[lilyblue]

gt, i get what you are saying and i'm not totally away from the word feminist, but sometimes, it feels like it doesn't express all that i feel and at times leaves out key parts of me.

i mean, if someone said that i sound like a feminist, then by all means, i would accept that as a compliment (even if they meant it as an insult).

[girltrouble]

damn. i was just hoping for a decoder ring.... so where is this hideout?

i don't know, i consider myself a feminist, and i am very attached to it. i know it's history, but i am also committed to the evolution of the word and the movement. to stop calling myself a feminist is giving up too much ground to the right. they've been working very hard to get women to be afraid of that label, or to abandon it. using words like feminazi, etc. and their thing seems to have worked. as bust itself shows the beneficaries of feminism are afraid to even speak it's name. which, personally makes my blood boil.

don't get me wrong. i respect you, and your choice lilly, and frankly that is the best reason i have heard to migrate away from the word. but perhaps its my experience as a transexual that makes me "rather fight that switch." there isn't going to be any movement that is going to embrace me from the start. there isn't one that is going to embrace all that i am. so you work hard on the parts that do. try to change what does not.

[lilyblue]

ha! of course there is a union. it's a secret organization involving tights and stuff. we have our own special hideout too.

gt, i read what you wrote about femme power in the feminist thread and i wanted to comment on that here. your point about how anti-femme sentiments in the mainstream feminist community is something i totally identify with. add on to that, black woman aren't supposed to be femme at all and it seems to be actually revolutionary to claim our feminine identities.

so, everyone, here's the main point i'm asking: does the word "feminist" feel right to you? the more i read, the less it seems to fit me. i have started to recently embrace the word womanist more. knowing that it was designed to embrace black (and now all women of color) makes me feel empowered. it acknowledges both my being black and being a woman which is what i am working on embracing.

[girltrouble]

oh shit! did we unionize? (finally!)alterna-negros unite!

[lilyblue]

oh hell yeah! i keep wondering what happened to hip hop. were the 90s the end of actual innovation and talent. i keep saying that i should have my own video company and it would have a conveyor belt so that we can just keep churning out the same video and "music" perpetually. it's so damned shameful.

and don't even mention it in mainstream media. you'll get the whole "we have to support the community" line. i can't support this crap. i think it's just so awful.

maybe that's what the whole burn on all this blackface is. that all these college kids and Ms. Liquor are reflecting such falsehoods back on the black community. that that's the image that most people see of black america and it seems like so many of use are powerless to stop it. when the biggest names in the community seem to enjoy making millions off of minstrel behavior, that bites.

hopefully us alterna-negros can fix things.

[girltrouble]

oh, i know. i listen to xclan and think about how deep the lyrics are. and jay-z's first is still one of my favorites for the sheer lyrical pyrotechnics, but then. *pop* now it's "this is why i'm hot." no, junior, that's why you're not. and don't even get me started on the commercialism-- remember when it was about promoting black designers? fubu and cross colors? member when fashion houses kept predicting the death of streetwear's influence until they finally started doing streetwear and incorperated it? now it's just back to the same old. breaks my heart. breaks my heart.

and i agree with you on chow yun fat. i rarely find boys attractive, but he is sexy, and ben bratt...well, he's down right yummy.


thing i like about chappelle is he masquerades his stuff as "pot humor" but it says a lot about being black in america. it's really very intellegent, subversive stuff.

[auralpoison]

Word, GT, that's excactly what I was thinking! The two youngest Wayans are just sucking up my precious oxygen. And Keenen... what a disappointment. The man held so much promise & then, blam! Suck city.

I find Chappelle's use of white face to be legitimate satire. But White Chicks? Bleh.

In movies, everybody gets the girl *but* the Asian guy. Take your average action picture. If Will Smith's the lead, he's gonna kiss the girl. Denzel & Wesley too. Hell, even Ice Cube got the hookup with the white girl in that XXX monstrosity. But Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Chow Yun Fat? Nope. And I happen to think Chow is sex on a stick. I'd fuck that man through a hardwood floor.

And where are our Latino boys? Represent! Enrique Murciano, Benjamin Bratt, Adam Rodriguez, Murilo Benício, Benicio Del Toro, Edgar Ramirez, etc.

The whole rapper thing just slays me. What happened? I remember hearing Nation of Millions & thinking that hiphop could change the world. Now the complete & total irresponsibility of it, the overall lack of awareness. I have a cousin that doesn't have two nickels to rub together, but he wears $200 tennis shoes & drives a twenty year old Lexus because his idol Snoop Dogg does. P Diddy makes me partuclarly sick. I see those ads for Proactiv where he talks about needing specific cars, clothes, etc because he's Diddy. Fuck you, man. What say you forgo a few toys & send some kids to college...

