For those curious about Action Awareness Week

Here's some background, and here's some disappointing media coverage of Action Awareness week here at Hampshire College:

Bad

The "Chronicle of Higher Education" displays thinly veiled contempt, but decent control of their sentiments.

Boston.com explains how students "cut class" for demands including "anti-oppression training."

Our local NBC affiliate has a tiny little story.

Worse

This under-informed article over at Villainous Company blames failing educational standards on all those rude Hampshire students among other unrelated news stories.

Other

Some LJ drama regarding the whole thing.

Nathaniel Tyson

I may not know art, but I know what I link

This website will make you sad. It is about Puppy Mills. You can't say that I didn't warn you.

I thought of all of my friends from MD's trip to California when I read this.

Here's a time-lapse video of a dude stuck in an elevator for 41 hours. It's fucked up. You're basically watching someone go insane.

Race & Such...

My Politics on Pop Culture teacher referred us to this really, really, really well-done blog post about the eternal question: What constitutes racism? The ensuing comments are some of the better ones dealing with the subject that I've ever seen. Not all 100% positive, but not the usual ignorance pageant.

She also pointed out this (hopefully) eye-opening essay about the wide acceptance of "Racism 2.0" in America. Unfortunately, the article doesn't tackle less obvious examples like message boards and review sites.

The Racism Review also tackles a terribly ironic story in which white nativists get all huffy about some images in Mexican ads for Absolut vodka. Gosh. It's just a joke guys. Get over it.

Oh, and for good measure, here's an article about the controversy from the Absolut site. Take a look at all those level-headed Americans in the comments section. Thank God the internet is so colorblind.

[I am very happy, however, to see that Absolut is refusing to apologize. That heartens me.]

Nathaniel "Nate Tyson" Tyson

Cyberspace is not colorblind

Man, if I have to hear the "what about 'white-only' dorms and 'straight-only dorms'" argument one more time, I'm gonna fucking kill someone.

Action Awareness Week here at Hampshire was an amazing, provacative, hopefully productive time. It's shameful that the media will focus on the aspects of the issues that they least understand and most fear. There were 17 demands on that list, and this response mentions 3 at most.

You are blind if you don't think the internet is as racist, bigoted and backwards as the rest of the Earth.

Nate

Burritos, waging the War on the Middle [class] of Lou Dobb's body

I was thinkin' about how a few months ago, CNN.com ran a piece about how Lou Dobb's should run for President. I read the piece, only to discover, to my shock and awe, that Lou had not written the op-ed himself.

This got me thinking about The Good Ol' People's Champion in detail. Today, you are subject to a Lou Dobb's oriented HollowChatter. Previous promised material will just have to wait.

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John O'Bryan has written the very funny What More Does Lou Dobbs Have to Do to Prove He's Not Racist over at 23/6. Lou Dobbs can never be made fun of enough. I really would like to take him and Glen Beck out to a desert island and leave them there to battle to the death. Then I would nuke the island to make sure there were no survivors.

23/6 also has the best headline I've seen in quite some time:

"Eliot Spitzer Leaves his Resignation on the Dresser"

Mercy.

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Here's a little bit of weird, Lou Dobbs related irony for you.

Lou Dobbs is obviously racist, but he, like many famous racists, makes the argument that because his wife is Mexican-American, he cannot possibly be prejudiced. Now, Dobbs loves to talk about the crime, poverty, disease (?), and the general dirt and mud that will be spread by "illegals", but this isn't racism...clearly.

It's just journa-...no, it's not that. It's good, old fashioned public polic-...no, not that either.

Xenophobia! That's it.

So, the irony? Debi, Dobbs' wife, was arrested for trying to board a plane with a LOADED GUN in 2006.

Fuckin Mexicans, right Lou? It was brave of you to marry her, even though you knew that, as a Mexican, she would bring crime, poverty, and disease into your marriage. Self fulfilling prophecy, right, Lou?

