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

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.

Aug

30

The Olympics–a few thoughts on Global Inequality, Gender, Patriotism, and Multiculturalism

Filed Under Class Classism and Economic Inequality, Gender and Sexism, International Racism, Media Praises and Critiques, Original Essays and Analysis, Pop Culture, Race and Racism, Sociology, Uncategorized, Xenophobia and Immigration | 10 Comments

When I first started teaching I taught a class called “Prejudice and Discrimination,” in order to get my students to examine race, class, gender, and sexuality issues (later I added disability) I gave them an assignment where they had to watch a TV program, and analyze it from a sociological perspective. Basically, I wanted them to apply a theory from sociology to the program they chose. It was 2000, and one student did his analysis on the Olympics. He decided to use what I’ll call a functionalist multicultural perspective. In sociology, functionalism is a conservative theoretical view that argues that society is made up of interrelated and interdependent parts, which work together to create stability harmony, and order. Functionalists generally want to minimize change, and they tend to see everything having a functional purpose. The competing theory is conflict theory. Conflict theorists see a society that is driven over competition for scarce resources–in particular they see conflict stemming from the competition between society’s haves and have nots. Since conflict theory is inspired by some insights of Marxism, conflict theorists believe that social change is necessary.

In my student’s view, the Olympics were great because they brought all the people of the world together. Furthermore, everybody was competing on an equal playing field. He also felt that the spirit of the Olympic movement wiped out race, class, gender, and sexuality issues. In other words, the Olympics made all of these things moot, and nobody cared about any of these things when watching the Olympics.

Sarcastically, I asked myself–is this student watching the same Olympics as I am. I suppose when we take a functionalist view, the Olympics is a sample of stability and harmony, but I don’t see how we can watch the Olympics without noticing the haves and have nots of the world. While one can see some functionalist elements at the Olympics; you have to be deliberately obtuse to miss how Olympic competition is just as much about the social inequalities between groups.

Let’s start with gender. If you watched careful, there were a few occasions when I saw events for men labeled in a neutral way–i.e. the basketball finals– but events for women were labeled as women’s events–i.e. the women’s basketball finals. Isn’t it interesting that even though women participate in most sports at the Olympics, the men’s events are still central in most of those sports. I’ve also noticed that some countries have significantly fewer successful women athletes, and that is often related to the limited number of opportunities for women to compete in those countries. Think about those Kenyan and Ethiopian runners–it has only been recent that women in those countries have been recruited and trained to run like their male counterparts. I also couldn’t stand looking at yahoo during the Olympics where butt shots of women’s beach volleyball players were consistently in the top 10. Don’t get me wrong these women were talented, but it was obvious that their skimpy uniforms were part of the reason the networks had them in primetime.

What about Patriotism and ethnocentrism? As a very public sociologist noted in the thread last week, the US media listed the medal count as opposed to the gold medal count. China ran away with the gold medal count, but I guess it makes us look better to note that we won more over all medals. You could also see the bias in coverage. For the most part if the US wasn’t doing good in an event, then the coverage of that event was either non-existent or relegated to a sound bite. I’ve always felt that the Olympics is largely about Patriotism; it’s a way for countries to feel good about themselves and their people, a way to show strength (quite literally). In the 1936 Olympics, Hitler wanted to prove how great the “Aryan” race was, but he was upstaged by the great African American athlete Jesse Owens. This was the classic example of the political clashes that often occur at the Olympics. Don’t get me wrong, there are events that symbolize coming together in spite of our differences–this year the Georgian and Russian competitors in the Women’s air pistol certainly would be an example. But overall, the examples of countries trying to upstage each other or athletes coming to be representatives for the social and political causes of their nations are probably more numerous. The Olympics are a competition after all.

The other issue that I’m reminded of is global inequality and it’s connection to immigration. I was struck by how the US and China dominated the competition, but one thing I noticed in particular is how many top athletes representing the US were born in other countries and, in many cases, competed for those countries in the past. I noticed a former Chinese ping pong player, a former Kenyan distance runner, and a Trinidadian sprinter. Under the 1965 immigration Act, these immigrants are given the fast track to citizenship because of their special skills.1 The US obviously benefits, as do many other Western countries. These athletes are able to leave poor countries and head to wealthier ones. When we are talking about science and occupations, this is called the brain drain. Perhaps in sports it should be called the “muscle hustle.” Wealthy countries siphon off the top athletes from poor countries; moreover, many of the athletes from poor countries train, compete, and live in wealthy nations. I don’t know how many people noticed how many of the West Indian (such as Trinidadian, Jamaican, Bahamian) sprinters attend college and train in the US. I’d be curious to know how many of these athletes are able to stay in the US because of their skills.

Now I haven’t even touched on racism in this already long post, so I’ll keep it brief. Sport is often used as a way to reinforce racial stereotypes. Rather than connecting the racial make-up of an Olympic sports team to social opportunities, many try to assert biological distinctions between races, ignoring those who defy racial stereotypes and ignoring economic and social factors that result in racial differences. (Feel free to share your own examples for this one.)

What do you think? How does conflict theory play out at the Olympics? What ways do you think the Olympics represents a functionalist world view?

  1. This is also applied to scientists, artists, and people in some high demand occupational fields. [back]

May

11

Analysis of a Local Public Disturbance

Filed Under Black/African American Issues, Class Classism and Economic Inequality, Crime/Hate Crimes, Demography, Environment and Conservation, Hip Hop, Politics, Race and Racism | 18 Comments

Note: This is a long piece and rambles over a lot of ground before I get to something resembling a point. I felt the pull of the current while writing it; I just wanted to get it out as soon as possible. I’m going to take a break from guest-posting here for a bit afterwards, since I have a lot of obligations coming up. I’m sure Sewere and Lyonside will soon have some interesting posts to fill the temporary guesting gap.

