I felt this way, too!

The American dream: Are they letting women and blacks do that too these days?, by Lauren O, The Blog of Champions.

The New York times ran this article yesterday, but they gave it the wrong title. They called it "American Dream Is Elusive for New Generation" when really they should have called it something like "White Man Not Lavished With Rewards Just For Showing Up, Journalistic Establishment Requires Fainting Couch."

The whole article, all four pages of it, focus on one affluent young white man named Scott Nicholson, who is having trouble finding a job, despite the fact that he graduated from Colgate, where he was the "winner of a dean's award in academic excellence." Yes, you read that correctly. He graduated from a decent college and was not automatically given a job! Can you believe it? Despite the fact that he sends out "four or five [resumes] a week, week after week"! He sends out one resume a day, maybe, then takes the weekends off! What more could he possibly do aside from sending out at least twice that many resumes and doing extra work on the weekends, like everyone else in the country looking for a job?

The best part is that he was offered a job at an insurance company, but he turned it down because it only paid $40,000 a year. From this, the article's author, Louis Uchitelle, extrapolates that the American dream is becoming more difficult to achieve for my generation. A college education and $40,000 a year is the American dream! But Scotty didn't want to get stuck in "dead-end work," so he's just been living with his parents (well, technically he's now moved into an apartment with his brother, and his parents pay his half of the rent).

[ . . . ]

At least Scott hasn't yet had to "be a bartender or get work through a temp agency" like the rest of us. "I hope I don’t find myself in that position," he says. Indeed. It would be awful to have actual work experience on your resume. It might make you seem like one of the rabble.

Heaven forbid Scott work as a bartender. Does he know how much a bartender makes? I don't know either. But from my partial viewings of the movie Cocktail and the subsequent success of its star Tom Cruise, I'd say that bartending puts you on the fast track to easy street.

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What is that supposed to mean?

Hello, Mr. Heartache, by Jincy Willett, New York Times via Jennifer Weiner´s blog.

Holly Frick, the writer at the heart of Sarah Dunn’s new novel, hates the term “chick lit.” Since we never actually get to read her own novel, “Hello, Mr. Heartache” — whose horrible title was imposed by her publisher’s marketing department — we can’t be certain that she hasn’t actually written “fiction by and for women,” the generally agreed-­upon definition of that loathsome term. But the novel in which Holly herself appears was definitely not written just for women, no matter how it’s packaged. True, the protagonist is female, the setting is Manhattan, and the focus is on relationships — and there’s a big shopping scene. True, mostly women will read it. But then women are the ones mostly reading every­thing. Besides, it’s not about shoes. And the shopping is for books, at the Strand. Also, unlike chick lit, chick TV and chick movies, “Secrets to Happiness” is actually funny.

Way to self-hate, Ms. Willett.

bt-dubs, New York Times: aren´t you up for sale?

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This is one reason I like Free Radio:

the characters look like and act like relatively normal people, including the two women on the show. Though, this is not the normal situation in mainstream media:

Fat Actors vs Skinny Actresses, by Melissa Silverstein, Women & Hollywood.


What’s the Skinny on the Heftier Stars?, by Michael Cieply, The New York Times.

A scene from the new journalistic thriller “State of Play” says it all.

Jeff Daniels, as the politician George Fergus, squares off with Russell Crowe, as the pen-wielding journalist Cal McAffrey.

Two men. One notebook. Four chins.

Hollywood’s pool of leading men is getting larger — and not necessarily in a good way.

Based on a close look at trailers, still photos and some films already released, at least a dozen male stars in some of the year’s most prominent movies have been adding on the pounds of late.

In “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3,” a subway heist movie due from Columbia Pictures and MGM in June, Denzel Washington, 54, goes cheek-to-jowl with the bulky John Travolta, 55 — and they are beginning to look like a matched set. Mr. Washington is no longer the lean, mean boxing machine he portrayed in “The Hurricane,” 10 years ago.

[. . . ]

Even Leonardo DiCaprio, the young heartthrob from “Titanic,” is better padded these days, at 34. Photos from the set of “Shutter Island,” a thriller on tap from Paramount Pictures and the director Martin Scorsese in October, show a little bit more to love.

