*NOTE: PLEASE RE-READ THE TITLE OF THIS ESSAY BEFORE GOING FURTHER. NOTICE, IT IS AIMED AT THE WHITE RIGHT. NOT ALL WHITE PEOPLE. ANYONE WHO THINKS THIS ESSAY IS “ANTI-WHITE PEOPLE,” AS OPPOSED TO THAT SEGMENT OF THE WHITE COMMUNITY THAT IS RIGHT WING, CANNOT READ PLAIN ENGLISH. PLEASE TRY AGAIN.*
by Tim Wise
http://www.timwise.org/
_____
For all y’all rich folks, enjoy that champagne, or whatever fancy ass Scotch you drink.
And for y’all a bit lower on the economic scale, enjoy your Pabst Blue Ribbon, or whatever shitty ass beer you favor.
Whatever the case, and whatever your economic station, know this…
You need to drink up.
And quickly.
And heavily.
Because your time is limited.
Real damned limited.
So party while you can, but mind the increasingly loud clock ticking away in the corners of your consciousness.
The clock that reminds you how little time you and yours have left.
Not much more now.
Tick, tock.
Tick, tock.
Tick.
Tock.
I know, you think you’ve taken “your country back” with this election — and of course you have always thought it was yours for the taking, cuz that’s what we white folks are bred to believe, that it’s ours, and how dare anyone else say otherwise — but you are wrong.
You have won a small battle in a larger war the meaning of which you do not remotely understand.
‘Cuz there is nothing even slightly original about you.
There have always been those who wanted to take the country back.
There were those who, in past years, wanted to take the country back to a time of enslavement and indentured servitude.
But they lost.
There were those who wanted to take us back to a time when children could be made to work in mines and factories, when workers had no legal rights to speak of, when the skies in every major city were heavy with industrial soot that would gather on sidewalks and windowsills like volcanic ash.
But they lost.
There were those who wanted to take us back to a time when women could not vote, or attend any but a few colleges, or get loans in their own names, or start their own businesses.
But they lost.
There were those who wanted to take us back to a time when blacks “had no rights that the white man was bound to respect,” – this being the official opinion of the Supreme Court before those awful days of judicial activism, now decried by the likes of you – and when people of color could legally be kept from voting solely because of race, or holding certain jobs, or living in certain neighborhoods, or run out of other towns altogether when the sun would go down, or be strung up from trees.
But they lost.
And you will lose.
So make a note of it.
Tweet it to yourself.
Put it on your Facebook wall and leave it there so you’ll remember that I told you so.
It is coming, and soon.
This isn’t hubris. It isn’t ideology. It is not wishful thinking.
It is math.
Not even advanced math. Just simple, basic, like 3rd grade math.
The kind of math that proves how your kind — mostly older white folks beholden to an absurd, inaccurate, nostalgic fantasy of what America used to be like — are dying.
You’re like the bad guy in every horror movie ever made, who gets shot five times, or stabbed ten, or blown up twice, and who will eventually pass — even if it takes four sequels to make it happen — but who in the meantime keeps coming back around, grabbing at our ankles as we walk by, we having been mistakenly convinced that you were finally dead this time.
Fair enough, and have at it. But remember how this movie ends.
Our ankles survive.
You do not.
Michael Meyers, Freddie Kreuger, Jason, and that asshole husband in that movie with Julia Roberts who tracks her down after she runs away and changes her identity–they are all done. Even that crazy fucker in Saw is about to be finished off for good. Granted, he’s gonna be popping out in 3-D to scare the kiddies, so he isn’t going quietly. But he’s going, as all bad guys eventually do.
And in the pantheon of American history, conservative old white people have pretty much always been the bad guys, the keepers of the hegemonic and reactionary flame, the folks unwilling to share the category of American with others on equal terms.
Fine, keep it up. It doesn’t matter.
Because you’re on the endangered list.
And unlike, say, the bald eagle or some exotic species of muskrat, you are not worth saving.
In forty years or so, maybe fewer, there won’t be any more white people around who actually remember that Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best, Opie-Taylor-Down-at-the-Fishing Hole cornpone bullshit that you hold so near and dear to your heart.
There won’t be any more white folks around who think the 1950s were the good old days, because there won’t be any more white folks around who actually remember them, and so therefore, we’ll be able to teach about them accurately and honestly, without hurting your precious feelings, or those of the so-called “greatest generation” — a bunch whose white contingent was top-heavy with ethical miscreants who helped save the world from fascism only to return home and oppose the ending of it here, by doing nothing to lift a finger on behalf of the civil rights struggle.
It’s OK. Because in about forty years, half the country will be black or brown. And there is nothing you can do about it.
Nothing, Senõr Tancredo.
