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| New People -- The Blog! (updated almost daily!) |
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| Log Page for 6/22 to 7/6 |
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Wednesday, July 2, 8:02 a.m.
Strom Thurmond an integrationist? Intimately, perhaps. That is, if you believe an opinion column by Slate writer Diane McWhorter. She maintains that Thurmond fathered a daughter with a black servant in 1925. The woman is in her 70s today. Read about it here.
McWhorter is the author of "Carry Me Home," a book about Birmingham, Ala., where the Dixiecrat Party was born. Does this mean she has her own interests?
But McWhorter mentions another book that outlines Thurmond's racial dichotomy. She writes that "Jack Bass and Marilyn W. Thompson present persuasive evidence in their 1998 biography, Ol 'Strom," that Thurmond sired a daughter in 1925 with a black house servant named Essie Tunch Butler, with whom he reputedly had an extended relationship." Come to your own conclusions.
Saturday, June 28, 10:18 p.m.
I admit that I'm a pretty hard-core horror movie fan, so when I tell you that the zombie flick "28 Days Later" is good, you might take it with a grain of salt. But it REALLY is good, and there is an interracial romance plotline in it. You know, I'm beginning to think that everyone in the film world is totally over this intolerance thing, as more and more actors of different shades seem to be getting it on, falling in love, or just casually flirting with each other.
In "28 Days Later," Cillian Murphy (Jim) and Naomie Harris (Selena) fall for each other while fighting to stay alive. Maybe it takes a zombie plague to put down one's racial defenses. But I don't think so. This is a really clever movie, and the relationship between Jim and Selena is hard-won and entirely sweet, in a blood-and-guts kind of way. Go see it. Just bring a sweater to pull up over your head. FOUR STARS!!!
Saturday, June 28, 4:59 p.m.
Boy, it's been a busy week for tolerance. First the Supreme Court basically OKs affirmative action. Then, it throws out the Texas sodomy laws, making it legal for consenting adults to love ... freely. then former segregationist and Dixiecrat-turned smart politician Strom Thurmond dies at 100.
I don't know what to say.
Of course I do! This IS a blog, after all. But because of space considerations, I will just deal with affirmative action.
For many people, the affirmative action laws were nothing more than a handout. Affecting many minorities, the laws were seen as ways to give unqualified people chances they didn't deserve. Well, I am a child of affirmative action, and I have seen it up close and personal. Were there people who got AA and deserved it? Yes. Were there people who didn't deserve it? Yes. Were there qualified non-minorities who probably got turned away because they didn't fit the profile? Yes.
All this means is that the program has done good, and it has done bad. If we dismantle it, and let people who deserve jobs, education, etc. get those things on merit alone, we'd be doing a great thing. Will this happen at the expense of minorities because of discrimination that still is very real? You betcha.
I have no answer here, folks. Only questions. Let Atlas shrug. The world still needs some help, but we can only help ourselves.
Friday, June 27, 11:22 p.m.
Every summer, the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival is held in a park near Kansas City's major museum district. Tonight I saw "Hamlet." VERY good production. The mad Dane was in fine form. Ophelia had a really bad wig, but other than that, I saw no real flaws.
Here's the thing: there were two blacks in major roles. Horatio and Mercurio. Horatio, you may recall, utters the final line, "Goodnight sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest." Mercurio gets to say the famous line, "something's rotten in the state of Denmark."
Whenever I see nontraditional casting, I smile. Sure, Hamlet is always cast as a blond, but it's OK to have a dark-skinned foil to the prince. Cool.
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| "Frenchie Davis" now on Broadway |
Thursday, June 26, 2:51 p.m.
It's my birthday! Happy birthday to me! I love celebrating birthdays, both mine and others. And so I'm just checking in to let y'all know about the big day. OK, I know you're wondering. I'm 42. There, I said it!
Just read a piece from the Washington Post about former "American Idol" reject Frenchie Davis. She was kicked off the show because she appeared on a lingerie Web site in erotic photos. Now the girl is belting out tunes on Broadway in "Rent." You can't help but love a happy ending. Like the also-large Jennifer Holliday used to sing: She ain't leavin'!
Tuesday, June 24, 8:49 a.m.
