Racism

Olympic gold medalist Gabby Douglas is an empowering role model, and she continues to inspire with her honesty and positive spirit in a recent interview with Oprah Winfrey. The 16-year-old made history this Summer when she became the first African-American woman to win the all-around gymnastics gold medal at the Olympics, but she tells Oprah it wasn't an easy road, as she was bullied at a gym where she trained in Virginia. Gabby said, "I was just, you know, kind of getting racist jokes, kind of being isolated from the group. So it was definitely hard. I would come home at night and just cry my eyes out." She added that her teammates even called her a "slave."

The head of the gym and her fellow gymnasts deny the accusations, with the CEO saying, "Gabby's remarks were hurtful and without merit. . . . We are good people. We never were knowingly involved in any type of bullying or racist treatment."

No one really knows for certain what took place at the gym except those who were there when the alleged remarks were made. What we do know is that speaking out about bullying and racism for a teenager — famous or not — isn't easy. And this isn't the only time Gabby has confronted detractors. She responded to hurtful comments about her hair with confidence, saying, "I just made history and people are focused on my hair? It can be bald or short, it doesn't matter." Hopefully, Gabby's ability to stand up for herself with poise will help young people in the same situation overcome bullying.

Source: Twitter User Oprah

Remember Duncan Hines's controversial "Hip Hop Cupcakes" commercial? Well, it wasn't the first (and certainly isn't the last) supermarket food campaign that's wrought with racially charged undertones.

The latest company to fall under attack is candy company Cadbury, which has come under fire for a new advertisement comparing supermodel Naomi Campbell to one of its latest products. The ad's tagline reads: "Move over Naomi, there's a new diva in town," with an image of its Bliss chocolate bar.

An infuriated Campbell fired back, "I am shocked. It's upsetting to be described as chocolate, not just for me, but for all black women and black people. I do not find any humour in this. It is insulting and hurtful." Members of the civil rights community have asked Cadbury to apologize, and Campbell is reviewing her options against the company. Meanwhile, Cadbury has countered with an insistence that their campaign was "a light-hearted take on the social pretensions of Cadbury Dairy Milk Bliss," although they've stopped circulating the ad.

In today's socially conscious culture, It's hard to believe that this classless campaign made it all the way to consumers. Cadbury: do the right thing, and issue an apology, otherwise you're almost sure to face a consumer boycott.

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• Christian Dior has fired John Galliano after "I love Hitler" video — Fashionologie
• Yesterday face of Dior Natalie Portman said she's disgusted with Galliano — Huffington Post
• Half of US men may have HPV — MSNBC
• A fetus will "testify" in support of Ohio's "heartbeat" abortion bill — Jezebel
• Hollywood star Jane Russell has died — THR
• Christina Aguilera and new boyfriend were arrested this morning — PopSugar
• Pop and Buzz make their American Idol top 10 picks — BuzzSugar
• Charlie Sheen says his goddesses don't judge him — People
• Republicans will pick up defense of the Defense of Marriage Act — Nerve

Last week our very core was shaken when we thought our zodiac signs had changed, because the Earth's position in the universe has moved. Then we all exhaled when astrologists said they saw this coming and have been factoring in this movement all along, so we all went back to being Geminis and Scorpios, albeit with an extra dose of skepticism. But with the zodiac's credibility in retrograde, it's the perfect time to wage a star war; the perfect time to compare astrology to racism.

Now if you've ever been annoyed by someone asking your sign and only to respond by sizing you up, you're going to like this. Astrology's compared to racism because signs are determined by when and where we're born, neither of which we have control over, and then others use it to formulate opinions (prejudices) about us. Once astrology zealots know our sign, they look for behaviors — say impatience in Aries or emotional instability in Cancers — to confirm their hypothesis.

The difference, of course, is in how it's used. Since astrology hasn't waged any wars to my knowledge, I'd say it's not quite the same. But when followed excessively, is it a form of prejudice?

