By Guest Contributor Jason Eastman; originally published on Sociological Images
Race as biology has largely been discredited, yet beliefs about one race being biologically superior to another still seem to pervade one social arena: sports. Claims that different races have genetic advantages to play particular sports persists both because individual athletic ability obviously has some basis in biology (even though that does not mean it is racial biology at play) and athletics appears to be one social arena where racial minorities succeed over whites in certain sports.
For example, according to the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports’ 2011 Racial and Gender Report Card on The National Football League, over 2/3 of players in the NFL are African American–far higher than the proportion of Blacks in the general population of the United States. This report also shows that all other racial groups are under-represented in the NFL relative to their proportion in the general population, including Asians who make up only 2% of the players in the league.
These statistics compel many to assume that racial biology plays a large part in athletic success. However, the 60 Minutes investigation “Football Island” debunks this assumption during a trip to the place where most of the Asian players in the NFL come from: American Samoa. This small island is a US Territory in the Pacific and has a population small enough to seat comfortably in most professional football stadiums. Yet the average Samoan child “is 56 times more likely to get into the NFL than any other kid in America.”
What is African, specifically Ghanian, feminism?
What role did feminism and women’s right in Ghana’s 2008 election and beyond?
What can western feminism learn from African feminism?
Racialicious and National Black Programming Consortium‘s AfroPoP.TV are so thrilled to have Minna Salami (a.k.a. @MsAfropolitan) and Yaba Blay (a.k.a. @fiyawata) as the guests for tomorrow’s tweet-up to talk about these and other questions related to African feminism! We’ll kick off the discussion on Twitter at 11AM EDT with the hashtag #AfricanElection.
So, please join us for our tweetversation tomorrow!
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Related:
What Votes Count? On Voter Fraud And Intimidation [An African Election]
The Right To Information: A Building Block Of Democracy
An African Election: Pan-Africanism and Ghana’s 2008 Election With Dr. James Peterson
An African Election: A 21st-Century Ghanaian Politics Primer With Dr. Benjamin Talton
An African Election‘s Jarreth Merz On African Stereotypes And Ghanaian Politics
AHORA logo recovered in 1997, Brandeis University.
By Guest Contributor Blanca E. Vega
The days between September 15 and October 15 have been federally recognized as Hispanic Heritage Month. This is the time in which many Latin American countries (e.g. Mexico, Chile, Guatemala) have struggled and won independence from Spain. The struggle for freedom has been memorialized into a cultural celebration in the US since 1968, celebrated as Hispanic Heritage Week, and then extended into a month in 1988. It is popular to coordinate mixers and happy hours to honor this month. During this time, we may also want to think of finding ways to fight against the poverty affecting 25 percent of Latino/a populations, struggle against policies like Secure Communities that aid in incarcerating Latinos/as who now comprise of over 50 percent of federal felony offenders, and work against the fact that Latinos still lag behind many racial/ethnic groups in (K-16) educational attainment.
Brandeis University was the place where I began to understand the importance of these celebratory months. For young people, college is often the place where they experience the most diversity in their lives. Thus, the absence of a group that has significantly shaped this country’s historical and political landscape, such as Latinos, can be of great detriment to the learning and social enhancement of a college community.
As a college student, I could never have articulated what I just stated. At the time, I felt the impact that a lack of Latina/o populations in higher education had on me academically (e.g. lack of mentors who shared my background), emotionally, and socially. Personal reflection and my degree in higher education helped me articulate that impact later. During that time, I witnessed my peers who were black, South Asian, or women have their particular groups recognized in meaningful ways that were encouraging to me. In fact, many of my peers who were involved in promoting group recognition, encouraged me to coordinate the first Hispanic Heritage Month at Brandeis University in the fall of 1997.
By Guest Contributor Bryan Ziadie
I’ve heard a few friends’ opinions so far about The Bourne Legacy, the latest installment in the Bourne film franchise. The last set of sequences in the film got particular attention. Those scenes take place in Manila. It seems to be the case here in the Philippines that people, at least those I know, managed to stay immersed in the film up until that point. After this, a feeling of strange misrecognition of the landscape took over. This may be because what we’re shown through the camera work in the Manila scenes suggests a perception of the Philippines not unfamiliar to a militarized American pop-culture industry that’s easy to identify with it until you find that familiar spaces have become the focus of the camera’s lens.
Rooftop-Hopping
One thing that I’ve noticed about First World action sequences that take place in Third World settings is the position of the camera. You often find it hovering above, looking down on metal, shanty-town rooftops as protagonists run across, leaping from one roof to the next either in pursuit of, or escape from, the enemy. A couple examples that come to mind can be found in Edward Norton’s Incredible Hulk and, in Inception, the scene that takes place in Mombasa. I can’t actually remember the movie Quantum of Solace very well, but the video game features a shanty-town, rooftop-hopping stage.