Hollywood’s women may have weight issues of their own. But it is somehow less noticeable, possibly because actresses who expand do not often get roles to showcase that growth. Kathleen Turner, 54 and the onetime seductress of “Body Heat,” last December put in a rare film performance as Ms. Kornblut, the plus-size dog trainer in “Marley & Me.”

[ . . . ]

Appearing on the “Today” show on Tuesday, Mr. Crowe, 45, said he was working his way down to fighting trim for his current role as Robin Hood in a new film for Universal, but he confessed that pounds were dropping more slowly than he had hoped.

He might want to get some diet advice from Jason Segel.

Mr. Segel, 29, was fairly hefty in “I Love You, Man,” a comedy released by Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks in March. But his face looked surprisingly thin on billboards advertising the film.

The advertising photos were done some weeks after the film shoot, with a slimmer Mr. Segel, said Katie Martin Kelley, a publicity executive with Paramount. “There was no retouching done,” Ms. Kelley said.

I had not noticed Russell Crowe's increased "insulation" in the State of Play trailer. Though I did notice Jason Segel's in I Love You, Man; Jason had even more cushioning than he did in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Yet the women allowed to appear in all three of these movies are painfully thin, completely overshadowed--literally and figuratively--by their male counterparts.
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I can finally talk with most of my friends.

How did we communicate before Barack Obama? Oh yeah, through television.

Talk About Race? Relax, It’s O.K., by Sarah Kershaw, New York Times via Jezebel.

. . . over the last few months, both Mr. Rice and Ms. Knox, who live in Washington, have been struck by the slight easing of these examples of what psychologists describe as "interracial anxiety" between blacks and whites. That is because there is a now an omnipresent icebreaker: Barack Obama.

"There’s a more readily accessible conduit into the conversation about race if it begins with Barack Obama," said Mr. Rice, the executive director of the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials — International, a professional law enforcement group. "In my experience over the last few months, it’s easier because it’ll begin with who he is, the differences between his parents, what he had to deal with." . . .

. . . "Before Obama, there was always this thing — 'He's a black doctor,'" Mr. Jackson said. “But now I’m going to be a physician who also happens to be black. That’s become the perception now, which is really nice." . . .

. . . On the morning after the election, Kristin Rothballer, 36, who lives in San Francisco, kissed her female partner goodbye on the train while commuting to work. A black woman who sat down next to her turned and said she was sorry that Proposition 8, the amendment to ban gay marriage in the state, looked like it was going to pass.

"We grabbed hands," Ms. Rothballer recalled. "And I said, 'Well, I really want to congratulate you because we have a black president and that’s amazing.'"

"Our conversation then almost became about the fact that we were having the conversation," she said.

Something moved her to apologize to the black woman for slavery. [Readers, do not do this.]

"For two strangers riding a train to Oakland to have that conversation about race, it wouldn't have been possible if Obama hadn't been elected," she said. 'I always felt open with my colleagues, but to say to a stranger on the train, 'Hey, I’m sorry about slavery,' that just doesn’t happen."

It's too bad that with Bill Richardson gone, I still can't talk with my Latino friends. I doubt I'll ever be able to talk with my Asian friends, or to my friends who don't fit into the ethnic roles designated by the U.S. Census.

Also, this article was in the Fashion & Style section of the New York Times. I guess black is the new black. Oy.

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"I’m not mixed, but WTF!"

Freakonomics: "The Plight of Mixed Race Children", by Latoya Peterson, Racialicious:


"Mixed race people, step right up to be essentialized into neat little patterns of behavior!

In a recent paper I [Steven D. Levitt] co-authored with Roland Fryer, Lisa Kahn, and Jorg Spenkuch, we look at data to try to answer that question. Here is what we find:

1) Mixed-race kids grow up in households that are similar along many dimensions to those in which black children grow up: similar incomes, the father is much less likely to be around than in white households, etc.

2) In terms of academic performance, mixed-race kids fall in between blacks and whites.

3) Mixed-race kids do have one advantage over white and black kids: the mixed-race kids are much more attractive on average.

The really interesting result, though, is the next one.

