From Racialicious.com
Allure Marks Shifting Beauty Standards; Declares The “All-American Beauty” Ideal Dead
By Latoya Peterson On March 23, 2011 · 26 Comments and 48 Reactions
by Latoya Peterson
In the March 2011 issue of Allure, the beauty bible chose to celebrate their 20th anniversary by looking at the changing ways in which we define beauty.
Two decades ago, Allure conducted a study with 1,000 men and women called “What Beauty Means to You.” A clear picture of what was considered beautiful emerged – and her name is Christie Brinkley:
But the last 20 years have brought major changes to our nation – and no where is this more evident than our ideas of who is considered most beautiful. The new celebrity “ideal” according to Allure is now Angelina Jolie:
But here’s what’s really interesting. Allure also showed photos of non-celebrity models and asked respondents to rank the person who was most attractive. The top winners? A Latina female and a South Asian male (identified as a person of Indian descent).
Major takeaways from the study:
* 69 percent of all respondents believe there is no longer any such thing as the “all-American” look
* 85 percent believe that increased diversity in this country has changed what people consider beautiful.
* 64 percent of all our respondents think women of mixed race represent the epitome of beauty, and around 70 percent believe they might well be attracted to those who aren’t of their own race or ethnicity.
* 74 percent of all respondents said they wanted [their lips] to be fuller.
* 69% of respondents believe there is no longer any such thing as the “all-American” look.
* 79% agree that being perceived as beautiful or handsome increases self-confidence.
* “The regal, elegantly varnished blonde has been effectively dethroned. Not demolished, mind you–she still has access to a pedestal; it’s just not hers exclusively, and it’s come down a few inches.”
* 46 percent of all women (especially white women) find fair hair beautiful
* Of those respondents who said they wished to change their skin color, 70 percent reported that they wanted it to be darker. Among women, the desire to deepen their skin tone is especially pronounced.
* 86 percent of everyone surveyed think that middle-aged women today are perceived as more attractive than they were two decades ago.
* Members of both sexes say that, most of all, they want their stomachs to be flatter.
* African-Americans of both genders are more likely than anyone else to say beauty isn’t simply a matter of good looks, that wealth and power enhance appeal.
* Middle-aged women, 40 percent of them in fact, worry about aging.
* Hispanic men–55 percent of them–tend to believe that a female stranger would consider them attractive, and they are also the most likely among all respondents to say they use that appeal to attain stature and ascendancy in the workplace.
* Caucasian men aren’t so sure about their general appeal (a mere 29 percent think a stranger’s verdict would prove positive).
* “Black and Hispanic men are nearly twice as likely as Caucasian men to view the derriere with the kind of special fondness and rapt absorption once devoted exclusively to D-cup breasts.”
* 45 percent of black and Hispanic men think a prominent butt is among a woman’s most attractive features (28 percent of white males agree with that)
* 74% believe that a curvier body type is more appealing now than it has been over the past ten years.
* “[T]he highest rates of aesthetic self-confidence and pleasure in one’s own body exist among African-American women, and they are the most likely among all respondents to embrace and aspire to curvy hips, as well as a larger, rounder butt. They are also the least likely to be on a diet or worry about weight (Caucasian women are the most likely to focus on weight).
* [H]ere’s what a third of all black women predict they’ll do to decrease signs of aging: nothing at all. (Just so you know: This kind of attitude isn’t exactly catching on across the spectrum. About 85 percent of all Caucasian and Hispanic women report that they are definitely going to do something to fight signs of aging.)
Interestingly, other outlets have really distilled down the study to “mixed race people are beautiful” which really leaves out a lot of what Allure is saying about the changing face of beauty in America. For example, the “top model” selection contained some major distinctions:
“When shown photos of various races and ethnicities, women found that the handsomest man in the group happened to be of Indian descent. The most attractive female, in the view of both sexes, was the Latina model (54 percent of all women preferred her looks), followed closely by a model of mixed race. (African American men considered the black female model the most beautiful.)”
Asian Americans did not appear to make up a large group for the study and were not broken out specifically. Indigenous folks and anyone else that does not fit the Caucasian-Black-Hispanic categorization were also excluded.
The findings have begun to show a clear shift in what Americans consider beautiful, leaning toward browner faces and “dethroning” the blond ideal. However, some things have remained frustratingly the same.
Allure doesn’t really talk about a major issue – the violence of revulsion. While it may appear as those certain types of features (fuller lips, darker skin, rounder behinds) are becoming more mainstream and accepted, the folks who possess these features have not gained the same level of acceptance. Minh-ha T. Pham breaks down the concept for us over at Threadbared, while discussing yet another blackface focused fashion editorial:
But what is on display in French Vogue and on Diez’s runway is not beautiful black bodies, but what Nirmal Puwar describes as “the universal empty point” that white female bodies are able to occupy precisely because their bodies are racially unmarked: “[Thus] they can play with the assigned particularity of ethnicized dress without suffering the ‘violence of revulsion.’”
The “violence of revulsion” that women of color generally, and black women particularly in the cases of this issue of French Vogue and Diez’s show, experience is not mediated by these “edgy” acts of “postracialism”. In fact, the violence of revulsion is redoubled here. Blackface highlights the privileged universal empty point that white bodies continue to occupy even in this so-called postracial moment, and in so doing, it positions racial difference against whiteness, as the other to whiteness.
Society, despite the changes in individual preference, still posits whiteness as the most aspirational part of beauty. For decades, Asian Americans were not represented in leading roles on television. Even now, in a television season full of Asian American characters, no one comes to mind as a dashing lead – most are sidekicks, and relatively few are allowed to even compete with white leads for lines or status. The runways still default back to a white version of beauty every couple of years – after they promoted some new group as flavor of the month. African American entrants to the Hollywood elite have stayed at the same levels for decades (one in one out…), and the Oscars remains an overwhelmingly white event.
Allure’s next photo shoot reveals how this type of acceptance plays out, featuring a variety of models from various races and ethnicities…but who all have the same essential look.
Skin tones range from pale to mid brown, lips are uniformly full, features are uniformly keen, bodies are still uniformly thin, and hair is from straight to loosely curled. In this way, we acknowledge the world has changed – but swap an old, exclusive beauty standard for a new one.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Democrat says racism played role in election losses
USA Today
By Catalina Camia, USA TODAY
733 Comments
11 Recommend
Updated at 12:48 p.m. ET
Democratic congressman Jim Moran said racism was one factor in his party's losses in the 2010 midterm elections, invoking President Obama's race, slavery and the Civil War in a TV interview.
Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., on right, has blamed racism for Democratic election losses in 2010. He's pictured here with former congressman Tom Davis, R-Va.
CAPTION
By Charles Dharapak, AP
Moran, a Virginia lawmaker, told Arab network Alhurra after Obama's State of the Union Address earlier this week that "a lot of people in this country ... don't want to be governed by an African-American."
He went on to say that Democrats essentially lost the majority in the U.S. House for "the same reason the Civil War happened in the United States...the Southern states, particularly the slaveholding states, didn't want to see a president who was opposed to slavery."'
His comments were part of a larger interview, in which he discussed foreign policy, the economy and other issues. Moran has said that he believes concerns about jobs and the economy were the primary reasons Democrats took a drubbing at the polls.
In the biggest midterm election change since 1938, the GOP won 63 House seats -- easily eclipsing the Republican Revolution of 1994 that put Newt Gingrich in the speaker's chair.
Moran's remarks were first reported by The Weekly Standard and picked up by other news outlets.
Anne Hughes, a spokeswoman for Moran, said the congressman "was expressing his frustration" about the nation's struggle with racial equality. "Rather than ignore this issue or pretend it isn't there, the congressman believes we are better off discussing it in order to overcome it," she said in a statement.
Moran, first elected in 1990, has a history of making controversial remarks and is known for his combative personality. For example, he angered Jewish groups in 2007 by suggesting the American Israel Public Affairs Committee pushed the United States to go to war with Iraq. In the mid-1990s, Moran got into a shoving match with a Republican congressman.
The National Republican Congressional Committee sent out a news release entitled "Civility," highlighting Moran's comments.
The GOP campaign committee mentioned remarks made earlier this month by Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., who apologized for invoking Nazis and the Holocaust during a speech about GOP efforts to repeal the health care law, and by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, who suggested overturning the law would end up "killing Americans."
By Catalina Camia, USA TODAY
733 Comments
11 Recommend
Updated at 12:48 p.m. ET
Democratic congressman Jim Moran said racism was one factor in his party's losses in the 2010 midterm elections, invoking President Obama's race, slavery and the Civil War in a TV interview.
Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., on right, has blamed racism for Democratic election losses in 2010. He's pictured here with former congressman Tom Davis, R-Va.
CAPTION
By Charles Dharapak, AP
Moran, a Virginia lawmaker, told Arab network Alhurra after Obama's State of the Union Address earlier this week that "a lot of people in this country ... don't want to be governed by an African-American."
He went on to say that Democrats essentially lost the majority in the U.S. House for "the same reason the Civil War happened in the United States...the Southern states, particularly the slaveholding states, didn't want to see a president who was opposed to slavery."'
His comments were part of a larger interview, in which he discussed foreign policy, the economy and other issues. Moran has said that he believes concerns about jobs and the economy were the primary reasons Democrats took a drubbing at the polls.
In the biggest midterm election change since 1938, the GOP won 63 House seats -- easily eclipsing the Republican Revolution of 1994 that put Newt Gingrich in the speaker's chair.
Moran's remarks were first reported by The Weekly Standard and picked up by other news outlets.
Anne Hughes, a spokeswoman for Moran, said the congressman "was expressing his frustration" about the nation's struggle with racial equality. "Rather than ignore this issue or pretend it isn't there, the congressman believes we are better off discussing it in order to overcome it," she said in a statement.
Moran, first elected in 1990, has a history of making controversial remarks and is known for his combative personality. For example, he angered Jewish groups in 2007 by suggesting the American Israel Public Affairs Committee pushed the United States to go to war with Iraq. In the mid-1990s, Moran got into a shoving match with a Republican congressman.
The National Republican Congressional Committee sent out a news release entitled "Civility," highlighting Moran's comments.
The GOP campaign committee mentioned remarks made earlier this month by Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., who apologized for invoking Nazis and the Holocaust during a speech about GOP efforts to repeal the health care law, and by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, who suggested overturning the law would end up "killing Americans."
'Oldest form of racism' rears head as attacks against Jews rise
Published Date:
03 February 2011
By Chris Bond
Yorkshire Post
Last year there were 639 reports of bigoted violence and abuse against the Jewish community.
It is the second highest number of anti-Semitic incidents ever recorded by the Community Security Trust (CST). The charity, which monitors anti-Semitism in the UK, said these included street attacks, hate mail, threats, and the vandalism and desecration of Jewish property.
Although the figures were significantly lower than 2009, when 926 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded, fuelled by the ground invasion of Gaza by Israeli forces, researchers say they reflect a continuing long-term trend.
The number of physical and verbal attacks against Jews has doubled over the past decade and John Mann, chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Anti-Semitism, said the figures were a "sad and timely reminder", adding: "Our focus is absolute and we will continue to do all we can to ensure these numbers go down over the coming years."
The CST said the raid on the Gaza aid flotilla in May and prominent Jewish festivals in September led to two spikes in the number of incidents. There were 114 violent anti-Semitic attacks in the UK last year, down from 124 in 2009. But worryingly, the number of violent assaults rose as a proportion of the overall total, from 13 per cent in 2009 to 18 per cent last year.
London (219), Manchester (216), Hertfordshire (40) and Leeds (21) had the highest number of recorded anti-Semitic incidents in the country. It's no coincidence that these areas are home to four of the country's largest Jewish communities, but nevertheless the rising trend is cause for concern.
"We have this pattern that whenever there's a crisis in the Middle East involving Israel we see a rise in anti-Semitic incidents in Britain," says CST spokesman, Dave Rich. "But what I think is worrying is after 2009 we expected a big fall last year and although the number of incidents did fall by a third, the trend over the past 10 years is heading upwards and what we are seeing is street racism that is becoming more embedded."
Among the incidents reported was an assault on a Jewish man in Leeds who was standing at a cash machine when a car containing three or four men drove past. One of the occupants shouted "Jude" before they pelted him with eggs. In January last year, the words "F*** the Jews" with a swastika were drawn on a desk at Leeds University, while in Manchester a Jewish-looking man was about to get into his car when a large group of children shouted, "Hitler is coming" at him and threw a brick through his rear window.Such shocking behaviour will rightly upset people, but does the increase in the number of incidents being reported mean racial tension is rising?
"The numbers are a lot higher now and that is partly because we have become more integrated within the Jewish community, so we expected the report rate would increase. But that alone can't explain the year-on-year rise we are seeing," says Mr Rich.
"It could be because we get these spikes and the figures never quite go back to where they were before. There are different types of anti-Semitism and sometimes it relates to anti-social behaviour. It doesn't define Jewish life in this country, but it's a problem that is present for people and the more Jewish you look the more likely you are to be targeted."
Labour's Rotherham MP Denis MacShane, author of Globalising Hatred: The New Anti-Semitism, is concerned by what is happening. "Anti-Semitism has resurfaced recently in a very worrying way, so that people are attacked simply because they are Jewish, not because of the views that they hold. People are forgetting where anti-Semitism can lead, it's the oldest form of racism," he says. "It has moved away from the anti-Semitism of the 30s, but it's back out there in a way that it wasn't 25 or 30 years ago."
Which is why it still needs to be tackled. "We expose it, we report it and we don't allow it to resurface. I would like to see one of the big universities in our region starting a course dedicated to the study of anti-Semitism that looks at it in both historical and contemporary terms."
Fabian Hamilton, MP for Leeds North East (Lab), says although we are a much more tolerant and accepting society these days, there are still small pockets of communities that feed on ignorance and prejudice.
"If I talk to Jewish people about anti-Semitic crime they will say it was ever thus and ask if it is happening to others, and sadly the answer is 'yes'."
03 February 2011
By Chris Bond
Yorkshire Post
Last year there were 639 reports of bigoted violence and abuse against the Jewish community.
It is the second highest number of anti-Semitic incidents ever recorded by the Community Security Trust (CST). The charity, which monitors anti-Semitism in the UK, said these included street attacks, hate mail, threats, and the vandalism and desecration of Jewish property.
Although the figures were significantly lower than 2009, when 926 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded, fuelled by the ground invasion of Gaza by Israeli forces, researchers say they reflect a continuing long-term trend.
The number of physical and verbal attacks against Jews has doubled over the past decade and John Mann, chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Anti-Semitism, said the figures were a "sad and timely reminder", adding: "Our focus is absolute and we will continue to do all we can to ensure these numbers go down over the coming years."
The CST said the raid on the Gaza aid flotilla in May and prominent Jewish festivals in September led to two spikes in the number of incidents. There were 114 violent anti-Semitic attacks in the UK last year, down from 124 in 2009. But worryingly, the number of violent assaults rose as a proportion of the overall total, from 13 per cent in 2009 to 18 per cent last year.
London (219), Manchester (216), Hertfordshire (40) and Leeds (21) had the highest number of recorded anti-Semitic incidents in the country. It's no coincidence that these areas are home to four of the country's largest Jewish communities, but nevertheless the rising trend is cause for concern.
"We have this pattern that whenever there's a crisis in the Middle East involving Israel we see a rise in anti-Semitic incidents in Britain," says CST spokesman, Dave Rich. "But what I think is worrying is after 2009 we expected a big fall last year and although the number of incidents did fall by a third, the trend over the past 10 years is heading upwards and what we are seeing is street racism that is becoming more embedded."
Among the incidents reported was an assault on a Jewish man in Leeds who was standing at a cash machine when a car containing three or four men drove past. One of the occupants shouted "Jude" before they pelted him with eggs. In January last year, the words "F*** the Jews" with a swastika were drawn on a desk at Leeds University, while in Manchester a Jewish-looking man was about to get into his car when a large group of children shouted, "Hitler is coming" at him and threw a brick through his rear window.Such shocking behaviour will rightly upset people, but does the increase in the number of incidents being reported mean racial tension is rising?
"The numbers are a lot higher now and that is partly because we have become more integrated within the Jewish community, so we expected the report rate would increase. But that alone can't explain the year-on-year rise we are seeing," says Mr Rich.
"It could be because we get these spikes and the figures never quite go back to where they were before. There are different types of anti-Semitism and sometimes it relates to anti-social behaviour. It doesn't define Jewish life in this country, but it's a problem that is present for people and the more Jewish you look the more likely you are to be targeted."
Labour's Rotherham MP Denis MacShane, author of Globalising Hatred: The New Anti-Semitism, is concerned by what is happening. "Anti-Semitism has resurfaced recently in a very worrying way, so that people are attacked simply because they are Jewish, not because of the views that they hold. People are forgetting where anti-Semitism can lead, it's the oldest form of racism," he says. "It has moved away from the anti-Semitism of the 30s, but it's back out there in a way that it wasn't 25 or 30 years ago."
Which is why it still needs to be tackled. "We expose it, we report it and we don't allow it to resurface. I would like to see one of the big universities in our region starting a course dedicated to the study of anti-Semitism that looks at it in both historical and contemporary terms."
Fabian Hamilton, MP for Leeds North East (Lab), says although we are a much more tolerant and accepting society these days, there are still small pockets of communities that feed on ignorance and prejudice.
"If I talk to Jewish people about anti-Semitic crime they will say it was ever thus and ask if it is happening to others, and sadly the answer is 'yes'."
OH Gov Kasich Faces Racism Charges: Hires All-White Cabinet
February 4, 2011 by Desiree Washington
from Popdecay
Ohio’s newly elected Republican Governor John Kasich came under heavy fire this week for hiring an all White cabinet. When confronted with his failure to hire any persons of color to do the “people’s work,” the Republican said “I don’t need your people.” By “you people,” he was referring to African-Americans, according to Democratic State Sen. Nina Turner, who witnessed the statement first hand.
