“About ten years ago an acquaintance of mine introduced me to the term “adultolescence.” As he was recently divorced, had no children, and was not wanting for anything monetarily, he basked in reliving adolescent tendencies of embracing pop culture, faddish consumerism, and other trivialities as a middle-aged man. In short,
Continue readingTag: Pop Culture
Scripturient: La Bohème at the Galaxy
Starving bohemian artists living in drafty Paris attics in the mid-19th century, struggling to produce their art, falling in and out of love, sharing and suffering, living and dying, all done while singing. That’s La Bohème in a nutshell. I am embarrassed, even ashamed to admit I’ve never been to
Continue readingScripturient: Fire and Fury reviewed
Dysfunctional. Childish. Self-centred. Narcissistic. Ideologically myopic. Illiterate. Cranky. Capricious. Arrogant. Scheming. Petty. Ill-educated. No, I’m not writing about our local council (although, yes, all those words apply equally to The Block). These are some of the words that came to mind as I read Michael Wolff’s book, Fire and Fury:
Continue readingScripturient: Guillermo, monsters and me
Tucked away at the bottom of a tall display case in the ‘At Home With Monsters’ exhibit at the AGO is a small collection of seven old, well-thumbed books, all by the 19th century French naturalist and entomologist, Jean-Henri Fabre. At the very bottom of the pile, its title almost
Continue readingScripturient: Kong and his films
Kong: Skull Island is the 19th movie in my collection about apes.* Or at least ape-ish creatures (not including those about cave people or yetis). We watched the recently-released Kong: Skull Island this past weekend, even devouring all of the special features on the second disc. I give Kong: Skull Island
Continue readingScripturient: Legends of Horror
Legends of Horror is the title of one multi-DVD collections of films I own. Fifty films in this package. They’re B-films for the most part (and a few of lesser quality), dating from 1927 (silent) to 1980, mostly in B&W, but those dating from the mid-1960s on are usually colour.
Continue readingScripturient: The strange life of Bobby Fischer
Forty five years ago this month, a momentous event took place in Iceland that shook the world. After 21 games spread over almost two months, the eccentric American chess master, Bobby Fischer, ended 24 years of Soviet dominance in chess after beating Soviet grandmaster, Boris Spassky. It shook the world
Continue readingScripturient: As Elvis leaves the building, so do we all
No one gets out of here alive. We all die. And with us go into the dustbin the dreams, the values, the ideals, the culture we grew up with, we shared, we ensconced in our daily existence. And the clutter we accumulated during our lives. Elvis has left the building
Continue readingScripturient: The Bard’s Best? Nope…
To help celebrate the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s birthday (April 23), the website Mashable has put together a “battle” for the “Best Shakespeare Play Ever.” It’s done up as a sort of sports playoff gr…
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: Stacey Dash’s Little Black Lies: When Blacks Agree with Bigots
Alternate title : Stacey Dash — Human Shield of House Negro ?
It’s painful to watch someone pimp themselves out for a paycheque. But Black people do it every day. Why? To “go along to get a long”, to make colleagues comfortable, to insure the few strands of opportunities that may come their way despite an unlevel playing field aren’t rubbed out.
This week, Stacey Dash traded her values for a check when she turned her back on the African-American owned media outlets which supported her career, and their audiences. The once still ‘Clueless’ actress-turned-Fox News commentator called for the elimination of Black History Month, the BET Awards and other venues to highlight talent which is otherwise eclipsed by the ubiquity of whiteness (see #OscarsSoWhite controversy 1.0 and 2.0). Too many bigots–blissfully unaware of the trick compensated ruse–salivate on Dash’s diatribe, wielding it like a weapon to uphold white supremacy.
The ruse has been employed for decades, and not just in the U.S. Banking on vulnerable people to lie to save their skin is one thing. To use these misguided statements, possibly offered under duress, as a catalyst for further marginalization of racialized groups is cruel. This tactic has often worked well for the establishment.
In the mid-1950s, Dresden, Ont. was like many segregated Canadian towns. Black and white residents led separate social lives. Restaurants, barbershops and even churches banned African Canadians from entering. Many merchants refused to serve people of colour.
When Black residents challenged the long-standing segregationist climate in a Dresden court room, the media descended on the south-western Ontario town to survey the racial row. To gage the sentiment of the townsfolk, they interviewed local residents. Curiously, the black resident this journalist interrogated was the area’s token sole Black police officer. When asked about the race-based discrimination enforced by the City (and, implicitly, his employer), the smiling policeman stated “there was no discrimination here”.
Were (white) journalists enlightened enough to decipher the white lie a Black employee uttered to comfort his Caucasian coworkers and keep his coveted job? None of the period articles I found were conclusive. However, it is entirely plausible that local bigots used this coerced headline to justify the racist status quo.
