Rachel’s Tavern- Shakesville Comment on Whiteness and Racial Awareness
- Arrested for BAHWB (Being at Home While Black)
- John Hope Franklin Has Died
- Bottles, Breasts, and Mothering “Choices”
- NAACP Class Action Lawsuit on Subprime Loans
- We Have a Future Blogger
- I’m Afraid President Obama, Himself, is a Bit of Coward on the Race Issue
- Highly Skilled US Immigrants are Emigrating: What’s the deal?
- Troll Comments Galore
- Mark’s Spinach Face
Oct
30
Racism Round-Up 10/30/06
Filed Under Uncategorized by Rachel
1. Michigan has a ballot proposal aimed at ending affirmative action.
2. Fraternities behaving badly: University of Memphis fraternity is accused of racism (by one of its own members) and a John’s Hopkin’s University fraternity has one of those “ghetto themed” anti-black parties.
3. The University of New Hampshire decides not to fire a resident assistant who used racial slurs on the University’s TV station.
4. An anarchist website, challenges the racist media portrayals, of current events in Oaxaca, Mexico.
5. Thanks to a conservative blogger, I found that another liberal blogger has decided to use blackface.? It’s not like the conservatives are blameless, but it is worth it to checkout his round-up of blackface on blogs.? The blogger billmon at a blog called Whiskey Bar decided to blackface Wolf Blitzer in this post,? and then he follows it up with a justification/commentary on why he should be able to do this. Perhaps we need to review “Ebogjohnson’s Famous Should I Use Blackface”? flow chart.
6. Schools seek to end racial integration.? This is a good article about the rapid dismantling of school integration in the US.? It may shock many people to know that schools are more segregated today than they were in 1970s.
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15 Responses to “Racism Round-Up 10/30/06”
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“It may shock many people to know that schools are more segregated today than they were in the 1970s.”
Shock who, Rachel?
All one needs to do is look at their neighborhood, their city, their county, their state all across America.
And schools are not the only thing segregated in America: churches.
Come high noon on Sunday, America is the most racist, segregated country in the world.
Yeah, that’s a hypocritical Christian nation for you.
On the state of Michigan ending AA.
It never ceases to amaze me that non-black people, especially white people, believe that the only people who benefit from AA are black Americans.
Many people who are not black Americans benefit from AA: Arabs, Africans, Latinos, Native Americans—-even white women! Especially white women.
Everyone but black people.
But, let a black person even speak of AA and every anti-AA opponent will come out of the woodwork screaming, with whips, chains, and nail-studded baseball bats to attack anything black people attempt to use to better themselves.
And of course there’s always the old sick mantra: “But the black people are not qualified!” As if every white person in America is? There are some white people who are too stupid to find their way back home with a map, a compass and a radio transmitter tied around their neck.
And the voices of white women have been noticably silent on AA. And why not? Those who’ve benefitted from AA have gotten their gravy from AA and mostly could care less what black people do or do not gain in this country.
Afterall, give a white woman AA benefits, and in essence, you have given her white husband a benefit as well.
Many people in this country do not even want to see black people get anything from the bones, the scraps, the crumbs of AA.
Everyone else can benefit.
But, God help us if black people try to upgrade their station in life.
ann, your post about Affirmative Action is resounding with me in a very special way now–i’m currently writing about black experiences with immigrants and visiting the themes that 1) for immigrants, regardless of color, to be truly “Americanized” they must distance themselves from blacks/join in the oppression (lots of sources on this) and 2) that the success of some immigrants leads to claims of “model minorities” (and in the case of white immigrants, reinforces their superiority) that is then used to blame blacks for all sorts of systemic and institutional problems. based on such comparisons, blacks really are judged “not qualified”, “not capable,” and perhaps most importantly in americans society, “not deserving”
anyway, write on with your bad self!
and the school thing–doesn’t surprise me at all that they’re trying to undo desegregation.
Ann,
One other thing about the controversy over AA is that White women have White fathers, brothers, sons and husbands who can get them into desireable jobs. Sure, they may have complain about discrimination by their male counterparts but when push comes to shove, their men would give their women the best jobs over any Black person because it’s not in the elite’s best interest to have Blacks compete with nonblacks, esp. Whites.
Another interesting note is that Ivy League colleges didn’t recruit Blacks out of their kindness of their hearts, but because they fear revolution by Blacks during the 60s. So they practice tokenism to pretend that they’re tolerant when in reality they’re not. Look at all the racist incidents on college campuses these days and the administration looks the other way or doesn’t notice nor care about the situation POC students face. Then these conservatives have a nerve to say that society is colorblind, so let’s abolish AA from all areas of employment and schooling.
Stephanie
Affirmative action for the longest time has enjoyed being “white.”
Affirmative action for whites was enshrined in the abolition of European indentured servitude, which left black slaves as the only UNFREE labor in the colonies that would become the United States.
Affirmative action for whites was the essence of the 1790 Naturalization Act, which allowed virtually ANY European immigrant to become a full citizen, even while blacks, Asians and American Indians could not.
Affirmative action for whites was the guiding principle of segregation, Asian exclusion laws and the theft of half of Mexico for the fulfillment of Manifest Destiny.
