Happy Birthday Oscar Grant

xMabaitx blogs about race, racial identity, skin color, and Oscar Grant:

I have determined that my former desire to ”fit into” a certain racial or ethnic distinction has very little bearing on my own sense of personal self-worth. The greater issue rather is how the white man’s ideas of race and ethnicity consequently force unwanted social meanings upon my body.

Race is a Lie

Jasmin blogs:

…race is not real; it is a socially constructed phenomenon based solely on visible physically differences. Race is so fictitious a concept that in the post-emancipation U.S. a man could be considered Black in one state, and White in another!

Although race is not real, the effects of racial differentiation; however, are very real. Not every racial group experiences racism in the same manner or to the same degree. Racialized groups (those who society labels “visible minorities”) continually face institutionalized, racial discrimination based solely on stereotypes attached to our skin tone.

Eugenics and Education

Bill Ayers reviews Ann G. Winfield’s book Eugenics and Education in America:

Written out of the official story as quackery and the handiwork of a few nut-cases, Winfield demonstrates beyond doubt that eugenics was not only respectable, mainstream science but also that its major tenets were well-springs in the formation of American public schools with echoes in the every day practices of today. Formed in the crucible of white supremacy and rigid hierarchies of human value, American schools have never adequately faced that living heritage.

The N Word

Bambu, an emcee and activist from LA blogs about Nas’ new album “Nigger:”

…not mad ’cause eminem said nigga, ’cause he my nigga…

nah, homie. what nas just did right there is allow every little white boy who worships eminem (and nas for that matter) to get a “nigga” pass. believe that! i understand the use of the word within our communities, amongst people of color — and specifically african people in america, but i don’t see how it’s cool to just let the king of white boys get away with the use of such a word! i never thought i’d hear nas go that route. a white boy come say that shit around me, i’m checking him!

would nas let eminem get away with it if he hadn’t blown up and become one of the largest hip hop artists of our time? if eminem was marshal with a demo tape, and he called a black woman a bitch or a “nigga” (which he did) would nas still be cool with it? money makes a muthuhfuckuh switch so quick…

Victim Blame

Beta Candy blogs:

As ignorant as it is to blame crime victims for getting themselves into this position, we do this because it’s convenient. They’re at hand, whereas the perpetrator might not be, and we want to separate ourselves from them (”Oh! So if I never wear a whorish skirt like she did, I’ll never be raped! Yay!”). And even when the perpetrator is at hand, we’re more scared of him or her than we are of the victim. Safer to blame the victim, and after all, it’s all about whatever makes us feel better, right?

King’s Dream: A Reality Yet to Be Achieved

Shark-Fu blogs on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day:

Today, nooses are hung on high school campuses and arrogantly displayed on the cover of national magazines…media critics discuss how even racists will vote for an ‘acceptably black’ candidate and fashion editors chastise women of color for wearing natural hairstyles in corporate environments…the achievement of thousands is credited to the system they struggled against…the historic campaign of Shirley Chisholm is scarcely mentioned in an election year where a woman and a black man are trying to do separately what she strove to do as one in 1972…white supremacists plan to march in Jena Louisiana even as the language of immigration reform is laced with bigotry and fear…and education is still separate and unequal.

…

Now is the time to honor the King legacy through action and unite in the struggle for what I know is possible…

…no longer a dream, more a reality yet to be achieved.

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.

“Why Does It Always Have to be About Race?”

Jenn, from Reappropriate, blogs about white privilege:

Too frequently, I am charged by my White friends with “over-racializing” the world. “Why must it always come down to race,” they wonder. ”Aren’t I perpetuating racism when I notice race?” Taking it a step forward, they accuse me of being racist against Whites for pointing out White privilege.

