians who spoke English.

The Pilgrims were not in good condition. They were living in dirt-covered shelters, there was a shortage of food, and nearly half of them had died during the winter. They obviously needed help and the two men were a welcome sight. Squanto, who probably knew more English than any other Indian in North America at that time, decided to stay with the Pilgrims for the next few months and teach them how to survive in this new place. He brought them deer meat and beaver skins. He taught them how to cultivate corn and other new vegetables and how to build Indian-style houses. He pointed out poisonous plants and showed how other plants could be used as medicine. He explained how to dig and cook clams, how to get sap from the maple trees, use fish for fertilizer, and dozens of other skills needed for their survival.

By the time fall arrived things were going much better for the Pilgrims, thanks to the help they had received. The corn they planted had grown well. There was enough food to last the winter. They were living comfortably in their Indian-style wigwams and had also managed to build one European-style building out of squared logs. This was their church. They were now in better health, and they knew more about surviving in this new land. The Pilgrims decided to have a thanksgiving feast to celebrate their good fortune. They had observed thanksgiving feasts in November as religious obligations in England for many years before coming to the New World.

The Algonkian tribes held six thanksgiving festivals during the year. The beginning of the Algonkian year was marked by the Maple Dance which gave thanks to the Creator for the maple tree and its syrup. This ceremony occurred when the weather was warm enough for the sap to run in the maple trees, sometimes as early as February. Second was the planting feast, where the seeds were blessed. The strawberry festival was next, celebrating the first fruits of the season. Summer brought the green corn festival to give thanks for the ripening corn. In late fall, the harvest festival gave thanks for the food they had grown. Mid-winter was the last ceremony of the old year. When the Indians sat down to the "first Thanksgiving" with the Pilgrims, it was really the fifth thanksgiving of the year for them!

Captain Miles Standish, the leader of the Pilgrims, invited Squanto, Samoset, Massasoit (the leader of the Wampanoags), and their immediate families to join them for a celebration, but they had no idea how big Indian families could be. As the Thanksgiving feast began, the Pilgrims were overwhelmed at the large turnout of ninety relatives that Squanto and Samoset brought with them. The Pilgrims were not prepared to feed a gathering of people that large for three days. Seeing this, Massasoit gave orders to his men within the first hour of his arrival to go home and get more food. Thus it happened that the Indians supplied the majority of the food: Five deer, many wild turkeys, fish, beans, squash, corn soup, corn bread, and berries. Captain Standish sat at one end of a long table and the Clan Chief Massasoit sat at the other end. For the first time the Wampanoag people were sitting at a table to eat instead of on mats or furs spread on the ground. The Indian women sat together with the Indian men to eat. The Pilgrim women, however, stood quietly behind the table and waited until after their men had eaten, since that was their custom.

For three days the Wampanoags feasted with the Pilgrims. It was a special time of friendship between two very different groups of people. A peace and friendship agreement was made between Massasoit and Miles Standish giving the Pilgrims the clearing in the forest where the old Patuxet village once stood to build their new town of Plymouth.

It would be very good to say that this friendship lasted a long time; but, unfortunately, that was not to be. More English people came to America, and they were not in need of help from the Indians as were the original Pilgrims. Many of the newcomers forgot the help the Indians had given them. Mistrust started to grow and the friendship weakened. The Pilgrims started telling their Indian neighbors that their Indian religion and Indian customs were wrong. The Pilgrims displayed an intolerance toward the Indian religion similar to the intolerance displayed toward the less popular religions in Europe. The relationship deteriorated and within a few years the children of the people who ate together at the first Thanksgiving were killing one another in what came to be called King Phillip's War.

It is sad to think that this happened, but it is important to understand all of the story and not just the happy part. Today the town of Plymouth Rock has a Thanksgiving ceremony each year in remembrance of the first Thanksgiving. There are still Wampanoag people living in Massachusetts. In 1970, they asked one of them to speak at the ceremony to mark the 350th anniversary of the Pilgrim's arrival. Here is part of what was said:

"Today is a time of celebrating for you -- a time of looking back to the first days of white people in America. But it is not a time of celebrating for me. It is with a heavy heart that I look back upon what happened to my People. When the Pilgrims arrived, we, the Wampanoags, welcomed them with open arms, little knowing that it was the beginning of the end. That before 50 years were to pass, the Wampanoag would no longer be a tribe. That we and other Indians living near the settlers would be killed by their guns or dead from diseases that we caught from them. Let us always remember, the Indian is and was just as human as the white people.

Although our way of life is almost gone, we, the Wampanoags, still walk the lands of Massachusetts. What has happened cannot be changed. But today we work toward a better America, a more Indian America where people and nature once again are important."

-------------------
http://www.classism.org/article2.php?id=135

Poverty in Indian Country still higher than average
by indianz.com

This article originally appeared at www.indianz.com in 2005

The number of Native Americans living in poverty and without health insurance remains sky-high, according to figures recently released by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Based on a three-year average, 24.3 percent of American Indians and Alaska Natives lived in poverty from 2003 through 2004. This rate was not much different from poverty among African-Americans (24.4 percent) and Hispanics (22.1 percent).

But it more than twice the poverty rate of Whites (10.5 percent) and more than twice the poverty rate of Asians (10.6 percent) for the same period, the Census Bureau reported.

The percentage of Native Americans without insurance was also high. Based on a three-year average, a whopping 29.0 percent of American Indians and Alaska Natives did not have health coverage, a rate surpassed only by Hispanics (32.6 percent).

In comparison, the percentage Whites without insurance was 14.6 percent while among Asians it was 18.0 percent.

Native American households reported an median income of $33,132 from 2002 through 2004. This was higher than the median for African-American households ($30,355) and statistically no different from the median for Hispanic households ($34, 299)

But it was much lower than the medians for White households ($46,971) and much lower than Asian households ($56,664).

The figures contained in "Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2004" show that the economic status of American Indians hasn't changed much since the start of the Bush administration in 2001. Reports have repeatedly shown that Indian Country is still being left behind, making no improvements in income, poverty and insurance rates.

Comparing the 2004 report to the 2003 report, poverty among Native Americans is actually rising. In the 2003 report, 23 percent of Native families lived below the poverty level. Income levels remained unchanged and the insurance coverage rate was steady from the 2003 to 2004.

Despite the lack of change, other studies have shown that Native communities are better off than they were in 1990. A January 2005 report from the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development documented gains in income, education, housing and other indicators, a finding linked to exercise of tribal self-determination and the growth of Indian gaming.

Long-term assessments are difficult, however, because the Census Bureau has not always tabulated statistics for the American Indian and Alaska Native population due to their small size. Native Americans make up less than 1 percent of the general population.

The 2004 report is only the second time the Census Bureau has presented poverty, income and health insurance data in one report. Previously, only poverty and income were reported together.

For insurance, the Census Bureau used to count people who relied solely on the Indian Health Service for health care as insured. But the agency now counts these Native Americans as uninsured. "The effect of this change on the overall estimates of health insurance coverage was negligible," the report stated.

Overall, the national poverty rate rose from 12.5 percent in 2003 to 12.7 percent in 2004, the Census Bureau said. National income level was stable at $44,389 and the percentage of Americans without health insurance coverage remained unchanged at 15.7 percent.

Census Bureau Report:
Press Release: Income Stable, Poverty Rate Increases, Percentage of Americans Without Health Insurance Unchanged | PDF: Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2004

Relevant Links:
U.S. Census Bureau - http://www.census.gov

Related Stories:
Native American population on the rise in U.S. (08/12)
Census Bureau to conduct field test on reservation (06/17)
Native children living in poor, single-parent homes (03/19)
Harvard study tracks decade of Indian Country progress (1/10)
Data shows little change in economic status under Bush (08/27)
Census challenges help tribes win more federal funds (03/02)
Dozens of tribes challenging 2000 Census numbers (12/16)
Recession affects poverty rates and income levels (09/29)
Recession hits poverty and income levels (09/25)
Census ordered to release adjusted count (11/15)
Census 'error' could cost states millions (10/18)
Census paints new picture of Indian Country (3/13)
Redistricting to be based on raw Census data (3/7)
Census recommends no adjustment (3/2)
Census estimates show improvement (2/15)
Report warns of Census undercount (2/12)
Reservation counties among poorest (11/24)
Census: Native Americans among poorest (9/27)
Census reports on uninsured Natives (0/02)
Census: Native Americans among poorest (9/27)
National, state poverty data (9/27)
Most reservations miss Census target (09/20)
Tribal response rates: 1990-2000 (9/20)
Report: Native buying power increases (9/8)
Native purchasing power by state (9/8)
Native population on the rise (08/31)
Census data by state (08/31)
Reservations respond to Census (4/20)

Copyright © 2000-2005 Indianz.Com

STATEMENT ON THE DEATH OF CHERRIE ANN GUZMAN-COLEMAN

2007-11-18T19:09:00.000-08:00

[from an email. I feel like so many of these cases happen, but I can't help but feel compelled to post it again.]

Philippine Women's Network on Peace & Security
Amnesty International-Pilipinas * Buklod Center * Metro Subic

People's Task Force on Bases Clean Up * WEDPRO * WomanHealth-Philippines

Member, International Women's Network for Genuine Security

STATEMENT ON THE DEATH OF CHERRIE ANN GUZMAN-COLEMAN

On October 4, Cherrie Anne Guzman-Coleman died under suspicious circumstances, allegedly by hanging herself. Cherrie was the bride of SSgt. Glenn Edward Coleman of the 733 rd Air Mobility Squadron, which is stationed at the Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan. The two met when Cherrie worked for six months in Okinawa as an overseas performing artist, and had only been married for five months when Cherrie died. Coleman claims that Cherrie took her own life after a "slight" domestic disagreement. Cherrie's friends have said that the couple often quarreled due to Coleman's jealousy. They had seen Cherrie distraught, in tears and bruised after such incidents. On October 13, the battered body of Cherrie Ann Guzman-Coleman arrived in the Philippines and was claimed by her grieving mother, Ms. Myrna Vergara.

Almost 50,000 US forces and their dependents are stationed in Okinawa's 42 military installations under Lt. Gen. Bruce Wright, current commander of all US forces in Japan. Sexual crimes and violence directed at women, including domestic violence, are the most common forms of human rights violations in the world. Violence against women is particularly pervasive in the context of military bases and prevailing military culture and training. The number and gravity of cases of violence against women have been especially shocking in Okinawa where US bases began its operations in 1945. In the past 62 years, hundreds of victims have been attacked, kidnapped, abused, gang raped or murdered, including a nine month old baby and girls with ages ranging from six to fifteen. Cherrie may well be the latest in a long line of women who have been attacked, kidnapped, abused, raped and even murdered by US servicemen in Okinawa.

Actions taken by Coleman and US military authorities in Okinawa have raised speculations that they have engaged in an attempt to cover-up the real facts regarding Cherrie's death. The 20 year old Filipina's death certificate, signed by medical examiner Capt. James Caruso of the US Naval Hospital in Okinawa did not contain cause of death, although an autopsy was supposedly carried out.

The Philippine Women's Network on Peace and Security Network (PWNPS) calls on the Okinawan authorities, along with the Japanese Government, to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation on the death of Cherrie Ann Guzman-Coleman.

We call on the Philippine Government to assist the family of Cherrie through her mother, Ms. Vergara, to determine the actual cause of her death and seek justice for the untimely death of her daughter.

We call on President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to fulfill its responsibility to protect and promote the well-being of all its citizens, including Cherrie Ann and all Filipino women living and working in military facilities all over the world.

Ref: Women's Education, Development, Productivity & Research Organization (WEDPRO), Inc.

Convener and Secretariat: Philippine Women's Network on Peace & Security (PWNPS)

Email: wedprophils1989@yahoo.com

A Commentary on the CAL/USC Rivalry

2007-11-10T12:51:00.000-08:00

So today I was taking the bus from work to my house and since I go to Cal (UC Berkeley) I couldn't help but notice the USC fans and Cal fans on the streets of Berkeley. I was standing near some Berkeley students on the bus. And the bus passed a lot full of USC fans tailgating before today's game.
One of the Berkeley students near me said, "Look at those USC fans. I bet they don't even know what a bus is."
And one of his friends said in reply, "Yeah, they're probably thinking, 'Where are all the SUVs?'".

And I it instantly struck me, the multiple layers of the rivalry Cal and USC has (even now I must stop myself from writing U$C, so ingrained is this rivalry- so ingrained is this rivalry in me). I think about the colors of USC - red and gold and I think about the colors of Berkeley- blue and gold. Red symbolizing power or as an elite color or anger "seeing red". Blue as symbolizing "blue blood" or truth or calm or peace or sadness "I'm so blue". Very different, yet kind of similar. But anyway, I think about the origins of the Cal colors- which were borrowed off of Yale's blue and gold (according to tourguide lore). And I think about what blue is supposed to symbolize- Yale, the rich white men who founded those Ivy Leagues back east.

I think about Cal's other rival- Stanford University (ha, even now my fingers itch to write "Stanfurd"). Which is similar to USC. A private school. One of their school colors is red. Yet, I think about Stanford and I'm not sure USC and Stanford are so similar. I read somewhere that most (or at least more than Berkele or USC possibly?) of the students enrolled in Stanford are actually on scholarship. And to boil it down- most Stanford students do not care. Maybe it is just the ebb and flow of football teams, but sometimes Cal is on top and sometimes Stanford is on top. It is an inevitability. Yet, I feel a distinctive "underdog" vibe when I think of Cal in terms with USC.

When those Berkeley students talked about those USC fans- I looked at the lot where they were tailgating. Indeed, there were SUVs in that lot and a disproportionate amount. I remember as I walk through Berkeley if I see anything as nice as a Mercedes, BMW, or heck even a Lexus or Volvo newer than say 2005- I think to myself "is this car lost?". Not that I think Berkeley is quite so working class next to USC's power elite class. I think more that Berkeley owns the idea of "shabby chic"- "yes, we maybe well off, but we don't flaunt it. Would you like to see my Prius?" I joke perhaps, but that is true. And to say of Cal itself, well some departments are quite rolling in the dough, while other departments (cough humanities cough) are quite the little orphan asking "please sir may I have some more?". But I digress.

I wonder- is the Cal/USC rivalry steeped in class? Or do I just not see that Berkeley students can be as rich or as privileged as USC students (or alumni). Yet, perhaps I am biased in thinking that because of Berkeley's legacy of free speech and social justice movements and it's location in the ever progressive bay, that certain people go to this school. Certain people do not have this aura of privilege, of wealth, or sheer arrogance that the world must turn for them.

Perhaps I am projecting. I probably am. But I am not apologizing for this train of thought. I wonder if it's because the rivalry between the schools are set up in such a way that Berkeley students must fault USC for being so wealthy. I don't think I'm pulling this out of nothing.

Yet, this is disturbing too. Class is an often hidden issue, but quite as powerful as any ism- racism, sexism, etc. Or do I view it differently because of my own perspective?

Hmmm.

I am not invested in this game as much as others. Yet, I do remember fondly the Fall of '03 when Cal beat USC, that was an epic game.

GO BEARS!

Troubles with Research

2007-10-16T14:35:00.000-07:00

I managed to get the research position I wanted. However, the situation is odd for me because it's about positive exceptions to a normally negative situation.

Let's say for example, the idea that debutante/pageants/modelling are not examples of women playing into gender roles, but a celebration of their feminity. To be sure, its a complicated issue, but nonetheless. Anyway, this research is about the positive aspects of Filipinas marrying men in other countries- not because of mail order bride systems, not because of domestic workers, but because they are the same education level and they met each other.

Isn't that odd? And I wonder about myself if I am really just stuck in a box of prejudicial thought? But how do I stop this when all I think of is how all those mail order brides sites pop up if you type in the word "Filipina". I mean the norm should be that we expect Filipinas to marry for love and not because of these systems of exploitation, right? On a sidenote, how did the world get so fucked up? I probably know a part of it, but that's too long to exposit on a blog.

So I guess my research is just kind of at a standstill as I struggle with these issues. I feel like I'm researching against the grain of what I believe. But maybe then it will be a good thing to expand my mind. Even if I find the research I do to be more exceptional than normal.

Vaginas are the new black

2007-09-12T18:54:00.000-07:00

soo Tom Ford, legendary fashion designer, launches a new men's perfume line for Tom Ford beauty.

well, we as a society have deemed that sex sells.

needless to say - NOT SAFE FOR WORK.

Sexualization much?

Definition:
Sexualization - "when a person's value comes only from her/his sexual appeal or behavior, to the exclusion of other characteristics, and when a person is sexually objectified, e.g., made into a thing for another's sexual use." [http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/63514.php]

So instead of going on a rant about this (which I will very well could), I will instead pose a question:

What do you think this ad campaign's message is? Is it saying that this men's perfume smells like a woman's vagina?

Police Warn Of Sexual Assaults Near UC Campus

2007-08-14T12:23:00.000-07:00

[I'm going to say that these kind of things are probably "normal" for a university campus environment or for cities in general. But this is such a scary thing]

BERKELEY -- Police have issued a warning for young women in Berkeley after two UC students were victimized by a brazen rapist in recent weeks.Neighborhoods around the UC campus are relatively quiet these days; school hasn't started yet and most students are relishing their last few days of summer.But police want women to be on alert for a rapist who has struck twice in the past month. Both of the rapist's victims were UC students.Students KTVU spoke with Wednesday hadn't heard about the attacks, but said the alert issued by police has them concerned"That's pretty scary! It's such a college town; you feel like you're safe," said one student.The first attack occurred on July 6th at around 3 p.m. On the south side of the campus in the 2500 block of Hillegass Avenue. The second assault took place on August 2nd at approximately 6 p.m. in the evening several blocks away on the 2100 block of Haste Street.Police say both times the attacker entered a multi-unit apartment building and found his victim in the lobby. Investigators say the man was not armed and that the rapes happened in or around the common area near the entrance."It appears the way he works, is to act fast. The attack happens quite quickly," explained Berkeley Police Sgt. Mary Cusmiss.The victims told police the rapist was an African-American male in his late 20s with a dark complexion. They said he is between five-eight and six feet tall with a thin build, a clean appearance and shoulder-length dreadlocks or twists.Berkeley police are working on a sketch and hope to release it to the public in the coming days.Police are warning all women -- not just those living in the UC campus area of Berkeley -- to be aware at all times.Berkeley police say so-called "stranger rapes" are far rarer than "acquaintance rape" which is more prevalent on or near college campuses.

Bulatlat Article about "GABnet 3"

2007-08-14T12:21:00.001-07:00

Published on Bulatlat (http://www.bulatlat.com)

Woman Activist Held, Two Others in Watchlist

BY DABET CASTAÑEDA
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Bulatlat
Vol. VII, No. 27, August 12-18, 2007

Balikbayan Dr. Annalisa Vicente Enrile was on her way back to the U.S. on Aug. 5 after a month’s stay in the Philippines. However, as she proceeded to the Immigration booth to have her passport exit-stamped, she was told that she could not get on the plane because she was on the “watchlist.”

Enrile is the chairperson of GABRIELA Network USA (GABNet), a U.S.-based women’s group affiliated with the militant women’s group GABRIELA and the progressive partylist group Gabriela Women’s Party (GWP). She is also a professor at the University of Southern California.

In a press conference Aug. 11in Quezon City, Enrile said she believes she is being held because of her involvement with GABRIELA and for being part of a team that went to the country to probe the human rights record of the Macapagal-Arroyo administration.

“I’m being held hostage,” Enrile told the media. “I cannot go back to my work and my family.”

The run-around

After being told that she could not proceed to board her flight, Enrile said she was “sent and shuffled from one department to another.”

At the Immigration, she was told to get clearance from the Bureau of Immigration and Deportation (BID).

On Aug. 6 at the BID, Enrile was told to file an Affidavit of Denial.

On Aug. 7, the BID told Enrile to get clearance from the Department of Justice (DoJ). At the DoJ, she was told to get another clearance from the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA). But at the NICA, she was directed to return to the BID.

On Aug. 8 at the BID, Enrile was redirected to the DoJ.

Enrile then sought the assistance of the Chief of American Citizens Service (CACS) at the U.S. Embassy who committed to help her.

The CACS gave the same message to American human rights activist and GABNet International Relations Officer Judith Mirkinson who went with Enrile at the embassy. Enrile, Mirkinson and renowned international journalist Ninotchka Rosca are said to have been in the government’s watchlist.

Intimidation tactic

Rosca said the watchlist is an “intimidation tactic” by the Philippine government against “all overseas Filipinos who continue to love and fight for this country.”

“I am exceedingly irritated with the watchlist which has infringed into my private time with my family,” Rosca said. Rosca said she is here to attend the Women’s International Solidarity Affair in the Philippines which was held from July 30 to August 5, 2007, to launch her latest book and to visit her 98-year old mother.

No charges

Meanwhile, GWP Rep. Liza Maza said the hold order against the three women activists is a serious matter which can be a precedent to gauge the effectivity of the Human Security Act of 2007 (HSA 2007), the newly passed anti-terror law.

“Before the HSA, nobody cannot be held without charges,” Maza explained. But with the HSA, Maza said anybody can be held on mere suspicion. “This makes this incident dangerous,” she added.

“This is pure political harassment undermining GABRIELA’s international work,” the partylist representative said. GWP, which was able to land two seats in the House of Representatives, topped the partylist votes of absentee voter’s in the 2007 mid-term elections.

Rosca and Mirkinson are scheduled to leave the country on Aug. 14. “We hope not to be held at the airport and we’ll make sure Dr. Enrile is coming with us,” Rosca said. Bulatlat

Source URL:
http://www.bulatlat.com/2007/08/woman-activist-held-two-others-watchlist

GABnet 3

2007-08-14T12:20:00.000-07:00

*Open Statement from the GABNet 3 *

*August 12, 2007*

On August 5, 2007, agents of the Philippine government prevented one of us
from boarding her return flight to the United States. The reason given was
that she was on a nebulous "watchlist" and needed clearance from various and
diverse Philippine government agencies. We would learn, subsequently, that
two of the GABNet members visiting the Philippines – International Relations
Officer Judith Mirkinson and International Spokesperson of the GABRIELA
Purple Rose Campaign Against Sex Trafficking of Filipinas Ninotchka Rosca --
were also on the watchlist, which contained over 500 names.

Considering the surrealistic situation we find ourselves in, where no one
seems to be able to explain the nature of this "watchlist," the basis for
being included in the "watchlist," and what the process is for getting
"cleared" and off the list, even of who is actually responsible for the
list, we would not be surprised if the list included imaginary men and
women.

We would probably have looked at this experience as some kind of Harry
Potter adventure, were it not for the perilous state of human rights in the
Philippines, where some 90 women activists, organizers and leaders have been
assassinated out of a total of nearly a thousand murdered, and where the
second highest number of writers and media people have been killed in the
world today. We are constrained to view with deep alarm the impunity with
which the Philippine government has violated Dr. Enrile's civil and human
rights, and the naked shamelessness with which it threatens to violate the
civil and human rights of Ms. Mirkinson and Ms. Rosca, as well as various
and diverse people on the so-called "watchlist," "blacklist" and "holdlist."

We are absolutely sure we are under attack because of our work as members of
the US-Philippine women's solidarity mass organization GABRIELA Network
which has consistently upheld militant sisterhood with GABRIELA Philippines
for 18 years and with the Gabriela Women's Party since the latter's
formation. We are absolutely certain that this violation of our civil and
political rights is occasioned by our work in organizing women and women of
Philippine ancestry; by our decade-long work against the traffic of
Filipinas; and by our commitment to the securing of basic rights and the
expansion of freedoms for all women, especially the women of the
Philippines, as well as for the nation as a whole.

Because of this track record, certain personalities in the Philippine
government have chosen to express their hatred of women and of freedom by
violating and seeking to violate our human rights. We say to them, as well
as pledge to those who support and continue to support us, that harassment
and intimidation will fail. For far too long have working women been
disempowered, dispossessed and reified. Not even by a single second will
intimidation, harassment and human rights violations cause us to cease our
work on behalf of the emancipation of womankind.

Governments of countries like the Philippines which survive on selling women
in the international labor and sex trade markets absolutely hate and wish to
destroy women like us, who insist on respect, dignity and equality for
womankind. Governments of countries like the Philippines which consider
women to be a disposable and surplus population absolutely hate and wish to
destroy women like us who insist on an equal share of social, political and
economic power for womankind. The violation of our rights as women and as
human beings is therefore simply a small part of a general state of
disrespect for human rights and women's rights prevalent in countries under
governments like that of the Philippines.