But Kasich’s spokesperson said the Governor has been misquoted and that the comment at issue was merely intended as a partisan attack. Kasich meant to say: ”‘Your people are Democrats, we don’t need them on our cabinet, ” says Kasich’s representative. Even if this defensive statement is true, Kasich’s explanation does not settle why he has no people of color in his cabinet. After all, the former Republican National Committee Chairman, Michael Steele, is Republican.
The governor was a commentator on Fox News Channel, hosting “Heartland with John Kasich,” from 2001 to 2007. In the 2010 Ohio gubernatorial election, Kasich helped Republicans give Democrats a “shellacking,” narrowly defeated Democratic incumbent Ted Strickland.
from Popdecay
Ohio’s newly elected Republican Governor John Kasich came under heavy fire this week for hiring an all White cabinet. When confronted with his failure to hire any persons of color to do the “people’s work,” the Republican said “I don’t need your people.” By “you people,” he was referring to African-Americans, according to Democratic State Sen. Nina Turner, who witnessed the statement first hand.
But Kasich’s spokesperson said the Governor has been misquoted and that the comment at issue was merely intended as a partisan attack. Kasich meant to say: ”‘Your people are Democrats, we don’t need them on our cabinet, ” says Kasich’s representative. Even if this defensive statement is true, Kasich’s explanation does not settle why he has no people of color in his cabinet. After all, the former Republican National Committee Chairman, Michael Steele, is Republican.
The governor was a commentator on Fox News Channel, hosting “Heartland with John Kasich,” from 2001 to 2007. In the 2010 Ohio gubernatorial election, Kasich helped Republicans give Democrats a “shellacking,” narrowly defeated Democratic incumbent Ted Strickland.
It’s the Dog That’s Racist: Discovering the Legend of White Dog
By Sexual Correspondent Andrea (AJ) Plaid
I’m glad I saw the legend, at least.
I had heard about Samuel Fuller’s film White Dog in whispers, like a deeper-than-the-FBI-and-the-Illuminati-plotting-in-Area-51 conspiracy theory among my more “conscious” Black acquaintances — mostly because the film was banned, though no one ever said exactly why.
Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I attended a screening of the film at the the Maysles Cinema in Harlem, hosted by the the Ego Trip hip hop collective – who are, in full disclosure, the R editrix’s heroes – as part of the movie’s house series, “I See White People,” billed in the theater’s program as a “quarterly series on the visibility of white racism, white privilege, and unacknowledged white culture.” Ego Trip’s Chairman Jefferson Mao added, deadpan, that the film was chosen because “we’re fans of the racist dog horror genre.”
To say the film’s history is “complex” should qualify it as one of the word’s understated synonyms. The history of the book upon which it’s based would qualify as another synonym. Spoilers and highlights from a Q&A discussion Ego Trip hosted after the screening are under the cut. (If you have a slightly deeper quick-and-dirty curiosity, read here.)
SPOILERS AHEAD
The plot is rather simple: Julie, a young white actor (played by 80s teen star Kristy McNichol) decides to adopt a white German shepherd she hit during a nighttime drive. She thinks the dog is the perfect pet. However, other people suss something’s wrong with it, starting with the actor’s white boyfriend (Jameson Parker). What’s wrong is the white dog is a “white dog,” a canine trained to lethally attack Black people, from the sanitation worker to the actor’s Black co-star to a random pedestrian.
When Julie finally recognizes this, she sends the dog to a wild-animal training refuge for re-education. The refuge’s owners are divided on what to do with it: Carruthers (Burl Ives), a white man, tells her the dog is a lost cause; Keys (Paul Winfield), a black man, reluctantly, then determinedly, tries to reform it.
Keys also explains to Julie that the dog’s behavior was probably the result of conditioning: the original owner paid homeless and/or drug-addicted Black people to abuse the dog when it was younger, to the point that the dog was conditioned to associate Black people and being attacked. This is underscored by an encounter between Julie and the owner, an older white man and his two granddaughters. Later, the dog, retrained to not attack Black people, hesitates about attacking Julie, then turns and runs towards Carruthers in teeth-baring mode. The dog leaps, and Keys shoots.
Director Roman Polanski was hired to direct White Dog in 1975 before his being brought up on statutory rape charges led him to leave the U.S. Six years and several creative teams later, screenwriter Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential), who was to have worked with Polanski, and director Samuel Fuller took on the project (with the encouragement, curiously, of ex-Disney CEO Michael Eisner.)
At the time, the NAACP, along with other civil-right leaders and organizations, expressed concern that the film would spark racial violence, questioned using a book written by a white man (and a “pulpy” book at that), and criticized Paramount for hiring the mostly white film crew. The studio brought in two Black consultants to critique the Black characters. One, a vice-president at the local PBS station, said he found nothing wrong with the depictions; the other, an NAACP vice-president, thought the film would aggravate race relations in light of the Atlanta child murders occurring at the time.
Fearing a NAACP-threatened boycott, the studio shelved the project without telling Fuller. Infuriated by Paramount’s action, Fuller moved to France and “never directed another American film.” White Dog was theatrically released in France and the U.K. to positive reviews in 1982. The first time the movie appeared in wide release in the U.S. was as an edited-for-TV movie for cable in 1983. NBC planned to broadcast White Dog in 1984, but scrubbed the plan due to continued pressure from the NAACP. At best, some people may have caught the flick in the subsequent years in art-house movie houses and at film festivals. Finally, the Criterion Collection released White Dog on DVD in 2008.
The ensuing Q&A became a fascinating discussion of why the dog would have become such a trigger for the NAACP’s fear. As Ego Trip’s Gabriel Alvarez noted, “Using the dog to symbolize racism is interesting because the dog is seen as part of family.”
One audience member said that, because of the furor surrounding the Michael Vick dog-fighting scandal, the pop consciousness around dogs and African-Americans, especially men, would drastically alter White Dog’s reception if released today — especially in light of Keys having to kill the dog at film’s end. Other audience contributions from that night:
* “The symbol of dog is ingrained into the consciousness of Black people with the civil rights movements with dogs and hoses.”
* “I remember hearing about an MLK park where some people wanted to have a dog park. But it became a big issue along racial lines. What I found out was Black people felt it was disrespectful to have a dog park in a park named after MLK due to the history of dogs and Blacks and violence.”
* “What the movie shows is that there’s a need to be truth and there needs to be reconciliation. What I’ve noticed is that young white people need to be aggressive with their parents regarding racism.”
* “I want to know from white people how can white people facilitate change….”
* “By creating such things as film. Yeah, the film is cheesy, but there’s also a film language that Fuller uses.”
* “What people need to do is to understand and deconstruct that the country has been founded on inequality.”
The discussion turned to how the film dealt with racism itself, a topic I engaged in with Jefferson:
Me: It was a very ’80s message film.
The moderator responded that White Dog was “straightforward” about white racism.
Me: It was straightforward because it was the ’80s. So the racism was (more) obvious, so the message was obvious. Now it’s morphed into Glenn Beckian ‘I can be racist, but don’t call me a racist.’
Jefferson: Stylistically, it’s very 80s. But it was ahead of its time. Fuller’s career was interesting. He was known for a lot of B movies but tried to sneak in social issues. Yes, it’s 80s exploitation, but there are powerful moments, like the child getting whisked away while the dog is hunting.
Me: But saying that it’s very 80s isn’t a slag, but a simple observation.
After the Q&A, I shared my opinion with Gabriel that every decade has a “message” film about racism that is reflective of not only of time period stylistically, but also where ideas about racism were and are. The 80s had White Dog and John Sayles’ Brother from Another Planet. The 90s had John Sayles’ Lone Star, Anthony Drazan’s Zebrahead, and Tony Kaye’s American History X. All of them were “race message films” that were very much of their time.
Exiting the theater that night, I noted the strange irony — and hope – of the series being housed in an indie theater located in the nexus of white-gentrifying Harlem. Perhaps this series is a good tonic, if not a great meeting point, for whites and the PoCs left in Harlem to gather to talk about the transitioning nabe and how well-off whites gentrifying it isn’t simply viewed as a “the neighborhood changing” so much as a blithe takeover, fortified by unaddressed white privilege, of a perceived spiritual and physical home of some Black people and our allies in the US and the world. However, considering that two white couples who came to watch the flick left as soon as the film was over—and, as a result, tipped the Q&A audience to majority people of color. We’ll see.
The Maysles Cinema crew wants to take their “I See White People” series on tour. Next stop: Brooklyn, NY.
I’m glad I saw the legend, at least.
I had heard about Samuel Fuller’s film White Dog in whispers, like a deeper-than-the-FBI-and-the-Illuminati-plotting-in-Area-51 conspiracy theory among my more “conscious” Black acquaintances — mostly because the film was banned, though no one ever said exactly why.
Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I attended a screening of the film at the the Maysles Cinema in Harlem, hosted by the the Ego Trip hip hop collective – who are, in full disclosure, the R editrix’s heroes – as part of the movie’s house series, “I See White People,” billed in the theater’s program as a “quarterly series on the visibility of white racism, white privilege, and unacknowledged white culture.” Ego Trip’s Chairman Jefferson Mao added, deadpan, that the film was chosen because “we’re fans of the racist dog horror genre.”
To say the film’s history is “complex” should qualify it as one of the word’s understated synonyms. The history of the book upon which it’s based would qualify as another synonym. Spoilers and highlights from a Q&A discussion Ego Trip hosted after the screening are under the cut. (If you have a slightly deeper quick-and-dirty curiosity, read here.)
SPOILERS AHEAD
The plot is rather simple: Julie, a young white actor (played by 80s teen star Kristy McNichol) decides to adopt a white German shepherd she hit during a nighttime drive. She thinks the dog is the perfect pet. However, other people suss something’s wrong with it, starting with the actor’s white boyfriend (Jameson Parker). What’s wrong is the white dog is a “white dog,” a canine trained to lethally attack Black people, from the sanitation worker to the actor’s Black co-star to a random pedestrian.
When Julie finally recognizes this, she sends the dog to a wild-animal training refuge for re-education. The refuge’s owners are divided on what to do with it: Carruthers (Burl Ives), a white man, tells her the dog is a lost cause; Keys (Paul Winfield), a black man, reluctantly, then determinedly, tries to reform it.
Keys also explains to Julie that the dog’s behavior was probably the result of conditioning: the original owner paid homeless and/or drug-addicted Black people to abuse the dog when it was younger, to the point that the dog was conditioned to associate Black people and being attacked. This is underscored by an encounter between Julie and the owner, an older white man and his two granddaughters. Later, the dog, retrained to not attack Black people, hesitates about attacking Julie, then turns and runs towards Carruthers in teeth-baring mode. The dog leaps, and Keys shoots.
Director Roman Polanski was hired to direct White Dog in 1975 before his being brought up on statutory rape charges led him to leave the U.S. Six years and several creative teams later, screenwriter Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential), who was to have worked with Polanski, and director Samuel Fuller took on the project (with the encouragement, curiously, of ex-Disney CEO Michael Eisner.)
At the time, the NAACP, along with other civil-right leaders and organizations, expressed concern that the film would spark racial violence, questioned using a book written by a white man (and a “pulpy” book at that), and criticized Paramount for hiring the mostly white film crew. The studio brought in two Black consultants to critique the Black characters. One, a vice-president at the local PBS station, said he found nothing wrong with the depictions; the other, an NAACP vice-president, thought the film would aggravate race relations in light of the Atlanta child murders occurring at the time.
Fearing a NAACP-threatened boycott, the studio shelved the project without telling Fuller. Infuriated by Paramount’s action, Fuller moved to France and “never directed another American film.” White Dog was theatrically released in France and the U.K. to positive reviews in 1982. The first time the movie appeared in wide release in the U.S. was as an edited-for-TV movie for cable in 1983. NBC planned to broadcast White Dog in 1984, but scrubbed the plan due to continued pressure from the NAACP. At best, some people may have caught the flick in the subsequent years in art-house movie houses and at film festivals. Finally, the Criterion Collection released White Dog on DVD in 2008.
The ensuing Q&A became a fascinating discussion of why the dog would have become such a trigger for the NAACP’s fear. As Ego Trip’s Gabriel Alvarez noted, “Using the dog to symbolize racism is interesting because the dog is seen as part of family.”
One audience member said that, because of the furor surrounding the Michael Vick dog-fighting scandal, the pop consciousness around dogs and African-Americans, especially men, would drastically alter White Dog’s reception if released today — especially in light of Keys having to kill the dog at film’s end. Other audience contributions from that night:
* “The symbol of dog is ingrained into the consciousness of Black people with the civil rights movements with dogs and hoses.”
* “I remember hearing about an MLK park where some people wanted to have a dog park. But it became a big issue along racial lines. What I found out was Black people felt it was disrespectful to have a dog park in a park named after MLK due to the history of dogs and Blacks and violence.”
* “What the movie shows is that there’s a need to be truth and there needs to be reconciliation. What I’ve noticed is that young white people need to be aggressive with their parents regarding racism.”
* “I want to know from white people how can white people facilitate change….”
* “By creating such things as film. Yeah, the film is cheesy, but there’s also a film language that Fuller uses.”
* “What people need to do is to understand and deconstruct that the country has been founded on inequality.”
The discussion turned to how the film dealt with racism itself, a topic I engaged in with Jefferson:
Me: It was a very ’80s message film.
The moderator responded that White Dog was “straightforward” about white racism.
Me: It was straightforward because it was the ’80s. So the racism was (more) obvious, so the message was obvious. Now it’s morphed into Glenn Beckian ‘I can be racist, but don’t call me a racist.’
Jefferson: Stylistically, it’s very 80s. But it was ahead of its time. Fuller’s career was interesting. He was known for a lot of B movies but tried to sneak in social issues. Yes, it’s 80s exploitation, but there are powerful moments, like the child getting whisked away while the dog is hunting.
Me: But saying that it’s very 80s isn’t a slag, but a simple observation.
After the Q&A, I shared my opinion with Gabriel that every decade has a “message” film about racism that is reflective of not only of time period stylistically, but also where ideas about racism were and are. The 80s had White Dog and John Sayles’ Brother from Another Planet. The 90s had John Sayles’ Lone Star, Anthony Drazan’s Zebrahead, and Tony Kaye’s American History X. All of them were “race message films” that were very much of their time.
Exiting the theater that night, I noted the strange irony — and hope – of the series being housed in an indie theater located in the nexus of white-gentrifying Harlem. Perhaps this series is a good tonic, if not a great meeting point, for whites and the PoCs left in Harlem to gather to talk about the transitioning nabe and how well-off whites gentrifying it isn’t simply viewed as a “the neighborhood changing” so much as a blithe takeover, fortified by unaddressed white privilege, of a perceived spiritual and physical home of some Black people and our allies in the US and the world. However, considering that two white couples who came to watch the flick left as soon as the film was over—and, as a result, tipped the Q&A audience to majority people of color. We’ll see.
The Maysles Cinema crew wants to take their “I See White People” series on tour. Next stop: Brooklyn, NY.
Top Gear Goes From Zero to Racist in Under Two Minutes
By Arturo R. García
Racialicious
Top Gear, the long-running British auto review show, is built upon a foundation of “guy talk.” But an outburst by the show’s three hosts this week once again crossed the line from mildly boorish to positively unnerving, this time prompting a political response.
The incident occurred during Sunday’s episode, when the trio – Richard Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson and James May (above l-r) – turned a review of a Mexican sports car into an exercise in racist “banter” about the country and its’ people. Video and transcript are under the cut.
And here’s a transcript of the segment:
James May: Have you ever wanted a Mexican sports car?
Jeremy Clarkson: Yes, I have!
JM: It’s good news, because there is one, and here it is [points to display] and it’s called the Tortilla.
JC: It is not – it is not called the Tortilla! What is it?
JM: I can’t remember, it’s something a bit …
JC: So you just made up the name, then, there you go.
JM: I’d forgotten, sorry
Richard Hammond: Why would you want a Mexican car? ‘Cause cars reflect national characteristics. So German cars are sort of very [unintelligible] and Italian cars, a bit flamboyant and quick. Mexican cars just gonna be lazy, feckless, flatulent, overweight, leaning against a fence asleep looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat.
JM: It is interesting because, they can’t do food, the Mexicans, can they? ‘Cause it’s all like sick with cheese on it.
RH: Refried sick!
JM: Yeah, refried sick.
JC: How much is this Mexican sports car?
JH: The refried Mexican sports car is 33 thousand pounds.
JC: That isn’t enough. It isn’t enough because somebody’s paid for that to be developed and it’s gotta be shipped. That’s 800 quid to the car right there.
JM: You say that, though, but they do say in their blurb it’s got rack-and-pinion steering.
RH: Wow, it’s got steering!
RH: I’m sorry, but just imagine waking up and remembering you’re Mexican.
JC: It’d be brilliant! It’d be brilliant ’cause you could just go straight back to sleep again.
RH: ‘That’s all I’m gonna do all day.’
JC: That’s why we’re not gonna get any complaints about this – ’cause the Mexican embassy, the ambassador’s gonna be sitting there with a remote control like this. [Clarkson slumps in his seat and starts "snoring."] They won’t complain. It’s fine!
In fact, the Mexican ambassador to the United Kingdom, Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza, called Clarkson’s bluff, writing to the BBC to demand a public apology from Clarkson and his cohorts. From Icaza’s letter, as quoted in The Guardian:
The presenters of the programme resorted to outrageous, vulgar and inexcusable insults to stir bigoted feelings against the Mexican people, their culture as well as their official representative in the United Kingdom …
These offensive, xenophobic and humiliating remarks serve only to reinforce negative stereotypes and perpetuate prejudice against Mexico and its people.
Having caught the show off and on over the years, what bothered me the most about this bit was that it really seemed different from many of their usual chats. Clarkson, in particular, will rip on cars from other European countries, but it’s at least presented in a more jovial manner, and directed at the auto makers, not their nationality. But the car was an afterthought here, and Hammond’s line about “remembering you’re Mexican” was delivered with a disturbing amount of flair. (SPOILERS for Mr. Hammond: I remember that every day, and it doesn’t get in the way of my workday.)
