links for 2010-11-24

"I don’t really celebrate Thanksgiving but many families across the United States will take advantage of deserved days off from work and gather together around tables to give thanks and to break bread. But that turkey (or pernil), how did it get to your kitchen and your table?

"A report released by the Southern Poverty Law Center attempts to answer that question."

"It is no accident that women have been complaining about being pulled out of line because of their big breasts, having their bodies commented on by TSA officials, and getting inappropriate touching when selected for pat-downs for years now, but just this week it went viral. It is no accident that transgender people have been violated by searches for years, but just this week it went viral. It is no accident that CAIR identified Islamic head scarves (hijab) as an automatic trigger for extra screenings in January, but just this week it went viral. What was different?

Suddenly an able-bodied cis-gendered white man is the one who was complaining."

"Prof. Neville Alexander, a Marxist sociologist who was classified as mixed race under apartheid, has roused the campus debate with the charge that affirmative action betrays the ideals of nonracialism that so many fought and died for during the long struggle against apartheid. Professor Alexander, who spent a decade imprisoned on Robben Island with Nelson Mandela, insists that the University of Cape Town, which is public, must resist pressure from the government to use racial benchmarks in determining how well the university is performing. “The government under apartheid did the same and we told them to go to hell,” he said in one standing-room-only campus debate."