We are deeply moved that our particular case has found resonance among
peoples and organizations the world over. We thank GABRIELA Philippines,
Gabriela Women's Party and most of all, our heart-sisters in GABRIELA
Network for the support, outrage and clamor on our behalf. We thank ANSWER,
friends in the National Lawyers Guild, the National Alliance of Philippine
Women in Canada, Justice for Filipino-American Veterans, BAYAN Philippines,
Pacific-Asian and North American Asian Women in Theology and Ministry, and
others too numerous to name, for their support. Our most profound gratitude
goes to individuals and organizations who approached this issue with respect
for our persons, our situation and our work.

We wish to assure everyone we will continue to seek redress of our grievance
and to assert our civil, political, human and women's rights. --###

Signed:

Annalisa Enrile

National Chairperson

GABRIELA Network

Ninotchka Rosca

International Spokesperon

GABRIELA Purple Rose Campaign

Judith Mirkinson

International Relations

GABRIELA Network

Labels - good? bad? neither?

2007-07-19T22:45:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been thinking a lot about labels.

Specifically the ones associated with identity(ies). See in sociology we have a term called "labelling theory" basically it's the way one calls oneself kind of defines how one will act. Or was it "self fulfilling prophecy"? I think labelling theory is the one where others define another by a label and "sfp is where an individual believes in that label and it becomes true.

Anyway, I think about a lot of terms that are thrown around campus. Liberal. Radical. Conservative. Moderate. Feminist. Activist. Queer. Straight. Normal. Poet. Writer. Academic. Real World.

What do all these things mean? In the specific realm of identity, I feel as if I label to fit in with other groups and to keep me excluded from others. For example as a "liberal" college student I feel extremely awkward around family functions because most of the rest of my family is in the military and very conservative Republican. Now here's an interesting thing another intern said at work the other day- the difference between Republican/conservatives is that they think Democrats/liberals are wrong. Democrats/liberals think Republicans/conservatives just don't know. Simplistic, but I suppose more apt than other statements.

But I digress. Back to the thought process (stream of consciousness really).

However, I feel less like a liberal/activist when I think of the students at my school and in other schools which feel more community-based or community grounded. Whereas I think I am more of a liberal in a intellectual/philosophical sense. There is a certain society wide expectation of someone to be such and such way when labelled such and such.

I don't know if that made any sense at all because I am still trying to process it in my own mind.

On a Related Note:

I know these labels are suppose to create self identified groups where individuals could talk to each other and form coalitions (or whatever else useful to the cause verb the group needs), but I worry that labels are also misleading and actually helping to separate the groups it means to connect.

For example, Asian Americans took the label "Asian American" as a panethnic term to unite for greater rights in society when AAs weren't considered a part of society at all. Thus, AA the term was born. Then in the 80s AAs are pictured in society as "model minorities" "whiz kids" "prodigies" "Asian tigers" etc. Problematic to say the least was that most AAs are represented as the slit eyed yellow/olive/light skinned East Asian foreigner with the accent. Fast forward today when AAs are cited as "the new white people". Obviously, that is not the case. Immigration. Poverty. Lack of education. Most of these issues still affect many AA groups. So there is the creation of ethnic specific labels such a Asian -> Chinese -> Hmong. See the growing specificity. I would not say all Asian ethnicities are the same. Obviously we all have different historical trajectories, different brushes with imperialism/colonialism, etc. So in that sense, it is important to note that certain groups are affected in different ways.

But what I worry about is the ideology of "divide and conquer". While this specification is helpful to acknowledge different identities, it also separates groups. Makes a Southeast Asian person different from a Malaysian person. I still think there is power in a "people of color" identity. Because obviously it points to a shared history that being a person of color in society (literally being marked as different for being the "wrong" skin color) affects how you are treated in society.

Sometimes I think these labels are only to mark out those who are different from others. But in a sense that is ok. Because using vague words like "multicultural" can be used in a positive way to unify the separate ethnic groups, but can also be misappropriated to be a catch all term that really means nothing at all. The very notion that we live in a "color blind society" and shouldn't use racial terms at all scares me. Because it is obvious that it exists, but if you take away the power to use the word to point out the injustice- then it is almost as if the injustice itself didn't exist.

It is important to note differences and similarities. I wish there was a word or words that at once were specific and broad and adapted according to the situation. Unlike our current situation now, where still old used words like color black/white are still being used to designate race. Although I also understand the difficulty of putting such a wide affecting term such as "racism" into a few words. I don't even know if I made any sense.

On Another Note:
Hmm. Just thinking about this really. Very present in my mind. The whole Supreme Court decision about education and race. Really two steps forward, one step back. Or one step forward two steps back.

Chancellor Birgeneau Speaks Out on Undocumented Students

2007-07-10T16:16:00.000-07:00

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-birgeneau7jul07,0,7946142.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail

[from J]

Undocumented students deserve aid too

College is out of reach financially, or at least a big stretch, for the children of illegals.

By Robert J. Birgeneau, ROBERT J. BIRGENEAU is the chancellor of UC Berkeley.
July 7, 2007

THE UTTER collapse of immigration reform in Congress was particularly devastating to one group: undocumented students. It leaves those who have excelled academically in our high schools, but who are not legal residents, ineligible for financial aid. Such a barrier means our students, through no fault of their own, have no path to success or citizenship.

I say "our students" because that is just who they are. We have invested in these children, providing them access to public education in our K-12 schools. Our teachers have encouraged them to learn, to compete and to succeed. It is only after these eager and ambitious young people gain college admission and apply for state or federal financial aid that we turn them away. We must not penalize these young people because their parents brought them here illegally.

The futures of high school graduates are being shaped now. These young people cannot wait out yet another attempt at broad immigration reform. Every year that passes, we deny another class of talented, keen young people hopeful futures for themselves and their families and relegate another generation to an existence on the margins of society.

It's a terrible waste of young talent — talent that this country desperately needs. Each year across the nation, 50,000 to 65,000 undocumented students graduate from high school after having spent at least five years in this country. Because California is home to an estimated 40% of the nation's undocumented students, that means 20,000 or so are in this state.

Statistics on how many go on to the state's public colleges and universities are more difficult to come by. Applications don't require proof of citizenship if a student graduated from a California high school. At UC Berkeley, we may have dozens of such students, but we hear about their struggles only anecdotally or when they apply for financial aid, only to learn that they do not qualify.

Undergraduates who are California residents will pay as much as $25,000 for fees, room and board and books and supplies for the coming school year at Berkeley. It is no surprise that 70% of them rely on state and federal financial aid. But federal law prohibits making these same grants and loans available to undocumented students. They cannot even be hired for campus jobs.

How do they manage? Many are forced out of school for a semester or longer. They work multiple low-paying jobs hoping to save enough to re-enroll. It can take them many more years to graduate, yet they are determined. But other high-achieving California students never even consider attending the University of California or other universities. Even if they could pay for it, a college degree doesn't get them any closer to legal residency status, which they need to put their degrees to work.

To address the plight of undocumented students, Congress must ensure that the well-conceived and broadly supported federal DREAM (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act goes forward. The act, which provides access to financial aid and a thoughtfully mapped-out path to citizenship for qualified students, became entangled in the latest failed immigration bill. It is time to pass the act on its own merits.

Legislation that would create a California DREAM Act, offered by state Sen. Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles), is moving forward in the Legislature. It allows all qualified students to apply for institutional aid at the University of California, California State University and the California Community Colleges.

Financial aid and a path to citizenship is a sound and humane investment. If we provide up-front loans and grants to talented students seeking to escape generations of poverty, society will be paid back many times over. With higher education, they will be able to raise their standard of living as they become taxpaying citizens. We must seize the opportunity to adopt these well-designed state and national policies that will be good for everyone — our students, their families, our state and nation.

No More Asian Americans!!!

2007-07-10T16:12:00.000-07:00

[posted from a fwd from am]

Students Launch Campaign to Dismantle 'Asian American' at UCs

Pacific Citizen, News Report, Lynda Lin, Posted: Jul 08, 2007

http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=596174c74d042976d556e6701ef64967

The title of Asian Pacific American can give and take. It can empower and at the same time engender the feeling of being a minority within a minority group.

APAs make up 34.6 percent of the University of California's new freshman admits in 2005 - the second largest group next to Caucasian, according to university data. The same report defines APAs as: Chinese, East Indian/Pakistani, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese and Other Asians.

For Nefara Riesch, who is of Samoan descent, being "other" or just "Asian" doesn't encapsulate a Pacific Islander's struggle for access to higher education. The 19-year-old history major is one of about 40 Pacific Islanders on the University of California, Los Angeles campus of over 24,000 undergraduates. For Riesch, the numbers just don't add up.

In order to call attention to the plight of smaller APA ethnic groups, UCLA's Asian Pacific Coalition (APC) is leading a campaign to pressure university administrators to disaggregate the "Other Asian" category, which critics say traps some APAs under the Model Minority Myth.

Beating the Odds

The Count Me In! Campaign, which is currently a UCLA initiative but will soon spread to the other UC campuses, seeks to achieve:

• the inclusion of 10 more APA ethnic groups such as Bangladeshi, Fijian and Hmong in the university's collection of data;

• the creation of a Pacific Islander racial category; and

• financial support for outreach projects targeted at disadvantaged APAs.

"The truth of the matter is, we can't be placed under the homogenous Asian American umbrella," said Riesch, who grew up in East Palo Alto, known then for being the murder capital of the country. "Not everyone fits in that category."

Statistically the odds are against Pacific Islanders like Riesch: only fifteen percent get their bachelor's degree and only one percent go on to get their master's degree. For many, upward mobility and higher education are virtually inaccessible without help. Being lumped into an "Asian" group undermines the struggles of smaller APA ethnic groups, critics say.

The campaign was the direct response to anti-Asian sentiment expressed at UCLA when admission numbers were released. An October 2006 column in the university newspaper blamed APA students for lowered numbers of African American and Hispanic admits.

"It was a wake up call," said Riesch. "It was supposed to be sarcastic, but for us it was filled with hate."
The APC immediately hosted a forum to dispel the misconception and from there, the Count Me In! campaign was born.

"We're underrepresented and from a different part of history, a different part of the world," said Kevin Peanh, 20, about his Cambodian heritage.

Being placed under a ubiquitous Asian classification was personally detrimental to the Long Beach, Calif. native because his classmates would often think his family was more affluent than their reality.
"My mom is a caretaker and my dad is a machinist," said Peanh.

Disaggregating APA Racial Categories in California

University of California officials agree that placing all APAs in a single category likely masks differences in experience, educational background and socio-economic status.

"We are currently developing a report that disaggregates these categories at the system wide level," said Nina Robinson, director of policy and external affairs for the University of California. "In addition, we are studying the possibility of expanding the number of subcategories of data we collect and report."
In conjunction with the Count Me In! Campaign, Calif. State Assemblyman Ted Lieu is pushing AB 295, which seeks to disaggregate data collected by state agencies. If passed, state agencies must collect data on smaller AAPI communities similar to the method used in the U.S. Census.

Currently, the University of California's undergraduate application offers students the option to report their ethnicity in multiple categories including eight Asian sub-categories - the most of any other racial group. The Chicano/Latino, African American and Caucasian categories remain homogenous.
But campaign supporters say their efforts are specially geared towards dismantling the Model Minority Myth.

"I am not opposed to other groups being able to access disaggregated data. The intent of this bill, however, is to address the Model Minority Myth that exists for the API community. It will accomplish this by gathering accurate data for individual groups that are starkly different from one another in terms of immigration patterns, language and culture," said Lieu.

UCLA's APC is an alliance of 21 different APA organizations. This summer, they are planning to widen their base and build networks on all the UC campuses. For many, the campaign is an APA effort, even for larger APA ethnic communities that are currently represented.

"Japanese Americans for the most part have a pretty well-off community. But this is why it needs to be recognized. We can't just be complacent because our community is doing well," said Craig Ishii, the Pacific Southwest regional director and current UCLA student. "We as JAs and we as JACL need to stand up together with other communities when support is needed. And we as JAs and JACL need to look beyond what directly affects us as Nikkei and instead look to what affects us as Asian Americans and even beyond."

----

Psyched you out, right? =P

Interesting Research Projects through UC Berkeley

2007-07-05T15:38:00.000-07:00

so.... the URAP projects for UC Berkeley are finally online.

I'm really excited about this one!!!

The Role of Filipinas in the Making of Filipino-Irano Community
Open. Apprentices needed for the fall semester. Enter your application on-line August 21st through September 4th. Activate it by submitting paper copy and transcript at the URAP office by Tuesday, September 4th, 5 PM.
The Iranian Revolution of 1979, the cultural revolution, and subsequent closure of Iranian Universities compelled many young Iranian men to pursue higher education abraod. The quality of education, geographical proximity, and lower cost of education made the Philippines a country of choice for many of them. Interactions of these Iranian men with Filipinas, in many cases, have led to intimate relationships and marriages. Christian Filipinas married to Iranin men residing in Iran are the subject of this research.The research explores the making of the Filipino-Irano Community and the role of Filipinas in that making. It examines the challenges these Filipinas have faced in Iran and the methods they have used to negotiate between different religion,culture, and social expectation. The research draws on literature on transnational and transcultural marriages. Qualifications: A research assistant should have strong interest in the subject and ability to work independently. The research involves conducting library seach, identifying, reading, copying, and summerizing relevant literature.Weekly Hours: to be negotiated
Related website: http://socrates.berkeley.edu:7013/scholars06-07/zahedi.htm

You Should Watch This

2007-06-29T09:21:00.000-07:00

Far be it from me to tell anyone what to do. Oh who am I kidding?

Warning, the beginning is kind of slow (maybe the first 10-15 minutes)

Walmart: The High Cost of Low Prices

Issues covered:
small businesses
environment
union busting
global workers
safety

- soundbytes- "walmart focuses on protecting it's property and not it's patrons"
I have often felt unsafe at a walmart parking lot at night. It's convenient that it's open so late (or even 24 hours), but the safety outside of a walmart should definitely be considered.

Law & Language

2007-06-21T11:35:00.000-07:00

jurisprudence
Gag Order
A Nebraska judge bans the word rape from his courtroom.
By Dahlia Lithwick
Posted Wednesday, June 20, 2007, at 7:27 PM ET

Usually we leave it up to the linguists and philosophers to muse on the
crazy relationship between words and their meanings. In the law,
words-the important ones, at least-are defined narrowly, and judges,
lawyers, and jurors are trusted to understand their meanings. It's
precisely because language is so powerful in a courtroom that we treat
it so reverently.
Yet a Nebraska district judge, Jeffre Cheuvront, suddenly finds himself
in a war of words with attorneys on both sides of a sexual assault
trial. More worrisome, he appears to be at war with language itself, and
his paradoxical answer is to ban it: Last fall, Cheuvront granted a
motion by defense attorneys barring the use of the words rape, sexual
assault, victim, assailant, and sexual assault kit from the trial of
Pamir Safi-accused of raping Tory Bowen in October 2004.
Safi's first trial resulted in a hung jury last November when jurors
deadlocked 7-5. Responding to Cheuvront's initial language ban-which
will be in force again when Safi is retried in July-prosecutors upped
the ante last month by seeking to have words like sex and intercourse
barred from the courtroom as well. The judge denied that motion,
evidently on the theory that there would be no words left to describe
the sex act at all. The result is that the defense and the prosecution
are both left to use the same word-sex-to describe either forcible
sexual assault, or benign consensual intercourse. As for the jurors,
they'll just have to read the witnesses' eyebrows to sort out the
difference.
Bowen met Safi at a Lincoln bar on Oct. 30, 2004. It is undisputed that
they shared some drinks, and witnesses saw them leaving together. Bowen
claims not to have left willingly and has no memory of the rest of that
night. She claims to have woken up naked the next morning with Safi atop
her, "having sexual intercourse with her." When she asked him to stop,
he did.
Bowen testified for 13 hours at Safi's first trial last October, all
without using the words rape or sexual assault. She claims, not
unreasonably, that describing what happened to her as sex is almost an
assault in itself. "This makes women sick, especially the women who have
gone through this," Bowen told the Omaha World-Herald. "They know the
difference between sex and rape."
Nebraska law offers judges broad discretion to ban evidence or language
that present the danger of "unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues or
misleading the jury." And it's not unheard-of for judges to keep certain
words out of a courtroom. Words like victim have been increasingly kept
out of trials, since they tend to imply that a crime was committed. And
as Safi's lawyer, Clarence Mock, explains, the word rape is just as
loaded. "It's a legal conclusion for a witness to say, 'I was raped' or
'sexually assaulted.' ... That's for a jury to decide." His concern is
that the word rape so inflames jurors that they decide a case
emotionally and not rationally.
The real question for Judge Cheuvront, then, is whether embedded in the
word sex is another "legal conclusion"-that the intercourse was
consensual. And it's hard to conclude otherwise. Go ahead, use the word
sex in a sentence. Asking a complaining witness to scrub the word rape
or assault from her testimony is one thing. Asking that she imply that
she agreed to what her alleged assailant was doing to her is something
else entirely. To put it another way: If the complaining witness in a
rape trial has to describe herself as having had "intercourse" with the
defendant, should the complaining witness in a mugging be forced to
testify that he was merely giving his attacker a loan?
The fact that judges are not rushing to ban similarly conclusory legal
language from trial testimony-presumably one can still say murder or
embezzlement on the stand-reflects not just the fraught nature of
language but also the fraught nature of rape prosecutions. We as a
society still somehow think rape is different-either because we assume
the victims are especially fragile or because we assume they are
particularly deceitful. Is the word rape truly more inflammatory to a
jury than the word robbery? Yes, the question of the victim's consent
surely makes a rape trial more complicated than some other kinds of
criminal trials. But the fact that the evidence may be more equivocal
hardly makes the underlying word more likely to incite blind juror
outrage.
Wendy Murphy teaches at the New England School of Law and has spent
years studying the relationship between language and the courts. She
describes Judge Cheuvront's order as part of a growing trend on the part
of the defense bar to scrub the language of trial courts, one that has
"really blossomed after the Kobe Bryant trial." The big shifts she's
noticing: Whereas defense attorneys once made motions to limit the use
of the word victim in trials, there is an uptick in efforts to get rid
of the word rape. Moreover, she points out, these strategies used to be
directed toward prosecutors, but they are now being directed toward
witnesses as well.
Do a Lexis search on the influence of inflammatory language on juror
perceptions. Try to find some social science data on the effect of
loaded courtroom words on conviction rates. Not much out there, notes
Murphy. That's one of the things that makes the Nebraska case so
maddening. If judges are going to take it upon themselves to issue
blanket orders that would have witnesses testifying that black is white,
one might hope that they are trying to remedy some well-documented
evidentiary problem.
You needn't be a radical legal feminist to cringe at the idea of judges
ordering rape complainants to obliterate from their testimony any
language that signifies an assault. At worst, that judge is ordering her
to lie. At best, he is asking her to play at being a human thesaurus:
thinking up coded ways to describe to the jury what she believes to have
happened. If Mock, Safi's attorney, is correct in stating that "trials
are competing narratives of what happened," why should one side have a
lock on the narrative language used? Can it really be that the cure for
the problem of ambiguous courtroom language is to permit less of it?
And there's another problem underlying Cheuvront's order: Jurors will
not be told of it. Not only is the "dangerous" language to be hidden
from them, but the fact that it's been hidden will be concealed from
them as well. They are not merely too emotional to hear the phrase rape
kit. They are also evidently too emotional to know it's been hidden from
them in the first place.
Professor Robert Weisberg teaches criminal law at Stanford Law School,
and he acknowledges that judges in rape trials face a particularly
complicated challenge when it comes to keeping prejudicial or conclusory
language from a jury. He has no problem, for instance, with the fact
that courts have gradually jettisoned the word victim for the less
loaded complainant. The former proves too much. But he cautions that
there is no value-neutral word for unwanted sex and that the word
intercourse "understates what happens in a rape case." He warns that a
blanket ban on the word rape may in fact be the worst solution. A jury
instruction from the judge or gentle admonitions that witnesses watch
their language throughout the trial is the better, more transparent fix.
"That," says Weisberg, "is what judges get paid for."
If we've learned anything from the dreary wars over politically correct
language in America, it's that purging ugly words from the lexicon
hardly makes the ugly ideas they represent go away. Trials exist to
ferret out facts, and papering over those ugly facts with pretty-or even
"neutral"-words doesn't just do violence to abstractions like language
and meaning. When it's done in a courtroom, the real victim-if I may
still use that word-may well be the truth.
Dahlia Lithwick is a Slate senior editor.

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2168758/

----

Oh the law. This is a little insane. I can't even wrap a coherent rant about this right now.

The Poor Indians Pay for the Success of the Rich

2007-06-14T12:02:00.000-07:00

_____________________________

The Poor Indians Pay for the Success of the Rich
by Tom Giago

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-giago/the-poor-indians-pay-for-_b_51488.html

John F. Kennedy said that the American Indian is the least understood and the most misunderstood of all Americans. I believe that with the disparities now so apparent in Indian country, that description by JFK takes on an entirely new meaning.
Headlines in many newspapers last week announced that Indian casinos had brought in a record $25 billion dollars last year. What they did not say is that on reservations such as the Navajo, Rosebud, Pine Ridge, Crow Creek, Blackfeet and Crow, unemployment is as high as 50 to 80 percent. That the average income is less than $5,000 annually. That the average life span is about 55 years of age. That the infant mortality rate is 3 times the national average. That on some reservations the diabetes epidemic claims 50 percent of the total reservation population. That many homes are without electricity or indoor plumbing. That there is such a need for housing that some of the available homes house as many as three families.
But nowadays the average American reads about the $25 billion raked in by the rich casino tribes last year and shrugs it off with distaste, probably with some envy and not without a little anger at all Indian tribes. In other words, the fantastic success of some gaming tribes is setting the agenda for all Indian tribes and it is making the very poor tribes the victims of the success of the rich tribes. Who would have ever thought they would see such a dichotomy in Indian country even 20 years ago?
In the Lakota language there is a word one hears quite often these days and that word is "onsika" (pronounced oon-she-ka) and it means poor, destitute or miserable, but as with many words in the Lakota language it also can mean to humble oneself to another, to act in a humble way, or to have mercy on those who have nothing. All of these definitions could describe the present conditions of the Lakota people.
We say that we are all in the same boat so although many have very little, it is still their duty to help those who have even less. That was true in all of Indian country prior to 1988 when gaming was legalized on Indian reservations, but that is not the case today. One rich tribe, the Mohegan, just purchased a golf course for $4. 5 million. Another tribe, the Seminole, just bought the Hard Rock Cafe and Resorts for a billion dollars.
Prior to 1988 when all of the tribes were "onsika" they all pulled together. There was actually unity in their poverty. Back then one could attend the annual convention of the National Congress of American Indians and meet tribal leaders that knew only poverty. They came to the convention in tattered jeans that were partially covered by a threadbare jacket or sports coat. When they addressed the convention they spoke with humility, sometimes in English peppered by words in their Native tongue. Now they show up in three-piece tailored suits.
I remember when we had our first Native American Journalists Convention in 1984 on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in Oregon. Many of the editors of Indian newspapers raised the money to attend the convention by holding fry bread sales or local auctions. Some pooled their resources and caravanned to the convention. Students from the Oglala Lakota College on the Pine Ridge Reservation had bake sales and auctions and then, led by their instructor, Gemma Lockhart, piled into their cars and vans, some borrowed, to make it to the convention.
Perhaps some would think of those days as the "bad old days," but on many Indian reservations, those days are still here. And on those very poor reservations it is heartwarming to see that the very poor still have dignity in their poverty.
Last week I wrote about the poorest Indian tribes in America, with $863,286,767.90 now held in trust for them for the illegal taking of their sacred Black Hills, refusing to accept one single penny of that award.
That these people of the Lakota, Nakota and Dakota speaking tribes of North Dakota, Montana and South Dakota, though encumbered with extreme poverty and the many illnesses that accompany poverty, can still refuse to accept nearly one billion dollars that would go a long way into lifting them from their poverty, is a miraculous phenomenon that most of the casino rich tribes could never and would never understand.
As a matter of fact, nearly all of the responses to my column about the monetary award to the Sioux people were from Indians all expressing great pride and respect for a people that refuse to sell their mother earth. Wrote one, "In today's world of greed and money grubbing by too many Indian tribes and their people, it makes me so proud to see the Sioux stand tall and proud against the temptations of the money givers."
Perhaps one of the reasons I received no response from white people is that this may be one concept they find strange or maybe it is just something beyond their realm of comprehension. To be poor and not accept money, according to many, is not the American way. It is not the fault of the rich casino tribes that most Americans believe that all Indian tribes are rolling in wealth. They were lucky to be in a locale conducive to wealth and more power to them for their success.
The words uttered by JFK more than 40 years ago still ring true. The American Indian is still the least understood and the most misunderstood of all Americans.

