[IBARW 2008] catch-up: part 1
The below was mostly finished August/September of last year, but I had wanted to do a bit more and then I kept not getting to it, and here we are months later and I'm just gonna post it.
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Part of what I did with my extra day in the States before leaving for Europe was catch up on the ibarw del.icio.us -- at least in terms of compiling links to read when I got back. ~60 posts got added to while I was away, hence the "part 1" in the title.
***
the Olympics...
throughadoor commented:all David Stern ever talks about is how important it is for basketball to be an international game, so shouldn't the successful byproduct of all this global marketing be that the US team is no longer the best? The whole thing has a very creepy colonial narrative, where it's great that we've got all the other countries playing our sport, but let's not forget that the sun never sets on USA basketball's empire. Yuck.
I don't really engage with the Olympics that much (I'm not a big sports person), but in the lead-up to the 2008 Games, I was definitely uncomfortable with the emphasis on
+
ellid: Why I love Charlie PierceHis comment on NBC's coverage of the Olympics on this weekend's edition of Only a Game is spot-on:
"I wish American television would stop using Tiananmen Square as a set. This is a freaking grave. This is a place where a really bad thing happened. We would not tolerate French television coming to New York and using Ground Zero as a backdrop for talking about how happy and merry New Yorkers are. The corporations that own and sponsor the US coverage of the Olympics have to tap dance around the Chinese human rights record, but my Lord let's not use this place as a backdrop. People died there."
And died there less than 20 years ago. How soon we forget!
***
unusualmusic has an IBARW: Hidden Histories round-up post. Includes:wolfinthewoodJohn Faw, lord and earl of Little Egypt makes me blink. I had no CLUE that ancestors of today's Romany were from India. But the fact that when they first came to Europe they were received with pomp and ceremony as Lords and Kings? Lor' don't times change.
mercuriosity sketches out how Asian Americans went From Yellow Peril to Model Minority and provides a couple of good links
+
rhipowered points to a PBS program on the song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," saying:The music and the original song, 'Mbube', was written in 1939 by a Zulu man named Solomon Linda, who died in poverty in Soweto, whose daughters still live there, and who received a mere pittance for it. Despite awareness by certain parties in the US, his children received no royalties until the settlement of the Linda daughters' lawsuit in 2006.
***
In IBARW: On white women eroticizing black men in slash, miriam_heddy writes:The classic arguments white fans often give for not writing CoC in slash include the old, "But I'm afraid I'll get it wrong" and the old, "But I don't know anything about what it's like to be a black man!" to which, of course, the answers are, "Do it anyway and someone will tell you if you get it wrong and you'll learn from it and do it better the next time" and also, "You don't know what it's like to be a gay man either, except insofar as you know what it's like to be human" and "Why are you assuming that there's a single Way to be a black man? People are individuals. Study canon and get to know the character and his particular experience, localized and personalized as only he knows it."
***Subject: From The Fortune Cookie Chronicles
Our benchmark for Americanness is apple pie. But ask yourself: How often do you eat apple pie? How often do you eat Chinese food?
Jennifer 8 Lee
Link thanks to Marginal Revolution.
I think this is my favorite of all the IBARW stuff I've read so far.
[Edit: oyceter reviewed the book.]
***
sparkymonster made a couple fashion posts:
* [IBARW] Alek Wek: The First Model I cared about
* [IBARW] The All Black Issue of Vogue
***
From coffeeandink:Jewel of Medina controversy (Islam, Islamophobia, cultural appropriation, representation, freedom of speech)
Shahed Amanullah, Free Speech Is A Two-Way Street
shewhohashope: Intersectionality, Cultural Appropriation, and Trashy Books
slit: Someone Is WRONG on the Internet (dissection of Islamophobia in operation in mainstream responses)
For mainstream positioning, see Asra Q. Nomani's Wall Street Journal article, You Still Can't Write About Mohammed and Smart Bitches, Trashy Book's post on the book being removed from sale and the book's prologue, especially the comments threads.
***
qiu xiaolong, 'death of a red heroine;' and on chinese family names (stephiepenguin) made me think of Ro Laren (ST:TNG).
From the altfriday5:
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This week's questions were written by Guest Questioner sparkymonster in honour of International Blog Against Racism Week. She provides this link to helpful reading: http://seamonkey.ed.asu.edu/~mcisaac/emc598ge/Unpacking.html
1. List 5 things which are basic common knowledge in your culture, which people outside are unfamiliar with. This is not about obscurity, but something everyday to you, that others go "bzuh?" at.
2. What was the last book you read that was written by a person who is a different race than you? Do you seek out books written by people of other races? Why? Why not?
3. What did you eat at dinner last night? Would you call it ethnic food? Why?
4. Has your gender presentation changed over the last 5 years? Has this change/lack of change been a deliberate choice on your part?
5. Do you discuss race and racism in your livejournal/blog or in person? Why have you made that choice?
6. Bonus question. Were you aware of International Blog Against Racism Week? Did you choose to participate in it? Why or why not?
