WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE WORLD THIS WEEK

Shake Your Body Down To The Vons

Here is this week's edition of five things that are absolutely, positively wrong with the world:

1. Marlon Jackson (upper-left in above picture), one of the original members of the Jackson Five, is now stocking shelves at a Vons supermarket in San Diego.


2. After mother Debbie Shank became severely brain damaged and permanently disabled from a horrific traffic accident and successfully sued the responsible trucking company for $417,000, Wal-Mart shanked Shank, one of its former employees, by suing the disabled woman for $470,000 to recoup the medical expenses it paid her in health benefits. Bonus: Ms. Shank has no short-term memory and breaks down every time she (re)learns that her son just died in Iraq. (Credit: Dan Martinez and Adam Pheiffer)
   


3. A strip club in Dallas will keep its license and will not be penalized despite allowing a 12-year-old sixth grade girl to work as a nude stripper.


4. Judge Peter Olszewski Jr. of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania sentenced three criminal defendants to 24 months in jail unless they learn to speak English.


5. The MSM is still pretending like Hillary Clinton has any chance of receiving the Democratic nomination. (Exception: Reuters.)
   

--Junichi

WHEN IS IT OK TO PUNCH CHILDREN?

How about now?






Obvious and unnecessary disclaimer that our legal counsel is requiring us to insert here:
Please do not punch these -- or any other -- children.

--Junichi

DUK DUK GOOSE

beyond redemption?

NPR's All Things Considered picked Long Duk Dong to be part of their "Character Studies" series. (Listen here).

For those of you unaware (read: those of you not born in the 1980s), LDD is pretty much the gold standard in modern f---ed up portrayals of Asian men in Hollywood (Mickey Rooney in yellowface being the older gen's favorite). Everything from the gong that announces his presence, to his accent, to that hair, to, well, everything has traditionally offended Asian Americans to no small degree.

I was just a tad too young to really get into the John Hughes films of the '80s (or maybe I just held little interest in the school/love lives of suburban teens when I was already living it) so I never saw 16 Candles until much later and I have to say...even though I "got" why LDD puts such a black eye on the game, I couldn't help but think he gets a little overvillified.

Don't get me wrong - John Hughes should be thoroughly embarrassed at himself and god knows Gedde Watanabe hasn't had an easy time living down the role but all said, I guess part of me - the Asian geek with insecurity issues - kind of liked how at ease LDD was with himself, how unabashed (read: oblivious) he was in his sense of self. He was a hedonist who didn't really care about what people around him - let alone older White folks - thought of him. He was just trying to do him.

And lest we forget, for all the bemoaning about Asian male asexuality and what not...the Donger got the girl (a white girl at that).

Just putting it out there.

Ok, let's hear it now.

--O.W.

MONDAY ROUND-UP

Conan the Buddhist Chihuahua

A linkapalooza to help you start your week:

• SENIOR CITIZENS GONE EVIL: This CNN story has further destroyed my faith in the goodness of humanity: Two elderly women aided and befriended two homeless men, took out life insurance policies on their lives, drugged them, killed them with a car, and tried to collect on the insurance after making it look like a hit-and-run. In other news, I'm not above executing female senior citizens.

• IT'S RAINING McCAIN: Speaking of losing faith in humanity, who knew that human beings could create something more horrendous than that "Hillary 4 U & Me" music video? Can somebody please confirm this is a joke so I can sleep at night?
  

• THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT AMERICAN AIRLINES: Speaking of being unable to sleep, a woman has sued American for failing to protect her from a passenger who moved into the empty seat next to her and -- wait for it -- diddle whacked into her hair while she was sleeping. What was that man thinking? Couldn't he have waited until he landed and walked into the nearest Target department store?

• JAPANESE DOG LEARNS TO PRAY IN BUDDHIST TEMPLE: That sounds like a pretty sweet pet trick until you realize Conan the Chihuahua (see picture above) is goofing on Buddhists just to score some dried fish-flavored Scooby Snacks. Up next: training the dog to achieve nirvana through meditation instead of the shameless lickery of his groin.

• ATTACK OF THE NATIONAL CORNDOG DAY: That's a strange ad, right? I love me some c-dogs, but I'm not sure I enjoy the image of a fleet of torpedo bombers conducting a protracted aerial assault on urban basketball courts with giant corn dogs.

