Do Barbie Prices Make Walmart Racist?

News and Analysis…

Walmart has taken heat from racism critics after a photo surfaced on the web showing two Barbie Dolls side by side, one black doll selling for three dollars and one white doll selling for six dollars.  Advocates, such as Thelma Dye, the executive director of the Northside Center for Child Development, have critiqued the decision of Walmart due to the potential psychological effect on children seeing that a white Barbie costs twice that of a black Barbie.  Her comments have received a backlash from others who see Walmart’s actions as either inconsequential or reflective of a societal problem, not a corporate one.

The Powers That Be | Instead of coming to a basic understanding of human behavior and economics simultaneously — which is that white kids are more likely to buy white dolls and black kids are more likely to buy black dolls, and this particular Wal-Mart more than likely has more white shoppers buying the white dolls — this is becoming yet another race issue.

Econ 101 says that when a product isn’t moving, the price goes down until it sells, but some minority leaders might want to think twice before setting a bad precedent by intimidating stores into increasing the price of products targeted to minorities.

Jezebel | Sociological Images co-author Gwen Sharp suggests that maybe black Ballerina Theresas don’t sell well because they just look like re-painted Barbies: “Maybe for both parents and kids, it seems more real and less symbolic of a change to have a doll that actually presents a range of attractive features rather than ‘Oh we’ve changed the skin tone slightly.’” And Mattel says its “So In Style” line — dolls “designed to better resemble black women’s facial features” — has received a “great response.” Still, just as Barbie dolls continue to reflect institutional sexism with their unrealistic representation of the female body (a baby-face-plus-big-boobs representation that’s become especially popular in an age that incongruously demands both extreme youth and sexual availability), so too the relative “values” placed on black dolls reflect the ways black women are often devalued.

Rod Dreher – Beliefnet| Seriously, it’s heartbreaking that any black child would think that the whiteness of a person’s or a doll’s skin makes them more beautiful or worthy. That is a problem we have to work on as a society. But forcing Walmart, or any retailer, to ignore what their customers are telling them in order to preserve a moralistic fiction is not the way to go. Faulting Walmart’s discounting policy here is a good way to convince retailers not to stock any black dolls at all, for fear that they won’t be able to treat those products like any other and discount them if they don’t sell, on pain of being called racially insensitive.

On the Web…

Consuming Pop Culture While Feminist: Disney’s The Little Mermaid | Feministing

The Little Mermaid is, quite simply, a feminist’s worst nightmare. This movie is about, as a very wise friend of mine once put it, a young woman who gives up her voice to get a pair of legs so that she can snare a man. It’s about the triumph of “good” women – young, slender, silent and lovesick – over “bad” women – old, voluptuous, outspoken and sexual. It’s about a young woman forced to choose between her father’s world and her husband’s world, and there is nothing in between. And there’s the unsettling fact that the song “Kiss the Girl” tells us that the “one way to ask” if a woman wants you to kiss her, is to just kiss her.

Surviving Without a Safety Net | Truthdig

Obama has made concessions to the right, which wants to destroy him. The left has written him off. With a good sense of what this country is about, he continues to steer a perilous course between them. His efforts to pass an economic stimulus, health care reform, a modest jobs bill and extensions of unemployment and COBRA benefits have left him weakened. In the end, he may leave the arena bloody and exhausted, but I believe he will succeed. The president is edging forward under a backbreaking load that was heaped upon his shoulders when he entered office. As Irv Feldman told Walter Thomas, the old Tuskegee airman, “Thank you for your service, sir.”

When Bishops Play Politics| Newsweek

They see themselves as crusaders for human rights—protectors of the innocent, the voiceless, and the powerless. After years of enduring the slings and arrows of opposition, these activists are finally in the power seat. They are among the most important voices on a crucial political question: will abortion finally scuttle health-care reform?

They are America’s Roman Catholic bishops.

Three Proven Steps to Advance the World’s Women | NYT Nicholas Kristof

First, I think girls’ education may be the single most cost-effective kind of aid work. It’s cheap, it opens minds, it gives girls new career opportunities and ways to generate cash, it leads them to have fewer children and invest more in those children, and it tends to bring women from the shadows into the formal economy and society. It’s not a panacea, of course. Lebanon and Sri Lanka were leaders in girls’ education, and both ended up torn apart by conflict. In India, the state of Kerala has done a fine job in girls’ education, but its state economy is still a mess and dependent on remittances. But overall, educating girls probably has a greater transformative effect on a country than anything else one can do.

A Ringing Critique.

News and analysis…

Now that the glamor of the 2010 Olympics is over it is interesting to observe the various social questions left in its wake. Some issues which were shelved to make room for international harmony and sportsmanship include gender identity, sexism, racism, homelessness, indigenous rights, etc. Here are some such stories which have been largely overlooked in the rush to count medals and support national pride…

Global Comment |Taraneh Ghajar Jerven’s recent article in the Christian Science Monitor, “2010 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony: What about Vancouver’s homeless?” highlights the injustices perpetrated in the run-up to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.(1) Jerven discusses the expensive development costs associated with the 2010 Olympic Games, where the original budget of $660 million was revised to over $5 billion.(2)

The astronomical increase in costs for the Vancouver Olympics is especially egregious when considering that the city’s homeless population has doubled since 2003 – the same year that the city secured its Olympic bid. This rise in homelessness leaves one wondering: how can an international event that claims to celebrate peace, unity and global harmony so callously ignore the needs of the most vulnerable populations? What kind of priorities is the international community embracing in such an outright rejection of the human right to housing?

Violations of the human right to housing are not specific to the 2010 Vancouver Games, and are unfortunately indicative of a growing trend in these types of mega-sporting events. One key example is the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where violations of the human right to housing displaced approximately 1.5 million residents. This trend can be followed to other host cities, such as Seoul, where 720,000 people were displaced to make way for the 1988 Olympic Games. Additionally here in the United States, in the run-up to the 1996 Atlanta Games, 30,000 people were displaced and 2,000 units of public housing were destroyed.(3)

Womanist Musings | In an interview with Salon, three time world medal champion Elvis Stojko, made clear that the greatest danger to figure skating is the feminization of male skaters.

