Part of a new weekly series on things that I find while perusing teh internets.
1. The Bush Years This fascinating graphic from The Atlantic magazine gives a visual comparison between data from 2000 and 2008: the Bush years. Some dramatic, but unsurprising contrasts (like Apple Computers market capitalization and GM market cap) as well as some that are relatively static, and therefore surprising (crime rate and number of active-duty military personnel).
2. Imitation of Life This one is a long one, but I find it fascinating. I first caught this as a passing reference in a discussion on Pam’s House Blend of Ken Blackwell, the black Ohio Republican who is trying to become chairman of the RNC. He publicly defended the controversial parody song “Barack the Magic Negro,”and more importantly to the readers of the Blend, he also supports the GOP’s standard issue homophobia. The Blend was taking down the argument that gay rights are not civil rights because gay people can choose to be in the closet. They referenced the practice of many light-skinned blacks of “passing” and how that was a contentious issue back in the day among both the black community and the wider society. Then they made a passing reference to Imitation of Life, a 1959 movie about the horrors that can happen when people deny their race. The end of the movie is a melodramatic scene in which the light skinned daughter of a black woman who has been passing as white (the daughter, that is) throws herself at her mothers coffin, knowing that it is too late.
When I watched it, I was tickled, because at the time, I thought the woman playing the daughter was unquestionably white. I looked her up, and found that Susan Kohner (b.1936) is the daughter of a Mexican actress and a Jewish film producer. That’s as far “ethnic” as Hollywood was willing to go at the time without actually hiring black actors. There are notable exceptional multiracial entertainers working in Old Hollywood, the late Eartha Kitt being a good example, but there has been progress since then. Maybe one day we will even see Latino actors and actresses that can go their whole careers without playing gang members, field workers or maids.
hammer & jack 
