Blog Voices This Week 11/18/07

In the Boston Globe this week we find an article titled Blog is Beautiful: People of color challenge mainstream views online:

These intellectual challenges to mainstream and other viewpoints are some of the opinions Latino, Asian/Pacific Islander-American, and black bloggers are exposing on a growing number of sites focused on social, political, and cultural issues. The sometimes facetiously named blogs range from Angry Asian Man to The Angry Black Woman. Readers can find Latino viewpoints at Guanabee, The Unapologetic Mexican, or Latino Pundit. Those interested in information from an Asian angle head to Ultrabrown, Zuky, or Sepia Mutiny. Sites created by blacks include The Field Negro, Too Sense, and Resist Racism….

These sites – many of which launched in the past year, although a few are older – have become places where people of color gather to refine ideas or form thoughts about race relations, racial inequities, and the role pop culture has in exacerbating stereotypes. The writers often bring attention to subjects not yet covered by mainstream media.

(links added)

I thought this week we’d take a look at the blogs that were highlighted in The Globe to find out what’s on their minds lately. So lets start at the top and work our way down.

From Angry Asian Man we learn that John Howard may become the first Australian Prime Minister since 1929 to lose his seat in the House of Representatives. Seems those screeds against Asian immigrants might not work in a district that has become 41% Asian. Couldn’t happen to a more bigoted guy!

Angry Black Woman has a few words about the tension between in-group condemnation and condemnation from without. This is one of those difficult subjects that we all need to learn more about. I hope you’ll take a moment to read this.

Guanabee posts a video he describes this way:

Boquillas del Carmen, a community in the Mexican state of Coahuila, has been turned into a veritable ghost town thanks to strict U.S. border security laws – a ghost town, that is, save for one angelic sound. The sweet, sweet crooning of Victor Valdez.

Did you know that Nezua at The Unapologetic Mexican is doing movie reviews for Pacifica Radio? (someday we’ll be saying we “knew him when.” LOL) I’ve linked to his most recent post about “Lions for Lambs,” but you’ll have to click through to find out if he liked it.

In reference to the article up above, Latino Pundit says he’s “tired of the brown thing.”

We have “Bush-isms” and Ultrabrown has “Mush-isms” straight from Islamabad. But just like Bush, some of his are more offensive than funny.

Kai from Zuky shares the poem “Pylon” by Gerald McCarthy in honor of Veterans Day.

abhi over at Sepia Mutiny has a wonderful tongue-in-cheek take on two of our recent attempts to track terrists here in the US: (1) the LA “Muslim Mapping Project” and (2) the “track falafel sales” project. I wish I had a nickel for every time in the last 7 years I’ve said, “if it weren’t so tragic, it would be hilarious.” But there I go again…

It was at The Field Negro that I saw a promotion for the documentary film Desert Bayou that records the experience of Katrina victims who were settled in Utah. I will definitely have to check that one out!

dnA over at Too Sense takes on Juan Williams’ binary and simplistic commentary. And I just gotta love the digs he got in about Mr. William’s employer, Faux News.

And finally, Resistance over at Resist Racism is looking for reassurance that she’s not the only brown person who feels nervous going to the airport these days. She might appreciate this bit from Dahlak titled ” “Just Another Routine Check.”