Brazilian fantasy action flick Besouro available to watch at this link

If you need a reminder… the story goes… As essentially an action movie set in 1920s Bahia, and based on the life of a legendary capoeirista from Bahia who uses the power of Candomble to fight the harsh conditions which, even post-abolition, the black population endured in Brazil, Besouro, tells the fantastic story of a young Afro-Brazilian man who became a symbol throughout all of Bahia for his bravery and loyalty, in defending the persecuted and oppressed.Watch Besouro now

Via the same blog Shadow and Act comes news of this webseries OSIRIS

“OSIRIS” Series Teaser Trailer (HD 1080p)

“Osiris” is a new 10-episode action/thriller Web Series featuring mystery, espionage and gritty crime fiction. The series follows the title character “Osiris”, a man with an eternally extended warranty on life. He can never stay dead. If killed, he resurrects in EXACTLY 37 minutes, every time. Each episode features a jaw dropping cliffhanger in the vein of classic shows like True Blood, Lost and 24!

They got vlogsPart One: Introduction, Part Two: Influences, Part Three: Casting, Part Four: Questions

And: xposted from racebending

Future states tv has a web series in which people make short films based on what they think the US will be like in the future. Tons of poc as actors AND directors.

From Season Two:

Digital Antiquities Directed by JP Chan

By 2036, data loss has become a thing of the past. All digital media is instantly uploaded to the internet and permanently stored in the cloud, safely backed-up on servers scattered around the world. Only a handful of small businesses in the world have the expertise to recover data from pre-cloud devices. On a hot summer day, a young man named Kai visits Digital Antiquities, a store in eastern Pennsylvania specializing in data recovery and sales of vintage electronics. He shows Cat, the store’s only employee, an old compact disc left to him from his deceased mother and asks her to recover its contents. Will Cat help him find a working CD reader? And what will they discover among the contents of the disc?

Spring of Sorrow Directed by Suzi Yoonessi

Sisters Lily and Isabelle live a nomadic life, displaced by global warming. Trapped in the desert in the midst of a water shortage, Isabelle offers hope to her younger sister by telling a whimsical fairytale that allegorically explains how this tragic world came to be. When Isabelle falls ill, Lily embarks on an imaginative journey in a magical paper cut-out forest to find the mythical Spring of Sorrow, an everlasting spring of fresh water. Along the way, she forges a friendship with an eccentric florist, creates flowers and animals, and learns a valuable lesson about environmental responsibility.

Beholder by Nisha Ganitra

Beholder takes place in the biosphere-protected Red Estates, a gated community with a socially conservative political majority. At a clinic where patients can genetically engineer their children, Sasha, the wife of rising political star Bobby Aryana, is informed that her baby carries the genetic marker for homosexuality. By the laws of Red Estates, this is an aberration that must be dealt with immediately, and Sasha must decide between staying faithful to the love of her life or risking everything. Touching on issues of race, sexual orientation, and conformity, Beholder examines the notion of identity and the costs of belonging.

That Which Once Was Kimi Takescue

In the year 2032, Vicente, an 8-year-old Caribbean boy, has been displaced by global warming and fends for himself as an environmental refugee in a hostile Northern metropolis. Orphaned and without connection to family or friends, Vicente now lives in a children’s shelter on the fringes of the city, and struggles with anxiety, rage, and disturbing memories of the tragedy he fled. On a hot summer day, Vicente sits outside the shelter and sees a mysterious man smashing large chunks of ice against the pavement. Thus begins an unexpected friendship between Vicente and Siku, the ice carver: two people from different worlds who have both experienced tremendous loss. Through their bond, Siku ultimately helps Vicente confront his past and understand the value of memory.

Remigration Directed by Barry Jenkins

Upon returning to their countryside cabin one day, Kaya, his wife Helen, and their daughter Naomi are confronted by two suited men: representatives of the San Francisco Remigration Program. The men explain that San Francisco is now occupied entirely by the wealthy class. But stoplights still burn out and trains occasionally jump their rails. Blue-collar labor isn’t obsolete, but it’s scarce. The city has created a program to “remigrate” long-gone working class families from their inland homes back to the city that once pushed them out. Kaya, Helen, and Naomi return to San Francisco and join a handful of other potential remigrants for a tour of what can be expected in their new lives. But can they learn to trust their old home once again?