I don't mean to beat up on Debbi...oh, wait, yeah I do. She totally deserves it. She married a racist prick who's trying to incite political violence and oppression against impoverished immigrants. She can burn in Hell.

Sorry about that.

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Another strange fact? Lou Dobbs won a Peabody for journalistic excellence in the 80s for covering the crash of 1987.

Hmmm.

Nathaniel Tyson

myeah, you see, myeah

Something I'll bet you'd never find yourself thinking about (unless you are a Berkley film major, or me, or probably two of my professors):

What exactly were the subversive social codes incorporated into film noir movies of the 1940's & 50's?

Well, I'm not exactly thinking about that either, but I am prepping for a final paper on the modern femme fatale of neo noir, so I have film noir on the brain.

(I'm thinking about looking at Julianne Moore in The Big Lebowski, Carrie Anne Moss in Memento...any others?)

My teacher sent me a huge listing of academic articles on film noir, and I just feel that I need to share a few of the titles and authors that sounded awesome. You know, just in case you ever get the urge to find out more about this very specific genre of crime/detective film for some reason. Seems likely, non?

Really, check it out if you like film studies at all. Or American studies, ya know? Great resource, etc.

Some articles/essays that sound pretty neat:

Lott, Eric. "The Whiteness of Film Noir." In: National imaginaries, American identities: the cultural work of American iconography / edited by Larry J. Reynolds and Gordon Hutner. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, c2000.

Telotte, J. P. "The woman in the door: framing presence in film noir." In: In the eye of the beholder: critical perspectives in popular film and television / edited by Gary R. Edgerton, et al. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, c1997.

Thompson, Peggy. Hard-boiled: Great Lines From Classic Noir Films San Francisco: Chronicle Books, c1995.

Avila, E. "Popular culture in the age of white flight: Film noir, Disneyland, and the cold war (sub)urban imaginary." Journal of Urban History, vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 3-22, 2004

Broe, Dennis. "Class, crime, and film noir: labor, the fugitive outsider, and the anti-authoritarian tradition." Social Justice Spring 2003 v30 i1 p22(20)

Davidson, Michael. "Phantom Limbs: Film Noir and the Disabled Body." GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 9, no. 1 (2003): 57-77

Jensen, Paul. "The Return of Dr. Caligari: Paranoia in Hollywood." Film Comment 7:4 (1971) pp:36-45

Kotsopoulos, A. and Mills, J. "Gender, Genre, and Post-Feminism." Jump Cut, June 1994, 39: 15-24

Lenz, Kimberly. "Put the Blame on Gilda: Dyke-Noir Vesus Film-Noir" Theatre Studies, 1995, N40:17-26.

Lott, Eric. "The Whiteness of Film Noir." American Literary History v9, n3 (Fall, 1997):542 (25 pages).

Smith, S. "Godard and Film Noir: A Reading of 'A Bout de Souffle'" Nottingham French Studies, 1993 Spring, V32 N1:65-73.

Walker, Deborah. "From Honest Thief to Media Sociopath: American Culture Through French Film Noir."

Willson, Robert F., Jr. "A double life: Othello as film noir thriller." Shakespeare on Film Newsletter (11:1) 3, 10.

Younger, Richard. "Song in Contemporary Film Noir." Films in Review v45, n7-8 (July-August, 1994):48 (3 pages).

and, my favorite:

Covey, W. "The Genre Don't Know Where It Came From: African American Neo-Noir Since the 1960s" [With Films Cited]. Journal of Film and Video v. 55 no. 2/3 (Summer/Fall 2003) p. 59-72

("African-American neo-noir discourse is a vital part of neo-noir studies, not just a marginalized addition. Born in the late 1960s and revised starting in the 1990s, black neo-noir, a series of mystery thrillers focusing on African-American detectives and police officers, has helped to revitalize the popular filmmaking discourse of film noir. Critical work on black neo-noir is both recent and sparse, resulting in, at best, a gap in noir criticism, and, at worst, indicating confusion about the significance of these films. As conceptual metaphors, African-American neo-noirs help represent and illustrate black experience, and constitute a semiotic terrain that merits the critical attention of the academy. By establishing where today's loose-knit genre of the African-American neo-noir comes from, critics can recognize that African-American films raise a host of complex political, social, and cultural questions in relation to film-noir discourse." [Art Index])

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Also, one of my favorite jams of 2008 has evidently pricked some other ears; Holy Fuck's "Lovely Allen" (both the original and a new No Age remix) got some press and airplay from Pitchfork recently.

