She loves me, she loves me not: Black, White, or Illegal Alien?

I touched on issues surrounding the term illegal alien* a couple weeks ago in Walking the (color)Line, when I mentioned a couple ways I suspected this term has affected my children’s perceptions of the Hispanic community. There was a part of me that wondered whether I was reading too much into things… but let’s just say that’s no longer a concern. Within the last week or two, I read a blog or article about multiracial girls being asked what color their husbands would be. I wondered if Halle had ever heard or been asked something like this. I made a little note to self to bring it up, but Thursday night in the car, she raised the subject. She was talking about how she was going to date a boy for one year when she grew up, and asked if that was too long. I told her it depended on the boy; with some boys, a year might be too long, with another, a year may not be long enough. She suddenly started talking about whether this boy might be white or black and something about so and so… I interrupted and asked if people asked her that, and she confirmed. Then I asked, “Do you guys talk about that?” and she responds matter of factly, “Oh, yeah.” I asked if that was something that had just come up this year, and she said no, it was last year too. I asked how it came up, and she said, just when they talk about who they think is cute. She continued with her story…

“Anyway, so and so asked me once, and I said he would probably be Black or White, but not Mexican, but then I met Tristan, and I like him and I think he’s cute, and he’s Mexican…”

Her voice trailed off.

GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER — ReThink Review

Are you f-ing kidding? Reebok EasyTone commercial

Beware Young Girl.

This broke my heart…  how many Sara’s will we lose to the sexualization and objectification of women?

In response to the constant objectification of women, the recent gang rape of a 15 year old girl in Richmond, CA, the unjust incarceration of Sara Kruzan and even the highly publicized violence faced by Rihanna, conscientious rapper and activist Jasiri X has put out a track that discusses the injustice and inhumanity of these crimes.

you can find the lyrics at Beware Young Girl. – Feministing.

Disney Racefail

Sometimes, I just don’t know what to say. The next time disney pulls something from the vault and releases it as “remastered” I’m going to have some questions!

crossposted from Sociological Images

For more posts on Disney princesses, look here, here, here, here, and here.  Two other great posts include this rejection letter (”we don’t hire women”) and this post on the original inclusion of black slaves in Fantasia.

[Love Isn't Enough editor's note: Note, too, that but for Jazmin, who is kind of brownish, Disney's princesses hold fast to a European-influenced beauty hierarchy.]

Hat tip to Jezebel for alerting me to this post. Also on Jezebel, see what one woman is doing to make Barbies more diverse. It’s awesome! I’ve never wanted a Barbie before, but now…

Genevieve wrote:

When I was in high school, I did a report on Race and Gender in Disney for History Day. The report itself was weak (I was 14 years old), and I still have a soft spot for Disney, since I was raised with it and their movies are visually masterful, but this post reaffirms what I was trying to get across to the judges: that Disney does promote messages that are actively harmful, and whether or not that’s deliberate, they have a responsibility as providers of entertainment for children to be responsible in the messages being sent. Then that got into a whole capitalism-responsibility debate (if you don’t like it, don’t watch, etc.), plus the fact that my topic was considered a bit unsavory, I think.

Some major things that I really felt strongly on were the rewriting of Pocahontas’s history (REAL PERSON) and the Mulan story (Here: Mulan was a SUPER-PATRIOTIC lady who served in the army for her family since her brothers were too young, and in the end, astonished her comrades by revealing she was a woman, since they never would have guessed. Vs. Disney’s Mulan who goes into and stays in the army for her father, falls in love with her commander, and, when revealed, uses, you guessed it, her sexuality, this time socially conditioned sexuality, to save… a man. Although apparently, there was a Chinese TV show that used the romance theme as a gag when Mulan’s general has to confront his “homosexuality.”). Oh, and Fantasia, of course, but no one ever believes me on that until they see the video for themselves.

“Beauty and the Beast” tends to break the mold (despite Belle’s lack of a mother, her motherish “fairy godmother” Mrs. Potts, and the clownish “gag fat woman” dresser/chiffarobe/thing). HOWEVER, this is due to the outright theft of the “Belle as bookish” motif from the novel “Beauty” by Robin McKinley (published fully 23 years before the 1991 movie release)– the library gift in particular is almost word-for-word what ended up in the film– in response to protest over “The Little Mermaid,” plus the theft of the Gaston archetype (and other visuals) from Cocteau’s film “Beauty and the Beast.”

