Apr 15 2008
Racism is based on ignorance and is passed down generationally. One racist adult caretaker may infect a few children with their racism; however, one racist film or television show would infect many more and more deeply ingrain any racism that already was in existence in my opinion. Examples such as in the following video have contributed to anti – Indian sentiments in the popular American culture in the relevant generations who viewed such films.
Crossposted at Native American Netroots
Apr 03 2008
Mark Halperin’s comments yesterday that the Hillary campaign was presenting Obama’s race as an argument to superdelegates to get them to cross sides into her camp left me confused: is sexism worse than racism, so we need to vote for Hillary because things would change more, or is racism worse than sexism, so we need to vote for Hillary because Obama can’t win in the general?
Because we’ve definitely heard both. I don’t know how many Clinton supporters have made the former, from Gloria Steinem to Geraldine Ferraro, and for those of us sitting on the sidelines of these two profoundly complex and privileged people getting caricatured as their race and sex, it’s annoying. And such comments are definitely not moving the discussion forward.
As I’ve said time and time again, to say flatly that one is worse than the other erases the intersections of race and gender, rendering black women invisible and white men normal, denies the way factors such as ability and class play into the lives of the candidates, and ignores the multiple narratives on race and gender that work differently to prevent people from reaching various aspects of their potential.
Mar 20 2008
Arch-neocon William Kristol and the New York Times seem bent on shoving their racial swiftboating tactics down our throats. Kristol was forced to issue a partial retraction after writing a story that claimed Barack Obama lied when he said he wasn’t present at a sermon by his pastor Jeremiah White that purportedly blamed blamed “the ‘arrogance’ of the ‘United States of White America’ for much of the world’s suffering, especially the oppression of blacks.” Kristol and the right-wing want to paint Obama as a racial extremist, or someone who cynically manipulates racist extremists, and this to frighten white Americans.
Of course, Obama was never at such a sermon. And frankly, it wouldn’t have mattered if he were. Obama spoke his piece on the anger of black America the other day, in a well-received speech on the impact of racial divisions on the United States. While I think Wright’s comments weren’t “divisive” — comments Obama felt he had to disavow — nevertheless, he said they were understandable, given the history of slavery, Jim Crow, and other racial discrimination. And that’s more than any other U.S. politician would give towards the validation of black rage, much of it, as Obama pointed out, directed impotently at misplaced or non-powerful targets, or turned inward.
+++++++++++++++
Noted bioethicist and physician, Steven Miles, comments favorably on my analysis of the APA’s new resolution language concerning a ban on psychologist participation in torture in Bush’s prison gulag abroad:
Mar 19 2008
I watched Obama give one of the greatest speeches I have ever heard today. In a week from Hell. When we barely escaped the collapse of Wall Street while still not addressing the needs of Main Street. I watched a man stand tall and draw a line in the sand with diplomatic skills unseen in American politics in my lifetime. I watched a man stand by a friend, while making it absolutely clear that even though ‘context is everything’ some of Wright’s statements were completely unacceptable. I watched a man I want to be my President.
Mar 18 2008
Right-wing reactionaries thought manna had fallen from heaven along with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s denunciation of the crimes of America. That’s because Rev. Wright is Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama’s personal preacher. But while the demagogues falsely label Wright’s sermons as racist and anti-white, his remarks express truths that resonate with the experience of black Americans and cannot be forever hidden.
Anyone can go and watch excerpts from Rev. Wright’s sermons, edited for maximum incendiarism by arch-conservative, Fox Network Hyas muckamuck, Bill O’Reilly. Yet, all the editing tricks in the world cannot paint Wright’s sermons racist. But then that’s the cry raised when African-Americans say anything on the mark about the experience of racism in America, an experience that has made them sensitive to the crimes and injustices of this country perpetrated abroad, as well.
As if four hundred years of slavery, and one hundred years of Jim Crow state segregationism were not enough to prove the racist legacy of this country, African Americans are still subject to discrimination across the entire society, with inferior schools, inferior health care, wage discrepancies, housing discrimination, racist assaults, unfair drug laws and a still racially insensitive judicial system. CalexanderJ over at Daily Kos hit the mark with this quote from the comedian Chris Rock:
Mar 10 2008
Carter Camp gave me his permission to repost his essay entitled “Mass Racial Taunting; America’s Weekend Sport” in the comments of “Stereotypical Elements (that) appear… in Athletic Contests” posted at Native American Netroots. I had mentioned that I wanted to cite the Shadow Report as an introduction, so here’s what the Consolidated Indigenous Shadow Report says about Indian Mascots on page 72.