• THE FUTURE OF HIP HOP HAS ARRIVED: For those who haven't seen this video, please enjoy ...

--Junichi

KABA MODERN

A long way from Pilipino Culture Night

As an Asian American living in the OC, it's my civic duty to send some love to Kaba Modern, UC Irvine's co-ed dance crew, which just missed the cut from the finals in America's Best Dance Crew.

But even if I was a Ukranian Eskimo living in Topeka, Kansas, I'd still shower Kaba with accolades. Their routines are the most entertaining thing that I've seen on MTV since Beavis & Butthead offered commentary on Gwar videos.

Kaba Modern's intricate choreography is mesmerizing. Their final performance below, which required them to pay homage to classic hip-hop dance moves, says it all.

As for the two remaining crews, I like Jamal from Status Quo, but I'm more impressed with JabbaWockeeZ's precision and creativity.

Compare below:

JabbaWockeeZ, right? That crew is from San Diego, where I teach, so it's also my civic duty to tell you to vote for JabbaWockeez before Thursday by going here.

--Junichi

NAILED!

Back Up In Yo Azz With The Resurrection

Good Friday is now scarier than Halloween.

During high school, I played piano for my local Catholic Church's choir. I spent much of the time staring at the bloody, crucified Jesus on the wall, pondering how strange it was that such a gory sight has served as the source of inspiration and divinity for centuries. Eventually, I became accustomed to the image and absorbed the concept.

What I don't get, however, are actual reenactments of the crucifixion.

With real nails. And real whipping.

The above pictures are from today in the Philippines. The photo below is from Argentina.

Here is video, to boot.

The above image is so frightening to me that it makes torture porn look like the Hallmark channel.

If I happened to be walking through a park at night and, by chance, saw people being hung on crosses, I don't know what I would do. I would probably call the police while screaming hysterically about the rapture and soiling myself several times over.

Regardless, I'm impressed with the devotion and grateful for the reminder that I'm due for a tetanus shot.

In terms of Easter weekend activities, my local pastel egg hunt is looking pretty weak next to other people's town whippings and community crucifixions.

--Junichi

NOT QUITE A WATERSHED MOMENT: OBAMA'S SPEECH ON RACE

Overall, I thought Sen. Obama's speech on race this morning was effective. (Full transcript available here.)

It's not often you see multiple news channels broadcasting lengthy speeches by major presidential candidates on white privilege and systematic racism. And by "not often," I really mean "never."

The speech further contributes to the fascinating study of how Obama deals -- and doesn't deal -- with issues of race. As a political maneuver, Obama brilliantly crafted a text that simultaneously connects and disconnects himself with the civil rights movement and black leaders today. He carefully criticized the black community in exchange for being able to criticize the white community, all the while maintaining a positive and hopeful stance.

Of note:

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances - for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives - by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

Ironically, this quintessentially American - and yes, conservative - notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright's sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen - is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope - the audacity to hope - for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds - by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

I do admit I was disappointed by the end of the speech, however. I wish Obama had more to say than to merely call for a unified America. "Not this time" makes for a great refrain, but it doesn't exactly amount to any specifics about what he would do differently as president.

Also, I do have one very specific complaint. One way in which Obama clearly does not represent change is the way in which he, like virtually all other American politicians, goes out of his way to demonstrate his undying allegiance to Israel.

In his speech today, he said the following of Rev. Wright's remarks:

They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

I have no beef with his criticism of Rev. Wright's remarks. But he is clearly doing more than distancing himself from Rev. Wright -- he is, again, using the opportunity to demonstrate his (and the Democratic Party's and the Republican Party's) unwavering allegiance to Israel.

I hate to open a can of worms here, but it seems obvious to me that the United States will never help to achieve peace in the Middle East until it is willing to acknowledge the moral and legal wrongs of both Palestinians and Israelis, the wrongs of the U.S., other western occupiers, and cultural imperialists, as well as the fundamentalist, violent nutjobs who undeniably perpetuate the endless cycle of violence.

In my book, any politician who focuses on the 1,033 Israelis who have been unconscionably killed since September 29, 2000 -- while ignoring the 4,494 Palestinians who were unconscionably killed by Israeli security forces -- is not bringing the change needed to our foreign policy. (Source for stats: Israeli Information Center for Human Rights.)

