Chief U.S. District Judge sends racially charged email about president

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HELENA — Chief U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull on Wednesday admitted to sending a racially charged email about President Barack Obama from his courthouse chambers.
Cebull, of Billings, was nominated by former President George W. Bush and received his commission in 2001 and has served as chief judge for the District of Montana since 2008.
The subject line of the email, which Cebull sent from his official courthouse email address on Feb. 20 at 3:42 p.m., reads: "A MOM'S MEMORY."
The forwarded text reads as follow:
"Normally I don't send or forward a lot of these, but even by my standards, it was a bit touching. I want all of my friends to feel what I felt when I read this. Hope it touches your heart like it did mine.
"A little boy said to his mother; 'Mommy, how come I'm black and you're white?'" the email joke reads. "His mother replied, 'Don't even go there Barack! From what I can remember about that party, you're lucky you don't bark!'"
Cebull admitted Wednesday to sending the email to seven recipients, including his personal email address.
The judge acknowledged that the content of the email was racist, but said he does not consider himself racist. He said the email was intended to be a private communication.
"It was not intended by me in any way to become public," Cebull said. "I apologize to anybody who is offended by it, and I can obviously understand why people would be offended."
Cebull said his brother initially sent him the email, which he forwarded to six of his "old buddies" and acquaintances.
He admitted that he read the email and intended to send it to his friends.
"The only reason I can explain it to you is I am not a fan of our president, but this goes beyond not being a fan," Cebull said. "I didn't send it as racist, although that's what it is. I sent it out because it's anti-Obama."
Travis McAdam, executive director for the Montana Human Rights Network , said the email contained highly racist rhetoric unbecoming of a federal judge.
"It's one thing if the judge is not a fan of President Barack Obama, but you would think someone in his position would articulate that in a way that criticizes his policy decisions or his position on issues," McAdam said. "We have a hard time believing that a legitimate criticism of the president involves distributing a joke that basically compares African Americans with animals."

Cebull said he does not consider himself prejudice against people of other races or ethnic backgrounds, and that his actions in his courtroom have demonstrated that.
"I have never considered myself that way," Cebull said. "All I can emphasize is I've treated people in my courtroom all these years fairly. I don't think I've ever demonstrated racism. Nobody has ever even implied it."
Montana immigration attorney Shahid Haque-Hausrath was on the receiving end of a racially charged email sent by a top Immigrations and Customs Enforcement official last fall. That official was suspended after sending Haque-Hausrath an email implying that Muslim Americans must prove their allegiance to the United State.
Haque-Hausrath, who is in an interracial marriage and recently fathered a child with his wife, said Cebull's e-mail was "deeply troubling."
"Another federal official who is entrusted to do his duties fairly and impartially has yet again sent an email from his work account during work hours that espouses deeply racist and bigoted views," Haque-Hausrath said. "The reason why I think it's so troubling, is it espouses the deeply racist view that interracial sex is equivalent to bestiality. For a federal judge to be equating the two, and say since Barack Obama is of mixed racial background, that his mother was somehow committing acts of bestiality is incredibly racist and troubling.
One of the recipients of the email Cebull sent forwarded it to another person, who in turn forwarded it to another person. The email was eventually pass along to the Great Falls Tribune, who contacted Cebull. Cebull said he was surprised the recipients of the e-mail passed it along with his name on it.
"This is a private thing that was, to say the least, very poor judgment on my part," Cebull said. "I did not forward it because of the racist nature of it. Although it is racist, I'm not that way, never have been."

Actress in Pete Hoekstra ad accused of racism and stereotypes issues an apology

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The actress who starred in a political attack ad accused of promoting racial stereotypes has apologized.
Lisa Chan called her participation in the commercial “a mistake” on her Facebook page.
“I am deeply sorry for any pain that the character I portrayed brought to my communities,” Chan wrote.
In the 30-second spot, which aired during the Super Bowl and served as a campaign ad for GOP Senate hopeful Pete Hoekstra, Chan was seen riding a bicycle through a field of rice paddies, as ancient Chinese music played in the background.

“We take your jobs,” she told viewers in broken English.
The ad was attacking Hoekstra’s opponent and incumbent, Sen. Debbie Stabenow, for spending and borrowing money from China.
It sparked a media firestorm and drew criticism from fellow politicians as well as Asian-American groups, who said the ad promoted anti-Asian stereotypes.
This is what prompted Chan to issue an apology, which was first reported by the blog Angry Asian Man.
“As a recent college grad who has spent time working to improve communities and empower those without a voice, this role is not in any way representative of who I am,” she wrote on Facebook.
“It was absolutely a mistake on my part and one that, over time, I hope can be forgiven. I feel horrible about my participation and I am determined to resolve my actions.”
Despite Chan’s regrets, Hoekstra had stood by his decision to run the ad.

“The only group of people that this ad is ‘anti’ — it’s anti-Debbie Stabenow, it’s anti-Barack Obama, the spending policies of the liberal left,” he told Fox News.
“There’s nothing in here that has a racial tint at all.”

Shock Jocks Suspended For Calling Whitney A “Crack Hoe”

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On Thursday, popular radio shock jocks John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou (pictured) of station KFI AM 640 in Los Angeles were suspended and forced to apologize for making insensitive and callous remarks about the late iconic songstress Whitney Houston, reports the Los Angeles Times.

The controversial tag team referred to Houston as a “crack h*” and then went on to say that she had been “cracked out for 20 years.”  They also asked, “Really, it [Whitney's death]took this long?”
For their disrespectful remarks, Kobylt and Chiampou, who broadcast their show on weekday afternoons, were suspended by KFI station heads until February 27.
In a statement on the KFI website, the following apology was made to the listeners:

Effective immediately, KFI AM 640 hosts John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou have been suspended for making insensitive and inappropriate comments about the late Whitney Houston.

KFI AM 640 Management does not condone, support or tolerate statements of this kind.”

John Kobylt also released a statement:

We made a mistake, and we accept the station’s decision. We used language that was inappropriate, and we sincerely apologize to our listeners and to the family of Ms. Houston.

This is not the first incident for Kobylt and Chiampou. Just last year, they raised the ire of the Hispanic population, when they gave out the phone number of Jorge-Mario Cabrera, a local immigration rights advocate, on the air.  In no time, Cabrera, a staff member with the Coalition of Humane Immigration Rights of L.A., reportedly received hundreds of hate-filled calls.  The inappropriate move by the foul-mouthed pair was met with a major protest outside of their offices and also resulted in Verizon and AT&T Wireless pulling their advertising revenue from the station.

Asian stereotypes appearing in coverage of Knicks' Jeremy Lin

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The feel-good story of the year is taking a bit of nasty turn with Asian stereotyping beginning to appear in media coverage of New York Knicks star guard Jeremy Lin, the NBA's first American-born player of Chinese or Taiwanese descent.

CNBC's Darren Rovell got the ball rolling Wednesday night by questioning why MSG Network showed Lin's face above a fortune cookie during coverage of the Knicks' victory against the Sacramento Kings, with the words, "The Knicks good fortune."

Tweeted Rovell: "MSG walking a fine line with this Lin fortune cookie graphic tonight."

MSG put out a statement Thursday saying it had nothing to do with the image: "What appeared briefly last night was not an MSG graphic, it was one of many fan signs in the arena."

The network declined to comment on why it telecast the image.

Rovell corrected himself on Twitter on Thursday.

It's a "tough call" whether MSG should, or could, be faulted for showing a fortune cookie sign created by a fan to TV viewers, says Andrew Kang, senior staff attorney at the Asian-American Institute in Chicago.

"I would prefer maybe they didn't show that — although I could imagine people finding it humorous. But I think it does go to what people think when they think of Asians. They think of food. Because that is really their only point of contact, or awareness, with the Asian-American community."

The New York Post also took criticism for using the headline, "Amasian," after Lin drilled a game-clinching three-pointer for the win against the Toronto Raptors on Tuesday.

During CBS' The Late Show with David Letterman on Wednesday, Jon Stewart of Comedy Central mocked the headline, according to SportsBusiness Daily.

