Sep

23

Everybody Hates Chris–Review

Filed Under Original Essays and Analysis, Pop Culture, Reviews-Books Movies TV Albums, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

So I saw the first episode of Chris Rock’s new TV show Everybody Hates Chris on UPN. This is the second time I have seen the show; the first time I thought I was seeing the highlights from the entire season, but in reality it was the first episode. The show is set in New York City in the 1980s, and it is basically the a semi-autobiographical account of Chris Rock’s childhood.

The show has been well received by reviewers, and I agree. It is a great show. The show is great at capturing the ethos of the Hip Hop Generation. I’m reminded of Mark Anthony Neal’s analysis of Rock inSoul Babies where he argued that Rock’s comedy was emblematic of the “post soul aesthetic.” Rock is bold, and his sarcaism makes great social commentary. He does a great job highlighting the differences between the Civil Rights generation of African Americans and the Hip Hop Generation. This is highlighted when Chris goes to a predominantly White school in another neighborhood. He struggles with fitting in in a way that only those of us in the post integration era can, and Chris notes that he can’t share the pain of being beat up and bullied as his White school because his father went through the Civil Rights Movement where “Black people were bitten by dogs and sprayed with hoses.” Rock’s show portrays racism and classism in a humorous but biting way. This is not the Cosby Show; it unapologetically working class and racism concious. In the show, his father calculates the cost of everything down to the penny–the spilled milk is 49 cents and the electric is 2 cents an hour. Even the more serious racism that the show addresses–like when the Whites won’t sit next to 13 year old Chris on the bus– is handled in a way that is critical but hilarious. Although the show is very race, class, and generation specific, it also universal. The sibling rivalry, the parental conflicts, and even being the victim of the school bully have universal qualities that can attract people of all ages, generations, races, and classes.

Perhaps my age and my sociological interests make me a little biased, but it is difficult to watch the show without “laughing at” and “empathizing with” Chris and his family.

The show airs Thursday at 8PM on UPN.

Sep

6

Pt 3 The Codependent Relationship of Race and Class in the Aftermath of Katrina

Filed Under Black/African American Issues, Class Classism and Economic Inequality, Hurricane Katrina, Race and Racism, Sociology, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

(Not yet Proofread and really longsorry in advance. LOL!)
In the first part of this series I laid out the basic sociological definitions of race and class and talked a little about how they are different.? Then in the second section I discussed the importance ways that racism affected how people understood this tragedy.? In this blog I want to address the intricate connection between race and class.?

In the aftermath of Katrina the question keeps coming up–Why are the African Americans in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama so poor?? A strong sociological analysis shows that the persistent poverty in many of American predominantly Black communities is not about personal shortcomings or a culture of poverty that perpetuates itself; it is about structured racism.? Although neoconservatives would have us believe it is about lack of moral values, laziness, or nihilism, this is mere a faade that avoids the real problem.?

We no longer have Jim Crow racism where Black people are legally relegated to poverty; instead we have modern racism.? Contemporary racism involves several elements.? First, we have an increasingly covert racial discourse (See Eduardo Bonilla Silva for this) where people profess colorblindness and equality publicly, but privately maintain many beliefs from the past (note how racist people were in the previous post when they could hide behind the anonymity of Craigslist).? Second, we have rugged individualism, which leads us to belief that it is the personal shortcomings of African Americans that has lead to greater poverty and lower wealth.? A third element of modern racism is its invisibility to most people.? The mechanisms of modern racism are largely institutionalized; it is so deeply rooted in our families, schools, churches, governments, media outlets, and economic systems that most (even those in the minority) do not know it is there.? What also remains invisible to most of us is Whiteness (See Peggy McIntoshs famous essay); most Whites feel raceless, and most of us tend to see racism as Black peoples problem and not our own.? Notice that no one is saying, Why are Whites in New Orleans wealthier than Blacks?? The superficial colorblindness and the institutionalization of racism allows most Whites and some African Americans to downplay the reality of racism and the economic inequality it creates.

I think there are several keys to understanding the racial wealth and poverty gaps, and numerous sociologists have addressed them (I will reference them in the text).? Keep in mind that federal statistics indicate that most African Americans do not live in poverty.? However, they are more likely than their White counterparts to live in povertythe figures are 19% and 7% in the 2000 Census.? Looking at income doesnt give us the full story because even Blacks and Whites with similar incomes do not have the same amount of wealth (property, stocks, etc).? The wealth gap is even greater than the poverty gap (See Dalton Conleys Being Black Living in the Red and Melvin Oliver and Thomas Shapiros Black Wealth White Wealth), because wealth can be transmitted over generations.? Here are just a few major ways the wealth/poverty gap is maintained.