It basically started about one year ago, when Skate Canada said that they weren’t getting enough young boys enrolling in skating. People tiptoe around the topic, and I was like, “You know, I’m just going to say it: Effeminate men’s skating is not my style of skating. In men’s skating I like to see power and strength.”

Effeminate men’s skating is the issue with male figure skating. WOW…Of course Elvis believes that it is only right for people to get upset if they are called gay.

“Some guys get into the sport because it’s difficult — the spins, the speed — and they like to showcase that within the music. When you’re not appreciated for that, it takes its toll. And then when people call them effeminate, they get pissed. People call them gay, and some people don’t like to be called that.”

If you want to open up figure skating to another audience, you need to create something that’s going to allow everyone to watch. If you have a male masculine person watching it, they need something to relate to. Other guys relate to Johnny Weir’s thing. You need to have guys doing jumps, so a person who also watches NASCAR can identify with it and say, “Hey that’s awesome — how many rotations is that?” or “How fast did he spin?” instead of, “How pretty was that guy?”

Being called gay can only be a bad thing if you have a problem with homosexuality to begin with. Why should it be considered threatening to anyone’s masculinity? He makes it sound as though gay men are destroying the sport by not being suitably butch. Don’t even bother to get upset about his commentary because gay people need to just accept their second class status, according to Elvis.

Global Comment | Native leaders like Fontaine have been very vocal about the opportunities that the Olympics offers First Nations citizens. However, there are many within the aboriginal community that raise the concern that the Olympics amount to further exploitation of Native peoples.

“The Four Host Nations is a corporate body made up primarily of government-funded Indian Act band council chiefs, not hereditary chieftainships,” says Seislom, a Lil’wat Elder. “An overwhelming number of Indigenous people in these territories and in the interior are opposed to the Olympics because of the long-term impact including destruction of the land, commodification of Native art and culture, and the creation of long-term poverty once the few token jobs are gone.”

According to the Olympic resistance network, during the Olympic Torch relay, protesters in over thirty cities, towns, and Indigenous communities successfully disrupted the Torch Relay, forcing delays and route cancellations, with at least thirteen arrests. Much of the Canadian coverage regarding the protests does not seek to discuss why the protesters are attempting to disrupt the games. The protesters are seen as rabble rousers who are destroying our chance to showcase Canadian wonders.

Even as the torch was carried along the Highway of Tears (a stretch of highway 12 between Prince George and Prince Rupert, B.C., where numerous women who are largely Indigenous have gone missing) many Canadians are unaware of their government’s failure to bring a halt to the violence. It is unimaginable that disappearances of White women would have been met with such apathy.

Leader-Post |The IOC held a symposium in Miami in January to “attempt to identify the most up-to-date medical/biological science with regard to the gender issue that may be of relevance to sport and that will help sports bodies to deal with potential cases.”

“Gender issue” can mean just about anything, which is why the IOC uses the phrase. Scientists at the Florida International University met with the IOC and the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) in conjunction with the 2nd World Conference on Hormonal and Genetic Basis of Sexual Differentiation Disorders. The IOC is most worried about a condition referred to as “Disorders of Sexual Development.”

In the eyes of the IOC, and obviously those in the medical world who dream up names for conditions that place people outside conventional sexuality, not being biologically absolutely a man or absolutely a woman is seen as a disorder. IOC officials say their concern is about fairness, as women who have one of the DSDs (once called intersexed, which makes more sense) may have a biological advantage over women who don’t have DSD characteristics.

This is indeed a murky area as all athletes at the Olympic level have genetic advantages of different kinds. All Olympic athletes train very hard, and are committed to their dream, whatever that may be, but to make a national team certain “gifts” have to be in place biologically. Endurance athletes will go nowhere without very high “MaxVO2s” and anaerobic thresholds. You can increase both through training to some extent, but if you are not born with the genetic information that allows your body to deliver great amounts of oxygen per kilogram of weight and then allows your body to “work” for long periods of time at a level that is not far below your maximum heartrate, you aren’t going to the Olympics in the endurance events. The only sprinters who make it to the 100-metre final have a different profile, but they too need to be genetically gifted as do gymnasts, as do tennis players, and so on.

In this highly gendered world one person’s genetic gift is another person’s disorder. Where is the line in the sand for what an athlete brings to the startline courtesy of Mother Nature? The IOC does not recommend to Kenyan long-distance runners or Norwegian cross-country skiers that they get an operation to reduce their super-high MaxVO2s because they have an unfair advantage, but this is what they tell intersexed or DSD athletes to do about their sexuality.

Mother Jones | There are two reasons why Alissa Johnson, a 22-year-old Park City, Utah, native, knows she should be in Vancouver today. First, to support her brother Anders, who is ski jumping for the US Olympic team. And second, to strap on her 8-foot-long skis and compete herself. She’s one of the US’s top five female ski jumpers. If there were a women’s team, she’d be on it.

But there isn’t. So, because ski jumping is the last remaining sport of the Olympics that bars women from competing, Johnson is going as a sister and a friend. And that’s it.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) says the women’s exclusion isn’t discrimination. President Jacques Rogge has insisted that the decision “was made strictly on a technical basis, and absolutely not on gender grounds.” But female would-be Olympic competitors say they don’t understand what that “technical basis” is. Their abilities? They point to American Lindsey Van, who holds the world record for the single longest jump by anyone, male or female. (Ironically, she broke the record flying from a jump built at Whistler for the Vancouver Olympics). Their numbers? When the IOC voted in 2006 not to add women’s ski jumping, 83 competitors from 14 nations jumped at the top level, less universality than required to add a new event. But in the same year, women’s skier cross claimed just 30 skiers from 11 nations. The committee added it. (There are also too few male ski jumpers to qualify, but as one of the original 16 Winter Olympic events, their event isn’t subjected to the same rules.)

