It's About Race, Stupid!

Trump

2011-04-26T10:07:00.002-04:00

So it appears that Donald Trump's campaign strategy is going to consist almost entirely on playing on the racial and religious fears and resentments of white Americans. How else to explain his laser focus on Obama's birth? I mean, the birth announcement was in both Honalulu daily papers within a couple of weeks of his birth. So I guess the conspiracy goes like this: A bunch of Muslims in Indonesia, or Saudi Arabia, or who knows where are planning on using this baby born in Indonesia, or Kenya, or God knows where as a plant to become president one day to take over the world. So, naturally, they use someone with black skin, kinky hair, and name him "Barack Hussein Obama" because that will make it easy for him to be elected. But, a couple of days after he is born, the conspirators say, "Hey, we better submit a birth announcement to be printed in the Honolulu papers to cover ourselves 40-some years later in case people question whether he was born in the U.S. and is qualified to be president." So they did. Yeah, that's probably how it happened.

Or it could be that, because Obama is black and has a Muslim-sounding name, had a dad he hardly knew that was a nominal, non-practicing Muslim and lived for a few years in his childhood in the predominately Muslim country of Indonesia, many white Americans don't trust him, and so the birther leaders play on that mistrust. Nah, the first one sounds a lot more believable, right?

And now, Trump is coming out questioning how Obama got admitted to Columbia, then Harvard. See http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/trump_interview
Never mentions race, just dances all over the subject withOUT mentioning it, again trying to play on white American's resentment of Affirmative Action. Yeah, like Obama proved to be incapable of doing the work at those Ivy League schools. Obama has been honest about not being disciplined in his early college years in California. He was not the only 18-20 year old to struggle with issues of life direction, identity, etc.--he had more reason than most to struggle with these issues.

I suppose Trump will next question Obama's Christian faith, then bring up again the photo of Obama without his hand on his heart siging the National Anthem, and then... ad nauseum. WHat a great, substantive campaign to be leader of the free world. What a joke.

Loving v. VA

2011-04-19T13:34:00.002-04:00

Was just reading up on the case that overturned all bans on interracial relationships in the U.S. in 1967. First, the anti-miscegenation statute in Virginia was used to charge them with ""cohabiting as man and wife, against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth." I thought that wording curious. Would make the good title of a book, too. I hope the Commonwealth's precious peace and dignity have been recovered over the past 43 years. Also found that the Supreme Court handed down the decision on June 12, 1967--June 12th is my wife's and my anniversary! And the day is celebrated as "Loving Day" to commemorate the right to marry whomever one loves apart from racial restrictions (now, about those OTHER restrictions!) So I was married on "Loving Day"--cool! (Ours is not an interracial union, but it is an inter-regional one--breading down the barrier between North and South!)

Reading the Constitution Aloud--what to include, what to omit

2011-01-10T10:33:00.002-05:00

It is well known that the House GOP leadership began their rule with a reading of the U.S. Constitution from the House floor. Nothing partisan about that. It IS the governing document of our nation. What is revealing about the GOP's intent is the sanitized version that was read. In particular they left out uncomfortable reminder about the egregious immorality of our Founding Fathers, such as the infamous three-fifths compromise and the provision that non-slave-holding states be required to return runaway slaves. It falls conventiently into teh typicla pattern of refusing to discuss anything related to race in pulic in hopes that the problem will just go away if we ignore it.

Of course, I can see the justification in omitting these passages if the intent is to read the Constitution, as organizer, GOP Rep. Robert Goodlatte of Va., said "as it currently operates," (Both of the mentioned omissions were canceled out by the 13th Amendment doing away with slavery. But I also see the point of critics, like Rep. James Clyburn and Hilary Shelton, vice-president of the NAACP (see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/06/AR2011010602807_2.html?sid=ST2011010603624 for more)that an opportunity was missed to air and discuss the necessary changing of the Constitution to correct for injustices that the majority finally come to recognize. Again, there are two sides, with Original Intent folks pointing to the Constitutionally-mandated amending process as the way that is to be done, whereas more pragmatic "living, breathing document" relativists (like me) see how cumbersome and unwieldy (and politically fraught) that process can be in the face of injustices in need of immediate redress.

Anyway, the race-muteness was erased in one grand, moving moment of political theater as Cibrave vil Rights wounded warrior John Lewis, Dem. Rep. form Ga., rose to recite the aformentioned 13th Amendment. The Gallery roared its approval. The moral: 145 years after it was abolished, there is consensus that slavery was wrong, and freeing the slaves was right. Don't know if we've reached that kind of consensus for any race-related issues since (abloshing Jim Crow, I suppose--although that consunsus took a few decades). I hope it doesn't take quite so long for us to come together on ways to redress continuing racial barriers to equality in housing, jobs, education, health, etc.

Hail Hamilton E. Holmes and Charlayne Hunter!

2011-01-07T13:03:00.004-05:00

Fifty years ago today, the above-named brave young African-Americans became the first of their race to matriculate at the University of Georgia, enduring and persevering through a hostile mob, a night-time riot, and a temporary suspension "for their own safety" to become outstanding individual citizens contributing to our society, Holmes as a mideical doctor and Hunter as a journalist. I remember hearing Hunter-gault (her married name) as a correspondent for the McNeil-Lehrer News Hour years ago, not finding out until years later the prominent role she had played, and the courage she had shown, in breaking down the walls of segregation. Holmes died in 1995, God rest his soul.

Heres the link to teh NPR piece that alerted me to the 50 year aniversary (further reading indicates that today may be the 50th anniversary of the court ruling demanding they be admitted, with their actual matriculation following a few days later) http://www.npr.org/2011/01/07/132712913/a-pioneer-looks-back-50-years-after-making-history

White guy runs for 184 yards in NFL!

2010-11-07T16:56:00.002-05:00

I'm just sayin'...

Dude's name is Peyton Hillis with the Cleveland Browns, in his third year out of Arkansas. Rushed for 184 in 29 carries today to help upset the Patriots. This may seem like a strange post for an anti-racist, but as long as race IS such a significant factor in our society, I say you might as well talk about it. It's also way cool when black athletes excel at speed skating (Shani Davis, e.g.), swimming (Cullen Jones,e.g.) etc., as well as when whites do well at sports like sprinting (Jeremy Wariner, e.g.).

Why is it "cool" and why would I draw attention to it? Because these athletes that go against the grain of racial expectations have to be twice as good to overcome the stereotype-driven expectations of coaches and others in positions of influence. The fact is, most of the biological explanations for racial dominance of particular sports is just plain bogus. Race ain't a biological category. And the biological explanations make a mockery of the dedication and effort, hard work and intense workouts, intelligence and quick thinking of the many black athletes that excel in basketball, football, track, etc. As if it came easy and "natural" for them.

By the way, Hillis looks like a good bet, if he avoids injury, to become the first white to gain 1,000 yards in the NFL since Craig James in 1985, 25 years ago. He's got 644 after 8 games, the halfway point in the regular season. But you won't see much about it in the mainstream press, because we are "color blind" nowadays. Yeah, right.

That's all.

Dubya on Kanye

2010-11-04T17:04:00.003-04:00

Funny, but somehow George W. Bush's preoccupation, all these years later, with the "disgusting" comments of Kanye West during the Hurricane Katrina telethon only serve to make me wonder if there isn't maybe some substance to Kanye's accusations. So what keeps Dubya awake at night is not thinking about how he could have saved hundreds of lives (most of them black) with a more competent and compassionate, swifter response to the disaster. No, what keeps him tossin' and turnin' is the insinuations of one black man on live TV. Quite a revealing look into Dubya's soul.

Bush apparently calls West's words, according to his up-coming memoir, "an all-time low" of his presidency. His interviewer yesterday, Matt Lauer, "asked Bush if he was concerned that some might be upset that he has placed so much emphasis on being angry about someone criticizing his responsiveness to the hurricane victims as opposed to being saddened by the impact of 'watching the misery in Louisiana.' (this according to Billy Johnson, Jr.--see http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/hiphopmediatraining/302226/george-bush-doesnt-care-about-kanye-west/

But Bush dismissed the idea, unable to get past the audacity of anyone who would question his racial views. Sad. So sad.

If you're Gonna Make up a crime story, make the perpetrator black!

2010-09-17T10:12:00.002-04:00

OK, so it turns out that Bethany Storro of Vancouver, Washington was not viciously attacked by a stranger throwing acid in her face. No, police have now determined that it was self-inflicted. Just a sad case of a very trouble young soul. So what does this have to do with race?

Well, it turns out that the description of the phantom perpetrator that Storro gave was of a black woman (with a ponytail, no less). Why? Because police, and the public, are more readily prepared to believe the story. We've seen it time and time again. The mother who drowned her kids in South Carolina quite a few years back. The young woman who falsely claimed to be attacked at an ATM machine in 2008 for displaying pro-McCain messages. and many, many more.

we've been fed the image so many times--blacks as criminals--that it's the first thing that comes to mind to those sick minds making up a crime (yeah, this applies to TV and movie screenwriters, too), and we eat it up like pigs at the trough. One more piece of evidence of the destructive, distortive power of stereotypes.

King, Beck, Katrina

2010-08-28T10:21:00.002-04:00

So Glenn Beck and his minions are gathering at the site of MLK's most famous address, 47 years to the day of that speech, looking to "reclaim the Civil Rights Movement" or some such trash, and yet it's pure "coincidence" that he chose this date and site (on the national Mall, in front of the Lincoln Memorial). Yeah, right. Beck's (and Sara Palin's, et al) vitriol is, of course, 180 degrees from a genune concern with the civil rights of blacks and other people of color, and other oppressed and marginalized populations.

But perhaps the greater offense is not his conflict with commemorations of the 1963 March on Washington--after all, that is the 47th anniversary, not exactly one of those round, pretty numbers we make a big deal of. On the other hand, it comes just two days before the 5th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. (Five years ago today, Aug. 27, 2005, which also fell on a Saturday, is when the National Hurricane Center belatedly issued a hurricane watch for southeastern Louisiana, including the New Orleans area, less than 48 hours before landfall). The images are burned into my psyche--those stranded outside the Superdome and Convention Center, or on highway islands, overpasses, rooftops, etc.--the great majority black--and the inability/lack of will of our government to reach them with relief supplies and rescue vehicles for days on end, leaving people in inhumane, disgraceful conditions--severe heat, no sanitation, lack of food and water and medicine, etc. The devastation, much of it avoidable, that resulted was incalculabe and incomprehensible. The whole event was supposed to usher in a long-needed honest discussion of race and poverty in America. So was the 1992 LA riots and a dozen other incedents, before and after Katrina.

I remember hungry and thirsty blacks labled as "looters" while whites were only "looking for food and water" to survive. People criticized those who didn't evacuate the city when the order was given 24 hours before Katrina hit, never thinking that tens of thousands had no access to transportation of their own, and none was provided. The media exagerations of rapes, murders, sniping, etc. were fed by racial sterotypes that the public was only too ready to believe. And so, in memory of the many hundreds of lives lost, the tends of thousands who lost their homes and communities and livelihoods, may we never forget, and vow to continue to work to correct the ongoing injustices in our society. As for Glenn Beck--just shut up. That's all.

Rand Paul's blah blah

2010-05-25T08:21:00.003-04:00

Let me get this straight--Republican senatorial nominee Rand Paul of Kentucky says that, based on his libertarian principles, it was wrong (even unlawful?) for the Civil Rights Act of 1963 to outlaw racial discrimination of private businesses, like restaurants, clubs, stores, etc. But, after 24 hours of catching major flak once his position went viral, he did some serious backpedaling and said he was in favor of enforcing the existing law should he be elected. First off, what about living by your principles, public opinion be damned? I guess getting elected trumps principle.

But secondly, and more importantly, let's judge the principle by imagining an alternate history had that principle held sway. Had Rand Paul's position been the law of the land, I wonder when racial discrimination of privately-owned businesses would have curtailed and eventually ended? When the old owner or management died out or retired and a newer, more "racially progressive" generation took over? When the white clientele became more accepting of shopping or eating with blacks? When the blacks were deemed "acceptable" as a result of acting more white? Never?

It seems to me a lot easier for one in the position of privilege--namely, a white male, who has rarely if ever experienced discrimination, to hold to such "principles" leaving it to others with less privileged status to bear the brunt of the resulting repercussions. Had he ever been on the receiving end of having a door shut in his face, left out in the cold looking in, I reckon his high and mighty "principles" might give way to the need to "let justice flow down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream." Just my opinion.

47 Years Ago Today a Nation Was Horrified (or at least a PART of it was)

2010-05-03T11:14:00.003-04:00

As African American children ages 6-18 were prevented, by fire hoses and police dogs, from marching to protest segregation in Birmingham, AL. Bull Conner had already filled the jails the previous day--May 2, 1963. On May 3, 1963 the evils of racism and Jim Crow crept into the living rooms of whites throughout America and the world in a way in had not before. And it was a catalyst for long-fought-for change.

Goings on in California state college system

2010-03-04T13:35:00.003-05:00

Here's a link to a site set up by UC-Sand Diego students, faculty and staff concerned about a series of incidents that have heightened racial tension and caused minorities to feel unwelcome and threatened. From a racist "Compton Cookout" to a noose in the library, the administration has allowed a climate of intolerance and ridicule to fester.

http://stopracismucsd.wordpress.com/

Tea Party = Racism and Xenophobia

2010-02-11T07:52:00.002-05:00

More evidence that the "Tea Party Movement" is racist to the core, from the first so-called Tea Party national convention in Nashville last week:

Opening speaker, former GOP primary presidential candidate Tom Tancredo said Obama won because "we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country." Yeah, and we don't have poll taxes and near as many lynchings as we used to, either. Oh, those glory days of Jim Crow...

He went on to say that "people who could not spell the word vote or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House — name is Barack Hussein Obama” and blamed our nation's problems on the "cult of multiculturalism." Hmm.

Celebrate aTriumph of Justice!

2010-02-11T07:51:00.001-05:00

20 years ago today, one of the great moments in international racial justice happened, as Nelson Mandela walked free after 27 years as a political prisoner.

Beginning of the End of Jim Crow

2010-02-01T15:40:00.007-05:00

Fifty years ago today, a few brave young souls from an historically black college in Greensboro, NC decided to lay their bodies on the line to express their conviction that they had as much right as white customers did to sit at the Woolworth's lunch counter. It wasn't the first such sit-in. It isn't commonly seen as the spark of the civil rights movement (Emmett Till's murder, or Brown v. Board, or the Montgomery bus boycott get credit for that). But the Greensboro sit-in movement, begun Feb. 1, 1960, sparked something. Within weeks, similar sit-ins had broken out in dozens of other towns. Within months, it was going on in 100s of places with novel variations. Jails started filling up as the common masses and college students took over what had been a somewhat elite-led movement. Three years later, the 1964 Civil Rights Law outlawed Jim Crow segregation in privately owned businesses that served the general public.

I Can't Make This Stuff Up!

2010-01-22T15:49:00.001-05:00

Apparently, a minor league, or semi-pro basketball league for white players only is in the works. Only in America, O my God! I thought sure this was like an Onion satirical fake news story or something, but apparently not...

http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/2010/01/19/nba_563760.shtml

Basketball league for white Americans targets Augusta
By Billy Byler| Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 19, 2010

A new professional basketball league boasting rosters made up exclusively of white Americans has its eyes set on Augusta, but the team isn't receiving a warm welcome.
Sign up for breaking news alerts from The Chronicle

The All-American Basketball Alliance announced in a news release Sunday evening that it intends to start its inaugural season in June and hopes Augusta will be one of 12 cities with a team.

"Only players that are natural born United States citizens with both parents of Caucasian race are eligible to play in the league," the statement said.

Augusta Mayor Deke Copenhaver, who has publicly expressed his support for minor league teams in the past, said he would not do the same for this team.

"As a sports enthusiast, I have always supported bringing more sporting activities to Augusta," he said. "However, in this instance I could not support in good conscience bringing in a team that did not fit with the spirit of inclusiveness that I, along with many others, have worked so hard to foster in our city."

Clint Bryant, athletic director at Augusta State University, laughed when he heard the news.

"It's so absurd, it's funny, but it gives you an idea of the sickness of our society" he said. "It shows you what lengths people will go to just to be mean-spirited. I think at any basketball level, no matter if it's all black, all white, all Hispanic, all Asian or anyone else, the players should just be a basketball team."

Don "Moose" Lewis, the commissioner of the AABA, said the reasoning behind the league's roster restrictions is not racism.

"There's nothing hatred about what we're doing," he said. "I don't hate anyone of color. But people of white, American-born citizens are in the minority now. Here's a league for white players to play fundamental basketball, which they like."

Lewis said he wants to emphasize fundamental basketball instead of "street-ball" played by "people of color." He pointed out recent incidents in the NBA, including Gilbert Arenas' indefinite suspension after bringing guns into the Washington Wizards locker room, as examples of fans' dissatisfaction with the way current professional sports are run.

"Would you want to go to the game and worry about a player flipping you off or attacking you in the stands or grabbing their crotch?" he said. "That's the culture today, and in a free country we should have the right to move ourselves in a better direction."

The Atlanta-based league, which will operate as a single-entity owning all of its teams, is looking for local contacts to pay $10,000 to become a "licensee" in one of 12 cities throughout the Southeast. Lewis said he has already received threats from people opposed to the roster restrictions and several cities have told him to stay out of town. Lewis said he has yet to hear from any one in Augusta.

"We need a local person ingrained into the community to make this successful," he said.

Lewis said he expects to eventually find support in every town with a team.

"People will come out and support a product they can identify with. I'm the spoken minority right now, but if people will give us a chance, it'll work... The white game of basketball, which is essentially a fundamental game, works."

Lewis said he wasn't sure where the team will play.

Augusta has had problems with minor league basketball teams in the past, but the issues never centered around race. The Augusta Drive lasted less than a month before folding in 1995, citing financial reasons. The Augusta Groove made it through a full, 20-game schedule in 2009, but accusations from players and local businesses that the team wasn't paying its bills surrounded the team during the second half of the season. The team later shut down in the offseason.

From the Tuesday, January 19, 2010 edition of the Augusta Chronicle

"Father of Reparations" and President of "the Republic of New Africa"dies

2010-01-20T12:52:00.003-05:00

RIP to a visionary or crazy guy--take your pick. I'll take visionary.

From http://www.wxvt.com/Global/story.asp?S=11849216

Imari Obadele "Father of Reparations" dies in Ga.

Associated Press - January 19, 2010 11:14 PM ET

ATLANTA (AP) - Imari Obadele, the former leader of the Republic of New Africa separatist group, has died. He was 79.

Obadele's daughters, Marilyn Obadele and Vivian Gafford, said Tuesday that their father died of massive stroke Monday in Atlanta.

Known as the "Father of Reparations," Obadele was a staunch supporter of Malcom X and eventually became President of the Republic of New Africa, which sought to establish its own nation in the South.

He was president when, in 1971, city police and FBI agents battled RNA members who were inside a fortified home in Jackson, Miss. One police officer was killed and two others were wounded in the shootout.

Obadele spent more than five years in prison for conspiracy but was not charged with murder.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Got MLK Quotes?

2010-01-18T11:12:00.003-05:00

Some favorite quotes from the man whose life and legacy we honor today. Feel free to add your own in "comments":

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." from "Letter from a Birmingham Jail"

"...freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed." from "Letter from a Birmingham Jail"

"The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice." (using a quote originally attributed to Rev. Theodore Parker, Unitarian minister and abolitionist of the 19th century who said "the moral universe" instead of "history")

"Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies - or else? The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation. " posted by FB friend Justin Seabe

"Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent." posted by FB friend Justin Seabe

"The good neighbor looks beyond the external accidents and discerns those inner qualities that make all men human and , therefore, brothers." posted by FB friend Ed Sunday-Winters

What words of inspiration or conviction would you add?

Prayers for Haiti, Comments on Dunderheads

2010-01-15T07:50:00.008-05:00

The devastation in Haiti is beyond belief. It seems a cruel fate that such a disaster should befall the poorest country in our hemisphere. And it is no accident or fault of theirs that they are so poor. Few commentators have made clear the historical causes of Haiti's dire poverty. Just as the Kerner Commission report in 1968 boldly declared, in the wake of urban riots, that "we [the white community in power] created the ghettos," so it is true that "we [the white-dominated nations of our hemisphere, led by the U.S.] created the impoverished state of Haiti." Haiti's slaves overthrew their cruel masters in a rebellion/revolution from 1791-1803; the white-controlled slave empires of the hemisphere, in order to make a cautionary tale out of such obstinate slaves, did all they could to totally isolate this rebel country politically, economically, etc. With no immigration or travel in or out, no trade, no investment, no cooperation of any kind for over 100 years, it is not surprising that Haiti, a small island country thousands of miles from the homeland of blacks, was unable to progress economically and develop sustainable industry and farming. To now blame them, as if lazy or irresponsible or unintelligent, for their plight, is ridiculous.

Which brings us to a couple of dunderheads named Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson. First Rev. Robertson, that epitome of Christ's compassion for the poor and outcast. I would almost say that he deserves kudos for knowing the history of Haiti as the first country in this hemisphere where slaves were freed, and where blacks gained political power. Yet the inevitable conclusion he draws from these events is that the only way blacks could possibly defeat whites is by selling their souls to the devil.

As for Limbaugh, his knee jerk reaction is to cynically see Obama's response as an opportunistic attempt to "look presidential" while expressing racial solidarity and thereby gain points with the Congressional Black Caucus. Gee, with so much to gain (and at a cost of only a few hundred thousand casualties), Limbaugh might even believe that Obama somehow caused the earth to tremble so violently in order to serve his purposes. Now THAT would be a powerful black man to make every white racist tremble in fear.

Again, prayers for those in need of water, food, medical attention, shelter, and loving compassion. Our hearts go out to yo as we can only imagine the extreme difficulties you face. May you heal in every way, completely and as quickly as humanly possible.

Harry Reid Speaks of the Unspeakable!

2010-01-11T09:37:00.005-05:00

My reactions to the storm brewing over Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid's reported comments (http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20100111/pl_politico/31340)

1) What a crock. The GOP's colorblind ideology police want to make it a crime for anyone to talk about race honestly. And the mainstream media play along. I don't know the exact context or intent of Reid's comments, but it's a joke to think that Obama's skin tone and speech patterns were NOT a factor in his crossover appeal to white voters. Get real...

2) "Negro dialect?" "NE-gro dialect?!" "NEGRO dialect?!!" "KNEE-GROW dialect?!!!" You gotta be kidding me! What decade are those Mormons caught in the vacuum between the West Coast and the rest of the known world living in?

3) Needless to say, to compare these comments to Trent Lott's comments about how things wouldn't been better had Strom Thurmond been elected president under the Dixiecrat's eternal segregation platform is not a stretch, it's a laughable stellar leap.

Quote from Cornel West

2009-11-12T15:02:00.001-05:00

Food for thought:

"The paradox of race in America is that our common destiny is more pronounced and imperiled precisely when are divisions are deeper"--Cornell West in his book Race Matters

He also says we "talk about the 'problems' black people pose for whites rather than considering what this way of viewing black people reveals about us as a nation"--thus, we should "begin not with the problems of black people but with the flaws of American society."

