Race and Biology

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

Ridwan blogs:

Last year around this time Nobel Prize laureate, James Watson, shocked the scientific community with his ludicrous claim that race is a scientific category.

Watson, you may remember, won the Nobel Prize for his research that led (in part) to the ‘discovery’ of DNA.

So, it is October again. Now comes a report that Akhil Bakshi, a fellow of the prestigious Royal Geographic Society and celebrity photographer, is pushing the preposterous claim “that blacks, whites and Asians have different ape ancestors.”

The Exotifying Gaze

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

Johanna blogs:

I am really uncomfortable with how a lot of vegan cooking is described as “exotic” (to whom?). It assumes so much about the audience racially & culturally, & as well is loaded with really creepy connotations — the exotic is there to be conquered, mastered; it’s there purely to titillate your (white/Western/etc.) self (which also implies that white people have no culture — a convenient excuse used by people participating in cultural appropriation, but not actually true). It’s a “safe” way to imagine you’re experiencing other cultures without, you know, having to do that pesky thing known as actually engaging with the people whose cultures you’re attempting to eat via their food.

On Responsibility, Accountability and Values: The Process to Change

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

Asabagna blogs on white people and no longer expecting them to change a system that benefits them:

In regards to the eurocentric dominant culture, this has meant four things. One, I no longer felt any responsibility to be their teacher (and/or confessor… as a way for them to ease the angst of their white privilege) on the effects of white supremacy - eurocentric superiority thinking and practice on people of colour. Two, I had no desire for the material and/or societal trinkets which signifies “success” in their society. I could no longer be bought. My soul… beliefs, values and principles… are more important to me than to “gain the world”. Three, I don’t expect anything from white people. I don’t expect them to be fair. I don’t expect them to be just. I don’t expect them to be empathetic to my situation or to the struggles of people of African descent. I don’t expect them to take any sort of responsibility for their past, present or future behaviours. Finally, I care about all people… regardless of nationality, ethnicity, colour, religion, gender, age and sexual orientation… who are oppressed and/or taken advantage of. I don’t compare and rate oppressions on a scale. However with that being said, the issues concerning people of African descent are first and foremost in mind… because I am one of them… and what we need to do, not only to overcome to survive, but more importantly, to empower ourselves to live, is the core of my cause.

[Hat Tip: IllVox]

White by the Numbers

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

Tammerie, who is pursuing a dissertation on anti-racism and Christian theology, blogs:

By the numbers, white people still hold a preponderance of the positions that count, out of proportion to our presence in the population, from which I would argue we are able to maintain white-privileging control over the systems and institutions that shape our society, including business, legislative and judicial systems, property sales and management, education and health care. (Note that the percentages of non-white, non-male legislators was considered too small to be tabulated.)

Of course, not all white people are employed in positions that afford economic power and privilege. Whites represented 44 percent of the 37 million U.S. citizens living below the poverty line in 2006. The (historically constructed) sad thing about that is that most of the white people living in poverty think they have more in common with wealthy white people than they do people of color also dealing with poverty. And that keeps folks from banding together and working together to insist on change in an unjust reality.

Obama and the White Vote

Cross-posted from Double Consciousness.

I’m obviously not an Obama fan, I’m a Cynthia McKinney fan. To me, the only change Obama represents is a change in policy of the bourgois; no more no less. Bourgois change is not real change. But, Tim Wise has a great article on Obama’s candicy in where he says:

If, in order to be elected, a man of color has to pander to white folks, in ways that no white politician would ever have to do to people who were black or brown, then white privilege and white power remain operative realities.

[Hat Tip: Racialicious via Barry]

Regular folks = White people?

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

Eric Stoller blogs:

According to Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s Hardball, “regular folks” = “white folks”. Chris Matthews isn’t even trying to be covert anymore. He’s just outright saying that whiteness is “regular”. Unbelievable. The stench of white privilege is emanating from the video. Whiteness is “regular”. Whiteness is “normal“. That’s what he’s saying.

Reconsidering Brokeback

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

Marisol Lebron, over at the blog post pomo nuyorican homo, blogs about Brokeback Moutain (in retrospect of Heith Ledger and the latest Batman film):

I confessed that I actually owned the film on DVD and enjoyed it quite a bit when I first saw it. I still think that the film has some of the most breathtaking cinematography I have seen in a long time. What I hated about Brokeback was the hyped up mainstream celebration of the film and the lack of critical race and sexuality analysis. For me, seeing the film in a theater packed with gay white men in Chelsea, I noticed the film became a collective moment for the predominantly Anglo audience to share their despair at the fact that there was no happy ending for the two white male protagonists.