Moreover, this incident continues a recent trend of foot-in-mouth incidents for the show, and Clarkson in particular. Last year, he was chided by a British blind-person’s group for calling then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown “a one-eyed Scottish idiot” at a stage show in Australia. And two years ago, he had the remarkably bad idea of making a joke about lorry drivers killing prostitutes not long after a forklift driver was convicted in the murder of five prostitutes.
A BBC spokesperson told The Guardian it will respond directly to the ambassador regarding the matter.
Racialicious
Top Gear, the long-running British auto review show, is built upon a foundation of “guy talk.” But an outburst by the show’s three hosts this week once again crossed the line from mildly boorish to positively unnerving, this time prompting a political response.
The incident occurred during Sunday’s episode, when the trio – Richard Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson and James May (above l-r) – turned a review of a Mexican sports car into an exercise in racist “banter” about the country and its’ people. Video and transcript are under the cut.
And here’s a transcript of the segment:
James May: Have you ever wanted a Mexican sports car?
Jeremy Clarkson: Yes, I have!
JM: It’s good news, because there is one, and here it is [points to display] and it’s called the Tortilla.
JC: It is not – it is not called the Tortilla! What is it?
JM: I can’t remember, it’s something a bit …
JC: So you just made up the name, then, there you go.
JM: I’d forgotten, sorry
Richard Hammond: Why would you want a Mexican car? ‘Cause cars reflect national characteristics. So German cars are sort of very [unintelligible] and Italian cars, a bit flamboyant and quick. Mexican cars just gonna be lazy, feckless, flatulent, overweight, leaning against a fence asleep looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat.
JM: It is interesting because, they can’t do food, the Mexicans, can they? ‘Cause it’s all like sick with cheese on it.
RH: Refried sick!
JM: Yeah, refried sick.
JC: How much is this Mexican sports car?
JH: The refried Mexican sports car is 33 thousand pounds.
JC: That isn’t enough. It isn’t enough because somebody’s paid for that to be developed and it’s gotta be shipped. That’s 800 quid to the car right there.
JM: You say that, though, but they do say in their blurb it’s got rack-and-pinion steering.
RH: Wow, it’s got steering!
RH: I’m sorry, but just imagine waking up and remembering you’re Mexican.
JC: It’d be brilliant! It’d be brilliant ’cause you could just go straight back to sleep again.
RH: ‘That’s all I’m gonna do all day.’
JC: That’s why we’re not gonna get any complaints about this – ’cause the Mexican embassy, the ambassador’s gonna be sitting there with a remote control like this. [Clarkson slumps in his seat and starts "snoring."] They won’t complain. It’s fine!
In fact, the Mexican ambassador to the United Kingdom, Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza, called Clarkson’s bluff, writing to the BBC to demand a public apology from Clarkson and his cohorts. From Icaza’s letter, as quoted in The Guardian:
The presenters of the programme resorted to outrageous, vulgar and inexcusable insults to stir bigoted feelings against the Mexican people, their culture as well as their official representative in the United Kingdom …
These offensive, xenophobic and humiliating remarks serve only to reinforce negative stereotypes and perpetuate prejudice against Mexico and its people.
Having caught the show off and on over the years, what bothered me the most about this bit was that it really seemed different from many of their usual chats. Clarkson, in particular, will rip on cars from other European countries, but it’s at least presented in a more jovial manner, and directed at the auto makers, not their nationality. But the car was an afterthought here, and Hammond’s line about “remembering you’re Mexican” was delivered with a disturbing amount of flair. (SPOILERS for Mr. Hammond: I remember that every day, and it doesn’t get in the way of my workday.)
Moreover, this incident continues a recent trend of foot-in-mouth incidents for the show, and Clarkson in particular. Last year, he was chided by a British blind-person’s group for calling then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown “a one-eyed Scottish idiot” at a stage show in Australia. And two years ago, he had the remarkably bad idea of making a joke about lorry drivers killing prostitutes not long after a forklift driver was convicted in the murder of five prostitutes.
A BBC spokesperson told The Guardian it will respond directly to the ambassador regarding the matter.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Black population drops to 3.9% in San Francisco
by Macio Lyons
Members of the Osiris Coalition celebrate at City Hall after the historic passage of the Construction Local Hiring ordinance – from left, Carl Augustine, Macio Lyons, Ed Donaldson, Greg Doxey and Omar Khalif. Good jobs are essential to stop the hemorrhaging of Blacks from San Francisco.
Well, folks, I just heard another disturbing percentage as it pertains to Black people in the city of San Francisco the other day. Preliminary numbers are in from the 2010 Census.
Estimates put the remaining African American population for the city of San Francisco at around 3.9 percent! I hope that is just a low-ball estimate and those numbers will be revised upward, but still, my question is how did we get to this point?
Why are we leaving this city in such droves? Why isn’t City Hall doing more to stop the mass exodus of African Americans from this city? There was “The African American Out-Migration Report” commissioned in 2009 by Mayor Gavin Newsom’s office and the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, but there has been little in the way of policies by either of the two to stem the tide. If this was taking place with any other ethnic group, a citywide state of emergency would have been declared.
When I heard those numbers, I immediately put up a post on Facebook declaring my frustration. From there a great conversation started. Many people began to weigh in on what the problems were and what some of the solutions could be.
Mr. Kip Fuller, a Western Addition resident who owns an insurance business that offers State Farm Insurance, touted the importance of Blacks patronizing Black-owned businesses. He pointed to the Chinese community and their successful model and how as a group they have grown and thrived in this city.
He also made the assertion that many Black professionals sold their homes in San Francisco and relocated to places like Antioch, where they thought they were getting more house for their money. This is also true, but I think it is a lot more complex than just that.
While many Black homeowners made the move to other cities willingly, they weren’t the majority of our population. Historically, a very large percentage of our numbers have been based in public housing. As it stands now, about 50 percent of those who remain live in public housing.
[2]
The Osiris Coalition and allies hold a press conference at Third Street and Oakdale to launch the Student First initiative, which will be on the November ballot. Among the crowd are Malia Cohen, Calvin Louie, Teresa Duque, Omar Khalif, Greg Doxey, Ed Donaldson, Macio Lyons and Geoffrea Simpson-Morris.
Seeing that the housing projects in San Francisco are going the way of the dinosaur, what does that mean for our people who live there? The powers that be have had a long standing practice of systematic gentrification – i.e., dismantling public housing and only allowing a small number to return once the new units are built.
One of the tactics was making the re-entry requirements too stringent for them to return. Another practice of the City and the Housing Authority was to dangle the Section 8 carrot in front of people. Who could resist the opportunity to move to the suburbs and live in a 2,000 square foot house for $150 a month? There’s only a limited amount of affordable housing in San Francisco, and 80 percent of landlords don’t want anything to do with Section 8. Thus we have flight to places like Antioch, Pittsburg, Vallejo, Fairfield, Stockton etc.
While many Black homeowners made the move to other cities willingly, they weren’t the majority of our population.
Another tactic that is now being employed is gang injunctions. This in many cases breaks up families, and if the tenants are found to be in violation of the injunction, they themselves will be evicted.
There have also been many complaints of frivolous eviction policies by the SFHA for some of the most trivial reasons. Right now there is a very important piece of legislation about to come to a vote before the Board of Supervisors that will address this disturbing practice. The proposed bill is known as “The Right to Remain” and was shaped in large part by Osiris Coalition members and sponsored by Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi. This law will add many protections for the current residents and ensure their return as long as they left in “good standing,” and we are still working to make sure that bar isn’t set prohibitively high for most current tenants.
[3]
The Osiris Coalition – Omar Khalif, Ed Donaldson, Macio Lyons and Greg Doxey – meets with the Allen Group to discuss private workforce opportunities for the community.
According to some other disturbing numbers, we have close to 1,800 people returning from prison to Bayview Hunters Point every year. Where are they going to live? In many cases they can’t return to public housing because there are certain restrictions against people with felonies living in HUD-subsidized housing.
Some are also under these gang injunctions. Many of their relatives run the risk and have been evicted for allowing former prisoners to stay with them.
It is understandable that authorities want to stop the violence, but to ban someone from one area without addressing their issues only makes them someone else’s problem where they land. Look at the rising crime and murder rates for the suburban Bay Area cities that have received many of our former residents because of gentrification and recolonization.
Of these 1,800 or so parolees, 71 percent – 1,278 – will return to prison within a year of being released! This is due to the lack of economic opportunities. And that is one of the reasons the new Construction Local Hiring legislation is so important.
It will be imperative that we stay on top of City Hall and insist that the community remains a part of the equation in seeing that the new law is implemented fairly and correctly. Our community-based organizations need to step up to the plate in linking this population with services and job readiness training or they WILL re-offend!
BVHP gets around $110 million a year in funding for community-based organizations (CBOs), but, I ask, what is the impact? There is also a need to make sure that the community benefits agreement between the Alliance for District 10 and Lennar (AD-10 Lennar CBA) money earmarked for job training, affordable housing, and other community benefits is not squandered on misguided ventures like land trusts – look at the failure of Oakland’s land trust experiment! – or put in the hands of the usual suspects with no measurable accountability or outcomes.
With all of this talk about Gov. Brown dissolving the Redevelopment Agency in its current form, I think there is a great opportunity for the City of San Francisco to re-create the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency into an entity that is geared towards creating the benefits it was supposed to bring to the residents of the project areas it targets.
[4]
The Osiris Coalition and allies turn in the signatures at City Hall for placing the Students First for Quality Neighborhood Schools initiative on the November ballot.
Isn’t that what a redevelopment agency is supposed to do: Revitalize and rebuild the project area to stimulate economic activity and create workforce and business opportunities for those in the project area? Is that what we saw in the Fillmore? Yes, but for who? Was it for the benefit of those who lived there, or was it a land grab while the Black population was scattered to the four winds?
Bayview Hunters Point is the largest redevelopment area in San Francisco, and if the SFRA was revamped and put under City jurisdiction and was accountable to us, then all of the redevelopment going on in this area would fall under the 50 percent Construction Local Hiring Law. One of the biggest misconceptions is that the 50 percent mandate covers everything that is going on over here, but the fact is it doesn’t!
The redevelopment projects are exempt from the 50 percent mandate. While the SFRA does have a 50 percent Local Hire goal, it is based on “good faith.” Well, we see how that “good faith” is working out for us, right? I think that a locally accountable and controlled redevelopment agency is definitely worth exploring.
The lack of public safety is another great concern. Who wants to spend $450,000 on a house then have to worry about someone doing an armed home invasion or catching a stray bullet? The police’s response to the crime problem has been cookie-cutter and does nothing in the way of preventive solutions. Their answer has been to “lock ‘em up.” They come in to pick up the bodies after it’s over.
There is a strong belief in some circles that the rampant violence and lawlessness that went on during the mid ‘80s up until recently was allowed to continue unchecked by the “powers that be” so that we would remove OURSELVES from this city. Many of our population fled San Francisco to escape the violence and heartache of the loss of loved ones to street violence.
The last item that I want to mention, which probably should have been mentioned first, since this is what it all begins with, is education, or should I say the lack of quality public education in this city. Bayview Hunters Point has some of the worst performing schools in the City. This is due in large part to lack of proper funding. So what has the SFUSD’s response been? Bus our young residents all over the City to so-called “better” schools. This policy creates a number of problems:
[5]
Macio Lyons of the Osiris Coalition and the Southeast Community Development Corp., far right, Joshua Arce of the Brightline Defense Project, left, and Vincent Pan and another representative from Chinese for Affirmative Action hold a press conference at CAA headquarters for the unveiling of the telling report, “The Failure of Good Faith,” which made the case for local hire.
1. People from other parts of the city don’t want our kids coming into their neighborhoods and schools, so this creates an environment of mistrust and suspicion. The moment our kids do anything wrong, they are dealt with very heavy-handedly, and in many cases are criminalized.
2. If a child’s school is all the way on the other side of town, it creates a hardship for low-income parents to go up to the school and be hands-on in their child’s education. It is also very difficult for concerned parents to stay engaged and, if need be, hold their child’s teachers and school administrators accountable. The SFUSD’s school assignment system is one of the most confusing in the country to navigate.
3. While schools are to some extent tied to the property tax rolls, the money follows the children! So wherever that child goes to school, the money allocated for their education will go with them. This means that the money is following our children out of our neighborhood schools, where it is desperately needed. And it leads back to a very important question: Why can’t every neighborhood have their own quality neighborhood schools? Schools in close proximity to students’ homes will foster more parental involvement and reduce excessive absences and truancy. It may even reduce some of the gang violence and “set trippin’” over time, because these kids will be around each other. It’s a lot easier for them to hurt someone they don’t know, even if he only lives around the corner. Once upon a time they would’ve gone to the same school, but that’s not necessarily true anymore with the current school assignment procedures in place.
Osiris Coalition members were instrumental in helping to get the “Students First for Quality Neighborhood Schools” initiative introduced and on the ballot for this coming November. This bill, if passed, will give back to San Francisco parents more control in school choice for their children and put quality schools back in their own neighborhood. This is imperative for Bayview Hunters Point children, because they are suffering the most. Just look at our dismal truancy, special education and high school graduation rates.
There are so many variables to the problems we are facing in this city. We have to come together and find solutions to these problems because only WE can save ourselves! We need to focus on identifying all of the variables in order to counter them to preserve the remaining population, and create a situation that will make it attractive enough for many of those who left to return. Our mission is to push a political agenda that will benefit African Americans in this city.
Members of the Osiris Coalition celebrate at City Hall after the historic passage of the Construction Local Hiring ordinance – from left, Carl Augustine, Macio Lyons, Ed Donaldson, Greg Doxey and Omar Khalif. Good jobs are essential to stop the hemorrhaging of Blacks from San Francisco.
Well, folks, I just heard another disturbing percentage as it pertains to Black people in the city of San Francisco the other day. Preliminary numbers are in from the 2010 Census.
Estimates put the remaining African American population for the city of San Francisco at around 3.9 percent! I hope that is just a low-ball estimate and those numbers will be revised upward, but still, my question is how did we get to this point?
Why are we leaving this city in such droves? Why isn’t City Hall doing more to stop the mass exodus of African Americans from this city? There was “The African American Out-Migration Report” commissioned in 2009 by Mayor Gavin Newsom’s office and the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, but there has been little in the way of policies by either of the two to stem the tide. If this was taking place with any other ethnic group, a citywide state of emergency would have been declared.
When I heard those numbers, I immediately put up a post on Facebook declaring my frustration. From there a great conversation started. Many people began to weigh in on what the problems were and what some of the solutions could be.
Mr. Kip Fuller, a Western Addition resident who owns an insurance business that offers State Farm Insurance, touted the importance of Blacks patronizing Black-owned businesses. He pointed to the Chinese community and their successful model and how as a group they have grown and thrived in this city.
He also made the assertion that many Black professionals sold their homes in San Francisco and relocated to places like Antioch, where they thought they were getting more house for their money. This is also true, but I think it is a lot more complex than just that.
While many Black homeowners made the move to other cities willingly, they weren’t the majority of our population. Historically, a very large percentage of our numbers have been based in public housing. As it stands now, about 50 percent of those who remain live in public housing.
[2]
The Osiris Coalition and allies hold a press conference at Third Street and Oakdale to launch the Student First initiative, which will be on the November ballot. Among the crowd are Malia Cohen, Calvin Louie, Teresa Duque, Omar Khalif, Greg Doxey, Ed Donaldson, Macio Lyons and Geoffrea Simpson-Morris.
Seeing that the housing projects in San Francisco are going the way of the dinosaur, what does that mean for our people who live there? The powers that be have had a long standing practice of systematic gentrification – i.e., dismantling public housing and only allowing a small number to return once the new units are built.
One of the tactics was making the re-entry requirements too stringent for them to return. Another practice of the City and the Housing Authority was to dangle the Section 8 carrot in front of people. Who could resist the opportunity to move to the suburbs and live in a 2,000 square foot house for $150 a month? There’s only a limited amount of affordable housing in San Francisco, and 80 percent of landlords don’t want anything to do with Section 8. Thus we have flight to places like Antioch, Pittsburg, Vallejo, Fairfield, Stockton etc.
While many Black homeowners made the move to other cities willingly, they weren’t the majority of our population.
Another tactic that is now being employed is gang injunctions. This in many cases breaks up families, and if the tenants are found to be in violation of the injunction, they themselves will be evicted.
There have also been many complaints of frivolous eviction policies by the SFHA for some of the most trivial reasons. Right now there is a very important piece of legislation about to come to a vote before the Board of Supervisors that will address this disturbing practice. The proposed bill is known as “The Right to Remain” and was shaped in large part by Osiris Coalition members and sponsored by Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi. This law will add many protections for the current residents and ensure their return as long as they left in “good standing,” and we are still working to make sure that bar isn’t set prohibitively high for most current tenants.
[3]
The Osiris Coalition – Omar Khalif, Ed Donaldson, Macio Lyons and Greg Doxey – meets with the Allen Group to discuss private workforce opportunities for the community.
According to some other disturbing numbers, we have close to 1,800 people returning from prison to Bayview Hunters Point every year. Where are they going to live? In many cases they can’t return to public housing because there are certain restrictions against people with felonies living in HUD-subsidized housing.
Some are also under these gang injunctions. Many of their relatives run the risk and have been evicted for allowing former prisoners to stay with them.
It is understandable that authorities want to stop the violence, but to ban someone from one area without addressing their issues only makes them someone else’s problem where they land. Look at the rising crime and murder rates for the suburban Bay Area cities that have received many of our former residents because of gentrification and recolonization.
Of these 1,800 or so parolees, 71 percent – 1,278 – will return to prison within a year of being released! This is due to the lack of economic opportunities. And that is one of the reasons the new Construction Local Hiring legislation is so important.
