I’m not a big soccer fan, but I have watched a few of the World Cup matches recently. In fact, watching the World Cup has been good for me because I’m so caught up in my United States-centric view that I tend to think of soccer as a thing that middle class White people in the suburbs play (hence the term soccer mom), but in reality football/soccer is a very diverse sport. It is international and interracial. One match that caused me to question my stereotypes was the Ecuador versus Britain match. My partner asked me which team I was routing for. I jokingly said, “the black team.” He said, “Well you have Britain and Ecuador–Whites and Latinos.” I asked if he was watching the match because I saw only two players on the Ecuadorian team who were not black (I’m sure there were others on the bench, but the primary players were mostly black.). He was really taken aback by that, and quite frankly I was too. I think there is a widespread tendency to forget that there are many Afro-Latinos, and this soccer match definitely drove that point home to me.

Last semester in my African American studies class we also talked about Afro Latinos. Many people don’t realize the Brazil has the second highest number of black people in the world (only Nigeria has more Blacks). Brazil is not alone many Latin American countries have large black populations (Check Table 1). I am not even talking about the Carribean–I’m talking about Central and South America. For example, Belize and Panama are predominantly Black, who would have guessed that? One of the difficulties with measuring the black population is that many Latin American countries have a kind of reverse one drop rule, where “one drop of European ancestry makes one White.” (For example, 92% of Puerto Ricans identify as White.) Additionally, blacks are often marginalized and closed off from the power structures in these countries.

After watching the Ecuadorian team, I wondered what percentage of Ecuador is black and how black Ecuadorians are fairing. I also wondered if soccer in Ecuador was like basketball in the US, where black players are overrepresented in the sport. Well I saw several estimates of the Black population in Ecuador, and these estimates range from 3-15 percent. So Blacks definitely were overrepresented on the team. Further research reveals that Ecuador’s Black population is concentrated primarily in the city of Esmeraldas, and on average Afro-Ecuadorians fair higher poverty and infant mortality. Unfortunately, this is typical of Latin American countries–the darker the people the fewer opportunities they have, so Ecuador is not alone in that. Some have speculated that the high profile of the Afro-Ecuadorian soccer players will help the status of blacks in Ecuador, and I hope that it does–after all I wouldn’t be writing this essay if it weren’t for the soccer team.

Info on the City of Esmeraldas

More on Afro-Latinos

Here’s an article from MiGente.com

A new study indicates that the number of confidants Americans have has decreased over the past 20 years. This finding marks one of several studies that indicate that Americans’ social networks are decreasing. The primary proponent of this theory is political scientist, Robert Putnam, whose book Bowling Alone, describes the general decline in civic engagement. In this study sociologists Lynn Smith-Lovin, Miller McPherson, and Matthew Brashears were focused specifically on friends and confidants. Here is a quote from the abstract of their study:

The number of people saying there is no one with whom they discuss important matters nearly tripled. The mean network size decreases by about a third (one confidant), from 2.94 in 1985 to 2.08 in 2004. The modal respondent now reports having no confidant; the modal respondent in 1985 had three confidants. Both kin and non-kin confidants were lost in the past two decades, but the greater decrease of non-kin ties leads to more confidant networks centered on spouses and parents, with fewer contacts through voluntary associations and neighborhoods. Most people have densely interconnected confidants similar to them.

The study also found that:

The trend toward social isolation mirrors other class divides: Non-whites and people with less education tend to have smaller networks than white Americans and the highly educated.

Racial diversity among peoples networks has increased. The percentage of people who count at least one person of another race in their close network has gone up from about 9 percent to more than 15 percent.

The percentage of people who talk only to family members about important matters increased from about 57 percent to about 80 percent, while the number of people who depend totally on their spouse has increased from about 5 percent to about 9 percent.

Our families and communities are undergoing some dramatic changes, as people become more and more isolated.? What do you think has lead to these changes? What do you think can be done to reverse these trends (assuming you think this is negative), or is this just a product of our contemporary postmodern lives?? Do you think your own experience is reflected in these trends?

Here is the link to the summary of the study.? and here is a link to the authors findings.? (PDF)

I have been wanting to comment on those blogs that only allow blogger IDs, but I was like damn, another thing I need to create a password for.?

