I took this white dude to the hospital seven years ago; he’d left his apartment door unlocked and then got pistol whipped when he came home to find someone going through his stuff.

Now why would I so clearly remember a minor injury from ages ago? Because in my eight years working EMS in Bed-Stuy, East New York, Harlem and the Bronx, that was the singular, solitary white patient I’ve had who was a victim of violence at the hands of a person of color.  I remember sitting in the Woodhull ER with him. He was holding an ice pack to his little forehead gash and going “God! I can’t believe I got pistol whipped! It’s like…it’s like a movie!” At that point I had already given up checking the newspapers in the morning to see if any of my crazy jobs from the night before would show up. They never do; the patients are all black and brown and their tragedies, no matter how gruesome, are automatically deemed run-of-the-mill and unworthy for news attention.

In general, the white patients we get are either little old ladies; drunks who tried to play frogger across McGuinness Boulevard; college kid anxiety attacks and overdoses. We also get the occasional “All these Black people are trying to rape and kill me so I can’t leave my apartment!!” and sometimes “I stopped taking my meds and I’m about to do something really really bad.”

All this is to say that the amount of time and energy that white culture puts into being afraid of the crimes that will be committed against them in the ghetto could be better spent thinking about something that actually happens.

For instance, white-on-black crime, which we see faaaar more frequently. A lawyer was interviewing me the other day for a case they wanted me to testify in. A patient I’d had who’d also been pistol whipped, also seven years ago, this time by cops, was suing the NYPD and this lawyer was trying to take apart the guy’s story.  He showed me a picture of a middle aged black man with a swollen lip and busted eye and asked me if I remembered him.

I had to laugh. “Do you have any idea how many times a week I go to the precinct to take care of black men who’ve been beaten by cops? Plenty. Times fifty-two times eight. No I don’t remember that dude.” Or the kid I met last night, who’d been cardoored by a police cruiser and then arrested before he could get up, all for riding his bike on the sidewalk. Or Iman Morales, who was naked on a fire escape in Bed-Stuy having a psychotic fit when PD tasered him, causing him to fall to his death. Or Sean Bell. Or Oscar Grant.

And then there’s the entire 81st Precinct of the NYPD, whose institutionalized racism was recently unveiled by a defecting whistleblower and thoroughly detailed here.

Most white-on-black crime happens without the majority of whites having to perpetrate a single violent act. Another unspoken benefit of white privilege is the ability to win without even having to fight. Gentrification, and the uprooting of communities that it entails, will happen regardless of how the incoming hipsters feel about their neighbors; the pieces are already in place, the gears turning. 911 doesn’t get called- it’s a slow motion race riot, which history has proven can be the most devastating kind.

By Guest Contributor Daisy Hernandez, cross-posted from Colorlines

Every once in awhile, a Hollywood movie hits such a perfect note of familiarity that you leave the theater feeling like you just watched a film about your white friends and it was funny, sweet–marvelous, even. And, as you’d expect, messed up on race. Not messed up in a Mel Gibson sort of way. It’s nothing outright hateful, but rather annoying and mundane, like when the white gay guy says his décor is, ya know, “Asiany,” and you debate whether to spill red wine on his new, white rug or give him an Edward Said book.

This is the charm of Lisa Cholodenko’s new summer hit, The Kids Are All Right. Her white characters are so familiar and even so likable that you want to believe all they need is a better reading list. If only race relations were so easy.

Ostensibly, The Kids Are All Right is about two lesbian moms and their teenage kids who want to meet their sperm donor dad. It’s an all-star cast with Julianne Moore playing Jules, the flaky, new age mom, opposite Annette Bening, who delightfully remade herself into the soft butch mom Nic. There’s Oscar buzz and critics are rightly praising Cholodenko (High Art, Laurel Canyon) for the film’s solid script and the actors for stellar performances. Salon’s Andrew O’Hehire declared that the movie “ranks with the most compelling portraits of an American marriage, regardless of sexuality, in film history.”

It’s true. This is a film about two married people who are bored by their middle age sex lives, worried about their son’s choice of friends, and still recounting with giggles how they first met while arguing about how much one of them is drinking. They’re complicated, self-involved and, in their best moments, genuinely loving.

From another perspective though, The Kids Are All Right is also a revealing portrait of where the gay movement has been headed for some time now: white suburbia, Mexican gardener included.

The film is set in Southern California, where Nic and Jules have a comfortable, three-bedroom home, arguments about composting, a glass (or three) of red wine with dinner, a daughter (Alice in Wonderland’s Mia Wasikowska) and son (Josh Hutcherson) testing the limits of parental authority. They’re the all-American, white family next door.

The political reference point for their home life is not a group of pissed-off drag queens circa 1969. It’s a Mad Men-style 1950s nostalgia. Jules is the stay-at-home mom trying her hand at a landscaping business and feeling that her doctor wife doesn’t appreciate her. Nic is the breadwinner who has to have a drink when she gets home from work. The scenario is inviting, familiar, a storyline about American family life that we want to believe, gay or het.

Like cinematic white heteros and gays in San Francisco’s Castro district, Nic and Jules’ contact with people of darker hues is limited. There’s a black restaurant hostess (Yaya DaCosta, a runner up from America’s Next Top Model), a Mexican gardener (Joaquín Garrido, Like Water for Chocolate), and an Indian teenage love interest (Kunal Sharma, The Cheetah Girls). By the end of the film, the three people of color have been dumped, fired or left behind in confusion.

To be fair to Cholodenko, she was probably just following Hollywood’s race rules. The moment a main character is darker than white bread, the movie becomes about race and doesn’t appeal to a wider (read: white) audience.

But it’s also a portrait of the white gay movement, which has struggled with its race issues for some time now, most publicly after Prop. 8 passed in California and hysterical white gay boys blamed black voters for keeping them from the joys of registering at Tiffany’s. If that happened though it was largely because the movement has failed to build institutions where people of color, like those in The Kids Are All Right, play more than minor roles.

A few months ago, a friend recounted walking into a meeting with the directors of statewide LGBT organizations. It was a majority white room. That the convening looked more like a Tea Party gathering than a 2008 Vote Obama youth rally should have been on the top of the agenda. It wasn’t.

Part of the success of Cholodenko’s movie rests in that, intentioned or not, she’s rendered on the big screen the racial realities of this new gay world order. When Jules is struggling with guilt about what she’s doing outside her matrimonial bed, she thinks Luis, the Mexican gardener she’s hired, is smirking at her, which he is. With comedic self-righteousness, Jules points out that he blows his nose too often. “I have allergies,” Luis explains. Fumbling through her words, Jules accuses of him having a drug problem and fires him.

The audience laughs. I laughed. At Jules, at her hysterical reaction, at how uncomfortably true it is that behind the white lesbian niceties can sit the old racist stereotypes of a Gov. Jan Brewer.

It’s a small moment in the film but a reminder of how the gay world mimics the straight one, where economic power goes hand in hand with a racial hierarchy. Were Luis, the Mexican gardener, to get home, take off his overalls and turn into a flaming queen, it would be hard to argue convincingly that he and Jules have a political struggle in common these days. Not impossible, but certainly a stretch.

Dear Sister: Call For Submission

Dear Sister is an anthology of letters and other works created for survivors of sexual violence from other survivors and allies.  It is a collection of hope and strength through words and art.

The pathway for a survivor of rape and sexual violence is an unlit road of pain, isolation, and doubt.  In the weeks, months, and oftentimes, years following, the healing process can be difficult to navigate without a community surrounding her. Imagine a compilation of literary arms bound together to offer words of understanding, solidarity, and love. Dear Sister is an accessible and inclusive offering of hope, voice, and courage; seeking writers and artists who wish to light a piece of that road and lift up other women in her healing.

