Musings from a Black Woman: Why Newsweek Sucks and Blows.

"Why Black Women Love R. Kelly: Sexism on Trial: Why did so many African-American women support R. Kelly?", by Allison Samuels at Newsweek.com. I found this article via Angelfirenze at TWoP's The Boondocks forum.

. . . When the verdict was announced, dozens of black women (and some black men) cheered outside the courtroom as the singer made his way past them to his waiting tour bus. It wasn't just in Chicago. African-American blogs such as Young, Black and Fabulous, What About Our Daughters and Essence quickly filled up with letters from women exclaiming their joy over Kelly's freedom . . .

. . . Fame has long affected--or perverted--the way justice is meted out by a jury. The celebrity effect is arguably more pronounced when the defendant is black, in part because African-Americans feel protective when one of their own achieves mainstream success. "It's sick," says Aaron McGruder, creator of the comic strip "Boondocks," which featured a scathing episode [my favorite episode!] focused on Kelly and his supporters. "The love we have for our celebrities in the black community no matter what they do is crazy, and there is no excuse for it. It's just blind and clueless." As the O. J. Simpson case demonstrated, some African-Americans believe that the criminal-justice system is so stacked against them, they almost don't care if a defendant is actually innocent or guilty. "I know it sounds crazy, but it's just nice so see a brother beat the system--the way I know white guys with money do all the time," said Lamont Gillyard, 25, a loan officer in Los Angeles. "It's not right, but there are so many black men in jail for stuff they didn't do, it's hard not feel like this is a way of balancing out the game that isn't fair anyway.''

I didn't support R. Kelly, nor do I know anyone of any color or gender who did. Ms. Samuels, you suck and blow, too, especially since you're a black lady "reporting" this nonsense. The words of Newsweek commenter thealtamiranos@cox.net speak for me:

Ms. Samuels where are the statistics to support your statement? Your article reeks of irresponsible journalism. The hand full of Black women who stood outside the court buildings with signs and words of support for R. Kelly and the rambling posts of Black women on blogs and gossip sites are not respresentative of Black women in general. I can assure you that the majority of Black women (myself included) do not support R. Kelly . Please stop perpetuating the myth "so many" Black women are ignorant and uneducated. If you're going to speak for or about a group of people don't assume their thoughts and beliefs rather do the proper research.

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Reading is Fun...damental.

Nothing Meek In Her Voice, by namrata, at Sepia Mutiny. I would have titled the post, Another Book about Being Brown?

...I frequently bemoan the fact that minority writers feel the need to their minority’s themes while a white man has the freedom to write a Japanese story and gets the whole canvas to play on. I want the New Yorker to write a two-page review of a great American novel that’s deeply, equally relevant to the whole nation and have the desi name be almost an afterthought, as it is with so many of the other categories of accomplishment we celebrate here. I want my white or Asian or black or Hispanic friends to call me up and say, “You have to read this book,” where the book is by a desi author but that commonality between me and the author has nothing to do with their insistence. Why must we always be meekly constrained to the edges?

But who am I kidding? I want to write that book, and I want all my friends to rave to each other about it. But I can’t even write most of a blogpost in two whole weeks. [Rishi Reddi, author of Karma], on the other hand, is an environmental lawyer, is raising a daughter, and serves on the board of SAALT. Yet somehow she found the time to write story after story, one of which was even chosen by the illustrious Michael Chabon for a Best American Short Stories collection, and then get them published as a book...

It reminded me of that MadTV sketch (that I can't find on YouTube) with Debra Wilson and Aries Spears about how the romantic comedies starring black people are all the same. And it's true. I saw Brown Sugar, so I don't need to see Love and Basketball. I've seen Deliver Us from Eva many times--last time was on ABC Family, strangely enough--and I own the similarly themed Two Can Play that Game. I've seen The Best Man, so do I really need to finish watching The Wood? I also own Booty Call. No comparison there. I just wanted to announce that I have no shame.

Not only are the stories in these movies the same, but so are the characters and the actors who play them. Yes, Gabrielle Union is a talent. I didn't understand why she had to star in a DMX movie, but I'll overlook that. However, I don't understand why she, Morris Chestnut, Taye Diggs, Meagan Good, Vivica A. Fox, Sanaa Lathan and Duane Martin have to be in every one of these movies. It really doesn't help the theory that all black people look alike.

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As "all-American" as apple pie?, by Carmen Van Kerckhove, at her new site, Race in the Workplace.

Claire sounded like the perfect candidate for the position and I trusted my friend’s judgment, so I immediately passed her resume onto my boss, whom we’ll call Pat.

Then the following conversation happened.

Pat: So is Claire Jones also half Chinese?

Me: What? (Couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing.)

Pat: Is Claire also half Chinese, like you and Tommy?

Me: Um… not that I know of.

Pat: Oh she’s not half Chinese?

Me: Like I said, not that I know of.

Pat: Oh so she’s an all-American girl then?

There were so many things wrong with this exchange I couldn’t even wrap my head around it. Did Pat think we were all in on a secret plot to sneak in as many down-low Asians as possible with European last names? And could she have made it any more obvious that to her, “half Chinese” and “all-American” were mutually exclusive categories?

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This Blog is Not For Bigots [UPDATED], by anna at Sepia Mutiny. It's a response to this very recent Newsweek article, Braced for Backlash, which opened with the following paragraph:

The bodies had barely been removed when the racial epithets started pouring in. Cho Seung-Hui, the 23-year-old identified as the killer of 32 on the Virginia Tech campus, may have lived in the state since his elementary school days, but to the bigots in the blogosphere it was his origins in Korea that mattered most. "Koreans are the most hotheaded and macho of East Asians," wrote one unnamed commentator on the Sepia Mutiny blog. "They are also sick and tired of losing their Korean girlfriends to white men with an Asian fetish."

I always enjoy when irresponsible mainstream media outlets pit one persecuted group against another by using one unrepresentative example, then act like they did nothing wrong.

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I hate Unions (but I’m trying to join one), from irwin's blog, From Studio Twelve A. Fight the power, bro. Yet another in a long line of arguments for universal health care in the U.S.