[girltrouble]

maybe it's me but are they wayans capable of witty satire?

ap, yeah, i've noticed we do have a lot of the same tastes. and i am soooo jealous of your old man knowing mandrin. i just want to try everything. people look at me weird when i start talking about old honky-tonk country, but i love that. it's good music. just cos i'm black doesn't mean i can't listen to it. my dad's best friend when i was a kid loved charlie pride and would crank the country-- so i've listened to that for a while, and i love it. and it's always cool to meet someone who knows black culture, just as it is someone who loves korean films. it's that shared experience-- the same cultural landmarks.

but your comment about black people doing black face gets at the heart of why the q. liquor isn't funny, witty, interesting or needed-- it's not like we don't have more than enough black people acting or critiquing those stereotypes, so what could a white person add to that?

i love hip hop too, but it always breaks my heart the road it's gone down. maybe it's me, but i thought it had the potentual to change so much about this country, and other countries. but now it's just about how x shot y, x sold y drugs, or how x is a pimp and has x car with x amount of money. just like my question earlier, what does a rapper have to add? not much anymore. in my book the only person who should have fronts would be slick rick, and he never really had em.

and i agree-- tv does afford more opportunies of different roles than film. i remember reading that chow yun fat was never doing american movies because he would never be cast as a romantic lead-- even in action movies. it seems the white man is scared of anyone getting any love but a white man. silly really.

[lilyblue]

gt, i am agree with you. i don't think it's an appropriate way of battling racism. it doesn't seem to be translating well to me and to most people who are on the outside watching a white man in blackface.

ap, i totally get what you are saying and would like to throw in a twist. what do you think of Dave Chappelle and the Wayans Brothers (White Chicks) doing whiteface? is this just a post-racism free for all or is it witty satire?

[auralpoison]

I may not agree with Shirley, but it is where I got my "White people make me nervous" t shirt.

I think it offends me more when we give ourselves the minstrel treatment. Look at shit like Soul Plane. Black director, at least one black writer, & a few talented black actors just perpetuating the bullshit. I remember Chris Rock at the 2005 Academy Awards doing a bit in theatres where he asked black people if they'd seen any of the noms for best picture. None of them had, but they'd all seen Soul Plane.

So many POC's are so desperate for representation that we'll take it on any way we can. We're willing to be caricatures: gangsters, hoochies, etc, as long as we can see a coloured face on the screen. I just saw Harvey Firestein speaking about how gays are only acceptable if they're funny, pathetic, bitchy, dying, fashionable, etc. As long as they fall into acceptable terms of the mainstream, they're okay & revered (Will & Grace, Queer Eye, Mario Cantone on SATC, Noah's Arc, etc.), but as soon as they step out of that they're fucked. I think it's the same with us in a lot of ways.

Admittedly, tv gives us more ops to stretch the chops than cinema. Sandra & Isaiah(cringe) on Grey's, Gary & Archie on CSI, Marianne & Enrique WaT, Hill on CSI NY, Jesse on L&O, Adam & Khandi on CSI Miami, Dule on Psych, Ravi on Crossing Jordan, Dennis & Demore on the Unit, Shemar Moore on Criminal Minds, the variety of charcters in ER, Lost, etc. Hell, even American Idol supports POCS not acting a fool except in the beginning with the delusionals. I tried to support Lincoln Heights, but I'm not much of one for family dramas.

Movies, though? All our heroines are almost always paired with white men. I'm not even gonna go there. Julia Stiles was paired with black men in two films, but Jet Li & Aliyah were not even close to kissing in Romeo Must Die. It's fucked.

As far as dating goes, I'm screwed & always have been. My interests are not the same as the average POC that I meet. I like hiphop, but I hate that most of it is cliche. I don't like labels. I think grilles, bling, & pimp cups are silly. But then again, I'm not all militant, either. It's hard to meet a guy that likes musical variety (GT/Aviatrix, we have VERY similar broad palates), comic books, literature, foreign films, art, history, etc. 97.2% of the time I date white guys simply because we have more in common, not because I find them more physically attractive. When I was younger there was more of a worry of shock value, but not so much anymore. HB & I have very little in common, but me & my old white man are makin' it work. Just as a side note, he speaks Mandarin, GT.

That being said, I haven't had a guy since college try the shock value thing. Yeah, I've had the creeps that go in for the thrill of the forbidden, but I can usually suss them & ditch them. Long ago a boy took me home for Thanksgiving & his mom asked if I wanted "white meat or... a thigh?"

I think I've only ever dated one guy that "got it" & he was a white guy from Ohio, of all places. He could drop PE just as easily as I could drop PF. Had we married we would have started our own little Wu Tang clan.