White Directed by Sayeeda Clarke

It’s another 120-degree day with five more days to Christmas and hot is the only season left in New York City. Global warming has accelerated and the sun has become a tangible threat to survival. Bato and his wife Gina are expecting a baby, but they weren’t expecting it so early. Although they planned to have the baby at home, Gina now requires the services of a clinic for the premature delivery. With no money for the clinic, Bato enters into a race against the sun, the birth, his community, and even his own identity to save his family as he is forced to sell the new currency of this world.

Worker drone Directed by Sharat Rajue

Rahul’s days blend together. GlobeCom India, his employer, specializes in remote systems operation. When Rahul leaves his dungeon-like GlobeCom office, he goes to his dungeon-like living quarters in Technology City. But things change when an American contractor announces a new partnership with GlobeCom — Planet Dogstar, a massive multi-player online flying combat simulator where players shoot down targets on an alien planet. GlobeCom is hired to operate and manage the game. To decide who will lead and manage the operation, the company organizes an office showdown: whoever shoots down the most targets wins the promotion as well as a one-week furlough to leave Technology City. Can Rahul beat his coworkers to win the game?

Exposure By Mia Trachinger

Roxanne is a government agent who works as a live body contagion to immunize urban populations. Jesse is an anti-contagion activist, whose office is breeched by Roxanne’s team. Led by Roxanne, the contagions try to contain the workers inside the building, chasing them down in an attempt to mass-inoculate, while Jesse, caught in a cycle of fear and illness, soon learns that there are no easy answers.

And of course go watch the other two: Asparagus which has gorgeous cinematography, and Dig and then when you are done, go check the First Season and watch all of those too!

So there you are! Cool stuff to watch all over the place!

Entertain us!!! -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

To start, I’m sure many of you have seen or heard about the YouTube video of the black dude who shows that the webcam on the HP MediaCenter does not track his face but does track the face of his white co-worker. The vid is here, in case you haven’t seen. It’s pretty funny, too, because the dude (Desi) seems like a fun guy. When he says “I’m going to go on record and say HP computers are racist” you know he’s mostly joking, though it is really messed up that the camera doesn’t recognize his face as a face.

Now, this vid was uploaded to YouTube (ironically using the HP MediaCenter) on December 10th but it took a few days to really blow up around the ‘net. HP caught wind of it a couple of days ago and put up something on their blog mentioning lighting conditions and they were working to solve the problem and whatever. But that hasn’t stopped tons of commenters on blogs and Twitter and Facebook from declaring that HP is racist or, at least, its webcams are.

I find myself in a strange position here, because I’m about to say something I don’t normally say: people, there’s not racism here.

That’s not to say there isn’t a problem and a serious one. But it’s more along the lines of the stuff I pointed out yesterday with the digital frames. One of not thinking or considering, one of privilege and blindness, but I am failing to see how racism is involved.

Let’s back up a bit. In case you’re not sure what’s going on here technologically, there is a feature in some webcam software that is designed to zoom in on the face of a person looking into the camera. I don’t know why this feature is necessary, but obviously someone likes it. Anyway, Face Tracking is supposed to keep your face in close up no matter where you move within the webcam’s field of vision. It identifies what is a “face” by an algorithm I won’t even try to explain because I don’t know how it works. HP said something about measuring the distance between the eyes and cheekbones but, again, I have no clue. That is what Desi was trying to get to work in the video but could not.

The software behind all this is part of HP’s MediaCenter suite which looks like one big program all created by HP. However, that’s not exactly true. When I was playing around with the program I noticed that it was really similar to CyberLink’s YouCam software, from the way the buttons and settings menus were designed to the kinds of effects and avatars available.

It’s no secret that vendors often bring in third-party software then put their own branding on it. Why develop webcam software in house when perfectly good software already exists? You can find YouCam software on a ton of computers, not just HP, and you can also download it yourself. I put it on a computer of mine and tried the Face Tracking thing and it works the same. So, if anything, the software is “racist”, not the webcam and not the computer manufacturer.

Though HP probably did some testing to ensure that the software interacted well with their system, I doubt anyone at the company tested all of the features. That’s not their job, actually, that’s the job of the software developers. So if we’re going to look for culprits here, we need to turn our attention to CyberLink. I don’t know for sure, but I’m going to guess that the folks at CyberLink tested the Face Tracking with a few people, but either not with any dark-skinned employees (assuming they have some) or not in enough varying lighting conditions with said employees.

