The Blind Side, a new sports drama based on Michael Lewis‘ book The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, tells the real-life, against-all-odds story of Baltimore Ravens offensive tackle Michael Oher, who came from a broken home and lived alone on the mean streets of Memphis, Tennessee before becoming a football star. How did he do it? He was saved by some well-to-do white folks, of course!

Not to take anything away from Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy, the good people who took Oher in and helped him realize his potential, but seriously, why do sports movies always have to focus on black ghetto kids going nowhere fast until their great white hope comes along to teach them how to not be illiterate or go to jail? Whatcha tryna say, Hollywood Honky-wood? Black people can’t make it without benevolent whites? Don’t make us call Rev. Al on you! To see why we’re suspicious and steamed, check out these other, pattern-forming sports movies about light-skinned saviors.

Hardball (2001)
• Keanu Reeves plays a degenerate gambler who’s forced to pay off his massive debt by coaching a Little League team of troubled black kids from Chicago’s notorious, gang-infested Cabrini-Green projects. He plans to repay his debt and ditch his players, but he inevitably takes pity on them and stays to teach them how to be winners. No, not even a degenerate gambler bets on black.
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Wildcats (1986)
• Goldie Hawn plays a girl’s track coach at a bourgeoisie (i.e. white) high school who leaves to follow in her famous father’s footsteps and coach football, only the job is at a scary inner-city high school where there are guard dogs! She manages to transform her rowdy, undisciplined black players into a team because there’s no limit to what white pluck can achieve!
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Radio (2003)
• His bald white head beaming beneficence, Ed Harris plays real-life South Carolina high school football coach Harold Jones, who takes in an illiterate and mentally handicapped young black man (James Robert “Radio” Kennedy, played by Cuba Gooding Jr.). By allowing him to work with the team as head cheerleader, assistant coach, and team manager, Jones transforms Radio from a town joke into a inspirational figure. You see, it’s the kind white man who is really special.
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The Love Guru (2008)
• Romany Malco plays a black hockey player who loses his girlfriend (Meagan Good) to a well-hung white French-Canadian goalie (Justin Timberlake) and is aided in his quest to get her back by a white spiritual leader (Mike Myers) who was raised in India and sounds like a Slurpee-slinger stereotype. There is way more racist fuckery in this turd of a film than we can even begin to discuss here, but seriously, a black man turns to a white savior because he’s intimidated by another white dude’s dong?! This shit is implausible even in Bill Romanowski’s fantasies.
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Cool Runnings (1993)
• After failing to qualify for the 1988 Summer Olympics, four Jamaican sprinters try to achieve five-ring glory in the 1988 Winter Olympics as a bobsled team. Clueless about the sport, they seek wisdom from a drunken, grumpy old ice beast played by John Candy (literally, he was a beast on the ice, winning two gold medals bobsledding for the U.S. in the 1968 Winter Olympics before he got caught cheating in 1972 and moved to Jamaica in shame to become a bookie). Yet again, black athletes are so inept that even the lowliest, most destitute white bum has to be brought in to show them how it’s done. Ice cold, Disney, motherfuckin’ ice cold.
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The Air Up There (1994)
• Kevin Bacon plays an assistant coach who goes to Africa to pry Saleh, a tall-ass teenage Winabi prince with star potential, from his tribe, telling him that playing college basketball will make him a better king. While on his recruiting mission, he helps resolve the tribe’s potentially bloody conflict with an encroaching mining company…with a high-stakes game of basketball. Thank the gods for the white man, otherwise Africa would be really fucked!
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Bring It On: All or Nothing (2006)
• Hayden Panettierre plays a cheerleader at an elite affluent high school who’s forced to move to working-class, multi-ethnic Crenshaw Heights in East L.A. (gasp!). After initially clashing with the cheer team’s black captain (Solange Knowles), she shows her new black and Latina teammates how to really move, so they can beat her old school and win a contest to appear in a Rihanna TV special. It makes perfect sense because, you know, white chicks have historically been known to back that ass up.
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It’s Still Racist! Bonus:

