Friday, July 23, 2010

NAACP is slippin


Wow! I felt so disappointed to learn that the NAACP supported the Tea Party in their push to fire a black woman from her job for reverse racism. Of all groups, I would have thought the NAACP would be more critical of Tea Party and extremist right wing claims, especially those made against African-Americans. After all, it was barely a week ago when the NAACP called out the Tea Party for harboring racist elements among its factions. And for the record, anyone who's been near a Tea Party protest and seen their swastikas and heard their racist chants can attest to fact that some of their supporters are racist.

Why then, would the NAACP rush the Tea Party's aid at the expense of a hard working black federal employee? The answer is politics. The political pendulum is shifting to the right and conservatives are gaining popularity and credibility, even in the eyes of race-based social justice organizations like the NAACP.

During the late days of the Bush Administration, progressives had a powerful grassroots political voice and were able to succeed in securing the election our nation's first African-American president. However, now that Obama has been getting things done as president, conservatives have begun a spirited movement in opposition to his policies. The passage of health care reform legislation and other big government initiatives has fired up fiscal conservatives and the fringe elements that follow their lead.

Hopefully this incident will serve as a wake-up call for the NAACP and other progressive groups. Tea Party accusations may be hyped up by the media because of their current level of political hotness, but media coverage doesn't always equate with legitimacy so it's still important to investigate the validity of right wing claims before backing them.

Monday, July 19, 2010

The Kids are All Right

Last night, I had the pleasure of viewing the film, The Kids are All Right, which tells the story of a family of four as they face life's challenges. Interestingly, the two teenage kids in this family have two moms instead of a mom and a dad. They were conceived through an alternative insemination process with the assistance of a sperm donor. The movie begins with the teens becoming curious about their donor, seeking him out and ultimately bringing him into the family.

I must say that it was refreshing to see a realistic representation of a family with two moms given the scarcity of these types of on-screen depictions. However, I worry that the storyline was compromised in an effort to reach a larger audience. In the plot, the more feminine of the two moms immediately begins a steamy affair with the sperm donor only to be caught and cause a tremendous disruption to her whole family. While I do agree that gender and sexuality are very complex aspects of human identity that are often oversimplified by society, it still irks me that most of the sex scenes in The Kids are All Right were heterosexual. I just wonder if the script would have been able to attract such great actors and if the movie would have been released so widely had it been gayer.

All and all, this was a really good movie -- and I rarely say that about films these days.