[girltrouble]

i...think i just spit up a bit in my mouth.

the worst was his defense for that. i haven't seen the act, but i can't really see how that is taking on prejudice or racism. isn't that the same old black face? and if not tell me the difference? is it just confronting white people about how there used to be white people doing black face? well that's just as useless. either way, it's bs in my book. and what gets my blood boiling is there is gonna be some ass out there mimicing him, and will defend himself saying, hey rupaul likes him... as if that was some sort of license. grr!


i know what you mean about dating people who "get it." there are somethings that it's so nice not to have to explain. they know who "switch" is and can sing along with "i call your name." there is something so beautiful in having the same cultural landmarks, and lord knows there are white people who get it, and grew up with it, and that's cool too.


as for my giving up on chinese, yeah, temporarily. i lost my motivation when my favorite bootleg asian video store closed. i'd rather learn korean in all honesty, but cantonese will get me further-- in my 'hood, and in general.

[lilyblue]

going back to race comics, what do y'all think about Shirley Q. Liquor? no matter how i try to understand it, i don't find it funny at all. it's like we as a culture have chosen regression instead of enlightenment i can't see the irony, i just see the racism.

it sucks so bad because i try to be better than that. if i've been oppressed, i know what it feels like and i try my hardest not bring oppression to another. it also sucks because when you work hard to make sure that someone has the rights you have, they will still stab you in the back.

if you see the irony or the satire, please explain it to me. i really want to know.

[lex]

I'd only dated white guys before my current bf. What can I say, I have a limited selection and sometimes you just have to work with what you've got. But now that I'm with someone who has had similar experiences as I have and who just *gets* it and doesn't think that I obsess about my ethinicity, or overreact to questions... I just can't really imagine going back. At this point I think I could only date a white guy if he was exceptional and able to acknowledge his white privilege, etc. (like I said.. exceptional)

stargazer, I also wonder about the whole dating vs commitment thing. white guys are more than happy to date me, but i wonder what their parents would think of their son marrying a half vietnamese girl and possibly having mixed grandchildren. I also wonder if guys just want to say they've slept with X Y and Z type of girls.

girltrouble, the sad thing about the rosie ching chong debacle was the laugh she got from the audience. what really made me mad was that she kept insisting that she was doing an accent. that's not an accent, that is a poor imitation of a language. I just don't think she realized what she was getting herself into with that one. and kudos to you for trying to learn cantonese! although by the sounds of your post it seems like you've given up on that.. not that I blame you.

[girltrouble]

i know what you mean sg. there is this guy who has been flirting with me for sometime, but he keeps asking me if i want to hang out with him at night, and frankly, i don't. a lot of tranny chasers are looking for booty calls. i hung out with a guy i thought was cool, but eventually i figured out he would only see me after work which made it about 3am.

one of my favorite chappelle show skits are the white family named "the niggas" and the blind black klansman.

i suppose i am the same as you and your friend. for the most part i've dated white women. but i don't think the sex/dating thing has the same dynamic. plus i'm the dating kind. i like getting to know a person, and falling for them-- which is pretty ironic considering some of my job choices.

as for the rosie comment about chinese, i was trying to learn chinese at the time, and i thought it was funny in a wow-there-is-a-case-of-typical-american-ignorance kinda way. i found cantonese as a language, extremely complex, but it had a wonderful rhythm and sound. but i do like brown comics. i love hearing about their experience in this country, and comparing theirs to mine.

[stargazer]

yeah, i knew about mencia being from honduras. in fact, he even said so on his own show. or in a comedy special. i can't remember which one. but, he was making a point about how racist people can be because white americans think all brown people come from mexico. that's when he referenced being honduran.

i love all ethnic comics that are able to work in their ethnicity and how their experience being a person of color has been in America. i love the race wars on the chappelle show. and i still love the line by chris rock, "i'm not afraid of al quaida(sp?). i'm afraid of al cracka!"

sarah silverman is not funny. she is a shock jock. take out the curse words and she.is.not.funny. if you cannot tell a story or joke without cursing, then you have no skillz. i'm not being a prude, but your sense of humor is very limiting. plus, her voice is just grating.

on something very different....my best gay bf (he's black) and i (well, mexican, duh!) talked about how we like to date mainly white guys. BUT, one thing we've noticed is that they are very willing to sleep with us, but not able to commit to dating long term. in fact, my best gay even said how on the radio one morning...he heard these DJs taking calls about this topic. i'm very hesitant when a white guy hits on me 'cause i wonder if he's into collecting international babes. you know, he wants to see if the fantasy is true about latinas. makes dating that much harder for me.