Comments?

Healthcare and race and poverty

2009-11-05T11:20:00.005-05:00

With the healthcare issue, perhaps the most important life and death issue of (in)justice in our lifetimes, at a critical juncture, I thought a couple of short quotes from 48 years ago might by apropo. I've been reading a classic from an earleir generation, Blaming the Victim by William Ryan. Hear are the quotes that jumped out at me: you judge how timely or dated they are:

"The reason whites live longer than blacks..is very simple. They buy, at very high prices, that extra seven years of life from the merchants who have it for sale" (158). "The poor are less healthy for the same reason they have less of everything else: they can't afford to buy health" (159).

Kind of cuts through the b.s. and hits you upside the head like a two-by-four, no?

Is the White anti-racist movement racist?

2009-11-04T13:07:00.008-05:00

I've subscribed to a white anti-racist network web newsletter for some time now. The latest carries an intriguing, insightful discussion of racial issues within the anti-racist movement. the link is at http://www.wacan.org/wacanupdate/archive/wacanupdate20091104.shtml
Jeff Hitchcock, in the article "A Blessing or a Curse?" responds to a blog entry by "Guerilla Mama" http://guerrillamamamedicine.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/anti-racism-what-went-wrong/
Excerpts from Guerrilla Mama (AKA Mai'a): "the ones who are the most ’successful’ in anti racism are white. they are the authors, bloggers, consultants, workshop trainers, speakers etc." While critical race people of color provide most of the theory, whites benefit most from the antiracist "industry." "...the line in the anti racism mvmt is that it is white people’s duty and responsibility to speak to white folks about white privilege. people of color shouldnt have to do it."
"but. when white folks are getting mad props, respect, accolades, book deals, professorships, awards, etc. when white folks use the fact that they identify as white to gain a leg up on people of color in the anti racism industry/profession. then it is racism pure and simple. and if you are white and in the anti racism movement then that is what you are doing."

And excerpts from Hitchcock's response: "Her words are troubling, partly because they hold truth, and partly because they obscure." "White people benefit from the very thing we work against." Yet he defends white racist leaders, saying they all acknowledge their debt in learning from people of color (my reply--and do they point their listeners to these voices rather than making them disciples of their own?)He also mentions the "People's Institute for Survival and Beyond, an organization and anti-racist collective led by people of color which over the course of nearly 30 years has single-handedly trained a few hundred thousand people and introduced more white people to anti-racism than the collective body of white anti-racists and whiteness studies scholars combined." He admits that the mainstream attention to the antiracist movement enriches the white practitioners, but claims that in "In the smaller, more concentrated community of white anti-racist activists who wish to be part of a larger multiracial anti-racist movement, that's as much an obstacle as it is a benefit." And what's to be done aobut this racial injustice within the movement, I ask? My reply on Mai'a's blog is this: "In religious terms, perhaps what the antiracist movement needs is less evangelism and proseletyzing, and more confession and penance and restitution."

Interesting issues--make me squirm a little, gotta fight the defense impulse, ("How dare you question my motivation and sincerity!") and see the white privilege at work within the very movement meant to expose and expunge said privilege.

La. Justice of the Peace: no interracial marriages, but "not racist"

2009-10-16T14:25:00.003-04:00

The story out of Louisiana: Keith Bardwell, a white justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, refused to perform the ceremony for a white woman and black man looking to marry. The story is at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091016/ap_on_re_us/us_interracial_rebuff

Bardwell uses two old refrains: 1) his "concern for the children" of interracial unions, i.e., "I don't have a problem with it, but I'm looking out for the best interests of potential kids and the problems they'd face." Yeah, mighty big of him to take upon himself the burden of deciding whether two people would be doing right to have children. 2) His "I'm not a racist. I have racist friends." THen he adds a new twist to that one: "I even let black people use my bathroom"--everybody knows a real racist would never do that!

Check your calendar. Yep, it's 2009. Post-racial my fanny.

Race, Race Everywhere, but not a Drop to Drink...

2009-09-18T11:54:00.004-04:00

Kanye West, Taylor Swift and Beyonce
Serena Williams, Kim Cjisters and an unkown lineswoman (is that the right term?)
Rep. Joe Wilson, President Barack Obama, Wilson's son, and former president Jimmy Carter
Michael Jordan and the sports journalist reaction to his Hall of Fame induction speech

What do all of these have in common? 1) They all involve people behaving in ways that other people don't approve of, even find offensive.
2) Until Jimmy Carter "injected race" into the Wilson episode, race was rarely if ever mentioned in any of these stories. But it enveloped, silently, every one of them.

NPR's call-in talk show "Talk of the Nation" mentioned the trouble "the three W's" (West, Williams and Wilson) were involved in, but did they use it as an opportunity to prove the racial implications? NOOOO! They invited an etiquette expert to help us learn how best to apologize when we "make a mess of things."

Of course, I'm gonna wimp out too--I'll bring up the situations, and the fact that there IS a racial angle to be explored in each, but since, besides Wilson, the above examples involve an African American being accused of offense, I'll reserve judgment. Ah, hell, I can't do that and remain true to my credo of taking race head-on, can I? Oh, OK.

West: I'll cop out by quoting the Angry Black Woman: "The line between bad boy and public asshole has now been crossed. Brother man would do best to step back on the other side." (the blog entry is entitled, "Kanye-West-what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you?")

Williams: 1) It was, by accounts that I've read, an inexplicable, horrible, totally unfair and crucially harmful call. Yeah, Williams probably still would have gone down, but don't gift-wrap it for her opponent! Was race a subliminal factor in a lineswoman, who presumably has watched feet stay behind a service line until a split second after contact with the ball several thousand times before, and made the right no-call on most all of those serves (else she wouldn't have been judged competent to be where she was for the U.S. Open Semifinals), inexplicably calling a phantom foot fault on Williams, one of the few blacks (along with her sister, of course) in the upper echelons of the traditionally liily white country club sport?
2) Uh, Serena, really now, talk about shoving a blanking ball up the blanking backside of a person is going a bit far, dontcha think? Kinda hard to excuse that as "just black street talk misinterpretted by the white establishment." But hey, she paid the price in losing the match, and in the public shame she's experienced, so let her be.

Wilson: Carter is right. Of course, 99.5% of my fellow race members disagree. Like I've said before, we've got some work to do...

Jordan: Not sure on this one. I've got to check my own biases here, since as a Illinois native I was a Bulls fanatic in the 1990s, so much so that I was able to forget, once he put the red white and black on, that MJ came from the hated (by me) UNC program. I haven't seen the video, but the reports from several white journalists is that Jordan's approach left much to be desired, and revealed a sad case of a person, regarded as the best player EVER in his sport, apparently still feeling the need to build himself up by denigrating others, all this on the occasion of his "acceptance" into the hallowed halls of basketball immortality. Maybe it's a case of whites not understanding the black cultural tradition of trash talk and put-downs and manhood. Maybe. I kind of doubt it though. As painful as it is for me to admit, the guy who brought me so much vicarious joy and celebration is, apparently, a bit of an ass. Oh, well, burst my bubble...

The right to invade Caster Semenya's Body

2009-09-18T11:41:00.003-04:00

Angry Black Woman http://theangryblackwoman.com/ has a provocative blog entry on the invasive, speculative media take on the sexual genitalia of So. African runner Caster Semenya. (Read "Race, Gender, and the Oppressive Public Gaze") ABW compares it to the treatment accorded Sarah Bartman (the notorious case of the exploited "Hottentot Venus" of an earlier time). She's got a point. Caster just wanted to run, she's from a poor, isolated area, and she quite probably had no idea what she was getting into as her running career progressed--that strange white people would be probing her body, literally and in the media, and treating her as an inhuman specimen to be dissected and studied for our satisfaction and curiosity (oh, it's in "fairness"--how could I have forgotten?) Come on, folks, leave the poor girl alone--she didn't choose to be born with the body she has, but it is hers, and she shouldn't be made to feel inadequate or freakish, either. As the great (at least occasionally blatently racist) philosopher Elvis Costello says, "What's so funny 'bout peace, love, and understanding?"

Here we Go Again: White athlete makes it because of Effort, Black because of talent

2009-09-09T18:07:00.002-04:00

(Sorry, faithful reader, for the long absence of entries. Laptop miseries are my only, weak excuse)

Oh, Lord, when will sportswriters and commentators ever learn? It seems that Michael Jordan and John Stockton are both to be enshrined in the basketball hall of fame. As the greatest player of his, and perhaps any, generation, Jordan has naturally been scooping up the lion's share of publicity. So old Fran Blinebury of Yahoo! Sports decides to give Stockton his due--fair enough.

I have fond memories of John Stockton. I remember watching, I think, his first all-star game when I never saw him take a shot, content to dish well over a dozen assists, I'm sure, to the best finishers in the game. I thought that was cool. And I'm not afraid or ashamed to admit that I thought it cool that a white dude could hang with the predominately African American fraternity of NBA stars. Of course, when his Jazz played my Bulls, it was sorry, Johnny--MJ and Co. are gonna shoot you down! But I digress.

Instead of writing about Stockton's ability and grace, Blinebury falls back on the old myth: that white athletes make it on determination and effort, whereas blacks make it on natural, God-given talent. Here's the link to the pathetic piece. http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=AlmO81gQfqsN7NEUgHYk41w5nYcB?slug=ys-stocktonhall090809&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

Yeah, the white guy is the blue collar, lunch pail guy who makes it on sheer grit. We've heard it all before, ad nauseum. Jordan was impulsive and spectacular, Stockton, relentless and single-minded.

1) You telling me Jordan wasn't relentless? That he didn't spend hours and hours in the gym and weightroom, watching film and breaking down defenses? Give me a break.

2) You telling me Stockton wasn't naturally gifted? The guy makes 5000 more assists and 700 more steals than anyone else in the game ever has, and it's all due to his effort and work ethic? Yeah, right.

The worsPt, it turns out, was not in the article, but in the headline teaser on the Yahoo! Sports front page: there it says, "John Stockton wasn't big or fast. He goes into the Hall of Fame because few in the NBA could ever match his toughness."

Stockton wasn't fast? He got those 3,265 steals by willing the ball into his hands? And how many of those nearly 16,000 assists came on fast breaks? Slow guys don't lead fast breaks. They lead slow breaks. And slow breaks don't result in very many assists.

White reporters seem to want to believe that sports come easy to blacks, and therefore any white person who makes it in black-dominated sports must not be doing it on talent, but on personal effort. It's a sick theory. It's racist. It's demeaning to both the black guy who, it is assumed, is undisciplined and "lucky" to be born the way he was, and the white guy, whose gifts are belittled. This is 2009. Sports scholars and critics have been critiquing this myth for dozens of years. Yet it still prevails. Sad.

The Fine Line Black Athletes Must Walk

2009-08-06T07:49:00.008-04:00

So I came across this teaser for a story entitled "J.R. Smith Shuts Down Twitter Account Amidst Controversy." I took the bait, and clicked. You can too at http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/ball_dont_lie/post/J-R-Smith-shuts-down-Twitter-account-amid-contr?urn=nba,180969

I seems that the aforementioned guard for the NBA's Denver Nuggets had the occassional habit of replacing a "c" with a "k" in the words he typed on his Twitter entries ("tweets.") It would seem that members of the "Bloods" street gang are also known to do this. And so, naturally, the (white, I'm sure) reaction of many was, Oh, my God! He must be a murdering merchant of mayhem! And J.R., after, no doubt, hearing from his agent about the potential harm to his endorsement deals, pulled the plug.

I always knew those "PlaySkool" folks were up to no good...

2 More Things Re: the Gates Thing, Then I'll Shut Up

2009-08-06T07:05:00.006-04:00

1. I was reminded how friggin' racist too much of the blogosphere is when I read the comments to an opinion piece on this whole ordeal (I tracked down the link: http://buzz.yahoo.com/article/1:y_news:f61c5c1a81d6e4fc635b919aebdd1f65/Analysis-Obamas-rare-race-foray-a-positive-step-AP. 90% of the reaction was how racist the columnist was for taking a position defending Gates and Obama, and how Obama had shown his true racist colors, and calling gates a "black ass," etc. I knew there would be plenty of that, but my jaw was dropping to read 8 or ten of them in a row, with no retort for column inch after column inch. And this was on Yahoo, I believe, not FOX News or some virtual rag like that. We got some work to do, people (as if you didn't already know that).

2. I forgot the second. Oh, yeah, it was this: I wonder if the inordinate amount of attention this affair got can be explained thusly: we are so damned afraid to broach the subject of race (except for with the trusted buddies whom we know will agree with us on everything we have to say) that all this crap get bottled up in us, and when the rare opportunity comes where it's deemed acceptable to comment publicly on the subject, it's like a release valve, and a bunch of hot air comes pouring out. One wise columnist (I think it was in Time magazine) recounted the other supposed turning points in our recent "national discourse" on race (I probably got them out of order): Rodney King beating, L.A. riots, O.J. arrest, O.J. trial and verdict, Clinton's Council-to solve-this-here racial problem-once-and-for-all, Katrina, Jena, a couple of high profile NYC cop incidents, Obama and Wright, and the Philadelphia "More Perfect Union" speech, etc. Each time, there is high-minded talk of how THIS will dispel the white denial, or force us to come together, or prompt us to open the avenues of communications across the racial divide, etc., etc., etc. But the "national discourse" remains disjointed, and mostly talking past one another without bothering to take the role of listener.

The earlier Obama thing actually serves as exhibit A to my point. Throughout his campaign, Obama deftly deflected any focus on race until endless loops of an angry black voice growling "God DAMN America" forced him to take on the subject head-on....for maybe 30 minutes. Having delivered a very good speech on the matter, he then avoided the subject again, like the plague, the rest of the way and, behold, he got elected! Lesson: it is good and right to avoid the subject at all costs until circumstances demand it be addressed, and then it is expedient to dirty your hands with it quickly and get it over with, then move on like everything is fixed.

Obama's "stupidly" comment is Exhibit B: fail to choose your words carefully, I you'll pay, big time. Obama, the black man who never lost his cool, who had a seemingly inhuman ability to filter everything and respond calmly, even to the most outrageous accusations and falsehoods, was caught, one time, expressing, from the gut, how he REALLY felt and what he REALLY thought about a racial incident that no doubt peeled the scab off of real incidents from a painful past and ever-possible present. And what happened? He caught hell for it: everybody was talking about this, and getting distracted from healthcare reform and all that other mundane stuff. His popularity among whites plummeted, in no time flat, off a cliff. Lesson: don't drop the filter, or you'll get nailed.

OK, I'll REALLY shut up now.

Gates' Arrest. Obama's Comment, and Public's Reaction

2009-08-06T06:38:00.003-04:00

OK, so I know I've been kinda of MIA on this Gates arrest affair. After initially reporting on it (really just giving the story link but hey: I WAS pretty early with it!). I've been asleep at the blog, except one cheeky cheer from the sidelines just before the so-called "beer summit" met. Truth is, I was distracted by other matters, as well as confused. I mean, that thing took off in a way I would have never predicted. It was getting a fair amount of press coverage (and, I would assume, water cooler talk) before Obama weighed in, but after his "stupidly" comment, we had a REAL controversy (funny how a prestigious African American scholar at our country's most prestigious university getting arrested in his own home on a break-in call didn't qualify as REAL controversy).

Anyway, I'd be kind of hypocritical if I now spent too much time analyzing the fine points of the encounter, since I've decided that much of the attention it's been given has been overblown and unproductive. After all, is the arrest of a world-renowned scholar and FOB (Friend of Barack) REALLY representative of the plight of the black race? I mean, I know we can extrapolate from that and say, if it happens to a well-dressed, well-spoken (oops, I'm steering dangerously close to Biden's infamous "articulate" comment!), highly educated elite living in a smug intellectual community, just think how bad it is for the average African American! And that's true.

But we can also fall in the trap of making the fight for justice in a matter like this a proxy for the broader fight for racial justice in our society. I mean, Henry Louis Gates is gonna be alright. His life chances wouldn't be affected one iota even if fate would have it that he was convicted of such absurd "disorderly conduct" charges and even spent a week behind bars. He would still have his audience--it has increased his visibility and name-recognition, and that's not a bad thing. I know it sounds like I'm downplaying the righteous anger he expressed and humiliation he suffered. I shouldn't. They were real. But my point is, for the press and public to spend so much time and energy dissecting this ordeal--don't you wonder if the time and energy might be better redeemed working on behalf of victims of racial discrimination, perhaps in our local areas, whose stories never see the light of day? And working to raise public awareness of stubborn structural causes for racial disparities, and trying to dismantle those structures? And helping whites to see the racial log of white privilege in our own eyes instead of trying to pick the speck of Affirmative Action and the so-called "race card" out of others' eyes?

There. I got that off my chest. Maybe being mostly silent for a few weeks was good for a broader perspective. Better to wait until I had something "wise and profound" to say. Or maybe I was just being lazy, and asleep at the blog. Anywho...

Cheers to Beers

2009-07-30T18:08:00.002-04:00

Here's to Gates, Crowley and Obama--may they enjoy the brew, leave with a better understanding of one another, and leave us with an example of one way to try to deal with interpersonal racial conflict.

Henry Louis Gates Victim of Racial Profiling

2009-07-20T16:26:00.006-04:00

Ok, Sorry, faithful readers, that I've been lax in commenting on incidents like Obama's trip to and speech in Ghana, and the African American campers disinvited to the private club swimming pool. My bad.

Today, however, comes breaking news that preeminent African American scholar Henry Louis Gates of Harvard was arrested in his own home by police supposedly investigating a reported break-in. Here's the story I read from the Boston Globe:http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2009/07/20/harvard_professor_gates_arrested_at_cambridge_home/
(Thanks to a FaceBook friend for posting the link that drew my attention)

Simply put: some Harvard police officers got some "'splainin' to do." Another egregious case of arrest for LWB--Living While Black. Disgraceful. Sad. But NOT surprising. May this be a lasting, embarrassing blot on Harvard, and a warning to other institutions to get their sh... I mean act together.

Nixon's Racist View on Abortion

2009-07-04T07:56:00.003-04:00

I just read in Time magazine a disgusting, revealing quotation from recently released tapes of Richard Nixon (you mean we didn't already have them all? Where have they been?!)

"There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white. Or a rape."

Not when you have a severely deformed fetus. Not in cases of incest. Nor cases of extreme poverty. Or severe risk to the mother's health. No, what comes to tricky Dicky's mind is the horror of a white girl (let's be honest--he wasn't thinking of the more historically common occurence of black women becoming pregnant by white men) giving birth to a (half-)black baby. Probably revealing of his own psyche concerning his daughters--anything but THAT!

And, sadly, it was no doubt a common sentiment of the time, and hardly extinct in our time. Sad.

RIP Michael Jackson: Were You Ever "Comfortable in Your Own Skin"?

2009-06-29T04:22:00.009-04:00

Sorry, faithful readers, for the gap since the last entry--I've been pre-occupied with family of origin duties.

I thought I'd weigh in on the death of the "king of pop," seeing as every other writer or commentator and their grandmother is doing so.

My first memories of Michael Jackson are this: I had a friend my age who in his preteens (perhaps because he had older sisters) was into the Osmonds (as white bread as they come) and the Jackson 5 ("bubblegum soul" I heard it called recently). I thought at the time I was much cooler than him because I, on the other hand, due to the influence of an older brother, was into the Monkees and Paul Revere and the Raiders. Looking back, my groups were much more prepackaged and inauthentic.

But Michael Jackson, bless his soul, became less authentic, in my view, as time went on. His transformation in appearance has been well-documented. While he would have had us believe it was entirely, or principally, due to an unfortunate, painful skin condition (or perhaps stemming from the Pepsi commercial fiasco), those hardly explain the racial and gender-related ambiguity that characterized his later life. His speech went from unremarkable to a babyish, womanish talk that was teased unmercifully by comedians (was he trying to imitate his idol and mentor, Diana Ross?). And the transformation of his nose, his lips and, yes, his skin tone certainly gave rise to the question: was he trying to become white?

There is a long history of products and promised "remedies" to help African Americans appear whiter: from hair straighteners like Afro Sheen (at least it was less painful than the process Malcolm X described in his autobiography!) to skin bleach products that often left users scarred and disfigured, such desires reveal the pain and disadvantage of being part of a visible, oppressed minority. It really is important , it would seem, to be "comfortable in one's own skin" to achieve happiness in life. Despite his fame, fortune, and undeniable talent and appeal, Michael Jackson never seemed to achieve it. Even his marriages and sex life were bizarre caricatures of authentic love relationships. Where his history of being abused by his father fits into this sad picture is hard to know in full.

*******************

One postmortem account called Jackson something like the first African American superstar with massive crossover appeal. I thought that inaccurate. In music, there was Nat "King" Cole (who might arguably have sold his racial heritage to achieve that appeal to whites). In sports, there were Jesse Owens, Joe Louis, Willie Mays, and Wilt Chamberlain, to name a few.

Michael DID break down racial barriers, however. Before Thriller, MTV--the fledgling music television cable network--was refusing to play videos by almost all black artists (Rick James' "Superfreak" being one notable example). MTV's excuse was that they were a "rock" music station, not a "rhythm and blues" or "soul" station. Jackson blurred those racially determined categories, especially by collaborating with white rock guitarist Eddie Van Halen on "Beat It." He also knocked the socks off the production values of previous videos so that MTV could not ignore his work and remain viable in the marketplace.

Rest in Peace, Michael Jackson. May you serve as a warning to all, of any race, to learn to accept yourself as God made you, and demand that the world do the same. And may you, in the next life, find that self-acceptance which you so movingly sought in the song "Man in the Mirror."

************************

88 year old white supremacist tries to go out in a blaze of glory

2009-06-11T09:11:00.004-04:00

So the shooter at the Holocaust museum was a well-known white supremacist from way back. James von Brunn is the nut's name who served 6 years for trying to kidnap the Federal Reserve's board members several decades ago.

I don't suppose it's sheer coincidence that the security guard killed yesterday, Stephen Johns, was black. Von Brunn is said to have decried "the browning of American" and saw Jews as a threat to the "white gene pool."

Between this and the shooter of the Kansas abortion provider, it gives the lie to the idea that crazy cranks are just harmlessly spouting angry, hateful words. Behind the words, and thoughts, too often, are hateful, hurtful, deadly actions. Sad.

black racists?

2009-06-10T02:09:00.008-04:00

I recommend a thought-provoking blog entry by prominent black blogger "Field Negro" on the question of if only whites can be truly "racist," or if blacks can properly be labelled such, as well. field-negro.blogspot.com/2009/06/racist-by-any-other-name.html
He correctly says most blacks say only whites qualify, since you gotta be in a position of power over those you're prejudiced against to rightly be called racist, while the great majority of whites label as "racist" anything they perceive to be anti-white coming out of a nonwhite's mouth.

Monsieur Field Negro rightly bypasses the rhetorical issue and gets to the heart of the matter--who holds power to make others yield to one's will. One part I took slight issue with--when the eminent blogger says "All those former colonies are now being led by black people"--neocolonialist critique and global systems theory would both claim, of course that the black "leaders" of these countries are still under the whip of white masters of the global economic and political realms.