It will be imperative that we stay on top of City Hall and insist that the community remains a part of the equation in seeing that the new law is implemented fairly and correctly. Our community-based organizations need to step up to the plate in linking this population with services and job readiness training or they WILL re-offend!
BVHP gets around $110 million a year in funding for community-based organizations (CBOs), but, I ask, what is the impact? There is also a need to make sure that the community benefits agreement between the Alliance for District 10 and Lennar (AD-10 Lennar CBA) money earmarked for job training, affordable housing, and other community benefits is not squandered on misguided ventures like land trusts – look at the failure of Oakland’s land trust experiment! – or put in the hands of the usual suspects with no measurable accountability or outcomes.
With all of this talk about Gov. Brown dissolving the Redevelopment Agency in its current form, I think there is a great opportunity for the City of San Francisco to re-create the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency into an entity that is geared towards creating the benefits it was supposed to bring to the residents of the project areas it targets.
[4]
The Osiris Coalition and allies turn in the signatures at City Hall for placing the Students First for Quality Neighborhood Schools initiative on the November ballot.
Isn’t that what a redevelopment agency is supposed to do: Revitalize and rebuild the project area to stimulate economic activity and create workforce and business opportunities for those in the project area? Is that what we saw in the Fillmore? Yes, but for who? Was it for the benefit of those who lived there, or was it a land grab while the Black population was scattered to the four winds?
Bayview Hunters Point is the largest redevelopment area in San Francisco, and if the SFRA was revamped and put under City jurisdiction and was accountable to us, then all of the redevelopment going on in this area would fall under the 50 percent Construction Local Hiring Law. One of the biggest misconceptions is that the 50 percent mandate covers everything that is going on over here, but the fact is it doesn’t!
The redevelopment projects are exempt from the 50 percent mandate. While the SFRA does have a 50 percent Local Hire goal, it is based on “good faith.” Well, we see how that “good faith” is working out for us, right? I think that a locally accountable and controlled redevelopment agency is definitely worth exploring.
The lack of public safety is another great concern. Who wants to spend $450,000 on a house then have to worry about someone doing an armed home invasion or catching a stray bullet? The police’s response to the crime problem has been cookie-cutter and does nothing in the way of preventive solutions. Their answer has been to “lock ‘em up.” They come in to pick up the bodies after it’s over.
There is a strong belief in some circles that the rampant violence and lawlessness that went on during the mid ‘80s up until recently was allowed to continue unchecked by the “powers that be” so that we would remove OURSELVES from this city. Many of our population fled San Francisco to escape the violence and heartache of the loss of loved ones to street violence.
The last item that I want to mention, which probably should have been mentioned first, since this is what it all begins with, is education, or should I say the lack of quality public education in this city. Bayview Hunters Point has some of the worst performing schools in the City. This is due in large part to lack of proper funding. So what has the SFUSD’s response been? Bus our young residents all over the City to so-called “better” schools. This policy creates a number of problems:
[5]
Macio Lyons of the Osiris Coalition and the Southeast Community Development Corp., far right, Joshua Arce of the Brightline Defense Project, left, and Vincent Pan and another representative from Chinese for Affirmative Action hold a press conference at CAA headquarters for the unveiling of the telling report, “The Failure of Good Faith,” which made the case for local hire.
1. People from other parts of the city don’t want our kids coming into their neighborhoods and schools, so this creates an environment of mistrust and suspicion. The moment our kids do anything wrong, they are dealt with very heavy-handedly, and in many cases are criminalized.
2. If a child’s school is all the way on the other side of town, it creates a hardship for low-income parents to go up to the school and be hands-on in their child’s education. It is also very difficult for concerned parents to stay engaged and, if need be, hold their child’s teachers and school administrators accountable. The SFUSD’s school assignment system is one of the most confusing in the country to navigate.
3. While schools are to some extent tied to the property tax rolls, the money follows the children! So wherever that child goes to school, the money allocated for their education will go with them. This means that the money is following our children out of our neighborhood schools, where it is desperately needed. And it leads back to a very important question: Why can’t every neighborhood have their own quality neighborhood schools? Schools in close proximity to students’ homes will foster more parental involvement and reduce excessive absences and truancy. It may even reduce some of the gang violence and “set trippin’” over time, because these kids will be around each other. It’s a lot easier for them to hurt someone they don’t know, even if he only lives around the corner. Once upon a time they would’ve gone to the same school, but that’s not necessarily true anymore with the current school assignment procedures in place.
Osiris Coalition members were instrumental in helping to get the “Students First for Quality Neighborhood Schools” initiative introduced and on the ballot for this coming November. This bill, if passed, will give back to San Francisco parents more control in school choice for their children and put quality schools back in their own neighborhood. This is imperative for Bayview Hunters Point children, because they are suffering the most. Just look at our dismal truancy, special education and high school graduation rates.
There are so many variables to the problems we are facing in this city. We have to come together and find solutions to these problems because only WE can save ourselves! We need to focus on identifying all of the variables in order to counter them to preserve the remaining population, and create a situation that will make it attractive enough for many of those who left to return. Our mission is to push a political agenda that will benefit African Americans in this city.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Oscars pass over people of color
Posted on Tue, Jan. 25, 2011
Oscars pass over people of color
By PATRICK GOLDSTEIN
Los Angeles Times
It's a wonder that the security guards at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences didn't stop Mo'nique and make her show ID when she arrived to help announce the Oscar nominations early Tuesday at the organization's Beverly Hills headquarters. After all, she was the only person of color involved with the extravaganza, since the 83rd annual Oscar nominations have the dubious distinction of being an all-white affair.
Setting aside the more obscure, technical categories, when it comes to the best picture award along with the major nominations for acting, writing and directing, there are, ahem, zero people of color in the Oscar race this year.
There are so few significant African-American characters in any of the 10 films nominated for best picture that comedian Aziz Ansari did a bit about it at the Producers Guild Awards on Saturday night, wondering why there couldn't have been at least one black kid checking his Facebook account in "The Social Network," adding that things were so white that in "127 Hours," when James Franco's hiker character cuts off his arm, it doesn't even turn black.
It's hard not to notice how few minorities had any visible roles in this year's most lauded films. "The Social Network" offers us a virtually lilywhite Harvard; "The Fighter" is set in a oh-so-white, blue-collar Boston neighborhood; "The King's Speech" depicts an all-white, upper-crust, 1930s-era London; "Toy Story 3," like most Pixar films, is set in a fantasy suburbia without any obvious references to minorities; while "True Grit" takes us back to the Old West, where the only black faces I can remember seeing are that of a manservant and a stable boy.
And if you're wondering about lead actor nominee Javier Bardem, he's from Spain.
The fault lies not with the academy, which has in recent years happily given out the occasional statuette to a black actor or actress lucky enough to get a big part in a serious film. Mo'Nique was on hand Tuesday morning because she won for supporting actress last year for her role in "Precious," a film made by Lee Daniels, an African-American filmmaker. Forest Whitaker won a lead actor Oscar in 2007 for "The Last King of Scotland," and Halle Berry won a lead actress Oscar in 2002 for "Monster's Ball" on the same night Denzel Washington won lead actor for "Training Day."
You can argue that some minorities have been snubbed, starting with Spike Lee, who's never been nominated for a directing award, not even for landmark films such as "Do the Right Thing" and "Malcolm X." But the Oscars reflect what's happening in the marketplace. And the cold truth is that black talent rarely receives Oscar opportunities because it works in one of the most minority-free industries in America.
Two African-American coaches have faced off in the Super Bowl. Black coaches have won NBA championships. A black man has served on the Supreme Court, been a senator, an astronaut, a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, won a Pulitzer Prize and - oh, yes - is currently serving as president of the United States. But if you look at the people who make the decisions about what movies are made in Hollywood, you'd have to look far and wide to find any prominent African-American or Latino executives.
There are no studio chairmen or heads of production who are black or Latino. In fact, there are barely any people of color in any high-level positions at any major studio, talent agency or management firm. When I asked a couple of reporter pals to name the most powerful black executive in town, a lot of head-scratching ensued before we decided that the person with the most clout was probably James Lassiter, Will Smith's longtime business partner and production company chief.
Smith has plenty of juice in town, with every studio salivating at the chance to make his next project. But he's an anomaly and largely more interested in making commercial movies than Oscar-oriented fare (although he has twice been nominated for an acting Oscar).
Of last year's top-grossing films, only one in the top 40 was directed by anyone of color, "The Book of Eli," which starred Washington and was directed by the Hughes Brothers. Tyler Perry had two films in the Top 100 box-office grossers domestically, but like most films with African-American casts, they made virtually no money overseas, which is where Hollywood increasingly looks for its profits.
What does this have to do with the Oscars? The films that end up being Academy Award nominees are usually labors of love and rarely feature the kind of easily accessible action heroes or broadly comic characters that suit a studio's bottom-line sensibility. If you don't have a person of color in the room where the decision-making happens, fervently arguing why a film should be brought into the world, it's awfully hard for a project revolving around African-American characters to emerge with a greenlight or any substantial financial backing.
Black and Latino actors can get parts as soldiers in an action film or comic sidekicks in a comedy, but when it comes to the kind of dramatic roles that attract Oscar attention, they need a lucky break, like the one Mo'Nique got from having a black filmmaker making the casting choices. Or the one Jennifer Hudson got, with her role in "Dreamgirls" established on the stage. Or the one Morgan Freeman got, landing a Oscar nomination last year as Nelson Mandela in "Invictus," because he has a long track record of working with Clint Eastwood.
Hollywood is usually impervious to embarrassment, but perhaps this is one of those signal moments when the industry should engage in a little soul-searching about the image it projects to the outside world. At Oscar time, the spotlight is on show business, which in an increasingly multicultural country turns out to be a business that is just as white on the outside as it is on the inside.
Patrick Goldstein: patrick.goldstein@latimes.com
© 2011 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miamiherald.com
Oscars pass over people of color
By PATRICK GOLDSTEIN
Los Angeles Times
It's a wonder that the security guards at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences didn't stop Mo'nique and make her show ID when she arrived to help announce the Oscar nominations early Tuesday at the organization's Beverly Hills headquarters. After all, she was the only person of color involved with the extravaganza, since the 83rd annual Oscar nominations have the dubious distinction of being an all-white affair.
Setting aside the more obscure, technical categories, when it comes to the best picture award along with the major nominations for acting, writing and directing, there are, ahem, zero people of color in the Oscar race this year.
There are so few significant African-American characters in any of the 10 films nominated for best picture that comedian Aziz Ansari did a bit about it at the Producers Guild Awards on Saturday night, wondering why there couldn't have been at least one black kid checking his Facebook account in "The Social Network," adding that things were so white that in "127 Hours," when James Franco's hiker character cuts off his arm, it doesn't even turn black.
It's hard not to notice how few minorities had any visible roles in this year's most lauded films. "The Social Network" offers us a virtually lilywhite Harvard; "The Fighter" is set in a oh-so-white, blue-collar Boston neighborhood; "The King's Speech" depicts an all-white, upper-crust, 1930s-era London; "Toy Story 3," like most Pixar films, is set in a fantasy suburbia without any obvious references to minorities; while "True Grit" takes us back to the Old West, where the only black faces I can remember seeing are that of a manservant and a stable boy.
And if you're wondering about lead actor nominee Javier Bardem, he's from Spain.
The fault lies not with the academy, which has in recent years happily given out the occasional statuette to a black actor or actress lucky enough to get a big part in a serious film. Mo'Nique was on hand Tuesday morning because she won for supporting actress last year for her role in "Precious," a film made by Lee Daniels, an African-American filmmaker. Forest Whitaker won a lead actor Oscar in 2007 for "The Last King of Scotland," and Halle Berry won a lead actress Oscar in 2002 for "Monster's Ball" on the same night Denzel Washington won lead actor for "Training Day."
You can argue that some minorities have been snubbed, starting with Spike Lee, who's never been nominated for a directing award, not even for landmark films such as "Do the Right Thing" and "Malcolm X." But the Oscars reflect what's happening in the marketplace. And the cold truth is that black talent rarely receives Oscar opportunities because it works in one of the most minority-free industries in America.
Two African-American coaches have faced off in the Super Bowl. Black coaches have won NBA championships. A black man has served on the Supreme Court, been a senator, an astronaut, a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, won a Pulitzer Prize and - oh, yes - is currently serving as president of the United States. But if you look at the people who make the decisions about what movies are made in Hollywood, you'd have to look far and wide to find any prominent African-American or Latino executives.
There are no studio chairmen or heads of production who are black or Latino. In fact, there are barely any people of color in any high-level positions at any major studio, talent agency or management firm. When I asked a couple of reporter pals to name the most powerful black executive in town, a lot of head-scratching ensued before we decided that the person with the most clout was probably James Lassiter, Will Smith's longtime business partner and production company chief.
Smith has plenty of juice in town, with every studio salivating at the chance to make his next project. But he's an anomaly and largely more interested in making commercial movies than Oscar-oriented fare (although he has twice been nominated for an acting Oscar).
Of last year's top-grossing films, only one in the top 40 was directed by anyone of color, "The Book of Eli," which starred Washington and was directed by the Hughes Brothers. Tyler Perry had two films in the Top 100 box-office grossers domestically, but like most films with African-American casts, they made virtually no money overseas, which is where Hollywood increasingly looks for its profits.
What does this have to do with the Oscars? The films that end up being Academy Award nominees are usually labors of love and rarely feature the kind of easily accessible action heroes or broadly comic characters that suit a studio's bottom-line sensibility. If you don't have a person of color in the room where the decision-making happens, fervently arguing why a film should be brought into the world, it's awfully hard for a project revolving around African-American characters to emerge with a greenlight or any substantial financial backing.
Black and Latino actors can get parts as soldiers in an action film or comic sidekicks in a comedy, but when it comes to the kind of dramatic roles that attract Oscar attention, they need a lucky break, like the one Mo'Nique got from having a black filmmaker making the casting choices. Or the one Jennifer Hudson got, with her role in "Dreamgirls" established on the stage. Or the one Morgan Freeman got, landing a Oscar nomination last year as Nelson Mandela in "Invictus," because he has a long track record of working with Clint Eastwood.
Hollywood is usually impervious to embarrassment, but perhaps this is one of those signal moments when the industry should engage in a little soul-searching about the image it projects to the outside world. At Oscar time, the spotlight is on show business, which in an increasingly multicultural country turns out to be a business that is just as white on the outside as it is on the inside.
Patrick Goldstein: patrick.goldstein@latimes.com
© 2011 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miamiherald.com
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Rift in Arizona as Latino Class Is Found Illegal
NYT
y MARC LACEY
TUCSON — The class began with a Mayan-inspired chant and a vigorous round of coordinated hand clapping. The classroom walls featured protest signs, including one that said “United Together in La Lucha!” — the struggle. Although open to any student at Tucson High Magnet School, nearly all of those attending Curtis Acosta’s Latino literature class on a recent morning were Mexican-American.
For all of that and more, Mr. Acosta’s class and others in the Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican-American program have been declared illegal by the State of Arizona — even while similar programs for black, Asian and American Indian students have been left untouched.
“It’s propagandizing and brainwashing that’s going on there,” Tom Horne, Arizona’s newly elected attorney general, said this week as he officially declared the program in violation of a state law that went into effect on Jan. 1.
Although Shakespeare’s “Tempest” was supposed to be the topic at hand, Mr. Acosta spent most of a recent class discussing the political storm in which he, his students and the entire district have become enmeshed. Mr. Horne’s name came up more than once, and not in a flattering light.
It was Mr. Horne, as the state’s superintendent of public instruction, who wrote a law aimed at challenging Tucson’s ethnic-studies program. The Legislature passed the measure last spring, and Gov. Jan Brewer signed it into law in May amid the fierce protests raging over the state’s immigration crackdown.
For the state, the issue is not so much “The Tempest” as some of the other texts used in the classes, among them, “The Pedagogy of the Oppressed” and “Occupied America,” which Mr. Horne said inappropriately teach Latino youths that they are being mistreated.
Teaching methods in the classes are sometimes unconventional, with instructors scrutinizing hip-hop lyrics and sprinkling their lessons with Spanish words.
The state, which includes some Mexican-American studies in its official curriculum, sees the classes as less about educating students than creating future activists.
In Mr. Acosta’s literature class, students were clearly concerned. They asked if their graduation was at risk. They asked if they were considered terrorists because Mr. Horne described them as wanting to topple the government. They asked how they could protest the decision.
Then, one young woman asked Mr. Acosta how he was holding up.
“They wrote a state law to snuff this program out, just us little Chicanitos,” he said, wiping away tears. “The idea of losing this is emotional.”
At a recent news conference, Mr. Horne took pains to describe his attack on Tucson’s Mexican-American studies program as one rooted in good faith. He said he had been studying Spanish for several years and had learned enough to read Mexican history books in Spanish and to give interviews on Univision and Telemundo, two Spanish-language broadcasters.
Asked whether he felt he was being likened to Bull Connor, the Alabama police commissioner who became a symbol of bigotry in the 1960s, Mr. Horne described how he had participated in the March on Washington in 1963 as a young high school graduate. He said of his critics: “They are the ‘Bull Connors.’ They are the ones resegregating.”
Mr. Horne’s battle with Tucson over ethnic studies dates to 2007, when Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers, told high school students there in a speech that Republicans hated Latinos. Mr. Horne, a Republican, sent a top aide, Margaret Garcia Dugan, to the school to present a different perspective. He was infuriated when some students turned their backs and raised their fists in the air.
The Arizona law warns school districts that they stand to lose 10 percent of their state education funds if their ethnic-studies programs are found not to comply with new state standards. Programs that promote the overthrow of the United States government are explicitly banned, and that includes the suggestion that portions of the Southwest that were once part of Mexico should be returned to that country.