4) There are some bad adolescent behaviors that whites do more than blacks (like drinking and smoking), and there are other bad adolescent behaviors that blacks do more than whites (watching TV, fighting, getting sexually transmitted diseases). Mixed-race kids manage to be as bad as whites on the white behaviors and as bad as blacks on the black behaviors. Mixed-race kids act out in almost every way measured in the data set.

. . . "I was wondering what economic theories they used to get to this point, but surprise - there ain’t none!

We try to use economic theory to explain this set of facts. I can’t say we are entirely successful. If we had to pick an explanation that best fits the facts, it would be the old sociology model of mixed-race individuals as the “marginal man”: not part of either racial group and therefore torn by inner conflict.

~

Apparently, in Steven D. Levitt's mind, mixed children who are neither white nor black, like Tia Carrere, don't exist. Also, I don't drink or smoke, like white people allegedly do. Nor do I fight or get sexually transmitted diseases, like black people allegedly do. However, I do likes my TV. So following Mr. Levitt's calculations, I am one-third black. Maybe I am also one-thirteenth Chickasaw like Stephen Colbert.

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Some articles informing my angst-ridden perspective:

When Mom and Dad Share It All, by Lisa Belkin, The New York Times Magazine, via Feministing. Emphases mine.

. . . "If you gave people a survey they would probably check all the answers about how things should be equal," says Francine M. Deutsch, a psychology professor at Mount Holyoke and the author of "Halving It All: How Equally Shared Parenting Works." But when they get to the part where "you ask them how things work for them day to day," she says, "ideal does not match reality."

Deutsch has labeled the ideal "equally shared parenting," a term the Vachons have embraced. DeGroot prefers "shared care," because "shared parenting" is used to describe custody arrangements in a divorce, and while "equal" would be nice, it is a bar that might be too high for some families to even try to clear. Whatever you call it, the fact that it has to have a name is a most eloquent statement of both the promise and the constraints facing families today.

"Why do we have to call it anything?" Amy [Vachon] asks.

Marc [Vachon] adds, "Why isn't this just called parenting?" . . .

Why indeed, Mr. Vachon?

. . . The most recent figures from the University of Wisconsin’s National Survey of Families and Households show that the average wife does 31 hours of housework a week while the average husband does 14 — a ratio of slightly more than two to one. If you break out couples in which wives stay home and husbands are the sole earners, the number of hours goes up for women, to 38 hours of housework a week, and down a bit for men, to 12, a ratio of more than three to one. That makes sense, because the couple have defined home as one partner’s work.

But then break out the couples in which both husband and wife have full-time paying jobs. There, the wife does 28 hours of housework and the husband, 16. Just shy of two to one, which makes no sense at all.

The lopsided ratio holds true however you construct and deconstruct a family. "Working class, middle class, upper class, it stays at two to one," says Sampson Lee Blair, an associate professor of sociology at the University at Buffalo who studies the division of labor in families.

"And the most sadly comic data is from my own research," he adds, which show that in married couples "where she has a job and he doesn’t, and where you would anticipate a complete reversal, even then you find the wife doing the majority of the housework." . . .

So I get to bring home the bacon and fry it up, too? Yippee skippy.

. . . Messages, loud and soft, direct and oblique, reinforce contextual choice. "A pregnant woman and her husband," Deutsch says, "how many people have asked her if she is going to go back to work after the baby? How many have asked him?". . .

I would certainly ask him, because I'm not sitting on my duff at home. I'd get bored and cranky.

. . . "It’s a chicken-and-egg thing," she says. "Even when men and women start off with equal jobs, they make decisions along the way — to emphasize career or not, to trade brutal hours for high salary or not."

She goes on to suggest that the perception of flexibility is itself a matter of perception. In her study, she was struck by how often the wife’s job was seen by both spouses as being more flexible than the husband’s. By way of example she describes two actual couples, one in which he is a college professor and she is a physician and one in which she is a college professor and he is a physician. In either case, Deutsch says "both the husband and wife claimed the man’s job was less flexible." . . .

I have actually witnessed this phenomenon first-hand multiple times. It's sad how little women value their own work in comparison to the work of men.

