Bigotry and ethnocentrism at the heart of opposition to Ground Zero mosque

Plans for construction of a mosque at Ground Zero have riled both supporters and protesters. According to the New York Times, politicians and social advocacy groups alike have come out on one side of the issue--New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg defended the project on the grounds of religious freedom, while former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called the plan "an aggressive act that is offensive."

The mosque in question, if approved by the city Landmarks and Preservation Commission tomorrow, will be built two blocks from Ground Zero. "Park51," as the facility is to be called, is expected to include a prayer space fit for 2,000, a gym, a pool, a theater and a gallery space. Building partner Daisy Khan, who is also married to the cleric leading the effort, said classrooms and lecture halls will provide space for "a robust debate on the critical issues of radicalization, extremism and terrorism." Khan told the Wall Street Journal that the board running the center will include members of other religions "to protect the interests of the center and to ensure the center has the highest standards of transparency."

The more I read about this issue, the more I question opposition to the facility. The argument that angers me most is the "Don't do this to the families of the victims" bent. First off, let's not forget that Muslims also died on Sept. 11. And secondly, what exactly is this mosque doing to the families of victims? Facilitating dialogues between groups? Exposing the city to an oft-feared and more often stereotyped faith, with a rich history and culture? Trying to blast through the "Islam=jihad" stigma that runs through our veins, perhaps most fervently through those who believe "Islam killed my father/mother/brother/sister/wife/husband, etc."? The motives for Park51 seem pure and good, while the motives to oppose the plan seem bigoted and ethnocentric.

As the New York Times reports, the Anti-Defamation League came out against the mosque last Friday, citing opposition by the victims' families as pivotal in the League's decisions. When asked why the victims' families were so crucial to the decision, national director Abraham H. Foxman replied:

"Survivors of the Holocaust are entitled to feelings that are irrational. [The families'] anguish entitles them to positions that others would categorize as irrational or bigoted."

Pardon? So do black people get to be bigots in exchange for years of slavery? Do Chinese people get rally against white people in exchange for their exploitation during the Gold Rush and the railroad boom? How about Mexican immigrants who went through hell to come to the U.S. legally? Do they get a blank check to spit on Capitol Hill and rail against the largely white male legislature that makes it increasingly difficult for them to bring their families here legally? What, Mr. Foxman, is the statute of limitations on "survivor bigotry?"

And today, on the eve of the decision to greenlight Park51 or not, Islam shatters another stereotype: That women are oppressed and shuttered by the men who "keep them." Just look at the previously-mentioned Daisy Khan. She, and not her husband and business partner, spoke to the Wall Street Journal about the project. She addressed criticisms and offered solutions to ensure extremism was kept at bay. Described by the Journal as "steadfast," Ms. Khan spoke in macro terms of the "Americanization of a religion" and the importance of facilities like Park51 to ensure the intersection of the Islamic community and the community that surrounds it. Khan is far from the cloistered, meek version of Islamic women so often shown in the media and lodged in our perceptions, proving yet again the utility of places like Park51 in combating said stereotypes.

The opposition may think they are protecting us and safeguarding the memory of those killed in 9/11, but in reality they are only preventing us from learning, understanding and letting go of our fears.

Photo Credit: WyBlog

Chicago columnist forgets the power of racialization

How fitting that a mere three days before I move to Chicago I am reminded of the plethora of blog coverage in my hometown city.

Last week, Chicago Sun-Times Columnist Mary Mitchell (at right) wrote a column titled, "Ghetto parenting dooms kids." In this column, she listed the components of said "ghetto parenting," including brawling with your significant other in front of your child, cursing at your child, and putting your child off on family and friends so you can "hang out on the street."

As one might imagine, the column invoked some strong reactions. Lisa Belkin of the New York Times blogged about Mitchell's use of the word "ghetto" as a term for lousy parenting, asking readers to offer their thoughts. Many said Mitchell's writing was downright racist, while others said Mitchell was merely misguided and still another replied (rather rudely I'd say,) "Ghetto is as ghetto does."

Mitchell eventually wrote a follow-up column, "C'mon, you know ghetto when you see it," in which she insisted, "it's not about race or poverty, it's just plain foul behavior." She cited Britney Spears as an example of ghetto parenting and Lindsay Lohan as an example of ghetto behavior. Mitchell asserted that the ghetto is no longer a place where poor black people live, "trapped in a cycle of poverty and despair."

While Mitchell may not have intended for "ghetto" to link up with race so plainly, she failed to recognize and take into account the tremendous historical racialization of the ghetto. Just because she herself does not think the ghetto refers to Chicago's housing projects does not mean others do not conjure up racialized images when they hear or read about "ghetto parenting." As commenter 12 on Belkin's blog stated:

"Mitchell is overlooking a very important point in this discussion: the word 'ghetto' has a history and a meaning; she may have attempted to coin the phrase 'ghetto parenting' but she didn't coin the word 'ghetto' and it is simply not at her whim to decide what it means."

If Mitchell is correct that the definition of ghetto has expanded to include Spears and Lohan, it certainly hasn't departed from its former designation to poor black families and neighborhoods. Typing "ghetto" into a Google search yields the following Wikipedia explanation:

"Recently the word 'ghetto' has been used in slang as an adjective rather than a noun. It is used to indicate an object's relation to the inner city or black culture, and also more broadly, and somewhat offensively, to denote something that is shabby or of low quality."

(I know, I know, Wikipedia is not the most reliable, but many people get their facts from the site. Furthermore, because Wikipedia is user-generated/edited, the information presented can be said to be a consensus on a given topic.)

A Google image search is even more off-putting, as a majority of the photos feature black men and women.

I believe that Mitchell had good intentions. I don't think she intended to speak in racialized (or worse yet, racist) terms. Mitchell's hope that ghetto does not equal black is well and good, but it is idealistic and untrue: Society has yet to decouple ghetto and black.

And if the issue of "what ghetto means" is beyond the scope of Mitchell's intended argument, perhaps she should not have tried to reinvent poor parenting in such a racialized way.

Photo Credit: Chicago Sun-Times

Russell Simmons sends conflicting messages to poor and minorities

Hip-hop mogul and entrepreneur Russell Simmons took to Capitol Hill last month in an effort to help low-income consumers. Simmons successfully lobbied for changes in the financial services reform bill--changes that would exempt prepaid debit cards like his RushCard from fee regulation by the Federal Reserve.

Sound complicated? It is. Robert Schmidt and Patrick O'Connor over at Bloomberg Businessweek do a nice job of summing up the bill, but the shorthand version is this:

When a consumer pays by debit card, the retailer pays a small "interchange fee" to the consumer's bank. The retailer then shoulders that cost, which retailers estimate to be almost $20 billion annually.

Illinois Senator Richard Durbin has been pushing to reduce these interchange fees for years, and he recently won an amendment to cap the fees and let the Federal Reserve, rather than the debit card companies, set the fee rates. This all boils down to more profit for retailers and less for Simmons' RushCard. (Sold by Cincinnati-based UniRush, this card is just a prepaid Visa.)

