So What Defines A “White” Person?

White or something else?

Thank God, some people get how stupid our concepts of race are. I think I was tipped to this article by the blog, Mixed American Life, and I really wish it were required reading. Here is an excerpt:

It’s been widely mentioned among a certain set on social media networks that the suspect in the Boston bombings is Chechen, and therefore, “Caucasian.” The good-natured purpose of this being to foil the usual insipid bigotry let loose in similar situations, which assumes that all terrorists are non-White, that Muslims are of a separate, lesser race, and/or that any particular terrorist act is part of some larger, epochal war of “us versus them.”

All of these racist conclusions are ridiculous, and would be easily refuted with the most basic and widely-accepted social and scientific data of contemporary times. However, stating that because the suspect is from the region of the Caucasus Mountains he “is White” is a troubling statement. Most readily, this reifies a notion of Whiteness. But additionally, this overlooks the history of the term “Caucasian,” and how the racial history of anthropology brought this term into common parlance. To a person from the United States, where “Caucasian” is a synonym for racial Whiteness, there is an etymological connection that would allow you to say this, and think you are correct. But “Whiteness” has always only ever been exactly what “White people” want it to be. What part of the world a person is from has little to no affect on whether anyone thinks s/he is actually “White”, because “White” is a social class, not a place.

“Caucasian” was first identified as a race by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in 1779, as one of five: the others being Mongolian, Malayan, Ethiopian, and American. These categories were based upon the measurement of the human skull. While he was a proponent of “Degreneration Theory,” that theorized that all humans were originally Caucasian before having their appearance change due to poor living conditions, he was able to note what is now widely known—that phenotypical differences within races are as large as those between races. In other words, in any measureable characteristic, there is as great a difference between individual Africans, and as great a difference between individual Europeans, as there is between Africans and Europeans compared.

I sincerely hope you take the time to read the rest of this excellent, not long, article that blows up our notion of what divides us. I just don’t get how people, once they are educated to these facts, can still see people in terms of race. Here is the link.

Sergio Garcia Shows His Racist Side Since He Can’t Beat Woods

He had to go there.

Good heavens, this was a stupid thing to say:

Sergio Garcia crossed a line Tuesday he never should have toed.

At the European Tour’s annual gala dinner ahead of its flagship event, the BMW PGA Championship in England, Garcia responded to a question asking if he would have dinner with Tiger Woods at next month’s U.S. Open at Merion.

His reply, according to The Guardian: “We will have him round every night. We will serve fried chicken.”

The comment can only be construed as racially charged, particularly if one harkens back to remarks made by Fuzzy Zoeller in 1997 after Tiger Woods won the Masters. Zoeller, the 1979 Masters winner, was asked about Woods’ record-setting performance and injected several racial undertones – not to mention some overtones – into his response.

“That little boy is driving well and he’s putting well,” Zoeller said. “He’s doing everything it takes to win. So, you know what you guys do when he gets in here? You pat him on the back and say congratulations and enjoy it and tell him not serve fried chicken next year. Got it? … or collard greens or whatever the hell they serve.”

I just wish the racists would be creative enough to come up with something fresh, rather than bringing out the same old tired stereotypes. And don’t you just love those non-apology apologies. Here is Garcia’s:

“I apologize for any offense that may have been caused by my comment on stage during the European Tour Players’ Awards dinner,” Garcia said. “I answered a question that was clearly made towards me as a joke with a silly remark, but in no way was the comment meant in a racist manner.”

“May have caused.”

Wow. Here is the full article.

Johnny Depp As Tonto Doesn’t Feel Quite Right

One of my old favorite TV shows gets an update.

Frankly I am a bit torn on this one:

The Hollywood image of Tonto once had the Lone Ranger’s sidekick wearing a thin headband and lots of dangling fringes. The latest Disney version has a shirtless Johnny Depp adorned with feathers, a face painted white with black stripes, and a stuffed crow on his head.

The character in the upcoming “The Lone Ranger” still speaks broken English and chants prayers. But Depp has said he’s less subservient, honors the proud American Indian warrior and displays a dry sense of humor seen throughout Indian Country. The production even hired a Comanche adviser, making it decidedly a Comanche story, and received the blessing of other tribes through ceremonies during filming.

Yet Disney has caught flak for what some say is the perpetuation of stereotypes through a character that lacks any real cultural traits. Moviegoers will have to wait until July 3 to see how all this plays out on screen. For now, they’re getting a glimpse through movie trailers that have left them both optimistic and angry, and wondering to what extent the new Tonto portrays actual American Indians.

I know Depp has some distant Native American blood in him, but of course, I can’t help but wish there was a full Native American they could have cast in the role of Tonto. And I did see a trailer for the movie the other day and it does make me cringe a bit hearing Depp speak in that broken English, presumably in the way they think a Native American would speak. But I also get how Hollywood works and without Depp the movie likely would not have been made.