1. Housing discrimination and racial segregation are still rampant.? Even most middle class African Americans live in racial segregated neighborhoods (See Massey and Denton American Apartied).? Segregation limits opportunities to network with power brokers, to get the best quality education, and to find the best paying jobs.? This is further exacerbated by the poor quality of public transportation in the US, which would allow people to travel more freely to other areas to look jobs, etc.? Segregation also reflects our hidden racial views.? Most Whites prefer to live with other Whites, but most African Americans prefer to live in racially mixed neighborhoods.; when this is combined with racial steering by real estate brokers and home owners, it is easy to see how African Americans remain trapped in some of the poorest most segregated neighborhoods.
2. Segregation and poverty also effect the educational system.? In much of the south the dejure, Jim Crow segregation has been replaced by a form of defacto segregation.? Even though southern neighborhoods tend to be more integrated than those in the north, their schools are segregated with many Whites sending their children to private schools, making the public schools overwhelming Black and underfunded.? Segregation leads to poorer quality education (Read anything by Jonathon Kozol on this topic).
3. Related to education are job opportunities.? One of the biggest reasons Black poverty is higher is that African Americans still do not have equal job opportunities.? This is partly because of segregation and education, but it is also because of outright discrimination.? In their study of Chicago employers Krischenmann and Neckerman found the employers had negative opinions of Black workers especially those who were from poor neighborhoods.? The punishments for workplace discrimination are minimal.? Even though there are anti-discrimination laws, the fear of recrimination, the shear energy/money required to fight discrimination, and the difficulty of proving it (especially in the colorblind era), keep people of color from having equal opportunities.
4. The War on drugs has also contributed the persistent poverty of African Americans.? The more recent statistics indicate that around 20% of young Black? men are currently involved in the criminal justice system, many of them for drug related crimes (See Bruce Western and Becky Pettits research for more info.).? This is true even though young African Americans are less likely to use illegal drugs (or alcohol) than their White counterparts.? The mark of felony convictions follows these young men throughout their lives, and affects their abilities to support their families with decent paying jobs.
5. Wide scale incarceration and low paying jobs have also created a marriage squeeze decreasing the number of marriageable Black men.? Thus, many Black women couldnt find a financially stable Black male mate; simply because there are not enough available.? This is part (not all) of the reason many Black women are single parents, which certainly makes providing for a family more difficult.
6. The lack of social programs inclusive of African Americans has also helped perpetuate poverty.? Several books have detailed how welfare policies have never fully included African Americans (See Welfare Racism by Neubecka and Cazenave and The Color of Welfare by Quadagno), which to this day has limited the ability of African Americans to build wealth and get out of poverty.

All of these factors have worked together, but to many they are completely invisible.? Both the dominance of Whites and the persistent poverty of low income African Americans remain invisible to most.? Only in this time of great crisis is the racial divide apparent to many Americans.? Even though we see now our fellow Americans, languishing first in downtown New Orleans and now in shelters, we fail to understand the roots of racial inequality.? Yes, it began with slavery, but we dont need to look back to the past to see how the institutional mechanisms of racism create poverty and inequality.? Laws do not have to be explicit in the colorblind era; racism does not have to be explicit.? We only need to look at the outcomes of many of these policies and problems to realize we dont have equal opportunities.? But when our ideology says ignore, deny, and avoid any talk of racism, it is not surprising that poor Blacks in New Orleans were languishing unnoticed until catastrophe struck.? Thanks largely to TV reporters (who had an albeit biased view in some cases), we just could make them invisible anymore.? Now that our racism and its effects on poor people are exposed; we have a great opportunity to make things right, but first we need to wake up and figure out what weve been doing wrong.

Sep

3

Coverage of the Kanye West Comment

Filed Under Black/African American Issues, Hurricane Katrina, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

by Jay Smooth at HipHopMusic.com

Sep

3

The Race vs Class Debate–Pt 1 Differences

Filed Under Black/African American Issues, Class Classism and Economic Inequality, Hurricane Katrina, Original Essays and Analysis, Race and Racism, Sociology, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

When sociologists talk about the concept race, we are referring to a category of people who are defined as similar based on subjectively selected and perceived physical differences. The key words here are subjectively and perceived because the reality is that there are no biological/genetic races. Race is indeed a social construction; it is not biological. We know this because race is constantly shifting, it varies from culture to culture, and genetic testing indicates that there are many more biological similarities between groups than differences. Racial is also a social construction because it is used to distribute power. Which is why must also address the issue of racism. Racism involves the form of social inequality in which one or racial group dominates another (or others), assuming physical intellectual, social, and political dominance and power. From its inception, the concept of race was created to propagate racism. People were defined as different because of the sociological, political, and economic advantages that this gave Whites in the US and the inferior status it gave American Indians, African Americans, and later, other subordinated groups.

