{"id":45958,"date":"2016-03-09T19:46:56","date_gmt":"2016-03-09T19:46:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=45958"},"modified":"2016-03-09T19:46:56","modified_gmt":"2016-03-09T19:46:56","slug":"the-anti-racist-crowd-have-resorted-to-the-old-politics-of-racism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=45958","title":{"rendered":"The \u2018anti-racist\u2019 crowd have resorted to the old politics of racism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.spectator.co.uk\/2016\/03\/the-anti-racist-crowd-have-resorted-to-the-old-politics-of-racism\/\" target=\"_blank\">The \u2018anti-racist\u2019 crowd have resorted to the old politics of racism<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.spectator.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Spectator<\/a><br \/>\n2016-03-07<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/brendanoneill.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\">Brendan O&#8217;Neill<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/p6yfxOCiHr4?rel=0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The self-important slayers of \u2018cultural appropriation\u2019 have gone too far this time. Clearly they didn\u2019t get a big-enough moral kick from chastising white people who do <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Yoga\" target=\"_blank\">yoga<\/a> (on the basis that yoga has <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.spectator.co.uk\/2015\/11\/this-obsession-with-cultural-appropriation-is-leading-us-down-a-very-dark-path\/\" target=\"_blank\">\u2018roots in Indian culture\u2019<\/a>), moaning about <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Beyonc%C3%A9\" target=\"_blank\">Beyonce<\/a> donning a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sari\" target=\"_blank\">sari<\/a> (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theroot.com\/articles\/culture\/2016\/01\/did_beyonce_culturally_appropriate_indian_culture_in_her_new_video.html\" target=\"_blank\">\u2018how is this different from white folks wearing cornrows?\u2019<\/a>, the racial police demanded), and fuming about middle-class indie kids who wear Native American headdresses at music festivals (apparently this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.change.org\/p\/glastonbury-festival-ban-the-sale-of-native-american-style-headdresses-on-site-from-2015\" target=\"_blank\">\u2018perpetuates damaging, archaic and racist stereotypes\u2019<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>So now they\u2019re turning their fire on a black actress who, in their view, is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/news\/india-arie-why-zoe-saldana-872960\" target=\"_blank\">not black enough to play Nina Simone<\/a>. Yes, even black people can now be accused of being insufficiently black for certain cultural pursuits.<\/p>\n<p>The actress in question is <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Zoe_Saldana\" target=\"_blank\">Zoe Saldana<\/a>, a fine actress whose curious combination of vulnerability and steeliness has made her the darling of the modern Hollywood blockbuster. She\u2019s one of the best things in the <em><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Star_Trek_(film_series)\" target=\"_blank\">Star Trek<\/a><\/em> reboot movies and she even managed to inject some humanity into <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/James_Cameron\" target=\"_blank\">James Cameron\u2019s<\/a> otherwise soulless, eco-miserabilist epic, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Avatar_(2009_film)\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Avatar<\/em><\/a>. And next she will play <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Nina_Simone\" target=\"_blank\">Simone<\/a>, in a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0493076\" target=\"_blank\">big biopic<\/a>, the trailer for which was released last week.<\/p>\n<p>But the identity-politics mob isn\u2019t happy. Why? Because Saldana is a light-skinned black person, a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/big-hollywood\/2016\/03\/03\/mixed-black-actress-zoe-saldana-fire-blackface-nina-simone-biopic\/\" target=\"_blank\">\u2018half black\u2019<\/a>, as some have foully put it, and she used make-up to make herself as black as Simone&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.spectator.co.uk\/2016\/03\/the-anti-racist-crowd-have-resorted-to-the-old-politics-of-racism\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The \u2018anti-racist\u2019 crowd have resorted to the old politics of racism The Spectator 2016-03-07 Brendan O&#8217;Neill The self-important slayers of \u2018cultural appropriation\u2019 have gone too far this time. Clearly they didn\u2019t get a big-enough moral kick from chastising white people who do yoga (on the basis that yoga has \u2018roots in Indian culture\u2019), moaning about [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,1196,8],"tags":[23170,11836,8781,11840],"class_list":["post-45958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","tag-brendan-oneill","tag-nina-simone","tag-the-spectator","tag-zoe-saldana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45958"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45959,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45958\/revisions\/45959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}