I'm torn here.

It's great, because the song rules, and I'm happy it's catching on. But it sucks, because it is one of my favorite jams of the year, and now, w/ Pitchfork's polarizing stamp of approval, some degree of backlash against the song is inevitable. The fact that the remix isn't immediately grabbing doesn't help. In fact, I've only bothered with it once.

Whatever. It's silly to worry about these things. I know that. The internet sucks. Not actively, all the time, but kind of inherently...s'only natural.

I really have no right to even bring this whole thing up; it's not like I'm doing much to distance myself from that whole internet journalism scene, right?

Nate Thaniel

Prof. Wikipedia presents: "What it means to be a White American: A study of privilage, cluelessness, and absent-minded colonialism"

What, exactly, is White Culture in America?

The recent laughs provided by Things White People Like had me running over this question in my head. Don't get me wrong, I have my own definition (it mostly consists of a deep analysis of Murphy Brown and Everybody Loves Raymond), but I began to ponder what White America itself had to say on the subject.

So, I went to Wikipedia.

I decided that a direct search would work best, so I searched 'white culture', and was redirected. Considering the very subculture that Wikipedia is produced and used by (ie college students and young people with regular access to a computer with internet), the brevity of the wiki on White American Culture is quite amusing. I was naturally dissapointed, but it still provided a smile.

My favorite part? This:
"In the United States, the term "suburban culture" is considered a euphemism for White American culture and is sometimes used as a racially neutral alternative."

I can just imagine someone euphemistically referring to how the housing prices are spiking thanks to this insidious "suburban" influence. Oh wait. I guess they already do that.

Searching a little further, I discovered that the White American wiki is somewhat more developed. According to the entry, a White American is any American "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa". The wiki points out that this definition (the same one used by the US Census) puts half of the Hispanic population of the U.S. into this category. So, naturally, this definition leaves a tremendous amount to be desired.

The article continues by introducing two other definitions: one social, the other based strictly on societal influence.

Wiki's social definition, as supported by quotes from Karen Brodkin & David R. Roediger, posits that "whiteness" is a European concept stemming from a need to distance slave-owners from their non-white slaves, to unite Europe in the face of the "discovery" of "non-white" continents such as Asia and Africa (for example, former non-whites: the irish, the italians, the greeks, ashkenazi jews, germans, etc), and to legally divide those of European descent from those of African or Asian descent (ie, these laws did not divide based on race, they created race). This section is still too technical however, to truly explain what a White American is today. It does, however, point out the people who take great pains to make sure that everyone knows they are not a White American (ie. everyone we've [Britain, America, Europe, etc] ever oppressed or tried to colonize).

The last definition Wiki provides is based on inherited societal position, and it may hit closest to the definition I have in my head. By this definition, a White American is anyone who benefits from white privilege. In some ways, I suppose that is what race has become in America: a division based on your societal and cultural capital. This section also contains my hand-down favorite scholarly paraphrase about White America ever. I'll just post the whole definition and highlight my favorite part:

As whites are the dominant racial and cultural group; according to sociologist Steven Seidman writing about the most prominent perspective among researches, "White culture constitutes the general cultural mainstream, causing non-White culture to be seen as deviant, in either a positive or negative manner. Moreover, Whites tend to be disproportionately represented in powerful positions, controlling almost all political, economic and cultural institutions." Yet, according to Seidman, Whites are most commonly unaware of their "privilege" and the manner in which their culture has always been dominant in the US, as they do not identify as members of a specific racial group but rather incorrectly perceive their views and culture as "raceless," when in fact it is ethno-national (ethnic / cultural) specific with a racial base component.