Also prohibited is any promotion of resentment toward a race. Programs that are primarily for one race or that advocate ethnic solidarity instead of individuality are also outlawed.
On Monday, his final day as the state’s top education official, Mr. Horne declared that Tucson’s Mexican-American program violated all four provisions. The law gives the district 60 days to comply, although Mr. Horne offered only one remedy: the dissolution of the program.
He said the district’s other ethnic-studies programs, unlike the Mexican-American program, had not received complaints and could continue.
John Huppenthal, a former state senator who took over as Arizona’s schools chief, said he supported Mr. Horne’s 11th-hour ruling. Mr. Huppenthal sat in on one of the Tucson classes taught by Mr. Acosta, and said that Benjamin Franklin was vilified as a racist and a photo of Che Guevara was hanging on the wall. Besides that, he said, Tucson’s test scores are among the lowest in the state, indicating that the district needs to focus on the fundamentals.
Officials here say those enrolled in the program do better on state tests than those of the same ethnicity who are not enrolled.
The battle means that Tucson, a struggling urban district, stands to lose nearly $15 million in an already difficult budget environment. So far, the school board has stood by the program, declaring that it considers it to be in compliance with the law.
If financing were pulled, the district would have an opportunity to appeal, and school officials were already talking about the possibility of the matter ending up in court. Meanwhile, 11 teachers, including Mr. Acosta, have filed suit in federal court challenging the constitutionality of the state restrictions.
A discrimination suit against Tucson’s schools in the 1970s prompted a settlement in which an African-American studies program was created. Later, other ethnic-studies programs were added.
To buttress his critique of the Tucson program, Mr. Horne read from texts used in various classes, which in one instance referred to white people as “gringos” and described privilege as being related to the color of a person’s skin, hair and eyes. He also cited the testimony of five teachers who described the program as giving a skewed view of history and promoting racial discord.
“On the first day of school, they are no different than students in any other classes,” said John Ward, who briefly taught a Latino history class in Tucson. “But once they get told day after day that they are being victimized, they become angry and resentful.”
Augustine F. Romero, director of student equity in the Tucson schools, said the program was intended to make students proud of who they are and not hostile toward others. “All of our forefathers have contributed to this country, not just one set of forefathers,” he said. “We respect and admire and appreciate the traditional forefathers, but there are others.”
The debate over the program’s future, Mr. Romero said, proves more than ever the need for the program. “There’s a fierce anti-Latino sentiment in this state,” he said. “These courses are about justice and equity, and what is happening is that the Legislature is trying to narrow the reality of those things.
“Who are the true Americans here — those embracing our inalienable rights or those trying to diminish them?”
y MARC LACEY
TUCSON — The class began with a Mayan-inspired chant and a vigorous round of coordinated hand clapping. The classroom walls featured protest signs, including one that said “United Together in La Lucha!” — the struggle. Although open to any student at Tucson High Magnet School, nearly all of those attending Curtis Acosta’s Latino literature class on a recent morning were Mexican-American.
For all of that and more, Mr. Acosta’s class and others in the Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican-American program have been declared illegal by the State of Arizona — even while similar programs for black, Asian and American Indian students have been left untouched.
“It’s propagandizing and brainwashing that’s going on there,” Tom Horne, Arizona’s newly elected attorney general, said this week as he officially declared the program in violation of a state law that went into effect on Jan. 1.
Although Shakespeare’s “Tempest” was supposed to be the topic at hand, Mr. Acosta spent most of a recent class discussing the political storm in which he, his students and the entire district have become enmeshed. Mr. Horne’s name came up more than once, and not in a flattering light.
It was Mr. Horne, as the state’s superintendent of public instruction, who wrote a law aimed at challenging Tucson’s ethnic-studies program. The Legislature passed the measure last spring, and Gov. Jan Brewer signed it into law in May amid the fierce protests raging over the state’s immigration crackdown.
For the state, the issue is not so much “The Tempest” as some of the other texts used in the classes, among them, “The Pedagogy of the Oppressed” and “Occupied America,” which Mr. Horne said inappropriately teach Latino youths that they are being mistreated.
Teaching methods in the classes are sometimes unconventional, with instructors scrutinizing hip-hop lyrics and sprinkling their lessons with Spanish words.
The state, which includes some Mexican-American studies in its official curriculum, sees the classes as less about educating students than creating future activists.
In Mr. Acosta’s literature class, students were clearly concerned. They asked if their graduation was at risk. They asked if they were considered terrorists because Mr. Horne described them as wanting to topple the government. They asked how they could protest the decision.
Then, one young woman asked Mr. Acosta how he was holding up.
“They wrote a state law to snuff this program out, just us little Chicanitos,” he said, wiping away tears. “The idea of losing this is emotional.”
At a recent news conference, Mr. Horne took pains to describe his attack on Tucson’s Mexican-American studies program as one rooted in good faith. He said he had been studying Spanish for several years and had learned enough to read Mexican history books in Spanish and to give interviews on Univision and Telemundo, two Spanish-language broadcasters.
Asked whether he felt he was being likened to Bull Connor, the Alabama police commissioner who became a symbol of bigotry in the 1960s, Mr. Horne described how he had participated in the March on Washington in 1963 as a young high school graduate. He said of his critics: “They are the ‘Bull Connors.’ They are the ones resegregating.”
Mr. Horne’s battle with Tucson over ethnic studies dates to 2007, when Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers, told high school students there in a speech that Republicans hated Latinos. Mr. Horne, a Republican, sent a top aide, Margaret Garcia Dugan, to the school to present a different perspective. He was infuriated when some students turned their backs and raised their fists in the air.
The Arizona law warns school districts that they stand to lose 10 percent of their state education funds if their ethnic-studies programs are found not to comply with new state standards. Programs that promote the overthrow of the United States government are explicitly banned, and that includes the suggestion that portions of the Southwest that were once part of Mexico should be returned to that country.
Also prohibited is any promotion of resentment toward a race. Programs that are primarily for one race or that advocate ethnic solidarity instead of individuality are also outlawed.
On Monday, his final day as the state’s top education official, Mr. Horne declared that Tucson’s Mexican-American program violated all four provisions. The law gives the district 60 days to comply, although Mr. Horne offered only one remedy: the dissolution of the program.
He said the district’s other ethnic-studies programs, unlike the Mexican-American program, had not received complaints and could continue.
John Huppenthal, a former state senator who took over as Arizona’s schools chief, said he supported Mr. Horne’s 11th-hour ruling. Mr. Huppenthal sat in on one of the Tucson classes taught by Mr. Acosta, and said that Benjamin Franklin was vilified as a racist and a photo of Che Guevara was hanging on the wall. Besides that, he said, Tucson’s test scores are among the lowest in the state, indicating that the district needs to focus on the fundamentals.
Officials here say those enrolled in the program do better on state tests than those of the same ethnicity who are not enrolled.
The battle means that Tucson, a struggling urban district, stands to lose nearly $15 million in an already difficult budget environment. So far, the school board has stood by the program, declaring that it considers it to be in compliance with the law.
If financing were pulled, the district would have an opportunity to appeal, and school officials were already talking about the possibility of the matter ending up in court. Meanwhile, 11 teachers, including Mr. Acosta, have filed suit in federal court challenging the constitutionality of the state restrictions.
A discrimination suit against Tucson’s schools in the 1970s prompted a settlement in which an African-American studies program was created. Later, other ethnic-studies programs were added.
To buttress his critique of the Tucson program, Mr. Horne read from texts used in various classes, which in one instance referred to white people as “gringos” and described privilege as being related to the color of a person’s skin, hair and eyes. He also cited the testimony of five teachers who described the program as giving a skewed view of history and promoting racial discord.
“On the first day of school, they are no different than students in any other classes,” said John Ward, who briefly taught a Latino history class in Tucson. “But once they get told day after day that they are being victimized, they become angry and resentful.”
Augustine F. Romero, director of student equity in the Tucson schools, said the program was intended to make students proud of who they are and not hostile toward others. “All of our forefathers have contributed to this country, not just one set of forefathers,” he said. “We respect and admire and appreciate the traditional forefathers, but there are others.”
The debate over the program’s future, Mr. Romero said, proves more than ever the need for the program. “There’s a fierce anti-Latino sentiment in this state,” he said. “These courses are about justice and equity, and what is happening is that the Legislature is trying to narrow the reality of those things.
“Who are the true Americans here — those embracing our inalienable rights or those trying to diminish them?”
Grooming and our ignoble tradition of racialising crime
The Guardian
Dubious claims about Muslim men grooming white girls hide legitimate worries about a system that fails victims of abuse
Libby Brooks
The Guardian, Friday 7 January 2011
Article history
'What has not emerged is consistent evidence that Pakistani Muslim men are disproportionately involved in these crimes.' Illustration: Jim Sillavan for the Guardian
The British National party's website, its logo still sporting a seasonal sprig of holly, is understandably triumphalist as it proclaims that the "controlled media" has admitted this week that "Nick Griffin has been right all along about Muslim paedophile gangs".
The particular branch of the controlled media the BNP refers to is the Times, which has been running the results of a lengthy investigation into the sexual exploitation and internal trafficking of girls in the north of England. Specifically, the Times has marshalled evidence suggesting that these organised crimes are carried out almost exclusively by gangs of Pakistani Muslim origin who target white youngsters; and it quotes both police and agency sources who refer to a "conspiracy of silence" around the open investigation of such cases, amid fears of being branded racist or inflaming ethnic tensions in already precarious local environments.
This is not the first time that anxieties about the ethnic dimension of child sexual exploitation have been aired by the media. In 2004 the Channel 4 documentary Edge of the City, which explored claims that Asian men in Bradford were grooming white girls as young as 11, sexually abusing them and passing them on to their friends, was initially withdrawn from the schedules after the BNP described it as "a party political broadcast", and the chief constable of West Yorkshire police warned that it could spark disorder.
Anecdotally, as far back as the mid-90s, local agencies have been aware of the participation of ethnic minority men in some cases of serial abuse. But what has not emerged is any consistent evidence to suggest that Pakistani Muslim men are uniquely and disproportionately involved in these crimes, nor that they are preying on white girls because they believe them to be legitimate sexual quarry, as is now being suggested.
The Times investigation is based around 56 men convicted in the Midlands and north of England since 1997, 50 from Muslim backgrounds. Granted, such prosecutions are notoriously difficult to sustain, but, nonetheless, this is a small sample used to evidence the "tidal wave" of offending referred to by unnamed police sources. Martin Narey, the chief executive of Barnardo's, which has run projects in the areas concerned for many years, tells me that, while he is pleased to see open discussion of child sexual exploitation, he worries that "decent Pakistani men will now be looked at as potential child abusers". He insists: "This is not just about Pakistani men, and not just about Asian men. And it is happening all over the country."
While Narey acknowledges that "in the Midlands and north of England there does seem to be an over-representation of minority ethnic men in [offending] groups", he argues strongly that no useful conclusions can be drawn until the government undertakes a serious piece of research into what is a nationwide problem. (Keith Vaz, who chairs the Commons home affairs select committee called for such an inquiry today.) Narey also refutes the allegation that Muslim men are grooming white girls because of cultural assumptions about their sexual availability, as girls from minority backgrounds have been similarly abused.
Thus no official data exists on the ethnic or religious background of perpetrators of this form of child abuse, and local charities have stated publicly that they do not consider it a race issue. But it is worth noting that, when asked by the Times to collate its recent work according to ethnicity, Engage – based in Blackburn and one of the largest multi-agency organisations working on this issue – found that in the past year that 80% of offenders were white.
There is an ignoble tradition of racialising criminality in this country, in particular sexual offences, from the moral panic about West Indian pimps in the 1960s to the statistically dubious coverage of African-Caribbean gang rape in the 90s. But even those who do want further investigation into the apparent preponderance of Asian perpetrators tell me that this is not about cultural expectations regarding the sexual susceptibility of white females but rather about opportunity and vulnerability, especially of young people within the care system. It is certainly admissible to query just how beholden to "the tyranny of custom", as Wednesday's Times leader put it, are these twentysomething males who drive flash cars and ply their victims with alcohol.
Nevertheless, Muslim voices are now being lined up to attest that serial child molestation is not actually sanctioned by the Qur'an. By building an apparent consensus of voices "bravely" speaking out in the face of accusations of racism, it becomes that much harder for a figure from within the Muslim community to offer a more nuanced perspective or indeed state that these allegations are simply not true. The inevitable and distorting consequence of framing the debate around a "conspiracy of silence" is that it effectively shuts down or taints as mealy-mouthed any criticism.
The efforts of the Times to stand up this investigation are certainly considerable: selectively quoting or misquoting some groups, and inventing a category of "on-street grooming" that does not exist in law and was not recognised by any of the agencies I spoke to. It is also worth asking how responsible it is to provide ammunition to the violent racist extremists already active in these areas on such flawed evidence.
Meanwhile, the sunlight of investigative inquiry has yet to shine on our legal system which, all agencies agree, fails to cater to the needs of children who – groomed into acquiescence by practised abusers of all creeds and colours – don't present as the perfect victims our limited version of justice demands.
Dubious claims about Muslim men grooming white girls hide legitimate worries about a system that fails victims of abuse
Libby Brooks
The Guardian, Friday 7 January 2011
Article history
'What has not emerged is consistent evidence that Pakistani Muslim men are disproportionately involved in these crimes.' Illustration: Jim Sillavan for the Guardian
The British National party's website, its logo still sporting a seasonal sprig of holly, is understandably triumphalist as it proclaims that the "controlled media" has admitted this week that "Nick Griffin has been right all along about Muslim paedophile gangs".
The particular branch of the controlled media the BNP refers to is the Times, which has been running the results of a lengthy investigation into the sexual exploitation and internal trafficking of girls in the north of England. Specifically, the Times has marshalled evidence suggesting that these organised crimes are carried out almost exclusively by gangs of Pakistani Muslim origin who target white youngsters; and it quotes both police and agency sources who refer to a "conspiracy of silence" around the open investigation of such cases, amid fears of being branded racist or inflaming ethnic tensions in already precarious local environments.
This is not the first time that anxieties about the ethnic dimension of child sexual exploitation have been aired by the media. In 2004 the Channel 4 documentary Edge of the City, which explored claims that Asian men in Bradford were grooming white girls as young as 11, sexually abusing them and passing them on to their friends, was initially withdrawn from the schedules after the BNP described it as "a party political broadcast", and the chief constable of West Yorkshire police warned that it could spark disorder.
Anecdotally, as far back as the mid-90s, local agencies have been aware of the participation of ethnic minority men in some cases of serial abuse. But what has not emerged is any consistent evidence to suggest that Pakistani Muslim men are uniquely and disproportionately involved in these crimes, nor that they are preying on white girls because they believe them to be legitimate sexual quarry, as is now being suggested.
The Times investigation is based around 56 men convicted in the Midlands and north of England since 1997, 50 from Muslim backgrounds. Granted, such prosecutions are notoriously difficult to sustain, but, nonetheless, this is a small sample used to evidence the "tidal wave" of offending referred to by unnamed police sources. Martin Narey, the chief executive of Barnardo's, which has run projects in the areas concerned for many years, tells me that, while he is pleased to see open discussion of child sexual exploitation, he worries that "decent Pakistani men will now be looked at as potential child abusers". He insists: "This is not just about Pakistani men, and not just about Asian men. And it is happening all over the country."
While Narey acknowledges that "in the Midlands and north of England there does seem to be an over-representation of minority ethnic men in [offending] groups", he argues strongly that no useful conclusions can be drawn until the government undertakes a serious piece of research into what is a nationwide problem. (Keith Vaz, who chairs the Commons home affairs select committee called for such an inquiry today.) Narey also refutes the allegation that Muslim men are grooming white girls because of cultural assumptions about their sexual availability, as girls from minority backgrounds have been similarly abused.
Thus no official data exists on the ethnic or religious background of perpetrators of this form of child abuse, and local charities have stated publicly that they do not consider it a race issue. But it is worth noting that, when asked by the Times to collate its recent work according to ethnicity, Engage – based in Blackburn and one of the largest multi-agency organisations working on this issue – found that in the past year that 80% of offenders were white.
There is an ignoble tradition of racialising criminality in this country, in particular sexual offences, from the moral panic about West Indian pimps in the 1960s to the statistically dubious coverage of African-Caribbean gang rape in the 90s. But even those who do want further investigation into the apparent preponderance of Asian perpetrators tell me that this is not about cultural expectations regarding the sexual susceptibility of white females but rather about opportunity and vulnerability, especially of young people within the care system. It is certainly admissible to query just how beholden to "the tyranny of custom", as Wednesday's Times leader put it, are these twentysomething males who drive flash cars and ply their victims with alcohol.
Nevertheless, Muslim voices are now being lined up to attest that serial child molestation is not actually sanctioned by the Qur'an. By building an apparent consensus of voices "bravely" speaking out in the face of accusations of racism, it becomes that much harder for a figure from within the Muslim community to offer a more nuanced perspective or indeed state that these allegations are simply not true. The inevitable and distorting consequence of framing the debate around a "conspiracy of silence" is that it effectively shuts down or taints as mealy-mouthed any criticism.
The efforts of the Times to stand up this investigation are certainly considerable: selectively quoting or misquoting some groups, and inventing a category of "on-street grooming" that does not exist in law and was not recognised by any of the agencies I spoke to. It is also worth asking how responsible it is to provide ammunition to the violent racist extremists already active in these areas on such flawed evidence.
Meanwhile, the sunlight of investigative inquiry has yet to shine on our legal system which, all agencies agree, fails to cater to the needs of children who – groomed into acquiescence by practised abusers of all creeds and colours – don't present as the perfect victims our limited version of justice demands.
Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior
WSJ
Can a regimen of no playdates, no TV, no computer games and hours of music practice create happy kids? And what happens when they fight back?
By AMY CHUA
A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it's like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I've done it. Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:
View Full Image
Erin Patrice O'Brien for The Wall Street Journal
Amy Chua with her daughters, Louisa and Sophia, at their home in New Haven, Conn.