Esther Ku Not Funny

Cross-posted from Double Consciousness.

Offensive, sure, but not funny. The only people who think she’s funny is white folks who feel good when they hear their racist humor spouted back at them by an Asian person and feel vindicated in not being racist.

Sunny Vergara, a former Asian American Studies professor at SF State and whom I’ve had the privilege to hang with on a few occasions writes this in the American Pop section of Asian Week…(Read More)

BrownFemiPower: Fighting through the Confusion of Anger

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

BrownFemiPower blogs:

I’ve seen with my own two eyes right on this blog exactly how productive conversations with white women can be. I’ve seen incredible love and support and questions and challenges and answers and gotten insane amounts of help from white women.

I’ve also seen right on this blog (and in blog land in general) exactly how unproductive conversations with white women can be. I mean, how many times will radical women of color organizers be called “intersectionalists” before somebody finally figures it out?

Risking it All to Find Safety

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

Ann blogs:

When many people think of queer youth, the image of white boys and girls comes to mind. The voices of black and brown queer youth are silenced; the faces of black and brown queer youth are invisible. Black and brown queer youth are desparately seeking their own space to love—-and be loved. To be accepted and not marginalised; to be respected, not rejected. To be understood. Not hated, not feared. They are cultural refugees, wandering, searching, longing for an indentity and yearning to belong.

Furror Over New Yorker Cover

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

ShineThePath blogs on the latest controversy involing the Obama campaing and the New Yorker:

So why has the The New Yorkers’ cover art coming under heavy criticism when it simply is poking fun at all the right-wing racist attacks against the Obamas? Attacks which the Obama campaign had to create their own website to defend themselves from the campaign. They’ve had to tell you his father wasn’t a Muslim, he was an Atheist. That he, himself, didn’t go to a Madrassa. He threw his pastor under the boss for the sake of appearance, had to to denounce Louis Farrakhan, had to tell Black fathers in Bill Cosby-esque “get-your-shit-together” patriarchal uncle tom tone to be personally responsible just to seek the approval of white America. The reason why the Obama camp is trying to squash The New Yorker cover article is to really get rid of race from the agenda of discussion in this campaign altogether. Obama doesn’t want race brought up, and he sees it as only a harmful element in his campaign. So rather than dealing with race and white supremacy, he has only talked about a post-racial society.

[Hat Tip: Mike E.]

White privilege in fantasy fiction and gaming

Originally posted on The Blog and the Bullet.

saxifrage00 blogs about white privilege in gaming and gives us some links on white privilege, gaming, and the fantasy realm:

Being White, I have the dubious privilege to be able to ignore race in my roleplay gaming and my fantasy fiction. It’s a dubious privilege because it’s one that is impossible to ever fully decline. That’s not to say “poor white me boo hoo”—rather, the only moral response is to decline the privilege at every opportunity. The pervasiveness of White privilege is such that I can never catch every instance, and when I do I won’t always know what I can do to reject it. The key is staying aware of the taint that filters my culture, looking for the chance to resist, and learning more about the reality that is discarded by those filters.

On that last point, some edifying links.

Racial Makeup, Neighborhoods, and White Fear

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

Macon D blogs:

What C was feeling, without quite realizing what it was, was a collective white fear of and disdain for the neighborhood and, especially, for the people living there. This common white attitude toward largely non-white neighborhoods was pressuring her in ways that she hadn’t realized were really about race, and racism.

Freedom and Labor in Latina/o USA

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

Profe, of LatinoLikeMe.com, blogs on democracy, freedom, and labor:

It is through this process of analysis that I make sense of the daily experiences of immigrant labor in this nation. When I say this, I do not only mean undocumented labor. The Southern Poverty Law Center provides a beautifully-detailed report on legal guestworker programs in place in the United States. “Close to Slavery” is a reminder of the brutal ways a government’s protection of the “rights” of an elite group of business interests–in the name of free market capitalism–sacrifices the humanity of hundreds of thousands of others.

My Black Friend

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

Renee blogs:

How much longer do white people believe they can use the I have a “black friend” card to cover their clearly racist behaviour? I would like to know the name of the black kid that goes around befriending racists so that I can smack him. Really though, I think I have finally figured out the mystery of the black friend…he/she is imaginary aren’t they? …Yep, your “pretend buddy” that you can whip out every time the word racist is thrown your way.