Best of the web…

Iraq Holds Early Voting Amid Blasts  |  Aljazeera English

Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna, reporting from Baghdad, said the vote is seen as a pivotal moment in Iraq as the US prepares to withdraw large numbers of troops by 2011.

“This is a very significant vote; it is the closest to a truly representative process since the US-led invasion [in 2003],” he said.

More than 6,000 candidates will be competing for 325 seats in the election.

Travel around the country has been restricted and the authorities have cancelled all leave for security services.

The election winners will oversee the withdrawal of US forces from the country and help determine whether Iraq will be able to move past the deep Sunni-Shia divisions that almost destroyed it.

Five years ago, Iraq’s Sunni Arabs boycotted the legislative election,allowing Shia and Kurdish parties to take control of parliament, but Sunnis are now expected to take part in large numbers.

Lesbians in South Africa Being Raped to ‘Cure’ Them of Sexual Orientation  |  Alternet

The group ActionAid released a report about the shocking rise in homophobic attacks and murders in South Africa, especially Johannesburg and Cape Town where lesbian women are being raped as a “corrective” punishment for being gay.

They report:

Rape is fast becoming the most widespread hate crime targeted against gay women in townships across South Africa. One lesbian and gay support group says it is dealing with 10 new cases of lesbian women being targeted for ‘corrective’ rape every week in Cape Town alone.

‘Terrifying’ Saudi Novel Wins Arabic Booker  |  CNN

Saudi novelist Abdo Khal, who won the Arabic Booker prize for his novel depicting the ravaging effects of unlimited wealth, says he writes about the “double standards in our life.”

Khal won the prestigious $60,000 International Prize for Arabic Fiction for his novel, “Spewing Sparks as Big as Castles.”

The book, whose title is a Koranic reference to hell, chronicles the seductive powers of an ultra-wealthy palace, telling “the agonising story of those who have become enslaved by it, drawn by its promise of glamour,” said the organizers of the prize.

Iran Document: Women Activists Write Mousavi & Karroubi  |  Enduring America

A letter from Iran’s women activists to Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, written last week, published by Rah-e-Sabz, and passed on by Mission Free Iran:

As you know, during the 10th presidential campaign, you made promises about the obvious rights of Iranian women, which, during the course of the past 30 years have been totally ignored. Although these promises comprise only a small part of Iranian women’s just demands, during the post-election events, even those little promises disappeared from your announcements and interviews regarding your intention to pursue peoples’ rightful demands. This has happened while women and girls of this land have had a distinguished role in the green movement in pursuing the plundered rights of the Iranian people, have been in the front line of the green movement equal to men, and even have paid and are paying a higher price.

Will ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Be Repealed?

Analysis …

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen last week signaled a change in the military’s attitudes about gays serving openly in the military when he told U.S. senators that repealing the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ ban is “the right thing to do.” Mullen said:

“No matter how I look at this issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens.”

The Pentagon says it could take nearly a year to study all the various issues caused by the ban’s potential lifting, which Defense Secretary Robert Gates said is necessary to prevent the military from “rushing into it, (and) mandating it by fiat with a very short timeline would be a serious mistake.” Over the weekend, other voices weighed in on the discussion, with Fox News war analyst Oliver North calling a possible repeal “a stunning assault on the military” and Gen. Colin Powell reversing his former position against the repeal, now speaking out in favor of allowing gays to serve openly.

Box Turtle Bulletin |  “The Military Times is a newpaper targeted at career military personnel. For the past several years the paper has been surveying its readership on the issue of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Tomorrow they will be releasing the latest results and today they pre-reported the findings.

“Opposition to gays serving openly in the military has declined sharply among those wearing the uniform today, the Military Times newspapers will report Monday.

“An exclusive survey of some 3,000 active-duty troops shows such opposition has fallen sharply from nearly two-thirds (65 percent) in 2004 to about half (51 percent) today. The survey results appear Monday in Army Times, Air Force Times, Navy Times and Marine Corps Times.”

Slate |  “The secretary of defense and the chairman of the joint chiefs both endorsed the eventual repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy at a Senate hearing on Tuesday. Since its implementation in 1994, more than 13,000 members of the armed services have been discharged for homosexual conduct. We know what happens to a soldier who tells about his sexual orientation, but what happens to one who asks? Nothing. For most service members, it’s not even against the rules. The “don’t tell” half of the 1993 agreement between Congress, the president, and top military brass is a matter of federal law.”

Foreign Policy |  “Viewed from Israel, the continuing witch hunt against gays and lesbians in the U.S. military makes little sense. I have studied and written about the experience of gay soldiers in elite combat units of the Israel Defense Forces, where restrictions on gay enlistment were lifted in 1993, the same year the United States introduced the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy requiring gay and lesbian servicemembers to say in the closet or risk being discharged. There has never been any suggestion that the participation of these men has hindered the performance of Israeli combat units.”

RaceWire |  “What we haven’t heard is, who’s really being affected by this?

“From The Task Force study, Black same-sex households in the United States: A report from the 2000 Census:

““Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” has been used to kick Black women out of the military at a much higher rate than other groups. In fact, Black women are discharged under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” at three times the rate that they serve in the military. Although Black women make up less than one percent of servicemembers, they comprise 3.3% of those discharged under the policy.

“But wait, it gets better. The same report notes people can be discharged under DADT even if they are not gay or lesbian, apparently there are cases where men have accused women who refuse unwanted sexual advances of being lesbians, or because the women are successful and some men do not want to serve under them.”

Open Left |  “There are a whole number of ways this could be done. It could be swift implementation overnight, or the Administration could slow-walk it with a 15-year plan, complete with segregated showers and pilot programs of integrated units. Or there could be another “compromise”. Later this week I’m going to be exploring what the range of possibilities and what an ideal implementation would look like. We still have a ways to go in terms of making sure the votes are there for repeal, but a new front is opening up on how and when repeal will be implemented- an effort which is also critical to keep an eye on.”

Best of the Web …

What if Senators Represented People by Income or Race, not by State?  |  Washington Post

What if the 100-member Senate were designed to mirror the overall U.S. population — and were based on statistics rather than state lines?

