Quote of the Week

Privilege is when your culture is taught as a core curriculum, and mine is taught as an elective.
--Jasmine Cho

A tip of the sombrero to fellow blogger Bluejay for introducing me to this quote.

Trailer of the Week: Blinded by the Light (2019)

I could probably spend all day unpacking the issues that this movie reminded me of but perhaps the most important aspect of this flick that deserves notice is that it was far, far better than the trailer indicated. At least in my humble opinion.

Mind you, I was a big Springsteen fan back in the day as well. But I don't recall having any big epiphanies in regard to his music and those emotional reactions that I did have probably would not make for a good movie. Which is just as well since while there is always going to be a little part of me that remembers listening to the music my fellow sixth-graders listened to and being more curious about that music than I was about the Mexican music I heard at home, there is also another part of me that still feels nostalgic whenever he hears that type of Mexican music.

Quote of the Week

Preservation of one's own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures.
--César Chávez

A Day in the Life

I recently started bonding with a black co-worker over our shared love for the country music with which we both grew up.

Yet more proof that you never know what you'll have in common with someone.

Of course, some would argue that it's politically incorrect for blacks and Hispanics to like country music because it's "their" music. Then again, you don't always get to pick what type of music speaks to you and many times it would be foolish to try.

Trailer of the Week: Yesterday

Heh. I got burnt out on Beatles music a long time ago yet I still found the idea for this movie to be intriguing. And that's before I found out that it was directed by Danny Boyle and written by Richard Curtis. If nothing else, it certainly gives an interesting perspective to the ongoing controversy over cultural appropriation.

Quote of the Week

For only after they had reduced the real-life Spanish-speaking to the status of a foreign minority did the Yankees feel any deep compassion toward Spanish-American culture.
--Leonard Pitt, The Decline of the Californios: A Social History of the Spanish-Speaking Californians, 1846-1890

TV Quote of the Week

His body is rejecting white culture, which makes me kind of proud.
--Constance Wu, Fresh Off the Boat, "Pilot"

Quote of the Week

Look, without our stories, without the true nature and reality of who we are as People of Color, nothing about fanboy or fangirl culture would make sense. What I mean by that is: if it wasn't for race, X-Men doesn't make sense. If it wasn't for the history of breeding human beings in the New World through chattel slavery, Dune doesn't make sense. If it wasn't for the history of colonialism and imperialism, Star Wars doesn't make sense. If it wasn't for the extermination of so many Indigenous First Nations, most of what we call science fiction’s contact stories doesn't make sense. Without us as the secret sauce, none of this works, and it is about time that we understood that we are the Force that holds the Star Wars universe together. We’re the Prime Directive that makes Star Trek possible, yeah. In the Green Lantern Corps, we are the oath. We are all of these things -- erased, and yet without us —- we are essential.
--Junot Díaz

Movie Quote of the Week

Found a culture, have you, Rita? Found a better song to sing? No, you found a different song to sing. And on your lips it is shrill and hollow and tuneless.
--Michael Caine, Educating Rita (1983)

TV Quote of the Week

Well, with the obvious exception of yours, the human brain is a massively powerful creature. Underestimating it is usually the last mistake any culture makes.
--Fran Kranz, Dollhouse, “Epitaph One”

Christian Culture Meets Pop Culture

From a photo I took last year.

Quote of the Week

But what is really meant is Anglo-American culture as the heir to some grand European tradition. Anglo-American culture? That would have been a good laugh to José Enrique Rodó. The influential fin-de-siècle Uruguayan essayist, soul brother in spite of himself to today’s gringo neo-cons doing righteous battle for the values of the West, argued in his Ariel that Latin-American culture was the heir to the grand European tradition and that the natural enemies of these values were the Anglo Americans. Rodó’s argument had history on its side: Latins, after all are descended from Rome; the Anglos, as everyone knows, were barbarians. Chauvinistic nonsense? You betcha.
--Enrique Fernandez, “P.C. Rider,” The Village Voice, June 18, 1991, vol. 36, no 25

Quote of the Week

The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.
--Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Quote of the Week

How should an aging, black jock like myself know anything about pop culture? Man, I am a living part of pop culture and have been for nearly 50 years. Beyond that, I think pop culture expresses our needs, fears, hopes and whole zeitgeist better than some of the more esoteric and obscure forms of art.
--Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, "Coming Out of the Locker Room Ghetto", The Huffington Post, February 4, 2013

Literary Quote I Like

It just seems to me that half of America lives in hell and the other half gets its rocks off watching.
--Scout in Ben Elton's Popcorn