Our Giants are Falling...

Wow...

Benjamin Hooks...

Dorothy Height...

And now, Lena Horne...

Wow...

And, IT'S ONLY MAY!!!

What's goin' on???

Our Giants are falling.

And I, myself, am not real sure that there are plenty more where they came from...

Not at all sure....

Halle Berry

It appears that Halle Berry (43) and her very white beau (34) have gone their separate ways.

All together now...:  awwwwwwww...  :-(

I'm really hurt about that...

Anyway... it will be interesting to see on which side of the racial divide Halle lands next.

She crossed over--professionally (The Rich Man's Wife; The Wedding; Bulworth; Introducing Dorothy Dandridge; Swordfish; Die Another Day; Perfect Stranger and---most infamously--Monster's Ball; she's giving J-Lo a run for her money as White-Male-Fantasy-Woman-of-the-Decade) and personally.

Can she cross back over?  Does she want to?

You know that old saying:  Once you go white...

Bulletin: Obama Says He's Black!

We've been told that Barack Obama is the nation's first black President.
He certainly looks black to me... kinda...

Well, apparently he IS black!

The New York Times reports that President Obama, on his census form, checked “Black, African Am., or Negro.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/us/politics/03census.html


Apparently he could have checked both the "black" and the "white" boxes (that's permitted now), or myriad other combinations of boxes, but he did not.

He just picked plain ol' black...

How nice...

Can you imagine the uproar--at least in the Black Community--if President Obama had NOT checked the "Black" box on the census?

Can't you imagine the headlines???:

America's First Black President Denies That He's Black!

Wow!

Wouldn't THAT have been special???

I'm glad that our first black President has, in fact, acknowledged and declared that he's black.

We can all sleep easy!

If ONLY we could get him to do something for the Black Community....!!!

Now, THAT would be SPECIAL!!!

Gee, I sure hope he's not NEGRO...!

"The Back-up Plan": Can J-Lo Back-up to a Leading Man of Color??? PLEASE!!!

So, Jennifer Lopez is starring in a new movie with Alex O'Loughlin (who???), called "The Back-up Plan."

According to the Internet Movie Database, "The Back-up Plan" is "[a] romantic comedy centered on a woman who conceives twins through artificial insemination, only to meet the man of her dreams on the very same day."

So... Ms. Lopez is a mixed-race Hispanic and, in "The Back-up Plan,"  the "man of her dreams" is a white man...

I see...

Seems like I've seen this before... from Ms. Lopez!

In 1998, there was "Out of Sight," with George Clooney:

In 2001, there was "The Wedding Planner," with Matthew McConaughey:

In 2002, there was "Maid in Manhattan," with Ralph Fiennes:

In 2003, there was the infamous "Gigli," with Ben Affleck:

In 2004, there was "Shall We Dance," with Richard Gere:

In 2005, there was "Monster in Law," with Michael Vartan (who???):

This year (2010), she appeared in a guest spot on the tv sitcom, "How I Met Your Mother," as Barney's (Neil Patrick Harris) love-interest-of-the-moment:

Sooooo...

Do you... ummmmm... see a pattern here???

J-Lo is making a CAREER of playing the sexy, shapely brown-skinned woman who finds her ideal (white) man...

She's the Hispanic Thandie Newton!

I wonder what Hispanics think of their most prominent movie star playing these parts with these storylines.

I also wonder if J-Lo ever thinks about the message that her "Your Ideal Man is a White Man" movies send?

I doubt that she does.

Probably just cashes that check!

Cha-CHING!!!

If she ever does think about it, maybe she'd make a few movies with a leading man of color.

It would be a nice change of pace!

By the way...

I know it was a long time ago... but...

Does anybody remember when Jennifer Lopez was really Hispanic, and LOOKED LIKE IT???

For those who've forgotten, here's a reminder:

Hey...

Who's THAT girl???

Here We Go Again: Regina King on Southland

OK, so tonight I'm sitting here watching the end of the season finale on "Southland," the TNT drama (that NBC should have kept).

Now, Regina King is a sexy black woman.

Her character on "Southland" (Detective Lydia Adams) is currently unattached (she was dating a black man, but--shall we say--complications arose!).

She works with a sometimes-attached/sometimes-not-attached white guy (Detective Russell Clarke, played by Tom Everett Clarke).

Now, you KNOW what's coming next, right?

Black woman/White man.

It's that way on damn near EVERY drama on television!

Why???

OK, so Detective Clarke just told Regina King's character "You know I love you...".

He didn't say it like "I love you as a friend."

Here we go...

[There's also a Hispanic male detective character--I don't remember his name--who was flirting with Regina's character, but it didn't seem like she was goin' for it, and his character isn't very prominent.  Hell, I'd prefer the Hispanic to the white boy, since it seems that those are my only choices here...]