Imagine a chamber in which senators were elected by different income brackets — with two senators representing the poorest 2 percent of the electorate, two senators representing the richest 2 percent and so on.

Based on Census Bureau data, five senators would represent Americans earning between $100,000 and $1 million individually per year, with a single senator working on behalf of the millionaires (technically, it would be two-tenths of a senator). Eight senators would represent Americans with no income. Sixteen would represent Americans who make less than $10,000 a year, an amount well below the federal poverty line for families. The bulk of the senators would work on behalf of the middle class, with 34 representing Americans making $30,000 to $80,000 per year.

Race, Disability and Denial  |  Racialicious

Although I have been both black and disabled my entire life, for years I lied to myself about being disabled. I could appreciate the pride that accompanied the black experience, the historic and perpetual triumphs and tragedies that inspire the progress of a people. But disability was different. Disability was a curse much worse than the curse of Ham, and instead of accepting it I fled into a lie of being someone I could never be and should have never wanted to be. I became a victim of an able-bodied orthodoxy, one memorialized into my memory, derived from the seeds of my lived experiences and the veil of myths through which those experiences are strained. I believe we all succumb to societal orthodoxies in some way, because the procurement of favor demands it and it allows us to live without troublesome confusion. But for many of us, orthodoxies become a memorial, a shine at which we pray and to which we cling, all the while privately acknowledging that the shrine is not of our making, not to our liking and that it segregates and kills us very casually, very privately and very slowly. This photo helped free me from my denial.

In Bad Faith  |  The American Prospect

In advance of yesterday’s National Prayer Breakfast, President Barack Obama was under pressure to use the opportunity to condemn the anti-homosexuality bill pending in the Ugandan Parliament. The legislation, which would criminalize homosexuality and require the death penalty or life imprisonment for certain “offenses,” has been described by human-rights activists as tantamount to instigating a genocide against sexual minorities, who are already persecuted in the African nation.

Obama, speaking just before the first anniversary of the launch of his Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, once again fell into the religion-in-public-life trap: Faith is intended for good, and we must present it as such — regardless of its exploitation for ends that are less than pure, and regardless of one’s stated commitment to secular government.

Hijacking History, Part 3: Educating Ideologies

This post is the third in a series of blogs of I’ve written following the actions of the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) at their January meetings to approve revisions to the state’s K-12 social studies curriculum.  Known as TEKS, these standards will determine the learning goals for Texas students for the next decade and will also impact the publication of textbooks that will be used nationwide.  (I cover this more in the previous blogs, Hijacking History and Hijacking History, Part 2.)  This post will cover the final two days of the meeting where elected members of the SBOE went through the proposed curriculum revisions and voted on changes of their own.  Ultimately, the proceedings exhausted the time allotted for discussion and approval of the revisions, postponing the final vote to the May meeting of the SBOE.

The SBOE is composed of 15 members who are elected from districts based on equal population representation.  Elections to the board are conducted on a partisan basis, and the recent meetings demonstrated just how detrimental this can be to the educational process.  Brian Thevenot of the Texas Tribune has provided excellent coverage of these meetings, and his description of the approval process is no exception:

Debates leading up to the board’s consideration of social studies standards often pitted typically conservative “pro-America” dogma against more typically liberal explorations of women and minority leaders. Yet in the nitty-gritty of at-times testy negotiations, a spirit of mostly polite horse-trading predominated, and most members seemed to get most of what they wanted. And though an eight-member majority block dominated by conservatives often controls the board, votes over specific amendments seldom broke so neatly.

Yet at the end of the day, the approved revisions still took what Terrence Stutz of the Dallas Morning News described as a “tilt to [the] right.” This was highlighted by the inclusion of Phyllis Schafly and the Eagle Forum, the National Rifle Association, the Moral Majority, and the Heritage Foundation to a list of people and groups that student must learn.  The amendment passed on a 7-6 vote, but the comments surrounding it prove just as enlightening:

Board member Don McLeroy, R-College Station, offered the amendment requiring coverage of “key organizations and individuals of the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s.” McLeroy said he offered the proposal because the history standards were already “rife with leftist political periods and events – the populists, the progressives, the New Deal and the Great Society.”

If the current standards are “rife with leftist” ideals, then the approved changes and rhetoric of the board perhaps indicate a marked shift to the right, rather than just a tilt.  Derogatory remarks such as the following one reported following the meetings show not only a preference against multiculturalism, but an outright disregard for the ethnic diversity of our nation:

David Bradley, R-Beaumont Buna, also seemed upset by efforts of fellow board member Mary Helen Berlanga, D-Corpus Christi, to include the names of more Latinos in the standards. “If Ms. Berlanga, whose only criteria is skin color, had the votes, she would name us ‘the Hispanic Education Agency,’” he told one reporter.

The circumstances surrounding these meetings mark an unfortunate turn.  Instead of a focus on providing the best education for students, the curriculum process in the state of Texas has become the battle ground for the alleged “culture wars” that ultra conservative voices have been attempting to proclaim since the rise of the Moral Majority in the 1980’s.  And while I doubt that any protest I raise will ultimately be heard, I’ll close with these words from the SBOE History and Duties page on the Texas Education Agency website (emphasis mine):

As part of its efforts to provide the best possible education to public school students, the Board designates and mandates instruction in the knowledge and skills that are essential to a well-balanced curriculum.

I can only hope that the wisdom on which this board was founded will ultimately prevail.

————

Some highlights from the Proceedings of the SBOE on Curriculum Approval:

• A proposal is debated to change the definition of good citizenship for first-graders to include “holding public officials to their word.”
• The deletion of Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers because she was a socialist.
• A requirement that eight grade students analyze ideas in Jefferson Davis’ inaugural address as president of the Confederacy.
• An attempt to change all mentions of U.S. “imperialism” to “expansionism.”
• Deletion of Margaret Sanger, a leading voice for contraception and relationship counseling, and founder of the organization that ultimately became Planned Parenthood.
• Removal of the words “from racial, ethnic, gender, and religious groups” from the existing standard: “Explain actions taken by people from racial, ethnic, gender, and religious groups to expand economic opportunities and political rights in American society.”

