"Pop + Politics" - 9 new articles

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Here are the latest updates for biginla@yahoo.com "POP + POLITICS" - 9 NEW ARTICLES

Angry Asian Man: Student Fights English Language Exam
This is an outrageous story out of Iowa… Lori Phanachone is a Laotian American high school senior at Storm Lake High School. She’s a member of the National Honor Society, has a 3.9 grade point average, ranks seventh in the her class of 119 and has been offered a number of college scholarships. But to school officials, she is considered illiterate and has been serving three days of in-school suspension. Why? Lori refuses to take the complete the English Language Development Assessment, a test she says is demeaning and racist:Student rejects ‘demeaning’ test, is suspended. According to administrators, taking the test is mandatory because Lori indicated on her school registration that English was not the first language spoken in her home. Her parents are Laotian and still speak little English. These administrators obviously don’t know a damn thing about growing up Asian in America. So speaking Lao at home automatically puts Lori’s English proficiency in question? If that’s the policy, it’s flawed to the core. Does the school district not realize that it’s entirely possible that Lori somehow earned that 3.9 GPA while also being completely fluent in something other than English? No doubt, she could rock that exam, but that’s not the point. Lori was born in California and lived in New York before moving to Iowa with her family. She has apparently never been enrolled in any English Language Learning or ESL program. But she refuses to deny her family, culture and identity, and that’s why she’s taking a stand. She shouldn’t have to take this damn test. Now, she faces another three days of suspension for continuing her refusal to take the exam. She could be suspended again and then expelled for a fourth refusal. According to school administrators, her college scholarships — $86,000 at Buena Vista University and more at Iowa State University — could also be at risk. This is utter bullshit. Ridiculous, racist, and an absolute insult to someone who is obviously bright, accomplished, and completely proficient in English. I give mad props to Lori Phanachone for standing up for what she believes in. I wish I had her kind of conviction when I was in high school. Fight this, girl. By the way, the assistant principal, Beau Ruleaux, actually told Lori to give up her refusal to take the exam because she’s “no Rosa Parks” and wouldn’t succeed in her protest. The guy sounds like an ass. How about he takes the English Language Development Assessment and we see how well he does? There’s more on this issue here: Protest of language test gets student suspended. And here: Storm Lake, IA student refuses to take ‘demeaning’ test. I understand that there are a lot of forces working against her, and a lot at stake that could affect her future. I hope she hangs in there. If you’d like to support Lori Phanachone’s fight and speak out against this ridiculous, useless English exam, here’s some contact information for administrators at Storm Lake. Let them know that you stand by Lori, and this is indeed an issue worth protesting: Paul Tedesco - Storm Lake School District Superintendent
ptedesco@slcsd.org Mike Hanna - Principal
mhanna@storm-lake.k12.ia.us Beau Ruleaux - Assistant Principal
bruleaux@slcsd.org The phone number over at Storm Lake High School is: (712) 732-8065. This post originally appeared on Angry Asian Man.
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Cheap Thrills: Try On My Hair CultureJunkie gets down At work, the Pontiac team just launched this wacky Cheer-A-Matron site as part of their NCAA Game Changing Performance Pick and Roll promotion. On the site, you can upload your headshot, stick it on an actual cheerleader’s body, and cheer it out to handcrafted 2-4-6-8s. There are 4 cheers to choose from, as well as a silly assortment of hair options. They did a great job – the site is beautiful and goofy and exploratory, all in one. Exactly as it should be. While working on the project, the team realized they only had all these super White hairstyles to choose from. So they asked if they could use my curly Q’s, and of course I said yes. Gotta represent, you know. I also supplied my voice for one of the cheers (can you guess which one?). Anyway, have fun! And if you’re feeling brave, send me your cheer and I’ll add a screenshot to this post. Hooray!