What makes a viral video?

Here are some qualities I’ve noticed.

1) They show a human or animal engaged in some unique or extreme activity
2) They exhibit noteworthy artistic skill or cleverness
3) They greatly reinforce prior beliefs
4) They greatly challenge prior beliefs
5) Newsworthy: they show something that connects with our sense of the local and the current, the here and now. We can relate the narrative of our lives to what happens in the video.

These videos also generate mountains of racially-based commentaries wherever they’re posted. Actually, it’s often more a spittle-flecked monologue than it is a dialogue.

I’ll talk about two other viral videos before I show the Soulja Girl one.

I remember a video from last year that showed a high school fight. Two young men take off their shirts and square off. It’s a white kid and a smaller, shorter Asian kid. The crowd is yelling their support of the white kid; they’re on his side. It begins. Whoever uploaded it has added a soundtrack: Rick Ross’ “Everday I’m Hustlin” booms over the fight. The Asian kid moves like greased lightning and after a few punches, the white kid is down. He gets up and walks off. The Asian kid drops him again; this time he can barely stagger away, blood and bits of teeth spraying from his mouth. The video ends.

This video was popular among Asian-Americans, for obvious reasons. A narrative built up around it. The white kid was the bully. The Asian kid was the hero. The narrative had dubious authenticity, but it felt right, it fit with the video and it fit with many of our experiences. I’ve certainly had the experience, multiple times at school, of being surrounded by a circle of hostile white kids screaming at me. I watched the video several times. It created a strong surge of mixed emotion. I couldn’t think straight while watching it. I loved it and hated it at the same time for making me romanticize the violence.

Another example is a popular video I saw last year that’s much less violent but seemed to arouse equally strong emotions. A young, pretty, blond white girl sits in front of the camera and talks about her infatuation with Arab men. Nothing is pornographic or poetic; her tone is quite flat and even bland. Arab men are handsome. They’re sexy. They’re romantic. They know how to treat women well. They’re fun to hang out with. She only goes out with Arab men now. Her current boyfriend is Arab. She’s learning Arabic. She’s converting to Islam. That’s it, really.

You can imagine how the typical anti-Arab commenter reacts to this. Her positive stereotyping sends them into a frenzy. What she believes is the exact opposite of what any white, presumably Christian woman is supposed to believe about Arab men. It’s a huge challenge to their own beliefs, and they have to deal with it by turning her into a non-representative freak, someone who’s not deserving of the title of woman, even.

If it was a more common fetish for example, a white man giving similarly bland reasons for liking Asian women — there is no way the video would have gotten the same attention and reaction.

I first saw the Soulja Girl video at the Creative Loafing blog. It’s a local Atlanta blog. There are other local sources for the video. It’s viral because it’s current, it involves something that almost all Atlantans are familiar with (the MARTA train), it shows an extreme of human behavior and it reinforces some prior beliefs for a lot of people. I have to warn viewers, the video is quite depressing and is going to arouse a lot of negative emotions. I’m going to talk much more about those reactions than about the video itself.

Here are some comments from the initial Creative Loafing post. There’s a good dialogue in that the stupid comments do not go unchallenged.

Reason #3,129 guns should be kept off MARTA

# Jill Chambers Says:
May 7th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
It’s just one more reason why MARTA needs to have their police actually riding on the trains. How sad that someone would so rudely disrespect the elderly woman and that all those other riders did not even try to come to her defense.

# Cricket Says:
May 8th, 2008 at 6:46 am
This is a perfect reason that people with concealed carry permits SHOULD be allowed on MARTA. If I had seen this, and it had escalated to actual physical violence, I would have no problem giving that ghetto wh*re two in the hat.

# Ken Edelstein Says:
May 8th, 2008 at 8:06 am
Cricket, you make the point of gun control advocates everywhere.

# DaleC Says:
May 8th, 2008 at 9:47 am
Cricket it DID escalate to physical violence when the guy finally stood up and stopped the aggressor. No weapons needed.
That poor old woman. I can’t believe it took that long for SOMEBODY to stand up to her being assaulted.
Notice how rapidly Soulja Girl’s attitude changed when she was confronted by someone who showed force in an appropriate manner.
Bullies fold when someone calls them on their crap. It’s a shame it took someone that long to stand up to her.
As an aside, don’t you just LOVE the beautiful world of Hard Core Hip Hop culture.

# Roxie Says:
May 9th, 2008 at 11:16 am
Dude, Dale, did you just call “superman” Hard Core HipHop?
Please, appropriately hang your head in shame.
The woman in the video was not a life threatening individual. Although, she is severely testing sanity and patience, being horrendously disrespectful, aggressive, and antagonizing..It was NOT dealt with appropriately by the young man, as you can see, it only escalated the situation. There are better ways to deal with something like this that do not involve HITTING.
Of course, armchair quarterbacking is so easy. It took so long for ppl to respond b/c they couldn’t believe what was happening and certainly didn’t expect it to last as long as it did.

Hilarious.
# nast Says:
May 9th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Seeing as how this incident was defused by a simple act of wig pulling, perhaps Gov. Perdue should sign a bill that protects individual rights to pull others’ wigs in restaurants, parks, churches and other public places.
“A wig-pulling society is a polite society.”

In the next update to the story, the spittle-flecked monologue begins.