The Small Black Starting MLB Pitcher Fraternity

2009-06-10T00:44:00.019-04:00

Another Yahoo! editor, sports guy Tim Brown, wrote a nice piece on phenom David Price and superstar C.C. Sabathia's first head-to-head meeting sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AvF_h8_KcvY6HLZncqLLVtIRvLYF?slug=ti-sabathiaprice060509&prov=yhoo&type=lgns. David Price is paraphrased as saying he felt different from all his teammates growing up. Evan all the players on opposing teams, too. "It's tough to get started, and even tougher to stay out there" is how he puts the challenge of sticking out as the only African American.

The author makes a bit too much of the "being a model to those in the inner city" thing, in my opinion (First off, who is HE to say what their role should be? And is the assumption that every potential black major leaguer is in the inner city? None in the suburbs, the medium sized towns, or the rural South?)

The dearth of African American starting pitchers is startling, though. Earlier in my lifetime, Bob Gibson, Ferguson Jenkins, Vida Blue, and a little later, Dwight Gooden and Dave Stewart, to name a few, were dominant, year in and year out. From the beginning of the color line break, guys like Don Newcombe and ageless Satchel Paige were impressive. But for the past 10 years or so, you can count the number of black starting pitchers on your hands. And that's out of 30 teams, 150 slots plus injury fill-ins, probably 180 to 200 in any given year. Only 5%, if that, are non-Hispanic blacks.

Interracial dating dilemmas

2009-06-10T00:18:00.006-04:00

Arnold Chao, Yahoo! dating editor (how does one get a job like that?!) wrote a good piece on four common obstacles in interracial dating. (http://dating.personals.yahoo.com/singles/relationships/24298/dating-101-dealing-with-the-race-factor)
First: dealing with what he charitably calls "traditionalists" that think people ought to "stick with their own kind" (my paraphrase). Chao's advice is good: we need acceptance, so gotta surround ourselves with friends who are approving, to counter the inevitable negativity.I'd say "celebrate," not "tolerate" diversity, though, as Chao puts it)
Second: dealing with media stereotypes (playing it safe so as not to offend). Recognize it for what it is--a crass commercial decision.
Third: dealing with bigoted family members. Stand up to them, firmly, and demand respect from teh get-g0, or you'll regret it, eating away at you.
Last: dealing with "gazers"--cope by not assuming they are offended, and pretend they see you and your partner as notable celebs, instead! (nice!)

One last notable observation from a table Chao doesn't comment much on--the gender difference in interracial preferences. White males are 3 times more likely to have an Asian spouse than are white females (530,000 vs. 174,000). And black males are more than 5 times as likely to have an Asian spouse than are black females (34,000 to 6,000). Finally, and less surprising to me, though just as troublesome, black males are 2 1/2 times as likely to have a white spouse as are black females (286,000 to 117,000). Color blind my gluteous maximus!

Sotomayer

2009-05-29T11:59:00.006-04:00

Comments on the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court:

She is described as "Hispanic" and Latina." She is in fact of Puerto Rican heritage, the second largest (after Mexican American) subcategory of "Hispanic" in the U.S. Interestingly, while Mexican ancestry is often a mixture of native American and Spanish/European blood (what used to be called "mestizo"), Puerto Ricans quite commonly have some black African ancestors. My simple visual scan of Sotomayor's photographs, however, gives little hint of either American Indian or African American features. Instead, she appears to have the slightly darker complexion and very dark hair common to Spain and other Mediterranean areas of South Europe. So can someone remind me why exactly "Hispanic" is so often talked about as if it were a distinct racial group in the U.S.? Mexican Americans, Puerto Rican Americans and Cuban Americans, as well as other "Hispanics," are held together by a common language and (although wide) geographic heritage, not by race.

Meanwhile, both supporters and opponents are walking on eggshells in talking about the nomination, fearful of making negatives headlines should they slip in their word choice, this being a nation uncomfortable talking about race/ethnicity and gender (We are "colormute" as Mica Pollock aptly put it, rather than colorblind). White House spokesman Robert Gibbs even issued a pre-emptive warning: "It is probably important for anybody involved in this debate to be exceedingly careful with the way in which they've decided to describe different aspects of this impending confirmation."

One quote getting a lot of attention is from a speech she gave in 2001: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." And one critic who, not surprisingly, chose not to heed Gibbs advice is Newt Gingrich, who said of the above quote: "New racism is no better than old racism." I just gotta roll my eyes and say, "Give me a break!" Life experience informs wisdom in decision-making. Anglo-Saxon whites who have been sheltered by privilege don't have the experience to understand the underlying causes of hardships non-Anglo-Saxon whites deal with. That's all she was saying. But the so-called "playing the race card card" is an attempt to shut down the debate entirely. I on the other hand, say lets talk about race/ethnicity (and gender) head-on, and see if we can reach some higher level of mutual understanding than we brought to the conversation.

First black female CEO of Fortune 500 Co (Ever?!)

2009-05-25T07:57:00.007-04:00

Xerox recently made Ursula Burns their CEO. According to the Wall Street Journal, that makes here the first African American woman CEO of a company in the Fortune 500 of largest corporations in the U.S. (article at http://news.muckety.com/2009/05/24/as-new-xerox-chief-ursula-burns-will-set-more-than-one-precedent/16051)

I don't know whether to celebrate this milestone, or cry at the news that a black woman, until now, has NEVER, EVER headed a top 500 outfit. I mean, black women are, what at least 5.5% of our population. So, all things being equal, if it were equally distributed, you'd figure about 27 or 28 of the 500 would have African American women as CEOs at any given time. Guess we got a ways to go before we achieve racial equality, eh? And gender equality, too. The article reports that when Burns succeeded her mentor, Anne Mulcahy, it was also the first time, EVER, that one woman succeeded another n heading a Fortune 500 company. So, like, that happens about 100 times a year with men, and NEVER BEFORE with woman? Hmmmm.

One last thing. The article mentions that Burns grew up in public housing in New York City. Her life story would make a great book or movie, it sounds like. Cool.

Milwaukee Serial Killer

2009-05-23T23:35:00.002-04:00

Accusations are flying in Brew-town that cops failed to aggressively pursue solving a series of murders over a couple of decades because the victims were almost all African American women, supposedly drug addicts prostituting themselves when killed. The story, by Carrie Antlfinger (AP), can be read at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090523/ap_on_re_us/us_serial_killer_milwaukee. Cops have just recently linked the DNA of the killer, still unknown, to 6 different victims from 1986-2007, all but one of them black. The article says Darian Mims, son of victim Joyce Mims suspects racism in the department. "Even when my mom was murdered ... you know how many police or detectives came out to talk to me? None. Not one," said Mims. Also, Shannon Farrior, daughter of victim Sheila Farrior, wonders if police were affected by race. "They just figured there were a lot of black women who got killed and they didn't put a lot of effort into finding the killer," said Farrior.

Others point more toward prejudice against suspected prostitutes and drug addicts. Whatever the case, police union president John Balcerzak's claim that in 20 years of working patrol "he never saw any officer treat victims differently" is just plain b.s. You're telling me that in 20 years, dealing with dozens of victims a week, he never ran across a cop who allowed his unconscious racial bias to affect the time or effort or precision he gave to a case? Sorry, not buying it.

American Idol and the Intersections of Inequality

2009-05-21T13:59:00.006-04:00

OK, so first off, this post isn't exactly about race (though tangentially it is)

Secondly, I'm not qualified to comment on it because it's about American Idol--specifically the finale last night and the result between the two finalists.

But I had nothing better to write about, and didn't want to lose my hordes of faithful readers by going 2 weeks without a post. So here goes.

Many of you hordes reading this will know that Kris Allen beat out Adam Lambert last night to be this year's AI winner. According to this post at http://www.examiner.com/x-4107-Gay--Lesbian-Issues-Examiner~y2009m5d20-Kris-Allen-wins-American-Idol--did-religion-play-a-role, it could be that religion/ethnicity and sexual orientation/sexual identity played a role, conscious or unconscious, with voters. Seems a sensible suggestion to me. Kris is what Kelvin Lynch presumably aptly describes as "practically a poster boy for heterosexual, white-bread Christianity." In other words, the kind of guy older hetero viewers longed for their daughters to date or their sons to be more like, and that younger viewers longed to be or lusted to be with.

On the other hand, the heavily mascara-ed Lambert is what Lynch calls "an in-your-face Jewish gay man." Didn't try to hide his sexuality to make viewers more comfortable, but dared to be himself in all his glory. (Remember, Clay Aiken waited 5 years after Idol to come out, so fans in denial could suppose he was just a hetero man in touch with his tender side). As for the whole white-bread Jewish dichotomy, Jews stand apart from other ethnicities who were once considered different "races" from the Anglo-Saxon stock that dominated our nation's founding. While Italians, Swedes, Germans, Irish, Poles, and Greeks have been mainstreamed as just plain "whites" (albeit with a little pizazz), Jews, due to lower levels (although increasing all the time) of intermarriage, and the whole Saturday Sabbath/not into Jesus or the "New Testament" thing, remain "probationary whites," who still come under suspicion as conspirators to rule the world. Lord knows the crowing of a flamboyant Jewish gay as our nation's "Idol" would have caused conniptions in the hallowed halls of our nation's churches and country clubs, corporate boardrooms and legislative arenas. I guess the voters had that in mind when they spared us such a world-shattering outcome. Sigh.

NBA Players from HBCUs

2009-05-07T08:18:00.002-04:00

Did a paper recently on the decline of Historically Black Colleges and Universities basketball (as talent was drained away by opening up of Historically White schools to blacks, and the NCAA intentionally marginalized HBCU programs). THought I'd share the list I compiled of notable NBA players from HBCUs:

Earl Lloyd (1st black signed to an NBA contract), West Va. St., in NBA 1951-60
Nathaniel Clifton, Xavier (La.), 1951-58
Dick Barnett, Tennessee St., 1960-74
Zelmo Beaty, Prairie View A & M, 1963-75
Willis Reed, Grambling, 1965-74
Bob Love, Southern, 1967-77
Earl Monroe, Winston-Salem St., 1968-80
Bob Dandridge, Norfolk St., 1970-82
Elmore Smith, Kentucky St., 1972-79
Caldwell Jones (one of many brothers in NBA), Albany St., 1974-90
Truck Robinson, Tennessee St., 1975-85
Purvis Short, Jackson St., 1979-90
Rick Mahorn, Hampton, 1981-99
Charles Oakley, Virginia Union, 1986-2004
Avery Johnson, Southern, 1989-2004
Anthony Mason, Tennessee St., 1990-2003
Bobby Phills, Southern, 1992-2000
Lindsey Hunter, Jackson St., 1994-present
Darrel Armstrong, Fayetteville St., 1995-2008
Ben Wallace, Virginia Union, 1997-present

Pretty impressive, I'd say. Number of players coming into the NBA from HBCU hit its peak in the late 1960's and early to mid=70's--BEFORE the NCAA allowed any HBCUs to play Division I ball. Hmmmm.

David Alan Coe, Unrepentent racist

2009-05-05T09:20:00.005-04:00

OK, so I grew up admiring, at one point, some of the "outlaw country" performers, like Waylon and Willie. I remember wandering into a bar in Texas in the mid-80s and fidning out the guy setting up to play for about 30 people was Ray Wiley Hubbard, originator of the song "Red Neck Mothers" that my friends and I would drunkingly sing at the top of our voices as teens. I alter, learned, of course, that the rebel flag and "south's gonna rise again" mantra of much of that scene was racist to the core, whether they recognized or admitted it or not.

Saw in today's Roanoke Times that David Alan Coe is coming to town. Article made mention of some controversy over some songs he recorded in 1978 and 1982 on albums offered exclusively through Easy Rider magazine. These albums kind of flew under the mainstream press radar until the Internet gave them wider exposure about 10 years ago. Coe in interviews angrily defends himself against charges of racism, pointing to his having a black drummer "married to a white chick" and Coe's hairstyle of dreadlocks down to his waist. And claims the songs (intermixed with misogynist, x-rated songs) were just bawdy fun, recorded on a lark and never meant for wider audiences. So which is it, is there nothing to be ashamed of with the songs, or is the problem that they've been brought to the light of day?

I decided to check out the lyrics to these songs. One, called "Rails," released on the Nothing Sacred album offered through Easy Rider in 1978, has lyrics that in part go like this: (asterisks not in original)
"Now women make me think of consolation
prison makes me think of isolation
ni**ers made me vote for segregation
and cocaine makes me" [you get the idea]
and later,
"Well it's hard to work for a dollar a week
and the Ku Klux Klan is bigger
so take the sheets off of your bed
and let's go hang a ni**er"

about the ugliest, most despicable thing I've read in a long time. I mean, that makes me want to show up in Roanoke with a hundred like-minded folks and pound his head in. But then again, violence is not the answer. Still, I'd like to...

Then there is the song from the 1982 Easy Rider-offered Underground album whose title blatantly says it all: "Ni**er F*cker"
I'm ashamed to publish much of this one, but here's enough to get an idea whether this was, as Coe claims, just a lark--harmless fun that's no reflection on Coe's racial views:
"Said she'd finally found a man
Who's d**k was so much bigger
Then that scumbag motherf***er
Ran off with a ni**er
...
Sure is hard to figure
How any decent girl could ever f**k
A greasy ni**er
...
there's nothing quite as worthless
As a white girl with a ni**er"

And Coe, as far as I can tell, has never disavowed these songs, never apologized to anyone for them, never claimed to have learned how wrong it was to write, record and perform such vulgar trash. And he's still out there playing. Anybody want to get up a group to convey our displeasure when he shows up?

If the printing of the above lyrics offend my readers, I'm sorry. They deeply offend me too, though not in the same way, I'm sure, as they do African Americans, and women of all races. It was not my intent to open wounds. I felt that the full impact of the harm this man has caused and the need to make him see the need to repent and apologize and disavow his involvement with these songs could only be conveyed by revealing just how revolting, insulting, offensive and inciting to violence his views were/are.

Why not "Springbreaker Flu"?

2009-05-05T07:41:00.008-04:00

On Cinco de Mayo, in honor of our neighbors to the South who have been villified by xenophobes lately, here is a different perspective that puts things in perspective:

(from http://www.racewire.org/archives/2009/04/right_flu_wrong_swine.html)

Racewire Blog
Channing Kennedy
Right Flu, Wrong Swine

Let me be among the first to say that the move by some to rename ‘swine flu’ to ‘Mexican flu’ is offensive on its face and in its roots. It does everything to fuel unfounded fears, and it politicizes a serious health crisis in a thinly veiled effort to stoke hatred toward an already-vulnerable group. Worst of all, it doesn’t even blame the right people!

That’s why I’m proposing that this very serious disease be renamed ‘Spring Breaker flu,’ after the lazy, amoral, disease-ridden rich white kids who have breached our borders time and again, destroying our economy with their unsustainable leech-like lifestyles, and now, robbing us of our health. The spread of swine flu — sorry, Spring Breaker flu — can be indisputably linked to Americans returning from vacations in Mexico (1, 2, 3). And it is Americans who can afford to take vacations who deserve the blame.

“Illegal aliens Spring Breakers are bringing in a deadly new flu strain. Make no mistake about it.” — Michael Savage

“I’ve blogged for years about the spread of contagious diseases from around the world into the US as a result of uncontrolled immigration trust-fund vacationers.” — Michelle Malkin

“What happens if there’s a rash of deaths in Mexico… and if you’re a family in Mexico and people are dying and Americans are not, why wouldn’t you flood this border blame the USA’s unjust trade and economic policies that have crippled Mexico’s ability to respond to a health crisis?” — Glenn Beck

“What better way to sneak a virus into this country than to give it to Mexicans rich white kids … then spread a rumor there there are construction jobs T-Pain concerts here, and there they come.” — Neal Boortz, on the very real possibility that swine flu is a manmade virus planted by Al Qaeda Dane Cook

Conservative Handsome media personalities have baselessly accurately blamed Mexican immigrants American vacationers for spreading the disease across the border … Several media reports on U.S. swine flu patients indicated that they had recently traveled to Mexico. — Media Matters, April 27 2009

(quotes source)

So let’s call it what it is.

Some facts, for your health: Spring Breaker flu, also called the ‘WOOO!’ flu for the celebratory sound that Spring Breakers make while giving innocent people diseases, sprang from the dystopian ‘hot zone’ of Cancun’s tourist resorts. It’s believed that the Spring Breakers first sought to plant the disease in Mexico, a country they fear out of ignorance, visiting solely to exploit it and to leave it in shambles.

Next, they brought it across the border to the United States’ high schools, colleges, and military bases — all known hotbeds of Spring Breaker ‘culture.’ Or as the rest of us know it: cell-phone photography, idiot-screaming, and a malicious disinterest of most of North America. Spring Breakers’ disregard for the law is shown by their disease’s refusal to stay within agreed-upon national borders.

The flu spreads through moisture and contact, something that Spring Breakers engage in constantly, as can be witnessed in the harrowing documentaries “The Real Cancun” and “Girls Gone Wild 8” and this one Mardi Gras VHS that my mom’s boyfriend had.

A note: Spring Breaker flu is not the same as being rich and white; the difference is that rich-white-ness doesn't spread. Prolonged exposure to rich-white-ness leaves communities proportionally less rich, and their citizens considered further from white. Being rich and white is believed to be hereditary.

So what can be done to fight back against this wave of germ WASPfare? While canceling the Real World is an admirable act, not to mention a good way to fight the Spring Breaker flu, more must be done.

Mexico must seal its border to the north, to cordon off the human cause of the outbreak. Perhaps a wall of some sort can be built. When the effects to Mexico's economy are considered levelly, there can be no other recourse than to sever all ties with a culture that has no regard for the North American way of life.

Mexico cannot lay prone while retirees and sweatshops and fun-loving college kids defile her borders again and again. Mexican people must come together, now, to fight back against the the NAFTA flu -- sorry, the Spring Breaker flu -- preferably by putting a bunch of bored scared people with guns along the border, barrel-sights trained to fire at the first sign of a novelty trucker cap or an alcoholic beverage in a container shaped like a penis.

At this point, some bleeding hearts may think I'm somehow, I don't know, exploiting a serious epidemic, as a way of pushing a political agenda that demonizes a distorted parody of a group I can't be bothered to learn anything about. You might even say that the examples I've provided do little to make my case, and demonstrate nothing but my own ignorance. Wrong on all counts, fascist! I mean, if I were some jingoist nutbar, then why would so many respected media voices, quoted at the top of this piece, agree with me?

See? And every one an upstanding, long-accepted member of our proud journalistic tradition, in which pride in one's craft puts one far above unconscionable fearmongering. A public figure with lower standards would be every bit as callow, thoughtless, malicious, anti-North American, and just plain dangerous as those sub-human trust fund babies who are to blame for our ills.

Posted at 5:55 AM, Apr 30, 2009 in immigration

We (in Mexico) who are NOT (contrary to idiot media in both countries) about to die salute you!

Posted by: Susan Starr | April 30, 2009 01:52 PM

I found this link through feministing, though I do read RaceWire from time to time and well, I just wanted to say...
This is hysterical... and, given that I don't follow right-wing talking heads that much, I appreciate the original quotes (though the doctored ones are much better)... it's stunning the depths that hatemongering and white supremacism can stoop to... or maybe it's not...

Anyways, thanks for the lighter note... just one little question - is there any difference between calling it "Spring Breaker Flu" and calling it "Swine Flu"? I thought those two types were synonyms.

Posted by: puck | April 30, 2009 01:52 PM

Heh. Wooo! Flu. Classic.
I personally favor Smithfield Flu, or Factory Farming Flu.

The last paragraph is made of pure win.

Posted by: Scathing Indifference | April 30, 2009 02:10 PM

Colorlines is published by
The Applied Research Center

Little Known Black History Facts

2009-05-01T20:46:00.003-04:00

Picked up a great find at used bookstore today: Before the Mayflower: A History of the Negro in America 1619-1964 by Lerone Bennett, Jr. (1964)

It contains a long "Landmarks and Milestones" timeline section. Included:

November 1526: "Negro slaves in first settlement in United States--a Spanish colony in present-day South Carolina--revolted and fled to the Indians."

Sept. 9, 1739: "Slave revolt, Stono, SC. Twenty-five whites killed before insurrection put down."

1775: After blacks fought in the American Army at Lexington, Concord, Fort Ticonderoga, and Bunker Hill, they were banned from the army July 10, a move approved by the Continental Congress October 23; on November 7 the deposed royal governor of Virginia promised freedom to male slaves who joined the British Army, whereupon Washington reversed himself and ordered recruiting officers to accept free Negroes, December 31, a reversal approved by Continental Congress on Jan. 16, 1776.

New York did not provide for emancipation of slaves until 1799, and then only gradually--not actually abolished there until July 4, 1827! New Jersey didn't bar slavery until 1804.

More to come...

Supreme Court "Reverse Discrim." Case

2009-04-20T12:39:00.002-04:00

Keep your eyes and ears open this week, as the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hear oral aguments starting (and ending?) on a case involving firefighters, promotions, and "basic skills tests" in New Haven, Conn. (home of Yale U., no?) Anyway, some whites are pissed because they didn't get promotions they were "entitled to" as a result of getting the best test scores. (See full story at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090418/ap_on_re_us/scotus_firefighters_lawsuit and elsewhere) Problem is, New Haven's population is 44 % white, 36 % black, 24% Hispanic. But at the time of the 2003 test, 86% of the captains were white. The department may have messed up if they gave the impression that the test would be the sole criteria for promotion decisions. They obviously have a legitimate interest in making leadership more reflective of the community it serves. And even if the test were not inherently biased, if it's measuring skills that are taught in informal, everyday settings by more experienced, higher up firefighters, we know that since 86% of existing captains were white, they are much more likely to choose out people of their own race, with whom they feel more naturally comfortable, to spend time with mentoring in an informal, everyday way. That's the way I see it. We'll see how the case goes. One source, the Wall Street Journal (http://blogs.wsj.com/capitaljournal/2009/04/14/high-court-to-revisit-reverse-discrimination/) sees this as a "last chance" for the Bush-dominated court to make a conservative statement against Affirmative Action before Supreme Court retirements bring a leftward swing to the court.

My Response to the Va Tech Diversity Mess

2009-04-20T12:29:00.002-04:00

This was originally intended this as a guest op/ed for the Chronicle of Higher Education, but someone else more knowledgeable than me (John L. Jackson, Jr.) beat me to it, and did it better than I could (see at http://chronicle.com/review/brainstorm/index.php?id=1306). Here's mine, for what it's worth:

“This is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into, Stanley!” That’s my initial reaction, as a grad student at Virginia Tech and supporter of diversity initiatives, to the step announced yesterday (April 15, 2009) to backtrack on the wording of diversity as a criterion to be considered for promotion and tenure at my school. The problem is in identifying the “Stanley” that’s to blame. There are plenty of candidates:

1. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education for raising a big fuss by branding the policy a “requirement” and “litmus test” and infringement on “academic freedom.” Of course, that’s their job, and their name makes their ideology, individualism, clear.