How do you communicate to someone who is White that their race matters? By definition, they are the “unracialized” in this country, and are never faced with their race and how it privileges them. How then can they comprehend how race fundamentally colours the experiences of people of colour? A cheesy analogy arose out of Monday’s discussion which is nonetheless somewhat poignant: if a negatively-charged chloride ion and a positively-charged sodium ion are hanging out on the outside of a cell. The cell’s membrane has a channel that allows only negatively-charged ions to move into the cell, and so chloride is able to pass in and out of the cell freely; to chloride there are no limits, and so the concept of the cell (as a bounded space) is an abstract concept alone since chloride doesn’t experience the boundaries of that cell and its borders are subsequently invisible.

To sodium, however, it seems the cell as a place it cannot enter, since there is no channel open to it. The cell is defined by sodium’s inability to enter it, and so it is able to sense not only where it can, but also where it cannot go (which, for science folks, draws in the analogy of the equilibrium potential for sodium compared to chloride).

White privilege is a similar conundrum…

“Why Does It Always Have to be About Race?”

Jenn, from Reappropriate, blogs about white privilege:

Too frequently, I am charged by my White friends with “over-racializing” the world. “Why must it always come down to race,” they wonder. ”Aren’t I perpetuating racism when I notice race?” Taking it a step forward, they accuse me of being racist against Whites for pointing out White privilege.

How do you communicate to someone who is White that their race matters? By definition, they are the “unracialized” in this country, and are never faced with their race and how it privileges them. How then can they comprehend how race fundamentally colours the experiences of people of colour? A cheesy analogy arose out of Monday’s discussion which is nonetheless somewhat poignant: if a negatively-charged chloride ion and a positively-charged sodium ion are hanging out on the outside of a cell. The cell’s membrane has a channel that allows only negatively-charged ions to move into the cell, and so chloride is able to pass in and out of the cell freely; to chloride there are no limits, and so the concept of the cell (as a bounded space) is an abstract concept alone since chloride doesn’t experience the boundaries of that cell and its borders are subsequently invisible.

To sodium, however, it seems the cell as a place it cannot enter, since there is no channel open to it. The cell is defined by sodium’s inability to enter it, and so it is able to sense not only where it can, but also where it cannot go (which, for science folks, draws in the analogy of the equilibrium potential for sodium compared to chloride).

White privilege is a similar conundrum…

Racial Tensions in Malaysia

The Cicak posts a video from a BBC interview with Malaysia’s foreign minister.  Some of the questions asked to the minister were:

Sarah Montague from the BBC asks Foreign Minister Dato Seri Syed Hamid Albar about the “rising resentment” from Indian and Chinese Malaysians about Malay rights and privileges.

1. Is it fair that it’s easier for Malays to get into universities compared to Chinese and Indians?
2. How can Chinese and Indians feel a sense of belonging when they can’t get access to top cabinet posts?
3. There are foreign investors “cashing out” of Malaysia because of privileges accorded to Malays. What do you think?
4. Is the constitutional right to profess and practice one’s religion becoming increasingly meaningless?

Transracial Adoptees, Permanent Homes, Forever Families, and Their Home They Are Forced to Leave

Sume blogs about the intracacies of what is really home and family while being a transracial adoptee:

In the case of domestic adoption, can more be done to keep families in tact? What roles do racism and class play in creating and perpetuating environments that feed children into system? Have we as a society become too reliant upon adoption as a solution because of lack of a better one?

And let us not forget that adoption is an industry regardless of it’s mutually beneficial appearance. As an industry, adoption has created as many or more problems as it has presumably solved. On one hand, it gives children to parents who want them, but on another, it feeds and sustains a voracious baby market. As potential adoptive parents seek cheaper, quicker ways to acquire children those only too willing to provide that without much thought to ethics will appear. Adoption as an industry will do what’s necessary to stay alive.

“Save the pretty white woman!”