Esmerelda, oddly, is not included as a Disney Princess at all, despite Mulan’s inclusion, and she’s not a princess, either. I think it’s because Esmerelda is seen as too sexual to be a role model, honestly. Then again, I remember my main impressions of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” being that Esmerelda was gorgeous, and that Frollo was waaaaaay too creepy for me to begin to be comfortable with. Speaking of sex, Tinkerbell is heading the “Disney Fairies” line, which is nice, especially with the introduction of POC as other fairies; but she was originally introduced in Peter Pan (which is like a black hole of women- and race-related issues, seriously) as petty, vain, and sexualized, but who eventually redeems herself. I understand Hugo didn’t help by killing Esmerelda off in the source material, but as I recall, Tinkerbell dies in the Peter Pan book, as well. I guess you can sanitize the sex out of a white character, but not out of a brown one?

I’m concerned about “The Princess and the Frog,” because at first I was hoping Disney was just feeding off of HBO Family’s “Fairy Tales for Every Child,” but she still appears to be a traditionally “European” princess as far as dress and hairstyling go. Her turning into a frog for most of the movie is also an issue for me, but I was more stunned by the giant, fat, bipedal gator (a la All Dogs Go To Heaven) in the trailer to really analyze the “ethnically ambiguous” prince. Despite how happy I am we’re finally, officially getting a black princess, I would watch it by myself before I took anybody’s kid to see it.

Posted 02 Nov 2009 at 4:50 pm ¶

via Disney Princesses, Deconstructed | Love Isnt Enough – on raising a family in a colorstruck world.

Walking the (color)Line

WARNING – Racial Smog Ahead

Proceed with caution. If you have a low tolerance for white guilt (stage whisper: that’s code for, if you’re black) or tend to have defensive reactions during conversations about white privilege (stage whisper: that’s code for, if you’re white), I recommend some form of psychiatric medication or perhaps even the liberal use of recreational drugs before proceeding.

Know your limits. Step out of the sweat lodge as frequently as necessary.

White Parents, Black Babies

 I was reading a post at Womanist Musings about transracial adoption last week. I left a brief comment, but decided to post my somewhat lengthy thoughts here because a) my thoughts are more related to multiracial families rather than transracial adoption and b) I think she makes several excellent points that are relevant for biological parents of multiracial children.

I know what it is to love a child. I know what it is to hold their little hand and see the world through their eyes but children of color require more. This is not about special treatment, as much as it is arming them and protecting them from the certain cruelties ahead. The first time my child was demeaned because of his color, it was to me, his Black mother that he poured out his soul and not his White father. Children know intuitively who can be of help. Without a parent of color, each assault is new and shocking.

When I taught my child that officer friendly wasn’t necessarily friendly, it was with the passion of Black mother that has heard far too many laments of Black mothers, who have lost their children to police violence. When I inform him that his behaviour must be different than his White friends, it is with the knowledge that though they are both children, the world will see my gentle Black child much differently. When it comes to children of color, there are harsh lessons that must be taught and to believe that a White parent is prepared to do that is to deny the racist culture in which we live. Children need love and they need a sense of community to grow, though these things are quickly forgotten when a White person steps up to adopt. Whiteness may be the dominant culture, but it is not the only culture or community of value.

I think Renee makes some really, really excellent points. I do agree that when it comes to transracial parenting, whether by birth or adoption, white parents are often poorly equipped to address the cultural needs of children of color, or prepare them for a racialized society. But (yeah, I know… you saw this coming) I disagree that it’s the black parent by default or that it’s impossible for a white parent to handle. When my 10yo daughter was troubled by a classmate dropping the n-word in conversation, she did know, intuitively, who could be of help, and it was her white mother, not her black father.

It happened because I am parenting with purpose, and not depending on luck (or love) to get us through.

I think first and foremost, she came to me because I initiate dialogue about race and she knows that I am open to discussion, that I am going to stay calm and LISTEN to her, whereas her father tends to overreact to the most benign scrapes & bruises. Secondly, there’s the whole African vs. African American dynamic in our family. Like many African immigrants, Dad has picked up a lot of negative stereotypes about Black Americans; furthermore, he has no ties to the African American community. Between the two of us, I am more familiar, for lack of a better word, with Black American culture and history than he is. That’s not to say that as a white woman I know what it’s like to be black or that I have more experience with racism, but his experience in this country is as an African man in America, and my daughter’s is that of a biracial/Black American.

I have no experience with transracial adoption, but I ran into the challenge of raising a COC without a COC (community of color this time) when my then 3yo’s dad moved to the opposite coast and took the “color connection” with him. I worried how my son was going to develop a healthy sense of self during summer visitations. Over and over in multiracial parenting bulleting boards & support groups I ran into white mothers who dismissed the importance of actively providing their multiracial children with a healthy culture of color when the father wasn’t playing an active role. “Well, his (absent) father doesn’t consider himself african american, so I don’t worry about it.

