All this week I had been trying to pay no heed to the media stoning of Shirley Sherrod, a former-USDA employee who was fired after a “racist” video of her speaking at the NAACP went viral.  Basically, she was explaining that twenty-four years ago she discriminated against a white farmer, and that it was wrong and she ended up saving his farm – and then the video was chopped up to make it seem like she was bragging about discriminating against a white farmer.  That’s like taking 50 Cent’s line “I love you like a fat kid loves cake” and making it sound like he’s saying “I like fat kids especially when their faces are covered in cake batter while they’re dragged across the village by angry stallions.”

The shit’s just fucked up.  Well of course Keith Olbermann, a.k.a. the white guy who gets more appalled by racism than colored folk, weighs in most eloquently.  Just watch the video.  He says it all so well.  Such a tribute to his race.  Damn…was that racist?  Please don’t fire me, Nico…unless it means I’ll get a call from Obama.

Oakland’s on fire right now.  Oscar Grant’s murderer Officer Johannes Mehserle was sentenced to no more than a kick in the shin.  The tension in the air can be felt all the way on the other side of the country.  I’ve been following the tweets like crazy, and apparently the rioters are tossing firecrackers at the brigade of police.  The Foot Locker downtown is finished with.  A woman was hit by a police car.  It’s spread past downtown now, and into the more uppity Lake Merritt area.  How does all of this amount to justice? If you’re in the Bay Area or any other hot zones, please stay safe.  No sense in avenging life by endangering it.

Follow a chronological account of footage from the Oakland protest and riots at Oakland Local.

Not sure if it’s snowing in Seattle right now, but if it looks even remotely close to how it does here in BK, it makes sense why a man as busy as Prometheus Brown would feel so inclined to rummage through Fox News and his old Sade records simultaneously.  Glad he did though, as it results in a new piece of hotness in (dis)honor of our favorite talking head Michelle Malkin.  Oh, those eyes…those eyes.  Hey Michelle, what’s good with an internship???

Download:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Yikes…forgot Obama was black???  What, were you sitting there like, “What an eloquent little Welsh boy that is speaking up there!” If someone told me that something I did made them forget I was Asian…FOR A FULL HOUR!!…I’d slap them and then I’d go home and write a circa-1999 slam poem about my identity.

Chris Maaaaaaaaaathews
Nuts like some caaaaaaaaaaaashews
I want to grab a Pocky and staaaaaab you
Chocolate pundit
Chocolate pundit
Choc. O. Late. Pun. Dit.

Fortunately, he’s a talented television personality who has the platform and skills to overwrite any gaffs he might make while the camera’s rolling:

Thanks for that, Chris.  For a moment there we forgot that you were a colorblind unicorn who squirted civil rights from your eyeballs.

“Alas, grayscale Malcolm and Yuri reunited in my retinas!” – Chris Matthews

OH GODDDDDDD it’s been such a slow news week…gimme something GOOD, internets!

Dru Hill “Love MD”

Nooooooooooo!  That’s not what I meant!  Who the fuck was like “You know what we need?  A return of Sisqo, except with autotune and a voice like he’s been smoking crayons.” We’re not in the 90′s anymore, dammit!  Try again!

DMX ft. Tyrese “Dats My Baby”

*sigh*

I’m going to sleep.

These sound exactly like all the people who leave our shows early.

PS: Ada Clock swears up and down that the backdrop for the text in this PSA is a zoomed-in black perm.  I have no comment.

Via Lightweight Racist

Poor pilgrims.  Always getting a bad rap.  All just because they slaughtered a couple of tribes.  Pshhh, indigenous sminshmigenshmous.   It’s just pillage, baby!  If it wasn’t for that, we wouldn’t be blessed each year with a giant inflated Shrek floating down the street.

*wooooooorth ittttttt!*

Yes, during these pressing economic times, it’s good to know that our banks, non-profits, and media groups are investing their hard-earned money in giant balloons that will be used for 3 hours.  WTF’s a retirement fund anywayyyyyyssss!