[lex]

Personally I can't stand Lisa Lampanelli, I just find her crass and offensive. My partner (he's also mixed) thinks she's hilarious. So different strokes, I guess. By the same token I'm not all that impressed by Sarah Silverman. I used to think she was funny back when she was on SNL, but now I just think she's racist.

However, that said I still love Russel Peters, Dave Chappelle, and Chris Rock. But I think I just give POC more leeway when it comes to racial jokes. It means something very different when it comes from a minority who is clearly attached to the culture they're making fun of, or that they at least have some kind of connection to. There's a big difference between Rosie O'Donnell going "ching chong chang chong" and Russel Peters (he's East Indian) doing a Vietnamese accent. For one thing he actually does a good job of the accent, plus you know the likelihood of him actually having a Vietnamese friend is much higher than that of Rosie chilling with some Chinese people.

[lilyblue]

I dunno how I feel about the new breed of race comics. Lisa Lampanelli sometimes makes me cringe, too, Lily. I just find Silverman's delivery/style to be routine & sometimes just crass because of the whole, "Look! She's so pretty! What a pretty girl! I can't believe she said something so gross! Shocking!" YAWN.

Exactly! I think that's why I can't ever find Silverman funny. She's just so obvious. Like she's trying to be sneaky, but we can see right through her.

gt, that's why i'm kinda okay with Lampinelli and Drawn Together on Comedy Central. It's like equal opportunity offending. i know that it trades on racial/sexual/gender stereotypes, but it's mocking everyone.

the whole intra-ethnic bs gets me. it's like i've been opressed, so i get to opress someone else. it sucks all around. i know for me i want to be better than that and it sucks to have one who knows some form of opression pull that bullshit out on you.

[girltrouble]

i find all of them funny and not funny (except chris rock. he's almost always funny. i love that he weaves politics into his comedy) lisa lampenelli least of all because she does blue comedy, which is a brave thing, and she makes fun of herself (and everyone else), she knows her stuff is offensive, and does talk about that in some shows. the same reason i love strangers w/ candy. everybody's a target. while i think sara silverman can be funny, i do think she relies way too much on being a jock's wet dream. (see AP's post). all and all the worst part of the afore mentioned comedians, is white people who think that that gives them licence to make jokes about race. sorry, no. it doesn't.

i never heard the carlos mencia thing. very interesting. the whole inter-ethnicity thing is always interesting. for most non-latinos mencia/holness would still be considered latino.

i suppose that it's kind of like the whole african vs. african-american thing. here there is a huge controversy about ethiopians-- my ex, who is white, and gets lots of love from the black community here, doesn't care for them because she does social work and has deep ties in the black community. years ago there was a project to tear down some of the projects to make them into nicer townhouses, and low income housing. the ethiopians had a few very well placed people in the department of housing, and once the houses were ready to be occupied, screened out black people turning those areas into ethiopian enclaves, leaving many of the original people this upgrade was supposed to help, s.o.l. needless to say there are a lot of angry black folk, but the (mostly) white local gov't. say (conveniently) black is black.

[auralpoison]

Up where you live you actually have Asians, GT. We had a three Thai kids & a ten or so Vietnamese kids.

There's a whole big controversy over Mencia right now because he's a joke thief & his whole backstory is bullshit. He makes fun of the Mexicans (Or his choice of words "beaners.") like he is one, when he's a actually Honduran/German born Ned Holness. He crafted the "Carlos Mencia" persona when he was starting out to ingratiate himself with the LA Mexican community. He's gotten into some tiffs with George Lopez & Joe Rogan over it.

I dunno how I feel about the new breed of race comics. Lisa Lampanelli sometimes makes me cringe, too, Lily. I just find Silverman's delivery/style to be routine & sometimes just crass because of the whole, "Look! She's so pretty! What a pretty girl! I can't believe she said something so gross! Shocking!" YAWN.

Comedy in general is weird in the way that different people perceive it. I've seen certain black comics perform before both mixed & majority black audiences & the shows are definitely different. A lot of the time non-pocs aren't sure how to react to some jokes that a black audience would jump up & down & holla for. Katt Williams or Chris Rock are good examples of performers that work "white rooms" with ease & aplomb while still appeasing their black audiences.

[lilyblue]

gt, it's weird. i watched lisa lampenelli and was cracking up at times and at other times, i was cringing. i can't really stand sarah silverman and carlos mencia can be funny at times. that said, i love chris rock.

i think race comedy has to be handled carefully and that not everyone in the audience totally gets it and it seems to be playing right into their fucked up racist fantasies.

Shit like this.

i also have a problem with other poc using "nigga". it doesn't feel right to me becuase there is also racism within the whole poc community.