HOLLYWOOD MESSIAH
Of course you know that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt FINALLY had their baby. The little Jolie-Pitt girl was born on Sunday in Namibia. Say what you will about their whirlwind romance, her past life indiscretions and/or your undying loyalty to Jennifer Aniston, but this White Hollywood baby is bringing a lot of money ($450,000 at last count going to hospitals and schools) and attention to a Black African country in need. I've always said, if celebrities used their grotesque wealth to help the less fortunate, the world would be a much better place. So welcome baby Shiloh (which reportedly means messiah in Hebrew).
HOW DO YOU SAY HATE IN SPANISH?
This week's Time magazine reports that all this talk about legalizing illegal immigrants has been a boon for White supremacist recruitment efforts. After the Oklahoma City Bombing, membership tanked and the hate groups were lying low, but now, with these immigrants about to get a free ride to the American Dream, good old boys and girls are knocking on doors to figure out where they have to sign up to get their uniform hoods. (sigh...)
AND THIS JUST IN FROM BOLLYWOOD...
Mira Nair, the Indian director behind Monsoon Wedding and Salaam Bombay, is reportedly set to direct Chris Tucker in a remake of an Indian movie called "Munnabhai MBBS." Tucker's version will be titled, the slightly easier to pronounce, "Gangster MD," about a con artist who ends up in medical school. Nair directed Denzel Washington in the sensuously delicious Black/Indian romance Mississippi Masaala in 1991. While Tucker never strikes me as the romantic type, anything Nair touches is infused with sensuality so we'll have to see. Wait for it in 2007.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Goodbye Katherine Dunham
Katherine Dunham, the great dancer, activist, anthropologist, choreographer and humanitarian, died on Sunday. She was 96 years old. Dunham's life work revolved around celebrating and embracing the color and spirit of all people. She exposed the world to the beauty of Black dancers and challenged the citizens of this earth to define Blackness. She celebrated the exotic and brought Haitian and Creole and Brazilian cultures out of the shadows of prejudice and stereotype. She opened so many doors for people of all colors so that we might all be able to leap through them.
Certainly today there is dancing going on in heaven. Bravo Miss Dunham!
Certainly today there is dancing going on in heaven. Bravo Miss Dunham!
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Revolutionary Rue in Paris
On April 29, in a suburb of Paris, a street was renamed and dedicated to the most famous death-row inmate in America, if not the world, Mumia Abu-Jamal. Already an honorary citizen of Paris, Abu-Jamal's new street appropriately runs close to the Nelson Mandela Stadium. Abu-Jamal is still in prison for allegedly killing a Philadelphia police officer in 1981, so he obviously wasn't in attendance at the three-day ceremony.
I find it fascinating that a city that was rocked by race-based riots less than a year ago, is dedicating a street to a "revolutionary" Black man. But then again, Paris has always had a thing for Negritude, even before Josephine Baker and her banana skirt arrived. Meanwhile, while Abu-Jamal's supporters around the world toasted the town of St-Denis for their rue Mumia Abu-Jamal, the widow of the slain officer called the dedication, "disgusting." What's more, she requested that Philadelphians cancel any summer trips planned to France.
I hope Philly doesn't ban French Fries over this!
Peace Out
I find it fascinating that a city that was rocked by race-based riots less than a year ago, is dedicating a street to a "revolutionary" Black man. But then again, Paris has always had a thing for Negritude, even before Josephine Baker and her banana skirt arrived. Meanwhile, while Abu-Jamal's supporters around the world toasted the town of St-Denis for their rue Mumia Abu-Jamal, the widow of the slain officer called the dedication, "disgusting." What's more, she requested that Philadelphians cancel any summer trips planned to France.
I hope Philly doesn't ban French Fries over this!
Peace Out
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Akeelah and the Bee Gets It Right
Finally! A movie that centers around Black people in all of our various incarnations; educated ones, earnest ones, poor ones, dumb ones, old and young ones. The story is about 11-year-old Akeelah Anderson from South Central, LA and her quest to become a national spelling bee champion. But the warm fuzzy plot is not what makes this movie earn a 4-star review from the Melting Pot. It's the way the cast was rounded out with Latinos, Asians, Whites and Mixed race individuals, giving a realistic perspective of life in one of the most diverse states in the Union, California. Go see it for Akeelah, but love it for the way diversity is presented as a nuanced part of life and not a bad stereotype or a problem.
