* This post was originally published in August 2013 by This Week In Blackness (TWiB!) at thisweekinblackness.com. Graphics by TWiB.

Despite Miley Cyrus’s appropriation of the phrase “we can’t stop, and we won’t stop” in her new single . . . I’m REALLY gonna need her to stop. Seriously, Miley, Put your tongue back in your mouth and JUST STOP.

Most of us have seen Cyrus making the media rounds displaying her newfound love of “twerking.” (I use the scare quotes because we all know that awkward thing she keeps doing with her butt isn’t twerking. It’s more, you know, “twerking.”) She’s been spotted “twerking” on stage with Juicy J and is now working on her new album BANGERZ (yeah, let that soak in for a minute) which features Cyrus rapping as well as collaborations with Wiz Khalifa, Big Sean, Future, French Montana, Nelly, and Ludacris. The video for her single “We Can’t Stop” features Cyrus “twerking” while surrounded by voluptuous Black women who serve as props for Cyrus to periodically grope. (For some great analysis of Cyrus’s antics read here and here.) Continue reading →

* This post was originally published in July 2013 by This Week In Blackness (TWiB!) at thisweekinblackness.com. Graphics by TWiB.

This past week, I was lucky enough hang out with Team Blackness at Netroots Nation 13. There is a lot that can be said about Netroots and its marginalization of people of color (see Jenifer Daniels’ posts on TWiB! for example). But, as a straight, cis, white feminist, I found one particular moment profoundly disturbing — Amanda Marcotte’s Ignite talk at the closing keynote. Because my position shares so much with Marcotte’s, I feel compelled to take this opportunity to say: white feminists, step your game up. Continue reading →

* This post was originally published in July 2013 by This Week In Blackness (TWiB!) at thisweekinblackness.com. Graphics by TWiB.

If I ever see Justin Bieber in my neighborhood wearing a hoodie, I’mma shoot him. Okay, no, not really. I don’t actually want to shoot Justin Bieber.  You can put down the hatchets, Beliebers. I’m kidding! But, according to George Zimmerman’s defense team and supporters, I would be completely justified. Continue reading →

* This post was originally published in April 2013 by This Week In Blackness (TWiB!) at thisweekinblackness.com. Graphics by TWiB.

It’s recently been reported that Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev received at least some form of government assistance over the last decade. This discovery has been a right wing jackpot. The Tsarnaev brothers were already the embodiment of evils of immigration (See? That’s why you can’t let “them” in.) and a cautionary example of how unsafe we are under President Obama (A terror attack on American soil!). But, now they can also demonstrate the dangerous excesses of the social safety net. Right wing media including Fox News, The Washington Times, The New York Post, the Drudge Report, Breitbart.com, and the Daily Caller have all been caterwauling about “tax-payer funded terrorism.” They have all offered extensive speculative lists about the possible ways the Tsarnaevs could have received taxpayer money – Section 8 housing, food stamps, Medicaid, EBT cards. Some, like Fox News’s Megyn Kelly, also included the cost of the public defender now being provided to Dzhokhar as well as a $2,500 scholarship he received from the City of Cambridge. Continue reading →

* This post was originally published in May 2013 at This Week In Blackness (TWiB!) at thisweekinblackness.com. Graphics by TWiB.

Warning: Extreme spoilers below!

When I heard that Iron Man III was revamping the Mandarin, I expected the worst. The Mandarin, who first appeared in 1964, has traditionally been your standard nefarious evil genius in the style of Fu Manchu. Fu Manchu was the villain from a series of British crime novels written in the first half of the 20th century. He was the embodiment of the “yellow peril,” wrapped in the western imaginings of “the Orient” as exotic and inscrutable. The Mandarin, like Ming the Merciless, Lo Pan, and other characters that follow the Fu Manchu blueprint, has always been yet another iteration of this stereotype. Continue reading →