Stewart told Letterman: "It'd be like when Sandy Koufax threw a perfect game, you just wrote on there 'JEWTIFUL!' … I feel like it's very 'Lin-sensitive.'"

Boxer Floyd Mayweather caused headlines earlier in the week by saying Lin is only getting a lot of attention "because he's Asian."

Columnist Jason Whitlock embarrassed Fox Sports with a tweet about Lin playing off Asian stereotypes. On that, the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) sent a letter to Whitlock that read, in part:

"The attempt at humor — and we hope that is all it was — fell flat. It also exposed how some media companies fail to adequately monitor the antics of their high-profile representatives. Standards need to be applied — by you and by Fox Sports.

"The offensive tweet debased one of sports' feel-good moments, not just among Asian Americans but for so many others who are part of your audience.

"Where do we go from here? How about an apology, Mr. Whitlock."

Whitlock apologized, and the AAJA thanked him for that.

The sophomoric, sexual stereotype was "completely out-of-line," Kang says. It was also "misogynistic" — so he's not sure who the columnist offended more: Asians or women.

"There's this idea that it's OK to stereotype Asians — just don't with African-Americans or Latinos because you'll get in trouble and you'll get an aggressive response," Kang says. "But somehow it's OK to do that to the Asian-American community. …

"In some ways, I'm grateful that it is coming out so we can talk about it and people can really start to challenge what are their pre-conceived notions about the Asian-American community or Asian-American athletes."

But Kang also sees "soft" racism in media debates about why Lin went unnoticed for so long by the basketball establishment and why he's setting the NBA on fire now.

"You hear endless debates about: 'How can this be happening? How can he be doing so well?'" Kang says.

"The very simple answer is he's very talented, he was overlooked by scouts or they missed that one. What they really mean is: 'How can an Asian-American be doing so well in the NBA?'

"I think they're looking for answers other than he's athletically gifted," Kang says. "They're trying to attribute it to (Knicks coach) Mike D'Antoni's system, (All-Star forward) Carmelo Anthony's not around. So somebody has to put up the shots. They're trying to figure out how can this Asian-American be such a playmaker — and why didn't anyone else notice him earlier."

Dems blast Fox host for 'crack pipe' comments about Rep. Waters

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The Fox News commentator who said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) should "step away from the crack pipe" referring to remarks she made about House Republican leaders said his comments were a joke. But the Los Angeles County Democratic Party didn't find it very funny.
Rep. Waters, a Democrat representing parts of Los Angeles, was a topic of conversation on Thursday's edition of the Fox News morning newscast "Fox and Friends," because of a speech in which she called House Republic leadership "demons."
That riled up commentator Eric Bolling. "Congresswoman, you saw what happened to Whitney Houston," he said. "Step away from the crack pipe, step away from the Xanax, step away from the Lorazepam, because it's going to get you in trouble."
The show's hosts were caught by surprise and gasped. After the show returned from a commercial break, Bolling said it was a joke. "I just want to say I was kidding about the crack pipe," he said. "Just kidding."
Eric C. Bauman, chairman of the L.A. County Democratic Party, called for the network to remove Bolling, condemning his remarks as, at best, "insensitive and inappropriate" and a "horribly offensive characterization of a longtime member of Congress."
"At worst," he said in a statement, "Bolling's comment oozes racism, which serves to discredit a strong African American woman by perpetrating racial stereotypes. Regardless of whether this remark was deliberate or offhand -- it was irresponsible, despicable and reprehensible."

Chinese American Citizens Alliance Condemns Pete Hoekstra’s Ad

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SAN FRANCISCO, CA–The Chinese American Citizens Alliance condemns the campaign ad broadcast over Michigan stations during the Super Bowl this past Sunday by U. S. Senate hopeful Pete Hoekstra. The ad depicts an Asian woman pedaling her bicycle down a dirt road surrounded by rice fields with Chinese instruments comprising the soundtrack. As she speaks in broken English, the Asian actor, complete with a cone, straw hat, boastfully gloats to the audience that the strong economy in China due to our insatiable appetite for debt is the reason for our weak economy and the loss of American jobs.

In a state that has witnessed its share of Asian bashing such as in the 1980’s when Japanese cars were singled out for vandalism and destruction and young Chinese American Vincent Chin was beaten to death in 1982 by two unemployed autoworkers angry about the influx of Japanese cars (purchased by any and all of us as American consumers), the Alliance believes Hoekstra and his team should know better than to incite others with this inflammatory message. Though his rival, incumbent Sen. Debbie Stabenow is the target, the irresponsible rhetoric of the ad only creates divisiveness and finger pointing at Asian Americans among those who view Asian Americans not as U.S. citizens but somehow as representatives of China.
The Alliance is well aware of the economic hardships but steadfast fortitude of the citizens of the state of Michigan and their importance to our overall economy as the state and nation recover. Side-by-side on assembly lines in Michigan’s automotive plants, hardworking people of all races, including Asian Americans, are found. The Alliance asks that the citizens of Michigan immediately reject this type of racial stereotyping, race baiting and bullying that this type of campaign message could incite and seriously question the wisdom of electing someone who could occupy one of the 100 most revered and respected seats in the U.S. Senate chambers, yet displays little understanding and knowledge of the harmful effects of discrimination and racism.

Pittsburgh basketball game marred by horrible racist banana suited monkey chants

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Vile racism raised its ugly head during a boys basketball game near Pittsburgh on Friday when fans of a nearly all-white suburban school ran on the court in banana suits and made monkey noises to taunt the players for their rivals, who play for a school which is predominantly African-American.

As reported by a variety of Pittsburgh media outlets, the Monessen Valley Independent and WPXI prominent among them, the annual basketball rivalry game between Pittsburgh (Pa.) Brentwood High and Monessen (Pa.) High turned extremely ugly when the two teams tried to head to their respective locker rooms for halftime. Before the players could leave the floor, three fans from the visiting Brentwood student section ran onto the court in full-body banana suits.
The fans surrounded the Monessen players and allegedly began making monkey noises and hurling racial epithets at the Monessen players, with no one entering the fray to stop the horribly inappropriate catcalls.

"I was appalled and shocked," Monessen parent Terri Payne told WPXI. "I was like, 'I can't believe they're doing that, and they didn't do anything about it.'"
Disturbingly, other Monessen parents claim that the Brentwood players hurled similar racist epithets themselves, calling the Greyhounds "monkeys and cotton pickers," as one Monessen fan told WPXI.
Meanwhile, Valley Independent staff writer Jeremy Sellew claimed that Brentwood Director of Security Joseph Kozarian, who was on duty at the game, refused to intervene, instead sitting back and at one point smiling and laughing with the Brentwood fans in the stands.

As more media attention has swirled around the disgusting incident, Brentwood officials have scrambled to try and alleviate pressure on the school and district as a whole. As of Tuesday the three students involved had been identified and disciplined, though their punishment was not disclosed to the media. Similarly, officials claimed they were "reviewing school policy to make sure a similar incident doesn't happen again."
Clearly, that's not strong enough. If the banana suit incident and subsequent racist abuse from Brentwood players occurred as numerous witnesses claim it did, the entire Brentwood season should be put under much deeper inspection before moving forward.
This is legitimate hate speech, after all, and the teenagers who were responsible need to realize just how damaging that is, both to their victims, themselves and society as a whole. At the very least, any players who made racist comments during the game itself should be punished significantly.

Ukrainian newspaper depicts Africans and Arabs as monkeys groping woman

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A local newspaper in the western Ukrainian city of Ternopil illustrated its front-page story on Tuesday with a photomontage of monkeys groping a woman to depict African and Arab men who had allegedly gotten into a bar fight. Our Observer, a Congolese student living in Ternopil, tells us this has deeply upset African students at his university, who he says are frequently the target of racist attacks.

 

Nova Ternopil's article explains that police had to intervene after an African man and an Arab man got into a fight involving a woman at a local bar on the weekend. The headline reads, “Arabs and negroes fight over our prostitutes.” The photomontage shows two monkeys groping a white woman in the foreground. In the background, a group of black men are sitting around a table, having a drink. According to our Observer, the men pictured are students at a local university and had nothing to do with the alleged incident.

