Wes Anderson and the movies he makes
Wes Anderson and the movies he makes are racist. Point. Point. Counterpoint. Reminds me of the hubbub about the alleged racism in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation.
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kottke.org posts about racism
Louisiana pastor Eddie Thompson feels that the
Louisiana pastor Eddie Thompson feels that the media and activists have gotten the story wrong about the Jena Six. In this article, he attempts to correct some of the misconceptions and erroneous statements made about the case.
The actions of the three white students who hung the nooses demonstrate prejudice and bigotry. However, they were not just given “two days suspension” as reported by national news agencies. After first being expelled, then upon appeal, being allowed to re-enter the school system, they were sent to an alternative school, off-campus, for an extended period of time. They underwent investigations by Federal and Sate authorities. They were given psychological evaluations. Even when they were eventually allowed back on campus they were not allowed to be a part of the general population for weeks.
(thx, james)
The story of the Jena Six reveals
The story of the Jena Six reveals only a small part of the discrimination in the American justice system.
The Sentencing Project, a research and advocacy group, released a state-by-state study of prison populations that identified where blacks endured the highest rates of incarceration. The top four states were South Dakota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Vermont; the top ten included Utah, Montana, and Colorado — not places renowned for their African-American subcultures. In the United States today, driving while black — or shoplifting while black, or taking illegal drugs, or hitting schoolmates — often carries the greatest risk of incarceration, in comparison to the risk faced by whites, in states where people of color are rare, including a few states that are liberal, prosperous, and not a little self-satisfied. Ex-slave states that are relatively poor and have large African-American populations, such as Louisiana, display less racial disparity.
The story behind an iconic photo
The story behind an iconic photo of Elizabeth Ekford, one of the Little Rock Nine on her way to the newly desegregated Central High School. Oddly, she became friends with the white girl in the photograph who yelled “Go home, n***er! Go back to Africa!” at her. Even stranger is the fact that Central High is *still* segregated, more or less:
Central High School looks as imposing as ever, but over the past 50 years, its innards have changed unimaginably: the school is now more than half black. It’s all misleading, of course, because Central is really two different schools, separate and unequal, under one roof. The blacks go to different classes, sit on separate sides of the cafeteria, have different, and far lower, levels of performance and expectations.
The case of the Jena 6 is finally
The case of the Jena 6 is finally starting to get national attention. Buzzfeed has a nice collection of links to the coverage.
From the abstract of a new paper
Surprisingly, we find few tangible social or political impacts of the Klan. There is little evidence that the Klan had an effect on black or foreign born residential mobility, or on lynching patterns. Historians have argued that the Klan was successful in getting candidates they favored elected. Statistical analysis, however, suggests that any direct impact of the Klan was likely to be small. Furthermore, those who were elected had little discernible effect on legislation passed.
The full paper is available on Fryer’s web site. (via mr)
“In September 2006, a group of African American
“In September 2006, a group of African American high school students in Jena, Louisiana, asked the school for permission to sit beneath a ‘whites only’ shade tree. There was an unwritten rule that blacks couldn’t sit beneath the tree. The school said they didn’t care where students sat. The next day, students arrived at school to see three nooses (in school colors) hanging from the tree.” Read more about the Jena 6 at While Seated and BBC News.
Uncle Ben has been promoted to chairman
Uncle Ben has been promoted to chairman of his rice company. “[The new ads are] asking us to make the leap from Uncle Ben being someone who looks like a butler to overnight being a chairman of the board.” (via designobserver)
Lots of discussion online about this Garrison
Lots of discussion online about this Garrison Keillor piece in Salon where he seems to assert that gay parents shouldn’t be flamboyant and immigrants, while siring lovely children, don’t hold a candle to the white cowboys riding the plains. More than anything, this piece just confuses me…is he being truthful about his opinions or is he taking a less-than-successful swipe at himself and his outdated views? I can’t really tell…more than anything, it seems poorly written.
Following three recent racial incidents (Michael Richards,
Following three recent racial incidents (Michael Richards, Michael Irvin, and Mel Gibson), Malcolm Gladwell considers a possible spectrum of racial remarks.
More on Big Mike
Over the weekend, my thoughts kept returning to Michael Lewis’ story about Michael Oher, a former homeless kid who may soon be headed for a sizeable NFL paycheck. Checking around online for reaction reveals a wide range of responses to the story. Uplifting sports story was the most common reaction, while others found it disturbing (my initial reaction), with one or two folks even accusing Lewis and the Times of overt racism. While Lewis left the story intentionally open-ended (that is, he didn’t attempt to present any explicit lessons in the text itself), I believe he meant for us to find the story disturbing (or at least thought-provoking).