Jo rocks out This was originally posted on Ryan Barrett’s blog.
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Afrobella: An Interview With Makeup Artist Patrece Williams As I type this, bellas I’m in a moving car in the front seat, laptop on my lap, North Carolina zooming past me outside. But I’m bearing glad tidings of fabulous makeup tips, thanks to the gorgeous and wonderful Patrece Williams! We met and clicked right away at the Macy’s Women of Color event, and it’s rare that I meet someone who I can instantly say, someday I’m gonna be like “I met her when.” I say this because I know Patrece is a star on the rise. Someday I want to click on Bravo or the Style Network and watch her dispensing makeup tips on her own show - she’s THAT sweet, warm, funny, and has presence and personality for days. And her attitude was both refreshing and inspirational. “A humble person is a successful person,” she believes, and let me tell you - from interviewing so many people, that is rare to hear, and even rarer to experience. I can’t say enough nice things about her. Patrece is the makeup artist of choice for Laila Ali, Colin Cowie, and Debbie Turner Bell. And you can see her hard work every morning bright and early — Patrece is holding down the fort on the CBS Early Show, doing makeup for Julie Chen and all of the celebrities and dignitaries who come through the green room before their interviews. And it all began when she moved from Fort Wayne, Indiana to NYC, and worked at the MAC makeup counter. “I am living my dream,” she declared during her presentation, and I know she inspired many of the aspiring artists and cosmetics employees at Macy’s that day. I managed to put together a little video of highlights from her demonstration. Click below to watch, but be forewarned - I’m the worst videographer ever. What are you in for here? Terrible, terrible camera angles, misguided attempts at zooming in, continuous shaking, not-so-great audio, occasional applause with the camera-in-hand, and cackling laughter from myself and the loud, loud lady right next to me. Oh, and amazing makeup tips! WPvideo 1.10 Mark my words, one day Afrobella will have a video person down to produce some slick content. One day it won’t be up to me and my complete inability to film. On this day, she admitted she wasn’t feeling well and her mom (who is her rock and her guiding light), had to stay behind to care for a sick relative. And very sadly, that relative has since passed. Please join me in sending positive thoughts and prayers to Patrece and the Williams family. Despite the personal burdens in her own life, Patrece pulled it together and taught me and the audience so much about makeup, and about grace under pressure. I’m happy to share some of her top makeup tips! — Patrece uses many different makeup brands, but MAC ranks high as her favorite. “I love MAC’s foundations. I think they’ve done the research and taken the time to really cater for women of color. I worked for them for 5 years, so I can attest they take it seriously.” Patrece loves Studio Fix liquid foundation, which dries to a powder. This probably explains why I look so frickin shiny in my photo next to her! Note to self, tone down the shine before posing for photos with famous people with flawless makeup. – In Patrece’s professional opinion, the best way to put on foundation is to start in the T-zone area. Use a dime size amount, stipple on under your eyes, and on your nose and forehead. Then feather it down and out to make sure the coverage is even and looks natural. Patrece focuses foundation on the center circle of the face. “Foundation should just enhance your skin and give it a glow.” – Patrece (and most makeup artists in general!) loves and recommends lipliner. But she doesn’t use the pointy part. “Lay the pencil flat and point the tip to the bow of your lip. Use the flat edge to give a smudging effect on your lips, rather than a sharp line. That way you can use lipstick or gloss to blend the color and it lasts all day,” she says. Patrece LOVES a plum colored lipliner on women of color. And she specifically recommended a brand and color of lipgloss - I’ll blog about that soon, promise! She used a lighter color of gloss at the center of the lip to highlight or contour her model’s lips. Note to self, try that at home! – Patrece loves and highly recommends using powder eyeshadow as eyeliner. “If you have oily skin, liquid or cream eyeliner or eyeshadow is going to crease. With powder eyeshadow, you save money and get two uses out of one product.” She uses and recommends MAC brush #266 for applying eyeliner, or for filling in eyebrows. She used an indigo purple shadow and started applying it right in the lash line. “Eyeshadow looks matte, whereas pencil can look shiny. And you don’t always have to use black or brown shadow as your liner. Sometimes I like to use gold eyeshadow and smudge over it with brown to bring that iridescence out. I also love a plum or indigo shadow,” says Patrece. She used the very tip of the #266 brush to just place the color, not to brush it on the lashline. And she used shadow both on the lid and under the eye! – DON’T pump air into your mascara! Open it to where you can see just the stem of the wand, then turn it and pull it out. That way the product remains creamy and good to use while it adheres to the brush. Patrece prefers to put on mascara on the bottom lashes first, very lightly. She starts on the outer corner by the ear and moves to the center, using the wand to pull the lashes down as she applies mascara. “What we’re trying to do is create an illusion of thicker, fuller lashes. Push the mascara from the base of the lash, pull all the way down, then push them up,” she says. – Patrece doesn’t always use an eyelash curler - bellas with long lashes don’t necessarily need one, she says. But she loves strip lashes, and reuses them four or five times a piece, just by removing the glue and reapplying them. For now I just have to say thank you again to Patrece for the opportunity, and to my amigas at Macy’s. Of course you know normally I link to the people I interview, but Patrece doesn’t even have a website! She hasn’t needed to have one yet - her success has come from word of mouth recommendations. I plan to (and hope to) keep in touch with her, so if you’re in need of makeup advice or have a specific question, I’ll ask her for ya! More to come from Patrece soon —I’m interviewing her on her drugstore product recommendations next! This post originally appeared on Afrobella.
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All About Race: The Wrongly Convicted Man and His Accuser Last week, I put up the following post on AOL and it proved to be much more controversial than I had anticipated: If you’re searching for an example of what open hearts can achieve, then look no further than the story ofJennifer Thompson and Ronald Cotton. When Thompson identified Cotton as her rapist in 1984, she was sure she had the right man. But she was wrong. Cotton, then 22, was convicted of raping Thompson and another woman on the same night in Burlington, N.C. He would spend the next 11 years behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit. That’s not so uncommon, right? We now know how unreliable eyewitness testimonies can be. That was the tragedy; now for the remarkable part: In 1995, DNA evidence cleared Cotton of the rapes and showed that another man who was in prison with him was the rapist, a case recently covered by CBS’ ‘60 Minutes.’ Now, Thompson and Cotton are friends and have written a new book together on their story called ‘Picking Cotton.’ Source The two speak on the phone weekly and travel together to speak out on the problems with eyewitness evidence. Even their families are friends. Thompson said she felt horrible guilt when she found out Cotton was not her rapist. “Suffocating, debilitating shame,” she told ‘60 Minutes.’ She asked Cotton if she could meet with him at a local church. “I started to cry immediately. And I looked at him, and I said, ‘Ron, if I spent every second of every minute of every hour for the rest of my life telling you how sorry I am, it wouldn’t come close to how my heart feels. I’m so sorry.’ And Ronald just leaned down, he took my hands…and he looked at me. He said, ‘I forgive you,’” Thompson told CBS. “I told her, I said, ‘Jennifer, I forgive you. I don’t want you to look over your shoulder. I just want us to be happy and move on in life,’”Cotton said. Source I hope none of us reading this will ever find ourselves in Cotton’s or Thompson’s position. But the path that these two chose to walk together stands as a beacon of conduct for all of us.