This quote is pretty much the bluntest way to say "you're white if you inherit white privilage, you're especially white if you don't know what 'white privilage' is".

This article temporarily sated my thirst for truth. Afterall, it had provided me with three somewhat accurate definitions and even something about how clueless white people are to the existence of the White American identity. But even with these great elements, my favorite part of the article is the selection of the six definitive white Americans in the photo area:


Madeleine Albright - I guess to emphasize just how directly White Americans are linked to Europe; she was born in Prague afterall. Also, she is a powerful white woman in America, which rarer than a powerful white man...but infinitely more common than a powerful non-white woman in America (minus Oprah, of course...I'm sorry Mrs. Winfrey, it'll never happen again).


Marilyn Monroe - I completely agree with this, she deserves the title "Definitive White American", one of the top White Culture Icons for sure. Blonde, busty, fatally self-destructive, willing to take her clothes off, and publically vapid...she had it all.


Abraham Lincoln - The "see, we're not all completely clueless racists" selection. Lincoln: not definitive...or maybe he is. Perhaps Lincoln represents white people's acceptance of progress in the face of absolutely no other choice. He is also known as The Patron Saint of White Guilt, and The Best Neo-Liberal President the 19th Century-era Republican Party Ever Produced.


Jose Romualdo Pacheco Jr. - I had to look this guy up [ie click on his name], but he was a California-born American politician of Mexican descent [see, when he was born, California WAS Mexico...goes to show you how stupid national origin as racial definition is, don't it?] who was the first [and, so far, only] Hispanic governor of California. Wow. I understand that he's meant to show the true range of "whiteness" in America as described by the first (and technically third) definition, but what an obscure choice. Tokenism, anyone?


John F. Kennedy Jr. - Along with Marilyn, JFK's persona and mythology embody the values, ideals, and attitudes of Baby Boomer/Post Greatest Generation White America better than almost any one else I can think of. In the 1960's (a tranformative decade for White American culture) JFK was busy facing the future, changing the world, publically loving the blacks, tolerating and gently exploiting the hispanics, and dreaming of an America that greatly resembles the all-white European Court of King Arthur; all achieved with only a politically-connected father, the Chicago mafia, millions of dollars, and incredible good looks to fall back on. JFK: every liberal, white man over the age of 45's hero.


Raquel Welch - Born Jo Raquel Tejada , Raquel Welch was an iconic actress/pinup (slightly under the giants like Monroe and Rita Hayworth) who worked during (and defined) the 1960's in America. She brings two things to this list: Firstly, proof that White American actresses of Hispanic descent have always been accepted in Hollywood...as long as they pretended that they were in no way an American actress of Hispanic descent (a lesson Jessica Alba has updated into "talk constantly about how you're not really one of those scary Hispanics"). Secondly, Raquel earned her place on this list twice over: she appears in the iconic 1994 White Culture classic Shawshank Redemption on a poster used by Tim Robbins to cover his escape tunnel.

Well. There you go. If Wikipedia is the internet's dictionary, then these six are the internet's selection of White America defined.

What would my list look like? Kind of you to ask. Here are my Top 6 Definitive White Americans of All Time (in no order):

Albert Einstein

John D. Rockefeller

James Dean

Eleanor Roosevelt

Leona Helmsley

Judy Garland

I would provide explanations, but I am tired of thinking about this. God bless us all, white and non-white by all definitions.

Nathaniel Tyson

As a way of starting us off, two long-ass pieces

Pt. 1: This is why my girlfriend thinks I'm crazy, or: If she didn't before, she does now

I typed up my "live" reactions from last night's Oscars (which I watched in Fort Thank You in the hall lounge), and saved them to Listology. Sadly, I am not well-trained in the "live-blogging" department, so my reactions will probably only resonate with those who saw the telecast and can put my non-sequitors into context.

Anyways, here it is.

