The Black Power Mixtape

I'm finally watching the documentary The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975.  It's blowing my mind on so many levels, mostly because (I'm ashamed to admit) I know very little about the full scope of the black movement in the 60s-70s.  Definitely recommend.

I especially love this quote from Courtney Callender, who was also New York City's first African American Deputy Commissioner of Cultural Affairs.

“This whole kind of, uh, falling in love with black things for a short period of time is essentially racist. It still is hypothesized on a great sense of separateness and a sense of treating black activities as kind of a curiosity either benign or threatening one or the other. When it’s threatening, you know, they’re gonna riot or something; and when it’s benign, let them paint or draw or sing or dance or whatever they want to do until we the white community get tired of it. And that whole structure is essentially racist.”

Sigh.  The more things change, the more they stay the same?  We've come so far as a country, and still have so very far to go.

Pacific Northwest Whitewash

"Trying to describe white privilege to white people is like trying to explain water to a fish."


Bonita Appleblog crafted an excellent, thoughtful response to an article in Seattle's alt-weekly, The Stranger, on racism, Seattle-style.


Fact!  I used to live in Seattle.  I went to college there, and I cannot recall interacting with a single black person outside of the Supersonics, Monday night Seahawks hangout at the jazz club, the 3 guys on our school's basketball team, and the neighborhoods where I volunteered.  OUCH.


These days, the first reason I give when asked if I would ever move back to Portland and I say no and they ask why, is that it's not diverse enough.  People like to debate this, or act like this is an unreasonable dealbreaker, but when you grow up as a mixed-race kid in a superwhite area, you're not in a big hurry to return to a place where you didn't stand a chance of blending in, being beautiful, encountering others like you.


This explanation is inevitably met with a blank stare, which brings us back to the quote at the top of this post. Rinse, repeat.


"Your life story produces a racial filter," [explains Tali Hairston.] "It might be a lens so thick that everything gets drawn into looking like it's about race, or so thin that when someone says something is racial, you go, oh hell no, it's not. As a white person, you have to own the development of your own racial lens. Because whether you're aware of it or not, you have one."

Everyone Stop Telling Me To See "The Help"

I don't want to see that movie.  I don't want to read the book.  I haven't been articulating why very well, I just get an icky feeling from the commercial with the worn-out types: Sassy Black Maid, Hoity-Toity White Upper Class Lady, Sympathetic White Woman Who Will Turn Out Okay.  The white-person-as-hero feel-good flick that glosses over a host of problems that one person ain't solving is not my genre, which is also why I will not waste two hours on The Blind Side, not that I need a reason beyond Sandra Bullock (though Crash was awesome, and imho her only watchable moment).

This op-ed makes a related point:

To suggest that bad people were racist implies that good people were not.

Jim Crow segregation survived long into the 20th century because it was kept alive by white Southerners with value systems and personalities we would applaud. It’s the fallacy of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” a movie that never fails to move me but that advances a troubling falsehood: the notion that well-educated Christian whites were somehow victimized by white trash and forced to live within a social system that exploited and denigrated its black citizens, and that the privileged white upper class was somehow held hostage to these struggling individuals.

But that wasn’t the case...

...Cultures function and persist by consensus. In Jackson and other bastions of the Jim Crow South, the pervasive notion, among poor whites and rich, that blacks were unworthy of full citizenship was as unquestioned as the sanctity of church on Sunday. “The Help” tells a compelling and gripping story, but it fails to tell that one.

Mixed Race on the Brian Lehrer Show

My favorite radio show is having a call-in right now on being mixed race - I can't get through so I will blog about it instead.  Apologies in advance for the stream of consciousness.

Click on multiracial on the tag cloud at right or search "mixed" to see my previous musings on being more than one race.

While I appreciate the guests - an interracial couple, I'd like to hear from a mixed race "expert" instead - but that would defeat the purpose of understanding since any one person's experience can't possibly capture it for us all.

You know where being mixes sucks these days?  Dating.  White guys are like "I don't date black women."  I don't know how someone can say this and not feel they're being racist and vastly generalizing (ahem, John Mayer, whose songs I have deleted from my iTunes after his extremely racist and insensitive comments about interracial dating).  And black men do not know what to do with me.

Last week I went to my friend Santana's play reading - she wrote a one-woman show about her experience growing up mixed called "The Other Box."  It was brilliant.  I didn't expect it to be that good this early in development.  But we have some uncommon parallels in our childhood & experience, so it was very hard for me to absorb at points.  The show is going up this month, happy to share info, it is so worth seeing -- you'll laugh and cry and get it.

Woman on radio now is talking about how it's more of an issue in New York.  This is so true.  Of course I was a kid on the West Coast so I may not have been as aware, but I will tell you that in NYC everyone needs to fit everyone else into a box, and it can really suck.  Of course, this is true way beyond race: your job, your neighborhood, your money, your family, your alma mater, your marital status, your hobbies, etc etc.