(Tim Giago is an Oglala Lakota. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard in the Class of 1991. His latest book "Children Left Behind, the Dark Legacy of the Indian Missions," is now available at: order@clearlightbooks.com. The book just won the Bronze Star from the Independent Publishers Awards. He can be reached at najournalists@rushmore.com)

_____________________________
Interesting article that caught my attention via the multiple email listserves I am on. There's two things I think that need to be considered here:

1. Casinos are a main form of income for many "wealthy" Native Americans. They use casinos BECAUSE they have been pushed into this sort of system by our American system of commercialism (I claim this only because I am an American citizen. Not exactly the system of which I approve.)

2. To reject this system, while leaving Native Americans poor- is, I believe, a great act of strength and resistance against this commercial system that mentioned previously.

3. There is no right and wrong. In fact, it seems that either way Native Americans seem to lose.

The "National Bourgeoisie" System

So I read this book in theory called The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon. Disclaimer:And its been awhile since I've read this book so I hope you'll all forgive me for summarizing, oversimplifying, and possibly erring a little also (have to cover all the bases here). Fanon talks about the struggle of colonized people in response to a colonial system. Here he gives two options: (a) colonial subjects who either adopt the colonial system and take it as their own (National Bourgeoisie) or (b) those who give up the colonial model completely (National Liberation). Anyway, my point is not to give a theory lesson but to point to the idea of a National Bourgeoisie. This National Bourgeoisie adapts concepts like tourism still catering to the needs of a colonial power.

The national bourgeoisie will be greatly helped on its way toward decadence by the Western bourgeoisies, who come to it as tourists avid for the exotic, for big game hunting, and for casinos. The national bourgeoisie organizes centers of rest and relaxation and pleasure resorts to meet the wishes of the Western bourgeoisie. Such activity is given the mane of tourism, and for the occasion will be built up as a national industry. [Wretched of the Earth, Fanon]

So here is my point:

I am going to assume a position that Native Americans are internally colonized by the imperial American system (the concept is nothing new - Marcus Garvey anyone?). I mean, the idea that Native Americans who had land given to them by the very people that stole their land in the first place is ridiculous. And the fact this land- these reservations - are subject to laws of the United States or whatever the US is willing to "grant them" is also ridiculous. Reservations are granted to NA, but the land is small and is surrounded by US land. And most reservations must interact with the US to import things like food. And what do people need to buy food? Money. Casinos are the main form of income for Native Americans and is often the ONLY way to make a significant amount of money. So what choice do poverty stricken NA have except to build a casino? In Fanon's words casinos are a form of catering to the "wishes of the Western bourgeoisie". Native Americans are pushed up against this wall of "adopt American commercial ideas or be poor".

The idea of rejecting offers to build casinos on Native American land is a form of resistance. In this way those Native Americans who are not adopting the casino model are clinging to the traditional ideas that they have had for centuries (pre Western ideology). Isn't is ironic that to resist and change the model is actually to refuse to change to adapt a Western model.

Jihad and McWorld
I always feel a pull between modernization and traditionalism. It seems that the world is always split into a world of opposites- a Jihad or a McWorld (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/199203/barber) type scenario. And I am not sure what I want- only that the world not be categorized so simply. It always seems like "our way or no way" philosophy. I cannot fault NA with casinos the fact that they need to make money. Yet I know they only feel that they must because they are trapped in this American materialistic culture. And I applaud the NA who refuse to sell their land, but that still does not discount that rampant poverty is still occuring.

I feel that slowly ever slowly is a steady cultural genocide of NA culture. What Giago says is true: Americans are starting to think of NA as rich casino owners and forget NA history rife with destruction, violence, stolen land, etc (Andrew Jackson? Wounded Knee?).

The Return of the ME in MEory [Summer 2007]

2007-06-13T15:38:00.000-07:00

Hello again. I am back to the land of blogging, effusive verbal barrage through long and unorganized posts, ranting and raving about the state of our world through my juvenile analyzing facilities.

Ha. How's that for a return sentence?

No. Seriously. I did not give up on this little blog. I just went through a very stressful period of life where I decided sleeping was more important than blogging (oh yes those 3-5 hours a night were heaven let me tell you. Aha. Ha.).

So now it is summer and I- owing to the luxury of still being a student- have a few months which are not quite stress-free, but slightly less stressful. So I return. Not smarter. Not wiser. A certainly not of few words.

Enjoy if you will. Otherwise, well there's plenty of other things to peruse on the internet.

B is for: Ugly Betty and the Bebot Song*

2007-01-24T21:17:00.000-08:00

Ok, so this is not a connection that I would normally have thought of.

B is for: Ugly Betty the joy of my life (well in tv land, considering most tv is completely terrible)

and the other B - being the infamous and what I like to term affectionately as "the Bebot incident"

I was catching up on Ugly Betty (if you know what happens don't tell me! I'm 3 episodes behind) and I was watching the episode after the Christmas episode (where she has to choose between Henry or Walter). The designer's name is "Oshi" and he is holding a fan and wearing something that I can't figure out is Japanese or Korean pantsuit. And it's not that I haven't noticed certain say cultural representations that are problematic and often stereotypical as the media normally portrays, but this scene really struck a chord with me. Oshi enters and then "Bebot" by the Black Eyed Peas actually starts playing. Not that I support or condone use of this song (oh long story if you don't know), but the way it was used was so odd.

Oshi and "Asianess"

Oshi is represented as Japanese by name, perhaps Korean by dress, and then the song "Bebot" is used. And not only that but the song actually goes until you can hear the word "Filipino" sung by Apl de Ap. Let us assume Oshi is Japanese for purposes of discussion. His characteristics are portrayed as clean and having a love of the minimal. And permit me to go a little off on a little tangent, but his style of dress and goatee actually are reminiscent of Samurai martial arts films in the 60s/70s. He also has a translator. And his translator has an accent.

Yes, I suppose it is important to consider that Oshi is supposed to be from Japan and thus accounts for the need for a translator. But isn't is it important to note that most portrayals of Asian/ Asian-Americans are Asians. And not only that, but most representations are of Japanese or even East Asian descent. So while yes, it is interesting and somewhat impressive that there is a song about Filipinos playing on one of my favorite shows - the context is ridiculously disturbing, jarring even. And they kept replaying it the entire show. We take privilege and cultural representations for granted so much that when something actually bothers me - then there must be something wrong.

Lumping Asians Together

I really think this is another instance of "Asians" being overused as a general term in society. Which I think is interesting if you think of all the Asian parodies and trouble that the model minority myth has been getting lately. Articles for example: the UCLA satire, NY times on Berkeley articles "Little Asia on the Hill"(posted below) , and most recently the Princeton joke issue here and here. Is it a growing trend? A re-emerging trend? Tigers of Asia. Fears of Japanese technological prowess. I am not sure. But there is the idea of Asians as threats and as "taking away" jobs and security from Americans (Americans = white of course since most "Asians" are just foreigners anyway). Or even Asians becoming the new dominant category, the new "whites" as it were.

I feel that one of the main problems is the idea of lumping all Asians together. Sure, the Asian American movement did help. A pan-ethnic identity was useful. But now that pan-ethnic identity is being used against Asians. And that is not acceptable. Especially when "Asian" is broken down into the many different cultures and ethnicities of Asia. Filipinos are definitely not Japanese.

The end...or the Beginning

I don't even feel I have hit the tip of the iceberg in this blog. This idea of "Asianess" and especially how it is portrayed not just in the media, but also in educational systems is multi-layered and problematic. And I don't know how to express all of this. Not only that, but there is also differences between portrayal of men and women, young and old, sexuality or lack of, etc. The Bebot song itself has many complex layers of understanding, but when used in this way- its completely ridiculous and just highlights the ridiculous representation of "Asians" in the media.

Questions left (some rhetorical, some with answers yet to be unveiled):

Why do I feel that Asians are scapegoats? Or portrayed as "Uncle Toms" (ascribing to dominant white culture that makes Asians seem as if they were white). Can Asians become white? (Never). Why do we even use the term "Asian"? Because long ago some European philosopher/scientist thought the world was divided into races like white, black, brown, yellow, and red? Is the term "Asian" good or bad? Why are all these articles seemingly coming out at the same time or am I just noticing them now? Why is it ok to make fun of Asians? How come as many times as Asians complain about Asian representation - they always come back. And finally, I wonder what it would be like to live in a non-raced society? Where race actually didn't matter instead of people saying it doesnt? Divide and conquer - thanks.

I feel like I am hitting my head against a brick wall when I make complaints like these. This is so frustrating.

* Ha! I didn't realize Gladys had blogged about this before. I'm sure you should read her article for much more succinct, less ranty, and clear ideas about this particular episode than I have contributed. Haha. Well at least people other than myself are noticing it.

P.S. Don't you love that picture? Yes, it is an ACTUAL HALLOWEEN costume. But for purposes of comparison, let's just say whatever you felt when you saw that picture is probably the same way I felt when I heard Bebot on Ugly Betty.

Little Asia on the Hill [text]

2007-01-24T21:16:00.000-08:00

[in case you haven't read it...here goes]

Little Asia on the Hill
by Timathy Egan

WHEN Jonathan Hu was going to high school in suburban Southern California, he rarely heard anyone speaking Chinese. But striding through campus on his way to class at the University of California, Berkeley, Mr. Hu hears Mandarin all the time, in plazas, cafeterias, classrooms, study halls, dorms and fast-food outlets. It is part of the soundtrack at this iconic university, along with Cantonese, English, Spanish and, of course, the perpetual jackhammers from the perpetual construction projects spurred by the perpetual fund drives.

''Here, many people speak Chinese as their primary language,'' says Mr. Hu, a sophomore. ''It's nice. You really feel like you don't stand out.''

Today, he is iPod-free, a rare condition on campus, taking in the early winter sun at the dour concrete plaza of the Free Speech Movement Cafe, named for the protests led by Mario Savio in 1964, when the administration tried to muzzle political activity. ''Free speech marks us off from the stones and stars,'' reads a Savio quote on the cafe wall, ''just below the angels.''

There are now mostly small protests, against the new chain stores invading Telegraph Avenue, just outside the campus entrance, and to save the old oak trees scheduled for removal so the football stadium can be renovated. The biggest buzz on Telegraph one week was the grand opening of a chain restaurant -- the new Chipotle's, which drew a crowd of students eager to get in. The scent of patchouli oil and reefer is long gone; the street is posted as a drug-free zone.

And at least on this morning, there is very little speech of any kind inside the Free Speech Cafe; almost without exception, students are face-planted in their laptops, silently downloading class notes, music, messages. It could be the library but for the line for lattes. On mornings like this, the public university beneath the towering campanile seems like a small, industrious city of uber-students in flops.

I ask Mr. Hu what it's like to be on a campus that is overwhelmingly Asian -- what it's like to be of the demographic moment. This fall and last, the number of Asian freshmen at Berkeley has been at a record high, about 46 percent. The overall undergraduate population is 41 percent Asian. On this golden campus, where a creek runs through a redwood grove, there are residence halls with Asian themes; good dim sum is never more than a five-minute walk away; heaping, spicy bowls of pho are served up in the Bear's Lair cafeteria; and numerous social clubs are linked by common ancestry to countries far across the Pacific.

Mr. Hu shrugs, saying there is a fair amount of ''selective self-racial segregation,'' which is not unusual at a university this size: about 24,000 undergraduates. ''The different ethnic groups don't really interact that much,'' he says. ''There's definitely a sense of sticking with your community.'' But, he quickly adds, ''People of my generation don't look at race as that big of a deal. People here, the freshmen and sophomores, they're pretty much like your average American teenagers.''

Spend a few days at Berkeley, on the classically manicured slope overlooking San Francisco Bay and the distant Pacific, and soon enough the sound of foreign languages becomes less distinct. This is a global campus in a global age. And more than any time in its history, it looks toward the setting sun for its identity.

The revolution at Berkeley is a quiet one, a slow turning of the forces of immigration and demographics. What is troubling to some is that the big public school on the hill certainly does not look like the ethnic face of California, which is 12 percent Asian, more than twice the national average. But it is the new face of the state's vaunted public university system. Asians make up the largest single ethnic group, 37 percent, at its nine undergraduate campuses.

The oft-cited goal of a public university is to be a microcosm -- in this case, of the nation's most populous, most demographically dynamic state -- and to enrich the educational experience with a variety of cultures, economic backgrounds and viewpoints.

But 10 years after California passed Proposition 209, voting to eliminate racial preferences in the public sector, university administrators find such balance harder to attain. At the same time, affirmative action is being challenged on a number of new fronts, in court and at state ballot boxes. And elite colleges have recently come under attack for practicing it -- specifically, for bypassing highly credentialed Asian applicants in favor of students of color with less stellar test scores and grades.

In California, the rise of the Asian campus, of the strict meritocracy, has come at the expense of historically underrepresented blacks and Hispanics. This year, in a class of 4809, there are only 100 black freshmen at the University of California at Los Angeles -- the lowest number in 33 years. At Berkeley, 3.6 percent of freshmen are black, barely half the statewide proportion. (In 1997, just before the full force of Proposition 209 went into effect, the proportion of black freshmen matched the state population, 7 percent.) The percentage of Hispanic freshmen at Berkeley (11 percent) is not even a third of the state proportion (35 percent). White freshmen (29 percent) are also below the state average (44 percent).

This is in part because getting into Berkeley -- U.S. News & World Report's top-ranked public university -- has never been more daunting. There were 41,750 applicants for this year's freshman class of 4,157. Nearly half had a weighted grade point average of 4.0 or better (weighted for advanced courses). There is even grumbling from ''the old Blues'' -- older alumni named for the school color -- ''who complain because their kids can't get in,'' says Gregg Thomson, director of the Office of Student Research.

Mr. Hu applied to a lot of colleges, but Berkeley felt right for him from the start. ''It's the intellectual atmosphere -- this place is intense.''

Mr. Hu says he was pressured by a professor to go into something like medicine or engineering. ''It's a stereotype, but a lot of Asians who come here just study engineering and the sciences,'' he says. ''I was never interested in that.''

But as the only son of professionals born in China, Mr. Hu fits the profile of Asians at Berkeley in at least one way: they are predominantly first-generation American. About 95 percent of Asian freshmen come from a family in which one or both parents were born outside the United States.

He dashes off to class, and I wander through the serene setting of Memorial Glade, in the center of campus, and then loop over to Sproul Plaza, the beating heart of the university, where dozens of tables are set up by clubs representing every conceivable ethnic group. Out of nowhere, an a cappella group, mostly Asian men, appears and starts singing a Beach Boys song. Yes, tradition still matters in California.

ACROSS the United States, at elite private and public universities, Asian enrollment is near an all-time high. Asian-Americans make up less than 5 percent of the population but typically make up 10 to 30 percent of students at the nation's best colleges:in 2005, the last year with across-the-board numbers, Asians made up 24 percent of the undergraduate population at Carnegie Mellon and at Stanford, 27 percent at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 14 percent at Yale and 13 percent at Princeton.

And according to advocates of race-neutral admissions policies, those numbers should be even higher.

Asians have become the ''new Jews,'' in the phrase of Daniel Golden, whose recent book, ''The Price of Admission: How America's Ruling Class Buys Its Way Into Elite Colleges -- and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates,'' is a polemic against university admissions policies. Mr. Golden, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, is referring to evidence that, in the first half of the 20th century, Ivy League schools limited the number of Jewish students despite their outstanding academic records to maintain the primacy of upper-class Protestants. Today, he writes, ''Asian-Americans are the odd group out, lacking racial preferences enjoyed by other minorities and the advantages of wealth and lineage mostly accrued by upper-class whites. Asians are typecast in college admissions offices as quasi-robots programmed by their parents to ace math and science.''

As if to illustrate the point, a study released in October by the Center for Equal Opportunity, an advocacy group opposing race-conscious admissions, showed that in 2005 Asian-Americans were admitted to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, at a much lower rate (54 percent) than black applicants (71 percent) and Hispanic applicants (79 percent) -- despite median SAT scores that were 140 points higher than Hispanics and 240 points higher than blacks.

To force the issue on a legal level, a freshman at Yale filed a complaint in the fall with the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, contending he was denied admission to Princeton because he is Asian. The student, Jian Li, the son of Chinese immigrants in Livingston, N.J., had a perfect SAT score and near-perfect grades, including numerous Advanced Placement courses.

''This is just a very, very egregious system,'' Mr. Li told me. ''Asians are held to different standards simply because of their race.''

To back his claim, he cites a 2005 study by Thomas J. Espenshade and Chang Y. Chung, both of Princeton, which concludes that if elite universities were to disregard race, Asians would fill nearly four of five spots that now go to blacks or Hispanics. Affirmative action has a neutral effect on the number of whites admitted, Mr. Li is arguing, but it raises the bar for Asians. The way Princeton selects its entering class, Mr. Li wrote in his complaint, ''seems to be a calculated move by a historically white institution to protect its racial identity while at the same time maintaining a facade of progressivism.''

Private institutions can commit to affirmative action, even with state bans, but federal money could be revoked if they are found to be discriminating. Mr. Li is seeking suspension of federal financial assistance to Princeton. ''I'm not seeking anything personally,'' he says. ''I'm happy at Yale. But I grew up thinking that in America race should not matter.''

Admissions officials have long denied that they apply quotas. Nonetheless, race is important ''to ensure a diverse student body,'' says Cass Cliatt, a Princeton spokeswoman. But, she adds, ''Looking at the merits of race is not the same as the opposite'' -- discrimination.

Elite colleges like Princeton review the ''total package,'' in her words, looking at special talents, extracurricular interests and socioeconomics -- factors like whether the applicant is the first in the family to go to college or was raised by a single mother. ''There's no set formula or standard for how we evaluate students,'' she says. High grades and test scores would seem to be merely a baseline. ''We turned away approximately half of applicants with maximum scores on the SAT, all three sections,'' Ms. Cliatt says of the class Mr. Li would have joined.

In the last two months, the nation has seen a number of new challenges to racial engineering in schools. In November, the United States Supreme Court heard a case questioning the legality of using race in assigning students to public schools in Seattle and Louisville, Ky. Voters are also sending a message, having thrown out racial preferences in Michigan in November, following a lead taken by California, Texas, Florida and Washington. Last month, Ward Connerly, the architect of Proposition 209, announced his next potential targets for a ballot initiative, including Arizona, Colorado, Missouri and Nebraska.

When I ask the chancellor at Berkeley, Robert J. Birgeneau, if there is a perfect demographic recipe on this campus that likes to think of itself as the world's finest public university -- Harvard on the Hill -- he demurs.

''We are a meritocracy,'' he says. And -- by law, he adds -- the campus is supposed to be that way. If Asians made up, say, 70 percent of the campus, he insists, there would still be no attempt to reduce their numbers.

Asian enrollment at his campus actually began to ramp up well before affirmative action was banned.

Historically, Asians have faced discrimination, with exclusion laws in the 1800s that kept them from voting, owning property or legally immigrating. Many were run out of West Coast towns by mobs. But by the 1970s and '80s, with a change in immigration laws, a surge in Asian arrivals began to change the complexion of California, and it was soon reflected in an overrepresentation at its top universities.

In the late 1980s, administrators appeared to be limiting Asian-American admissions, prompting a federal investigation. The result was an apology by the chancellor at the time, and a vow that there would be no cap on Asian enrollment.

University administrators and teachers use anguished words to describe what has happened since.

''I've heard from Latinos and blacks that Asians should not be considered a minority at all,'' says Elaine Kim, a professor of Asian-American studies at Berkeley. ''What happened after they got rid of affirmative action has been a disaster -- for blacks and Latinos. And for Asians it's been a disaster because some people think the campus has become all-Asian.''

The diminishing number of African-Americans on campus is a consistent topic of discussion among black students. Some say they feel isolated, without a sense of community. ''You really do feel like you stand out,'' says Armilla Staley, a second-year law student. In her freshman year, she was one of only nine African-Americans in a class of 265. ''I'm almost always the only black person in my class,'' says Ms. Staley, who favors a return to some form of affirmative action.

''Quite frankly, when you walk around campus, it's overwhelmingly Asian,'' she says. ''I don't feel any tension between Asians and blacks, but I don't really identify with the Asian community as a minority either.''

Walter Robinson, the director of undergraduate admissions, who is African-American, has the same impression. ''The problem is that because we're so few, we get absorbed among the masses,'' he says.

Chancellor Birgeneau says he finds the low proportion of blacks and Hispanics appalling, and two years into his tenure, he has not found a remedy. To broaden the pool, the U.C. system promises to admit the top 4 percent at each high school in the state and uses ''comprehensive review'' -- considering an applicant's less quantifiable attributes. But the net results for a campus like Berkeley are disappointing. His university, Dr. Birgeneau says, loses talented black applicants to private universities like Stanford, where African-American enrollment was 10 percent last year -- nearly three times that at Berkeley.

''I just don't believe that in a state with three million African-Americans there is not a single engineering student for the state's premier public university,'' says the chancellor, who has called for reinstating racial preferences.

One leading critic of bringing affirmative action back to Berkeley is David A. Hollinger, chairman of its history department and author of ''Post-Ethnic America: Beyond Multiculturalism.'' He supported racial preferences before Proposition 209, but is no longer so sure. ''You could argue that the campus is more diverse now,'' because Asians comprise so many different cultures, says Dr. Hollinger. A little more than half of Asian freshmen at Berkeley are Chinese, the largest group, followed by Koreans, East-Indian/Pakistani, Filipino and Japanese.

He believes that Latinos are underrepresented because many come from poor agrarian families with little access to the good schools that could prepare them for the rigors of Berkeley. He points out that, on the other hand, many of the Korean students on campus are sons and daughters of parents with college degrees. In any event, he says, it is not the university's job to fix the problems that California's public schools produce.

Dr. Birgeneau agrees on at least one point: ''I think we're now at the point where the category of Asian is not very useful. Koreans are different from people from Sri Lanka and they're different than Japanese. And many Chinese-Americans are a lot like Caucasians in some of their values and areas of interest.''

IF Berkeley is now a pure meritocracy, what does that say about the future of great American universities in the post-affirmative action age? Are we headed toward a day when all elite colleges will look something like Berkeley: relatively wealthy whites (about 60 percent of white freshmen's families make $100,000 or more) and a large Asian plurality and everyone else underrepresented? Is that the inevitable result of color-blind admissions?

Eric Liu, author of ''The Accidental Asian: Notes of a Native Speaker'' and a domestic policy adviser to former President Bill Clinton, is troubled by the assertion that the high Asian makeup of elite campuses reflects a post-racial age where merit prevails.

''I really challenge this idea of a pure meritocracy,'' says Mr. Liu, who runs mentoring programs that grew out of his book ''Guiding Lights: How to Mentor and Find Life's Purpose.'' Until all students -- from rural outposts to impoverished urban settings -- are given equal access to the Advanced Placement classes that have proved to be a ticket to the best colleges, then the idea of pure meritocracy is bunk, he says. ''They're measuring in a fair way the results of an unfair system.''

He also says Asian-Americans are tired of having to live up to -- or defend -- ''that tired old warhorse of the model minority.''

''We shouldn't be calling these studying habits that help so many kids get into good schools 'Asian values,' '' says Mr. Liu, himself a product of Yale College and Harvard Law School. ''These are values that used to be called Jewish values or Anglo-Saxon work-ethic values. The bottom line message from the family is the same: work hard, defer gratification, share sacrifice and focus on the big goal.''

Hazel R. Markus lectures on this very subject as a professor of psychology at Stanford and co-director of its Research Institute for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. Her studies have found that Asian students do approach academics differently. Whether educated in the United States or abroad, she says, they see professors as authority figures to be listened to, not challenged in the back-and-forth Socratic tradition. ''You hear some teachers say that the Asian kids get great grades but just sit there and don't participate,'' she says. ''Talking and thinking are not the same thing. Being a student to some Asians means that it's not your place to question, and that flapping your gums all day is not the best thing.''

One study at the institute looked at Asian-American students in lab courses, and found they did better solving problems alone and without conversations with other students. ''This can make for some big problems,'' she says, like misunderstandings between classmates. ''But people are afraid to talk about these differences. And one of the fantastic opportunities of going to a Stanford or Berkeley is to learn something about other cultures, so we should be talking about it.''

As for the rise in Asian enrollment, the reason ''isn't a mystery,'' Dr. Markus says. ''This needs to come out and we shouldn't hide it,'' she says. ''In Asian families, the No. 1 job of a child is to be a student. Being educated -- that's the most honorable thing you can do.''

BERKELEY is ''Asian heaven,'' as one student puts it. ''When I went back East my Asian friends were like, 'Wow, you go to Berkeley -- that must be great,' '' says Tera Nakata, who just graduated and now works in the residence halls.

