Rolling 2014 Thread on Race

(and as suggested by the truman capote ref i'm not suggesting that the enjoyment of true crime as popcorn is new or something i'm above - just that this new twist on it isn't one i'm excited to get it on)

xxpost ha ha I wish there was going to be a narrative climax.

For real, there were some questionables in the episode last week, where she made a black juror seem like a dupe, and there was all this "Jay was black...but he listened to Rage Against the Machine!" type stuff.

i accept that there are some issues with this thing and i hate arguing against it but the black juror is a bad example too! i cringed most at "jay plays lacrosse" because it was only surprising to her because he's black and also a sign of not understanding baltimore as something i didn't understand when i moved here is black people play lacrosse.

or i should say before i moved here

like this quote from ira glass "We want to give you the same experience you get from a great HBO or Netflix series, where you get caught up with the characters and the thing unfolds week after week, but with a true story, and no pictures. Like House of Cards, but you can enjoy it while you're driving." is it any surprise that people who proudly think like this might also show some cultural insensitivity as well?

even the lacrosse detail could be read as "this complex dude central to this story was a stoner drug dealer but he was also a jock"

It could be read that way but the racial aspect comes across much more strongly imo (just going from what's been posted)

they've got at least 4 episodes to go and i'd imagine at least one or two of those are still being worked on; it would be cool if they devoted one (or a post-script episode) to the meta narrative surrounding the show imo

I didn't know there were a lot of black lacrosse players in Baltimore, doubt most people here did. I mean it's a pretty notoriously white-heavy sport nationally. I am sort of agreeing with Beyerstein on this -- "problematic" is starting to feel like this lazy, cheap word we can throw around when we don't quite want to commit to saying something has serious racial issues but we still want to blog, like a way of scoring internet points for noticing things. What is the point here? If it's that NPR is too white, and that more non-white people need to bring their perspectives to all this reporting, I completely agree! But that's a broader NPR problem. Is the reporting in serial "problematic" in a way that's actually harmful or is it just sort of benignly "problematic" and if it's the latter I kind of shrug at it. If it's really "problematic" then commit to it, explain what's actually problematic about it. If the show as a whole is actually presenting a narrative that gets things wrong in a significant way or that perpetuates harmful ideas about black people or asians or pakistanis or whatever then explain that, but all this "zomg she was surprised that he played lacrosse" stuff feels like pointless gotcha.

i didn't either and don't expect people to but this is a former sun reporter, it just seemed kind of weird. it wasn't meant to be a gotcha though i would accept it would be pointless. thanks though.

i actually felt it was a good example of her lack of sensitivity in that she pointed out all these things about jay as if they were surprising to her, unlike the hae's diary thing which was a totally weak example. i didn't write an article on the awl about it so i'm not sure why you are singling that out.

If the first article had made more people be like Hey maybe I don't understand other people's experiences, I'll take this under consideration, then we wouldn't have 10 thinkpieces about it. What might look to the casual reader like a point-scoring back-and-forth comes out of seriously lazy pushback that basically said, "If you have a problem with the racial lens of this product you're not the target audience." Which kind of proves the first point.

that's the problem though. the first article wasn't that amazing. what if you do take it into consideration and do have a problem with the racial lens of most everything on public radio but you just don't think the thinkpieces are that good. am i part of the problem or part of the solution \(o_o)/

the important thing to remember is that none of this matters. even a little bit.

i think people aren't actually reading JCK's original post

which, btw, never actually uses the word 'problematic'

that's the problem though. the first article wasn't that amazing. what if you do take it into consideration and do have a problem with the racial lens of most everything on public radio but you just don't think the thinkpieces are that good. am i part of the problem or part of the solution \(o_o)/

― flatizza (harbl), Wednesday, November 19, 2014 9:06 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it did seem like the first piece was basically attacking a pillar of how journalism is conducted right now, so it does kind of feel like it's trying to pull the rug up from under you

but i don't know that using Serial as an example is a bad way to make a point just because its true of many other places as well!

The character of Bunk Moreland on the Wire played lacrosse in high school! It comes up in multiple episodes!

Everybody plays fucking lacrosse in parts of Maryland, and not knowing that is culturally ignorant, and expressing surprise that a person of color plays lacrosse adds racism to cultural ignorance. This is NPR.

Bunk Moreland definitely played lacrosse in high school, but don't he and Omar have a laugh at one point about how rare it was for a black kid to play lacrosse?

Found it:

"You was the first brother I ever seen play that sport with a stick. What's it called?"

"Lacrosse, man," Bunk answers. "Prep-school boys used to wet themselves when they'd see old Bunk coming at them."

In Season 2 he came to the detail office wearing his lacrosse sweatshirt and sweatpants, and it was discussed then as well.

i don't feel that that portion of the wire was accurate as it is not rare and no one in maryland would say "that sport with a stick" but anyway this is the most otm post in this thread

the important thing to remember is that none of this matters. even a little bit.

