Mar

26

John Hope Franklin Has Died

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From the AP:

John Hope Franklin, a towering scholar and pioneer of African-American studies who wrote the seminal text on the black experience in the U.S. and worked on the landmark Supreme Court case that outlawed public school segregation, died Wednesday. He was 94.

David Jarmul, a spokesman at Duke University, where Franklin taught for a decade and was professor emeritus of history, said he died of congestive heart failure at the school’s hospital in Durham.

Born and raised in an all-black community in Oklahoma where he was often subjected to humiliating racism, Franklin was later instrumental in bringing down the legal and historical validations of such a world.

As an author, his book “From Slavery to Freedom” was a landmark integration of black history into American history that remains relevant more than 60 years after being published. As a scholar, his research helped Thurgood Marshall and his team at the NAACP win Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 case that barred the doctrine of “separate but equal” in the nation’s public schools.

“It was evident how much the lawyers appreciated what the historians could offer,” Franklin later wrote. “For me, and I suspect the same was true for the others, it was exhilarating.”

Franklin himself broke numerous color barriers. He was the first black department chair at a predominantly white institution, Brooklyn College; the first black professor to hold an endowed chair at Duke; and the first black president of the American Historical Association.

Mar

17

Bottles, Breasts, and Mothering “Choices”

Filed Under Class Classism and Economic Inequality, Family Issues, Gender and Sexism, Media Praises and Critiques, Original Essays and Analysis, Pregnancy and Childbirth | 5 Comments

A few months after my boys were born I stumbled across a message board for twin moms, I really started to enjoy the tips and the sense of community that I gained from reading and posting on the site.  One of the things I enjoyed most was the forum for breastfeeding mothers, which gave me a strong sense of belonging and encouragement, and at that time, I needed encouragement.  Breastfeeding was and is a struggle for me.  I don’t know how things would be different if I was trying to feed only one baby, but I know breastfeeding two babies is one of the hardest things I have done.  While the Mommy message board is a great source of support for breastfeeding, it’s also a place where many of the most contentious elements of motherhood and womanhood are laid bare.  Sometimes it’s the stereotypical Mommy Wars– women in the paid labor force and women not in the paid labor force– but one of the more contentious debates is the bottle vs. breast debate.

As Hugo points out one subset of the Mommy Wars, is the “boob wars”:

And I’ve become aware of what might, for lack of a better term, be called the “boob war” — a sub-conflict within the larger “Mommy War” that continues to rage, exasperating and frightening and dividing women. And into this fight comes a bombshell article in the new Atlantic Monthly: Hanna Rosin’s The Case Against Breastfeeding. More on the article later. (Cap taps, belatedly and with apologies, to Rod Dreher and to Scott.)

The term “Mommy Wars” generally refers to the public and private debates, common among the middle and upper-middle classes of the developed world, about what makes a “good” mother. For years, the chief front in these wars has been the battle over daycare and work outside the home, though other conflicts rage in areas like nutrition and natural childbirth….

I read the Rosin piece; someone posted it on the twin Mommy board.  I felt a great deal of sympathy for the mother who posted it.  She said it helped her to feel less guilt about not breastfeeding, and from that point a discussion ensued with many formula feeding mother’s talking about how they feel that breastfeeding mothers are looking upon them unfavorably.

I’ll be frank; I don’t like the article, but there is one part of the article that stands out as true to me1 :

In her critique of the awareness campaign, Joan Wolf, a women’s-studies professor at Texas A&M University, chalks up the overzealous ads to a new ethic of “total motherhood.” Mothers these days are expected to “optimize every dimension of children’s lives,” she writes. Choices are often presented as the mother’s selfish desires versus the baby’s needs.