You need only go to colleges in, say, the Midwest to appreciate the Asian feel of this campus. But Berkeley is freighted with the baggage of stereotypes -- that it is boring socially, full of science nerds, a hard place to make friends.

''About half the students at this school spend their entire career in the library,'' one person wrote in a posting on vault.com, a popular job and college search Web site.

Another wrote: ''Everyone who is white joins the Greek system and everyone who isn't joins a 'theme house' or is a member of a club related to race.''

There is some truth to the image, students acknowledge, but it does not do justice to the bigger experience at Berkeley. ''You have the ability to stay with people who are like you and not get out of your comfort zone,'' says Ms. Nakata. ''But I learned a lot by mixing it up. I lived in a dorm with a lot of different races, and we would have these deep conversations all the time about race and our feelings of where we belong and where we came from.'' But she also says that the ''celebrate diversity aspect'' of Berkeley doesn't go deep. ''We want to respect everyone's differences, but we don't mix socially.''

Near the end of my stay at Berkeley I met a senior, Jonathan Lee, the son of a Taiwanese father and a mother from Hong Kong. He grew up well east of Los Angeles, in the New America sprawl of fast-growing Riverside County, where his father owned a restaurant. He went to a high school where he was a minority.

''When I was in high school,'' he says, ''there was this notion that you're Chinese, you must be really good in math.'' But now Mr. Lee is likely to become a schoolteacher, much to the chagrin of his parents, ''who don't think it will be very lucrative.''

The story of Jon Lee's journey at Berkeley is compelling. As president of the Asian-American Association, he has tried to dispel stereotypes of ''the Dragon Lady seductress or the idea that everybody plays the piano.'' His closest friends are in the club. It may seem that he has become more insular, that he has found his tribe. But Mr. Lee says he has been trying to lead other Asian students out of the university bubble. Once a week, they go into a mostly black and Hispanic middle school in the Bay Area to mentor students.

For the last five semesters, Mr. Lee has worked with one student. ''I take him out for dim sum, or to Chinatown, or just talk about college and what it's like at Cal,'' he says. ''We talk about race and we talk about everything. And he's taught me a lot.''

The mentoring program came about not because of prodding by well-meaning advisers, teachers or student groups. It came about because Mr. Lee looked around at the new America -- in California, the first state with no racial majority -- and found that it looked very different from Berkeley. And much as he loves Berkeley, he knew that if he wanted to learn enough to teach, he needed to get off campus.

[Photograph]

10 YEARS AFTER -- Minority students, top, at a Berkeley rally before affirmative action was abolished. At left, the campus today; Kim Hung and Crystal Lam review class notes. (pg. 24); (Photographs by JIM WILSON/The New York Times)(pg. 25); BERKELEY BUBBLE -- Jonathan Lee and Jonathan Hu, top and center, say they revel in not standing out. Walter Robinson, bottom, director of undergraduate admissions, struggles to fashion a diverse campus. (Photographs by Jim Wilson/The New York Times)(pg. 26); PERFECT SCORE, THIN ENVELOPE -- Jian Li, a freshman at Yale, has filed a complaint against Princeton. He contends that he was rejected because of race, and that admissions standards are higher for Asians. (Photo by Joseph Kugielsky for The New York Times)(pg. 27)

[Chart]

''East Meets West''

The ethnic breakdown of freshmen, fall 2006, at the four largest University of California campuses, compared with the population of the State of California.

CALIFORNIA

White -- 44%

Hispanic -- 35

Asian -- 12

Black -- 7

Other/unknown -- 2

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY

White -- 29

Hispanic -- 11

Asian -- 46

Black -- 4

Other/unknown -- 10

AT DAVIS

White -- 33

Hispanic -- 13

Asian -- 43

Black -- 3

Other/unknown -- 8

AT IRVINE

White -- 23

Hispanic -- 12

Asian -- 56

Black -- 2

Other/unknown -- 7

AT LOS ANGELES

White -- 31

Hispanic -- 13

Asian -- 43

Black -- 2

Other/unknown -- 11

(Sources by Census Bureau; University of California)(pg. 26)

[Chart]

''Too Many? Not Enough?''

Some say Asian-Americans are being denied spots at top colleges to keep their numbers in check (Asians make up 5 percent of the population). Following are percentages of Asian undergraduates at selected colleges.

Stanford -- 24%

Harvard -- 18%

Princeton -- 13%

M.I.T. -- 27%

Amherst -- 13%

Johns Hopkins -- 22%

Dartmouth -- 14%

Carnegie Mellon -- 24%

Stony Brook (SUNY) -- 22%

California Institute of Technology -- 33%

Cornell -- 16%

Cooper Union -- 20%

Wellesley -- 27%

University of Texas, Austin -- 17%

Columbia -- 13%

Rutgers, New Brunswick -- 22

(Source by College Board, fall 2005)(pgs. 25, 26, 27)

with conviction

2007-01-24T08:49:00.000-08:00

My theory professor said that to him to understand theory you must write.

I resolve to be a better writer, a better student, and a better friend.

A better student means a better reader. Better at analyzing and contextualizing ideas. I will probably try to integrate/reflect on the theory I am learning in classes more on this blog. The theory parts have been lacking.

Miscellaneous:

I am frustrated because I am .o6 off the gpa line for a research grant I want. I will talk to people and see if I can't remedy that (and by remedy I mean still apply for the research grant, I can't do anything about my GPA. Darn you chemistry!).

I also need to really push myself and prove myself in aforementioned theory class because everyone in that class is ridiculously intelligent and committed. I mean more so in my regular classes. Those people that always raise their hand and talk in class- about 20 of those people are in my seminar. I have to be one of those people.

Stranger than Fiction

2007-01-20T09:16:00.000-08:00

I saw Stranger than Fiction with my friends yesterday. And it was a pretty good movie. I mentioned that it was kind of like Little Miss Sunshine. I don't know how to describe it, but I'm feeling a little better about American cinema. I feel like there's a birth of a new genre. I described it as "magical realism" (which is a wrong use of a literary term), but its more like these movies are embracing reality-the quirks, the mundane, the special, all of it- and making "normal" magical. Without tricks and gimmicks. And in this way- I think that there's a return to movies as escapism and its escapism in everyday life. Maybe I'm getting too ahead of myself, but I don't know- sometimes American movies (most, not all) are "too"- too much, too glittery, too in your face. I hope this is the beginning of a trend.

And in a sidenote, I do like Will Ferrell as an actor. But not for his well-known comedic movies like Old School and Elf. I like him when he is playing the everyman (that everyman of course being the white american playing into the dominant ideology of American= white, but that's another post).

While perusing the Berkeley website for news...

2006-12-26T05:01:00.000-08:00

Oh studies, they have studies about everything. This one caught my eye because it was under "sociology" under the Berkeley news press releases. Oh well...erm...Merry Christmas?

Study shows people compete to be generous
By Yasmin Anwar, Media Relations 19 December 2006
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BERKELEY – As the season of goodwill and big spending crests, a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and Cornell University indicates that people - when observed - are conspicuously generous in their giving and will even compete in the bigheartedness department to win favor and make friends.
"I think it's a dynamic you see a lot around the holidays. Some folks spend time
worrying about how their gifts stack up relative to others, and people seem to
compete to give better gifts than others to develop a reputation as a generous
person," said UC Berkeley assistant sociology professor Robb Willer, who co-authored the study with Cornell University evolutionary biologist Pat Barclay.
"At the same time, Willer added, "it's certainly a dynamic at odds with the traditional spirit of the holiday season, so competitive generosity may be something to avoid, if possible, in order to preserve the sincerity of the 'season of giving.'"
The study, "Partner Choice Creates Competitive Altruism in Humans," is set to be published tomorrow (Wednesday, Dec. 20) in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society of London: Biological Sciences.
While the finding of "competitive altruism" seems a contradiction in terms, the study's results signal significant implications not only for the evolution of human
cooperation, but for everyday life, Willer said.
"People value money and resources, but they also value having a good reputation and are willing to invest in maintaining one," he said.
Barclay and Willer embarked on the study together after each completing independent dissertation research showing that people behave generously in large part to develop a good reputation. To take their findings a step further, they sought to discover whether people would actively compete to be the most generous, and set about creating the conditions for altruistic one-upmanship.

As part of the study, 31 women and 23 men from Cornell University engaged in various exercises testing for cooperation and altruistic competition. Initially, for example, participants were paired off and each given 10 "lab dollars," of which any amount could be given to his or her partner.

Overall, the study found that participants donated more money when
observed by others than when they gave privately. Moreover, when the rules were
changed to allow participants to choose their partners, contributions increased
dramatically as participants sought to become desirable partners.
"First, we showed that people tended to be more generous when others would know what they gave," Willer said. "But more interestingly, we found that people would compete to be more generous than one another when one might be picked as a future interaction partner by someone else. This is the first demonstration of
'competitive generosity' in controlled conditions that we are aware of."
Why do people compete to give away money? "Generosity is a relative thing," Barclay said. "If you're slightly generous, but everyone around you is selfish, then
you'll be a highly desirable partner, all else being equal. However, since everyone might benefit from being a desirable partner, everyone will be slightly generous, so you need to be even more generous than that in order to stand out as a desirable partner and be chosen."
"The paper shows how the freedom to choose social partners can result in people subtly competing to be more altruistic than others," Barclay added.
Choice matters, he said, because it provides an incentive to compete: "If people don't get to choose whom they interact with, then there's no need to compete with others. There's still an incentive to be nice so that others will be nice to you, but you don't need to be nicer than others."

Barclay said a similar dynamic is played out in the dating market, where people compete to be desirable partners so they will find ideal mates. "This study takes this principle and applies it to altruistic acts, thinking about altruism as being part of a competition for social partners," he said.

Getting Started on Life Reading During Winter Break

2006-12-12T13:52:00.001-08:00

Here are some books that I've been thinking about reading. The list is probably nowhere near complete and it is highly unlikely that I can read all of these over winter break, but here it is anyway.

Ok and I just put the screen shots of them up because I'm too lazy to type it out. Ha.

Nonfiction List:

Fiction List:

Nonbooks List:

Anyway, I digress. The reason for this post was that I wanted to start a list of books I will be reading over Winter Break. I'm going to Spain (did I mention that) so I'm not sure how much reading I can do, but I figure I'll have a bit of downtime as my sister will be working and so I'll be sitting at the house doing nothing. But my mom will be there too.

NonFiction
The Managed Heart by Arlie Hochschild (book for class I never read and don't really need to...=\)
Global Women edited by Arlie Hochschild and Barbara Ehrenreich
Academic Freedom After September 11 edited by Beshara Doumani (we had to read the intro for the class, but I ended up buying the whole book)
Imperial Leather by Barbara McClintock
Bananas, Beaches, and Bases by Cynthia Enloe
Can't Stop, Won't Stop by Jeff Chang (borrow from Rex)

Fiction
Lilith's Brood by Octavia Butler (borrowed from Jade)
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
Letters to Montgomery Clift by Noel Alumit (sorry Noel, I started but never finished reading this...=\)
Sarah by Orson Scott Card

Intellectual Neglect....

2006-12-11T17:44:00.000-08:00

I feel that I've been kind of stagnant with my critical theory lately. I suppose one excuse I could use is that I've been trying to catch up with life. And mostly school. A lot of things have changed and I think I've emerged as something more well-rounded and closer to myself than I have felt in 4 years. If that makes sense. But I'll talk about that more in my other blog I guess.

Anyway, I just wonder as some of the things I've done and how that relates to critical theory. I'm sure everyone remembers the Bebot controversy(I use that ironically). Well then I found myself in an Asian American Theatre group on campus. Definitely everything they do is not exactly aligned with feminist ideals. I wonder if people saw the roles I played as sexualized or gendered? I'd like to think not..or at least not without a reason. But the ironic part for me is that I did play a sort of sexualized jazz singer, but it was a good thing for me. Part of that Asian repressed sexuality or whatever..I have never really felt confident in my "sexiness" until I pretended to for that role. So in a weird way the sexualized role transformed me into a better person. How would I respond to the Bebot videos now? I'm not sure. I'd like to think I'd still say similar things.

I also did the Women of Color festival which was kind of amazing. I would never have identified as a woman of color until this semester. Just being around strong and intelligent women is kind of amazing. How is it women feel so disenfranchized? How is it we are present everywhere but so invisible in our presence? Or it seems that women are only noticed if they are playing up their sexuality. But then the idea of being confident in one's sexuality also boosts self esteem- which women (myself included) are woefully lacking. Definitely problems I need to deal with.

So I'm not sure where I'm at in terms of theory. Its weird because people always said I would eventually chill out and become less "fierce" about critical theory. I feel like I am the same person, but a little less vehement and less bitter and angry (in general life). But don't worry I can still get pretty worked up over issues I care deeply about.

I'm probably going to get back to my "intellectual roots" over the winter break when I have more time. I really enjoyed teaching a class this semester and I feel like teaching is going to be a large part of my life. I remember from the class (its a lecture series) that one of the professors said keep earning degrees, higher than a Bachelors- get a Masters or a Ph.D. I'm pretty sure that's where I'm going. But I'm not sure what I want to do with my life. Again yay for senior reflection.

But I don't really mind. The world- as full as it is of shady deals, power plays, disenfranchized and marginalized people, death, disease, and suffering - is still full of hope and possibility. And its funny because no matter where I am I take my activist heart and my need for social change and social justice with me.

Latin America is just so interesting right now...

2006-11-28T07:58:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I was in lecture and one of my professors said that one of the most intriguing places to look at/ get inspired by was the massive reforms going on in Latin America. Hugo Chavez, Michelle Bachellet, and now perhaps Rafael Correa? I'm interested to see what's going to happen.

Tuesday » November 28 » 2006

Leftist headed for victory in Ecuador election plans radical change


Monte Hayes
Canadian Press

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) - Rafael Correa, a leftist nationalist headed to victory in Ecuador's presidential race, is already planning radical changes when he takes office in January.

That is putting him on track for a dangerous confrontation with the country's opposition-controlled Congress - a body he has called a "sewer" but which he needs to carry out his reforms.

"We receive this triumph with deep serenity and humility," the 43-year-old Correa, who calls himself a "personal friend" of Venezuela's anti-U.S. President Hugo Chavez, said at a news conference Sunday night.

With 58 per cent of ballots counted, Correa had 65 per cent of the vote. Banana tycoon Alvaro Noboa had 35 per cent, Ecuador's Supreme Electoral Tribunal said Monday.

While votes in Noboa's stronghold Guayas, Ecuador's most-populous province, were among the last to be tallied, even a strong advantage there would not be enough for Noboa to win.

Correa's followers took to the streets in caravans with musicians to celebrate a victory few questioned except Noboa, who said he would await the end of the official count that might not come until Tuesday.

Correa said his victory "is a clear message to our traditional political class of the profound changes that our citizens want. This country doesn't need patching up."

"It needs a new constitution in tune with the times."

Correa, who has a doctorate in economics from the University of Illinois, surged in voter support as a fresh-faced outsider determined to change Ecuador's political system.

His view that the Ecuadorean democratic system is designed to benefit parties, rather than people, is shared by many voters fed up with corruption, greed and incompetence in the political establishment.

During the campaign, Correa attacked Ecuador's Congress as a "sewer" of corruption and ran no candidates for the legislature. He now faces a Congress totally in the hands of his opponents - but said that's not important.

"Let's stop worrying so much about Congress. Let them scrutinize what they want. We're not afraid," he said.

"What we won't tolerate is any attempt at instability or blackmail."

Correa said his first act after being sworn in as president Jan. 15 will be to call for a national referendum on the need to elect a special assembly that could rewrite the constitution and even shut down Congress.

That puts him on a collision course with the legislature, which has dismissed Ecuador's last three elected presidents, violating impeachment proceedings in the process, after huge street protests demanding their ousters.

Jaime Duran, a public opinion analyst who served as chief of staff in a previous government, noted the congressmen elected in October were just as legitimately elected as Correa.

"They have the same right to serve as Correa does," he said.

Correa's problem is Congress would have to approve a constitutional reform to allow creation of a constituent assembly. And it has blocked attempts by the last two presidents to rewrite the constitution.

Correa has threatened street protests if legislators don't agree to a new constitution that trims the power of the traditional parties.

Many of the changes he proposes would make politicians more responsive to voters. For example, congressmen would represent districts instead of being elected with a national vote. He also supports allowing recall of all elected officials.

But he risks violating the constitution if he tries to organize an election for a constituent assembly without Congress's approval.

He argues "the voice of the people" as reflected in a national referendum takes precedence over Congress or the constitution - a position challenged by most legal experts.

Insistence on forcing electoral authorities to convene an election for the assembly could put him in risk of impeachment, experts said.

"That immediately creates a conflict with Congress," said Benjamin Ortiz, head of a think-tank in the capital Quito.

Since Correa has no congressmen to defend him, "for the first time, there would be sufficient votes to impeach a president without resorting to the murky manoeuvres of the past," Ortiz said.

I'm shocked.

2006-10-18T19:17:00.000-07:00

October 16, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist

Why Aren’t We Shocked?
By BOB HERBERT

“Who needs a brain when you have these?”

— message on an Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt for young women

In the recent shootings at an Amish schoolhouse in rural Pennsylvania and a large public high school in Colorado, the killers went out of their way to separate the girls from the boys, and then deliberately attacked only the girls.

Ten girls were shot and five killed at the Amish school. One girl was killed and a number of others were molested in the Colorado attack.

In the widespread coverage that followed these crimes, very little was made of the fact that only girls were targeted. Imagine if a gunman had gone into a school, separated the kids up on the basis of race or religion, and then shot only the black kids. Or only the white kids. Or only the Jews.

There would have been thunderous outrage. The country would have first recoiled in horror, and then mobilized in an effort to eradicate that kind of murderous bigotry. There would have been calls for action and reflection. And the attack would have been seen for what it really was: a hate crime.

None of that occurred because these were just girls, and we have become so accustomed to living in a society saturated with misogyny that violence against females is more or less to be expected. Stories about the rape, murder and mutilation of women and girls are staples of the news, as familiar to us as weather forecasts. The startling aspect of the Pennsylvania attack was that this terrible thing happened at a school in Amish country, not that it happened to girls.

The disrespectful, degrading, contemptuous treatment of women is so pervasive and so mainstream that it has just about lost its ability to shock. Guys at sporting events and other public venues have shown no qualms about raising an insistent chant to nearby women to show their breasts. An ad for a major long-distance telephone carrier shows three apparently naked women holding a billing statement from a competitor. The text asks, “When was the last time you got screwed?”

An ad for Clinique moisturizing lotion shows a woman’s face with the lotion spattered across it to simulate the climactic shot of a porn video.

We have a problem. Staggering amounts of violence are unleashed on women every day, and there is no escaping the fact that in the most sensational stories, large segments of the population are titillated by that violence. We’ve been watching the sexualized image of the murdered 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey for 10 years. JonBenet is dead. Her mother is dead. And we’re still watching the video of this poor child prancing in lipstick and high heels.

What have we learned since then? That there’s big money to be made from thongs, spandex tops and sexy makeovers for little girls. In a misogynistic culture, it’s never too early to drill into the minds of girls that what really matters is their appearance and their ability to please men sexually.

A girl or woman is sexually assaulted every couple of minutes or so in the U.S. The number of seriously battered wives and girlfriends is far beyond the ability of any agency to count. We’re all implicated in this carnage because the relentless violence against women and girls is linked at its core to the wider society’s casual willingness to dehumanize women and girls, to see them first and foremost as sexual vessels — objects — and never, ever as the equals of men.

“Once you dehumanize somebody, everything is possible,” said Taina Bien-Aimé, executive director of the women’s advocacy group Equality Now.

That was never clearer than in some of the extreme forms of pornography that have spread like nuclear waste across mainstream America. Forget the embarrassed, inhibited raincoat crowd of the old days. Now Mr. Solid Citizen can come home, log on to this $7 billion mega-industry and get his kicks watching real women being beaten and sexually assaulted on Web sites with names like “Ravished Bride” and “Rough Sex — Where Whores Get Owned.”

Then, of course, there’s gangsta rap, and the video games where the players themselves get to maul and molest women, the rise of pimp culture (the Academy Award-winning song this year was “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp”), and on and on.

You’re deluded if you think this is all about fun and games. It’s all part of a devastating continuum of misogyny that at its farthest extreme touches down in places like the one-room Amish schoolhouse in normally quiet Nickel Mines, Pa.

[source: NY Times]

[An Aside] Ugly Betty

2006-10-14T10:10:00.000-07:00

Well I just found my new favorite tv show. I shamefully admit my guilty pleasures of project runway and america's next top model. I can't watch them all the time owing to that whole "not-having-a-tv-and-cable" thing. But I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered "Ugly Betty". It kind of reminded me of that whole "Devil Wears Prada" movie, but I find that it does make up for some of the things the movie lacks. A woman of color is the main character? And not only that, but it's America Ferrera. I loved her in "Real Women Have Curves" and heck even "The Sister Hood of the Traveling Pants". And it helps that I can watch episodes online (go abc.com!). I really like how she's really sticking to her own identity- let's see how far that goes in tv land though. I mean seriously, it's some kind of miracle that anyone above a size zero and a woman of color is a main character in the show. There are some shortcomings, but I'm just going to enjoy this for once. And a gay-acting nephew? I'm going to accept that its emulating a telenovela (those are actually some hilarious parts haha) and it quite cheeztastic. But that's why I like it. It also has a lovely woman called Ashley Jensen who is a great actress in the BBC show "Extras". And I will always love Vanessa Williams for "Save the Best for Last" and "Baby It's Cold Outside" no matter how evil she plays.

Go America Ferrera and Selma Hayek for making this show possible.

Another Case of Intent and Affect

2006-10-12T02:50:00.000-07:00

Well, well. I believe that this is a satire/ supposed to be humorous piece, but doesn't the saying go- "there's comedy in truth" or "a lie is 90% true/10% lie" or something? Just read and decide for yourself.

[thanks to everyone who emailed this to me- Chris, Fritzie, & Erin]

By Jed Levine
DAILY BRUIN CONTRIBUTOR
jlevine@media.ucla.edu

Over a hundred students gathered in Meyerhoff Park last week to express discontent with the University of California admissions policy.

Protestors chanted such slogans as, "UC Regents, I see racists," and criticized UCLA for not doing enough to increase diversity.

But they missed the point entirely.

Why focus on the "racist" UC Board of Regents? Why go after something so cliche as "The Man"?

Related Stories

Rally takes on admissions

If you're going to blame anyone, I say we blame the Asians.

I empathize with members of the Black Student Union and MEChA who spoke at the rally. As a fellow underrepresented minority at UCLA, I agree that it's hard to find other white people I can identify with on a campus that feels more like Taipei than L.A.

Yes, white people are an underrepresented minority here at UCLA; while they make up 44 percent of the California population, white students only constitute 34 percent of UCLA's student population.

ARIEL ALTER/daily bruin

Asian-Americans, on the other hand, make up only 12 percent of the state of California and 38 percent of UCLA students.

That's 300 percent over-representation: Welcome to UCLAsian.

I agree with the chair of MEChA that the UC Regents are using unfair means to admit UC students. Using grades and test scores as a measure of academic success is clearly just a way to show preference to Asian-American students, who are better at both, and thus promote the status quo.

Why else would they focus on such erroneous admissions criteria as grades and test scores?

What is this, an academic institution? I certainly hope not.

Fortunately, last week's rally has given us a chance to dwell on the critical topic of affirmative action � the practice of using race in university admissions.

Some might point to socio-economic inequality and the poor state of California's inner-city schools as key parts of the larger problem, and that low numbers of white, black and Latino students are simply a symptom of these larger issues.

By fixing these inequalities, they say, we can change the dynamics of our society and increase minority enrollment.

But these people are wrong. Affirmative action makes sense, because, as any pre-med will tell you, treat the symptom, not the disease.

How can we fix this gross inequality and make sure that UCLA better reflects the racial makeup of California? How can we curb the Asian invasion?

Considering that Proposition 209, passed by California voters in 1996, effectively banned any form of affirmative action at the UC, you might think this would be a tough feat.

According to speakers at last week's rally, the only thing standing in our way � aside from Prop. 209 � is those racists running this sham of a social experiment that we call the University of California.

Still, we have an excellent opportunity to reform the admissions process to benefit underrepresented minorities without violating Prop. 209 and directly using race.

For example, we could easily decipher potential Asian-American applicants by checking what student groups they are involved in, such as Asian cultural organizations or Key Club.

I hear some liberal arts colleges accept head shots from applicants, and I think a similar program at UCLA would be monumentally successful at helping us weed out the young Maos and Kim Jongs from potential Mandelas, Lincolns and Estefans.