Now for Simmons' involvement. The mogul argued, both on Capitol Hill and in a Huffington Post blog, that low-income people rely on prepaid debit cards, as they cannot afford checking accounts and are often denied for credit cards. Allowing the feds to set the fees, Simmons said, would force him to charge higher fees to already-financially vulnerable RushCard holders. Simmons said in his blog he doesn't "give a damn about the profits of big banks" and that he "has no hidden agenda." He just wants to protect the poor.

I wholeheartedly applaud Simmons for using his fame and notoriety to give voice to low-income groups and minorities (who too often fall into the former group). Any time a Bentley-driving celebrity comes out in favor of the little guy, I think we're getting somewhere.

But a deeper dig into this issue reveals Simmons' efforts would be better spent elsewhere. First, as the Washington Post's T.W. Farnam points out, the RushCard is not free. Cardholders pay a $3 activation fee, a $9.95 per month "membership" fee, $2.50 for an ATM withdrawal, $1 per debit card transaction and 50 cents to check their balance at an ATM.

Looking at the costs of the prepaid card, one begins to wonder if this card is really the best option for non-checking/credit account holders. And the resounding answer in my mind is "no." Prepaid cards, like payday loans, can be helpful at times, but as a lifestyle they delay the inevitable. Simmons' efforts, it seems, would be better spent helping low-income consumers get to a place where they could afford a checking account and could avoid monthly membership fees. Surely he has some real estate he's not using. I say sell the yacht and start a financial literacy program.

I also can't ignore the contrast between what Simmons says he stands for and what he does. I know, I know, a business has to make money, but are $62 Phat Farm jeans and $40 T-shirts really helping the little guy? Simmons participates in the "marketing of hip-hop"--buy this to attain this hip-hop star lifestyle filled with gorgeous women, money and cars (for further proof, watch Simmons and his ex-wife Kimora in the reality show, Kimora: Life in the Fab Lane)--which can only land the poor in deeper debt and further from financial stability.

I believe that Simmons has good intentions. I don't think his trip to Capitol Hill was a publicity stunt in the slightest. However, the hip-hop mogul would do well to look to the root of the problem his RushCard claims to address: A consumer culture based on the attainment of a star-studded lifestyle much like his own and a lack of financial skills to boot. Prepaid debit, fees or no fees, is merely a BandAid.

Photo Credit: NewsOne

Interracial marriage hits an all-time high

A new report from the Pew Research Center shows a record 14.6% of new marriages in 2008 were interracial, or about one in seven marriages. According to the Center, this is more than double the interracial marriage rate in 1980.

The Pew analysis attributes the increase to the flow of recent immigration and the weakening of the taboo surrounding interracial marriage.

CNN.com took an interesting approach to this news, asking readers what they think about interracial marriage. Overall, the website said, readers support interracial relationships, and many are proud to be part or product of an interracial/interethnic union.

There were of course others who said they date exclusively within their race, but most said they recognize people as people and not as colors.

What do we make of all this? Well, for one thing: Awesome. We've made real progress in terms of who we allow ourselves to date, love and marry. And as CNN points out, an earlier Pew study showed Millenials--adults 18-29 years old--are less likely to even look at race as a factor in their relationships. Presumably, this lack of race-based pairing will trickle down to subsequent generations, and race will become increasingly unimportant in love.

But even if the sheer numbers are increasing, that doesn't mean it's easy to be a black man dating a white woman, or an Asian man dating a Hispanic woman. Within your relationship you may have cultural, political, religious and social differences, while outside your relationship you must manage the stares and questions and perhaps someday the dreaded, "Aww, your son is adorable! What country did you adopt him from?"

Even in Madison, a progressive Midwestern city, I've felt the icy looks of others as I walked down University Avenue with a black man. We weren't dating at the time, and we weren't holding hands as we walked, but still, people got weird. My college roommate also dated a black man freshman year, and the jokes throughout the dorm abounded. Race, it seems, is less and less a factor in who we choose, but it remains a focal point among those outside the pair.

I would never say we can or should ignore race altogether. But I do hope some day studies like this one from Pew don't need to be conducted. I hope we don't need to prove interracial marriage is increasingly OK among daters. I hope we just accept that love is love and marriage is marriage.

In sum, Pew's study shows that there may be more fish in the proverbial relationship sea, but that doesn't mean they're not still swimming upstream.

Photo Credit: Afiive.com

Venus Williams taps into fears of black female sexuality

Venus Williams' lacy outfit at the French Open last week has ignited a firestorm of media coverage. Many of the responses to Williams' black lace outfit (see image) have been negative, or at least hardly favorable: The New York Daily News criticized the athlete's "flagrant disregard for traditional tennis attire," which the paper said, "harked back to a 19th century chorus line," while the Boston Herald referred to the outfit as "hooker couture."

Others recognized Williams' skill as a tennis player, her win over Swiss opponent Patty Schnyder and yes, her rock-solid physique. ESPN.com's Jemele Hill argues in an editorial that it is America's obsession with the body--and athletes' bodies in particular--that has fueled this controversy. Hill goes on to say that when we see images like those of Williams on the court, we cannot help but wonder how we measure up. And, as media comparisons go, we don't come out on top. Williams' outfit, says Hill, taps into our sense of inadequacy, which then breeds curiosity and resentment.

I think that the outcry and attention to Williams' outfit was not a product of our fascination with athletes nor our own bodily insecurities. Instead, her choice of dress ignited white fears of black female sexuality. Black women have been stereotyped throughout history as hypersexual and without control of their sexual urges (black men have also suffered this stereotype). Black lace, fire-engine red piping and shorts that match Williams' skin tone remind us of lingerie, which then brings us to sex. And for a black woman to display such sexually connotative clothing on national television only "proves" that black women cannot stifle their overflowing desire.

Why do I think this? Look at white female athletes in other sports. Do gymnasts, many of whom are white, get flak for their high-cut leotards? Do figure skaters get called out for their flesh-toned undergarments that are oh-so visible on those triple axels? While these wardrobes go unnoticed, Williams gets skewered for her choice. I smell a rat.

I am glad she wore the lace. I'm glad she wore it twice. Williams is the epitome of a strong woman: physically powerful and business savvy. (If you think she didn't know what she was doing when she donned that outfit, think again). When the media daily decry the poverty and devastation among single black women, why would they then turn around and scorn a successful black woman? Fear. Downright fear.

We may be in awe of athletes and we may compare their glutes to ours, but the attack on Williams proves that our ideas about sex and race, rather than the color of her shorts, must be more closely scrutinized.


Photo Credit: StarPulse.com

Senate hopeful slams civil rights

Dr. Rand Paul is Kentucky's GOP nominee for Senate. Dr. Rand Paul is named after Ayn Rand. And Dr. Rand Paul is in a PR pickle.