MARTA statement regarding videotaped lunacy

# troy c Says:
May 9th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Is she an Obama superdelegate?

# LMM66 Says:
May 9th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Not one of those losers tried to help an elderly woman. Everyone there was dumb*** you-know-what. As people have mentioned here already, THIS is how stereotypes are formed. And whether folks like it or not, THIS is the norm for “them”.

# Weary One Says:
May 10th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
M.A.R.T.A.
Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta

# Roxie Says:
May 11th, 2008 at 1:02 am
Wow. I didn’t know so many racists liked CL.

MARTA actually stands for Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (although everyone knows the other five words). It’s a contentious intersection of race, politics and economics.

Compared to better-known train systems, such as New York City, the trains are very limited in the ground they cover. The crime rate is low and the trains and stations are extraordinarily clean. Everyday users of the MARTA trains are predominantly working-class/middle-class African-Americans. All other Atlantans take the trains periodically, usually to go the airport or to attend special events held downtown.

Central Atlanta is a diverse mix, with the largest bloc being native (Atlanta-born) African-American. White people who live inside Atlanta are comparatively progressive in their politics, especially because of the huge GLBT community. They’re not a choir of enlightened angels, by any means, but one thing is sure: if they were scared of seeing and talking to black people every day, they wouldn’t be living where they do.

The suburbs to the east are where many richer, non-Atlanta-born African-Americans have settled. And to the far north, the suburbs trace the arc of white flight. The iron claws of the northern suburbs have had a pretty bad effect on the development of public transportation in Atlanta. Their politics, plus the road-construction lobby’s dirty money, ensures that Atlanta’s traffic congestion and air quality get worse and worse every year. MARTA’s system is funded only by the two counties of metropolitan Atlanta, although people from the surrounding counties frequently use it for park-and-ride. The counties of the northern suburbs refuse to link their own systems to it, for fear of getting too many undesirable people in their neighborhoods. A well known fact: “MARTA is unique in that it is the largest United States transit agency not to receive state operational funding.”

The comments to the video illustrate an intense fear and loathing of public transportation. This fear and loathing feeds from racism, then back into racism, in a vicious feedback loop. “If only I could never leave my car,” they pray. But parking is limited at their sporting events and their centers of bureaucracy. Every once in a while, they have to bravely step onto a MARTA train. And they’re not even allowed to carry their guns on board! They resent that.

Anyone who is passionate about Atlanta and knowledgeable about Atlanta and lives inside it, no matter what their race, knows about this dynamic. We’re all hostages to it.

Getting back to a more personal level, what do viewers feel about the woman?

I didn’t think that drugs were involved. It definitely wasn’t crack. People on crack aren’t that fluid and expressive and coordinated in their movements. I think a lot of people on the train had the same visceral reaction I did the fear and awe of the mad. If you don’t look at them, maybe they won’t notice you.

In fact, that’s what happened. I read it first at local videojournalist A.Man.I’s blog: Soulja Girl Turns Herself In. The fuller story was reported here and on local radio stations.

MARTA’s ‘Soulja Girl’ Getting the Help She Needs

She’s only 25 years old, but the dark bags under Nafiza Z.’s eyes tell the story of a young life blighted by psychosis, delusions, hallucinations and mania that are the hallmarks of her mental disorder.

Yesterday afternoon, Nafiza, was in the DeKalb County jail receiving the psychiatric treatment she desperately needed. But on April 7th, Nafiza was spiraling out of control on a MARTA train traveling through Atlanta’s east side.

The scenes captured on another passenger’s cell phone of Nafiza aka “Soulja Girl” terrorizing an elderly passenger – caused a sensation on the Internet and embarrassed MARTA officials who quickly issued a warrant for her arrest.

People with bipolar disorder aren’t usually that violent or aggressive even in their manic phase. They are usually more of a danger to themselves than they are to others.

Nafiza’s boyfriend Dee, with whom she has a baby son, said it more eloquently when he called into the Ryan Cameron Show on Friday, “If she wasn’t bipolar she would be the good a person on earth,” said Dee.


“That girl got a good heart. The city don’t help her, man! They just kick her back out on the streets. The city don’t help [black mentally ill] folks like that. Once you get in that [manic] stage you can’t help yourself. It mess with your mind, man. Once your mind gone it’s a wrap!”

I don’t know exactly what it’s like to be in the grip of clinical mania, adrenaline coursing through your body, other strange chemicals surging through your brain. But I know what it feels like to be a witness to something like that. Perhaps the awe and fear of the bystander is partly because of our empathy with mania… as if we’re seeing the dial turned up to 10 on an experience we’ve felt at level 3 or 4.

It reminds me of a bizarre experience I had when I was in college in Miami. I was at a donut shop late at night, studying with some friends. An older white man walked in and set down at the booth next to us. He started talking very loudly to the air in a sharp, agonized tone. It was a monologue about being a Vietnam vet and how he was betrayed and how it was all the fault of the gooks. That sentiment, those words, over and over again.

My friends were shrinking into their seats. They were all foreign students and terrified of getting into trouble and getting deported, especially the one from Iraq. I had the opposite reaction. My skin was on fire, there was a buzzing noise in my ears, my body started shivering and trembling as if someone had plugged me into an electric current, and everytime he said the word “gook” the current spiked. After a couple minutes of this, I couldn’t take it anymore. I got up and faced him and started yelling back.

There was chaos after that point. Another older white man came over, said he was also a Vietnam vet and then took my side of the loud, disjointed argument. The staff of the donut shop got involved. There were numerous threats of ass-kicking. The police came. They tried to talk him down but eventually arrested him after he got into his car, because he was obviously in no condition to drive.

