A Brother of Another Color?

What with all of this talk of international adoption being the new black --it's hip and cool -- you can expect a backlash any minute now.

A journalist friend of mine isn't tired of the media hype yet, but he did want to find out if there's another aspect of the story that we haven't hashed to death. I mentioned in an earlier post that there didn't seem to be a whole lot of Black people adopting internationally and I guessed it was because of the price tag attached. Well my friend decided to find those Black people, and any other people of color, who decided to not only adopt internationally, but adopt a child of another race.

The discussion over whether White people should raise colored children may never be resolved. But does anybody care if a nice Black family is raising a Chinese daughter? Does it matter if the Latino couple has adopted Russian twins? Does the discussion remain the same? Are people of color exempt from the public scrutiny or do they receive more? Speak up if this applies to you or if you know someone in this situation? What are the issues involved? When my friend's story comes out in a few weeks I'll post it here.

In the meantime check out: Anne Tyler's latest novel, Digging to America which involves an Iranian couple who adopts a Korean child. Or if you can get your hands on it, watch Fakin da Funk about a Black family who adopts a Chinese son. It's full of crass sterotypes but it's good for a laugh and Margaret Cho is in it.


Peace.

(Photo courtesy of interracial.meetup.com)

Dancing Across the Color Line

Guess What? The students of Turner County High Schol in Ashburn, Georgia fianlly get their first integrated prom this year! Up until now, the Black and White students in this small town of approximately 4000 residents have always had separate proms, separate homecomings, separate homecoming kings and queens, all divided down the color line.

This has been the year to change. A mixed race girl was named Homecoming Queen. How's that for progress! And in May for the first time they will have an integrated prom. They've tried to do the integrated thing before, spearheaded by the teachers and administration and it failed miserably. Now the students have taken up the banner of integration and are hosting a prom where people of all colors can shake their rumps together.

Of course not everyone is happy. Some bitter White kids are planning a protest party the same night down by the lake for those who just don't believe we can all just get along.

I'm just curious what these kids do when they leave the limits of Ashburn and see the rest of the world in its technicolor glory. Do they freak out? Head for the hills? Or maybe that's just it, maybe they never leave.


Peace.

When Black People Sing Brown Music

A few days ago, over at Racialicious, there was a conversation going on about White people singing Black music. This phenomenon of Blue-eyed soul -- you know, folks like Justin Timberlake, Joss Stone, and Robin Thicke making R&B hits and dominating the charts of so-called Black music. Is this fair? People wondered. Is this a case of cultural thievery? Does the music industry favor White artists who sing Black music over Black artists singing Black music? There were no clear answers. And here's one more.

If White people must justify and defend their right to sing "Black music" how do you explain Beyonce singing in Spanish? She may be from Texas, but she's no Latina. And yet Beyonce has just released an album with six or seven songs en Espanol. Of course Beyonce is not the only Black singer to cross the language border. Wyclef Jean raps a bit in Spanish with Shakira in "Hips Don't Lie" and Will Smith welcomed us to Miami in Spanish back in 1997.

Are Hispanic people feeling threatened or angry about these "Black Gringos" stealing their language? Or are they feeling respected now that mainstream musicians are trying to woo them in their own language? And White people are singing in Spanish too. It's not just Black artists. And then of course there's the perplexing case of Jennifer Lopez who claims English as her first language, but she just released her first Spanish language album. Where does she fit in this linguistic claims race?

The AP ran a story on this Spanish singing trend, insisting that American artists, regardless of race, are recording in Spanish to increase their fan base. With record/CD sales down, performers need to look to new markets to increase their sales. I'm all for polyglot singers but don't we come back to the question of cultural appropriation when a singer with no real connection to the language uses it for personal gain?

And then there's the point I made previously that for some reason, when singing in Spanish, people just sound better. You can sing the most inane lyrics in Spanish and for some reason they just sound more believable, more romantic and poetic than in English. Am I wrong? Personally I don't think Jennifer Lopez has a voice, but in Spanish she sounds like she really has something to say.

China is a really big market. Will rock stars and rappers start performing in Chinese next? Think about it and let me know.

Hasta La Vista.

Imus Update

I really don't want to write about Don Imus anymore. I just have to post that as of tonight, Wednesday April 11, MSNBC has announced that they will no longer be airing his show. Good. He'll still be on the radio though. Bad.

Check out this article from Newsweek editor Marcus Marby on what the whole Imus mess really means for American media. The most distressing point he makes is that this whole episode is putting us back in O.J. Simpson America where Whites and Blacks are pitted against each other, seeing the world in polar opposites.

Sigh. Sigh. Sigh.

Here at the Meltingpot, rather than be discouraged, we will continue to find the stories where Black and White are sticking together like peanut butter and jelly to create a harmonius and gooey sandwich of life.