In recent history, affirmative action for whites motivated racially-restrictive housing policies that helped 15 million white families procure homes with FHA loans from the 1930s to the 1960s, while people of color were mostly excluded from the same programs.
For centuries, white people were, and in many cases, still are the biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action.
White affirmative action has skewed lives, shaped our public policy and helped create the glaring inequalities with which we still live.
This is seen in the major advantages white America has been afforded in everything of importance that affects anyone’s life in this country: housing, education, employment, criminal justice, politics, banking and business.
The human who resides in the white house showed his contempt for the affirmative action procedures that the University of Michigan has on its books. Bush, himself a lifelong affirmative action beneficiary for the rich and mediocre attacked the school’s policies calling them “quotas” that were examples of unfair racial preferences. In his ignorance of Michigan’s policies, he showed his clear incompetence in being able to see and grasp the huge magnitude of white privilege still in force:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/01/15/bush.affirmativeaction/index.html
Bush attacked Michigan’s 150-point evaluation scale for undergraduates who are members of disadvantaged/minority groups, which at U of M means blacks, Latinos, American Indians. To many white people such a “preference” is blatantly discriminatory. And Bush also conveniently failed to cite the greater number of points awarded for other things which showed preference towards whites to the exclusion of people of color:
http://www.newsaic.com/mwaffirmativeaction.html
Michigan awards 20 points to any student from a low-income background, REGARDLESS of race. Since these points cannot be combined with those for minority status (in other words, POOR blacks don’t get 40 points), in effect this is a preference for whites.
Michigan awards 16 points to students who come from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan: a rural, largley isolated and almost predominantly white area.
These preferences are fair see in as they are done on the recognition that economic status and even geography (as with race) can have a very profound effect on the quality of K through 12 school one attended, seeing as no one should be punished for such things they have no control over.
But, keep in mind, such preferences—though disproporionately awarded to whites—REMAIN UNCHALLENGED AND UNCRITICIZED, while preferences for black people become the target of reactionary vehemence.
White preference remains hidden because it is more subtle, more ingrained and is not called white preference, even as that is what it is.
But wait.
There’s more.
Ten points are awarded to students who attended top-notch schools, and another 8 points is awarded to students who took an especially demanding Honors curriculum.
These preferences may be race-neutral, but in practice, they are anything but. Because of extreme racial isolation (and note, Michigan’s school’s are the most segregated in America for black Americans according to the research by the Harvard Civil Rights Project):
http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu
Students of color rarely attend the “best” schools and on average schools that they attend offer only a third as many honors courses as those schools serving white students.
Even if a black student is highly intelligent he/she will still be unable to access those extra points mainly because of where they live, their economic status and ultimately their race, which is intertwined with both.
Four more points are awarded to students of parents who are alumni. This type of affirmative action Bush should be very familiar with. But, ironcally, while the alumni preference could work towards the interest of diversity if combined with aggressive race-based AA ( by creating a larger number of black and brown alumnis), the rollback of the latter, combined with the almost guaranteed retention of the former will only futher perpetuate white preference.
So U of M offers 20 “extra” points to the typical black, Latino, or Indian applicant, while offering various combinations of up to 58 extra points for students who will almost all be white. And while the first of these are seen as examples of racial preference, the second are not, HIDDEN as they are behind the structure of social inequities that limit where people live, where they go to school and the kinds of opportunities they have been afforded in life.
White preferences, by being the result of the normal workings of a racist society, can and will remain out of sight, out of mind, while the power of the state is turned against the paltry prefernces meant to offset them.
White preferences will continue to keep white privilege, and white people ahead of non-white children.
And this privilege will continue to allow them to not to have to think about race on a daily basis.
This privilege will continue to not have them contend with their inteligence not be questioned by such racist best-selling books such as “The Bell Curve”, or having their culture attacked as “dysfunctional” by politicians and white “scholars”.
Their privilege of not having to be looked at as a “problem”, “out of place” while driving, shopping, buying a home, or for that matter, attending the University of Michigan.
And there is the privilege of not being denied an interview for a job because your name sounds “too black”.
So long as America harbors her racist preferences that favor whites, and continues to work those privileges for the benefits of whites, all the screaming and squealing talk to end affirmative action is not only premature, but is also a slap in the face of those who have fought and died for equal opportunity.
Speaking of blackface, what is it with this Ali G idiot?
He is absolutely fantastic and if you don’t get the joke, you are an idiot.
Bottom line is that affirmative action is needed, but is very difficult to fairly employ, hence the problems.
Asians are the most negatively affected by affirmative action – “the overrepresented minority”
Oh the title to my post immediatly above should be “Ali G is Great” He really is.
Coming down on white kids for blackface is more than a bit hypocritical if you legitimize that as entertainment.
except that Ali G is not wearing blackface and you don’t get the joke
Good post – informative – thanks.
P.S. however – “anarchist website” actually links to Black At Michigan (good in its own right, of course).
P.S. Ann – yes. I’ve sat on admissions committees and it is a real eye opener, because of the sorts of hidden criteria you discuss. Would anyone consider adding 10 points for having good grades and scores despite not having gone to a top-notch school … ? Or taking the top x% of every high school class, as opposed to the top x% statewide … ? I guess not.
Thanks Professor Zero. Now I need to go find that site again. LOL!
I fixed the anarchist link.