You simply get chills every time you see these poor individuals, as Jack Cafferty just pointed out, so tragically, so many of these people, almost all of them that we see, are so poor and they are so black, and this is going to raise lots of questions for people who are watching this story unfold. –Wolf Blitzer, CNN What specifically was Wolf Blitzer reporting on when he made this comment? I wish I had seen it so that I could see the context of the quote. The quote, however, is being splashed all over the web. Slate has an interesting take on this quoteRead More →

I decided to supplement how Julia Wood’s handles race in her textbook for Gender and Comm. I’m asking the students to read Peggy MacIntosh’s article, “White Privilege.” It’s very old, but still useful. Some links: WMST-L‘s discussion list archive on the article. If you want the whole paper, you can buy it from Wellesley.

The Quiet American. deserves the high rating from Rotten Tomatoes. The movie was good: it was disturbing, haunting, and difficult to watch. The movie effortlessly metonymizes Vietnam with the woman character, Phuong, who is the object of both Michael Caine’s and Brenden Fraser’s attention. The best review is from Kamera.com in the UK. They like the film because it pushes us away from the tired “Miramax orientalism.” Excellent phrase! Nobody seems to be talking about what it means to turn Vietnam into a mistress or prostitute in that movie. That’s probably due to our “me so horny, me love you long time” consciousness. Given ourRead More →

It is in this juvenile ecstasy of the modern that we must locate the progeny of the future and initially ponder why a man, who just wants to be a boy, is apparently powerless to profess his innocence and relinquish his sexuality, despite assurances everywhere that he can and must.

– Slavoj Zizek in CTHEORY