So I tried not to, and I told myself love would be enough (love, and the massive stack of books featuring black children of various cultures). And it was pretty easy at first, because my son wasn’t much darker than I was. We didn’t get many comments from strangers. But I was about to give birth to my second child… and then the cat was out of the bag. After Halle was born, it suddenly became glaringly obvious that Tyler was biracial. People were suddenly very curious about where Tyler’s curly hair came from, and I began to worry that Tyler was going to slug some well meaning white lady in Target who loitered too long and gushed too many compliments.  Strangers aren’t supposed to talk to kids! or Strangers aren’t allowed to touch my sister! he would tell them.

Like you should need a four year old to tell you that.

As the years went on, and the zooing got worse, I began to contemplate “reverse white flight.” So I moved. And I thought, that was that. My children had love, a community of color that included teachers and peers, tons of black children’s books, and I’d thrown in brown baby dolls and a Ruby Bridges movie.

But all that wasn’t enough, because I still didn’t get it. I still had to let go of what I believed about race, and accept someone else’s reality.

via Womanist Musings.

Video Vixens, Hip Hop Honeys & Ghetto Booties: dear white folks

This is an open letter to my people… particularly white women.

Do you know Saartjie, birth name unknown?

Perhaps you know her by her slave name, Sara Baartman?

Maybe you know her by her freak show name, Hottentot Venus?

Every white woman should know Saartjie’s name too.

 

You may ask why in the world I think this has anything to do with you… maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. But some of us are the mothers of Hip Hop’s White Audience, which is largely young white men & teenagers.  Some of us are mothers of young men and women of color.

When our children buy this music, when we allow them to watch these videos, and when we fail to talk to our children about sexual exploitation of women, particularly women of color, we are part of the problem.

‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it ~ George Santaya
Life of Reason, Reason in Common Sense, Scribner’s, 1905, page 284

What Tami Said: Please remember Sara.

via What Tami Said: Please remember Sara.

The Souls of Black Girls

About The Souls of Black Girls

The Souls of Black Girls is a provocative news documentary that takes a critical look at media images — how they are instituted, established and controlled. The documentary also examines the relationship between the historical and existing media images of women of color and raises the question of whether they may be suffering from a self-image disorder as a result of trying to attain the standards of beauty that are celebrated in media images.

The documentary features candid interviews with young women discussing their self-image and social commentary from Actresses Regina King and Jada Pinkett Smith, PBS Washington Week Moderator Gwen Ifill, Rapper/Political Activist Chuck D, and Cultural Critic Michaela Angela Davis, among others. The Souls of Black Girls is a piece that attempts to provoke honest dialogue and critical thinking among women of color about media images and our present condition—internally and externally.

via The Souls of Black Girls.

Racial Meme Suddenly Infuses Discussions of President’s Enemies

 The media are belatedly acknowledging a racial subtext to many anti-Obama protests, thanks to what one scholar calls the ‘drip’ factor.

 As anti-Obama protests escalated over the past six months, race largely remained an unspoken subtext in media coverage — “the elephant in the room,” in the words of NBC News’ Mark Murray. But in recent days, many prominent members of the press have begun pointing at the pachyderm.

via Racial Meme Suddenly Infuses Discussions of President’s Enemies.

The Unbearable Whiteness of Cheerleading

This was a very interesting read for me; some of you may remember that it was an actress who looked very much like Hayden Panettiere (Elisabeth Harnois) who sparked off a discussion that led me to realize the depth of my oldest daughter’s insecurity over her multiracial appearance. That conversation sent me on a research spree that was very enlightening for me & changed the way I parented my girls… and Miss Halle is now much more confident about who she belongs to and all the beautiful features that are uniquely hers.

The Unbearable Whiteness of Cheerleading

by Guest Contributor Carly Kocurek, originally published at Sparklebliss

As is often the case when I find myself any place where cable is readily available. I stayed up entirely too late last night watching television, sucked into a movie I would have never deliberately viewed. Last night, the film in question was Bring It On: All or Nothing, the third installation in the Bring It On franchise.

(body snipped… full article here… via The Unbearable Whiteness of Cheerleading at Racialicious – the intersection of race and pop culture.

This address of race and class politics in a film about cheerleading, an athletic pursuit that persists in the American imagination as a bastion of small-town wholesomeness (read: whiteness) is compelling, and suggests the complex negotiations and discussions that so often happen in seemingly facile genre films.

don’t call me out of name

So you can imagine that the recent Imus fiasco was quite a topic of conversation around my house for the last week or so.  Y’all can imagine what I think of him and what he said… but if you can’t, see LaTonya’s blog… she says it better than I probably could. Oprah hosted a town hall on her show today, and that provided a perfect opportunity to get Tyler & Halle involved in the dialogue… to put some substance behind the reasons we don’t listen to certain radio stations that play the raunchier hip hop songs, or why I change the channel when certain popular songs come on the ones we do regularly listen to. The kids and I have had conversations about certain aspect of hip hop culture, and right now I am the authority of all things under the sun in their eyes.  At the same time, I am very aware that they walk in different skin than I do, and there may well be a time where I’m not going to be considered an authority on anything in general, but particularly not anything related to race. I thought there would be a lot of benefit for the kids to see Black men and women of authority address the issue, so I let the kids stay up to watch the show with me.