• attend a sleepover
• have a playdate
• be in a school play
• complain about not being in a school play
• watch TV or play computer games
• choose their own extracurricular activities
• get any grade less than an A
• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama
• play any instrument other than the piano or violin
• not play the piano or violin.
I'm using the term "Chinese mother" loosely. I know some Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish and Ghanaian parents who qualify too. Conversely, I know some mothers of Chinese heritage, almost always born in the West, who are not Chinese mothers, by choice or otherwise. I'm also using the term "Western parents" loosely. Western parents come in all varieties.
When it comes to parenting, the Chinese seem to produce children who display academic excellence, musical mastery and professional success - or so the stereotype goes. WSJ's Christina Tsuei speaks to two moms raised by Chinese immigrants who share what it was like growing up and how they hope to raise their children.
More Parenting Videos
Teaching Math to Spark Creative Thinking
Can Bilingualism Make Preschoolers Smarter?
All the same, even when Western parents think they're being strict, they usually don't come close to being Chinese mothers. For example, my Western friends who consider themselves strict make their children practice their instruments 30 minutes every day. An hour at most. For a Chinese mother, the first hour is the easy part. It's hours two and three that get tough.
Despite our squeamishness about cultural stereotypes, there are tons of studies out there showing marked and quantifiable differences between Chinese and Westerners when it comes to parenting. In one study of 50 Western American mothers and 48 Chinese immigrant mothers, almost 70% of the Western mothers said either that "stressing academic success is not good for children" or that "parents need to foster the idea that learning is fun." By contrast, roughly 0% of the Chinese mothers felt the same way. Instead, the vast majority of the Chinese mothers said that they believe their children can be "the best" students, that "academic achievement reflects successful parenting," and that if children did not excel at school then there was "a problem" and parents "were not doing their job." Other studies indicate that compared to Western parents, Chinese parents spend approximately 10 times as long every day drilling academic activities with their children. By contrast, Western kids are more likely to participate in sports teams.
View Full Image
Chua family
From Ms. Chua's album: 'Mean me with Lulu in hotel room... with score taped to TV!'
Journal Community
What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you're good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences. This often requires fortitude on the part of the parents because the child will resist; things are always hardest at the beginning, which is where Western parents tend to give up. But if done properly, the Chinese strategy produces a virtuous circle. Tenacious practice, practice, practice is crucial for excellence; rote repetition is underrated in America. Once a child starts to excel at something—whether it's math, piano, pitching or ballet—he or she gets praise, admiration and satisfaction. This builds confidence and makes the once not-fun activity fun. This in turn makes it easier for the parent to get the child to work even more.
Chinese parents can get away with things that Western parents can't. Once when I was young—maybe more than once—when I was extremely disrespectful to my mother, my father angrily called me "garbage" in our native Hokkien dialect. It worked really well. I felt terrible and deeply ashamed of what I had done. But it didn't damage my self-esteem or anything like that. I knew exactly how highly he thought of me. I didn't actually think I was worthless or feel like a piece of garbage.
As an adult, I once did the same thing to Sophia, calling her garbage in English when she acted extremely disrespectfully toward me. When I mentioned that I had done this at a dinner party, I was immediately ostracized. One guest named Marcy got so upset she broke down in tears and had to leave early. My friend Susan, the host, tried to rehabilitate me with the remaining guests.
The fact is that Chinese parents can do things that would seem unimaginable—even legally actionable—to Westerners. Chinese mothers can say to their daughters, "Hey fatty—lose some weight." By contrast, Western parents have to tiptoe around the issue, talking in terms of "health" and never ever mentioning the f-word, and their kids still end up in therapy for eating disorders and negative self-image. (I also once heard a Western father toast his adult daughter by calling her "beautiful and incredibly competent." She later told me that made her feel like garbage.)
Chinese parents can order their kids to get straight As. Western parents can only ask their kids to try their best. Chinese parents can say, "You're lazy. All your classmates are getting ahead of you." By contrast, Western parents have to struggle with their own conflicted feelings about achievement, and try to persuade themselves that they're not disappointed about how their kids turned out.
I've thought long and hard about how Chinese parents can get away with what they do. I think there are three big differences between the Chinese and Western parental mind-sets.
Chua family
Newborn Amy Chua in her mother's arms, a year after her parents arrived in the U.S.
Weigh in
Amy Chua will answer readers' questions Thursday on Review's new blog, Ideas Market.
Write to: IdeasMarket@wsj.com.
First, I've noticed that Western parents are extremely anxious about their children's self-esteem. They worry about how their children will feel if they fail at something, and they constantly try to reassure their children about how good they are notwithstanding a mediocre performance on a test or at a recital. In other words, Western parents are concerned about their children's psyches. Chinese parents aren't. They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently.
For example, if a child comes home with an A-minus on a test, a Western parent will most likely praise the child. The Chinese mother will gasp in horror and ask what went wrong. If the child comes home with a B on the test, some Western parents will still praise the child. Other Western parents will sit their child down and express disapproval, but they will be careful not to make their child feel inadequate or insecure, and they will not call their child "stupid," "worthless" or "a disgrace." Privately, the Western parents may worry that their child does not test well or have aptitude in the subject or that there is something wrong with the curriculum and possibly the whole school. If the child's grades do not improve, they may eventually schedule a meeting with the school principal to challenge the way the subject is being taught or to call into question the teacher's credentials.
If a Chinese child gets a B—which would never happen—there would first be a screaming, hair-tearing explosion. The devastated Chinese mother would then get dozens, maybe hundreds of practice tests and work through them with her child for as long as it takes to get the grade up to an A.
Chinese parents demand perfect grades because they believe that their child can get them. If their child doesn't get them, the Chinese parent assumes it's because the child didn't work hard enough. That's why the solution to substandard performance is always to excoriate, punish and shame the child. The Chinese parent believes that their child will be strong enough to take the shaming and to improve from it. (And when Chinese kids do excel, there is plenty of ego-inflating parental praise lavished in the privacy of the home.)
View Full Image
Chua family
Sophia playing at Carnegie Hall in 2007.
Second, Chinese parents believe that their kids owe them everything. The reason for this is a little unclear, but it's probably a combination of Confucian filial piety and the fact that the parents have sacrificed and done so much for their children. (And it's true that Chinese mothers get in the trenches, putting in long grueling hours personally tutoring, training, interrogating and spying on their kids.) Anyway, the understanding is that Chinese children must spend their lives repaying their parents by obeying them and making them proud.
By contrast, I don't think most Westerners have the same view of children being permanently indebted to their parents. My husband, Jed, actually has the opposite view. "Children don't choose their parents," he once said to me. "They don't even choose to be born. It's parents who foist life on their kids, so it's the parents' responsibility to provide for them. Kids don't owe their parents anything. Their duty will be to their own kids." This strikes me as a terrible deal for the Western parent.
Third, Chinese parents believe that they know what is best for their children and therefore override all of their children's own desires and preferences. That's why Chinese daughters can't have boyfriends in high school and why Chinese kids can't go to sleepaway camp. It's also why no Chinese kid would ever dare say to their mother, "I got a part in the school play! I'm Villager Number Six. I'll have to stay after school for rehearsal every day from 3:00 to 7:00, and I'll also need a ride on weekends." God help any Chinese kid who tried that one.
Don't get me wrong: It's not that Chinese parents don't care about their children. Just the opposite. They would give up anything for their children. It's just an entirely different parenting model.
Read More
In China, Not All Practice Tough Love
The Juggle: Are U.S. Parents Too Soft?
Here's a story in favor of coercion, Chinese-style. Lulu was about 7, still playing two instruments, and working on a piano piece called "The Little White Donkey" by the French composer Jacques Ibert. The piece is really cute—you can just imagine a little donkey ambling along a country road with its master—but it's also incredibly difficult for young players because the two hands have to keep schizophrenically different rhythms.
Lulu couldn't do it. We worked on it nonstop for a week, drilling each of her hands separately, over and over. But whenever we tried putting the hands together, one always morphed into the other, and everything fell apart. Finally, the day before her lesson, Lulu announced in exasperation that she was giving up and stomped off.
"Get back to the piano now," I ordered.
"You can't make me."
"Oh yes, I can."
Back at the piano, Lulu made me pay. She punched, thrashed and kicked. She grabbed the music score and tore it to shreds. I taped the score back together and encased it in a plastic shield so that it could never be destroyed again. Then I hauled Lulu's dollhouse to the car and told her I'd donate it to the Salvation Army piece by piece if she didn't have "The Little White Donkey" perfect by the next day. When Lulu said, "I thought you were going to the Salvation Army, why are you still here?" I threatened her with no lunch, no dinner, no Christmas or Hanukkah presents, no birthday parties for two, three, four years. When she still kept playing it wrong, I told her she was purposely working herself into a frenzy because she was secretly afraid she couldn't do it. I told her to stop being lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic.
Jed took me aside. He told me to stop insulting Lulu—which I wasn't even doing, I was just motivating her—and that he didn't think threatening Lulu was helpful. Also, he said, maybe Lulu really just couldn't do the technique—perhaps she didn't have the coordination yet—had I considered that possibility?
"You just don't believe in her," I accused.
"That's ridiculous," Jed said scornfully. "Of course I do."
"Sophia could play the piece when she was this age."
"But Lulu and Sophia are different people," Jed pointed out.
"Oh no, not this," I said, rolling my eyes. "Everyone is special in their special own way," I mimicked sarcastically. "Even losers are special in their own special way. Well don't worry, you don't have to lift a finger. I'm willing to put in as long as it takes, and I'm happy to be the one hated. And you can be the one they adore because you make them pancakes and take them to Yankees games."
Ideas Market Blog
What's new and hot in the world of ideas, brought to you by Review.
A Prison for Parents?
Those Tough Chinese Moms
I rolled up my sleeves and went back to Lulu. I used every weapon and tactic I could think of. We worked right through dinner into the night, and I wouldn't let Lulu get up, not for water, not even to go to the bathroom. The house became a war zone, and I lost my voice yelling, but still there seemed to be only negative progress, and even I began to have doubts.
Then, out of the blue, Lulu did it. Her hands suddenly came together—her right and left hands each doing their own imperturbable thing—just like that.
Lulu realized it the same time I did. I held my breath. She tried it tentatively again. Then she played it more confidently and faster, and still the rhythm held. A moment later, she was beaming.
"Mommy, look—it's easy!" After that, she wanted to play the piece over and over and wouldn't leave the piano. That night, she came to sleep in my bed, and we snuggled and hugged, cracking each other up. When she performed "The Little White Donkey" at a recital a few weeks later, parents came up to me and said, "What a perfect piece for Lulu—it's so spunky and so her."
Journal CommunityDISCUSS
I am in disbelief after reading this article.
—James Post
Even Jed gave me credit for that one. Western parents worry a lot about their children's self-esteem. But as a parent, one of the worst things you can do for your child's self-esteem is to let them give up. On the flip side, there's nothing better for building confidence than learning you can do something you thought you couldn't.
There are all these new books out there portraying Asian mothers as scheming, callous, overdriven people indifferent to their kids' true interests. For their part, many Chinese secretly believe that they care more about their children and are willing to sacrifice much more for them than Westerners, who seem perfectly content to let their children turn out badly. I think it's a misunderstanding on both sides. All decent parents want to do what's best for their children. The Chinese just have a totally different idea of how to do that.
Western parents try to respect their children's individuality, encouraging them to pursue their true passions, supporting their choices, and providing positive reinforcement and a nurturing environment. By contrast, the Chinese believe that the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future, letting them see what they're capable of, and arming them with skills, work habits and inner confidence that no one can ever take away.
—Amy Chua is a professor at Yale Law School and author of "Day of Empire" and "World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability." This essay is excerpted from "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" by Amy Chua, to be published Tuesday by the Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Copyright © 2011 by Amy Chua.
Can a regimen of no playdates, no TV, no computer games and hours of music practice create happy kids? And what happens when they fight back?
By AMY CHUA
A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it's like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I've done it. Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:
View Full Image
Erin Patrice O'Brien for The Wall Street Journal
Amy Chua with her daughters, Louisa and Sophia, at their home in New Haven, Conn.
• attend a sleepover
• have a playdate
• be in a school play
• complain about not being in a school play
• watch TV or play computer games
• choose their own extracurricular activities
• get any grade less than an A
• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama
• play any instrument other than the piano or violin
• not play the piano or violin.
I'm using the term "Chinese mother" loosely. I know some Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish and Ghanaian parents who qualify too. Conversely, I know some mothers of Chinese heritage, almost always born in the West, who are not Chinese mothers, by choice or otherwise. I'm also using the term "Western parents" loosely. Western parents come in all varieties.
When it comes to parenting, the Chinese seem to produce children who display academic excellence, musical mastery and professional success - or so the stereotype goes. WSJ's Christina Tsuei speaks to two moms raised by Chinese immigrants who share what it was like growing up and how they hope to raise their children.
More Parenting Videos
Teaching Math to Spark Creative Thinking
Can Bilingualism Make Preschoolers Smarter?
All the same, even when Western parents think they're being strict, they usually don't come close to being Chinese mothers. For example, my Western friends who consider themselves strict make their children practice their instruments 30 minutes every day. An hour at most. For a Chinese mother, the first hour is the easy part. It's hours two and three that get tough.
Despite our squeamishness about cultural stereotypes, there are tons of studies out there showing marked and quantifiable differences between Chinese and Westerners when it comes to parenting. In one study of 50 Western American mothers and 48 Chinese immigrant mothers, almost 70% of the Western mothers said either that "stressing academic success is not good for children" or that "parents need to foster the idea that learning is fun." By contrast, roughly 0% of the Chinese mothers felt the same way. Instead, the vast majority of the Chinese mothers said that they believe their children can be "the best" students, that "academic achievement reflects successful parenting," and that if children did not excel at school then there was "a problem" and parents "were not doing their job." Other studies indicate that compared to Western parents, Chinese parents spend approximately 10 times as long every day drilling academic activities with their children. By contrast, Western kids are more likely to participate in sports teams.
View Full Image
Chua family
From Ms. Chua's album: 'Mean me with Lulu in hotel room... with score taped to TV!'
Journal Community
What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you're good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences. This often requires fortitude on the part of the parents because the child will resist; things are always hardest at the beginning, which is where Western parents tend to give up. But if done properly, the Chinese strategy produces a virtuous circle. Tenacious practice, practice, practice is crucial for excellence; rote repetition is underrated in America. Once a child starts to excel at something—whether it's math, piano, pitching or ballet—he or she gets praise, admiration and satisfaction. This builds confidence and makes the once not-fun activity fun. This in turn makes it easier for the parent to get the child to work even more.
Chinese parents can get away with things that Western parents can't. Once when I was young—maybe more than once—when I was extremely disrespectful to my mother, my father angrily called me "garbage" in our native Hokkien dialect. It worked really well. I felt terrible and deeply ashamed of what I had done. But it didn't damage my self-esteem or anything like that. I knew exactly how highly he thought of me. I didn't actually think I was worthless or feel like a piece of garbage.
As an adult, I once did the same thing to Sophia, calling her garbage in English when she acted extremely disrespectfully toward me. When I mentioned that I had done this at a dinner party, I was immediately ostracized. One guest named Marcy got so upset she broke down in tears and had to leave early. My friend Susan, the host, tried to rehabilitate me with the remaining guests.
The fact is that Chinese parents can do things that would seem unimaginable—even legally actionable—to Westerners. Chinese mothers can say to their daughters, "Hey fatty—lose some weight." By contrast, Western parents have to tiptoe around the issue, talking in terms of "health" and never ever mentioning the f-word, and their kids still end up in therapy for eating disorders and negative self-image. (I also once heard a Western father toast his adult daughter by calling her "beautiful and incredibly competent." She later told me that made her feel like garbage.)
Chinese parents can order their kids to get straight As. Western parents can only ask their kids to try their best. Chinese parents can say, "You're lazy. All your classmates are getting ahead of you." By contrast, Western parents have to struggle with their own conflicted feelings about achievement, and try to persuade themselves that they're not disappointed about how their kids turned out.
I've thought long and hard about how Chinese parents can get away with what they do. I think there are three big differences between the Chinese and Western parental mind-sets.
Chua family
Newborn Amy Chua in her mother's arms, a year after her parents arrived in the U.S.
Weigh in
Amy Chua will answer readers' questions Thursday on Review's new blog, Ideas Market.
Write to: IdeasMarket@wsj.com.
First, I've noticed that Western parents are extremely anxious about their children's self-esteem. They worry about how their children will feel if they fail at something, and they constantly try to reassure their children about how good they are notwithstanding a mediocre performance on a test or at a recital. In other words, Western parents are concerned about their children's psyches. Chinese parents aren't. They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently.
For example, if a child comes home with an A-minus on a test, a Western parent will most likely praise the child. The Chinese mother will gasp in horror and ask what went wrong. If the child comes home with a B on the test, some Western parents will still praise the child. Other Western parents will sit their child down and express disapproval, but they will be careful not to make their child feel inadequate or insecure, and they will not call their child "stupid," "worthless" or "a disgrace." Privately, the Western parents may worry that their child does not test well or have aptitude in the subject or that there is something wrong with the curriculum and possibly the whole school. If the child's grades do not improve, they may eventually schedule a meeting with the school principal to challenge the way the subject is being taught or to call into question the teacher's credentials.
If a Chinese child gets a B—which would never happen—there would first be a screaming, hair-tearing explosion. The devastated Chinese mother would then get dozens, maybe hundreds of practice tests and work through them with her child for as long as it takes to get the grade up to an A.
Chinese parents demand perfect grades because they believe that their child can get them. If their child doesn't get them, the Chinese parent assumes it's because the child didn't work hard enough. That's why the solution to substandard performance is always to excoriate, punish and shame the child. The Chinese parent believes that their child will be strong enough to take the shaming and to improve from it. (And when Chinese kids do excel, there is plenty of ego-inflating parental praise lavished in the privacy of the home.)
