(via gatothenovice)

John Cho (x)

yo my heart is racing at the guts it takes to say something like this knowing full well what could happen. damn!!!!

(via strugglingtobeheard)

John Cho- stays dishing how he really feels. It is giving me feels.

(via reallifedocumentarian)

holy shit

but can we get a source on this bc I want this to be true SO badly

Omg my love for John Cho just soared. he better still be in the next Star Trek movie!!

(Source: itreallyisthelittlethings, via gaobibaituo)

Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan on being detained at the U.S. Airport—twice. (Once, he was detained while promoting a film called “My Name is Khan” which was ironically about a person with the last name Khan suffering from repeated racial profiling.)

Multiple actors and other prominent individuals in the film industry with the last name “Khan” have been detained when entering the country. Irrfan Khan (The Life of Pi, Slumdog Millionaire, Spider-man) described the three times he was stopped—while on the way to receive honors for his roles in films such as The Namesake—as “humiliating.” Actor Aamir Khan was stopped and stripped searched in 2002. Director Kabir Khan, was reportedly detained at least three times in 2008 while filming in the United States. The New York Times ended up remarking on The Dangers of Fying While Khan

This much is clear:

• Despite being an incredibly common surname, in the United States, Khan is a racialized last name and those who carry it suffer from additional, insulting, stigma and scrutiny.
• There is no shortage of talented actors of South Asian descent whether from within the United States, from the UK, or Bollywood—and many of them even have the last name of Khan.
• With Star Trek Into Darkness the name “Khan” is once again stigmatized as antagonistic, but the actors named Khan, the Khans of the world, and those who look like Khans once again have no voice about how they are represented in American media.

If you’re an award winning actor named Khan, you will still get stopped and humiliated at the airport. When that rare character in American media finally shows up sharing your name, he will be played by a white British man. That actor will wear your name for one movie and sneer and strut to great critical acclaim. You will wear your racialized name, your skin color, and hope you don’t get detained another time.

(via racebending)

(Source: rt.com, via racebending)

failedblackwoman:

IDK how casting Bagels Cucumbers as Khan isn’t disrespectful to Gene Roddenberry tbh.

That man fought networks tooth and nail to have people of different races on his show. He fought long and hard to have an interracial kiss on TV.

My grandmother does not like…

girljanitor:

tomithejellyfish:

thesargebag:

Warning, do not read around anything both extremely valuable and breakable.

I write articles about racisms for Cracked sometimes! This is one of those times!

omfg this is literal gold

“And then what? Up will be down, dogs will marry cats, the Hot Pockets will microwave us!”

LOL

(via gatothenovice)

one type of people that I truly despise in this world are people who fail to see the long term damages from racist movie casting practices that range from colorface to whitewashing. How the real life treatment towards people of color influence the decisions to cast certain people of certain races in movies, which further influences the real life treatment of people of color. And they dare tell us to “chill out” when the cries of pain can no longer be suppressed.

No matter how blatant or just “a little bit racist” the choice made, a powerful industry is still trodding on the very beings of pocs, and that’s fucked up.

barbeauxbot:

yennasollapoghirai:

tsotchke:

science-officer-spock:

teal-deer:

I have a longer rant about this, but I’m pissed as everloving fuck that Benedict Cumberbatch is, indeed, playing Khan Noonian Singh.

You can argue till you’re blue in the face that well, Ricardo Montalban wasn’t Indian, and he was of European descent and therefore white, but let me tell you, Montalban in the US was not white-passing and would have been parsed as Mexican. While that’s still not Indian, he’s still at least Not A White Guy. Montalban also founded the Nostoros Foundation, an organization to advocate for Latinos in the film industry and help them continue to get roles. 

Furthermore, Khan Noonian Singh, while a villain, is still one of the most prominent desi characters in American cinema. He’s iconic. And he’s not some withering racist stereotype either; he’s cunning, clever, brilliant, and dangerous. Nothing is EVER made of his race, we only know that he’s probably desi because of his name and appearance; the bigger point is that he’s been genetically engineered to be a perfect human. Let me repeat: in the 1960s, Gene Rodenberry decided that the perfect human was an Indian guy. 

Also look at this handsome face:

DAYMN. seriously go watch the TOS episode “Space Seed.” I’ll wait. 