I have a great deal of empathy with mothers today who are striving to mother under a mothering ideology that demands perfection.  What I also find fascinating is how both breastfeeding and formula feeding mothers really have the same underlying feelings; both groups feeling that their decision on infant feeding is not respected.  Anytime these kinds of issues come up the Mommy board mantra is “do what works for you” “don’t judge each other’s parenting.”  The down side is that this places limitations on honest communications between these mothers, and the upside is that mother’s, who are already operating under ideology that demands parenting perfection, feel validated.

Nevertheless, topics like this are hotly contested on Mommy boards, and one thing I find most fascinating is that many Mommies blame each other, not the dominant ideology.  Here’s how I respond to the debate over this article on the Mommy board:

Women’s “choices” are often very heavily scrutinized, I wouldn’t say it’s primarily from women but from the entire society, and the hidden radical feminist in me says it’s because women as a class are not truly free. Every behavior that we engage in is held to a different set of standards than our male counterparts, and as you say we damned if we do and damned if we don’t. The can be extended to the abortion debate, the SAHM (stay at home mom) vs. working mom debate, debates over women and domestic violence, debates over women and plastic surgery, debates over hormone replacement therapy, and the list could go on and on. And I guess what bothers me is that we consistently divide women into dichotomies–e.i. virgins/w*hores, good girls and bad girls, bi*ches and nice girls. Thus, all of our behaviors are viewed in this context. I use the term choices loosely because I think that society convinces us that we have more choices than we really do. So many of our behaviors (or “choices”) occur in a societal context where we are so heavily scrutinized that our freedom is limited. It’s limited by peer pressure, it’s limited by sexism; it’s limited by patriarchal ideology; it’s limited by bottom line capitalism; it’s limited by racism; it’s limited by poverty; and I’m sure I could come up with a host of other factors that tell us “choices” are not just personal decisions.

Unfortunately this is where this crabs in a barrel problem comes in because we all feel heavily scrutinized but rather than blaming the social system that creates this mess we blame each other, and no matter what our so called “choice,” the constraints on our full personhood are still there.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t also say that constraints on mothering are radically different in diverse groups of women.  For example, the breastfeeding vs. formula feeding debate has much different meaning for middle and upper income white women living in the US than it does for poor women of color in developing countries.  The the structures of gender, race, class, sexuality, and nationhood operate simultaneously.

I’m not one who think women all have to tow the line and agree with each other, but what gets lost in translation is how social forces much greater than us shape our “choices” to formula feed, breastfeed, or combo feed our kids.

  1. I have several critiques of the Atlantic Monthly article that I would like to touch on in another post. [back]

Mar

13

NAACP Class Action Lawsuit on Subprime Loans

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Can we file this under the category of news that’s not really news?  The NAACP is involved in a class action law suit against several banks including a few of the banks taking federal bailout money:

The NAACP is accusing Wells Fargo and HSBC of forcing blacks into subprime mortgages while whites with identical qualifications got lower rates.

Class-action lawsuits will be filed against the banks Friday in federal court in Los Angeles, Austin Tighe, co-lead counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, told The Associated Press.

Black homebuyers have been 3 1/2 times more likely to receive a subprime loan than white borrowers, and six times more likely to get a subprime rate when refinancing, Tighe said. Blacks still were disproportionately steered into subprime loans when their credit scores, income and down payment were equal to those of white homebuyers, he said.

This isn’t the least bit surprising to those of us have followed the sub-prime mortgage issue.

Mar

12

We Have a Future Blogger

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I started my boys on computers early.  I found it was great way to break the monotony of breastfeeding twins, so once I figured the breastfeeding out, I would sit and read articles on the web while I fed them.  I couldn’t really write much because I needed at least one hand to balance them, but they were able to figure out the keyboard.

In these pictures my Eli was 3 months old, and by this point, I had to stop feeding him (or only do it when he was really tired) while reading on the computer because he loved the computer.  He was obsessed with that screen saver, and as you can see in the third picture he knew how to push the buttons on the touch pad mouse.  It’s amazing what kids can pick up.  Now at 8 months, I can’t let him near the computer he goes crazy and tries to bang the keys and the mouse.