Nothing, Senõra Angle, or Senõra Brewer, or Senõr Beck.
Loy tiene muy mal, hijo de Puta.
And by then you will have gone all in as a white nationalist movement — hell you’ve all but done that now — thus guaranteeing that the folks of color, and even a decent size minority of us white folks will be able to crush you, election after election, from the Presidency on down to the 8th grade student council.
Like I said, this is math. And numbers don’t lie.
Bottom line, this too shall pass.
So enjoy your tax cuts a while longer.
Go buy whatever you people buy when your taxes get cut: a new car or two, a bigger house, an island. Whatever.
Go back to trading your derivatives, engaging in rampant financial speculation that produces nothing of value, that turns the whole world into your personal casino. Whatever.
Play your hand, and for the love of God play it big. Real big. As in, shoot for the moon big. As in, try to privatize Social Security, and health care, and everything else. Whatever.
At least that way everyone will be able to see what you’re really about.
We’ve been trying to tell them, but nothing beats seeing it with your own eyes, so “Go big or go home,” Bubba.
“Git ‘er Done.”
“Cowboy up,” or whatever other stupid catch phrase strikes your fancy.
Just promise you’ll do more than talk this time.
Please, or as one of your celluloid heroes might put it, “make my day.”
Do whatever you gotta do, but remember that those who are the victims of your greed and indifference take the long view.
They know, but you do not, that justice is not for the sprinters, but rather for the long distance runners who will be hitting their second wind, right about the time that you collapse from exhaustion.
They are like the tortoise to your hare.
They are like the San Francisco Giants, to your New York Yankees: a bunch that loses year after year after year, until they finally win.
You have had this confidence before, remember?
You thought you had secured your position permanently after the overthrow of reconstruction in the wake of the civil war, after the elimination of the New Deal, after the Reagan revolution, after the Republican electoral victory of 1994. And yet, those you thought you had cowed and defeated are still here.
Because those who have lived on the margins, who have been abused, maligned, targeted by austerity measures and budget cuts, subjected to racism, classism, sexism, straight supremacy and every other form of oppression always know more about their abusers than the abusers know about their victims.
They have to study you, to pay careful attention, to adjust their body armor accordingly, and to memorize your sleep patterns.
You, on the other hand, need know nothing whatsoever about them. And this, will surely prove politically fatal to you in the end. For it means you will not know their resolve. Will not fear it, as you should.
It means you will take their greatest strength — perseverance — and make of it a weakness, called losing.
But what you forget, or more to the point never knew, is that those who lose know how to lose, which is to say they know how to lose with dignity.
And those who suffer know how to suffer, which is to say they know how to survive: a skill that is in short supply amid the likes of you.
You, who could not survive the thought of minimal health care reform, or financial regulation, or a marginal tax rate equal to that which you paid just 10 years earlier, perhaps are under the illusion that everyone is as weak as you, as soft as you, as akin to petulant children as you are, as unable to cope with the smallest setback, the slightest challenge to the way you think your country should look and feel, and operate.
But they are not.
And they know how to regroup, and plot, and plan, and they are planning even now — we are — your destruction.
And I do not mean by that your physical destruction. We don’t play those games. We’re not into the whole “Second Amendment remedies, militia, armed resistance” bullshit that your side fetishizes, cuz, see, we don’t have to be. We don’t need guns.
We just have to be patient.
And wait for you to pass into that good night, first politically, and then, well…
Do you hear it?
The sound of your empire dying? Your nation, as you knew it, ending, permanently?
Because I do, and the sound of its demise is beautiful.
So know this.
If you thought this election was payback for 2008, remember…
Payback, thy name is…
Temporary.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
'Beat the Jew' game prompts high schools to increase tolerance education
October 30, 2010 | 8:04 am
LA Now
A high school where some students played the Internet game "Beat the Jew" will receive a new tolerance curriculum, officials said.
The annoucement comes five months after officials a La Quinta High School in Riverside County disciplined students for playing the game.
"Administrators of the La Quinta High School and Desert Sands Unified School District have accepted Jewish Federation of Palm Springs and Desert Area’s offer for Anti-Bias Education, to be delivered by the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) “A World of Difference” Institute," said Bruce Landgarten, chief executive of the federation, in a statement. "We applaud the Unified Districts for their commitment in this issue and appreciate ADL’s partnership in this project."
Other school districts in that region were also to get the training, Landgarten said.
The game, which gathered participants via Facebook, is a complicated contest of tag, in which "Jews" are taken, blindfolded, by car to a place off campus and have to make their way back to base while pursued by "Nazis."
Organizers had put up a Facebook page announcing the game that was "friended" by some 40 students, of which seven participated.
The game took place on the night of May 20 on the grounds of La Quinta High School. No one was hurt.