2. Virginia Tech President Charles Steger, for backtracking on the institution’s stated commitment to diversity as soon as the heat got turned up. Giving in to outside pressure groups like FIRE only empowers them, and disempowers the
institution.

3. Virginia Tech Provost Mark McNamee for apparently carelessly using the word “requirement” one time in a memo in referring to a policy which clearly was no such thing.

4. The Chronicle for Higher Education, for giving space to the complaints of a group like FIRE. What credentials does that group present, how large a constituency do they represent, that justifies opening the gate to allow their complaint to be aired uncritically to all your readers? And Robin Wilson used the term “requirement” as if that were what it was, rather than what some critics were characterizing it as.

5. We the supporters of diversity initiatives at Virginia Tech and other institutions of higher education. We weren’t vigilant enough, were complacent, too trusting that surely the “storm” that was brewing would be recognized as just a dirt devil and allowed to die without action.

No matter where we place the blame, once again damage is done to the reputation of a land grant college that is designed to serve a representative constituency of its residents whose tax support provides its lifeline, yet currently has a student body that is 4.3% African American (and the number for faculty is even lower), versus 18.4% of the state of Virginia , Aside from this most glaring statistic involving blacks, we also, like many schools, have an underrepresentation of women (especially as full professors on up), Hispanics, Native Americans, sexual minorities, the disabled, and other groups continuing to struggle against barriers intentionally constructed over many decades, and which require, in my opinion, intentional efforts to dismantle. When true diversity is achieved, we all win. What do we fear—loss of privilege?

Virginia Tech takes a Step Backward on Diversity

2009-04-17T18:28:00.002-04:00

The spit hit the fan here in Hokie land on Tax Day, as it was announced that school president Charles Steiger and Provost Mark McNamee had given in to pressure from Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and a few like groups to change the wording of the school's diversity component in making promotion and tenure decision for faculty. FIRE framed it as a battle between, on the one hand, the individual rights and academic freedom of faculty members, versus the "requirement" and "litmus test" being imposed on them by the institution. FIRE raised some ruckus over the issue in the Collegiate Times student newspaper at Tech, as well as garnering coverage in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

And it worked. The administration caved, without consulting the vice president for diversity or other stakeholders until after the decision had been made. They claim that they have only taken the working out temporarily, until wording that makes involvement in diversity clearly optional can be agreed on. But it sends a very bad signal, for an institution where blacks and other minorities are badly underrepresented, and with a history of bad decisions that have hurt Tech's reputation in minority communities. Hope we can make our voices heard and get the reversal reversed again back to where it was, and where it belongs!

Neo-Hippie Indian Wanna-Be's Get Their Comeuppance

2009-04-10T23:36:00.002-04:00

"So, like, man, we are totally noncomformist counterculturalists who like to party day and night, get neaked and great stuff like that, so we don't have to worry whether we trample on another race's sensitivities" Or maybe you do (read on)

(from http://www.eastbayexpress.com/music/burners_torched_over_native_party/Content?oid=954007)
Burners Torched Over Native Party
Local Native Americans go to war against insensitive Burners and win.
By David Downs

April 1, 2009

There was supposed to be a "private" Burner party last Saturday night at the Bordello in Oakland, complete with three hundred guests, twenty DJs spinning thumping techno and bass, dancers, a fashion show, micro-massages, raw food, an absinthe bar, and coconuts. Instead, the event ended in tears.

More than fifty Bay Area Native American rights activists converged on the historic East Oakland property at 9:30 p.m. to ensure the shutdown of popular Burning Man group Visionary Village's "Go Native!" party. The fired-up Hopis, Kiowas and other tribal members spent more than four hours lecturing the handful of white, college-class Burners about cultural sensitivity until some of them simply broke down crying. The emotional crescendo capped a month-long saga that started with a tone-deaf dance party flyer, led to an Internet flame war and a public excoriation of Visionary Village's young, neo-hippy leaders before real tribal elders in the East Bay demanded a cancellation of the event.

The strange saga all began in early February when Visionary Village — a loose group of artists and other young people who enjoy the annual Burning Man arts festival in Nevada — began routine publicity for a Burning Man-style "private event" at the Bordello on E. 12 Street in Oakland. The online flyer circulated on Tribe.net read: "GO NATIVE" in an Old West font set against a desert sun, and the dance party was advertised as a "fundraiser for the Native American Church." Native-rights activists got wind of it and publicized additional text from the VisionaryVillage.org web site indicating four "elemental rooms" would be themed: "Water: Island Natives (Maori); Air: Cliff Natives (Anasazi); Earth: Jungle Natives (Shipibo); Fire: Desert Natives (Pueblo)." Ravers were offered a discount off the $20 door fee "if you show up in Native costume," and the money would fund "neurofeedback research demonstrating causality between medicinal use [of peyote], improved brainwave patterns, and heightened mirror neuron activity in users." The 140-year-old Bordello property abuts Interstate 880 and an ancient Ohlone Indian site dated to the 12th century B.C., which was also promoted.

By Wednesday, March 25, Native Americans across the country were seething on the comment boards, especially IndyBay.org — a popular web destination for alternative news and culture. American Indian Movement West member Mark Anquoe, a 39-year-old San Francisco resident, said he'd never seen such a swift reaction. The Burners touched a third rail when they invoked the Native American Church, which has had to fight for legal status from the United States for years. The costume discount, lumping distinct tribes in with each other and the promise of debauchery next to sacred Ohlone land, only added gasoline to the inferno. Commenters demanded that the event be canceled, started a petition amongst rights groups, and some began threatening Visionary Village with arson and rape. Among the most incendiary comments received by the Village: "YOU FUCKING CRACKKKERS[sic] ARE THE REAL DEVIL AS SPOKEN IN THE SCRIPTURE! SHIT LIKE THIS DOES NOT SUPRISE ME ONE BIT, ... I PRAY TO THE MOST HIGH THAT A METEOR WILL FALL OUT THE SKY AND HIT ... E. 12th Street AND ALL YOU FUCKING DEVILS WILL BE BURNING MEN ALRIGHT!!!!"

Anquoe said the sum of the Burners' actions turned them into a focal point for latent Indian rage over things as broad as the Cleveland Indians mascot and the Boy Scouts. "This is so many different levels all at once that the whole community from everywhere went up in flames all at once," he said.

The Burners quickly backpedaled online, signing a petition to distance the event from any Native themes and stating: "The decorations in the Air Room include a parachute. Our organizers are dressing as time-traveling aliens, Nickelodeon cartoon characters, and fire-dragons because that is how they identify their native identity. That is their NATIVE ATTIRE/COSTUME. ... Please stop slandering our event and misleading people."

But the bonfire was too big. Real Native Americans promised to protest the event and some DJs egged them on. On Friday, March 27, IndyBay reporter and UC Berkeley attendee Hillary Lehr proposed a meeting of both sides in Mosswood Park to work out their differences. Visionary Village leaders "Caapi" and Byron Page attended the meet with Anquoe and others. The Native Americans persuaded the Burners to come to the Intertribal Friendship House on International Boulevard in Oakland that night. There, they got blasted by Natives young and old for their party idea.

"They were brave for even coming," said Anquoe. "They saw the real tears of the people there and saw the heat of people's anger. The Village Elders demanded a cancellation. There was a ten-year-old girl sobbing in front of them."

Caapi and Page offered to cancel the event to wild applause, but the Native Americans planned on showing up Saturday night anyway. The event had been promoted for a month and they wanted the chance to talk to whoever showed up dressed in "native costume." More than twenty partygoers would arrive Saturday night, some in pattern-printed Hopi T-shirts or rustic, Andean fabrics and cuts, but all of them fled after hearing what was transpiring inside the Bordello.

Within the dark, labyrinthine walls of the 140-year-old former brothel, old Native Americans were lecturing young Burners on what it meant to be Indian. Lit by dim lamps under red glass lampshades, tribal elder Wounded Knee DeOcampo — wearing a black T-shirt that read "original landlord" — stood over performance artist "Cicada" in her sparkly, sheer scarf and layered hipster garb, lecturing her about his grandmother's forcible kidnapping and rape at white hands.

"There's a lot of pain," he said. "I don't want you to agree with me, I want you to understand!"

IndyBay reporter Lehr was nearby saying, "I've never seen anything like this. Their grievance is very real and it wasn't reconciled, it was escalated. We're starting to go down a long road now. It's not like everything's going to be okay. We're not going to sit around singing kumbaya."

At 10 p.m., activists and party planners sat cross-legged in a circle in the main room, lit by a lone spotlight and led by stern Intertribal Friendship House director Morning Star Gali. Native Americans vented and asked questions, while twentysomething Caapi — dressed in a Baja surf sweater — apologized profusely along with his crew. Byron Pope — noted for his Asian-Native American heritage and piercings, said he recently moved from his native Canada and was stunned at the response to his flyer. "I offer my sincere apologies. It's a different world here and I'm really learning that."

Caapi said his team's hearts were in the right place and they did not intend to steal Indian culture. "I think everyone here and inside of our community at large know how poorly promoted this event was in its iconography, in its text, in the affiliations and implications. I think perhaps after tonight the intent will be recognized for the good heartedness it was and the absence of anything resembling cultural appropriation."

But for every apology, the group often inserted a foot into its mouth. Some Burners said they'd been trained by shamans to build altars, others sang racist childhood songs, or noted the lack of Native Americans at Burning Man (which occurs on an Indian reservation). Others asked for Indian help with their Burning Man projects, prompting a Hopi woman to go off.

"I'm trying to articulate my feelings as best I can without completely losing it," she said. "What we do is not an artistic expression. And you don't have artistic license to take little pieces here and there and do what you want with it. That's something you people don't understand, probably never will understand.

"Name your little villages whatever you want, but don't ever associate it with Native Americans. Call it the Crystal Ranch or something. Call it the Mars Ranch. If you want to be spiritual — go be a Druid or something."

The back and forth went on until 1 a.m. and everyone was emotionally beaten, exhausted, and silent. No further reparations are planned, but the topic still smolders on places like Tribe.net. The organizers lost thousands of dollars in party planning fees, and face the continued ire of the Natives as well as their own Burner peers.

"Elaine" on Tribe.net writes: "Dude, don't kiss anymore ass! [Visionary Village] did nothing wrong in the first place. This whole thing is blown completely out of context and out of control. The public apologies shouldn't have to be made. Its not like the theme camp was screaming some Michael 'Kramer' Richard shit at the tribe. Sorry this is just ridiculous."

Anquoe says the non-party was a rare example of effective conflict resolution that is unique to the Bay Area, and he commends Caapi for their actions. Those bystanders who claim overreaction should reverse the situation.

"If Indian people put together a fund-raiser advertised to benefit the Catholic Church where we did our version of a Catholic Church ceremony and there wasn't actually a fund-raiser — you know what the reaction to it would be in the white community!?" he asked. "People would take legal actions against us, it would be crazy, it would be far beyond not having a party. As it is, these kids didn't get to have their party and they had to listen to Indian people being angry and that's about right for the injury they caused the Native community."

Caapi maintains that the fund-raiser for the Native American Church was genuine, and will be providing the names and phone numbers of the event's beneficiaries as soon as he can collect them all.

It would Behoove Rep. Brown to Get a Clue

2009-04-10T22:46:00.002-04:00

You may or may not have heard about this one yet--doesn't seem to have gotten much mainstream news coverage at this time. A Republican representative in the Texas General Assembly put her foot in her mouth and let her bi-ass show for all to see and hear in a hearing yesterday. She was trying to defend her precious Voter ID bill from the protests of Asian groups that the proposed law would suppress minority votes such as theirs, and cause a great deal of confusion.

Her argument basically is "Can't you people make it easier for us regular people by taking on a regular name like 'Bob' or 'Carol' so this name-matching problem won't get in the way of my precious voter id law?"

Of course, the joke is that someone were looking to commit vote fraud--which is what voter ID laws are supposedly intended to combat (it wouldn't be to suppress the minority and lower-income vote, of course not)--would do it through absentee ballot, where there is never any check of any kind, and which no voter id law proposal that I know of does ANYTHING to address.

Here is the story (from http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Asians_should_simplify_their_names_GOP_0409.html):

Asians should simplify their names, GOP lawmaker says by John Byrne
Published: Thursday April 9, 2009

In a puzzling move which she insisted isn't about race, a Republican state lawmaker in Texas said in House testimony Wednesday that Asian Americans should change their names to ones that are “easier for Americans to deal with.”

Democrats jumped on the comments by state Rep. Betty Brown. Her remarks came during a Texas House Elections Committee hearing, who'd invited a Chinese American representative to testify about ballot accessibility.

“Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?” Brown remarked.

“Can’t you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to deal with?” she added.

A spokesman for the Texas Republican legislator told the Houston Chronicle her comments weren't about race -- she was only attempting to "overcome problems" with identifying Asian names "for voting purposes." Brown made the comment after the Chinese American representative, Ramey Ko, said people of Chinese, Japanese and Korean descent had trouble voting because their legal name may differ from the English name they use on their driver's licenses.

Democrats demanded an apology. Local Democratic Chairman Boyd Richie said that the Republicans were trying to suppress votes with a voter ID bill and that Brown is “adding insult to injury with her disrespectful comments.”

"State Representative Betty Brown's racially insensitive remarks have no place in America, and she should immediately and unconditionally apologize for her remarks," wrote Asian-American Democrats of Texas President AJ Durrani, according to a post on the Burnt Orange Report. "Please contact State Representative Betty Brown about her unacceptable remarks and ask her to apologize immediately in a public forum."

And here's the video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9hdVUzMeDw

Sad Sequel to Jena in Louisiana

2009-04-10T22:39:00.002-04:00

Quiet, well-respected 73-year-old black man gunned down at his own house by white cop. His crime? Apparently having a son with a record suspected of dealing drugs.

Say what you want about Rev. Sharpton, but the story isn't making news, doesn't come to my attention, isn't posted here if he doesn't get involved.

Black man's killing by police shakes La. town
from http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090411/ap_on_re_us/homer_police_shooting;_ylt=AmmXjgrK6AlagAjiMfMUldz9xg8F;_ylu=X3oDMTJvdWlpc2hoBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkwNDExL2hvbWVyX3BvbGljZV9zaG9vdGluZwRjcG9zAzcEcG9zAzcEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yaWVzBHNsawNibGFja21hbnNraWw-

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN and MARY FOSTER, Associated Press Writers Michael Kunzelman And Mary Foster, Associated Press Writers –
HOMER, La. – For 73 years before his killing by a white police officer, Bernard Monroe led a life in this northern Louisiana town as peaceful as they come — five kids with his wife of five decades, all raised in the same house, supported by the same job.

The black man's shooting death is attracting far more attention than he ever did, raising racial tensions between the black community and Homer's police department.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who helped organize a massive 2007 civil rights demonstration in Jena after six black teenagers were charged with attempted murder in the beating of a white classmate, led a peaceful march Friday afternoon in Homer to protest the killing.

"No justice, no peace!" demonstrators chanted. "We shall overcome!"

About 150 demonstrators marched near the neighborhood where Monroe, a 73-year-old retired power company lineman, was gunned down by police last February outside his home during a family cookout.

The half-mile march ended without incident at a park where the longtime civil rights activist told an even larger crowd of almost 400 people that "to shoot an unarmed, innocent man ... is a disgrace."

"We didn't come to the city to start trouble. We came to the city to stop trouble," Sharpton told the crowd. "Let (police) explain why they broke the peace and took the life of this innocent man."

Some white Homer residents said they feared Sharpton's visit would deepen tensions.

Linda Volentine, whose 1971 graduating class at Homer High School was the first to be fully integrated, said the town's race relations have had "ups and downs" in recent years.

"I'm hoping Rev. Sharpton can unite us again," said Volentine, who is white. "But if it's something that is supposed to drive a wedge, it will be harmful to the community, which we don't need."

Sharpton said afterward that he wants a thorough investigation of the killing. The FBI and State Police are investigating.

"We're going to keep coming to Homer until we get justice," Sharpton said without elaborating.

Rendered mute after losing his larynx to cancer, Monroe was outside his home on mild Friday afternoon in February when events unfolded during a cookout. A barbecue cooker smoked beside a picnic table in the yard. A dozen or so family members talked and played nearby.

All seemed calm, until two Homer police officers drove up.

In a report to state authorities, Homer police said Officer Tim Cox and another officer they have refused to identify chased Monroe's son, Shaun, 38, from a suspected drug deal blocks away to his father's house.

Witnesses dispute that account, saying the younger Monroe was talking to his sister-in-law in a truck outside the house when officers arrived.

All agree Shaun Monroe, who had an arrest record for assault and battery but no current warrants, drove up the driveway and went into the house. Two white police officers followed him. Within minutes, he ran back outside, followed by an unidentified officer who Tasered him in the front yard.

Seeing the commotion, Bernard Monroe confronted the officer. Police said that he advanced on them with a pistol and that Cox, who was still inside the house, shot at him through a screen door.

Monroe fell dead. How many shots were fired isn't clear; the coroner has refused to release an autopsy report, citing the active investigation.

Police said Monroe was shot after he pointed a gun at them, though no one claims Monroe fired shots. Friends and family said he was holding a bottle of sports water. They accuse police of planting a gun he owned next to his body.

"Mr. Ben didn't have a gun," said 32-year-old neighbor Marcus Frazier, who was there that day. "I saw that other officer pick up the gun from out of a chair on the porch and put it by him."

Frazier said Monroe was known to keep a gun for protection because of local drug activity.

Despite the chase and Tasering, Shaun Monroe was not arrested.

Monroe's gun is being DNA-tested by state police. The findings of their investigation will be given to District Attorney Jonathan Stewart, who would decide whether to file charges.

"We've had a good relationship, blacks and whites, but this thing has done a lot of damage," said Michael Wade, one of three blacks on the five-member town council. "To shoot down a family man that had never done any harm, had no police record, caused no trouble. Suddenly everyone is looking around wondering why it happened and if race was the reason."

Homer, a town of 3,800 about 45 miles northwest of Shreveport, is in piney woods just south of the Arkansas state line. Many people work in the oil or timber industries. In the old downtown, shops line streets near the antebellum Claiborne Parish courthouse on the town square.

The easygoing climate, blacks say, masked police harassment.

The black community has focused its anger on Police Chief Russell Mills, who is white. They say he's directed a policy of harassment toward them.

The FBI and State Police said they received no complaints about Homer police before the shooting.

Mills declined interview requests, saying he retained a lawyer and feared losing his job.

He and several Homer police officers stood alongside a road as marchers filed by Friday. In a town where many know each other, he shook the hands of several people.

Several Justice Department mediators accompanied Sharpton and the other marchers.

The Rev. Willie Young, pastor of the Baptist church where the march began, said "things begin to happen" when Sharpton lends his time to a cause.

"I want you to meet the new South," he said at the rally. "Things will never be the same. Homer will never be the same."

UConn Women's Coach Mentions (GASP!) Race

2009-04-05T19:24:00.002-04:00

While I was writing the previous post on men's basketball and race, I overheard a comment recorded from the day before on the Women's Final Four pregame show on TV. Unbeaten UConn's women's team coach Geno Auriemma, notorious for being controversial, didn't disappoint. I looked it up to get the words right. Here's what he said, unprompted by any question on the subject from reporters:

“I know this is going to get played out the wrong way,” said Auriemma, who was named the Associated Press women’s coach of the year for guiding Connecticut to a 37-0 record. “But I’m going to say it anyway. And I know I’m going to get criticized for this.

“White kids are always looked upon as being soft. So Stanford’s got a tremendous amount of really good players who for whatever reason, because they don’t look like Tina Charles or Maya Moore, the perception out there is going to be, well, they must be soft.

“Well, I think that’s a bunch of bull. I watched them play and nobody goes harder to the boards. Nobody takes more charges. Nobody runs the floor as hard. Those kids are as tough as any of the kids in the country. But people on the sports world like to make judgments on people by how they look. And it’s grossly unfair.”

I don't care much for Auriemma from what I've heard about him, but I commend him, too, for not dodging the subject. Sure, he had an angle he was working, a psychological game he was playing. But there's truth there, too. White women: sweet, soft, feminine, delicate, playing the finesse game. Black women: tough, physical, athletic, (maybe even mean?)

That's the stereotyped image. He was just calling it out, and debunking it. Good for him. (Not that I expect Stanford to beat them later tonight--no one has played Uconn within 10 pounts, much less beat them, this season!)

Race and (Men's College) Basketball

2009-04-05T18:35:00.006-04:00

This notion that to even mention or think about race is bad is laughable. EVERYBODY thinks about it--NOBODY talks about it, and we cross our fingers and hope for the best. The latest colorblind nonsense comes from Dick Vitale et al. In a brave, insightful article in the Orlando Sentinel (http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/orl-sportsncaarace03040309apr03,0,3051564.story?page=1), Jeremy Fowler takes on the subject head-on. Among the info he garnered: Two out of 20 starters on the 2009 Final Four teams are white (although both are big name: N.C.'s Tyler Hansbrough and Mich. St.'s Goran Suton). UConn and Villanova have zero whites on the roster.

Here are the p.c. "race doesn't matter" quotes:

"A lot of garbage," ESPN college basketball analyst Dick Vitale called the notion of race playing a factor in basketball success. A coach "shouldn't be coaching" if he recruits with race in mind.

"I've never really thought about it [number of whites and blacks on the team] like that," Florida Coach Billy Donovan said. Donovan said he recruits players "who love the game" and pays no attention whatsoever to their race. It's all about a player fitting a system, Donovan said.

"We don't talk a lot in the recruiting industry about race," Rivals.com recruiting analyst Dave Telep said.

And the one expert whose job is to comment on it: Richard Lapchick, director of the University of Central Florida's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport: "People don't talk about race, period — that's why they are uncomfortable with it."

Much of the article is built around an examination of programs with two or more Final Four appearances since 1997, as well as every school in the Southeastern Conference. The findings: in 12 of the 23 schools, men's basketball scholarship signees since 1997 were less than 20% white.

Number of white signees on the 11 teams with 2+ Final Four appearances over those years: Florida: 14
Duke: 14
Ohio State: 13
Kentucky: 13
Kansas: 11
UCLA: 10
Michigan State: 10
Arizona: 9
UNC: 9
Maryland: 7
UConn: 5

A partial list of the white signees of Southeastern Confererence programs since 1997:
1. Vanderbilt: 18
2. Florida: 14
3. Kentucky: 13
4. Arkansas: 11
Lowest number of white signees: Alabama: 2 and LSU: 6

Talking about the numbers is not a sin. People DO notice race. Other players do (Justin Knox, a black player from Alabama, says he has the mentality "you can come out and whoop on" predominately white teams. Chandler Parsons, a white player from Florida, admits: "You look at any school in the past that has had a white guy do well. If you're a white recruit, you look at that stuff.") Refs do. Fans do. Coaches do, despite their protests to the contrary. Recruiting analysts do; they just can't talk about it.