On another note can somebody tell Kevin Andre Elliot that I have been trying to post on his blog for a month to no avail.? I can’t email him about it either because his comment form doesn’t work either.? I can’t for the life of my figure out what is wrong.? Apparently I have a few people with the same problems on my site.? If you are having a problem posting, feel free to email me.? I want to know if something is jacked up.

I should also say yeah for Stephanie who now has her own blog on blogger here.? She had an AOL blog that did have open comments, so she’s moving up in the world.? Brownfemipower also has a new home here.

I should also apologize for being slow to respond to comments over the last few days.? Somedays I just get overwhelmed by the breadth of the blogosphere, and I have a moment where there are 10,000 things to write about or respond to.

Here is a really good report from the Census Bureau.? The study notes that the fastest growing places in the country are suburbs.? In particular large cities in the northeast and the midwest lost population.

is over at Jay Sennett’s Jaywalks.

One of the biggest biases I see reflected in the blogosphere is age bias. The blogosphere seems incredibly young at times. I notice the youngness of feminist blogs in particularit seems like issues affecting older women are routinely ignored. In fact, I was inspired by this post over at Hearts blog. She had several pictures of second wave feminists, and when I read it, I wondered how many of the women in these pictures are active in the blogosphere. Then, I wondered about the women one generation older than second wave feminists. I asked myself, how many of them are active in the blogosphere. I know these women are out there, but it seems to me that their views and experiences are marginalized on most feminist blogs. It seems to me that younger women like myself have a lot to learn from our older sisters; moreover, I think we can all benefit by focusing on issues that affect women through out the life course.Often feminists in my age group talk about issues like abortion, body image, marriage, child rearing, and birth control, focusing on how they affect women in their teen, 20s, and 30s. I suppose several of these issues are faced by women of all ages, but what we often fail to do is theorize about how these issues manifest themselves across the life course. Take this issue of work place discrimination; does work place discrimination affect older women in different ways than younger women?? I think so. One of the best examples is women being fired for aging. This problem is particularly acute at the television news anchors desk. Connecticut news anchor Janet Peckinpaugh (who was only 44) was fired as a news anchor. She subsequently won a multimillion dollar settlement in the case. However, what the CNN article on Peckinpaugh does not let you know is that CNN is also embroiled in their own age/gender discrimination suit. (You can read more here.).When men like Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, and many others get anchor positions well into their older years, many in the industry think women are washed up at 40. In my view, this is just one example of an area that we need to expand on in feminist blogs.

Of course, one of the primary reasons that older women are left out of the blogosphere is related to technology access and mastery. Younger people like myself have been using computers since childhood, but the internet seems daunting to some older women who have less experience with computers. I know there are older women participating in the discussions, but it would be nice to see more older women, especially women in their 60s and older, maintaining their own blogs.

So what issues would be discussed differently (or discussed more often) if older women had more say in the blogoshpere? I think there are several important issues facing older women that feminists bloggers should take up more actively. A few that come immediately to my mind are–the social security crisis, life after widowhood, the erosion of anti-poverty programs, gender/age discrimination and bias in the health care system, and grandmothers raising their grandchildren. In order to promote some of the issues that older women are dealing with I am asking other feminist bloggers to post at least one post within the next week (not matter how brief) on some of the issues facing older women. I will be choosing one of the subjects mentioned above, and I will post on it later in the week. If you would like to participate in this project, feel free to use the comments section below to put up a link to your post. Ill be back later in the week with my post.

do you think is the most controversial issue in the US–abortion, religion, or race?

1. Changeseeker has a really good post discussing transracial identities.

2. Vegan Kid has a good post on Halle Berry’s reaction and the BBC’s inaction over racist comments a DJ made during an interview.

3. Gil at Lucky White Girl asks why we can’t know the corporate sponsors of politicians, NASCAR style.

4. A new book claims that mixed race people are superior?? See more over at Mixed Media Watch.

5. An advice columnist admonishes a childless couple to change their mind about having kids.? Republic of T and Feministe? are talking about it.