In an interview with Robert Siegel on NPR's All Things Considered last Wednesday, Dr. Paul was asked whether the 1964 Civil Rights Act went too far.

Paul answered: "What I've always said is that I'm opposed to institutional racism, and I would've, had I've been alive at the time, I think, had the courage to march with Martin Luther King to overturn institutional racism, and I see no place in our society for institutional racism."

Upon the show host's urging, Paul then went on to say that he is in favor of ending institutional racism, but that "a lot of things could be handled locally."

What does that mean exactly? Leave it to MSNBC's Rachel Maddow to ask just that, and then some:

Maddow: Do you think that a private business has a right to say that 'We don't serve black people?'

Paul: I'm not in favor of any discrimination of any form. I would never belong to any club that excluded anybody for race. We still do have private clubs in America that can discriminate based on race.

But I think what's important in this debate is not getting into any specific "gotcha" on this, but asking the question 'What about freedom of speech?' Should we limit speech from people we find abhorrent. Should we limit racists from speaking. I don't want to be associated with those people, but I also don't want to limit their speech in any way in the sense that we tolerate boorish and uncivilized behavior because that's one of the things that freedom requires is that we allow people to be boorish and uncivilized, but that doesn't mean we approve of it...

Maddow:...How about desegregating lunch counters?

Paul: Well what it gets into then is if you decide that restaurants are publicly owned and not privately owned, then do you say that you should have the right to bring your gun into a restaurant even though the owner of the restaurant says 'well no, we don't want to have guns in here' the bar says 'we don't want to have guns in here because people might drink and start fighting and shoot each-other.' Does the owner of the restaurant own his restaurant? Or does the government own his restaurant? These are important philosophical debates but not a very practical discussion...

Maddow:Well, it was pretty practical to the people who had the life nearly beaten out of them trying to desegregate Walgreen's lunch counters despite these esoteric debates about what it means about ownership. This is not a hypothetical Dr. Paul.

WOMP. Busted. And so began the dig out. After today's appearance on Good Morning America, the Washington Post reports that a Paul campaign spokesman said the GOP nom will do "no more national interviews on the topic." Paul also backed out of this Sunday's scheduled appearance on NBC's Meet the Press, becoming only the third guest to do so in the program's history.

(Have we learned nothing from Tiger Woods, Dr. Paul? You clam up. We talk more.)

Now let's get to the meat of what Paul was saying. A Libertarian through and through, Paul advocates for limited government infringement in public life. Fine. But limited government infringement on discrimination, to the point of allowing private businesses to say, "No, young black man. You cannot work/eat/exist here"?

Liberty for who, Dr. Paul?

Watch the complete Maddow skewering of Rand Paul: (And let me just say, minute 14 on? DING! Maddow for the kill!)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Photo Credit: Wall Street Journal

'Fair and Balanced' goes south of the border

Fox News is branching out to the Latino media market. The Huffington Post reports the news channel will launch FoxNewsLatino this fall. According to the Fox News network, the website will "feature the latest breaking news, politics, economic and lifestyle stories that impact the Latino community." HuffPost reports the site will feature both English and Spanish-language videos, along with reports from Latin American countries.

While Fox News Senior Vice president for News-Editorial Michael Clemente said the network will not launch a companion Latino TV network, he stressed that the expansion is an "unprecedented opportunity" to broaden Fox News' reach and impact to a new audience.

I have to wonder just how smart a business decision this really is. From Arizona's new immigration law to a recent report showing a majority of Americans believe Latinos face the most discrimination, Latinos seem to take a lot of heat these days. How can the "Fair and Balanced" news network attract this new market when Fox News pundit Bill O'Reilly wholeheartedly defends the Arizona law on his nightly O'Reilly Factor, or when pro-Arizona Sarah "Go Rogue" Palin is given her own show on the network?

Funny, also, that Obama was criticized recently by conservatives for reaching out to blacks, women, Hispanics and young people, and yet here Fox News takes a similar path. Hypocrisy much?

Something tells me FoxNewsLatino.com won't prove the unprecedented opportunity Clemente expects.

Photo Credit: FoxNews.com

My trip to NYC becomes a lesson in profiling

On an AirTran flight to New York City last Sunday, I came face to face with racial/ethnic profiling in the worst way. As I boarded the plane, moving to my assigned seat in row 28, I noticed a family of traditionally-clad Africans or Arabs seated in the middle of the plane. Truth be told, the four of them--two women, an older man and a toddler--stuck out like a sore thumb amid a sea of New York businessmen and cheesehead tourists. I was also seated next to an Arab man way back in the belly of the plane.

Throughout the flight, all five of these individuals were treated differently than the other travelers. When the older man tried to walk to the bathroom at the front of the plane (near which he was seated), a crew member came on the intercom saying, "The front lavatories are only for our business class." Ahem. I have used both the front and back bathrooms on planes countless times, and while I understand the business class pays an arm and a leg for wider seats and complimentary mimosas, do they really get VIP bathroom access? Or is this a case of airplane apartheid? And when the man did walk to the back of the plane, people actually snarled in seeming disgust that he would deign to use the bathroom nearest his seat.

The women received patronizing admonitions about their luggage, and the flight crew addressed them as they would normally speak to the six-year-old sitting one seat over.

The worst display, however, came not from the crew members but from my fellow passengers...

The man seated next to me was quiet throughout the flight, reading the in-flight magazine, taking a short nap and drinking a Coke over the course of the two hours. We exchanged courtesies upon boarding, but other than that we did not interact. After the plane landed at LaGuardia, this man took out his cell phone and made a call. He started speaking in Arabic (or what I assume to be Arabic based on previous experience) to the person on the other end of the line. And not a second after he first spoke did panic set in among the people seated around us. The usual stand-up-to-stretch-your-legs became we-must-get-off-this-plane-immediately pushiness. People actually said, "Let's get off quickly. C'mon honey. Get your stuff. Let's go. NOW."

"Pardon me," I wanted to say. "You are in row 29 and 30...do you not know how a toothpaste tube works?"

"And furthermore, could you be more OBVIOUS!?"

I'm sure the Times Square bomber is fresh on everyone's minds, and the suspect in that caseis Pakistani, but does that justify these passengers' actions? Absolutely not. The media has primed us to connect Arab to terrorist, sure, but we must be smarter than our evening news. We must realize that the images presented to us via the media are not universal truths about a person or group.

Even as we try to "un-prime" ourselves, we may occasionally revert to our primed ways. I admit, I went there. I thought, "That's suspicious. This man makes a phone call immediately after landing, and he seems to be speaking quickly and nervously." I hate that I thought that. Clearly, I am not faultless in this case, but I do believe there is a difference between fleeting thought and action. Fleeting thought can be redirected. Fleeting thought can be overcome. Action is branded into the moment, a distinctive and public marker of profiling and racism.