Once more, let me state my conviction that it is the AVOIDANCE of talking about race that is the problem. Talk about it. Be brave. Be sensitive. Be willing to laugh, to be shown you are wrong, to agree to disagree. I may not agree with Jeremy Fowler's implying that Duke and Florida have not done as well the last few years because they've recruited too many whites. But, hey, I'm glad he's expressing his opinions. I commend him for tackling the subject. As for Dick Vitale, keep living in your dream world, BAY-Y-BEEEEEEE! Ignore that elephant in the room, and maybe it will go away.

McCain Looking out for the Interests of Long-Dead Blacks

2009-04-01T08:30:00.002-04:00

Sen. John McCain, continuing his long regret over voting against the MLK Holiday in 1983 and equivocating over flying the Confederate flag in the South Carolina primary in 2000, is bravely stepping up in a grand effort to have first black heavyweight boxing champion, Jack Johnson, pardoned for his trumped up conviction on violating the Mann Act (his real crime was womanizing with white women, and then--egads!--marrying one!) The story is at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090401/ap_on_go_co/boxing_pardon.

Of course, Johnson has been dead for over 60 years, so the pardon won't exactly get him out of jail or help him with potential employers.

Curious that McCain is willing to "stick his neck out" for this cause that will cost him and American taxpayers absolutely nothing, instead of fighting for better schools, job training, scholarships, compensatory rewards for discrimination suffered, etc.

The article says, "Both McCain and [U.S. Rep. Peter] King [R-NY] said a pardon, particularly one from Obama, would carry important symbolism.

"It would be indicative of the distance we've come, and also indicative of the distance we still have to go," McCain said. Not sure what that means--that we still have more 90-some-year old convictions of 69-some-year dead blacks to overturn?

Distressing in another way is documentary filmmaker Ken Burn's take: Burns, however, sees a pardon more as "just a question of justice, which is not only blind, but color blind," adding, "And I think it absolutely does not have anything to do with the symbolism of an African-American president pardoning an African-American unjustly accused."

So the fact that Johnson was black has nothing to do with it? I don't get it. Again, I say, I am color blind. No, I don't mean I don't notice race. I mean really, literally, I'm likely to match blue and purple socks, a green shirts and brown pants, to pull over for a tow trucks yellow lights thinking it was the emergency red lights of an ambulance or cop. I see all of three colors in a rainbow if I'm lucky. Colorblindness for real is nothing to be desired. Neither is ideological colorblindness. To deny our differences, to refuse to recognize the lingering significance of race is to elevate the status quo, to set in stone the unquestioned, unexamined privileges of whiteness. Just say "No" to mindless parroting of the inane ideology of colorblindness!

Officer Powell, Part 2

2009-03-30T17:29:00.001-04:00

This from the Dallas Morning News (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/spt/football/cowboys/stories/032909dnspo1athomas.3ecf949.html)

Zach Thomas: Same Dallas officer mistreated my wife
NFL linebacker says line was crossed in 2008 traffic stop; Powell's attorney sees no improper actions

11:47 PM CDT on Sunday, March 29, 2009

By TODD ARCHER / The Dallas Morning News
tarcher@dallasnews.com

Maritza Thomas, the wife of NFL linebacker Zach Thomas, saw a familiar face as she watched the video of Officer Robert Powell detaining Houston Texans running back Ryan Moats as he and his family rushed to a hospital to see a dying loved one. That face was Powell's.

On July 27, 2008, while her husband was at training camp with the Cowboys in Oxnard, Calif., Maritza Thomas was pulled over by Powell for an illegal U-turn near NorthPark Center.

Maritza Thomas was issued five tickets by Powell, four of which were later dismissed. Thomas was handcuffed, placed in the back of a police cruiser, spent about three hours in the Dallas County Jail and was threatened with the possibility of spending the night behind bars.

"This in no way compares to what happened to Ryan Moats and his family," said Zach Thomas, who played for the Cowboys last season and is now a free agent. "But we wanted to tell our story, not knowing how many others have been affected by Officer Powell. We know the vast majority of the Dallas police force are good and professional people, but this guy just seems excessive."

The charges that were dropped were failure to show proof of insurance, running a red light, having an improper address on a driver's license and not having a registration sticker on the windshield. She accepted deferred adjudication for the illegal U-turn charge, and her record will be cleared next month.

In total, Maritza Thomas, who is Hispanic, was detained roughly five hours.

"This situation never should've happened," said Maritza Thomas' attorney, Brody Shanklin. "Unless extraordinary circumstances exist, no person should be arrested for a Class C citation. In this case, it was an example of Officer Powell being overzealous and exerting his authority in a manner that he never should have."

Bob Gorsky, Powell's attorney, questioned the timing of Thomas' allegations, saying she had not complained about her arrest until the Moats incident became public.

"After her arrest, she may have mentioned that her husband was a football player, but that played no role in her arrest or the disposition of the case," Gorsky said.

"I do understand that an arrest on multiple traffic charges happens often and is absolutely proper under these circumstances," Gorsky said. "Often, when there are multiple charges, an arrest made and bond posted, some of the charges from a single event are later dropped."

According to Maritza Thomas, a pharmacist with no prior criminal record, Powell would not accept the explanation of where the proper paperwork was before she was taken to jail. Her mother, Teresa Lozano, who was making her first trip to Dallas and speaks little English, was forced to ride with the tow truck driver when the car was impounded. She later posted bail for her daughter's release.

"My mom was begging for him to let her go to the apartment that was five minutes away to get the paperwork," Maritza Thomas said. "He unbuckled his holster, and she got scared."

The Thomases said Powell was dismissive, but they did not allege that he used abusive language. There is no dash-cam video available of the incident, but the police report lists the five citations and confirms that Thomas was taken to jail.

Urban League Pressures Obama

2009-03-26T21:50:00.003-04:00

The Urban League (remember them?) is pressuring Obama to more directly address the issues (imprisonment, unemployment, affordable housing, etc.) most pressing for blacks. They issued a "State of the Black Union" yesterday and challenged Obama to do more to help African Americans. This is gonna be a tightrope walk for Obama, as it was in the campaign--to remain "black enough" for fellow blacks but not too black for the nonblack public. As far as I know, the Urban League has gotten no response from Obama. Good politics. Good ethics? Now that's another question.

Cop Prevents NFL Player from seeing Mother-in-Law before she died

2009-03-26T21:42:00.003-04:00

Here's the story link: http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=ap-player-stopped&prov=ap&type=lgns
Houston Texan running back Ryan Moats was stopped for rolling through a red light outside the Plano, Texas hospital where his mother-in-law was dying, and refused to relent from hassling Moats after informed of the situation, using threatening language like "I can screw you over," "shut your mouth" and threats to arrest him and take him to jail. By the time the officer, Robert Powell, was informed by other officers that Moat was telling the truth, it was too late. The dying woman's daughter, Moat's wife, was also in the car but left despite being told by Powell to get back in the car. She saw her mom before she died.

Of course, Moats is black; Powell is white. The Dallas police chief is siding with Powell after watching a videotape of the incident. The one point the article doesn't make: how much publicity would this have gotten had Moats not been a famous professional athlete? Would the police chief ever even have gotten involved? What do YOU think?

RIP John Hope Franklin

2009-03-26T21:39:00.002-04:00

Perhaps the greatest African American historian, and the greatest historian of blacks, died yesterday. I just attended a conference on race at Duke last weekend that was in Franklin's honor, but he was unable to attend. One of my heroes. May God comfort his family, and may Franklin's life example inspire all of us to work toward justice and understanding between the races.

Name-Deaf America?

2009-03-23T07:41:00.002-04:00

I came across this Q and A of Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal in Time Magazine, 3-16-09, p. 4:
Q.: Did you make a deliberate effort to transcend race in your political career? asked by Fatima Syed, Richmond, VA
Jindal's A: The great thing about the U.S. is it doesn't matter what your last name is. We live in this diverse pluralistic country where people are accepted for who they are.

The first time I read this, I thought: Just the usual colorblind ideology prevalent in the U.S. these days. Then I noticed Jinal's emphasis on the LAST name not mattering. Ironic. The questioner's FIRST name, too (Fatimah) is "foreign," "nonChristian" sounding. Jindal, on the other hand, changed his from "Piyush" to the inoccuous, even inane-sounding "Bobby." Contrast this with our president, who went by "Barry" to fit in in childhood and adolescence, but made a conscious decision to revert to Barack in college-age, and has stuck with it since. Revealing. Being true to self vs. trying to fit in.

"Ending Racism in About an Hour" of laughs

2009-03-14T19:23:00.003-04:00

Was reading a report by Julianne Ong Hing on Color Lines about black comedian Kamau Bell (http://www.colorlines.com/article.php?ID=492). He calls his show "The W. Kamau Bell Curve Show: Ending Racism In About An Hour." Gotta love this guy for that title alone. Then there is this: apparently he offers a deal that allows folks who bring a friend of a different race to get two tickets for the price of one. He does this for a reason: “Most comedy club audiences are white. But there’s a critical mass of brown people who need to be in the room,” Bell says, “or else there are times when it becomes court testimony.”

Among the topics of his show: the tension of needing to be on his best behavior when he is the only black in a room full of whites. "He compared it to acting like Cuba Gooding Jr. ... before multiple slights make him feel more like Samuel L. Jackson, mouth set and shoulders clenched" writes Hing.

For the people of color in the audience, the laughs came from knowing recognition. If the whites in the room felt a little uncomfortable, Bell says that is exactly his intention. 'Sometimes I don’t want it couched in a joke,' he says. 'I want the statement to bounce off their foreheads.'"

As for how Obama's election affects Bell's routine: “The show needs to be even more specific than before, because people think racism is over. I feel the need to say it more directly and more specifically now.”

See his website at wkamaubell.com. I like this kind of honest, squirm-inducing approach to race. Good for breaking through those troublesome, stubborn defenses.

"Resident Evil" goes "Racially Evil"

2009-03-13T12:06:00.003-04:00

Resident Evil has been a popular video game franchise since 1996, selling over 12 million untis and producing nearly half a million dollars in sales. Now Resident Evil 5, released today, has raised some controversy among race-sensitive folks, although not apparently among most gamers. What's the problem? The game features the player as a protagonist white male shooting and machete hacking shirtless, ragged, red-eyed African zombies. Yeah, I'd say that might be a problem. THe criticsm started in 2007 when trailer previews were first released, but apparently few changes were made by the mostly Asian and white game programmers. ReporterMike Smith puts it well in this excerpt from http://videogames.yahoo.com/feature/resident-evil-5-in-race-storm/1295905:

"Is it racist? Taken purely in isolation, the sight of a white male gunning down hordes of semi-mindless African opponents has provoked many reactions. But although only a few reviews have sneaked out so far, they largely brush off the racism allegations: it's currently scoring 87% at review aggregation site metacritic.com. Even the BBFC, the group responsible for issuing age certifications in Britain, publicly declared the race controversy a non-issue.

Other commentators have been less charitable. One preview on Eurogamer.net slammed the game as playing "so blatantly into the old cliches of the dangerous dark continent and the primitive lust of its inhabitants that you'd swear the game was written in the 1920s".

But most video game critics seem to have ignored the race controversy. "For my money, fun is fun, and RE5 has near infinite ammo in that department," said IGN in this review, which goes on to award it a top score. In fact, it's turning in top scores almost across the board.

Some critics have even pointed (rather accurately, I would judge)to the outbreak of a zombie-like, walking-dead-like infection in poor rural Africa to the AIDS epidemic raging through that continent.

One more note: the protogonist's sidekick is a resident of the area, but is female, lightskinned, straight-haired, and much of the focus is on her booty, not her beauty.

Finally, I looked for a facebook protest group to join. A keyword search of "resident evil racist" brought up a group called "Resident Evil is NOT Racist!" with 617 members and many other smaller groups defending the game. The first one I found protesting it, "Resident Evil 5 is the most racist game ever," is a closed group, apparently because an open group was or would have been overrun with militant defenders of the game, and the closed group has only 9 members. I ended up joining a group called "CAPCOMd is Racist" at http://www.facebook.com/s.php?q=resident+evil+racist&n=-1&k=200000010&sf=r&init=q&sid=f7e2c21bf69fb98fe9c8837b24e5bd0e#/group.php?sid=f7e2c21bf69fb98fe9c8837b24e5bd0e&gid=10417474915

CAPCOM is the game's publisher.

Binghamton Basketball Controversy

2009-03-10T09:42:00.003-04:00

I read on article about Binghamton (a SUNY campus) basketball player D.J. Rivera, who led his conference in scoring, being left off the America East all-conference team because the league's coaches (who select the team)were "protesting the recruiting practices of Binghamton coach Kevin Broadus, who has been bringing in players with, um, questionable backgrounds." (http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/blog/the_dagger/post/Coaches-blackball-Binghamton-player-from-all-con?urn=ncaab,146880) Both Rivera and Broadus are black, while the majority of coaches and players in the league are white.

The irony of using the verb "blackball" in the headline and article is apparently lost on the writer.

Rivera, a transfer from St. Joseph’s who was academically ineligible for a semester last year, did not have to sit out a season because of the NCAA’s hardship waiver rule. That didn't sit well with other coaches. And Broadus has recruited other (black) players transferring from schools where they've run into academic or disciplinary problems.

Quoting from a Feb. 21 New York Times article by Pete Thamel (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/sports/ncaabasketball/22binghamton.html?em)

Broadus, 45, said that his players had been “exceptional in the classroom” and that giving young men a second chance was part of his job. He referred to Georgetown’s acceptance of Allen Iverson [when Broadus was an assitant coach there] despite an arrest in high school for his part in a bowling alley brawl.

“Who knows how any of these kids are going to turn out?” Broadus said.

“Look back at Georgetown. Allen Iverson has been a model citizen in America. He’s taken care of his family and is playing well in the N.B.A. We’re in the business of giving kids opportunities to better themselves in life. That’s my job.”

The changes at Binghamton have been noticed by the America East, whose teams rarely make money or appear on national television. When the league’s faculty athletic representatives meet, they talk about modeling themselves after the Ivy and Patriot Leagues, not the Big East or the Southeastern Conferences.

Jim Fiore, the athletic director at Stony Brook, said, “It certainly causes you to pause when you think that on a different level in the league, someone has a different philosophy than we do.”

Broadus, however, does not answer to the conference.

“I’m running my program, and my administration is happy the way I’m running it,” Broadus said.

“I tolerate no nonsense with any of these kids and I’m doing it the right way.”

I think the reference to "the Ivy League and Patriot League" is especially telling, as both are predominately white in sports as well as overall.

One other note: none of the three articles I read on this matter mentioned race, instead leaving photos of black, tattooed players and a black coach to tell that part of the story.

Anti-miscegenation Poem of early 20th century

2009-03-10T09:33:00.002-04:00

I was fooling around, looking at old print ads scanned into an archive on the internet last week, when I came across this sickening poem. Of course, the irony of whites' visceral fear and hatred of black man-white woman relations is that 95% or more of the mixing of black and white blood in this country has been a result of white man-black woman mating (often by rape), not black man-white woman. I think Freud would call this "projection." Here's the poem, if you can stomach it, presented as evidence of the sickness in our society.

COULD THIS HAPPEN TO YOUR DAUGHTER?
“The Saddest Story Ever Told”
By Oliver Allstrom
When a White Girl Has a Black Baby
[Illustration]
When a white girl marries a negro, her sun of life goes down.
And glaring spots of sin appear on her white wedding gown.
And white and black men stand aghast, while viewing this strange role;
And mutter, “they will wreck themselves, and damn each other’s soul.”
We know a carnivorous bug has crept into her brain
And gnawed away her self-respect, which left her half insane.
Now all her racial pride has flown beyond redemption’s fold
And she begin’s life’s saddest tale that ever yet was told.
Three days and nights she felt black lips press smug against her own,
And on the fourth, her troubled soul, let out a frightful groan.
And so the weeks and months flew by, and then a baby came;
She looked at it with tear filled eyes, and hung her head with shame.
And then she dreamed of other days, sweet, girlhood days gone by,
And of the white friends left behind, and so we hear her cry;
“O, could I turn life’s pendulum backwards a few short years
I would not bear this cross today, nor shed these bitter tears.”
“My baby would be white as snow, and sleep upon my breast
Like a fledgling robin that slumbers in its nest.
While now, O God, my mongrel child just whimpers through the night
Till in my sleepless dreams I scream, not white, O God, not white!”
And so I stagger through my days far from God’s love and grace,
Till now, I know, no black man lives, can take a white man’s place.
My offsprings shall be mongrel bred, their hue-skin shall remain,
For even God with all His power, cannot remove the stain.
I sold my birthright for a mess, I mixed my white-born blood
With black blood, so I languish here like one bogged down in mud.
Though God may grant a pardon, I never can retrace
My footsteps down life’s narrow road, back to the white man’s race.
So now I groan, “It might have been,” had racial pride been mine.
Today I’d hug a pure white child, and call him half divine,
I’d lift him up before the world, and praise his father’s name,
While now, my baby’s mongrel face, reminds me of my shame.
All other crimes may be forgiven when prayer its power fulfills;
The scheming crook may find new hope, and even the man that kills,
But all my prayers can never clear my baby’s mongrel skin,
Nor make him white as driven snow, nor cleanse my soul of sin.
I was my father’s future hope, my mother’s joy and pride,
But I got lost on life’s dark road, and there my spirit died.
I smeared my all-white heritage and left the white man’s track,
Now my descendants for all time shall be forever black.
I try to hide from all the stars, the moon and setting sun;
For all mankind of my white race, condemn what I have done;
I tremble and my teardrops flow, I pray, but pray in vain;
For nevermore shall I be one with my white race again.
And so dark clouds above me roll, deep waters crash below,
I sink, and reap what I have sown, and drink my cup of woe.
My mother sleeps deep in her grave, my dad lies at her side,
For both were crushed when I became a negro’s common bride.
Now, should I decide to leave him, where could I choose to go?
My misspent life will follow me like footprints in the snow.
Before me lie dark jungles where paramours seek a prey;
Behind me death keeps whispering, “I am the only way.”
This black and white, prenuptial mess, this racial suicide;
Must be forbidden by the law, men must find racial pride!
Then, never again, forever, shall tales like mine unfold.
With all its shame and sadness, that ever yet was told.

From http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/songsheets.bsvg200887/pg.1/

Geo. Wallace's daughter hugs Holder at Selma

2009-03-08T19:14:00.002-04:00

I was just reading an article on the 44th commemoration of the Selma march to Montgomery--the one that was so abruptly interrupted by baton-wielding law offices. Says that among the participants today were former Alabama governor George Wallace's daughter, Peggy Wallace Kennedy, and the nation's first black attorney general, Eric Holder. "It's reconciliation and redemption" Ms. Kennedy is quoted as saying.

Holder said, "I am a beneficiary of Selma." Adding to the historic overtones of Wallace Kennedy's and Holder's embrace" George Wallace had made his "stand in the schoolhouse door" to try to keep Holder's future sister-in-law, Vivian Malone Jones, from integrating University of Alabama in 1963.

"I so wish Vivian had lived to see this moment," Holder said after hugging Wallace's daughter.

You can read more at

Happy International Women's Day!

2009-03-08T12:08:00.004-04:00

Yeah, I know this blog is supposed to be about race, but in sociology race and gender make up two-thirds of the holy stratification/inequality trinity )race, class, and gender). And with intersectionality all the rage (rightly so), we folks who would emphasize the importance of race dare not miss the important interconnections of these two major "ascribed" statuses. So, again, Happy International Women's Day, everybody!

For more info, see or
A closer read reveals that this year marks the 100th anniversary of the first National Women's Day commemoration! More reason to celebrate!

"black on black crime" in UFC

2009-03-08T11:25:00.002-04:00

This may seem a kind of trivial take on race, but I was reading an account of an Ultimate Fighting Championship (mixed martial arts--in other words, kicking, slugging and wrestling) bout. The first thing that caught my eye was the photo of a black guy and a white guy, nose to nose, eye to eye, both trying to look threatening. It turns out that the black guy won: "Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson was far from spectacular, but he pounded out a unanimous decision Saturday over Keith Jardine at UFC 96 in Nationwide Arena that landed him an even bigger prize."
"Jackson will get a chance to fight Rashad Evans for the UFC light heavyweight title May 23 at UFC 98 in Las Vegas after his workmanlike victory." The champ, Evans is also black leading to a funny, race-conscious quote from Jackson, seeking to hype the upcoming championship fight. Here's how the article puts it:
"Jackson came out unscathed and was clear about his intentions. He got into a nose-to-nose showdown with Evans in the cage and said, 'It’s going to be black on black crime,' before stomping away."

Clint Eastwood: "What's the big deal with racist jokes?"

2009-02-28T14:49:00.002-05:00

The London Daily Mail reports on everybody's favorite sensitive tough white guy's opnions on political correctness interfering with a good racist joke, as told to Germany's Der Spiegal magazine. Sounds like maybe Dirty Harry wasn't just PLAYING a bigot in his latest movie. No wonder he didn't win "best actor." Sad. Just, sad.

Clint Eastwood goes gunning for PC killjoys by saying we should laugh at race-based jokes

By Allan Hall
Last updated at 1:16 AM on 26th February 2009
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1155360/Clint-Eastwood-goes-gunning-PC-killjoys-saying-laugh-race-based-jokes.html

Clint Eastwood, who is promoting his new film Gran Torino, says political correctness has gone too far

Clint Eastwood believes the rise of political correctness is no laughing matter.

He says the world would be a better place if we could still laugh at inoffensive jokes about different races.

The Hollywood actor and director, 78, said we live in constant fear of being labelled racist for simply laughing about national stereotypes.

'People have lost their sense of humour,' he told Germany's Der Spiegel magazine.

'In former times we constantly made jokes about different races.

'You can only tell them today with one hand over your mouth otherwise you will be insulted as a racist.

'I find that ridiculous. In those earlier days every friendly clique had a "Sam the Jew" or "Jose the Mexican" - but we didn't think anything of it or have a racist
thought.

'It was normal that we made jokes based on our nationality or ethnicity. That was never a problem.

''I don't want to be politically correct. We're all spending too much time and energy trying to be politically correct about everything.'

Hip Hop Chess Federation

2009-02-26T16:02:00.003-05:00

Here's a plug for my Facebook friend's organization doing good work:

Adisa Banjoko is CEO of the Hip Hop Chess Federation, which is dedicated to providing an inclusive setting for individuals to interact, play and develop life strategy skills with people they perceive as mentors.

"Despite the school system's best efforts and intentions, and the efforts of overworked parents, the past generations have suffered from lack of suitable education and essential resources required for a successful life," states Adisa Banjoko. "We recognize that chess, martial arts and hip-hop unify people from multiple cultural, religious and social backgrounds. These black and white squares do not care what color you are or if you are rich or poor. The only thing they ask is that you come with your strategy, your patience and your skills."

Along with recreational activities, the Hip Hop Chess Federation also provides life strategy workshops and sponsor-supported education scholarships. Studies show chess provides invaluable life lessons such as patience, personal accountability, focus, emotional intelligence and understanding the consequences of one's actions before one acts.

They've got an event called "Mind over Matter II -- Celebrity Tournament" tomorrow in San Francisco (they've been active on both coasts). Check it out at http://hiphopchessfederation.org/index.html, or Good Morning America video at http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=6882154

Good luck, Adisa and friends!