Obama's opposition to the war on Iraq only goes so far in extending a hand to the other countries and people we should be reaching out to in the hopes of becoming stalwart allies.

Given that Obama is constantly forced to deal with ignorant whispers that he is secretly Muslim, I understand his need to firmly renounce the "hateful ideologies of radical Islam" and to reach out to the Jewish community. Anti-Semitism is a real, ugly, and major problem here and abroad. But so is anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bigotry, and I wish Obama were willing to take those on, as well.

A major speech that ties together our history of racism with our current foreign policy?

That would have made for a true watershed moment.

---

Oliver adds:
I heard some jackass on CNN compared Obama to "a Black Panther," which is rather ridiculous insofar as this speech is seeking reconciliation far more than, you know, armed insurrection.

I prefer NPR's Renne Montagne's opinion: "one of the most important speeches on race a politician has ever given." Of course, considering the paucity of speeches on race these days, perhaps that's not saying much but check out what Obama has to say, nonetheless.

--Junichi

ARE YOUR CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE?

Family Planning Matters

In light of the latest study that reveals that one out of every four American teenage girls (aged 14 to 19) has an STD, I think now would be a good time to dig up Jaleel "Urkel" White's influential rap video about sexual abstinence.

The above video, "Contents on Pressure," is what helped me to stay abstinent during my teenage years.

Also helpful: my bowl haircut, my active participation in the Future Homemakers of America, and my then-girlfriend's membership in the Mormon church.

--Junichi

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

Vice President Cheney just said that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a "successful endeavor."

The above graphic agrees.

655,000 dead people disagree.

My head is unavailable for comment because it just imploded.

--Junichi

FALLING FROM GRACE

needing more than luck?

Even though I've enjoyed this weekend, hanging out with my daughter while my wife takes a much needed/earned vacation, I'm a little sad I'm not up in San Francisco for this year's Asian American film festival. This is the first time in 11 years that I won't be attending and it is, by far, one of my all-time favorite events.

That said, part of me is glad I'm not there because I feel out of the Asian American film loop at the moment and I think being at the fest would just remind me of how disconnected I am right now. It's not for lack of interest but lack of time. I certainly want to get back into the mix, not the least of which is so I can update my Chasing Chan site.

In terms of a late pass, I recently became aware of the mini-controversy over Fay Ann Lee's new feature film, Falling For Grace, a romantic comedy/Cinderella story (you can see the trailer at the link before). I say "mini" because, though the internet has a tendency to inflate things beyond their actual size, this film has mapped onto so few people's radar, I don't think you can really call it a major dust-up.

The main sides are represented by the Fighting 44s on one side and Reappropriate's Jenn Fang on the other. The main crux of it turns around (drum roll): Asian female/White male interracial romance. Call it Asian American gender relations catnip.


CONTINUE READING...

In Falling For Grace, Grace Yang, an upwardly mobile Chinese American investment banker[1] is mistaken (by White people, natch) for the scion of the Shanghai Tang family, ends up meeting a very eligible (White) bachelor (modeled on JFK, Jr. no less) and hilarity and romance ensue. Presumably.

The Fighting 44s, self-appointed defenders of Asian American masculinity, not surprisingly, crap all over the film on premise alone: "More brainwashing material for Asian girls to chew on."

Their stance doesn't surprise me since it springs from the the same kind of reactionary, masculine politics that certain Asian American men have carried as cross, shield and sword since the 1960s. I'm sympathetic to parts of it - namely the critique of how absent Asian men are in popular American media - but the ways in which it's oft-used to bludgeon Asian American women (and curiously, feminists) seems self-defeating at best and retro-grade patriarchal at worst.

I'm more surprised at Fang's decision to support the film despite the fact that she - like mostly everyone - hadn't actually seen the film yet[2]. I usually find her analyses to be nano-blade sharp, with plenty of nuance and insight to go around, but here, she stakes her defense on a curious argument:

" it occurs to me that if we are to begin challenging the perception that Asian Americans consume like Whites (thus undermining efforts to create Asian American-oriented media), we need to demonstrate a willingness to support Asian American-created art and film. So, I hope that regardless of how you feel about the AF/WM coupling in this film, you will take the time to see this movie (and give it a chance to speak for itself), and thus help support the overall cause of funding more Asian American-produced independent media."

