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October 21, 2002

Or, maybe, I've lived too long

Was at some trendy bar Friday night -- damned if I can remember the name, it's in the same mall as St. Anthony Main theater -- in a (blech) mixed-race, mixed-gender group of people.

Looked over at another table at one point, and one of the trendy white male patrons was openly staring at us in what looked like disgust.

I went back to paying attention to our conversation.

There was a time I would have had some sort of reaction to that, but after living in Minnesota for a while, I've grown quite accustomed to it.

Another very good reason to get the fuck out.

Speaking of annoying trendy white males in Minnesota, Rob Nelson writes in this week's City Pages:

Beyond the Pale

In other words: Let me describe here what some people you might never have heard of had to say about something related to what only a small portion of you might care to identify as White Male Hegemony. But first I have to tell you: Rosie Perez's backside is fine.

And now the main attraction: her brain. "When we talk about the history of Latin people in the media," says Perez to a half-full house of film enthusiasts at Lincoln Center, "we see that [racist representation] isn't new. There was this Latin screen star, Lupe Vélez, who was Mexican; she crossed over because she starred with Gary Cooper [in 1929's Wolf Song]. She was called the 'Mexican Spitfire.' And they asked her to dance in everything: love stories, Westerns, whatever--she'd break into dance. Back then, they didn't call it 'The Latin Explosion,' but it was basically the same thing. What followed for her was a series of films where she played oversexualized women--caricatures. Unless [a woman of color] was screwing a white guy in Hollywood, she didn't have a chance. A lot hasn't changed."

It's not a bad article, really. Just very clearly not meant for me.

It covers a panel discussion on race at the New York Film Festival, with Rosie Perez, Warrington Hudlin and Michael Eric Dyson, among others, speaking on the subject. Which sounds fascinating, and I'm sure it was, but all you're going to get in the article is Mr. Nelson's take, which isn't.

At least, not for me.

Want to know more? Well, I tried looking for a write-up on the panel at Village Voice's site, but got immediately distracted by the front page link to Rage Before Race: How Feminists Faltered on the Central Park Jogger Case:

Feminists who rallied on the courthouse stairs outside the 1990 trial of five African American and Latino youth accused in the infamous rape and beating of the 28-year-old Central Park jogger made it painfully clear—there was a choice to make: gender or race. With flimsy evidence and an almost immediate indictment by the public, advocates for the teens believed they were easy lynch victims and demanded further investigation and fair trials. But to some feminists, bringing up "the race issue" "muddled" the case and detracted from the bottom-line issue—violence against women and justice for the victim.

[. . .] Some activists say this case highlights the continuing struggle within the feminist movement, and often, its failure to truly engage the needs and issues facing women of color, or grapple well with situations in which issues of race and gender are intermingled.

And then I decided it was time to just step away from the computer for a while.

Might break this into two entries at some point.

Not fucking likely, though.

Posted by Aaron at October 21, 2002 05:33 PM

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