The webcams included with most notebooks and all-in-one PCs are not of the highest quality. They’re for Skype chatting and mking silly YouTube reaction videos or lip dubs. The brightness, contrast, and backlighting correction are rarely the best (I know, as I’ve tested dozens). And that’s where the software runs into problems.

Go look at this video, then this one. It shows that a simple change in the software’s settings makes the difference between the webcam being able to track the face of a dark-skinned person and not being able to. (Also note that different shades of dark skin make a difference, too.) So what’s the real problem here? It’s two fold: one, that the software developers didn’t properly take dark-skinned owners into consideration when creating the product. Two, that crappy webcams make everything worse in life.

Given all this, I don’t see racism here. I think this is a fine wake-up call for CyberLink or whoever actually made that software to expand their testing parameters. I am willing to bet that they probably didn’t take dark-skinned people into consideration, but I’m willing to be told I’m wrong. If they didn’t, it’s probably because all of the developers on the team were fairer-skinned (which doesn’t mean white. The webcam works fine for East Asian and light-skinned Black faces, for example). It’s looking more like a case of blindness due to privilege. Like I said, problematic, but not malicious or even unfixable.

For my part, I’m going to continue to enjoy the video that started it all. Because it’s damn funny. And though I hope people will stop just parroting the HP Is Racist line and start asking “Who made the software?” and “How can we get them to fix this problem?” I can’t force people to. Instead, I will just pop popcorn and watch the drama unfold.

On HP’s Racist Webcams (Or Lack Thereof) -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

I’ve been struggling with writing this post for some time now. On the one hand there are things I feel need to be said about the treatment of Caster Semenya (especially in light of the news that she has been placed under a suicide watch), on the other hand I don’t want to add to the ridiculous, offensive, dehumanizing treatment that she’s been receiving to date. There is this sick undercurrent to the coverage reminiscent of the treatment of Saartjie Baartman (better known as the Hottentot Venus) particularly with the framing of the discussions of her body. There has been a rush to compare Caster to “real” women with pundits pointing to the size of her breasts, her shoulders, even the shape of her jaw as “proof that she is a he and should be disqualified” because somehow there’s a specific concrete metric for “normal” femininity.

And if you’re deemed to be outside the range of “normal” all the basic rules we were taught as children about polite behavior and common courtesy fly out the window. If the press coverage is any indication many people feel entitled to poke and prod and discuss her body like she’s specifically on display to satisfy their curiosity. After all it’s not like she’s human or anything, what with her having the temerity to (maybe) be born intersexed. Instead she’s a freak with no feelings, no right to privacy, and above all no right to her own body. Right? If you’re staring at your screen right now and contemplating asking if I have lost my everloving mind? I totally understand that reaction. Because it’s how I’ve felt every single time I’ve read an article about Caster’s “condition” or seen someone expounding at length on her body without once pausing to consider that her humanity is being questioned along with her gender. Looking at the descriptions of the treatment of Sara Baartman I’m sure a modern reaction would include an acknowledgment that the way Sara was treated was abominable.

Of course it was abominable and shameful and disgusting. So is what’s happening right now to Caster. And it’s not just about the treatment of Caster Semenya. Yesterday I got into a long protracted discussion about someone wanting trans people to explain the workings of their sexual organs so that they could include a sex scene in a story they were writing. And I explained over and over again that no one should feel entitled to such intimate information, especially to satisfy what amounted to prurient curiosity. And all the basic arguments from the bingo card were laid out (including my favorite “Well how else are people supposed to know if they don’t ask?”) because apparently for a lot of people it has never occurred to them that they don’t have a right to someone else’s body or to their experience. It has literally never occurred to them that people who are not like them have boundaries. Because they’re curious about the “freaks” and their curiosity trumps any delusions of humanity or equality.

Between the misogyny and the racism and the privilege and the sheer entitlement on display this is one of those areas where intersectionality cuts to the bone and then beyond. Being human isn’t about fitting into a box designed by someone else. It’s not something other people get to define for you. And if you think that the way Caster has been treated makes sense because she’s a public figure, or you think you have a right to treat people like an exhibit to satisfy your interest in their experience? You’re directly using your privilege (whatever it may be) to oppress someone. This idea that examining and inspecting and discussing someone else’s body is acceptable behavior because they are “different” is so reprehensible. But, it is also an idea that permeates our culture. That’s the point of tabloids and gossip and fatphobia and every other ‘ism I can think of right now. That’s why a friend just posted about having to tell someone repeatedly that they were not going to be allowed to touch her hair only to be met with questions about why she was refusing. As though she owed this person access to her body.