This too is based on a very old set of politics, one that I find similarly outdated and though nowhere near as noxious as the belief that a portrayal of interracial romance is an automatic sign of "selling out," I'm no less exasperated with the implied ethnic/racial obligation that comes with it.

This is something I discussed, along with my friend and colleague Hua Hsu, back in 2003 when Better Luck Tomorrow came out and there was that massive grassroots push to get Asian Americans out to see the film. But BLT was hardly the first or last film to make this pitch and I've always been skeptical of the underlying logic.

In essence, it seems to suggest that whether the film is good or bad, people should see it as a way to empower the director and producers and presumably, if this takes off like My Big Fat Greek Wedding, it will be one more step in the empowerment of Asian Americans to take control of our own media images. Distill it down from there and what you basically get is, "support it because it's Asian American" and that seems like a remarkably reductive logic - no less so than arguing that one should support Obama simply because he's Black and thus, might help reform failing federal civil rights legislation[3].

But shelf the ideological problems for moment and consider a few pragmatic ones:

Demographically, Asian Americans rarely have wielded the kind of clout to - alone - make any film project "successful." That's why - as Justin Lin has said in many interviews - Hollywood studios rarely even bother to break AAs down into a separate viewer bloc; we're usually lumped in with Whites. The most successful Asian American films of the last 26 years - from Chan Is Missing to Joy Luck Club to Better Luck Tomorrow - have always depended on the patronage of non-Asian viewers in order to ensure that success. I'm not claiming AA viewers make no difference at all; by filling seats, we're adding to the overall box office totals, but it's hardly the case that, as a demographic bloc, our support is really the one that matters most[4]. The mainstream success of practically any Asian American film I can think of depends on attracting a large number of non-AA viewers.

Second, even in the case where you have a "success," the fruits it bears are questionable. Wayne Wang's early career is particularly instructive here. With the exception of the uniformly brilliant Chan Is Missing, Wang's next three American[5] films were all family melodramas: Dim Sum, Eat a Bowl of Tea and of course, The Joy Luck Club. Wang's success - both critically and commercially - with those films, I would suggest, played an important role in how future Asian American features would get greenlit/funded[6]. I don't think it's a coincidence that throughout the remainder of the 1990s and well into this decade, most of more prominent Asian American features you saw follow were also family melodramas (at least in part, if not wholly), from Mina Shum's Double Happiness to Ang Lee's The Wedding Banquet to Chris Chan Lee's Yellow to Gene Cajayon's The Debut to Alice Wu's Saving Face. There are many, many more one could name and personally, if I never see one more Asian American family melodrama come down the pipeline, it will be too soon (but that's an essay for another time).

Third, if we look to other examples, it's not very auspicious. My Big Fat Greek Wedding earned over $100,000,000 - far more successful and profitable than any comparable Asian American feature but I haven't seen that translate into a sea-change in Greek American representations (not that I follow them that closely though) and while it's likely helped Nia Vardalos to get more of her scripts noticed, she's far from some Greco American Spielberg (or even Spike Lee).

Again, it goes back to the consumer demographic. Tyler Perry has become a major force as a director and writer because his films consistently make money off of a viewer base that actually wields clout: African Americans. Likewise, I don't think we're far away from seeing a new generation of Latino American filmmakers come up in a big way. But Greek Americans won't make or break a film, let alone fuel a community media movement. Asian Americans may be larger in numbers but certainly, it's a disjointed community and even with 100% support (which won't exist anyway), we're talking...5-7%? That's good enough for phone companies to call my house, confusing my JA wife by trying to sell her long distance service in Mandarin. But that's not going to attract much interest by Sonyfoxwaltwarnerviaelectric to see after our needs for diverse representation.

I do agree that as more Asian American filmmakers, producers and movie execs rise in stature and influence, this could have some positive benefits for the community though, once again, the past reveals some uneven results. Wang, for example, was able to parlay the success of Joy Luck Club into a healthy career for himself but notably, up until this year, with his two new films based on the short stories of Oakland's Yiyun Li, he stopped making films dealing with explicit "Asian American content" for nearly 15 years (J.Lo romantic comedy though? Check!) I don't begrudge Wang that - by the time he made Smoke, Wang had made four significant Asian American films already so and creatively, I could see why he'd want to move onto something different.