My friends, who hadn’t moved during the whole time, told me I was crazy. Yes, my actions were pretty irrational, but I didn’t feel like I had a choice. I’d waded up to my knees in something that the mentally ill man was drowning in. I suppose I won, but my victory was pretty hollow.

This was the first narrative that I connected to the video I watched today. But after that man went out into the parking lot, I have no idea how his story began or ended.

After I read a bit more of Nafiza Z.’s story, I feel almost guilty for writing this analysis. I still empathize with the bystanders and the poor elderly lady, but I also empathize with her terrible struggle. I hope these words will go to show how the hatred expressed toward her has more to do with a complicated web of politics, race and resentment than it does with her actual actions. Finally, I hope she can transcend the person shown in that video and become the person she wants to be.

Apr

14

World Wide Food Price Crisis

Filed Under Class Classism and Economic Inequality, Environment and Conservation, Original Essays and Analysis, Politics, Sociology, Uncategorized | 6 Comments

A few weeks ago I walked into my local supermarket to see that a 10 oz. bar of cheese was “on sale” for $5.39. I did a double take–maybe they meant two bars of cheese for $5.39. Generally, the sale on that brand of cheese is 2 for $4.00 or 2 for $5.00, but sure enough this was somehow supposed to be a sale. I’ve been complaining about this since last year–the cost of food is soaring. Last year, I could generally get out of the supermarket paying around $65-85.00 for two people, now I’m paying $90.00 or more. The higher prices seem to apply across the board–fresh produce, canned foods, flour/rice, and most dramatically dairy. Of course, I’m fortunate to be able to suck it up and pay the higher prices, but many lower income folks in this country and other wealthy countries are struggling, and in poorer countries, people are taking to the streets in protest because they are unable to feed their families.

A quick search of Google news indicates that we really are in a world wide food crisis. I’m not so sure that there is an actually shortage of food, but the crisis appears to be the cost. Some of the countries where people are struggling with soaring food prices, include–Afghanistan, Haiti, South Africa, Namibia, New Zealand, Ivory Coast, and numerous others. The situation is getting so serious that the United Nations (and the World Bank) weighed in last week :

The head of the UN World Food Programme has warned that the rise in basic food costs could continue until 2010.

Josette Sheeran blamed soaring energy and grain prices, the effects of climate change and demand for biofuels.

Ms Sheeran has already warned that the WFP is considering plans to ration food aid due to a shortage of funds.

Some food prices rose 40% last year, and the WFP fears the world’s poorest will buy less food, less nutritious food or be forced to rely on aid.

Speaking after briefing the European Parliament, Ms Sheeran said the agency needed an extra $375m (244m euros; 187m) for food projects this year and $125m (81m euros; 93m) to transport it.

She said she saw no quick solution to high food and fuel costs.

“The assessment is that we are facing high food prices at least for the next couple of years,” she said.

Ms Sheeran said global food reserves were at their lowest level in 30 years – with enough to cover the need for emergency deliveries for 53 days, compared with 169 days in 2007.

Several factors have been cited as causes for the food price crisis including: rising fuel cost, the shift towards biofuels (e.g. ethanol), population growth, the growth of capitalist economies, and weather patterns. The greatest criticism in the range of articles I read has been reserved for government subsidies for bio-fuels, specifically ethanol. Many feel that the shift to ethanol and bio-fuels is environmentally harmful, but now we can add soaring food prices and hunger to the list of arguments against bio-fuels1.

  1. If you want more information of about the food crisis, these graphs from the BBC website have useful information about the food price crisis. The only additional point I would add is that (see the chart of trade balances) while some countries like the US will benefit in the area of trade, I don’t think that the average American is benefiting from this. A few corporate farmers may be getting rich, but the vast majority of people are hurting. We’re not hurting anywhere near as much as poor people in poor countries. [back]

Mar

9

Quick Link: Love and Consequences Coverage Sequence

Filed Under Black/African American Issues, Class Classism and Economic Inequality, Racism Round-Up | 10 Comments

Rachelstavern.com commenter ExpatJane has a series of posts on the “Love and Consequences” faked memoir. As a South Central native and ex-insurance adjuster, she’s working off her irritation by thoroughly listing the various kinds of incompetence involved in the whole sorry affair.

An excerpt:

Half white, half native American? My ass. Yes, I know, sometimes it’s hard to tell by looking at someone that they’re half this or half that, but considering the tall tale she was spinning complete with a big black mammy, I’d get suspicious.

I actually think that had they had someone who was from L.A. on this they would have picked up on something too. The publishing industry seems to be a nice derivative of the white shoe East Coast tradition where legacies and nepotism dominate the industry.

Feb

3

“What cracker is this?”

Filed Under Blackface Parties, Class Classism and Economic Inequality, Race and Racism | 14 Comments

(being a post by atlasien on the race and class dimensions of the word “cracker”)

In north Florida and south Georgia, the word cracker usually isnt used as a slur. In fact, it can be a point of ethnic, regional pride. You might hear, my family are real Florida crackers. It means theyre not newcomers; that theyre descended from Scots-Irish settlers and have roots in the region that are centuries old. It means their family had a poor rural background but pride in their history. In a bright-shiny-bring-on-the-new-and-pave-over-everything state like Florida, this is a fairly meaningful statement.

Theres a Florida Cracker Museum and a Cracker Heritage Festival.

Ive heard the story that many of the Crackers were muledrivers in the Civil War, and got the name from the crack of their whips. Another common claim is that crackers were plantation overseers and the crack of their whip was directed onto slaves. However, thats just pure wishful thinking by people who want to make the term simpler to use as a slur. The true origin of the word is mildly insulting but has nothing to do with whips.

