“You come off as too articulate.”
Bobby Rivers,
Submitted via Twitter: @BobbyRiversTV
@michele_norris #theracecardproject
6 words I’ve heard from Anglo producers in my TV career.
Race is beautiful! Racism is learned.
Linda Kaye Hollingsworth-Jones,
Emmett, ID
As a preschooler, my sisters asked if I knew my preschool teacher was black. Not in a mean way but in a “by the by” kind of way. I began thinking about blackness and began to look around me. My dad’s favorite musicians (Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald, Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, “Dizzy” Gillespie) were all black. Favorite entertainers were black. Hailed athletes were black. Those became my favorites as well along with others on TV and radio. I admired them and was sad that I was white. Obviously, I wasn’t slated for greatness, just a sorry, plain little white girl.
Racism is learned. Differences are beautiful and wondrous. Listening is essential. It brings dimension to our understanding. Acting even more so.
The photo is of me after meeting our youngest son, Adarsh, in Kolkata before bringing him home. Race is beautiful. He is beautiful. So are we all.
Celebrate! Don’t segregate, even in your heart or mind.
TV people don’t look like us
Ana Artigas
Houston, TX
I am the child of an Italian-American mother and Spanish (from Spain) father, and I was born in Mexico. I am married to an American man of Dutch and British ancestry, We have friends in mixed race marriages. All of us have children, and there are very few TV programs, none for children, who show mixed marriages and their children. The eldest child (almost 10) of one of these families, AA father-Caucasian mother was telling us that other kids at his school did not believe his mom is white. There are no mixed-race kids/family on TV,
Newspaper says ‘Black youths’ not ‘kids.’
Elizabeth Cook
Pittsburgh, PA
A white female with all minority students and friends, I am saddened and disgusted that race bias permeates every facet of our culture. What we think of as American culture is actually white culture, and others who challenge it are seen as complainers. Why is BET the only place on TV where you see people of color? Wouldn’t you challenge our ‘color blind’ culture if your family was once property and people were scared to walk on the same sidewalk as you?
My Industry can’t get Latino right.
Ricardo Chavira,
San Antonio, TX.
Actor who splits time between SA and LA. Alumnus of TV series Desperate Housewives. Id say I was shocked that industry can’t tap into Latino market, but I’m not. I also realize that we as Latinos have a tendency to get in our own way.
I’m not Mexican, I am me.
When I was younger, I always thought that race was real, I was surprised to find that it is not biologically real. Now that I know this I realized that some stereotypes I made about people are not true. I had always thought that if you looked one way then you were from a certain place but throughout this experience, I have learned not to make those stereotypes because they are not always true. Now I know I am not a certain race. I believe that no one is more important than one another because we are all one species: HUMAN. I just found out last year that I also have Native American in me, I thought that this was very interesting and surprising. I have seen many shootings on T.V. I am still shocked and questioning why people are doing this just because of how someone talks or looks. Sometimes I wonder if racism will ever stop or if it will just keep going on and on. I hope people will take a stand for these serious topics. I think that even in the election people are being racist to others. If people can just talk and not fight about these things I think racism will decrease. I hope that someday racism will end completely. If we keep raising awareness we will get people to talk about this and help!
Race is not real.
Race is not real. Race is only socially real. According to Vox, “There is no such thing as race because, there is not a race chromosome in our our body. It simply doesn’t exist”. We are all too alike to be a different race than one another. The reason we have different skin colors is because of where our ancestors came from. If your ancestors lived closer to the equator then they developed darker skin. Based on our environment we did certain things and looked certain ways and there is nothing wrong with that. Even though race is not real, ethnicity is real. So why are we still making these unfair judgements? It is just part of our nature to see different shapes and lines in things. That is why we sometimes see faces in trees or inanimate objects, so this comes into play when making judgements. The American Anthropological Association stated that “Differences among the “racial” categories were projected to their greatest extreme when the argument was posed that Africans, Indians, and Europeans were separate species, with Africans the least human and closer taxonomically to apes” they disagreed. Since race is not real, what will you do about this?
No, I’m not like Lucy Liu.
Clare Chun,
Seattle, WA.
