Report after report and survey after survey repeatedly indicate that Islamophobia in America and Europe is on the rise, not on the decline. America can elect a Black president and delude itself into believing a post-racial society has suddenly replaced one erected on racist legacy. America does have a history of tolerance and acceptance, but an accepted discourse of Islamophobia relinquishes any hopes conjuring up “post-race” America.

Is ethno-techno the new turn in appropriated world music? The sounds are widening in their scope and popularity but usually thousands of miles away from the subterraneans producers who unleash the source of these mixes. So, asks the Guardian, is the ethno-techno trend just another form of neo-colonialism?

Lately, Japan’s reinterpreted the Dancehall music craze that’s swept the country in the footsteps of an already popular reggae fanbase. According to the Guardian, there’s less than a sizeable Jamaican population in the country, but Jamaican dancehall is very popular - obscure club nights and all - around the country. But it’s not the Jamaican artists that have helped spread the dancehall bug - there’s an authentic Japanese form of dancehall that’s growing in popularity, where it’s not unheard of some Japanese dancehall artists selling out stadiums.

Avatar :: Though visually breathtaking the movie has many issues in basic plot and storytelling, without even the problematic narratives about the noble savage, “primitive” native cultures and the way in which colonization, white privilege and white guilt is played out.

When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like “Avatar”?
Critics have called alien epic Avatar a version of Dances With Wolves because it’s about a white guy going native and becoming a great leader. But Avatar is just the latest scifi rehash of an old white guilt fantasy.

Just another way to keep up-to-date with Worldtown Hearsay. Always fresh!

Just another way to keep up-to-date with Worldtown Hearsay. Always fresh!

As a child, I was drawn to Cookie Monster’s manic love for baked goods, but my most vivid recollection of Sesame Street is Gordon. I can’t remember when I first saw him, whether he was having one of his chats with Oscar about O’s grouchy outlook on life or whether he joined in a song urging us to do something good for ourselves, but I do recall his presence: warm, joyful, thoughtful and firm. Not a caricature or stereotype of a Black man, Gordon represents Sesame Street’s greatest value for me as a father—a world where people of color are celebrated without being tokenized, satirized or exaggerated.

Slums, townships, shantytowns. Living at the edge of society but being in the centre of resourceful entrepreneurship and coulorful life amid dire circumstance. This isn’t always the common association made with slum life (except of course, the simplistic glamorization of shantytown life thanks to Slumdog Millionaire and the like), but it’s well captured in this Foreign Policy Photo Essay. The photos from slums in Venezuela, India, Kenya and Indonesia resonate with a sense of ethereal beauty over anguish.

We trawl the news media so you don’t have to.

A Sorry State :: “Canada is becoming a world leader in official apologies. Do they benefit anyone but the people offering them up?”

The Walrus - December 2009 :: Read the entire story here

Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice — and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.
How do you get there?