From the New Georgia Encyclopedia:

Linguists now believe the original root to be the Gaelic craic, still used in Ireland (anglicized in spelling to crack) for “entertaining conversation.” The English meaning of cracker as a braggart appears by Elizabethan times, as, for example, in Shakespeare’s King John (1595): “What cracker is this . . . that deafes our ears / With this abundance of superfluous breath?”

By the 1760s the English, both at home and in colonial America, were applying the term to Scots-Irish settlers of the southern backcountry, as in this passage from a letter to the earl of Dartmouth: “I should explain to your Lordship what is meant by Crackers; a name they have got from being great boasters; they are a lawless set of rascalls on the frontiers of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas, and Georgia, who often change their places of abode.” The word then came to be associated with the cowboys of Georgia and Florida, many of them descendants of those early frontiersmen.

The word cracker has had a second life as a racial slur. Its had more staying power than other attempts at racial slurs for white people. I believe the reason is that its not purely a racial slur. Its a classist insult in complicated disguise.

When used by a black person (or other person of color, but its most common among black people) against a white person, its meant as an insult, of course. The primary intent is to throw the persons whiteness in their face. But thats really no great accomplishment.

Racial slurs are powerful because they create a feedback loop of otherness and exclusion. A word like n***er or ch**k draws on a pre-established racial hierarchy to encapsulate a powerful message: you are different, you do not belong, Im on high and you are low, Im on the inside and you are on the outside, I matter and you dont. A slur against white people simply cant accomplish that. You might as well say, youre you’re… a white person! Yes, the white person is reminded that they belong to a race, and that youre trying to exclude them from something by insulting them. That racialization might hurt, but society as a whole doesnt reinforce racialization on white people, and theyre much more free to deny that their race matters. The exclusion might hurt, too. But the white person is being excluded from a specific place (the general vicinity of the person of color that called them a cracker) and not that extra level of exclusion, exclusion from an existence that matters.

This is why any racial slur against white people is never as powerful, in itself, as other kinds of racial slurs.

The word cracker has a little extra element, however, because of its class dimension. The person using the insult is really trying to say something like you, white person, who think you are so above me by being white, well youre not so smart and fresh and civilized as your whiteness would suggest, there are low class white people less civilized than I am, and you may as well be one of those lower class people!

The message is somewhat tortured, so its effectiveness is variable.

Like the term white trash, cracker has a parallel use by white people against other white people. In fact, this use might be the most common one. This way, its a pure class insult, and much more effective. A white person who comes from a poor rural background and moves to a different environment has to face a lot of judgments and maybe slurs of this nature. It can be psychologically devastating. When wielded by a person accepted to be of a higher social class, the effect is very similar to a racial slur: you are different, you do not belong, Im on high and you are low

I would hate to ever use the word cracker as an insult, primarily because I dont think its fair to those white working-class people. Some of them are good people, some of them are ignorant people, some of them are terrible people, some of them are racists and some of them are fairly enlightened. I dont think theyre the scum of the earth and Im sad that some people think they are.

Ive noticed that people protesting the loudest against use of the word cracker dont make class arguments. They also don’t protest against the use of the term “white trash”. Instead, they make racism-equivalence arguments to try and prove the people of color are persecuting them. Why dont I get to be a victim too, goddamnit!

I think these are the kind of people who watched the trailer for the movie White Chicks and thought hah, another stupid Wayans Brothers movie then instantly forgot about it, until years later when they heard about some white college students getting in trouble for a blackface party, and then decided that White Chicks was obviously the first offensive in an upcoming race war, a politically correct Triumph of the Will, and much more evil and terrible and cruel than anything a white person has ever done to a black person.

Then they complain about the word cracker and then they go have lunch at the Cracker Barrel.

Jan

16

Crime in Dekalb County and How it Gets Discussed

Filed Under Class Classism and Economic Inequality, Race and Racism, Uncategorized | 5 Comments

I had a minor panic this morning when I heard the news. Two off-duty police officers ambushed, shot and killed in a neighborhood not too far from mine; the gunmen still on the loose. Six schools completely shut down to make sure the gunmen aren’t hiding in them.

My neighborhood is an “in between” area when it comes to crime. If things were just a little bit worse, we’d need burglar bars; as it is, we have an alarm system and use it religiously.

Atlanta has a rising murder rate when most other large cities have a declining rate. The official spin is to blame resettled New Orleans gangsters, but I don’t buy that, since we have plenty of native Atlantan criminal issues already. It’s completely insane. To me, the issues and solutions are clear. Immediate criminal justice needs have to be addressed, and our leaders are not addressing them. Here are a few of those needs, and how I see their impact on day to day living.

Gun control. Georgians love guns almost as much as Floridians. A good friend of my husband’s was recently shot and killed in a botched mugging. They did nothing to provoke it; the gun just went off in the killer’s hand. Don’t tell me this would have happened with a knife… My ex-roommate was also shot in the chest a few streets away in a different incident. Amazingly, he recovered with almost no damage.

Community policing. Speaking of that particular neighborhood, there used to be a beat cop there. He knew all the locals. The small business owners loved having him around. The beat cop knew which of the homeless people were harmless or helpful, and which ones caused trouble and stole things. He was reassigned and not replaced, and crime got a lot worse there, including the murder of my husband’s friend.