--Shelby Grad
LA Now
A high school where some students played the Internet game "Beat the Jew" will receive a new tolerance curriculum, officials said.
The annoucement comes five months after officials a La Quinta High School in Riverside County disciplined students for playing the game.
"Administrators of the La Quinta High School and Desert Sands Unified School District have accepted Jewish Federation of Palm Springs and Desert Area’s offer for Anti-Bias Education, to be delivered by the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) “A World of Difference” Institute," said Bruce Landgarten, chief executive of the federation, in a statement. "We applaud the Unified Districts for their commitment in this issue and appreciate ADL’s partnership in this project."
Other school districts in that region were also to get the training, Landgarten said.
The game, which gathered participants via Facebook, is a complicated contest of tag, in which "Jews" are taken, blindfolded, by car to a place off campus and have to make their way back to base while pursued by "Nazis."
Organizers had put up a Facebook page announcing the game that was "friended" by some 40 students, of which seven participated.
The game took place on the night of May 20 on the grounds of La Quinta High School. No one was hurt.
--Shelby Grad
An Asian American Sitcom — “The Chin Chens” — Is In Production
November 1st, 2010
Reappropriate
Is an Asian-American "Cosby Show" hitting the air? Hanh Hoa, who plays the Chen matriarch, gets direction from the show's creator, Will Hollins.
Financed by the local Chinese- and Vietnamese-American community, “The Chin Chens” is a sitcom being filmed by a local Atlanta-based producer, Will Hollins. Hollins describes “The Chin Chens” as focusing on a family (mother, father, grandmother and three children) who owns a successful chain of Vietnamese nail salons and Chinese restaurants.
“I felt the Asian community didn’t have a proper voice on broadcast television,” said Hollins, a Mississippi-born African American who once ran a local recording studio and has been working in TV and film the past decade.
Vickie Eng, an Atlanta actress who plays the mom, thinks the show could be “like ‘The Cosby Show’ was for African Americans. The family is wealthy and educated. It brings core family values, Asian values. We hope to be funny while doing it.”
Tom Nguyen, who plays the eldest son, is apparently working with the writers to “ensure [the episodes] have a proper Asian-American feel”, which on the one hand suggests there is some attention to cultural authenticity, but also make me worry that the primary writers for the show are not folks who are rooted in the Asian American community.
Another worry, I have, is the title of the sitcom. The family’s last name is “Chen”, but where did the “Chin” part come in? The sitcom seems to play off of the “ching-chong”, nonsensical perception that non-Asians have of Asian languages. In addition, what few details are available about the sitcom’s first few episodes suggest that the show may reinforce some Asian stereotypes, including the type of businesses owned by the family (restaurant, nail salon), and the inter-generational tension between the overbearing Asian parent and the eager-to-please child.
Channel APA has the full casting notice, which includes some details about the first episode:
THE CHIN CHENS, “House Rules” (Actors Access) Pilot
1/2 Hour Sitcom
UNION (TBD)
Executive Producer: William A Hollins
Producer: Kenneth D Burns
Director: William A Hollins
Writer: Crystal Garrett
Casting Director: Peter Wise / Wise & Associates Casting
Start Date: July 15, 2010
Auditions Start: ASAP
Location: Atlanta GA
SUBMIT ELECTRONICALLY ONLY PETER WISE
WISE & ASSOCIATES CASTING
No phone calls to Peter Wise & Associates.
