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“The former president had been asked whether his remarks comparing Obama’s strong showing in South Carolina to that of Jesse Jackson in 1988 had been a mistake given their impact on his wife Hillary Clinton’s campaign. “No, I think that they played
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“Abortion Man then goes to accost the teen girl as she is walking on a sidewalk. He calls her a “fein” and then ‘ punches and knees her in her stomach. She falls to the ground where he stumps on her stomach and a bloody baby flies out of her womb.”
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“Privilege means not having to look past your own oppression to see the ways that you are oppressing others. It’s easy to see the ways that we’re disadvantaged because it affects us, but it’s much harder to admit that there are ways in which we are
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“[W]hat bothers me even more is the reflexive response by many well-meaning Americans that undocumented immigrants ought to “get in line and wait their turn.” What these Americans don’t realize is that our immigration system is so broken that there
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“What do the money issues, the poor graduation rates, and the competition from “mainstream” institutions say about the future of HBCUs? Despite their many, notable positives, will they hold on to their place in the American educational sphere in years
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Just go read it – the whole thing, the comments are skewed for the first bit but then the conversation really heats up. – LDP
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“It is not so much famine that is the worry, it is widespread misery and malnutrition. The WFP’s biggest concern is for the people living on 50 cents a day who have nothing to fall back on.”
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“This absorbing account of his life also reminds us that the picture was more complicated. Clemente faced discrimination, suspicion and ridicule through much of his career; he was a moody, private and sensitive man who had a tense relationship with the pr
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“White people, who are heterosexual, Christian, not disabled and even those who have blond hair and blue eyes, can and do champion diversity efforts. To assume otherwise is akin to assuming that qualified Black or Latino executives do not exist.”
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” A recent survey … by the education advocacy group Common Core found that a quarter could not identify Adolf Hitler, a third did not know that the Bill of Rights guaranteed freedom of speech and religion, and fewer than half knew that the Civil War too
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“Our top priority was to make people laugh,” Mr. Schlossberg said in a recent telephone interview. “But the secondary priority is that there’s something a little smarter below the surface. I guess in a certain way it’s our reaction to post-9/11
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
Aaminah wrote:
On the Mumia one, well, I didn’t read the comments because comments always piss me off. The article is terrible. Let’s see, he freely admits that he owns Mumia’s book but hasn’t bothered to read it. And profers the cop’s wife’s book as a balanced and factual account of what happened??? I mean, she is somehow more of a legal expert and wouldn’t be biased???
Posted 23 Apr 2008 at 7:09 am ¶
macon d wrote:
Jeez Carmen, thanks a lot, way too much good stuff to read again, way too little work done as a result. You’re too good for my own good.
I agree with Aaminah, the Mumia piece sux.
Posted 23 Apr 2008 at 10:03 am ¶
Aaron wrote:
I feel that the 7 Things to never say to white colleagues article is full mostly of things that white people feel like are being said to them when their prejudices are called out, when really the discussion is more nuanced that that. I’m mixed, white and hispanic, of mestizo race, and in the grand scheme of things pretty priviledged. I never really know for sure, but I think most people initially assume I’m white, and happen to have dark features.
Anyhow, my point is that like a lot of mixed people, I sometimes get an “inside” view to both worlds. And I don’t see a lot of people reacting to racist or prejudiced statements from white people with the assumption that that person knows it’s racist, and is just unappologetic. From my personal experience, for instance, people often ask “what are you” or offer some other awkward phrasing for the question “what is your racial and ethnic background?” And yeah, it’s annoying as hell. But I, and I do think most people, can appreciate that, yeah, it is difficult to find appropriate words for that. And it’s not each individual’s fault that our society basically just ignores the existence of mixed people. And that ties into another one of the 7 things, that all white people are personally responsible for racism. And again, I can’t think of anyone I know that holds that view. I’m sorry if it feels that way sometimes when racism is discussed, and maybe PoC and other minority groups could try harder to make it clear that we don’t feel that way. But I do think over-defensiveness and “racism fatigue” as discussed by Latoya are the bigger problems there. Sorry that for those who are privileged, it gets tiring hearing about and discussing racism, which can make one defensive, but for those who experience it as a normal part of every day life, well discussing it is not tiring. It’s tiring that it still needs to be discussed, because racism still exists.
However, at the same time, I am very glad that the article points out that not all white people really feel part of the “in-crowd”. This is one of the biggest things I’ve learned from being mixed. To try not to see people in groups. Everyone has a bit of “otherness” in them. Everyone is mixed in some way. Everyone is left out sometimes. I try to keep this in mind when discussing racism. While there is a huge difference between being squarely in a minority group and being a “normal white person” with some baggage that everyone has, I think everyone can at least relate in some way to being in the minority.
Posted 23 Apr 2008 at 11:01 am ¶
Stentor wrote:
Re: 7 things never to say to white colleagues:
If this article accurately represents the whiny, self-indulgent, willfully-misinterpreting, “but I’m a victim too!” mentality of white men involved in diversity programs, then maybe we *should* assume that white people can’t really be productively involved in diversity programs.
Posted 23 Apr 2008 at 12:26 pm ¶
Lauren wrote:
the freakonomics guys make me mad anyway with their faulty analysis of culture and economics under a clever veneer. but the mumia article was so blatantly lame. it’s full of ad hominem attacks (oh those silly celebrities and college students!) and a big blind spot for his bias – he read faulkner’s book and not mumia’s? what a chump. seriously. of course, this is not surprising from someone who, in “Freakonomics” wrote off the prison abolishment movement with one scoffing sentence. He doesn’t seem to have much of a vocabulary on the political economy of racism and how it intersects with the criminal justice system.
Posted 23 Apr 2008 at 12:26 pm ¶
Ali wrote:
I’m kind of getting pissed off at the Freakonomics guys. Between this article and that shady adoption article I’m mad that I paid money for their book. I haven’t read it yet and am still planning to but I will now take it with a huge grain of salt. It really annoys me how some academics, despite all of their progressiveness in their respective disciplines, take such an archaic approach to racial issues.
Also re:7 things never to say to white colleagues, I don’t see how any white person who does actively identify as anti-racist could be effective in a diversity program. I don’t see how any person (of any “race/s”) could be effective in a diversity program if s/he does not actively identify as anti-racist. S/he could have great intentions and try to institute programs to address issues they’ve isolated but if they don’t have a basic understanding of how racism works and aren’t openly committed to ending (or even interrupting) the cycle I don’t see how that’s effective in the long run.
Posted 23 Apr 2008 at 1:10 pm ¶
Alston wrote:
I couldn’t watch the Abortion Man clips. The whole idea is disgusting. The people that thought that this was a good idea to air should be reprimanded or fired.
Posted 24 Apr 2008 at 1:12 pm ¶
jvansteppes wrote:
I’m a bit queasy from those 7 things not to say because they make erroneous assumptions about how white people are called on shit.
Perhaps its useful because it displays how many white people twist comments. ‘All white people benefit from white privilege to some degree’ does not equal ‘all white people are intentionally racist’ but defensive folks always read it that way.
Posted 24 Apr 2008 at 9:52 pm ¶