― a total laugh package (s.clover), Wednesday, November 19, 2014 10:27 PM (Yesterday)

fwiw I finally listened to the first ep last night thanks to this thread. Pretty good. Def a trace of that well-meaning-but-sheltered-white-lady thing that you get in a lot of NPR programming, but not to the extent that I thought it harmed the reporting or story. Ultimately I thought that was outweighed by the ways in which the story very much avoids and confounds the *black urban high school* and *immigrant muslim family* tropes you get in a lot of media, including even elsewhere on NPR.

er maybe more suburban high school, wasn't really clear on the geography from the first episode and don't know baltimore too well

Woodlawn is kinda straddling the city/county line.

The trippiest thing for me about this story is that I grew up in Baltimore County and knew people in Woodlawn, plus a lot of the landmarks are familiar. Some of the referenced businesses are places where I shopped, so I'm like "was I served by characters in this story at some point?"

I don't remember if there was a phone booth at Best Buy. BUT...

(Bmore people help me here) Was there a phone booth on the main road leading to Best Buy, near the bus stop, near McDonald's? In my memory there was.

feel free to ignore this bit of small-time twitter racist ugliness, but i wanted to express some admiration for the iron calm of florida tv reporter Tammie Fields:

https://twitter.com/tammiefields/status/535522913013997568

lol @ "open season on whites in America"

jesus...

also, the brass balls of saying 'open season on whites in america' in literally the same breath as mentioning ferguson, where an unarmed black man was shot dead by police.

he meant "open season on [accountability for] white in america", which isn't even happening

whoa, what a dick.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDK4Wzy9oIg#

Some good talk about the overuse of 'white privilege' at the ~10:00

Reminded me of why I wasn't really feeling JCK's original piece, or at least the part about 'white reporter privilege'

if you mean it was a rhetorical failing, maybe you're right, but i think his piece overall is describing a complex system and isn't using 'white privilege' in a lazy way

that was an all around enjoyable podcast, though

Chaudry clarifies her comments in the JCK case

http://www.refinery29.com/2014/11/78161/rabia-chaudry-serial-adnan-syed

"Honestly, that piece in The Awl...If I had known that was the angle I would not have interviewed with him. That’s not what I meant when I spoke with him. We all come with certain privilege, that doesn't make you a manipulative or malicious person. To me, that’s not a condemnation of Sarah. It just means she’s a white woman. She put more time and energy and nights away from her family into this case than other Muslim Pakistanis who just walked away.

"As far as the descriptions of Jay, she used his friends' language and quotes in describing him. That’s not Sarah’s language. People can say 'I read a piece that was a very stereotypical of an urban black boy,' but these are the facts. No one is making that up. If that’s how his friends remembered him, then that’s how it is. Sarah didn’t come away with that impression when she met him. She said he was gentle and polite. I don’t agree with these criticisms. The fact that the Serial team is all white means that maybe they won’t quite get some things about Korean culture or our [Muslim] culture, but so what? Then we explain it."

I mean, made to JCK for that Awl piece

I think I agree with this Jeff Yang take:

http://qz.com/300476/serial-can-actually-teach-white-people-how-to-talk-about-race/

Which is why Koenig’s approach actually offers up a valuable lesson for other journalists covering communities to which they do not belong. You may take issue with her sensitivity, or with the effort she makes to immerse herself. What you can’t challenge, however, is the level of transparency she provides regarding her blinkered perspective.

Contrast her befuddled candor with the spectacle we regularly see of television reporters parachuted into erupting hotspots in the Middle East or Africa or Asia—or Ferguson, Missouri—and gravely giving “authoritative” standups, expecting us to accept their instant analysis about the intensely complicated events unfurling around them.

In that light, Koenig’s openness about her cultural ignorance makes her a model by comparison… and not just for white journalists. In listening to the series, I’m finding myself forced to confront a lot of preconceptions and biases I personally have about teenagers of color and about immigrant families and communities—ones that I probably wouldn’t think through as closely if the podcast weren’t being hosted by an oblivious white reporter.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2014/11/17/363841262/is-beauty-in-the-eye-lid-of-the-beholder?sc=17&f=3
http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2014/11/18/364670361/the-many-stories-behind-the-double-eyelid-surgery

Two part series on double-eyelid surgery

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/11/14/as-chinas-adoptees-return-home-a-new-genre-tells-their-tales/

Had no idea that the number of Chinese adoptees since 1990 was 120,000

just found this in an unrelated search and have spent too long browsing through 70s and 80s edition

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SWzJ_3S6MmkC

read this book review & thought it might interest ilx:
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2014/12/empire_of_cotton_a_global_history_by_sven_beckert_is_a_great_history_of.html

Well, Serial today is certainly...thought-provoking.

Seriously, this is probably the right week for this episode to come out and get discussed in public.

looking forward to getting around to that tonight -- there was just a news story about him getting a new appeal (ineffective assistance of counsel based on failure to seek out the alibi witness)

SK basically shoots down the basis for that appeal in this episode--also about 20 minutes on anti-Muslim bias

aw man, spoiler!!!

For real though it sounds like quite a longshot from what I know about ineffective assistance appeals. And I never thought the alibi story itself was that strong in light of other evidence.

More opinion than spoiler

http://www.buzzfeed.com/durgachewbose/finding-myself-in-the-first-person

Good stuff here

http://www.theroot.com/blogs/the_grapevine/2014/12/strange_fruit_pr_firm_vanishes_after_getting_a_history_lesson_from_twitter.html

Wow. That is mind-boggling.