----
Follow up in your LJ, or this one, and post links to discussions here.
Edit: Per Lorraine's request, I answered these in comments.
---
Part of what I did with my extra day in the States before leaving for Europe was catch up on the ibarw del.icio.us -- at least in terms of compiling links to read when I got back. ~60 posts got added to while I was away, hence the "part 1" in the title.
***
the Olympics...
throughadoor commented:all David Stern ever talks about is how important it is for basketball to be an international game, so shouldn't the successful byproduct of all this global marketing be that the US team is no longer the best? The whole thing has a very creepy colonial narrative, where it's great that we've got all the other countries playing our sport, but let's not forget that the sun never sets on USA basketball's empire. Yuck.
I don't really engage with the Olympics that much (I'm not a big sports person), but in the lead-up to the 2008 Games, I was definitely uncomfortable with the emphasis on
+
ellid: Why I love Charlie PierceHis comment on NBC's coverage of the Olympics on this weekend's edition of Only a Game is spot-on:
"I wish American television would stop using Tiananmen Square as a set. This is a freaking grave. This is a place where a really bad thing happened. We would not tolerate French television coming to New York and using Ground Zero as a backdrop for talking about how happy and merry New Yorkers are. The corporations that own and sponsor the US coverage of the Olympics have to tap dance around the Chinese human rights record, but my Lord let's not use this place as a backdrop. People died there."
And died there less than 20 years ago. How soon we forget!
***
unusualmusic has an IBARW: Hidden Histories round-up post. Includes:wolfinthewoodJohn Faw, lord and earl of Little Egypt makes me blink. I had no CLUE that ancestors of today's Romany were from India. But the fact that when they first came to Europe they were received with pomp and ceremony as Lords and Kings? Lor' don't times change.
mercuriosity sketches out how Asian Americans went From Yellow Peril to Model Minority and provides a couple of good links
+
rhipowered points to a PBS program on the song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," saying:The music and the original song, 'Mbube', was written in 1939 by a Zulu man named Solomon Linda, who died in poverty in Soweto, whose daughters still live there, and who received a mere pittance for it. Despite awareness by certain parties in the US, his children received no royalties until the settlement of the Linda daughters' lawsuit in 2006.
***
In IBARW: On white women eroticizing black men in slash, miriam_heddy writes:The classic arguments white fans often give for not writing CoC in slash include the old, "But I'm afraid I'll get it wrong" and the old, "But I don't know anything about what it's like to be a black man!" to which, of course, the answers are, "Do it anyway and someone will tell you if you get it wrong and you'll learn from it and do it better the next time" and also, "You don't know what it's like to be a gay man either, except insofar as you know what it's like to be human" and "Why are you assuming that there's a single Way to be a black man? People are individuals. Study canon and get to know the character and his particular experience, localized and personalized as only he knows it."
***Subject: From The Fortune Cookie Chronicles
Our benchmark for Americanness is apple pie. But ask yourself: How often do you eat apple pie? How often do you eat Chinese food?
Jennifer 8 Lee
Link thanks to Marginal Revolution.
I think this is my favorite of all the IBARW stuff I've read so far.
[Edit: oyceter reviewed the book.]
***
sparkymonster made a couple fashion posts:
* [IBARW] Alek Wek: The First Model I cared about
* [IBARW] The All Black Issue of Vogue
***
From coffeeandink:Jewel of Medina controversy (Islam, Islamophobia, cultural appropriation, representation, freedom of speech)
Shahed Amanullah, Free Speech Is A Two-Way Street
shewhohashope: Intersectionality, Cultural Appropriation, and Trashy Books
slit: Someone Is WRONG on the Internet (dissection of Islamophobia in operation in mainstream responses)
For mainstream positioning, see Asra Q. Nomani's Wall Street Journal article, You Still Can't Write About Mohammed and Smart Bitches, Trashy Book's post on the book being removed from sale and the book's prologue, especially the comments threads.
***
qiu xiaolong, 'death of a red heroine;' and on chinese family names (stephiepenguin) made me think of Ro Laren (ST:TNG).
From the altfriday5:
----
This week's questions were written by Guest Questioner sparkymonster in honour of International Blog Against Racism Week. She provides this link to helpful reading: http://seamonkey.ed.asu.edu/~mcisaac/emc598ge/Unpacking.html
1. List 5 things which are basic common knowledge in your culture, which people outside are unfamiliar with. This is not about obscurity, but something everyday to you, that others go "bzuh?" at.
2. What was the last book you read that was written by a person who is a different race than you? Do you seek out books written by people of other races? Why? Why not?
3. What did you eat at dinner last night? Would you call it ethnic food? Why?
4. Has your gender presentation changed over the last 5 years? Has this change/lack of change been a deliberate choice on your part?
5. Do you discuss race and racism in your livejournal/blog or in person? Why have you made that choice?
6. Bonus question. Were you aware of International Blog Against Racism Week? Did you choose to participate in it? Why or why not?
----
Follow up in your LJ, or this one, and post links to discussions here.
Edit: Per Lorraine's request, I answered these in comments.