6. Thespian CPA has a good post on the impacts of Black minstrel performers.

7. Women’s Rights Protester Attacked in Iran.? Here are several posts: Kash’s Newsroom,? Iranian Truth? (good list of the protesters goals/demands), Kosoof (has some good pictures, with writing mostly in Farsi but also a little English).

8. Updated Here’s April’s reponse to my you might be a white supremacist if post.

Prologue

This post is inspired in part by Kim’s post over at Alas A Blog? on Tony Snow. What is fascinating to me is how Whites decide what is racist and what is not (there really seems to be no rhyme or reason to it). I’m not sure if there’s any sort of science to it, but it seems to me that there are many cases where even the most blatant evidence is not enough for some Whites to believe that a person’s behavior or ideology is racist. Let’s put Tony Snow’s comment aside for a minute, and focus on what white supremacy and white racism is.

On my site a few weeks ago, I was attacked by white supremacists, and I realized at that time that many people do not know what white supremacy is (or they do not care to acknowledge it). I remember some people saying, “I don’t see any white supremacist comments.” I started to ask myself why don’t they see this–was it because their own beliefs support white supremacy and they didn’t want to label themselves White supremacist. Was it denial? What was it? (incidentally, I later found a link directly from a major WS site to my blog, where they were attacking me on my views on the Duke case. One guy was also lamenting/laughing at how I banned him. Incidentally, this person was also banned from this site.)

One thing that bothers me is the tendency of many people in mainstream America to set the burden of proving racism so high that nothing is ever racist. I recently heard someone defending Nicholas Minucci (a man convicted of a racially motivated attack) saying that the N-word is not really racist. Well my thought is, when you use the n-word while beating a Black man with a bat, you are a racist–plain and simple. The other tactic that some in mainstream White American use to deny the power of racism, is to try and give examples where they believe that people of color are being racist to Whites as if this somehow absolves the White person they are trying to defend. The more I debate with people over these issues the more I realize that people are often clueless as to what racism and white supremacy are. And they are also clueless about how closely their own views mirror white supremacists.

In order to help people understand what racism is, I decided to start a post with quotes from the discussion boards on white supremacist sites, so people know what is out there. Perhaps this will help people get a real sense of White supremacist ideology. I suspect that many people on the boards I collected quotes from would not call themselves racist or white supremacists. In fact, their preferred term is “White nationalist.” As you read through the quotes, think about how their comments are similar to and different from the mainstream media. I am not putting links to these sites (as I do not want them coming to this site anymore than they already do, and I don’t want to give them publicity).

Pt 1 “You Might Be a white supremacist if…..”

If you believe the following about Bill Cosby’s comments to Black America, You might be a White Supremacist:

You hear Bill Cosby “speechifyin’” about how negroes must begin to act in more moral,self-disciplined ways(Ha!Good ****in’ Luck! )to be more prosperous and have better lives and better communities;and the negro leaders all say this is a good thing. (But “we aint nevuh lettin’ whitey off da hook”). But this ’stripper’ represents everything wrong with black america today! She is a low-down,lying theiving filthy degenerate,adulterous,sleazy,drunken,immoral lump of feces. Yet no negro will speak against her;she is now a ‘black leader’;these innocent white guys,even if they are ‘privileged’,are betrayed by the rotten Duke PC community. And lambasting these guys for being privileged is just a pathetic dirty cheap way of hiding the real reason they are so hated:they are WHITE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you believe any of the following statements about interracial marriage, You might be a White Supremacist.

The Old Testament law commanded the Israelites not to engage in interracial marriage (Deuteronomy 7:3-4). The reason for this is that the Israelites would be led astray from God if they intermarried with idol worshippers, pagans, or heathens. A similar principle is laid out in the New Testament, but at a much different level: Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? (2 Corinthians 6:14). Just as the Israelites (believers in the one true God) were commanded not to marry nonbelievers, so Christians (believers in the one true God) are commanded not to marry unbelievers. To answer this question specifically, no, the Bible does not say that interracial marriage is wrong.

