Ike says “it’s water under the bridge. I have no regrets of my life.”

But the Angry Black Woman blogs:

I am tired of people using the “But he was a great artist” line whenever someone who is, otherwise, a despicable human being, writes a song or a book or a poem that they like. I hate to break Godwin’s Law here, but even Hitler wrote some nice poetry and drew some pretty pictures (and he was nice to animals).

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IQ and Genetics

Amardeep Singh blogs:

Malcolm Gladwell’s latest in the New Yorker is a must-read for anyone who’s been stuck arguing with an IQ fetishist at a dinner party (sadly, this has happened to me once too often). Gladwell relies heavily on the work of James Flynn, who has a new book out called What is Intelligence?. Flynn shows that IQ scores, in various parts of the world, tend to rise over time — and delves into the implications of those changes for how we understand IQ scores

Kid GenocidalNation

Rob Schmidt blogs about the “reality” TV show Kid Nation in where a bunch of kids “go back to the basics” and live in the “Wild” West in Arizona. In one of the shows the kids meet Native Americans in where a whole slew of stereotypes, tepees and all, take place:

Let’s sum up what the kids (and the viewers) have learned about Indians from “Where’s Bonanza, Dude?”

Indians lived here “centuries ago” but are now (almost) gone. You’ll find them only out in the wilderness somewhere if you search long enough. Led by a chief, they live in teepees and do colorful dances. They impart sage advice around flickering fires.

Since the Indians have vanished, the land is empty. It’s okay to to claim this vacant land as your own–to move in and raise towns on it. No Indian people stand in the way of this, your manifest destiny.

So Kid Nation is built on the bones of Indian nations. In that sense, it’s much like the American nation. Greedy, selfish pioneers took what they saw and thought nothing of it. They acted just like children.

[Hat Tip: Racialicious]

Disability Blog Carnival

The December addition of the Disability Blog Carnival is up at Andrea’s Buzzing About:

We all have a number of little things that not only delight us in small ways, but also make life just so much more pleasant, and even help reduce our stress loads. These tend to fall into three categories: technology that enables us to do things, creature comforts, and human interaction. Got your cuppa? Cats and dogs settled down? Then let’s begin!

[Hat Tip: Alas, a blog]

Asian American Immigrants and Schooling

Stacey J. Lee, over at Asian American Empowerment, blogs about Asian American immigrants and the lack of support they get from the U.S. educational system:

Despite the growing number of immigrant students in schools throughout the country, many schools lack the expertise to adequately serve second language students. In fact, many school districts face a shortage of certified bilingual and English language learner (ELL) teachers. Although there is a significant body of research that suggests that bilingual education programs are most effective, most Asian American students who are English language learners are placed in English as a second language (ESL) classes or other English-only environments (Hakuta & Pease-Alvarez, 1992; Ramirez, 1991).

Invisibility of Whiteness

Carlo Montemayor, a blogger at Double Consciousness and fellow Blog Bullet editor, blogs on the invisibility of whiteness and on some comments that Oprah “transcends” race since most of her audience is white:

What the writer here implies is that Oprah’s personality as well as her show are “race neutral” because most of her viewers are white. Likewise, Obama has opted for a more “universal” (meaning white) appeal. “Transcending race”, according to the writer, means tailoring your image and persona so that it appeals to mostly white people — as if whites do not belong to a racial group. Because both Oprah and Obama are now reaching out to blacks, their actions are viewed as racial.If we are truly aspiring to achieve racial justice then we need to look at racism (and by that I mean a system of ideas embedded into our institutions which gives whites unearned advantages over people of color) as a white problem rather than just a problem that people of color face.

Proving Manhood

DesiGirl blogs about the movie Varalalu in where the main actor Ajith “proves his manhood” by raping a woman:

The cherry on top of this sick icing happens a few scenes later, when the girl’s mum pleads his case to her now pregnant daughter, with the standard “He is a good man, sweetheart” line. Of course he is, if you discount the fact the raped you to prove his manhood. He is so the man!It is movies like this that make me want to gag. Here we have organisations trying to fight crimes against women and then we have movies like this tosh, that make a whole mahatma out of the sod who commits this heinous crime. Even more gaggable fact is that, the adoring public turned up in droves to see this load of crap, shelling out their hard earned money hand over fist to make it a hit. A hit! This &%$#* of a film!