Also,

. . . Women, she says, know that the world is watching and judging. If the toddler’s clothes don’t match, if the thank-you notes don’t get written, if the house is a shambles, it is seen as her fault, making her overly invested in the outcome . . .

Mmhmm. My clothes didn't match during my birthday party one year. I'm pretty sure anyone with a small child knew what my garish ensemble meant: I was the one who had selected my outfit that day. But yes, the world does watch and judge women under the assumption that they are the Primary Parents, while it simultaneously praises men for simply showing up.

Next!

Gay unions shed light on gender in marriage, by Tara Parker-Pope, New York Times, via Feministing. Emphases mine.

. . . Notably, same-sex relationships, whether between men or women, were far more egalitarian than heterosexual ones. In heterosexual couples, women did far more of the housework; men were more likely to have the financial responsibility; and men were more likely to initiate sex, while women were more likely to refuse it or to start a conversation about problems in the relationship. With same-sex couples, of course, none of these dichotomies were possible, and the partners tended to share the burdens far more equally.

While the gay and lesbian couples had about the same rate of conflict as the heterosexual ones, they appeared to have more relationship satisfaction, suggesting that the inequality of opposite-sex relationships can take a toll.

"Heterosexual married women live with a lot of anger about having to do the tasks not only in the house but in the relationship," said Esther Rothblum, a professor of women's studies at San Diego State University. "That's very different than what same-sex couples and heterosexual men live with." . . .

Eek. That's not encouraging. Maybe that's why I'm not married; I have my own stuff to deal with. Why would I want to (pretend to) clean someone else's house, too?

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Preach the word, Sister Girlfriend.

I'm not a niche. I'm more than 50% of the world population.

The boys of summer, by Dorothy Snarker at AfterEllen.

. . . One needs only to look at this summer’s slate to see the sad truth. Besides all the testosterone-driven superhero flicks, it’s all dudes – old and young. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: old dude with a whip. Speed Racer: young dude with a car. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian: Prince dude. You Don't Mess with the Zohan: secret agent turned hairstylist dude. Get Smart: not-so-smart dude. The Love Guru: enlightened dude. Hancock: burned-out super dude. Hellboy II: The Golden Army: big red dude. Pineapple Express: stoner dudes. Bangkok Dangerous: why-is-he-still-getting-leading-action-roles dude . . .

. . . But this leads us to the classic chicken or egg question: Are there few successful female-driven films because they don’t do well, or do female-driven films not do well because there are so few of them? I have to believe the latter. Baby Mama, a comedy with not one but two female leads (way to eat up the year’s quota, ladies,) opened No. 1 and beat out a comedy with two male leads (Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay). Perhaps you’ve also heard of Alien, The Devil Wears Prada and some hardly-seen flick called Titanic.

Hundreds of male-driven films flop each year, but there are so many of them, we hardly notice except for the biggest-budget disasters. But if one or two female films fail (like Nicole Kidman’s The Invasion and Jodie Foster’s The Brave One last year) and it’s time to pull the plug? In the last three years Nicolas Cage (the aforementioned “why-is-he-still-getting-leading-action-roles dude”) has had bomb (Next) after bomb (The Wicker Man) after bomb (The Weather Man) after bomb (Lord of War); yet there is his big creepy face on movie posters for Bangkok Dangerous scaring small children.

The problem isn’t that women’s movies don’t do well; the problem is that women’s movies are treated as a niche. The choices in female-driven films simply aren’t as broad as the choices in male-centered films. For the most part, we are either in romantic comedies (because, you know, all women want to get married) or thrillers (because, you know, women in peril sells). It’s pretty simple: more choices mean more opportunities to connect, means more chance of success.

Women-centered films can become the Field of Dreams of cinema. If you make good ones, we will come.

Favorite comments:

I reckon its time our het sisters refused to get dragged by their men to such tetosterone fuelled movies.

- notshane

I don't have a man, notshane, but if you know some nice, straight guys, I'll drag them to see Baby Mama.

And re: Nicolas Cage,

He's not an outstanding actor**, he's not attractive, he's not charismatic. WHY does his career EXIST??

This is one of the greatest mysteries of our era.

- zenarcade

zenarcade, I thought I was the only one pondering this enigma.