(Don’t watch the whole video, it’s actually pretty boring)
But, to say on track, here’s an illustrative scene from Bourne.
(Watch the whole video. It’s actually pretty badass.) Continue reading »
We are so thrilled that Racializens are getting into what we and National Black Consortium’s (NBPC) AfroPoP.TV are posting in preparation for the public-media premiere of Jarreth Merz’s An African Election coming up two weeks on PBS’ WORLD channel! We’ll keep you informed about more social-media happenings, like podcasts, Google hangouts and, yes, more tweet-ups. (P.S. You’ll also see some interesting quotes from the film on Racialicious’ and NBPC’s Twitter timelines.)
Racialicious and AfroPOP.TV are also hosting a pre-screening of An African Election at Maysles Cinema, located in Harlem, NYC, on Tuesday, September 25 (time to be announced). We’ll definitely give you the deets about this exciting event!
If your looking for more about the documentary, please check out the website. Also, please check out NBPC‘s and AfroPOP.TV‘s Facebook pages.
Related:
What Votes Count? On Voter Fraud And Intimidation [An African Election]
An African Election: Pan-Africanism and Ghana’s 2008 Election With Dr. James Peterson
An African Election: A 21st-Century Ghanaian Politics Primer With Dr. Benjamin Talton
The Right To Information: A Building Block Of Democracy
An African Election‘s Jarreth Merz On African Stereotypes And Ghanaian Politics
An African Election Takes Over Racialicious
By Andrea Plaid
Kerry Washington. Photo: Ernie Stewart/Retna Ltd. Courtesy: s2smagazine.com.
The R’s Managing Editor Arturo García and I confabbed last week about his adventures at the Democratic National Convention. He regaled me with some blogger star-gazing and gossip, meeting Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry, the voting implications of The Tumblr Generation and the Occupy Movement, and the panties-throwing during former POTUS Bill Clinton’s speech. And Kerry Washington.
“Did you get to meet her?” I asked.
“No, but she looks good on the big screen,” he said.
I have to agree: in my big-screen movie, I’d cast Washington as Helen of Troy or Cleopatra, not only because she looks good (a vital attribute of you’re going to cast someone as two legends of human pulchritude, just as you’d cast a beautiful someone as Adonis) but also because she is good–and her work on Scandal and in real-life politics are why.
Continue reading »
Upon the gruesome sight of the bodies, Clay tosses off the line “Goddamn, fried and refried,” with a self-satisfaction seldom seen outside David Caruso’s performance in CSI: Miami. The examples are too numerous to list, but suffice it say that the Sons didn’t suddenly become racist to facilitate a storyline, they had been from the beginning.
But why wouldn’t they be? They operate in a world in which racial segregation is the norm; all of the clubs are racially homogenous, and no one seems to mind. They deal with one another when there’s a strategic advantage for doing so; otherwise they keep their distance. Racial self-segregation is a reality for at least some facets of most people’s lives—say, at churches or bars—but for the Sons, it’s that way all the time. It would be weirder if they weren’t a little racist. But as far as the audience sees these characters, having general racist attitudes toward people they seldom interact with in a meaningful way is one thing, but barring African-American members as a matter of policy is another entirely.
If epic fantasy has diversity, it is often present in a fashion that mirrors the stereotypes of Medieval Europe, with Viking-like invaders from the North and Infidels from the East and uneasy peaces and petty wars with those that look most like the heroes of the stories. This is unfair for many reasons that I hope I don’t need to enumerate here. And of course, there are absolutely amazing authors whose books are populated by characters of every size, shape, color, and species. But it’s still difficult and frustrating to be a fantasy reader who comes up against the same tropes in every book. Because while fantasy novels can be, well, fantastic, they can also be very repetitive and tell the same story with different character names. And I can’t help but think that at least part of the reason is because of the lack of diversity in fantasy book authorship. Because it is hardto break into the fantasy genre as a new author, generally. And even more difficult if your book is about a person of color. And most difficult of all if you yourself are a person of color writing stories about characters of color.
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What happened to race after multiculturalism hit the scene? Check out the Asian American Writer's Workshop's 5 part series.
The Octavia Butler Book Club
(Click the book for the latest conversation) Feminism for Real – Jessica, Latoya, Andrea
The Same Woman – Thea
I Speak For Myself – Fatemeh
Yes Means Yes – Latoya
Sex Ed and Youth – Jessica
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