Tuesday, October 21, 2008

think of race as a black-and-white thing

In "Black, White, Whatever . . . " spoken-word artist Kelly Tsai explains what's wrong with the way that so many Americans treat matters of race--as if, that is, only black and white people matter.





Hat-tip to angry asian man, who describes this video as "a call out to our politicians to dig deeper past the black/white binary when discussing race in America. You know, because there are a lot of us out here who are neither black nor white . . . but we're sure as hell American. The message seems more relevant than ever as we quickly approach one of the most important elections in our lifetime."

4 comments:

  1. She is absolutely right. Asians, Indigenous Peoples and even to some degree Latinos have been ignored in this election. Race is more than a simple binary.
    I think part of the reason it is like this is because we view the world through binaries. To think beyond that is something that most people don't do. This often leads to many people being marginalized.

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  2. Yes, thank you for posting this, she's really good! The current race-charged season really is way, way too black and white. In more senses than race, actually, so yes to Renee, it's about using binary thinking too much.

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  3. Brown is too scary for either candidate (the immigration issue would surely come up). Yellow isn't seen as a problem (many see them as already having succeeded). Red? Are you crazy? That would condem the whole country.
    Black&white is seen as polar opposites. If that problem could be solved, everything else is assumed to just fall into place.

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  4. I think this was an incredible video. Remarkable. And completely necessary.

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