Addicted to Race – beyond diversity buzzwords

Archive for August, 2006

Posted on August 3, 2006 - by Administrator

ATR 33 Pt 1 of 3 – August 3, 2006 – Voicemail 206-203-3983 – addictedtorace@gmail.com

We’re back on the scene, crispy and clean! Here is the long-awaited special birthday episode of Addicted to Race, in honor of our first anniversary. Actually, the final thing ended up being about 3 hours long, so we’re splitting the episode into 3 parts. Here’s the first installment. Part 2 will be released next week and Part 3 will come out the week after that.

By the way, the sound levels from me and Jen were really unbalanced. I tried to clean it up as best I could in post-production, but there was only so much I could do. But please stick it out, I promised it’s a fun episode!

Here’s a round-up of the favorite moments we cover in this first installment of our anniversary episode:

Carmen’s rant in episode 12 about the stupid stereotypes about Asian men and women propagated by the media

Jen’s rant in episode 4 about the silly food analogies used to symbolize mixed race heritage. From fried chicken and latkes to watermelon sushi, from paella with soy sauce to jalapeno bagels, Jen poked fun at all of it.

Carmen’s interview with Debra Dickerson, author of “The End of Blackness” in episode 16

Jen’s rant in episode 13 about the oppression olympics: the way various racial and ethnic group try to claim that they have it the worst

Jen’s interview with Alice Sandosaraj in episode 18 about the concept of the model minority and how it impacts Asian-Americans and African-Americans.

Tune in next week for Part 2 of the anniversary episode!

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Duration – 49:02
File Size – 22.5 MB
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Posted on August 3, 2006 - by Administrator

Overweight, sassy black woman thrives in advertisements

CVK
I gotta give props to The New York Times for tackling a subject we discuss a lot on this blog and on our podcast, Addicted to Race. Check out, for example, the rant I did in episode 8 where I counted down the top 8 most racist stereotypes of black men and women perpetuated by the media.

The article discusses the fact that the archetype of the loud, sassy, overweight black woman continues to pop up time after time, especially in advertising. The latest example is a Dairy Queen commercial (I haven’t seen this yet – anyone want to weigh in?) in which one of these black women freaks out after someone accidentally drops luggage on her head.

I’m shocked — shocked! — that Dairy Queen, inventor of the oh-so-cleverly-titled MooLatte (coffee + milk = brown + white, get it?) would be capable of racial insensitivity. Their ad agency, Grey Worldwide, of course claims that the writing and casting process was colorblind:

…the script was not written with a black actress in mind.

“We basically cast the funniest person,” he said. “We didn’t specifically cast for a black woman. We said, ‘Wow, she’s really funny.’ And she happened to be black.”

Uh huh. If the “I can’t be racist, I’m in an interracial relationship!” excuse was the top trend of 2005, then the emerging top trend of 2006 must be using “colorblind” casting as a way to sidestep accusations of racism. We’ve already seen David Crane, producer of the new CBS show “The Class” defend his all-white cast by claiming that they used a colorblind casting process and that the final cast just happened to be the best actors, regardless of color. As I told MacLean’s magazine, I don’t think there is such a thing as “colorblind casting.” All these casting decisions are very, very deliberate. More after the jump…

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