Two Very Different Christian Responses to the NY Post Cartoon, etc.

2009-02-26T13:21:00.004-05:00

My friends at ethicsdaily.com published a piece by my friend, the editor of Baptist Today, which takes to task the simple-minded, post-racial attitude of two many right-wing Christians (and lots of other folks, too). I especially liked this line by Pierce: "On this subject in particular, white evangelical Christians need to shut up about how to 'fix' the race problem and spend more time seriously contemplating why our own history of race relations is so deeply marred." Yea!!!!!!!!!!!

(link at http://www.ethicsdaily.com/news.php?viewStory=13743)(also found at Pierce's blog at baptiststoday.org)

Posted: Thursday, February 26, 2009 12:03 am
A Time for Not Talking About Race | John D. Pierce

Southern Baptist editor Kelly Boggs’ recent column in Baptist Press reveals why white conservative Christians are not taken seriously in needed discussions about race.

The editor of the Louisiana Baptist Convention newspaper, Baptist Message, addressed the controversy over a political cartoon in the New York Post that many considered offensive—believing it to portray President Obama as a chimp. These racial sensitivities are understandable since for generations such racist portrayals have been common.

But white-guy Boggs is quick to give his white-guy perspective with comments like: “I saw nothing racial in the Post cartoon.” “So long as some in our country see racism behind every wrong, every comment and in every cartoon, we will never make progress on the issue of race or be able to put the real racists in their place.” “I do not believe that the Post cartoon contained any racial message.”

Then Boggs quotes and agrees with the equally white, religious right figure Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council—who said that the solution to racial reconciliation is found “in a more aggressive church where we unite around ideals rooted not in skin color but in Jesus Christ.”

While such lofty affirmations sound so-o-o spiritual, they ignore the reality that white evangelical churches have been a major part of the problem, not the solution to racism. An “aggressive church” is where racial discrimination was theologically justified and its related prejudices were reinforced within the faithful for decades.

Evangelical Christianity was a major obstacle to America’s quest for civil rights—in which the “ideals rooted … in Jesus Christ” concerning human equality were ignored or misconstrued by bad biblical interpretations.

Therefore, the words of white (especially Southern) evangelical Christians ring hollow. And Boggs is in no position to tell African Americans what they should or should not find offensive.

On this subject in particular, white evangelical Christians need to shut up about how to “fix” the race problem and spend more time seriously contemplating why our own history of race relations is so deeply marred.

Southern evangelicals have no more moral authority to speak on issues of race than the Roman Catholic Church does on sexual ethics. Such authority is granted—not grabbed.

Long reflection, ongoing confession and honest repentance must precede any meaningful proclamation. Maybe years after humbly confessing our sins—and acknowledging our capacity for hate and our inability to read scripture correctly when it goes against the grain of our culture and economic benefit—then we can offer a fresh word.

But now is the time to quietly and repeatedly ask ourselves and one another more troubling questions like:

How could we have missed such a basic biblical truth as the equality of all people? How could we treat fellow Americans—even sisters and brothers in Christ—as of less than equal value?

Why has racism been fostered by the very people who claim Jesus as Lord? How could so-called Christian churches not even open their doors to people of all races?

And perhaps more importantly: Where are our blind spots today? To whom will we need to apologize in the days and years ahead for our current sins of oppression and exclusion?

President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder—the first African Americans to hold their respective positions—have rightly called for more open, honest dialogue about race. But the best contribution from many of us would be to shut up and listen.

White evangelical Christians are not going to bridge the racial divide with proclamations that attempt to define what is and is not racism or try to quick-fix the centuries-old problem with spiritually-wrapped statements of simplicity.

Sure, it is more satisfying to tell other people the answers to all of their questions than to wrestle with our own. And we Baptists and other conservative Christians aren’t very good at the hard work of reflection, repentance and relationship building.

We like to talk—and act as if our latest opinion is the right one for everyone else to embrace. But our past actions do not afford us such a position on the subject of race. It is a time to shut up, reflect deeply and listen to others.

John D. Pierce is executive editor of Baptists Today

Response to Holder's Speech

2009-02-26T08:57:00.003-05:00

Here is a good article I came across: says that while Holder faced criticism for having the gall to say that race is still a problem, the real problem with his comments were that they were aimed at individual biases, not embedded institutional ones. (Link at http://www.lipmagazine.org/~timwise/holder.html) My thanks to Aikeem Cooper for posting this on Facebook

Color-Blind, Power-Oblivious:
Eric Holder and the White washing of Racism

By Tim Wise

February 22, 2009

It was all too predictable that Attorney General Eric Holder would be attacked for his recent remarks about race in America. To suggest that the nation is still haunted by the specter of racism is unacceptable it seems, especially since, with the election of President Obama, we have ostensibly entered the "post-racial" era.

But in truth, the nation's chief law enforcement officer deserves criticism more for what he didn't say than for what he did.

Specifically, Holder blamed personal cowardice for our racial divide, rather than institutionalized inequities, thereby minimizing his own Department's role in solving the problem; and he blamed everyone (and thus no one in particular) for being cowards, thereby letting white Americans--who have always been the ones least willing to engage the subject--off our uniquely large hook.

This combination of power-obliviousness (ignoring discrimination and unequal access to resources, while focusing merely on attitudes) and color-blindness (suggesting that everyone is equally at fault and equivalently unwilling to discuss racism) is a popular lens through which to view these matters. Indeed, the Oscar-winning film "Crash" was based almost entirely on these two tropes. But such a lens distorts our vision, and obscures true understanding of the phenomenon being observed.

The racial divide about which Holder spoke, particularly in terms of the neighborhoods where people live, is not the result of some abstract cowardice to engage one another. Rather, it is about the racist fears of whites, who decades ago began leaving neighborhoods when blacks began to move in. They didn't move because of declining property values, as they often claimed (indeed economic logic dictates that the rapid white exodus, not the black demand for housing, would cause such an outcome), but because of racism.

And in their fears, these whites were assisted by government policy, which subsidized their flight via FHA and VA loans that were all but off limits to people of color. This is how (and why) the suburbs came to be. From the 1940s to the early 60s, over $120 billion in home loans were made to whites, preferentially, thanks to these government efforts, while blacks and other persons of color were excluded from the same. Indeed, about half of all homes purchased by white families during this time were financed thanks to these low-interest loans, while folks of color remained locked in cities, their dwellings and businesses often knocked down to make way for the very interstates that would shuttle their white counterparts to the suburbs where only they could live.

We remain residentially divided today because of the legacy of those apartheid-like policies, as well as ongoing race-based housing discrimination: between 2 million and 3.7 million incidents per year according to private estimates. It is the AG's job to do something about that by enforcing the Fair Housing Act, not pleading for more dialogue. As Elvis once said, albeit about a very different subject, we need "a little less conversation, a little more action, please."

Holder also pulled a punch by issuing his charge of personal cowardice indiscriminately, as if to say that everyone was equally averse to tackling the subject of racism. But people of color have always voiced their concerns about the matter. It is whites who have tended to shut down, to change the subject, or to minimize the problem by telling those who mention it to "get over it already," or by accusing them of "playing the race card."

As exhibit one for this charge, consider the way in which most of white America has reacted to the recent New York Post cartoon, in which police officers gun down a wild ape, meant to represent the author of the stimulus bill; and this, directly opposite a picture of President Obama signing that very piece of legislation. That such an image trades on longstanding racist stereotypes is apparent to most folks of color, and yet, most of white America has yawned through the controversy, or worse, accused blacks enraged by the image of hypersensitivity. Likewise, most whites reacted with unaffected diffidence at the New Year's day videotape from the Oakland subway, in which a white police officer coolly executed a black man by the name of Oscar Grant, despite Grant putting up no resistance, possessing no weapon, and posing no threat to the officer. On message boards in the Bay Area--supposedly filled with progressive types to hear locals tell it--whites regularly expressed more outrage at protesters demanding justice for the Grant family, than at officer Mehserle for committing cold-blooded murder.

Sadly, whites are rarely open to what black and brown folks have to say regarding their ongoing experiences with racist mistreatment. And we are especially reluctant to discuss what that mistreatment means for us as whites: namely that we end up with more and better opportunities as the flipside of discrimination. After all, there is no down without an up, no matter how much we'd like to believe otherwise.

It is white denial, as much as anything, which has allowed racial inequity to persist for so long, and it's nothing new. In the early 1960s, even before the passage of modern civil rights laws, two out of three whites said blacks were treated equally, and nearly 90 percent said black kids had equal educational opportunity. Matter of fact, white denial has a longer pedigree than that, reaching back at least as far as the 1860s, when southern slave-owners were literally stunned to see their human property abandon them after the Emancipation Proclamation. After all, to the semi-delusional white mind of the time, they had always treated their slaves "like family."

Until we address our nation's long history of white supremacy, come to terms with the legacy of that history, and confront the reality of ongoing discrimination (even in the "Age of Obama"), whatever dialogue we engage around the subject will only further confuse us, and stifle our efforts to one day emerge from the thick and oppressive fog of racism. For however much audacity may be tethered to the concept of hope, let us be mindful that truth is more audacious still. May we find the courage, some day soon, to tell it.

Ray Burris, contin.

2009-02-21T11:16:00.002-05:00

The new senator from Illinois keeps the corrupt administration of Gov. Blago on the front pages long after the pols hoped that Blago's removal from office would put things to rest. With every new revelation, the quick flip-flop to accept Blago's appointment of Burris looks like a big mistake. My opinion is--Burris had all the scrutiny coming as soon as he agreed to appear on the same stage as the disgraced Blago, smiling and acting all buddy-buddy with a man whose actions have done my home state big-time harm. Burris was a state-wide elected official (comptroller, I think) way back when I was in Illinois up through 1984. I guess he never fulfilled his electoral aspirations--maybe racism was a factor. Still, his willingness to accept this appointment (after reportedly one or two others had turned Blago down) smacks of opportunism, and the continuing revelations of his contacts with Blago's circle over fundraising and the appearance of a quid pro quo between that and the appointment as senator call into question Burris's integrity. That's my opinion, anyway.

New York Post Cartoon

2009-02-19T18:43:00.000-05:00

Oh, yeah, about the cartoon with the chimp shot dead and the cop saying, "Who we gonna get next time we need a stimulus bill signed?" or some such rot:

Dumb, just dumb.....I mean, 7th grade idiot not-funny attempt at humor dumb. I decent middle school student editor would have nixed this tripe.

Best comment I heard on it was on NPR's call-in show Talk of the Nation. Someone sent in this reaction:

I don't think the lady whose face was mauled almost beyond recongnition would find it funny.
I don't think the lady whose chimp was killed would find it funny.
I don't think the thousands of people, mostly young black males, who are shot by police each year would find it funny.
And I don't think our first African American president would find it funny.

'Nuff said.

Eric Holder's Provocative Speech

2009-02-19T08:20:00.001-05:00

Re: our new Attonrey General's speaking out on the need to talk honestly about race--I couldn't agree more (that's the point of this blog, as well as the goal of my career in sociology) It's a shame, though, that what the media pick out as a headline is the "nation of cowards" soundbyte. I guess Holder could have anticipated that, and chosen his words more carefully. Oh, well...

from http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090219/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/holder_race

Holder: US a nation of cowards on racial matters

By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer Devlin Barrett, Associated Press Writer – Wed Feb 18, 9:36 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Eric Holder, the nation's first black attorney general, said Wednesday the United States was "a nation of cowards" on matters of race, with most Americans avoiding candid discussions of racial issues. In a speech to Justice Department employees marking Black History Month, Holder said the workplace is largely integrated but Americans still self-segregate on the weekends and in their private lives.

"Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards," Holder said.

Race issues continue to be a topic of political discussion, but "we, as average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race."

Holder's speech echoed President Barack Obama's landmark address last year on race relations during the hotly contested Democratic primaries, when the then-candidate urged the nation to break "a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years" and bemoaned the "chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races." Obama delivered the speech to try to distance himself from the angry rhetoric of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Holder cited that speech by Obama as part of the motivation for his words Wednesday, saying Americans need to overcome an ingrained inhibition against talking about race.

"If we're going to ever make progress, we're going to have to have the guts, we have to have the determination, to be honest with each other. It also means we have to be able to accept criticism where that is justified," Holder told reporters after the speech.

In the speech, Holder urged people of all races to use Black History Month as a chance for honest discussion of racial matters, including issues of health care, education and economic disparities.

Race, Holder said, "is an issue we have never been at ease with and, given our nation's history, this is in some ways understandable... If we are to make progress in this area, we must feel comfortable enough with one another and tolerant enough of each other to have frank conversations about the racial matters that continue to divide us."

In a country founded by slave owners, race has bedeviled the nation throughout its history, with blacks denied the right to vote just a few decades ago. Obama's triumph last November as well as the nomination of Holder stand as historic achievements of two black Americans.

Holder told hundreds of Justice Department employees gathered for the event that they have a special responsibility to advance racial understanding.

Even when people mix at the workplace or afterwork social events, Holder argued, many Americans in their free time are still segregated inside what he called "race-protected cocoons."

"Saturdays and Sundays, America in the year 2009 does not in some ways differ significantly from the country that existed almost 50 years ago. This is truly sad," said Holder.

Matt Miller, a spokesman for Holder, said later the attorney general used "provocative words to be clear that Americans of all races should stop avoiding the difficult issues of race."

Andrew Grant-Thomas, Deputy Director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University, praised Holder's general message but said the wording of the speech may alienate some.

"He's right on the substance, but that's probably not the most politic way of saying it. I'm certain there are people who will hear him and say, 'That's obnoxious,'" he said, adding that what was missing from Holder's speech were specific examples of what painful subjects need to be addressed.

Hilary Shelton, vice president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, called the speech "constructively provocative."

"Nobody wants to be considered a coward. We've learned to get along by exclusion and silence. We need to talk about it. People need to feel comfortable saying the wrong things," said Shelton

Darker Skin by Injection!

2009-01-30T20:32:00.000-05:00

One of the inexplicable contradictions in race is this: in every known historical era, in every region of the world, lighter skin has been considered preferable to darker skin, and been privileged thereby. Except this one strange anomoly of the past century: the desirability of a tan among white folks. Now comes word from an article in Wired Magazine that a "suntan drug" has been approved for trials by the FDA--ostensibly for medical use (for a few rare conditions)--not for cosmetic use. (Kind of like QT in a syringe, to be applied internally instead of topically, and with less orangish results).

The article (at http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/01/tan.html?npu=1&mbid=yhp --complete with before-and-after photos) says the hype or the risk, depending on how you look at it, is that the drug has the potential to be an abused "lifestyle drug" like Botox or Viagra. In fact, the human-made hormone, called afamelanotide, is already available (illegal in the U.S.) on-line as Melanotan II.

Now here's the REALLY weird part: The drug reportedly appears to have aphrodisiac and erectile function effects as well. Darker skin, more active libido--talk about reinforcing racial sterotypes!

And for a bit more weirdness: the article reports that in "early animal trials, injections of the drug caused a yellow dog's fur to become black and visibly darkened a frog's skin in minutes." Yeah, sounds safe to me. I mean, why not just wallow in a bath of ink the color you wanta be?!

Black GOP Chairman

2009-01-30T20:13:00.000-05:00

Let me get this straight: a party that has exactly zero African American member of Congress: that's zero out of about, I don't know, 220 U.S. senators and Congressmembers, has elected a black man (Michael Steele, former Lt. Governor of MD) as chair of their party?!!! I guess you could say that's a way of trying to change that, but I fear the more accurate interpretation is that he's some weird response to the election of Obama (kind of like the nomination of wacko blacko Alan Keyes (not even a true resident of IL) to oppose Obama for the Senate in 2004. I wonder if Steele will stick it out with the GOP longer than J.C. Watts did--he was the last black member of the U.S. COngress, and quit after just a few terms despite getting a lot more public exposure than most inexperience Congressfolk.

The other racial subtext to the story is the withdrawal, just before the vote, with no explanation offered, of another candidate: former Tennessee GOP Chairman Chip Saltsman. Saltsman drew a lot of heat after mailing a CD in December to RNC members: the CD included a song titled "Barack the Magic Negro" by conservative comedian Paul Shanklin and sung to the music of "Puff, the Magic Dragon." What--someone found that objectionable? From a party with zero black members of Congress? Duh!!!

Blago's Circus

2009-01-06T15:41:00.000-05:00

The spectacle of the rejection of Roland Burris's credentials for senator is full of racial overtones, not just undertones. African American U.S. reps Bobby Rush, Elijah Cummings, and some other black leaders are demanding that Burris be seated, claiming that to do otherwise is racist. What a mess. Of course, Burris knew when he agreed to accept the appointment by soon-to-be-indicted Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich that such an appointment would be a sham. But the reason the senate is so susceptible to the "racism" claim is that of 100 senators elected to represent this "fair" land, exactly one of them--Barack Obama--was black. This in a nation about 12% black. Were blacks to have proportional representation, one would expect for there to be 12 black senators. Instead, if Obama were replaced by a nonblack, there would be zero. Like I said, what a mess. I guess our land is too "fair" (i.e., light skinned), and at the same time not nearly fair enough (when it comes to equality without regard to skin color/race).

Darius Rucker, African American Country Music Star?

2008-12-11T08:37:00.000-05:00

I don't know where I've been, but I had no idea that Darius Rucker, lead singer of Hootie and the Blowfish, had gone solo as a country singer. His first single from the album, "Don't Think I Don't Think About It," released this past spring, reached the top 20 on the country charts in July, becoming the first song by a black atist to chart that high since Charley Pride in 1988. Then it reached number 1 in September, the first since Pride's "Night Games" in 1983 to do that.

I hope they treat you all right out there on the road, Darius. Best of luck.

OJ Simpson Sentenced Harshly

2008-12-05T16:03:00.000-05:00

Got up to 33 years, eligible for parole in 9 years, for the sports memorabilia armed bullying fiasco in Las Vegas. Sure, judge, go ahead and try to convince us that the sentence isn't an attempt to rectify the acquittal on murder way back when. I bet a lot of jerks caught up in a muddled armed confrontation/misunderstanding/setup (take your pick) that's over in a few minutes with no one injured get a sentence like that.

Top Ten Reasons Why Obama is Black

2008-12-05T15:58:00.001-05:00

Good opinion piece from blackplanet http://newsone.blackplanet.com/nation/top-10-reasons-obamas-black/, refuting the claim that we should call Obama "biracial" instead of black, since he's "only half-black." People with African blood are by default black in our society. They gotta CHOOSE to be categorized as biracial; otherwise the default rules. Here's the article (but you gotta click on the link to get the hilarious photo illustrations!):

OPINION: Top 10 Reasons Obama Is Black
By Casey Gane-McCalla December 2, 2008 10:07 am

In the Washington Post, writer Marie Arana said that Barack Obama is not black; he is biracial and bicultural. I say she’s wrong: he is the first black president, the first bicultural president AND the first biracial president. So here are the Top 10 Reasons Barack Obama is Black.

1. His Name.

Even names like Leroy Johnson or Tyrone Jenkins could possibly be white people’s names. But no way in hell there’s a white man named Barack Obama. Obama’s name could be that of a great African Warrior.

Tell Shaka Zulu that Barack Obama has come from the hills to aid him.

Or a radical sixties Black nationalist.

Mumia Abu Jamal and Barack Obama were captured by Co-Intelpro members.

Maybe even a black athlete…

With the 8th pick of the NBA draft the Warriors select, Barack Obama from Ohio State.

2. His Wife.

Being Black is like being Jewish; if you marry into the family you have to convert to Blackism. No one is debating Michelle’s ethnicity. She is from a traditional Good Times family that worked its way up like the Jefferson’s so they could become the Huxtables. Michelle Obama is Whitney Houston before the crack black, a dark skinned Clair Huxtable, a testament to black womanhood, motherhood, sisterhood, family and achievement. If Obama wasn’t black before he married her, he was damn sure black after.

3. He Considers Himself Black.

On 60 Minutes Steve Kroft asked Obama why he considers himself to be African American. He said that he never decided to be black but that, “I think if you look African-American in this society, you’re treated as an African-American.” In college, Obama was in the Black Student’s Association at both Occidental and Columbia, where he first became politically active, campaigning against apartheid. At Harvard, he was on the board for the Black Law Students Association as well as earning the title of “the first Black Editor” for the Harvard Law Review.

4. His Voice

Barack Obama sounds like a mix of Denzel Washington and James Earl Jones. He could very well have voiced Mufasa in the Lion King. If Obama called your house, you wouldn’t say there’s some biracial guy on the phone. You’d say there’s a black guy on the phone.

5. History

Biracials have always been included in the greater group of African Americans. Frederick Douglass, Booker T, Washington and even reggae legend Bob Marley are all biracial. Unlike South Africa, where they developed a category for biracials, coloreds, in their caste system, none was ever made in the US. Therefore, biracials were treated like Blacks under the law. Biracials have traditionally been part of the same struggle for Black freedom, independence and dignity that all African Americans have.

6. Basketball

Despite the fact that he grew up partially in Indonesia and went to private school he didn’t play soccer, squash or crew: he played basketball. It’s not a stereotype. Basketball has become an African-American athletic tradition that Obama is a part of. No one has referred to Jason Kidd as the first great biracial basketball player; to most he’s just another Black basketball player.

7. His Religion

In the USA, the Irish and Italians go to Catholic Church; WASPs go to the Episcopalian church; Koreans go to the Korean church. Obama went to the Black church: gospel music and a long history of spiritual resistance against racism. People praising the Lord and speaking in tongues. Obama’s religion is deeply rooted in the tradition of African-Americans in the USA.

8. Black People Love Him

No one was talking about the biracial demographic helping Obama win; it was the Black vote. Go to any black neighborhood and all the 50 Cent and Scarface shirts have been replaced by Obama T-Shirts. There are Obama watches, key chains and hats on every street corner. The black community has taken a special sense of pride in Obama, similar to that of Bob Marley, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X or Nelson Mandela. He has united the Civil Rights generation and the Hip Hop generation and has given black people a sense of pride. Although you may have a few detractors of Obama’s blackness in the black community, the overwhelming majority consider him Black.

9. Biracial Isn’t A Good Term

Biracial could mean you’re Latino and Asian, African and South Asian; there are a lot of mixes. Someone who’s South Asian and White might not be able to relate to someone who is Hispanic and Black. If one wanted to get technical, Obama is Euro American/African American. Being biracial is a technical term, not a term of heritage or cultural identity like Black, White, Latino or Asian. Bill Richardson wasn’t seen as the biracial governor although he was half Latino and half White; he was seen as a Latino governor. There is no culture or history for being biracial. There’s no biracial history month, no biracial music, no biracial slang, no biracial food. Unlike being Black, Jewish, Hispanic, White, or Asian, which are larger cultural identities, there is no culture necessarily attributed to the biracial community.

10. The Police

If Barack Obama robbed someone the police would not say be on the look out for a number 1.5 male; they’d look out for a number 1 male. Police wouldn’t say, “Never mind don’t pull over that black guy, he looks biracial.” If Obama was a rapper or an athlete and he got arrested, there wouldn’t be an outcry against biracial athletes or entertainers; there would be yet another outcry against Black rappers and entertainers.