It is an impossible task to write a letter to every survivor of rape, to every woman who lives with an invisible scar.  Instead of thinking of the face of the person you are writing to, reflect on the image of an unlit path, a road with no clear footing. Your offering will be one light, among many, to make visible what was previously unseen, to illuminate what was hidden.  You are providing a few more steps for someone to walk steadily toward their own recovery.  Your words can be an anchor, a meditation, a prayer, a strong embrace or a gentle touch. The purpose of this anthology is not to retell stories of assault, but to help others regain a sense of balance and wholeness.

Mindfully move beyond what is commonly said and reflect upon radical companionship. Write what you wish for her to know and never forget.  And if you lose focus, look deep into a mirror and reflect: What would you want to be told if you were in the darkness?

Information

Dear Sister primarily seeks letters but will accept poems, prose, essay, and drawn art that can be scanned for entry.  Maximum word count is 1000.

Deadline for submission is November 1, 2010.

Women and transpeople of any race, creed, background, citizenship or non-citizen, ability, and identity are encouraged to submit their words and work to uplift others in the healing stages of post trauma and violence.  Both English and Spanish are accepted. All questions can be directed to dearsisteranthology@gmail.com

Submission can be emailed as an attachment with “Dear Sister Entry” in the subject todearsisteranthology@gmail.com.

Hand written letters can addressed and mailed to

Dear Sister Anthology

P.O. Box 202468

Cleveland, Oh 44120

Note from the Editor

Rape and sexual violence thrive in the silence of our homes and communities. Outreach must be wide and intentional if we are seek to hear from those who are silenced. Please forward this to as many individuals, groups, organizations, listserves, websites, and agencies that come to mind.

Occupied Bodies: Women of Color Speak on Self-Image: Call For Submission

I am soliciting essays for an anthology on women of color’s self-image/body image as shaped by family, friends, media, society, history, lived experiences, etc. I’m looking for smart, accessible, and snappy personal narratives that also offer nuanced analysis of the underlying constructs that affect how we perceive ourselves. Exploring intersectionality of identities is extremely important. I particularly want the voices of women of color that are not often heard to be represented, such as trans* WOC, disabled WOC, queer WOC, WOC outside the U.S., WOC with eating disorders, working class/poor WOC and fat WOC. Of course, all the varied perspectives any woman of color can offer are welcome. This is an exciting project, as this topic has not been explored in depth and including such a diverse collection of viewpoints before. The final manuscript will be submitted to relevant independent publishers. —— Some possible jumping off points include, but are not limited to:

* What images of yourself were instilled in you by your parents/guardians/other family members when you were a young child? What positive or negative encounters with adults as a child helped shape that image?
* If you were born in a country other than the U.S. and then immigrated to the U.S., how did the society in which you were born play a role in your developing self-image, and what contrasts did you find difficult to navigate between the two societies?
* How did the media you consumed as a child/teen shape your body/self image today? How does it complicate it? How does the media you consume NOW affect your body/self image?
* How did pressure from family and friends affect the way you perceived yourself after you were old enough to take care of yourself?
* How did you feel about societal beauty and body standards as a teen? Did you rebel, or conform by any means necessary to avoid confrontation?
* How has the globalization and dissemination of the Western beauty ideal affected you and women of color worldwide?
* Debunk this: “in some cultures they ______,” – deconstructing a commonly held belief about an ethnic group’s relation to body (such as the black community supposedly being OK with fat).
* If you’re queer, how has being a queer woman of color affected your self-image and how you desire your partner to look? If you’ve had partners who were also women of color, did/do you gaze upon them with the same critical eye you reserve for yourself? Why or why not?
* If you’re a trans* WOC, how was your perception of your gender identity shaped? How has your self/body image changed over the years and have there been any other shifts in your thinking about your self/body image? How does being a WOC interact with your trans* identity? How does it affect how other people perceive you and your gender?
* How has being a disabled WOC affected your body/self image? Do you feel it’s a detriment or a positive part of your person? How did you come to terms with your disability, or has it never been problematic for you?
* As a fat WOC, has weight shaped your self/body image your whole life? Have you developed an eating disorder? Was it exacerbated by there being virtually no resources for women of color, especially for fat WOC?
* Are you a sexual assault/rape survivor? How did that trauma affect your view of yourself?

——- If your experiences overlap on any of the suggested jumping off points, PLEASE feel free to explore that. Guidelines:

* Deadline for submissions is October 15, 2010;
* Submissions should be saved in Word format or Rich Text, double spaced, size 12 Arial or Times New Roman;
* 500 to 5,000 words;
* Include RELIABLE contact information and a brief biography;
* Only e-mail submissions will be accepted, however, if you can’t arrange that please contact me and we’ll work something out.
* Send submissions to: occupiedbodies@gmail.com;
* Again, the deadline for submissions is October 15, 2010.

Who I Am: The woman spearheading this project is Tasha Fierce, a freelance writer who also happens to be a fat, queer, disabled woman of color. I’ve written about race politics, fat acceptance, disability and feminism in several zines, including Evolution of a Race Riot and the zine I edited from 1998-2001, Bitchcore. I have contributed to Jezebel several times, the fat acceptance blog Shapely Prose, the race & pop culture blog Racialicious, and the feminist disability activism blog FWD/Forward. My work has also been featured in The Huffington Post. I live, love and write in Los Angeles, California. You can regularly read me at my own blog, Red Vinyl Shoes (http://redvinylshoes.com/blog) and on Twitter as @redvinylshoes.

For updates, visit http://redvinylshoes.com/blog/occupied-bodies.

One of the “highlights” I missed during San Diego Comic-Con last week was the reception M. Night Shyamalan got during a showing of the trailerfor his next film:

The trailer was playing, the audience was into it, until … the screen read “From M. Night Shyamalan.” A huge collective GROAN exhaled from the crowd. Even worse, when the trailer finished, “boos” were thrown at the screen.”

It turns out the mockery for Shyamalan and Devil, on which he served as a producer, wasn’t confined to the West Coast, according to The New York Post: Shyamalan was booed, and “everyone erupted in laughter,” according to someone in the audience.

Of course, M. Night got himself into this position thanks to his film adaptation of the Avatar: The Last Airbender series, which we’ve covered, both with our own stories and by sharing stories from Racebending. I got the chance to talk to Racebending’s Michael Le about his group’s protest of the Airbender film, where the site goes from here, and whether the film’s epic critical flop has rendered the series unsalvageable.

Tara’s Escape, Sookie’s Rescue

Thea: Was it just me, or were there like a bazillion storylines going on this episode? I don’t remember ever seeing so many concurrent plot lines on this show before. I am impressed that they can all keep in straight. (What?? Did Thea just say something nice about True Blood??) But to start with our girl, goooooo Tara! I was pretty thrilled not only to see Tara taking her power back, but to see a woman rescue Sookie for once. What did we think of the scenes where Tara attacks Franklin and where Sookie and Tara take out the werewolf?

Latoya: I’m not going to lie: my very first, immediate reaction when Tara was like “Sookie, I’m here and we are going to get out of here-” was to put up the black power fist. Go Tara! Then my immediate, second, sarcastic thought was “Okay, so wait, Tara, after all she’s been through, *still* has to save Sookie? She has to fuck her abuser to get away and pluck Sookie from the pedestal?” Then Tara grabbed the mace and silenced my internal squabbling.

Andrea: I was thrilled how Tara used Franklin’s weaknesses–his “freakiness” and his vampiric aversion to daylight–to get away from him. (Though I’m going to be honest: James Frain’s voice is pure aural sex; this scene sealed this for me. I just wish this scene–really, all the Tara/Franklin scenes since their night at the motel–was much more consensual so I could hear his voice being better utilized, like agreed-upon dirty talk while sexing it up.) But I just thought Tara using the mace was like Tara being tied up: all for the visual shock. I just think Franklin’s going to wake up with a bad headache and even more physically vicious.