More 911 operators! Last year I was out gardening in my yard when I saw a pickup truck stop at a corner. A couple got out and started arguing loudly. Then the man began savagely beating the woman’s head with his fists. I called 911, so did my husband from another phone. I wish we could have done more to stop it, but that goes back to “gun control”… the danger of getting involved is getting shot. No one at 911 responded to us, not even after five minutes of holding. My husband had managed to flag down a police officer who was driving by and gave them the description, but by then it was too late and the couple had driven off, the woman getting back into the car with the man voluntarily (or under threat).

More police. Dekalb County has too few police covering too much area. They’re also underpaid and demoralized. They need to be paid better and also held to a higher standard, which brings us to…

Less police corruption and more transparency. Perhaps things have gotten a little bit better here. It would be hard to get worse, what with sheriffs assassinating each other.

I don’t believe in using the phrase “race is not a factor,” as race is a factor in every aspect of American society. However, this kind of violent crime touches all residents. Dekalb County is very diverse. Middle and upper-class African-Americans and others can minimize many of the effects of the crime; the people who suffer most are the working-class people, mostly African-American, or else recent immigrants and refugees (e.g. Mexican, Liberian, Burmese), trapped in nasty roach-infested apartment complexes, working three jobs while desperately trying to avoid the crazed thugs running wild with guns.

I see clear solutions — I’m not talking about addressing root causes here, just the symptoms, so less people get shot and killed in the near-term — but some people are obviously invested in muddying the waters. Here’s a recent reaction to the police shooting from the AJC blog.

When police die, where are activists?
By Steve Rose | Wednesday, January 16, 2008, 10:25 AM | The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Today is one those days that I could do without. I got in the car and as I headed down the road, I heard the radio report where two police officers in DeKalb County were shot and killed this morning. I guess its a sharp reminder that no one is immune from all this crazy violence.

My first thought was how ironic it is that it happened in DeKalb County. I would guess those people who demanded all the investigations of police-related shootings and the police have a common bond now.

I wonder if theyll show up, with their agenda-ridden activism, to support the families and fellow officers of these two officers.

I doubt it.

This is such a deluded statement. To give some context, there were a lot of activists protesting the death of Kathryn Johnston in neighboring Fulton County in 2006, and the reason should be obvious. Narcotics officers burst through her doors with a no-knock warrant, shot down the 88-year old African-American woman, then planted marijuana to cover up their mistake and make her look like a drug dealer! They might have gotten away with it if not for all the media attention. Dead grandmothers who live in bad neighborhoods are the kind of disempowered people who desperately need activists representing them. Police officers don’t need activists in the same way, and the parallel is ridiculous. Yes, they face a lot of labor issues, but can an activist help them track down a pair of cop-killers? That’s a job best left to the police themselves. It doesn’t mean that critics of police corruption want police to be killed.

The post has a lot of comments already.

Here’s one of the sanest:

By Tammy | January 16, 2008 12:17 PM | Link to this
I am a Dekalb citizen. It is very unfortunate for anyone to lose their lives. My prayers go out to the families of the slain officers. I think it is a shame that police officers must work 2nd jobs in order to have a decent quality of life. As a Dekalb citizen, I am on the defense based on some of the responses. My first issue is that crime happens in all counties. My second issue is that these murders are not about race. My 3rd concern is it does not matter if the community activists are not speaking up for the slain officers. We all choose our battles, if that is not their battle, so what. What are you standing up for? Or are you just sitting around in your little corner, with your judgemental selves. Stop judging our community and take a stand for something.

Typical thug wannabe, always posts in all caps and is probably 12 years old. However, he’s totally correct about Dekalb police shooting rates:

By Deez | January 16, 2008 12:04 PM | Link to this
WHY IS THERE SO MUCH PITY FOR THESE OFFICERS. I MEAN IT SUCKS THEY DIED, BUT BIG DEAL. RESEARCH HOW MANY PEOPLE DEKALB POLICE HAVE KILLED ALONE IN 2007, ITS HIGHEST IN THE NATION. SO THEY KILL PEOPLE EVERYDAY, ABUSE THIER POWER AND SEND HUNDREDS OF INNOCENT PEOPLE TO JAIL TO COVER UP FOR THEIR SCREW UPS. SO I DONT FEEL LIKE ITS A BIG DEAL. SO WHAT. THIS IS ATLANTA, BE PREPARED. BUT BEFORE WE PITY THESE CORRUPT PEOPLE YALL CALL POLICE, YOU REALLY NEED TO SEE THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PICTURE. PHUCK COPS. THEY ALL CROOKED, IN THIS CROOKED SYSTEM.

Typical racist gun nut:

By Truth Hurts | January 16, 2008 12:11 PM | Link to this
Activists like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton can be thanked for this. Everything is a race issue with blacks because blacks cant get out of the mindset of slavery. Blacks hate cops because some dead rappers out of California told them to hate cops. Face it, liberals coddle ignorance. If every law abiding citizen would carry a firearm then crime would go down. There is plenty of evidence to back this up.

Typical resentment-mongering racist blaming black people for racism:

By Ed | January 16, 2008 1:31 PM | Link to this
Deez, you are the exact reason there is racism alive and well today. You are the exact reason a lot of whites think all blacks are mean, lazy and evil. You are the exact reason we move when you move into our neighbrohoods. You are the exact reason we feel you are not qualified for the jobs you get and when we see a black in a high paying job or a luxury car we think its because of affrimative action or quotas. Are these perceptions true? No. but you reinforce them. I am appalled that more blacks are not blasting this no good ghetto, baby popping and non child supporting thug off the face of the earth. Deez, I bet you end up killed by a cop or in prison for life.

