Your Very Own Mini-Natives!

Spottedele blogs about miniature figurines she found in a mail-in catalog which represented Native Americans:

In case you didn’t notice it, there’s a problem with the representation of sexuality in these figures**. The context here involves making “jokes” about people of color. White people have treated people of color as less than human, and we’ve tried to control their sexuality as well. Women of color are usually represented as having high sex drives and willingly having sex with anyone. These supposed traits make them fair game for white men in America, and frankly, I can’t bring myself to imagine what the cacti as breasts really represent. No, it isn’t just harmless fun. Men of color are either demonized as a threat to all white women due to their raging, animalistic*** sexuality, or they’re mocked as impotent. This planter encourages people to keep that tradition alive.

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Race and the Role of Journalism in the Duke Case

Terry Moran, an anchor for ABC News Nightline comments on the role of race in the Duke case and the privilege of the accused:

And, MOST IMPORTANT, there are many, many cases of prosecutorial misconduct across our country every year. The media covers few, if any, of these cases. Most of the victims in these cases are poor or minority Americans–or both. I would hate to say the color of their skin is one reason journalists do not focus on these victims of injustices perpetrated by police and prosecutors, but I am afraid if we ask ourselves the question honestly, we would likely find that it is.

Hip-Hop Made Imus Do It!

Darren Hutchinson, blogging on blackprof.com, comments on the latest wrinkle in the Imus controversy:

This has been the primary argument advanced by defenders of Imus — how dare Sharpton condemn Imus but not hip hop for its misgony and other offenses. Pat Buchanan is the latest person to make such arguments, in an argument which argues that Imus was “lynched.” Of course, this is a “reverse discrimination” argument in disguise. It goes like this: black people get to do things that white people cannot do; blacks can call black women ho’s but not white men; this is unfair and is akin to an antiwhite lynching. Whites are the victims of discrimination; criticizing racism harms whites. Sounds familiar, right? I see one major factual problem with this argument in this setting: SHARPTON HAS IN FACT CRITICIZED HIP HOP! And often.