COLOR INITIATIVE REPORTS 10 and 11: THE INCREDIBLE WHITENESS OF BEING IN ASIA

THE COLOR INITIATIVE: A TWO-PART REPORT ON SKIN WHITENING IN ASIA: On PRI's The World

**Honored with the 2010 Asian American Journalism Award for RadioMarch 11th, 2009  PART ONE

Skin whitening is a growing industry in China, Japan, and India. For many Asians whitening is part of a long tradition, but these days it's also the result of the powerful influence of white western culture.
http://www.theworld.org/node/25036

March 12th, 2009   PART TWO

However not everyone in Asia wants whiter skins, Phillip Martin tells how many middle class Asians are now moving away from creating white complexions and going for a Western-style tan. http://www.theworld.org/node/25061 THE COLOR INITIATIVE on PRI's The WORLD (the BBC, WGBH and PRI) -- March 11 and 12.

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The Color Initiative is funded by the Ford Foundation

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ON NPR's TELL ME MORE    --PRESIDENT  OBAMA, RACE and DIVERSITY in CHINA

President Obama was in China in November of 2009 where he addressed a range of issues, chief among them, trade. But President Obama's visit was also sparking questions about another issue in the region: race and diversity. NPR's Anthony Kuhn and Public Radio International's Phillip Martin, who have reported on minority issues in Asia, discussed the plight of ethnic minorities in the region and the significance of President Obama's visit.

Listen to the Interview on NPR's Tell Me More

COLOR INITIATIVE REPORT 6: Whiteness and New Immigration to America

COLOR REPORT SIX: Color and the New Wave of Immigrants--Part 2 of How European Immigrants Became White.
http://www.theworld.org/?q=taxonomy_by_date/1/20080414

April 14, 2008
Immigration and skin color (6:00)
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I report on how recent immigrants to the United States feel about American notions of race and skin color.

Download (mp3)

Between 1881 and 1920 about twenty-four million immigrants from southern and eastern Europe put down roots in the US. In COLOR terms they were regarded as neither black nor white, but as a sort of "IN-BETWEEN” people –who would gradually become white –often after petitioning to the courts. To be white was to be more privileged--in the context of America’s strict racial pecking order. Beginning in the 1970’s a NEW WAVE of olive, tan and beige skinned immigrants arrived to these shores seeking the same opportunities. But color had become far more complex says David Roediger, author of “Working Toward Whiteness”.

Acceptance as fully white for this group of immigrants is VERY open to question: To Islamic immigrants or people who look like they might be of Islamic faith, particularly after 9/11. It’s open to question on the part of Asian immigrants because of the tremendous weight of the history of exclusion in the United States. Similarly but more complicated is the case with Latino immigrants.

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The Color Initiative is funded by the Ford Foundation, with additional resources provided by the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities and the Funding Exchange (Paul Robeson Fund).

COLOR INITIATIVE REPORT 5: Coloring Iraqis

THE COLOR INITIATIVE: On The WORLD-PRI/WGBH/BBC

Color and the US view of Iraq (4:30) http://www.theworld.org/?q=taxonomy_by_date/1/20080321
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Mike Prysner was 21 when he was deployed to northern Iraq in 2003. Prysner said just about every day, for the entire year he was in Iraq, he heard derogatory language being used to describe the Iraqi people; Phrases like……:

" …..Towel head and camel jockey and most disturbing of all, sand nigger. And these words did not initially come from my fellow soldiers but from my platoon leader, my sergeant, my company first sergeant."

An added barrier is Americans’ wholesale ignorance of Islam, says Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban. She teaches the anthropology of race and racism at Rhode Island College and is an advisor to the US military:

"Right after Baghdad had been secured one of my students says they heard in the early morning hours the dawn call to prayer and they thought it was a call to arms and they were at the battle ready –ready to shoot anything that moved. He came back and said how awful he had felt—because he is an African American man—He had stereo-typed people the way that he had been stereo-typed at home."

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The Color Initiative is funded by the Ford Foundation, with additional resources provided by the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities and the Funding Exchange (Paul Robeson Fund).

BLADE RUNNER, COLOR, RACE AND PROPHECY

Was Blade Runner Prophetic?

(click links below)

(NPR's Day to Day)

• http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11354581

The film's neo-noir production is cited as having influenced building design.
Some argue that its dystopic setting of Los Angeles in 2019 is not far removed
from life on the streets of downtown Los Angeles today.

Dreams of Electric Sheep --(Blade Runner II --NPR 's On The Media)

• http://www.onthemedia.org/episodes/2007/06/29/segments/81447

It was set in a Los Angeles of the future, but its portrayals of race and racism
had plenty of resonance in 1982. I take a look back on a classic of cyborgian
social criticism.

THE COLOR OF NIGHT

Description: Since the landmark 1967 Loving v. Virginia ruling overturning state bans on inter-racial marriages, colorful arrangements of all sorts have soared. But where do people meet each other in the first place? Often it's under the cover of night at bars, nightclubs, jazz clubs and restaurants. This half-hour documentary examines the politics and culture of inter-racial intimacy after dark, and does so by exploring stereo-types, realities and history. We focus on Chicago, one of the nation's largest cities and among the most racially segregated. We hear from individuals such as d.j.'s Red Lox and Eric Williams, as well as experts like author Randal Kennedy of Harvard University and two Chicago giants of jazz-life, Joel Seigal and Dempsey Travis. They provide us with a musical, often controversial but intellectually detailed analyses of racial and sexual politics that are part of ever-evolving America. I report and narrate this half hour documentary that aired originally on the Chicago Public Radio series "Speaking of Sex".

Website: CLICK "Audio" next to Speaking of Sex: The Color of Night:

rtsp://wbez-rm.streamguys.us/84803/848_030527d.smi

http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/audio_library/848_ramay03.asp

Additional Credits and Funding:

Edited by Sharon Ball
Engineered by Matt Largey
Funded by Chicago Matters, WBEZ -FM