All that considered, I’m sorry Marie Arana: Barack Obama is STILL Black. You won’t disappoint the millions of people who are proud to see the first Black president. Being Black is a very complicated racial, cultural, definition that encompasses many people from many different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. So yes, you can be Black and biracial at the same time. Black people have always been mixed, either voluntarily or involuntarily. Many black people have White, Native American, or Latino blood in them. Black people from the Caribbean have Asian and South Asian blood in them. While being white has been defined by purity, being Black has been inclusive of any mix of African blood. The term Black has been used to describe people from Africa, the Caribbean and people with mixed race.

Obama is Black in his own eyes, in the eyes of history and in the eyes of the law. He is also biracial; he is also American and he is also a human being. Everybody can take pride in Barack Obama, for there is is some of him in all of us. Still, we cannot forget that he comes from a tradition of Black leaders, Black culture and a Black identity. The significance of his victory is part of American history and more specifically Black American History and is a turning point in the struggle of Black people in this country.

Elephant in the Room on Anchor Murder Arrest Story

2008-12-01T18:55:00.000-05:00

I think I've caught on to how things work in the "postracial" "colorblind" fantasy we find our society in these days. I was watching the Today show this morning (don't usually watch morning TV, but my daughter had it on hoping for a snow day off from school). Matt Laurel had the parents of the Arkansas TV anchor (pretty young blond woman named Anne Pressly) who was murdered about a month ago. The story was that an arrest had been made of the alleged murderer. His name is Curtis Vance. His pictured was flashed on the screen--a very unflattering portrait of a black man. No mention of the racial aspects of the situation. Wouldn't be proper, as I said, in this fantasy of ours. But that picture did the talking, a thousand words' worth. It validated the fears and suspicions of millions of whites that blacks can be/are sexual monsters, out to defile our pretty young daughters. Notwithstanding the history, both pre- and post-slavery of white slavemasters and land owners having their way, unimpeded by law or custom, with any black women they took a hankering to. Nothing the woman, or her male lover, or father, or anyone else in the black community could do about it. But those facts don't match up with the prevailing story, so forget it.

Late in the interview, Matt said, "I have to bring up a touchy, hard-to-talk-about subject now." I thought, "Is he really gonna do it? Blatantly bring up the racial question?" But no, Matt was referring to bringing up the subject of the likely sexual assault that took place in the murder act. The two parents had referred many times to Vance as "this gentleman" up to this point, but when the sex crime subject was broached, the mother slipped and called him "a monster." Maybe if my daughter was murdered at 26, I'd call someone a monster, too. But how can someone be both a monster and a gentleman to you?

I thought, well how SHOULD those parents have handled things? I don't know, would it be too much to ask them to make a statement along the lines of, "You know, I hope to God this murder does nothing to cause harm to race relations in our community and in our nation. We well know that there are good black people and bad black people; there are good white people and bad white people. As much as we hate to admit it, all races have members capable of the most horrendous acts. So to my black brothers and sisters--peace be with you. And to my fellow white people--don't you dare think of holding this act against a whole race of people who have stood valiantly in the face of centuries of inhumane injustices. We miss our daughter terribly, but we attribute the harm to the despicable act of one depraved individual."

Yeah, I guess that would be asking too much. Look who's living in a fantasy now...

Race and the Rock Era

2008-11-12T14:22:00.000-05:00

OK, so my ethnocentrism (that sounds more palatable than racism, doesn't it?) showed itself just now--I read a teaser on Yahoo about Rolling Stone magazine's poll of top 100 singers of the rock era. The teaser said Elvis was NOT number 1 in the poll, but rather number 3, thus inviting the reader to guess the two ranked ahead of him before clicking the article. (http://music.yahoo.com/read/news/61852568)

I guessed two other white boys--Springsteen and Bono. Turns out the two ahead of him are both black--Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles. My only, weak defense is that I read "of the rock era" as meaning "of the rock (and roll) music genre." Yeah, right, like I said, a pretty weak defense--latent racism is the more plausible explanation.

Turns out that blacks dominate the Top 10 on this poll: 1. Aretha Franklin; 2. Ray Charles; 4. Sam Cooke; 6. Marvin Gaye; 8. Otis Redding; 9. Stevie Wonder; and 10. James Brown. (The whites are 3. Elvis; 5. John Lennon and 7. Bob Dylan--in his case, using the term "singer" loosely!)

Of course, in our officially color-blind society, we can't POINT OUT in the article the dominance of blacks--it might be taken as a criticism, or a statement of black superiority, or something, so the article only points out the prponderance of dead over living artists in the top 10.

Just makes you realize that this color-blind nonsense deprives us of recognizing and enjoying the diverse colors of the human rainbow.

P.S. It's also worth noting that the poll was of industry insiders, not of readers. Had it been readers, I doubt the outcome would have reflected quite the same impact and influence of African-American singers since the mid-1950's.

More Blather about Obama's ascention meaning the end of racism

2008-11-08T18:38:00.000-05:00

Oh, boy, here we go again, another AP writer telling us how Obama's election to the highest office in the land means the end of race as the primary organizing principle in our society.
"Obama victory opens door to new black identity" shouts the headline of the article by JESSE WASHINGTON, and the article starts with "Shortly after leaving the voting booth, 70-year-old community activist Donald E. Robinson had a thought: 'Why do I have to be listed as African-American? Why can't I just be American?'

The answer used to be simple: because a race-obsessed society made the decision for him. But after Barack Obama's mind-bending presidential victory, there are rumblings of change in the nature of black identity and the path to economic equality for black Americans.

Before Tuesday, black identity and community were largely rooted in the shared experience of the struggle — real or perceived — against a hostile white majority. Even as late as Election Day, many blacks still harbored deep doubts about whether whites would vote for Obama.

Obama's overwhelming triumph cast America in a different light."

Don't get me wrong: I'm happy as can be that Obama won. I know that his election is a great milestone. It is a sign of how far we've come. But as long as we live in the school and residential segregation we are in, as long as the prisons are filled with black men sentenced 100 times as stiffly for their crack crimes as whites are for their powder cocaine, etc.--Mr. Robinsons can call and think of himself however he wants, but the majority of whites, at least, in this society are still gonna see black first, American later.

Another part of the article got under my skin: "Certainly racism did not disappear after Obama's white votes were counted. No one is claiming that black culture and pride and community are no longer valuable. Many also dismiss the idea of a "post-racial" America as long as blacks and other minorities are still disproportionately afflicted by disparities in income, education, health, incarceration and single parenthood.

But white groups that once faced discrimination, such as the Italians, Jews and Irish, have moved from the margins to the mainstream. America debated whether John F. Kennedy could become the first Catholic president; now that's a historical footnote.""

Another tired old comparison of blacks to white ethnics, as if the same route of assimilation and absorbsion into our mainstream society is open to blacks.As if Italians, Jews and Irish were kidnapped, packed like sardines in the hole of a ship, sold as property if they survived the journey, bred like livestock, lynched with impunity, considered more ape than human, etc. Besides that, perhaps assimilation like the Irish would be a BAD thing for blacks, basically a selling of soul for a piece of pie. Anyway, I thought an AP writer would know better than to bring up that argument/hope. Guess I'm naive.

"Mutts Like Me"

2008-11-08T09:25:00.000-05:00

Obama's first news conference: refers to himself and other mixed-race folks as "mutts." Interesting--I wonder if he offended any of his fellow mixed-race folks? Also, the writer takes this as an indication that Obama is gonna be open in discussing race. That's reading a bit much into one off-hand comment, don't you think? He avoided the issue like the plague (with good reason) for most of his campaign. Also, the writer brings up that popular doomsday forecast: "Extra! Extra! Read all about it! We Whites will be a minority in our own country in X years!" and calls it "fortuitous" that we have a prez who is at ease discussing race, because, by golly, we only got 35 years to sort out our comfort level as a nation, because, like I said, "Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Whites will be a minority in 2042!" Of course, it is actually NON-HISPANIC whites, and chances are that eaither or both of Hispanic whites and (at least some) Asians will be admitted into the "White CLub" as at least probationary whites by that time. Anyway, here is the news story:
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081108/ap_on_el_pr/mutts_like_me)

'Mutts like me' - Obama shows ease discussing race
By ALAN FRAM, Associated Press
WASHINGTON – It popped out casually, a throwaway line as he talked to reporters about finding the right puppy for his young daughters.

But with just three offhanded words in his first news conference as president-elect, Barack Obama reminded everyone how thoroughly different his administration — and inevitably, this country — will be.

"Mutts like me."

By now, almost everyone knows that Obama's mother was white and father was black, putting him on track to become the nation's first African-American president. But there was something startling, and telling, about hearing his self-description — particularly in how offhandedly he used it.

The message seemed clear — here is a president who will be quite at ease discussing race, a complex issue as unresolved as it is uncomfortable for many to talk about openly. And at a time when whites in the country are not many years from becoming the minority.

Obama made the remark as he revealed his thinking in what is becoming one of the highest-profile issues of this transition period: What kind of puppy will he and his wife, Michelle, get for their daughters as they move into the White House.

Because Malia, 10, has allergies, the family wants a low-allergy dog. But Obama said they also want to adopt a puppy from an animal shelter, which could make it harder to find a breed that wouldn't aggravate his daughter's problem.

"Obviously, a lot of shelter dogs are mutts like me," Obama said with a smile. "So whether we're going to be able to balance those two things, I think, is a pressing issue on the Obama household."

In his first postelection news conference, the man who will be president in just over two months described himself as a mutt as casually as he may have poked fun at his jump shot.

If he thought nothing of such a remark in his first news conference, doesn't that signal that over the next four years, the country is likely to hear more about race from the White House — and from the perspective of a black man — than it ever has before?

It's not necessarily that he will make a crusade about the issue once he takes office. There was little sign of that in his election campaign, in which he ran on issues like the economy with a broad appeal to all Americans.

But it does underscore that the president-elect clearly does not see race as a subject best sidestepped or discussed in hushed tones. To Obama, race in all its complications has long been a defining part of his life, and he is comfortable talking about it.

The timing seems fortuitous. Obama will be sworn in as the country is rapidly becoming more racially diverse. The latest government projections indicate that by 2042, white people will make up less than half the nation's population.

Blacks have been elected to local and statewide office in growing numbers in recent years, a sign that the country is becoming more tolerant. Obama lost the white vote to Republican John McCain by 12 percentage points, according to exit polls of voters — a better showing than Democrat John Kerry's 17-point deficit with whites four years ago.

Still, a conversation about race over the next four years that is more open and explicit than the country has ever heard from its president can't be bad, can it?

Obama's comment was all the more noteworthy coming from a man who just ended a presidential campaign in which he stayed relentlessly on-message and made few comments that could be hurled against him. This is a man who can limit himself to saying exactly what he wants to say — usually.

One remark that did haunt him came during his long-running primary campaign against Hillary Rodham Clinton. Speaking at a private fundraiser in San Francisco, Obama said some residents of depressed rural areas get bitter and "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them."

Eager to avoid slips like that in the campaign's closing days, Obama usually avoided reporters and seldom departed from prepared remarks.

At his news conference Friday, Obama seemed less guarded. But that led to another eyebrow-raising moment.

Obama told reporters that he has turned for advice to all "living" former presidents. But he then joked, "I didn't want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about, you know, doing any seances."

The former first lady actually has not been linked to conversations with the dead. President Reagan's former chief of staff, Donald Regan, did write that she set her husband's schedule with the help of an astrologist.

Obama called Mrs. Reagan late Friday to apologize.

Ironically, Obama's remarks came just a day after Italy's Premier Silvio Berlusconi, in an apparent joke, described Obama as "young, handsome and even tanned." Critics called the comment racist, while Berlusconi defended it as a compliment.

Election

2008-11-05T09:55:00.000-05:00

First off: "WWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HHHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!"

Having said that: the first person to use Obama's election as proof that we live in a "post-racial, color-blind society" gets a cold slap in the face...

Interesting comment on the changing demographics of the electorate:
"What's most interesting about early results is not just how many people voted but the shifting demographic of American voters, said Stephen Ansolabehere, a political science professor at Harvard and MIT.

Using exit polling data, Ansolabehere determined that whites made up 74 percent of the 2008 electorate. That's down considerably from 81 percent in 2000 because of increase in black and Hispanic voting, he said.

"That's a big shift in terms of demographic composition of the electorate," Ansolabehere said early Wednesday." (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081105/ap_on_el_pr/voter_turnout)

My comment: "Ought oh, watch out white America, we're losing our grip on control!"
All sarcasm aside: if those numbers are accurate, and don't simply reflect some change in self-identity among some Hispanic whites and mixed-race folks, that is a rather astounding shift in the span of just 8 years: the "white majority" proportion of the electorate dropping from 81% to 74% in that time. At that rate, my rough estimate is that (non-Hispanic) whites will be about 65% in another 8 years, under 2/3'rds. "The sky is falling!!!!! The sky is falling!!!!" LOL

Two Words....

2008-10-25T12:03:00.001-04:00

... Ashley Todd

More Joe the Plumber speaking in Racial Code

2008-10-17T12:07:00.001-04:00

Here's an excerpt from an interview that Joe Wurzenbacher gave after his encounter with Obama, but before the debate made him famous.

All right, boys and girls, put your listening ears on, and see if you can pick out any "revealing" thoughts and phrases re: Ol' Joe's racial views.

Interviewer: Do you fear this is the possibility of America turning more down the socialist road if Obama does become elected and if he is able to implement these policies?

Joe: Very much so. You start giving people stuff, and then they start expecting it – and that scares me. A lot of people expect it now. They get upset when their check’s late, they get upset when they don’t get as many benefits as they used to, or when different government agencies are cut or spending is cut here and there for whatever reason – people get upset at that. And that’s because they’re used to getting it and they want more. I mean, everyone’s always gonna want more. People work the system left and right to get more out of welfare, to get more out of state assistance, federal assistance. And if government’s there for them, they’re gonna keep on trying to manipulate it to get more out of it. You got people that come along and say, “Hey, I wanna help you people,” I mean, they’re all ears! They’re like, “Hey, you can help me more, I don’t have to work as hard, I don’t have to do as much, and you’re gonna give me this? Man, that’s great, you’re a good guy.”

from http://familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.1465/pub_detail.asp

Cross Burning "for Halloween"--yeah, right...

2008-10-17T09:52:00.000-04:00

According to the Associated Press, a Canton, Ohio man arrested for burning a cross in front of his home was just trying to make his Halloween yard display "more authentic...so it would look more weathered."

So that explain why the white Shane Helton continued to (as the police report) spray lighter fluid on the wood after authorities arrived. Uh, huh.

And what a coincidence that, just next door resides a married couple, the wife white, the husband black, and the wife, Stephanie Blankenship, says, according to the AP, "they have had problems with Helson and his roommate before." Hmmmm....

You can read the AP article at http://www.zanesvilletimesrecorder.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081017/UPDATES01/81017010

It' s also noteworthy that the Zanesville, Ohio newspaper headline reads, "Alleged Cross-Burning was for Halloween." Not "Cross-Burning was Allegedly for Halloween." The latter calls into question the excuse, while the former expresses doubt about the criminal charge. Oops! Simple mistake, I'm sure....

Joe the Plumber: tapdancing around racial codetalk

2008-10-16T12:03:00.000-04:00

Joe the Plumber said near the end of his interview with Katie Couric last night after the debate that Barack Obama tap-danced around the questions he asked, "almost as good as Sammy Davis, Jr." It sounds innocent enough on tape. Not real wise to pick a black man representative of a racial stereotype (black=good dancer) in comparing Obama, a black man. Still, I might give him a pass on it. Then I heard, though, that in an interview today (enjoying his fame while it lasts) Joe said he was from the South, then went back and corrected that, saying he though most of his life that he had roots in the South, but then (to his disappointment?) found that all his roots were in Ohio. What kind of person from the Midwest fantasizes about being from the South. I can't psychoanalyze the guy, but it would seem he was a Southern sympathizer--in the Civil War relived; in the Jim Crow/Civil Rights struggle, etc. I don't know. I just don't know.

I do know this. Joe the plumber, with or without racial problems, is not near enough to help McCain make up the deficit he's facing. Go Obama!

Right Wingers Still Blaming Blacks for Economy

2008-10-16T11:58:00.000-04:00

But this time,the National Review dude (Byron York--BY) gets his comeuppance but good in a live chat with the Atlantic's Matt Taibbi (MT). Read it:

http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/10/matt_taibbi_sons_byron_york.php#more

Matt Taibbi sons Byron York
16 Oct 2008 08:56 am

Sorry guys, this begs to be quoted at length:

B.Y.: I think that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were also major factors. And I believe that many of the problems in the mortgage area can be attributed to the confluence of Democratic and Republican priorities: the Democrats' desire to give mortgages to people, particularly minorities, who could not afford them, and the Republicans' desire to achieve an "ownership society," in part by giving mortgages to people who could not afford them. Again, I believe that if you are suggesting that the financial crisis is a Republican creation, or even more specifically a McCain creation, I think you're on pretty shaky ground.

M.T.: Oh, come on. Tell me you're not ashamed to put this gigantic international financial Krakatoa at the feet of a bunch of poor black people who missed their mortgage payments. The CDS market, this market for credit default swaps that was created in 2000 by Phil Gramm's Commodities Future Modernization Act, this is now a $62 trillion market, up from $900 billion in 2000. That's like five times the size of the holdings in the NYSE. And it's all speculation by Wall Street traders. It's a classic bubble/Ponzi scheme. The effort of people like you to pin this whole thing on minorities, when in fact this whole thing has been caused by greedy traders dealing in unregulated markets, is despicable.

B.Y.: I was struck by the recent Senate testimony of James Lockhart, who is head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, about the sheer recklessness of Fannie in recent years. Despite "repeated warnings about credit risk," Lockhart testified, Fannie became more reckless in 2006 and 2007 than they had been in the scandal-ridden tenure of Franklin Raines (who departed in 2004). In 2005, Lockhart said, 14 percent of Fannie's new business was in risky loans. In the first half of 2007, it was 33 percent. So something terribly wrong was going on there, and it became a significant part of the present problem.

M.T.: What a surprise that you mention Franklin Raines. Do you even know how a CDS works? Can you explain your conception of how these derivatives work? Because I get the feeling you don't understand. Or do you actually think that it was a few tiny homeowner defaults that sank gigantic companies like AIG and Lehman and Bear Stearns? Explain to me how these default swaps work, I'm interested to hear.

Because what we're talking about here is the difference between one homeowner defaulting and forty, four hundred, four thousand traders betting back and forth on the viability of his loan. Which do you think has a bigger effect on the economy?

B.Y.: Are you suggesting that critics of Fannie and Freddie are talking about the default of a single homeowner?

M.T.: No. That is what you call a figure of speech. I'm saying that you're talking about individual homeowners defaulting. But these massive companies aren't going under because of individual homeowner defaults. They're going under because of the myriad derivatives trades that go on in connection with each piece of debt, whether it be a homeowner loan or a corporate bond. I'm still waiting to hear what your idea is of how these trades work. I'm guessing you've never even heard of them.

I mean really. You honestly think a company like AIG tanks because a bunch of minorities couldn't pay off their mortgages?

B.Y.: When you refer to "Phil Gramm's Commodities Future Modernization Act," are you referring to S.3283, co-sponsored by Gramm, along with Senators Tom Harkin and Tim Johnson?

M.T.: In point of fact I'm talking about the 262-page amendment Gramm tacked on to that bill that deregulated the trade of credit default swaps.

Tick tick tick. Hilarious sitting here while you frantically search the Internet to learn about the cause of the financial crisis -- in the middle of a live chat interview.

B.Y.: Look, you can keep trying to make this a specifically partisan and specifically Gramm-McCain thing, but it simply isn't. We've gone on for fifteen minutes longer than scheduled, and that's enough. Thanks.

M.T.: Thanks. Note, folks, that the esteemed representative of the New Republic has no idea what the hell a credit default swap is. But he sure knows what a minority homeowner looks like.

B.Y.: It's National Review.

That will leave a mark. It takes great intellectual cowardice, and frankly moral cowardice, to push the discredited "Teh Blacks and Mexicans caused the economic crisis" theory. In that sense, this was much deserved. The worst part is that York doesn't even defend the theory--he just hopes we'll buy this package marked "Blame The Niggers and Spics." But he has no idea what's inside the box.

It's amazing to me that these guys continue this strategy, even as it's clear that the demographics aren't on their side--the country isn't getting any whiter. But that's small potatoes. The bigger question is philisophical. Where is the principle in this? What is "conservative" about this argument, except that it's just anti-government? Here is the conservativism that York is peddling--"personal responsibility" for Harlem and Washington Heights, but none for Wall Street and Midtown.

Eminem: Best Rapper Alive?

2008-10-13T15:38:00.000-04:00

Yahoo News had an intriguing headline: "Best rapper alive? Eminem wins Vibe magazine's Best Rapper Alive contest, sparking a heated debate." I follwed the link to a Y! Music blog entry by Billy Johnson, Jr. There's a picture of Billy. He's a black man. The one thing missing from the entire entry (http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/hiphopmediatraining/31863/best-rapper-alive-competition-feels-slim-shady/): race. Once again, it's the elephant in the living room: the Subject which Must not be Named. I mean, come on, eminem is a white man performing in the dominant musical field of the African American Community. He followed in the footsteps of jokes like Vanilla Ice and the Beasty Boys in "white rap." Unlike them, Eminem achieved a level of acceptance and street cred in teh black community. But for him to be crowned the best (excluding of course Tupac and others no longer living)? I agree something seems astray. Is Vibe Magazine controlled by whites? If so, one could wonder if the bracketing was manipulated in Eminem's favor. How does Vibe's readership break down by race? Do they sell more copies with a popular white (rather than black) rapper on the cover? THese would be interesting questions. But the blogger tip toes all around race, with the implication of its central role thick in the air, but never spoken. Strange.

Johnson ends his entry with these words: "I consider Eminem to be one of the greatest MCs to have ever rhymed. He has an undeniable gift of storytelling. He can freestyle. He's passionate, and is one of the few who is blessed with the ability to simultaneously go straight mega pop and still reach the heads. He's top 10 without question.

I'm in one of those moods and can go and on about this as if it was something important. So I'll stop and let some of my favorites conclude my argument. Check out their videos."

Then he provides links to videos by the artists he presumably thinks should have outpolled Eminem. Kinda seems like a copout to me. I mean, name names, man! Take down the license plates and report them! Easy for me to say, I know. Justing pointing out the strange way we [don't] deal with race in this country, including in popular culture.

McCain, Race, and the 2nd Debate

2008-10-08T10:43:00.000-04:00

McCain said, "But you know, they're the ones that, with the encouragement of Sen. Obama and his cronies and his friends in Washington, that went out and made all these risky loans, gave them to people that could never afford to pay back." Kinda sounds like the blame the victim, blame the black folks, argument put forward by some from the right.