By keeping the Asian-American student numbers under control and more accurate to their representation in California, we can free up 26 percent of the student body for members of underrepresented groups.

The result is a win-win situation: fewer rolling backpacks, more diversity.

These overflow Asians could then be funneled into a new UC campus where they can be free to explore their identities. Indeed the UC system has a brand new campus that fits the bill perfectly.

Say hello to the UC Merced Pandas.

Some might accuse the BSU and MEChA of wasting their time kicking a dead horse by supporting an idea that California voters shot down in 1996 and have no intention of voting back again.

But I think this problem is more pertinent than ever, and it's time to wake up and smell the bamboo.

If you understand satire or really like pandas, e-mail Jed at jlevine@media.ucla.edu.

Whose Line is it Anyway?

2006-10-01T21:05:00.000-07:00

I recently had an 8 hour training day with this progressive on campus department. This is just a passing remembrance, but it was during lunchtime. I tried to make small talk with the girls (seriously, there are 3 boys and about 20 or so girl interns). And believe me when I say that doing small talk with girls is like a fish out of water experience for me. I would rather be discussing theory or reverting to my usual angry ranty soapbox standing self or even immersing myself in geekiness. But I digress. So we're making small talk and I am of course so socialized by now in "activism" (whatever that means) that quote/unquote normalcy is odd. Anyway, for some reason we started talking about having babies. Personally, I know I am young and silly and someday I may understand the wonder and beauty of child-bearing. But all I fear now is the pain. Oh the pain! And the baby messes. So my plan is to adopt a 4/5 year old who has been potty trained when I'm older and bypass the craziness. But I digress again. One of the interns start saying that the reason she doesn't want to have children is because "I don't want to lose my body. I would be so saggy after giving birth. Stretchmarks- yuck." Aside from my own raging body issues- I just kind of inwardly cringed. Owing that we were who we were and representing what we do and we were in charge of an event called "Love Your Body". Love your body if it only looks the right way perhaps?

Which brings me to my question I suppose. I feel like some sort of line was crossed during that brief conversation. But is it my own personal comfort line? Or is it one that coincides with my progressive work's also? I suppose that we try to be open to all kinds of views, but I still kind of feel internal winces when I hear things like that.

[Article about Asian American Representation]

2006-09-28T08:54:00.000-07:00

Well nothing too new here. But I thought I'd put it up anyway. Does anyone ever have a hard time watching movies because of the Asian American stereotypes in it? Ex. Sixteen Candles, Breakfast at Tiffanys, Flower Drum song?

Hollywood's Racial Catch-22

Asian-Americans Defined and Damaged by Their On-Screen Images

By FRANK MASTROPOLO

(ABC News)

Sep. 27, 2006 -- - Hollywood likes to paint different groups with broad strokes.

Southerners are backward. Priests are pedophiles. Mexicans are lazy. Italians have links to the Mob.

Few groups with as long a history in this country as Asian-Americans have been portrayed in such a limited variety of roles: The kung fu fighter. The studious nerd. The mercenary businessman. The "Dragon Lady." The prostitute.

In his new documentary, "The Slanted Screen," writer/producer/director Jeff Adachi says these narrow screen portrayals are dangerous because they affect the way Asian-Americans are perceived in the real world, shaping and defining their identities.

As part of a John Stossel "20/20" story on Hollywood stereotypes, three of the leading Asian-American actors on TV today -- Daniel Dae Kim, B.D. Wong, and Ming-Na -- agreed to take part so they could set the record straight.

They described how the negative images they saw growing up had affected their lives and careers.

Old School Asian-American Actors

It was meeting the Asian actors of the previous generations, like James Shigeta, one of the first Asian-American male stars in Hollywood, that led Adachi to produce his film.

Adachi told ABC that he made "The Slanted Screen" to tell the story of actors caught "in a perpetual Catch-22."

In the past, Asian actors were only offered demeaning roles, which they had to play if they wanted to pay the rent.

"When they did play those roles, they were ostracized by their own communities."

Asian-Americans have been in films since the industry's birth.

Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa became a star playing a romantic leading man in the silent era.

"He not only starred in silent films, but he had written and directed and produced his own films," Adachi said.

But his success was short-lived.

Hayakawa started his own studio because he was tired of the stereotypical roles he was continually offered, and he eventually left Hollywood to make films overseas.

Hayakawa returned to the United States in the 1940s and played character parts such as the Oscar-nominated role of a Japanese military officer in "Bridge on the River Kwai."

The 'Inscrutable Oriental'

Through the 1940s, racist portrayals of Asians became the norm, and actors, when they could get work, were often relegated to playing the "inscrutable Oriental" stereotype: shifty, diabolical and mysterious, like Dr. Fu Manchu or his female counterpart, the "Dragon Lady."

Even more insulting was the fact that many Asian characters, like Charlie Chan, were played by white actors in what is called "yellowface" -- wearing devices like eyepieces and rubber bands to "slant" the eyes, dark makeup, and false buck teeth to try and "pass" as Asian.

Many Asians reveled in the success of martial arts expert Bruce Lee, who became a star in America with the 1973 film "Enter the Dragon."

But this too became a stereotype, says Tisa Chang, director of New York's Pan Asian Repertory Theatre, as Asian-American actors emulated Lee and began studying kung fu.

"So now the flip side of stereotyping is that every Asian-American actor is expected to know some form of martial arts. Any casting person will say, 'Well, do you do some martial arts?'"

Long Duk Dong

One of the most notorious Asian stereotypes was the character Long Duk Dong in the popular 1984 "brat pack" film "Sixteen Candles."

Young Japanese-American actor Gedde Watanabe played the undersexed, nerdy foreign-exchange student whose ethnicity was the butt of jokes throughout the film.

In "Slanted Screen," comedian Bobby Lee of MAD TV says, "My nickname was 'Long Duk Dong' in high school because of that character, and I think every Asian guy that ever went to an American school's nickname was Long Duk Dong because of that character. That means that you're not going to get any girls."

Daniel Dae Kim of ABC's "Lost" told "20/20's" Stossel that images like the Long Duk Dong character and that of the subservient cook Hop Sing on "Bonanza" had been "hard for me to shake as a high school student. … Because a lot of those characters were the very ones that people would make fun of me about when I was going to school. They made an indelible mark on my childhood psyche."

B.D. Wong, who plays a psychiatrist on "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" knew as a child he wanted to be a performer, but "every portrayal of an Asian that I was watching as a kid was something that embarrassed me."

With the exception, he says, of actor George Takei, who played Lt. Sulu on the space series "Star Trek."

"George Takei on 'Star Trek' was the dignified role model that a lot of Asian-American actors found comfort in. 'Wow, there's a guy who doesn't speak with an accent, who is part of an American landscape.' It's space. So they got away with it."

The Invisible Asian-Americans

A study released last month done by UCLA researchers for the Asian American Justice Center confirmed that there had not been a tremendous amount of progress for Asian-American actors looking for leading roles on network TV.

While Asian-Americans make up 5 percent of the U.S. population, the report found only 2.6 percent were primetime TV regulars.

And shows set in cities with large Asian populations, like New York and Los Angeles, had few Asian roles.

One out of five people in the New York City borough of Queens is Asian, but CBS's "The King of Queens" has no Asian characters.

Actress Ming-Na, who plays an FBI agent on the new Fox show "Vanished," noticed that about Orange County, Calif., where the show "The O.C." is based.

She told "20/20": "I don't know what Orange County that show is representing. But there is not one single Asian in that show. And I am sorry, that is just wrong. It would be like having a show take place in China and not having one Asian represented."

The danger, "Law & Order's" Wong says, is that Asian-Americans can become invisible in their own country.

"I felt a great need to prove to people that there was such a thing as an Asian-American person. I don't think that people in this country generally, widely understand that there are people with my face that were actually born here."

The lack of what Wong calls "an American landscape that's really diverse" on TV is "tremendously damaging for kids."

Wong says as a kid, this said to him, "You're not welcome. You're not welcome in this industry. And frankly, I'm not so sure you're so welcome in the country in general."

"People really trust and believe in what they see on the television," Wong told Stossel. "I certainly trusted and believed it when I was a kid. … And it did a number on me."

Tisa Chang agrees. "A young person growing up, seeing himself lampooned and caricatured with broken English or buck teeth or slanty eyes. … It's really quite an emotional and psychic trauma for a young person."

"We are a melting pot," Ming-Na said. "We need to address it, and we need to represent it in television and in films."

"It would be a really wonderful place in Hollywood," Ming-Na said, "when we are just seen as actors. Where we are not plagued with being an 'Asian-American actor' or an 'African-American actor,' because then we might as well call Tom Cruise 'the Caucasian actor.' … When that time comes, that's when I think we are forging ahead."

abcnews

[So let me get this straight, blackface is cool as long as it's for a good cause, right?]

2006-09-23T00:53:00.000-07:00

it came from here and adding to the bloglists.

and here's another little fun story...

Armani blames stylists, media for ultra-thin chic

Giorgio Armani, the world's most famous designer, on Thursday blamed stylists and the media for the fashion industry's obsession with ultra-thin women.

In London to host a music and fashion extravaganza with stars Beyonce, 50 Cent and Bono, Armani said no girl needed to be anorexic in order to be fashionable.

"I have never wanted to use girls that are too skinny. I prefer girls that show off my clothes in the best way," Armani told Reuters Television.

"Unfortunately though, the stylists and also the media have interfered and they now want models that are incredibly thin."

A debate about models' weight has shaken the fashion world in recent days since Madrid banned excessively thin women from its catwalks after accusations their appearance may cause eating disorders in young women.

Armani, whose client list spans Hollywood to high finance, is a bellwether for the industry and the most powerful fashion insider yet to speak out on the weight debate.

"No one thinks that for a girl to be fashionable she needs to be anorexic, that she must not eat. I will only take on healthy girls," he said.

Armani made the comments on the red carpet of one of the most anticipated events of the fashion calendar and the hottest ticket of this week's London Fashion Week.

Before rock stars and actors, the 72-year old designer hosted a three-hour show and launched a new fashion collection in support of (PRODUCT) RED, an activism venture of U2 rock star Bono aimed at raising funds to fight AIDS in Africa.

He was supported by pop diva Beyonce who brought the 1,300 guests to their feet with a performance of hit "Crazy in Love" and by rapper 50 Cent who had supermodels punching the air.

In the intervals, Armani sent more than 50 models down the runway, sashaying through his three traditional collections -- from haute couture gem-encrusted gowns, to purple Armani suits and the baby doll dresses of his younger line Emporio Armani.

Taking it all in, were Bono, Leonardo DiCaprio, Andrea Boccelli, Alicia Keys and Ashley Judd. Sean Penn, Penelope Cruz and Usher sent video messages.

"It will be the biggest party I've ever hosted, bigger than anything in New York, Paris, Milan," Armani said.

RED is a global brand with share of its profits going to support the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria. American Express, The Gap, Converse and MySpace are among those groups that have also launched a collaboration with RED.

Source: Yahoo News

[Race is a Factor in Jails, But Not in Education?]

2006-09-18T08:43:00.000-07:00

Some articles that recently caught my attention.

Homicide Rates Reveal Disparities

Neighboring Cities’ Demographics Hold Hints to Why Berkeley Has Proportionally Fewer Murders

BY Emma Radovich

Daily Cal Staff Writer

Thursday, September 14, 2006

While just over a week ago Berkeley marked its fourth homicide of the year, neighboring cities have consistently seen more homicides, the reasons for which law enforcement officials say are "complicated."

Nearby Oakland counted another homicide victim on Tuesday night, bringing the total to 102 this year. While Oakland does have nearly four times the population of Berkeley, it has experienced 25 times as many killings this year.

Even in Richmond, where the population size is almost the same as Berkeley's, the current 2006 homicide rate is seven times that of Berkeley's.

Earlier this week, Richmond experienced a surge of violence, reporting four homicides in the course of two days to bring the year's total to 28 killings.

The disparity between the cities cannot be clearly attributed to any one factor.

According to 2000 state census data, Berkeley's demographics reflect a better-educated community-though its poverty rates are quite close to those in Oakland and Richmond.

More than 60 percent of Berkeley's population that is at least 25 years old has earned at least a bachelor's degree, whereas Oakland has half that percentage. In Richmond, 22.4 percent of people 25 or older have similar education levels.

Several city officials, as well as the U.S. Department of Justice, cite poverty as a strong factor in violent crimes.

Richmond police Lt. Mark Gagan said poverty contributes to violence in the city, especially when coupled with a lack of community cohesion that drives young people to join gangs.

"Youths in Richmond have exposure to violence in the streets," he said. "They are socialized by seeing that gunfire."

But poverty does not fully explain the situation. In Richmond, 16 percent of the population lives in poverty, compared to 20 percent in Berkeley, according to census data from 2000.

While Berkeley has fewer homicides than surrounding cities, the rate has not always been as low.

Berkeley has averaged six homicides a year over the past decade, but in the 1980s, the average hovered around 15 to 20 killings per year, said Berkeley police Sgt. Mary Kusmiss.

"Crack showed itself in the early '80s ... (and) Berkeley was not immune, being close to San Francisco and Oakland," Kusmiss said.

The emergence of crack cocaine brought a surge in drug-related killings until the creation of the Special Enforcement Unit, a task force that started putting pressure on drug sales and dealers in the early 1980s, Kusmiss said.

Though Berkeley has a number of currently active gangs, the drug task force has been effective in reducing drug related homicides, Kusmiss said.

"It's fair to say many of the homicides that happen in Richmond and Oakland are narcotics or drug related," she said.

Oakland homicide Sgt. James Rullamas said that the numbers, while high this year, are lower than those in the early 1990s. In 1995, for example, Oakland police recorded 153 killings, with even more in 1992.

Most of the victims and suspects in Oakland homicides are young black males from poorer living situations, said Oakland police Officer Roland Holmgren.

Data from the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics shows that in 2004 blacks were seven times more likely to commit homicide than whites.

Blacks make up around 35 percent of the population in Oakland and in Richmond, compared to around 13 percent of the population in Berkeley, while the percentage of Hispanics in Oakland and Richmond is about double that in Berkeley.

Nestled between cities whose current homicide rates dwarf Berkeley's, the city had spent several months without a killing prior to last week's death of a man in a Southside sorority house.

Community activist Laura Menard said this is the first summer she has lived in South Berkeley where there has not been a shooting in the neighborhood, a threat she said she has become used to living with.

"In Alameda County there are a hell of a lot of people in the drug and violence business," Menard said. "We (in Berkeley) have a small corner of the same activity, but enforcement is working right now."

Despite the high homicide rate in surrounding cities, homicides do not speak to the safety of a community, Kusmiss said. Crimes like robberies that tend to include suspects preying on strangers are better indicators of community safety than homicides, which are usually committed by people the victim knows.

"(But) one murder is too many," she said.

A correction to this article can be found here.

Emma Radovich covers crime and courts. Contact her at eradovich@dailycal.org.

_________________________

Study: Blacks more likely than whites to be jailed for drug offenses

August 22, 2006 - Black people are 28 times more likely than whites to be locked up for drug offenses in Illinois -- the biggest gap in the nation -- according to a study published Tuesday.

With more than half of those jailed for drug crimes in Illinois being black, "the racial disparity ... is just staggering," according to the Roosevelt University study.

Unless policy changes favoring treatment over punishment are brought in, the growing prison population will increasingly be made up of small-time drug users, the study warns. Only California jails more drug offenders than Illinois, it added.

Report co-author Kathleen Kane-Willis, of the university's Institute for Metropolitan Affairs, stopped short of blaming racism on the part of individual law enforcement officers and prosecutors but said, "The state's policies have racist outcomes."

Authorities' focus on easier-to-police open-air drug markets in black neighborhoods rather than harder-to-catch dealers operating in private homes in white neighborhoods partly accounted for the difference in incarceration rates, she said.

"The national survey on drugs and health shows drug use is as high among whites as it is among African-Americans," Kane-Willis said.

"It's time to look again at our policies and, I hope, treat the issue as a public health problem, which should be dealt with by treatment and education, not jail, which just isn't working."

That call was echoed by Terry Kriss of the South Suburban Council on Alcohol and Substance Abuse, based in Hazel Crest.

"There could always be more funds for treatment there just aren't enough services to help people, especially when they get out of prison," Kriss said.

"Most of the people we help have been through the system many times, and they need more resources and more support."

Roosevelt's study, titled "Intersecting Voices: Impacts of Illinois Drug Policies," shows there are six blacks jailed for drug offenses for every one white offender in Illinois, even though blacks account for only 15 percent of the state's population.

The true disparity may be even larger because Hispanics -- also thought to be at increased risk of conviction -- are grouped with whites in official statistics.

Ohio, the only state whose figures come close to Illinois', has a slightly higher rate of incarceration for blacks, but the disparity with white Ohioans is smaller.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan's spokeswoman Cara Smith said Madigan was studying the report and was "very concerned about any claims of racial disparity in Illinois' criminal justice system."

_________________________

http://www.peaceworkmagazine.org/pwork/1200/122k05.htm

Racism, Prisons, and the Future of Black America

Manning Marable is Professor of History and Political Science, and the Director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies, Columbia University. This essay appeared August 2000 in his column "Along the Color Line," available on the Internet at <www.manningmarable.net>

There are today over two million Americans incarcerated in federal and state prisons and local jails throughout the United States. More than one-half, or one million, are black men and women. The devastating human costs of the mass incarceration of one out of every 35 individuals within black America are beyond imagination. While civil rights organizations like the NAACP and black institutions such as churches and mosques have begun to address this widespread crisis of black mass imprisonment, they have frankly not given it the centrality and importance it deserves.

Black leadership throughout this country should place this issue at the forefront of their agendas. And we also need to understand how and why American society reached this point of constructing a vast prison industrial complex, in order to find strategies to dismantle it.

For a variety of reasons, rates of violent crime, including murder, rape, and robbery, increased dramatically in the 1960s and 1970s. Much of this increase occurred in urban areas. By the late 1970s, nearly one half of all Americans were afraid to walk within a mile of their homes at night, and 90% responded in surveys that the US criminal justice system was not dealing harshly enough with criminals. Politicians like Richard M. Nixon, George Wallace, and Ronald Reagan began to campaign successfully on the theme of "Law and Order." The death penalty, which was briefly outlawed by the Supreme Court, was reinstated. Local, state, and federal expenditures for law enforcement rose sharply.

Behind much of anti-crime rhetoric was a not-too-subtle racial dimension, the projection of crude stereotypes about the link between criminality and black people. Rarely did these politicians observe that minority and poor people, not the white middle class, were statistically much more likely to experience violent crimes of all kinds. The argument was made that law enforcement officers should be given much greater latitude in suppressing crime, that sentences should be lengthened and made mandatory, and that prisons should be designed not for the purpose of rehabilitation, but for punishment.

Consequently, there was a rapid expansion in the personnel of the criminal justice system, as well as the construction of new prisons. What occurred in New York State, for example, was typical of what happened nationally. From 1817 to 1981, New York had opened 33 state prisons. From 1982 to 1999, another 38 state prisons were constructed. The state's prison population at the time of the Attica prison revolt in September 1971 was about 12,500. By 1999, there were over 71,000 prisoners in New York State correctional facilities.

In 1974, the number of Americans incarcerated in all state prisons stood at 187,500. By 1991, the number had reached 711,700. Nearly two-thirds of all state prisoners in 1991 had less than a high school education. One third of all prisoners were unemployed at the time of their arrests. Incarceration rates by the end of the 1980s had soared to unprecedented rates, especially for black Americans. As of December 1989, the total US prison population, including federal institutions, exceeded one million for the first time in history, an incarceration rate of the general population of one out of every 250 citizens.

For African Americans, the rate was over 700 per 100,000, or about seven times more than for whites. About one half of all prisoners were black. Twenty-three percent of all black males in their twenties were either in jail or prison, on parole, probation, or awaiting trial. The rate of incarceration of black Americans in 1989 had even surpassed that experienced by blacks who still lived under the apartheid regime of South Africa.

By the early 1990s, rates for all types of violent crime began to plummet. But the laws which sent offenders to prison were made even more severe. Children were increasingly viewed in courts as adults, and subjected to harsher penalties. Laws like California's "three strikes and you're out" eliminated the possibility of parole for repeat offenders. The vast majority of these new prisoners were non-violent offenders, and many of these were convicted of drug offenses that carried long prison terms. In New York, a state in which African Americans and Latinos comprise 25% of the total population, by 1999 they represented 83% of all state prisoners, and 94% of all individuals convicted on drug offenses.

The pattern of racial bias in these statistics is confirmed by the research of the US Commission on Civil Rights, which found that while African Americans today constitute only 14% of all drug users nationally, they are 35% of all drug arrests, 55% of all drug convictions, and 75% of all prison admissions for drug offenses. Currently, the racial proportions of those under some type of correctional supervision, including parole and probation, are one-in-fifteen for young white males, one-in-ten for young Latino males, and one-in-three for young African-American males. Statistically today, more than eight out of every ten African-American males will be arrested at some point in their lifetime.

The latest innovation in American corrections is termed "special housing units" (SHU), but which prisoners also generally refer to as The Box. SHUs are uniquely designed solitary confinement cells, in which prisoners are locked down for 23 hours a day for months or even years at a time. SHU cellblocks are electronically monitored, pre- fabricated structures of concrete and steel, about 14 feet long and 8 feet wide, amounting to 120 square feet of space. The two inmates who are confined in each cell, however, actually have only about 60 square feet of usable space, or 30 square feet per person.

All meals are served to prisoners through a thin slot cut into the steel door. The toilet unit, sink and shower are all located in the cell. Prisoners are permitted one hour "exercise time" each day in a small concrete balcony, surrounded by heavy security wire, directly connected with their SHU cells. Educational and rehabilitation programs for SHU prisoners are prohibited.

As of 1998, New York State had confined 5700 state prisoners in SHUs, about 8% of its total inmate population. Currently under construction in Upstate New York is a new 750 cell maximum security SHU facility, which will cost state taxpayers $180 million. Although Amnesty International and human rights groups in the US have widely condemned SHUs, claiming that such forms of imprisonment constitute the definition of torture under international law, other states have followed New York's example. As of 1998, California had constructed 2942 SHU beds, followed by Mississippi (1756), Arizona (1728), Virginia (1267), Texas (1229), Louisiana (1048) and Florida (1000). Solitary confinement, which historically had been defined even by corrections officials as an extreme disciplinary measure, is becoming increasingly the norm.

The introduction of SHUs reflects a general mood in the country that the growing penal population is essentially beyond redemption. If convicted felons cease to be viewed as human beings, why should they be treated with any humanity? This question should be elevated and discussed in every African-American and Latino neighborhood, community center, religious institution, and union hall across this country. Because the overwhelming human casualties of this racist leviathan are our own children, parents, sisters, and brothers. Those whom this brutal system defines as being "beyond redemption" are ourselves.

Costs of the system

What are the economic costs for American society of the vast expansion of our prison-industrial complex? According to criminal justice researcher David Barlow at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, between 1980 and 2000, the combined expenditures of federal, state, and local governments on police have increased about 400%. Corrections expenditures for building new prisons, upgrading existing facilities, hiring more guards, and related costs, increased approximately one thousand percent. Although it currently costs about $70,000 to construct a typical prison cell, and about $25,000 annually to supervise and maintain each prisoner, the US is currently building hundreds of new prison beds per week.

The driving ideological and cultural force that rationalized and justifies mass incarceration is the white American public's stereotypical perceptions about race and crime. As Andrew Hacker perceptively noted in 1995, "Quite clearly, 'black crime' does not make people think about tax evasion or embezzling from brokerage firms. Rather, the offenses generally associated with blacks are those ...involving violence." A number of researchers have found that racial stereotypes of African Americans--as "violent," "aggressive," "hostile" and "short-tempered"--greatly influence whites' judgments about crime. Generally, most whites are inclined to give black and Latino defendants more severe judgments of guilt and lengthier prison sentences than whites who commit identical crimes. Racial bias has been well established especially in capital cases, where killers of white victims are much more likely to receive the death penalty than those who murder African Americans.

Sentencing disparity

The greatest victims of these racialized processes of unequal justice, of course, are African-American and Latino young people. In April 2000, utilizing national and state data compiled by the FBI, the Justice Department and six leading foundations issued a comprehensive study that documented vast racial disparities at every level of the juvenile justice process. African Americans under age 18 comprise 15% of their national age group, yet they currently represent 26% of all those who are arrested.