I’m an aspiring actress and filmmaker. Whenever I share this with others, every so often I get hit with, “Oh like that Lucy Liu girl!” First off, I am Korean American and she is Chinese American, secondly, we don’t look or act anything alike. Yes, as shocking as this sounds, we are not “penguins” where you can’t tell us apart. We are in fact individuals who have distinct facial and cultural differences depending on which Asian country we come from.
When I watch movies or television shows I am inspired to see we recognize the brilliant African American actresses Halle Berry, Angela Bassett, Taraji P. Henson, Queen Latifah, Viola Davis, and many more all as individual unique entities, not one clump of “African American Talents.” I am inspired we do the same for the Latina Actresses Eva Mendes, Salma Hayek, Jennifer Lopez and Penelope Cruz, and the countless others I can’t fill this whole page with.
I can’t wait for the day I hear “Oh Sandra Oh, Lucy Liu, Margaret Cho, Zhang Ziyi and Olivia Munn are very different from each other, and so talented! It’s hard to put them in ONE category!”
I hope I contribute in some way as an artist thru my own personal journey to shift the stereotypes and ignorance involving the Asian American experience. And if I’m lucky and blessed enough to be the 1% working in Hollywood, maybe people will recognize me and say, “Hey, you are that great actress CLARE CHUN!” 🙂
Hollywood reminds me everyday. I’m different.
Seema,
Chicago, IL.
Women already have identity issues because of an extreme and over-sexed image of women in Hollywood. Additionally, women of color are marginalized because of their under-representation in TV, movies, magazines and advertising. As an Asian-American woman, I see very few Asian men and women and when I do see them, we are often cloaked in a silly accent aimed at cheap laughs. Thanks to Mindy Kaling for showing Hollywood what we’ve got!
Blacks can own nice things too!
Dede C.,
San Francisco, CA.
My six words is relevant to a personal story of mine and other minorities. The stereotype is that Blacks are poor and lack education so commit illegal crimes to obtain the luxuries we want. Because of this stereotype, people are oblivious to the fact that we are capable of working hard for the expensive cars, homes, and electronic devices we want. I can remember on my tenth birthday, my mother went to Best Buy and bought me a brand new T.V. She had been planning to buy this gift for me that I had been wanting for a while and had worked hard at her job to save up for it. To her disbelief, the cops stopped her while the T.V was boxed up and wrapped in the backseat of the car. They stopped her on the assumption that she stole the T.V despite my mother showing them the receipt for it. They had taken her to court and after 30 minutes or so, she was let go. Coming home to me on my birthday with anger from the injustice of the police officers that day had such a negative effect on me. That was when I first began to have negative feelings towards cops and the law enforcement system.
Do hillbillies have white privilege too?
Anonymous,
Knoxville, TN.
I’m from the Mountain South, where white privilege and racism take on a range of meanings outside the mainstream. I’ve heard our regional identity described as a kind of “otherized whiteness,” and I think that’s about right. Whatever else we were, we always knew our whiteness was the wrong kind. That’s what the images and dialogues on TV said to us, either directly or indirectly. It was plain that we were just a bunch of hopelessly dumb hillbillies who didn’t speak proper English. My sister told me she worked hard to shed her accent, like me, because she said she didn’t want to be perceived as ignorant. Anybody from the poor white south knows just what I’m talking about. Then there are others who embrace it, who drape it around them like flag. My parents loved watching the Beverly HIllbillies and the Andy Griffith Show, like they reveled in the delight of seeing people who talked like them on TV, even if they were represented as rubes and degenerates. I’ve never really understood that. But then they always loved All in the Family, Good Times, and The Jeffersons too.
On the other hand, it is one of the few sub-regional identities in the U.S. that allows for the possibility of something like a “white culture.” Maybe. But it has its own set of prejudices too. My grandpa worked in the coal mines of southwest Virginia. He always talked about working shoulder-to-shoulder with black miners underground, but how when they emerged on the surface, they went their separate ways with nary a backward glance. My paternal great grandfather was a renowned banjo player in Tennessee’s Cumberland Mountains, but I doubt he had any idea that the banjo was an instrument of African origin. It’s never simple.
Tonight lets all walk our T.V.
Kimi
Corvallis, OR
All of us do something that looks suspicious at times, some of us get stopped for it every time other never. Think what would happen if tonight you were walking down the street at dusk carrying a T.V.