But couldn’t he have played the Lone Ranger instead? Still trying to decide if I want to see this one. Here is a link to the full article which includes a trailer.

Most Twitter Hate Speech Comes From East Coast and South

Something tells me this isn’t about grandma.

I found this to be very interesting (from The Huffington Post):

The most hateful tweeters in the United States tend to live in the eastern half of the country, according to a new map that pinpoints hate speech from Twitter across country.

The map, created by geography students at Humboldt State University in California, looks at more than 150,000 geocoded tweets (tweets that say where the user is located) between June 2012 and April 2013, sorting for those that contained a racist, homophobic or anti-disability word. The researchers then decided whether or not the tweet was using the word in a hateful way.

According to our analysis: A majority of hateful tweets are coming from smaller towns and more rural areas. For example, some of the biggest spots for homophobic tweets are along the border of Oklahoma and Texas, and one of the biggest hubs of racist tweets is in a seemingly empty area of western Indiana. There are a lot more racist tweets coming out of an area in the middle of North Dakota than in the larger city of Fargo, for example. Homophobic tweets have a wider spread across the nation than racist ones, which are coming from the southeastern portion of the country more than anywhere else.

The project is a follow-up to a similar study that mapped racial slurs on Twitter in reaction to President Obama’s reelection in 2012. The students used The DOLLY Project (Digital OnLine Life and You), a huge archive of geolocated tweets, to collect data in both cases. This data can be used to track all kinds of tweets. There is also a map of where the word “grits” is most often tweeted (spoiler alert: it’s the south).

The interactive map lets you zoom as far as the county level on the map to pinpoint which counties across the U.S. wrote the most hateful tweets. You can look at all hateful tweets, tweets by category, or just at specific words. The map does not include sexist terms or terms that are offensive to the mentally disabled. Some of the terms shown are sort of outdated, which is most likely why some terms are less frequent than others.

Pleased to see that very little of this craziness comes out of California, which is not to say we don’t have our crazies. Be sure to click on the map in the original article, the interactive ability to focus on certain words is interesting. Of course the East Coast is much more densely populated so it is not too surprising that the total number of hate tweets coming out of there are much much higher. Here it is.

Jason Richwine Should Have His IQ Tested

I guess facts can be made to support any argument.

What an idiot. Here is what one of the leading researchers at a conservative think tank wrote a few years back about Hispanic immigrants to the U.S.

[n]o one knows whether Hispanics will ever reach IQ parity with whites, but the prediction that new Hispanic immigrants will have low-IQ children and grandchildren is difficult to argue against. From the perspective of Americans alive today, the low average IQ of Hispanics is effectively permanent.

Wow. Goes to show that an education does not guarantee someone will not be an idiot.

The author of that statement, which came from a dissertation he wrote in college, though it has been shown that he still believes such drivel, is Jason Richwine, of the Heritage Foundation, one of the major opponents to immigration reform going on in Washington. No wonder Heritage is against immigration reform when they have people like Richwine working for them. Strangely, the Heritage Foundation is trying to back away from what Richwine wrote in that paper. Yet they keep him on staff and happen to agree with the implied point of his argument, that we should not let more Hispanic immigrants into the U.S.

Geez.

Here is a full article on this craziness.

Bigotry At The White House Correspondents’ Dinner

Ridiculous treatment.

This is an excerpt from The Huffington Post this morning. It is written by a physician and wife of a noted journalist who was attending the White House Correspondent’s dinner last week. She happens to be Muslim:

As I left the hotel and my husband went to the ballroom for the dinner, I realized he still had my keys. I approached the escalators that led down to the ballroom and asked the externally contracted security representatives if I could go down. They abruptly responded, “You can’t go down without a ticket.” I explained my situation and that I just wanted my keys from my husband in the foyer and that I wouldn’t need to enter in the ballroom. They refused to let me through. For the next half hour, they watched as I frantically called my husband but was unable to reach him.

Then something remarkable happened. I watched as they let countless other women through — all Caucasian — without even asking to see their tickets. I asked why they were allowing them to go freely when they had just told me that I needed a ticket. Their response? “Well, now we are checking tickets.” He rolled his eyes and let another woman through, this time actually checking her ticket. His smug tone, enveloped in condescension, taunted, “See? That’s what a ticket looks like.”

When I asked “Why did you lie to me, sir?” they threatened to have the Secret Service throw me out of the building — me, a 4’11″ young woman who weighs 100 pounds soaking wet, who was all prettied up in elegant formal dress, who was simply trying to reach her husband. The only thing on me that could possibly inflict harm were my dainty silver stilettos, and they were too busy inflicting pain on my feet at the moment. My suspicion was confirmed when I saw the men ask a blonde woman for her ticket and she replied, “I lost it.” The snickering tough-guy responded, “I’d be happy to personally escort you down the escalators ma’am.”