A person should be judged by his or her character, not by skin color. All of us should be careful not to show favoritism to some, nor be prejudiced or racial to others (James 2:1-10, see especially verses 1 and 9). A Christian man or woman’s standard for selecting a mate should always be to find out if the person they are interested in is a Christian (2 Corinthians 6:14), someone who is born again by faith in Jesus Christ (John 3:3-5). Faith in Christ, not skin color, is the Biblical standard for choosing a spouse. Interracial marriage is not a matter of right or wrong, but of wisdom, discernment, and prayer.

The only reason interracial marriage should be considered carefully is because of the difficulties a mixed-race couple may experience because others will have a hard time accepting them. Many interracial couples experience discrimination and ridicule, sometimes even from their own families. Some interracial couples experience difficulties when their children have skin tones of different shades from the parents and/or siblings. An interracial couple needs to take these things into consideration and be prepared for them, should they decide to marry. Again, though, the only Biblical restriction placed on whom a Christian in regards to marriage is whether the other person is a member of the Body of Christ.

(Rachel’s Note–This actually ticked off several of the people in the WS forum off because they wanted a stronger pronouncement against interracial marriage–other than, it’s not practical. What I found interesting about the quote is that it is really representative of mainstream views on interracial marriage. Most of the people I interviewed in my research on interracial marriage had relatives who felt as this white supremacist does.)

If you believe the following statement about Black people in groups, You might be a White Supremacist.

I think it is just a numbers game. One or two blacks in a large group of whites know to behave themselves. If they start the shuck and jive show, they’ll quickly get ostracized. Once the group (or town or classroom or city) becomes 25-30 percent black though, they start reverting to their natural state. ( insert realistic monkey sounds )

If you believe the following statement about HIV, You might be a White Supremacist.

Black America Negroes are always whining how “da white mang keep him down.” Hell, we don’t have to work to hard to do that, they do it themselves for the most part!

Pt.2 How far out of the mainstream are white supremacists?

I also thought the following 2 exchanges were very instructive for those Whites who are not part of these hate groups, but truly do want to understand white supremacy. Unfortunately, I think these White supremacists may have a point in both of these threads. In the first thread they are basically saying that other Whites are too damn wimpy to say anything when they make racist comments, and then in the second thread they are debating about how to get other Whites involved in their movement (The first post sounds just like CNN’s Lou Dobbs). I put up the post that started the threads, and some of the more interesting responses to it (some of the responses would pointless so I left them out).

Here’s the first thread, which asks if the racism taboo is fading:

Like most people my age, I have to go through Communist Brainwashing at my college government class. Contrary to what I have heard, not all people fall for the white guilt. I was overjoyed when someone stood up for our people when my professer told us that it was white oppression that made blacks fail. I then saw a man in the back tell my professor that the blacks have been given every possible avenue to fufill equality except us giving them everything. I added that the worst black neighborhoods are neighborhoods. It is impossible to scream racism when everyone around you is the same color.
I’ve noticed that any white that has busted their butt and made it wont give blacks any concessions. Whites Earn the right to a 3 bed 1.5 bath in the ‘burbs. They no longer see the need to give the dangerous inner cities anything. The word Race Card is now used as much as racist.
Next is Comedy Central’s Mind of Mencia. Has anyone seen it? Mencia is a Mexican, but he tells racist jokes at every ethnic group. With whites watching that, they are starting to subliminally realize that there are differences in the races. Although White America is far from putting on a Waffen SS uniform and wanting to deport all muds, I do believe the racist taboo is fading.
All thoughts would be appreciated.

And here are some of the responses

“Mencia is funny at times. He tells it the way it is. No Political correctness. Yes, talk to middle class white males, and they are fed up, even SOME girls. Americans aren’t stupid(white americans that is). White nationalism has nothing to do with the nazi’s. The nazi’s were for white supremacism. White supremacism is the reason why we now have things like affirmative action. Talk about Nazi’s and you will tick off a lot of kids. Talk about things like affirmative action, illegal immigration, and they will start sounding more like us. First let’s deal with mexicans and africans before we deal with the jews.”

“Living in Massachusetts, I can’t see any sign of the racist tabbo fading. In my highschool, a student was suspended for sometime (around a month) for having a white power fist on his shirt while a black student has been wearing a black power fist shirt with no reprecussions. It’s rediculous. It might just be the communists running Massachusetts, or it might be the Jew principal and administrators at my highschool, but as I see it, racial sensitivity is still rediculously high.”

