nprhuddle

[nprhuddle]

Roger Ebert defends Asian American filmmakers at the 2002 Sundance Festival. 

[nprhuddle]

They share the classroom, the football field, and the baseball diamond, but the school is still holding on to a vestige of this country's darkest days of segregation. "We're embarrassed, it's embarrassing," exclaimed Stephanie Sinnot, Mareshia Rucker, Quanesha Wallace, and Keela Bloodworth. The group has been friends since the 4th grade and they say they do everything together, except prom night. "We are all friends," said Stephanie. "That's just kind of not right that we can't go to prom together." Stephanie and Keela are white and Mareshia and Quanesha are black. They're seniors at Wilcox County High School, a school that has never held an integrated prom during its existence. "There's a white prom and there's an integrated prom," said Keela. The rule is strictly enforced, any race other than Caucasian wouldn't dare to attend the white prom. "They would probably have the police come out there and escort them off the premises," said Keela. That was the case just last year as a biracial student was turned away by police. It's been that way for as long as anyone can remember and it doesn't stop at prom. Homecoming is also segregated. Normally, there would be a court for each race, but for the first time the school decided to elect only one homecoming court, Quanesha won. But there were still two separate dances. (via Macon-Area Students Fight Segregated Prom - WSAV: News, Weather, and Sports for Savannah, GA)

[nprhuddle]

From Colorlines: “The Stylebook no longer sanctions the term “illegal immigrant” or the use of “illegal” to describe a person. Instead, it tells users that “illegal” should describe only an action, such as living in or immigrating to a country illegally,” wrote AP Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll on the organization’s blog.

[nprhuddle]

(via Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love (2010)—“Of The People, For The People, By The People” | On The Level | The Gameological Society)

Yes, Harlem can be annoying as hell. I don’t want to hear reggaeton blasting out of ’87 Camry speakers at 9 a.m. That’s why Harlem’s family, though. Just because it has its irritating side doesn’t mean you don’t love it. Sakura Wars: So Long, My Lovegets almost everything about New York, especially Harlem, wrong. Yet its second level manages to capture that essential love for the neighborhood, even if it does fill the place with steam-powered mechs and filters it through a strange trans-Pacific mistranslation.

Released in Japan in 2005—it took another five years for the game to reach the States—So Long, My Love is actually the fifth game in one of Sega’s more obscure series, a weird collection of games that are part historical science fiction, part war strategy, and part dating game. Sakura Wars takes place during the first quarter of the 20th century, but instead of the Archduke Ferdinand beefing it and kicking off an era of global conflict, the peoples of the world band together to fight demons. Instead of the League Of Nations, there’s an international coalition of small armies that captain giant steam-powered bipedal tanks. 

[nprhuddle]

Renegades documents the fans of Botswana’s heavy metal subculture, an underground minority rebelling against the status quo, redrawing the borders of both heavy metal and orthodox culture in Botswana. Marshall traveled to Botswana to take portraits of the metal scene there – a small but strong one, heavily influenced by bands like Iron Maiden, Megadeath and Motörhead.

“I can’t recall one instance where they were reluctant or dubious towards my taking their portraits,” says Marshall. “In most cases they relished the opportunity to show themselves off. They are proud and wield a sort of tangible power, wrought from both the fantasy and sonic force of metal. Whereas many ‘metal heads’ can be arrogant or smugly indifferent, these guys in Botswana are very open.”

[nprhuddle]

A rare TV commercial featuring an entire Asian American family. 

[nprhuddle]

“I could also feel the way people wanted me to fit into an idea of the type of Asian male they were comfortable with. Both sides made it hard to be myself. I was often described as quiet, studious, easygoing, book-smart but not street-smart, and some of these descriptions stuck in a self-fulfilling way. It took me much of my life to realize that I was molding myself to a stereotype.” 