Like a malignancy, it had crept in when I least expected it — this repugnant, infectious bigotry we have become so accustomed to. “White privilege” was on display, palpable to passersby who consoled me. I’ve come to expect this repulsive racism in many aspects of my life, but when I find it entrenched in these smaller encounters is when salt is sprinkled deep into the wounds. In these crystallizing moments it is clear that while I might see myself as just another all-American gal who has great affection for this country, others see me as something less than human, more now than ever before.

When I asked why the security representatives offered to personally escort white women without tickets downstairs while they watched me flounder, why they threatened to call the Secret Service on me, I was told, “We have to be extra careful with you all after the Boston bombings.”

What a shame that she was treated like this. I hope the men who did this all lose their jobs over it, though I doubt it will happen. No one deserves this kind of treatment and humiliation, especially simply for their appearance since that is all these men could have known about her at the time. And so stupid that with people of color all must bear the brunt of stupid acts of individuals. But no one was paying extra attention to young white males after Aurora, Colorado’s theater shootings. Or the Newtown massacres. Or to white men after one shot up the Sikh Temple. Or many other incidents of stupid people doing awful things. But Dr. Jilani had to bear the brunt of the actions of stupid people. Strange again that those security guards only focused on the misguided interpretation of the Muslim religion by the Boston bombers, but he ignored that they were from the place that the Caucasian ethnicity was named, Caucasus. It was more convenient to focus on their radical religious ties than their skin color I guess. Read the must read full piece here.

Arrogant and Black Are Two Things That Should Not Dare Go Together

Some of her best friends are n-words.

You gotta love this woman’s proof that she is not racist:

Buena Vista Township Clerk Gloria Platko is resisting demands that she step down after another local official, Interim Township Manager Dexter Mitchell (a Democrat), taped a phone conversation in which Platko referred to Township Supervisor Dwayne Parker (also a Democrat) as “an arrogant nigger.”

The 63 year-old Democrat later apologized for the “slip of the tongue,” but shockingly insisted that her use of the slur doesn’t make her racist, because she has “eaten Thanksgiving dinner with black friends at their house.”

Here is the portion of the audio:

Read the full story here.

Should We Still Use “Race” To Get Past “Race”?

A major ruling is coming soon. Will be controversial either way.

I have to admit, I am still not sure which side of this debate I fall on. Honestly, I see the arguments on both sides as having merit.

Thirty-five years after the Supreme Court set the terms for boosting college admissions of African Americans and other minorities, the court may be about to issue a ruling that could restrict universities’ use of race in deciding who is awarded places.
The case before the justices was brought by Abigail Fisher, a white suburban Houston student who asserted she was wrongly rejected by the University of Texas at Austin while minority students with similar grades and test scores were admitted.
The ruling is the only one the court has yet to issue following oral arguments in cases heard in October and November, the opening months of the court’s annual term which lasts until the early summer. A decision might come as early as Monday, before the start of a two-week recess.
As hard as it is to predict when a ruling will be announced, it is more difficult to say how it might change the law. Still, even a small move in the Texas case could mark the beginning of a new chapter limiting college administrators’ discretion in using race in deciding on admissions.

I do believe that there are other criteria, other than “race” that can be used to ensure diverse student populations – family income, high school being located in an impoverished area, first in family to attend college, class ranking regarding of school, etc. Using those factors will naturally lead to minority students in a lot of cases even if ignoring culture or ethnicity. I also believe a middle class or upper middle class hispanic or black student should not necessarily get preference over a white kid who went to poor schools or comes from a poor family.

But I certainly believe it is critical that universities be diverse and reflective of our changing demographics and world. It is critical to our future. So I will be paying close attention to this ruling and what happens in the aftermath. It is a tough question, should we continue to pay attention to color in order to get past color? The answer is not so simple.

Read the rest of the article reference above here.

High School Hold Its Very First Integrated Prom!

Since I posted about this a while back, I wanted to pass on the update.

Hallelujah, the kids had their first integrated prom – ever! At this rate Georgia may catch up to the times in another 200 years.

Asian-American Fraternity Dons Blackface In Music Video

My daughter tipped me off to this craziness and I found this article on the excellent blog “Angry Asian Man”:

This is the kind of stuff that makes me shake my fist at the sky and wonder why the hell I ever bother… Over the years, I’ve seen an abundance of racist idiocy involving fraternities, from racist ragers to hate attacks. This is not necessarily a frat thing, so much as it is a dumbass-dudes-doing-dumbass-things-together thing. The latest incident comes from UC Irvine, and it involves an Asian American fraternity.

Oh yes, we Asian Americans are most certainly not immune to perpetuating our share of racist ignorance. The brothers of UCI’s Lambda Theta Delta recently posted a video (at 0:55), in which a member is seen performing inblackface. Like it ain’t no big deal. I don’t care about good or bad intentions, or why this video was made — this is some ignorant shit, and the people responsible need to know it.

Read the rest of his excellent take on this incident here.