Curiously enough I think we can all agree that we expect our boundaries to be respected. That we expect people to have some sense of manners and decorum and not stare or point or generally treat us poorly. So then, why are we as a culture so comfortable deciding that the Other (as defined by us) is supposed to accept our intrusion? What is this idea that that they should explain their experience to the world at large? It’s always framed in terms of normal and different, but other than being a member of the majority what gives us the right to define normal? The oppression inherent in turning the public’s gaze to someone and demanding that they explain themselves is often waved away as just a part of life. Because somehow the public’s desire to know has become the public’s right to know. And the idea that knowledge is power has been turned on its head to give the “normal” the power over those that they deem to be Other. It’s unacceptable behavior no matter how you frame it and we should all be ashamed of ourselves.

Race, Gender, and the Oppressive Public Gaze… -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

Via Angry Asian Man, a great article that makes a point about the ineffectiveness of protests about racism in mainstream Hollywood films. Basically, if we don’t patronize the good portrayals created by our own filmmakers, we’re unlikely to see much change in the racist dreck being cranked out by the Hollywood factories, because they pay attention only to money.

But then, the conversation turned to the work of Asian American filmmakers. And it turned out he had not paid to see any of the following films in the theaters—Better Luck Tomorrow, Saving Face, Finishing The Game, The Motel, In-Between Days, The Debut, Journey From The Fall. In fact, he couldn’t think of one Asian American indie he had paid money to see theatrically—the closest he came was the last Harold and Kumar movie, which hardly counts as an independently produced Asian American film. He was talking passionately about how we need to force Hollywood to change and show respect to our community, but even he admitted he had not done much to support our artists and our work.

Unfortunately, this brother’s story is not isolated. And herein lies the problem—it’s great that we’re willing to speak out when we see something that offends us. But until Asian Americans as a whole are willing to put down our money to support the work of our Asian American filmmakers—nothing will change.

It’s a good point. But something about it bugs me.

Because it assumes something that I’m not sure is true, and feeds into a bigger problem. What Phillip suggests is that if Asian Americans just go and view more Asian American films, this will show Hollywood there’s a significant demand for positive portrayals. The same reasoning, IMO, underlies African Americans’ patronization of black films (and African American Interest books, and so on) — we’ve taken to heart the racist rationalization that if we don’t make it ourselves, and go see it ourselves, we can’t expect the mainstream to follow suit.

Except… African Americans have been making it ourselves, since the Sixties. We’ve been going to see those films, too, enough to create several blockbusters, catapult several African American filmmakers to auteur status, and launch a few subcultural film/theater movements.

But has all this success — all this proof that we will support our own — really changed anything in Hollywood? We’re still getting slapped in the face with grotesque stereotypes, and “allegories” for the black experience of racism that Fail miserably. (I’m kind of dreading Cameron’s much-hyped Avatar, ya’ll. Looks like yet another “what these people need is a honky” derivation.) There’s still only one black male per generation permitted to reach A-list status — first Sidney Poitier, then Denzel Washington, lately Will Smith. And more often than not that black male is paired with a non-black female, out of the apparent belief in Hollywood that one black person on screen is tolerable, but two — especially if they’re showing love for one another — is just too damn many. (BTW, name a current black female A-list actress. Go on, try. Good luck with that.)

So basically, African Americans have been doing exactly what Phillip advocates for 50+ years now, and it hasn’t changed a damn thing in Hollywood. Which suggests to me that there’s a fundamental flaw in Phillip’s premise. He’s suggesting that money is Hollywood’s guiding philosophy. I think he’s forgetting the role that racism — some intentional, most aversive — plays in the way Hollywood people think. Money is just the excuse/rationalization that they use.

