Tag Archives: racism

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RACE: Are We So Different? (A Homework Assignment)

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RACE Are We So Do Different?With MLK Day quickly approaching, I’m hoping you’ll be motivated to take a few minutes of your year and consider spending some time thinking about our nations history and our current society as it relates to race. The American Anthropological Association has put together a really neat website, Understanding Race, that creatively addresses the issue of race. It’s a great learning experience to spend a half hour browsing the site.
It’s Sunday, and unfortunately most of us tend to see MLK Day as just another day off of school or work. I wish it came with the same anticipation as Christmas or even Halloween. So, take a few minutes after my short post, and take a look at the website, Understanding Race.

(ht. Racialicious)

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Racism in Calgary

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Yes it still happens, frustrating and more.

Update: Commenting has been turned off for this post. Amazingly this post has gotten an intense amount of ridiculous racist comments on it by anonymous commenters. It amazes me that people would take any time to post such things an random blogs on the internet, but they do nonetheless.

Huh, I might write more on that latter.

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let’s talk about race

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From Reappropriate:

[referring to argument’s that say if someone didn’t intended to be racist, then it is not racist]
These types of responses emphasize the majority-centric view that most people have towards racism. When intent reigns supreme, then the problem with racism is not about the victim of the racist action, but the perpetrator and their intent. This outlook on racism only benefits the oppressor, who no longer has to consider the victims of his oppression. Not surprisingly, it is the same people who belong to the majority who perpetuate this self-interested treatment of racism.

Racism does not occur in a bubble, but exists as an ongoing history of racism in America. When Michael Richards made his “fork up the ass” joke at the Laugh Factory, the racism was not that Richards actually wanted to find a Black person and stick a fork up his ass, but because this paralleled a racist American history that included numerous instances of popularized lynchings. The fork metaphor (i.e., equating a Black person with a food item) futher referenced the characterization of lynchings as Bar-B-Q’s.

Similarly, Rosie O’Donnell’s use of “ching-chong”-ery occurred amidst a history of oppression against Asian Americans and Chinese Americans in this country, which had already included use of “ching chong” as a form of degrading and dehumanizing Chinese people.

You should definitly read the rest of this blog post at Reappropriate.

I do think we do make too big a deal of situation’s like Rosie and Michael Richard’s making insane and racist statements. Let me be clear, I believe these issues and situations are big deals and need to be addressed. I’m also grateful in an odd way, for such big celebrities to do such racist things, because unfortunately, it seems like that’s the only way most common folk end up talking about these things.

So, I think we need to make less a deal of racist comments by celebrities, and start making a big deal of the comments, jokes, and structural injustices around us that discriminate on race or gender.

Video Links (Warning, many use inappropriate and racist language):

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Do you recognize this man?

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Do you recognize this man?

You probably don’t, and that’s a good thing. You see if you do recognize him, your recognizing a doctored image of him, Harold Ford Jr., a Congressman in Tennessee. The photo above is one that was sent Republican Party to dissuade folks from voting for him. The problem with the photo is this:

doctored up

The photo on the left is a real photo of Ford, the photo in the middle has the color removed, and the photo on the right is the one the Republican Party used in their letter.

I don’t need to go into the ramifications of the motivation behind this. There are still some inherent problems in the south, still some deep racism ingrained in many here in Tennessee.

From
River City Mud Bugle » TN GOP Uses Doctored Ford Photo for Fundraising Drive

But when they bring in race, what they’re saying is it doesn’t matter whether Ford is better or not. Don’t vote for him because of his race, which goes against everything that Americans have been taught.

From
KnoxNews: Election

“They have darkened Harold Ford’s image to make a racist statement,” Tuke said after reviewing the mailing. “It’s obviously altered.”

Tuke and Jerry Maynard, who is black and the deputy director of the state Democratic Party, said the text of Davis’ letter also contains “code word” references to race.

What are your thoughts?