So, while Benedict Cumberbatch is doubtless a fantastic actor, making his character into fucking KHAN NOONIEN SINGH for what to me reads as little more than a publicity stunt (“look! it’s khan in the second movie! just like how in the original movies it was khan in the second movie! :O”) is an insult to the original character, an insult to Gene Roddenberry, and an insult to Ricardo Montalban.

And it’s not as though there aren’t fantastic desi actors who could have portrayed the character. Need I remind you all that India has one of the largest film industries in the WORLD? Why not cast Shahrukh Khan? If you insist on an American, there’s always Sendhil Ramamurthy. But no, we’re going to cast LITERALLY the most British man in existence. 

It is whitewashing at its most vile and heinous, and it’s yet more evidence that fundamentally, J.J. Abrams does not understand the Star Trek universe in the least. I will not be going to see this movie, and in fact I’ll be avoiding Abrams productions and anything Cumberbatch is in from now on (Yes, that means I won’t be going to see the Hobbit, despite having wanted a Hobbit movie since I was a small child). 

i loved your post about Khan, and I absolutely agree with what you said. Not only do I feel anger about the whole casting but also sadness because there’s people out there, who claim to be fans, that are okay with the casting. Now, I don’t want to be thought of as those “elitist star trek fans” who say “oh you’re not a real fan if you like the reboots, or if you’ve only seen one series or movie” No, this isn’t what this is about. I believe that if you love Star Trek then you are a fan, but I also believe that you should know what Star Trek actually means and what it represents. The point of the show, to quote Gene Roddenberry is “Star Trek was an attempt to say that humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate, but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in life forms” That is what Star Trek is about, it isn’t about stupid stereotypes, relentless action or the hotness of actors in any story. This show, the whole franchise, was to show you that there will be hope, friendships, love and acceptance. To a lot of people it isn’t just a show or a movie, it’s something important, something that picked them up when nothing could and something that made them feel like they belonged. The fan base is broad, and for a lot of us, it shows us in some way. The reason people are completely upset about the casting for Khan is because it’s just the same garbage and mistreatment that people have put up for years, not just in show business but in real life. Star Trek fans have come from all over the world and when we see people like us on screen, we feel less alone and like we’re just as important as anyone else because we are but it’s not always often that films or programs highlight this. To understand why it’s a huge deal you’d have to fathom how awful it is to feel like a second class citizen in your life, or to see it happen to someone you know. What Star Trek did was tell you “hey it’s alright to be yourself, you’ll be okay, you have a place with us” 

A lot of people will argue that only the acting matters, that Khan was engineered and he can look like anything, that Ricardo himself  wasn’t Indian, and some people even think he was white; all of that is not the point and you are missing the big picture. Khan and all the other people who were not white or appeared white on the show made a HUGE difference because they weren’t suppose to be there according to the politics in those years, Gene Roddenberry had to fight and take jabs from those that would try to get rid of what he wanted. He wanted to show the world that equality could be achieved, that what was then was not okay, that we’re all one. Granted that even back then there was whitewashing, and believe me, the fans are not okay with it, at the time it was the only way more diversity could be shown sadly enough, and throughout all those years, until now, it’s terrible that these people in charge believe that they can still stop the change that Gene had in mind. Things were not perfect at all but they tried and now at a new era it’s so disheartening to see it still happening and people defending it. It’s incredibly insulting, to those of us who are not white - or even to those who are white but believe in equality! it’s just saying “We have money, we want more money and we don’t give a damn about what Star Trek means to you. We will use a white actor because he’s well known and will bring us more money. We do not care how it makes you feel” 

People who accept this change of Khan don’t know what it’s like to feel inferior, to feel like an outcast, or uncomfortable to be in your own skin - we do and that’s why it’s important to us because it’s basically sending us to the back again, only those with money and white skin can be in power - the exact opposite that Khan was about, the opposite message of what the creator of Star Trek desired. And if you get upset by this, only because you love Benedict Cumberbatch, then you should be smart enough to realise how pitiful that is. No one wants to attack his looks or his acting skills, it is beyond him. I urge those who believe that to see it through a logical point of view instead of a vain one.

I would also like to throw in that Montalban came to the U.S. during a time when restaurants had signs like “No dogs or Mexicans allowed”.

Do you understand this? Montalban was cast in a prominent role for a popular TV show during a time in which non-Whites were (more) overtly discriminated against. So I really don’t have time for the tears when we’ve very clearly regressed and nay-sayers are giving every excuse in the book as to why the nu!casting isn’t horrendous and upsetting.