The same sad scenario has repeated itself in Quebec this week. CBC TV producer and Quebecois celebrity Louis Morissette took to his wife’s magazine, the public broadcaster’s airwaves and La Presse newspaper to share his artistic sorrow: his bosses forbid him from using blackface during Radio-Canada’s annual New Years’ Eve TV comedy special. Even worse, Morissette was – gasp! – forced to hire a Black actor to play a Black character on TV.
Blackface, a longstanding practice by which a white actor tars his face to play a black character, is back in style in Quebec. (Some say it never went out of style.)
Two afro-quebeckers vehemently and publicly defend blackface in French-speaking Canada: African immigrant-turned-CBC comedian Boucar Diouf and perennial token-black-character Normand Brathwaite, who notably got his career started by playing to Haitian immigrant stereotypes — much to the Québécois audience’s delight.
“This is not blackface,” Normand Brathwaite said. “I’d be pretty pissed off if someone imitated me in a year-end show and didn’t paint himself black, because I’m very proud of the colour of my skin.”
The Brathwaite-Diouf duo are often dragged to Quebec TV, radio and print to prop up bigot blackface-disciples, with a clear aim at silencing the vast majority of the black community which is offended by the practice. Brathwaite and Diouf work for the very Québec-based broadcasters and producers who repeatedly rely on blackface for comic relief. No one has questioned the dynamics by which Brathwaite and Diouf defend their masters remain in the good graces of Quebec’s white-dominated star système clique.
HUMAN SHIELDS or HOUSE NEGROS?
It’s a false binary. Journalists pull the strings of public sentiment by selecting biased spokespersons. The Stacy Dash’s of Quebec say what their employers want to hear. They’ve convinced many uninformed purelaine Quebeckers that blackface is no longer considered racist with their post-racial paradise. Regardless, the responsibility to present analysis of a racially-charged controversy isn’t on Stacy Dash or the Brathwaite-Diouf duo. It behooves competent journalists forgo editorial fools’ gold.
The Adventures of Diva Rachel: Stacey Dash’s Little Black Lies: When Blacks Agree with Bigots
Alternate title : Stacey Dash — Human Shield of House Negro ? It’s painful to watch someone pimp themselves out for a paycheque. But Black people do it every day. Why? To “go along to get a long”, to make colleagues comfortable, to insure the few strands of opportunities that
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: Stacey Dash’s Little Black Lies: When Blacks Agree with Bigots
Alternate title : Stacey Dash — Human Shield of House Negro ?It’s painful to watch someone pimp themselves out for a paycheque. But Black people do it every day. Why? To “go along to get a long”, to make colleagues comfortable, to insure the few…
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The Science in Sci-Fi Explained. :)
A concise guide to the levels of Science in popular science fiction: Star Trek: This is science-fiction, but we want our science to at least sound plausible. Therefore, most of the time, our scientific explanations will be rooted in scientific fact or at the very least solid, generally accepted theory. Stargate: We’re about half […]
Continue readingScripturient: Who By Fire
I’ve been reading a biography of Leonard Cohen, recently: the 2012 I’m Your Man, by Sylvie Simmons. It’s an interesting journey through the life and thoughts of an exquisite artist who is, by nature, somewhat reclusive and stays out…
Continue readingScripturient: Why I Still Watch M*A*S*H
The news of Harry Morgan’s death at 96, back in 2011, saddened me. I’m at the age when it seems far too many icons of my youth are dying off. Not from some misspent life or accident; from old age. And the process accelerates as I age. I n…
Continue readingScripturient: Is This Your Bar of Soap?
This is side five. Follow in your book and repeat after me as we learn three new words in Turkish: Towel. Bath. Border. So begins Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him, from the first album released by the Firesign Theater, in 1968 (on later …
Continue readingScripturient: The Last Case of Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes. Iconic detective, 93 years old. Tending his bees in bucolic self-exile near the Dover coast. Mycroft gone. Watson gone. Mrs. Hudson gone. Even the band of villains and criminals who made him who he was are gone. All he has left are his…
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: Pope Francis pontificates on ‘new colonialism,’ Africa still reeling from the old one
Thirty years ago Pope John Paul II chose Cameroon as the location to apologize to black Africa for the involvement of white Christians in the slave trade. This time, it is Pope Francis who uses Sub-Saharan Africa as a backdrop to speak out against colo…
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: Pope Francis pontificates on ‘new colonialism,’ Africa still reeling from the old one
Thirty years ago Pope John Paul II chose Cameroon as the location to apologize to black Africa for the involvement of white Christians in the slave trade. This time, it is Pope Francis who uses Sub-Saharan Africa as a backdrop to speak out against colonialism. This week in his inaugural
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: Pope Francis pontificates on ‘new colonialism,’ Africa still reeling from the old one
Thirty years ago Pope John Paul II chose Cameroon as the location to apologize to black Africa for the involvement of white Christians in the slave trade. This time, it is Pope Francis who uses Sub-Saharan Africa as a backdrop to speak out against colo…
Continue reading