The Faces of American Idol

My friends and family will tell you, I'm sort of racist.

That is, if given a choice, I will almost always be more attracted to an ethnic or non-Western person/object/concept than a Western/American person/object/concept. (I could go into endless detail about the rationale behind this...maybe some other time.)

My friends of different religions and ethnic minorities think it's hilarious the way I often criticize "white people"--or how I complain about the archetypal "skinny white chicks" in movies or the media. (They find a particular irony in noting that I, myself, am rather thin and VERY white, at least on the outside.)

Anyway, this tendency of mine is very true in this year's season of American Idol. Yes, I am an avid follower of this show--cheesy and commercialized as it is, it's grown on me and is kind of a family tradition.

This year, my heart has been won over by the wonderfully talented Lil Rounds (an African American mother), Anoop Desai (of Indian descent), and Jorge Nunez, a Puerto Rican who has worked tirelessly to bridge the language barrier the judges identified earlier in the competition (even working with a dialect coach until his accent became almost non-existent.)

I just think it's beautiful to see such "diversity" (less white people, that is) on a show entitled "AMERICAN Idol." Truly, no one can really define what it means to be "American," but I think it's wonderful that cultural and racial expectations are widening.

Mmmm. An African-American in the White House, and white people being outsung on Fox Network. Delicious!