 

We have not yet been able to reach Nova Ternopil's editors for comment. As soon as we do, we will publish it here.

 

 

 

The men circled in red are local university students with no connection to the alleged fight

“Ukrainian students reading the newspaper laughed at the picture”

Beckhs Love is a Congolese student studying agricultural technology at Ivan Puluj Technical University in Ternopil. He’s lived there for four years.

 

I was in class yesterday when the university’s foreign student advisor called and told me to come to his office as soon I could. When I got there, he asked me to close the door behind me. He showed me the newspaper. I couldn’t believe what I saw on the front page. I was shocked. First of all, why would a story about a bar fight be on the front page? You would think that would be reserved for real news.

 

He asked me if I recognized the men in the background of the photo. I did – I knew all of them; they are my fellow students. He told me that this was awful, but that it was a provocation, and asked me to talk to these students and ask them to stay calm. Because I speak better Ukrainian than most African students - of which there are about 300 at our university - I often act as a coordinator between the administration and the francophone students.

 

When I told the students in the picture about the article, they rushed out to the buy the newspaper. It was easy to find. It turned out the newspaper used an old photo of them for their montage – it was taken long before this fight allegedly took place. We have no idea how the newspaper got their hands on it.

 

“I really don’t know why they give visas to African students, since it’s clear they don’t want us here”

 

Back at the university, we saw other students, Ukrainians, reading the newspaper. I saw some of them laughing at the picture. I told them, “You think this is funny? You think this is normal? In a few months, Ukraine will be hosting the Euro 2012 football championship, which is going to attract lots of foreigners. You can’t act like you’re in a Soviet state anymore.”

 

I really don’t know why they even give visas to African students, since it’s clear they don’t want us here. I want parents back in Africa to know they should stop sending their children here. At university, we’re excluded. In my class, we African students always sit together – few Ukrainian students will speak to us.

 

“We live in fear”

 

Outside university, it’s even worse. I usually go straight home, because it’s dangerous to be out at night. Black people get insulted and assaulted all the time. We live in fear. Not long ago, I was coming back from the supermarket and a group of men just knocked me down and hit me over and over. They took off when I started to scream. There’s no point reporting it to the police – the first thing they always say when an African man walks through the door is, ‘We’re going to deport you.’

 

Racism is a reality of everyday life in Ukraine. I recently went to make some photocopies with a Ukrainian student. He asked the store owner for a stapler; he gave him use of it, free of charge. I went back by myself the next day; suddenly, I had to pay to use the stapler.

 

It’s hard for us to defend ourselves, because there’s a real language barrier for most of us. But I hope we will be able to get a meeting with the newspaper editor, so he can explain himself.”

  

 

 

 

 

The Obamas get racist treatment from French Elle; fashion writer talks 'white' fashion and ‘black-geoisie’

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When it comes to commenting on the Obamas and African-Americans, French Elle needs to fermez la bouche!
In an blog post titled “Black Fashion Power,” writer Nathalie Dolivo managed to insult American blacks as a whole while offering left-handed compliments to the First Lady Michelle Obama for taking on the Jackie O role in a “jazzy” way.
The writer imagines that the Obamas are the first to bring true style to African-Americans.


“In this America led for the first time a black president, the chic has become a plausible option for a community so far pegged to its codes [of\] streetwear,” she wrote.
Things get even more baffling when she dubs the Obamas the “black-geoisie” who dress "white" but still maintain their ‘blackness” with symbols.
“There is always a classic twist, with a bourgeois ethnic reference (a batik-printed turban/robe, a shell necklace, a ‘créole de rappeur’) that recalls the roots,” she said.
While Michelle Obama has been known to wear African-influenced jewelry and support young black designers, it's far less accurate to define her wardrobe as" batik robes and turbans."
The backlash has been swift and severe.
“How, in 2012, in a France where there are at least three million blacks and mixed people, can you write such nonsense,” a commenter told French Elle. “You are too kind when you write that in 2012 we have incorporated the white codes…what do you think, in 2011, we dressed in hay and burlap bags?”
To black women in France, thearticle was upsetting but not surprising.
“The saddest thing is that this stupid journalist thought she was doing something positive for us,” a Fashion Bomb Daily commenter said.  “ I’m sure that even educated French people wouldn’t see any offense in this. Yes this what we Black women in France live!!! Sad truth.”

Chinese Britons have put up with racism for too long

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Chinese Britons are often referred to as a "silent" or "hidden" minority. For although we are the fourth-largest minority ethnic group in the UK, we are virtually invisible in public life, principally the arts, media and politics.
On the surface, the Chinese seem relatively content and well-to-do, with British Chinese pupils regularly outperforming their classmates and Chinese men more likely than any other ethnic group to be in a professional job. Consequently, we are often overlooked in talks on racism and social exclusion.
But academic and economic successes do not negate feelings of marginalisation. A 2009 study by The Monitoring Group and Hull University suggested that British Chinese are particularly prone to racial violence and harassment, but that the true extent to their victimisation was often overlooked because victims were unwilling to report it.
Growing up in the north of England in the 80s, I had few role models. Popular culture was dominated by white faces and occasionally black and south Asian, but never east Asian. I'm not sure that much has changed since.
Shouts of "Jackie Chan!" and kung-fu noises from random strangers continue to greet me in the street, perhaps followed by a "konichiwa!" Just a few days ago, a friend was having a post-hangover drink in a trendy east London pub, only to be accused by the manager of being a DVD pedlar hassling his clients.
Going to drama school in London was a revelation; I was told I couldn't perform in a scene from a play because it had been written for white people. The scene was two girls sitting on a park bench talking about boys, and the year was 2006. Worse was when it came from my contemporaries; one (white, liberal, highly educated) helpfully suggested I did a monologue from The Good Soul of Szechuan instead, and another rushed up after one performance to tell me how delighted her parents had been that I'd spoken perfect English (I'm from Bradford).
In hindsight it was good preparation for a profession where, on my first job, the Bafta-winning director chuckled to everyone on set that I'd trained in kung fu, and where any character who speaks in some kind of dodgy east Asian accent is considered hilarious.
I have friends who are shocked that such things actually happen. They are usually most surprised at the fact that it's happened to me. Why? I suspect mainly because, like them, I am part of the educated middle class, and things like that don't happen to people like us.
Well, they do, and quite often. And frankly, it isn't surprising that prejudices are rife in a country whose media perpetuates the very images that evoke stereotypes and cultural misunderstandings: Chinese characters rarely appear on our television screens, but when they do, you can bet they'll be DVD sellers, illegal immigrants, spies or, in the case of last year's Sherlock, weird acrobatic ninja types. Many Chinese viewers were outraged at the portrayal of east Asians in this show, but typically, few complained.
Sadly, the British Chinese are reticent about speaking up for themselves, and simply do not have the numbers to make the same noise the black and south Asian communities do, whose vociferous and galvanising voices have been making waves against racism for decades. Racism is one of those horrendous, soul- and confidence-crushing things that, when faced with, you'd much rather forget or pretend didn't exist. So we tend to brush it off, pretend it never happened, or laugh along with the rest rather than come across as bad sports. We Chinese have become dab hands at this, living up to the stereotype of the smiling but silent Chinaman.
If we are to make progress in understanding the true extent of racism in this country, we all need to be a lot braver in confronting truths about how we live. It's about swallowing our pride and being less afraid of telling the world how racism affects us and really thinking about the people across Britain who have come to accept racism as a part of life. It's about standing up in classrooms, television studios, offices, pubs and public transport, not just for ourselves, but for friends and strangers, too.
Denial gets us nowhere. But awareness, thoughtfulness and courage could make millions of lives so much better.

Jeremy Clarkson slammed for joke about death of 23 Chinese cockle-pickers

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In a column for a tabloid newspaper, Clarkson mocked the sport of synchronised swimming as "Chinese women in hats, upside down, in a bit of water", adding: "You can see that sort of thing on Morecambe Beach. For free."