In contrast, class generally refers to groups of people that have a similar socioeconomic status, in particular, we focus on levels of education, incomes, wealth, and occupational prestige. The primary outcomes of class based inequalities are the unequal distribution of wealth and power. Classism refers to the system of inequality that grants higher status to those who have the most education, wealth, occupational prestige, and power. Those who have the least power and influence are the poor.

So what are the differences? One difference is how our society deploys biology in our understanding of these concepts. Even though race is social, many people think it is not. In this day and age, few would argue that class is rooted in our biology. Given this difference many people tend to believe race and racism are natural and immutablee.g. people naturally like their own kind and theres nothing that will change this. In contrast, class is viewed as more dynamic. People see class as something achieved and many believe the Horatio Alger myth that we can all be rich if we just work hard enough. (It is less likely that people would say that we all can be White is we work hard enoughunless they are discussing Michael Jackson.) In the contemporary, US many see class as a reflection of work ethic; not circumstance, privilege, or exploitation.

Another difference between race and class in contemporary American is related to the sociopolitical discourse surrounding each. The current ethos says that race is something not discussed in polite company. Moreover, people see colorblindness as a principled approach. Many argue that they dont see color, and they view all races the same. However, there is a tremendous gap between the polite discourse and racial reality. The fact is that most people do see race; it is not by chance that our communities, churches, families, and schools are segregated. It is not by chance that people of color have higher poverty and lower incomes. In contrast, few would argue say they are class blind. Most strive to live in the most expensive homes, in the wealthiest neighborhoods, with the most well funded schools. While we tend to see race but deny itthe anything but race mentality, poverty is different. While poverty is invisible and relatively easy for many to ignore, few would say poverty is not important or doesnt matter today.

Sep

2

Update–Yahoo Removes Looting/Finding Photo

Filed Under Hurricane Katrina, Media Praises and Critiques, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Yahoo’s Statement

Sep

2

Update–How Many African Children Have to Die

Filed Under International Racism, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Some apts. are being cleared, but this doesn’t seem like a real solution.

Sep

2

Update–Positive Media Coverage of African American Katrina Victims

Filed Under Hurricane Katrina, Media Praises and Critiques, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

I have been particularly impressed with MSNBC’s Carl Quintanilla , Tony Zumbado (corrected from Zambado), and another reporter whose name I am still looking for (I’ll find it.). Ironically, all three reporters are men of color and all three are in the areas with the most suffering. All of them have also pointed out how cooperative and nonviolent the people were in those areas. They repeated said that if reporters like themselves could get in and not face violence there is no reason that “first responders” couldn’t also get in. This is truly ironic– the 9/11 heros were the fire and police, but this does not seem to be the same here. Truly sad.

Sep

2

Students Unable to Evacuate

Filed Under Black/African American Issues, Education and Academia, Hurricane Katrina, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Xavier University in New Orleans.? They may have since gotten out.? The Chronicle of Higher Education said a convoy was on the way to pick up students.? Here is a long quote from the Chronicle of Higher Education.

“The students either could not or would not evacuate when university officials began telling them to leave the city last Friday. Nearly 1,200 of the 1,600 students who live on Xavier’s campus were able to flee last week. The remaining 400 were stranded after unsuccessful attempts by university officials to arrange for them to leave the campus, which is in downtown New Orleans not far from the Louisiana Superdome.

On Saturday, with the hurricane approaching, university officials held a “war-room meeting” to determine what to do with the remaining students, according to Warren Bell, a spokesman for the Roman Catholic institution. “We started calling bus companies. No one would call us back. By then it was too late,” he said.

The students were placed in two dormitories and given bottled water and boxes of food from the university’s cafeteria. An unknown number of staff members — Mr. Bell estimated about two dozen — stayed with the students.

The hurricane knocked out power and running water early Monday, and floodwaters later began rising around the buildings. University officials and students’ parents had trouble communicating with those who were trapped. The campus telephones were not working, and students had only intermittent cellphone service. “

They say the classes may resume in January, but who knows.