On (White) Feminism

BrownFemiPower blogs about the book Full Frontal Feminism, on teaching it at university women’s studies classes, her own experience as a woman of color in such classes, and the overall arch of teaching feminism in general:

It’s time for all of us, but in particular, women’s studies departments, to stop pretending that these interactions between women of color and white women never happened or don’t count. It’s time to stop pretending that the voices of white women speaking about women of color is sufficient enough of a history for women of color. It’s time to stop pretending that universal agreement between women of color is necessary before white people can interact with an engage with a particular critique of women of color. It’s time to stop pretending that any critique by women of color exists within a timeless vacuum that demonstrates some ancient racism of a feminism from time past.

Authentic Mystical Experiences

The Stumbling Mystic blogs about the documentary Jesus Camp, a movie on a camp that indoctrinates children into a hard-ling arch conservative Christian message:

Authentic spiritual experiences erase the “us versus them” mentality. They blur the boundaries between self and other. Emotional and vitalistic experiences like the ones portrayed in Jesus Camp by their very nature reinforce the shadow rather than transmuting it and therefore deepen the fault lines within humanity. Some of the children in the movie report feeling “disgusting” inside when they meet a non-Christian. What a terrible tragedy that such nonsense is being peddled in the name of Jesus of Nazareth!

Blog first viewed at BlogBharti.

Religious Fundamentalism and Imperialism

On the blog Red Diary, Vidrohi writes:

Imperialism succeeded in pushing back the Left through an expensive smear campaign against the Leftist forces trough out the world – a campaign that was not limited to mere words, but involved systematic suppression of Communist Parties. However, it could not eliminate the roots of the Left, which lie in the misery and poverty that Imperialism inflicts due to its inherent nature. Thus, in the absence of Left, it was all the more expected from the people to be attracted to any force that gives voice to their grievances, even if they do not provide a coherent program as an alternative to capitalism and Imperialism. This phenonmenon may not be the reason behind the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, for no one denies the working of Imperialism behind their birth, but it surely constitutes as a major cause in their continued existence (even without the enormous U.S. and Saudi funding that they received during the Cold War).

Miss Landmine

BrownFemiPower blogs about the Miss Landmine Beauty Pagent:

Now, I’m not sure what I think about this pageant beyond the fact that I think that the name is repulsive (as I’ve said in several places, would we make a pageant called “Miss Rape Victim”? Or “Miss Car Crash”?–and what are the implications of “beautifying” the violence done to female bodies?)–but I do want to say that I think it’s *vitally* important for feminists to be just as critical of this pageant as they would any other pageant (no matter what their final conclusions are).

White Folks on Race

PortlyDyke blogs on racism and white people’s comfort levels on it:

I know that racism is still an issue, because there are white people — white people who think of themselves as liberal/progressive — who will say racist things to me when people of color are not around — even after I have confronted them in the past about racist remarks that they have made.

I know that racism is still an issue because white people seem so fucking uncomfortable about discussing it — so uncomfortable, in fact, that they avoid discussing it, even when it is clearly brought to the table by someone that they consider an ally.

I know that racism is still an issue because people of color can disappear and nobody seems to notice.

Yes, I think that racism, misogyny, and homophobia (and whole bunch of other hatred-based “isms”) are interconnected. Yes, I think that it’s important for me to “connect-the-dots” between these forms of oppression, and understand how they intertwine.

Originally linked from Pam’s House Blend.

Sartre’s Godless Philosophy and those of the Bourgeoisie

Lenin, of Lenin’s Tomb, blogs about Sartre and atheistic, or non-theistic, philosophy:

The trouble with the professional atheists or anti-theists these days is, apart from everything else that is bad and reductionist and ridiculous in what they write, that their apparently passionate commitment comes too cheap. It doesn’t require that they give anything up, change anything about themselves, or challenge anything fundamental about the society. They don’t have to engage in any analysis deeper than that which finds religious doctrine to be literally false, philosophically shallow, socially repressive and politically dangerous. Big deal. It never seems to have occurred to them that there might be more radical consequences of the absence centre of ontology than that you should support the teaching of evolution, not kill people for God, and support the right of knocked up teenagers to have abortions. Actually, there is nothing there but the regurgitation of bourgeois wisdom and morality, both of which are pretty contemptible.