Monday, May 08, 2006
Transracial Adoption Makes Philly Headlines
The front page of the Philly Inquirer today carries a story about the lingering dilemma over transracial adoptions. Inspired of course by the recent court battle over a Black foster child who was removed from his White foster parents in Chester County, PA (you can read about the case in previous postings below), the article profiles two Black men in their 30s who have identity issues because they were raised by White parents.
The story breaks no new ground, nor illuminates any new facts. Instead the reporter informs us that transracial adoptions are still problematic for the African-American children who grow up without a sense of Black identity, for the community of social service providers who still can't decide if it is racially irresponsible to place a colored child with a White family, and for the world at large which can't wrap its collective mind around a white woman pushing a colored kid in a swing at the park and he calls her mommy. It seems nobody is at peace with the concept, especially those Black people who still consider transracial adoption "cultural genocide."
Of course what is missing from the conversation, in my humble opinion, is the voice of middle class Black people who might be in a position to adopt these children themselves. Do they have any responsibility to "take care of their own?" It's like, we don't want Whitey to have our kids, but then who will? The fact is there are just a whole lot of Black kids in need of parents. And it's not like White people are out there clamoring to get their hands on a Black child of their own. I'd bet they'd like a kid that looks like them any day, but if Black is what they get when they try to adopt in the United States, then they take that child home and try to love him/her up.
I believe when asked if he talks to his biracial son about race, Tom Cruise said it best by answering, "What's there to talk about?" And that's what scares most Black people and scars the children for life. You can't ignore RACE. Parents who adopt across color lines can't pretend that their Black child will thrive if they just pretend his Black skin is the same as their White skin. From figuring out how to care for their hair, to exposing him/her to a rich Black cultural history, White parents of Black children have to do extra. But the bottom line is, until we as a society figure out how to stop producing unwanted Black children, then we will have to figure out a way to make transracial adoptions work.
And that's all she wrote.
And here's a Melting Pot Moment:
According to the Adoption History Project at the University of Oregon, the first Black child in America adopted by a white family was in 1948 in Minnesota. Wonder what that was like?
Peace!
The story breaks no new ground, nor illuminates any new facts. Instead the reporter informs us that transracial adoptions are still problematic for the African-American children who grow up without a sense of Black identity, for the community of social service providers who still can't decide if it is racially irresponsible to place a colored child with a White family, and for the world at large which can't wrap its collective mind around a white woman pushing a colored kid in a swing at the park and he calls her mommy. It seems nobody is at peace with the concept, especially those Black people who still consider transracial adoption "cultural genocide."
Of course what is missing from the conversation, in my humble opinion, is the voice of middle class Black people who might be in a position to adopt these children themselves. Do they have any responsibility to "take care of their own?" It's like, we don't want Whitey to have our kids, but then who will? The fact is there are just a whole lot of Black kids in need of parents. And it's not like White people are out there clamoring to get their hands on a Black child of their own. I'd bet they'd like a kid that looks like them any day, but if Black is what they get when they try to adopt in the United States, then they take that child home and try to love him/her up.
I believe when asked if he talks to his biracial son about race, Tom Cruise said it best by answering, "What's there to talk about?" And that's what scares most Black people and scars the children for life. You can't ignore RACE. Parents who adopt across color lines can't pretend that their Black child will thrive if they just pretend his Black skin is the same as their White skin. From figuring out how to care for their hair, to exposing him/her to a rich Black cultural history, White parents of Black children have to do extra. But the bottom line is, until we as a society figure out how to stop producing unwanted Black children, then we will have to figure out a way to make transracial adoptions work.
And that's all she wrote.
And here's a Melting Pot Moment:
According to the Adoption History Project at the University of Oregon, the first Black child in America adopted by a white family was in 1948 in Minnesota. Wonder what that was like?
Peace!
Monday, May 01, 2006
Watching Diversity Out My Bedroom Window
I love my block.
When Me and the Spaniard decided we'd outgrown our NYC digs and were ready to try to live like the rest of America, in a house, on a block, in a neighborhood without multiple take-out options, we settled on Philadelphia. Why? Because we found an affordable house, in a cute neighborhood, near a train that could whisk us back to New York City in under two hours. We figured that leaving our incredibly diverse neighborhood in Brooklyn meant leaving diversity behind. You know, it was fun while it lasted. Our ambiguously brown SpaNegro boys would grow up oddities, but in exchange, they'd have fresh air to breathe and space to stretch their growing muscles.