Thea: My movie watching companion was yelling “use the ax! take off his head!!” while Tara was bashing in Franklin’s skull. Methinks Franklin might survive the bludgeoning. In any case this was the goriest episode I’ve seen in a while.

Latoya: Oh me too – I was yelling at the TV “take the mace! Stake him to make sure he’s dead!”

Joe: Finally, this is the kind of Tara I love! Cunning, quick on her feet and clever. One thing though- you can only kill a vampire in the Sookieverse by cutting off the head or staking. Frankly, if you lived in a world with vampires, wouldn’t you think to know that, just in case? I’m totally afraid that he’s going to wake up and become abusive like we never have seen from him before- and coming from Franklin, that must and will be something awful.

Thea: Were the scenes of female kickback gratifying, hyperviolent, or just gross? Or all three?

Andrea: I didn’t feel a swell of girl power watching Tara and Sookie whupping that were-guard’s ass and escaping. I know that some commenters think I’m being a bit harsh about Sookie (like I care), but I think that sequence underlines off-centeredness about Sookie and Tara’s friendship: Tara’s trying to rescue her friend and Sookie’s trying to rescue her betraying (and quite foolish) man.  At this point, I don’t think Sookie’s actions say “sacrificing herself for the ones she loves” so much as her “spunk” and “sass” endangers, in this case herself and her rescuer, her alleged best friend Tara. To me, Tara is structurally a better friend because she’s self-preserving as well as rescuing her pal when shit goes down, whereas Sookie is materially a good homie, providing shelter when shit is relatively safe. Like I said before, she also has the power–since it’s her house–to take that material comfort away from Tara. Just ain’t feeling Ms. Stackhouse, whereas I root for Tara.

Thea: Even though I have a soft spot for Sookie, it was extremely disappointing when she didn’t side with Tara (or at least show some sympathy or interest in what Tara was saying about Bill – after all this is the first she’s hearing of Bill’s betrayal of Tara). I wanted to yell (a less misogynist version of) “bros before hos!” at the screen.  I think this is just the way this friendship goes – which I blame on the writing more than anything else…this friendship seems to have little that truly qualifies it as a friendship.

Joe: In Sookie’s defense, this must be some situation to find yourself in after 20-something years of non-violence. However, I just want someone to slap Sookie the next time she cries. Is it just me or is she just the biggest crybaby?

Tami: Andrea, you know I’m with you on the James Frain love, but I too was feeling Tara’s bad assery. Not so much feeling Sookeh. You’re dead on with your assessment of her “spunkiness.” It’s a rather privileged willfulness where the needs and safety of others be damned in favor of what Sookie wants and needs. It’s childishness masquerading as strength–a faux sort of girl power that is nothing new. It’s Scarlett O’Hara for a new millenium. It is also very related to race, as I think few women of color can get away with playing Sookie or Scarlett.

Joe: One more thing about the Tara storyline: This is basically an extremely over the top cycle of abuse diagram: The tension building phase (Franklin stalking then later glamoring Tara); Acting-out phase (Franklin biting Tara at Sookie’s, bringing her to Jackson, then later tying her up- frankly, this whole story line); Reconciliation/Honeymoon phase (Their first hook-up, and at least at Franklin’s side offering to make her a vamp); and the callm phase (the night after she fooled him into thinking she loved him and everything was okay). The whole time she was running, I was thinking “I hope she has a good place to hide come nightfall so that she isn’t trapped by him again.” I cannot take a whole season of this.

Stop dropping slavery as entertainment; hipster racism

Thea: I hope we never see Tara tied to a bed again. Can we talk about the visual impact of seeing a white man tie up a black woman and physically dominate her for so many episodes? Just as with the “Tara runs from the slave mansion” imagery, I just can’t get over the trivial use of such loaded and hurtful images, for no clear reason.

I guess this is a kind of an art philosophy argument – I feel that you shouldn’t use such historically weighty optics, simply for entertainment. It just feels crass – and also plain confusing. Part of me keeps expecting this show to turn into an exploration of American slavery. It’s almost as if Alan Ball’s subconscious is dying to talk about it. I mean, did anyone else hear Russell say “Take Bill to the slave quarters and kill him”? Why – why the offhand, unnecessary reference to something that brings up so much pain for American viewers? I felt completely the same way about Russell’s comment to Eric about Hitler. It’s just such a cheap way to get a rise out of viewers or achieve the label of “controversial.” It is demeaning to the parts of the show that are actually interesting, new television.

Joe: Fitting that a bitter old queen like Russell would sympathize with Hitler… I’m sorry, I had to.

Thea: Well,  yes and no, depending on how well Russell knows his history. Along with the Jewish people, the Nazis also tried to annihilate gay communities — and others.

Tami: I totally co-sign, Thea. That “slave quarters” reference felt…I don’t know…heavy…strange…misplaced. Why refer to buildings as slave quarters that (hopefully) have not contained slaves for well more than a century? In former slave-holding states there are certainly buildings that once housed slaves that have been repurposed for new uses. I have rarely heard these spaces referred to as “slave quarters.” Indeed, in a lot of cases owners go out of their way to erase that ugly history. (Unless, of course, you own one of those gross bed and breakfasts that leverage slavery to make your charming venue unique – Ugh!) Ball and the writers seem to be playing on some old antebellum imagery in this storyline and I can’t figure to what end. I am certain there is some Northern bias involved–that the only association writers can make with the state of Mississippi is slavery.

Joe: Sweet lord, Tami. That is just… there really aren’t words. I googled ‘Slave Quarter Bed & Breakfast’ and like an idiot I clicked on one of them… I’d just like my eyes to unsee what I just saw. Russell seems like the type of vamp that thinks of human history as something “cute”, no matter how horrible an experience it was. Even noting that at some point he was part of that history. He wouldn’t change the name of something like slave quarters. Nor does he care about anyone’s discomfort but his own, frankly. Think of Eric and his father’s crown. I do truly believe that we’re supposed to eventually dislike all vampires, or at the very least dislike them as love interests…Bill keeps making the wrong decisions for someone he supposedly loves. Eric is showing his true colors. Russell… is just terrible. Good girls ending up with the bad boy is something that never happens without one changing their stripes, and sometimes even those reformations don’t take.

Andrea: I had a Twitterpal describe True Blood as “almost hipster racism satire” in the sense of not making fun of hipster racism but as being a prime example of it. The imagery – and history-reference drops, as we’ve been saying all along, show off how liberal and educated the creative team is, considering the funky contexts in which these drops are made and, as Thea and I have discussed offline about this show, when the symbolism around vampirism constantly shifts on this show. A great example of this context is Bill in the “slave quarters” looking like a bloodier version of St. Sebastian martyring himself because he refuses to succumb to Lorena and “what being a vampire means” and for his love of Sookeh in a building associated with an institution where Black people were routinely tortured, raped, and killed for the sake of white supremacy, especially white womanhood…as well entered consensual relationships, reared children, ate, drank, celebrated as much life as they could.

The Lafayette and Jesus Kiss

Thea: So the moment we’ve all been waiting for: Laffy and Jesus kiss. What did we think of the way this scene was filmed? On the one hand it was an interesting contrast to see such tender restraint in a True Blood love scene. It also seemed fitting to Lafayette’s cautious nature. On the other hand, it’s an easy out if one is queasy about filming a gay love scene. On a third hand, it’s 2010 and we’ve definitely seen way more explicit gay love scenes on TV, so is it really fair to imagine that AB & Co are worried about filming man on man action? Also, the Laffy/Jesus kiss scene included some pretty racy references to “hardness.”

Latoya: Well, lots of flirting, but I think Lafayette’s blushing bride face kind of said it all. This one is special.

