21 posts tagged “race”

At the Desire party on Wednesday was my old acquaintance, Max:

As you can see, like me, Max is Asian.
   He’s from eastern Russia, near the border with China. So how is he not Asian?
   Which means, of course, Max should be able to queue up under this sign at the National Bank, just as I had tried to:

This is probably my favourite scene in Finding Forrester. F. Murray Abraham, as the pompous and somewhat prejudiced teacher, gets what the young people type as pwned, pronounced owned, as Rob Brown, as the student, meets his challenge.

Show us a fictional character that you have been a fan of since your childhood.
Submitted by Jack Yan.

That’s two Vox Hunts from yours truly this week. Since I wrote it, I should answer it.

   This chap would have to qualify, being the Saint I grew up with, rather than Roger Moore. I’m pretty sure that Leslie Charteris, the Singaporean-born Leslie Bowyer-Yin, intended Simon Templar to be a Chinese bloke, but just as I didn’t blink when the cinematic Felix Leiter went from a white Texan to an African–American in the James Bond films, so what if a Caucasian is the Saint?
   Since then I have seen all the colour Roger Moore episodes and read many of Charteris’s stories. I even saw the pilot where Australian actor, Andrew Clarke, played a Templar-with-a-mo, as well as the Val Kilmer movie which tried to get back to the literary character, with Simon Templar’s numerous aliases.

I think we can all get a kick out of this one, regardless of which side we stand on the political spectrum.

One of my team, who hails from Washington state, thinks I remind her of Gov. Sarah Palin when I say, ‘You betcha,’ which I have actually said as part of my regular speech for around 20 years. A lot of my family is American but it’s not from that, but from a line uttered by Andy Griffith somewhere in his long career. I liked the folksy nature of it—heck, anything Andy Griffith said came across as folksy, even when he played a villain in Spy Hard.
   So I am not specifically marketing the Republican campaign when I mention the blog of Meghan McCain, daughter of the senator.
   McCain Blogette is not Miss McCain’s alone—she shares it with two other contributors who are on the Straight Talk Express—but I would love to know if the Democrats have a similar insiders’ blog.
   It shows behind-the-scenes images not just of her and various Americans who support her father, but some from before the most recent debate. Her parents are in some, her paternal grandmother, and Sens. Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman.
   And it does what neither Sen. McCain, Gov. Palin, nor conservative media can do: humanize the campaign.

   While one of the Blogette crew is probably of east Asian descent, it was interesting to note the relative absence of Americans of African descent. I originally spotted a picture of one, only to discover later that he was the bus driver, and it took a fair bit of surfing to find others.
   Of course there are Americans of all colours supporting Sen. John McCain, just as there are for Sen. Barack Obama. I do know of the huge support Sen. Barack Obama has from the black community, most recently from Gen Colin Powell.
   On another blog here on Vox, some Americans have remarked how the Republicans have attracted a white, “redneck” vote.
   And I have no idea how other groups are swinging.
   In one of the conversations I had yesterday with our customers, one noted that we—as people—liked to put people into discrete little boxes. Sen. Obama is half-white, as is Halle Berry. Few mention Halle Berry’s Mancunian roots. Some label Sen. Obama ‘black’ when he has seldom made his race part of his message.
   It worries me a little that the support might be divided this way, in much the same way as how the O. J. Simpson murder trial verdict’s support was split between blacks and whites. One side could not see the other’s points of view and the creation of little racial boxes has clouded matters.
   As the world evolves and more and more people come from multiple heritages, these considerations will disappear and, I hope, we will go back to the issues and the merits of the candidates.
   I realize I have grouped voters into boxes, too—so maybe it’s the way the mind works. We place things into the constructs that we have grown up with, and the ones that do not suit how we see the world going forward really need to be cast aside. And constructs based around race in 2008 are irrelevant at best and dangerous at worst.
   And maybe by blogging about this point, for whatever it’s worth, Americans will place their votes on November 4 for the person who will best serve them. Both Sens. McCain’s and Obama’s records are there for all who wish to examine them, aside from the party rhetoric and various media cheerleaders.