After entering the criminal justice system, white and black juveniles with the same records are treated in radically different ways. According to the Justice Department's study, among white youth offenders, 66% are referred to juvenile courts, while only 31% of the
African-American youth are taken there. Blacks comprise 44% of those detained in juvenile jails, 46% of all those tried in adult criminal courts, as well as 58% of all juveniles who are warehoused in adult prison. In practical terms, this means that for young African Americans who are arrested and charged with a crime, that they are more than six times more likely to be assigned to prison that white youth offenders.

For those young people who have never been to prison before, African Americans are nine times more likely than whites to be sentenced to juvenile prisons. For youths charged with drug offenses, blacks are 48 times more likely than whites to be sentenced to juvenile prison. White youths charged with violent offenses are incarcerated on average for 193 days after trial; by contrast, African-American youths are held 254 days, and Latino youths are incarcerated 305 days.

What seems clear is that a new leviathan of racial inequality has been constructed across our country. It lacks the brutal simplicity of the old Jim Crow system, with its omnipresent "white" and "colored" signs. Yet it is in many respects potentially far more devastating, because it presents itself to the world as a system that is truly color-blind. The black freedom struggle of the 1960s was successful largely because it convinced a majority of white middle class Americans that Jim Crow was economically inefficient, and that politically it could not be sustained or justified.

The movement utilized the power of creative disruption, making it impossible for the old system of white prejudice and power to function in the same old ways it had for decades. For Americans who still believe in racial equality and social justice, we cannot stand silent while millions of our fellow citizens are being destroyed all around us. The racialized prison industrial complex is the great moral and political challenge of our time.

For several years, I have lectured in New York's famous Sing Sing prison, as part of a master's degree program sponsored by the New York Theological Seminary. During my last visit several months ago, I noticed that correctional officials had erected a large yellow sign over the door at the public entrance to the prison. The sign reads: "Through these doors pass some of the finest corrections professionals in the world." I asked Reverend Bill Webber, the director of the prison's educational program, and several prisoners what they thought about the sign. Bill answered bluntly, "demonic." One of the M.A. students, a 35-year-old Latino named Tony, agreed with Bill's assessment, but added, "let us face the demon head on." There are now over two million Americans who are incarcerated. It is time to face the demon head on.

BRC-NEWS: Black Radical Congress <www.blackradicalcongress.org>

_________________________

A Struggle for One Is a Struggle for All Minorities

BY Kim Dam and Jude Dizon

Friday, September 15, 2006

In the wake of a long history of suffering and discrimination, the passage of Proposition 209 in 1996 essentially eliminated any possibility for progress or reparations for Asian Americans. Opponents of affirmative action ("The Curse of the Model Minority," Sept. 5) have grossly distorted the effects of Proposition 209 on Asian Americans.

At UC Berkeley, the homogeneous term of "Asian Americans" is destructively misleading at first glance. On a campus that proudly touts its "diverse" student body, we should scrutinize the notion of a massive Asian American block.

The Asian American category comprised 41.2 percent of the Fall 2005 admissions, and opponents of affirmative action have misconstrued such numbers to argue that policies like Proposition 209 are supposedly beneficial to Asian Americans.

It is not accurate to place a vague and arbitrary label on an entire continent's worth of diverse ethnic groups. The overgeneralization of Asian Americans being nearly half of the campus population blankets the unique issues and struggles of multiple Asian ethnic groups, leaving them unaddressed and unresolved.

After Proposition 209 was implemented, eliminating race and gender as factors in admissions, the freshmen representation of Latinos at UC Berkeley dropped 49 percent in 1998, while African Americans decreased by 43 percent. The misleading increase of Asian Americans on campus marginalizes the underrepresented subgroups hidden under the pan-Asian category.

However, all Asian Americans walk the same perilous line when it comes to combating issues of equality, justice, and representation. Asian Americans will forever be trapped in the destructive cycle of misrepresentation and alienation if we do not fight in solidarity with other people of color to repeal Proposition 209.

Without solidarity from African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, women and other marginalized communities, Asian Americans cannot wholly achieve justice and equality that is fundamentally essential in a democratic society.

Affirmative action does not allow "unqualified" individuals to be admitted to universities, as that is a federal offense. Additionally, it does not create quotas based on race, rather it would allow for race to be considered as one of many factors in selecting an applicant.

In the decision of the 2003 US Supreme Court case Grutter v. Bollinger, which upheld the consideration of race in university admissions, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote that "effective participation by members of all racial and ethnic groups in the civic life of our nation is essential if the dream of one Nation, indivisible, is to be realized."

Policies that promote equal access to higher education will allow UC Berkeley to better reflect the diversity of California as the California Higher Education Master Plan states. Students benefit from exposure and dialogue with those who offer varying perspectives and backgrounds and, as a result, become prepared to live and work toward change in a world that is anything but homogenous.

With race-conscious policies, the struggle is not just that of Asian Americans, but of every racial and ethnic group. Asian Americans and all oppressed and marginalized people must work together to ensure collective success.

In addition, minority groups cannot be ignored when finding a solution to rectify past wrongs. In order to address the complex issue of race, we need to employ race as part of the solution. If solidarity among people of color is not prioritized, then we forget our past, overlook our struggles and contribute to our own oppression.

Kim Dam is the political awareness coordinator for REACH! Jude Dizon is a member of the Pilipino American Alliance. Reply at opinion@dailycal.org.

_________________________

http://cbs5.com/education/local_story_255214434.html

Declining Black Student Population At UC Campuses

Sue Kwon
Reporting

(CBS 5) BERKELEY Classes have started at some University of California campuses, and they are looking a lot different from those of years past. There has been a sharp decline in African American students, and at least one advocacy group is blaming the change on Proposition 209, the constitutional amendment approved by California voters in 1996 which bars discrimination or preferential treatment based on race or ethnicity.

"The numbers are staggering for African Americans. It's just over 3 percent of the group admitted at UC Berkeley, and it's less than that -- 2 percent -- at UCLA and UC San Diego," said Kimberly Thomas Rapp with the Equal Justice Society. "We are talking about elite public institutions here in California, and this is happening at a time when the number of African Americans eligible is increasing, and we've seen an increase in African American applicants to the UC system."

Shawna Samuels was admitted to UC Berkeley with a 4.7 grade point average and long list of activities.

"I did several extracurricular activities like basketball, track and field, and student organizations," she said.

But Samuels got rejected from UCLA. She said African American friends who attended schools that didn't offer advanced placement courses also had high grade point averages but did not get into UCs.

That's why the Equal Justice Society says the admissions process needs to be changed. It needs to take into account that school districts that are in black neighborhoods often don't offer the same resources that would give black students a boost, the group said.

Ward Connerly, the architect of Proposition 209 and the founder of the Civil Rights Institute based out of Sacramento said Samuels is an example of how blacks do not need race-based admissions.

Her ethnicity was not taken into account by the admissions department, and she is proof for Connerly that Proposition 209 is working for everyone, including blacks.

"They need to get off rap music and stop doing things that stop them from being competitive," Connerly said.

Connerly, a former UC regent, spearheaded a vote by UC board of regents to eliminate race-based admissions in 1995. Then, a year later, he pushed forward Proposition 209, which reinforced the ban on affirmative action. The controversial measure ignited protest by civil rights leaders and minority groups.

Ten years later, Connerly says, "By and large, it has been an excellent move by the people of California. There have been very few adverse consequences."

But if you look at the numbers as reported by the Bunche Center Research Report, they reflect a sharp decline in African American students admitted to the most prestigious UC campuses.

At Berkeley, acceptance letters went out to 562 blacks in the last class where ethnicity could be considered. A decade later, only 298 were admitted -- a mere 3 percent of all freshmen accepted.

At Los Angeles, 488 African Americans were admitted in the year before Proposition 209 took effect, diving this fall to below half that number -- 210, which is only 2 percent of the group admitted.

"Of those who are accepted, less than half actually enroll," said Rapp. "They would rather go somewhere they can be amongst a diverse student population and have access to a diversity of views, backgrounds and input. They are going to Ivy League universities and other prestigious colleges."

This fall, only 140 will enroll at UC Berkeley and 96 at UCLA.

UCLA just announced it will take into account a student's activities and personal challenges to help boost back enrollment. UC Berkeley already takes the same approach to applicants and is taking more steps to increase numbers.

UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau is an outspoken critic of Proposition 209.

"This is a tremendous waste of talent," he said.

Birgeneau is now looking for a top level administrator -- a vice chancellor -- to promote diversity that he considers necessary for all students learning how to relate to different cultures.

"If we have a homogenous environment, our students won't acquire that skill, and California won't be competitive in the international stage," Birgeneau said.

Connerly's response to that is Berkeley is already diverse.

"Birgeneau ought to be fired," Connerly said. "He is betraying Prop 209 and betraying the will of the people and short-selling black kids and everyone else by saying we need all this diversity. There is the fact we have a large number of African Americans who are just not academically competitive, and they will have to get themselves prepared.

Connerly says he is now working on getting voters in Michigan to pass a similar anti-affirmative action measure.

------------------------------------

The first article is about Homicide Rates in Berkeley, but what bothers me is that it first states that homicide figures are a result of poverty (which makes sense), but then the writer jumps from a conclusion of poverty to one of race. She points out Data from the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics shows that in 2004 blacks were seven times more likely to commit homicide than whites. First of all, I think that statistics are never as reliable as you think they are. Secondly, I don't think that's fair to make it a racial issue when I believe the cause is more likely to be because of poverty. Why not instead of asking the question - "why do black commit more crimes?" you ask "why is the rate of poverty for blacks so much higher than whites"? If you are going to make it about race at all. Or perhaps you could ask why blacks are criminalized at a higher rate than whites even though drug use is equal. I just saw a documentary (called "Making the Grade") featuring one teenage boy of color saying "I visited San Quentin (local jail) and it seems that education is the only escape. Education or jail" (paraphrasing). The other articles are about the higher criminalization rates of black students.

In this context, the Prop 209 debate becomes all the more salient. Perhaps it was because I just watched "Making the Grade" but it's quite interesting to read these articles. One was given to my attention because it was co-written by a friend of mine. And the other was forwarded to me. Indeed, I possibly have too many thoughts in my head (and slighty off topic- I'm also kind of sick) to discuss this matter fully. But I wonder, if the University is doing all it can to make admissions fair- then why would black students be declining? I think it is unfair to say that black students are somehow less qualified than other candidates based on negative stereotypes of black teens.

And why is race a factor in one kind of situation (mainly negative), but not a factor in another (more positive). There are more black people in jail (mostly male) than there are in If you seek out blacks for crimes, would it not also be fair to seek them out for education? If you were going to negate race in education- it might also be fair to negate them from "special consideration" for penalization. That would only be "equal".

Emcee of Herizons

2006-09-12T08:09:00.000-07:00

Well my intern job at Gender Equity Resource Center certainly has it's moments. Thursday night will be a true test of my public speaking skills as I have been appointed emcee of the beginning of the dinner. This is me trying not to freak out. Haha.

------------------------

The Gender Equity Resource Center is excited to invite you to join us at Herizons: Cal Women Uniting, A Multicultural Women's Dinner on Thursday, September 14, 2006. Featuring an evening of food, speakers, performers, resources and opportunities to mingle with a diverse group of women and allies from all over the Cal campus.

This dinner is part of Herizons: Cal Women Uniting, a new initiative at GenEq designed to build a cross-cultural women's community through a series of events for Cal students, faculty and staff. We also hope that this dinner is a place for you to meet and connect with other similar minded folks.

We urge you to come and bring anyone else you think would be interested in event that endeavors to bring together and spur the maintenance of a vibrant and diverse community for women and allies at Cal!

Herizons: Cal Women Uniting
Multicultural Women's Dinner
September 14, 2006, 5:30-8:30pm
Multicultural Center in Heller Lounge
1st floor, MLK Student Union

Thank you!

Stalking just got easier...if you're on Facebook that is

2006-09-06T10:50:00.000-07:00

Ahh well, too many thoughts about this Bebot "controversy" (and I use that in my snippy, anti-community, condescending, I-don't-understand-anything, low-blow, academic way =P)

but always a sucker for complaining- I give you this...

Editorial: Facebook increases stalking measures

(from Collegiate Times)
So you wake up 10 minutes early for your 9am and do you spend those precious minutes reading over material for that day’s lecture? No, probably not. You’re most likely already in “facebook mode,” or the mind frame that, whenever possible, you must be logged on and looking. Looking for what? Eh, whatever you can find. The latest statuses, new friend requests, wall postings...

Well, for those of you who just so happened to “facebook” (sadly, a new verb in our collegiate vocabulary) early yesterday morning, you’re aware of the site’s latest, scariest advancements.

It seems like in the past few months, the facebook team has done a lot of advancing. What happened to the old facebook where everyone put up their “best picture” (because, come on, we all know that you really didn’t look like that) and stalked people harmlessly, checking out the cute guy in your biology classes’ favorite music each day? What can compare to the joy of adding new classmates as “friends?” Sadly, that facebook is gone.

Those days are gone and while some new features have been great additions, such as FaceTix and others, it seems that they’ve taken it a little too far.

Honestly, notes? If you want to “blog,” go log into your MySpace or Xanga account. Avid MySpace haters are sure to notice that Facebook, indeed, may just be going in that same direction—the MySpace way.

Statuses, or Facebook away messages as some call them, were the beginning of the creepiness. Sure, now they may seem useful and most of have fallen victim to them, but honestly no one really cares if you’re “SOOOO hungover” or not.

Furthermore, are these “News/Mini Feeds” really necessary? Since when is it news that you’ve added a new friend or that your new favorite TV show is now Laguna Beach Season 3 instead of season 2? Last time we checked, no one cares.

If you can find out all these things about people just by logging on, is there any point of face-to-face interaction or talking anymore? Next, you’ll be able to have facebook parties online and update your friends of each beer pong win and the course of the night’s events. On the other hand, I am sure you could already do something like this through the usage of “your notes” and by “tagging” last night’s pictures.

We all might as well connect “facecams” to our computers so that everyone can see and know exactly what we’re doing at any given time.

Get the point? If not, try this one. If Facebook's next move is to add profile stalkers (or the idea that you can see exactly who has looked and how many times at your profile and vice versa), would you still facebook? I think not. After all, isn’t that the underlining point? To stalk? Whether it’s your best friend, boyfriend or that hot guy or girl in your Chem class? It’s safe to say that the majority of students at Tech would not facebook so much anymore if such strident counter-stalking measures came to be.

Now, hopefully the team of facebook geniuses is smart enough to never to include this, but it does put things into perspective for those of you who think all these new advances are “cool.”

Another question for facebook is, what exactly is the appropriate age to de-activate your account? Or by that we mean, sigh, leave the world of facebook. Can we continue to have these accounts and profiles when our own kids are in college? Wouldn’t you love for your kids to see your picture count up to 7,984 and which one of your college friends hasn’t aged a bit? All you have to do is change emails, merge networks and TADA, facebook just might last forever.

It’s become as much of part of the collegiate (and high school now- blah.) experience as football games, classes and parties. However, all of this aside, the fact of the matter is that the majority of us will continue to use the site and facebook everyday.

For those of you who think that whoever doesn’t like these new changes should just remove their profiles and stop complaining, well, you might have a point, but haters and lovers alike know that it is an addiction and one that is still hard to break.

Bottom line: with all these new stalking techniques, it may be time, if you have not already, to adjust those “privacy settings.”

And another good article by wall street journal (wait, did I just say "wall street journal" and "good" in the same sentence?)

New Facebook Features have members in an uproar

An Open Letter to Apl.de.Ap, Patricio Ginelsa/KidHeroes, and Xylophone Films, re: the Bebot Video

2006-08-22T12:56:00.000-07:00

[please comment and/or forward widely]

To Apl.de.Ap, Patricio Ginelsa/KidHeroes, and Xylophone Films:

We, the undersigned, would like to register our deep disappointment at the
portrayal of Filipinas and other women in the new music videos for the Black
Eyed Peas' song, "Bebot." We want to make it clear that we appreciate your
efforts to bring Filipina/o Americans into the mainstream and applaud your
support of the Little Manila of Stockton. However, as Filipina/o and
Filipina/o American artists, academics, and community activists, we are
utterly dismayed by the portrayal of hypersexualized Filipina "hoochie-mama"
dancers, specifically in the Generation 2 version, the type of
representation of women so unfortunately prevalent in today's hip-hop and
rap music videos. The depiction of the 1930s "dime dancers" was also cast
in an unproblematized light, as these women seem to exist solely for the
sexual pleasure of the manongs.

In general, we value Apl.de.Ap's willingness to be so openly and richly
Filipino, especially when there are other Filipina/o Americans in positions
of visibility who do not do the same, and we appreciate the work that he has
done with the folks at Xylophone Films; we like their previous video for
"The Apl Song," and we even like the fact that the Generation 1 version of
"Bebot" attempts to provide a "history lesson" about some Filipino men in
the 1930s. However, the Generation 2 version truly misses the mark on
accurate Filipina/o representation, for the following reasons:

1) The video uses three very limited stereotypes of Filipina women: the
virgin, the whore, and the shrill mother. We find a double standard in the
depiction of the virgin and whore figures, both of which are highly
sexualized. Amidst the crowd of midriff-baring, skinny, light-skinned,
peroxided Pinays some practically falling out of their halter tops there
is the little sister played by Jasmine Trias, from whom big brother Apl is
constantly fending off Pinoy "playas." The overprotectiveness is strange
considering his idealization of the bebot or "hot chick." The mother
character was also particularly troublesome, but for very different reasons
She seems to play a dehumanized figure, the perpetual foreigner with her
exaggerated accent, but on top of that, she is robbed of her femininity in
her embarrassingly indelicate treatment of her son and his friends. She is
not like a tough or strong mother, but almost like a coarse asexual mother,
and it is telling that she is the only female character in the video with a
full figure.

2) We feel that these problematic female representations might have to do
with the use of the word "Bebot." We are of course not advocating that Apl
change the title of his song, yet we are confused about why a song that has
to do with pride in his ethnic/national identity would be titled "Bebot," a
word that suggests male ownership of the sexualized woman the "hot chick."
What does Filipino pride have to do with bebots? The song seems to be about
immigrant experience yet the chorus says "ikaw ang aking bebot" (you are my
hot chick). It is actually very disturbing that one's ethnic/national
identity is determined by one's ownership of women. This system not only
turns women into mere symbols but it also excludes women from feeling the
same kind of ethnic/national identity. It does not bring down just
Filipinas; it brings down all women.

3) Given the unfortunate connection made in this video between Filipino
pride and the sexualized female body both lyrically and visually, we can't
help but conclude that the video was created strictly for a heterosexual
man's pleasure. This straight, masculinist perspective is the link that we
find between the Generation 1 and Generation 2 videos. The fact that the
Pinoy men are surrounded by "hot chicks" both then and now makes this link
plain. Yet such a portrayal not only obscures the "real" message about the
Little Manila Foundation; it also reduces Pinoy men's hopes, dreams, and
motivations to a single-minded pursuit of sex.

We do understand that Filipino America faces a persistent problem of
invisibility in this country. Moreover, as the song is all in Tagalog (a
fact that we love, by the way), you face an uphill battle in getting the
song and music video(s) into mainstream circulation. However, remedying the
invisibility of Filipina/os in the United States should not come at the cost
of the dignity and self-respect of at least half the population of Filipino
America. Before deciding to write this letter, we felt an incredible amount
of ambivalence about speaking out on this issue because, on the one hand, we
recognized that this song and video are a milestone for Filipina/os in
mainstream media and American pop culture, but on the other hand, we were
deeply disturbed by the images of women the video propagates.

In the end we decided that we could not remain silent while seeing image
after image of Pinays portrayed as hypersexual beings or as shrill,
dehumanized, asexual mother-figures who embarrass their children with their
overblown accents and coarseness. The Filipino American community is made up
of women with Filipino pride as well, yet there is little room in these
videos for us to share this voice and this commitment; instead, the message
we get is that we are expected to stand aside and allow ourselves to be
exploited for our sexuality while the men go about making their nationalist
statements.

While this may sound quite harsh, we believe it is necessary to point out
that such depictions make it seem as if you are selling out Filipina women
for the sake of gaining mainstream popularity within the United States.
Given the already horrific representations of Filipinas all over the world
as willing prostitutes, exotic dancers, or domestic servants who are
available for sex with their employers, the representation of Pinays in
these particular videos can only feed into such stereotypes. We also find
it puzzling, given your apparent commitment to preserving the history and
dignity of Filipina/os in the United States, because we assume that you also
consider such stereotypes offensive to Filipino men as well as women.

Again, we want to reiterate our appreciation for the positive aspects of
these videos the history lesson of the 1936 version, the commitment to
community, and the effort to foster a larger awareness of Filipino America
in the mainstream but we ask for your honest attempt to offer more
full-spectrum representations of both Filipino men and Filipina women, now
and in the future. We would not be writing this letter to you if we did not
believe you could make it happen.

Respectfully,

Lucy Burns
Assistant Professor
Asian American Studies / World Arts and Cultures, UCLA

Fritzie De Mata
Independent scholar

Diana Halog
Undergraduate
UC Berkeley

Luisa A. Igloria
Associate Professor
Creative Writing Program
& Department of English
Old Dominion University

Veronica Montes
Writer

Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Assistant Professor
English, State University of New York--Fredonia

Gladys Nubla
Doctoral student
English, UC Berkeley

Barbara Jane Reyes
Poet and author

Joanne L. Rondilla
Doctoral candidate
Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley

Rolando B. Tolentino
Visiting Fellow, National University of Singapore
Associate Professor, University of the Philippines Film Institute

Benito Vergara
Asian American Studies / Anthropology, San Francisco State University

white is the new black.

2006-08-10T20:42:00.000-07:00

[from the upcoming "I am African" campaign from the Keep A Child Alive organization]

Anyway, I get that she's trying to sympathize with African American plight because "oppressing anything is oppressing everything and so we as more privileged individuals can sympathize with you colored folk and still manage to mess it up in some way" (see Vegetarianism & the PETA incident for more examples). But seriously. I know it's for a good cause, but isn't there a saying that "good intentions pave the road to hell" or something? My 11th grade high school teacher used to say it to us a lot.

1. This is a bio of Gywneth Paltrow (from Wikipedia)

Paltrow was born in Los Angeles, California, to the late Bruce Paltrow, a film director, and Blythe Danner (a well-known character actress); Paltrow's father was Jewish and her mother was raised in the Quaker religion. Raised in Santa Monica, she attended Spence School, a selective private girls' school in New York City, and briefly studied Art History at the University of California, Santa Barbara, before dropping out and committing herself to acting.

So the children of a Hollywood director and actress who attended private school can empathize with an entire continent ravaged by economic hardship and the effects of colonialism/imperialism?

2. The words "I am African" on a white person are apparently abundantly clear- as if "race" were limited to necklaces and face paint instead of one's skin color and where one is situated in a colonial dynamic. So points for the pointing out of race as a social construct with certain markers that make us recognize one as one race or another. A bazillion points minus for reducing race relations to commodities of cultural markings and empathy. Also minus for exotifying race to cultural commodities- as if you could say buy a lei and be Hawaiian or own chopsticks and be "Asian" (whatever that means).

3. Boo to the media for continuing to propogate cultural imperialism by putting a white woman to represent African people. I mean really, let's put the face of a blonde blue eyed American to represent AFRICA. As if people would respond more to her instead of, let's say, an actual picture of an African person struggling. It's for a good cause but I don't know how effect it can be if you're making it an issue again about how white people have to save those "savages" again. Benevolent colonialism anyone?

I don't really know who to blame in this situation. The media for distributing this? The marketing team for this organization that thought it would be good? Everyday people for being desensitized so much to images of a ravaged Africa that you need to put a white woman's face on something to actually stop, notice, AND care?

4. What else irks me about this picture is that it is still in a way racist- or actually it embodies more "colorist" ideology. Sidenote: There's also my photographer's eye thinking that marketing and media continually use black and white pictures to make issues "more serious". Gywneth Paltrow is the "colorless" (also color-blind) individual - the universal. White is the only race that can have the privilege of not thinking about race. The makeup on her face and the letters "I am African" serve as a disconnect between Gywneth's actual race and an African's race. Hence, "I sympathize" sentiment with "don't confuse me for being an actual African" line delineated through this colorization. Sure she still happens to wear the African necklace, but again it actually reinforces the idea that one can own cultural markers like jewlry but not be of that culture.

5. For some reason, it kind of reminds me of this poplicks pos t about the media and the use of "whiteness".

[To supplement] I feel bad about criticizing this organization as it seems to be a positive non-profit group committed to helping with the AIDS pandemic. I mean it could be a soulless corporate machine that have these ads (see poplicks). Yet I can't help but think of these things when I see the ads..even though I haven't seen the entire campaign. AIDS is not just a racial issue which I feel when I see ads like this. And I suppose that was the message that it affects us all, but I wouldn't be who I am without misgivings.