People told us that this neighborhood we were moving to, West Mount Airy, was really diverse. But coming from NYC, I rolled my eyes and assumed they meant that some Black people were moving in and so far nobody had burned a cross on the lawn. I was skeptical. We'd been patrolling the area before buying the house and indeed people did seem remarkably friendly and open to my smiling black face and my husband's thick accent, but still I doubted. Especially when, after the closing, when the house was really ours and we spent two entire winter days on the block and all we saw were white faces scurrying to their cars. Diversity my ass, I thought.
Fast forward almost one year. I was soooo wrong. West Mt Airy is a true hodgepodge of races, cultures, class and family structures. It does not have the international flavor of New York City, of course, but the range of personal experiences is delightfully eclectic. Oprah Magazine actually just featured an article on Mt. Airy because of its long history and commitment to true diversity. But what I like about it is looking out my bedroom window and just watching the melting pot percolate outside my door.
I see the family across the street where the oldest daughter is Korean, the middle two children are Black and the little brother is a freckle-faced blond child with green eyes. Their White mother is always bustling them off to baseball games and music lessons. Last week she had to take her Black son to his Catholic confirmation. At Christmas time, I looked out the window and saw a big, Black Santa Claus adorning the window of the house across the street. Two doors down a Hanukkah flag waved in the breeze. At least three lesbian couples also reside on the block. Two with children who like to play with my children. Halloween gave me an excuse to knock on everybody's door on my block and really see who my neighbors were and I found, Black people and White people and Black people living with White people and Indian people and a Brit and a woman from Wales. How'd this happen? How did we luck into this melange of multiculturalism? It is what I have always craved and hoped for when I dreamt about "the happily ever after." But I didn't know it was called, West Mount Airy. Now it has a name.
Welcome Home.
Peace Out
When Me and the Spaniard decided we'd outgrown our NYC digs and were ready to try to live like the rest of America, in a house, on a block, in a neighborhood without multiple take-out options, we settled on Philadelphia. Why? Because we found an affordable house, in a cute neighborhood, near a train that could whisk us back to New York City in under two hours. We figured that leaving our incredibly diverse neighborhood in Brooklyn meant leaving diversity behind. You know, it was fun while it lasted. Our ambiguously brown SpaNegro boys would grow up oddities, but in exchange, they'd have fresh air to breathe and space to stretch their growing muscles.
People told us that this neighborhood we were moving to, West Mount Airy, was really diverse. But coming from NYC, I rolled my eyes and assumed they meant that some Black people were moving in and so far nobody had burned a cross on the lawn. I was skeptical. We'd been patrolling the area before buying the house and indeed people did seem remarkably friendly and open to my smiling black face and my husband's thick accent, but still I doubted. Especially when, after the closing, when the house was really ours and we spent two entire winter days on the block and all we saw were white faces scurrying to their cars. Diversity my ass, I thought.
Fast forward almost one year. I was soooo wrong. West Mt Airy is a true hodgepodge of races, cultures, class and family structures. It does not have the international flavor of New York City, of course, but the range of personal experiences is delightfully eclectic. Oprah Magazine actually just featured an article on Mt. Airy because of its long history and commitment to true diversity. But what I like about it is looking out my bedroom window and just watching the melting pot percolate outside my door.
I see the family across the street where the oldest daughter is Korean, the middle two children are Black and the little brother is a freckle-faced blond child with green eyes. Their White mother is always bustling them off to baseball games and music lessons. Last week she had to take her Black son to his Catholic confirmation. At Christmas time, I looked out the window and saw a big, Black Santa Claus adorning the window of the house across the street. Two doors down a Hanukkah flag waved in the breeze. At least three lesbian couples also reside on the block. Two with children who like to play with my children. Halloween gave me an excuse to knock on everybody's door on my block and really see who my neighbors were and I found, Black people and White people and Black people living with White people and Indian people and a Brit and a woman from Wales. How'd this happen? How did we luck into this melange of multiculturalism? It is what I have always craved and hoped for when I dreamt about "the happily ever after." But I didn't know it was called, West Mount Airy. Now it has a name.
Welcome Home.
Peace Out
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