Tag Archives: race

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When Mixed Families where illegal

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Yesterday marked the 39th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision to overturn anti-miscegenation laws. That is not ancient history, it’s just a short time ago. When some of your parent’s where getting married they could not have married a person of a different race (actually only whites and other races couldn’t marry, a black person could happily marry a Korean person).

From The Anniversary of Loving v. Virginia

It’s also crazy that so many people don’t even realize that this case exists — that at one time, it was illegal for mixed families to exist in many places. Think about that, and ask yourself, how far have we come? Sure, it’s legal now, but I would caution anyone against celebrating this win and stopping there. If we remain satisfied with the basic rights we are given, we are in huge trouble. Having the right doesn’t negate the fact that there are still many ways that interracial couples are targeted and subjected to racism and discrimination.

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“Race Card” an intro to “Black. White.”

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I’m going to blog about the recent TV series “Black. White.”

It was on FX recently and I saw the show and wanted to encourage others to see it when they get a chance. For now I don’t have time to write much but thought you’d enjoy the intro music video by Ice Cube.

Did you get your race card?
I didn’t get my race card
Did you get your race card?
Hell no, I didn’t get my race card!
Did you get your race card?
Homeboy, where’d you get your race card?
Did you get your race card?
White boy, what is a race card?

Please don’t believe the hype
Everything in the world ain’t black and white
Everybody ain’t a stereotype
Just because I look wrong, I’m about to do right
Please don’t believe the hype
Everything in the world ain’t black and white
Everybody ain’t a stereotype
Just because I look wrong, I’m about to do right

Black as midnight, or bright as Snow White
You’d better do me right, or I’ma have to take flight
Put you on ice, blast on you twice
If you’re a zebra, better come out them stripes
Just because I’m dressed like I’m straight out of jail
Make more money then them white boys at Yale
And got more sense than your fucking President
That college graduate? He can’t pay his rent
But don’t call me brother, man
Unless your ass got my money in your other hand
Pull that black man shit, that white man shit
But see a suit and tie, and I’ll still get your ass euthanized
Cuz I never got my race card in the mail
Is that the reason why my life still hard as Hell?
I’ve been to jail, just like Martha Stewart
And we both told the judge that we didn’t do it

Did you get your race card?
Hell, no, I didn’t get my race card!
Did you get your race card?
Everybody, show me your race card!
Did you get your race card?
Yo, what the hell is race card?
Did you get your race card?
Can anybody tell me what is a race card?

Please don’t believe the hype
Everything in the world ain’t black and white
Everybody ain’t a stereotype
Just because I look wrong, I’m about to do right
Please don’t believe the hype
Everything in the world ain’t black and white
Everybody ain’t a stereotype
Just because I look wrong, I’m about to do right

Did you get your race card?
Did you get your race card?
Did you get your race card?
Did you get your race card?

Please don’t believe the hype
Everything in the world ain’t black and white
Everybody ain’t a stereotype
Just because I look wrong, I’m about to do right
Please don’t believe the hype
Everything in the world ain’t black and white
Everybody ain’t a stereotype
Just because I look wrong, I’m about to do right

Did you get your race card?
Did you get your race card?
Did you get your race card?
Did you get your race card?

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On using icons and depictions of Jesus in the church

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In church the other day I was surprised to see two small paintings toward the front of the building depicting Jesus. I recognized them and I believe the appropriate term for them is an “icon.” (I could definitely be wrong on that).

White JesusThey where obviously painted a few centuries ago. They didn’t look exactly like this but similar. By similar I mean it was the long haired white Jesus we seem to see portrayed everywhere we look. So much so I think we actually think he looked something like that. Now I don’t know much about historical looks and fashions but I’m fairly confident that is NOT what he looked like.

Jesus JesusIn fact, I just so happened to see that educational show the other day where they went through all kinds of evidence and have come to the conclusion that he looked something like this. I’m really not quite sure if they are right, but at least they gave it a good long consideration.

Black JesusNow the reason I’m bringing this up is mainly that I think it’s a dangerous and troubling thing that we’ve got all these white Jesus pictures hanging around. The main argument I hear in response when I bring this up is that they are historical, and thus because of their history have value, regardless of how inaccurate they are. I think that is just ridiculous. I also hear people talk about how Jesus becomes like one of us, so a white church can have a white Jesus, a Hispanic church can have a Hispanic Jesus, etc. Now if we are happy and content with our racial divided churches then this might seem slightly feasible, especially if we wanted to promote our racial superiority in our theology (That was extremely sarcastic and I hope you see the terrible flaws in it). I’ll write more at some point about the damage these sorts of imagery cause to children with different skin colors (then the one on the Jesus picture).
For now, I’d just like to say to every person who goes to a church where there are white Jesus’ hanging around, that it’s time you either get a vastly more accurate picture of what Jesus looked like, or you start putting up more depictions of Jesus from other cultures. I guess next Sunday I should bring in this depiction of Jesus.