For you readers who think my lyrics are too abrasive for public consumption, I direct you to the following article in the indie publication called The New York Times. Read it while you can!:

Is There a Real Woman in This Multiplex?, by Manohla Dargis. Emphases on the snark, mine.

. . . Nobody likes to admit the worst, even when it’s right up there on the screen, particularly women in the industry who clutch at every pitiful short straw, insisting that there are, for instance, more female executives in Hollywood than ever before. As if it’s done the rest of us any good. All you have to do is look at the movies themselves — at the decorative blondes and brunettes smiling and simpering at the edge of the frame — to see just how irrelevant we have become. That’s as true for the dumbest and smartest of comedies as for the most critically revered dramas, from “No Country for Old Men” (but especially for women) to “There Will Be Blood” (but no women). Welcome to the new, post-female American cinema . . .

. . . In “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” the lucky guy is Peter (the screenwriter Jason Segel), whose stunning conquest, Rachel (Mila Kunis), is so out of his league as to be in another universe. No matter. Peter snags this prize specifically because — from his full-frontal nudity to his penchant for hugs and voluble crying jags, for which he’s literally mistaken for a woman — he’s basically another chick, or what Arnold Schwarzenegger once called a girlie man. (The softly plumped Mr. Segel even looks as if he could fit into an A cup.) In one scene Peter goes swimming with Rachel only to end up clinging to the side of a cliff. Rachel, who has already taken the plunge, laughingly yells up at him, “I can see your vagina!”

Better a virtual vagina, I suppose, than none at all. Last year only 3 of the 20 highest-grossing releases in America were female-driven, and involve a princess (“Enchanted”) or pregnancy (“Knocked Up” and “Juno”). Actresses had starring roles in about a quarter of the next 80 highest-grossing titles, mostly in dopey romantic comedies and dopier thrillers. A number of these were among the worst-reviewed movies of the year, including “Premonition” (Sandra Bullock) and “The Reaping” (Hilary Swank), the last of which was released by — ta-da! — Warner Brothers. The days of “Million Dollar Baby,” for which Ms. Swank won an Oscar, and “Speed,” which rocketed Ms. Bullock to stardom in the summer of 1994, feel long gone . . .

Hee! And, boo.

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Fried chicken tacos

Obama and the Latino Vote in the NY Times, by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, at Multiplicative Identity, via Feministe.

. . . There are many things to admire about the New York Times. A complex and nuanced understanding of the vast diversity of Latino America is not among those things.

In a story on page A1 of the Times yesterday, reporters Adam Nagourney and Jennifer Steinhauer stated that Latinos are not going to support Senator Barack Obama in his bid for the White House because, “in Obama’s pursuit of Latinos, race plays a role.” In other words, they said that Latinos would not vote for a black man, and backed it up with nothing other than a couple of anecdotal quotes from random Latinos in Los Angeles.

The sloppy, inaccurate story goes on for 32 agonizing paragraphs, using the terms “black” and “Latino” as though they were mutually exclusive – which they are not. Historians estimate that 95 percent of the African slave trade to the Americas took place in Latin America.

To this day, the vast majority of people in the African diaspora live south of the U.S. border, in Latin American countries from Brazil to Colombia to Cuba and, yes, even Mexico. The song "La Bamba," in fact, was brought to the Veracruz region of Mexico by Africans enslaved to the Spanish. The song likely has roots in the Bembe (Bantu) culture from what is now the Congo. This is only a stone's throw, geographically, from the Kenya of Obama's father's birth.

How quickly we forget in this country. How brutally we refuse to learn . . .

