Light-skinned-ed Girl

Michele Elam on Why Obama is Black Again

Check out this article by Stanford professor Michelle Elam about Obama and how his biracial identity got erased by the inauguration.  She writes:

"This consensus about just who Obama is serves its purposes—America unites over the idea of 'the first black president.' The ritual and spectacle of the music, the mega-screens, the invocations, the prayers and the poems, played and replayed around the world, formed the powerful collective representation of Obama as both president and black. At least for the moment, his political and racial statuses are unimpeachable. The inauguration was the climax of his transformation from a black suspect, to a suspect black, to mixed-race cosmopolitan, to MLK’s heir to, finally, America’s Native Son."

But as she says in her essay: shouldn't we pay attention to the part of the story that's being left out?
 

WoYoPracMo Comes to an End

The month-long yoga challenge ends tomorrow and I'm not able to touch my toes.  When I started the month I felt enthusiastic and thought I was dedicated to achieving my goal.  I did challenge myself--my comfort level, my ability to do new poses--in those first couple of weeks.  But the last two weeks, I've put in the minimum amount of time for yoga each day.  That has meant sitting and breathing for ten minutes each day.  The first days were a challenge: the sitting still.  The last few days the challenge has been getting to the sitting.  How hard could it be to schedule ten minutes of breathing each day?  For me, very difficult.  I've learned a lot of about my own resistance.  I've learned that sitting and breathing actually feels good once I'm done.  I think I may even have strengthened the muscles in my lower back--just a little.  I'd like to get on track with some more power yoga sessions, but no pronouncements here.  But if there are results -- I promise to report back.  How did the challenge go for you?

On Fame . . .

Do you want to be the statue or the bird?  -- Frances Weaver

Sparkpeople.com

I need a spark to get this fitness thing going.  So I went back to my nutritionist today and got a shock.  How did I get to weigh so much?  And I've been working out and been "good."  But now I am going to have to keep track.  So I joined Sparkpeople.  It's free --and it's a weight, food, fitness tracker.  Anybody want to join me?

Feeling Nostalgic

This has nothing to do with anything except for the fact that I'm feeling nostaligic.  Like the Slumdog Millionaire crew, my brothers and I were called the Three Musketeers by my dad.  I don't think we were the ones who claimed it for ourselves.  So the source of the nostalgia: the google sidebar widget on my new computer scrolls through a bunch of photos but seems to keep coming back to this one.  And with it come a flood of memories.  You can see even in the photo how different we were in our focus.  But still, we couldn't imagine a world without each other. 

Multicultural Food Shame

Over at My American Melting Pot, Lori's confessing food shames: the cultural foods you love, but are ashamed to say so.  One of many for me is meatballs in curry sauce--a standard Danish dish.  As you can see from the photo, kids will tease you mercilessly if they know you eat (and like) this.  Despite appearances, it is oh so good!

Near Black

I'm interested in getting my hands on this new book, Near Black: White-to-Black Passing in American Culture, about white people who have "passed" as black.  Having only read the New York Times review, I can't comment on the book.  But my gut reaction is that "white passing" is maybe not more than cultural vampirization or worse, exploitation.  I'll read the book, and see how I come out on the subject though.

Everybody's Weighing in on the Mixed Experience

. . . and I LOVE it.  Here's a link to a Newsweek essay by a black mother of a biracial son.  She comes to terms with his biracial identity and gives up her desire to describe him as black.

President Obama: Another Biracial Perspective

Check out Michelle Maltais of Twisted Curl blog and the vivacious host of one of our luncheon panel's at the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival last year.  She' written a wonderful essay for the LA Times about her experience in D.C. for President Obama's inauguration.  The line that resonates with me:

"I have known that, as the biracial child of a black Jamaican and a white American, I have been an American with an asterisk."

What do you think?*

On Heroism

“Heroism consists of hanging on one minute longer” - Norwegian Proverb