Rolling 2014 Thread on Race

you broke the ice

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/07/1342840/--pointergate-may-be-the-most-racist-news-story-of-2014#

This is so bad

(KTSP, not the story)

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh586/TheDailyLike/tumblr_m5rs96B18h1ryn5npo1_500.gif

More followup on that KTSP story http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/07/mayor-betsy-hodges-gang-sign_n_6120650.html

white republicans on the internet have a surprising depth of knowledge of gang signs in 2014

we made it!

https://twitter.com/DLAGPrez/status/530727433776164865

creep tv reporter wasn't "fooled" by motivated police sources if he wanted to be fooled

https://twitter.com/webster/status/530602073255972864

always down for a S/W joke

https://twitter.com/NickHannula/status/530800149963243520

Lmao

I posted this story to Facebook and one of my douchebag conservative former coworkers posted "Damn Koch brothers!"

Oh goody, they're all taking the day off from casting aspersions on Somalis.

DJP can you make heads or tails of this, or is it "lol liberals"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/11/06/i-taught-my-black-kids-that-their-elite-upbringing-would-protect-them-from-discrimination-i-was-wrong/

― 龜, Friday, November 7, 2014 3:29 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This almost reads like bad satire of Boule black folk . For someone so well educated his outlook is impossibly naive and I struggle to believe he genuinely thought he could buy and affect his way out of racial prejudice.

1. There are so many black people at Ivy League like this, it's amazing.
2. Once you cross a certain economic threshold, particularly if you have an Ivy League degree to your name, you can exert enough influence on your social contexts (and sometimes your professional contexts as well) that you can remove 95% of the noticeable racial disparity from your everyday life.

Also re: the KSTP thing, I now know why it was my parents' least-favorite local news channel.

People's faith in capitalism is p much always misplaced

It did seem like he was playing a bit of the faux-naiïf or gilding the lily - like the original target publication for this was Princeton Alumni Weekly or w/e

Like I think he knew who his audience was before writing it

xp
1. Yeah I've got relatives like that but I guess they're odd in so many other ways that it doesn't really stick out as part of a noticeable trend plus other black ivy leaguers I know aren't that way at all.

2. Its not so much a racial disparity at play here; the privilege of elite education + money can allow you to bypass a lot of systemic discrimination, but this isn't so much about 'navigating a system'. Here he's referring to specific incidents of verbal abuse and an interposing consciousness of race in daily interactions. He taught his children they would never have to deal with any of that because of their privilege and good manners. "Racial abuse is something that happens to other black people not as good, decent and rich as us, who don't play by the rules." He has essentially instilled in his kids the the idea that racial abuse occurs as a direct response to things that black people do and not because racists are prejudiced and ignorant, and its amazing that dude doesn't seem to fully comprehend why this is so harmful even beyond his sons reaction to the ordeal.

The places where I experienced the worst verbal abuse and ignorant nonsense from white people were boarding schools in the US and UK so while I scoff at his father's convictions, I genuinely feel for his son and I can entirely relate to his insecurities as a young teen trying to temper his racial identity in an environment that can potentially be hostile towards it or misunderstand it. I remember times I bristled but held my tongue because I knew my anger wouldn't resonate with the pervading experience of those around me and I'd be viewed as a pariah. That being said I never felt compelled to understand or legitimize the logic and motivations of racists. My parents didn't necessarily go out of their way to instill in me a great sense of pride but they taught me not to take the existence of racism as cause to look inwards or alter our behaviour. to that end he has to see how he's doing his kids no favours. He struggles to explain abuse to his son not because its particularly complicated or mystifying but because he has willfully blinded himself to the dynamics of racial prejudice.

Also I refuse to believe that his mother actually put chicken and watermelon in his lunchbox when he was a kid. Its stuff like that throughout that makes the thing read like an ill considered but weirdly elaborate Onion article.

http://features.columbiaspectator.com/eye/2014/11/06/studying-while-black/

It would be a shame for that article to be ignored because of the awful, awful writing.

Wow you criticized a college student for their writing. You're fearless

Wow, you sure stuck it to The Man (me), my brother in fearlessness.

I only commented on the writing because the article is very, very difficult for me to read w/o rolling my eyes at the writing, and it is not a subject I want to roll my eyes at.

But you're right, Columbia isn't known for its journalism program, is it?

I think it's a curiously unengaging article given the subject matter but I don't have a particular issue with how it's written. I'm just fatigued by confirmation that being smart doesn't matter.