I'm about to head off to work, but just caught the end of last year's movie, "Shallow Hal." It's a film I didn't want to like, being no Ally McBeal myself, but I found myself being drawn in to its humor and sweetness. For those of you who don't know the story, a very shallow Hal is hypnotized by positivist Tony Robbins into seeing everyone's inner beauty -- even those who don't have that beauty on the outside. He meets and falls in love with an obese woman, but he only sees her thinner, inner beauty. When he wakes up, he can't handle the truth.
Of course, Hal falls in love with his large lady by the film's end. But it made me think about other things, such as race and the way people see each other. If people truly put appearance aside and fell in love with a person's compassion, kindness and humor, I think even more people would marry interracially. The numbers are rising, and by the end of this decade, I predict the numbers of black women-white men will finally catch up to their counterparts of black men-white women. Intermarriage in the Asian community is at an all-time high, and Hispanics (being the majority in many communties) are certainly seeing this trend.
I don't think this because I think minorities aren't beautiful. Just the opposite. But it's not whether they are beautiful or not, it's because some non-minorities still think we are simply too different for them to get involved with. We look different enough to put up a barrier around their comfort zone. I don't claim to understand it, but it's there.
This barrier can also extend to minorities who are uncomfortable being with whites. A black girlfriend told me last night that she doesn't like dating whites because of these differences: their looks, their hair, even their smell is different (I don't know what she means by this).
So, take all these differences and throw them in the lake. Find the true person inside, right? Isn't that what we are supposed to do? Be more like Shallow Hal?
Monday, June 23, 1:18 p.m.
I'm on my lunch break, and just thought I'd check in. I hear Nicole Kidman is doing a new movie with a black leading man and I started thinking about past movies with interracial plotlines.
In "Emma's War" (to be directed by Tony Scott), Kidman will play a young British woman who moves to Sudan to become an aid worker. After moving to Sudan, she falls in love with a warlord in the midst of civil war. "Emma's War" is based on the real-life story of Deborah Scroggins' novel.
There have been a few films about black men with beautiful "delicate" white women. It seems the contrast here always stirs up at least a few comments. Take "Love Field (1992)" with Dennis Haybert and the ultra-bleached Michelle Pfeiffer; "Far from Heaven (2002)" with (again) Dennis Haysbert and tow-headed Julianne Moore and now the Kidman movie, we see dark-skinned men with more African than not features, paired with extremely fair women.
What does it mean? Does it mean anything? Well, it's not for me to decide, but it's an interesting thought. I should point out that Kidman starred (before she became really famous) in my FAVORITE interracial romance, "Flirting." So if I were to guess, I would say she doesn't have a problem with it.
Sunday, June 22, 2:56 p.m.
Just got back from the gym. It's a new experience for me, and one that I'm savoring. Depending on the day and the time, I can see a rainbow of people in there: black, white, Asian, Hispanic, male, female, young, old. Mixed, too, I think, but sometimes it's hard to tell. Everyone is getting along, just focusing on one thing: making their bodies better, and getting healthier.
There are two TV sets suspended on the wall in front of the row of treadmills. Last week, I was on the treadmill, and looked up to see a documentary on Michael Jackson. It was called, I believe, "Michael Jackson: Unmasked." Curious, I watched (besides, it took my mind off the monotony of the treadmill). The program showed MJ from youth to the present, his skin darker to paler, his features Negroid to the present mishmash of surgery.
This man is NOT a poster child from multiculturalism, despite how much I do love the video "Black and White." I think this man is so confused, and I wish someone could take him back to say, "Thriller," when he still looked normal. Oh well.
Interracial couples and families are NOT denying themselves or their races. But MJ is denying something even greater: his humanity.
Sunday, June 22, 2003 8:04 a.m.
Welcome to the blog. I've been wondering whether there is a need for an online magazine about interracial issues anymore, and then I do a Google News search for any related stories and turn up the usual suspects. Race still is an issue out there. As hard as it is to believe. Or maybe not so hard.
Another way I've determine to keep the site going is through your letters. I'll post one in the Best of the Guestbook (on the postings page). So continue to write in the guestbook. It's a real way to determine interest. Also, feel free to write me at newpeopmag@yahoo.com. I've moved my mail to yahoo because I get much less spam there. However, I probably will continue to get some because I'm publicizing this address!
I will keep up the mail accounts box on the New People home page because some of you have accounts through that. Thanks!
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