I think we have a future blogger on our hands.

eli-3-month-using-computer-1eli-3-month-using-computer-2eli-3-month-using-computer-3

Mar

10

I’m Afraid President Obama, Himself, is a Bit of Coward on the Race Issue

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I voted for Obama, twice–once in the primary, and then again in the general election, but this is something he does that drives me crazy.  In typical political fashion, he talks out both sides of his mouth.  I knew Eric Holder would get flack over his comments about America being cowardly, but it had to be from Obama himself.  Of course, being the Barack Obama that he is; he distances himself, but then admits that there is a point to Holder’s comments.

President Obama has chided his attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., for describing America as a “nation of cowards” when discussing race, wading into a tumult that flared over Mr. Holder’s indictment of the way this country talks about ethnicity.

“I think it’s fair to say that if I had been advising my attorney general, we would have used different language,” Mr. Obama said in a mild rebuke from America’s first black president to its first black attorney general.

In an interview with The New York Times on Friday, the president said that despite Mr. Holder’s choice of words, he had a point.

“We’re oftentimes uncomfortable with talking about race until there’s some sort of racial flare-up or conflict,” he said, adding, “We could probably be more constructive in facing up to sort of the painful legacy of slavery and Jim Crow and discrimination.”

I haven’t had much time to write about Obama, but this is a big part of the reason I think having a black President doesn’t mean that racism will go away in this country.  Obama is always placating his detractors, and he probably never would have been elected if he didn’t do so.

Mar

4

Highly Skilled US Immigrants are Emigrating: What’s the deal?

Filed Under Class Classism and Economic Inequality, Original Essays and Analysis, Xenophobia and Immigration | 5 Comments

I think it’s fair to say that immigration has long been positive contributors to the US economy.  In recent years, highly skilled immigrants have filled high demand jobs in science, technology, and  health care related fields.  Many of these immigrants have attended US universities and have advanced degrees.  They are relatively well positioned in US society, so why would they leave?

According to Vivek Wadhwa in this article from business Week, the pull to emigrate (Remember emmigration with an “E” means exit.) back to their countries of origin has several origins.  The researchers on Wadhwa’s team, surveyed Chinese and Indian emmigrants.  Some reasons given were personal and cultural,

Returnees cited language barriers, missing their family and friends at home, difficulty with cultural assimilation, and care of parents and children as key issues.

Another factor for the return was bureaucratic barriers that visa seekers faced in the US.

However, there were several pull factors that lead emmigrants to feel they would have more opportunities in their countries of origin:

Eighty-seven percent of Chinese and 79% of Indians said a strong factor in their original decision to return home was the growing demand for their skills in their home countries. Their instincts generally proved right. Significant numbers moved up the organization chart. Among Indians the percentage of respondents holding senior management positions increased from 10% in the U.S. to 44% in India, and among Chinese it increased from 9% in the U.S. to 36% in China. Eighty-seven percent of Chinese and 62% of Indians said they had better opportunities for longer-term professional growth in their home countries than in the U.S. Additionally, nearly half were considering launching businesses and said entrepreneurial opportunities were better in their home countries than in the U.S.

The researchers don’t mention discrimination here in the US as a factor, but these statistics don’t preclude it as a possibility.  In previous studies, many Asian Americans, from both immigrant and non-immigrant backgrounds have reported difficulties in promotions.  These difficulties can be related to immigration status, ethnicity, or race.

Given the terrible state of the economy, I wonder if the sacrifice of leaving one’s culturel and family isn’t being offset by financial rewards here in the US.  I’ve also read recent reports about a decline in remittances sent to Mexico and other countries.  This could mean either immigrants are living here but keeping money for themselves and/or immigrants are returning to their home countries.  Then again, these trends may have been happening even without the economic down turn since the economies in places like India and CHina are rapidly expanding.

Mar

2

Troll Comments Galore

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I seriously need to put up some troll comments posts.  I’ve got some good ones sitting in the filter.