I'm watching... and waiting.

As soon as Southland goes there, and hooks Regina's character up with this white character, I'm going to seriously (very seriously) consider not watching.

I'm sooooo tired of this bullshit!

It's like the media is promoting (not reflecting, actively promoting) black female/white male relationships.

That's what white men need--more women to choose from, right???

Well, the show is over, and Regina King's character is still unattached--for now...

Stay tuned...!

What's a Persian???

A friend of mine moved to California a few years ago (she's back on the Right Coast now), and we were talking about what her then-teenage daughter was experiencing in the California public schools.

She was talking about the various cliques in the schools, and she said something about the "Persian" students.

I was like, Persians???

What's a Persian???

Now, I'm not totally ignorant.

I  know there was a Persia.

I also know that Persia no longer exists!


In fact, when I go to Wikipedia and search for "Persia," it redirects me to IRAN!

Now, I'm pretty liberal, and I'm ordinarily the first to recognize the right of people to be called what they want to be called (as when we Negroes became "black" and "African-American", and all the steps in between).

But...

How can one be a "  Persian"  if there is no Persia?

Once a country officially ceases to exist, how can a non-existent country be the grounding for one's identity?

I mean, for all I know, my ancestors came from ancient Mali.

Am I a a Malian (or whatever an occupant of Mali was called)?

There was a Mesopotamia and a Babylon.

Have you run into any Mesopotamians or Babylonians lately?

I wouldn't think so.

Persia, as a country, is gone. 

Iran exists.  Iraq exists. 

Persia does not exist.

If there's no Persia, there really can't be any Persians--logically speaking--can there???

There are Persian rugs. 

There's a Persian language.

There may be a Persian culture.

But, there aren't any Persians.

Not anymore.

Sorry...

No Persia, no Persians.

I'm just sayin'...!

Asian Newscasters: Where are the Men?

Connie Chung--former co-anchor of the CBS Evening News:

Ann Curry--NBC's Today Show:

Alina Cho--CNN:

Melissa Lee--CNBC:

All attractive, Asian-American women.  All excellent, professional network newscasters.

Is it a coincidence, that attractive, Asian-American women are doing so well as network newscasters?

Is the fact (and I call it a fact) that white men are so enamored of Asian women a factor in their success?

To put it another way:  Where are the Asian male network newscasters???


Why aren't the Asian men doing as well in network news as Asian women are?

Can you name any Asian male network broadcasters???

I can't think of one ....

I can't help but wonder whether the white male's fetish with the Asian female has something to do with the success of the Asian woman in these positions.

Now, I'm not taking anything away from the professionalism, intelligence, and skill of these women.

But, there are plenty of professional, intelligent, skilled women out there, and I presume that there are plenty of professional, intelligent, skilled Asian men out there, too.

Why don't the professional, intelligent and skilled Asian men get any of those network newscaster jobs?

In a 1994 article, Darrell Y. Hamamoto, spoke of a "Connie Chung Syndrome" that works for Asian females and against Asian males when it comes to getting network newscaster positions. 

Mr. Hamamoto wrote:

The overrepresentation of female Asian American anchorpersons and the near-total absence of their male counterparts  -- the Connie Chung syndrome -- is the material outcome of a complementary system of racism and sexism.  But in journalistic accounts of the syndrome, the roles that racism and sexism play in the casting of TV news anchors is rarely alluded to.  A December 1991 Los Angeles Times article, for example, tiptoed around the twin taboos by reporting the "difficult to prove" accusations made by "minorities in the field" that the "white, male hiring Establishment feels more comfortable seeing a white male sitting next to a minority female at the anchor desk than the reverse."  One of only a handful of male Asian Americans currently working as television news anchors in the entire country, Stephen Tschida of WDBJ-TV (Roanoke, Virginia) [now with Washington, DC's Newschannel 8 cable network] was informed early in his career that he should concentrate on reporting because he did not have the proper "look" to qualify for the top job.  In the meantime, such broadcast news veterans as Ken Kashiwahara, Mario Machado, and Sam Chu Linn, who began their careers in the early 1970s, have been passed over for younger, more beauteous, female Asian American objects of desire.  For, although those in TV news management would never admit to it, there is a belief that "Asian women are exotic looking and thus more appealing to white audiences, while Asian men are not."

In short, Asian women are doing so well in television news because they are attractive to and favored by white men. 


Asian men aren't, because they aren't.



It's my theory that, in matters racial and--especially--matters interracial, the "progress" that is made is typically the progress that white males favor, not that which they disfavor.


Therefore, to me, that very "progress" tends to reinforce the white-male-on-top American social hierarchy, not undermine it.


I think that the "Connie Chung Syndrome," where Asian women fare well in, and Asian men are virtually absent from, network television news, fits very neatly within that paradigm.


Very neatly, indeed.