Archive for the ‘white-privilege’ tag
So messed up that I’m speechless
This guy is the co-host of FOX’s morning show, FOX & Friends. According to Brian Kilmeade’s website, “FOX & Friends,” “has been the No. 1 morning program on all of cable news for more than seven years.”
WTF? Who watches this garbage? Hitler Youth Recruiters? Anti-miscegenation Hobbyists? Stormfront Forum Posters? Racial Eugenics Supporters? This guy makes overtly racist and derogatory statements on a popular news program and he gets to keep his job!?? Race is a sociological construct…we are all the same species you moron!
Dear Fox News, Fire Brian Kilmeade immediately.
Tim Wise – audio interview
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Race is, and always has been, an explosive issue in the United States. In this timely new book, Tim Wise explores how Barack Obama’s emergence as a political force is taking the race debate to new levels. According to Wise, for many whites, Obama’s rise signifies the end of racism as a pervasive social force; they point to Obama as a validation of the American ideology that anyone can make it if they work hard, and an example of how institutional barriers against people of color have all but vanished. But is this true? And does a reinforced white belief in color-blind meritocracy potentially make it harder to address ongoing institutional racism? After all, in housing, employment, the justice system and education, the evidence is clear: white privilege and discrimination against people of color are still operative and actively thwarting opportunities, despite the success of individuals like Obama.
via City Lights Publishing [mp3]
Between Barack & a Hard Place
Tim Wise talked about his book Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama (City Lights Publishers; January 2009). He argued that the election of Barack Obama says very little about a reduction of racism in America. He said it reinforces the old negative views about the larger black community while carving out exceptions for blacks like President Obama. His election may therefore complicate progress against racism. Mr. Wise also acknowledged that day as the 41st anniversary of the death of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. and talked about white perceptions of racism at that time. He also talked about a highly publicized mass killing the previous day in Binghampton, New York, by a Vietnamese man and how, like in other incidents, blame is assigned to an entire group, unless the perpetrator is white. He also talked about other types of discrimination, the pervasiveness of racism, and the personal responsibility to combat it.
via C-SPAN
Tim Wise on White Privilege
This is Your Nation on White Privilege
By Tim Wise
September 13, 2008For those who still can’t grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for an easy-to-understand example of it, perhaps this list will help.
White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you, or your parents, because “every family has challenges,” even as black and Latino families with similar “challenges” are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.
Space Race Matters
One of the bitter ironies anti-racists face when working to end white-supremacist thinking and action is that the folks who most perpetuate it are the individuals who are usually the least willing to acknowledge that race matters. (bell hooks, Teaching Community, 2003, p. 28)
You may be wondering what 7 astronauts have to do with a quote about anti-racism work from bell hooks. I too would be curious. Well, let me attempt to fill in several bits of context and hopefully you’re wonder will be satiated.
Last week, while checking out a NASA-related post from one of my favorite blogs, the Boston Globe’s “Big Picture Blog,” I happened to observe that none of the 7 astronauts for NASA’s latest space shuttle mission were people of color.
There were already 15 comments on the post. Most of the comments praised the ingenuity of NASA or extolled the fantastically big pictures on the post/site. I decided to post a seemingly innocent question regarding the racial makeup of the 7 astronauts in picture #23:
The pool of astronauts isn’t the most diverse is it?
7 white people. 6 guys and only 1 woman. Where are the astronauts of color??? ~Eric Stoller
I had no idea that my comment would generate a shower of racist rhetoric and inflammatory comments.
This is my hometown
Many of you know that my hometown is Columbus Junction, Iowa. I posted several times in June about the floods that consumed Eastern Iowa, including my town – the “CJ”. Home of the Wildcats. The place where I grew up.
I’ve had a Chicago Tribune article that references Columbus Junction in my bookmarks for quite sometime now. The article was published on the Tribs website in June.
I wanted to share the article and post it, not as something that tarnishes my hometown, but as an example of the realities of where I come from.
Excerpts after the cut…
Puma’s skin tone binary
Jamaican sprinter, Usain Bolt is sponsored by Puma. Puma created a game so that you can virtually race Bolt: “Are you ready to take him on?”
I’m a sucker for Flash-based games so I thought I would give it a try. I pressed “play game” and the first thing I see is that I have to choose my runners skin tone. The only choices are black and white, with white being the default option. WTF? First of all, why oh why did they create a game where players have to pick their skin tone? Secondly, why are there only two tones? Why Puma? Why! Gradations anyone? Brown perhaps? Maybe white as not being the first and default choice! Shit.
RRRRRRing RRRRRing. “Hello” – Peggy McIntosh on line 2….#51: I will be able to select my “skin tone” as the default for a flash game.
link via Kottke
Discussion on race + Oregon
Audio from an Oregon Public Broadcasting program, “The White State.” A look at the history of Oregon, and what factors have contributed to the state’s relatively homogeneous racial makeup.
The program features Dr. Jun Xing, Professor of Ethnic Studies at Oregon State University. Dr. Xing is an editor of the book, “Seeing Color: Indigenous Peoples and Racialized Ethnic Minorities in Oregon.”
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Regular folks = White people?
According to Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s Hardball, “regular folks” = “white folks”. Chris Matthews isn’t even trying to be covert anymore. He’s just outright saying that whiteness is “regular”. Unbelievable. The stench of white privilege is emanating from the video. Whiteness is “regular”. Whiteness is “normal“. That’s what he’s saying.
So Chris, if white folks are regular, what are folks of color? I can’t believe that you are allowed to sit behind a desk and broadcast this racist garbage and call it news.
link tip via Rhetorical Wasteland
From Media Matters:
On the July 7 edition of MSNBC’s Hardball, host Chris Matthews teased an upcoming segment by saying: “They’re the working-class white voters Hillary Clinton won and Barack didn’t. Can Obama now win over the regular folks, white folks, against John McCain? We’ll ask the strategists.” On the June 30 edition of Hardball, Matthews similarly teased a segment by asserting: “Up next: They’re the working-class white voters Hillary won and Barack didn’t. Can Obama win over the regular folks against John McCain?”
Cedar Falls, Iowa + flooding
I noticed this photograph on the Flickr set of the Red Cross’s Midwestern flood relief efforts. The photo provides an idea of how much water was flowing around Cedar Falls, Iowa on June 10, 2008.
Sandbagging efforts in Cedar Falls kept the raging waters of the Cedar River from flooding the downtown area. The sign is located in an area that is usually above water. My guess is that the water level in the photo is somewhere between 2 to 3 ft. high.
I was curious as to what the text on the sign said. Fortunately, a hi-resolution version of the original photograph had been uploaded and it was easy to discern the text on the marker.
By the way, I think it’s important to note that critical thinking can still exist within a discourse of support…just wanted to give everyone a heads up as I am going to delve into some thinking that is critical of a historical marker that needs some serious editing.