Just look at the way Lewis tells Oher’s story. Oher is never directly quoted; it’s unclear if he was even interviewed for this piece (although it’s possible he was for another part of the book). Instead he is spoken about and for by his coaches, teachers, and new family…and as much as the article focuses on him, we don’t get a sense of who Oher really is or what he wants out of life. (An exception is the great “put him on the bus” story near the end.) He’s playing football, was adopted by a rich, white family, graduated from high school, and is attending college, but all that was decided for him and we never learn what Oher wants. Religion is referred to as a driving factor in his adopted family’s efforts to help him. Again, no choice there…not even his family or school had any say in the matter, God told them they *had* to save this kid.
Then there’s the sports angle, the parallels between Oher’s lack of control over his own life and how professional athletes, many from poor economic backgrounds, are treated by their respective teams, leagues, owners, and fans. At one point, Lewis compares Oher’s lack of enthusiasm for football’s aggression to that of Ferdinand the Bull, a veiled reference to the perception of the professional athlete as an animal whose worth is measured in how big, strong, and fast he is.
So what you’ve got is a story about rich white people from the American South using religion to justify taking a potentially valuable black man from his natural environment and deciding the course of his life for him. Sound familiar? Perhaps I’m being a little melodramatic, but this can’t just be an accident on Lewis’ part. As I see it, Oher is Lewis’ “blank slate” in a parable of contemporary America, a one-dimensional character representing black America who is, depending on your perspective, either manipulated, exploited, or saved by white America. Not that it’s bad that Oher has a home, an education, and a family who obviously cares about him, but does the outcome justify the means? And could Oher even have contributed significantly to his direction in life when all this was happening? Who are we to meddle in another person’s life so completely? Conversely, who are we to stand idly by when there are people who need help and we have the means to help them?
I’m not saying Lewis’ story has any of the answers to these questions, but I would suggest that in a country where racial differences still matter and the economic gap between the rich and poor is growing, this is more than just an uplifting sports story.
A Pocket Guide to China, distributed to
A Pocket Guide to China, distributed to US troops during WWII, included a helpful cartoon called How to Spot a Jap, useful for telling enemy soldiers apart from “our Oriental allies”, the Chinese. See also All Look Same. (thx, tabs)
Nice little history of Warren Moon, the
Nice little history of Warren Moon, the NFL’s first prominent black quarterback, on the occasion of his induction into the NFL Hall of Fame. (via a.whole)
The Zidane headbutt
The Daily Mail, with corroboration from the Times, has some information on what Marco Materazzi said to Zinedine Zidane to provoke the latter’s career ending headbutt in the 2006 World Cup final (more info on that here). They both hired lip readers to decipher Materazzi’s dialogue before the incident and this is allegedly what he said (translated from the Italian):
Hold on, wait, that one’s not for a n***er like you.
We all know you are the son of a terrorist whore.
So just fuck off.
So it might be fair to say that Materazzi got what he deserved, as did Zidane when he got sent off. Not that two wrongs make a right. Even so, I agree with these thoughts from That’s How It Happened:
[Zidane’s] willingness to headbutt Materazzi makes him more of a hero, not less. Admittedly, since France went on to lose, he’s something of a tragic hero, but a hero none-the-less. If someone insulted my race, or my religion (if I had one), I wish I’d be as ready to attack them, no matter what the circumstances. Zidane’s action highlights for the world the fact that the racial unity of France is more important than winning the World Cup.
If the lip reader is correct in what Materazzi said, I may like Zidane even more than I did before the match. (via wikipedia)
Update: Eurosport has a statement from Materazzi:
I held his shirt for a few seconds only, he turned to me, looked at me from top to bottom with utmost arrogance (and said): “if you really want my shirt, I’ll give it to you afterwards”. I answered him with an insult.
(thx, blythe)
Update: Several UK newspapers enlisted lip readers to determine what Materazzi said and ended up with many different accounts. Lip reading + language translation = unreliable. (thx, luke)
Jay-Z is banning Cristal champagne in his
Jay-Z is banning Cristal champagne in his clubs after some “racist” comments by the champagne house’s managing director in The Economist. I think Jay-Z is confusing race with culture here; I can’t imagine two cultures that are more different from each other than American hip hop and French champagne production. Despite his hesitancy about discussing a culture unfamiliar to him, I thought the director essentially said that they aren’t worried about the bling lifestyle association because it’s ultimately good for business. (via bb)
Clip of Dj Spooky’s “Rebirth of a
Clip of Dj Spooky’s “Rebirth of a Nation”, a remix of D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation” adapted from a Ku Klux Klan propaganda piece.
Racial disparities in tipping taxi drivers
Racial disparities in tipping taxi drivers. African-American drivers were tipped 1/3 less than white drivers and African-American passengers tipped 50% less than white passengers.
The anti-white racism of the NBA
The anti-white racism of the NBA. “The NBA is not a league for black, white, red, blue, or green people. It is a league for winners.”
Ben Wallace, superstardom, selling out, and race in sports
Ben Wallace, superstardom, selling out, and race in sports. “As racist as it really is, the fact that white people can walk around the Palace in fake black Afro wigs without black folks taking offense is a testament to the power of racial ‘go beyond’ that he has single-handedly generated.”
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