Racialicious is pleased to be covering Facing Race 2014 from Dallas, Texas, on Nov. 14 and 15.

The conference is hosted by Race Forward — formerly known as the Applied Research Center and the publisher of Colorlines. This year, you can follow Arturo as he shares his observations from the event on Twitter. Watch the #FacingRace14 tag or visit Race Forward’s Twitter for more information, as well.

But you can also come here to Racialicious.com over the weekend as we bring you live-streams for each of the four plenary sessions:

• This is How We Do It: Youth Led Racial Justice — Friday, Nov. 14, starting at 9:30 a.m. EST.
• The Facing Race Keynote Address, featuring Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, Toshi Reagon, and Tashawn Reagon — Friday, Nov. 14, starting at 4 p.m. EST.
• Roots and Wings: Southern Histories, Legacies and Innovations for the Future — Saturday, Nov. 15, starting at 9:45 a.m. EST.
• The Next Fifty — Saturday, Nov. 15, starting at 4 p.m. EST

By Kendra James

This was fun. Will y’all join us next week? Someone stick around for Nashville and let us know if a PoC is in it…

— Racialicious (@racialicious) September 25, 2014

Okay, maybe not the last Black person, but I do love Nashville. I think Hayden Panettiere should have gotten an Emmy for her work as Juliette Barnes in Season 1 and will fight anyone who says otherwise. I started paying for Spotify when I realised that I couldn’t live without the soundtrack on my morning commute. I could listen to Connie Britton say “y’all” all day, every day for the rest of my life and be a happy person.

I will always stick around for Nashville, but that doesn’t mean Latoya was wrong when she joked after the Blackish premiere a few weeks back.

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By Arturo R. García

In the days following Doctor Who‘s latest season finale, you can expect most of the credit (or blame) for the show’s transition this year into the Twelth Doctor era on showrunner Steven Moffat, or on stars Jenna Coleman and Peter Capaldi.

But we’d like to argue that — somewhat unexpectedly — the show’s most valuable player this season was Samuel Anderson’s Danny Pink. The character many probably expected to be the show’s third wheel turned into its moral compass. And Anderson should be recognized for providing the dramatic glue in a season that was at times disconcerting, and not for the reasons Moffat might have intended.

SPOILERS under the cut
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If you’re a makeup junkie like me (and spent a ridiculous amount at Sephora last year to be eligible), then this notification for Sephora’s 20% off sale event had you squealing. Unfortunately, as many major companies are wont to do, they ruined the excitement almost immediately with some questionable solutions to their makeup resale problem.

Reselling would be the process of buying the makeup at the offered discounted price and then selling it of again at the original price for profit. Sephora doesn’t have sales often, so it might not be out of the question to assume that when they do, the issue might come up. What is out of the question is to assume that their Asian customers are doing it exclusively and cancelling their accounts because of it.

Jezebel reported:

But numerous customers on Sephora’s Facebook page and on a reddit thread allege that they’ve been locked out of their VIB accounts because they have Asian last names and/or international email addresses. Customers say that after finding themselves unable to purchase products on the Sephora website, they called Sephora’s customer service line, where they were told they had been permanently blocked from using their accounts for trying to buy products (according to their terms of service, Sephora has the right to do this without providing cause). The current consensus among many shoppers is that in order to prevent reselling of makeup overseas at a lower cost (which is a serious issue for retailers), the company is blocking customers from purchasing during this sale. Specifically, customers allege that this is happening most often to Asian customers.

It doesn’t take much to find a variety of complaints on Sephora’s Facebook page confirming the accusations:

Sephora released a statement on the 7th, though a quick scroll through the page confirms that many customers still don’t have access to their accounts needed to shop the sale which ends today. There is no mention of a sale extension, or any offer, to make up for the lost time or discriminatory practices.

A Message To Our Clients:
Sephora is dedicated to providing an exciting and reliable shopping experience and we sincerely apologize to our loyal clients who were impacted by the website outage that occurred yesterday.

Our website is incredibly robust and designed to withstand a tremendous …amount of volume. What caused the disruption yesterday was a high level of bulk buys and automated accounts for reselling purposes from North America and multiple countries outside the US. The technical difficulties that impacted the site are actively being addressed and our desktop US website is now functioning normally. We are actively working to restore our Canadian, mobile website, and international shipping where applicable. There has been no impact on the security and privacy of our clients’ data.

The reality is that in taking steps to restore website functionality, some of our loyal North American and international clients got temporarily blocked. We understand how frustrating it is and are deeply sorry for the disruption to your shopping experience.

However, in some instances we have, indeed, de-activated accounts due to reselling — a pervasive issue throughout the industry and the world. As part of our ongoing commitment to protecting our clients and our brands, we have identified certain entities who take advantage of promotional opportunities to purchase products in large volume on our website and re-sell them through other channels. After careful consideration, we have deactivated these accounts in order to optimize product availability for the majority of our clients, as well as ensure that consumers are not subject to increased prices or products that are not being handled or stored properly.

We have established a VIB hotline to ensure that if we are able to verify that your account was erroneously deactivated, it is reactivated immediately. Please call 877-VIB-ONLY (1-877-842-6659)

If you experience any difficulties placing your order please contact us at 1-877-SEPHORA (1-877-737-4672) or email us at client.service@sephora.com.