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Still Seperate, Still Unequal: The Shame of the Nation

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In the summer of 2003, in preparation for working in the public school system, I read the book Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol. To say that the book changed my view of the public school system would be an understatement. Initially it shocked me that inequalities like this still existed even 30+ years after the Brown Ruling and that I had not heard about these recent (copyright 1990) inequalities. He opened my eyes to this injustice and made me forever an advocate of just public schools. In 1990 Kozol wrote revealing decrepit schools, out of date textbooks, segregated schools, and basically little of the change we thought had come from Brown vs. Board of Education on May 17, 1954.
Kozol has recently published a new book that gives a current account of the public school system, and the picture is not pretty. The Shame of the Nation, with a subtitle that speaks volumes: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America.
The stories, first-hand accounts from children in our education system, are moving and impacting. You must hear their stories. But, Kozol also writes deep and challenging words that challenge the way we discuss what is occuring in our school system. This paragraph took me a few reads to take in but it’s statement is intense:

“Perhaps most damaging to any serious effort to address racial segregation openly is the refusal of most of the major arbiters of culture in our northern cities to confront or even clearly name an obvious reality they would have castigated with a passionate determination in another section of the nation fifty years before—and which, moreover, they still castigate today in retrospective writings that assign it to a comfortably distant and allegedly concluded era of the past. There is, indeed, a seemingly agreed-upon convention in much of the media today not even to use an accurate descriptor like “racial segregation” in a narrative description of a segregated school. Linguistic sweeteners, semantic somersaults, and surrogate vocabularies are repeatedly employed. Schools in which as few as 3 or 4 percent of students may be white or Southeast Asian or of Middle Eastern origin, for instance—and where every other child in the building is black or Hispanic—are referred to as “diverse.” Visitors to schools like these discover quickly the eviscerated meaning of the word, which is no longer a proper adjective but a euphemism for a plainer word that has apparently become unspeakable.”

To get more of a taste of Kozol before you go and check this book out of the library you can read Still Seperate, Still Unequal an article pulled from the first chapter of the book.

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The sweet beauty of healthy race relations

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Eventually, someones going to figure out that I am fairly emotional (i.e. I cry very easily). I was watching Rize today (I’ll write more about it later), and a quick 30 second scene brought a tear to my eye.
The movie is a documentary about a dance culture in the African-American community. In the one scene there is a party happening and you see an elderly white couple watching from their driveway. Three girls from the party (all three black) come up to the couple and do a little dance for them and then give them a balloon animal. The couple claps for them.
The scene isn’t really crucial to the rest of the film, it’s just a snippet during a music and dance segment. The part that touches me about it and other occasions, is the sweet beauty there is in healthy communication and interaction between people of different races. I see, hear and know of so many injustices and racism that occurs that you just long to see more and more relationships that are healthy.

Maybe I’m alone in that, but maybe not.

[IfeelWhenYou]
[Rize]

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The Next PostSecret… Sharing our Feelings on Race

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I mentioned this last week, but my readers jumped off on a discussion about other things in the post, which was great and enjoyable, but made me want to mention this again.
Something that troubles me in dicussing race and racism is that we are often (like in many other areas) poor listeners. We tend to have a lot to say regardless of how important it really is or how much it affects us. Like you learn in any basic communication class sharing your feelings is perfectly okay and important. It’s also important to listen to one another. The typical statement you’ll here suggested is the famous, “I Feel…When You…” It allows you to share what your feeling based on the others action and focuses on your feeling rather then just yelling or pointing out their action (the “You ALWAYS do this…” types of statements).

Martin Luther King day is just around the corner and I thought it would be neat to have a site dedicated to sharing our feelings about Race and Racism in a constructive way. The site IfeelWhenYou has been up for less then a week now and the traffic to it is slowly increasing. Traffic doubled yesterday and there looks to be even more today. Many people are coming back and browsing through the confessions to read what people have written. The statements are anonymous, so there is no way to react you just listen. You can post your own statements to and I’d encourage you to do so.