Although the United States would probably respond that racist mascots and logos are an exercise of free speech that it has reserved under the Convention, they reveal the depth and pervasiveness of the racism against Indigenous Peoples so deeply engrained in the history and psyche of the United States and the dominant culture.
And over the break is Carter Camp’s essay entitled “Mass Racial Taunting; America’s Weekend Sport,” which he wrote “several years ago when people in Tulsa were protesting the Union High redskins.”
Mar 04 2008
My blog entry on this is a few days late, but what does it matter for the 2.3 million Americans who languish in the prisons and jails of this country? They have plenty of time on their hands.
The Washington Post article last Thursday, New High In U.S. Prison Numbers, grabbed some headlines and commentary in the following days. But soon, all too soon, the revelations will grow stale, the stuff of old news, and the millions of prisoners placed safely not only behind bars, but out of sight and mind, can return to their quotidian lives of ongoing despair and impotent frustration. The Pew Report that generated the recent headlines is available here.
N.C. Aizenman writes at the WP:
Mar 02 2008
I met Dedra Johnson at a book signing just before Christmas. Earl Higgins, Dedra, and I were signing our books at the Loyola University's bookstore. I'd been hearing about Sandrine's Letter to Tomorrow from friends, bloggers, and others for a coiuple of months. It's not the type of novel I usually read, but Dedra's a local author writing about New Orleans, good enough for me.
Sandrine may not be the type of character I usually get into, but I got into the novel nonetheless. It is a well-written story with lots of local color and a cast of characters who are very easy to love and/or hate, just like family members.
I'm going to offer some more thoughts below the fold. SPOILER WARNING – don't go there if you haven't read the book.
Feb 29 2008
WARNING:
This essay contains multiple usages of a six-letter racial epithet starting with “N,” all of which are found within quotes.
I was at home this evening calling people in Texas for the Barack Obama campaign. (I stop a half-hour earlier than the campaign recommends, having gotten reamed out a few times by various people for the sin of calling past 8:30 p.m. when all good people have already gone to sleep; I waited to write this diary until then.) I was finishing up a message on someone’s machine when my call waiting beeped: I was getting a call from an unfamiliar number. Because I was expecting a call back from a coordinator with the Obama for Texas campaign, I rushed through the end of the message and picked up the call.
Feb 22 2008
Crossposted from GentillyGirl
“No-See-Um” Nagin, our transparent, or is that the invisible, Mayor took umbrage over the flap concerning his little play-time fun with “Do Nothing” Riley, our Chief of Police. He’s also bitchin’ because the media is against him and his sparkling record here in NOLA, causing Racists to come out of the woodwork and make him live in fear for himself and his family. He also talks about the “evil” Blogs, and how if he is approached wrongly he will cold cock the person(s) responsible.
Try to cold cock me you worthless piece of political trash, and I’ll sink my knee so deep in your genitals that you will sound like Minny Mouse for the rest of your life. That or I’ll stick a 7 inch pump somewhere (but you might like that, Bitch.). You always find a way to make yourself look so freakin’ silly, and by extension you soil the images of the folks here who are ACTUALLY doing the rebuilding. You are NOT an asset to New Orleans.
I was going to take this rant farther, but there are too many good NOLA Bloggers who have already weighed in on this poop:
Try Dr. Morris, or the Zombie, or DangerBlond, or Adrastos, Maitri, Think NOLA, We Could Be Famous… (and yes I know I missed some, but I’m busy hiring protection.)
And there are my pieces from last week.
I wonder if we Bloggers can get Restraining Orders against this congenital Repug lunatic?
Sinn Fein!
Update: I missed these few comments from Nagin’s interview this morning:
“Nagin: I don’t know. I’ll probably settle down and get to the business of the recovery. I’ll probably go talk to an attorney and the FBI about hate crimes and all that good stuff, but I’ll be back to business.
Roberts: Have you received any direct threats?
Nagin: I’m not going to get into that. I’m a fairly high profile person and I’ve made some pretty hard decisions and it’s made some people angry. So it is what it is.”