But really, let's not get too upset with this. I'll end with a happy picture (also courtesy of poplicks). P.S. Its a real ad like the one above.

State of Emergency

2006-08-09T11:54:00.000-07:00

Well I was sitting on the idea that we were all going to Hell and it's the end of the world. I mean c'mon it was over 90 degrees in Berkeley in the summer? Earthquakes. Tsunami. Hurricanes. War. Everything.

But seriously-

This is the end of the world. I give you this as an example.

This is Nicole - please someone feed her - Richie.

This is what she looked like (aside from bad fashion choices- she looked good)

Ok I know we've all heard it before. Beauty industrial complex. Fashion's creation of superskinny perfection ideology. Hollywood and the rest of the media's influence on women's body types. But seriously women idolize this women and the only reason she's famous is for being famous. But I will not use this opportunity to bag on her (because we as women do that far too often for each other's good). And I say its the SYSTEM. The SYSTEM. This is ridiculous and tragic all at the same time.

And I hear people use this word now- "thinspiration". Yes that's right, anorexic people as inspiration. It makes me sick.

And to make it worse, photoshop can make anyone look beautiful. That's right the people you look at in magazines aren't real.

For your consideration- http://www.photoshopbeforeandafter.com/
(the one with the magazine- the box in the upper right hand corner)

Women of Color portrayal in the media

2006-08-02T17:37:00.000-07:00

[another article emailed to my attention. It raises interesting questions of power, the audience, authenticity and stereotyping]

An Image Popular in Films Raises Some Eyebrows in Ads

Portrayals of black women in a current Universal Studios ad.

By JEREMY W. PETERS

Published: August 1, 2006

At 200 pounds plus — most of that pure attitude — she is hard to miss.

Her onscreen presence takes on many variations, but she is easily recognizable by a few defining traits. Other than her size, she is almost always black. She typically finds herself in an exchange that is either confrontational or embarrassing. And her best line is often little more than a sassy “Mmmm hmmm.”

This caricature, playing on stereotypes of heavy black women as boisterous and sometimes aggressive, has been showing up for some time in stand-up comedy routines and in movies like “Big Momma’s House’’ and “Diary of a Mad Black Woman.’’ Often, the pieces are produced by directors and writers who are black themselves.

With black creators giving more acceptability to the image, it is now starting to appear more often in television commercials as well. Most recently some variation of this character has appeared in commercials for Dairy Queen, Universal Studios and Captain Morgan rum.

But despite the popularity of such characters among blacks, the use of the image of big black women as the target of so many jokes is troublesome to some marketers and media scholars.

“It is perpetuating a stereotype that black females are strong, aggressive, controlling people,’’ said Tommy E. Whittler, a marketing professor at DePaul University. “I don’t think you want to do that.’’

To be sure, sassy overweight black women appear to represent only a small fraction of the African-American actresses who appear in commercials. Marketers have made strides in recent years toward making advertisements with a more diverse cast of characters.

Blacks regularly appear in commercials selling products as diverse as toothpaste, credit cards and erectile dysfunction medication. Indeed, according to several academic studies, over the last 15 years the number of blacks appearing in commercials has been roughly proportional to their share of the American population, about 14 percent.

“Over the years it’s evolved,’’ said Fay Ferguson, co-chief executive of Burrell Communications, an advertising agency that specializes in marketing toward black consumers. “We’ve come a long way in how we see black women in advertising.’’

Stereotypical portrayals of blacks in commercials have drawn criticism from civil rights groups for decades. Some of the earliest and most iconic examples of blacks in advertising — Rastus the Cream of Wheat chef, Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben — showed blacks in subservient roles that recalled the days of slavery.

Paul Hosefros/The New York Times
Aunt Jemima label circa 1975.

Those images have been toned down over the years (Aunt Jemima’s red bandanna, for example, was replaced with pearl earrings and a lace collar in 1989) and are no longer as overtly stereotypical as they once were. And now there are many examples of blacks presented in middle-class settings and engaged in mainstream activities.

To some, the freer use of overweight black women in comic situations suggests a welcome change that reflects a broader acceptability of blacks in the media. But others find the recurring use of the image a return to a disturbing past.

And some say these images may serve to exacerbate misunderstanding between whites and blacks.

“Not only are we being given images of who we are supposed to be, but others are also formulating their images of us based on that,” said Marilyn Kern Foxworth, an author and marketing expert who studies how blacks are portrayed in advertising. “People have already determined who we are and how we’re going to react in certain situations.”

The heavy black female makes one of her latest appearances in a commercial for the Dairy Queen Blizzard. In the spot, a man boarding an airplane sets his ice cream shake down so he can load his bag into an overhead compartment. As he reaches up, another passenger on the plane starts eating the Blizzard. Seeing this, the first man lets go of his bag so he can reclaim his Blizzard and inadvertently drops his luggage on another passenger’s head.

That unlucky passenger happens to be an overweight black woman who lets out an irritated gasp that reminds all the passengers around her who not to mess with.

Rick Cusato, executive vice president for Grey Worldwide, the firm that wrote the campaign for Dairy Queen, said 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.”

Another new Dairy Queen commercial features a similar character — played by the same actress — working as an airport security screener. When a man tries to walk through a metal detector eating a Dairy Queen burger, her eyes dart disapprovingly downward at him. Then she barks, “Uh, uh. Get on!” directing him to walk through again.

An actress in a Dairy Queen commercial reacts negatively after a piece of luggage falls on her.

Michael Keller, Dairy Queen’s chief brand officer, said the company considered actors of all sizes and races before making a decision. “We looked at male body builders, really big tall women. We looked at just about everybody we could,” he said. “She projected an image that was everything we wanted it to be. This is just a strong woman being herself.” He added that the company had not received any complaints about the ads being racially insensitive. But to some these images are troubling.

“It’s not an accident that she’s African-American and heavy,” said Howard Buford, founder and chief executive of Prime Access, an advertising agency that creates commercials marketed toward minority audiences. “There’s certainly a long heritage of large African-American women who are kind of sassy and feisty and humorously angry. There’s a sense that this whole value system is O.K. again.”

Large black actresses have had recurring roles in commercials over the years, and often are cast in roles where their aggressiveness is a defining trait. The heavy black spokeswoman for Pine Sol was one of the first to embrace the role. Her aggression was aimed at household dirt, however, not people. In a recent commercial for Captain Morgan rum, a large black woman berates her man for playing dominoes and making her late.

In one recent Twix commercial, a full-figured black woman asks her boyfriend if her pants make her rear end look big. As the camera focuses on her plump backside (exaggerated by the camera for effect), the man stuffs his face with a Twix bar and mumbles an indecipherable answer.

Pleased with his response, the woman walks away. She is not shown being aggressive or loud, but the commercial leaves the impression that if the man had given the wrong answer, she might have erupted.

A series of Universal Studios commercials star a heavy black woman who is accompanying her children on a Jurassic Park ride. Frightened by the ride, she roars and buries the heads of her two young children in her bosom.

Black advertising executives have noticed the stereotype.

“There’s an image out there of black women being boisterous, overbearing, controlling and extremely aggressive in their behavior,” said Carol H. Williams, who runs her own advertising firm in Oakland, Calif., that specializes in marketing toward blacks. “I really don’t know why that stereotype is laughed at.”

Some have trouble with the new commercial images in part because they are being created by white writers.

“There are images of African-Americans created for white people by white people and there are images of African-Americans created for African-Americans,’’ Mr. Buford said. “And there’s a big difference.”

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.

Jannette L. Dates, dean of the communications school at Howard University, said that while whites and blacks could watch the same portrayal of a large black woman on television and laugh, they are laughing for different reasons.

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.’ ”

Orlando Patterson, a sociology professor at Harvard, amplified that point. “To the black audience, this may be, ‘You do your thing, sister,’ ” Professor Patterson said. “The white audience is laughing with her. Then they go back to reality, and they laugh at her.”

But Liz Gumbinner, a creative director at David and Goliath, the agency that developed the Universal campaign, said the broad appeal of the commercials was proof they were not insensitively playing on racial stereotypes.

Noting that a black woman in a recent David and Goliath focus group spoke up about how much she liked the Universal ads, Ms. Gumbinner said: “I wonder if sometimes when you have somebody that is less conventional, they become the most memorable. We use a lot of bald men, and it’s not like we have it out for bald men.”

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

As is typically the case with racial stereotypes, who is laughing and why is complex and potentially inflammatory. Black actors and comedians have profited handsomely from creating bumptious female characters on TV and in movies, raising the issue of whether they, too, are perpetuating the stereotypes that many find offensive.

Tyler Perry, the filmmaker and actor, created a series of plays and movies, including the huge hit “Diary of a Mad Black Woman,” in which the main character Mable (Madea) Simmons is a no-nonsense overweight matriarch. Mo’Nique, a full-figured comedian, has built a routine on being outlandish, brash and, at times, downright crude.

Mr. Buford, of Prime Access, said part of what makes the comedy of Mr. Perry and Mo’Nique acceptable is that it is written from a personal experience common to many blacks.

“Authenticity makes a lot of difference,” he said. “It’s authenticity born of having lived that life versus having been cast in that role.”

Benevolent...Capitalism?

2006-07-25T01:05:00.000-07:00

[from an email from my boss at work]

Carrying the Flag: Big Business Vs. Anti-Gay Groups (Part I)
By T.J. DeGroat

This article originally appeared in the June 2006 issue of DiversityInc
magazine

In 1968, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination provoked race
riots in dozens of U.S. cities. That same year, AT&T launched its first
supplier-diversity effort, spending $175,000 with nine minority-owned
businesses.

In 1988, the National Organization on Disability started a nationwide
campaign to remedy a monumental failure in the voting process: the
abundance of inaccessible polling places and lack of education among poll
workers. That same year, Microsoft began a grassroots effort to create more
accessible technology, building the foundation for a team that now pushes
the company's product groups to consider the needs of people with disabilities.

In 2004, voters in 11 states demanded that same-sex marriage be outlawed.
By the end of that year, 82 percent of the Fortune 500 explicitly
prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation and 46 percent
offered their employees domestic-partner benefits.

We've seen it time and time again: When the U.S. government and many
Americans aren't prepared to protect all citizens equally, the country's
most powerful companies are the first to take an inclusive stand. And they
usually are led by companies found on The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for
Diversity list.

This clearly has been the case in recent years when it has come to gay,
lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) employees. Thirty-three states
don't outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation, whereas 100
percent of The 2006 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies do, as well as 85 percent
of Fortune 500 companies. Every Top 50 company offers domestic-partner
benefits, compared with 49 percent of the Fortune 500.

Several large corporations, guided by Top 50 companies, are leading the
way, says Mark Tristan Ng, GLBT segment manager at San Francisco–based
Wells Fargo, No. 17 on The 2006 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity
list. This occurs "not only because they agree with equality but the
results are consistent with their goals as a company in terms of serving as
many and as diverse a client base as possible," he says.

"It's hard to argue why anyone would go against a market of 15
millionminimumwith $600 billion to $800 billion in buying power and more
disposable income than the average household," he says. "Sometimes people
think the notion of corporate America carrying the flag of equality is
strange, but look at this market and that is exactly what's happening."

But despite this forward march toward equality, socially conservative
groups continue to press large companies known for being inclusive of GLBT
workers to make them second-class employees. This is the new civil-rights
issue facing the United States. And the battlegrounds are annual meetings,
where shareholders push their agendas, and the Internet, which both sides
use to launch boycotts.

Shareholders' Resolve

Shareholder resolutions are being used as a last-resort weapon aimed at
pushing companies toward and pulling them away from inclusive policies.
Trillium Asset Management, for example, has pressed numerous companies to
adopt equitable policies for GLBT employees, including Wal-Mart (one of
DiversityInc's 25 Noteworthy Companies for 2006), which changed its policy
in 2003.

During the past four years, the New York City Pension Funds, which have
more than $99 billion in assets, and New York City Comptroller William
Thompson Jr. have pressured 28 companies to change their policies to bar
discrimination based on sexual orientation, and an additional six to add
gender identity during the past two years.

Thompson "recognizes that a number of companies are leaders in corporate
America, but he believes they've got a responsibility, not just to
shareholders but to workers and consumers, to adopt practices that treat
all human beings with respect and dignity," says Jeff Simmons, a
spokesperson for the comptroller.

Shareholders can make some noise when they follow inclusive proposals, but
there's added incentive for a company to pay attention when someone as
influential as Thompson steps in. It's a position he and his predecessors,
going back to the early 1990s, never have taken lightly, Simmons says.

"The comptroller believes this is an important human- and labor-rights
issue," he says. "But it's also important for investors … Companies that
discriminate arbitrarily limit their talent pool and cut themselves off
from the services of talented employees. Not hiring and promoting the most
qualified applicants can limit a company, hurt profits and hurt shareholders."

The Top 50 Response

Shareholder resolutions also can aim to strip progressive companies of
inclusive policies. JPMorgan Chase, No. 11 on The 2006 DiversityInc Top 50
Companies for Diversity list, last month was facing a vote on whether to
exclude any reference to sexual interests, activities or orientation in its
equal-employment policy. The resolution, submitted by a New York City
couple with 189 shares, states that "the sexual interests, inclinations and
activities of all employees" are a private matter.

Reflecting the values of the DiversityInc Top 10 Companies for GLBT
Employees list, JPMorgan Chase, No. 2 on that list, recommended that
shareholders vote against the proposal because it is contrary to the
company's core values. "Diversity enhances a company's ability to attract
and retain the best talent, to identify opportunities that improve the
quality of products and services, and to create an organization that
clients and employees are proud to be affiliated with," the proxy statement
reads.

An Illinois doctor who owns 674 shares of Ford Motor Co.'s common stock
introduced a similar resolution at the automaker's May 11 annual meeting.
Shareholders overwhelmingly opposed the proposal, with 95 percent voting
against it. Ford, No. 37 on The 2006 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for
Diversity list, responded in its proxy statement: "Ford, and numerous other
leading companies, believe that a diverse workforce, free of
discrimination, is the most advantageous environment to attract and retain
talented employees and to allow them to excel in their jobs."

Donald E. Wildmon, founder and chairman of the American Family Association
(AFA), among the most visible and active of the country's socially
conservative groups, has said that Ford could have avoided the shareholder
resolution if it had stayed out of the culture war.

This isn't the first time the AFA has attacked Ford. The automaker is
facing a boycott led by the AFA for its decision to continue advertising in
GLBT publications and supporting GLBT organizations.

Best Practices

Even though groups such as the AFA have shown their willingness to attack,
Top 50 companies continue believing that GLBTs are not just worthy of basic
equality in the workplace; they are vital to the bottom line.

"It is integrated into our overall diversity strategy," says Ernest Hicks,
manager of corporate diversity at Xerox, explaining the company's
reclaiming of the top spot on this year's Top 10 Companies for GLBT
Employees list, a position it also reached in 2004. "Ethnicity, gender,
sexual orientationpeople begin to look at those as separate aspects when,
in reality, when you're looking to create an environment of inclusiveness,
the GLBT community is part of that."

Ray Flautt, JPMorgan Chase's vice president and diversity manager, agrees.
"When we say we want to have the most diverse team we can, that includes
having LGBT people," he says. "The more diverse the team, the better the
team performs."

In January, the company implemented a major change in its effort to
maintain a supportive workplace for GLBT employees. The company created
guidelines for managing gender transitions, which now is considered another
major life event an employee might go through.

Xerox, which advertises in gay publications and sponsors gay-themed events,
hires whomever is best for a job, no matter what that person's race, gender
or sexual orientations, with the knowledge that the person will succeed in
the culture Xerox has created.

Hicks says he has had conversations with new hires who have told him that
research into the company's inclusiveness prompted them to take their jobs.
"If we had not been able to create that image that [allowed them to feel]
comfortable coming here and applying, it could have been our loss," Hicks
says. "That person could have been responsible for the very patent we lost
that created a billion-dollar loss."

Helping Xerox create a GLBT-friendly workplace is Galaxe, an
employee-caucus group serving the needs of GLBT employees. "They work with
us and keep us aware of things that would further demonstrate our
understanding of their needs as employees," Hicks says.

About five years ago, members of Galaxe approached the diversity office and
requested that the company consider cementing its commitment to the GLBT
community by adding gender identity to its nondiscrimination policy. Galaxe
members brought up the subject and explained why it was important, helping
the diversity office successfully approach senior leadership.

These moves do prompt criticism from some, Hicks admits. "In any operation
of any company … everybody's not going to be happy," he says. "Have we had
individuals with differences of opinion? Absolutely, and we value that too.
That is another aspect of diversity. I would almost be suspect if there was
100 percent agreement. But I think the key thing here is that we don't try
to change other individuals' values or beliefs. What we say is based on
company valuesas long as you work and manage people in this company, these
are behaviors we expect of you."

Wells Fargo shares Xerox's common sense. The company has supported the GLBT
community through philanthropy since the 1980s, "when it was not so en
vogue, not so acceptable," says Ng.

That longstanding commitment was reflected in Wells Fargo's response to a
recent attack by Focus on the Family. In December, the Colorado Springs,
Colo.–based group withdrew its funds from Wells Fargo because of the
company's financial support of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against
Defamation. Wells Fargo issued a statement expressing regret over losing
Focus on the Family as a customer (the group did not disclose how much
money it kept with the bank and declined to comment for this story).

"The loss of any accounts affects us, but at the same time, we don't want
to be a pawn in a larger culture war," Ng says. "Getting caught up in that
is not the business we're in. We can't just respond to one side or the
other. Otherwise, we're going to be a hostage, having other people
determine our actions." Instead of being reactionary, Ng says, "we let our
vision and values and culture drive our actions."

The Truth About Cats & Dogs Part Deux

2006-07-19T11:17:00.000-07:00

Ok, well I realize my last post wasn't exactly comprised of fully formed thoughts. More like a blog out of frustration and exasperation. So I'll try to be more coherent this time. Spoilers abound of the movie.

First off, I was exasperated at the idea of beauty and dating. Dating, I honestly have very little experience in this, but it seems to me some sort of human form of the "mating game" apparent in nature. It seems like confidence and power factor largely in this. Dating is interesting because it is a site where gender roles, stereotypes, and superficial factors intersect. I'm talking about those initial 30 seconds-10 minutes of meeting someone. Basically, you are who you present yourself to be. You can display success and cleanliness through clothing, manners and personality through the way you talk, beauty through looks, etc. Attraction is that fleeting spark of je nes ais quoi. And this can all be based on beauty (which is all comprised of factors like race, percieved gender, perceived fitness, etc).

I can understand that percieved beauty is some sort of harkening back to "animal days" where beauty can be a sign of success and thus ensuring most healthy and most ready to survive offspring. But human society also adds that one pivotal difference that seperates "us humans from the animals"- that of thought and speech. And that's where it gets messy. Confidence (or lack of) can now play a part.

So I go back to my previous thoughts on the Truth about Cats and Dogs. Inherit in the dating game is also the goals of the players. Considering my experience and views I'm going to consider heterosexual relations (I don't know how far this relates to lgbq sexualities). And then comes the society created questions for masculinity and femininty. Do males just want sex? Do females want "love" (relationships, family, soul connections, whatever you define it as)? Does the male goals of sexual relations translate into this search for a desirable woman? Does desirable have to equate with beauty? And since women want "love" do they desire to be loved by man (thus seeking his approval)? I could go all Judith Butler or Simone de Beauvoir here- but for the sake of simplicity I won't go into male patriarchy for the moment. But I will mention that society has created certain roles for men and women and for the most part I've noticed that these roles still exist (because the power structure makes it so).

In a sense, I feel like this desirable and seeking of male approval somehow translates into confidence. Some women gain confidence by feeling attractive. Sexual power as the only venue of power perhaps (because the power structure has made it so)? Some women have abilities and talents that are not defined by looks alone. Thus we have the situation of Abby and Noelle in The Truth About Cats and Dogs. Abby is the smart and so-so woman and Noelle is the beautiful and dumb woman. Masculine and feminine stereotypes (which are realities too) abound. And so I wonder does low self esteem come from lack of appreciation as a sexual object? I'm using "sexual object" and "attraction" interchangibly because I think attraction is based largely on sex. There are other factors involved in attraction, but we'll stick with this definition for now.

Abby's actions are an extreme form of the lengths women go to be considered beautiful. Women obsessively diet, have eating disorders, use plastic surgery, and even come up with 3 hour routines just to put their "face" on. I remember a part where a person sold Abby beauty products after makng her feel bad about herself. Abby succumbs to society's pressures so much she imagines herself a tall leggy blonde. She goes so far as to create an alternate Abby and manages to get her neighbor involved in it too. We all can't go find someone beautiful to be us- so women do the next best thing- plastic surgery. And at what lengths do women go to keep themselves attractive? Boob jobs, nose jobs, liposuction- how far is too far to be beautiful? Not far enough for some people. Abby feels like she has to play this game to be desirable to men. Even with her intelligence, kindness, understand, and humor she is not enough because she is not beautiful. Nor is she willing to change her personality for a man (such as when women raise their voices an octave or play the dumb girl game).

Noelle- I realize now (after this being pointed out by a friend)- also has low self esteem. She doesn't even notice when a bicyclist nearly crashes in the street and other such attentions. Has she taken it for granted? Noelle can't eat food. She has bad relationships with men who treat her poorly. And she wants validation as a person. She wants to be considered smart instead of just sexy. Abby actually (through the magic of Hollywood and makeup and I'm guessing they used bad lighting to make her look uglier earlier in the film) becomes prettier when she becomes more comfortable with herself.

In the end, its a hollywood movie (or a movie tailored for an audience created by Hollywood). (Spoiler) The girl and the guy get together. Noelle actually doesn't want male approval as much as she wants female approval-Abby's approval. All in all I like The Truth About Cats & Dogs- it's one of my favorite movies and I'm glad that 2-3 years later after viewing it for the first time I can appreciate it more. I like how the man is not "typically masculine". Brownie points for reading Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes and giving Abby/Noelle Simone de Beauvoire's Letters to Jean Paul Sartre (which I have added to my library of books I want in my life).

But questions (in addition the ones posed previously): What is validation? What is self confidence based on? What do you base your own self-confidence on? How much are you willing to sacrifice (your wit, your strength) to be attractive to someone? And why does it seem that women have to sacrifice more than men do? To be fair- maybe men do suffer too, but that's also a reflection of gender roles that they can't be emotional enough to mention their feelings. I know not everyone is like this, but definitely the power structure is still defining these roles as such and I notice them through everyday life.

The Truth About Cats & Dogs

2006-07-17T10:13:00.000-07:00

Esoteric Personal Note

Yes, I don't make too many of these (this being public and all). I'm just wondering if it's normal not to have any romantic interest in a real (i.e. not unattainable, not gay, not an actor, celebrity, etc) person in such a long time. And possibly not to really care. Perhaps I sound like a whiny high schooler ("Waaah, am I normal? *Angst* *Angst* *Angst* Will a guy ever really LyKe Me 4 mE?), but I know there's no real normality except for the one I create. But I'm wondering if this uninterest in anyone romantically signifies that I am personally completely detached from human society. I realize how much of a problem my ideology possibly freaks out people (i.e. men who are afraid of smart women because it makes their male ego - and possibly other male parts - shrink). I remember a friend who said it is hard for her to date because she doesn't like to "play dumb". I think I know the strategy of the game, but I don't know if I can play by those rules.

In one sense I find it difficult to let go of my strongly held personal beliefs without losing a part of my personal integrity. I will be honest and say there's fear there too. These beliefs are also affecting my non-romantic relationships with friends. I can't even watch a movie without thinking about the "isms" involved (racism, sexism, blah blah). And I find that some people who might agree with me are too pretentious or friends think I am being too serious for my own good.

In another sense, I know I am not the norm. And I'm sure it's not helpful that I have a sarcastic and slightly cynical edge sometimes. I think I'm improving that though. At least I hope so.

I was watching "The Truth About Cats & Dogs" the other day. And while it is a good movie it still bothered me in some ways. Why does the intelligent, funny, charismatic girl with a good job have low self esteem? (I love Janeane Garofalo- she is amazing) Is it society that makes her that way? Do you have to fit into one of 2 categories- smart and so-so or beautiful and dumb? Why does the beautiful blonde attract so much male attention (I think Uma Thurman is lovely but is it just because she is tall and blonde that makes her stop traffic? Are men really blindsided by attraction like that?) ? Is it intelligence that makes women unattractive to men? Is being dumb, flighty, with a high pitched voice and giggles nourish the "protective" aspect of men? And in the end is male approval what women want?