And.... segment over!  Seriously, I could explore this all the time.  Maybe I will start my own radio show just about being mixed and America from a mixed perspective.  Why not, every other racial group has their own media microcosm.  Take that, Brian Lehrer!

HBHM: The Undercover Black Person

I was overjoyed to find my favorite essay on mixed-ness published in its entirety online - Danzy Senna's The Mulatto Millennium brilliantly captures what it's like, especially for those of us who "look white" and are therefore privy (though I use that term loosely) to all sorts of shades of grey in the chasm between black and white.

White folks were the most uncomfortable with the dissonance between the face they saw and the race they didn't. Upon learning who I was, they grew paralyzed with fear that they might have "slipped up" in my presence, that is, said something racist, not knowing there was a Negro in their midst. Often, they had.

Full article.

On a related note, being the only black and white (and red) person in most of my groups and a big avoider of conflict, I never know what to do when a friend says something I deem racist, whether about one of my races or someone else's.  This happens every so often. Yes, I am probably more sensitive than others due to my racial makeup.  And yes, classification of racism is hugely subjective.  Still, I feel complicit if I don't call it out.  So where's the line?

HBHM: On Half-Blackness and Halle Berry

Half-Black History Month Continues...

I was over the (half) moon to see a well-rounded feature in the Times recently about the decision by many young bi- and multi-racial Americans to define themselves as such.

Many young adults of mixed backgrounds are rejecting the color lines that have defined Americans for generations in favor of a much more fluid sense of identity... “It depends on the day, and it depends on the options.” They are also using the strength in their growing numbers to affirm roots that were once portrayed as tragic or pitiable. “I think it’s really important to acknowledge who you are and everything that makes you that. If someone tries to call me black I say, ‘yes — and white.’ People have the right not to acknowledge everything, but don’t do it because society tells you that you can’t.”

I feel incredibly strongly about this -- unlike Halle Berry (I know, you thought we were exactly the same, but it's really just exterior), I do not buy into the one-drop rule that one black ancestor means I must define myself and my experience as African-American.  That's about as genuine as Michelle Obama identifying as white since she has white ancestors; her life experience has probably been lived as a black woman regardless of her genetic history.

One of my clients right now is a transman who has written a rock memoir (yes, that's my term, go marketing!) about his life and transition from female to male.  It's been a huge eye-opener for me.  I can't imagine being born into the wrong body, an identity that I couldn't embrace... and yet, I identify heavily with his story, as throughout my life I have been, and always will be, confronted by people and situations that want to tell me how I "should" identify, which box I should check.  Identity, ideally, should be something that is self-determined, and the rest of the world should accept it and carry on.  It feels insincere for me to say I'm black because that ignores a huge part of what has shaped me, but on the other side of the oreo, saying I'm white certainly doesn't tell the whole story either. So it is fine with me if Halle identifies as black, but I hope as time goes on, she lets her (quarter-black) daughter define herself.

The Mayoress Decrees: Half-Black History Month!

It's February, you know what that means?  Tacky Valentine's Day gifts, daydreaming about Spring Break, and feeling guilty you don't know more about black people!

Well, the guilt end now because the Mayoress is decreeing the second half (get it?) of February...

Half-Black History Month!!!

Yesiree racial voyeurs, for the next two weeks I will focus my meandering rants on the issues of multi-race.  Because mixed is the new black!

Look forward to contributions from such mixed luminaries as Mariah Carey, Halle Berry, Tiger Woods, and the POTUS himself!*

Questions & suggestions welcome... more to come.

*Subject to change without notice.

When I am Mayoress... Parenting

More parenting posts!  Don't worry, I'm not nine months out or anything so your dreams of a mini-Mayoress will just have to remain delicious fantasies.

Check out this comment on Jezebel's post about the Daily Mail article on nannies' opinions of their employers:

Invite a friend to comment

I am a nanny and have an agent that sends me on interviews when I'm not employed. I recently went to one for a woman who doesn't work, and already has both a full time nanny and maid. She was looking for a second nanny for her 3 kids. She told me I would be the "fun" nanny and she would expect me to entertain them constantly. She told me I'd have to stay every day until they were asleep because when the kids went to bed she took one child, the other nanny took one child, but then there was a third child with no one to help put her down (like the child's father).

My agent called her to ask her why I didn't get the job and she told him that I was lovely, but that she didn't feel comfortable ordering around an American girl and would prefer a Puerto Rican or South American. Yeah.

Now, you guys know I have strong feelings on parenthood, mainly rooted in my belief that procreating should be a decision, not a given.  But when I wield the limitless power of Mayoress, people deciding to become parents will have to at least pass a simple test first, like...

Reverse Racism or Affirmative Action?