It comes after Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, received 30,000 complaints about Clarkson when he said during a TV interview that public sector workers who went on strike in November should be "executed in front of their families".

Last month he was again accused of offensive behaviour when he mocked Indian culture in a Christmas special of Top Gear, the BBC motoring programme. And there were further allegations that he had trivialised suicide by suggesting that people who throw themselves under trains were "selfish".

Tracy Brown, a Morecambe town councillor, said: "I choose to ignore such comments and treat them with the contempt they deserve. In fact, this is beneath contempt.

"He is just trying to make himself look big at other people's expense. Many people around here were deeply affected by the tragedy."

Ms Dai Qingli, a spokeswoman for theChinese Embassy, said: "We deplore and oppose Mr Clarkson's comments, which are insulting and show a woeful disrespect of decency and moral standards. We regret that The Sun has publicised such remarks. "
Philip Ling, a member of the Chinese Lib Dems who contested Bromsgrove for the party in the 2010 general election, called the comments "insensitive".
He said: "It is time for Jeremy Clarkson to take a step back and think about what he writes."
The Chinese cockle pickers died in 2004 when they were caught in the rising tide at Bolton-le-Sands near Morecambe, Lancashire.
The 21 men and two women were aged between 18 and 45 and were working illegally for gangmasters.
Shortly after the tragedy, then MP Ann Winterton had the Tory whip removed after making a joke about the Morecambe Bay tragedy at a Whitehall dinner party.

Blackface in Berlin play just 'tradition'

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A popular Berlin theatre troupe has denied accusations that its adaptation of a Tony Award-winning play featuring a white man in blackface is racist, saying it's "tradition" for whites to play blacks in German theatre.

 “Many older black actors come from the music industry, and that wasn’t a fit for the play as it isn’t a musical,” Thomas Schendel, the director of "I'm Not Rappaport" told The Local. “When we couldn’t find an elderly black actor who fit the role and could speak with a perfect German accent, we opted for blackface make-up.”

But the decision to cast 76-year-old Joachim Bliese as the feisty character “Midge,” – an African-American who discusses racism and growing old with an elderly Jewish friend – has prompted a firestorm of criticism from those who have likened the play at the Schlosspark Theater to a minstrel show.

Tahir Della, a spokesman for the Initiative for Black Germans (ISD), which represents the black community in Germany, called Schendel’s explanation “idiotic.”

“There are more than enough black actors in Germany, especially in Berlin. Schendel is making excuses,” he told The Local.

And visitors to the theatre’s official Facebook page have flooded it with angry comments, calling the decision “racist” and “ignorant.”

Blackface or "blacking up" – painting a light-skinned person’s skin to appear black – was once commonplace. But in recent decades it has become associated with racist American theatre from the 19th and early 20th centuries that aimed to mock African-Americans.

Germans have come under particular criticism in recent years for being insensitive about the much-maligned tradition. Last year, for instance, a popular comedian sparked outrage when he posed as Barack Obama on a Berlin billboard while wearing blackface.

But theatre officials said they were shocked by the vitriol online, pointing out there had been a previous production of "I'm not Rappaport” at a different Berlin theatre with a white actor playing the part of Midge.

"(It) wasn’t met with a reaction like the one we’re facing now,” a Schlosspark Theater spokesman told The Local.

Schendel said he found the negative response to the play “saddening.” In an open letter on Facebook, he invited the play’s critics to attend its premiere on Saturday – nobody responded.

“In Germany blackface is part of a theatre tradition that was never intended to be racist,” Schendel told The Local. “I tried to make a play about racism and ended up being called a racist,” he lamented.

The play, said Schendel, will go on as scheduled.

Santorum’s Racist Welfare Rant: ‘I Don’t Want To Make Black People’s Lives Better’ With Taxpayer Money

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GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum has been trying to pull off an upset in the Iowa caucus, but he’s drawing criticism ahead of tonight’s contest for racially charged remarks he recently made about welfare recipients:

At a campaign stop in Sioux City, Iowa on Sunday, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum singled out blacks as being recipients of assistance through federal benefit programs, telling a mostly-white audience he doesn’t want to “make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money.” [...]
It is unclear why Santorum pinpointed blacks specifically as recipients of federal aid. The original questioner asked “how do we get off this crazy train? We’ve got so much foreign influence in this country now,” adding “where do we go from here?”

It’s hard to say which part of the story is stranger — that Santorum spontaneously derided poor black people in response to a question about foreign money or his explanation of why he did it.
When asked about the comments in a CBS interview, Santorum bizarrely referenced a documentary about the education achievement gap, Waiting for Superman, to explain the context. “Yesterday I talked for example about a movie called, um, what was it? ‘Waiting for Superman,’ which was about black children and so I don’t know whether it was in response and I was talking about that,” he said. The movie actually portrays students of several races.
There had originally been some confusion about whether Santorum actually said the word “black,” which he appeared to clear up in the CBS interview by acknowledging that was in fact the statement he made. (The candidate seemed to think better of his words mid-sentence, so the line comes across garbled.)
CBS points out that only nine percent of Iowans on food stamps are black — and 84 percent are white. Nationally, 39 percent of welfare recipients are white, 37 percent are black, and 17 percent are Hispanic. So Santorum’s decision to single out black welfare recipients plays right into insulting — and inaccurate — stereotypes of the kind of people some voters might expect to want a “handout.”
Attacking families who receive government aid has been a theme among many of the Republican candidates. In nearly every speech, Newt Gingrich accuses President Obama of being a “food stamp president” and even said “really poor children” have bad work habits and no knowledge of how to make an income “unless it’s illegal.” (HT: Raw Story)

BBC Racism: Top Gear

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BBC Show Top Gear Video shows some racist and stereotype remarks about Mexicans, Insulting every aspect of their Culture.

Reviewing the Mastretta, Hammond said: "Mexican cars are just going to 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."

Mexican food as "sick with cheese on it" and it all looks live Vomit, "we won't get any complaints about this because the Mexican ambassador's going to be sitting there with a remote control like this" -- and he slumped down in his chair and faked a snore.


 The Mexican stereotyping  happened earlier this year

and now they are at it again stereotyping India and Indians in an episode aired 2 days after the murder of an Indian Student in a suspected hate crime

Some Asians' college strategy: Don't check 'Asian'

racism in higher education

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Lanya Olmstead was born in Florida to a mother who immigrated from Taiwan and an American father of Norwegian ancestry. Ethnically, she considers herself half Taiwanese and half Norwegian. But when applying to Harvard, Olmstead checked only one box for her race: white.

"I didn't want to put 'Asian' down," Olmstead says, "because my mom told me there's discrimination against Asians in the application process."

For years, many Asian-Americans have been convinced that it's harder for them to gain admission to the nation's top colleges.

Studies show that Asian-Americans meet these colleges' admissions standards far out of proportion to their 6 percent representation in the U.S. population, and that they often need test scores hundreds of points higher than applicants from other ethnic groups to have an equal chance of admission. Critics say these numbers, along with the fact that some top colleges with race-blind admissions have double the Asian percentage of Ivy League schools, prove the existence of discrimination.

The way it works, the critics believe, is that Asian-Americans are evaluated not as individuals, but against the thousands of other ultra-achieving Asians who are stereotyped as boring academic robots.

Now, an unknown number of students are responding to this concern by declining to identify themselves as Asian on their applications.

For those with only one Asian parent, whose names don't give away their heritage, that decision can be relatively easy. Harder are the questions that it raises: What's behind the admissions difficulties? What, exactly, is an Asian-American — and is being one a choice?

Olmstead is a freshman at Harvard and a member of HAPA, the Half-Asian People's Association. In high school she had a perfect 4.0 grade-point average and scored 2150 out of a possible 2400 on the SAT, which she calls "pretty low."

College applications ask for parent information, so Olmstead knows that admissions officers could figure out a student's background that way. She did write in the word "multiracial" on her own application.

Still, she would advise students with one Asian parent to "check whatever race is not Asian."

"Not to really generalize, but a lot of Asians, they have perfect SATs, perfect GPAs, ... so it's hard to let them all in," Olmstead says.