These highlights were gathered from live blog coverage of the meetings on January 14 and 15 provided by the Texas Freedom Network:

Live-Blogging the Social Studies Debate

Live-Blogging the Social Studies Debate II

Live-Blogging the Social Studies Debate III

————

• Related link: Hijacking History
• Related link: Hijacking History, Part 2: The Texas Curriculum Hearings

Chris Matthews and the ‘Postracial’ U.S.

Analysis …

In comments after Wednesday night’s State of the Union address, MSNBC journalist Chris Matthews praised President Obama’s eloquence by stating: “I forgot he was black.” According to the Associated Press, Matthews explained that the African-American president’s address to a chamber filled with white people signaled that the U.S. has gotten past the racial divisions of the past. Several bloggers, particularly African-American ones, took issue with Matthews’ comments and pointed out that they prove just how not postracial the U.S. is.

Truthdig |  ““While there is some truth to the issue of progress in Matthews’ post-racial thesis, it is grounded in a privileged perspective that ignores what still needs to be done in order to achieve liberty and justice for all,” says Dr. Ulli Ryder, a professor at Brown University’s Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America. “From a lesser- or nonprivileged perspective, post-racial politicking is wishful thinking and must be mitigated by a closer look at social, political and cultural contexts. If we look at the ways in which we have dealt with events like Hurricane Katrina, increasing educational segregation, wars against Islam, immigration reform and the privatizing of our prisons it is easy to see that we have much work left to do.””

Alas, a Blog |  “So this whole thing with Chris Matthews “forgetting that Obama is black” falls into that same range of racism as “Pretty for a black girl” and the “You’re not like those other black people” claptrap often espoused by the “I’m not racist, but…” crowd. They’re coded as compliments, but the subtext is still an ugly one that frames racism as being the fault of the oppressed. After all, if we’d all just be a credit to our race then our problems would go away right? Right. Oh wait, no that’s completely wrong.”

Womanist Musings |  “Obama makes many comfortable because he has continually refused to speak truth to power regarding racism.   Some would say that this is because he is the president and should represent all of the people, however; all of the previous White men to hold the office made no qualms about assuring the continued success of Whiteness.   We have always been willing to promote members of a marginalized group, as long as they continue to act in ways that assure that the power structure remains the same.    Obama makes Matthews comfortable because his actions have repeatedly made clear that he is not about revolution.  Obama’s body may be encoded with historical inequity but that is as close as he is ever going to come to holding Whiteness accountable.”

Pandagon |  “The default view of successful leadership and its stature is presumed to be the domain of the white man, and when an accomplished black man rises to that position, he must have magically shed the negativity, ignorance and undereducated skin of the American black male to do so. That Matthews realized within moments what he said (even if he didn’t fully or deeply think about its origins) and tried to explain his thinking about that statement, it’s pretty clear that he couldn’t really go where the conversation needs to go on this matter.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates @The Atlantic |  “The “I forgot Obama was black” sentiment allows the speaker the comfort of accepting, even lauding, a black person without interrogating their invented truth. It allows the speaker a luxurious ignorance–you get to name people (this is what black is) even when you don’t know people. In fact, Chris Matthews didn’t forget Barack Obama was black. Chris Matthews forgot that Chris Matthews was white.”

Best of the Web …

The Weird Elitism of ‘The Personal is Political’ Saps Our Strength  |  Global Comment

Has the old battle cry “The personal is political” been taken too far or perhaps, too literally?

More importantly, have our politics descended into a form of narcissism, of trying to purify ourselves so that we can look down our oh-so-enlightened noses at everyone else?

When our identity as “one of the good ones” becomes more important than reaching others, organizing suffers. It creates hierarchies instead of breaking them down. It creates that kind of elitism that makes people so angry—because they’re right, we are looking down on them. It becomes a kind of affirmation of who we are and why we’re different and better.

The Dark Side of Empathy  |  Andrew Sullivan @The Atlantic

From Bernie Madoff to Dick Cheney: how knowledge of the other can lead to tormenting them:

Weird, or just different?  |  TEDTalks

“There’s a flip side to everything,” the saying goes, and in 2 minutes, Derek Sivers shows this is true in a few ways you might not expect.

Hijacking History, Part 2: The Texas Curriculum Hearings

In a previous blog, “Hijacking History,” I took on the subject of the Texas state curriculum for K-12 education (known as TEKS) and the implications of the proposed revisions to the curriculum that was to be presented to the State Board of Education (SBOE).  This new curriculum will not only determine what will be taught in Texas’ many public schools, but will also likely determine what is seen in new history textbooks throughout the nation.  (I explain this in more depth in my previous post.)

However, it is not just the revised curriculum that raises concern, but the highly pitched partisan battles that are taking place on the SBOE.  Various media outlets have covered the push by an ideologically conservative segment of the board to include standards that appear to better exemplify political and ideological positions than actual learning goals.  This January meeting was no exception, with the opening day hearings marked by controversy.  Brian Thevenot of the Texas Tribune describes the hearings:

As the State Board of Education grinded through testimony on Wednesday over its controversial social studies standards, much of the debate teetered on two basic fulcrums: teaching vs. indoctrination and patriotism vs. realism.

Scores of speakers, many affiliated with political organizations, ran complex issues of race and religion largely through those two filters for hours.

