Earlier this week while getting an Aveda prescription hair treatment, adhering to the newly established tenets of metrosexualism — yes, I made that an active verb — I searched for a suitable male magazine.  

Unable to locate Maxim, Playboy or anything otherwise distinguishable as “male,” I settled upon Details, a thirty-something brother magazine to GQ, complete with articles about fashion, etiquette and non-gossipy social observances. It was Details or stare at the wall, pretending to be invisible while waiting for my hair to dry. Needless to say I settled on the magazine.  

While flipping through Details, I came across a standing column called “Gay or …”; the column takes a person and picks apart their look, asking whether each part of their outfit is gay or whatever the case may be. This month’s column, “Gay or Asian,” written by Whitney McNally, featured such observations as “Dolce & Gabanna Suede Jacket: Keeps the last samurai warm and buttoned tight on the battle field” and “White T-Shirt: V-neck nicely showcases sashimi-smooth chest. What other men visit-salons to get, the Asian gene pool provides for free.”  While the tendency is to laugh awkwardly or dismiss such “jokes” as ineffective, I couldn’t help but think about a recent cartoon reducing the history of black people to having been invented in the 1700s as a cheap form of labor. While one could find a way to read this column as a tongue-in-cheek play on contemporary interpretations of the commingling of fashion and culture, lines such as “Louis Vuitton Bag: Don’t be duped by ghetto knockoffs. Every queen deserves the real deal,” make it difficult to look past the racist, classist and homophobic nature of the “humor” employed in this article.  

In an era of championed liberties — the right for heterosexuals to revel in the privilege to marry, the right of conservatives to target minority populations vis-à-vis attacks upon social politics designed to correct social injustices which continue to prevent day, the freedom to speak, or in the case of media, to print that which we feel without consequences for that which we say — how are we to effectively combat the ways that mainstream media uses crude reductionism, crass classism and, in this case, racist/orientalist tropes (read: stereotypes) to pass as inoffensive “humor?” Perhaps, equally pressing is how do we communally access humor without having to offend or make fun of socially preserved and perpetuated stereotypes?

What will you do?

DJ

What if Shakespeare had it all wrong? If love’s more of a curse and less of a gift, if relationships are supposed to be tried without the heartache and mourning period which consumes more time than most relationships ever do? What if all these songs, these unattainable, extremely beautiful, slow and sincere ballads falsely tell us to hold out for that one true love when the reality is that she (or he) will never come?

I am wondering if I’ll ever know what its like to be in love or rather if I need to? I find it difficult to imagine my life incomplete until I find her, the one that God intended for me. Particularly in a world that is wrought with confusion, selfishness, and mystery — what if I never find her what if that was somehow not meant to be? What is the point of setting myself up for consistent disappointment instead of living with as much immediacy as I have in me?

Now don’t get me wrong … I’m not speaking though recent pain or the desire to find life anew but rather the sincere desire to know why it is we as a culture invest so much in these idyllic perceptions of what life could or should be instead of dealing with what is and what has come to be?

Perhaps I should file this away with everything else in my “I was born in the wrong damn time and will never understand any of this” folder … maybe one day it will all be made clear, but for the time being I’ll continue to contemplate the ways the love shared between Romeo and Juliet can actually be applied to the life that I lead.

DJ

“Black People were invented in the 1700s as a form of cheap labor,” reads the second still of a recently published Black History “cartoon.” “In Honor of Black History Month We Give you Blacky Fun Whitey Staring Kunta Kornelius & Steppin,” the cartoon begins. Branded Columbia’s subversive paper, The Fed published this cartoon in its February magazine and distributed it in all campus mailboxes following a series of events targeted both implicitly and explicitly at marginalized student groups.

Just before Christmas break, the Columbia University Marching Band (CUMB) launched a no-holds barred attack toward blacks, homosexuals, Jews and women. Asking “Who needs ethnic studies?” with juxtaposing pictures of Michael Jackson as a (black) boy and a (not-so-black) man, the band succeeded in demonstrating the campus tendency to brand “humor” as offensive jokes almost exclusively at the expense of marginalized minorities.

Similarly, Feb. 6, the Columbia College Conservative Club (CCCC) held an Affirmative Action Bake Sale. A thinly veiled attack on black and brown students at the university, CCCC members sold donuts and cookies at higher prices to white and Jewish students and at lower prices for black, Hispanic, and female students.  

“The worst part of it all is that these people are offending and attacking me on my dime,” said first year Ayana Dion Labossiere. “It’s not enough that I have to deal with the CORE and class, but I have racist people using my money to offend me in my space.”

Second year Chris Johnson expressed a similar sentiment. “It makes no sense that the university takes no proactive steps,” Johnson said. “The same day the administration works on one issue, these student groups are working on something else.”

Numerous student leaders have gathered to work toward affecting change throughout the community. Recently, ad-hoc meetings have been called between university officials and selected student leaders. Students such as Labossiere express a fervent dissatisfaction with the administration’s responses to many of these meetings. Referencing the letter penned by Xue, Labossiere said, “The groups get off too easy. Apologies [if offered] should be public. The event was public, [they] printed racist statements in public, they should apologize [or measures taken discussed] in public too.”

While many of these meetings seem to yield no tangible change, students continue to search for ways to challenge effectively both the administration and the campus community to reach beyond ignorance and establish policies, curriculum, practices, and educational programming aimed at increasing understanding of both race and racism.

“It’s amazing, the amount of things you have to endure on campus as a person of color just trying to do your thing,” said senior Leilani Mabrey Jackson. “To get here you have to swallow so many bitter pills, and then while you’re here, you have to deal with ignorant racists disrespecting you in your own space while the university stands off to the side watching.”

While the immediate future of minority students at Columbia University is far from palpable, a few things have materialized. Black students refuse to be silenced by students, organizations or the administration. Black students have and continue to build coalitions with marginalized populations and progressive student group coalitions both on campus and off. Black students have and continue to need the support of family, friends — this includes alumni associations comprised of black and brown faces who share in our pains in working to combat these and any such possible events.

“Now, with the added power of hippity-hop beats and cool, island rhythms, they spread their message of ‘getting down’ across the nation. Black people do even more crazy crap, but don’t worry about it until next February … and ‘til then, Remember KILL WHITEY!” the cartoon concludes.  

Our fight, our continued struggle, has just begun.

DJ