Joe: That entire scene, I kept thinking “Kiss! Kiss already!” I did find it strange how they lit that scene, since you couldn’t see Lafayette’s face really. All in all, I was happy for them, even though, for this episode, it was short lived.

Thea: I also suspect this Laffy/Jesus affair is far from over, especially since Kevin Alejandro’s name is in the opening credits. Other Laffy/Jesus questions: what did we think about the reveal that Jesus’ mother was raped, and the potential implication that Laffy’s mother had the same experience? Also, is it just me, or is Jesus just a little over aggressive? Perhaps this is just my inner church-going-pearl-grabbing-grandma, but some of his forwardness makes me uncomfortable and worried for Laffy. Or is this just how romance is defined on True Blood?

Tami: Loved the tenderness of that romantic scene, but I was beginning to wonder whether Ball was teasing us or just wimping out on showing physical affection between two men. I’m with you, Thea. Part of me loves Jesus and Lafayette together, but part of me is wary. Jesus saw Laffy for all of five minutes at the hospital and now he seems to be aggressively pursuing him–even camping out at his job for more than nine hours. I don’t know, if this were real life, I’d be all “Danger, Will Robinson!” But, for now, I choose to ignore this disturbing bit of behavior, because I’m so rooting for this couple. I totally don’t think Jesus is gone for good.

Joe: My thought, why’d you ruin the moment, Jesus, with that ‘hard’ line. Yeesh. But, being that Alan Ball himself is gay (and partnered), I think he probably has a desire to show more gay relationships in popular culture. We saw this in his other show, Six Feet Under, with David and Keith ending up in a healthy relationship. They even adopted. Their relationship wasn’t a caricature, although it was similarly dramatic at times. But, it helped show that love exists in this form, too. I really hope he takes a similar route with Lafayette and Jesus, or whoever Laffy ends up with.

Andrea: Dang, this is a hard one for me to call the more I see Lafayette and Jesus. I can completely see where Jesus’s actions can be seen as aggressive: the 9-hour hangout, the chase after seeing Laffy for all of 5 minutes, the getting into Laffy’s personal space before receiving permission to do so pre-kiss. At the same time–and this is really where my opinion rests–I deeply appreciate Jesus’ forwardness. For the most part, I think Jesus knows exactly who he wants and is taking the most direct approach to get to him. His forwardness turned me on, even though I’m not the focus of his attention…especially when Jesus schools Lafayette on the orishas (Nice without the condenscenion). The way the kissing scenes were filmed were quite nicely done.

Tami: Thanks for reminding me of the conversation about Orishas. I thought that was a nice inclusion of black and brown culture. What’s more, the writers didn’t “woo woo” the religion. African-derived religions are generally demonized in mainstream Western pop culture and TB would be exactly the sort of show to go in that direction, but they didn’t and that is refreshing.

Poor white folks as scapegoats for bigotry

Thea: Ok, enough with the racism/bigotry scapegoating of poor white folks. I feel as if Arlene has become the show’s punching bag for bigotry. I remember her being a more complicated and interesting (and also humourous) character in Season 1. Now I feel that she is only ever used by the show as a stand-in for those Bad Elements in American culture that hate on the Other…which of course cheerfully exonerates anyone who is not from the South, poor and without college education, from racism or bigotry. Weak!

And random “hillbillies” come out of nowhere to bust up Laffy and Jesus date? That just seemed like a lazy way to move the plot forward. Why were they there, and why then? We later see that they are the V dealers Laffy intimidated and Jason helped arrest, but still – that motion of them coming and beating up Laffy just seemed to appear out of nowhere. Too convenient…on the level of plotting, and on the level of distinguishing between “good white people” and “bad white people.”

Joe: Let’s not forget, also one of those guys is Crystal’s fiancee. Bon Temps sure is small, man.

Tami: Yeah, after weeks of misogyny, this week TB served up a steaming plate of classism as a palate cleanser. It was particularly strong this episode. Here is something that I notice: In Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse novels there is a love for the citizens of Bon Temp with all their quirks. Harris, a native of the Mississippi Delta, never makes fun of their Southernness or small-townness. Through True Blood, there is a thread of disdain for these people–or at least a sense of the viewer being better than these working class, Southern folk. You can hear it in the references to “brother cousins.” It’s in the dog fighting storyline. You can see it in the portrayal of the neighborhood of Hot Shot. In the book, the area is insular, private and, yes, given the side-eye by the residents of Bon Temp because of it. But they are, particularly their patriarch, decent people. Alan Ball’s Hot Shot is full of dirty-faced, racist, homophobic, violent, meth-dealing weirdos. It is stereotypical. It is unnecessary. It is a simplistic and the wrong way to portray racism, homophobia and other bigotry.

Andrea: Co-sign.

Joe: Ditto. Meth is such a trendy plot device these days. I can just see the meeting where they decided to add that to the Hot Shot-ers.

Bon Temps – Why do they stay?, plus a look at Talbot

Thea: Some random questions: how do we read Talbot racially? Did anyone catch what language he is speaking? And yes, why on earth does Laffy, a queer and very out black man, stay in an almost all-white, homophobic town? Is this believable? I feel like there should be more reasons given for why Laffy (and Tara) stay. Most POCs I know from those sorts of places got the hell out of there by the time they were 17.

Joe: Lafayette explains (a little) why he stayed in Bon Temps? He says:

Lafayette: I’ve been places, I just always end up back here.

Jesus: You’re not done with this place?

Lafayette: Sometimes it feels like it isn’t done with me.

Thea: Yes – that’s the dialogue I was thinking of. But come on, would that keep any of us in such a hostile place as Bon Temps?

Tami: I don’t know that I read Bon Temps as all-white and I don’t know that the townspeople are, as a whole, homophobic. It’s just that TB’s writers only care to explore characters of color through the lens of the white majority. We do know that somewhere there is a black church that Lettie Mae attends. In season one, Lafayette and Tara attended an all-black party.

Thea: I remember that! I often wonder what happened to all those black people. This is a more compelling reason for Tara and Laffy to stay…they do have a black community, it’s just that they’re too busy being hunted by vampires to hang with them.

Tami: Consider that fictional Bon Temp is located just outside of Shreveport, which according to the 2000 census is just over 50 percent black, 47 percent white, with remaining percentages of other races. Hmmm…one would think the clientele in Fangtasia would look a little more diverse, considering it resides in a mostly-black city. It is not that there are no people of color in and around Bon Temp, it is that TB does not care to include them.

Theo Alexander, who plays Talbot, was born in Greece and is fluent in the language. That said, his IMDB profile leads me to believe he’s played many ethnicities that can be coded as white but olive-skinned. Not sure about Talbot.

Joe: Theo Alexander has called his character Greek, so I think he just applied his culture to the character. He said “…very Dionysian, very sexual, very Greek! It couldn’t be anything but Greek in my eyes.”

Thea: Well, good to see an actor who is not entirely coded as white actually play their own ethnicity (I’m thinking of what John Cho says about the roles he plays not actually being written for Asians).  However I am not sure about essentialising all of Greek culture down to “sexay”…haters gonna hate.

By Guest Contributor Lisa Wade, Ph.D, originally posted at Sociological Images

Leontine G. sent in a troubling example of the framing of children’s deviance, and their own complicity in this framing. While we usually try to keep text down to a minimum on SocImages, this one needs to be handled with care. So please forgive the unusual length of this post.

Leontine included two links: one to a Today show story about a 7-year-old boy who took his family’s car on a joyride and got caught by police, and one to a CNN story about a 7-year-old boy who took his family’s car on a joyride and got caught by police. Different 7-year-olds. One white, one black.

The white boy, Preston, is interviewed with his family on the set of the Today show.  Knowing his kid is safe, his Dad describes the event as “funny” and tells the audience that if this could happen to a “cotton candy all-American kid like Preston,” then “it could happen to anybody.”