My feelings the day after? That was the most rewarding, but least dramatic, Oscar season I have ever followed. Great performances and great films seemed to be unbeatable the entire time, and the upsets that occurred last night (though I haven't seen La Vie en Rose) were pleasant surprises rather than disastrous mistakes; but without a powerful villain (i.e. a mediocre film), a hero (No Country) has nobody to battle.



Pt. 2: Love to all our non-white, non-American Heroes, or With great power comes great cultural insensitivity

And with that last metaphor there, I've realized that my recent Heroes binge is affecting me in strange and upsetting ways.

Before I begin to talk about my major problems with the show, I feel the need to explain my love for the show. I initially avoided it (despite my love of its older-brother-in-concept, X-Men) because I hate campy spectacles that give genres I love a bad name (sames true with Musicals). Early vewings were spotty at best, and I kept tuning in right as the show focused on Niki and Micah, the worst plotline of the first season. But after "Company Man" (still the best episode of the first season), I was kicking myself for jumping the bandwagon so late. While I still find certain racial elements problematic (I'll explain, in [too much] detail, below), and I acknowledge that some of the writing and acting can veer into the campy or wooden categories, I was evetually so wrapped-up in the storytelling that I could forgive the show and continue watching. But the second season brings both good and bad omens.



That? That's one of the bad omens.

Right now, I've got two episodes left in the second season, and I'm tempted to call it underrated. While I agree with the criticisms of the early episodes (far too slow, repetitive, and familiar to be that engaging to new or old viewers), the second half of the season seemed to actually recover quite nicely. I'm digging the general themes of gray-area morality, corruption of power, and the dreadfully (in a good way) slow realization that some of our current heroes are most likely tomorrow's villains.

In fact, I would go as far as to say that the character development of the second half of Season 2 (especially that of returning characters) was far superior to the first season's vague archetype building. I was afraid that with seemingly all of his secrets revealed, Noah Bennet (HRG) would fall to the wayside, or become (gasp!) predictable; but the twists and turns of the Mohinder/Bob/Noah moral triangle actually surprised me. The temptations of Matt Parkman, Maya (a character who has only grown on me slightly), West (who I pray they turn into a villain), and , of course, Takezo actually make for compelling TV. And the aftermath of the corruption these characters narrowly avoid (minus Takezo) are pretty well-embodied by Elle, Maury, Bob, Angela, and, of course, Adam.



Pete's flirt with darkness seems like a narrative dead-on in many regards, however. We know that he is the central figure of good, so the seduction of the minor characters has more pull, more chance of surprising us.

On the other hand, other storylines this season proved far more problematic than even the first season's Niki/DL/Micah plot. While Niki is given something somewhat interesting to do (almost die...I assume almost), Micah is still justsitting there...with that hair. (Is that a jerry-curl? Is what I just said offensive? Who knows?) His cousin's muscle mimicry is a great power in that it provides us with a special effect and person/power dynamic (not really a curse as much as just plain awesome and easy to master) we haven't encountered yet. But (and this leads me to my real point) Monica is just another in a long string of "ethnic" characters on Heroes whose powers or personalities are troublesome at best. Let me sum up:

• D.L. Hawkins (black) - former street criminal seeking to be there for his wife and son who he "abandoned". Has the power to make his body intangible, which has (up until Season 2, episode 9) only been stated or shown to help him break into buildings, escape jail, dodge bullets, and crack safes. He does, however, put his fist through a dude's head. That earns him points.

• Monica Dawson (black) - Katrina refugee who would have been the first person in her family to attend college. Her power as a muscle mimic also lies solely in her body (not cerebral or elemental), to the extent that she becomes unaware of moments in which she exhibits it. When she isn't kicking thug ass, she is busy not snitching and talking about how Katrina changed (or defines) her life.

• Mohinder Suresh (Indian) - A brilliant doctor, just like his father (they both also drive taxicabs at some point, but this is not so much unintentional as the characters comment on this...but still), Mohinder is tall, skinny and very, very Anglo in both his accent and his facial features. In the first season, Mohinder's scenes in India read more like he is a tourist who bears little resemblance to the more "Indian" world around him than a natural citizen. He has no power, but his intelligence and daddy issues prove almost as strategically powerful as any character's "gift".

