We again apologize, especially to Mr. Lin. His accomplishments are a source of great pride to the Asian-American community, including the Asian-American employees at ESPN. Through self-examination, improved editorial practices and controls, and response to constructive criticism, we will be better in the future.
Good on them for taking it seriously enough to do something right away. When we posted about this yesterday, the response was very strong. (ht @darrennrovell, via @AntDeRosa)
The headline is Jeremy Lin-related. That’s all we’ll say.
A powder-keg of racial intolerance: In a move that looked likely for a solid week, East Haven, Conn. Police Chief Len Gallo (left), who oversaw a police force accused of profiling and detaining Latinos in the community without cause, has resigned from his position effective immediately. Expect the move to add extra pressure to his boss, Mayor Joseph Maturo (right), especially in the wake of the comments he made to a TV reporter last week regarding how he “might have tacos” as a form of outreach to the Latino community, leading to the Hartford Courant’s editorial board calling him an “idiot” — a word not bandied around editorial boards that often. A Latino group is asking Maturo to resign already.
“China Jon.” Need we say more? A warning to all that the message in this video is fairly offensive towards Asians, but it’s worth noting that, though the person who released it goes by the YouTube handle “NHLiberty4Paul,” Paul himself is against the ad. For those not watching, the ad makes reference to Huntsman’s adoptive daughters (from China) and shows the presidential candidate speaking in Mandarin Chinese. ”I haven’t look at it, but I understand it’s an ugly ad, and I’ve disavowed it,” Paul said. “Obviously, it was way, way out order.” (EDIT: Apologies for the incorrect video at first — our wi-fi crapped out at the exact wrong time.) source
But the trailer’s production history is far less interesting than its troubling and highly selective appropriation of imagery from a famous viral video that spawned multiple Internet memes. The so-called “Epic Beard Man” video showed a 67-year-old man, later identified as Thomas Bruso, beating a younger man (though not young; he’s reportedly 50 years old)—known only by his first name, Michael—on a public transit bus in Oakland. The incident was recorded by another passenger, a young woman named Iyanna Washington. In part because Bruso is elderly and does indeed sport a truly epic beard, he became a cult hero.
But there has always been an uncomfortable aspect (or, really, two or three uncomfortable aspects) to that hero worship. Bruso is white, and Michael is black; early in the video, Bruso appears to ask Michael, “How much would you charge me for a spit shine?” Whether he intended this question innocently is open to some debate, but Michael—who has said, in the course of apologizing for his actions, that he was intoxicated—took it as a racist insult, and the incident unfolded from there. Bruso, meanwhile, has a history of public altercations, and, according to an AC transit spokesman, had not taken his usual medication on the day in question. Whatever actually happened, the wish to see Bruso as an uncomplicated hero involves a serious cultural myopia—when, that is, it doesn’t involve simple racism.
We posted this earlier with a some frustration, worried that some were asking for too much in the form of social commentary in our Danny Trejo films. After some thought, we decided to reconsider the issue. Why? Well, the original incident — where a white man brutally attacked a black man in self-defense, as both sides used racist language — was never fully resolved, and as much as we love Danny Trejo, perhaps this is not the right way to resurface this story.
Which is not to say that the B-movie is a bad way to handle touchy social issues. Robert Rodriguez, for example, somewhat brilliantly redid the “Machete” trailer as commentary on the then-fresh Arizona immigration law. And Michael Jai White’s amazing “Black Dynamite” handled racial matters with grace. However, in those cases, the writers and directors had the discipline to pull it off. The director of “Bad Ass,” however, may not be the guy — his other works point to derivative, exploitative parodies, suggesting a quick cash-in on a homeless guy’s story. Which, combined with the trailer’s rewriting of the original story and the financial status of its inspiriation, is reason to worry.
Will the movie be enjoyable? Probably. Is it an attempt to make a quick buck while ignoring a larger issue? Most likely. As much as we like Danny Trejo.
