talking racism

Every morning (and evening, most days) I open my 30-tab blogroll and read NPR, Salon, NYTimes, Jezebel, and then all of my favorite blogs. Chrome gets mad at me every time, popping up an "are you sure you want to open 30 tabs?!?" warning.

Of course I do, Chrome. Because I often find gems like this. Click through; it's an "interview" posted by the folks at We Are Respectable Negroes, and it talks about white racism and privilege from a slightly different perspective than usual.

I've heard it come up more often recently, just how much of the anger over healthcare and everything is based on race. Most of the punditry is quick to dismiss the idea, reflecting on the failure of healthcare reform during the Clinton administration, when there were White People in the office. Clearly there can't be a race issue at hand if the same idea failed when white people had it (not that the comparison as justification idea has ANY racist tendencies, of course).

Frankly, though, I don't remember this kind of rage happening when Hillarycare was on the table. And that's also not the only issue where it's coming up, just the loudest. The Birthers (intent on othering), the Tea Baggers (worst name for a dissent group I've ever heard), and the people toting guns to town hall meetings--all of that reeks of white privilege.

As I've said before: go take a bath.

Via stuff white people do: think that racism is dead, and from Respectable Negroes:

WARNNN: ...what exactly do you mean when you say that you’ve been “flattened” and “dumbed down?”

Racism: I really just mean that the criteria for what qualifies as racism has been changed to benefit white people: the bar has been raised impossibly high for whites, lowered for everyone else.

WARNNN: In what way? Can you elaborate?

Racism: Nowadays, only biological white supremacy, racial slurs (especially the “N’ word”), and explicit racial violence will get a white person labeled a racist. Therefore, many whites respond to charges of racism by saying things like, “I’m not a racist…Some of my best friends are black…I’ve never enslaved any black people or terrorized them with dogs and firehoses…I’ve never burned a cross on a black family’s lawn or called anyone ‘Nigger.’” You see? Nazis and Klansmen are the only racist whites from this perspective. This isn’t the only view, but it’s been the default for decades.

On the other hand, look at how conservatives have co-opted Civil Rights language to depict members of the black left as “racists.” I mean, in just the last week, these people have charged Obama, Sotomayor, and Skip Gates with racism. In some formulations, merely mentioning race and racial injustice gets you slapped with the racist label. Think about how, in the eyes of most whites, the Panthers, Malcolm, Reverend Wright—indeed, all blacks who offer savage critiques of white supremacy—are racists on par with David Duke.

Cultural (mis)Appropriation

Burqa Tourism at its Finest: How to Become an Expert on Muslim Women in Just One Week | Muslimah Media Watch


Scathing analysis of the current trend in British media (and law enforcement) to "understand the plight of Muslim women in the UK" by donning burqa/niqab for a short time with, of course, no other attempt and understanding anything other than the attire. Worth a read.

MSG Speaks Truth

SpontaneousLove:

"hate.
growing up in mississippi in the 1980/90’s racism was a way of life. in my experience it wasn’t something that was discussed because there was nothing to talk about. it just was. i never once had a classmate of a different race. i never had a teammate of a different race. i never had a neighbor of a different race. the only time i can remember this not being the case was when an asian family joined our church. at the time i didn’t know anything was different or if this wasn’t the case everywhere because that was all i knew. while i never heard anything hateful in my home, i heard it every where else. teachers at school would make it a point to say something degrading about black students and failing grades. at stores, i distinctly remember grown men making awful comments and at one point even pushing ladies down because they weren’t moving fast enough. i saw a lot, nothing like the 20 years before but enough to make you sick.

when you are a child you are taught to do one of two things when these things happen in front of you. either join in or keep your head down and walk away. never to stand up for what is right. because if you stood up for anyone outside the white race you were grouped with the people being beat down and you yourself were then pushed to the ground. i was never one to join in. i was the kid that kept her head down and walked away. and for that i am full of regret. i should have done something, i should have said something. but at the time i didn’t know that was an option.

i do believe that there is a part of you that is controled and formed by your environment. but only a part. i had every opportunity to be that person who joined in and believed the hate and abuse was what ‘they had coming.’ but there is a choice people have to make to understand right and wrong, to understand human suffering and to see that we are all actually just the same. luckily for me, i was taken out of that environment and i was able to see the difference. i was able to understand that this wasn’t just how it was. but i honestly believe that if i stayed in mississippi through high school i would still be that girl that kept her head down and walked away. because i had no one to show me how to stand up and fight against it. i had no one to show me that was an option.

although mississippi has come a long way since then it is still, in my opinion, not anywhere near being where it should be. and while there are no excuses for any type of hate, people have to be shown how to stand up to it. it is not mississippi’s fault or problem. it is every ones problem. it is up to everyone to say it is not ok and to stand up to it. every single time. no matter how slight or seemingly harmless. because until it is completely gone we are all at fault and we are all responsible for changing it."

Fox and Friends

Disturbing?



As quoted on Stuff White People Do,

Kilmeade, along with his partners in the fine art of "talking-to-adults-as-if-they're-children," was discussing a study's claims that people in Finland and Sweden who stay married are less likely to suffer from Alzheimer’s. Kilmeade thinks that has something to do with how "pure" the blood is in those countries, compared to American blood, which he thinks suffers from intermixing with different "ethnics" and . . . "species"?!

If you have a problem with this and the fact that Fox News anchors get away with this bigoted bullshit every time they go on air,

Contact the FCC:
Federal Communications Commission
Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau
Consumer Complaints
445 12th Street, SW
Washington, D.C. 20554

Ten Things Wrong with Sarkozy's Burqa Ban

Via the Czech

1. Mandating how women should dress is mandating how women should dress, whether it is a mandate to wear a burqa, or a mandate not to wear one. When a man tells a woman how to dress, it’s paternalism and subjugation one way or the other.

