Rolling 2014 Thread on Race

Thanks!

2 Mississippi women admit hate-crime role in running over, killing black man

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2014/12/2_mississippi_women_admit_hate.html

Anderson's death outside a Jackson hotel in 2011 sparked a broader investigation into reports that young white men and women were driving from mostly white Rankin County into majority-black Jackson to assault African-Americans.

Can't imagine why we heard less about this in 2011 than we've heard about "the knockout game."

ugh. i think there was some talk about this upthread a few months ago, but

Ruled a suicide, black teen’s hanging death in North Carolina raises specter of lynching

On Saturday, protesters marched through the heart of town to call for a thorough examination of what happened to Lennon Lacy, who was found hanging by two belts from a playground swing set near his home Aug. 29. The case had appeared to stall for months, but in recent days the demand for answers and suspicions that local authorities allowed the case to founder have grown. It was announced Friday that the FBI would look into the case.

“We know it was a hanging,” NAACP state chapter president the Rev. William Barber II said before Saturday’s march. “But the question is, ‘Was it self-inflicted? Was it a staged hanging? Or was it a hanging or lynching homicide?’"

...The state NAACP launched its own investigation, including hiring an independent pathologist to review the state’s examination. The NAACP said several details raised questions about how the police investigation was conducted and how the finding of suicide was reached. Lacy, who was to start a new high school football season the day he died, was found hanging from a black belt and blue belt tied together — items that his mother said she did not recognize as his. She also said the Nike shoes her son had been wearing were missing. The NAACP said he was found wearing unfamiliar sneakers two sizes too small.

Ten years for election fraud (mayoral recall)...no material evidence...all-white jury.

http://michigancitizen.com/rev-ed-pinkney-sentenced-to-maximum-10-years-in-prison/

Some things going right, for a change; some healing and power-building among young Black activists.

Black Brunch, they said, was not about grabbing the public by the throat, so much as nurturing solidarity from within. It was about taking the pain and suffering of so many wrongful deaths and airing them out, in the light of day, in plain view of those who can easily avert their gaze. It was about reclaiming a space and demanding that black voices cease to be ignored. And undeniably, it was about staying safe. "I'm of the belief that there is most definitely a place for property destruction — for raging and all that," said Wild Tigers, another Black Brunch organizer, graduate student, and longtime activist, "but the reality is that, as black people, it's very different for us to be out there on the streets smashing windows at Starbucks. Because, if I do that, I could get a bullet. For white people out there, doing that is a privilege."

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/news-media-ignores-black-protests/Content?oid=4145294

protests in berkeley/oakland that don't include violence won't make national news because 'protest happens in berkeley/oakland' is not actually a news story

'a bunch of yuppies who already agreed w/ the protesters on literally everything and who were having pizza at zachary's in oakland were slightly inconvenienced today'

In all frankness, having been involved with Global Justice actions, there are some types who make annoying, ignorant comments about the black community. They just didn't think black people did "that stuff". Which is shockingly ignorant of history, for one thing. I was a little upset that older activists didn't use their position to teach about the Civil Rights Movement, and how it is the godmother of all activist movements. They should teach it's role in the anti-Vietnam War movement, for starters.

http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/us/2014/12/18/pkg-breathe-easy-shirts-sale-soar.wndu.html

I really hate people

Indiana

this is a level of tastelessness i can't even comprehend

really? come on

you should comprehend it

I can comprehend it, I just hate it

what DJP said

i'll never get used to the mixture of snideness and paranoia in that older white woman saying she "doesn't feel like she has a voice in these things". always makes my blood boil.

The unexamined assumption that breaking the law gives the police carte blanche to kill you, REGARDLESS OF THE ACTUAL LAW YOU ARE BREAKING, is particularly enraging.

xp It's easier if you translate for her to "I refuse to live in a world where my viewpoint isn't the ONLY one represented. Challenges to my worldview may result in your death and I'm fine with that."

"easier"

I mean on a scale of "I'm so outraged that I can't comprehend how you and your viewpoint can even exist" to "I see what you did there."

I'm not sure if people are wearing that to be tasteless - I think they mean it.

How racist are you that you hope someone sees that on your chest?

They should go back to their confederate flag gear - no shortage of that in Eastern Indiana.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/black-boy-executed-s-conviction-overturned-article-1.2048611

that's the saddest picture

http://priceonomics.com/the-most-and-least-diverse-cities-in-america/
http://pix-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/867/diversity.png

It's easier if you translate for her to "I refuse to live in a world where my viewpoint isn't the ONLY one represented. Challenges to my worldview may result in your death and I'm fine with that."