It surprises me that O. J.: the Untold Story, the BBC documentary about the likely murderer of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, has never aired in the US, though it has aired in other nations.
   I am no fan of O. J. Simpson (admittedly he was good in Capricorn One) and there was a lot that emerged in the 1995 trial that showed the guy was a slimeball.
   The latest Las Vegas incident shows a man who has flouted the law so many times for other acts that he has become arrogant and callous.
   However, the documentary convinced me that Jason Simpson was the real killer, as I have said on this blog before.
   Perceptions are very different among different groups of people. The majority of white Americans thought O. J. was guilty. The majority of black Americans thought O. J. was innocent.
   As it has come up a few times during the last few days, here is a link to the BBC preview on its website.
   I paste from that article and I admit to taking a lot more than what is reasonable below, but it’s only out of concern that the BBC won’t keep some of these older pieces online, especially as it bears the old layout. (I’ll remove the below on request and I ask readers to click on the above link for the original.)

Wednesday, 4 October, 2000, 11:46 GMT 12:46 UK
New clues in OJ Simpson murder mystery

By Malcolm Brinkworth, producer of a BBC programme which sheds new light on the case of former American football star OJ Simpson.

… OJ—The Untold Story reveals that clues that some believe pointed away from Simpson as the killer were dismissed or ignored …

Dr Lee: Crime scene was "contaminated"

Our film shows that the court only heard part of the real picture—that crucial evidence was tampered with and destroyed, the police so contaminated the crime scene that the evidence was unsafe and that six months before her murder, someone was offered money to kill Nicole.

Dr Henry Lee, one of the world’s most respected forensic scientists, states … that the crime scene was “out of control”, was contaminated and that the police had destroyed so much at the murder scene that it was impossible to reconstruct what happened that night.

Dr Lee also reveals that the police failed to take crucial blood samples from Nicole’s back which might have helped solve the case.

Who did kill Nicole Simpson?

We also commissioned two independent British scenes of crime experts to review and analyse the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) procedures at the crime scenes. Their testimony reveals a host of errors which caused them to have no faith in the integrity of the crime scenes.

It is their view that the evidence was seriously compromised and would have been rejected by the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service.

Potential new suspect

The film also explores new areas, which have not been fully investigated by the authorities. It features private investigator Bill Dear and follows his enquiries into Jason, Simpson’s son from his first marriage …

Jason: History of violence

Jason had a history of violent outbursts, including attacking people with a knife and had a criminal record.

The programme examines the evidence that shows that six months before her murder, Nicole was put under surveillance.

A man called Bill Wasz, who he says, had supplied cocaine to Simpson, Nicole and friends, had been hired by one of Simpson’s friends to follow her and take photographs of Nicole with any man she might meet.

He recorded his surveillance in a notebook. In an interview from prison, where he is currently serving a jail term for armed robbery, Wasz explained that 10 days after handing over the photographs, he had been asked by Simpson's same friend to a meeting for a new assignment.

At that meeting, Wasz says, Simpson’s friend then hired him as a hitman to kill Nicole.

Police ignored ‘hitman’ claims

The programme reveals that the police were made aware of Wasz’s story just a few weeks after the murders and … the prosecution decided to dismiss it.…

However, the programme also goes on to show that four years later, the Wasz story was re-investigated again. The police and the District Attorney’s office accepted that the notebook was genuine and that Wasz had been telling the truth.

However, after further investigation, the District Attorney’s office dismissed the matter once more, despite promising leads that pointed to a possible plot to kill Nicole …

A Nevada jury, on which no African-Americans sat, has found Orenthal James Simpson guilty of armed robbery, kidnapping and 10 other charges. His defence team is claiming that the jury had an agenda: to right a perceived wrong in the 1995 double-murder case in which Simpson stood trial.
   I might be in that tiny minority who thinks that O. J. didn’t do it in 1995—in which case my opinion is identical to the majority of African-Americans’.
   Rather than go over old ground in depth, I will quickly state that I always believed that Jason Simpson, O. J.’s son, was the perpetrator, given that he had quarrelled with Nicole Brown Simpson in the past and had access to the very type of knife that killed her and her friend Ron Goldman through his occupation as a chef. Knives were the younger Simpson’s weapon of choice and it wouldn’t have been the first time he had used one with violent intent.
   The BBC had a very compelling, convincing documentary that examined the LAPD evidence using both American and British experts and drew the conclusion about Mr Simpson junior. The documentary was never shown in the US.
   The (little) evidence I heard from the Las Vegas case indicated that Simpson was probably guilty this time around, but I still have to wonder about the race issue.
   When the majority of Caucasian-Americans feel that O. J. was guilty in 1995 and the majority of African-Americans feel that he was not, then that still taints the trial this time around.
   I still wonder what the outcome would have been had the jury been of different races, because the way different cultures perceive things is still very apparent all over our planet.

