Yeah, you're biased. And I'm not reading too far into anything by saying that attractiveness is a social construct. Jezebel used to say the same thing, since taking aim at the fashion industry's pre-packaging of skinny white beauty ideals was its original raison d'etre. So we all know that there is more to the idea of what is or is not gorgeous than DNA. Come on.
To add to my post below: this is not simply a rhetorical problem. I have experiences with attitudes like yours out in the wild, as a person about to enter into an interracial marriage myself. People of all races and colors feel totally at ease telling my black self that they're so excited for me to marry my white man so that we can have "pretty brown babies." That's never something I ever heard people get excited about when discussing any of my serious relationships with black men. I wonder why?
Wait: "Of course, when people of different races marry that often leads to having gorgeous mixed race children, and thus interracial coupling has created a growing demographic group of multiracial Americans." WHAT? I'm shocked that this post has been up for this long and that no one has yet pointed out how deeply troubling it is to use such careless terms for describing mixed-race people as though they are all the same. Even if you're doing it in a way you think is "flattering" or "positive," think about what you're suggesting. For one, by saying "of course" you're framing it as an incontrovertible fact that mixed race children are gorgeous. Secondly, you're painting all mixed people with the same brush (which I can only imagine adds pressure to people in that category who are not "gorgeous," as though they've failed to fulfill their genetic destiny). Third, you're implying that there's something that happens in the mix (the right combination of "white this," "asian/black/latin that") that makes people so gorgeous (as though gorgeousness gets determined in a vacuum independent of social and racial attitudes about beauty). And, finally (which is to say the last thing I care to mention, not the last thing that's wrong with what you said because THERE IS JUST SO MUCH), it suggests that people who aren't visibly mixed are found wanting in the attractiveness department, since they lack the racial combo that makes gorgeousness possible.
This is the first time in Top Chef history when Tom doesn't look good enough to eat.
Slinky is also the "friend of the singer" quoted in the story, yes? Because everything this friend has to say about Slinky seems to put Slinky in the most flattering light ever. He's super artsy! And hott! But in an underground, non-mainstream way, so he's totally not jealous about all her Grammys. Slinky once saved a bunch of kids and nuns from a grenade explosion!
I'm with you on the concern trolling bit, but I don't know how it's the editor's fault if posting a picture of a gaunt celebrity (whose issues might not have anything to do with an eating disorder) would be triggering for someone with an eating disorder. Is this image any worse than half the images in Dirt Bag? Where do you draw the line? Your first point was strong enough without wading into "everything is potentially triggering" territory.
That was one of my biggest critiques of the film. Especially given that the Lucas & Co. don't erase ALL women from the film. There is the Italian love interest, after all. Worst of all, the film had many opportunities to include black women in even the smallest of ways - like having the married pilots include pictures of their wives, girlfriends, and mothers on their plane dashes, just as they did with La Italiana and Black Jesus - but didn't. That was a deliberate and conscious decision to appeal to a broad viewership by selling black women completely out.
"As soon as you sign this 'no-beatdown' contract I'm really going to give you a piece of my mind!"
I don't know, there's something really old-school about this that I find charming. It reminds me of back in the day in Philly, when people would just yell and cuss at each other and leave it at that. I mean, that girl didn't even leap over and stomp the old lady like I expected! This whole thing seems really civilized.
It totally makes sense for the NEA to reject the donation, because they - and our education system as a whole - are just swimming in money right now. Plus, America always wins when we let judgy moralists decide what's best for students -- that's why teenage pregnancy and AIDS are over, and why we outperform every other country when it comes to literacy, math, science, and all the other markers of a functionally educated populace!
All good points (but to be fair I didn't say "offensive," I said "annoying"). It's always been a bad habit of Jezebel commenters to take the "now let's talk about me" approach to nearly every story, which was in part why I thought groupthink became a thing, to give people a forum in which to be off-topic and self-centered to their hearts' content. I just think it is disrespectful to this particular story to pretend we need to make room for hearing about heterosexual love connections.
I'm gonna die on this sword, probably, but anyway: I find it annoying that in a space dedicated to drawing attention to lesbians being excluded from participating in their school's contest, you decided to make it about you and your (presumably) heterosexual relationship. As though the story about SJU isn't further proof that there are more than enough acceptable spaces for that on the internet and in the world. Why claim this one - on this particular post of all times/places - too?
If you told me Julianne Moore was a baby-puncher I'd be like, "well, did the baby look at her weird or something?" because I just love her that much.
Or Asian, or Latina (when's the last time J-Lo wasn't Italian in a movie?), or remotely non-white.
This is a really huge issue for me, because it plays out in lots of other arenas. White women's stories get to sell in ways that do not apply to women of color: in film, in television, on blogs (a white girl's surprise pregnancy gets her name atop a Glamour column, a black girl's surprise pregnancy gets her name in a statistical column), and in print media (when has a woman of color EVER had a memoir make waves on the order of Elizabeth Gilbert, Elizabeth Wurtzel, or, hell, even Emily Gould?). Only white ladies have experiences worth mining in detail and from all sides; the rest of us just have to hitch our wagons to Oprah (which, when you think about it, means making even more room for white women to tell their stories.)
I am not convinced the negative portrayals are disconnected from our larger social gains. Seems like the better we do the more the media wants to say, " no, this is how they REALLY are: trifling, unloveable, petty, crazy, and lazy."
There is a real book called All My Friends Are Dead, that is written to look like a children's book - illustrations and all - but is decidedly adult-only (I'll spare you the gory details of how I came to own such a thing). I realize you're joking, but my point is that there is apparently a market in the grown-up world for that, if you ever wish to actually write it.
But he's done just that since the rape. He went to a different school and graduated early. I mean, I've come around to what Mad Madam Mim and others have said, and of course I know its not fair for someone facing genuine discrimination to move away, but he has moved on from that community. Anyway, this whole situation is terrible and I don't have the stomach to keep talking about it. I just bristled at the suggestion that the boy was in any way a victim in the way the girl was, since there is so much more evidence to support the fact of her victimization over his.
I just don't believe him. I am not convinced by what I have read, especially when he had several opportunities to remove himself from the situation involving the girl.
Again, I believe that gay teenagers face discrimination, that men and boys make other men and boys do terrible things in the name of masculinity, and that often people find themselves in terrible situations where they feel they have no other choice but to make bad decisions. I'm just saying that I don't believe the young man's story is an example of those truths.
I just don't buy the adult pressure/gay-bashing excuse. There is no evidence or examples (at least not in a single article I've read about it) that the men called him gay or threatened him. Plus, he is the one who drove the victim to the scene of the crimes. So he exercised a fair amount of volition when at several points he could have removed himself (and the girl) from the situation.
I think it's possible to acknowledge the bullying gay (or presumed-gay) teens face without allowing this guy to lay claim to that as an excuse for truly horrible behavior. Especially because the end result is to implicitly endorse the idea that it was better for him to commit a heinous crime than be thought of as gay.