The importance of the curriculum decisions is evidenced by the sheer numbers of people arriving to testify before the SBOE.  Counts put the total near 130 speakers, far too many to be heard before the scheduled 6 pm adjournment.  Yet instead of extending the time for public comments, the board moved to adjourn for the evening anyway.  The Texas Freedom Network’s live blog reports on the events surrounding the close of the meeting:

6:13 – The board is getting angry comments from people who waited all day to testify. They’re demanding that the board continue hearing testimony. (We sympathize. After all, the board isn’t often asked to listen to their constituents on these issues.) A motion to extend the hearing fails on a tie vote. In the chaos, it’s hard to tell how all of the board members voted. But most of the “no” votes appear to have come from the board’s far-right faction…

6:18 – Now would-be testifiers are shouting in anger. More chaos. The chair, Gail Lowe, has to break a tie on a motion to adjourn the meeting. Could there be a clearer representation of the indifference some board members have for the concerns of their constituents? …

UPDATE: After adjournment, the state board’s five Democrats remained to continue listening to testimony from those who were unable to speak before the hearing ended. Many of the remaining testifiers were Latinos, some of whom had traveled from across the state to the hearing.

This crass indifference to the voices of many unheard witnesses is a testimony to the composition of the Texas SBOE.  Dominated by ultra-conservative ideologues who promote an ethnic insensitivity that is overtly racist, even if not overtly bigoted, a harrowingly nationalistic American exceptionalism that remains blinded to our history of injustice, inequity, and imperialism, and an unabashed Christian exclusivism, it should come as no surprise that they would have no compunction for those unfortunate enough to have been too far back in the witness line to speak before 6:00 pm.  While those members who continued to hear the testimony of the remaining witnesses are a credit to their elected office, the SBOE as a whole clearly turned its back on the democratic ideals its most hardened conservatives purport to defend.

Sadly, this is just another symptom of not only a failure of civility, but an utter lack of respect that appears to dominate our political landscape.  Sadder yet, this was only the first day of the meetings.

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The Texas Freedom Network offered live blog coverage of the events of the January 13 hearings that you can find at the following:

Live-Blogging the Social Studies Hearing

Live-Blogging the Social Studies Hearing II

• Related link: Hijacking History

Hijacking History

I’d like to dedicate this blog post to Bobbie Tetley, my high school AP American History teacher who instilled in me a love of history, and even though I am on the eve of completing graduate school, she remains one of the most challenging, demanding, and respected voices not only of my educational career, but of my life.  Thank you, Mrs. Tetley.  – cwc

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This first came to my attention through an action alert from the United Farm Workers, an organization I’ve become connected to through my denomination’s participation in the National Farm Worker Ministry.  I received an email asking me to “Stop Texas from erasing Cesar Chavez and Hispanics from school books.”  It provided information about an upcoming session of the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) that will be voting on new curriculum standards for social studies for the state of Texas.  UFW asked me to compose an email to Gail Lowe, the chair of the Texas SBOE demanding that they not further marginalize the voices of Latina/os within the history curriculum.

This call to action is one that I’m only too happy to answer.  In case you weren’t aware, as the Texas curriculum goes (which is known as Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills or TEKS), so goes the textbook publishers.  As the textbook publishers go, too often, so goes the nation.  Brian Thevenot offers his insights as to the importance:

Hijacking History  |  Texas Tribune

Following earlier clashes over curricula in other disciplines, the social studies debate will test whether the SBOE can cut through the fog of extremism and find a neutral mainstream. Though its appointees spent countless hours drafting the new standards, the board can toss or overhaul portions at any point, as it did with English standards in 2008 and science standards last year. And so a fifteen-member elected board dominated by social conservatives, few of them educators, will once again decide what will and won’t be taught in Texas public schools. Their influence will be magnified exponentially, as usual, because the content of textbooks in the lucrative Texas market drives what publishers peddle in other states.

Thevenot’s implication is clear: there’s even more at stake than the representation of Latina/os in the history curriculum.

The threat to Chavez’s inclusion in the curriculum is only one of many minority names that may be removed or downgraded to “recommendation” status in the curriculum.  Notable among the list of figures targeted for removal is Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Supreme Court Justice and lawyer who successfully argued Brown v. Board of Education before that same court.

Lowe to guide education board through hot issues  |  AP

Two experts on a board-appointed advisory panel say Chavez, a civil rights activist who supporters say greatly improved conditions for Hispanic farm workers, and Marshall, who argued the landmark case that resulted in racial desegregation and was the first black U.S. Supreme Court justice, receive too much attention.

Panelist David Barton, an evangelical Republican activist who was appointed by Lowe, said Chavez “lacks the stature, impact and overall contributions of so many others.”

Social Studies “Experts” Don’t Know Much About History  |  Austin Chronicle

In another section on history studies, Peter Marshall downplays Thurgood Marshall as not being a “strong enough [example] in light of the multiplicity of persons who have impacted American history.”

…

“This has all been grossly misconstrued,” replied Peter Marshall in an interview with the Chronicle. “My point … is simply one of comparison. … If you’re trying to adduce examples for these guidelines of famous Ameri­cans that ought to be included in the teaching of American history, to pair those two men is silly. Chavez doesn’t begin to compare in terms of his impact on American history with Ben Franklin.” But he made it clear that his objections are also political. “My own personal guess is that the reason he was included in that is that it reflects the leftist bias of the people who wrote the guidelines last time. I don’t know; I don’t know who wrote them. But I’m suspicious of that. … In comparison with [other figures], Chavez doesn’t warrant much attention. … He’s just not real high on my list.”

In their criticisms, both Barton and Marshall along with fellow expert panelist Daniel Dreisbach argue in favor of focusing more on the “Founding Fathers,” and specifically, their religious convictions.  This turn toward what I can only politely describe as a pernicious blending of American civil religion with a particularly aggressive form of evangelical Christianity presents a threat to our national history of religious tolerance and the growing pluralism of this nation of immigrants.  The opinions of the alleged experts are basically echoed by the current chairperson of the Texas SBOE, Gail Lowe:

Lowe to guide education board through hot issues  |  AP

“This country was founded on Judeo Christian principles and to say otherwise is to deny what is very unique about our country.”

Hijacking History  |  Texas Tribune

The question of American superiority likely will come up again at next week’s SBOE meetings, Lowe said. “The state board members had given them (committee members) clear direction in the spring that we wanted that concept included, so it’s surprising they voted it down,” she said. “We don’t have to tell students what to think, but any educated person should have learned about American exceptionalism.”

