ARP Links
I stumbled upon Cocoa Familia, “a product blog for families of color,” through a link on the blog Black and Married with Kids. There is some cool stuff to be found here, including a Bessie Coleman action figure (in honor of the first African American to become an airplane pilot, and the first American of any race or gender to hold an international pilot license), various products from Ginger Snaps Baby (a line of “gifts inspired by children of color”), and Baby Got Barack t-shirts.
Note that “of color” on Cocoa Familia seems to translate to black as far as products with pictures and faces on them are concerned. Also, there are a host of products represented, such as a Daddy Diaper Vest unrelated to race or ethnicity.
ParentDish reports “Teen girls say Rihanna is to blame for assault.” Do any of you readers have children old enough to clue in to the Chris Brown/Rihanna saga? How are you handling it?
Last week, Oprah Winfrey devoted an entire show to talking about dating violence, specifically to the recent incident between rapper Chris Brown and pop diva Rihanna. There was a lot of eye rolling on the part of viewers, because really, do we need to hear this again?
Apparently the answer is yes, we do. Or at least our teenage daughters do, because they are flocking to Brown’s defense. Brown, 19, is accused of assaulting Rihanna; the 21-year-old wound up in the hospital with a black eye and bloodied face. Yet in spite of the graphic nature of her injuries, Brown’s female fans are standing by him — and blaming Rihanna for the incident.
“She probably made him mad for him to react like that,” a ninth grader told the “New York Times.” “You know, like, bring it on?”
Another girl added, “She probably feels bad that it was her fault, so she took him back.”
And this from a third: “I don’t think he’ll hit her like that again.” Read more…
Over at The Root, Shiwani Srivastava wrote about Indian Americans tagged with the “model minority” label:
Let’s clear this up once and for all. Being called a “model minority” is an unwelcome characterization that is damaging and tough to overcome. Why do you think the “old” model minorities—East Asian Americans—have struggled to shed the label since they were first saddled with it in the 1960s because of “their advanced educations and high earnings.” Read more…
Mixed Race America tackles the idea, recently furthered by Sen. Charles Grassley, that Japanese students’ and businessmen’s desire for excellence often ends in seppuku.
Is there a rash of suicides among Japanese students and executives that has somehow escaped me or is this just a stereotype that has persisted from the days of WWII of kamikaze pilots and Samurai films depicting warriors committing seppuku (ritual Samurai suicide). Read more…
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of 
Christy wrote:
I don’t have children but I work with high school kids in a college prep program. Our students are primarily students of color and more than 90% of them are Black (African-American, African, and Haitian students make up the majority but there are others as well).
I have had the Rihanna conversation with a number of our girls. We’ve been hearing alot of “she provoked him.”
Last week, a student said to me: “In some communities, it’s different. This is what happens.”
I knew that the student was speaking in code to me, “you don’t understand because you’re white.”
My African-American male office mate was shaking his head impatiently. He said that he’s fighting this battle with young and older folks alike, men and women.
I told the student, “No it doesn’t matter where you are from. It doesn’t matter what color you are. It doesn’t matter. No one has the right to put their hands on another person in violence. It doesn’t matter. It’s wrong.”
We’re handling this with both our young men and our young women in gender specific programming in the coming months. And we’re keeping the dialogue open in other informal ways.
Boy, is it frustrating.
Posted 24 Mar 2009 at 4:47 pm ¶
Sophia wrote:
My twelve year old son listens to Rihanna, and while listening with him in the car I told him what happened. He was horrified and put the blame squarely where it belonged, on Brown. It was a grateful moment for me and I think in part a reflection of my active feminist indoctrination of both him and his sister (him more, come to think of it–partly cause he’s older and partly cause I figure men need to hear it), which sometimes takes and sometimes doesn’t.
Posted 25 Mar 2009 at 4:18 pm ¶
Claudia wrote:
Love this Cocoa Familia site! Thanks for sharing the link.
Posted 25 Mar 2009 at 4:52 pm ¶