View Full Image
Chua family
Sophia playing at Carnegie Hall in 2007.
Second, Chinese parents believe that their kids owe them everything. The reason for this is a little unclear, but it's probably a combination of Confucian filial piety and the fact that the parents have sacrificed and done so much for their children. (And it's true that Chinese mothers get in the trenches, putting in long grueling hours personally tutoring, training, interrogating and spying on their kids.) Anyway, the understanding is that Chinese children must spend their lives repaying their parents by obeying them and making them proud.
By contrast, I don't think most Westerners have the same view of children being permanently indebted to their parents. My husband, Jed, actually has the opposite view. "Children don't choose their parents," he once said to me. "They don't even choose to be born. It's parents who foist life on their kids, so it's the parents' responsibility to provide for them. Kids don't owe their parents anything. Their duty will be to their own kids." This strikes me as a terrible deal for the Western parent.
Third, Chinese parents believe that they know what is best for their children and therefore override all of their children's own desires and preferences. That's why Chinese daughters can't have boyfriends in high school and why Chinese kids can't go to sleepaway camp. It's also why no Chinese kid would ever dare say to their mother, "I got a part in the school play! I'm Villager Number Six. I'll have to stay after school for rehearsal every day from 3:00 to 7:00, and I'll also need a ride on weekends." God help any Chinese kid who tried that one.
Don't get me wrong: It's not that Chinese parents don't care about their children. Just the opposite. They would give up anything for their children. It's just an entirely different parenting model.
Read More
In China, Not All Practice Tough Love
The Juggle: Are U.S. Parents Too Soft?
Here's a story in favor of coercion, Chinese-style. Lulu was about 7, still playing two instruments, and working on a piano piece called "The Little White Donkey" by the French composer Jacques Ibert. The piece is really cute—you can just imagine a little donkey ambling along a country road with its master—but it's also incredibly difficult for young players because the two hands have to keep schizophrenically different rhythms.
Lulu couldn't do it. We worked on it nonstop for a week, drilling each of her hands separately, over and over. But whenever we tried putting the hands together, one always morphed into the other, and everything fell apart. Finally, the day before her lesson, Lulu announced in exasperation that she was giving up and stomped off.
"Get back to the piano now," I ordered.
"You can't make me."
"Oh yes, I can."
Back at the piano, Lulu made me pay. She punched, thrashed and kicked. She grabbed the music score and tore it to shreds. I taped the score back together and encased it in a plastic shield so that it could never be destroyed again. Then I hauled Lulu's dollhouse to the car and told her I'd donate it to the Salvation Army piece by piece if she didn't have "The Little White Donkey" perfect by the next day. When Lulu said, "I thought you were going to the Salvation Army, why are you still here?" I threatened her with no lunch, no dinner, no Christmas or Hanukkah presents, no birthday parties for two, three, four years. When she still kept playing it wrong, I told her she was purposely working herself into a frenzy because she was secretly afraid she couldn't do it. I told her to stop being lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic.
Jed took me aside. He told me to stop insulting Lulu—which I wasn't even doing, I was just motivating her—and that he didn't think threatening Lulu was helpful. Also, he said, maybe Lulu really just couldn't do the technique—perhaps she didn't have the coordination yet—had I considered that possibility?
"You just don't believe in her," I accused.
"That's ridiculous," Jed said scornfully. "Of course I do."
"Sophia could play the piece when she was this age."
"But Lulu and Sophia are different people," Jed pointed out.
"Oh no, not this," I said, rolling my eyes. "Everyone is special in their special own way," I mimicked sarcastically. "Even losers are special in their own special way. Well don't worry, you don't have to lift a finger. I'm willing to put in as long as it takes, and I'm happy to be the one hated. And you can be the one they adore because you make them pancakes and take them to Yankees games."
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A Prison for Parents?
Those Tough Chinese Moms
I rolled up my sleeves and went back to Lulu. I used every weapon and tactic I could think of. We worked right through dinner into the night, and I wouldn't let Lulu get up, not for water, not even to go to the bathroom. The house became a war zone, and I lost my voice yelling, but still there seemed to be only negative progress, and even I began to have doubts.
Then, out of the blue, Lulu did it. Her hands suddenly came together—her right and left hands each doing their own imperturbable thing—just like that.
Lulu realized it the same time I did. I held my breath. She tried it tentatively again. Then she played it more confidently and faster, and still the rhythm held. A moment later, she was beaming.
"Mommy, look—it's easy!" After that, she wanted to play the piece over and over and wouldn't leave the piano. That night, she came to sleep in my bed, and we snuggled and hugged, cracking each other up. When she performed "The Little White Donkey" at a recital a few weeks later, parents came up to me and said, "What a perfect piece for Lulu—it's so spunky and so her."
Journal CommunityDISCUSS
I am in disbelief after reading this article.
—James Post
Even Jed gave me credit for that one. Western parents worry a lot about their children's self-esteem. But as a parent, one of the worst things you can do for your child's self-esteem is to let them give up. On the flip side, there's nothing better for building confidence than learning you can do something you thought you couldn't.
There are all these new books out there portraying Asian mothers as scheming, callous, overdriven people indifferent to their kids' true interests. For their part, many Chinese secretly believe that they care more about their children and are willing to sacrifice much more for them than Westerners, who seem perfectly content to let their children turn out badly. I think it's a misunderstanding on both sides. All decent parents want to do what's best for their children. The Chinese just have a totally different idea of how to do that.
Western parents try to respect their children's individuality, encouraging them to pursue their true passions, supporting their choices, and providing positive reinforcement and a nurturing environment. By contrast, the Chinese believe that the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future, letting them see what they're capable of, and arming them with skills, work habits and inner confidence that no one can ever take away.
—Amy Chua is a professor at Yale Law School and author of "Day of Empire" and "World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability." This essay is excerpted from "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" by Amy Chua, to be published Tuesday by the Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Copyright © 2011 by Amy Chua.
Nickelodeon Gets Diversity Points, But Still Overlooks Race
by Jorge Rivas ShareThis | Print | Color Lines
Monday, January 3 2011, 1:11 PM EST Tags: casting, TV
Share
Nickelodeon has picked up a sitcom pilot starring young recording artist Cymphonique Miller, the daughter of hip-hop star Master P.
Nickelodeon, or Nick, is the most-watched children’s television network in the U.S; their target audiences are 2- to 11-year-olds. Cymphonique is just one of many of the young stars of color to headline shows on the network.
Nickelodeon has been at the forefront of diversity on television. From the animated Dora in “Dora the Explorer” to “iCarly” and “True Jackson, VP” which features African-American actress Lauren Keyana “Keke” Palmer as a teen vice-president of an apparel company all the shows feature positive portrayals of youth of color.
Nickelodeon, along with Sesame Street workshop which produces “Sesame Street,” has been at the forefront of diverse and responsible storytelling on television. Nickelodeon’s first original live action television series “Hey Dude” included Joe Torres as Danny Lightfoot, a Hopi Indian who was cast after auditioning in Tucson for the role. When the show premiered in 1989 there were no other representation of young American Indians. Even today, twenty-two years after “Hey Dude” premiered there are only a handful of American Indians on television.
“The Cosby Show” was the first show on prime time television to feature a positive portrayal of an African-American family, but critics have said that it didn’t reflect any serious issues facing black Americans at the time. The same could be said about Nickelodeon’s characters because race and class issues are often not addressed. And it’s possible to have a commercially viable television show that addresses race head-on. ABC’s popular show “Ugly Betty” proved that deportations, access to jobs, education and race can be a compelling part of prime time storylines.
While Nick’s shows don’t touch on any current issues Latinos, Asians and African-Americans face today, compare Nickelodeon’s casts to those on any of ABC and NBC’s primetime shows and it makes the kid network’s casting execs looks like radicals. And that’s encouraging, especially when you consider they’re targeting toddlers.
Monday, January 3 2011, 1:11 PM EST Tags: casting, TV
Share
Nickelodeon has picked up a sitcom pilot starring young recording artist Cymphonique Miller, the daughter of hip-hop star Master P.
Nickelodeon, or Nick, is the most-watched children’s television network in the U.S; their target audiences are 2- to 11-year-olds. Cymphonique is just one of many of the young stars of color to headline shows on the network.
Nickelodeon has been at the forefront of diversity on television. From the animated Dora in “Dora the Explorer” to “iCarly” and “True Jackson, VP” which features African-American actress Lauren Keyana “Keke” Palmer as a teen vice-president of an apparel company all the shows feature positive portrayals of youth of color.
Nickelodeon, along with Sesame Street workshop which produces “Sesame Street,” has been at the forefront of diverse and responsible storytelling on television. Nickelodeon’s first original live action television series “Hey Dude” included Joe Torres as Danny Lightfoot, a Hopi Indian who was cast after auditioning in Tucson for the role. When the show premiered in 1989 there were no other representation of young American Indians. Even today, twenty-two years after “Hey Dude” premiered there are only a handful of American Indians on television.
“The Cosby Show” was the first show on prime time television to feature a positive portrayal of an African-American family, but critics have said that it didn’t reflect any serious issues facing black Americans at the time. The same could be said about Nickelodeon’s characters because race and class issues are often not addressed. And it’s possible to have a commercially viable television show that addresses race head-on. ABC’s popular show “Ugly Betty” proved that deportations, access to jobs, education and race can be a compelling part of prime time storylines.
While Nick’s shows don’t touch on any current issues Latinos, Asians and African-Americans face today, compare Nickelodeon’s casts to those on any of ABC and NBC’s primetime shows and it makes the kid network’s casting execs looks like radicals. And that’s encouraging, especially when you consider they’re targeting toddlers.
Bloody Politics and Broken Borders
http://www.faraichideya.com/
Today I was on a bus making hairpin turns in Guatemala when I went on my phone and checked my Twitter feed. I read about the shooting in Arizona that left Representative Gabrielle Giffords with a bullet through the head, in critical condition, and others dead. Anyone who has been following Arizona politics knows the state has been on boil for a while. Rep. Giffords has spoken out against the immigration law SB1070. I can´t help but wonder if that was a factor in her shooting. Certainly, she faced incendiary rhetoric, like this, which implied violence against her.For a week and a half, I´ve been in Guatemala taking Spanish lessons. One day I hope to be able to conduct interviews in Spanish, since so much of the work I do concerns diversity, immigration, and economic change. Here, everyone I speak to has friends or relatives who are in the U.S. without papers. In the town where I am staying, even some of the more educated citizens end up working in the coffee plantations for 30 quetzales, or about four dollars, a day. Given that, many other people are willing to take the chance to cross into the United States for work.I had a long discussion on the bus ride with an American about immigration and enforcement. The reality is, unless we have business side enforcement, the situation will not change. And unless we learn to manage our (often misguided) anger, we will continue to see political tensions erupt into bloodshed.
Today I was on a bus making hairpin turns in Guatemala when I went on my phone and checked my Twitter feed. I read about the shooting in Arizona that left Representative Gabrielle Giffords with a bullet through the head, in critical condition, and others dead. Anyone who has been following Arizona politics knows the state has been on boil for a while. Rep. Giffords has spoken out against the immigration law SB1070. I can´t help but wonder if that was a factor in her shooting. Certainly, she faced incendiary rhetoric, like this, which implied violence against her.For a week and a half, I´ve been in Guatemala taking Spanish lessons. One day I hope to be able to conduct interviews in Spanish, since so much of the work I do concerns diversity, immigration, and economic change. Here, everyone I speak to has friends or relatives who are in the U.S. without papers. In the town where I am staying, even some of the more educated citizens end up working in the coffee plantations for 30 quetzales, or about four dollars, a day. Given that, many other people are willing to take the chance to cross into the United States for work.I had a long discussion on the bus ride with an American about immigration and enforcement. The reality is, unless we have business side enforcement, the situation will not change. And unless we learn to manage our (often misguided) anger, we will continue to see political tensions erupt into bloodshed.
Why Korean American Churches Need a Makeover
Last year, I gathered with some two hundred other Korean Americans for a church wedding. I was perhaps one of three women who arrived without a date and one of two atheists in the entire crowd. The couple to be wed was, of course, Korean American: the groom, a youth pastor I knew from college; the bride, a bubbly woman he had met at church in California. As I lined up to tender my gift and find my seat in the pews, I already felt the chill of alienation.
The wedding was a full church service, replete with prayers and praise music. When it came time for the scripture reading, a young woman rose to the dais. She called out “Ephesians 5:22,” prompting the shuffling of tissue-fine Bible paper:
Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church -- for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery -- but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
(Ephesians 5:22-33, New Testament, New International Version.)
After the reading, the young Korean American pastor approached the pulpit. He opened with disarming stories about the bride and groom and offered sage advice from his own, apparently blissful, marriage. His “my wife’s always right” brand of self-deprecation, however, was the prelude to a very conservative sermon. He took the Ephesians verses at face value, emphasizing that wives must be free of blemish and subordinate themselves to their husbands, not because women are inferior, but because gender-delineated roles lead to a happy home.
As he preached, I searched the audience for signs of incredulity. To my dismay, each guest was more attentive than the next, laughing on cue, nodding, taking notes. The groom’s side of the church was filled with Yale graduates, many of them women I knew, but their eyes betrayed not a hint of surprise or skepticism at the message being espoused. These were women of high intelligence, ambition, and worldliness who had, inexplicably, subscribed to an orthodox, purportedly Biblical notion of gender relations that rendered them subservient to their male partners.
Since the wedding, I have reflected at length on how it felt to sit in that church. Although I am not a believer, it was neither the liturgy nor the scripture that got to me. Rather, it was the sense of displacement, the feeling that I could not be properly Korean American outside the confines of that place. An astounding 70 percent of the 1 million-plus ethnic Koreans in the United States identify themselves as Christian. Of this, approximately 131,000 belong to either the Southern Baptist Convention or the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), two of the most conservative evangelical denominations. Another 90,000 Korean Americans are adherents of the Catholic Church. On college campuses, Korean American students are overwhelmingly active in Protestant student organizations, including ethnically specific campus ministries, according to Rebecca Kim, a professor at Pepperdine University and the author of God’s New Whiz Kids?: Korean American Evangelicals on Campus.
Ironically, during high school and most of college, I was a committed, if not entirely credulous, Christian. And to some extent I had grown up in the church, for although my parents were and still are atheists, they took us to services in the hope that my brother and I would befriend other Korean American kids. Indeed, church for me was as much a social experience as a religious one, but it was the political culture of Korean-style Christianity that ultimately led me to reject its tenets.
Raised as a feminist with leftist leanings, I understand Jesus’ gospel to be one of liberation and justice, meaning a real commitment to equality and social engagement. Over the years, as I wound my way through a number of Korean American congregations on both coasts, it became clear that my political views were terribly out of sync with these churches’. Even in English-speaking, second-generation services, women were shunned for leadership roles, homosexuality was demonized, and social justice was limited to the occasional food drive. In the churches that boasted considerable aggregate wealth, there was no tradition of philanthropy or dialogue about societal inequalities. Second-generation churchgoers -- acculturated, upwardly mobile, and, unlike their parents, not reliant on church as a linguistic redoubt -- were nevertheless practicing their faith in an insulated, anachronistic bubble. Even now, as we move into our third generation of immigrants, church remains ascendant as Korean America’s cultural center.
The time has come for a reorientation. While I have nothing against any individual’s religious commitments, I strongly believe that Korean America needs a new locus, or new loci, of community outside the church. If we care about social justice and believe that Korean Americans as a group -- as opposed to individual Koreans participating in non-ethnic collectives, for instance -- can contribute something unique, then we must take stock of where we are and where we hope to go. Progress will mean rejecting certain of our parents’ and churches’ teachings -- passivity in women, social disengagement, acceptance of the status quo, and a disturbing insularity -- and channeling some of the traditions we have forgotten, such as Korea’s long history of activism and class struggle.
To move us forward, I first want to trace us back. Our English-speaking, second-generation congregations derive from and are often housed within first-generation churches. It seems to me that this provenance and patronage has shaped our community in some unfortunate ways.
Growing up in Tacoma, Washington, I attended Korean churches mostly populated with working-class, first-generation immigrants. These men and women spent their days in corner stores, dry cleaners, and nail salons, sometimes as the bosses but often as employees. Many of the elderly attendees lived on public assistance and in government apartments. There were also a number of women wed to US servicemen, raising issues of identity and belonging. They were congregants, in other words, who had a lot to say about gendered and raced hierarchies and the burdens of economic survival.
For these members of the American underclass, Sunday could have represented an opportunity to apply Jesus’ egalitarian teachings. Every church meeting could have been a chance to problematize hierarchies and conservative politics, none of which had ever operated in their favor. But no culture of protest, no liberation theology akin to that in African American churches, ever emerged. Church instead became a theater in which to enact compensatory social dramas. Dressed to the nines and seeking legitimating titles such as “elder” or “director,” first-generation members played the role of people who had made it in American society. The churches I saw in my adolescence were awash with business dealings and competitive capitalism: the show-and-tell of expensive purses, luxury cars, overlarge tract houses, and entrepreneurial success. In one such church, the weekly bulletin would announce the top offering-givers from the previous Sunday. That same church, in a year of Pacific Northwest flooding, refused to store the soggy belongings of displaced elderly Koreans.
Church was a place to feel self-satisfied and to distinguish oneself from the under-underclass. First-generation pastors preached on the subservience of women, encouraged their parishioners to attend anti-gay protests, and lent credence to the prosperity gospel, the idea that faith is rewarded materially. Under the aegis of bourgeois Christianity, immigrant men could pad their egos by mistreating their wives and children. Even if life wasn’t perfect in that 24-hour deli, the thinking went, it was still better than being a woman or poor or gay. I recall one pastor’s vituperative sermon against homosexual marriage. He railed against the immorality of this concept, while his son, who had come out to him a few months earlier, sat quietly in the rearmost pew. Around the same time, this church upheld the “elder” status of a repeat batterer, revoking his title only when his wife showed up with a broken arm.