These attitudes of American exceptionalism, along with its silent partner Christian exceptionalism, are simply inconsistent with our history.  Advocates of this misconception that the “Founding Fathers” were all Christian conveniently forget that many of them were Deists, a theological proposition that evangelical Christians roundly deny.  I doubt that either of the aforementioned religious leaders on the panel would subscribe to the tenets of deism. (David Barton is the founder of WallBuilders and Peter Marshall is founder of Peter Marshall Ministries.)  Yet beyond the religious realm, we often fail to see that American exceptionalism extends benefits to Americans who are white.  The exclusion of Cesar Chavez and Thurgood Marshall in favor of James Madison or Andrew Jackson is obvious on its face: the replacement of two figures of color by two white figures.  Yet in Oklahoma the racial implications of featuring Andrew Jackson in favor of a person of color should become even clearer, as we cannot forget the man who defied the Supreme Court and unconstitutionally uprooted Native Americans in a forced march across the country to their “reservations.” We have to be reminded that “American exceptionalism” all too easily morphs into “white exceptionalism,” the apathetic and unthinking accomplice of white supremacism.

This curriculum meeting should present as a moment for pause.  Yes, we may soon see a flood of deficient U.S. history textbooks that represent a narrow, rather sectarian point of view.  However, as a barometer of attitudes and currents within our nation, it indicates the presence of religious supremacy, structural racism, ethnic bigotry, and international indifference.  To make matters worse, groups and individuals exhibiting these attitudes are often belligerent, self-confident, and self-righteous; offering an understanding of dialogue that looks more like the evangelism of conversion than the engagement of conversation.  If the Texas SBOE approves these very narrow and ahistorical changes to the social studies curriculum in their meeting tomorrow, it will be a travesty on history.  The fact that so many people continue to hold to these inaccurate and dehumanizing ideals right now is a travesty on humanity.

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As a note of gratitude, I am indebted to the Texas Freedom Network for their extensive coverage of the curriculum changes in their state.  Hats off to them for all of the good work they do on behalf of not only Texans, but the rest of us as well.  I also want to extend my thanks to Brian Thevenot for his article of the same name, whose title I have selfishly co-opted as my own.

Also, if you’d like to send in your comments at the last moment, you can still link here to the United Farm Workers advocacy page and email your comments to SBOE chair, Gail Lowe.

The Color of Normal

“Whiteness” avers Melville, wrapping up his lengthy phenomenology of the ambivalence of whiteness, “is not so much a color as the visible absence of color, and at the same time the concrete of all colors.” Blanc, blank. “… Such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows — a colorless, all-color of atheism from which we shrink.” To make whiteness visible is to learn to read its absent presence: concretely, its racial construction that — until we see it — colors myself as white while denying that I have color in the same stroke — truly a colorless all-color. –– Catherine Keller, Face of the Deep

I got a Hello Kitty toaster for Christmas. Normally it’s not my kind of thing, as the kawaii/cuteness of Japanese pop art has a tendency to really get on my nerves (add that to all the people in my life who, for whatever reason or another, love Hello Kitty and assumed that because I’m Japanese I must love it, too and come rushing up to me with their Hello Kitty stuff to ask me about my own collection … yeah, whatever). But there was something about this pink-bowed toaster that really delighted me: that the silly thing leaves a Hello Kitty design in your toast.

We also haven’t had a decent toaster in this house in ages, so I was excited just to get a toaster. But anyway.

So on Boxing Day morning, I was all excited to test out my new kawaii toaster. This is what I was expecting:

This is what I ended up with:

You can kind of make out a vague Hello Kitty-type shape there, and the image doesn’t get any clearer no matter how much you burn the toast. I was, to say the least, really disappointed (yes, I want a consumer-product cartoon character in my toast! Or maybe if there’s going to be an uncooked spot in my toast, I’d like it to at least look like what it’s supposed to be). Then I looked at the picture on the box and realized: For best results, one probably must use white bread.

That got me thinking about the assumptions that we make about what’s normal, what’s not, what’s assumed to be the canvas upon which we draw our understandings of the world, and what exists outside that in the realms that we call “exotic” and “other.” My normal, as far as breakfast bread goes, is whole wheat and multigrain; for me, white bread is “exotic” and very far outside the realms of my normal. I don’t eat white bread; we’ve always eaten wheat or whole grain breads in my family, so I grew up not really caring for the taste of white bread. I’m not sure that the designers of this and other design-burning toasters were making that assumption on the normalcy of breads  — that most people (or at least those who want Hello Kitty patterns in their morning meal) eat white bread.  But it’s very likely that white bread really is the perfect bland, tasteless, colorless perfect canvas for such designs (did I mention that I don’t care for white bread?), hence the resulting toaster.

But it at least brings up the question of what we assume passes for normal, or what our assumptions for the parameters of “normal.” What does our “normal” look like? Or a better question might be: What does “normal” look like to people who educate our children or craft our public policies?

Or design our technology.

I recently came across this video in which two computer retailers demonstrate the parameters for “normal” on some HP facial-recognition software:

It’s not that this software, which Desi (the guy in the video) jokes about, is necessarily racist; racism is a complex issue that involves structures of power and abuse. However, what’s going on in this video is one of the foundations of racism, which is an assumed privilege of what’s “normal” — that the software designers set white faces/skin color as the parameters for normal. There may be a standard or a default that’s assumed, unquestioned, unrecognized, nearly invisible until something brings it forth to be seen. In this case, whiteness becomes the default, an odd mixture of colorlessness that is itself constructed the color of normal against which everything else must justify itself.

As innocuous and harmless as it was, my toaster experience woke me up a bit to the assumptions I have in my life, and makes me wonder about what other assumptions are at play in my life. And reminds me I need to be on the lookout for them.

Stuff People Like

#1 Continuing Stereotypes through Blogs

In January 2008 Christian Lander and friend Myles Valentin launched the website Stuff White People Like, a blog that lists things that are admired by the ”stereotype of affluent, environmentally and socially conscious, anti-corporate white North American hipsters, who typically hold a degree in the liberal arts.”  (Disclaimer: I think my Religious Studies degree among other things qualifies me to be a member of this group.)  The blog has tallied over 63 million hits and includes entries like:

# 42 Sushi | Regardless if you are vegetarian, vegan, or just guilty about eating meat, all white people love Sushi.  To them, it’s everything they want: foreign culture, expensive, healthy, and hated by the ‘uneducated.’

# 111 Pea Coats | Another common characteristic of the coat is that white people will write their names on the label inside the coat.  This is not done for fear of theft, but rather as a necessary precaution against party mixups.  You see, when a white person attends a party in the winter time they will often be required to put their jacket in a room with literally dozens of other pea coats!

And, my personal favorite,

# 104 Girls With Bangs | For white people, the haircut-with-bangs is an important symbol that a female has completed her transformation from a nerdy girl to a cool woman. In fact, if you went to high school with a nerdy white girl who moved to a big city, there is a good chance she will show up to your high school reunion with this haircut.

 Over time, I’ve read through most of the 129 entries, frequently with other self-proclaimed white people.  Once a friend and I even had a White-Off where we gave ourselves one point for each of the entries that applied to us.  (It was a tie at 46 but we didn’t get all the way through the list.)  I’ve enjoyed looking at the website and laughing at the satire of white people.  In general, I find it harmless. 

But, I find it concerning that Stuff White People Like has started a trend.  Copycat blogs have popped up for different groups of people.  These include Stuff Black People Like (Soul Food, Big Butts, Their Mama), Stuff Asian People Like (Pouring Tea for Others, Cheapness, Child Labor), Stuff Jewish People Like (All You Can Eat Buffets, Florida, Remembering the Holocaust), Stuff Christians Like (Making God Emo, Abstinence, Narnia),  Stuff Lesbians Like (Straight Girls, Jeeps, Sports Bras), and Stuff White Trash People Like (Sarah Palin, Waffle House, Mullets). 

These range from amusing to offensive.  It seems that collectively these blogs have served to perpetuate stereotypes about different groups of people.  Just click on the “full list” or “archive” feature and you can find all the posts for that particular group.  All you need to know about “White Trash People” right at your fingertips!  And so, we are left with the problem that these blogs serve to diminish people in a group to complete identity with that group and its characteristics.  It seems that these blogs are only funny (if they are at all) for the people who are inside that particlar group.  I appreciate the Stuff White People Like blog because I can see both its accuracies and where it misses.  But, would I want someone unfamiliar with me to judge me based on these entries?  Absolutely not.  Why?  Because I don’t like Bob Marley, New Balance Shoes or The Wire.  And so, I will likewise refuse to associate other groups with the stereotypes in their corresponding blogs.

End Note: Kudos to Stuff White People Do which has taken the theme and turned it on its head as a forum on race issues.

Halloween Edition

Analysis…

 Halloween has always had a political flavor.  Costumes are a profound way to make a statement.  Last year’s most popular costume was probably Sarah Palin in varieties ranging from homage to satire.  But Halloween is also an opportunity for people to go too far.  Where do we draw the line?

Change.org | I would love to have a conflict-free Halloween this year (and one where my friends don’t ditch me), but that’s only going to happen if no one dresses up in costumes that glamorize pimping. Pimps are people who exploit women. Period. Yet Halloween glamorizes pimps like no other holiday. Maybe it’s because their stereotypical attire makes an outlandish costume. Maybe it’s because they are an easily recognizable part of American culture. There have been pimp costumes available on the Internet for a long time, but now even your dog can be a pimp. And as Kat over at Polaris Project points out, so can your pumpkin.  I know coming up with a Halloween costume is hard, so to help you out, I’ve provided 101 ideas for cosutmes that don’t glorify criminals who rape women and sell them like objects.

Huffington Post | Does expressing different parts of yourself highlight parts of your personality that never normally see the light of day? Do you feel you are releasing some pent up hidden part of you that you need to express?  Or does it show you how you normally hide behind false images and labels, such as your race, religion, or profession? We tend to identity with the content of our lives, yet beneath all the labels is our essence, that which we truly are. Can you find who is there without the masks or the façade, without all the many images of you that think you are? We so identify with the masks we may lose sight of what lies behind them. But the labels are only a part of us, not the whole of us, and we need to honor our whole being.

Stuff White People Do | So finally, if you’re white, I have a suggestion. Aside from resisting any temptation you might have to somehow dress up like a member of another race or ethnic group — and thereby perpetuating stereotypes and running the risk of hurting other people — how would the following idea work for you?  If you meet a white friend or acquaintance who’s dressed up that way, you could say this to them: “Wow, what a concept! Where’d you get the idea of dressing up like a racist dipshit?”

Racewire | Dear Target,

What’s up with this “Illegal Alien” costume?

I don’t get why a corporation that boasts about giving back to the community and celebrates Nuestra Gente would sell such a despicable costume. (I know not all undocumented immigrants are Latino, but we do make up a plurality of the population.)  Is it to make a buck? Is that enough to alienate (no pun intended) undocumented immigrants, their allies and our dollars? Couldn’t you make a buck by not selling “humorous costumes” that demean and make light of the situation faced by many undocumented immigrants and advance dehumanizing language?

News…

Neighbors Thought Body Was Part of Halloween Display | LA Times

The body of 75-year-old man sat decomposing on his Marina del Rey balcony for days because neighbors thought the lifeless figure was part of a Halloween display and didn’t call police.

Mostafa Mahmoud Zayed had apparently been dead since Monday with a single gunshot wound to one eye. He was slumped over a chair on the third-floor balcony of his apartment on Bora Bora Way, said cameraman Austin Raishbrook, who owns RMG News and was on the scene Thursday when authorities were alerted to the body.

Bernie Madoff Masks Flying Off Shelves | CBS News

Devils, sinners and swindlers, oh my!  You probably won’t see anything quite as scary this Halloween as the thousands of masks of public enemy number one, Bernard Madoff.

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