White guy runs for 184 yards in NFL!

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

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!

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

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

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)

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

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/