[ HU CHEN ]
Male, Chinese-American, affluent, in his early 50s, he’s the Chen family patriarch, a self-made man who came to the U.S. speaking no English and working as a busboy. Now he owns and runs the Eat and Treat Emporium (a successful, combination high-end nail salon and restaurant) with his wife HOA and their kids Luu, Linh and Le. He loves his family and tolerates his meddling, live-in mother-in-law — sort of…SERIES REGULAR (1)
[ HOA CHEN ]
Female, Vietnamese-American, affluent, in her early 50s, she’s the Chen family matriarch who ran away from Vietnam to be with the man she loves. Now she helps run the Eat and Treat Emporium (a successful, combination high-end nail salon and restaurant) with her husband Hu and their kids Luu, Linh and Le. Hoa is driven crazy by her mother, Hoang, who moved in two weeks ago and has taken over the Chens’ lives. Guilt ridden about being an “ungrateful daughter,” Hoa is torn between trying to appease her traditional, demanding mother and hoping to get back control of her life…SERIES REGULAR (1)
[ HOANG CHIN ]
70 years old, Vietnamese, she is Hoa’s traditional, demanding, and opinionated mother who moved to the States two weeks ago. She dislikes her daughter’s Americanized lifestyle and decides it’s time to make some big changes. She redecorates the house with silk lanterns and a fish pond, bangs a gong at 5:30 am to wake everyone up, insists on serving traditional meals and takes over the family business, Eat and Treat Emporium. When Hu and Hoa consider moving her to a retirement community, she sabotages the interview with the retirement director. After a heart-to-heart chat with Hoa, Hoang agrees to accept the fact that she can’t go about changing everyone’s lives…SERIES REGULAR (1)
[ LUU CHEN ]
Male, 21 years old, Chinese-American, a bit spoiled and a slacker, he is in his third year of college but still just a sophomore. Luu doesn’t want to take over the family business, so he’s deliberately dragging out his college career and constantly switching majors, basing his decision on the classes his latest crush is taking…SERIES REGULAR (1)
[ LINH CHEN ]
Female, 17, a bit of a tomboy in a baseball cap and Chuck Taylors, she loves hip-hop music and dance and is resistant to her grandmother Hoang’s opinions on this matter…SERIES REGULAR (1)
[ LE CHEN ]
Female, 12, Chinese-American, she’s the youngest member of the Chen family. She studies martial arts and thinks her grandmother’s decorations are cool. She’s in cahoots with Hoang to sabotage the retirement community interview…SERIES REGULAR (1)
[ PALOMA SANCHEZ ]
45 years old, she is the Chen family’s Mexican maid who is getting a PhD in family counseling. She’s perplexed when Hoang takes the clean dishes out of the dishwasher and puts them back in the sink to be re-washed by hand…SERIES REGULAR OR RECURRING (6)
[ MRS. TUTTLE ]
In her 60s, British, stuffy and sarcastic, she is the director of the Sterling Retirement Home who comes to the Chens’ house to interview Hoang. Mrs. Tuttle falls hook, line and sinker for Hoang’s act and can’t believe that Hoa is trying to pawn off her sickly mother on strangers…GUEST STAR (24)
[ MICHAEL SNITCHER ]
In his 60s, Caucasian, unshaven but well dressed, he is the Chens’ neighbor and the President of the Housing Association. He tells the Chens they can’t have a fish pond in their yard…1 speech and 3 lines, 1 scene (31)
[ CUSTOMER #1 ]
In her 20s, African American, she’s a disgruntled customer at the Eat and Treat Emporium…1 line, 1 scene (13)
[ CUSTOMER #3 ]
In her 50s, Caucasian and uptight, she is another disgruntled customer at the Eat and Treat Emporium…1 line, 1 scene (13)
[ CUSTOMER #2 ]
In her 30s, African American, she’s another disgruntled customer at the Eat and Treat Emporium…No lines, 1 scene (13)
STORY LINE: HU and HOA CHEN and their kids LUU, LINH and LE, an affluent Chinese-Vietnamese family living the American dream, don’t know how to cope when Hoa’s mother HOANG CHIN comes to live with them and insists on taking over every aspect of their lives, both at work and at home…
Personally, I’m a little surprised to find that this is the second television project I’ve heard about in the last few months that involves an African-American producer attempting to put Asian-Americans into the spotlight, the first being Tyrese’s “K-Town” reality television project. I don’t know what, yet, to make of this apparent trend, but I think it may speak to a need for our community to keep independently funding media projects that attempt to promote Asian Americans in a more varied and diverse light.
“The Chin Chens” has been purchased by Colours TV, a small Dish Network based channel, in a year-long commitment.
Reappropriate
Is an Asian-American "Cosby Show" hitting the air? Hanh Hoa, who plays the Chen matriarch, gets direction from the show's creator, Will Hollins.
Financed by the local Chinese- and Vietnamese-American community, “The Chin Chens” is a sitcom being filmed by a local Atlanta-based producer, Will Hollins. Hollins describes “The Chin Chens” as focusing on a family (mother, father, grandmother and three children) who owns a successful chain of Vietnamese nail salons and Chinese restaurants.
“I felt the Asian community didn’t have a proper voice on broadcast television,” said Hollins, a Mississippi-born African American who once ran a local recording studio and has been working in TV and film the past decade.
Vickie Eng, an Atlanta actress who plays the mom, thinks the show could be “like ‘The Cosby Show’ was for African Americans. The family is wealthy and educated. It brings core family values, Asian values. We hope to be funny while doing it.”
Tom Nguyen, who plays the eldest son, is apparently working with the writers to “ensure [the episodes] have a proper Asian-American feel”, which on the one hand suggests there is some attention to cultural authenticity, but also make me worry that the primary writers for the show are not folks who are rooted in the Asian American community.