I've thought about that man every day since, hoping he didn't notice his fellow passengers' reactions. And amid a sea of Times Square tourists, I wondered how many were shuffling faster than usual to snag their "I love New York" T-shirts and Bubba Gump shrimp, eager to escape the men making phone calls and drinking Cokes on the corner of 7th and Broadway.

Blacks at the office, blacks on TV: A study

While the news of the Pakistani Times Square suspect still percolates in the media stratosphere, I thought I'd share a recent race-based study I conducted with a group of students in a mass media and public opinion course here at UW. We will present these results and the implications of our research this coming Thursday.

We investigated perceptions of hiring equality between blacks and whites over time, and portrayals of blacks in professional positions on primetime TV for the same time period. "Professional positions" were those that required a high level of intellect or academic/managerial training (doctors, lawyers, nurses, detectives). Athletes and talent judges (Randy Jackson, e.g.) were not considered professional, as their jobs are not intellectually-based or a result of academic or managerial training.

We hypothesized that:

1. Public perception of hiring equality among blacks and whites would increase over time.

2. The prevalence of blacks in professional positions on primetime TV would increase over time.

Our public opinion data came from Gallup polls. From 1963 to 2009, Gallup collected responses to the following question:

"In general, do you think that blacks have as good a chance as white people in your community to get any kind of job for which they are qualified, or don’t you think they have as good a chance?"

Graphing the responses revealed a trend toward greater public perception of hiring equality over time (see top graph above).

For the media analysis portion of our project, we coded for the presence and number of black professionals in each of the top 10 shows (in terms of viewership) for each year from 1963-2009. We used the Internet Movie Database for character lists and descriptions. After testing intercoder reliability (98%), each of the five researchers coded 94 shows.

After combining our coding results, we found an increase in both the number of shows with black professionals and the number of black professionals in each show. For simplicity's sake, the graph above shows only the increase in the number of shows with black professionals, and not the increase in the number of black professionals per show.

The above graphs compare the public opinion and media trends. These graphs indicate that as perceptions of hiring equality among blacks and whites increased, so too did the prevalence of blacks in professional positions on TV. These results support both our public opinion and media hypotheses.

Of course, every study has its limits. We only looked at the top 10 shows for each year, and there may have been other influential shows that did not make that list (Roots, e.g.). Furthermore, our data collection began with the Civil Rights years, and that is undoubtedly an influential factor to be considered in any subsequent analysis of race politics over this time period.

It is important to note that we cannot claim causation from our results. But even so, the correlation between public opinion and media content leads us to ask: What does this mean?

These results are hopeful, indicating that we have made progress both in society and on screen. These results speak well of Equal Opportunity Employers and their commitment to their claims, and they speak volumes about the progress minorities--blacks in particular--have made in the entertainment industry.

We should also take these results with a grain of salt. It would be wrong to look at these trends and claim, "See! We're equal!" Hardly. Workplace discrimination is not only yesterday's problem, and whites, professional or otherwise, still outnumber blacks on screen.

In sum: Progress? Yes. Success? Not so fast.

Misplaced anger at Obama ignores white privilege, not to mention facts

The Washington Examiner called out President Obama yesterday, and not for what you may think. The paper did not take Obama to task for his handling of the mortgage crisis, health care reform or even the most recent immigration legislation in Arizona. No, they were angry at him for "leaving out white males" in his midterm election strategy.

Examiner White House correspondent Julie Mason details the recently-released speech in which Obama encourages his 2008 supporters, as well as women, blacks, Hispanics and young people to rally together in the midterm election season.

What about the good ol' white folk, Mr. President?

Conservatives were upset by Obama's comments, Mason writes, and many argued that had a president called for unity among white voters, public outcry would spread like wildfire. Mason tempers this criticism with a dose of reality from Aubrey Jewett, political scientist at the University of Central Florida. Jewett says Obama's approval among white men is down and, "realistically the Democrats don't think they have a chance of getting them back between now and November." Phew. Whites can relax. It's based in fact.

Not so fast.

Jewett's inclusion is a paltry attempt at balance for the Examiner, especially when the cover of the April 27 issue reads, "Obama disses white guys: Rallies blacks, Latinos, women" (see above). When this is your front page story, and you choose the word "diss," you've got a bone to pick with our President.

The Huffington Post gives some context to the newspaper's position, arguing that the Examiner caters to the whitest geographic markets of the D.C. area. So can we chalk this whole thing up to merely cheap-shot reporting, another case of "giving the public what they want?"

Sorry, but this isn't another sensationalist piece of smut about John and Kate plus God knows how many. This is a case of whiteness feeling threatened.

First off, Obama is half white, so let's keep in mind that if Obama is ignoring white people, he's ignoring half his lineage too. Secondly, "young people" is not race-specific, so whites may have been implied in his speech.

Thirdly, I believe Obama's critics are right to insist that had the President only referred to whites, public outcry would mount strong and hard. But what if Obama's words were uttered by a white president? Would whites be upset at the lack of reference to people like them? Or would they think the president was progressive and committed to helping historically disadvantaged groups? How much of this is due to Obama's own skin color, and white fear of being dismantled from the most privileged pillar of society? I have no definitive answers here, but I can't help but think this is yet another race-based double standard.

Finally, and most importantly, let's look at what is really at issue here: Obama did not explicitly mention white people, instead choosing groups that have been explicitly excluded from social programs, economic and political opportunities and upward mobility. In doing so, the President made whites aware of their oft-taken-for-granted whiteness, and threatened by its absence from his speech. Funny that whites don't acknowledge the privileges of whiteness, but man do they jump when they feel that privilege compromised even superficially.

For whites to say their President is ignoring them is to yet again overlook the advantages bestowed on them throughout history and continuing today.

Blacks in the Jim Crow South know what it's like to be truly ignored by the government. Pre-19th Amendment women know what's it's like to be ignored. Migrant workers today know what it's like to be ignored. Those feeling dissed by our President in this case? Not so much.

Photo Credit: The Examiner

This buzzword has good intentions, but what does it mean?

In an attempt to alleviate racial and ethnic disparities in education, the Madison School District has added "cultural responsiveness" to its hiring criteria.

According to Gayle Worland of the Wisconsin State Journal, "cultural responsiveness" refers to an applicant's ability to relate to students and co-workers of different racial, ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. The school district hopes ensuring cultural responsiveness among its teachers will help close the achievement gap between white and minority students.

So what does "cultural responsiveness" actually mean? According to District Employment Manager June Glennon, a set of precise qualifications will be used to assess job candidates' cultural aptitudes. Professor Stephen Quintana of the UW-Madison counseling psychology department has agreed to draw up these criteria.

