Chelsea Clinton, Alicia Keys, Tiny and Tip wedding news is Internet buzz

The Internet proves what this blogger has said for years: people are voyeurs. People want to know about what other people are doing and that's a good thing. Take three of the hottest Internet buzz subjects, the weddings of Chelsea Clinton, Alicia Keys, and Tiny and Tip. Together they represent 20 percent of the top searches for the morning of August 2, 2010.

Chelsea Clinton Wedding

The Chelsea Clinton Wedding was called "Our Royal Wedding" by Bonnie Fuller in The Huffington Post, who argues that "we need it," because it's an escape. I guess, but I could have done without Bonnie's wacky sentence:

"Chelsea grew up in the palatial White House and is marrying a wealthy white knight named Marc Mezvinsky, an investment banker with an impressive $4 million Fifth Ave. apartment."

(Ah. Bonnie, he's just another insufferable Stanford grad. Chelsea, too. Just two more reasons to want Cal to kick Stanford's ass in the 2010 Big Game!)

Now it's that kind of take which makes me wish Marc Mezvinsky were black and not white. I'd bet even money Fuller would not have called Mezvinsky a white knight, although doing so in that context would have been path-breaking. Her use of the term causes me to wonder how far we have to go as a country before such institutionally racist signals are gone?

But I digress, sort of.

Alicia and Swizz courtesy of TMZ.com

Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz

I mean no one called Alicia Keys' new husband Swizz Beatz a "white knight," even though he was wearing a white suit in wedding photos. Instead, we have TMZ.com referring to Swizz Beatz as "baby daddy" because he and Keys have a child already.

But why do we see the term "baby daddy" applied to an black man in his time of glory: a wedding? Yeah, it's TMZ, but to take this a step further, The Huffington Post didn't even mention the Alicia Keys wedding beyond a five-paragraph post.

T.I/Tip and reality star Tameka "Tiny" Cottle wedding

T.I/Tip and reality star Tameka "Tiny" Cottle's three-city (wow!) wedding managed to escape any mention in The Huffington Post as of this writing. In fact, the only content I located about T.I. was his win of a BET award from prison.

I think you can see where this is going.

I just don't like the underlying message that's sent: white is good, black is bad or at best not worthy of coverage.

I don't think Arianna Huffington intends to have a publication that has such an institutionally racist appearance, but in this case it looks that way. Some of you will complain that I'm seeing things or "seeing race" but my forceful counter is that you're too willing to consume the messages delivered to you by a particular brand without questioning them.

In other words, if it's The Huffington Post or The New York Times, you'll take it "hook, line, and sinker," but if it's another brand, you'll question it. My point is, you should question every news brand for the stereotypes they present.

...and Rock the Casbah!

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