Asia is being rocked with natural disasters. 

Marjorie Liu felt the recent earthquake in China.  Read her account here.

Here are some images of the devastation. I had to cry at the suffering, but I was impressed that the Chinese military and medical personnel are there and helping.  If America ever suffers a disaster of that magnitude, methinks we’d be on our own, particularly if the Republicans are still in power.  It’s far different than what the Bush adminstration mustered up after Katrina.  Also, for the most part, the bodies are covered respectfully.  I read a good point about how images of white Europeans and American bodies are treated differently after disasters (black bodies after Katrina were treated disrespecfully also). 

The Ministry of Civil Affairs has authorized the Red Cross Society of China and China Charity Federation to receive donations for quake-hit areas.

Red Cross Society of China

Account number for renminbi donation: 0200001009014413252, at Beijing branch of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China

Account number for foreign currency donation: 7112111482600000209 at Jiuxianqiao branch of CITIC Bank.

Donation through post office should be sent to:

Red Cross Society of China

No 8, Beixinqiaosantiao, Dongcheng District, Beijing, 100007

Its website: www.redcross.org.cn

Red Cross Society of China donation hotline: (8610) 65139999, 64027620

Chinese Red Cross Foundation also receives donations, which can be sent to:

No 53, Ganmian Hutong, Dongdanbeidajie Street, Dongcheng District, Beijing, 100010

Account number of Beijing branch, Bank of China: 800100921908091001

Account number of Dongsinan branch, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China: 0200001019014483874

Account number of Beijing Chaoneidajie branch, China Construction Bank: 11001070300059000427

Account number for foreign currency at Bank of China: 800100086608091014

China Charity Federation hotline: (8610) 66083260, 66083264, 66083194

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For those who are looking to contribute to current aid efforts underway, you can now donate money to the Red Cross Society of China which has formed a disaster relief working group to be dispatched to the earthquake-stricken Wenchuan County in Sichuan.

They have also published an emergency relief hotline, along with bank account information to receive donations to assist their cause:

Account name: Red Cross Society of China
开户单位：中国红十字会总会

For those who want to donate in RMB: you can send money to the RMB account at the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China branch below:
人民币开户行: 中国工商银行 北京分行东四南支行
人民币账号: 0200001009014413252

For those who want to donate in foreign currency, you can send money to the foreign currency account at the CITIC Bank branch below:
外币开户行：中信银行酒仙桥支行
外币账号: 7112111482600000209

Hotline: (8610) 65139999
Online donations: Red Cross Society of China website: http://www.redcross.org/news/in/profiles/Intl_profile_ChinaEarthquake.html  ( I had to rush and find links that work!)
Click the tab for online donations

 

Nadia Turner, the independent black rocker chick, wasn’t about to let them straighten her hair so she could look more acceptable to the majority. She didn’t last long.

To get votes from Americans, black women on American Idol have to straighten their hair.  This culture finds black hair threatening and ugly.  Simon Cowell gives compliments to contestants such as Kimberly Locke, and yep, even the blonde Brooke White, who straighten their hair.  Most women with curly hair  or kinks accept the damaging frying processes or the fake hair sewn or glued in by the time they progress in the show.  Many, such as Jordin Sparks,  never go back to their natural texture in service to their careers.  Long, straight hair is deemed the most beautiful hair to have, and women must be beautiful to make it big nowadays.

I don’t blame these women.  What else can they do if they want acceptance?  If some method is discovered to bleach skin that actually works, you can rest assured they’ll be whitening up.

 

Syesha curly

 

We’ve come to expect it from American Idol. Beautiful girls with curls are transformed, week by week, into cookie-cutter, straight-haired lookalikes.

First season, there was Tamyra Gray. Season 2, Kimberley Locke got the Idol treatment — her wild ringlets becoming tamer by the week. Jennifer Hudson got the straight makeover in Season 3, always to the rave reviews of judges who seem to feel uncomfortable with any kind of texture. At least they let Season 4’s Nadia Turner rock her curls, but they tamed down Carrie Underwood’s Botticelli long waves. Season 5’s Lisa Tucker didn’t make it far enough for them to get their flatiron onto her long curls. Jordin Sparks, who came onto the scene with her big voice and big, amazing ringlets, now rarely sports any texture after her Idol makeover. And now there’s Syesha Mercado — beautiful Syesha. Her amazing ‘fro is a part of her unique style.

They wouldn’t think of messing with Jason Castro’s long dreadlocks. Yet they can’t keep their hands off Syesha’s hair, attaching extensions and eliminating any sign of a curl or kink.

American Idol, at its core, is a talent competition. And Syesha has loads of it. Let her do what she does best, without sacrificing her natural beauty.

Let Syesha be Syesha

Nappturality Forum

According to the U.K. Times, Black models are less acceptable in fashion than they used to be. 

 

In the 1960s and 1970s, ethnic women were much more visible in fashion. That was a time of exuberance and change; the time of the Black Power movement, the mantra “black is beautiful”, Roberta Flack singing Be Real Black for Me. This mood continued into the 1980s, with models such as Iman, Pat Cleveland and the young Campbell splashed everywhere.

Fashionistas will admit that it is now extremely rare to see a black girl on a magazine cover, and that there were almost no ethnic girls at the catwalk shows in Paris, Milan and New York in February. One or two Chinese models made it, but otherwise, the Aryan look dominated.