A depressed cynic:

By Here we go again | January 16, 2008 12:35 PM | Link to this
Its people like this person Truth Hurts why the AJC continues these pointless race based blogs, and everytime someone takes the bait. This is a sad sad city.

On the bright side, a lot of the commenters with real knowledge of the issues raise logical points and solutions on the comment thread. But the discussion goes to show, it’s hard to get a consensus and move forward when there are so many people screaming so loudly about so many irrelevant things.

Nov

19

How Can We Lower Infant Mortality?

Filed Under Black/African American Issues, Class Classism and Economic Inequality, Demography, Family Issues, Race and Racism, Sociology, Uncategorized | 9 Comments

I ran across this article on Yahoo! news the other day. It discusses the depressingly high rate of infant mortality in Memphis, Tennessee. The article does a good job highlighting the causes of infant mortality, but I thought the mention of a program designed to lower infant mortality was the most interesting part of the discussion.

While devoted health officials here have been working quietly on the problem for years, only in the past two years did Memphis and Shelby County launch a broad, coordinated attack.

The governor’s office committed more than $3 million in grants to boost grass-roots programs that try to keep women of childbearing age healthy and to pay for better equipment and add workers at city health clinics.

At the moment, health leaders in Memphis are placing their faith in a relatively new idea called “centering pregnancy,” which gathers about a dozen women with similar due dates and coaches them through their pregnancies. They take their own measurement at each meeting, call each other with questions.

The idea: Solve the medical problem by getting vital prenatal care to women who otherwise might not have it, and chip away at the social problem by building a community who women who trust and rely on each other, and perhaps as well at some of the shame and inaccurate information that may have been passed down in families.

Two studies in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, including one that came out this August, have found the models led women to be better prepared to handle their pregnancies. One of the two studies also found the model led to higher birth weight, especially for premature babies.

The county has the program up and running at one of its clinics, with plans for two more soon. And Christ Community, where Taylor works, is expecting a state grant soon to start one of its own.

Taylor, who wears earrings depicting babies in the womb head down, the optimal way, she points out when a guest inquires about them can barely contain her excitement.

“They are acknowledged. They are heard,” she says. “They interact with each other. It produces a community support for each other. You’re actually growing a community and teaching women to take care of themselves.”

I like the idea of a women centered program where peers offer support, but I also think structural solutions like universal health care and poverty reduction are also important. Thinking about it sociologically, we would need macro or structural level solutions, meso or group level solutions, and micro or individual solutions. The program above adresses meso and micro levels, but not macro level problems.

Sep

22

Jena 6: It’s About the Criminal (In)Justice System

Filed Under Black/African American Issues, Blackface Parties, Class Classism and Economic Inequality, Media Praises and Critiques, Original Essays and Analysis, Race and Racism, Sociology | 27 Comments

I was trying my best in the comments over at Alas to explain why the Jena 6 case is troubling to an audience of somewhat skeptical whites. It started from this comment by SamChevre:

Hopefully this doesnt count as a white supremacist comment.

I have a very hard time seeing beating someone unconscious as a legally-permissible response to any taunt (spoken or performed).

I can see that maybe the charge should have been assault vs aggravated assault (Im not an expert on the distinction), but Im not comfortable with he deserved it as a justification for beating someone unconscious.

I dont think that this case is very parallel (as far as prosecutorial over-reach) to the Duke non-rape case. There, the issue was was a crime committed, and if so, by whom. Here, everyone appears to agree that the beating happened and the accused were the ones who did it.

So I responded:

The point has nothing to do with whether or not the young man deserved to be beaten up for yelling racial taunts. No one is saying he deserved to be punched.

What people are saying is that this case should have been treated like the high school fight that it was. The injustice is charging a 16 year old with with attempted murder after a high school fight that resulted in a black eye and a bruised ear. The charges were later reduced to second degree aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery.(I don’t understand the exact distinctions on this either.), and this is what Mychal Bell was convicted of. But this has been overturned by a judge, who noted that the case should have been conducted in juvenile court. Seriously, can you imagine how many of you or your classmates would be in jail (for up to 22 years) because you got in a fist fight? I know about 1/3 of the people I went to school with would be in jail.

Furthermore, this was the culmination of events where white youths were getting much more lenient punishments. The noose hangers were expelled and then allowed back. A similar fight were white students attacked a lone black student went relatively unpunished, as did a case where a white man threaten a group of black teens with a gun. Here’s a little summary of those events: “The noose-hanging incident and the DA’s visit to the school set the stage for everything that followed. Racial tension escalated over the next couple of months, and on November 30, the main academic building of Jena High School was burned down in an unsolved fire. Later the same weekend, a black student was beaten up by white students at a party. The next day, black students at a convenience store were threatened by a young white man with a shotgun. They wrestled the gun from him and ran away. While no charges were filed against the white man, the students were arrested for the theft of the gun.

That Monday at school, a white student, who had been a vocal supporter of the students who hung the nooses, taunted the black student who was beaten up at the off-campus party and allegedly called several black students “nigger.” After lunch, he was knocked down, punched and kicked by black students. He was taken to the hospital but was released and was well enough to go to a social event that evening.”

And then we also have to ask how the hell can a school have a shade tree for whites only. That’s what started this whole thing. A black student asked the principal for permission to sit under the whites shade tree (Should you even have to ask permission?), and suddenly we find nooses on the tree???

I should have added that there are some questions about the involvement of the young men who have been charged. Some say they were not involved in the fight. Nobody is questioning whether or not there was a fight, and it is pretty clear that at least one of these young men was involved. The degree of involvement for each individual person is likely different, and people seem to forget that.