Thoughts on children’s media, sexual objectification, and racial stereotypes

So when we last talked, I was just about to go see Disney Live at Dodge Theater. Daija enjoyed it, until it was time to go… she was definitely tired and started melting down. I wasn’t real impressed with the venue (the seating wasn’t stadium style enough, which makes it hard for little people to see), and I didn’t think the show was much better. I mean it was cute, but it was no Disney on Ice. I also noticed something that bothered me… Cinderella (fairy tale origin is Chinese… how did she turn blonde?), Snow White (fairy tale origin is German), and Belle (fairy tale origin is French) were all dressed in the traditional apparel they’re usually portrayed in, but with very modest necklines… not a hint of cleavage. So when Jasmine (fairy tale origin purported to be Arabic or Persian) came out in the low rider genie pants and push up bra… well… given other things on my mind lately it was just glaring that only the brown skinned Princess was dressed like a tramp… essentially portrayed as an object of sexual gratification. In the original fairy tale as well as the Americanized version, Aladdin marries a princess, not a concubine… and this story originates from a period of time in culture that still today does not permit women to parade around half nude. If anything, with the locale supposedly in the middle to far east, one would logically expect a woman of elevated social status to wear clothing of the era… like Aurora, Belle, Cinderella, Mulan, and Snow White wear clothing that is in keeping with what women of their station traditionally wore during the time period of the story.

Note that although it is considered an Arabic tale either because of its source, or because it was included in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, the characters in the story are neither Arabs nor Persians, but rather are from the far east. The Far Eastern country in the story is an Islamic country, where most people are Muslims. There is a Jewish community, regarded by others with a prejudice. There is no mention whatever of Buddhists or Confucians. Everybody in this Far Eastern Country bears an Arabic name and its King seems much more like an Arab ruler than like an actual Chinese emperor. The Country of the tale was a mythic far-off place, definitely eastwards.

Last weekend, I watched Walt Disney Pictures: The Wild, which was much cuter than Madagascar (2005) (which I really didn’t care for). But I noticed a similarity between The Wild and Madagascar that I found bothersome when I first saw Madagascar, which was before I resurrected my dormant interest in such racial issues and was consciously thinking about where and how some children are picking up the message that it’s better to be white.

In both movies, a group of (American) animals escape from New York City and inadvertently sail off to Africa. In Africa, the Animal Americans are met by hostile or off-balance native Animal Africans, with fanatical and/or cannibalistic religious beliefs. Additionally, the Animal American at the top of the food chain in Madagascar begins to lose his civility in this environment and begins to regress into baser Animal African behavior. The movies both end with the Animal Americans, along with some Animal Africans they have rescued, sailing off just as quickly as they can, to return to their lives of captivity in a zoo in America.

It really made me wonder what the kids are getting from this subconsciously. I wonder, especially with Halle, whether these story lines are becoming part of her internal perspective on Africans. Yes, she understands that not everything on TV is real… but at the same time, everything she sees is being catalogues in that little brain. While none of the movies that she’s watched have pointedly said, “it’s better to be white”, she’s picked up that message from seeing repeatedly in media that the standard of beauty is white… despite all the books and dolls we have that depict other races. So she’s seeing these animals with human characteristics who appear to believe that would rather live in cages on display in America than to live in Africa. How is that going to impact her perspective of Africa and Africans, and how will she internalize messages like this with her heritage? I know that some African Americans don’t really identify with being ‘african’ american because the significance of any particular culture has been lost. But that’s not the case with our family, since Ro is adamantly African, or Sudanese, but does not consider himself African American… to the point that if he will check ‘black’ on forms, but will check ‘other’ before he will check African American. So on the one hand the kids get these negative messages about Africa, and on the other they have this role model that is fiercely proud of his culture and adamant about retaining it.

Wish I had conclusions for some of these posts… most of the time I just find more questions.

“I wish I was white”

Last week while we were watching My Date with the President’s Daughter, Halle turned to me and announced “I wish I was white.”  For those of you who haven’t seen the movie or are star-challenged, the movie stars Elisabeth Harnois, who is a very pretty girl with long silky hair (see picture).

I got clued into the challenges of instilling healthy self esteem in children who do not look like the ‘All American Girl’ when I was pregnant with Halle, which is when Ro’s oldest daughter, then 12, was spending the summer in AZ, and a great deal of it in the pool.  Half Puerto Rican, half Sudanese, and all hair that she had no idea how to take care of.  Unfortunately, neither did I.