The question is: why? The standard answer is that it all comes down to money. Beauty is what sells — the magazine, the label, the skincare and the bag. Editors and managers say that, however much they want to use ethnic girls, putting one on the cover of a glossy magazine will depress sales. If ethnic women brought in big profits, nobody in the industry would be in the slightest bit interested in their skin tones or their racial type. Rightly or wrongly, though women from ethnic minorities are considered a bad commercial bet.

As one insider said to me regretfully: “Fashion is aspirational, magazines are aspirational and, to aspire, you need to be able to identify with someone – at least a little. And readers don’t identify with ethnic women.

Sound familiar, romance readers?

It doesn’t surprise many that in the past few decades of mean, greedy, racist coservative values being lauded in this country that things have slipped backward for blacks,  Shades of fat, rich white men bellowing hatred, we got lots of them from Rush, O’Reilly and more. 

These are the top casting agents and designers who decide whom to send on photoshoots and the catwalks, and many of them are gay white men. I’m told they really don’t like black women.

Really?  I know gay white men can be as rabidly racist against blacks as anybody else.  I’ve seen it myself on the romance blogs and comments.  But dang, shouldn’t the discriminated against stick together?  Aw well, they’re white men too, after all, the ruling majority.  Look at  those white, conservative Repugs playing footsie in the men’s rooms.  They probably figure they got it like that. 

I consider it the fault of black women too.  If we’d show a little pride in our ethnic beauty and dump the skin lighteners, the fried hair, the weaves and stop trying to reach some unobtainable standard of white or Asian beauty (pleeeze sistas, give that Asian peasant back her hair off your head!), and own our own brand of unique African beauty, it would make a big difference how other races viewed us.  How one views oneself means a lot in the world.  That little ripple of black pride in the sixties and seventies was a big thing.  We were black, proud and beautiful for a short while!  

Jourdan Dunn is the colour of money

I’m proud that a black institution seems to be able to easily look past skin color.  This institution is dedicated to educating black men, but when a white guy is the best, they acknowledge him.

From his first day at Morehouse College — the country’s only institution of higher learning dedicated to the education of black men — Joshua Packwood has been a standout.

His popularity got him elected dorm president as a freshman. His looks and physique made him a fashion-show favorite. His intellect made him a Rhodes Scholar finalist. His work ethic landed him a job at the prestigious investment banking firm Goldman Sachs in New York City.

But it’s his skin that has made all of this an anomaly. This month, Packwood is set to take the stage and address his classmates as the first white valedictorian in Morehouse’s 141-year history.

But I did wonder why would an Ivy-league qualified white guy from Kansas City go to a black University? (not saying that black schools aren’t excellent, just that it doesn’t seem that culturally apropros for white folks to discomfit themselves)

It was not as if this was the first time Packwood experienced life in the minority. He was among the few white students in his class at Grandview Senior High School in Kansas City, Mo. He has mixed-race siblings and his mother was married to a black man. Packwood’s experiences growing up have helped him navigate black culture while remaining comfortable with his own complexion.

Hmmm, does he relate to his stepdaddy? 

 

A Different Kind of Morehouse Man

 

It’s just another thing in a shitstorm of angst.  It was one of those healthy thingies with lots of fruit and vegetables and nutritional supplements.  I swear I only lasted a few days and the suffering was keen. 

I need another diet.  I can’t seem to find any that will allow you unlimited red meat, chocolate, and fresh baked bread.  I’ve been craving red meat with a vengeance.  I swear, I bought one of those big family packs of T-Bone steaks at an ungodly price and have been snarfing them down (see above photo).  

I’ve been depressed.  Since now I feel up to bitching about it, I must be snapping out of it.  ‘Bout damn time.  I can start writing, blogging and being engaged in stuff again.  Hopefuly.  I think the depression is peri-menopausal related and I’m at a loss about what to do.  Does it have something to do with the red meat craving?  Do some ladies also getting on up in years with me have any tried and true remedies?   (Don’t feel smug, young spring chickies, your time will come).

After insulting all of Romanceland on this very blog–they finally have had several productive race in romance convos.  It’s takes only a small flame under their asscheeks to get them going, no? 

Oh, yeah, and bears haven’t knocked over the trash barrel yet! 

(I need to search for links to the convos…shoot.  Hold on, I’ll get ‘em up.  Check out Smart Bitches and Karen Scott in the meantime). 

Millenia had a dream of entering the author game on the same terms as anybody else.  There was a big catch, she’s black.  But when her first book, a color-neutral tome,  was shuffled off to the Blacks Only area she didn’t go and sit quietly on the back of the bus.  She raised hell, and futhermore she acted by initiating a discrimination lawsuit.  Much consternation ensued.

Few of the mainstream white literari supported her.  Some considered her a Bad Negro, an uppity, angry nigg*ress who should keep to her place and be grateful she was published at all.  Others, particularly some authors, stuck their necks out in support although they weren’t black or confined to the Black Only literary area. 

Can you believe the story had a happy ending?  The gag isn’t ideal, but big corporations who settle usually take care to have this put in place.  

I’m very pleased to share that the matter has now been resolved to my satisfaction through an agreement, the terms of which can never be discussed.

…here will be no further information about the lawsuit on my blog. I’m extremely happy to have this heartbreak behind me - I give beaucoup thanks to my wonderful attorney. And I likewise send a deep, heartfelt THANK YOU to everyone who offered their unwavering support. I’ll remember it always.

A Horse of A Different Color