Better Luck Tomorrow gave Justin Lin's career an immeasurable push, allowing him to direct two Hollywood flicks and he was able to parlay that back into his recent Asian American comedic feature, Finishing the Game. And, as he has noted, it was only because he was helming the movie that allowed him to cast Sung Kang in FF3, giving the movie some added "color" and an interesting Asian American anti-hero. However, the film has been rightfully criticized for having fairly limited portrayals of Asian women. One step forward, one step back?

My point is that we certainly need more Asian Americans in positions of media power but the road to greater diversity in our representations is likely to be fraught with bumps and dips along the way. And so this brings me back to the crux of my long-winded polemic:

You need to first start with a "good" film. That's obviously subjective but what I sense in Fang's argument is that the film's formal merits - narrative, acting, production design, etc. - are secondary. She asks: "how will we get funding for quality storylines if we won't even demonstrate our interest in films with Asians in front of and behind-the-scenes?" One of the commenters of her blog adds: "Until Asians become part of the mainstream film making, we should not be so critical of their work."

This may be classic cart vs. horse but shouldn't the more important question first be: does the actor or filmmaker deserve our interest to begin with? I'm not talking about Falling For Grace or the people who worked on it - I just mean any film. I can't see how blind support - absent any sense of quality control, let alone critical evaluation - is a helpful, progressive strategy.

My sister-in-law, who is Asian American, is a working actress and as supportive as I am for her and her career, that doesn't mean I automatically would cosign on any project she does, independent of considering its content or qualities (as I would with any project). Case in point: she was Fook Mi in Austin Powers: Goldmember, ok? I admit, when that movie pops up on television, I have that moment of, "oh cool, it's Di!" when she first shows up but that's then followed by, "man, I know this is Austin Powers and what not but the Japanese schoolgirl twins feel kind of icky to me." If I'm not about to cut the godmother of my daughter that degree of blind slack, I'm sure as hell not about to rally the community around any film project without some level of evaluation (let alone one with a weak trailer and middling reviews)[7].

The last point I want to make here is that if you look at the increase in the quantity of Asian American feature filmmaking, it is remarkable. I was on the film festival committee for the S.F. Int'l Asian American Film Festival from 2000 through 2006 and just in that time alone, the number of AA feature films has increased exponentially - so much so that in any given year - especially now - the number of feature film submissions to the festival is staggering.

Let me be very blunt in saying this: the vast majority of those submitted films are flat-out terrible[8]. We're talking bad enough to invoke a mercy rule during evaluation screenings. Do these films have well-meaning - even likable - Asian Americans directing/producing/acting in them? Absolutely.

Does this mean they are deserving of our support? Absolutely, positively not.

And this is telling: if a community-based media organization - whose entire raison d'etre is to support independent Asian American filmmaking - decides to pass on dozens of these projects, why would we ever expect "the community," as a whole, to get behind them?[9]

To me, there are so many opportunities to support Asian American films that if one happens to take an L -whether because it deserves to and just happens to be unlucky - it's not as if there won't be another one following behind it in a few weeks/months time. Personally, I'm left dizzy trying to keep up with what Angry Asian Man reports on in terms of new films. True, many of them still need distribution and that's still the golden threshold to cross. But again, not every AA film deserves distribution, at least based on the idea that it being AA is some how "good enough."

Ten years ago, seeing any kind of AA film in theaters was remarkable. These days, even though it isn't quotidian, it's hardly unusual either.

In other words, there's a lot out there to see.

Choose wisely. [10]

Notes:

[1] I'm surprised that with all the brouhaha around the film, there doesn't seem to be much of a class critique of a protagonist with upwardly mobile ambitions. Not having seen the film, maybe there's a reason for this. Perhaps Tang pulls of a Michael Clayton, brings down a corrupt firm, and then joins AIWA.

[2] I should preface all this by noting I haven't seen the film, only the trailer. But if I can be blunt: based on the trailer, this looks simply terrible. I like romantic comedies and it's probably not fair to judge a film by its trailer but there is little I can see here that makes the film look remotely appealing. The whole set-up is ridiculously gimmicky, the acting doesn't seem particularly good and the "funny" scenes included are anything but. The racial romantic politics are completely irrelevant to my skepticism (though, to be sure, it's not a big selling point for me either). According to Fang: "The trailer doesn't really do the film justice at all." I can only hope she's right.

[3] Given that Fang has quite eloquently explained why supporting Obama should go beyond simple identity politics, I'm all the more bewildered by her stance on the film.