Even with Quintana's help, I'm skeptical. I hope this initiative can work as planned, but I think it will be difficult to create and implement uniform responsiveness criteria for several reasons:

1. One definition of responsiveness may not be shared by all. Some may consider mere knowledge of cultural practices to be responsive enough, while others may say you are only "responsive" to the degree that you are well-versed in a practice. If I know Ramadan is a month-long fast during daylight hours, for example, is that enough? Or should I have to know the history and nuances of the Muslim fast as well? (i.e. that women who are menstruating do not have to fast)

2. Madison is a (relatively) diverse city, complete with ethnic enclaves, and some areas may need more precise or detailed criteria than others. The large Hispanic population of Madison's south side may necessitate that teachers learn--or at least attempt to learn--Spanish in order to be culturally responsive. Other areas may not need this level of cultural proficiency (although it would not be to teachers' detriment to learn another language), and blanket responsiveness criteria may focus on certain areas or cultures at the expense of others.

3. Will this criteria apply only to teachers, or will administrative employees, social workers, guidance counselors, cafeteria workers and bus drivers be held to the same standards? I argue an all-employee-encompassing project is best, as all of these groups interact with students on a daily basis. However, this breadth greatly complicates things, as each group communicates the students in different contexts, necessitating skills perhaps not relevant to other positions in the school. For example, a cafeteria worker may need to know that Hindu students will not eat meat, but this information will not be very useful to a gym teacher. Quintana and the Madison School District would be wise to draft macro-level criteria for the entire district, as well as micro-level criteria considering various interaction contexts.

4. Who will be in charge of this project? Will individual schools oversee its implementation, or will the strapped-for-cash school district hire new staff to ensure cultural responsiveness among its teachers, social workers, administrators, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, etc? Considering all school employees makes overseeing the project much more difficult. Perhaps (I hope) the school district has plans in place for implementation and leadership.

5. I must caution against using "cultural responsiveness" to "solve" the achievement gap. The root causes--racism, poverty, discrimination--stretch beyond the school district. The Madison School District has taken an important step in bridging the white-nonwhite achievement gap, but we must not see this new initiative as the end to racial disparity in Madison's education system.

Photo Credit: Roger Williams University

Arizona governor approves immigration bill

As a follow-up to a previous post on Arizona's proposed immigration bill, Governor Jan Brewer signed the bill into law yesterday, sparking protests across the nation. From Boston to California, protesters compared the bill to South African apartheid and Japanese-American internment during World War II.

Brewer's response? According to The Boston Globe, the governor justified the bill saying, "We in Arizona have been more than patient waiting for Washington to act. But decades of inaction and misguided policy have created a dangerous and unacceptable situation."

The New York Times quoted the governor Friday, saying, "Border-related violence and crime due to illegal immigration are critically important issues to the people of our state. We cannot sacrifice our safety to the murderous greed of drug cartels. We cannot stand idly by as drop houses, kidnappings and violence compromise our quality of life."

President Obama called the bill "misguided," and The Huffington Post says the Justice Department will examine its legality.

While I salute the White House's opposition to the bill, I'm not so sure immigration--legal or not--is the problem here. Rather, I think rampant racism and coded language are the bigger issues. "Murderous greed of drug cartels"? What about mothers and children escaping abusive husbands or unsafe working conditions? Husbands trying to reunite with their families? "Kidnappings and violence?" What about service workers and domestic help? Why must we equate immigration--more specifically Latinos--with violence, drugs and crime? And at issue in this particular case: Why did a head of state endorse this image?

Racism, pure and simple. We attack drug cartels and we let Goldman Sachs off comparably easy. We label all Mexicans as drug smugglers, yet we don't assume all white-collar workers are wracking up billions in bonuses while their company spirals downward into debt. We think of Mexicans as dirty job-thieves, yet we take a softer hand to sexually abusive priests. Skin color, it would seem, dictates the boxes you can fall into and the punishment you can receive.

Let's just hope the Justice Department does its job better than the Securities and Exchange Commission. (Another shining example of white-collar workers at their best)

Photo Credit: The Associated Press

Giving voice to an all-too-often overlooked past

Jerry Mitchell is a hero. I stumbled upon his blog--Journey to Justice--during my daily news binge. For over 20 years, investigative reporter Mitchell has dedicated his career to Civil Rights coverage both past and present. He has helped solve cold case murders, assassinations and other high-profile cases like the Birmingham, Ala. church bombing of 1963. As part of Mississippi's Clarion Ledger, Mitchell's blog critiques current issues in the news, from hate crimes against white supremacists to calls for an end to the "N word."

In addition to Journey to Justice, Mitchell contributes to HistoryBeat.com's Civil Rights in America: Connections to a Movement. This site includes past coverage of the Civil Rights Movement, black history records and stories of Civil Rights heroes.

Two pages on this website stand out among the rest: The "Investigations" page pinpoints on a map Civil Rights cases that have yet to be solved. A list of names of those killed in these cold cases accompanies the map. It's easy to look at this list coldly or at least impersonally, without thinking about the impact an unsolved case would have on those who lost someone dear to them. I must admit I tried to do this, until I arrived at the "Share Stories" tab.

This page is a user-generated forum for people to share Civil Rights stories, experiences of racism today or memories of loved ones. The first comment I saw was that of a woman who posted a photo of her mother's gravestone in Alabama (see above). Her mother was murdered after fighting for her right to vote, says the headstone. The post below the photo, by the same woman, details the night her mother died. The author was six years old.

Stories like this cannot come from the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists and star-status newscasters. These raw, heart-wrenching stories are swords only to be wielded by the victims themselves. Lest we doubt the power of new media formats, take a look at the "Share Stories" page and you will be assured of their power and impact.

Taken together, Journey to Justice and Civil Rights in America help keep the Civil Rights Movement alive. Intertwining history with current issues, both Mitchell and HistoryBeat.com refuse to let racial justice fade into our past. With so many murders unsolved and families broken by racism, we owe it to those who can never forget.

Photo Credit: Sally_Liuzzo992

Sometimes cynicism hits it right on the nose

The Onion is many college students' main news source. The tongue-in-cheek weekly can be found on the floors of UW-Madison's largest lecture halls, and the paper's news boxes on State Street empty out faster than a keg at a sophomore house party. I've been a loyal reader for years, constantly scanning The Onion's pages for race-related issues. This week, I hit the mother load.

Titled, "I won't have my daughter bringing a black man into this house until I've tidied up and created a welcoming environment," columnist Harold Toomey turns cultural stereotypes on their heads. His article is full of fast-paced wit and irony, all hinged on our understanding of "black" and "white" culture.

Toomey's article is that of a panicked father, unprepared to meet his daughter's black boyfriend not because the man is black, but because he hasn't "prepared." He hasn't done dishes or picked the old magazines up off the coffee table, nor has he bought a good bottle of wine or stopped by the gourmet market for food his daughter's boyfriend may like to eat.

My personal favorite:

"And just think of what this will do to Lucy's poor mother! Kathryn will be absolutely devastated. What do I even say? 'Hey, honey, guess what? Your daughter is coming home with a black man and we're all out of the nice microbrewed beer.'"

