The next installment of the reality show "Survivor" plans to divide their contestnats into racial teams. That's right. We'll get to see which is the best race at...surviving. A wonderful little eugenics experiment.

This idea is atrocious. Not only does it reinforce the idea that race is something remotely tangible, but it encourages social discrimination within the little "community" and competition between races. So what, you may say? It's just a ridiculous reality show. The problem is that this confirms to people, albeit in an amusing but perhaps more effective way, that the social division of "race" is normal and acceptable. It's not. Thank you "Survivor", for not just maintaining the status quo, but giving it an injection of adrenaline. I for one am glad to finally find out which race is best - then I can plan to make friends with them for the coming Apocalypse.

Ken Watanabe defended the casting of Memoirs of a Geisha today, likening it to casting non Italians in opera. As I've noted before, I would tend to agree. People have argued that casting other Asians in the roles of Japanese characters stems from the Eurocentric "they all look alike" mentality, but I would argue that ethnic nationalism is in play on both sides. In my humble opinion, anything that blurs the distinction between ethnicity (and ultimately race) is a good thing. One might want to be more concerned with how the West is portraying these characters, and not solely with who they cast.

Just finished watching the golden globes. Sandra Oh won best supporting actress in a television series or motion picture (for Grey's Anatomy) and Ang Lee won best director (for Brokeback Mountain). Zhang Ziyi lost out to Felicity Huffman, and Naveen Andrews lost out to Paul Newman. My fellow Staten Islander Yoon-jin Kim was also on stage for Lost's best television drama award!

Overall there seemed to be a bit more diversity in the proceedings than usual - a good thing to be sure.

It's amazing how little people truly still understand Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s message of tolerance as we continue on through the 21st century. Despite living in a society that praises his words of peace and unity, both racists and racialists continue to resort to violence and self-imposed segregation. His untimely death has left a nation and a world that takes baby steps towards integration when it is strides that are desperately needed. But only when "little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls", and when boys and girls of every race and creed acknowledge each other as brothers and sisters rather than antagonists will we finally live up to Dr. King's dream.

Found this great article from last year about Anna May Wong, the first Asian American actress in Hollywood. It also has links to some cool resources like TIME magazine's archives (if you're a member) and this website, which has mp3s of old radio shows including Wong's The Patriot. Check it out.

I posted a review for "Memoirs of a Geisha", which I saw on New Years Eve.

And here's a link for Sam Magazine, the "first" magazine for Asian American men. Just another case of the media profiting from racial division, I suppose. And why is it that How to Attract Asian Women is considered racist, while the headline on the right side of the magazine cover is not? Is it because one profits off of love-sick white guys while the other profits off of love-sick Asians? Or is it because it's normal to date within your race and abnormal to date outside of it? Whatever the reason, I think I'll play it safe and say that both are grossly offensive.

Ex-Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori was arrested in Chile on Monday after a "surprise visit". (Okay, that's kind of funny). He's essentially been in a self-imposed exile from Peru after being accused of corruption and threatened with arrest. Fujimori, who was the son of Japanese-Peruvian immigrants, had been living in Japan since 2000 and was hoping to (somewhow) run for president in Peru next year. He was the second Asian to become the leader of a non-Asian country.

I first found out about Fujimori when I saw him interviewed on some bubbly Japanese talk show. I then learned that he's had quite a few authoritarian tendencies in his day, including the curtailing of constitutional rights. He's also been accused of connections to political murders. Well, now that he's been detained I suppose we'll find out how much is true.

Asian presidents in Latin-America = awesome. Asian presidents becoming dictators in Latin-America = not so awesome.

So Paris has been seeing riots for the past two weeks, and the unrest is spreading. The riots started when two Arabs, believing that police were following them, hid in an electric station and got electrocuted. But the real drive behind the conflict is the inequality between native French and the Arab/African minority groups.

Apparently the discrimination is far more overt than here in the States. Kids with Arab-sounding last names have far more difficulty getting jobs than those with French names. I am a bit dissapointed that people seem to be pointing fingers at France's "colorblind" policies as the culprit. France classifies people only as "nationals" and "foreigners" (not the best word in my opinion by the way), with no racial or ethnic classifications. While affirmitive action would seriously alleviate inequality, it can't be the only solution. Remember: "race" isn't the cure to racism. Admittedly, I would probably be naive if I thought that inequality could be ended without some kind of affirmitive action, but that doesn't change the fact that it is a quick fix to a larger problem. Ever wonder why affirmitive action hasn't lifted up the millions of African Americans still living in poverty?

Poverty begets poverty and hopelessness begets hopelessness. When you clump a bunch of poor minorities into poor neighborhoods, they're going to stay poor. Giving a few of them jobs just drains their communities of valuable members. And moving them into pretty suburbs will just make the whites to leave, (probably gentrifying the old ghettos in turn). What's necessary is a coordination of initiatives: education, neighborhood reform, anti-discrimination laws and, yes, affirmitive action - if it helps integrate whites and minorities in the workplace. Familiarity breeds friendship and people might just be more willing to live alongside eachother as a result. Luckily, Prime Minister Villepin is pursuing reforms to make some of this happen. That's more than can be said for our government following the New Orleans flood.

Let's hope the violence ends quickly, but that it's not forgotten either.