For real though, we here at iLL-Lit are thankful.  For our family, friends, supporters, and of course most of all, the pilgrims.  Thanks for ending slavery, inventing the internet, and dying for our sins.  We want to BE you.

Happy Thankspilgrim!!!

Oh, my people, my people.

Today my dad sent me this NPR report about Lou Jing, a Chinese and Black Shanghainese cuuuuuuuutiiiiieeeepiiiiiieeeeeeee who received a slew of racist backlash when she appeared on an “American Idol-style” show called Go! Oriental Angel.  Now first of all, I only say this from the deepest love arteries of my heart when I say that if there was ever a Chinese equivalent to The New Millennium Minstrel Show, it would probably be called Go! Oriental Angel.  Only in my homeland can a show title manage to be misogynistic, self-oppressive, and 90′s-era aZn pRyDe generic in just three words and a punctuation mark. Dammit.  Now they’re never gonna let me back in.

Although it should be no surprise to me that viewers of a show called Go! Oriental Angel might not be the most culturally sensitive people on the planet, as a person of Chinese descent, I was quite dismayed by this news story because of the blatant racism on not one, but two fronts.  Hark!

China as the culprits
Lou Jing was raised by her Chinese mother for the entirety of her life in China.  She’s hella Chinese, and way more Chinese than my constantly-mistaken-as-Filipino-with-a-Mexican-last-name ass.  However, when she appeared on the show, she was immediately dubbed the “chocolate angel” and “black pearl” and constantly referred to as so.  Once again, I give it up to my people for being able to make stereotypes sound delicious.  But what leaves a horrible taste in my mouth is the internet commentary that went as far as to call her “shameless” for showing her face on Chinese television.  And although there’s a slight chance that as opposed to being racist these people were actually taking a strict Asian parental stance (i.e. “you’re shameless for showing your face at this piano recital!”) chances are they were just being racist.  Perhaps Lou was in fact being shameless, because all the shame is obviously reserved for these bigots.

China as the victim
Now, with it being said that the comments about Lou are disgusting, intolerable, and should incinerate in Diyu, can I now just say fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck the American press for attributing these internet comments to China’s “social attitudes lagging far behind.” It’s the INTERNETS, you stupidiots!  Surely, when you use online bulletin comments as the cultural rubric for the entire Republic of China “lagging far behind,” you’re not referring to China “lagging far behind” the America whose YouTube commenters that had a bigot-fest when the black and Chinese fight on Muni broke out a couple of weeks ago, or the racist and homophobic picnic American internetlings went on during the Kanye/Swift moment and people can’t seem to get enough of. Stop using ignorant 13-year-old webnerds to disperse your China propaganda, you ignorant 43-year-old webnerds!!

Once again, I’m not defending anyone’s ignorance and I’m not saying that Chinese people can’t be racist because I definitely know we can be some ignorant dipshits at times.  But saying that racist web and media comments represent a general “lack of knowledge about racism” in all of China is like saying that a beauty pageant contestant’s inability to answer a geographical question represents a general lack of knowledge about location in all of America.  Because that’s obviously not the case.  America knows the world very good.

Tomorrow and Thursday CNN will be premiering Latino in America, a bite-sized tribute to a population that has made a somewhat sizable contribution to our country (a.k.a. EVERYTHING).  Meanwhile, CNN continues to host a prime-time slot for Lou Dobbs, the most outwardly anti-Latino news personality across all satellite systems.  And although that’s about as contradictory as holding a PETA meeting at a KFC, if there’s anything that we’ve learned about America this past week, it’s that everything is a circus.

Fortunately, the good people at Presente aren’t clowning around, as proven with their international Basta Dobbs campaign to get that fool off the air, which we support fully.  There are certainly enough nutjobs in the news.  Plus, you know shit’s fucked up when even Geraldo Rivera‘s a good guy.  Thats like when Apocalypse was so strong Magneto had to team up with the X-Men to fight him.

Dammit, drizz, what did I tell you about tangents??!?

Ummm….they taste like Power Wheels?

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