Amalia Halikias is a Yale freshman whose mother was born in America to Chinese immigrants; her father is a Greek immigrant. She also checked only the "white" box on her application.

"As someone who was applying with relatively strong scores, I didn't want to be grouped into that stereotype," Halikias says. "I didn't want to be written off as one of the 1.4 billion Asians that were applying."

Her mother was "extremely encouraging" of that decision, Halikias says, even though she places a high value on preserving their Chinese heritage.

"Asian-American is more a scale or a gradient than a discrete combination . I think it's a choice," Halikias says.

But leaving the Asian box blank felt wrong to Jodi Balfe, a Harvard freshman who was born in Korea and came here at age 3 with her Korean mother and white American father. She checked the box against the advice of her high school guidance counselor, teachers and friends.
"I felt very uncomfortable with the idea of trying to hide half of my ethnic background," Balfe says. "It's been a major influence on how I developed as a person. It felt like selling out, like selling too much of my soul."
"I thought admission wouldn't be worth it. It would be like only half of me was accepted."

Other students, however, feel no conflict between a strong Asian identity and their response to what they believe is injustice.

"If you know you're going to be discriminated against, it's absolutely justifiable to not check the Asian box," says Halikias.

Immigration from Asian countries was heavily restricted until laws were changed in 1965. When the gates finally opened, many Asian arrivals were well-educated, endured hardships to secure more opportunities for their families, and were determined to seize the American dream through effort and education.

These immigrants, and their descendants, often demanded that children work as hard as humanly possible to achieve. Parental respect is paramount in Asian culture, so many children have obeyed — and excelled.

"Chinese parents can order their kids to get straight As. Western parents can only ask their kids to try their best," wrote Amy Chua, only half tongue-in-cheek, in her recent best-selling book "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother."
"Chinese parents can say, 'You're lazy. All your classmates are getting ahead of you,'" Chua wrote. "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."
Of course, not all Asian-Americans fit this stereotype. They are not always obedient hard workers who get top marks. Some embrace American rather than Asian culture. Their economic status, ancestral countries and customs vary, and their forebears may have been rich or poor.

But compared with American society in general, Asian-Americans have developed a much stronger emphasis on intense academic preparation as a path to a handful of the very best schools.

"The whole Tiger Mom stereotype is grounded in truth," says Tao Tao Holmes, a Yale sophomore with a Chinese-born mother and white American father. She did not check "Asian" on her application.

"My math scores aren't high enough for the Asian box," she says. "I say it jokingly, but there is the underlying sentiment of, if I had emphasized myself as Asian, I would have (been expected to) excel more in stereotypically Asian-dominated subjects."
"I was definitely held to a different standard (by my mom), and to different standards than my friends," Holmes says. She sees the same rigorous academic focus among many other students with immigrant parents, even non-Asian ones.

Does Holmes think children of American parents are generally spoiled and lazy by comparison? "That's essentially what I'm trying to say."

Asian students have higher average SAT scores than any other group, including whites. A study by Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade examined applicants to top colleges from 1997, when the maximum SAT score was 1600 (today it's 2400). Espenshade found that Asian-Americans needed a 1550 SAT to have an equal chance of getting into an elite college as white students with a 1410 or black students with an 1100.

Top schools that don't ask about race in admissions process have very high percentages of Asian students. The California Institute of Technology, a private school that chooses not to consider race, is about one-third Asian. (Thirteen percent of California residents have Asian heritage.) The University of California-Berkeley, which is forbidden by state law to consider race in admissions, is more than 40 percent Asian — up from about 20 percent before the law was passed.

Steven Hsu, a physics professor at the University of Oregon and a vocal critic of current admissions policies, says there is a clear statistical case that discrimination exists.

"The actual dynamics of how it happens are really quite subtle," he says, mentioning factors like horse-trading among admissions officers for their favorite candidates.
Also, "when Asians are the largest group on campus, I can easily imagine a fund-raiser saying, 'This is jarring to our alumni,'" Hsu says. Noting that most Ivy League schools have roughly the same percentage of Asians, he wonders if "that's the maximum number where diversity is still good, and it's not, 'we're being overwhelmed by the yellow horde.'"
Yale, Harvard, Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania declined to make admissions officers available for interviews for this story.
Kara Miller helped review applications for Yale as an admissions office reader, and participated in meetings where admissions decisions were made. She says it often felt like Asians were held to a higher standard.
"Asian kids know that when you look at the average SAT for the school, they need to add 50 or 100 to it. If you're Asian, that's what you'll need to get in," says Miller, now an English professor at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth.
Highly selective colleges do use much more than SAT scores and grades to evaluate applicants. Other important factors include extracurricular activities, community service, leadership, maturity, engagement in learning, and overcoming adversity.

Admissions preferences are sometimes given to the children of alumni, the wealthy and celebrities, which is an overwhelmingly white group. Recruited athletes get breaks. Since the top colleges say diversity is crucial to a world-class education, African-Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders also may get in despite lower scores than other applicants.

A college like Yale "could fill their entire freshman class twice over with qualified Asian students or white students or valedictorians," says Rosita Fernandez-Rojo, a former college admissions officer who is now director of college counseling at Rye Country Day School outside of New York City.

But applicants are not ranked by results of a qualifications test, she says — "it's a selection process."
"People are always looking for reasons they didn't get in," she continues. "You can't always know what those reasons are. Sometimes during the admissions process they say, 'There's nothing wrong with that kid. We just don't have room.'"
In the end, elite colleges often don't have room for Asian students with outstanding scores and grades.
That's one reason why Harvard freshman Heather Pickerell, born in Hong Kong to a Taiwanese mother and American father, refused to check any race box on her application.
"I figured it might help my chances of getting in," she says. "But I figured if Harvard wouldn't take me for refusing to list my ethnicity, then maybe I shouldn't go there."

She considers drawing lines between different ethnic groups a form of racism — and says her ethnic identity depends on where she is.

"In America, I identify more as Asian, having grown up there, and actually being Asian, and having grown up in an Asian family," she says. "But when I'm back in Hong Kong I feel more American, because everyone there is more Asian than I am."

Holmes, the Yale sophomore with the Chinese-born mother, also has problems fitting herself into the Asian box — "it doesn't make sense to me."

"I feel like an American," she says, "...an Asian person who grew up in America."

Susanna Koetter, a Yale junior with an American father and Korean mother, was adamant about identifying her Asian side on her application. Yet she calls herself "not fully Asian-American. I'm mixed Asian-American. When I go to Korea, I'm like, blatantly white."

And yet, asked whether she would have considered leaving the Asian box blank, she says: "That would be messed up. I'm not white."
"Identity is very malleable," says Jasmine Zhuang, a Yale junior whose parents were both born in Taiwan.
She didn't check the box, even though her last name is a giveaway and her essay was about Asian-American identity.
"Looking back I don't agree with what I did," Zhuang says. "It was more like a symbolic action for me, to rebel against the higher standard placed on Asian-American applicants."
"There's no way someone's race can automatically tell you something about them, or represent who they are to an admissions committee," Zhuang says. "Using race by itself is extremely dangerous."
Hsu, the physics professor, says that if the current admissions policies continue, it will become more common for Asian students to avoid identifying themselves as such, and schools will have to react.
"They'll have to decide: A half-Asian kid, what is that? I don't think they really know."

The lines are already blurred at Yale, where almost 26,000 students applied for the current freshman class, according to the school's web site.

About 1,300 students were admitted. Twenty percent of them marked the Asian-American box on their applications; 15 percent of freshmen marked two or more ethnicities.

Ten percent of Yale's freshmen class did not check a single box.

Florence + the machine using white supremacy in music videos

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Florence + the Machine released the latest video this past Friday, for “No Light No Light,” the third single from their new album Ceremonials. Since frontwoman Florence Welch is known for her theatrical music video productions, the clip was eagerly awaited by her fans.

The video, directed by Iceland-based duo Arni & Kinski, has already garnered over 800,000 views on Youtube, in addition to generating countless responses over the images in the video. It’s actually slightly astounding how much racist imagery they managed to pack into just four minutes and 15 seconds.