We can't live in a post-racial world if this is the sort of thing that makes people go crazy.  Then again, we can't live in a post-racial world if there are magazines that only cater to a particular race either.  Regardless, I side with Burt-Murray on this one.

But interestingly enough, the things I think should most upset people and inspire boycotts and Facebook protests, often seem to go relatively unnoticed. Like when Essence conducted a three-part education series this year on the plight of black children falling through the cracks in under-performing schools. Crickets. When we reported on the increase in sex trafficking of young black girls in urban communities? Silence. When our writers investigated the inequities in the health care services black women receive? Deadly silence. When our editors highlighted data from the Closing the Gap Initiative report “Lifting as We Climb: Women of Color, Wealth and America’s Future” that showed that the median net worth of single black women was $5? There went those darn crickets again. When we run pieces on how unemployment is devastating black men? Nada. When we run story after story on how HIV is the leading cause of death for black women age 18-34? Zilch. The things that really are the end of our world apparently aren’t.

And... Better News for the Disenfranchised

The divine Frank Rich breaks down why the Mel Gibson fallout is a sign of progress:

Six years ago he was not merely an A-list movie star with a penchant for drinking and boorish behavior but also a powerful and canonized figure in the political and cultural pantheon of American conservatism. That he has reached rock bottom tells us nothing new about Gibson. He was the same talented, nasty, bigoted blowhard then that he is today. But his fall says a lot about the changes in our country over the past six years. We shouldn’t take those changes for granted. We should take stock — and celebrate. They are good news.

Check out the full op-ed for an entertainment/politics time travel back to 2004, when Mel was already openly anti-Semitic, Haggard was still closeted, and Gibson was actively supported by conservative leaders from the WSJ op-ed page to the Vatican.

Who are the Disenfranchised White People?

I usually disagree with Ross Douchbag Douthat, the smug, often borderline-ignorant conservative Times columnist, and it's no surprise he chose this as his subject matter for his most recent column.  But I found it of particular interest as someone who once wrote a one-act play solely on the topic of deciding whether to check the box on her Yale University college application (I didn't, nor did I get in - your loss, bulldogs!).

LOL from The Onion

Shout outs to Brad Holbrook (anchor) and JJ Adler (director), both clients of Pressler Collaborative!


Man Attempts To Assassinate Obama, 'But Not Because He's Black Or Anything'

Do the Census!

(I imagine this post title said to the beat of "Do the hustle!")

Guys, the census stresses me out. I love tests - standardized, personality, IQ - but especially tests where I know all the answers. So it's no problem for me to fill out and send, but most people won't. I mean, if you guys won't even VOTE, how can we get you to fill out this stupid irrelevant piece of paper?

What's the point even? Does race matter anymore when it comes to distribution of federal funds? I think income levels matter far more.

Check out the interesting comments on Brian Lehrer's show page. You know I'm a total mixed supremacist so I'm way too excited that he's covering this issue.

Today in Black (People Would Like To Make Him) History

"Someone asked me the other day, "What does it feel like now to have a hood pass?" And by the way, it's sort of a contradiction in terms, because if you really had a hood pass, you could call it a nigger pass. Why are you pulling a punch and calling it a hood pass if you really have a hood pass? But I said, "I can't really have a hood pass. I've never walked into a restaurant, asked for a table and been told, ‘We're full.'

"What is being black? It's making the most of your life, not taking a single moment for granted. Taking something that's seen as a struggle and making it work for you, or you'll die inside. Not to say that my struggle is like the collective struggle of black America. But maybe my struggle is similar to one black dude's."

- White Young Wealthy Famous Man from Connecticut

John Mayer: you have just ruined your music for me in the way that I can no longer watch Seinfeld because of Michael Richards. Thanks a bunch.

In Which the Mayoress Finds Herself With Only One Fugee Left to Serve

"We Are All Africans!"

At least, that was Wyclef's sentiment when shouting out Haiti on tonight's Grammys. I can't speak for the entire nation of Haiti (like Wyclef can, apparently), or even my own entire country, but as someone whose country's ancestral history is also from Africa, I HATE it when Americans say they're African. I'm not African-American. I'm American. I've never been to Africa. I know very little about Africa and I sure as hell don't know which country my family came from (thanks slave trade!).

As those who know me know, I also hate it when people ask me "where I'm from" as in what my ethnicity is - of course, as I've said before, it's usually men figuring me out, as in, whether to ask me out (hey mami! oh, you're not latina? but you look latina - are you sure?). I'm from Oregon. I can talk for days about why Portland is awesome and the cultural nuances of the Pacific Northwest, but even in the wake of tragedy I doubt I'd speak for the entire region.