Sep

2

Racism and The Aftermath of Katrina

Filed Under Black/African American Issues, Bunch-O-Links, Hurricane Katrina, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

I wanted to write on this yesterday, but my internet was out of commission, but here are some quotes from Others I’ll give my take on this soon……

1. From Oliver Wang from Poplicks “IT’S ABOUT POVERTY AND RACE, STUPID”

2. From Margins of Society to Center of the Tragedy D. Gonzales New York Times

3. Blackcommentator.com Will the “new” New Orleans be Black?

4. Cheryl Townsend Gilkes from Assn of Black Sociologists Listserve– “When Race Matters and Nobody Mentions It: Hurricane Katrina, the Superdome, and the Black People No One Mentioned” by Cheryl Townsend Gilkes

“We veiw this storm as a temporary disruption that is being dealt with by the government and the private sector.” President George W. Bush, 9/2/05 It was amazing to watch the coverage on the morning news shows Monday, August 29, and Tuesday, August 30, 2005. Nearly ten thousand people took shelter in the New Orleans Superdome and when news footage of the people was shown, nearly everyone in the place was black. There were a few white faces but very very few. I actually saw three but I assume there were others. No one mentioned race and class until Thursday, September 1. One reporter called them people with no place to go and no home to go back to. However, what amazed me was that when talking about the poor and the infirm and the people who had not means to get away or no place to go, no one brought up the striking visual evidence of overwhelming blackness, at least in the urban setting. I awoke this morning hearing a Mr. Jackson with two little girls crying for his wife. I saw an interview with a black family, across the bayou from a white family who survived on a shrimp boat, where they had lost “what little we had” and who “now” “don’t have anything.” What was not smashed and destroyed by a tree falling on their house was taken away by looters. One wonders why poor people would risk their lives staying in their houses? Because they know the police and other authorities cannot be bothered protecting their little bit of stuff. As a sociologist trained to see race everywhere, I cannot help but see the presence of black people and the absence of white people. Every once in a while I see a white person but only every once in a while. The visual indicators of poverty are everywhere clothing, speech, types of obesity, dental work. Even those who are not poor look poor because of the suddeness of their dispossession people in housecoats or tee shirts or sweat pants or bare feet. Rescue workers talk about going into an area and saying, “It’s like driving into a Third World country.” What has been ignored for so long is the Third World within America that people resist seeing as such. One officer from the Salvation Army, who actually used the Third World simile based on his experiences in other disasters, described going into Biloxi, Mississippi, and not being able to find the Salvation Army. People pointed him to the slab where the building used to be and they set up their canteen. Two days after the disaster, they are prepared to serve a half million meals. Bless the Salvation Army. There is a pair of Associated Press pictures that is circulating on the Internet. In one picture a young black man (a boy really) is depicted wading “through chest deep flood water after looting a grocery store in New Orleans.” The picture paired with it is of two white people who are wading “through chest-deep water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store after Hurricane Katrina came through the area in New Orleans, Louisiana.” Of course if black critics like myself point this out, we will be accused of playing the race card, or, in the words of Senator Bill Frist, “politicizing” the problem. One reporter who was particularly angry pointed out that people had drowned in their own living rooms, their bodies were floating in the streets and being eaten by rats that he was seeing this in the streets of the United States and he wanted to know why. The legitimacy of people’s anger is being questioned by officials. They claim that this level of devastation is totally unexpected. At one level, disaster and homeland security officials are correct the scale of this disaster was unexpected especially since it represents two events: the hurricane and the flood. New Orleans particularly has to be drained, unlike other areas along the Gulf coast where the waters are simply receding. While the scale of the disaster is unique, the disproportionate vulnerability of different groups is not. First of all there was a recognition that there were people who were unable to leave New Orleans because they were too poor and infirm. That’s why officials opened the Superdome as a shelter. Although not on this scale, there was a disaster in 1995 the heat wave in Chicago in 1995 that killed black and poor people disproportionately. In his book Heat Wave: The Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago, Eric Klinenberg examined the disaster in terms of a social ecological analysis. Refuting the epidemiological mythologies concerning physical and ethnic characteristics, Klinenberg points to the “social environment of poverty” that includes “abandoned community” and issues of isolation and violence. These same issues, along with the disabilities of illness, seem to shaping the disaster in Louisiana and Mississippi, although of far more massive proportions. Given what I know from my own experience during the blizzard of ‘78 in Boston (I worked four days straight at my hospital job) and Klinenberg’s analysis that should have alerted any disaster planners in urban areas, there should have been an understanding of the importance of either evacuating hospitals or of stockpiling essentials such as water and MRE’s in high places like hospitals, hotels, and parking garages. If the Salvation Army can set up in Biloxi, Mississippi, to serve a half million meals in two days, why not the U.S. government. The collision of economic history, political exclusion, and racial realities have exacerbated the impact of this disaster. See No Race, See No Racism The refusal to see race has a nefarious theme that my half century worth of cynical socialization can’t help but see. The poor and infirm whom I see in the news footage are black families. I see that elderly in wheel chairs and on walkers who are accompanied by extended families are sitting in the streets. I hear the reporters talking about diabetics and cardiac patients, all of whom would be disproportionately black given the distribution of diabetes and heart trouble. Then there is the specter of cancer. One woman who was interviewed by Larry King who left with a large segment of her family in a ten passenger van and will soon be homeless because they will have to leave the Houston Hotel where they are housed described members of her family who did not evacuate. One elderly relative, and the cluster of the extended family close to him, has cancer. When I hear the word cancer, I link it to the black people in Louisiana who live in “cancer alley” and who have been struggling, through law suits and political activism, with the issues of environmental racism. They are struggling with the oil companies and the chemical companies. While those industries are shut down and the price of oil is soaring, I cannot help but wonder if the oil interests are looking forward to the abandonment of that area so that they will not longer have to deal with the inconvenience of poor and black people who own land and houses and who are in the way of their development. Then there is the violence or the appearance of violence. Sociologist Sydney Wilhelm, in his book Who Needs the Negro?, warned that violence or the threat of violence could possibly trigger a repression that could be genocidal in its consequences. The news production staff keep chosing the most dramatic pictures angry people with wild cases of “bed head”; shirtless very dark black men with dreadful dreadlocks; very large black women holding lots of babies; people breaking into stores; weeping and screaming people with large sweat stains in their arm pits. The people who are dying and whose anger is being inflamed are also the people who Republicans are working hard to disenfranchise. The new laws in Georgia requiring state issued identification or drivers’ licenses are aimed precisely at the kind of people who, in Louisiana, were too weak, infirm, and poor to leave New Orleans. They in no way represent a political liability to those currently in power. Relocating all of these victims may in fact be a political windfall for the Republicans in the 2006 election. These people are in no way George Bush’s “base.” There is a push toward a color blind society. By appropriating the words of Martin Luther King and claiming the end of the civil rights movement, one assumes that it is no longer necessary to mention race. However, the disastrous consequences of Hurricane Katrina point out why it is so important to those currently in power to use strategies that disenfranchise the urban poor. Without mentioning race, it is now possible to target racially identifiable groups for exclusion. Any political strategist with an introductory level knowledge of sociology knows who cannot afford cars. Therefore, advocate policies that require drivers licenses. Political strategists know that “they” may not have bank accountsand therefore the push to require picture identification. Money for identity card fees may not be available so therefore require such fees. These policies can become new and deceptive substitutes for the old poll tax. With these new color blind policies, there will be no worry about counting or not counting the votes of those black and poor people who just may vote their economic interests in elections. One wonders, in the wake of this large population of urban refugees that is emerging on the Gulf coast, whether or not the refugee camps that will develop to house the victims of Hurricane Katrina will become America’s new concentration camps for the poor and powerless who will be disenfranchised by disaster. See no race, see no racism!