[4] If anyone can show me marketing analysis that says otherwise, I would genuinely like to see that research.

[5] I'm excluding his obscure, Hong Kong feature, Life is Cheap...But Toilet Paper Is Expensive.

[6] Just to undermine my own theory, the fact that most of these films I go on to mention required hustling up funding just to get a shoe string budget might suggest their popularity isn't because people are rushing to give money to make them.

[7] The SF Chron reviewer panned the film except to say: "It is only when Grace is with her mother (Elizabeth Sung) and father (Clem Cheung) that "Falling for Grace" hints at what might have been. There is a genuine poignancy in these moments as the dutiful daughter tries to care for aging parents who are proud and stubborn. These scenes are terrific." See: the trope of the family melodrama strikes again!

[8] The increase in submissions and general paucity in quality are related by the fact that technological access to filmmaking has created a massive wave of amateur filmmakers who have the ability to "make movies" in ways that previous generations did not. The problem is that, in most of these cases, the ease of acquiring the means to filmmaking has not been matched by a mastery in actual filmmaking education, let alone prowess.

[9] I haven't been on the film festival committee since I moved out of the Bay Area in 2006 so I have no way of knowing if Falling For Grace was ever submitted to the SFIAAFF but the fact that it wasn't programmed either this year or last year suggests to me that it didn't make the grade. I have no hard evidence to support this so it's purely a conjecture. But I also know, in the past, the festival has routinely passed on "high profile" Asian American features because, frankly, the staff thought the movies were of poor quality, regardless of profile.

[10] Of the Asian American films I have seen in the last year, I thought In Between Days was actually good. I thought Baby was overly derivative but still powerful in moments. Shanghai Kiss was great for Ken Leung fans, a poor movie otherwise. Both of Wayne Wang's new films are decent but uneven. Same could be said of Finishing the Game which had some flat-out hilarious moments but didn't go the distance while I found Undoing ambitious but ultimately lacking. Same could be said of Americanese (love Eric Byler, wasn't crazy about his adaptation). That's eight films I just rattled off. See my point?

--O.W.

SHORT CUTS

Horton's a pro-lifer? (NPR's Morning Edition)

Cal Poly Obispo's deal to build engineering campus in Saudi Arabia allows women to be excluded? (NPR's All Things Considered)

If most of the MIT students from the real story behind 21 were Asian, how come the main leads are now White? (Reappropriate.com)

WTF? I'm speechless. (Feministing.com)

Just because I like the name of the blog. (Disgrasian)

--O.W.

THE R-WORD

the last good racist?
Former Village Voice/Time Magazine writer Ta-Nehisi Coates recently voiced something that has been bothering me for a while now. Writing in Slate about Geraldine Ferraro's claim that Obama's success is largely due to race, Coates notes how despite a plethora of unambiguously racist comments - from Don Imus to James Watson to Michael Richards - this seems insufficient to actually sustain a charge that speakers of such invectives are, in fact, racist.

In other words, one can spew racist comments with aplomb but god forbid anyone should actually be described as a racist in the process. Coates writes:

"The bar for racism has been raised so high that one need be a card-carrying member of the Nazi Party to qualify. Had John McCain said that Hillary Clinton was only competitive in the presidential race because she was a woman, there'd be no dispute over whether the comment was sexist. And yet when the equivalent is said about a black person, it's not only not racist, but any criticism of the statement is interpreted as an act of character assassination. "If anybody is going to apologize," Ferraro told MSNBC, "they should apologize to me for calling me a racist."

Coates goes on to suggest that, ironically, this has come about partially through the success of the Civil Rights Movement:

"In some measure, the narrowing of racism is an unfortunate relic of the civil rights movement, when activists got mileage out of dehumanizing racists and portraying them as ultra-violent Southern troglodytes. Whites may have been horrified by the fire hoses and police dogs turned on children, but they could rest easy knowing that neither they nor anyone they'd ever met would do such a thing."

As Coates concludes, with some sarcasm: "All of this leaves me wondering, Who does a guy have to lynch around here to get called a racist?"

This raises a question of language and whether or not nomenclature is getting in the way of more substantive progress? On the one hand, I wholly understand where Coates is coming from. The racist apologists are a curious, thriving breed amongst talking heads - people who will insist that someone couldn't possibly be a racist because [insert boiilerplate defense of your choice] and in the process, they can actual detour the focus on hand from the content and implication of a particular racist act and instead, push all the focus onto some arbitrary litmus test for "are they a racist?"