Our VIB 20% off promotion runs through Monday, November 10th and our VIB and VIB Rouge clients have several days left to take advantage of this exclusive holiday shopping event.

The obvious solution would have been to simply limit the number of each product that a customer could buy. Your average customer probably would have been fine to know that they could buy no more than ten Stilla eyeliners or what have you. Instead, in a move that can’t possibly be worth the PR fallout, Sephora chose the lazy racist’s way out and went after the surnames (and apparently email domains commonly used in East Asian countries) they decided seemed suspicious.

Just imagine what they’ll do when they find out that the Lot-Less on 40th and 7th is reselling their nail polish. (Probably nothing. That might take a well thought out effort.)

This looks so, so cool:

This year, The AfroFuturist Affair Annual Charity & Costume Ball has expanded space-time from one evening to a month-long celebration of Afrofuturism. In addition to the 4th Annual Costume Ball on Saturday, November 8 2014, we will have events throughout November, including workshops, dance party, readings, book club, film screenings, art exhibit, and more. We are seeking self-identified AfroFuturists to perform or display their Black sci-fi, spec-fic, and Afrofuturistic themed work at the Ball. We are also seeking submissions for workshops and presentations.

More here.

By Guest Contributor Sunny Huang

Two weeks ago, Big Hero 6 premiered to critical acclaim at the Tokyo International Film Festival. Even earlier, it made a big splash at New York Comic Con. And it will open tomorrow as a likely box-office success — a projected $51 million in its first weekend — in the U.S. But with less than a full day to go, I am surprised by the lack of substantial criticism for it.

Frozen generateda firestorm of controversybefore it was released in mass and niche publications, yet there is little for Big Hero 6, which goes to show just how much Asians and Asian-inspired media are pushed out of the conversation. And the only criticisms that have appeared focus on the film’s episodic storytelling and choice of Fall Out Boy for the soundtrack, instead of its lackluster Asian representation and continued cultural appropriation by Disney. In fact, Big Hero 6 is being lauded for transcending these problems, when it is the very embodiment.

Don’t get me wrong. I used to be excited for Big Hero 6.When the first trailer and voice cast were released, I cried.

After spending my childhood barely seeing myself and my people represented on screen, I immediately made my brother watch the trailer. As a 20-year old, I was so happy that my 10-year old brother would have the chance to grow up without self-resentment. I was so grateful to know he would have the chance to not loathe his race because he would see characters who looked like him be appreciated. It was a chance I did not have.

When the trailer was over, I yelled at him. Look, look!An Asian character! Another character who’s Asian besides Mulan! From the biggest animation studio today! Do you know how many people like us will see how progressive this movie is?! To that, he just stared at me and said—

What? I thought he was white.

It was then I realized something was wrong. This movie was being marketed as progressive and beyond its time for giving its studio the opportunity to address “its historical reputation for ethnic homogeneity and cultural appropriation.” But if an Asian-American kid could not identify the main character as Asian, as part of his own group, then what else was wrong?

Turns out, a lot. The protagonist’s racial ambiguity just started the conversation.

The film is based off the Marvel Comics characters of the same name, but with major differences—many of them questionable, and some of them outright wrong.

SPOILERS for both the movie and the comic under the cut.

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By Arturo R. García

Tuesday night’s midterm elections brought with them the worst-case scenario for the Democratic Party: Not only did they lose control of the Senate to the Republicans, but the GOP added to its control of the House of Representatives. But while many observers blamed Democrats’ decision to distance themselves from President Barack Obama, immigrant activists also want the party to consider the cost of Obama’s move to delay immigration reform.

“Prioritizing Senate seats over keeping families together was bad politics,” Dream Action Coalition (DRM) co-directors Erika Andiola and Cesar Vargas said in a statement late Tuesday night. “Tonight, when the Democrats were hoping to keep the Senate despite the President’s delay on immigration, we saw Latino voters rebuke Democrats at the polls, either opting to stay home or voting for another party.”
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by Guest Contributor Aya De Leon, originally published at Mutha Magazine

All parents have hopes for their children. We have concerns about the world we’re bringing them into, but somehow, in an infinite number of circumstances, we become parents. Some of us use technology on the road to our parenting. This creates a complex layer of medical and commercial issues in our experience. Recently, a woman in Ohio got the wrong sperm from a bank in Chicago.

She and her female partner are white. They mistakenly got sperm from a black donor, and found out when she was several months pregnant.

Unexpectedly, they now have a multi-racial daughter.

In her commercial relationship with that company, she has a clear right to sue for damages under the law. In spite of her lawsuit, the mom has been explicit about how much she loves her daughter and that she would not change her.

However, for people of color, particularly parents, it is painful and difficult to witness the journey of parenting brown children posited as a legal liability and a quantifiable set of damages.

Here is the statement I, as a mother of color, wish she had given:

“I had no idea how hard it is to face racism and to worry every day about how it will affect my family. I am totally unprepared for this, but I honor the work of all the mothers of black children that have gone before me. Continue reading →