This is well-worth reading. Eric Dondero, a former personal assistant and senior aide to Ron Paul, has written a lengthy statement about his former boss, and what kind of guy he is. He covers a lot of ground, and moves well beyond the questions of whether Paul is racist (“In short, no”) or homophobic (“Well, yes and no”). Dondero takes particular umbrage with Paul’s foreign policy views, as well as a widely-unreported incident regarding one Nadia Hayes, a former Paul campaign manager who, Dondero implies, was framed for embezzlement by other Paul staffers. It’s a fascinating firsthand account of Paul and, in its own odd way, one of the better political profiles we’ve read in a while.
The must-read of the weekend:
WHEN I was 14, my mother told me not to panic if a police officer stopped me. And she cautioned me to carry ID and never run away from the police or I could be shot. In the nine years since my mother gave me this advice, I have had numerous occasions to consider her wisdom.
Agree with Sam. Another key line: “Maybe blacks and brown people look more furtive, whatever that means.”
And justice for all? A study broke this weekend that flies in the face of that notion. ProPublica journalists Dafna Linzer and Jennifer LaFleur investigated the last decade’s worth of presidential pardons, and found some alarming things. For starters, white applicants were four times more likely to receive a pardon than minority applicants, with blacks having the lowest chance of approval. After taking office, President Bush outsourced the pardons process to lawyers in the Office of the Pardon Attorney, who claim their protocol for examining cases never included any mention of the applicant’s race, but that non-statistical factors like candor and remorse were taken into account. That said, there are striking examples of minorities being denied for very similar or lesser offenses than successful white applicants. Of the thirty-four drug-related pardons President Bush authorized, all were white. Of President Obama’s twenty-two total pardons to date, twenty have been white. Pro Publica’s reporting on this is excellent, and far more in-depth than we can possibly summarize; we urge you to look for yourself.
Meet Bryon Widner. He used to be a white supremacist. When Widner left the movement in 2006, he had a lot to work past to prove that he no longer believed the things he once did — much of it on his own face. “This wasn’t just a few tattoos,” noted plastic surgeon Dr. Bruce Shack. “This was an entire canvas.” Widner had to fight hard to get these tattoos removed and get on with his life, turning former enemies into allies and working with the Southern Poverty Law Center. An anonymous donor paid for the changes to his face (which were incredibly painful), but he paid an even bigger price for the changes to his life. After years of being an “enforcer” for the Vinlanders Social Club, a notable white supremacist group, he quit. He had to leave his Michigan home to get a sense of normalcy. He went for it — for his kids, and for his wife, and to get a second chance. Now, as you can see, the tattoos are gone. He suffers health issues (he has to stay out of the sun), but he says “it’s a small price to pay for being human again.” An impressive redemption story. (Editor’s note: This story has two parts.)
My reaction is, that’s just very insensitive. [There] isn’t a more vile, negative word than the N-word, and for him to leave it there as long as he did, before I hear that they finally painted over it, is just plain insensitive to a lot of black people in this country.Herman Cain • Complaining about the hunting camp Rick Perry once owned, which once had a name that included a racial slur (we’ll let you figure out which one). Perry’s camp already came out on the defensive against this, claiming it was painted over long ago, and the quickly-rising Cain (who just won another straw poll) has every reason in the world to combat this. Perry will have to work hard to come back from this mess. source (via • follow)
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And Downlo’s is quite excellent as well. Each in their own way tears apart the controversial project from an analytical perspective.
(Source: shortformblog)
The pricing structure is there to bring attention, to cause people to get a little upset. But it’s really there to cause people to think more critically about what this kind of policy would do in university admissions.UC Berkeley College Republicans president Shawn Lewis • Discussing his group’s reasoning for having a bake sale where people paid different prices based on their race and gender. The pricing scale’s kinda like this: $2 for whites, $1.50 for Asians, $1 for Latinos, $0.75 for Blacks and $0.25 for Native Americans — with a discount of 25 cents for women of all races. As you might guess, this bake sale, scheduled for Tuesday, is flaring up emotions quicker than a character in the movie “PCU.” It’s not the first time it’s been tried — a couple of other schools have tried the idea, and it’s been shut down at least once. What do you think? Does this seem disrespectful and worth getting angry over, or is there a valid point here? (h/t ProducerMatthew) source (via • follow)
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