Rolling 2014 Thread on Race

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.

I mean... what

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

Good stuff here

― 龜, Monday, 8 December 2014 14:17 (5 hours ago) Permalink

There a certain reverent tone in articles like this that make them incredibly difficult to get through

Strange Fruit was also the name of John Peel's record label for 18 years, of course. Presumably chosen on a similar rationale that the records were outside of the mainstream.

omg @ strange fruit pr

great pr there ladies

My name...is a cloud...over which the rainbow...of white mouths...mispronounce...the leprechaun...of my innocence

Xxp

Serious question (before I'm blamed for being the foreign guy judging the US again): are the civil rights movement, Jim Crow laws, Emmett Till et al on the standard curriculum in primary or secondary education all across the US? I mean, is it even possible to not know what 'strange fruit' refers to once you get out secondary school?

I can't remember if the song "Strange Fruit" was ever discussed in my history classes.

On a certain level, public education in America is certainly to blame for instances of ignorance such as this (and for many, many more problems besides).

I can see that, but the rest? The lynchings etc? Is that on the curriculum nation wide, or does it still depend on the state you're in? Xp

Not sure if I want to blame education, just wondering if it's an accepted, integral part of education. As it should be imho.

I'm being charitable enough towards the owners of this firm to assume that the question in this situation is: why would you use an established phrase as the name for your company when you clearly didn't know what it meant and you clearly spent no time researching its meaning/origin?

I did not learn the reference until I got a Billie Holiday record in my mid-20s. Had only heard of the record label.

I went to enough different public schools (13) to say definitively that the quality and content of public education varies wildly from school to school.

I think it's safe to say that that particular song is not part of any standardized curriculum in US schools

But are the lynchings and JC laws etc?

Idk how you can name your company something without having Google image searched it first.

yes. xpost