I believe this is partially what Stanford's Richard Thompson Ford was referring to in his recent interview on KPCC's Airtalk: "How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse." The gist of the argument is that "the race card" is a distraction and that people get so caught up with slapping on or slapping away the R-label, that the actual issues around racism and its deleterious effects are going ignored.

Ford promotes this idea of "racism without racists" and I admit: there is something alluring here. As I discuss in my classes on social problems when we talk about racial inequality, one of the things that makes systemic, institutional racism so insidious - not to mention resilient - is that it doesn't require the active, conscious participation of people committed to racist action. Rather, by simply maintaining the status quo, inequalities built into our institutions and social structures are allowed to survive and perpetuate. Hence, racist outcomes can occur despite the best intentions and interracial cordiality of the people behind them. That's the essence of racism without racists.

Without intending to, I think Coates actually echoes this point when he writes: "most racism—indeed, the worst racism—is quaint and banal. There's nothing sensationalistic about redlining or job discrimination."

Indeed, the kind of racism highlights is some of the most damaging because it goes beyond individualized exchanges of racism and gets at actions which affects huge portions of the public, often times hiding their racist intent from plain view but whose impact can be measured quite easily, whether it's the disproportionate amount of people of color in poverty - especially women of color - or the over-reprsentation of young men of color in the prison system. Surely there were some outright - perhaps even self-affirmed - racists responsible but more likely, it's entire systems of social organization that create those outcomes, many of which operate quite efficiently to maintain and perpetuate racial inequality without ever needing a Grand Wizard of Oz pulling chains behind the curtain.

The thing with "racism without racists" that bothers me a little however is that though it directs attention back to systemic forms of discrimination, it also feels like some semantic hair splitting. The loan officer who regularly denies business loans to applicants from poor neighborhoods of color - maybe he's not racist in the Bull Connor sense of the term but if the action and outcome are clearly racialized, what is the rhetorical gap between saying, "your actions are racist" vs "you personally are racist"? In other words, is it so important to people that we distinguish between the racism of their actions vs. the racism of their "being"?

---

This all said...I have another rhetorical hair-split question to ask: I don't believe that race alone explains Obama's appeal; it's not as if Democratic and independent voters were waiting for the first Black man to run for office so they could throw their lot behind him.

However, isn't it rather reasonable to claim that Obama's Blackness is at least partially behind his appeal to many? Especially many people of color? Let's be absolutely clear: I'm not suggesting that the mere fact of his Blackness is the sole, deciding factor. I am suggesting that race is hardly irrelevant to his appeal however.

This isn't an attempt to address Ferraro's particular comments one way or another. Rather, I'm trying to decipher the ways in which race does or does not factor into Obama's ability to make this run for President. I think it's a definite liability with some voters but just as notably, I think it's also an asset too with other constituencies.

This said then - where exactly is that thin line between over-crediting race or not crediting it enough?

Going back to Slate, I might have to agree with what Mickey Kaus says on the topic.

--O.W.

CLUES ON WHEN TO GIVE UP A LIFE OF CRIME

Don't mess with Bernie Garcia

My favorite story of the week:

Three men in their twenties hatch a plan to rob someone.

They pull up to a gas station and decide to snatch the purse of a woman.

An 83-year-old great grandmother, to be specific.

When one of the men tries to grab the purse, Great-Granny takes the pump and squirts gas on him.

The man keeps pulling on the purse, but she won't let go, even after being dragged several yards.

The man gives up and runs away.

The three men are later arrested.

Um, fellas, maybe you're not cut out for a life of crime when you can't even successfully snatch a purse from an 83-year-old unarmed great-grandmother who publicly says she'd fight you again, if she had the chance.

You guys are lucky that your mugshots aren't on the Internets yet, because I'd print out your photos and put it next to the word "weaksauce" in my dictionary.

--Junichi

HILLARY CLINTON'S SUICIDE PACT

For the past two weeks, I've attempted to gather my thoughts on why Hillary Clinton has effectively killed her chances of becoming President.

Thankfully, Keith Olbermann's comment, which I wholeheartedly second, has saved me from writing that epic essay.