Is there someone YOU need to forgive to free yourself? I was completely surprised by the number of commenters who were upset and angry that Cotton had chosen to forgive Thompson. It’s like some decided to hold the anger that Thompson has chosen to release. If you see the ‘60 Minutes’ piece, Cotton, most unfortunately, bears a strong resemblance to Thompson’s real attacker. I fully understand that in another time, not so long ago, Cotton would have been savagely lynched on Thompson’s words alone. But I can also appreciate that we are not in that time anymore. I recognize that although people are still wrongly convicted, we live in a time when there is DNA analysis and sometimes wrongly convicted people will live to see freedom and some attempt to restore justice in their lives. What do you think? Should Cotton have forgiven Thompson? This post originally appeared on Carmen Dixon’s All About Race.

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All About Race: It’s Official-There’s An HIV Epidemic in the Black Community photo by John Rawlinson, courtesy of Wiki Commons To be blunt, because there is no time for niceties, I am sick and tired of black leaders, secular and religious, not talking about sexual practices in the black community and not talking about how HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases are ravaging the black community. Now those ’speak no evil’ types will have little choice but to break their silence because it’s official. It is confirmed that, at least in Washington DC, HIV/AIDS is epidemic: At least 3 percent of District residents have HIV or AIDS, a total that far surpasses the 1 percent threshold that constitutes a “generalized and severe” epidemic, according to a report scheduled to be released by health officials tomorrow. That translates into 2,984 residents per every 100,000 over the age of 12 — or 15,120 — according to the 2008 epidemiology report by the District’s HIV/AIDS office. “Our rates are higher than West Africa,” said Shannon L. Hader, director of the District’s HIV/AIDS Administration, who once led the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s work in Zimbabwe. “They’re on par with Uganda and some parts of Kenya.” “We have every mode of transmission” — men having sex with men, heterosexual and injected drug use — “going up, all on the rise, and we have to deal with them,” Hader said. Source Infection rates higher than West Africa? More like Uganda? This is not rocket science. We know how to prevent the sexual transmission of HIV/AIDS and every other STD. Practice abstinence or use condoms and dental dams if you are sexually active. This situation is inexcusable and the excessive weight this epidemic will put on our health care system is daunting: So urgent is the concern that the HIV/AIDS Administration took the relatively rare step of couching the city’s infections in a percentage, harkening to 1992, when San Francisco, around the height of its epidemic, announced that 4 percent of its population was HIV positive. But the report also cautions that “we know that the true number of residents currently infected and living with HIV is certainly higher.” The District’s report found a 22 percent increase in HIV and AIDS cases from the 12,428 reported at the end of 2006, touching every race and sex across population and neighborhoods, with an epidemic level in all but one of the eight wards. Black men, with an infection rate of nearly 7 percent, carry the weight of the disease, according to the report, which also underscores that the District’s HIV and AIDS population is aging. Almost 1 in 10 residents between the ages of 40 and 49 has the virus. [ ] Men having sex with men has remained the disease’s leading mode of transmission. Heterosexual transmission and injection drug use closely follow, the report says. Three percent of black women carry the virus, partly a result of the increase in heterosexual transmissions. “This is very, very depressing news, especially considering HIV’s profound impact on minority communities,” said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Health’s program on infectious diseases. “And remember: The city’s numbers are just based on people who’ve gotten tested.” Source There is much more information in the full article. Read More : HIV/AIDS rate hits 3% in DC