And to counter this racism, we have to do more than go and view films by demographic, as Phillip suggests. One of the justifications used by the producers of whitewashed films like 21 and The Last Airbender is that PoC aren’t “universal”. That actors of color might be able to appeal to audiences of color, but to really make the leap to broad mainstream (i.e., white) appeal, white actors must be inserted, even into PoC’s stories. This is racist bullshit, yes, but it’s racist bullshit that Hollywood keeps trying to support with numbers which show that PoC actors don’t pull the audiences that white actors do. So does it make sense to urge Asian Americans to go see Asian American films? That actually proves the Hollywood racists’ point — because of course those PoC actors won’t be able to pull big numbers if they’re only pulling an audience from within their respective communities. If only Asian Americans go to see Asian American films in any numbers, and only African Americans go to see black films, and so on, the racists can point at this and say, “See? PoC only appeal to their own.”

And yeah, I get the irony here. The whole reason these demographic-specific film industries have cropped up is because Hollywood has historically excluded us… but they’ll also use the existence of these industries to exclude us further. We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t.

But here’s my proposed solution: all of us, regardless of race, need to go and see all good films, regardless of their target demographic. We need to see more Latino/a viewers attending events like the Asian American film festival. We need to see more black filmmakers creating films for that event, and more Asian filmmakers making stuff for black and Latino/a film festivals. We need to see more American Indians behind the camera, and sticking their shit into every festival with “American” in its title, regardless of the racial qualifier that comes before it. And so on.

And we as audiences need to attend all of it. Yes, I mean you, fellow black Americans. Put down that ticket to Tyler Perry’s next monstrosity; he’s gotten enough of our money and hasn’t done shit with it. (Well, except this. But he’s got to do a lot more before I’ll forgive him for all the rest.) Pick up your mouse and find a film by some other ethnic group that’s playing in your area. You can still stick to black people — we still need to support our own, especially given that there’s better stuff out there than Perry’s work. (If you can’t find anything recent, go see some older stuff that never got enough attention.) But in addition to work by African American filmmakers, maybe you can go see a Nollywood film too. Then branch out more. Did you go see Sleep Dealer when I told you to? Lazy ass. Now you gotta go buy it. (Shoulda listened to me, but nooo, you had to be hard headed.)

We still need to protest, IMO, because racism won’t change on its own. But I’m taking Phillip’s point to heart; we need the carrot as well as the stick. We’ve got to support the positive portrayals that are already out there. And that includes work by other PoC, because all this stuff feeds into each other. We’ll get more successful black actors in Hollywood once we prove that Latinos/as will go and see them. We’ll get more Asian actors when we can prove they appeal to black audiences. We’ll see fewer pretendians when audiences start going to see real Indians. And so on.

So. What films by/about another race are you planning to see this year?

The problem with viewing films by demographic. -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

Three posts a day is.. not usual. So don’t freak out. But wanted to point to one more thing today.  My Fen of Color United offerings can be found here. I’m sure Karnythia and possibly miss Nojojojo will have something to point to in comments. (Or they can edit this post.) Anyone else participating and want to link? Feel free. Be sure to mention it on foc_u, too!

Fiction for Fen -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

In a nutshell, the editor of a prominent fiction magazine sent a rejection letter to a hopeful writer which contained some blatantly bigoted statements against Muslims. The letter got out, a shitstorm erupted; the editor acted even more unprofessional, and a very un-fun time was had by all.

This isn’t the first time that members of the SF community have shown their ass, and it won’t be the last. However, it was the first time that I’ve seen a large group of writers — including myself — make an organized collective response. The full story is here at our new site, Transcriptase. This makes me very happy.

(I often get asked why I bother with science fiction and fantasy. Aren’t there other, better ways in which I can use my writing talent to improve the world? Aren’t there more important battlegrounds for the fight against oppression? As my mother once told me, “Why don’t you write something black?”

What it all boils down to is this: we have a future too. [Hell, we own the future.] We have a past that’s worth exploring. Our dreams and lore are just as potent, and just as worthy of sharing, as everyone else’s. When I write science fiction and fantasy, I am writing “something black.”

So this is why.)

Dealing with bigotry: an SF response -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

I said back then that I was still trying to put my own feelings into words and hadn’t succeeded yet. Considering what’s been going on in the blogosphere lately I think it’s time to finally crystallize my thoughts. The problem I keep coming up against is that my interactions with feminism and feminists varies greatly depending on the venue, I am finding a hard time resolving my feelings in one area with my feelings from another.

I’m being vague, sorry. Let me be specific.