When the host, Meredith Vieira, asks Preston why hid from the police, he says, “cause I wanted to,” and she says, “I don’t blame you actually.”  With Preston not too forthcoming, his Mom steps in to say that he told her that “he just wanted to know what it felt like to drive a car.”  When Vieira asks him why he fled from the police, he replies with a shrug. Vieira fills in the answer, “You wanted to get home?”

Vieira then comments on how they all then went to church. The punishment?  Grounded for four days without TV or video games. Vieira asks the child, “Do you think that’s fair?” He says yes. And she continues, “Do you now understand what you did?” He nods and agrees. “And that maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing?” He nods and agrees. “You gonna get behind the wheel of a car again?” He says no. Then she teases him about trying out model toy cars.

They conclude that this incident just goes to show that “Any little kid, you never know what can happen …” and closes “I’ll be seeing you at church buddy boy!”

The video:

All in all, exactly what you’d expect from the Today show: a heartwarming, human interest story with a happy ending. The child is framed as a fundamentally good kid who was curious and perhaps a bit impetuous. When he has no answers for Vieira’s questions, she slots in innocent ones. And the mild punishment is seen as incidental to the more important idea that he learned something.

This story contrasts dramatically to the CNN story about Latarian Milton, a black 7-year-old who took his family’s car on a joy ride. I’ll put the video first, but be forewarned, it’s disturbing not only because of the different frame placed on the boys actions, but because of the boy’s embracing of the spoiled identity:

With an absolutely polar introduction of “Not your typical 7-year-old,” this story is filmed on the street. Whereas the Today show screened the chase footage in real time, this one is sped up, making it seem even more extreme.

The interviewer, off-camera, asks Latarian why he took the car. He replied: “I wanted to do it ’cause it’s fun, it’s fun to do bad things.” The interviewer asks further, “Did you know that you could perhaps kill somebody?” And he replies: “Yes, but i wanted to do hoodrat stuff with my friends.”

The interviewer asks him what punishment he should receive and Latarian offers a punishment very similar to Preston’s: “Just a little bit… no video games for a whole weekend.” The reporter then explains that the police plan to go forward with charges of grand theft against him. While he’s “too young to go into any type of juvenile facility,” he says, “police say they do want to get him into the system, so that they can get him some type of help.”

The implication here, of course, is that this child is not innocent or impetuous like Preston, he’s a pre-criminal who needs “some type of help.” The sooner they get Latarian into “the (prison?) system,” the better. No cotton candy kid this one.

Unfortunately, Latarian says all the right things to make the narrative fit. He says he likes to do “bad” things, calls himself a “hoodrat,” and seems unremorseful, even defiant, for at least part of the interview (he looks a bit sheepish in the end when he finds out his grandmother is going to have to pay for the damage he did to other cars).

One way to interpret this is to say that Latarian IS a pre-criminal. That he DOES need to get into the system because he’s clearly a bad kid.  Someone inclined to believe that black people were, in fact, more prone to criminal behavior could watch these two videos and feel confirmed in their view.

But there is good evidence that people, beginning as children, internalize the stereotypes that others have of them.  As Ann Ferguson shows in her book, Bad Boys: Public Schools in the Making of Black Masculinity, black children, especially boys, are stereotyped as pre-criminals; not adorably naughty, like white boys, but dangerously bad from the beginning.  And studies with children have shown that they often internalize this idea, as in the famous doll experiment in which both black and white children were more likely than not to identify the black doll as bad (see this similar demonstration of white preference on CNN and a discussion of the original doll experiment at ABC).  So I think this terribly sad story of Latarian is showing us how children learn to think of themselves as deviant and bad from the society around them.  Latarian, remember, is seven, just like Preston.  They’re both children, but they are being treated very differently, as these programs illustrate, and it is already starting to sink in.

Every time I dare to talk about race or class and MySpace & Facebook in the same breath, a public explosion happens. This is the current state of things.  Unfortunately, most folks who enter the fray prefer to reject the notion that race/class shape social media or that social media reflects bigoted attitudes than seriously address what’s at stake.  Yet, look around. Twitter is flush with racist language in response to the active participation of blacks on the site. Comments on YouTube expose deep-seated bigotry in uncountable ways. The n-word is everyday vernacular in MMORPGs. In short, racism and classism permeates every genre of social media out there, reflecting the everyday attitudes of people that go well beyond social media. So why can’t we talk about it?

Let me back up and explain the context for this piece … three years ago, I wrote a controversial blog post highlighting the cultural division taking shape.  Since then, I’ve worked diligently to try to make sense of what I first observed and ground it in empirical data.  In 2009, I built on my analysis in  “The Not-So-Hidden Politics of Class Online”, a talk I gave at the Personal Democracy Forum.  Slowly, I worked to write an academic article called “White Flight in Networked Publics? How Race and Class Shaped American Teen Engagement with MySpace and Facebook” (to be published in a book called Digital Race Anthology, edited by Lisa Nakamura and Peter Chow-White).  I published a draft of this article on my website in December.  Then, on July 14, Christoper Mims posted a guest blog post at Technology Review entitled “Did Whites Flee the ‘Digital Ghetto’ of MySpace?” using my article as his hook.  I’m not sure why Mims wrote this piece now or why he didn’t contact me, but so it goes.

Mims’ blog post prompted a new wave of discussion about whether or not there’s a race-based (or class-based) division between MySpace and Facebook today. My article does not address this topic. My article is a discussion of a phenomenon that happened from 2006-2007 using data collected during that period. The point of my article is not to discuss whether or not there was a division — quantitative data shows this better. My goal was to analyze American teenagers’ language when talking about Facebook and MySpace. The argument that I make is that the language used by teens has racialized overtones that harken back to the language used around “white flight.” In other words, what American teens are reflecting in their discussion of MySpace and Facebook shows just how deeply racial narratives are embedded in everyday life.

So, can we please dial the needle forward? Regardless of whether or not there’s still a race and class-based division in the U.S. between MySpace and Facebook, the language that people use to describe MySpace is still deeply racist and classist. Hell, we see that in the comments of every blog post that describes my analysis. And I’m sure we’ll get some here, since online forums somehow invite people to unapologetically make racist comments that they would never say aloud. And as much as those make me shudder, they’re also a reminder that the civil rights movement has a long way to go.

Race and class shape contemporary life in fundamental ways. People of color and the working poor live the experiences of racism and classism, but how this plays out is often not nearly as overt as it was in the 1960s. But that doesn’t mean that it has gone away.

There is still bigotry, and the divisions run deep in the U.S. We often talk about the Internet as the great equalizer, the space where we can be free of all of the weights of inequality. And yet, what we find online is often a reproduction of all of the issues present in everyday life. The Internet does not magically heal old wounds or repair broken bonds between people. More often, it shows just how deep those wounds go and how structurally broken many relationships are.

In this way, the Internet is often a mirror of the ugliest sides of our society, the aspects of our society that we so badly need to address. What the Internet does — for better or worse — is make visible aspects of society that have been delicately swept under the rug and ignored. We could keep on sweeping, or we could take the moment to rise up and develop new strategies for addressing the core issues that we’re seeing. Bigotry doesn’t go away by eliminating only what’s visible. It is eradicated by getting at the core underlying issues. What we’re seeing online allows us to see how much work there’s left to do.

In writing “White Flight in Networked Publics?”, I wanted to expose one aspect of how race and class shape how people see social media. My goal in doing so was to push back at the utopian rhetorics that frame the Internet as a kumbaya movement so that we can focus on addressing the major social issues that exist everywhere and are exposed in new ways via social media. When it comes to eradicating bigotry, I can’t say that I have the answers. But I know that we need to start a conversation. And my hope — from the moment that I first highlighted the divisions taking place in 2007 — is that we can use social media as both a lens into and a platform for discussing cultural inequality.