That's been bugging me too. What also has been chapping my hide is the incessant drumbeat of the mainstream media insisting that black people and women are also mutually exclusive voting blocs. After listening to the cable "news" outlets and reading the major national publications--all of which are owned by corporate oligarchies--one would come to the following conclusions about the 2008 Presidential election as well:

• Older women are voting for Hillary Clinton because they felt sorry for her after she cried.
• Older black people are voting for Hillary Clinton because they want Bill Clinton back in the White House, while younger black people are voting for Barack Obama because he's younger and he gives them hope.
• Hispanic and Latino voters are all Spanish-speaking immigrants who live near the border of Mexico or in Spanish Harlem or in East LA, and they are all voting for Hillary Clinton because they don't like black Barack Obama.
• White people all over the country tell pollsters they will vote for Barack Obama, but "will secretly vote for John McCain" or some other white candidate. Why? Because either they want to impress the person doing the poll and appear "open-minded" by voting for the black guy, or they don't know that in their hearts, they are really racists.
• Barack Obama will never win the South because the South is where all racists live. No racists live anywhere else in the United States, no nonwhite people live in the South, and every white person in the South is a racist.
• Americans are not concerned with any current events or issues like the illegal occupation of Iraq, health care, the current recession, education, the mortgage crisis or the rising cost of living. Americans are only voting for Hillary Clinton because she is a woman, or for Barack Obama because he is black. Americans are only concerned with making the 2008 Presidential election a historical event because they could choose the first President who is not a white male.
• There are only two people who can become President: Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. There are people running on the Republican side, but no one really cares about them because they are too old, too stupid, too racist, too Mormony, too lazy, too into 9/11, or too . . . wait, who are you again? Oh.
  
• John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich do not exist. In the Democratic primaries, people are voting for Barack Obama because they don't like women, or they are voting for Hillary Clinton because they don't like black people. There are no white men in the Democratic party running for President, so they must vote for Senator Clinton or Senator Obama.

Happy voting! Also, watch the Congressional Black Caucus Democratic debate on Monday night!

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Sunshine and Rain

(I heart Psych.)

Things that made me upset this week:

The CW's views on the roles of young women in society, as featured on Wednesday episode of Gossip Girl (at 3:23).



If you can't see the video, of if The CW has snatched it off of YouTube, here's what the closeted attempted-rapist said to the recently-dethroned Queen B:

"You held a certain fascination when you were beautiful, delicate, and untouched. But now you’re like one of the Arabians my father used to own: Rode hard and put away wet. I don’t want you now and I don’t see why anyone else would."

As I told Carrie on South Dakota Dark, Chuck's pot needs to meet Blair's kettle.

Talk about "rode hard and put away wet." Or in his case, "put away in a gay closet." What Pandora's Box of STDs is that boy dragging around in his pants?

#

What is wrong with Gloria Steinem?

. . . Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life, whether the question is who must be in the kitchen or who could be in the White House. This country is way down the list of countries electing women and, according to one study, it polarizes gender roles more than the average democracy.

That’s why the Iowa primary was following our historical pattern of making change. Black men were given the vote a half-century before women of any race were allowed to mark a ballot, and generally have ascended to positions of power, from the military to the boardroom, before any women (with the possible exception of obedient family members in the latter) . . .

. . . So why is the sex barrier not taken as seriously as the racial one? The reasons are as pervasive as the air we breathe: because sexism is still confused with nature as racism once was; because anything that affects males is seen as more serious than anything that affects “only” the female half of the human race; because children are still raised mostly by women (to put it mildly) so men especially tend to feel they are regressing to childhood when dealing with a powerful woman; because racism stereotyped black men as more “masculine” for so long that some white men find their presence to be masculinity-affirming (as long as there aren’t too many of them); and because there is still no “right” way to be a woman in public power without being considered a you-know-what . . .

No wonder so many progressive non-white women don't consider themselves feminists.

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I didn't know 30 Rock was on last night, and I missed it. :(

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Janet Jackson's video for her new single, "Feedback." I have been playing the song all day almost every day for the past month. But the video needs help. And more dancing.

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Things that made me happy this week:

My friend Chrissy saved this week's 30 Rock on her DVR, so now I can watch it this weekend.

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Psych is coming back tonight!

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I got a Hello Kitty calendar. It only took me a week to realize that I would need a new one for 2008.

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I'm sure some more good things happened, but I can't think of them at the moment.

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"Either Chinese, or some black dude – who can remember?"

This article has caused quite the controversy on Racialicious and many other blogs. It's a blogoversy. Someone write that down!


The Real Thing, by Tama Janowitz, New York Times Blog.

