just spicy enough

One thing American-born Asians and Latinos share in terms of racial assumptions made about them is that they definitely speak a different language (and get accosted by people who want to talk about and emphasize this magical otherness). This SNL sketch captures well how I think Hollywood deals with it:

Ethnic, but not TOO ethnic, because then it'd be weird!, i.e. Working from within racial stereotypes and sticking to the stereotypes ("Aiyaiyai!").

cool duo

AV Club.

Great NPR interview w/ Jonathan Moore, Shabazz Palaces and THEESatisfaction:

Jonathan Moore: As Ish mentioned a minute ago, we're here in Seattle, and so you're isolated geographically and essentially you pioneer or you die. You're in the wilderness. You make your way or perish.


ANN POWERS: That principle of self-invention can mask inequalities in a city like this.


JONATHAN MOORE: I lived in Atlanta for five years during college, and Seattle is probably more segregated than Atlanta, believe it or not. It is this kind of ideal that's propped up, that we live in a real liberal Patagonia-yoga-New-Age-type environment, but it can be really repressive here, if you don't have a sense of entity yourself.


You could live in Seattle and work as a white person and not have any interaction with people of color. They might not be in your office, they may not be in your school, they might not be in your neighborhood, so you just see them in passing, and that's not progress. That's not integration.

art history at its best

I Love Totally Looks Like.

aggressively depressed about the state of race in this country..+jam

AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH

Whosever "faith and values" these people are taking, they are NOT MINE.

aggresive non-participation in black friday..+ jams

Adbusters Barbara Kruger-inspired poster.


TRYING to not buy anything today..it's more difficult than it should be, probably.

Barbara Kruger “Plenty” exhibition at Guild Hall in East Hampton, N.Y., 2010.

You Can Sell Anything..."Let's go around the room, what motivates you--'I wanna own a boat one day"

Barbara Kruger, I Shop Therefore I Am (I), 1987.

Buy Nothing Day 2007 ad.

But, calm down Adbusters, D. Racist brings a fresh perspective to commercial(i)s(m):

"It's irrelevant tell me where my cheddar went, money is my time and I like my time better spent"

Lastly, Choose Life.

a 90s versus 10s study of diversity..WHOOPS

Hi,

I was going to write a short ditty about how Target's new ad campaign for its Levi jeans brand Denizen "did" diversity in an organic, almost natural, urban way as opposed to the staid and forced 90s way (as I saw recently on an infuriating trip to Target in Northgate (for the '10s) and as still seen at most Baskin Robbins joints on a big poster//on BK Kids Burger King happy-meal-equivalent bags(for the '90s))...but WHOOPS!

The online campaign is not diverse.

Observe 2011:

Versus 1989:

So then am I hopeful for these millenium teens, or wary that online, Target is less diverse than it is offline? Isn't online-ness the true measure of reality nowadays?
ps. I was about to complain about the lack of any female of color in BK Kids, but according to Wikipedia an Asian female was added..in the 2000s!

pps. i have limited HTML knowledge so here is a pic/description of her

link here

Furthermore, the brand sells in places where exclusively or almost exclusively brown/yellow people reside (At first I thought that the negative connotations of the etymology of the brand had to do with the fact that the brand was supposed to be more "street" and thus diverse, but the negativity is not mentioned on its website):

"Launched in Asia in 2010, dENiZEN™ was created by the people who invented jeans.

The dENiZEN™ name means 'inhabitant' – belonging to a community of family and friends. Denim is in the name, the heart of the brand.

The dENiZEN™ brand is currently available in China, India, Mexico, Pakistan, Singapore and the United States."

Also it appears from Levi's "Culture" webpage, the staff includes a diverse peoples, and "they" are okay with advertising that here:


Where's the disconnect here? Who is making these marketing decisions, and who do I ask to get my peoples behind the scenes represented in the front of scenes? Or are we too ugly, decision makers (Are these decision makers self-hating yellow folks?)?

This reminds me of the fact that Sex in the City takes place in New York City, the most diverse place, what, ever? and includes four white ladies as the main characters and therefore is not very representative of the City it purports to portray.

Anyway my point is, marketing people, stop making me feel unwelcome/unbeautiful/invisible and maybe I'll consider buying from you since you care to pretend you care. Maybe. Thanks Burger King, but uh, no thanks. Maybe when you include some other ladies of color..twenty years ago. I have this consolation regarding The Man: "Unhappy with your riches cuz you're piss-poor morally"

dung wisdom