Ann blogs on the media’s disproportionate coverage of pretty white women who have gone missing:

(MWWS), also known as missing pretty girl syndrome, is a term used to describe disproportionate media coverage of white female victims. The individual may be missing, murdered, captured, or even have faked her own abduction; the essential element of the syndrome is that her gender, race, prettiness, age, or social background is to have extended the media coverage and public interest in her case. And many people who want to face reality know that black women, and other women of color, do not rate the respect to receive the PMWWS treatment.

“Save the pretty white woman!”

Ann blogs on the media’s disproportionate coverage of pretty white women who have gone missing:

(MWWS), also known as missing pretty girl syndrome, is a term used to describe disproportionate media coverage of white female victims. The individual may be missing, murdered, captured, or even have faked her own abduction; the essential element of the syndrome is that her gender, race, prettiness, age, or social background is to have extended the media coverage and public interest in her case. And many people who want to face reality know that black women, and other women of color, do not rate the respect to receive the PMWWS treatment.

Rudy and Racial Exploitation

Terry Smith, at blackprof.com, writes:

The Times’s expose of Giuliani’s macabre racial side isn’t likely to diminish his standing among Republican primary voters, a group of lily whites with known racial indifference.  The appearance of the story itself, however, is quite ironic because the Times endorsed Giuliani’s re-election as mayor with complete knowledge of what it’s now reporting in 2007.  Clearly Republican primary voters aren’t the only whites with racial indifference.  For a far more comprehensive expose of Giuliani’s racial misdeeds, read Wayne Barrett’s article, Rudy’s Milky Way , published in 1999.  Among its many highlights is a remembrance of Giuliani’s campaign slogan, “one standard, one city.”  It was a not-so-subtle dig at blacks and Mayor David Dinkins.  But among the many ways in which Giuliani contradicted his own slogan was his selective abolition of mayoral liaisons to some ethnic groups–blacks–but not others.

Happy Birthday Mandela

Michael writes:

On 18 July 1918, Nelson Mandela was born in the village of Qunu in the Transkei, South Africa.  Born to African royalty, Mandela (a Methodist Christian) studied and practiced law, joined the African National Congress during its Gandhian nonviolence stage, and later came to lead this central organization in the struggle against apartheid(racial separation) in South Africa.  After the Sharpesville massacre (1961) of unarmed students, Mandela led the ANC to abandon its commitment to Gandhian nonviolence and take up arms in a campaign of sabotage and guerrilla warfare (terrorism was rejected).

On Blackness

Macha, on her first post for Double Consciousness, blogs about “Blackness” and on what it meant to her back in the day and now:

I realized one day not only was I being played, thinking maybe I wasn’t Black enough, I had let someone else define what being Black meant to me. Blasphemy! It wasn’t even Blacks who defined it. My parents did a great job, but they were competing with millions of media messages and the day to day of, well… White people. I said to myself one day, Do you see how stupid this is? Someone else has defined Blackness for you. I continued with questions like, who decides this? Is there a committee somewhere in the world that defines Blackness? How come I’m not on it?

bell hooks and Outlaw Culture

Jeff, at the blog Feminist Allies, posts a video of bell hooks:

This interview/speech is a few years old now, but it’s always a treat to listen to hooks. In this video, hooks gives us a sort of video companion piece to her book, Outlaw Culture. In the first section, she explains why studying popular culture is important for critical thinkers, feminists and (yes) even literary critics to do. The short answer to why is: Popular culture is where hegemony works its evil magic.

White Supremacy at a Student Newspaper

Jack Stephens and Christine Joy Ferrer, both reporters for [X]Press news services at San Francisco State University, blog about a recent opinion piece by the future editor for the [X]Press newspaper.

Christine wrote about the actual situation:

Damn, I have never felt so awkward, disheartened, angry, and yet so very proud before in my life. A few days ago while I was sitting in the journalism lab at SF State, talking to the new [X]press newspaper editors for next semester, Ian Thomas, the current head editor, stormed into the room consumed with frustration. He was pissed off at the soon-to-be editor Sean Maher for his column that we published in this week’s current issue called “A Note on Diversity from Next Semester’s Newspaper Editor.”…Basically, Maher was inadvertently saying that race doesn’t matter and that we need to be colorblind.

