Tag: post-racial

Post Racial? Hollywood didn’t get the memo

The movie industry really has me, Roschelle, second guessing this post racial era we’ve been living in since the last presidential election. Hollywood. The industry is viewed by many as the most progressively liberal set of folks (producers, directors, movie stars, etc.) you ever want to meet. But they are not post-racial enough.

What do Robert DeNiro, Ron Perlman, Tyne Daly, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Justin Chambers, George Lucas, Halle Berry, Sidney Poitier, James Earl Jones, and Alfre Woodard all have in common? All these Hollywood heavy hitters have husbands/wives/significant others to someone of a different race than their own.

I’ll use the black white dichotomy for this argument. Although, the same applies regarding other races and ethnic groups.

You see the thing is out of every actor or actress I mentioned with the exception of Halle Berry none of these stars have been in a role that would have their love interest, mate or spouse someone of another race.

Sure Sidney Poitier ruffled a few feathers in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. It was too much for many people to take in. Taboo. Unthinkable. And I guess that still applies today.

I certainly consider myself a movie buff. So, if my knowledge of movies is too limited and I’ve overlooked a blockbuster that depicted an interracial relationship worthy of mention please let me know. I hardly think Billy Bob banging Halle or Denzel with his part time lover in Training Day (oh, how I hated that movie) make the grade.

I’m not asking to be subjected to another typical racially charged plot. The interracial couple and all the challenges they face in a society that’s, for the most part, completely unaccepting of their relationship and spend the next 120 minutes of the movie making their lives miserable. That’s just more of the same. And with all due respect, we’re past all that stuff anyway. This is post racial America!

It’s as if Hollywood frowns on this reality as much as some of us. Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins could never come home to a woman of color and sit around the dinner table with their biracial children, get a good night’s sleep and wake the next morning to begin a family vacation that ends in disaster…or a wholesome made for TV movie about family life in the Midwest…or be the parents of the next guy who battles the Decepticons along with the Transformers.

Gabrielle Union, Lynn Whitfield, Thandie Newton, and Cicely Tyson would never be viewed as authentic as they kissed their white mate good bye as he went off to foil some terrorist plot, pull off a big jewelry heist, coach a bunch of misfits into the winniest team in high school football history or save the planet from aliens!

I understand that movies have to be seen and gross mega bucks to be considered blockbusters or worthy of the little gold statue by the Academy. Is that the problem? Are the execs fearful that releasing these types of movies might land them in the soup line?

Life isn’t cookie cutter. Love isn’t monochromatic nor are those we choose to love. Black people love white people and brown people love yellow people and yellow people love red people.

The entertainment industry owe it to us to be true to the ideology of mixing. Maybe even help make the idea of interracial relationships less foreign by changing the humdrum family dynamics found in just about every movie I’ve ever seen. Or am I being unrealistic?

Black Americans feel less empowered under Obama

Four years after Barack Obama was elected president, this is not exactly a “post-racial” America.

A new study from Washington University in St. Louis finds that under Obama, many black Americans feel less free than whites when it comes to political participation.

From 2005 to 2011, only 45 percent of blacks said they believed the government would allow them to make a public speech, while 67 percent of whites believed they could, the study found.

The study found that while the election of Obama initially boosted feelings of political empowerment among black Americans, those sentiments significantly faded in the years that followed—especially among conservative and religious blacks.

These two groups make up a large segment of the black population, with 56 percent of blacks identifying as “born again,” and 39 percent of blacks as “somewhat conservative,” according to the study.

“First we saw the ’empowerment effect,’ the boost that happens when a member of your group gets elected to an important political position,” says study author James L. Gibson, a professor of government and African-American studies at Washington University. Gibson’s findings are based on national surveys conducted between 2005 and 2011.

A new study from Washington University in St. Louis finds that under Obama, many black Americans feel less free than whites when it comes to political participation.

In 2009, the year after Obama was elected, 71 percent of blacks reported feeling as free to speak one’s mind as they used to.

“But then perceptions of political freedom deteriorated among conservative and religious blacks,” says Gibson. By 2011, the percentage of blacks who felt as free to speak their mind had dropped to 56 percent, back to pre-Obama levels. (White Americans also reported feeling less free to speak one’s mind under Obama, but the decline was far less than among blacks).

In part, says Gibson, this can be attributed to “ideological polarization.” That split may have begun when Obama dismissed Pennsylvania voters in 2008 who “cling to guns or religion.” But Gibson says many conservative and religions blacks likely believed when Obama was first elected that he would protect their interests as president. “Race produces a level of trust and confidence that one is on your side,” he says.

Over time, that confidence eroded. Gibson cites the contraception debate between the White House and some religious leaders that erupted last year. Black Americans, he notes, are traditionally conservative on social issues.

Another schism may have centered on gay marriage. The Democratic-leaning Coalition of African-American Pastors, for example, recently said they felt “marginalized” and “ignored” by Obama’s seemingly sudden support for same-sex marriage.

Religious fundamentalists and conservative blacks, Gibson says, “have seen their efforts to participate in public life [under Obama] being thwarted over and over and over again.”

Elizabeth Flock is a staff writer for U.S. News & World Report.