“i dont know if i can agree with you on this one. i go to a very multi culti school and yet, i always use the N word, i use it like its a regular part of my vocabulary, and because of it… absolutely nothing negative has happened, the muds laugh, and most of the whites agree, or they downtrodden me, but im still friends with them! i havent lost a SINGLE friend over saying the word and it seems that most people do hate them, they just think that nazism is intertwined too far into all of this and we as a people need to rid of nazism. they have also been brainwashed into believing “jews are ok” so we have to go at an anti nazi point of view.”

“I think that the taboo is fading amongst the people. The automatons that are supposed to be teachers, administrators, managers, etc… are the ones that still toe the party line, and expect the same from everyone else.”

“I think amongst most people, it was never particularly taboo to be racist. Most white people I know (even some half-jews and asians) don’t seem to care when I drop the “N bomb”, or shake my head in disgust at the lazy blacks who live here. It might have a lot to do with the fact that I live in the south, so most of my friends are racist rednecks anyway.” “It is true in my experience (as many have noted in this thread already) that mentions of nazis and anti-Jewishness is what turns people off. Most people will allow racist jokes, and even make general observations about blacks being lazy, and Jews being greedy, but they consider references to Hitler to be either pointless or just vicious.”

“It is indeed fading at least in my area. I was on the bus the other day and this white woman had struck up a conversation with the black woman she was sitting beside about how trifling those “mexicans” were who live in her apartment complex and how upset she was that her daughter had fallen in love with one.”

“It is indeed fading probably due to the influx of nonwhite immigrants. Blacks are not looked at as the big problem so much as the hispanics are.”

And here is the second thread, which asks “will mainstream America support White Nationalism?”:

I certainly hope so, but it won’t happen overnight. We need to make it happen. I believe that we should go after millions and millions of regular white folks (families with kids, workers, homemakers, etc.) who are worried about colored immigrants, jobs being shipped to China and India, U.S. blood and treasure being wasted on Arabs, neighborhoods going bad, etc. Whites realize that something is wrong with this picture, but haven’t connected the dots yet. That’s where white nationalists can help. We need to open their eyes without making them feel they are “racist.” Why not organize “White heritage celebrations” in rural areas of the South and the Midwest? Places where people can go to listen to the country music, look at antique cars, Confederate items, Harleys, arts and crafts, drink beer and have a good time. If we start receiving support from regular folks, we’ll also gain political clout. However, without an aggressive effort to attract mainstream whites, we’ll remain at the fringes of the political spectrum, instead of its center, where we belong.

Here is a later response from the same guy.) We have failed to attract mainstream whites because of our strategy. We keep trying to sell some pretty radical ideas to a white guy who sits on a couch, eats food, drinks beer and roots for black athletes. He does not consider the Nazis, the Klan and the prospect of a racial war an appealing alternative to his hedonistic lifestyle. Obviously, we need to find some other way to connect with this guy. We also need an upbeat, positive message, instead of this never ending doom-and-gloom. Lets figure out the way to repackage our ideas and make them palatable to common folks.

And here are some of the responses from others:

“Which “Brand” of WN do you mean?
Personally, I think most Whites are “white nationalist” as a general philosophy. But the Devil is always in the details. White Pride is a great thing… until four skinheads jump a white guy in a parking lot because he played a friendly game of pool with a negro at the local bar. Then everyone goes… “hmmm, that could have been me”. And suddenly WN don’t smell so good.
So you can make an aggressive effort to attract mainstream people but if they don’t trust your underlying motives… WN is just another ‘ism’” “White America is lost. The majority of white Americans live in its big cities; cities which are infested with colored immigrants and Old Southern Blacks.
The Negro alone has an amazing cultural grip on white Youth and most the parents of these, from the Negro Sub-Culture mesmerized kids, are far too weak to teach their offspring any kind of racial pride.
Most white Americans haven’t got a clue where their ancestors came from and most don’t care. The fact is White America is on its way down the toilet!
Had Germany & Japan won the last war & devided the world up between them, we would be living in a much better world.
The death of Germany was the death of the LAST CHANCE for White Culture globally. However, I shall fight to my last breath for the resurection of German Culture and for a better world through >>eugenics< <."