My husband Tim and I adopted our daughter Willow, who is now 12, from China when she was 9 months old. We were told by the adoption agency that once the process was complete and the three of us were back home, many people would stop to inquire about our daughter’s Mongolian features or why she did not look like us.

It may be that having a child of a different ethnic background from yourself is more difficult in other parts of the country. And certainly that may lead to problems. But In my neighborhood in Brooklyn I see black women with half-Asian, half-black kids and I see kids with dark skin and blond hair — the mother is white, the father is not. There are Indian fathers and Caucasian mothers with their offspring. There are families with two dads. There are also Hasidic families with ten kids and Muslim women dressed in full burkas who have dressed their daughters the same way.

So here in New York City, we haven’t attracted too much attention.

Well, O.K., sometimes.

It is true when she was a baby, if I took her out on my own, sometimes people did ask me, “Is the father Chinese?” If I said “yes” the usual response was “Good for you!” This puzzled me, so then I just said, “Either Chinese, or some black dude – who can remember?”

Yes, who can remember? Aren't all multiracial-looking babies the products of promiscuity? I know my nephews and nieces are. So are my mixed friends. Their parents obviously had no shame in their game. I'm hilarious!

Here is the passage that most other people are writing about:

A girlfriend who is now on the waiting list for a child from Ethiopia says that the talk of her adoption group is a recently published book in which many Midwestern Asian adoptees now entering their 30s and 40s complain bitterly about being treated as if they did not come from a different cultural background. They feel that this treatment was an attempt to blot out their differences, and because of this, they resent their adoptive parents.

So in a way it is kind of nice to know as a parent of a child, biological or otherwise – whatever you do is going to be wrong. Like I say to Willow: “Well, you know, if you were still in China you would be working in a factory for 14 hours a day with only limited bathroom breaks!”

And she says — as has been said by children since time immemorial — “So what, I don’t care. I would rather do that than be here anyway.”

My favorite response so far comes from Sarah Kim, who reminds me that sharing your story with others is very important, for everyone involved: To Willow Janowitz: You’re not alone….

What made me incredibly sad while reading the post was thinking about the all-too-real pain that the blogger’s daughter, one Willow Janowitz, must be experiencing at being the butt of her high-profile mother’s jokes. Whether or not she has read or will read “The Real Thing” (and whether or not she will read/not read my little blog post here), I would like to say to you, Willow, that you are not alone. There are hundreds of thousands of other adoptees who, like you, have grown up in families where the insatiable need to normalize, to forget, to erase difference drives parents to say such (unintentionally) hurtful things to their children. It is so hard—SO HARD—as a 12-year-old transracially/transnationally adopted child to articulate why we sometimes feel conflicted, confused, and sad. And so sometimes we express this complex whirl of unremembered memories, feelings, and thoughts in reduced phrases—”I hate you.” . . .

So yes, Willow, I agree with your mother in that I do think you should write everything down. Girl, write all of this shit down. So not only can you tell your therapist (there is no shame in therapy!!!), you can tell the other adult adoptees that I hope you will one day meet. Because there are a lot of us. In fact, there is a global community of us. We are out there (even though by reading the NYT one wouldn’t think so), and we have voices, and we support one another. And we would support you . . .

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Falling in love all over again

T Style: Men's Fashion Fall 2007, from The New York Times Style Magazine. Thanks, anonymous!



If you all can stop swooning for a moment, there is also a related article: Kid Rock, by Lynn Hirschberg.

During college I started to miss acting. I started auditioning for movies. That’s how I got the part in “Mysterious Skin.”

In that movie, you play a gay hustler. It was a bold decision to take on that role. Were you nervous?

I find it very strange when people say, “How could you make that movie?” I never had any trepidation. When I read the script, I thought the director, Gregg Araki, would want me for another part, the sensitive boy. He said, “No — I want you to be sexy.” I had not heard that a lot. I was always cast as the friend or the nice guy. It’s really great when someone says, “I want you to be the sexy one.”

Yes, it is great. Although no one ever says that to me. :( I would say it to Mr. Gordon-Levitt all the time if I could. :)

It’s interesting that critics consider it riskier from a career standpoint to play a gay hustler than a soldier in an unpopular war, or a psychotic hit man, which you play in your next film, “Killshot.”