These may be outlying examples, and it is easy enough to criticize our parents’ generation of churches. But my concern is that younger congregations exhibit similar features. Queens College Professor Pyong Gap Min has observed, for example, that second-generation churches are as patriarchal as their forebears, but under the banner of scriptural rather than Confucian authority. As my opening anecdote illustrates, the Korean American church continues to incubate a culture in which women accept lesser roles and authority goes unquestioned. Second-generation churches, divorced as they are from a social justice gospel, fail to challenge middle-class values focused on consumption, accumulation, and social stability.
This would be less problematic if Korean America were tangibly located outside the church. After all, every ethnic and racial group has its conservative members. But with so many Korean Americans raised and trained in the ways of the church, our community is disproportionately under the influence of these institutions and their regressive politics.
What this points to -- insofar as we care about social progress and choose to approach it in part as “Korean Americans” -- is the need to imagine ourselves in new, open-ended ways. Here our lineage may help us, for embedded in Korea’s troubled history is a long tradition of revolt and self-determination. Groups like Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance in Los Angeles and Nodutdol for Korean Community Development in New York City are organizing working-class immigrants and second-generation Korean-Americans according to this particular strain of progressivism. There are social services providers, political action groups, arts collectives, LGBTQ centers, and feminist organizations who offer other, unorthodox visions of the Korean American community. None of these are necessarily incompatible with religion; they instead signal the diaspora’s many moving parts and suggest the limits of Korean American church dogma.
Without the balancing effect of secular community networks, a church-centered Korean America will risk succumbing to the demagoguery and political opportunism of the Religious Right and the Tea Party. Glen Beck and Sarah Palin, rallying some 300,000 acolytes at the Lincoln Memorial in August, preached a dangerous conflation of ill-defined Christianity, conservative morality, and uncritical politics. I should hope we can, collectively, do better than this.
A broadened base of Korean America will hardly sound the death knell for Christian institutions. Rather, with parishioners rooted both in their churches and other Korean American organizations and community spaces, a diversified discourse will open up, one that attends to global concerns and honors its participants equally. Churches themselves could involve Korean Americans in progressive political dialogue, raise women leaders, and encourage support for class struggles. It is a necessary step in our evolution and a timely project of reform.
Adapted from “Toward a Korean-American Reformation,” originally published in Senses: The Korean American Journal, Yale College, Fall 2010.
The wedding was a full church service, replete with prayers and praise music. When it came time for the scripture reading, a young woman rose to the dais. She called out “Ephesians 5:22,” prompting the shuffling of tissue-fine Bible paper:
Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church -- for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery -- but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
(Ephesians 5:22-33, New Testament, New International Version.)
After the reading, the young Korean American pastor approached the pulpit. He opened with disarming stories about the bride and groom and offered sage advice from his own, apparently blissful, marriage. His “my wife’s always right” brand of self-deprecation, however, was the prelude to a very conservative sermon. He took the Ephesians verses at face value, emphasizing that wives must be free of blemish and subordinate themselves to their husbands, not because women are inferior, but because gender-delineated roles lead to a happy home.
As he preached, I searched the audience for signs of incredulity. To my dismay, each guest was more attentive than the next, laughing on cue, nodding, taking notes. The groom’s side of the church was filled with Yale graduates, many of them women I knew, but their eyes betrayed not a hint of surprise or skepticism at the message being espoused. These were women of high intelligence, ambition, and worldliness who had, inexplicably, subscribed to an orthodox, purportedly Biblical notion of gender relations that rendered them subservient to their male partners.
Since the wedding, I have reflected at length on how it felt to sit in that church. Although I am not a believer, it was neither the liturgy nor the scripture that got to me. Rather, it was the sense of displacement, the feeling that I could not be properly Korean American outside the confines of that place. An astounding 70 percent of the 1 million-plus ethnic Koreans in the United States identify themselves as Christian. Of this, approximately 131,000 belong to either the Southern Baptist Convention or the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), two of the most conservative evangelical denominations. Another 90,000 Korean Americans are adherents of the Catholic Church. On college campuses, Korean American students are overwhelmingly active in Protestant student organizations, including ethnically specific campus ministries, according to Rebecca Kim, a professor at Pepperdine University and the author of God’s New Whiz Kids?: Korean American Evangelicals on Campus.
Ironically, during high school and most of college, I was a committed, if not entirely credulous, Christian. And to some extent I had grown up in the church, for although my parents were and still are atheists, they took us to services in the hope that my brother and I would befriend other Korean American kids. Indeed, church for me was as much a social experience as a religious one, but it was the political culture of Korean-style Christianity that ultimately led me to reject its tenets.
Raised as a feminist with leftist leanings, I understand Jesus’ gospel to be one of liberation and justice, meaning a real commitment to equality and social engagement. Over the years, as I wound my way through a number of Korean American congregations on both coasts, it became clear that my political views were terribly out of sync with these churches’. Even in English-speaking, second-generation services, women were shunned for leadership roles, homosexuality was demonized, and social justice was limited to the occasional food drive. In the churches that boasted considerable aggregate wealth, there was no tradition of philanthropy or dialogue about societal inequalities. Second-generation churchgoers -- acculturated, upwardly mobile, and, unlike their parents, not reliant on church as a linguistic redoubt -- were nevertheless practicing their faith in an insulated, anachronistic bubble. Even now, as we move into our third generation of immigrants, church remains ascendant as Korean America’s cultural center.
The time has come for a reorientation. While I have nothing against any individual’s religious commitments, I strongly believe that Korean America needs a new locus, or new loci, of community outside the church. If we care about social justice and believe that Korean Americans as a group -- as opposed to individual Koreans participating in non-ethnic collectives, for instance -- can contribute something unique, then we must take stock of where we are and where we hope to go. Progress will mean rejecting certain of our parents’ and churches’ teachings -- passivity in women, social disengagement, acceptance of the status quo, and a disturbing insularity -- and channeling some of the traditions we have forgotten, such as Korea’s long history of activism and class struggle.
To move us forward, I first want to trace us back. Our English-speaking, second-generation congregations derive from and are often housed within first-generation churches. It seems to me that this provenance and patronage has shaped our community in some unfortunate ways.
Growing up in Tacoma, Washington, I attended Korean churches mostly populated with working-class, first-generation immigrants. These men and women spent their days in corner stores, dry cleaners, and nail salons, sometimes as the bosses but often as employees. Many of the elderly attendees lived on public assistance and in government apartments. There were also a number of women wed to US servicemen, raising issues of identity and belonging. They were congregants, in other words, who had a lot to say about gendered and raced hierarchies and the burdens of economic survival.
For these members of the American underclass, Sunday could have represented an opportunity to apply Jesus’ egalitarian teachings. Every church meeting could have been a chance to problematize hierarchies and conservative politics, none of which had ever operated in their favor. But no culture of protest, no liberation theology akin to that in African American churches, ever emerged. Church instead became a theater in which to enact compensatory social dramas. Dressed to the nines and seeking legitimating titles such as “elder” or “director,” first-generation members played the role of people who had made it in American society. The churches I saw in my adolescence were awash with business dealings and competitive capitalism: the show-and-tell of expensive purses, luxury cars, overlarge tract houses, and entrepreneurial success. In one such church, the weekly bulletin would announce the top offering-givers from the previous Sunday. That same church, in a year of Pacific Northwest flooding, refused to store the soggy belongings of displaced elderly Koreans.
Church was a place to feel self-satisfied and to distinguish oneself from the under-underclass. First-generation pastors preached on the subservience of women, encouraged their parishioners to attend anti-gay protests, and lent credence to the prosperity gospel, the idea that faith is rewarded materially. Under the aegis of bourgeois Christianity, immigrant men could pad their egos by mistreating their wives and children. Even if life wasn’t perfect in that 24-hour deli, the thinking went, it was still better than being a woman or poor or gay. I recall one pastor’s vituperative sermon against homosexual marriage. He railed against the immorality of this concept, while his son, who had come out to him a few months earlier, sat quietly in the rearmost pew. Around the same time, this church upheld the “elder” status of a repeat batterer, revoking his title only when his wife showed up with a broken arm.
These may be outlying examples, and it is easy enough to criticize our parents’ generation of churches. But my concern is that younger congregations exhibit similar features. Queens College Professor Pyong Gap Min has observed, for example, that second-generation churches are as patriarchal as their forebears, but under the banner of scriptural rather than Confucian authority. As my opening anecdote illustrates, the Korean American church continues to incubate a culture in which women accept lesser roles and authority goes unquestioned. Second-generation churches, divorced as they are from a social justice gospel, fail to challenge middle-class values focused on consumption, accumulation, and social stability.
This would be less problematic if Korean America were tangibly located outside the church. After all, every ethnic and racial group has its conservative members. But with so many Korean Americans raised and trained in the ways of the church, our community is disproportionately under the influence of these institutions and their regressive politics.
What this points to -- insofar as we care about social progress and choose to approach it in part as “Korean Americans” -- is the need to imagine ourselves in new, open-ended ways. Here our lineage may help us, for embedded in Korea’s troubled history is a long tradition of revolt and self-determination. Groups like Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance in Los Angeles and Nodutdol for Korean Community Development in New York City are organizing working-class immigrants and second-generation Korean-Americans according to this particular strain of progressivism. There are social services providers, political action groups, arts collectives, LGBTQ centers, and feminist organizations who offer other, unorthodox visions of the Korean American community. None of these are necessarily incompatible with religion; they instead signal the diaspora’s many moving parts and suggest the limits of Korean American church dogma.
Without the balancing effect of secular community networks, a church-centered Korean America will risk succumbing to the demagoguery and political opportunism of the Religious Right and the Tea Party. Glen Beck and Sarah Palin, rallying some 300,000 acolytes at the Lincoln Memorial in August, preached a dangerous conflation of ill-defined Christianity, conservative morality, and uncritical politics. I should hope we can, collectively, do better than this.
A broadened base of Korean America will hardly sound the death knell for Christian institutions. Rather, with parishioners rooted both in their churches and other Korean American organizations and community spaces, a diversified discourse will open up, one that attends to global concerns and honors its participants equally. Churches themselves could involve Korean Americans in progressive political dialogue, raise women leaders, and encourage support for class struggles. It is a necessary step in our evolution and a timely project of reform.
Adapted from “Toward a Korean-American Reformation,” originally published in Senses: The Korean American Journal, Yale College, Fall 2010.
ON EMBRACING THE BURDEN OF REPRESENTATION
By Guest Contributor Aymar Jean Christian, cross-posted from Televisual
I recently had a conversation with a black director who fretted not putting any men of color in his film project. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t find anyone to play the role. In the end he told me: “I can’t carry the whole black community on my own!”
It’s a strange thing to be a writer, creator, producer, artist and belong to some kind of “other” group. Every one of us — I think — struggles with how responsible we are to our communities. It’s something I find myself having to deal with more and more. And I’m starting to develop opinions about it.
Writing about one’s identity group is not always a “burden.” Soon I’ll be writing a column for AfterElton about gay men of color in the media, and I couldn’t be happier! I hesitated a bit when I was asked. The old questions emerged: would I pigeonholed? Would I be “that black gay guy”? But ultimately I saw more opportunity than limitations. I care about that stuff, and it’s so often not talked about. Why not?
Still, for anyone who creates media, the burden can be tiresome. The truth is there are typically few people who are X identity in a given field — film, the academy, television, web production — that the few who exist are often asked to correct structural imbalances, even if they have other interests. It’s unfair, but it is the world in which we live. These burdens aren’t limited to the traditional groups of minorities, though they have to deal with it most; it spans genre identities (sci-fi, western, horror), ideologies (nihilist, modernist), styles (independent, art-house, fringe), basically anything with a dedicated core of minority adherents and members.
When I was younger and immature I used to wonder: “why does so-and-so only write/talk/think about X identity? They’re so unimaginative!” You know who I’m talking about: the showrunner who only pitches shows about women, the journalist who only writes about sexuality, etc.
As I grew older and started to participate in these various worlds, I realized it was often the other way around. The people who are “pigeonholed” are, more often than not, forced to or called upon to hold those positions. Since there aren’t a lot of academics in, say, economics, who write about race, those scholars are asked to write the “race essay” for the edited collection, or edit an issue in a journal. If they aren’t asked by the “powers that be,” they’re urged to by friends or colleagues.
Because, like myself, they want and are happy to oblige because so few people write about their communities. As they start to, they realize how many stories go untold and theories unexplored; it starts to get interesting. I blog and write a lot about black identity, gay identity and women. (See the tag cloud to the right). Some might say I’m falling prey to stereotype. But the truth is I find there’s a lot to say about these topics that isn’t being said by the mainstream media, or even prominent blogs.
When I first started researching web series over a year ago, virtually no one was writing about black web series and gay/lesbian web series, despite dozens being released each year. That’s why I started making the lists linked to above (though I can never keep up! I try to update about once a month). I felt compelled to and was happy to do it, to give producers/directors what little exposure I could provide (it’s not much!).
I always feel for those directors, producers, writers, etc. who “stray” from their communities and do other things. Occasionally they’re branded “post-racial,” “post-gender,” “post-gay,” post-whatever. Will Smith is a classic example — he’s planning yet another project in China. Some have avoided it: Spike Lee and Gus Van Sant do a lot of non-black, non-gay films, but make sure to come back home every once in awhile. A lucky few can be both responsible to their communities and do other projects while not being branded either way. But society demands shortcuts, and in the end, most of us have to take our label and wear it with pride.
The best do both. Some of the greatest artists and thinkers of the 20th century took their less-than-popular identities and used them to create bold works about the broader culture, about society and civilization, from Toni Morrison and James Baldwin to David Wojnarowicz and Judith Butler.
We should embrace the challenge. I used to think “label” was a dirty word. Even today, read an interview with any artist or writer, no matter their race or religion, no matter how singular their interest in a particular identity, and, without fail, they will inevitably say they don’t want to be labeled. Nobody wants to! But labels are a way of communicating to the world, a way of signaling something important. Any creative or intellectual person should relish the opportunity to take something presumed to be “marginal” and make it central and important to a conversation.
Should we accept our burdens? I think maybe we should. Carrying a burden only makes you stronger.
I recently had a conversation with a black director who fretted not putting any men of color in his film project. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t find anyone to play the role. In the end he told me: “I can’t carry the whole black community on my own!”
It’s a strange thing to be a writer, creator, producer, artist and belong to some kind of “other” group. Every one of us — I think — struggles with how responsible we are to our communities. It’s something I find myself having to deal with more and more. And I’m starting to develop opinions about it.
Writing about one’s identity group is not always a “burden.” Soon I’ll be writing a column for AfterElton about gay men of color in the media, and I couldn’t be happier! I hesitated a bit when I was asked. The old questions emerged: would I pigeonholed? Would I be “that black gay guy”? But ultimately I saw more opportunity than limitations. I care about that stuff, and it’s so often not talked about. Why not?
Still, for anyone who creates media, the burden can be tiresome. The truth is there are typically few people who are X identity in a given field — film, the academy, television, web production — that the few who exist are often asked to correct structural imbalances, even if they have other interests. It’s unfair, but it is the world in which we live. These burdens aren’t limited to the traditional groups of minorities, though they have to deal with it most; it spans genre identities (sci-fi, western, horror), ideologies (nihilist, modernist), styles (independent, art-house, fringe), basically anything with a dedicated core of minority adherents and members.
When I was younger and immature I used to wonder: “why does so-and-so only write/talk/think about X identity? They’re so unimaginative!” You know who I’m talking about: the showrunner who only pitches shows about women, the journalist who only writes about sexuality, etc.
As I grew older and started to participate in these various worlds, I realized it was often the other way around. The people who are “pigeonholed” are, more often than not, forced to or called upon to hold those positions. Since there aren’t a lot of academics in, say, economics, who write about race, those scholars are asked to write the “race essay” for the edited collection, or edit an issue in a journal. If they aren’t asked by the “powers that be,” they’re urged to by friends or colleagues.
Because, like myself, they want and are happy to oblige because so few people write about their communities. As they start to, they realize how many stories go untold and theories unexplored; it starts to get interesting. I blog and write a lot about black identity, gay identity and women. (See the tag cloud to the right). Some might say I’m falling prey to stereotype. But the truth is I find there’s a lot to say about these topics that isn’t being said by the mainstream media, or even prominent blogs.
When I first started researching web series over a year ago, virtually no one was writing about black web series and gay/lesbian web series, despite dozens being released each year. That’s why I started making the lists linked to above (though I can never keep up! I try to update about once a month). I felt compelled to and was happy to do it, to give producers/directors what little exposure I could provide (it’s not much!).
I always feel for those directors, producers, writers, etc. who “stray” from their communities and do other things. Occasionally they’re branded “post-racial,” “post-gender,” “post-gay,” post-whatever. Will Smith is a classic example — he’s planning yet another project in China. Some have avoided it: Spike Lee and Gus Van Sant do a lot of non-black, non-gay films, but make sure to come back home every once in awhile. A lucky few can be both responsible to their communities and do other projects while not being branded either way. But society demands shortcuts, and in the end, most of us have to take our label and wear it with pride.
The best do both. Some of the greatest artists and thinkers of the 20th century took their less-than-popular identities and used them to create bold works about the broader culture, about society and civilization, from Toni Morrison and James Baldwin to David Wojnarowicz and Judith Butler.
We should embrace the challenge. I used to think “label” was a dirty word. Even today, read an interview with any artist or writer, no matter their race or religion, no matter how singular their interest in a particular identity, and, without fail, they will inevitably say they don’t want to be labeled. Nobody wants to! But labels are a way of communicating to the world, a way of signaling something important. Any creative or intellectual person should relish the opportunity to take something presumed to be “marginal” and make it central and important to a conversation.
Should we accept our burdens? I think maybe we should. Carrying a burden only makes you stronger.
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