So how do we get started?

Photo credit: Moyix on Flickr

So I am up at five, again, but this time for a good cause. The Takeaway (NYC) is hosting a show on a new study that is causing tongues to wag:

Biomechanical researchers analysed 100 years of athletes’ heights, weights and running and swimming records, and demonstrated how the placement of one’s center of gravity affects one’s athletic performance. No big deal, right? People got jumpy, however, when the International Journal of Design & Nature and Ecodynamics published the paper: “The Evolution of Speed in Athletics: Why the Fastest Runners are Black and Swimmers are White.”

We talk with two of the scientists behind the study: Dr. Adrian Bejan of Duke University and Edward Jones, of Howard University, about why their team embarked on this project, the science enlisted in their research, and the specifics of the study’s outcomes.

We also talk with Latoya Peterson of Racialicious.com about why these sorts of studies make so many people squeamish, and whether, in a post-racial society, it makes sense to conduct studies on groups of people based on shared physical characteristics. What’s your take? Are race-based studies inherently racist?

The show is live at 6 AM ET – or, you can listen to the podcast and comment here a bit later in the day.

Update:

Just finished the show, and, as usual, the supertight constraints of radio mean a lot was left unsaid.

I received the papers by Bejan and Jones last night as part of my prep for the segment, and noticed something interesting.  Bejan has published two other studies that didn’t grab headlines: “The Evolution of Speed, Size, and Shape in Modern Athletics” (2009, with Jordan D. Charles) and “Constructing Animal Locomation from New Thermodynamics Theory” (2006, with James H. Marden).  For Bejan, this is another paper in a research cycle, looking at changes in speed and dynamics through a variety of lenses.  But the reason this paper grabbed headlines is because of the racial angle.

I am reminded of the PhD comic linked to by a reader a while back:

And this is kind of what happened with this study.  The actual paper states in the third paragraph (or fourth, if you count the abstract):

Our approach is to study phenotypic (somatotypic) differences of human locomotion in different media (terrestrial vs. aquatic), which we consider to have been historically misclassified as racial characteristics. These differences represent consequences of still not well-understood variable environmental stimuli for survival fitness in different parts of the globe during thousands of years of habitation [3–6]. Our study does not advance the notion of race, now recognized as a social construct, as opposed to a biological construct. We acknowledge the wide phenotypic and genotypic diversity among the so-called racial types.

Yet, the study is being distilled simply as blacks are better runners, whites are better swimmers.

When this happened on air, I forfeited a statement spot* to push the question back to the study authors. The researchers used the terms “black” and “white” but were really talking about regions, particularly in the case of runners. However, when the segment wrapped, I hoped listeners had taken some of the more important parts of the study with them. The point of the convo was not to have people to rail against research, but to understand and critically analyze research and context.  Jones sent out an email to those of us on the segment, saying:

1) My contribution was in bringing the relevant comparative body composition literature to the table.

2) Future research design that would seem logical to do, if this science is deemed sound, useful and relevant to pursue — may include a longitudinal, prospective (from this point forward) study that attempted to standardize factors such as socioeconomic status, access to similar athletic training swimming or running), and other such factors among different members of a representative sample from different population groups (e.g., blacks of various subtypes, whites of various subtypes, and Asians of various subtypes) to see if the differences remain. Technically, this type of study could be argued as required before the findings in the recent paper by Bejan, Jones & Charles (2010) might be considered proved/disproved. Retrospective studies such as this are useful, but clearly have methodical limitations given the lack of standardization and control in study designs.

When a newspaper publishes an article about a recent scientific study concerning humans, it is almost expected that people with a political agenda will pick and choose parts of the article that support their view, and ignore those parts that invalidate it. The science writers may even intentionally and deliberately insert clarifications and disclaimers to make sure the article is inconsistent with a popular incorrect political view, but people with an agenda will ignore the clarifications and disclaimers because they don’t understand it, they reject nuances, or because they simply ignore information that does not fit into their worldview. [...]

Of course, this is a complete misunderstanding of how scientific research works. Almost all scientific studies are not done to educate the general public; they are done to explore the unexplored territory in the field. The primary audience of a scientific paper is other scientists in the field. Only after the original paper endures years of debate and replications among the scientific community do the new findings make it into the canon of an undergraduate textbook. Most published studies do not make it into this canon, and are read by only a small circle of specialists.

In other words, many members of the public assume that scientific studies are conducted for them instead of for other scientists. Given this assumption, it is not too much of logical leap for them to suppose that the scientists conducted a particular controversial study with the nefarious intention to advance a political (e.g., right-wing) agenda.

The whole reason I jumped on the radio this morning was to say this: Talking about race and science are similar because both topics become a bit distorted in national conversations, despite efforts by anti-racists and by many scientists to make sure that everyone is working from a clear understanding of the underlying assumptions and principles.  The problem with research around race isn’t that simple research exists – its that people take this research and consider it the absolute truth, which is then used to prop up existing prejudices.

Now, I’m not saying that scientists can’t be racist or put together flawed studies in support of prejudice.  But I am saying that these matters are complicated, and we should be skeptical of what conclusions are drawn from what types of data.

–

*I said forfeited a statement spot, which is a direct result of my media training. While listening to the scientists talk during their segment, I realized they were trying to answer the questions as thoroughly as possible – which meant they kept getting cut off.  The radio and tv environment does want some clarity, but they really thrive on soundbytes.  So, now when I am asked a question, I’m not thinking “what’s the best way to answer this question?” but rather “what’s the best way to answer this question in 30 seconds and in a way that will be remembered.” Our super condensed media cycle may also be an explanation as to why its hard to have clarity in larger national conversations.

(And I need to give a big thank you to the commenters on Racialicious who are part of the science community -  you all have really helped shape how we approach these discussions.)

In Jim Webb’s latest op-ed for the Wall Street Journal (titled “Diversity and the Myth of White Privilege“), he turns the traditional narrative for ending affirmative action on its head. Instead of using the same old racist platitudes, the Democrat from Virgina uses history and acknowledgment of structural inequality to propose a radical rethinking of government programs. But check the bait Webb uses:

I have dedicated my political career to bringing fairness to America’s economic system and to our work force, regardless of what people look like or where they may worship. Unfortunately, present-day diversity programs work against that notion, having expanded so far beyond their original purpose that they now favor anyone who does not happen to be white.

In an odd historical twist that all Americans see but few can understand, many programs allow recently arrived immigrants to move ahead of similarly situated whites whose families have been in the country for generations. These programs have damaged racial harmony. And the more they have grown, the less they have actually helped African-Americans, the intended beneficiaries of affirmative action as it was originally conceived.

My, my, my. Webb’s op-ed makes some very astute points but also trades on the idea that race is a zero-sum game. For this reason, the piece both succeeds and fails.

Webb provides great historical context in making his argument and often notes that the historical baggage of state-sanctioned discrimination is still with us. However, Webb distills our history down to black and white, noting:

The injustices endured by black Americans at the hands of their own government have no parallel in our history, not only during the period of slavery but also in the Jim Crow era that followed. But the extrapolation of this logic to all “people of color”—especially since 1965, when new immigration laws dramatically altered the demographic makeup of the U.S.—moved affirmative action away from remediation and toward discrimination, this time against whites. It has also lessened the focus on assisting African-Americans, who despite a veneer of successful people at the very top still experience high rates of poverty, drug abuse, incarceration and family breakup.

Those who came to this country in recent decades from Asia, Latin America and Africa did not suffer discrimination from our government, and in fact have frequently been the beneficiaries of special government programs. The same cannot be said of many hard-working white Americans, including those whose roots in America go back more than 200 years.

Webb doesn’t mention Native Americans, who are also currently suffering due to our nation’s founding and history.