However, if you are going to talk to people about the Jena 6 case, and they only want to focus on the fight in which the black students beat up the white student. They are missing the larger point, which is why the next series of exchanges took place.

Some people took issue with my characterization of the fight saying it was more serious, and the young white man was kicked unconscious. To which I responded:

I dont know anybody who says there should be no punishment. The question is hte severity of the punishment. Perhaps expulsion from school, and probation, some time in youth detention, alternative school. Something like this would be appropriate for a fight, but my point is that this is much bigger than just the fight.
The real question is why are black youths being treated much more harshly than their white counterparts.

Then I got this gem of a comment by Silence is Foo, who later seems to rescind the statement:

I think the problem that people have talking about this case is the fact that the six boys arent innocent. They really did beat the ever-loving-crap out of another boy. So its hard to stand up and say, yeah, but its the fault of the SYSTEM.
Obviously, the police and judicial system in Jena need to be purged of the racists that have handled this whole affair but the issue of what, exactly, to do about the little lynch-mob that received the original charges is pretty divisive.

Thats the problem. Obviously, a grave injustice happened here, but the whole free the jena 6? thing looks, on the surface, like people want them to get off scot-free. This is why only the black activists are rallying behind them.

Imho, if you made the issue Justice for the Jena 6? instead of free them, you might get more traction.

Here’s another comment from Kai Jones:

If you take the race issue out, these events look like a bunch of bullies controlling the population.
Is there a valid argument to be made that race issues justify a group attack on a single person that included stomping on him after beating him to the ground?

So the next tactic was to attack the Free the Jena 6 banner and revert back to the so you’re saying it’s Ok to beat people up argument. Fortunately, others like Myca and Will Shetterly (who surprised me because often he’s in the race is not so important category) also stepped in. This exchange was good:

Myca: I have to wonder why so many people feel the need to point out that beating up this kid was illegal/wrong/unjustified/etc, when I dont think that anyone here has claimed otherwise.
The issue isnt that what the Jena 6 did was justified.

The issue is one of unequal justice, undercharging white students while overcharging black ones, and of the local government turning a blind eye to everything that was going on, allowing it to escalate, escalate, escalate, until finally everything blew up . . . and yeah, the black kids got blamed for it.

Which is typical.

Myca

Myca: I mean, I think a perfect illustration of the situation is that according to the Jena police, sneakers are a deadly weapon, but a shotgun isnt.
Myca
Will S.: Myca, some people are hearing Free and thinking that means giving the six a free pass. What they dont realize is that the six have already paid a lot of dues going through the legal hassles.

Myca: Well, not to mention that beyond going through the legal hassles, at least one of them has been in jail for quite some time now.
Im not minimizing what happened there, and 6-on-1 is out of line regardless . . . but if the standard thats set is that all of this is youthful pranks, and that only changes when its black kids on the giving end rather than the receiving end . . . well, thats the definition of racism.
Myca

This exchange addresses the larger point. There are punishments being meted out in this case. Again, the question is what is fair.
Then the most current exchange is between myself and Jamila Akil:

Jamila: I have to say that at first I jumped on the free the jena 6? bandwagon and even signed a petition or two, but as I read more and more about the facts of this case some red flags are starting to appear in front of my face.
The white kid that was beaten was only in the hospital for less than a day but he was knocked unconscious, kicked in the head, and left blinded in one eye for over a week.

Also, this was wasnt a fight, as it is being reported. The white kid that was beated was punched in the head from behind and was ganged up on. One person being beaten without provocation isnt exactly a fight. This particularly kid that was beaten had nothing to do with hanging the noose or any other racist actions against the black students. He just happened to be a white kid that was an easy target.

Mychal Bell was on probation for other assualt charges at the time of the beating. In fact, this was his the third time before the court on assault charges in a two-year span.

I think that the original sentence was excessive but I do believe that Mychel Bell needs some serious jail time or else the next person he beats up might end up dead instead of just temporarily blinded.

Rachel: Jamila,
Again, by focusing narrowly on the fight that culminated in the attempted murder charges, you are missing the bigger picture.
The argument is that the punishments for the white kids were too light (on three other occasions), and the punishments for the black kids were too heavy handed. Furthermore, had the school not shown so much indifference earlier many of these problems could have been avoided. (I think the principal was reasonable, but the people who overruled his recommendation were not.)
The problem is that the school board and the criminal justice system have let down this kids. How does Mychal Bells lawyer call no witnesses? That is not adequate representation. We already know the court unfairly tried Bell in an adult court, when he should have been tried as a juvenile.

There are numerous cases where the criminal justice system and the school board could have done better. This is the greater picture. Until whites and blacks are treated similarly in the justice system (and we could also argue a class angle here too), there will continue to be thousands of Jenas all over the country.

Nobody is saying Bell should win the peacemaker of the year award. I think he probably needs some anger management, and I think hes served more than enough time in jail by this point.

I know sometimes its kind of hard to feel bad for somebody who you think has done something wrong, but the question is not, Should there be any punishment? The question is, What punishment should there be?

PS- On a different but related note. Many people have ignored the fact that there are likely widely differing levels of involvement for each of the six young men accused, which hopefully will come out in a trial. So we can say hey Mychal Bell had previous legal problems, but that says absolutely nothing about the other young men involved in this case. They should be judged individually based on their participation and their records. Everybody seems to be forgetting this.

So a word of advice to people who are discussing the Jena 6 case, when people try to frame the discussion around only the fight or only Jena, Louisiana, don’t let them. The case itself is much broader, and the issues of our criminal (in)justice system are way bigger than Jena, Louisiana.

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