To promote its new Amazing Glazes line, baking brand Duncan Hines hoped to generate buzz with a new website and commercial-quality YouTube videos. But it probably didn't plan on attracting this level of attention.

The food company is under public scrutiny for the first of its YouTube commercials, titled "Hip Hop Cupcakes." The ad, directed by Josh Binder, feature seven plain cupcakes that promptly grow lips and eyes that bust into beat-box and dance after being drizzled with Duncan Hines's new glaze — the chocolate flavor, that is.

A number of viewers are up in arms over what's being referred to as "black-face cupcakes" — including, among others, members of the hip hop community, since the ad doesn't actually include any hip-hop.

It's true: the racial undertones of this commercial can't, and shouldn't be, ignored. As Morgan put it: "The only okay part was that it was a cupcake, and cupcakes are good." Apparently, Duncan Hines has recognized its mea culpa: the company's already taken down the video.

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"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way."

— Keith Bardwell, a Louisiana Justice of the Peace who sounds like a Rip Van Winkle character who slept through the '60s,'70s, '80s . . . (you get the picture). He says he's concerned for the children interracial couples would have, and that in Tangipahoa Parish where he lives, interracial marriages don't last long. Last I heard, the chances of any marriage in the US lasting is about 50/50 and that people of opposite sexes, anyway, are free to marry who they choose.

• Jimmy Carter says Rep. Joe Wilson's "you lie" outburst along with other angry opposition toward President Obama is based on racism. — MSNBC
• Lab technician Ray Clark is released after providing DNA samples to police in the murder case of Yale student Annie Le. — CNN
• The FDA has approved a swine flu vaccine that should arrive the first week of October. — AP
• NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg supports the idea of banning smoking in public parks and beaches. — New York Post
• Runner Caster Semenya is placed on suicide watch. — Chicago Now

"Wilson’s shocking disrespect for the office of the president — no Democrat ever shouted 'liar' at W. when he was hawking a fake case for war in Iraq — convinced me: Some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it."

— New York Times op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd on Congressman from South Carolina Joe Wilson's shocking interjection of "You lie!" during President Obama's speech on health care. Dowd agrees with others who think that this breach in protocol and civility was an attempt to delegitimize him as the president — because he is black. Congressman Wilson, as it turns out, once spearheaded a campaign to keep the Confederate flag above South Carolina's state Capitol and denounced the black woman who stepped forward and said she was Strom Thurmond's daughter. (She was.) Wilson has since apologized and the President has accepted his apology, but he's now a sort of folk hero for those who don't like the president, and "You lie!" bumper stickers abound. What do you think of that outburst and its significance?

It's easy to forget that in the middle of this battle to figure out South African runner Caster Semenya's sex, there's an 18-year-old, raised as a girl, who trained hard to win the gold medal at the World Championships in Berlin last month.

Now that the IAAF's (International Association of Athletics Federations) sex test results have come back and reveal that Semenya is intersexed, she's in hiding.

The test results indicate that Semenya doesn’t have a womb or ovaries, she has internal testes and three times the amount of testosterone that an average woman would have. It is still unclear whether the IAAF will strip Semenya of her medal or bar her from future races — but her case has caused outrage all over the world. The National Assembly sports committee chairman Butana Komphela made an official complaint to the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights saying that the IAAF has been racist and sexist toward Semenya. (Remember also, that she was tricked into allowing these sex tests, thinking they were testing for drugs.)

The general population knows so little about intersexed people, and we are so conditioned to believe that there are two sexes and two sexes only. The fact of the matter is, one's sex is actually determined by a complicated set of factors, including variations in chromosomes and hormones and their interaction. Gender, on the other hand, is a social construct, how we "perform" our sex. (This renders the repeated use of the term "gender testing" in news reports on Semenya's case nonsensical.)

If there's a silver lining in this sad tale, it's that more light will be shed on what some call the myth of two sexes. Stay tuned for more posts on this fascinating topic. How do you feel about how Semenya's been treated?