You can watch the video for yourself to get your own interpretation, but if you can’t watch it for whatever reason here’s a brief summary: Welch, a thin white red-haired British woman, is the focal point, but at various points, we see what seems to be an Asian man in blackface, misreprentations of the voodoo religion (which of course inflicts harm on the poor white woman). The overall plot of the video seems to be of a white woman pursued by “darkness,” represented by the aforementioned man in blackface, who ends up falling into “whiteness,” represented by a choir of young white boys in a church. Oh yes, that old trope. Black = evil, white = good. Echoes of British religious imperialism and its violent history of colonization abound. You get the picture.

The video has already attracted criticism from around the blogosphere, and Jezebel’s Dodai Stewart mapped out why the representaion of the Voodoo religion in the music video is not only negative, but factually incorrect:

Haitian Vodou is a religion that is very misunderstood. Slaves were brought to the Caribbean against their will and forbidden to practice their traditional African religions as well as forced to convert to the religion of their masters. The Bond movie/Eurocentric/Americanized viewpoint presents Vodou as an evil, primitive version of witchcraft. But it’s a religion like any other, with a moral code, gods and goddesses. Many ceremonies deal with protection from evil spirits.

In addition, the “voodoo doll” itself has been misconstrued. In Haiti, it was traditional to nail small handmade puppets or dolls to trees near graveyards; these small figures were meant to act as messengers to the spirit world, and contact dead loved ones. It’s safe to imagine that European folks didn’t understand this — and assumed an evil intent behind a doll with nails in its body.”

On the other hand, all sorts of defenses and excuses are being pulled out of the hat to try and label this music video as anything other than what it is: racist. Glorifying the white female central character as representing goodness, all while vilifying the evil dark skinned heathen Other. The number of times this has been done in film date back to one of the very first blockbusters, D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, and continue on until today with this latest incarnation. But in this age of “colour-blindness” and “post-racial” talk, we confront a fairly new beast: vehement denial.

That’s where a large part of the problem with the discussions around this music video lie – the desire to talk about anything other than race. Fans of Welch’s have offered their own denials, including:

•  ”it’s not blackface, he’s green!”
• “It’s not blackface, people in Britain don’t know about blackface.”
• “It’s not blackface, it’s a representation of darkness.”

Even fans who will readily agree that this music video is “symbolic” and uses darkness (in the shape of a, lest we forget, a human being, an Asian man in blackface who practices voodoo and chases Welch) to represent “evil” and whiteness to represent “good” will still find ways to vehemently deny it is racist. “Maybe it looks like it could be racist, but it didn’t mean to be!” they say. When it comes to confronting the argument of whether or not the video was “intentionally” racist, I’ll point to  minh-ha t. pham’s response for Threadbared to Crystal Renn’s yellowface photoshoot, where she explains:

Racism is so deeply entrenched and pervasive in many societies that everyday racism is often unintentional. On the other hand, what is always intentional is anti-racism. The struggle against racism resists the pervasive ideologies and practices that explicitly and invisibly structure our daily lives (albeit in very different ways that are stratified by race, gender, class, and sexuality). Anti-racism requires intentionality because it’s an act of conscience.

What Pham hits on there is the need to first acknowledge we live in a world where racism and white privilege exist. In the end, the excuses over why “No Light, No Light” is not racist are pointless to entertain if you can’t even begin to acknowledge that. You’d have to live in a very sheltered world to believe that this video is anything other than a giant platter of rehashed racist imagery.

Now, one thing I’m surprised others have not raised in their criticisms of the “No Light, No Light” music video is that this isn’t the first time Welch has been criticized for being “culturally insensitive,” to put it mildly. Her other music videos could hardly be excused as perfect, either.

A quick look at “Dog Days Are Over” (which has over 20 million views on Youtube) features a mishmash of unidentified Othered cultures in the background, such as women in head scarves banging on drums, an all-black gospel choir with silver foreheads, and two blue women (yes, blue). The already very light-skinned Welch is painted an even whiter white, and is featured prominently in the foreground leading the masses of ambiguously ethnic backup dancers in a frenetic crescendo:

link to music video

At the end of the video, they all explode into bursts of bright colours, leaving the “wild” Welch draped in a furry tattered garment, waving a flag.

What these music videos show is the amount of misrepresentations around race that many (white) artists are able to use, all under the guise of “art.” It happens in fashion photoshoots, music videos, films, books, etc on more occasions than one could possibly count. While it happens all the time, that does not make it any more defensible. And being a fan of an artist who makes a misstep and ends up creating something racist, intentionally or not, does not oblige you to running to their defense. Being a card-carrying fan of an artist or musician does not make them infallible.

Discussions about whether or not Welch is personally responsible for this racist music video have cropped up. When you break it down and imagine the number of people who were behind the storyboarding, choreographing, casting and creative direction around this video, it is slightly astounding that not one person raised concerns about how problematic this video is. Many petitions have cropped up, asking that “be pulled, edited, or reshot and she and her label should issue a sincere apology.” In putting forth this music video attached to her album and her persona, Welch has given it her unspoken seal of approval. In this case, she has also simultaneously alienated any number of people of colour and critical folks in her fanbase.

We’ll probably be waiting with bated breath, as Welch nor her label have responded to the public outcry so far.

In the end, the most important and all too often ignored factor in the case of this racist music video is just that: calling it racist. The fact that in 2011, a top-selling young creative artist has released a music video like this one means we still need to have conversations about racism, stereotypes, blackface, and impact that images in music videos like these ones have. Let’s take this opportunity to talk about how to hold artists, including pop stars, accountable for propagating racist imagery. Let’s talk about why blackface is always wrong, about why reductive stereotypical misrepresentations of people of colour are harmful and need to be confronted, and why we still have to unlearn colonial histories and legacies.

If you protest racism during Black Face season in The Netherlands, you will be beaten up and arrested

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If you protest racism during Black Face season in The Netherlands, you will be beaten up and arrested

[Content warning for very racist images, links to videos of police brutality and depictions of State endorsed racism]
Ah, my home, The Netherlands. Tourists from all over the world wax lyrical about the tulips, the windmills and the widely available weed. What these tourists hardly ever get to see is how institutionalized racism works in this country and the lengths the State will go to in order to protect it. Or how, if you are personally affected by this racism and you summon the strength to protest it, you will be brutally beaten up and arrested.
Now, here is the thing: this is a small country. All matters of racism happen here but they go unreported in international mainstream media because the Dutch language is mostly inaccessible to the world at large. So, these matters remain untold, underreported, downplayed or just ignored. However, international media loves to talk about our most famous homegrown xenophobe: Geert Wilders. His influence is far reaching and international. His words repeated all over the international press; he gets invitations for public engagements and speeches; fellow populist and xenophobe politicians from all over Europe and places as dissimilar as the US, Canada or Australia cite him as a source of “inspiration”. Meanwhile, the general public abroad struggles to come up with an explanation of why, a country that is present in popular imaginations as “tolerant”, “multicultural” and “modern” could be represented by such a divisive and racist force. That is, because systematically, mainstream media misses the context. And I believe that the events that transpired on Saturday, during the official opening of what I like to call “Black Face season”, can provide some of that context.