I admit, the article had me laughing out loud several times. But then I realized--this article is funny because it relies on our firmly established stereotypes of what it means to be white and what it means to be black. White people drink microbrewed beer and vintage wine. They shop at gourmet markets and bring their organic food home to be prepared on perpetually-perfect granite countertops. They wear Banana Republic slacks and Tod's loafers. Black people, well, do not. Toomey knows we hold these stereotypes, and that's why his article is so clever.

The popular blog "Stuff White People Like" showcases many elements of today's "great white way," from white people's affinity for hummus to their tendency to study abroad and adopt East Asian children. Of course, it's all generalizations and stereotypes, but the blog, like Toomey's piece, relies on our views of what it means to be white in our society.

And with this understanding of what it means to be white comes an equally stereotyped understanding of black culture. If "white culture" is identified as high-brow, expensive and refined, "black culture" is its foil: low-brow, cheap and vulgar. Typifying white culture as marked by affluence and upper-class taste, we simultaneously relegate all nonwhite cultures to primitive, lower-class status.

The difference between "Stuff White People Like" and Toomey's column is that while the blog focuses explicitly and exclusively on whiteness, Toomey juxtaposes black and white to show us the stark contrast between our conceptions of the two races and the lifestyles that accompany them. I argue that The Onion article packs a greater punch than the blog by assigning what we commonly think of as "white culture" to a black man. Our laughter is a subconscious reaction to what we perceive as an inconceivable situation: A black man who drinks India Pale Ale? Couldn't be!

Hopefully The Onion audience won't toss this one on the floor of Sociology 104. Hopefully readers will recognize why the article is funny, identify its critique of America's racialization of culture, and then take Toomey's dry-as-toast satire into the real world, decoupling culture and race to embrace a wider worldview.

And they say this stuff isn't real journalism...


Photo Credit: Dvanvliet/Flikr.com

Arizona lawmakers approve racial and ethnic profiling

Arizona lawmakers approved the nation's toughest stance on immigration today, requiring police to determine a person's immigration status if they have a "reasonable suspicion" that someone is an illegal immigrant.

The Los Angeles Times' Nicholas Riccardi reports that previous to this bill, known as SB 1070, police could only investigate one's immigration status if the person was a suspect in a separate crime. Under the new provision, lacking appropriate immigration paperwork would be a misdemeanor, and no city or agency within the state would have the jurisdiction to order police not to comply with the measure. In fact, citizens would be able to sue if they believed police agencies were not following the bill's orders.

As one would imagine, the bill has both staunch support and outraged opposition. As author of SB 1070, Sen. Russell Pearce says the bill, "takes the handcuffs off of law enforcement and let's them do their job." Outside of Arizona, Mark Krikorian of D.C.'s Center for Immigration Studies supports the measure, saying that Arizona's position as the number one passageway for illegal immigrants from Mexico necessitates harsher crackdowns.

According to Riccardi, those against the bill argue that it makes Arizona "a police state." Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network worry that the bill legalizes racial and ethnic profiling. President of the ACLU Alessandra Soler Meetze says the bill criminalizes "having an accent and leaving [one's] wallet [and immigration papers] at home."

SB 1070 passed 35 to 21 in the state House of Representative, and Gov. Jan Brewer is expected to sign the bill.

Now, let's put the shoe on the other foot. If I have a "reasonable suspicion" that a white man in a suit and shiny dress shoes is engaging in shady business practices--extortion, insider trading, doling out bonuses under the table--can I insist he show me his financial records? Surely we can think of enough times when white men in suits have committed such crimes to necessitate a law requiring such "finance screenings. (Bernie Madoff, Rod Blagojevich and Kenneth Lay, to name a few)

The answer is no. Lawmakers would never OK this. Laws this strict, laws that allow for the profiling of certain groups of people based on imprecise criteria like "reasonable suspicion," are laws driven by racism. Just as "with all deliberate speed" did little to desegregate southern schools after Brown v. Board of Education, "reasonable suspicion" allows ample room for police aggression toward innocent victims.

My feelings toward this bill are summed up in the last sentence of Riccardi's article. He quotes Rep. Tom Chabin, who says, "This bill, whether we intend it or not, terrorizes the people we wish to profit from."

This couldn't be more true. As I said in a previous post, nonwhite laborers (in this case immigrants) are willing to work harder, longer and for less. We make money off their willingness to do more for less. And now, we want to lump them all together and pluck out those about whom we have "reasonable suspicion." America, the land of opportunity, is looking less and less so.

The wording of the bill itself may be vague, but its purpose is not: SB 1070 is legal discrimination.

Photo Credit: Gerald L. Nino

Content analysis shows stark differences in immigration standpoint

As a complement to my last post, I thought I would include the results of a recent content analysis on immigration. I conducted this analysis as part of a class on mass media and public opinion. I chose to compare Mexican immigration coverage in both Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report. I examined 25 articles for each publication, randomly selected from 2000-2009.

I studied both the frames and valence of each article. As for frames, I looked at whether the article presented the story within a political frame (emphasizing policy, political actors, etc), an economic frame (a cost-benefit analysis of reform or current immigration policy, mention of a financial component--need not include specific figures) or a social frame (impact on immigrant families or deported immigrants, the "human" side to the debate).

As for valence, I determined whether each article was pro- or anti-immigration. The pro-immigration articles used words like “legals,” “migrants” and “amnesty.” These articles emphasized Mexican immigrants as hard workers determined to find a better life. By contrast, “alien,” “illegals” and “deportation” signaled an anti-immigrant tone, as did mention of Mexican immigrants as “free riders” taking our jobs and draining our welfare programs. In the event that both pro- and anti-immigration words appeared in the same article, I determined valence by the more frequent of the two.

What did I expect to find? I wasn't entirely sure what I'd find with the frames, but I was confident that Newsweek would be more pro- and U.S. News more anti-immigration. My hypothesis and rationale:

"I expect to find more socially framed, pro-immigration coverage in Newsweek, and more politically framed, anti-immigration coverage in U.S. News. According to Pew Research Center’s 2004 News Consumption Survey, Newsweek is seen as a more liberal news source, and many user-generated comment sites (Epinions.com, Answers.com) regard U.S. News as more conservative. Pairing these findings with Ansolabehere’s assertion that “Democrats are seen as…protecting the rights of minorities and the underprivileged,” while “Republicans are generally considered better able and more willing to maintain the nation’s national security” (1993), I hypothesize that Newsweek’s coverage will stress the humanity of Mexican immigration (social) and the need for amnesty and pro-immigration reform, while U.S. News will focus on anti-immigration as a means of national security."

My findings partially supported this hypothesis. Newsweek's Mexican immigration coverage was overwhelmingly pro-immigration, most often framed politically or socially. U.S. News, on the other hand, was mostly politically framed anti-immigration coverage. (See graphs above)

Why might this be? Well, the valence of each publication's immigration coverage corresponds to its partisan bias. The lack of a landslide majority for any one frame reflects the diversity of newsmagazine content, which is frequently divided into politics, business, arts/culture and technology. The publications may also choose frames based on which would support their position on the issue, which may explain U.S. News' lack of economic frames. If they thought the economic angle would lend support to the pro-immigration side, U.S. News' editors may have scrapped that frame at the morning meeting.