Another worry, I have, is the title of the sitcom. The family’s last name is “Chen”, but where did the “Chin” part come in? The sitcom seems to play off of the “ching-chong”, nonsensical perception that non-Asians have of Asian languages. In addition, what few details are available about the sitcom’s first few episodes suggest that the show may reinforce some Asian stereotypes, including the type of businesses owned by the family (restaurant, nail salon), and the inter-generational tension between the overbearing Asian parent and the eager-to-please child.
Channel APA has the full casting notice, which includes some details about the first episode:
THE CHIN CHENS, “House Rules” (Actors Access) Pilot
1/2 Hour Sitcom
UNION (TBD)
Executive Producer: William A Hollins
Producer: Kenneth D Burns
Director: William A Hollins
Writer: Crystal Garrett
Casting Director: Peter Wise / Wise & Associates Casting
Start Date: July 15, 2010
Auditions Start: ASAP
Location: Atlanta GA
SUBMIT ELECTRONICALLY ONLY PETER WISE
WISE & ASSOCIATES CASTING
No phone calls to Peter Wise & Associates.
[ HU CHEN ]
Male, Chinese-American, affluent, in his early 50s, he’s the Chen family patriarch, a self-made man who came to the U.S. speaking no English and working as a busboy. Now he owns and runs the Eat and Treat Emporium (a successful, combination high-end nail salon and restaurant) with his wife HOA and their kids Luu, Linh and Le. He loves his family and tolerates his meddling, live-in mother-in-law — sort of…SERIES REGULAR (1)
[ HOA CHEN ]
Female, Vietnamese-American, affluent, in her early 50s, she’s the Chen family matriarch who ran away from Vietnam to be with the man she loves. Now she helps run the Eat and Treat Emporium (a successful, combination high-end nail salon and restaurant) with her husband Hu and their kids Luu, Linh and Le. Hoa is driven crazy by her mother, Hoang, who moved in two weeks ago and has taken over the Chens’ lives. Guilt ridden about being an “ungrateful daughter,” Hoa is torn between trying to appease her traditional, demanding mother and hoping to get back control of her life…SERIES REGULAR (1)
[ HOANG CHIN ]
70 years old, Vietnamese, she is Hoa’s traditional, demanding, and opinionated mother who moved to the States two weeks ago. She dislikes her daughter’s Americanized lifestyle and decides it’s time to make some big changes. She redecorates the house with silk lanterns and a fish pond, bangs a gong at 5:30 am to wake everyone up, insists on serving traditional meals and takes over the family business, Eat and Treat Emporium. When Hu and Hoa consider moving her to a retirement community, she sabotages the interview with the retirement director. After a heart-to-heart chat with Hoa, Hoang agrees to accept the fact that she can’t go about changing everyone’s lives…SERIES REGULAR (1)
[ LUU CHEN ]
Male, 21 years old, Chinese-American, a bit spoiled and a slacker, he is in his third year of college but still just a sophomore. Luu doesn’t want to take over the family business, so he’s deliberately dragging out his college career and constantly switching majors, basing his decision on the classes his latest crush is taking…SERIES REGULAR (1)
[ LINH CHEN ]
Female, 17, a bit of a tomboy in a baseball cap and Chuck Taylors, she loves hip-hop music and dance and is resistant to her grandmother Hoang’s opinions on this matter…SERIES REGULAR (1)
[ LE CHEN ]
Female, 12, Chinese-American, she’s the youngest member of the Chen family. She studies martial arts and thinks her grandmother’s decorations are cool. She’s in cahoots with Hoang to sabotage the retirement community interview…SERIES REGULAR (1)
[ PALOMA SANCHEZ ]
45 years old, she is the Chen family’s Mexican maid who is getting a PhD in family counseling. She’s perplexed when Hoang takes the clean dishes out of the dishwasher and puts them back in the sink to be re-washed by hand…SERIES REGULAR OR RECURRING (6)
[ MRS. TUTTLE ]
In her 60s, British, stuffy and sarcastic, she is the director of the Sterling Retirement Home who comes to the Chens’ house to interview Hoang. Mrs. Tuttle falls hook, line and sinker for Hoang’s act and can’t believe that Hoa is trying to pawn off her sickly mother on strangers…GUEST STAR (24)
[ MICHAEL SNITCHER ]
In his 60s, Caucasian, unshaven but well dressed, he is the Chens’ neighbor and the President of the Housing Association. He tells the Chens they can’t have a fish pond in their yard…1 speech and 3 lines, 1 scene (31)
[ CUSTOMER #1 ]
In her 20s, African American, she’s a disgruntled customer at the Eat and Treat Emporium…1 line, 1 scene (13)
[ CUSTOMER #3 ]
In her 50s, Caucasian and uptight, she is another disgruntled customer at the Eat and Treat Emporium…1 line, 1 scene (13)
[ CUSTOMER #2 ]
In her 30s, African American, she’s another disgruntled customer at the Eat and Treat Emporium…No lines, 1 scene (13)
STORY LINE: HU and HOA CHEN and their kids LUU, LINH and LE, an affluent Chinese-Vietnamese family living the American dream, don’t know how to cope when Hoa’s mother HOANG CHIN comes to live with them and insists on taking over every aspect of their lives, both at work and at home…
Personally, I’m a little surprised to find that this is the second television project I’ve heard about in the last few months that involves an African-American producer attempting to put Asian-Americans into the spotlight, the first being Tyrese’s “K-Town” reality television project. I don’t know what, yet, to make of this apparent trend, but I think it may speak to a need for our community to keep independently funding media projects that attempt to promote Asian Americans in a more varied and diverse light.