“Black Face season” is not exactly the official name for what, in reality, is a children’s holiday known as Sinterklass. This is the time of the year when Dutch people carelessly don black face and speak in a faux Surinamese accents. This is the time of the year when, if you venture the streets, you are likely to encounter sights like these:

[Image description: a group of eight White adults wearing multi-color satin and velvet costumes that imitate those of Colonial times. All people in the photo wear Afro wigs and make-up commonly known as “Black Face”]
Photo via
Or like this:

[Image description: two White women walk down a street while wearing a satin costume in orange and purple colors, Afro wigs and make-up commonly known as “Black face”]
Photo via


The above, for those not familiar with our local “traditions”, are popularly known as “Black Pete”, or “Zwarte Piet” in Dutch. These “colorful” characters are the helpers of Sinterklaas, or more formally Sint Nicolaas/ Sint Nikolaas or Saint Nicolas in French. Sinterklaas is a children’s Winter holiday celebrated every year in The Netherlands, Belgium and some cities in the North of France. According to tradition, the Saint arrives to The Netherlands a few weeks prior to the celebration, in a boat, carrying the gifts he will deliver to children. The “Black Petes” are his helpers and they carry candy and control children’s behavior (children who misbehave supposedly get no presents from the Saint). Again, according to “tradition”, these helpers are Moors, or North African slaves. This “tradition” has evolved throughout the years, partially due to increasing protests from groups that find these depictions offensive. Nowadays, it is claimed that the Black face is due to the fact that the helpers have gone through chimneys and as a result, their faces are covered in soot. What again, nobody can clearly explain, is what kind of soot leaves such a uniform and evenly spread residue. Or worse, why these “chimney dwellers” speak in a fake accent that parodies the Black population of the Dutch former colony of Suriname.
Over the years, a small but growing group of people have been protesting this celebration of Black face costumes and ridiculing of minorities. Systematically, these protests have been met with a very strong and stubborn resistance from a majority of White Dutch who refuse to even consider the racist implications of this “tradition”. Those who are against the Black Pete depictions are consistently told that there is nothing offensive in it, that the tradition is not up for debate, that they are being oversensitive and that, and here comes the usual xenophobic retort, “if they don’t like it, they should go and live some place else”. Additionally, people who speak against this are also told that they are importing North American models of “political correctness” that have no place in Dutch society. Moreover, the supporters of these Black face depictions are adamant that there is nothing, absolutely nothing racist in Black Pete’s representations and that claiming otherwise is the result of a cultural imperialism brought upon by North American influences. According to supporters, Dutch culture is so different from that of the US and the context so incomparable that such discussion should not even take place. Any attempt at contextualizing the role of the Dutch in slavery in the Americas and how the continuation of these racist practices owes everything to the mindset that made such trade possible is met with protestations and the statement that “only Americans see offense in Black face, we, the Dutch, are obviously different and not racist in our traditions”. In sum, what they claim is that the rights of White people to don Black face are more or less sacrosanct and native Dutch children have a right to the continuation of this “tradition” undisputed.
And because I promised context, here’s what the Black face apologists will never tell you or admit, not even to themselves: the real, harmful consequences of the perpetuation of this racist stereotypes. In The Netherlands, where a significant portion of the White native population demands the freedom to be racist, under 25 years old Moroccan youth (not faux Moors like the Black Pete “legend” claims) face an unemployment rate of 28%; and under 25 year old Surinamese youth (the ones who do not speak with a faux Suriname accent during a children holiday, but the all too real citizens of the former Dutch colony), face an unemployment rate of 27%. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate for White, Dutch, under 25 years old natives is at a meager 6.9%, the lowest in the European Union. And I would love for anyone to tell me that there is no correlation between racist media depictions and people’s real lives.
Earlier this year, a group of Dutch people from the former and present Dutch colonies (Curacao, Suriname, Aruba, etc.), started a campaign under the banner “Zwarte Piet is racism”. They invited people to submit a photograph of themselves wearing a stenciled t-shirt, making a statement against this racist practice. Some local celebrities like Greg Shapiro (from the legendary comedy group Boom Chicago) have lend their support to the campaign. Moreover, in June this year I was at one of the final performances of the Broadway musical Fela! (one of the main guests at the prestigious Holland Festival) and some of the members of the cast, at the end of the show, held a sign that read “Zwarte Piet is racism”. Unsurprisingly, local media remained moot and this went unreported.
All of the above is just a mere introduction for the events that transpired this Saturday, 12th November. This weekend marked the arrival of the Sinterklaas boat with the little “slave helpers” wearing the usual Black face. The event is a yearly spectacle that attracts significant crowds. Parents bring children to the port and they watch actors disembark with horses and parcels carrying the gifts that will be handed over to children later on in December. This is an event that more or less kick starts the pre-Christmas holiday season and to say that it is massive would be an understatement. Not only is the event broadcasted in national TV, but it is also reported in news channels, newspapers, magazines and major websites. Every year, the “official” arrival takes place at a different Dutch city. This year was the turn of Dordrecht, a city in the province of South Holland . The usual pomp and circumstance surrounded the event, which would have been as inane as it usually is, had it not been for a small group of people who decided to take a stand against the practice of Black face. This group of activists, mostly Black local youth, (Dutch media cannot agree on the exact number, some say five or six, others say a dozen or so), wore the stenciled T-Shirt with the words “Zwarte Piet is racism” and stood by the side of the road while the parade passed by. According to reports, they also yelled “Zwarte Piet is racism” when the Black Petes were walking in their vicinity. This was met with disgust by the Dutch in attendance who complained that they were “ruining” the celebration. Police were summoned. The State called upon to protect the right of the Dutch to continue being racist.
What happened afterwards will turn your stomach. Police demanded the activists to disband and stop protesting. They were told this was a children’s event and that children had the right to celebrate the holiday without disturbances. Two men and two women were arrested (link goes to news report in Dutch) when they stated that they also had the right to protest practices that actively harm them. They were told, in no uncertain terms, that they had no right to be there. One of the men resisted. He yelled that it was his right to protest. This video here, caught by a bystander, shows what happened to this protester. He was dragged outside the Parade, brutally beaten, thrown into the ground, dragged some more. In the video, you can see this young Black man, wearing a t-shirt that states “Zwarte Piet is racism”, subject to State violence in order to protect a Dutch tradition that is clearly not open for debate. The right of the White majority to wear Black face every year should be protected through whatever means necessary, even at the expense of those who are harmed by it.
Earlier this year, in a highly publicized trial, Geert Wilders was acquitted of inciting hatred through Hate Speech. Dutch courts stated that his speech is denigrating but not hateful. Prosecutors were asking for a sentence that contemplated the possibility of jail time. Wilders has used coarse and xenophobic language against immigrants and minorities in this country. His party is funded on the premise that those of us who hail from nations classified as Non Western have no place in this society. He actively promotes laws and initiatives to further alienate and isolate immigrants. And yet, his words were deemed non hateful and, as such, not deserving of a sentence or even one day in jail, protected by free speech laws. A young Black man protests racist stereotypes that actively hurt him, he protests a tradition that further promotes his isolation and his status as “Other” and he is brutally beaten and dragged through the ground, arrested. He is told he has no right to protest, no right to raise his voice. Obviously, the protections afforded by free speech are only available to those that the State deems to be free to begin with. The largely unacknowledged responsibility of the Dutch State in the transatlantic slave trade, practically absent from school history books, means that some people, still to this day, continue to be bound by chains that prevent them from exercising the same rights freely afforded to Gert Wilders. Because above all, the Dutch State has made it clear that it will protect the right of White Dutch people to be racist without consequences.
Edited to add: Yesterday, Sunday 13th November, the Sinterklaas Parade also took place in Amsterdam. Five people carrying flyers stating “Zwarte Piet is racism” stood by the Parade route, in the Leidseplein attempting to distribute the flyers. In order to avoid direct confrontation, they didn’t wear the stenciled T-shirts. All five were also arrested for “provocation” and told they had no right to disturb an event aimed at Dutch children. (Link goes to report in Dutch)

Hollywood Racism: Tower Heist

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Tower Heist (2011), the new movie starring Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy, is the latest installment in blatantly racist movie-making. Stiller plays a high-end condo manager in Manhattan who bails out a local criminal (Murphy) to steal a stash of cash that one of the wealthy condo residents swindled from the condo staff. It’s been nearly thirty years since Murphy played nearly the same character in his breakout role in 48 Hours, and the fact that he is still cast as a jive-talking criminal speaks to how little has changed when it comes to the portrayal of black Americans in popular culture.

Hyperbolic racial stereotypes are still sooooo amusing for some.  As LA Times film critic Betsy Sharkey writes, ”Murphy and Stiller are a good pair, with Murphy once again mainlining his ghetto-comedy crazy and Stiller suited up for another straight-man gig. These are the kinds of roles they both do best, and their face-off in the front seat of an out-of-control car is worth the price of admission.” (Now reverse the names in this quote to see how racialized and racially offensive it is.)