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You can’t be passively anti-racist… So do something about it

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One of the few podcast I listen to faithful is that of Carmen Van Kerckhove and Jen Chau, formerly Addicted to Race and Mixed Media Watch, now Racialicious. As you probably guessed they talk about a lot of things race related. It’s always an interesting discussion and their blog provides great insight into pop culture as well.
I’ve had a couple of conversations recently about race, about the idea of not being passively anti-racist, but rather the need to be active. Also the need to keep conversation open, particularly for white people who don’t often think about race at all.

Anyways, I wanted to be sure to let everyone know about a new site, Race Changers, that you absolutely must subscribe to. I’m quite serious about that too, if your not currently taking any steps to being anti-racist, then there is a grave danger of continuing to be passively racist. Race Changers is a site dedicated to learning and taking action, “Working towards an anti-racist future, one week at a time.” I’m not sure all the assignments we’ll be given but I know it will be a worthwhile experience.

I’ll be sure to talk about what I’m learning each week as we go.

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Continentism: Let’s stop talking about “AFRICA”

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This is not meant to be directed at any particular blogger, writer, podcaster, or reader; It’s probably as much something I need to hear as anyone else.

I was listening to a podcast today and the people kept talking about “Africa.” They said things like, I have a heart for Africa, I’ve been really interested in Africa, I looked into going to Africa, and so on. Now, out of full disclosure, when I was in sixth grade and I did a family album and I wrote down the place I most wanted to visit, I wrote down Africa. So, here’s were I have a problem…

Africa is a BIG place. It’s not a people group, or a village, or a town, or state, or country, it’s a gigantic continent! The continent of Africa is nothing like the United States where you have 50 different states under one central government, and most people living there generally speak the same language but with different accents (broad generalization). Africa is 1/5 of the world’s total land area, and 12% of the world’s entire population. There are 61 territories, many different religions and thousands of languages.  Yet, us naive folk in the U.S. of A. keep on acting like Africa and African’s are a niche we’re interested in.

Before I go off in that direction too much more let me say, there are some collective elements of Africa. Being a connected land mass has it’s collective impacts. The AIDS pandemic knows no country borders as it spreads through Sub-sahara Africa. Imperialism and the wicked oppression of the land and the people through out the continent is another shared experience of many in the continent of Africa. There are collective elements, but I think it’s best for our own well being that we stop talking about are interest in such naive general terms.

And here’s where it get’s a little gritty… I think most of the reasons we talk in generalizations about “Africa” are inherently racist. You might have scene a infomercial about starving children, full of young dark skinned children longing for help, and you decide something must be done for those Africans (little did you know all those kids where from the Carribean). My point is that far too many of us and our ignorant generalizations on race see a dark skinned person and place them as being from (recently, or ancestorally) Africa.

In our ignorance African’s are in a terrible dilemma: They all have AIDS (thanks for letting us know Bono), they are starving (infomercials), they just got through a genocide (Hotel Rwanda) and now they’ve got another one going (Save Darfur). We think African’s live fairly unciviled lifestyles (National Geographic), they get their hands chopped off in the diamond trade, they still haven’t dealt with racism (Aparthied), They send their children into war with guns (Invisible Children), they are uneducated and need sponsorship (World Vision), and they are all “African.” Do you see the problem with lumping ever person and issue of an entire continent into one category?

Maybe, I’ll start doing a spotlight on Africa post highlighting a different country each week and what is unique about their people.  Anyone care to inform us of the uniqueness of a country they’ve been to?

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A Girl Like Me: Famous Doll Test revisited

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I find this video fascinating. Kiri Davis is a high school student who put together a fascinating video and revisited a famous experiment that was used to support the desegregation of schools in Brown vs. Board of Education.
The video is sad and telling of how little we’ve come in helping raise our children without inherent notions of racism. At the same time I find it wonderful that a high school student like Kiri has taken the initiative to learn and speak out about this. Her film was featured in the Media that Matters Film Festival.