My analysis stands as a warning to all your devout Newsweek and U.S. News readers: If you read one, read the other. You are not getting a full picture of the Mexican immigration issue from either of these magazines. Better yet, read and listen to a whole host of sources. Bias is alive and well, and if you want to make smart decisions, triangulate your news consumption.

Maybe I should look for post-grad work as a Merry Maid

As Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) toil away at immigration reform, Ruben Navarette Jr. at the San Diego Union-Tribune is getting angry. He's not mad at the senators, who he says "are demonstrating real leadership." His beef is with me. And you. And all of us.

In an editorial for CNN.com, Navarette traces the recent history of immigration policy, from the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act to today's partisan platforms on the issue. While acknowledging policy change and progress, Navarette says that we will never resolve the immigration debacle without addressing one question: Why do we have so much illegal immigration in the first place?

The answer, Navarette argues, is an uncomfortable one for many. It has nothing to do with a fence and even less to do with NAFTA and Mexico's economy. The answer lies in Americans' willingness to work hard.

Immigrants both legal and illegal, he says, accept "hard and dirty jobs that our grandparents did without complaint--and that now, these many years later, most of us won't do without complaining." As immigrants mow our lawns, bus our tables and wash our dishes, many native-born Americans negotiate higher pay, come to work late and clock out early, check their email at work and surf the Web, all while sitting in what is most likely a comfortable, central-aired office.

Because this realization points the finger at the American people, Navarette argues that Congress, eager to please constituents, will never mention this facet of immigration. Instead, we'll proceed with our fences and border patrol.

Navarette makes a bold statement, and whether or not we are solely to blame for our immigration quagmire, we surely have a hand in it. As a soon-to-be-college graduate, I can vouch for the "I will work certain places for certain pay" mentality. Yeah, as an entry-level journalism major, my span of cities is probably wider and my desired pay a great deal lower than a 30-something corporate big-wig (or a finance major, for that matter). But still, the selective mentality holds true.

One thing Navarette doesn't answer is: How do we solve this dilemma? If Congress won't point out our role in the illegal immigration problem, who will? And even if the public knows about it, who's going to willingly say, "OK, you're right, I'll work as a dishwasher." No one.

Pointing fingers might be the first cathartic step, but there are many more along the way. Can we offer manual labor jobs with benefits packages and perhaps higher wages? Can we build some sort of education component into our immigration reform bill? How can we close the immigrant achievement gap?

These are loaded questions, implicating longstanding racism, Not In My Backyard thinking, economic concerns, and our own self concepts. And while I don't offer a comprehensive solution, each of us would do well to examine our own taken-for-granted expectations.

And consider giving our housekeepers a bonus next time...

Photo Credit: Paul Connors/The Associated Press

Damn. This woman beat me to it

It's almost a perfect response to the "Texas Textbook Massacre": Nell Irvin Painter's book, The History of White People, details the rise and reign of whiteness as we know it. Newsweek's Raina Kelley reviews this book, saying, "This book has no problem telling you that everything you think you know about what Western civilization is based on is actually distortion of fact and inflated ego dreams."

Boom. There it is. America was not founded on honorable principles of integration and melting pot social policies. Rather, racial taxonomies have legitimized oppression and exploitation of nonwhites. As Painter says, "Any nation founded by slaveholders finds justification for its class system, and American slavery made the inherent inferiority of black people a foundational belief."

Painter traces racial categories from ancient times to the present, explaining that what constitutes "white" has changed over time. Although Jews and Slavs were at one time outside the bounds of whiteness, they are now lumped with others into one big white group. But as Painter explains in an NPR interview, the definition of whiteness may change, but the point of racial categories--"to put people down"--holds steady.

Also of note--Painter explains why white people don't want to give up the power of whiteness, let alone acknowledge it: If whites did so, they'd have to "admit the chanciness of privilege," which would, I believe, bring feelings of guilt and an uncomfortable obligation to level the playing field.

It's a story that needs to be told, that's for sure. American history--and world history for that matter--are not as we know it. Will this book be a less-than-leisurely read for many? Absolutely. Am I concerned that the potential for cognitive dissonance will steer away readers? Definitely. Without even opening the book, I share Raina Kelley's concern that Painter's more academic, textbook style approach won't "captivate the masses or much media attention." That being said, Painter's book is a step in the right direction. If subsequent authors have to simplify the content for the less scholarly reader, so be it. At least Painter has begun to unravel the web of whiteness that clouds our perceptions of past and present.

Read an excerpt of The History of White People here.

Photo Credit: Robin Holland/Bill Moyers’ Journal

Madison org's ad generates race-based controversy

The Madison School and Community Recreation Program (MSCR) ran an advertisement promoting its summer programming in Isthmus newspaper on March 5. The ad (seen at left) was then posted on Fail Blog for all the world to berate. And joke we did. Comments ranged from the more subtle, "Must be a tanning salon," to the more blunt and outright, "White men can’t jump, so send your basketball playing kid to MSCR and we’ll replace him with a black one."

Jay Leno also did a bit about the ad on The Tonight Show last Monday. See it here. (Skip to 2:00 to see the ad reference)

The advertisement and subsequent commentary generated enough controversy that MSCR decided to run a different ad (the cover of their 2010 summer programming guidebook) in Isthmus this week.

What to make of this ad? When I first saw it, I wasn't offended. I thought, "MSCR makes kids happy." And I believe this is what MSCR intended for readers to think. But lest we forget, America is far from colorblind, and readers injected race faster than you can say Madison School and Community Recreation Program.

My thought on the racialization of this ad is, "Wouldn't it have been worse if the kids were switched?" If the white kid was the happy kid, and the black kid was the pre-MSCR sad face? Switching the kids would tap into a historic fallacy that black=bad, sad, downtrodden and without opportunity, while whiteness=good, happy and upwardly mobile. (Side note: Look up "black" and "white" in the dictionary. A professor had our class do this once, and man was it shocking.)

Say what you will, but I applaud MSCR. Yes, applaud. Their advertisement shows an effort toward diversity in advertising. By including nonwhites who defy stereotypical notions of blacks in America, MSCR helps break down racial barriers and integrate the races. The ad's presence on Fail Blog and The Tonight Show speaks not of MSCR's goals but of society's constant awareness of race. In criticizing MSCR, we are actually making a statement about our own hyper-awareness of color, to the detriment of our society.

Photo Credit: Madison School & Community Recreation

Does the census perpetuate racism?

Perhaps because I was 11 in the last census and I was not paying much attention to media coverage back then, but I notice a lot more anti-census sentiment this time around. Some people argue the census is a violation of privacy, while others decry its financial cost and limited good effect. And then there are those who take issue with the race and ethnicity categories. We've already seen outcry about the word "Negro" on the 2010 Census, but others take issue with the inclusion of race at all.