Webb’s idea that remediation is needed for African Americans is true, and many of the current programs do not have as much benefit as hoped. However, America’s racial history doesn’t only spin on a black and white axis. Webb is correct that there is no parallel for what African Americans have experienced. But, while immigration laws may have changed the make up of the United States, many immigrants did face state sponsored backlash on their way to citizenship. And even if immigrants and their children find success on American shores, the story doesn’t end there – for example, much of the new data about Latinos denotes a difference between first, second, and third generation Latinos, because the data sets become quite different. Quite a lot of research is starting to reveal that third generation Latinos tend to slide backwards, reversing many of the gains their parents achieved. For example, a 2009 research brief exploring connections between work and school and black and latino youth, and how the rates of “connectedness” start to fall after the second generation. While the reasons for this vary, some studies point to assimilation as part of the issue – along with adopting societal norms, third generation Latinos keenly feel the impact of racism and discrimination in hiring and in other aspects of life.

Webb downplays exactly how much racism is woven into the fabric of society, and underplays how much other ethnic groups suffer under a racist system.

However, Webb does bring up an important point – there is a diversity of white experience in America that is not currently acknowledged or measured:

Generations of such deficiencies do not disappear overnight, and they affect the momentum of a culture. In 1974, a National Opinion Research Center (NORC) study of white ethnic groups showed that white Baptists nationwide averaged only 10.7 years of education, a level almost identical to blacks’ average of 10.6 years, and well below that of most other white groups. A recent NORC Social Survey of white adults born after World War II showed that in the years 1980-2000, only 18.4% of white Baptists and 21.8% of Irish Protestants—the principal ethnic group that settled the South—had obtained college degrees, compared to a national average of 30.1%, a Jewish average of 73.3%, and an average among those of Chinese and Indian descent of 61.9%.

Policy makers ignored such disparities within America’s white cultures when, in advancing minority diversity programs, they treated whites as a fungible monolith. Also lost on these policy makers were the differences in economic and educational attainment among nonwhite cultures. Thus nonwhite groups received special consideration in a wide variety of areas including business startups, academic admissions, job promotions and lucrative government contracts.

I can agree with Webb on a variety of fronts. However, Webb frames his entire piece as if racism is only a problem that faces African Americans, recent immigrants have no issues in society at all, and whites, once again, are getting the short end of the stick. This line in particular…

Also lost on these policy makers were the differences in economic and educational attainment among nonwhite cultures. Thus nonwhite groups received special consideration in a wide variety of areas including business startups, academic admissions, job promotions and lucrative government contracts.

…is eerily reminiscent of all the other critiques of “set-asides” disadvantaging whites and unjustly privileging people of color. And Webb never mentions that most business start ups are still helmed by white men (firms run by whites are 81% of small businesses, despite major pre-recession gains by nonwhites), that most people admitted to college are still white and upper-middle to upper class (the research on this is grim), that the managerial class in America is still predominantly white and male (check the EEOC numbers on private industry), and government contracts are still mostly funneled to companies helmed by white men (here’s a Native perspective on contract parity), even with all the other programs in place.

While I appreciated many Webb’s points, his overall analysis leaves me cold. It would be beneficial if policy makers revised many of these programs, since they are not benefiting African Americans in a substantial way. And it would be wonderful if the scope of research and policy reflected a more thoughtful discussion of sub-groups in general, especially since our racial categories (white, black, Asian, other, with Latinos as an ethnic group) as so broad and indistinct.

But Webb’s framing of the issue still ignores how many people do not believe African Americans are owed any sort of redress from the government, and his critiques minimize the impacts of racism on other nonwhite populations. We can agree on the need for government reform, particularly around the effectiveness of diversity programs and how they are proctored, but there needs to be a level of honesty as to how much racism and classim permeate society before we can make an accurate assessment.

This is an interesting Politico article on evangelical groups and the key role they are playing in getting immigration reform moving in Congress: Churches eye immigration’s upside.

While they’ve largely couched their arguments in moral terms, the fact of the matter is, they see Latino immigrants — both legal and undocumented — representing a significant population for proselytizing.

However, evangelical leaders are also advancing a more controversial line of argument: that immigration reform is practical or even desirable because Latinos subscribe to moral and religious values in line with social conservatives. Here’s a quote from Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention:

Some evangelicals have stirred the pot further by drawing a contrast between predominantly Christian immigrants to the U.S. and a largely Muslim migration to Western Europe.

“Realistically, I think it is probably more politically feasible to do this because the overwhelming majority of the people that we’re talking about come from a European civilization,” said Land. “It would be more problematic if we had 12 [million] to 14 million undocumented people and they were either Oriental or Islamic… Whether that is right or wrong, I’m just giving you a realistic political calculation.”

“When I talk to political and religious leaders in Europe, one of their great concerns is their migration is coming from non-Christian regions, whereas most of our immigration is coming from people who have a Christian tradition,” Anderson said.

First of all — Oriental? Seriously? Guess Land never got the memo.

What’s disturbing is the idea that these deeply held moral and religious convictions that are motivating the push for immigration reform could suddenly shift if we were talking about immigration from somewhere else.

In that case, why do I suspect they’ll find some twisted reasoning to justify an organized effort to block the immigration of “Oriental or Islamic” people?

By Thea Lim, cross-posted from Bitch Magazine

A lot of folks have been talking about Courtney Desiree Morris’ article in make/shift, “Why Misogynists Make Great Informants: How Gender Violence on the Left Enables State Violence in Radical Movements.” I read the whole thing over at the INCITE! blog. Starting from a discussion of Brandon Darby, an FBI informant who infiltrated groups protesting the Republican National Convention in 2009, Morris suggests that left wing movements are easy to infiltrate because they are uncritical of themselves. The uncriticalness that allows informants to infiltrate as long as they can appear devoted to the cause, is what also allows gender violence to go unchecked. Morris’ article provides definite food for thought, in terms of what we will put up with “in service of the movement” that we would never put up with elsewhere.

Morris says:

Maybe it isn’t that informants are difficult to spot but rather that we have collectively ignored the signs that give them away. To save our movements, we need to come to terms with the connections between gender violence, male privilege, and the strategies that informants (and people who just act like them) use to destabilize radical movements. Time and again heterosexual men in radical movements have been allowed to assert their privilege and subordinate others. Despite all that we say to the contrary, the fact is that radical social movements and organizations in the United States have refused to seriously address gender violence [1] as a threat to the survival of our struggles. We’ve treated misogyny, homophobia, and heterosexism as lesser evils—secondary issues—that will eventually take care of themselves or fade into the background once the “real” issues—racism, the police, class inequality, U.S. wars of aggression—are resolved. There are serious consequences for choosing ignorance. Misogyny and homophobia are central to the reproduction of violence in radical activist communities. Scratch a misogynist and you’ll find a homophobe. Scratch a little deeper and you might find the makings of a future informant (or someone who just destabilizes movements like informants do).

The article is long and comprehensive, and I thoroughly recommend it. Some other interesting points: Morris cites examples from the memoirs of women activist heroes like Angela Davis, Assata Shakur and Elaine Brown who either refused to join leftist movements (in this case the Black Panther Party) because of the gender violence that went on within them, or experienced such violence. In addition, I appreciated Morris’ examination of how progressive movements unwillingness to genuinely self-analyze foster both gender violence and “isms” like racism:

Race further complicates the ways in which gender violence unfolds in our communities. In “Looking for Common Ground: Relief Work in Post-Katrina New Orleans as an American Parable of Race and Gender Violence,” Rachel Luft explores the disturbing pattern of sexual assault against white female volunteers by white male volunteers doing rebuilding work in the Upper Ninth Ward in 2006. She points out how Common Ground failed to address white men’s assaults on their co-organizers and instead shifted the blame to the surrounding Black community, warning white women activists that they needed to be careful because New Orleans was a dangerous place. Ultimately it proved easier to criminalize Black men from the neighborhood than to acknowledge that white women and transgender organizers were most likely to be assaulted by white men they worked with.