Visit The Black AIDS Institute Website Do you use protection EVERYTIME you have sex outside of marriage? This post originally appeared on Carmen Dixon’s blog All About Race.

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The Obama Effect: Making Blackness More Desirable When the same company responsible for the beanie baby craze in the early ’90s released the “Marvelous Malia” and “Sweet Sasha” dolls earlier this year, it created a firestorm. The beanies hit toy shelves in January. Shortly thereafter, the White House issued a statement denouncing the concept of the dolls, which were promptly renamed. The two dolls—part of the Ty Girlz collection, which includes an assortment of pleasing pop tarts, including “Bubbly Britney” and “Precious Paris”—were notable for another reason. The $10 beanies happened to be the first non-white girlies in the line. No one really bought Ty’s excuses (the company claimed the dolls weren’t exact replicas of the real-life Sasha and Malia), but many people did express interest in buying the beanies. “I ordered them because customers called in and asked for them, before they even saw the dolls on the news,” said the owner of Emily’s Hallmark in Danville, CA. “I have daughters and don’t think it’s fair, but hey, what sells, sells.” She ordered a batch of the dolls and expected to get them on the shelves in February, but those plans were cut short when she received a letter from Ty, saying that—in deference to the Obama family—the dolls had been renamed “Marvelous Mariah” and “Sweet Sydney.” All names aside, some argue the dolls would have done more good than harm. “For me personally, the issue is much bigger than exploitation,” Denise Gary-Robertson, the president of Dolls Like Me, an online toy retailer specializing in multicultural dolls, said. “Here we have a manufacturer that has not formerly produced black dolls and now they have two black dolls named after two gorgeous black girls. What does that say to black girls around the world? That says, ‘I now matter. I’m more important.’” “This is an issue of self-esteem and one of reflection,” she continued. “Around 30 to 40 percent of all children in America are children of color. There should be no manufacturer producing a line of dolls that doesn’t include dolls of color.” Robertson, who describes her business as “a toy retailer with a conscience,” said she was not exploiting the Obama girls by selling the Ty dolls. “We were celebrating the fact that Ty is now producing black dolls,” Robertson stressed. “It was secondary that those dolls were named Sasha and Malia.” The fervor to own the Sasha and Malia dolls is arguably a reflection of the Obama Effect. Blackness is now more desirable than ever, and the rise of the Obamas has unveiled a market that has always been around, but was previously ignored. Jezebel recently reported a six percent increase from last year in the use of black models on the runways of this year’s fall fashion shows in New York. In an industry previously criticized for its gross lack of diversity, 18 percent of all models this year were women of color, and according to Jezebel, black models were the second-largest ethnic group on the runways. In the case of the Sasha and Malia doll controversy, Dolls Like Me has been in business for three years and has never carried a Ty beanie in its inventory of 300-plus dolls—because the Ty dolls were always white. Robertson argued that the lack of multicultural inventory on the U.S. market is damaging to the self-esteem of children of color, which is why she’s in business—and business is good. Robertson said the well-known Clark doll experiments of the 1940s—when most black children tested preferred to play with “pretty,” white dolls because they considered black dolls “ugly” and “bad”—were recently repeated and yielded the same disturbing results. “I feel that, as a mother, Michelle Obama was well within her rights to do what she did,” Robertson said. “But her role and my role are are very different. She only had to look out for two black girls. I’m looking out for all black girls—that’s where I am.” Synolve Craft, a freelance writer with a degree in...