I don't know where I stand. I know I could never be part of the latter, but I don't agree with how society treats the former. And in a world where women are getting more education and out numbering men in percentage of the population I feel like its increasingly difficult to find anyone even remotely acceptable (and, in turn, accepting). Guys who are nice are either a) in a relationship, b) gay, c) don't have enough social skills, d) not interested in me, or e) not interested in dating.

Lebanon, Lebanon

2006-07-14T11:09:00.000-07:00

V

How do you evacuate
a country?

offshore
the gunboats have begun
the shelling
of the highway
and the houses
above
the orange groves
the f-16s drop
death

and from a balding hilltop
only eyeball meters’
distant from a field
of rusted car parts
dissolute among wild
flowers
trusting all that color from the sun
artillery destroys the heated laughter
of another
lost
civilian afternoon

Lebanon
Lebanon

the mountain people of the mountain

Lebanon
Lebanon

the cedar trees forever foraging the air
for earth for space
for non-negotiable longevity

Lebanon
Lebanon

the sea refusing to recede
the open sky that will not blink
the wailing of the soul that does not sleep
the worry beads that spell
apocalypse specific to this man
this woman

Lebanon
Lebanon

the 12 year old sings aloud
to calm the other children
terrified by murder

Here do I discover
the humility
the miracle of suffering
without surrender
the miracle of suffering
without defeat

[a section of "Lebanon, Lebanon" by June Jordan]

for more news:

Reuters UK - Israel Bombs Hizbollah leader's home in Beirut

Esoteric Passion for Photography

2006-07-11T14:29:00.000-07:00

I don't know why, but I really like photography. Something about have to just analyze surfaces and light and reflections and context and et cetera instead of things like "ideology" or "hegemony" or "-isms" is kind of refreshing. Don't get me wrong- I love sociology and you couldn't stop me from analyzing if you tried, but its a nice change of pace. I know there's probably a lot of things that you can say like "art is a commodity" or blah blah the media, but for me its different and interesting. I mean I would like to document "the invisible" (people, issues, whatever) one day, but for now its all about what makes a good picture and a great print.

Plus...

Its nice to be able to look at something or take a picture of something and be sure that what you see is what you get. So much is lies and doublespeak and unsure-"ity" nowadays.

And double plus...

I think photography is good for me too because I tend to talk a lot lately. And I'm not sure if I like what's coming out of my mouth these days. I feel like I sometimes am turning into a "cynical college student" and photography has a kind of magicial way that you can say so much by not even opening your mouth.

(Which for me is probably a good thing)

Happy 4th of July stream of consciousness

2006-07-04T21:12:00.000-07:00

Well I don't have internet at home so I'm borrowing "Phoenix"s (ha) internet. I'd like to think I am subversively not celebrating the independance of a country that used to be under British colonialism who subsequently decided to colonize the rest of the world (through outright land grabbing/stealing, wars, and culturally). But does that make me ungrateful? Perhaps. Perhaps the real reason I am not celebrating is just because I don't like crowds and loud popping noises. Perhaps because it is just not the same without my crazy boisterous family. My mom called me today as if it were a holiday like Christmas or my birthday. My mother who rarely calls me. It made me miss her more. And I miss my family's amazing barbeques. Siiigh.

But really, excuse me if I'm not exactly too grateful to appreciate an independance day when I am still:

not considered an american (Where are you from? San Diego? No, where were you born? The United States. No, where are your parents from?)
where the idea of "patriotism" is agreeing with everything the president says
when i associate the use of the colors "red, white, and blue" with people who staunchly defend man made borders and the refusal to give equal rights to women, people of color, immigrants, people based on their sexual orientation, etc.

I didn't mean to sound so pessimistic, but I can't help but be a little reluctant to celebrate today. I definitely miss my family, I definitely love bbqs, and I hope you're all enjoying the day (or for the lucky long weekenders) off from work.

P.S. I also went to class today. Yep, my instructor asked us what we were doing today and apparently the rest of my class wasn't too into celebrating the holiday either. So we had class. I can't believe I actually went.

Sad News

2006-06-28T08:40:00.000-07:00

How sad, I just heard of this today. I think "suicide" definitely has a stigma attached to it, but suicide is definitely as much society's issue as it is a personal one. What I mean it that suicide is not just an individual's problem, but a symptom of the conditions of the society that people are in [1]. And I can't believe this happened to UC Chancellor either, but its a reminder that those kinds of negative feelings can affect everyone.

[from http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/06/25/MNG91JK4T01.DTL]

UC Santa Cruz chancellor dies in suicide plunge

Cecilia M. Vega, Jaxon VanDerbeken, Chronicle Staff Writer

Sunday, June 25, 2006

UC Santa Cruz Chancellor Denice Denton, apparently despondent over work and personal issues, died Saturday after she jumped from the roof of a 42-story San Francisco apartment building, police said. Denton's partner, Gretchen Kalonji, has an apartment in the building, property records show.

Denton, a well-regarded engineer, had been named this spring in a series of articles examining UC management compensation. She had been criticized for an expensive university-funded renovation on her campus home, and for obtaining a UC administrative job for Kalonji.

Denton, 46, died Saturday morning after jumping from the Paramount at Mission and Third streets, police said. The building is advertised as San Francisco's tallest luxury rental apartment building. A guest at the nearby Argent Hotel called authorities at 8:17 a.m. to report a body on the roof of a parking structure below the apartment building, police said. The medical examiner ruled her death a suicide.

Denton had been on medical leave from the university since June 15 and was expected to return to work this week, said UC Santa Cruz spokesman Jim Burns. She was absent from the university's commencement exercises last week because she was not feeling well, he said.

Denton's mother, Carolyn Mabee, was in the apartment building at the time of her death, police said. She told authorities that her daughter was "very depressed" about her professional and personal life.

In a statement issued Saturday evening, UC President Robert Dynes said Denton's death is "a tremendous loss for the entire University of California family."

"Denice was an accomplished and passionate scholar whose life and work demonstrated a deep commitment to public service and to improving opportunity for the disadvantaged and underrepresented," the statement said. "She was a person of enthusiasm, of big ideas, of tremendous energy, and of great promise. In a relatively short time at UC Santa Cruz, she began moving on ambitious plans for the campus and emerged as an important voice in national higher education issues."

Kalonji, who was hired as director of international strategy development in the UC Office of the President in Oakland as part of Denton's recruitment package, was returning this evening from Washington, D.C., where she had been on university business, UC spokesman Michael Reese said. Denton had been provided a 2,680-square-foot home on the UC Santa Cruz campus, the subject of a story in a Chronicle series this spring examining perks and pay in the UC system.

Before she moved into her university-provided house on campus in 2005, she asked for dozens of improvements -- everything from a new fence for her dogs to new wiring, speakers, amplifier and CD player for a built-in sound system, according to university documents. In all, a $600,000 upgrade was made to the home, though it is not clear how many of the improvements were at Denton's request. Denton's annual salary was $282,000.

As a result of that and other spending disclosed in the media, Dynes tightened rules for renovation projects at university-owned homes and the offices of top executives.

In 2005, UC unions protested the hiring of Kalonji, a former University of Washington professor of materials science, into a $192,000 UC management position. UC also provided Kalonji, then Denton's partner of seven years, a housing assistance allowance of up to $50,000.

Denton assumed office on Feb. 14, 2005. In addition to holding the top post at the 15,000-student campus, Denton was a professor of electrical engineering, according to the school's Web site.

Shortly before taking the Santa Cruz post, Denton made national news for confronting Harvard President Lawrence Summers after he insinuated in a talk that women might be less science-prone for genetic reasons. Denton was in the room when Summers made the controversial comment.

UC Santa Cruz Campus Provost David Kliger issued a statement Saturday evening calling Denton's death a "tremendous loss."

"During Chancellor Denton's tenure here, she devoted herself toward strengthening UC Santa Cruz," he wrote. "Those of us who worked closely with Denice valued her intelligence, humor, and commitment to the ideals of diversity and higher education. We are deeply saddened by her death."

Kliger said Denton was a woman who dedicated her life and career to helping young people, especially women and minorities, advance in the field of science.

"She led this campus with clear statements of the importance of education in transforming lives and in creating opportunities for all," Kliger wrote. "She herself had lived that experience, rising from modest means to achieve with distinction at every stage in her life."

Kliger will manage the campus operations in the wake of Denton's death until Dynes appoints a new chancellor, Reese said.

"But we are so not even thinking about that right now," Reese said.

A manager at the Paramount apartments, which sits directly across the street from the new Museum of the African Diaspora, declined to comment Saturday.

Residents of the building said units rent for $3,000 to $9,000 a month. On the top floor, residents have access to an open-air rooftop terrace. The parking structure where Denton's body was found can be seen below.

Denton previously was the dean of the College of Engineering and a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Washington. She was the first woman to hold such a position at a top research university, according to her biography on the UC Santa Cruz Web site.

News of Denton's death reached her former colleagues at the University of Washington on Saturday evening.

"I never expected this," said Mani Soma, acting dean of the school's college of engineering, which Denton previously ran. "She was an outstanding performer here, and we were extremely glad to have her."

Soma said Denton was known as a hard worker who had very high standards. Some former colleagues were in tears when they learned of her death through news reports, he said.

"I learned a lot from her," Soma said. "She expected people to perform, and she also worked like crazy. She really set an example."

Denton received a doctorate in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She also held academic appointments at the University of Massachusetts, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and the University of Wisconsin- Madison, the UC Santa Cruz Web site said.

She recently won a prestigious national prize called the Maria Mitchell Women in Science Award, which recognized her work in developing programs to encourage women and girls to study science.

[1] Durkheim's view on suicide http://durkheim.itgo.com/suicide.html

Durkheim drew theoretical conclusions on the social causes of suicide. He proposed four types of suicide, based on the degrees of imbalance of two social forces: social integration and moral regulation.

Egoisitic suicide resulted from too little social integration. Those individuals who were not sufficiently bound to social groups (and therefore well-defined values, traditions, norms, and goals) were left with little social support or guidance, and therefore tended to commit suicide on an increased basis. An example Durkheim discovered was that of unmarried people, particularly males, who, with less to bind and connect them to stable social norms and goals, committed suicide at higher rates than unmarried people.

The second type, Altruistic suicide, was a result of too much integration. It occurred at the opposite end of the integration scale as egoistic suicide. Self sacrifice was the defining trait, where individuals were so integrated into social groups that they lost sight of their individuality and became willing to sacrifice themselves to the group's interests, even if that sacrifice was their own life. The most common cases of altruistic suicide occurred among members of the military.

On the second scale, that of moral regulation, lies the other two forms of suicide, the first of which is Anomic suicide, located on the low end. Anomic suicide was of particular interest to Durkheim, for he divided it into four categories: acute and chronic economic anomie, and acute and chronic domestic anomie. Each involved an imbalance of means and needs, where means were unable to fulfill needs.

Each category of anomic suicide can be described briefly as follows:
Acute economic anomie: sporadic decreases in the ability of traditional institutions (such as religion, guilds, pre-industrial social systems, etc.) to regulate and fulfill social needs.
Chronic economic anomie: long term dimunition of social regulation. Durkheim identified this type with the ongoing industrial revolution, which eroded traditional social regulators and often failed to replace them. Industrial goals of wealth and property were insufficient in providing happiness, as was demonstrated by higher suicide rates among the wealthy than among the poor.
Acute domestic anomie: sudden changes on the microsocial level resulted in an inability to adapt and therefore higher suicide rates. Widowhood is a prime example of this type of anomie.
Chronic domestic anomie: referred to the way marriage as an institution regulated the sexual and behavioral means-needs balance among men and women. Marriage provided different regulations for each, however. Bachelors tended to commit suicide at higher rates than married men because of a lack of regulation and established goals and expectations. On the other hand, marriage has traditionally served to overregulate the lives of women by further restricting their already limited opportunities and goals. Unmarried women, therefore, do not experience chronic domestic anomie nearly as often as do unmarried men.

The final type of suicide is Fatalistic suicide, "at the high extreme of the regulation continuum" (1982, p. 113). This type Durkheim only briefly describes, seeing it as a rare phenomena in the real world. Examples include those with overregulated, unrewarding lives such as slaves, childless married women, and young husbands.

And I fall off the fluffy liberal cloud of idealism once again....

2006-06-24T20:25:00.000-07:00

[rant warning]

Tomorrow is singularly one of the biggest events of the summer (probably year) in San Francisco. And unless you live in a cave- you know that event is the SF Pride festival.

Well I know this shouldn't be suprised how I feel right now...but whatever. I didn't realize until I had to seriously think about people's "comfort" level on whether or not they would be cool to go to the SF Pride festival. And this got me to thinking (and so did this by a friend of mine)....

I'm going to throw out a terms^[1]:

homophobia

means fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals. It can also mean hatred of and disparagement of homosexual people, their lifestyles, their sexual behaviors, or cultures, and is generally used to assert bigotry. Opposition to same-sex activism on religious, moral, or political grounds may also be referred to as homophobia.

and this one

Heterosexism

is a belief or argument that male-female sexuality is the only natural, normal, or moral mode of sexual behavior, and is also used to refer to the effects of that cultural ideology. The word 'heterosexualism' has also been proposed to mean essentially the same thing. This word has been suggested as an alternative to homophobia, in part because it uses a parallel structure to sexism or racism.

Heterosexism should not be confused with heterocentrism, which is an (often subconscious) assumption that everyone is heterosexual, and the attitudes associated with that assumption. Heterocentrism often shows up in unintentional ways in every day life. For instance, when a woman says she is going on a date, many people will ask, "What's his name?" or "Is he cute?" assuming it is a heterosexual date. Nevertheless, these people may not have anything against same-sex dating. In queer theory, the term heterocentrism is closely related to heteronormativity.

Yes I went there. I am calling certain people of my aquaintance "homophobic". Homophobia doesn't mean hanging out in a dark alley outside gay clubs and beating people within an inch of their life or of cross burning or whatever. Homophobia is "fear", "an aversion", or "discrimination". Ok so wanting not to go to Pride or associate oneself with anything "homosexual" is- I think- homophobia because last time I checked "aversion" meant avoidance of a thing because it makes one uncomfortable. A lot of my friends are college students and/or graduates. But again I am faced with the cold stark reality that not all are college students are created equal. What bothers me more is that this is something I've noticed about my friends and possibly people of color in general. There is a heterosexual norm going on here. No one really wants to talk about it, but in most minority groups it is assumed that if you are a man- you are heterosexual.

What I don't understand is why there is a line dividing at all. You would think that being oppressed by assumptions about race or ethnicity would make people a little more understanding to people who are oppressed in other ways. But noooooooooo. That is not the case.

What upsets me more is that I have not realized this about some people I know sooner. That I have been living a life of "heterosexual privilege". That I am afforded rights, privileges, confidences, friendships, and tolerance because I am heterosexual and not homosexual. I think that is what upsets me most- the disappointment of idealism. No, having a college education does not make you a more understanding person. Maybe it does, but only to that extent where it affects you personally. Like if you were a heterosexual person of color you wouldn't care about homosexual rights. Although I do not excuse people of no color either. I think the GLBTQ communities do tend to exclude people of color (this goes for "women's" issues too) and more could be done bridging these gaps.

I think they're all interconnected. The "isms", "ists", binaries. You expose one facet of the prejudiced and discriminatory nature of oppression when you expose another. In my world you can't close your eyes and pick and choose.

[1] From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterosexism and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homophobia

Ms. Esoteric gets [another] job.

2006-06-07T19:17:00.000-07:00

So this is the third day of my new job at school (count them all- I've held 4 different campus jobs in only 2 years! And the other 3 are only on hiatus because its summer). Anyway, something interesting is that this job is at a place which focuses on identity issues. The funny thing (different, not haha) is that in that workspace the "norm" is actually queerness of some sort. Which makes me think how priviliged I am in one respect to be heterosexual. You really can't sense privilege until you have been oppressed.

Anyway, its interesting because we did "getting to know you" activities. I didn't know if it was appropriate for me to state that I was heterosexual. I wonder since my lack of stating my sexual identity makes people assume one way or the other. But its weird because...I don't know...I felt that saying that I was "straight" would remind people that they are oppressed by their sexual orientation in the "real world". And that makes me sad that the difference creates oppression and that the place I work is probably one of the few safe spaces for people who identify as such. And- dare I say it- I did feel guilty. Guilty because I did forget that issue was big for people. While work is quite rewarding (personally and social justice wise) - occasionally I feel like a fish out of water.

On a different and random note (well if you want to talk about privileged and oppressed I suppose)- Brian Billbray won the Congressional seat over Francine Busby in San Diego. I remember when I was there- the negative campaign commercials against Busby highlighted the fact that she voted for immigrant rights on a congressional bill. Funny how that might be a positive thing here in Berkeley. Its still a "reality check" whenever I go home to San Diego and remember how much of a liberal black sheep I am to my family.

Baaaaaaaa.

Train Musings Part I: On Nature

2006-06-04T07:46:00.000-07:00

[just to update on the previous post...I emailed a few folks and we're trying to do something/anything...so I'll let you all (all the 3 avid readers of this blog =P) know what's going down]

But on a different note...

Today I arrived back in Berkeley after a much needed week in San Diego.

From point A to point B. I wonder why it feels like such an adventure to ride the Amtrak from San Diego to Berkeley. With planes you fly hundreds of miles from place to place within hours. A distance of 500 miles is reduced to an hour and a half plane ride. All you see are clouds (if you're lucky enough to get a window seat). But the train ride was different. I looked out from the train window to the landscape passing by and I remembered the phrase "so beautiful it hurts". Seeing the shore where waves and land meet, dotted with colorful beach houses, and flowing waves made me remember how beautiful California is. And how beautiful nature is. Sometimes I tend to forget because I'm so immersed in technology, in machinery, in human manufactured products (objectification). I forget how beautiful nature is. Even those beach houses couldn't overwhelm nature's beauty. As if nature were somehow letting the people share in the wonder as guests- not conquerors of nature.

And it reminded me that this "taken- for-granted" aspect of humanity (at least some sects of it) contribute to so many misunderstandings in the world. Humans create borders. Create spaces for people to be in and for others to be out. We create monstrous large structures of steel and glass so to better "let nature in" to these buildings. Which is ironic to say the least. That first people destroy nature and then find ways of "fixing" it.

The scene reminded me of a lot of things that have been marinating in my mind. Global warming. Neglect for other cultures. I remember watching a CNN special on global warming and how certain islands in the Pacific (like some of the Cook Islands or something) are steadily becoming swallowed by the ocean because water levels are rising (due to the melting of glaciers). I am so dismayed/depressed that people who have built their livelihood and their home on that island must face the eventuality of leaving because they are being literally forced out of their home. Who gets blamed for this? Greedy consumers of ozone depleting products? The people who use fossil fuels as energy sources? Overpopulation? No one and everyone it seems.

Yes. I could get caught up in the "environmental" movement and perhaps my words now are echoing those sentiments. From what I have seen, the problem with most environmentalists (and I suppose you could include vegetarians) is that they tend to believe that the "race problem" is over and we need to move on to the environmental problem. Which I do not believe. I believe both are problems, but not necessarily unrelated. I do think that humans, by creating borders and these systems of wealth and poverty, may have somehow gone against nature. But then I suppose you could argue that "surivival of the fittest" can apply to humanity's actions (social darwinism) and so there must be the haves and have nots in order for society to function.

What was my point? I think that its difficult to choose. That there shouldn't be all these borders (geographic, categorization wise, "ists"/"isms", etc). Nature is something to be valued and taken care of. Human beings may have the ability to destroy nature, but they are also a part of the environment I am talking about. Simplistically, I think everything is related somehow and maybe if we start valuing each other and our environment- we might accomplish something. But that is very simplistic indeed. And idealistic too.

Mail Order Housewives: Philippines

2006-05-25T22:17:00.000-07:00

Mail Order Housewives: Philippines
on iN DEMAND Pay Per View

I can't even process this right now. We were looking at the listings and I thought I was going crazy. It was bad enough on the internet- now its on tv. I am so angry I can't even think straight.

(click on the pictures if you want to see them full size. It took me a little to do it. Even though I knew what was coming)

How does one react to this? Write letters to comcast? OnDemand? The porn industry?!?!

This should not be allowed. How does anyone think this is OK? And it is really scary that the idea of Mail Order Brides have embedded themselves into popular (or at least porn/fetishist) culture so much so that they have a movie about it?! This shows how commonplace and how marketable human trade and trafficking is. And how people exploit others for money. People using the Filipina body as an idealized image of all that is desirable, "exotic"- all while at the same time degrading it to "suit your every need". I knew mail order bride internet sites existed, but the fact that it is now in a movie is a whole other level entirely. Moving pictures. Complete control of bodies in motion. Maybe I am overreacting (I think not), but I don't recall any mail order brides excuse me, housewives movies available on iN DEMAND recently.

I think its also interesting how they chose "Mail Order Housewife" instead of "bride". They have even removed the slight honor "bride" gives through marriage rites and instead chose "housewife" which implies that Filipinas are there as workers who take care of the home.

I don't know what to do. I want to do something. Possibly involving me throwing the tv out the window- but seeing as it's not my tv and I will have a very angry roommate...not really feasible. I can't believe things like this happen. I mean can you excuse the porn industry just because it feeds on the basest and most vile of human desires? I say you can. I say that people should speak up and demand that things like this- disgusting, degrading, horrible, upsetting - movies like this should not be available "on demand". It is enough that you have commodified marriage? Is it enough that this is promoting what I think should be stopped. Its completely appalling. Something should be done. But I don't know who to blame. Everyone. Anyone. I know this might not help too much, but I think at least a letter writing campaign against iN DEMAND or something like that.

*Note: I just found out on the iN DEMAND website that it's "premiere" is today and will be playing until July 16. This must be stopped.

Esoteric Goal (Somewhat Accomplished)

2006-05-15T22:30:00.000-07:00

I'm hoping in some small way this is the electron that sets the atom that gets the ball rolling on...something anything

And Gladys noted in first in her blog, but that someone actually cared to give a hard copy to my Soc Advisor makes me feel somewhat accomplished:

From: "Joel Gagnon"

Subject: Center for Race and Gender News Letter

Date: Mon, 15 May 2006 12:18:28 -0700

To: Diana

Diana: A representative from the center for race and gender left a copy of their newsletter in my office with your name on it. I believe he said that you wrote something that was printed in this addition of the newsletter. If you would like to pick up your copy please visit me in 426 Barrows between 9-12 and 1-4. Sincerely, Joel Joel Gagnon, Undergraduate Advisor
______________________________________________

Of course, this could be nothing. And I think a lot of Gladys editing skillz (yes with a z) helped turn my feeble attempt at writing into something worthy of a reputable newsletter.

I only hope that my skills improve and (hope against hope) you might see my name a little more. But it may be a first and last kind of situation- who knows.

I only hope that I can accomplish what I expect of me and maybe even what others expect of me. But it's ~~somewhat~~ ~~kind of~~ really difficult. Finals kind of make you reflect on all that you have done in the past year - and a lot of what you haven't.

My Esoteric Crushes

2006-05-09T14:39:00.000-07:00

Well life is heavy and stressful...it's time to FUN BLOG!

And the subject of today's frothy frippery is: Some celebri-crushes. I say this will be fun to look at while I'm ~~procrastinating~~ studying for finals.

Always be a sucker for:

Colin Firth

Ok, especially in Pride and Prejudice. Mr. Darcy.

Johnny Depp

He's a great actor and I love the atypical roles he takes. Gypsy?

Nerdy Guy Crush: Jeff Goldblum
Mostly for Independence Day and a little known 80's movie "Earth Girls are Easy" (not a fan of the title, but look at the 80s version of alien- HEE LAIR EEE OUS)

Masked and Swashbuckling Crush: Antonio Banderas

Iron Chef Crush: Masaharu Morimoto
Everyone liked Chef Sakai, but he ALWAYS won. Sometimes I think the only reason I watch Iron Chef America is for Moriomoto (ok maybe that one red-haired guy too..duh and the food).

Nerdy Chef Crush: Alton Brown
Good Eats and the science of cooking. So great!

New (Guilty) Crush: Josh Peck
I always thought he was hilarious, but it was recently pointed out to those eyes. Whew. Yes, he's on Nickelodeon.

Do we notice a pattern here? Ok, so I'm a sucker for your typical "tall dark and handsome" genre (plus some nerdy dudes too).

I limited myself to eight...because well then the list would get too long.
But we'll say "honorable mention":
Stephen Colbert (previously blogged about), Jason Scott Lee, Paolo Montalban, Jimmy Fallon, Luke Wilson, I don't know who else...

[new add] I forgot him- but is was pointed out and I couldn't NOT add him.

Naveen Andrews (and btw, I don't watch Lost, but maybe I should..)