This article made a great deal of sense to me because of my own struggles and disappointments with all of the movements I’ve been a part of. For example, I found my way into radical politics via feminism, but I now totally struggle with feminism’s inability to deal with its “race problem”—let’s just say we have good days and bad days.

Many of us involved in leftist struggles sacrifice a great deal for the struggle. Things like: families of origin, a cushy life, an easy sleep. Or we come to radical politics because we were pushed out or alienated by our home cultures, and leftist politics are like an oasis of acceptance. All of this is to say, there are so many psychological (not political!) reasons for refusing to accept that the movements we build our lives and identities around are flawed. Think about how many times you have heard someone say “But we work so hard!” when they or their organisation is called on their shit. It is worth examining what personal/emotional baggage we are carrying around that stops us from seeing the flaws in our movement clearly, especially if we are contributing to the problem.

But while we’re on the subject of gender violence on the Left, let me recommend this book: The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Partner Abuse Within Activist Communities. From the jacket copy:

Based on the popular ‘zine that had reviewers and fans alike demanding more, The Revolution Starts at Home finally breaks the dangerous silence surrounding the “open secret” of intimate violence—by and toward caretakers, in romantic partnerships, and in friendships—within social justice movements. This watershed collection compiles stories and strategies from survivors and their allies, documenting a decade of community accountability work and delving into the nitty-gritty of creating safety from abuse without relying on the prison industrial complex.Fearless, tough-minded, and ultimately loving, The Revolution Starts at Home offers life-saving alternatives for ensuring survivor safety while building a road toward a revolution where no one is left behind.

Mad Men is back, and while I’ve given up all hope of a character of color with any kind of context, I still want to know what happens to Sal (I know, I know, he’s written out), Joan, and Peggy.

(Yes, I know Mad Men is about a bunch of white people in the era of segregation. No that does not let the writers off the hook for this bootleg ass characterization. I’ve written pages and pages on this, but I’ll sum it up in two words: Rachel Menken.  She provided context without becoming a main character.  That’s all we’re asking for people.)

Don argues with his new (and ethnic?) maid Cecelia.  My friends and I couldn’t come to a conclusion if she was coded Italian or Puerto Rican, with more votes for Italian.

Characters of Color may be out of luck in this episode, but there was an errant civil rights reference: Andrew Goodman, one of the civil rights workers murdered in Mississippi in 1964, was referenced by Don’s Betty-clone on the date. She mentioned they were killed, but doesn’t go into the details.  The three workers (Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner) were lynched by the members of the Ku Klux Klan, but the murders were facilitated by local law enforcement. It was a pivotal moment in the civil rights movement, one in which the nation had to face the facts that the racial climate  in America led to the deaths of three idealistic twenty-one year olds, who were murdered and stuffed into a dam.

However, the reference struck me as a bit strange.  Many American Jews were fixtures in the civil rights movement, and the “Freedom Summer” event was reported to have one of the highest levels of participation by American Jews.  However, in Mad Men, most discussion of Jews is framed as anti-Semitic jokes,  open curiosity, or thinly veiled contempt.  Don’s companion mentions Goodman’s identity lightly, as if she were noting an interesting non-sequitur about someone who died in a freak accident, not race related violence. While she was uncomfortable, it was more random table conversation than any actual reflection or fear.  But the scene did remind me of something – It is important to note that while I often point to Rachel Menken as an onscreen representation of being able to give voice to minority characters in the style of Mad Men’s created world, her appearance began and ended in season one. And since then, the lens has continued to close, leaving less and less room for the voice of the “other” to be heard.  Sal is gone; the alleged “greek chorus” (Hollis), who people seemed to hope would have a larger role, is back in the old building; Don is selling the house and employed a new housekeeper, leaving Carla’s fate uncertain; and even the extras appear to be on a fade.

But no worries – through small references and slight of hand, the writers will allude hey, we know there were black people then. Unfortunately, that’s as far as it goes.  And where there is so much potential to develop plots that deal with race, the attitudes of the writers are eerily current.  It’s okay to remember the past, but it is verboten to apply historical events to our current realities.

Remembering the past is easy – it’s learning from our history (not erasing it, not sanitizing it) that’s hard.

I’m typing this post from a church basement, while about twelve children sing along to the songs in Super Why, a PBS program designed to help with reading skills.

The last time I talked about PMC, I was liveblogging and tweeting parts of the boot camp. Now, it’s been about a month, so I can explain a bit more about what I’m actually doing.

After the skills/strategy building boot camp, we started in on our site assignments. I’m placed at Howard University Television (WHUT) and so far we’ve learned about upcoming projects, some of their educational outreach and how programming works at the station. We’ve also learned a bit about the challenges in public media. We noticed that a lot of public spaces (like libraries, radio, television, and museums) do not work together as often as they could. And we are working to understand what a model for a new public media could look like.

In addition to that, we’re struggling with an ambitious project – community mapping and strategies for engagement. As we are starting to map the resources for each community (and will probably end up on the streets, canvassing to find out demographic information, access to technology, and digital literacy data) the struggle looms large. Can we make a valuable impact in just six short months?

Our partners have been in the community for years, so our entrance into the communities is facilitated by those in the know. But every time we start to gain some understanding, the problems seem to magnify. For example, let’s take educational outreach.

WHUT has been kind enough to allow us to tag along on some of their programs to conduct our research. And to be frank, I’m amazed at some of the programs on public television. The premiere program we started with is called R U There, which is a pilot program – other episodes are dependent on the studio receiving another grant.

The trailer is here:

R U There? Premiere at The Lincoln Theatre from WHUT-TV on Vimeo.

But you can get a better sense of the program from the music video (found here) and the companion site, which boasts a game setting and an interactive comic maker. It’s really impressive.

However, there are going to be lots of obstacles to overcome. While R U There is competitive with offerings by specialty networks like Disney and Cartoon Network, the awareness that public media is for kids older than eight or ten years old just isn’t there. There is a huge gap between the two core demographics – ages 0 – 8 and ages 55 and up. And even if people were watching, the funding crunch may dash the R U There project before it can get off the ground.

This week and next week, I’m observing the community outreach program. One of the programs is for children who are struggling with reading skills, and so they can participate in a special supplemental program for one week to help boost their skills. But even in this small class of twelve, already a multitude of issues bubbled to the surface. Some children actually perform up to task really well – but it becomes clear that without reinforcement at home, they will not be able to keep up without individualized attention. Other children, for various reasons, find it very hard to focus on certain tasks – so they can easily and quickly identify all letters, but don’t understand the sounds that letters make, or understand how letters combine to make a word. Other children are easily discouraged, so when their drawings or letters are not perfect, they want to quit.

And then there are the dynamics between the kids, other children, and their home lives. Far too many of these kids come to the program, and they are already having a bad day. The teachers observe parents sharing their coffee drinks with their kids on the walk to the program, then observe the child bouncing off the walls. In addition to that, there is the concern that some kids are not getting enough food. And, even if the children are on board, there are other issues around access. One child was happily clicking through a complicated online game. When I asked him if he played it before, he answered “yes, before my mother’s computer broke.”

The children also police each other, teasing the girls for wanting to pretend to be a girl character, or laughing at the kids who are happily dancing to the songs. There is a lot to engage with, and we haven’t been able to get a good feel on parental commitment since these programs are geared toward the children. Later in the year, we will get to engage with adults more.

All of these are just free-form observations – we are still in the process of developing and testing strategies that will help with some of these issues, particularly surrounding digital access. But now I am wondering about how community and media inform each other and how we facilitate these connections to benefit those most in need.