Archive for the ‘Culture’ Category

Anita Blake and the Magic Negro

Anita Blake and the Magic Negro
Move over Buffy Summers. If you’re on top of the latest vampire gossip, you already know that Anita Blake is the hottest vampire hunter in town.  Be careful, Bella Cullen. If Anita Blake gets on the case, you might wind up dead…or in bed. One really can’t predict such things with...
May 3rd, 2010 | Culture, Pop culture | Read More

Are the fangs real? Vampires as racial metaphor in the Anita Blake and Twilight Novels

Are the fangs real? Vampires as racial metaphor in the Anita Blake and Twilight Novels
They’re physically powerful and move with an unusual combination of grace and speed. They’re sexually seductive, in a forbidden sort of way, and dangerous-even the well-mannered, law-abiding ones are, at their core, threatening.  They’re monsters, ever ready to prey and feed...
April 12th, 2010 | Culture, Featured, Pop culture | Read More

Separate, Half-price, and Definitely Not Equal: Black Barbie Politics, Continued

Separate, Half-price, and Definitely Not Equal: Black Barbie Politics, Continued
It looks like the only way to discuss Mattel’s race politics is to forgo intellectual analysis for talking to these dolls in person. In a recent Root.com article, Black Ballerina Teresa talks back not about her new look or set of friends, but about the fact that she’s being sold at a radically lower...
March 31st, 2010 | Pop culture | Read More

Blanqueamiento: A poem by Adebe DeRango-Adem

Blanqueamiento: A poem by Adebe DeRango-Adem
The land that’s yours is mine, is shadows, which I see both dreaming and in the night when drums make our old selves dance, bring us to embrace those old ghosts weaving through. No one owns them or us,  nor the fearful asymmetries of our lineage, of our Caribe we left for new callings, a new response from...
March 22nd, 2010 | Creative Writing, Culture, Featured | Read More

Putting this Year of “Firsts” in Perspective

Putting this Year of “Firsts” in Perspective
I know the Oscars happened a week ago, but I’m still nagged by some of the larger implications of the event. The general controversy has been covered here and elsewhere. What I would like to do is highlight the limited scope of people of color throughout the history of the Academy Awards. My intent...
March 17th, 2010 | Culture, Pop culture | Read More

Ernesto Yerena: A rising grassroots artistic force

Ernesto Yerena: A rising grassroots artistic force
We are Human Fist: Collaboration with Shepard Fairey visit http://hechoconganas.com This “golden boy” of social art has already created historic images. And he’s just beginning. For the thousands of people who have participated in recent pro-immigration marches and demonstrations...
March 16th, 2010 | Culture, The Arts | Read More

What “Precious” tells us about images Of blackness

What “Precious” tells us about images Of blackness
Originally published on NewsOne Image is everything. Whoever said that was apparently right, especially in the Los Angeles area, home of the movie industry, the recent Academy Awards and the annual Wadsworth Elementary School Black History Month parade. All have been in the news lately highlighting...
March 11th, 2010 | Pop culture | Read More

Race, Love and Sex

Race, Love and Sex
In the film “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?” the progressive attitudes of an affluent white couple are put to the test when their daughter announces her engagement to Sidney Poitier’s dashing Dr. John Prentice.    In the thematic sequel, “Guess Who,” Bernie Mac grapples with the notion...
March 3rd, 2010 | Culture | Read More

The Last Black People in America, Part I

The Last Black People in America, Part I
What do you do when who you are is a very difficult, but very valuable, way to be? I went to a party in North Carolina last November to celebrate the 80th birthday of the widow of a black former sharecropper. She had raised 13 children after her husband died almost 40 years ago. I was invited by her...
February 26th, 2010 | Culture | Read More

Other Tongues: Mixed-Race Women in North America Speak Out

Other Tongues: Mixed-Race Women in North America Speak Out
Being interracial in Canada is about crossing borders: some imaginary, and some rigidly imposed.  It is also about juggling with hyphens and margins, and struggling to carve out a space in Canada’s proclaimed multicultural imaginary – a space that, as many might argue, is largely make-believe...
February 23rd, 2010 | Creative Writing, Culture, Featured, The Arts | Read More

Russian ice dancers slip on Aboriginal ‘tribute’

Russian ice dancers slip on Aboriginal ‘tribute’
Originally published at St. Louis Beacon Required to do a dance that represents a culture, Russian ice skaters Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin chose Australian Aborigines. Problem? They got it wrong and failed to respond to feedback. After its unveiling in December, several sources said that the...
February 23rd, 2010 | Culture | Read More

Don’t rush for David Mamet’s Race

Don’t rush for David Mamet’s Race
Crossposted from Colorlines Magazine Web Exclusive With a title as bold as Race, I was prepared for this play to go where no performance had before. Director David Mamet described his production as “a play about lies,” including the hidden truth that “there has always been, at the very least, a...
February 16th, 2010 | Culture, Reviews | Read More

On John Mayer’s ‘Hood Pass’: A moment of clarity

On John Mayer’s ‘Hood Pass’: A moment of clarity
“Clarity” is one of my favorite John Mayer songs, and given the troubling comments in his forthcoming interview with Playboy Magazine, a little clarity is what we all need.  Mayer’s broad cross-over appeal has been construed by some as a “hood pass.” Laudably if inelegantly, he rejects such...
February 16th, 2010 | Culture, Pop culture | Read More

Light skin, camera, action: Animating race

Light skin, camera, action: Animating race
The ways in which Hollywood amalgamates – albeit uncritically and not always consciously – entertainment and pedagogy is necessary for any discussion around race on the big screen.  When it comes to animation, this becomes an even larger issue.   Walt Disney has long lent itself to a tradition...
February 12th, 2010 | Culture, Featured, Pop culture | Read More
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