• Ricki & Caitlin (Irish) - The bar-owning, family-loving, heavy-drinking ringleader and traditional sister-of-the-ringleader-who-falls-in-love-with-our-protagonist of an Irish gang of thieves. I believe there is an IRA joke or two. Ricki has Peter sworn into their criminal family using a vague Gaelic-looking tattoo after knowing him for approximately two days.

• Maya and Alejandro (Latino/a) - These orphaned twins are introduced heading towards America ("illegally") in an attempt to save the deeply-Catholic Maya's life. They end up picking up and trusting the villainous Sylar based on Maya's religious faith (his name is Gabriel as he tells them) even though Alejandro points out that Sylar is obviously going to betray them. They also manage to run into not one, but TWO old latina women screaming "diablo" at the top of their lungs; not to mention Maya's catfight with her slutty sis-in-law who cheats on Alejandro less than an hour after marrying him. Maya also slaughters a group of pseudo-Minutemen at the border.

• The Haitian (Haitian) - A silent (but not mute) partner to Noah Bennet who is only referred to by his country of origin. The show even has characters who briefly spot him describe him as "the haitian" w/o them having anyway of knowing his country of origin. I suppose "a Haitian guy" sounds better than "a scary black man". Not only is his personality unrevealed, but even his power is mysterious, unexplained, and his presence is always presented with an air of mysticism. However, the writers' most thoughtlessly offensive moment lies in Season 2 as the Haitian becomes one of the first characters to contract a deadly virus, whose spread, affects, cure, and prevention are all mysteries. The virus goes on to reflect AIDS/HIV even more directly by crossing over from the meta-human into the general population, against everyone's expectations.

I'll stop there, but I'm sure you see my point. If the producers and writers don't bother to address this major issue with their show, I'm not sure how long I can enjoy the parts of their show that are less problematic.



While we're looking forward, I should probably address a fear for next season that already has me wincing. Initially, I was thrilled to hear that Jamie Hector would be joining Heroes in the third season this fall. In you don't know him, Jamie Hector is a young talent from a TV show that deals with a diverse (in race, class, ethnicity, etc) cast with a sensitivity, frankness, and thoughtfulness that Heroes can never achieve: The Wire.

Hector is exceptionally good as the mysterious, brutal drug kingpin Marlo Stanfield. His characterization digs deep beneath Marlo's skin; Hector creates a full-bodied, complicated man without falling into the suffering saint/sociopath dynamic that TV usually allows for a black character is a drama; especially those playing characters orbiting the drug game. While Marlo is introduced as a frighteningly emotionless cypher, recent episodes have dealt with Marlo's rise to greater power, even touching on his shifting class, and Marlo's reaction to this. Black characters are rarely given the kind of backstory and material that Marlo has, and we're lucky The Wire is around to introduce us to actors like Hector.

So, of course I was ecstatic when it was announced that Hector would play a major new villain in the third season of Heroes. I'm always thrilled to see actors from The Wire getting parts. But then I looked closer at exactly how Hector's character was being described.

Here is an excerpt from the casting call for Hector's character, according to the HeroesWiki for Benjamin "Knox" Washington, the bolding is my doing:

"[KNOX] 25. MALE. AFRICAN-AMERICAN. Frightening and intense - with the eyes of a predator --Knox has returned to New Orleans with plans to reclaim the criminal territory he used to run before he was sent to prison...."

Sweet jesus people! While Hector has beautifully communicative eyes, I'm not sure the role will provide him with much more to do than play every middle-American's idea of a dangerous "gangsta".

There's also rumor that his character's power is to take on metallic properties to increase his strength and make himself invulnerable. In the Heroes universe, it appears that it was not just our government/history that painted America's black community into a corner, it was also God and his choice of genetic "gifts" designed to make crime easier.

Let's hope this September brings new things to Heroes...ie non-white writers.

Nathaniel Tyson