“The Chin Chens” has been purchased by Colours TV, a small Dish Network based channel, in a year-long commitment.
Racism seen in interracial town's fall
Published: Nov. 1, 2010 at 6:15 PM
UPI
URBANA-CHAMPAIGN, Ill., Nov. 1 (UPI) -- A 19th-century railroad doomed a black-founded western Illinois town by diverting routes around it, an archaeologist who studied its history says.
New Philadelphia, Ill., was "the first town in the United States planned and legally registered by an African-American," writes University of Illinois Professor Chris Fennell in the journal Historical Archaeology.
It was founded in 1836 by Frank McWorter, a Kentucky slave who purchased his wife's freedom and then his own. He bartered for land in Illinois and eventually expanded his holdings to build the town, rescuing other slaves and bringing them there. Decades before the Civil War, blacks and whites lived and worked together.
Fennell says the Pike County Railroad Co. defied topography, efficiency, cost and even its own surveyors' advice to build a wide bypass.
At its peak in 1865, the town had about 160 residents. After the bypass was built in 1870, New Philadelphia declined and reverted to farmland. By the 1890s it was gone.
"The last explanation standing," Fennell writes, is that the railroad, based in slave-trading Hannibal, Mo., "did not want to see New Philadelphia thrive. ... This is an instance where racial ideology leads to a net loss for everyone."
UPI
URBANA-CHAMPAIGN, Ill., Nov. 1 (UPI) -- A 19th-century railroad doomed a black-founded western Illinois town by diverting routes around it, an archaeologist who studied its history says.
New Philadelphia, Ill., was "the first town in the United States planned and legally registered by an African-American," writes University of Illinois Professor Chris Fennell in the journal Historical Archaeology.
It was founded in 1836 by Frank McWorter, a Kentucky slave who purchased his wife's freedom and then his own. He bartered for land in Illinois and eventually expanded his holdings to build the town, rescuing other slaves and bringing them there. Decades before the Civil War, blacks and whites lived and worked together.
Fennell says the Pike County Railroad Co. defied topography, efficiency, cost and even its own surveyors' advice to build a wide bypass.
At its peak in 1865, the town had about 160 residents. After the bypass was built in 1870, New Philadelphia declined and reverted to farmland. By the 1890s it was gone.
"The last explanation standing," Fennell writes, is that the railroad, based in slave-trading Hannibal, Mo., "did not want to see New Philadelphia thrive. ... This is an instance where racial ideology leads to a net loss for everyone."
THE ORIENTALISM OF NICKI MINAJ
By Guest Contributor Jenn, cross-posted from Reappropriate
Nicki Minaj is hip hop’s newest “it” girl — so why does it seem like her schtick has been done before? Oh, that’s right, because it has.
Minaj is a caricature of Lil’ Kim, taken even farther to the extreme than even Kim would find comfortable. After ditching the rainbow-coloured wigs of her early days, Minaj has fully adopted the hypersexualized, “poseable Black Barbie” look that Kim made famous. Like Kim, Minaj bares skin to sell shitty music to kids who can’t remember the good stuff: a close listen to her music reveals the uninspired, nonsensical lyrics, pedestrian sing-song hooks, and excessive reliance on Auto-tune that has come to characterize hip hop music today — something I like to call “The Drake Effect”. No wonder Kim is furious: Kim was actually a talented lyricist who, for better or for worse, found a way to sell her music to a sexist music industry. To her credit, Kim was a (perverse) representation of sex-positive feminism, which becomes clear when one juxtaposes her hypersexualized style with her lyrics. Minaj, on the other hand, is the Barbie doll who, in one song, craves the love of a man she compares to Eminem.
And I think I love him like Eminem call us Shady
When he call me mama, lil mama, I call him baby
That would be a sweet thing to say, too — if Eminem weren’t the poster-child for recovering drug addicts and domestic abusers right now.
