No matter how heartbreaking the story, we still love to laugh at black people.
The details of the Cleveland kidnapping case are horrific and we are all grateful the women have now been rescued. What is happening to Charles Ramsey’s interview deserves a mention on this blog (and has been commented on in many places, see references at the links below).
At Ill Doctrine, Jay Smooth takes apart the media’s portrayal.
Asian-Americans Face Dilemma In Debate Over Affirmative Action
NPR Story from Nov. 2012
“Six weeks ago, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, a case that challenges the consideration of race in college admissions…. petitioner Abigail Fisher’s main brief… asserts that the university’s use of race in admissions discriminates against Asian-Americans, who are deemed to be “over-represented.” Asian-American civil rights organizations filed briefs on both sides of the case.”
According to the article, an opinion is expected in June 2013.
Many Asian-Americans face a “model-minority” stereotype. How do you think this plays into college admissions? Should Asian-Americans be excluded from affirmative action policies? Are Asian-Americans as homogenous of a group as they are often treated?
Being White in Philly: Whites, race, class, and the things that never get said.
by Robert Huber, Published March 2013 in Philadelphia Magazine
“Everyone might have a race story, but few whites risk the third-rail danger of speaking publicly about race, given the long, troubled history of race relations in this country and even more so in this city. Race is only talked about in a sanitized form, when it’s talked about at all, with actual thoughts and feelings buried, which only ups the ante. Race remains the elephant in the room….”
Looking for something controversial to mull over? Here you go! Interested in other people’s reactions? There are plenty, starting with:
What do you think of the article or of the responses?
*Thanks to former Contemporary Racism student David Weiss for sharing this article.
NY Times Op-Ed, by Te-Nehisi Coates
The piece is about Forest Whitaker getting accused of shoplifting in a deli. I was particularly struck by this quote:
The promise of America is that those who play by the rules, who observe the norms of the “middle class,” will be treated as such. But this injunction is only half-enforced when it comes to black people, in large part because we were never meant to be part of the American story.
What do you find interesting, moving or surprising in this piece?
This blog entry from CNN discusses how the first Black man to be elected to the U.S. Senate was met with a white backlash that “helped destroy Reconstruction” after the Civil War. It draws parallels between the white backlash then and the white backlash to electing Obama in 2008. What are your thoughts? Is is a reasonable comparison to make? The post quotes a history professor from Fordham who says we aren’t post-racial but we also aren’t going back to the days of legal segregation. So what does the “middle” between those two ends of a continuum look like? The backlash is certainly less “visible” than it was in the Jim Crow era, but is it any less insidious or divisive? What other points does the article (or the comments responding to it) raise for you?
Here is the link:
Here is a pic and caption making its way around the internet. What do you think? Did the photo “catch” you making a quick inference (i.e., “the Black man is the felon”) that you needed to correct?
I can’t find the original source of this image to credit them (though I’m sure the Martha Stewart TV show should be credited for generating the photo in the first place). Thanks to Simone for sending it to me.
Please bookmark our new URL: http://contemporaryracism.org