And Jack did a content analysis of the opinion piece:

Ok, I buy that (sort of), we should judge people based on the content of their character just as Martin Luther King, Jr. told us to do. But talks of diversity have nothing to do with the content of people’s character based on their skin color. What talks and discussions of diversity have to do with are looking at age old biases that are ingrained into our minds and souls. Discussions and talks on diversity are there to challenge our assumptions based on people’s race. In a society that is saturated in white privilege and heterosexual privilege we never encounter real genuine discussions on issues such as race and diversity in the newsroom because we are blind to it. It is ingrained in us to see white as the norm, heterosexuality as the norm, etc. So when there are a bunch of white people in the newsroom and in the paper we don’t question it or see anything wrong with it because that is what we’ve been taught to see as normal growing up (subconsciously and consciously). This is why we need to bring up questions of diversity in the workplace, newsroom, etc. because no one is there to bring them up.

And yet whenever someone tries to bring up questions of diversity there is always some white person, always, stating how this makes her or him “uncomfortable,” or, in Maher’s case, “squeamish. Yet that is why we need to bring up issues of diversity, because people are uncomfortable with it. We need to challenge our assumptions and bring us out of our comfort zone, if we don’t than we remain ignorant to the realities of America and to the realities of our own assumptions and privileges.

Erase Racism Carnival May Edition

The Angry Black Woman hosted this months Erase Racism Carnival today:

This is a very media-heavy edition, mainly because media issues are very interesting to me. The summer movie season is starting to heat up and this season’s television shows are coming to an end, allowing us to examine them completely. There’s plenty to talk about in the realm of literature, too. So, get comfortable, grab a drink, and settle in. There’s a lot of great stuff to read.

Is Blogging Just A Game?

Nezua Limón Xolagrafik-Jonez posts an essay (which is making it’s rounds in the blogosphere) about racism in the blogosphere and blogging being an avenue for change, along with many other issues, in his blog The Unapologetic Mexican:

Any black or brown person who becomes political and stands vocally for Brown or Black Pride must become adept at handling the inevitable response. When people’s bedrock views on race and place and culture and national identity are offended, they do not always respond directly. In fact, as we all understand on an intellectual level that it is Wrong to Hate on Minorities for being a Minority (exercising rights that whites expect defaulted to themselves) it is the one motive that is never stated, even when it is involved. I know this because I deal with many of these responses in the course of my writing. To the one dropping the comment—For you, talking about race is a necessity; for us, it is a luxury was a mild but telling one—their words are very cutting and original. But they do not realize how many times we see and hear these familiar hateful shapes dressed loosely in various iterations of transparent garb.

Color-Blindness

Magniloquence writes a three part series on color-blindness, the first part being personal, the second part being more academic, the third part tying it all together, in her blog Feline Formal Shorts:

Part I:

Again. Discussions of privilege and the shameful lack of diversity on our über progressive campus occur. Racism is categorically denied, not just by admissions, but by students at large. Walking down the path to class, I overhear a loudly spoken remark between two girls, vehement: “Well if black people don’t want to come here, we don’t want them here!” Carefully not looking at me, but loud enough that I couldn’t miss it. After all, who wouldn’t want to go there? Our school was wonderful, and if students of color weren’t applying, accepting, or staying, well… that was just because they couldn’t hack it, or weren’t interested in our intellectual culture. It couldn’t possibly be a hostile environment. Nobody said anything about race. “True” diversity is all intellectual, anyway… we shouldn’t be focusing on anything as unimportant (and racist) as race.

Again, and again, and again.