As many of you know, in my other life I am a science fiction and fantasy writer. I have spent almost my entire adult life hanging out in that community. Now, from the outside, the SF community would not seem to be a place to understand, interact with, and discuss feminism and feminist issues. But lo, there are feminists to be found. Really smart feminists. There’s even a con dedicated to feminism and feminists in SF–WisCon.

WisCon is one of my very favorite conventions because of the topics of panels, the conversations I have in and out of panels, and the caliber of people who attend. These are smart, passionate folks who care about literature and media in equal measure. And, if they’re at WisCon, they more than likely consider themselves feminists or, at least, allies.

Through attending WisCon I became interested in feminism in a more direct way than I had been before. I vaguely understood feminism and felt, as most intelligent people do, that the core ideal of feminism as I understood it was a right thing–i.e. women are equal to men and should be treated as such. That women and men may be different, but men certainly aren’t better, in general. But from attending WisCon, I began thinking about the issues of gender, privilege, and feminism in ways I had not before.

Over the years I’ve convinced many people to come to WisCon, but it was sometimes a struggle because I had to break the barrier of ignorance surrounding the word “feminist”. I’m sure many of you have encountered this same problem. People equating feminism with “FemiNazi” (what a bullshit word), or with the extreme types who ruin every ideology/movement/etc. At this time I was not aware of the real problems of feminism. Ones that were far more disruptive and dividing than women who “hate men” or other such nonsense.

Since that first WisCon my involvement in SF’s feminist contingent has deepened. I’m one of the bloggers at FeministSF.net, I contribute to the Wiki, I consider some of my co-bloggers there to be good friends, I participate in WisCon programming, and now I’m a jurist for the Tiptree award, an honor that arose from the ideas and ideals that WisCon was created to explore.

If this was the only experience I had with feminism, then I would have no need to write this post. I’d be perfectly content to call myself a feminist and be done.

But oh. Then there’s the wider world.

Then there’s Gloria Steinem, Erica Jong, Jessica Valenti, Amanda Marcotte, and any number of white feminists from the second and third wave that really ruin feminism for the rest of us. If they’re not insisting we put aside our “of color”-ness in favor of our woman-ness, they’re busy using their white privilege to marginalize, dismiss, silence, or otherwise treat us the way those pesky white men they’re so angry with do.

I hadn’t been on this blog long before I apprehended that all was not well in feminism-land. Remember the post about Cesar Milan? It started on some blog where the white, female poster was up in arms because Cesar had made some comment about women that she objected to. She claimed that if he’d made a similar comment about black people the entirety of America would have jumped down his throat. Because, see, racism is no longer a problem in America, but sexism is.

Sigh.

It just gets worse from there. As we have daily proof.

And these recent blow-ups not only make me angry because of what these white feminist bloggers are doing to women of color, but because it makes me angry at feminism itself. As Aminah put it way back when, feminism just isn’t made for us women of color. And as someone else (I can’t remember who, but someone please tell me in comments if you know) said recently, it seems like what white feminists want is to become white men. They want what white men have going on, up to and including privilege and the ability to ignore voices of color unless it suits them.

Some of you may feel this is an unfair generalization. And others of you are sitting at your computers right now shaking your head and saying, “Nuh uh, not me!” Maybe so not you, and maybe so I am being harsh. But you take a look around the blogs right now and tell me that the view from where I’m standing doesn’t bear that out. And take a good look at yourselves. Think about if you can honestly say that you’ve considered your own privilege when dealing with the issues of feminism and race lately. Some of you have, of course, but some of you absolutely have not.

And unfortunately, even my happy pocket of SF feminism isn’t immune from this crap. Last year at WisCon I heard more than one report of goings on in places I was not that revealed the racist attitudes of certain feminist con-goers. This was extremely sad, but not a great surprise. I resolved that this year I would make it my special project to watch and listen out for such attitudes and do what I could to put an end to them. Because I believe that WisCon and the community therein is worth my time and effort to make an even more excellent space than it already is. I want to be able to attend a con without base sexism and racism at the same time. I’m willing to be one of people making that happen.

But I’m not entirely sure I want to do that on these here internets. Why? Because maybe the wider swath of feminism isn’t worth saving.

Feminism is made for and by white women. And I really feel like this is one of those areas where the white women need to get enlightened before things can change. But, of course, many of them won’t be because they don’t see racism, which is directed against women of color, as a feminist issue. They’re hard pressed to acknowledge that racism is as great a problem as sexism at all.