He also said to this questioner, an African American man, "...one of the real catalysts, really the match that lit this fire was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I'll bet you, you may never even have heard of them before this crisis."
As a network pundit pointed out last night, it's kind of patronizing to assume the a questioner never heard of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before the past couple of months. And to assume it about a black man, well, lets just say it's not reassuring.

Then there's this: the first question was from a white man named Allen. The second from a black man named Oliver. McCain called him Oliver when he started his answer, but later said, "... and we're going to have to stabilize home values, and that way, Americans, like Alan, can realize the American dream and stay in their home." Was he still talking to/about Oliver, and just got the name wrong? Or did he slip back to Alan, "an American" whom he's concerned about? I'm just saying...

Finally, of course, there's the line everyone is talking about: McCain's distainful reference to Obama as "that one," as if the man isn't even human. You can read whatever you want into that, but it certainly makes me wonder what racist hatred is buried in the heart, or should I say spleen, of John McCain. This is, after all, a man who still recentely, unashamedly referred to his torcherers as "gooks."

What do you all think? Anyone out there reading?

Blacks and Baseball: Looking Up?

2008-10-03T23:04:00.000-04:00

The decline of African Americans in major league baseball has been a concern of late (although lots of Latin American players of African ancestry remain). Seems, though, that teams in the playoffs this year have more than their share of blacks.
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/post/African-Americans-double-up-during-postseason;_ylt=AlV0El2_b.7.yxLFIpOcFPARvLYF?urn=top,112211

African-Americans double up during postseason
By Roy S. Johnson / Y! Sports Blogs

Is baseball's black glass half empty … or just empty?

The diminishing number of African-American ballplayers has been well-chronicled. This season, only 8.2 percent of major league players were African-American, according to Richard Lapchick, the director of the University of Central Florida's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports, who has long chronicled and graded diversity trends. That's the lowest it has been in decades.

But look around. Something intriguing has manifested during baseball's World Series chase. On the rosters of the eight teams that qualified for the postseason, there are 30 black players – a rate (15 percent) almost double that of baseball overall.

Here's the list :

Brewers, 7; Angels, 6; Dodgers, 5; White Sox, 4; Rays, 3; Phillies, 2; Cubs, 2; Red Sox, 1.

It's interesting that a team from a small-market, middle-America city (Milwaukee) has the most color on its roster, including the most dominating player in all of baseball during the stretch run, CC Sabathia, who seemed to pitch every inning every day during the final crucial month.

And it isn't surprising that the only team with a majority owner of color (Los Angeles Angels, owned by Latino billionaire Arte Moreno) is diverse as well. Nor the team that was the "favorite" for every black baseball fan in my parents' generation, simply because of the signing of Jackie Robinson.

(It's also not surprising that the last team to sign a black player is at the bottom of the list. But that's a blog for another day.)

What does it mean?

For one, while baseball is still not attracting a preponderance of black players (and never will), the current black major leaguers are disproportionately among the game's elite -- players who help their teams win.

That may be a bit of a generalization, but not much. For a while now, the black players who reached The Show were typically among the best players on their teams, going all the way back to Little League. I've long said baseball could do better at attracting black journeymen players -- black Tim Teufels, I used to call them (look him up). But the game is still attracting athletes.

It's also a bit of a salute to RBI (Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities), baseball's nearly decade-old program created to provide more playing opportunities to the nation's urban youth, whose areas are usually devoid of baseball leagues and teams. Eight players in the current posteason are RBI alumni.

Will the trend continue? Depends on which trend you're talking about -- the high representation of elite black players (half-full) or the diminishing number of black players overall (half-empty).

Perhaps one clue: Earlier this year, eight RBI players were chosen in the June draft of first-year players, led by second-rounders Xavier Avery (Orioles) and Joseph Austin (Astros).

Maybe there are at least a few Tim Teufels among them.

Perpetrators of OR Obama cutout hanging Caught

2008-10-01T14:56:00.000-04:00

A followup to the 9/24 posting. Looks like the ignoramuses are getting what they deserve.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hlnR7kQP7tXQKA0872BAweYKqPFQD93HCN680
Oregon school says 4 confessed to Obama effigy
By RYAN KOST –

NEWBERG, Ore. (AP) — A Christian university in Oregon said Tuesday it has punished four students who confessed to hanging a likeness of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama from a tree on campus.

George Fox University broke the news to students and staff Tuesday afternoon at an all-campus meeting. About 1,000 people attended, said Rob Felton, a university spokesman.

A statement from the school said the penalties against the four students were "immediate long-term suspension and public service." The school cited federal privacy rules in not disclosing more about the students or their punishment.

The FBI is investigating whether any civil rights were violated.

"A criminal investigation is much more rigorous than an academic one, obviously," said Beth Anne Steele, an FBI spokeswoman. She couldn't say when the investigation would be complete.

Felton said the university's own investigation led to the four students. "To the best of our knowledge these are the only people involved," he said. "We're not pursuing it any further."

The commercially produced cardboard cutout of Obama was hung from a tree last week with fishing line around the neck.

A message taped to the cutout read, "Act Six reject." That refers to a scholarship and leadership program for minority and low-income student leaders at Christian colleges primarily located in the Northwest.

Felton wouldn't comment on the students' motive. Instead he cited a statement from Brad Lau, the university's vice president of student life.

"Regardless of the students' intent, the image of a black man hung from a tree is one of the most hurtful symbols of racism in American history," Lau said in the statement. "Displays such as this have no place on a campus that is dedicated to living out the teachings of Jesus."

Republican U.S. Congresswoman Blames Blacks for Financial Crisis

2008-09-27T21:25:00.000-04:00

Read it and rage:

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/27/cbc-bachmann/

CBC Presses Republicans: Do You Agree With Bachmann's Assertion That "Minorities" Caused Financial Crisis?

During a Senate hearing on Thursday, Rep. Michele Bachmann pinned blame for financial crisis on President Clinton, “blacks,” and “other minorities.” To make her point, she read from an article written by Terry Jones in the right-wing publication Investor’s Business Daily. Jones criticized the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and said Clinton was misguided for pushing “homeownership as a way to open the door for blacks and other minorities to enter the middle class.” Watch Bachmann’s speech, followed by sharp criticism from Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) here.

In a new letter to House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) obtained by ThinkProgress, 31 members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) call Bachmann’s claims “ridiculous” and ask Boehner whether her comments represent the views of the Republican Caucus:

It is clear from Rep. Bachmann’s comments that she believes that the bipartisan laws enacted over the past decade ensuring that minority communities have equal access to banking and other financial services are the cause of this financial situation. […]

There is no evidence to support Rep. Bachmann’s assertion that “minorities” caused the current financial crisis. Laws designed to open opportunities for equal access to credit do not require banks or thrifts to make loans that are unsafe or unprofitable. In fact, laws like the CRA mandate exactly the opposite. […] Additionally, research clearly shows that the majority of the predatory loans that have led us to this financial mess were originated by non-bank financial institutions and other entities that did NOT have a CRA obligation and lacked strong federal regulatory oversight. Shifting the blame for the current economic crisis to laws that allow equal access and opportunities to communities of color is ridiculous.

As members of the CBC, we simply ask if Rep. Bachmann’s position that it was lending to minority communities that caused the current financial crisis, represent the position of Republican Caucus?

Sad, Ugly, Infuriating Incident in OR

2008-09-24T21:36:00.000-04:00

It only takes one (or a few) persons to remind us that racial hatred is alive and well. The following is an account of an incident conflating derision and resentment over low-income and/or minority scholarships with not so subtle threats against our first black presidential candidate from a major party. Read it and weep (or rage):

(article from http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080924/ap_on_re_us/obama_effigy;_ylt=Air6p7Rp8WmycbMtB9JSUjJH2ocA)
Obama effigy found hanging from Ore. campus tree By MARY HUDETZ, Associated Press writer

NEWBERG, Ore. - Officials of a small Christian university say a life-size cardboard reproduction of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was hung from a tree on the campus, an act with racial undertones that outraged students and school leaders alike.

George Fox University President Robin Baker said a custodian discovered the effigy early Tuesday and removed it. University spokesman Rob Felton said Wednesday that the commercially produced reproduction had been suspended from the branch of a tree with fishing line around the neck.

Taped to the cardboard cutout of the black senator from Illinois was a message targeting participants in Act Six, a scholarship program geared toward increasing the number of minority and low-income students at several Christian colleges, mostly in the Northwest.

The message read, "Act Six reject."

The disturbing image found near the heart of the campus recalled the days of lynchings of blacks and was all the more incongruous at a university founded by Quaker pioneers in 1891. Felton said he had been at the school since he enrolled two decades ago, and "I've never experienced or heard of any type of overt racial act."

At the end of the college's regular chapel service Wednesday, Baker told students he was "disheartened and outraged."

"It has been my dream to establish a university that more adequately represents the kingdom of God," he said. "This act causes some to question our commitment."

Baker added, "What I've learned is we still have work to do."

Administrators at the university said Wednesday they do not know who hung the effigy, which Felton said few people saw before it was taken down.

Newberg police Sgt. Tim Weaver said officials are working with the university to find out who was responsible. He also said the police department has notified the U.S. Secret Service, although it's not clear yet whether the act was a crime.

"It doesn't fit as a hate crime and it doesn't fit in as intimidation, necessarily," he said. "If it's not a crime, we're not going to be involved."

Brad Lau, a university vice president, said school officials have been questioning students to find out who was responsible. He and other school officials wouldn't say what action it might take.

The school has 17 students in the Act Six program, whose name derives from the New Testament book of Acts. All but one are members of minority groups, Felton said.

Students in the program receive full scholarships and are selected on the basis of leadership potential.

Several students in the program said they are angry but do not feel threatened.

"To me, I just felt like they weren't ready to have a black person be president," said Courtney Greenidge, a sophomore. "We're trying to bring change. Obama's trying to bring change." She described herself, like Obama, as biracial: half black, half white.

She also said that overall, the campus has a welcoming and positive environment, but that she has heard comments along the lines of, "Oh, I wish I was black. Then I could get a scholarship like that."

Obama spokeswoman Sahar Wali said the effigy hanging was "an unfortunate incident but you know we have had a very positive response from Oregonians across the state."

Obama is widely considered to be ahead in Oregon. In the run-up to the state's May primary, he drew a crowd of about 75,000 people in Portland.

George Fox University's campus is in Newberg in the Willamette Valley south of Portland. About 1,800 students are enrolled. It also has centers in Portland; Salem; and Boise, Idaho.

Felton said that about 2 percent of the students are black and about a quarter of the freshman class belongs to minority groups. That number includes international students, largely from Asia and Africa.

"Reagan's "didn't know we had a racial problem" part 2

2008-09-17T12:36:00.000-04:00

Here's the context in which Reagan made the statement posted on earlier from time magazine. In the debate with Carter in 1980, the questioner asked Reagan: "Governor Reagan. Blacks and other non-whites are increasing. in numbers in our cities. Many of them feel that they are facing a hostility from whites that prevents them from joining the economic mainstream of our society. There is racial confrontation in the schools, on jobs, and in housing, as non-whites seek to reap the benefits of a free society. What do you think is the nation's future as a multi-racial society?"

The beginning of Reagan's reply: "I believe in it. I am eternally optimistic, and I happen to believe that we've made great progress from the days when I was young and when this country didn't even know it had a racial problem."

from http://www.debates.org/pages/trans80b.html

Reagan: U.S. "didn't know it had a racial problem"

2008-09-15T20:44:00.000-04:00

Oh, the good old days! I just read in Time magazine a quote from Reagan during a debate with Carter (1980). Says that Ronnie talking about an America that existed "when I was young and when this country didn't even know it had a racial problem." Did he really says that? Did he really get AWAY with saying that? Pining for those good old days, when everyone knew their place and everyone was OK with it (or at least kept their complaints to themselves). Unbelievable. Somehow I think a very large part of America knew full-well they had a racial problem, but the whites just didn't want to deal with it. Harriet Martineau and Alexis de Tocqueville each separately saw it clear as day whay back in the 1830's--the difference between the stated principles of "all men are created equal" and the reality on the ground slapped them in the face. Ronnie, Ronnie, Ronnie. I was 18 in 1980, and don't remember him getting away with such poppycock. Maybe I wasn't sensitized to the issues yet, I don't know.

"I'm Not a Racist: I Just Play One in Public"

2008-09-08T21:01:00.000-04:00

Student GOP leader resigns over Obama remark By MICHAEL RUBINKAM, AP writer (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080908/ap_on_el_pr/college_republicans_obama)

ALLENTOWN, Pa. - The leader of a statewide group of college Republicans has been forced to resign after posting racially insensitive comments about Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama on the Internet.

Adam LaDuca, 21, the former executive director of the Pennsylvania Federation of College Republicans, wrote on his Facebook page in late July that Obama has "a pair of lips so large he could float half of Cuba to the shores of Miami (and probably would.)"

LaDuca, who previously had called Martin Luther King Jr. a "pariah" and a "fraud," also wrote: "And man, if sayin' someone has large lips is a racial slur, then we're ALL in trouble."

The College Republicans asked LaDuca to resign after his remarks were publicized by the Pennsylvania Progressive, a blog written by a Democratic committeeman from Berks County. The group announced LaDuca's resignation on its Web site Friday.

"The comments were completely uncalled for and very offensive," said Anthony Pugliese, 22, a senior at West Chester University and chairman of the College Republicans, an umbrella group with more than 50 chapters statewide. "The P-A College Republicans do not accept or tolerate racism in any way."

LaDuca said Monday that he regrets posting the comments and understands how they can be construed as racist. "In hindsight, when you read it a second time, it's like, 'oops,'" he said. "It was just a dumb move on my part to make a statement like that public."

He said he is not a racist [emphasis added] and that he admires prominent blacks such as economist and author Thomas Sowell and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He compared the comment about Obama to jokes about Republican presidential nominee John McCain's thinning hair or President Bush's large ears.

LaDuca is a senior at Kutztown University. Two years ago, Kutztown's College Republicans chapter was heavily criticized for holding a "bake sale" to protest affirmative action in which whites were charged more for cookies than blacks. LaDuca, then the group's spokesman, made a public apology on the group's behalf.

My comments: So the guy calls MLK "a pariah" and "a fraud," thinks describing an African American's lips as big enough to float Cubans on is equivalent to comedian's teasing over a white man's thinning white hair or big ears, he admits not that the comment was dumb, but that making it public was dumb; but none if this adds up to being racist, not to mention the bake sale fiasco. Now, I know that accusations of "racist" can be incendiary, and that it's not a case of you are or you aren't, but rather gradations of racism, but this guy is far to the racist end of the racist/not racist sliding scale. Good riddance. I say.

RIP Don Hoskins, TX Western (El Paso) B-ball Coach

2008-09-08T16:16:00.001-04:00

OK, so I'm skeptical of those great inspiring stories of overcoming racial prejudice that make the white guy out to be the hero--rewriting history along the lines of Mississippi Burning or some white going in and reforming inner city schools because the colored folks all love him/her. Or Glory, where the white commander is the key to the black soldiers' success. You know the type: those who extol William Lloyd Garrison and ignore Frederick Douglass; worship Harriet Beecher Stowe and pooh-pooh the stories of Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman as so much hokum. Having said all that, here is a story that seems genuine (maybe I'm blinded by my whiteness, I don't know.) Don Haskins, coach of the first all-black starting 5 to win the NCAAs, never moved beyond his second-tier school in the middle of nowhere, because no one's white alumni bigwigs wanted him to come to their school and do that to THEIR team (at least not in the 60's and 70's). As the article says, the unwritten rule then (has it changed all that much in some places?) was “you played two [blacks] at home, three on the road and four if you were behind.”

According to (white) sportwriter Dan Wetzel (http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/news?slug=dw-haskins090808&prov=yhoo&type=lgns)
"He was a man of great courage and conviction who essentially gave up on making it to the big time of college basketball when he dared to start all those black players. Almost no big school would touch him after that. He was typecast as an outcast in a dark and unforgiving time."

Here's another pertinent, revealing excerpt:
"The story of the 1966 Texas Western Miners was perfect for a Disney movie: On the night before the title game against Kentucky, Haskins decides to start five black players, they win and all is good.

Haskins liked “Glory Road.” He hated that part. He never said it publicly. He was above that. Fact is he had started five black players from Day 1, and the movie made Haskins look like he was afraid to do so. That pained him.

To pretend everything was great after the championship was a stretch, too. Racial slurs were never his greatest enemy. It was far more personal.

He was 36, with a wife and four kids. He had a low-paying job at a school no one had ever heard of. It had taken the family three years of living in the football dorm to save up for a house.

And he had a decision to make. A decision none of his coaching peers could understand why he was contemplating.

There was an old coaching axiom back then, when many college teams were still segregated. If you coached at a school that allowed black players, the joke went: “you played two at home, three on the road and four if you were behind.”

You never played five, especially in the South. Jackie Robinson had come along well before in baseball, but he was one black on a team full of whites. An all black team presented a different image to America.

Every coach knew it, including all of Haskins’ friends.

“They’d say, ‘Don, are you crazy?’ ” Haskins said.

By starting five black players, as he planned to do, the upward arc of his career would be over. He had started as a high school coach in a town of 253. He was a talented guy, big money and big opportunity awaited. Not this way though.

If he won, bigger, richer schools would see him as the coach of “the black team.” They’d never hire him. If he lost or, heaven forbid, there were any discipline problems with his players (there weren’t), he’d be fired and likely never work in the NCAA again.

“I understood what they were saying, I just said, ‘Piss on them,’ ” Haskins said. “Piss on them all. I brought these kids here; I’m playing my best players.’ “

The victory helped integrate not just schools but entire conferences – the ACC, SEC and Southwest Conferences were segregated at that point. Almost immediately the floodgates opened.

“He literally got thousands and thousands of black kids scholarships to college,” said Nolan Richardson, a former Haskins player. Later in life some of those players he had never met would approach him at airports and restaurants and thank him.

Haskins, as his friends predicted, got zero job offers. The only major school to ever try to hire him was his alma mater, Oklahoma State. Today if someone won an NCAA title at a mid-major, they’d choose their multimillion dollar job. Not in 1966. Not with that starting five.

He did get hate mail by the bucket. And the NCAA dispatched an investigator to look into the players’ academics (they were legit). He was shredded in much of the national media. Sports Illustrated even concluded he was exploiting blacks, not helping them, a charge his old players still bristle at.

“For a long time I said winning that championship in 1966 was the worst thing that ever happened to me,” he said.

In recent years he was no longer bitter about those days. He had come out on top in the end. The world had come around on the Glory Road he paved.

People began to appreciate that in a sports world filled with hyperbole, a young man gave up so much personally because it was the right thing to do. The thing no one else would."

My comments: Know what was missing? Interviews with some of those black players (save the one quote from Nolan Richardson). Contact with those players through Haskins over the years. You get the feeling that there is still a lot of "feel-good" aura surrounding the story that papers over enduring racial divides. Still, Haskins seems deserving of some credit. Interesting too, though, that the article never mentions the names of the five guys who won the championship on the court. Oh, yeah, and the title, "basketball's John Wayne"? When did John Wayne show an ounce of racial courage? Doesn't Wetzel know that the Wayne image is a joke to many in the black community, from the way he walked to the way he talked and the way whites idolized him? Oh, well, RIP Don Haskins. You did more than most of us whites in the way of pushing racial progress in our country. For that, I salute you.

LPGA English Only Policy Redeaux

2008-09-05T17:14:00.000-04:00

Maybe somebody knocked some sense into the LPGA poobahs, although the threat of fines still sounds barbaric...

LPGA backs down on English requirement
By DOUG FERGUSON, AP Golf Writer

AP - Sep 5, 12:38 pm EDT Golf Gallery Under increasing criticism, the LPGA Tour on Friday backed off plans to suspend players who cannot speak English well enough to be understood at pro-ams, in interviews or in making acceptance speeches at tournaments.

LPGA Tour commissioner Carolyn Bivens said she would have a revised plan by the end of the year that would not include suspensions, although fining non-English speakers remains an option.

Bivens disclosed the tour’s original plan in a meeting with South Korean players two weeks ago at the Safeway Classic in Portland, Ore., Golfweek magazine reported. The policy, which had not been written, was widely criticized as discriminatory, particularly against Asian players.

The LPGA membership includes 121 international players from 26 countries, including 45 from South Korea. Asians won three of the four majors this year.

“We have decided to rescind those penalty provisions,” Bivens said in a statement. “After hearing the concerns, we believe there are other ways to achieve our shared objective of supporting and enhancing the business opportunities for every tour player.”

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The reversal was quickly hailed by two California lawmakers who challenged the original policy.

State Sen. Leland Yee, a Democrat from San Francisco, had asked the Legislature’s legal office to determine whether the English policy violated state or federal anti-discrimination laws. If it was deemed legal, Yee said he would have pushed for legislation banning such policies in California.

The LPGA Tour plays three events in California, including its first major championship.

“I’m very pleased that the LPGA saw the wisdom of the concerns that we raised,” Yee said. “It’s a no-brainer for those of us who have been the recipient of these kinds of discriminatory acts.”

State Assemblyman Ted Lieu, a Democrat from the Los Angeles area, said he would target corporate sponsors if the LPGA persisted with its English requirement.

“I’m pleased they have come to their senses,” he said.

Bivens’ announcement came two hours before the Asian Pacific American Legal Center planned a news conference in Los Angeles to demand the LPGA overturn its policy.

“Until they completely retract it, issue an apology to the players and the fans, I think we’ll remain very concerned and interested in what happens,” said Gerald D. Kim, a senior staff attorney for the center. “The LPGA has gone about this totally the wrong way.”

One of the tour’s title sponsors, State Farm, already weighed in this week by saying it was “dumbfounded.”

“We don’t understand this and we don’t know why they have done it,” State Farm spokesman Kip Diggs told Advertising Age on its Web site. “And we have strongly encouraged them to take another look at this.”

Bivens said the tour will continue to help international players through a cultural program that has been in place for three years and offers tutors and translators.

Earlier this week, Bivens sent a 1,200-word memo to the LPGA membership to outline the goal behind the new policy. She said players would never be required to be fluent or even proficient in English, but rather would be asked to get by with the basics of the language.

She argued that international players who could communicate effectively in English would improve the pro-am experience, sponsor relations and could help land endorsements for the players.

“We do not, nor will we ever, demand English fluency, or even proficiency, from our international players,” she wrote. “To the contrary, we are asking that they demonstrate a basic level of communication in English at tournaments in the United States in situations that are essential to their job as a member of the LPGA Tour.”

Yee said he understood the tour’s goal of boosting financial support, but disagreed with the method.

“In 2008, I didn’t think an international group like the LPGA would come up with a policy like that,” Yee said. “But at the end of the rainbow, the LPGA did understand the harm that they did.”

The lawmaker said he will continue with his request to the Legislative Counsel’s Office, as a way to prevent similar policies in the future.

Lieu said the LPGA’s explanation made it seems as though the tour felt it more important to socialize with sponsors than to play golf.

“If you’re a sports fan, you should be outraged,” Lieu said.

Associated Press Writers Don Thompson and Judy Lin in Sacramento, Calif., and Amy Taxin in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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