I listened to my friends complain whenever race came up. I listened to my boyfriend gripe about me bringing it up again. Nevermind that I was a sociology student, and it’s kind of a big part of my field. We’d achieved equality. That there were some bad people out there, well.. that sucked, but it didn’t mean we had to keep talking about this race thing. Or that gender thing. We were just being mean to the rich white straight guys. He was being silenced. He was unwelcome. He didn’t see race at all. Why did we have to? Wasn’t that just paving the road for racism?

Part II:

1) It paints “color” as the problem. The problem is coded as race, not that people are racist.

I don’t want to be not black, I want not to be a problem. When you say “I don’t think of you as black,” you are ignoring me, plain and simple. I am black. That’s part of who and what I am. As Nezua (paraphrasing Rafael) said: “if you are COLORBLIND, then you don’t see my struggles.”

It is not my fault that race relations are fucked up. If you cannot simultaneously think about me as being a person of color and a regular person, a friend, a smart person, a potential employee, or what have you, that is your problem and you need to fix it.

2) It doesn’t address the underlying power structures. By pretending everyone is white, it implicitly casts “white” as better than any “race.” It just moves everyone into the same category, without addressing how and why those categories are constructed, or what might be messed up about constructing hierarchies the way they currently are.

3) It relies on the framework of white as the unmarked default. It only really works if you agree that the dominant cultural paradigm here is not a white one, and that white isn’t a racial and cultural framwork at all. Because otherwise, it would be “whitewashing,” and not “colorblindness.” You can only pretend to ignore race as long as you steadfastly deny any racial taint in the system you want everyone to hew to…

Part III:

I would love to see a world where we didn’t have to be blind to anything. Where we weren’t ignoring difference or making it unimportant, but actively celebrating it. Where being brown could be as important to a person as being a dancer or a blogger or a mom, and just as recognized by friends. And yes, as irrelevant to hiring and loan applications and school attendence as being a dancer or a blogger (or a mom, in theory, though we’re not exactly there yet on the motherhood front either). A good thing to be valued and explored, not something to move out of the way so we don’t trip over it. I’d like that.

But we’re not there yet, and I’ll take what I can get. If that’s focusing on individuals to the extent of not caring about race, that’s a start. If that’s pretending that race is as unimportant as eye color, that’s a start. If it helps bring about a world where I don’t have to worry about my children being teased, or held back, or hurt… then it’s a good start.

Muslim and Sikh Youth in Britain

In part 2 of a piece on Muslim and Sikh multiculturalism Sunny writes:

The British Sikh experience is closer to the British Muslim experience than most people think or even acknowledge. Dr Gurharpal Singh’s article below illustrated how the fight over religious exemptions started with the former decades ago. This negotiation for exemptions is not the death-knell of secularism but should be part of any society’s committment to tolerance and respect. It applied to Jews before them and so on. The line isn’t clearly defined of course – it has to be negotiated and deliberated in each case. For example I’d support exemptions for halal food or turbans but not different criminal laws for groups on the basis of race or faith.

Originally linked on Brown Blogger Brigade.

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.

The New and Old Burden of the White Man

21st Century Kashmiri Nomad reflects on “The White Man’s Burden” and what it means in todays world in the blog Islam & The West:

Throughout history the human experience has witnessed mighty empires from the Egyptians to the Assyrians to the Persians to the Macedonians to the Romans to the Sassanids to the Caliphate to the Mongols to the European colonialist. Two themes tie all of the a fore mentioned together and they are conquest and domination. Why should one expect that just because we are in 2007 human nature will have changed when it has not changed in the last 5000 years. The only difference that we have in today’s world is that we couch imperial conquest in terms more palatable to ourselves and more importantly to our peoples. Gone is the white man’s burned to civilise the savages for the sake of God and monarch now the savages are being civilised for the sake of democracy, free markets and globalisation. It seems that the white man’s burden is still with us in 2007 in all but name but it is here never the less no matter how we wish to present it.

Originally linked by Bhupinder on Blogbharti.