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I Know Haters Are Gonna Hate Cuz That’s What They Do, But This?

Remember back in November of 2011 when Herman Cain called the House Minority Leader “Princess Nancy during one of the seemingly endless debates leading up to the GOP presidential nomination?

I was reminded of that comment when reading this report from Democracy Corps, Inside the GOP: Report on Focus Groups with Evangelical, Tea Party, and Moderate Republicans. There are two parts to the brief that together describe the result of focus groups organized to figure out what gives the Republican base juice.

Number one on the list? Obama-hatred. Here’s what they have to say on that front –… Read more “I Know Haters Are Gonna Hate Cuz That’s What They Do, But This?”

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A New Slant on Hate Speech

The United States Patent and Trademark Office is refusing trademark protection to a Portland, Oregon based rock band called The Slants. Apparently, they believe the name the band is seeking to protect is disparaging to Asians.

When I first heard about this I wasn’t sure what to think. On one hand, it seems like a marker of progress that the U.S. government would deny trademark protection of a racial slur. But, on the other, this sounds like censorship, right?

Wrong. The fact that trademark protection is being denied doesn’t mean the group can’t use the name. This isn’t censorship. This … Read more “A New Slant on Hate Speech”

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Asian Americans Are the Same as Other Americans, But Not in the Way Frank Wu Seems to Think We Are

Frank H. Wu (author of Yellow: Race Beyond Black and White, a useful if not entirely satisfying examination of the racial status of Asian Americans) has been making waves with his recent Huff Post editorial, Jeremy Lin and the End of Asian Americans? In it, he makes the point that Asian Americans are distinct from Asians globally, both because Asians in Asia don’t share a pan-Asian identity, and because Asian Americans are neither well known to nor very much like the peoples of the countries in which we are ethnically rooted.

Good enough. I don’t disagree with that point. But … Read more “Asian Americans Are the Same as Other Americans, But Not in the Way Frank Wu Seems to Think We Are”

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Series Premier: Open Season on Asians in the Media (starring actual Dragon Ladies!)

[Spoiler Alert] This weekend, I watched the new blockbuster Gravity with Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, ironically at a Queens, New York movie theater next door to a Hooters that was sued last year for inputting a customer’s order under “Chinx”. The movie had me and my friends cracking up in our seats.

Maybe you’re thinking, Wait, but it’s not a comedy! It’s a movie about the rugged individualism and determination of a White American woman astronaut under space duress! I suppose, even though the protagonist is ultimately saved by the apparition of her White male … Read more “Series Premier: Open Season on Asians in the Media (starring actual Dragon Ladies!)”

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Columns Reviews

Book Review: Haoles in Hawaii

If you’re interested in Hawai’i or just interested in critical race studies, you ought not miss Haoles in Hawai’i. I found it to be a fast, accessible read, mercifully short and to the point, unapologetic without being polemical and one-sided, and highly educational.

Literally translated “haoles” are foreigners, but in contemporary Hawai’i, “haoles” include all white people, including those born in the islands. Living as they do in a state of racial limbo, at once the power elite by race in the U.S. (and Hawai’i is most definitely even if reluctantly part of the U.S.) and as both a racial … Read more “Book Review: Haoles in Hawaii”

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Why I’m an Anti-Racist

People often ask me why I’m so obsessed with anti-racism. I talk about it, read about, and, obviously, write about it constantly. People wonder why I devote so much time, thought, and virtual ink to just one source of human suffering when there are so many to choose from.

I get where they’re coming from. There’s lots of injustice out there. Children live in poverty and suffer hunger and abuse. Women are denied reproductive justice. People with disabilities are routinely denied access to public life. And then there’s the privatization of everything, from basic services to water. Surely, turning shared … Read more “Why I’m an Anti-Racist”

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The Problem with White Pride

 

The Race Files publication of Pakou Her’s My Racial Trigger: Raising Brown Babies sparked an unexpected debate about white pride. In particular, this video got the ire of one Race Files reader –

[youtube_sc url=”http://youtu.be/1VF7M_29Nt8″]

The little girl in the clip is biracial. She celebrates this by shouting “hapa power!” while raising her fists in the air. “Hapa” is a Hawaiian word meaning part or half that is often used to refer to mixed race people, especially those of Asian or Pacific Islander/Native Hawaiian descent.

In response, a reader named Jana wrote the following comment,

So when … Read more “The Problem with White Pride”

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Blog Reviews

Book Review: Baseball in April

Baseball in April and Other Stories is a collection of short stories written by one of the dons of Latino literature in the U.S., Gary Soto. It was first published in 1990, but it remains relevant today – a classic.

The stories in the collection filled me with nostalgia for my own childhood (or at least the parts of it where I wasn’t being beat up for being a fag). It reminded me of the resilience of children who, somehow, nearly always manage to find their way to the cracks in the oppressive forces that too often isolate and … Read more “Book Review: Baseball in April”

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Those Studious Asians

A September 19 article in The Atlantic asked the question How Much Homework Do American Kids Do? The answer? According to a MetLife survey, not much. Considering the dismal state of education in the U.S. this should come as no surprise. But then the article made this claim:

Race plays a role in how much homework students do.

Asian students spend 3.5 more hours on average doing homework per week than their white peers. However, only 59 percent of Asian students’ parents check that homework is done, while 75.6 percent of Hispanic students’ parents and 83.1 percent of black … Read more “Those Studious Asians”

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You Can’t Judge A Book By Its Cover: Not Over Overt Racism

The story about the sudden “retirement” of a school superintendent and “resignation” of a school athletic director in Pennsylvania over racist and sexist text messages reminds us that, in spite of popular reports to the contrary, we’re not nearly over overt racism in this country.

The text messages can be read here. I’ll spare you the details and leave you with the option of following the link or just taking my word that the texts express a kind of sexism and racism that is beyond offensive. It made my skin crawl to think of these men providing care and … Read more “You Can’t Judge A Book By Its Cover: Not Over Overt Racism”