2. Plus, as Dori points out, a man telling a woman that too much of her body is covered, and that she needs to expose more of it to his view, is pretty weird. How much modesty is too much? How much exposed flesh is enough to satisfy Sarkozy?

3. A Christian man imposing rules of dress upon Muslim women does little to actually foster the kind of gender equality he claims to be advancing.

4. Sarkozy talks as though there is no “subjugation of women” among the non-Muslim denizens of France. As though France is a wonderland of gender equality. According to WikiGender: “Compared to other countries, France has always been rather late in adopting gender equality as a goal and designing policies to achieve it.” So why suddenly all this concern for a certain subset of French women, who just randomly happen to come from a community hated and feared by many in France?

5. What other items of clothing does Mr. Sarkozy disapprove of? Do they also happen to correspond to certain disfavored, marginalized communities?

6. Any attempt to “eliminate” burqas in France will only serve to further marginalize the women who wear them. Burqas, for some women, represent a compromise. Some individuals believe women are not supposed to be seen in public, or be looked at by men outside of the family. In this extreme view, women would be entirely confined to the house and removed from outside society unless they can put on a burqa and go out. Eliminating the burqa for these women would mean eliminating their access to the world. Better conditions for such women require a little more work than outlawing a piece of clothing.

7. Eliminating burqas in France would not mean that women’s oppression in Muslim communities would end. It would simply be a cosmetic change that would do nothing to actually work with communities and empower French Muslim women to achieve equality. It is a measure that ignores all nuance and avoids all honest work to actually tackle the heart of the problem.

8. All this “eliminate the burqa” talk fits just a little too snugly with the popular “Islam oppresses women” meme that Christian Westerners like to toss around, particularly when they are trying to frame a “War of Civilizations”.

9. Also, doesn’t this just come off as a cheap attempt at burnishing his Women’s Issues credentials while effectively only harassing a marginalized, already-persecuted minority? And doing little to nothing to further true societal equality for all women in France?

10. What real issues do French women, and French Muslim women in particular, actually face that Sarkozy is completely avoiding by diverting attention with this stunt? Why randomly target French Muslims now?

Michelle Obama's hair, racial issues, African-American culture, beauty | Salon Life: "Are we moving toward a 'black hair' moment?"

I wonder whether such a young, high-profile black woman who gets her hair straightened or relaxed as a matter of course will occasionally let it be something different: unstraightened, less straightened, or anything that doesn't bounce, lie flat or swing like a pageboy. In other words, a do that suggests her ethnicity rather than softens it.

White people tend to not realize the intense issues for WOC regarding their hair. For a white woman, her hair may be a struggle, it may be a frustration, but it is rarely a cause for anyone else's concern. A white woman will probably never be called a "nappy-headed ho" because she didn't spend hours of her time an exorbitant amounts of her money to have it changed from what it naturally is. A white woman can work with her hair as it was given to her, and her options are nearly endless.

Black women do not have the same luxuries.

This is not my fight; I will relinquish to my hidden identity that I am white, and though my hair is a frustration, unless I come out and cut it into a "dyke" style, I will probably never make any kind of statement with it. Nor will anyone read my haircut as a statement, unless it is accompanied by the revelation of a major lifestyle change.

I am, however, aware of the issues surrounding a black woman's hair. Is Michelle trying to minimize her blackness by having her hair relaxed? It has been in similar styles throughout her public life. Her daughters, however, have relatively natural styles.

What does this say about the first family and their relations to their racial community? To the white community? To other people of color? To America in general?

Because Bigotry is Not Dead

Neo-Nazis are in the Army now | Salon News: "He started his own Nazi rock group, Attack, and made friends in the National Alliance, at the time the biggest neo-Nazi group in the country. It has called for a 'a long-term eugenics program involving at least the entire populations of Europe and America.'

But the military ran in Fogarty's family. His grandfather had served during World War II, Korea and Vietnam, and his dad had been a Marine in Vietnam. At 22, Fogarty resolved to follow in their footsteps. 'I wanted to serve my country,' he says..."

Despite the fact that Army regulations explicitly do not allow soldiers to be active in racist groups, and that those enlisting must explain any tattoo on their bodies before signing that line, there are very few ways to verify those stories because of the "personal" nature of tattoos. You can just make shit up, which is exactly what Fogarty did.

Then,

Fogarty's ex-girlfriend, intent on destroying his new military career, sent a dossier of photographs to Fort Stewart. The photos showed Fogarty attending white supremacist rallies and performing with his band, Attack. "They hauled me before some sort of committee and showed me the pictures," Fogarty says. "I just denied them and said my girlfriend was a spiteful bitch." He adds: "They knew what I was about. But they let it go because I'm a great soldier...Fogarty left the Army in 2005 with an honorable discharge. He says he was asked to reenlist, but declined."

So this guy is a Neo-Nazi. He has tattoos of overtly racist, white-supremacist symbols on his body (listed in the article are the Celtic cross, a widely recognized symbol of white supremacist groups in the US, and the Viking carrying the staff, which is also widely used). His entire unit and his immediate superiors know explicitly, both from context and from the horse's mouth, but do not report higher. The guy fights because he hates the people, and for no other reason.

Yet Lt. Clnl Ferenbach, a man so exemplary in his personality and his military career that he flew sorties over the capital on September 11, is being discharged and stripped of many of his rights as a veteran. All this because he is gay, and someone else ratted him out to the military.

Tell me how that's in any way exemplary of what we claim to stand for, America.