Peace Out!

Imus Still on In the Morning?

Apology time is here. Don "I'm a good person" Imus apologized again this morning for his racist, sexist, offensive remarks regarding the Rutgers Women's Basketball team. (See my previous post for details.) He's scheduled to appear on Al Sharpton's radio program today and his networks are promising to keep a closer eye on him.

I spoke this morning about the origins of the word Nappy on the Brian Lehrer show and why it is so fraught with meaning. I also publicly wondered why Imus would even know about this word unless he's got an in with some Black people. But the biggest question in my mind is still...

WHY IS THIS MAN STILL ON THE RADIO?

Many callers on the Brian Lehrer show thought Imus should basically be forgiven because he's an equal opportunity racist and because he does nice things for kids with cancer. Besides the fact that that is using really faulty logic, we don't let other radio personalities and tv hosts get away with such talk so why is Imus any different? Wendy Williams was suspended from the airwaves for an entire year after she said a certain hip hop superstar was gay. And other urban radio hosts/shock jocks have also been fired over crude, offensive remarks. And they deserved it. But so does Imus. Oh yeah, but he's White. Is that the difference?

Holla back with your thoughts!

"Nappy-headed Hos !!!!"

First Serena Williams gets heckled by a racist fan and then yesterday, Don Imus --the racist radio personality -- refers to the Rutgers Women's Basketball team as "nappy-headed hos." Really! It seems unbelievable to me that a White man in the public eye would be so disgustingly crass, degrading, and nasty on national television. And it wasn't like he was mumbling the words under his breath and they were accidentally caught on-air. He was actually pontificating on the ho-like qualities of the Women's Team. You can read a portion of the transcript here and understand why this man probably wears a white hood when he's just lounging around at home.

Besides the obvious disbelief and horror I felt when hearing about this, the hair historian in me was a wee bit intriuged. Not a whole lot of White people are aware of the power of the word Nappy. They don't understand how deeply this word can wound a Black American. Remember the uproar in 1998 about the White school teacher who read the book Nappy Hair by Caroliva Herron to her mostly Black students in Bushwick Brooklyn? When parents heard about the book they called for the teacher's immediate dismissal, held protests at the school and even made threats of physical harm against the teacher. Of course the teacher was shocked not knowing that to many Black folks, Nappy is like the other "N-Word."

So I wonder how does a Super White Man like Imus know the word Nappy? Why did that just roll off the tongue like he hangs with Black folks enough to know their innermost fears and frustrations? Because if he was intending to hurt and degrade he really did pick the right word. Calling a Black woman nappy-headed, even if she lovingly wears the biggest, nappiest Afro around, wounds to the quick. So I'm thinking, does Imus have some secret Black life on the side? Is he Strom Thurman all-over again? Or maybe he thought that since Eminem is White and he uses the other N-word and other Black-isms, he could get away with it too? Or not. I can't figure it out.

I hope the man gets fired and all his money gets taken away and he is forced to do community service in Chocolate City cleaning up trash with his bare hands!

Peace and Hair Grease!

BORDERS Patrol

Just a question. Besides the shelves of BORDERS Bookstore, where else in the United States is it legal to segregate based on race and/or color? Better yet, what other institution is bold and/or stupid enough to do so openly?

BORDERS policy of ghettoizing any book written by a Black author -- ranging from street-lit to the works of the great Toni Morrison -- in the African-American Literature corner, harkens back to a time when you could find all the Blacks squashed in the back of the bus. It would be one thing if AA titles were cross-referenced in other sections, but they're not. They are judged not by the content of their contents but by the color of their author's skin.

But this weekend I think I discovered that at the root of it all is just plain old laziness. When asked why two popular memoirs were shelved under "hot fiction," one BORDERS employee sheepishly explained that because BORDERS doesn't have a biography section they just placed them in fiction because these books "are really good stories." Which just leads me to believe that the corporate brass of BORDERS bookstore is really, really lazy (Too lazy to shelve Black authors alphabetically in the section in which they truly belong perhaps), or really, really dumb. And maybe just a tad bit racist? Maybe it is a combination of all three.

Hmmm.

And in Meltingpot Celebrity News...Does anybody else think J.Lo’s new Spanish Language album is a desperate act on Jenny's part to sever her ties with the materialistic mainstream world she has spent the better part of the past decade trying to woo? It worked for Ricky Martin. After he spent all that time Livin' la Vida Loca he had to repent, bow out of the public eye and re-emerge singing solo en Espanol. Does that mean Spanish is a purifying language? Does that mean English is the language of the devil? If Li'l Kim started rapping in Spanish would all her sins be forgiven?

Peace Out!