The feminist in me is practically climbing the walls: are we really okay with the idea that two of the most popular female hip hop artists of the last several years — Lil’ Kim and Nicki Minaj — are glorifying themselves as life-sized Barbie dolls? I mean, the bimbo and body image issues alone are enough to make anyone shudder — and we haven’t even scratched the surface of the icky, RealDoll factor. Someone pass me my Queen Latifah.
Okay, so to be fair, Minaj isn’t totally biting Kim’s style. She has put her own unique spin on Lil’ Kim’s Barbie persona — except, it’s really not unique at all. Unlike Kim, who was satisfied with latex body-paint, Minaj is drawing from Asian cultures to exoticize her look. Call her Orientalist Black Barbie, because Minaj has egregiously stolen from various Asian cultures in two of her last music videos.
First up, Minaj teamed up with Michael Jai White in this “Memoirs of a Geisha“-inspired music video directed by Hype Williams, for “Your Love”:
http://www.racialicious.com/2010/11/01/the-orientalism-of-nicki-minaj/
The plot of the video: Michael Jai White is a samurai who runs an all-girls martial arts school. One of the girls has lusty, lusty thoughts for White. But, White only has eyes for Nicki Minaj who, I-shit-you-not, simultaneously breaks some cement blocks with a karate chop while giving Michael Jai White a completely doe-eyed, I-don’t-have-two-working-neurons-to-rub-together look, all at the same time. Because guys dig women who can simultaneously kick your ass while not knowing how to form a multi-faceted thought.
So then, stalker girl challenges Minaj to a slow-motion ninja fight which was clearly choreographed by a five-year-old. Minaj is killed, and Michael Jai White screams “NooooooOOOOOOO!!!!” as the camera pans away. Because apparently guys only dig women who have the appearance of being able to kick ass, not women who actually can kick ass.
The Orientalism of the video is so obvious as to not really warrant much further commentary: the Yellowface eye makeup to give the appearance of slanty eyes; the excessive use of silk in every goddamned scene; the terrible ninja-inspired sword fight; the Daisy Duke kimonos that would cause an oba-san to suffer epileptic convulsions — the whole video is like an Asiaphile wet dream.
Not content, apparently, to just appropriate Japanese culture, Minaj just released a second music video that appropriates a wholly different Asian culture. In her collaboration with will.i.am., both artists star in a very weird K-Pop-inspired music video for their song “Check It Out”:
http://www.racialicious.com/2010/11/01/the-orientalism-of-nicki-minaj/
This one has a gregarious K-Pop TV show host, lots of CGI Korean words popping out at you from the background (Angry Asian Man notes that they are a “crude” translation of the song lyrics), and — most bizarrely — an audience of Asian Stepford Wives in the studio audience. These women all wear sunglasses and short black dresses, and move in unison as they robotically watch Minaj and will.i.am. drop some acid on the soundstage; at the end, they methodically clap, as if all their brains have melted out their ears after being subjected to three minutes of this inanity. Is the audience an intentional (or unintentional) reference to Asian conformism, or to more of Minaj’s I-don’t-think-for-myself Barbie shitck?
What annoys me the most about these videos isn’t how they have ruined two favourite songs of my childhood — Annie Lennox’s “No More ‘I Love You’s” and The Buggles’ “Video Killed The Radio Star.” No, what annoys me the most is how we’ve seen female pop stars do Minaj’s Orientalist bullshit before: Gwen Stefani, and Madonna before her, have borrowed heavily from Asian culture, with little regard for the authenticity or appropriateness of their actions. It sucked then, and it sucks even more now that Minaj thinks she’s stumbled upon something unique and clever. Asian cultures have a rich and varied history, but in these videos, they are appropriated with as much depth as the Auto-Tune of the songs themselves, and regurgitated onto each scene as little more than a superficial, stylized, exoticized patina.
With Minaj apparently in the middle of an East Asian cultural tour, one wonders how her Orientalist ADD will manifest itself next. Next stop: Chinese opera? Indian Bollywood? Thai weddings? I should start a pool.
And, how long is it going to take for someone to make the Nicki Minaj version of “Aren’t Asians Great”?
Nicki Minaj is hip hop’s newest “it” girl — so why does it seem like her schtick has been done before? Oh, that’s right, because it has.
Minaj is a caricature of Lil’ Kim, taken even farther to the extreme than even Kim would find comfortable. After ditching the rainbow-coloured wigs of her early days, Minaj has fully adopted the hypersexualized, “poseable Black Barbie” look that Kim made famous. Like Kim, Minaj bares skin to sell shitty music to kids who can’t remember the good stuff: a close listen to her music reveals the uninspired, nonsensical lyrics, pedestrian sing-song hooks, and excessive reliance on Auto-tune that has come to characterize hip hop music today — something I like to call “The Drake Effect”. No wonder Kim is furious: Kim was actually a talented lyricist who, for better or for worse, found a way to sell her music to a sexist music industry. To her credit, Kim was a (perverse) representation of sex-positive feminism, which becomes clear when one juxtaposes her hypersexualized style with her lyrics. Minaj, on the other hand, is the Barbie doll who, in one song, craves the love of a man she compares to Eminem.