While I don't think Clinton has (yet) killed Obama's chances of getting elected, she certainly is the most effective tool in helping the GOP secure the White House.

For what it's worth, several months ago, I could have easily seen myself enthusiastically supporting Hillary, if she were chosen as the nominee. I still want to believe that she would make an amazing President.

But this latest Geraldine Ferraro flap has effectively killed any possibility that I will support, campaign for, or donate to Clinton if she becomes the Democratic nominee.

Clinton, Ferraro, Penn, and her inner circle of advisers have made clear that the only thing that matters to them is a Clinton presidency. I respect vigorous campaigning, but the Clinton camp has, in desperation, sunk to a suicide pact.

Framing Obama as the "black" candidate? Arguing that Michigan's delegates should be counted even though Obama wasn't on the ballot? Claiming that Obama doesn't have the experience of Clinton or McCain to be President - but then suggesting he'd make a great vice president? I'm more disillusioned by Clinton's attacks and abandonment of principles than I am with Spitzer's moral transgressions.

Oh, I'll still vote for Clinton against McCain -- I'm not stupid enough to vote for 100 more years in Iraq and the decimation of a woman's right to choose -- but I will do so with no enthusiasm.

--Junichi

WRITE YOUR OWN CAPTION

I'm still trying to figure out how that frown is even anatomically possible.


To add: for once, I'd like to NOT see the wife there on some, "you bastard, go twist in the wind alone" tip.

b/w

idle thought but Spitzer's wife looks like Jennifer Aniston + 10 years, no?

--O.W.

RET HER INTO YOUR HEART

Disclaimer #1: This is not Oliver.

Disclaimer #2: This is not Junichi.

Disclaimer #3: Not all Asian kids are this awesome.


(Credit: J. Nager)

--Junichi

MARCH FORTH

[Insert classy caption about finger-pulling here.]

Here is my prediction for today:

OHIO:

Clinton 49%
Obama 46%

TEXAS:

Obama 50%
Clinton 45%

RHODE ISLAND:

Clinton 55%
Obama 44%

VERMONT:

Obama 70%
Clinton 30%

Sum: Obama gets closer to the nomination, but doesn't clinch. Clinton doesn't drop out. Battle goes to Pennsylvania.

Over the last few days, the MSM started to turn on Obama and has clearly put the brakes on his momentum.

Of course, I could be wrong.

I once claimed that Fred Thompson would have an easy road to the GOP nomination.

Also, in the anti-Nostradamus department, I once predicted that Andrew Ridgeley's solo career would be huge.

--Junichi

ERIC O'HARA

R.I.P. Eric O'Hara

Dima and I recently went on a Caribbean cruise, our one extravagant use of my Millionaire loot.

During the ship's nightly dinners, we had the privilege of being seated next to Sgt. Eric O'Hara, a member of the army's 82nd Airborne Division and the stepbrother of Heidi Montag from The Hills. (Small world, we thought.) Dima took the above photo of Eric in front of a cavalcade of singing chefs.

After leading dozens of missions in an extended tour of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, Eric was taking a well-deserved vacation. We bonded while I gave him some basic strategy lessons in Blackjack. When asked, he humbly told us stories about his experiences in combat, which really made our "extreme" zipline excursions seem tame in comparison. When pressed, he shared his thoughts on his sister Heidi's celebrity and her plans to release an album.

This morning, I read that Eric passed away while helping to remove snow from an icy roof in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. It's hard to believe that he survived Tikrit, but then fell victim to a loose piece of ice.

I'm especially saddened by his death because one of my last conversations with Eric was about his thoughts on going to college. He wanted to get his bachelor's degree, but at 24, he knew he would be significantly older than other undergrads. He appreciated my assurances that he still looked 19 (in a good way) and had a long life ahead of him.

If any of Eric's family or friends read this, Dima and I offer our deepest condolences. We only had a week with him, but were left in awe of his bravery, kindness, and humility.

--Junichi

PICK UP THE DAMN PHONE

Personally, I'd like a president who doesn't wait until the seventh ring to pick up.

--Junichi

POPLICKS CATURDAY

Update: the skinny white cat that was trapped in a previous post is doing quite well now.

As you can see above, she has become fond of an old lollipop from an old Poplicks logo that we stopped using last year.

*

On a related note, there is now a black cat trapped in this post.

--Junichi