Perhaps more disturbing is the way in which film critics are talking about this movie as a comback for Eddie Murphy  (“Eddie Murphy’s Road to Reddemption,” “Tower Heist: Murphy is Back on Top,” “‘Tower’ Heist Features Eddie Murphy Back in ‘Classic ’80s Form“). What does it mean when playing an insultingly stereotypical black criminal is deemed “redemption” for a black actor whose movies have grossed nearly $7 billion worldwide? And where, exactly, did Eddie Murphy go? The Shrek series grossed nearly $3 billion worldwide, while his Nutty Professor and Doctor Dolittle franshises grossed $428 million and $470 million, respectively. Murphy has appeared in a steady stream of successful movies in the past decade, including Dreamgirls for which he was nominated for an Academy Award.

Closer examination of media critics’ analysis reveals a nostalgia for Eddie Murphy’s breakthrough role as a criminal in 48 Hours. Jon Niccum writes that inTower Heist “Murphy shows flashes of the aggressive, non-family-friendly persona that made him a superstar following 48 Hours. Aggressive?  Non-family friendly?

To summarize, Eddie Murphy grossing oodles of money as a successful director, producer, writer, and actor in films featuring him as a doctor, a veterinarian, a dedicated father, and the voice of a beloved donkey in the second highest-grossing animated film of all time is considered some sort of failure, but playing a jive talking felon is redemption. Huh?

There are many ways to interpret this — that Hollywood and movie critics (and many in society) are more comfortable with black actors playing damaging, stereotypical roles involving criminality, violence, and deviance (remember back in 2002 when Denzel Washington finally won the Oscar for playing a crooked cop?); that male actors are failures if they appear in family-friendly movies, regardless of how economically successful these movies may be; that to be considered successful, male actors have to appear in movies geared towards male audiences.

Whatever the reason(s), it is embarassing for Hollywood and its “critics” to continue to be so ignorant. Eddie Murphy called out the movie industry’s racism at the 1988 Academy Awards during his presentation of the Best Picture award: “I’m going to give this award, but black people will not ride the caboose of society and we will not bring up the rear anymore. I want you to recognize that.” Two decades later, Murphy finds himself riding the caboose, furnished by the creators of Tower Heist.

The "Model Minority" Myth: Asian Americans and Stereotyping

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Recent events, from Occupy Wall Street to Rep. Scott Garrett’s (R-N.J.) comments on “other” ethnicities’ work ethic, have catalyzed important discussions on inequality and prejudice in the United States. However, the popular discourse, from editorials to social media coverage, often overlooks one growing population: Asian Americans.
Asian Americans encounter relentless stereotyping in popular culture, wide disparities in educational achievement and income, and high rates of bullying in school and on the internet. Yet these instances often garner little attention outside of the Asian American community. This broader ignorance of issues related to this diverse population poses significant obstacles for the community to legitimize of its claims to inequality and in creating public awareness of said issues.
Compounding this breach are stereotypes, particularly the model minority myth. This seemingly ubiquitous label purports that Asians are predisposed to achieve educational and economic success in America. Supporters cite socio-economic statistics such as the 2005 median yearly income, which was $61,594 for an Indian American male as compared to the overall male median of $41,965. Such statistics fail to note that Asian Americans were one of the first immigrant groups to have a large percentage of its members come to the United States having already achieved professional status or educational and economic resources.
This myth of inherent ability has serious consequences for inequality. The model framework ensconces a greater ignorance of the real issues faced by the population while downplaying its successes.
For instance, in pop culture, Asian impressions often fail to garner the same universal rebuke as other racially tinged jokes — even when those jokes are performed by white actors. Such instances add to the forever foreign construction of Asian Americans. Saturday Night Live’s depiction of presidential candidate and former U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman speaking in a generic “Chinese accent,” an attempt to mock the public fascination with this ambassadorial credential, helped underline society’s greater orientalization of Asians. Soon after, comedian Stephen Colbert’s Chinese character (Ching Chong Ding Dong) appeared to make his guest, Huntsman himself, squirm in the spotlight.   
While significant in its own right, the inequality debate also tends to focus on the disparities across major groups (blacks and whites, rich and poor), and not within them. Yet, again, the model minority myth obscures the realities of divergent living standards and educational achievement within a highly diverse sub-population.
Still, despite this slow rate of inclusion into the popular discourse, there have been some positive signs of change. For instance, one well-covered news story points to San Francisco, a city over 21% Chinese, where Japanese American candidate Jeff Adachi may become the first elected Asian American mayor in the city’s history.
And in pop culture, the international fashion chain Forever 21 has come under fire for its culturally insensitive Oriental Girl necklace. Petitions for the stores’ removal of this stereotypical image are slowly picking up steam.

Non-White students at Ohio University tired of racist halloween costumes

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An awful lot of people agree with the infamous words of “Mean Girls” character Cady: “Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.” She could have gotten more agreement still by adding, “Halloween is the one night a year when people think it’s OK to dress in totally inappropriate and racist costumes.”
Ohio University student Sarah Williams says she was at a Halloween party last year when she snapped a picture of someone in black face. “It angers me and it’s unacceptable,” Williams said in an interview with Colorlines.com on Monday. So she and some fellow students decided to do something about it—and they’ve captured national attention in the process.
“This is happening across the country. It’s not just here in Athens, Ohio,” says Williams, who is the president of a student group at Ohio University called Students Teaching About Racism in Society (STARS). The group, made up of 10 students, has created an educational campaign called “We’re a Culture, Not a Costume” that juxtaposes images like the one Williams saw last year with an actual African-American student. It adds a simple statement: “This is not who I am, and this is not okay.”
The posters have already taken social media by storm, going viral on Tumblr and Facebook pages around the country. As of Monday evening, they had been shared more than 50,000 times online, according to Williams.
The posters will be passed out throughout the dorms on Ohio University’s Athens campus. The group’s Facebook page reports other schools, including Columbia University, are interested in distributing the campaign on their campuses, too.
STARS says their group’s guiding principle is based on the African principle “Each One Teach One”. Their mission statement on their website reads: “The purpose of STARS is to educate and facilitate discussion about all ism’s (racism, sexism, classism, etc.),  raise awareness about social justice, and promote racial harmony. Our job is to create a safe, non-threatening environment to allow participants to feel comfortable to express their feelings.”
STARS produced the campaign entirely on its own, with no funding from the school. But the campaign has made such a positive impression on students and faculty that the Division of Student Affairs stepped in to help pay for posters to get printed.
Controversy surrounding racially offensive Halloween costumes and theme parties have become  a routine part of the holiday on college campuses. Last fall, one Northwestern University dean went so far as to send an advance email to the whole student body, urging them to think carefully before getting decked out. “Halloween is unfortunately a time when the normal thoughtfulness and sensitivity of most NU students can be forgotten and some poor decisions are made,” wrote Burgwell Howard. In 2009, Northwestern had drawn unwanted national attention when party pics of two varsity athletes dressed in graphic black face made social media rounds.
Of course, the trend stretches past college campuses. The black-face costume of choice last year was Antoine Dodson, the young, poor black man who became a troubling Internet sensation after his outburst to a local news reporter covering his sister’s sexual assault. Memes circulated all year, in which producers morphed his screaming words into songs and audio clips. It was no surprise when, come Oct. 31, his Facebook page filled with pictures of white people in black face, wearing afro wigs and bandanas and making gang gestures.
In 2009, Target made headlines by selling an “illegal alien” costume that featured an orange jumpsuit and an alien mask. Kohls previously sold a “Ghetto Fab Wig.” Colorlines.com rounded up these and other perennially popular racist costumes last year.
In short, costumes mocking people of color are an annual Halloween epidemic. Williams says STARS has a simple message for classmates planning to join the so-called fun again this year: “It’s not funny. STARS doesn’t believe that making a costume of a culture or race is funny. It only reinforces stereotypes.”
Williams, who’s black, plans on being Janelle Monae on Halloween.