So I guess that “No-See-Um” Ray doesn’t believe in Free Speech, the telling of the Truth or Civil Disobedience. It’s just sad… he should return to the world of cable TV and spare the rest of us anymore of his insanity.
Curtsey to the Swampwoman for filling me in.
OMG! Colbert has us on his On Notice board. Thanks Leigh! (I think…. Need to get the Rad Faeries to protect me.)
Jan 21 2008
I started writing a journal when I was 13 years old. I still have that raggedy old spiral notebook.
Here’s what I said about Viet Nam. Please don’t hate me for my prodigy-like brilliance:
I wonder when World War III will be. I’m almost sure there’ll be one, because of all the fighting going on in Viet Nam. You see, it all started because we didn’t want South Viet Nam to become Communist (a form of government where the government owns and controls everything) so we fought the Communists so that Viet Nam would be a democracy (an individualistic government, where it is run by the people, for the people).
Well so far, all that has happened is a lot of killing! Also, Presidential elections are coming up in 1968 (November). I sure hope Johnson isn’t re-elected. I’m rooting for Bobby Kennedy or McCarthy! (Even though I can’t vote, I’m only 13 years old!)
I wish that wars wouldn’t “be.” We have such a short time to live, why does it have to be spent in fighting?
Jan 21 2008
On some positions a coward has asked the question is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right. – Martin Luther King Jr., November 1967
A few days ago, coincidentally on Martin Luther King Jr.’s real birthday, I was at a gathering of middling size where I only knew two people. While I sipped my club soda and nearly nodded off listening to someone buzz on and on about football, a conversation cluster within eavesdropping distance took up the subject of reservation casinos. I live in California and four Indian gaming referenda will appear on the ballot February 5, so a discussion of the topic was not a surprise. I’ve always had an (apparently inborn) ability to tune into conversations across a room while blocking out those in front of me, and my interest was piqued because whoever was explaining the gaming proposals seemed to know quite a bit about the behind-the-scenes maneuvering that led to these measures being put before the voters. Then I heard it. Somebody said, “It’s the redskins’ revenge.”
For the first time, I looked over that way, and all five people in the group were gently laughing or smiling or nodding assent.
I don’t think he meant it maliciously. Quite possibly he even thought he was being supportive. It’s doubtful he would have said “nigger” or “wetback” or “chink,” since there were African Americans, Asian Americans and Latinos in the room. But no obvious Indians. Because I don’t wear feathers, mocassins or a loincloth and can pass for white, he apparently felt unconstrained in making what I’m sure he thought was a harmless little joke. Maybe even a pro-Indian joke. I could have walked over and explained how infuriating what he had said was, how hurtful it was that everybody seemed to have enjoyed what he said. But it gets so bloody tiring dealing with the reactions. Not just the accusations of “political correctness,” the rolled eyes or the “Aren’t you being too sensitive?” charges, inevitably delivered with a smile. But also the downward glances, the stammering, or even the apologies that so often greet an objection: “Oh, I’m sorry. I know that you … uh… Native Americans object to that.”
As if it’s okay to deploy a slur when no member of the slurred ethnicity is around to be insulted? As if racism only matters to people of color? As if every one of us is not harmed to the core by such talk about any ethnicity and should object to it?
This incident – I can recount a dozen others I’ve witnessed in the 21st Century – made me ponder a great deal the theme I’ve heard so much of recently, on-line and off, that race and racism have been transcended in America. That we no longer need to talk about these matters because, well, because talking about them only engenders bad feelings about something that is fixed except in a few backward locales by people who will be dead soon anyway. That, 45 years after the summer day Reverend King made that soaring speech on the Washington Mall, his dream is wholly achieved.
Nobody can deny that tremendous progress has been made. Progress that is a testament both to the message of universal legal equality in the nation’s founding document and two centuries of fierce and costly struggle by people of color and their white allies to transform that message into reality. A testament to people’s willingness to change themselves, to surrender their prejudices and fears, to recognize injustice and do something about it, even to give up their lives if that’s what it takes. That progress cannot be sneered at. It reflects an America and Americans of all colors at their best.
Racism nonetheless remains a chronic influence in our lives. Yet many white people say they don’t want to talk about race. They say they’re sick of talking about it. That stuff is all in the past, they say, and wonder aloud why we can’t talk about something else. I think what most are really saying is that they don’t want to listen to talk about race.