You love Cumberbatch? Great, I’m happy for you. This was not the role for him and you should be upset that your fave is being used to uphold the status quo

There are so many actors from India to choose from

for crying out loud they have about 10 different movie industries!!!

I am so disappointed about this I am actually physically ill. It’s a punch in the gut. 

(via gatothenovice)

(via racebending)

defcock:

if we’re all proved wrong and Cumberbatch is not playing Khan, that would in no way invalidate the facts that:

• Star Trek as a franchise in general and the reboot in particular has a race problem; instances where it was progressive do not magically cancel out instances where it was/is not
• Western entertainment media, elsewhere defined as ‘Hollywood,’ has whitewashed so many characters of color so often that it is, essentially, the default setting
• people of color have the right to and, perhaps most importantly, are right to complain about the erasure of their identities and cultures and bodies in Hollywood 

if Cumberbatch is not playing Khan, it further does not validate the behavior of fans who used racist rhetoric in their defense of what we thought was the casting. your shitty behavior is not mitigated if it turns out that in this specific instance, whitewashing didn’t occur. your shitty behavior is still shitty racist behavior. you don’t get a pass. 

if Cumberbatch is not playing Khan, it doesn’t meant this conversation, which has been going on for over a year in just this specific instance, is over, was pointless, or was an overreaction.  

(via racebending)

rosaedora:

I love a:tlab, my kids love it too and when the whitewashed movie came out we talked about it. My ten year old son told me that the reason he thought that there were so few people of colour in the media was because there were not a lot of people of colour in the world. Maybe they couldn’t find Asian and south asian actors for the film because there just aren’t that many of them. This bears repeating:

My son thought that the reason there were so few people of colour in cartoons, in movies and in the media more generally, was because there are more white people in the world. 

We lived in Vancouver which demographically has more people of colour than white people. He was in daycare and school with a majority of poc, all of his friends were poc. I had talked to him about racism but not media representations because I imagined he understood. 

When we got talking about it and he realized that in fact the majority of the world isn’t white, he said, well maybe the stories of people of colour are not worth telling. Maybe that is why these stories don’t get told.

Maybe there are so few female characters because women are all more similar so there is no point in having a lot of them, whereas men are more different so you need more. Maybe it is the same with people of colour, maybe there are so few because they are all the same.

Whitewashing and the erasure of people of colour effects white people and white kids because it teaches them that the only interesting stories and the only people who matter are white. POC characters “could be anyone”, “we don’t see colour” we can imagine they are “just like us”.

Maybe, he says, in their countries they don’t include a lot of white people. So he imagines that “our” country is a white country and those people who belong here are also white. Other people are visitors here.

I didn’t teach him this.

My kid was saying really racist things. That doesn’t make him a bad person. The culture is a racist culture and he absorbs these things. Everyone lives in this racist culture and it is easy as white people to reproduce hurtful shit.

People of colour are erased all the time. This has effects. This creates a world that is made for white people and reaffirms that white people are the only ones who truly belong in “our” country. It is deeply hurtful.

If you are a white artist you don’t have to participate in this erasure. You don’t have to hurt people. If you have been hurting them, that doesn’t mean you mean it, it doesn’t mean you are some bad type of person. All it means is that this culture has affected you too and you can chose to stop now. 

If someone stepped on your toe. You would tell them, hey that hurt, regardless if it was on purpose or by accident. If they did it again, that would piss you off. If you told them and they said “what I did is not as bad as being punched in the face what are you complaining about?” You would probably be really offended. If they then got all their friends to step on your toes, again and again, and say “OMG can you believe how angry she was just because we stepped on her toes? What is wrong with her being angry for no reason. It’s not like we were punching her.” What would you do? That is what is going on here. People said hey whitewashing hurts me, and a bunch of people kept on doing it.

It is not about judging artists. It is not about naming a type of bad person called a “racist”, but about seeing how larger patterns work to hurt people of colour and distort the world view of white people. Do you, if you are a white person, want a distorted world view? Do you want to accidentally hurt others? 

A lot of white people are saying on this tag that they are suffering from reverse discrimination. Are you being erased? Do you feel you belong in your country or are you told to “go home?”

When people tell you that you have hurt them, responding with grace is a skill that will serve you for the rest of your life. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was doing something harmful. Thank you for telling me. I wont do it again.” That is all it takes. 

(via racebending)