Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Burning Questions from The Meltingpot


Hi Meltingpot Readers,

Today is hump day. It's the first day of a new month. And it seems like the perfect time to get some of my most burning questions answered. Hopefully you can help.

1. Why does Jesse Jackson think he holds the authority to decide who is and isn't Black enough in this country? First it was President Barack Obama, and now he's decided CNN anchor, Soledad O'Brien doesn't count as an official member of the tribe.


2. December is National Buy a Book by a Black Author and Give it to Someone Not Black Month, now affectionately known as
NBABBABAAGITSNBM. So my question is, what books are you going to buy and who are you going to give them to? If you need suggestions, you can always check out NBABBABAAGITSNBM's founder, Carleen Brice's awesome website, where she's making suggestions for good books all month long. And there are plenty of giveaways too!

3. Is it just me, or has there been a surge of racist humor aimed at Indians on television these days? Between
the new NBC show Outsourced and those awful Metro PCS commercials, Indians seem to be the new punch line of pop culture humor. Why is that? Here's an article about Outsourced that discusses the issue and another article about the commercials. Apparently I'm not the only one concerned, but why do you suppose this is happening now?

4. I've always known that China isn't teaming with Black people and therefore the country may not be exactly enforcing the need for cultural sensitivity training when it comes to racism and offensive stereotypes. But did you know one of the best-selling brands of toothpaste in China is called "Darkie" and features a grinning caricature of a man in blackface on the box? What's worse, the company that makes the toothpaste is owned by Colgate. This story couldn't be made up. Do you think China has an obligation to retire the Darkie brand?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

the whole jesse jackson thing, well i am an african american but i have white blood and some native american too, because i don;t have strong tradition west african feature i suppose i wouldn't be black enough either, the thing is black is not the same thing as african. Because you could look african and actually be white! so unless he's seen her DNA it's one of those convos that we should stop having, africans are not better than white people and white people are not better then africans the conversation is silly and im tired of it. According to the world NO soledad would not be judged by racist white people perhaps the way Kanye west would, but Kanye probably isn't all african either so what? the issue is racism is racism and that is wrong. PPL feel like soledad can't be would she is because she somehow hasn't EARNED her strips. but really unless you are trying to be something you are not it shouldn't matter. I didn't grow up entirely in the hood, but i am not wealthy so i know from wence i came. But i hate it when somebody tells me i'm not 'black' enough for them. That may be so, well technically i'm half African whether i look like it or not,or act like to YOU or not, and that is not your business.