― Orson Wellies (in orbit), Thursday, December 18, 2014 10:01 AM (Yesterday)

yeah, in a nutshell. also just crushed the braindead myopia of "obey the law" dude right after her. "if we all obey the law the law, always, without ever giving anyone even the slightest cause to think any law, however minor, even might have been broken, why then the police won't have to shoot hundreds, perhaps thousands of people a year. it's so simple!"

xps - not surprised but still smh @ portland. whiter than colorado springs ffs

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/11/science-of-racism-prejudice

Tom 3W1Ng points out the title is a bit click-baity but here's some of the science behind racial bias

some interesting self-tests on the site linked in that MJ article: http://www.understandingprejudice.org/index.php

not sure about the scientifically validity of the results, but diverting

Get ready to puke: Andrew Sullivan on The Bell Curve:

http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/12/22/excuse-me-mr-coates/

I realize that some people reading might not be American, or may have been very young when The Bell Curve came out.

Here is some background:

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/profiles/Charles-Murray

It discusses how Murray relied on the work of racist researchers.

When will Sullivan not be a thing anymore

I'm running out of "oy veys"

More on Sullivan's willful ignorance:

http://drx.typepad.com/psychotherapyblog/2011/11/andrew-sullivan-iq-research.html

He said IQ research was being "strangled" because of objections that it is racist.

I had a good course in anthropology in college, and the prof said it isn't even clear what IQ measures, other than that you were taught how to take a test. He also talked about "race" as a scientific concept and how anthropologists reject this. That class stuck with me, and I've been fascinated with these topics ever since. I mean the AEI supported Murray, and look how well-funded they are. That's what bothers me!

yeah Sullivan is basically a pseudoscientist afaic

There is a lot of good literature on the problems with IQ testing and the extent to which it measures kinds of thinking people are trained to do (as opposed to "pure innate ability"). For example I vaguely remember research done where they gave IQ tests to people in small, somewhat isolated farming villages in eastern europe or something along those lines, and there were certain aspects of the test that they just didn't comprehend because they had not been trained to do particular kinds of abstract thinking that we take for granted. An example I remember was something having to do with grouping objects by (abstract) category (shape, classification, etc.), whereas subjects would tend to group things by more real-world categories, like "I would take all these things with me on a journey."

A better response than Sullivan's:

http://fredrikdeboer.com/2014/12/22/whats-jeet-heer-afraid-of/

still think 'debating' the bell curve legitimates it in ways that are more insidious than Sully's defense of his 20-year-old tenure as TNR's editor.

still not particularly good though
he's painting the rejection due to being some kind of liberal fear of dangerous ideas but really do we really need to give the flat-earthers a podium?

xp yeah, "debating" it is nonsense

it isn't even clear what IQ measures, other than that you were taught how to take a test.

lol this has been my argument since, like, junior high school

I think like a lot of things it's possible we don't all have the same "ceiling" in how well we could possibly do on an IQ test, and some people may be able to learn the measured skills more easily/quickly than others, but it's also clear that it measures skills that can be learned and developed (whether from directly preparing a test or indirectly from other kinds of activities). Like, the first time I ever saw an IQ test, I had no idea what to do with those shapes you're supposed to mentally rotate, for example.

Coates: http://gawker.com/ta-nehisi-coates-responds-its-a-privilege-for-me-to-b-1674748746

still not particularly good though
he's painting the rejection due to being some kind of liberal fear of dangerous ideas but really do we really need to give the flat-earthers a podium?

At the time, publications further to the left dealt with it better: they discussed the funding and history of this shit.

I think TNR has always been rub, but when they did that, it hurt, what's more I think they know it did. This was during the "Culture Wars" when a lot of centrist types published stuff that essentially portrayed "minorities" - especially black people - as a pain in the ass and not worth paying attention to. TNR knowingly abused privilege in doing what they did, and the reasons were bad.

Jeet Heer has a good response in the comments of that DeBoer post:

http://fredrikdeboer.com/2014/12/22/whats-jeet-heer-afraid-of/#comment-79771

The thing is, mainstream publications were caught off-guard at the time : they were ill-prepared and ignorant. They didn't seem to know what The Pioneer Fund was, for example. It was irresponsible.

The Bell Curve received positive reviews in major newspapers and was taken seriously by Time and Newsweek.

Some of my favorite pieces were in Skeptic magazine, where they know the background and don't look like idiots when discussing science.

TNC is such a cool dude

this was my favorite part of deboer's piece, lol

The argument isn’t that this racial achievement gap isn’t real; if it wasn’t, then essentially the entire fields of educational testing, assessment, cognitive and developmental psychology, sociology, and psychometrics would be a massive racist conspiracy.

well...

(initially highlighted by tom scocca)

(freddie's post was good btw)

...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/25/business/for-recent-black-college-graduates-a-tougher-road-to-employment.html?_r=0

recent statistics show that, even among recent college graduates, there is an enormous gap in employment between blacks and whites. black recent graduates have unemployment rates twice the national overall average

About that far-right conference that Steve Scalise (R - Louisiana) spoke at:

http://cenlamar.com/2014/12/28/house-majority-whip-steve-scalise-was-reportedly-an-honored-guest-at-2002-international-white-supremacist-convention/