No, actually, what I should say is that the white feminists who are seen as leaders, who are given press and attention and cred are in need of enlightenment. Because there are plenty of white feminists who do get it, who are enlightened, who can see the interconnectedness between anti-racist work and anti-sexist work. So what’s really needed is a good purge. Those of you who know what’s up need to weed out or educate those of you who don’t. Because obviously we women of color are too angry or jealous or indelicate to do it.

And, quite honestly, I am tired of the burden being on us to fix this mess. I’m tired of having to decide if I want the label of “Feminist”, not because someone might think I hate men, but because someone might wonder why I would want to associate myself with people who think my voice and experiences are less important because I refuse to put my gender ahead of my race.

What am I, if not a feminist? I’m not sure. Maybe this will help me figure it out:

When I offered the word “Womanism” many years ago, it was to give us a tool to use, as feminist women of color, in times like these. These are the moments we can see clearly, and must honor devotedly, our singular path as women of color in the United States. We are not white women and this truth has been ground into us for centuries, often in brutal ways. [...] We have come a long way, Sisters, and we are up to the challenges of our time. One of which is to build alliances based not on race, ethnicity, color, nationality, sexual preference or gender, but on Truth.
Alice Walker

On Feminism, Part 2 -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

I don’t have a lot to say about that, because it should be obvious that it fucking angers me that white feminist bloggers (need I say ‘certain white feminists’? Or name some names? Nah, I’m sure y’all are smart enough to figure out who I mean) are silencing, disparaging, stealing from, and otherwise oppressing women of color bloggers all while whining about how they are victims and oh, it’s so sad. WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE WHITE WOMEN PLEASE!

It’s all just so much bullshit. I have a long post about it coming, but I wanted to say one thing:

I’m not going anywhere.

And let me also say that this is not some sort of underhand condemnation of those who choose to close down their blogs because of this shit. I understand the inclination. I support that choice. There have been times when I had to step away from this blog and other parts of the internet just to salvage my sanity. One day I may need to do so again. But right now? Right now I am staying here.

(and oh, you don’t know how hard it is for me not to use gendered slurs against you whiny little princesses right now. oooo!)

Not Going Anywhere (But I Damn Well Feel Like It) -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

I’m such a fool for not realizing it sooner. I can’t tell you how many times the Asians have treated me like a retarded weasel and I’ve forgiven them. But now I know that Asians are not just “a product of their environment,” and their rudeness is not a “cultural misunderstanding.”

They hate us all.

And I say it’s time we started hating them back. That’s right-no more “tolerance.” No more “cultural sensitivity.” No more “Mr. Pretend-I’m-Not-Racist.”

It’s time for war.

The newspaper has since issued the usual belated, milquetoast apology (I love how it’s always, “We’re sorry you were offended,” and never “We’re sorry we were offensive“), with the usual excuse that it was satire. I imagine the next paper will be full of letters from Colorado students infuriated that “political correctness” forced the newspaper to attempt to appear to consider being vaguely contrite, and others who lament that our society “can’t take a joke”, yatta yatta yatta. We’ve seen all this behavior before. Racism: the Passive-Aggressive Edition.

Others are, justifiably and very well, savaging the content of the editorial and the paper’s decision to run it. I want to focus some attention in a slightly different direction — on people who actually think something like this could be satirical.

But first, a digression. Met up with ABW this week at a writers’ event recently and she gave me a book called A Practical Guide to Racism, by C. H. Dalton. Now, she did warn me, when I asked what it was about: “Just another stupid-ass book from yet another stupid-ass person who thinks racism is the funniest shit since sliced bread.” But I tried to give the book a chance, reading through its intro and the first chapter, on Hispanics. I had to stop at that point — not because it was offensive, but because it was boring. The whole book pretty much consisted of reciting a bunch of stereotypes about a group of people in a snarky, vaguely academic way. But they were stereotypes we’ve all heard before, and aside from the “shock value” of hearing them stated bluntly — something most of us in the PoC end of the spectrum really don’t have much trouble getting on a regular basis — I couldn’t see what, if anything, was supposed to be so hilarious. The only people who could find this kind of crap funny are those who’ve never heard the same things said with utter, vicious, hate-filled seriousness.