As founder and president of The Rutherford Institute, a non-profit group set up to safeguard constitutional freedoms, John Whitehead argues that the current census perpetuates racism by "requiring citizens to take a colored view of themselves."

Whitehead uses the "Negro" debate mentioned previously to highlight his point that asking citizens to mark their race is outright racism (He chooses to ignore, however, the racist history of that word compared to the other more neutral classifications like white and Asian). He cites an email from "an all-American citizen" named Marc who is similarly outraged by the census. Marc writes:

"There's no reason to use race to distinguish people...The time has come to lose racial identity to end racism and start seeing ourselves as fellow humans and not to assume that you can determine anything from the color of someone’s skin other than the color of their skin. I don’t want to give the government information so that they can make decisions based on race."

Whitehead applauds Marc's assertions and goes on to say that including race on the census will only make race more salient in the public consciousness, preventing us from viewing each other as people rather than colors.

I wholeheartedly agree with both Marc and Whitehead that seeing ourselves as fellow humans is an honorable goal. Ideally, color wouldn't matter. But ideally, no one would live below the poverty line either, and we would all have health care. Reality isn't ideal, and that couldn't be truer when it comes to race.

Part of the reason for including race on the census has to do with drawing district boundaries based on population change and makeup. Whether this is good or bad is another issue altogether, and one I do not delve into in this post. But race and ethnicity are also used on the census to determine resource allocation. Whether we like it or not, there are differences in income, employment rates and even household demographics across racial groups. Different groups need different services, and what better way for government to assess these needs than a nationwide, uniform census?

The 2010 Census asks our age. Do we argue that this perpetuates ageism? The form asks for household size as well. Do we think this will lead to infanticide? No, because older people and bigger households have different needs than other groups, and the government should be aware of that.

Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, removing race from the census would ignore the legacy of racism that precedes us. Unlike Whitehead, I do not think electing a black president "is a sign that America is becoming more colorblind." Rather, I argue that racism is alive and well (it is perhaps more subtle, but still with us), and that if we are ever to eradicate racial disparity, we cannot ignore it today. It is ignorant to overlook race, and in doing so, we are only perpetuating the white privilege that lets whites in both government and larger society turn a blind eye to inequality.

Mr. Whitehead, I commend your optimism that a race-neutral world is achievable. But until then, I'm just fine checking, "White, non-Hispanic" on my forms this year.

Photo Credit: Bossip.com/U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Black babies more likely to die in my hometown county

A new study from Children's Memorial Research Center found that Cook County's black babies are 12 times more likely than white babies to die of sleep-related causes. Even worse, black infants are 17 times more likely to die of unknown sleep-related causes.

Sleep-related deaths include sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and unintentional suffocation in bed. According to Chicago Tribune reporter Deborah L. Shelton, sleep-related deaths account for 90 deaths a year in Cook County. The number may seem small, but the racial disparity is a serious public health issue. According to the research center, almost 20 percent of black infant mortality deaths in Cook County are sleep-related, while sleep-related deaths account for less than 5 percent of white infant mortality in the county.

I commend the researchers for acknowledging that decreasing the disparity must be a public health goal. I commend the project itself. What I take issue with is the lack of probing into why these deaths occur.

Shelton takes a blaming tone when she says, "In most cases, the infants had been sleeping in unsafe situations that put them at risk, such as being placed in a bed with a parent." She goes on to say that many babies "sleep alone but not in a crib or bassinet--often on a couch or pillow on the floor." This is the first mention of why these infants die, and subsequent references mention rollovers, accidental suffocation," children falling off beds and babies sleeping on lumpy sofas or cots.

There is no mention of the economic and social barriers that lead to these deaths. Do parents have the resources to learn about proper infant care, let alone buy a safe crib? Do cultural differences impact where babies sleep?

The only mention of economics comes from Sheila Sanders, project coordinator for the Illinois Maternal and Child Health Coaliton. She says some low-income apartments are often too small to fit a crib and an adult bed, forcing parents to bring their infant to bed with them. She does not explain why parents find themselves in such a predicament.

With shocking research like this, both researchers and reporters would do well to explore the deeper causes of such disparity. Parents may be partly to blame, but there are other societal forces at play here as well. It might be easier to blame the mother for snuggling up to her baby at night, rather than look beneath the surface to examine the cultural and social forces that bring that baby into bed with her.

We cannot make progress unless we unveil both the cultural underpinnings and the systemic disparities in income, education and both pre- and post-natal care. The cynic in me wants to say some are loathe to bring the black infant mortality to par with that of whites, but I refuse to let that attitude prevail. Rather, we should see this study not as a finger-pointing attack on black parents, but as a jumping off point for saving babies both black and white.

Photo Credit: University of North Texas Health Science Center

White supremacists: Our racist scapegoats

White supremacists may not be attending plays about racism, but they sure are cropping up on television. In the Mar. 22 issue of Newsweek, reporter Joshua Alston examines the prevalence of these white-power radicals on primetime television:

--The new FX series Justified centers on a U.S. Marshall who returns to his childhood home, only to find that his childhood friend now leads a violent white-supremacist group.

--Sons of Anarchy's second season focused on a battle between a motorcycle gang and the white-separatist "League of American Nationalists."

--The serial killer drama Dexter now features a white supremacist hanger-on.

--Law & Order--all three renditions--dealt with crimes precipitated by a white-power organization.

Why so much white bigotry? Alston hits it right on the mark:

"The reason the card-carrying white supremacist lingers in the public imagination is not just because he's scary, but because he fortifies our self-regard in an area where we all occasionally need some convincing."

To some extent, Alston says, we are all racist:

"On some level we all recognize this, and to acknowledge—-or even inflate—-white supremacists is to assuage our guilt with the knowledge that there are people out there far more prejudiced than most of us could ever be."

White supremacists are a catch-all for white guilt. We can look at the white KKK robes and say, "How awful!", without registering our own biases. White supremacists on TV gives us a means to cast aside our own white guilt. We can argue, "I'm not THAT bad," and ignore the bigotry within us. With enough exposure to these characters, we begin to think THEY are the problem, and we erroneously believe our comparably small prejudices are inconsequential.

While I tend to take a cynical view of Hollywood and say that producers are in it for the money, making shows with least common denominator content with the broadest appeal, I will try to be hopeful. If TV producers truly want to help us understand the ills of white supremacy, which Alston says is on the rise in America (a result of a black president, illegal immigration and an economic recession), I suggest they de-radicalize these groups. Showing viewers that radical bigotry exists not only at KKK rallies, but at the neighborhood barbecue, the office party or even the local book club meeting can do wonders to curtail white scapegoating. TV execs should not show us the "glorified worst," but they should incorporate into their programs a more mundane, dare I say relatable conceptualization of white power.

TV producers take note: Not only are you perpetuating whiteness, but you are endorsing its worst brand. We cannot confront our own biases until you bring racism to our level.

Photo Credit: Reuters/Jessica Rinaldi