The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000)
• Finally, a black man saves a white man! Will Smith plays Bagger Vance, a mysterious caddy who helps Matt Damon’s character find his stroke again (pause) after the former golf star is traumatized by WWI and becomes a drunk. The thing is, Vance isn’t a black man—he’s a ghost! Way to throw black athletes a bone. Maybe next time don’t sink it in the hole.
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In other countries, however, blackface still has contemporary cultural relevancy. Korean recording artists “Bubble Sisters” released an album which showcased the group with their faces painted in black on the cover, and Japanese toy maker Sanrio at one point produced Bibinba, a small action figure with features easily attributable to blackface. And most recently, a group of white Australian performers performed a sketch mimicking/mocking the Jackson 5. Shake.Our.Heads. Complex looks at some of the other controversial foreign blackface moments…

Jackson Jive, Australia
• This clip from Australia’s long-running variety show Hey Hey Saturday Night is both wrong (as in ridiculously foul) and wrong (as in just plain incorrect). “We Are Family” ain’t a Jackson 5 song and—maybe it’s just us—but it looks like there are six douchebags on stage. Whatever, guess the toilets aren’t the only things that run backwards down there.

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Louis Armstrong Skit, Korea
• To be fair, great jazz artists performed in Asia and Europe back in the day because they couldn’t make a living in America, but just ’cause you love something don’t mean you have to imitate it exactly. Although this clip makes us suggest the performer try on a Kurt Cobain impression.

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Louis Armstrong Impersonator, Japan
• Again with the Louis Armstrong imitators. A word of advice to all would-be Satchmos the world over—why not make like your hero and die?

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Don’t Give a Damn Hong Kong
• Really, where to start with this one? The blackface is one thing, but the dialogue is on a whole ‘nother level. “Rob once and rape twice every 6 seconds”? Damn, dem’s some tired New York Negroes!

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Darkie Day, England
• The name in itself is enough to make any American person cringe, but the people of Cornwall claim this celebration also known as Mummer’s Day and does not have racist undertones. Right, well we went ahead and fucked your ugly mummer just in case.

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News Anchor, Turkey
• According to the translated version of the clip, the anchor has been told that he looks like President Obama and is referring to an old Turkish saying: “One who asks for a favor has a dark face, but the one who does not grant him that favor is a black guy.” Which reminds us of the old American saying: “They who name their country after poultry may find their heads chopped off come Thanksgiving.”

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According to a leaked memo, director Michael Bay is pissed off at Paramount Pictures for not putting enough hype behind his new sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Having seen it, we can’t help but wonder if Paramount is keeping quiet because his flick about warring alien robots transforms into a vehicle for racism.

As if black people didn’t catch a bad enough one from the Jar Jar Binks character in Star Wars Episodes I-III, Bay’s Autobot twins, the “black”-voiced Skids and Mudflap, are the 2009 version of the Amos n’ Andy minstrel show. It’s hard to believe a big-money director would show his ass like this in what projects to be a much-watched blockbuster, but maybe he’s gotten too comfortable hanging out with his boy Black-Ty. Whatever the rationale, it’s clear that Bay is violating. How can we be so certain? Check out 7 reasons why Transformers 2 might be racist…

#1: “Skids” and “Mudflap” sound suspiciously like “skid-marks” and “mud people.” Tell us how you really feel, cracker!

#2: Skids not only has old-school Raekwon bucked teeth, one of them is actually gold! We’re assuming the rope chains and 40s for the action figures are sold separately.

#3: The twins constantly fight and snap on each other in inappropriate situations, like in the sacred tomb of the Primes. Sigh. Black robots just don’t know how to behave in public, do they?

#4: Skids and Mudflap refer to Leo, the Latino college student played by Ramon Rodriguez, as a “shrimp taco.” All black robots gotta be ign’ant though, right? That’s just like the white devil to put his secret racist thoughts into the mouths of black robots.

#5: In the twins’ vehicular incarnation, they’re flashy compact racing cars. Black robots aren’t concerned about the safety and security of their loved ones? Family sedans aren’t “urban” enough for you?