Yeah this piece and the Washington Post piece really drive home the fact that respectability politics is a shell game

I don't get what's so bad about the writing?

xxxp Oh okay.

ven in every mildly heartening, on-the-spot victory like Walker’s, many black students walk away with the distinct impression of a racist social system that extends beyond the confines of whatever words they exchange with a uniformed guard

Even when you win, you lose. It must be exhausting.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/11/navell-gordon-kstp_n_6141238.html

Navell Gordon from 'Pointergate'

Remember the argument we had last year about whether Kim Kardashian was white?

http://thegrio.com/2014/05/08/kim-kardashian-racism-baby-north/

Does lex even check this thread

the kardashians are white - just look at how popular their show is

― you are not a better writer than f. scott fitzgerald. you are not a b (k3vin k.), Wednesday, 22 May 2013 15:19 (1 year ago)

Not since the Dzhokar Tsarnaev argument, apparently.

The Kardashians are secret Muslims?

http://www.theawl.com/2014/11/serial-and-white-reporter-privilege

interesting to see a discussion like this take place in the comments of a well-heeled section of the awl rather than the typical easy targets

It gets worse. Also in the second episode of Serial, Koenig reads passages from Hae’s diary. Koenig notes, “Her diary, by the way—well I’m not exactly sure what I expected her diary to be like but—it’s such a teenage girls diary.” (My emphasis added.) This statement seems to suggest a colorblind ideal: In Koenig’s Baltimore, kids will be kids, regardless of race or background. But I imagine there are many listeners—especially amongst people of color—who pause and ask, “Wait, what did you expect her diary to be like?” or “Why do you feel the need to point out that a Korean teenage girl’s diary is just like a teenage girl’s diary?” and perhaps, most importantly, “Where does your model for ‘such a teenage girl’s diary’ come from?”

This is kind of a weird reading. Seems like she was saying "I read a murdered girl's diary and was surprised that it was just your standard teenage girl's diary. But then, what was I expecting?"

Yeah, that seems like a weird thing to pounce on.

I dunno, that's something you probably get more attuned to when you're not the norm, and people are always going around like "Your English is so good!" or whatever, all the time.

kind of a weird way to put it. i imagine many listeners would have thought that. okay. i agreed with other parts of the article while still thinking koenig did a decent job with this stuff but i interpret the diary comment to be like, wow, i'm reading stuff a dead person wrote, and it's just like a normal teenage girl.

Yeah, me too. But I'm open to being told that things that I don't see holding meaning can hold meaning for ppl whose experiences are different. Obv?

Haven't heard the podcast but I think he points out that it's the accumulation of little things like this, coupled with the judgment of Chaudry, the person who originally reached out to Koenig about the story, that Koenig is not coming at this story the right way

Agree that the examples he gave are sort of limp on their own (esp to someone who hasn't heard the podcast) and it's very possible that they ring more resonantly to someone who's familiar with the material + talked to Chaudry

word yeah i agree, maybe not the best example but kind of beside the pt.

full disclosure im a "fan" of JCK but I think he's done a nuanced take on this ... at some level i get some of the consternation in the comments bc its like, well, unfortunately not everyone can go to book-length detail on every reported story, and the problem is quite evidently at the level of hiring practices & opportunity throughout the system which isn't something an individual reporter can answer for; as a reporter, you have to be able to step out of your comfort zone bc its the nature of the job, a foreign correspondent is by definition an outsider ... that said i'm not sure how you operate a lever on those hiring practices without calling out examples of the drawbacks of predominantly white staff when u see them. alternately if the point is 'do better by your subjects' then obv that's something everyone can get behind but doesnt really answer the concern about diverse news rooms, or implies that knowledge/experience can 'make up' for a lack of diversity which is obv also not the case ...

idk, interesting subject / nb i have not listened to the podcast but it's been fun watching the responses as they mutate

There's def. something to be said about a white reporter trying to throw in doubt the verdict of a majority black jury and cast a bunch of guilty vibes at Jay, the black kid who testified against Adnan.

http://urltv.tv/nigga-please-a-response-to-piers-morgan-by-talib-kweli/

Good read.

Yes that is very good

That looks like a stolen content farm version. Original is here https://medium.com/cuepoint/nigga-please-93b5d29a615

good article +1

hmmm http://jaimegreen.net/post/102812521331/the-problem-with-the-problems-with-serial