[nprhuddle]

Senators agree on path to legal status for illegal immigrants

From the Los Angeles Times: “According to aides familiar with the closed-door negotiations, the bill would require illegal immigrants to register with Homeland Security Department authorities, file federal income taxes for their time in America and pay a still-to-be-determined fine. They also must have a clean law enforcement record.”

[nprhuddle]

This video shows perfectly the overwhelming nature of the Chinese family tree — and what you should call your family members. 

[nprhuddle]

Valarie Kaur and Sharat Raju's 2008 documentary Divided We Fall: Americans in the Aftermath is, five years later, not a new film and many readers of this blog may have used it in teaching a variety of courses, from introductory surveys to advanced seminars. But it is film worth remembering. Divided We Fall follows Kaur and her cousin, Sonny, across the United States as they investigate violence against Sikhs in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 (here's the extensive companion website, including a number a teaching points). Combining original, amateur footage, with media coverage, and later interviews and narration, the documentary raises a number of questions pertinent to studies of religion in American history, religion in the media, religion and politics, and religion and race. I screen it both in my world religions courses and religion in American history courses, making use of the documentary's extensive bonus material to cater to a variety of different lectures and discussions. Many of my students have very little, if any, prior knowledge of Sikhs and there are segments in the film and additional footage that can be used effectively to start robust classroom discussions. But the film itself is an especially useful tool for helping to expose the effects of media representations of religion, including students' own reception of the "turban equals terrorist" message in the modern media market. What is perhaps the greatest benefit of using the film, however, is that students relate to it. A

(via Religion in American History: Divided We Fall: Americans in the Aftermath)

[nprhuddle]

A new tumblr features children of immigrant women praising and sharing anecdotes about their mothers. 

[nprhuddle]

But what the Court is being asked is whether they will take the relatively radical step of striking down legislation that has existed for decades, was renewed only recently after extensive hearings, and which has accomplished so much. I have no doubts about where my sympathies lie. But I would propose a test to determine whether this act is really needed or not: We should ask, ‘Do you have consensus in affected areas among the black as well as the white community that this kind of federal oversight is no longer needed?’ I doubt very much that those people would agree with what the Court is suggesting. And without that, how can they really say with any credibility, listening overwhelmingly to Southern whites in political power who never agreed that the VRA was ever needed in the first place, that Section 5 is no longer needed? It’s hard for me to see what makes that particular argument so persuasive.

Why We Still Need Section 5

[nprhuddle]

When The Arsenio Hall Show premiered on Fox in 1989, it added some color to what was then a very white late night lineup. When Hall returns to late night this fall, nearly a quarter of a century later, the landscape won’t look all that different. This is particularly surprising given how many more options there are now, thanks to the expansion of cable. (via Howard Stern, Jimmy Fallon, Jay Leno: Why is late night TV so full of white men?)

[nprhuddle]

View Post

Random Midday Hotness: Six-Year-Old B-Girl Ethers the Whole Universe.

[nprhuddle]

When Detroit’s Cass Technical High School was closed in 2005 in order to move to a new building next door, the city was scheduled to lose one of its unofficial landmarks.

Built in a style of gothic construction at the beginning of the 20th century, Cass Tech was a symbol of success for one of Detroit’s only magnet schools; it was demolished in 2011.

Between the move and the time when the building was torn down, the once majestic building was left to decay.

A fire swept through its floors in 2007, devastating abandoned rooms once filled with life. To mark the contrast of the school both during its prime and demise, Detroit Urbex created a nostalgic photomontage of Detroit’s urban remodeling, available as an online archive.

(via Detroit Urbex: Using photomontage to compare the history of Cass Tech High School (PHOTOS).)

[nprhuddle]

I want a game that pokes fun at the fact that 99.9% of game protagonists look like cousins. I want a game that clowns the thinking that noble savages are still a good plot point in 2012. I want a game that doesn't feel the need to turn its black characters into thuggish stereotypes just because it's an easy shorthand for being a bad-ass. The Walking Dead was many people's Game of the Year in 2012 and it had a black lead that felt more human than any of his predecessors. (via This Is How We Get More Black People In Video Games)