Now, I could go through the usual pseudointellectual exercise of finding a bunch of definitions on some online dictionaries and parse the “satire” statements against them — but that’s a waste of energy. We all know what satire is. Among other things, it’s supposed to address a very real, sometimes very charged or painful topic through the judicious application of humor. I get the value of satire, really I do. When satire’s done well, I love it.

The thing I don’t get is this — humor is a key part of satire. But the group of people that gets to hear this stuff said in earnest isn’t going to find it all that funny; that’s pretty much a given. And frankly, I’m not sure why any of us would find such simplistic humor funny, because we’ve heard all this crap before a million times. (That’s why they’re stereotypes.) So that’s part of the problem here; this kind of humor is boring, at least in and of itself.

And a more important point about satire was made by commenter “ding” in the in the Alas thread:

satire is a punch in the eye of Power. satire’s anger, its needle, is directed upward – never downward. if it is, then it ceases to be satire and it’s just another way for those in power to bully the powerless or to scream to the public that you’re just another tool of the status quo.

Yeah. So. Anybody think this Colorado guy is really concerned that Asians are going to supplant white people in the racial hierarchy of the country? Anybody think he was trying to “stick it to the (Asian) man” in protest of some unfair advantage that has systematically and globally harmed white people in the US? Anybody think there was anything to this except some idiot venting his racist fantasies in public and using “satire” as a cloak-and-hood to protect himself?

Well. This is a notice to everyone — well, OK, everyone white — who thinks it’s just high-larious to make a joke that pretty much amounts to “Stereotype! Heh heh heh”, or who wonders why comedians of color are lauded for doing the same thing while the Michael Richardses of the world are maligned for it. Consider the power differential, and direction. If your satire is directed from an oppressed group towards a group in power, you might have a satire on your hands. If your satire contains a subversive attack on the existing, status-quo power structure, you might have a satire on your hands. If the subject of your satire would find your comments funny, and not merely (yet another) a slap in the face, you might have a satire on your hands.

If your “satire” fits none of the above conditions, you don’t have satire. You’ve got shit. Your hands are covered in it. Your mouth is crammed with it. So’s your mind.

And since you’re full of shit, you should probably go do something about that.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

First thing, I want to thank all of the guest bloggers and essayists who contributed to ABW last month. Your contributions were everything I hoped for and more — you’re all amazing and talented folks.

On the guest blogger front, I’m happy to announce that Karynthia will be joining us as a regular political blogger. She’ll usually post on Mondays, though if this election continues to bring the crazy, you might see her even more. Nora will remain a contributor as well.

Due to the awesomeness of the author essays, I am going to make them a regular feature. I might use different themes each month or stick with the history thing, I’m not sure yet. Suggestions are welcome.

I must say, though last month was awesome, was also one of the busiest on this blog in a long time. I loved it, but I am ready for a break. So here are some links to tide you over this weekend:

If you’re interested in more discussion, debate, and musings from creators (not just of fiction, but of art, comics, television, movies, etc.) then I highly suggest you look over the Race Around the Net list compiled by digital_femme on LJ. It’s an excellent place to start if you’re looking to read and learn more.

You may have noticed links to Black News Junkie on some posts. BNJ is sort of like Digg for black blogs. It’s a good place to see what folks on blogs are talking about, you can vote on interesting stories, and you can submit your own blog posts to it. Right now it only drives a bit of traffic, but as more people use it, it will benefit both bloggers and readers more. Go make an account!

For those of you interested in children’s literature written by and about black folks, check out the festivities over at The Brown Bookshelf. Every day in February they highlighted an author or illustrator and there is a lot of good stuff over there.

A few weeks ago I got an email about TheRoot.com, a new website headed by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. It’s a bit like a Huffington Post, but with African-American concerns at the fore. It’s also more news magazine-like with the various bloggers only being one component. So far I find it interesting and entertaining in equal measure.

Besides the blogs and news, there’s also a section where you can start your genealogical search and get your DNA tested to see where your origins lie. Now I am aware that this process isn’t perfect, but I am rather interested to see if there’s something in my background I’m not aware of or if I can find out from what region of Africa some of my ancestors hailed from. Still, until I have a few hundred dollars lying around doing nothing, I will just have to wait.

Last and least, here’s the stupidest Black History Month thing I came across on the Internets:

Walgreens Sort of Celebrates Black History Month

Is this a cotton-picking joke? We’ll never know. What crazy stuff did you all find/hear about?

All good things must come to an end -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman