Rolling 2014 Thread on Race

Or possibly the phrase is a rhetorical device intended to emphasize the racist, dehumanizing situation and not a phrase you're supposed to feel comfortable with

― 💪😈⚠️ (DJP), Thursday, October 2, 2014 11:33 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well, by black writers, sure!

I still think it would be a little #problematic in the hands of other ppl tho

it means putting yourself in new situations where you might feel vulnerable or possibly look foolish, but that should be how we learn and live, no?

and i mean also being mindful of how lucky it is to be able to do this with minor risk compared to victims of racism, respecting the stakes of others who have a lot more on the line. i'm thinking of volunteering for a latino community organization just to learn something and hopefully be useful setting up chairs for potlocks or w/e. trying to get on the right wavelength for it. i'm bad at people and shy.

Well yes but not the hood-swearing, stormfront reading kind is my point

everyone else's point is that this image is not what "white supremacy" means in 2014

Well yes but not the hood-swearing, stormfront reading kind is my point

Yeah - I mean when any modern writer is talking about 'white supremacy' it's not about the klan, it's about a preference for whiteness that permeates society at every level

But the repurposing of the phrase 'white supremacy' was not by any means accidental

Xp Dan as I said I think most ilxors agree about this. My realization was just that a lot of people think in a narrow individualist way that prevents them from seeing these structures.

This is a couple years old (came out during the whole KONY thing) but I think relates to what is being discussed in more concrete ways: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/the-white-savior-industrial-complex/254843/

like, thinking about the ramifications of what exactly it means beyond abstractions abt systemic vs personal

k someone from my would be progressive church posted this shit from george takei's FB and i just want to make sure im not dreaming that this is not slam dunk transphobic/islamophobic/anti-black racist trifecta

https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/429256_363067520389374_284782731_n.jpg?oh=38903f9ddff74c245795240b952abde0&oe=54CB29BE&__gda__=1420787628_6a01a53ab475b5fadc3b8227f4f13f33

also wimmin, who be shoppin

YEAH

posted as "maybe not politically correct, but so funny"

which i mean...this stupid ass church already has a hard enough time with diversity as it is

This is a couple years old (came out during the whole KONY thing) but I think relates to what is being discussed in more concrete ways: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/the-white-savior-industrial-complex/254843/

like, thinking about the ramifications of what exactly it means beyond abstractions abt systemic vs personal

― deej loaf (D-40), Sunday, October 5, 2014 3:09 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

Good article

The White Savior Industrial Complex is a valve for releasing the unbearable pressures that build in a system built on pillage.

Perhaps a little glib but this also reminds me of Donald Sterling, i.e. something highly visible and easily condemnable that is easy to rally around

That is a great article Deej, thanks for sharing. It deserves to be read and re-read, it is indeed timeless. Cole's last paragraph says it all really, it's very prescient. Kony 2012 wasn't a success. It was a Facebook hit, not even more than that. It was the ten dollar bill donated to Haiti.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2014/10/05/how-tos/daughters-tell-stories-war-brides-despised-back-home-u-s/#.VDKgiSldWXg

Always knew that there was a War Brides Act but wasn't aware of the stigma

have we discussed this anywhere yet? http://s2smagazine.com/2014/10/06/raven-symone-im-not-african-american/

fwiw as a millennial i grew up believing that we were all aspiring to some post-racial color-blind utopia and to a large extent that's how i understand raven's statement. obv there's a backlash against this kind of race 'naivety' going on atm - like in that slate article dayo posted last week. i know there are more dramatic narratives of self-disavowal + shame that could be read here too.

I don’t need language.

O RLY

that's so raven

whew thought i'd need to read gawker comments to hear that joke - spared

I'm not interested in forcing any labels on her besides perhaps "narcissist"

have we discussed this anywhere yet? http://s2smagazine.com/2014/10/06/raven-symone-im-not-african-american/

― Mordy, Monday, October 6, 2014 2:53 PM (54 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fwiw as a millennial i grew up believing that we were all aspiring to some post-racial color-blind utopia and to a large extent that's how i understand raven's statement. obv there's a backlash against this kind of race 'naivety' going on atm - like in that slate article dayo posted last week. i know there are more dramatic narratives of self-disavowal + shame that could be read here too.

― Mordy, Monday, October 6, 2014 3:04 PM (42 minutes ago) Bookmark

I guess my reactions to this are twofold: (1) I'm not gonna question how she self-identifies and (2) If she is able to structure her community, society, and whole world that she interacts with in a way where race is never a factor for her, then she has my blessing and best of luck to her

you guys: http://www.whitenessproject.org

That is very interesting! Good design. Watched about a half dozen of those; I've heard variants on those conversations pretty much all my life so it's hard to tell whether or not these seem exceptional? the white=normal thing and the "i don't see color" trope seem the most pervasive sets of blinders.
tattooed girl's line of argument was something i wrestled with awkwardly in college, lil' embarrassing to hear it spat back now.

What's your neck say?

Yeah I'm skinny and effeminate and have long hair, 'twas a spectacularly misguided attempt at solidarity that led me down that road, so glad I wasn't *too* much of a prolific internet poster/interview subject when I was a teen. That said I can't imagine I would have actually said "people don't treat me like a white person," that shit's a bridge too far.

*worriedly searches posting history from early aughts*

xp "#notallwhitepeople"

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/09/-sp-north-carolina-teenager-suspicious-death-lennon-lacy

Warning: pretty rough story to get through

There was a similar incident in Texas a few years ago where a very suspicious death was also ruled a 'suicide'

That detail about the shoes really creeped me out

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/21/upward-mobility-race_n_6016154.html

New study from Brookings Institution finds that upward social mobility is much more achievable for poor white people than poor black people

Which is why when people say "It's a class thing it's not about race" I think inside my head "STFU"

The interesting thing about that from my anecdotal experience is that, depending on where you are and who you're dealing with, if you can make that mobility breakthrough you gain more power to exert control over the sphere in which you operate in, effectively reducing the amount of specifically personal racial nonsense you have to put with or notice. So, it's difficult to make that step but once you do, things get SO much better; it's one of the reasons I believe my life has been so ridiculously charmed (and my parents, while solidly upper middle-class, are a couple of notches below "rich" as understood by having the ability to have your baseline lifestyle defined by extravagance; there's no huge house, their cars are nice but they've owned them for well over a decade, they travel everywhere by car rather than by plane and stay with family whenever they can, etc etc; of course on the flip side my dad started a tiny vanity vinyard as a retirement project so maybe I'm delusional about how well off they are).

What's your neck say?

― pplains, Friday, October 10, 2014 8:47 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Imagine all the DWTs that "just as discriminated" person must have on her record!

One reason poor black people really have a hard time is that they often live in communities that no one truly cares about - I don't think institutions are encouraging their residents to "look upward" and who can blame them? Little to no faith is invested in those communities - literally. If you're not from those places, you don't visit there, don't shop there. It perpetuates the negativity.

Whereas poor whites can be found living in the low-income sections of otherwise middle-class communities.

Getting annoyed with people in my class peer group lately - they often shrug and say, "don't blame me, I voted for Obama." As if resisting Republican pressure tactics is worthy of a medal. We have to do better at viewing the poorest black people as OUR NEIGHBORS.

New study from Brookings Institution finds that upward social mobility is much more achievable for poor white people than poor black people

Which is why when people say "It's a class thing it's not about race" I think inside my head "STFU"

― 龜, Wednesday, October 22, 2014 11:15 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the social genome model they discuss in that study is really fascinating:

The model is structured as a series of regression equations in which outcomes in each life stage are treated as dependent on outcomes in all prior life stages, plus some more contemporaneous variables.

http://i.imgur.com/hcDu4YG.png?1

Whoa, that's fascinating.

I'm trying to figure out how you combine the probabilities, e.g. if you start at the "on track" birth stage, what's your overall probability of getting to "on track" adulthood.

Here we go...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B01QbhDCAAAhxQt.jpg

fuck

Joke's on them, their faces are stuck that way :)

fucking hell

Follow-up on the diversity stories from Silicon Valley:

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/new-numbers-reveal-asian-wage-gap-tech-n223196

Would like to see more detailed breakdown of the data, feel like AA #'s are high 1) because of H1B visa immigrants but 2) that keeps wages down

I...

http://instagram.com/p/uldv8WnPZD/?modal=true

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B04C1wjCMAAEPcw.jpg

definitely racist, though also the rare case where the inherent racism is maybe not the biggest problem with the thing

least fun internet game: what is most offensive?

rolling is this child abuse thread 2014

i posted this video on facebook earlier today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1XGPvbWn0A

in orbit had some good comments on it, which i hope she doesn't mind if i repost here:

...you will not be surprised to hear that I totally agree with you, but can I just say it is representative of Hollaback's general tone-deafness on racism that they sent a white woman around NYC where she gets harassed/stalked by mostly non-white men.

Maybe they think their audience IS mostly white women who, because they live and move in areas with a large non-white population, perceive that street harassment is something that happens in the presence of black and brown men? Nice that they added one line in the last screen that says "of all backgrounds" because we know that's really code for "I'M NOT RACIST, HONESTLY" which does not actually absolve them of furthering racist stereotypes.

(i thought i'd just move the discussion here rather than doing the epic facebook comments thing + risking intrusion from the pool of terrible random facebook acquaintances, and also so that other ilxors can weigh in if they want)

in the description of the video on the Hollaback website there's a little section that says "Like all forms of gender-based violence, street harassers fall evenly across lines of race and class. It is a longstanding myth that street harassment is a “cultural” thing, perpetrated mostly by men of color. We believe that street harassment is a “cultural” thing in the sense that it emerges from a culture of sexism — and unfortunately — that is everyone’s culture", but it's not in the Youtube description. and words like that ring hollow if they're posted under a video which contradicts them.

although i know enough about Hollaback to understand and support their goal of documenting harassers, i don't read it frequently and so if they have a history of tonedeafness on racism I haven't been aware of it. in orbit had some good posts on their history earlier in this thread (march 9 and 10) which helped me to understand why one would be skeptical about how they acknowledge race.

but i guess my questions are: do you think the entire idea of the video (documenting a woman getting harassed dozens of times in the course of a day) is flawed, and if not, how would you improve it? filming in a different (whiter) location? using a person of color as the subject rather than a white woman? Editing the footage so that the races of the harassers are more balanced?

i don't know, i guess i'm just torn because if the subject of the video lives in a area with a large POC population and as a result gets harassed by a lot of POC, isn't it her right to document her experience without editing it to be something that it's not? at the same time i understand that a video like this might have the effect, for some people, of perpetuating this idea that catcalling is more prevalent among POC...which brings me back to the question of whether it's better, on balance, for the video to exist at all. like is the education value of showing all of this harassment overshadowed by the perpetuation of a myth?

(also, obv i am a white dude commenting on catcalling, so i'm prepared for the possibility that i am way the fuck off, and if so i'd like to be schooled!)

admittedly as i initially watched the video i noticed that it was mainly POC doing the catcalling, but it didn't stand out to me as racist (again i am prepared for the possibility that i am severely wrong) because when i'm walking around with my gf in my neighborhood (97% POC) and somebody makes a comment or compliments me for my "good taste" or says "you better hold on to that ass" or whatever, it's inevitably a person of color because that's where we live. so the video above just looks like "normal" catcalling as i typically observe it. i understand how people living in areas with different demographics would see the video and be like o_O, and how, even worse, someone might view the video and come away with the wrong idea about race and catcalling.

but then again, how does a white person living in a heavily minority area go about documenting catcalling? and should groups like Hollaback refuse to show videos that are racially skewed, even if they accurately represent the experience of the subject of the video? it's just kind of a weird problem.

sorry for long posts.

No this is awesome! I totally want to talk about this! I'm just making some food right now so give me a sec.