Light-skinned-ed Girl

What Am I Doing in the Web 2.0 World?

That last post with that sad little rabbit rubbing his head on the wall was not meant to be a post on this blog.  It became one because of my new ventures into the Web 2.0 world which have made me a tumblr-ing,twitter-ing, utterz-ing, hellotxt-ing mess.  If you don't know about any of these things check them out.  They are new ways to micro-blog and can connect your content to just about anything it seems.  You can also waste an immense amount of time first figuring out how and then why to use these services.  Why do I do this stuff?  I have real work to do!

So much work so little time

Mobile post sent by hdurrow using Utterz.  Replies.

As Much As I am a Proponent of Telling Stories of the Mixed Experience . . .

I also just love finding images of the Mixed experience when the story has nothing to do with being mixed.  It's an even greater treat to find an image of the Mixed experience in an unexpected place----like this contributor's photo from the July/August Women's Health magazine--

Saturday Funnies

For a while I was obsessed with Cookie Monster t-shirts.  I love the ones by Junk Food that have the big Cookie Monster face.  Now, I have about 15 t-shirts like that so I thought I would branch out.  I shopped Threadless, Zazzle and Busted Tees.  Here is my favorite from Busted Tees:

Happy Belated Birthday Carly Simon

Singer Carly Simon turned 63 this week (June 25, 1945).  She also has a new album out called This Kind of Love.  Why do I mention her?  Well, because she's a mixed chick.  In fact, my posts about her multiracial background (her mother was black and jewish) get the most hits of all the posts I've written.  Who knew?  Happy Belated Birthday, Carly!

Biracial Link Love: BLURdigital and No More Race

Check out BLURdigital a new website "designed to provide a common ground for people of mixed heritage to find and share relevant lifestyle-focused content, identify and highlight useful resources and share their personal stories and experiences with one another through our social networking tools."  It's a great looking site and I think it will be a fantastic resource for people living the Mixed experience--like Facebook and ThisNext mixed together.  (Thanks to Louis Gong at Mavin for the info!)

Then check out this new-to-me blog No More Race focused on the multiracial and multicultural experience of a father.  Hooray!  We want more men in on this conversation--I think you'll enjoy his thoughtful posts.

My Mixed Mii

I am obsessed with my Wii fit.  My favorite training exercises are the balance games--especially the one where you have to hit the soccer ball with your head, but make sure you don't hit the giant flying panda head (then you get minus points and the Wii makes this wonderful groaning sound).  The avatars/characters are great stand-ins for you, the player.  They are called Miis (read me with an s).  I am Guest D, a small brownish girl with straight black hair.  I figure she's mixed--a mixed Mii! 

How funny, I thought, and started trolling through the blogosphere for some discussion of this.  I wanted to fuel my obsession with everything mixed (like my obsession with ethnic legos).  Well, there's actually some discussion out there about ethnic representation in gaming.  This article in Cerise Magazine by Latoya Peterson is particularly thoughtful and thorough.  A big gaming fan, she writes:

"In all the games I have played through, I have yet to find a character that I can truly inhabit. A lot of gaming is fantasy, and designers reflect this with their overly idealized body shapes and choices. However, gaming takes the additional step of trying to insert you into that fantasy world, to play as that character, relate to that character, to want to become that character (at least for the time of your investment). Unfortunately, for me, this never quite works. I can close my eyes and imagine becoming Karin Koening from Shadow Hearts Covenant. In my mind’s eye, I become her, flying across the globe in kick-ass brown boots, keeping my cool in the toughest of situations. The image reflected in the game and the image reflected in my mind’s eye are mostly similar - red hair, lean physique, military attire. There is only one difference - my mind’s eye reflects the even brown tone of my own skin, and the broader composition of my facial features. The image on the screen does not change. Game after game, scenario after scenario, world after world, my brown-skinned doppelganger mentally superimposes itself onto different characters, wrestling for dominance. I continue to play games with fair-skinned lead characters - my mind continues to struggle to insert my darker self into gaming’s white-washed reality."

Yes, exactly!  But Peterson links to an article about mixed-race identity in gaming and the character of Jade in the game Beyond Good and Evil--there apparently was some controversy over whether she was black.  In interviews with several fans of the game, the article writer received a wide range of responses to the theory that the character was black:

"Jade was black?"
"I always thought of Jade as an arab."
"I always thought she was supposed to be of Eurasian descent."
"I thought Jade was asian."
"What? She don't look asian..more of a european for sure."
"lol   Jade is hispanic."
"Jade looks a bit Greek to me."
"I always figured she was Phillipino."
"What??? Jade is clearly a latina!"
"I figured jade was at least half black but most likely fully blooded."

Those statements sound familiar to us mixed folks, but the writer suggests that "this actually isn't a race issue at all. It's a subset of a widely held maxim about creating protagonists -- in any medium, but especially hand-crafted visual ones like comics, anime, and video games . . .The more details that define a character, the more you distance the player from it, and the less engaged the player becomes."

How amazingly interesting if you take this out of strictly the gaming context:  To be ethnically ambiguous is to be without details?  I'm not sure where I'm going with this thought so I'll just head back to my mixed Mii--we have to get some more training minutes in today. 

Blogging While Brown July 25-27 Atlanta, GA

I'm excited to attend the inaugural Blogging While Brown conference in July.  I'll be presenting along with my co-host of Mixed Chicks Chat.  We're doing a workshop on how to do a live, interactive podcast in conjunction with your blog.  The organizers explain the need for the conference this way:

"Whether it's fighting injustice, debating racism in the media, serving as a new technology underground railroad of information or celebrating our best and brightest, bloggers of color are a vital and viable part of the blogosphere who aren't afraid to voice their opinions on a number of subjects. Their readers are willing to mobilize for change. Bloggers of color are at an inflection point in the continued development of the blogosphere."

Hear hear!  I hope we'll see some of you all there! 

A New Version of the "What are you?" Question

A story from a friend of mine, who is not biracial, but who is often mistaken for being biracial:

"Even though I am not mixed I am a lightskinneded girl, (chuckling) lightskinnededed girl.  You know.  You grow up with all the comments: what are you?  What are you mixed with?  People trying to figure out what your ethnicity is.  At my age, I thought I had heard them all, but today a woman at the mall touched my arm and said: 'I love your skin color.  What color is that?'  I was like: what color is my skin?  What color . . . I didn't know what she meant I was so confused.  I thought she meant what color make-up I had on, but she touched my arm.  I didn't know what to say.  I guess she meant what is your ethnicity or where are you from, but I have never heard anyone ask this before.  What color is that?  That!  Just wondered whether you had heard that before . . . "

I ate the cake and it was good . . .

Okay, enough about me.  Let me tell you about this cake I had yesterday for my birthday.  It was delicious!  Perfectly moist and rich and chocolatey goodness.  MMMMMMMMMM . . . There is still 3/4 of a cake left -- any takers?