Sep

2

Helping Katrina Victims

Filed Under Hurricane Katrina, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Links I have received
1. This Blog addresses Hurricane Katrina African American Relief Resources

2. From Congresswoman Barabara Lee a list of agencies to donate to
Louisiana Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Preparedness
http://www.ohsep.louisiana.gov
(225) 925-7500

Mississippi Emergency
Management Agency
http://www.msema.org
601-960-9020

Alabama Emergency
Management Agency
http://www.ema.alabama.gov/
1-800-843-0699

Red Cross
http://www.redcross.org
1-866-GET-INFO
(1-866-438-4636)

American Red Cross
1-800-HELP NOW (435-7669) English,
1-800-257-7575 Spanish

Southern Baptist Convention — Disaster Relief
1-800-462-8657, ext. 6440

Salvation Army
1-800-SAL-ARMY (725-2769)

Operation Blessing
1-800-436-6348

America’s Second Harvest
1-800-344-8070

Adventist Community Services
1-800-381-7171
Catholic Charities, USA
703 549-1390

Christian Disaster Response
941-956-5183 or 941-551-9554

Christian Reformed World Relief Committee
1-800-848-5818

Church World Service
1-800-297-1516

Convoy of Hope
417-823-8998

Lutheran Disaster Response
800-638-3522

Mennonite Disaster Service
717-859-2210

Nazarene Disaster Response
888-256-5886

Presbyterian Disaster Assistance
800-872-3283

United Methodist Committee
on Relief
1-800-554-8583

Next Page →