And I think I love him like Eminem call us Shady
When he call me mama, lil mama, I call him baby
That would be a sweet thing to say, too — if Eminem weren’t the poster-child for recovering drug addicts and domestic abusers right now.
The feminist in me is practically climbing the walls: are we really okay with the idea that two of the most popular female hip hop artists of the last several years — Lil’ Kim and Nicki Minaj — are glorifying themselves as life-sized Barbie dolls? I mean, the bimbo and body image issues alone are enough to make anyone shudder — and we haven’t even scratched the surface of the icky, RealDoll factor. Someone pass me my Queen Latifah.
Okay, so to be fair, Minaj isn’t totally biting Kim’s style. She has put her own unique spin on Lil’ Kim’s Barbie persona — except, it’s really not unique at all. Unlike Kim, who was satisfied with latex body-paint, Minaj is drawing from Asian cultures to exoticize her look. Call her Orientalist Black Barbie, because Minaj has egregiously stolen from various Asian cultures in two of her last music videos.
First up, Minaj teamed up with Michael Jai White in this “Memoirs of a Geisha“-inspired music video directed by Hype Williams, for “Your Love”:
http://www.racialicious.com/2010/11/01/the-orientalism-of-nicki-minaj/
The plot of the video: Michael Jai White is a samurai who runs an all-girls martial arts school. One of the girls has lusty, lusty thoughts for White. But, White only has eyes for Nicki Minaj who, I-shit-you-not, simultaneously breaks some cement blocks with a karate chop while giving Michael Jai White a completely doe-eyed, I-don’t-have-two-working-neurons-to-rub-together look, all at the same time. Because guys dig women who can simultaneously kick your ass while not knowing how to form a multi-faceted thought.
So then, stalker girl challenges Minaj to a slow-motion ninja fight which was clearly choreographed by a five-year-old. Minaj is killed, and Michael Jai White screams “NooooooOOOOOOO!!!!” as the camera pans away. Because apparently guys only dig women who have the appearance of being able to kick ass, not women who actually can kick ass.
The Orientalism of the video is so obvious as to not really warrant much further commentary: the Yellowface eye makeup to give the appearance of slanty eyes; the excessive use of silk in every goddamned scene; the terrible ninja-inspired sword fight; the Daisy Duke kimonos that would cause an oba-san to suffer epileptic convulsions — the whole video is like an Asiaphile wet dream.
Not content, apparently, to just appropriate Japanese culture, Minaj just released a second music video that appropriates a wholly different Asian culture. In her collaboration with will.i.am., both artists star in a very weird K-Pop-inspired music video for their song “Check It Out”:
http://www.racialicious.com/2010/11/01/the-orientalism-of-nicki-minaj/
This one has a gregarious K-Pop TV show host, lots of CGI Korean words popping out at you from the background (Angry Asian Man notes that they are a “crude” translation of the song lyrics), and — most bizarrely — an audience of Asian Stepford Wives in the studio audience. These women all wear sunglasses and short black dresses, and move in unison as they robotically watch Minaj and will.i.am. drop some acid on the soundstage; at the end, they methodically clap, as if all their brains have melted out their ears after being subjected to three minutes of this inanity. Is the audience an intentional (or unintentional) reference to Asian conformism, or to more of Minaj’s I-don’t-think-for-myself Barbie shitck?
What annoys me the most about these videos isn’t how they have ruined two favourite songs of my childhood — Annie Lennox’s “No More ‘I Love You’s” and The Buggles’ “Video Killed The Radio Star.” No, what annoys me the most is how we’ve seen female pop stars do Minaj’s Orientalist bullshit before: Gwen Stefani, and Madonna before her, have borrowed heavily from Asian culture, with little regard for the authenticity or appropriateness of their actions. It sucked then, and it sucks even more now that Minaj thinks she’s stumbled upon something unique and clever. Asian cultures have a rich and varied history, but in these videos, they are appropriated with as much depth as the Auto-Tune of the songs themselves, and regurgitated onto each scene as little more than a superficial, stylized, exoticized patina.
With Minaj apparently in the middle of an East Asian cultural tour, one wonders how her Orientalist ADD will manifest itself next. Next stop: Chinese opera? Indian Bollywood? Thai weddings? I should start a pool.
And, how long is it going to take for someone to make the Nicki Minaj version of “Aren’t Asians Great”?
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