My point, I suppose, is that what I value is global citizenry - we should be (somewhat) equally upset and provoked to action whether something happens in a place we have ties to or in a place we've never heard of. Aparna, one of my very wisest friends, made a great point the other day - as awful, horrible as the tragedy in Haiti is, even more unspeakable things happen daily in other places and we either don't know about them or no longer care. And that's unacceptable, no matter where you're from. In other words, let's not get so caught up in unnecessary identities that we can't be simply human. We've seen many times what happens when we go too far the other direction, so wouldn't it be wonderful if we could find out what happens when we move forward instead?

On Opportunity

"Black celebrities have always been rewarded. The point - Martin Luther King's dream - is for mediocre black people to be rewarded, to have the same opportunities mediocre white people do."
- Chris Rock

Meet Lou Jing

Before, on the street, people might say things like, 'How come she looks like that?' But that was just a small number of people. When I was younger, I thought life was beautiful. Why is it that now I've grown up, I don't think that anymore?

- Lou Jing, 20-year-old Shanghai woman whose mother is Chinese and father is African-American

Full article.

Think of the Children!

Hurrah! That racist judge in Louisiana who refused to marry an interracial couple resigned today. What, you didn't hear about this last month?! Apparently this older white gentleman just looooves black people (he lets them use his bathroom!) but refuses to issue interracial couples marriage licenses out of his concern for their future mixed-race children.

I could go on and on about the many things wrong with this guy's unapologetic racism (why does he assume they're even having kids? why is that his business? what empirical evidence is the presumed hardship of biracial children based on? how did this guy get voted into office in the first place? why was this the first couple to take legal action against him?), but I'll just be chilling over here in the Biracial Underachievers Corner with Barack, Mariah, Halle, and the gang.

On the Politics of 1967

I saw Hair on Broadway last night. Definitely enjoyed it and was on my feet dancing with the rest of the audience at the end, but something had been bothering me about the show, and not just the fact that every song was not sung by the showstopping Sasha Allen and that the nude scene was too lowly lit.*

The New Yorker review by Hilton Als may have hit the nail on the head:

I didn’t expect to take such a dyspeptic view of the show, and I was saddened by my response... I was disturbed by certain elements in Gerome Ragni and James Rado’s book and lyrics.

“Hair” was first produced in 1967, at the Public Theatre. (It went to Broadway the following year; the current production mirrors that trajectory.) At the time it premièred on Broadway, a mixed cast was still relatively uncommon. But that suited “Hair” just fine. Less a musical than a revue, it was meant to showcase those elements of society which the American stage had relegated to the margins: blacks and women. And yet there is not one believable black character in “Hair.” In fact, its strangled, hackneyed depiction of black masculinity is painful to watch. Compare how we meet the free-spirited white hippie Berger (the excellent and appropriately narcissistic Will Swenson) and the militant black man Hud (Nichols). Berger introduces himself and his tentacle-like sexuality—he wants to touch everyone he sees—by joking around and flirting with the audience. Hud, on the other hand, comes across immediately as one angry dude—and angry about just the things that white people might imagine he’d be angry about. Glaring at the audience, as he paces the stage, he sings:

I’m a colored spade, a nigra, a black nigger
A jungle bunny jigaboo coon pickaninny
mau mau
Uncle Tom Aunt Jemima Little Black
Sambo
Cotton pickin’ swamp Guinea junk man
shoe shine boy. . . .
And President of
The United States of Love I said
President of
The United States of Love

I’m sure the original creators of the show felt that they were treating these issues—the way a black man is perceived and the way he perceives himself—with “irony” and a healthy dose of liberal self-consciousness. But Hud is simply a construction, meant to validate the white hipness of the show. (He’s straight out of Norman Mailer’s 1957 treatise “The White Negro.”) The strain in the portrayal of blackness becomes only more evident and uncomfortable in the play’s second act, when a Tribe member (Saycon Sengbloh), dressed in an Abraham Lincoln-like stovepipe hat, joins Hud and four black men carrying spears to sing “Yes, I’s Finished on Y’All’s Farmlands.” In short, aside from the draft, all the “issues” in “Hair” seem to have to do with race, and the task of representing them falls on the overburdened black characters, who have to do almost everything here except tap-dance.

*I really am a gay man in the body of a straight woman, aren't I? So awesome.

'08 Voter Turnout Marks Minority Milestone

From the Times blogs:

The long-standing gap between blacks and whites in voter participation evaporated in the presidential election last year, according to an analysis released Thursday. Black, Hispanic and Asian voters made up nearly a quarter of the electorate, setting a record.

The analysis, by the Pew Research Center, also found that for the first time, black women turned out at a higher rate than any other racial, ethnic and gender group.

The study attributed the findings to several factors beyond the obvious...

I wonder if I was counted as one of these active black women -- where do they get the demographic info? I think I'm white according to the DMV, black according to Social Security, and the '00 census did had a box for "multi-racial" or something... anyone counting that turnout? Wonder which box Obama checked...

Check out full article.