#6: The hip-hop jive that Skids and Mudflap spew comes from the mouth of WHITE voiceover comedian Tom Kenny, a.k.a. the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants. At least if Mike Epps was the one bamboozling, talking about “bustin’ caps,” we could take solace in a black actor getting work.

#7: The twins make R. Kelly look like an advocate for literacy. When Shia LaBoeuf asks if the twins can read ancient glyphs, they nervously respond, “Read?! Nuh-uh…” “No, we don’t really do much readin’!” (watch the exchange below) Well, not only can we read, we can also read between the lines: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen isn’t a blockbuster, it’s a black-buster!

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2002: Shaq welcomes Yao to the NBA

RACIST RATING:

People gotta stop taking what comes out of Shaq’s mouth seriously. Dude’s a goofball and sometimes says prick-ish things, but it’s never out of malice (outside of his ass-tasting freestyles). Besides, Aries Spears doing Shaq is better than any imitation Shaq will ever come up with.

2004: William Hung appears on American Idol

RACIST RATING:

This muthafucka. We still think he was a network creation. “It’s a singing retarded-looking Chinaman named ‘Hung’! Think about it people!!!” *Entire room explodes in laughter.*

2006: Rosie O'Donnell’s ching-chong act on The View

RACIST RATING:

Rosie O’Donnell is just all-around cunty, isn’t she? This isn’t that far from what Shaq said, but the difference is all in Rosie’s sourpuss delivery. Mean-spirited is what it is. Cunt.

2006: adidas Y1 HUF shoe

RACIST RATING:

Adidas got caught in a shitstorm after they released a limited-edition shoe with a Chinese caricature on the tongue. The shoe was designed by noted graf artist Barry “Twist” McGee, and guess what folks? He’s half-Chinese! He gets a pass. We’re more offended that the shoe is ugly as fuck.

2007: Rob Schneider plays Chinese in I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry

RACIST RATING:

Rob Schneider has a lil’ Asian in him (ayo!) but we can’t condone this rotten, asinine, unfunny take as a (Chinese? Japanese? Filipino?) priest. At least get the accent right, you cock boy.

2008: Spanish Olympic basketball team poses slanty-eyed

RACIST RATING:

C’mon y’all. They Spanish. Shit, their soccer fans still make monkey noises at black players. In other words, it’s hard to take offense from a country that we all know is racist anyway. Plus we always knew Pau Gasol was a big twat so it’s no surprise.

Lead actress Summer Bishil'who is actually 19 and part Indian, not Arab'is definitely a dime in the making. With a heavy dose of suburban desperation, forbidden teenage love, and Alan Ball’s direction, this flick could get some of that American Beauty Oscar buzz when it drops in August. Watch the trailer after the jump.

The Northwestern University study called “The Threat of Appearing Prejudiced and Race-based Attentional Biases” asked 15 white students to take a simple computer test showing a black face and a white face with the same expression. The students overwhelmingly looked at the black face first, but would quickly move their attention the paleface, apparently a more comforting sight. They concluded:

Study participants indicated that they worry about inadvertently getting in trouble for somehow seeming biased. As a result, the study suggests, they behaved in a way that research shows people respond when faced with stimuli that cause them to feel threatened or anxious: they instinctively look at what is making them feel nervous and then ignore it.

In honor of everyone someday living in perfect harmony, watch Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder’s “Ebony & Ivory” after the jump.

[EurekAlert]

A $195,000, 100-foot tiled mural that is scheduled to go up next month at the their new local LAPD station was supposed to depict a quaint Sunday afternoon in the neighborhood. But now the installation seems to be stalled, with members of the community expressing their anger at some of the Mexican-American stereotypes portrayed by the artist, Sandow Birk.

The mural has drawn complaints for depicting the 'hood as a depressing, crime-ridden dump. In the painting, plump, braided women parade around the streets, which are filled with stray dogs, piñatas, beer-drinking men, Mexican flags, men being arrested and illegal street vendors (including one women selling a Shaq jersey). The artist based the mural on iconic Mexican artist Diego Rivera’s “Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park” (see the original here). Check out more pictures of the mural after the jump and make your own judgement…

[LA Times]

[click on a picture to enlarge]