As an actor, you have to be open-minded. That’s one of the great aspects of the job. In the real world, people make judgments all the time. But as an actor, you can’t judge. I would rather play someone who is different from me. You can’t be a bigot and be a great actor.

Look at Mr. G-L making sense.

Who's learning Spanish now?

From The Washington Post, via Racialicious: Spanish Lesson: Two Constituencies, Two Campaigns? What You Need Is Another Tongue, by David Montgomery.

Off the campaign trail, on Capitol Hill, tune your ears to the new frequency. It's no longer just the cafeteria staff chattering in Spanish. At 7:30 a.m. on Tuesdays and Wednesdays is Spanish class for a half-dozen Democratic House members. The immigration debate has brought advocates on both sides of the issue who are comfortable in both languages. You see pink, sweating gringo faces in reception rooms off the Senate floor suddenly burst into staccato Spanish.

All this Spanish makes politicians nervous: An identical legislative amendment to uphold English passed easily last year. Yet they press on, rolling their r-r-r-r's, auditioning to follow Dodd's and Sen. Barack Obama's example in delivering the weekly Hispanic Radio Address,

What's going on here? Let's translate.

The fact is, the politics of language is one thing, and the language of politics is another. Language is both a tool and a value.

The politics of language requires a politician to honor that sacred and hard-to-define concept, the "American identity." The language of politics is about getting votes -- and pragmatically accepting that every day, including Election Day, the American identity speaks in many tongues.

I'd better not catch any of the more vocal immigrant-haters in one of those classes. Or maybe people like Bill O'Reilly and John McCain--who are worried about foreigners breaking down "the white, Christian, male power structure"--should attend classes like these, and learn some cultural acceptance.

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In even more incendiary news: Know Your Place, Woman: BET’s Meet the Faith on Black Marriage, by Latoya Peterson, on Racialicious.

“Black men don’t want a partner, they want wives.” — Lopez-Pierre

It should be noted that Lake jumped all over him for making this assertion. Lopez-Pierre went on to argue that a partner indicates an equal. While I could not catch everything he said (which is why I can’t quote this part), he stated that having an equal or a partner basically means he has to respect the time of his partner, which would mean he would need to do things to help out like make dinner, or clean the house, which is something he refuses to do. Ergo, he wants a wife - not a partner. Lopez-Pierre talks about his relationship with his wife as an example. It is interesting to see where he draws the distinction - a partner is someone you have to pay attention to, a wife is a person who accommodates her man...

...the focus comes back to black women having the wrong attitude about marriage - but what is the right attitude? To be willing to lay aside everything you worked for in order to have a functional relationship?

Lopez-Pierre again takes another opportunity to drive home his opinion that women need to focus more on being wives and supporting their husbands. Apparently, that will enable women to catch a good man. (Interestingly enough, none of these men mention the need to be financially independent as one of the triggers of modern feminism was women being abandoned by the husbands they devoted themselves to, becoming destitute and dealing with the double blow of emotional pain and financial stress.)

Hmph. Something needs to be done about this Thomas Lopez-Pierre. He could do with some feminist rehab. Here are some more choice quotes from the owner of the brothel--I mean, social organization--called the Harlem Club:

"If I cheat on my wife, it is not a reason for her to divorce me…if a wife cheats on her husband, she would be a whore."

Sir, it's not whoring if you do it for free.

“The problem for black women is so bad, we should be grateful that white men are willing to date them......My problem with white men is that they take our best women - let them take some of these women from the projects, the ones with three and four kids!”

What about the ones with five kids? Don't they deserve a white man, too?

And from the 2004 New York Times article, Only the Gorgeous and Smart Need Apply, by Sherri Day:

"I didn't marry my wife because she was a kind, sensitive woman...I married her because she is a complete package. I married her because she takes her butt to the gym, and she keeps it tight for me. I want it all, and I got it all. There are men who want the same."

What a catch. Sign me up for a patronizing "associate" membership!

Ooh, but wait. Lopez-Pierre "[deletes] the e-mail applications of overweight women." Oh well. I don't have to join some New York club. I can be discriminated against by men in my own state, thank you very much.