Not many surprises when I read at IO9 this morning on US Life on Mars about a casting call:

Fletcher Bellow (28–30 yrs old) In 1973 he is one of the first African-American detectives in the NYPD. Bellow manages to use his brains and sense of humor to navigate the system, and climb the ladder. He even manages to make peace with his bigoted colleagues on the force. In 2008 he will become Sam Tyler’s mentor on the force. Looking for an actor with a lot of personality, charm and humor …

It looks like a British story will be used in the US series.
   However, a bit more disturbing was this change to proceedings, according to the ABC website:

At home in Sam’s apartment building in the East Village, there’s Windy, a free-spirited, post-hippie chick who can teach Sam a thing or two about the cultural revolution taking place in front of his unbelieving eyes.

   Not sure who this is based on. Nelson the barman is still there (albeit played by a Caucasian-American actor) so I guess Windy is the Life on Mars equivalent of Arthur Fonzarelli, Cosmo Kramer or Steve Urkel. Note how they, too, are typically referred to by one-word names.
   Maybe the character is based on Windy Miller from Camberwick Green?

Finally, one of the Bushes meets some New Zealanders—the First Lady is greeted by New Zealand soldiers and police officers in Afghanistan. The haka is a customary greeting, borne from Māori culture.
   I was going to go in to a bit more depth on this video about how nice it was for Mrs Bush to have some contact with our country. However, I am embarrassed by some 19-year-old New Zealander on YouTube who has entered several racist, anti-Māori comments at this video’s page.
   If any Kiwis want to comment on JZZ’s anti-Māori rhetoric, which I think embarrasses our country as it is hardly representative of what most New Zealanders think, please head on over to that page.
   Normally I would just consider him a teenage troublemaker and troll, but there’s another part of me that says if we keep turning a blind eye to our young people’s misbehaviour, then are we telling them that it is acceptable?
   Slamming a single race is hardly productive.
   I assume for the purposes of this discussion that the teenager is Caucasian, statistically speaking. I realize he could be another race.
   In one comment, while calling Māori unkind, a ‘wishy-washy race are full of fakes, liars and cheats,’ he also mentions that no Māori has over 50 per cent blood. Anyone see the easy target there? Using JZZ’s logic: the Māori were, after all, living in relative harmony before the arrival of the English—ergo dilution of their blood by pakeha has introduced criminal genes.
   In another comment, Māori are branded uncivilized because they only had a written language since the 1800s. I guess using that logic, that must make my own race superior since the Chinese have had a written language a few thousand years before Christ.
   And a teenager who posts videos of a Toyota Soarer is hardly, as he describes himself, a ‘car connoisseur’. The Soarer can only trace its automotive lineage to 1981, 96 years after the internal combustion engine automobile was first devised.
   Of course these are all silly arguments. By taking JZZ’s logic we get nowhere.
   This is not a politically correct demand for all New Zealanders to “just get along”. But we are obviously creating a generation of some New Zealanders who by their racism will impede national progress.
   The root causes of, say, there being a large Māori–Polynesian prison population stem from colonization and a failure to integrate cultures.
   We cannot turn back the clock but we can become steadily more open-minded to our own solutions that are distinct from the monocultural Westminster system.
   And as a community that once enforced its own standards, perhaps it is time we extended that same thinking to the online world.
   YouTube isn’t a forum to educate in any depth with its limited space. However, it is a place where we may signal disapproval of behaviour with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, and perhaps the odd pithy comment pointing out the faults of racist thinking.

The politically correct camp will say this is racist toward Chinese. I find it bloody funny and, PC thugs, I don’t need you defending me and implying that I can’t do so myself. I am perfectly capable of doing so if I need to—and with Alf Hill, I don’t need to.
   This is an early Chinaman gag; later ones were cleverer with the puns, but it’s still fun to see the genesis of Mr Chow Mein. It’s also funny because Hill doesn’t put Chow into a stereotypical vocation, so I would say few Chinese will think: ‘Here we go again—another Chinaman working in a laundry.’
   I would hope south Asians will think similarly of Bob Todd’s character.

   Racial politics aside: enjoy!