"I don't think that the Sally Soccer Mom and Joe Six Pack will come around till the savages are at the gates. Once a Katrina like event happens to them, they will totally come around to our side.
Question is if we can do something with them when it happens?"

"I estimate 50% of Americans (i.e., White people in the USA) will eventually accept "racism" as the proper organizing principle of society. The other 50% are irrevocably tied to non-Whites by blood (half-breed children or siblings) or marriage, or by financial dependence (Federal whores, including the political police), and/or they are so insane as to be incurable of their psychosis of self-hatred.
Do not despair at my "low" numbers. Successful revolutions are frequent throughout history with only a plurality of support...both the Founding Fathers and Hitler came to power with active pluralities.
Perhaps only 10% of Americans are currently racially-aware or racially-leaning. The remainder will "come around" when most of our large cities are in flames and the economy has went much further into the abyss.
"Popular Comfort" is the greatest enemy of the revolutionary."

"Yeh this is especially important - I think we have to identify exactly what rubs the majority of whites the wrong way and use that. Be very very politic - don't run off at the mouth on tirades - and above all stay honest and fair in all things.
We should stay away from typifying people by race and concentrate on religious and cultural differences. e.g. If you see an CHinese guy eating - usually slurping rice in some disgusting manner you instantly feel the culural distance and there are deep tribal feeling that it awakens. The same with weird Islamic rituals and kosher slaughter, arranged marrriages etc etc.
In addition I would say the media rubs people the wrong way. They keep hammering away at topics that annoy alot of people, and they have very little credibility after Rathergate, so I would say stick to a message of attacking foreign invaders rather than directly pointing them out."

"I know we all hope for the day where mainstream white Americans can wear a t-shirt showing pride in there culture without being critized. But it's going to take time and a lot of hard work. And I know most of us are more than ready to do whatever it takes. If we had more organizations and eliminated certain things it would be a step in the right direction in my opinion. I agree with those that believe we need to eliminate those things that have people look at WN as a racist thing, such as Nazism, KKK etc. They mean something but are looked opon negativley as hate groups. I'm not about hating other racists, I'm about taking pride in my own, just like other races and cultures are intitled to do. I'm tired of being called a racist and sneered at when My friends and I where our white pride t-shirts or wear a confederate flag on a hat or coat. I'm tired of seeing young white americans supporting a different culture than there own. And I'm espically tired of Whites feeling sorry for "What there ancestors have done" to blacks, jews, etc. I'm tired of blacks being able to have television stations, magazines, websites etc. and not being looked down upon when whites try to show pride and it is only seen as negative and hateful. I'm tired of seeing Native Pride, Black Pride, Hispanic Pride, and every other Pride besides WHITE PRIDE being displayed publicly with no snickers. White Americans need to realize that the country we took a huge part in building is being controled by those who we're formerly repressed, and now we're the repressed minority. I believe the key is to get mainstream whites to be proud of there heritage and skin color, and quit feeling sorry or feeling the need to support other cultures before there own. In my mind, youth are the easiest to convince, in my own town we bring forth issues into the minds of those young white people who have been blinded by this cruel world. Those young people who wear monsterous chains around there necks, sag there parents, have no respect for there parents or the heritage, and have a need to fit in more with other races, and impress them."

There are over a 150 comments on the last thread mentioned, which indicates to me that these White Supremacists are very concerned with winning over the majority of White Americans.

So there you have it, here are some of the things white supremacists are saying. What’s striking to me is that if you tweak a word here or there, quite a bit of what they are saying is not much different from what people in the “mainstream” are saying.

For those of you who are new to this blog I have been following the murder of Olamide Adeyooye for the past 9 months.? I’ll upload the old posts for people unfamliar with the case.

The defendent in this case, Maurice? Wallace,? has a history of mental illness, and has been extremely uncooperative in court.? ? Here are some of the more recent developments.

Wallace Admits to Assaulting Guard

Fortunately, the Guard is Out of the Hospital

Wallace Probably Will Not Represent Himself

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