Reading While Black

Why I Remember Juneteenth

History Lesson

Find a Juneteenth celebration new you!

For some random reason, MSN features a poll asking people if they read romance novels. If you vote in the affirmative, you’ll be clicking the circle that says “Yes, yes, yes! Bodice-rippers are my ultimate escape.“

Two strikes against romance readers in that short answer. One, the media persists in calling the entire romance genre “bodice rippers,” when that phrase only characterized the genre-busting, rollicking adventurous romances of the 70s and 80s-and was never sanctioned by romance writers and readers. Two, the word “escape” implies that readers of romance are bored with their lives and need to devour stories of manly-men swooping down to whisk helpless females into sensual oblivion and bodice ripping passion. I can add the “Yes, yes, yes!” as number Three, as it plays into the sexual abandonment assumption (aka, women read romance for the sex) by judgmental non-readers.

It amazes me that so-called educated people in the media fall back on cliches and ignorance…

The funniest video I’ve seen yet in 2008!

The Dance Mix

A well-known aphorism tossed around by scholars and history buffs alike is “history is written by the victors.” From this I conclude the phrase to mean history is only about white people (aka, the “victors”). A few weeks ago or so, I stumbled across a blog written by a guy from the South who stated his resentment over the unfair shake Southern history has gotten in post-Civil War America. Of course he was also one of the many people who swear up and down that the Civil War was not about slavery, but states rights. On his blog, he basically wanted a fair and balanced view of Southern history and culture. Alright, that is an acceptable desire. However, the reasoning behind his rant was not to share his culture with the rest of us (deluded) Americans, et al, but essentially, to rewrite history from the victors’ (aka white) POV.

This argument gained significance to me in light of Spike Lee’s comments about Clint Eastwood’s 2006 movies “Flags of Our Fathers” and “Letters From Iwo Jima” being whites-only affairs. Lee does have a movie to plug (Miracle at St. Anna), aiming to rectify the lack of black faces in war movies (remember Senator Obama and the “unpatriotic” controversy? Or even the recent accusation thrown at his wife, Michelle? Loves it when black folks are accused of being unpatriotic when we’ve fought in every single American war despite prejudice and racism, but I digress), but it reminds me of the Nicolas Cage-helmed Windtalkers (haha!) and the exclusion of Hispanics from Ken Burns’ PBS documentary on WWII. And there has been nary a peep about the Asian American experience in any of our wars.

This oversight seems to me like another form of what I call the “cult of bravery”–only white people can overcome the odds and not only gain victory for themselves, but for everyone else as well. Throughout most of our wars, black men were considered undesirable soldiers to the military. Time and time again, from the Revolution to WWI, black men were accused of being too cowardly, too stupid and too weak to have the skills to fight in a battle. They were shunned by many of their white counterparts, shunted into segregated units and during WWI and WWII, white Americans treated them with contempt and tried to teach this contempt to the British and French troops and citizens when black and white troops were sent overseas (and poor black women–they didn’t get the glamor of being a nurse. Only two black nurses were permitted to travel overseas during WWI).

Barring racism, this oversight is highly disrespectful to the men and women of all colors who risked their lives in battle, and to their descendants. To render these people not only nameless, but faceless, gives the impression that they aren’t considered a human beings. I look at photographs of these veterans and it hits me: this is someone’s grandfather, uncle, great-grandfather, brother, sister, aunt, niece, nephew, son, sister, etcetera. They aren’t simply bodies and numbers and movements. These were (and are) living, breathing, walking, talking people with hopes, dreams, loves, fears and courage who have a right to have their stories told not as some token gesture, but because they were there too.

YouTube APIA Month Tribute: “Asians Rock: What’s Your Story?”

Asia Society YouTube Page
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