"no one deserves to be treated like a black man"

Click here to see a piece of genius from The Onion.

speechless

Thanks to Mayka I found this well worth your time blog post by Roger Ebert: How do they get to be that way?

He is referring to a story about an Arizona mural, that had kids of color re-painted white, after racists had complained.

happy birthday, mexico

It seems there are white people in the US who don't like having a black guy in charge.

And I think the fear that the president isn't up for the job is nicely balanced by the fear that he will actually succeed.

the president is black (III): you're better than this, america

I taught a course earlier this summer that discussed relationships between media, underrepresented groups, and dominant culture. Knowledge and power were important concepts, as were Michel Foucault's observations about situated knowledge, and truth regimes.

The idea is that in a hierarchical society, the world looks different to you depending on where you are standing. The world is different to you depending on where you are standing.

The term 'situated knowledge' points out that knowledge is produced in local social settings, and that there is no objectivity.

But: The more symbolic power you enjoy (=the closer you are to the top of the hierarchy), the more likely it is that your ideas about "truth" coincide with the official version of the truth that is broadcast and printed in commercial media.

So, we learn that there are parallel truths in the world, but that only certain truths will get elevated to be perceived as truths for an entire society, country, or social setting.

Enter Professor Gates, Sergeant Crowley, and President Obama. And Lucia Whalen, and the Beer Summit for Three. (You do the math.)

The twist is this: Even though Barack Obama is the president of the United States, he is also a black man in the US. He knows what the world looks like from the point of enormous privilege, but he also knows what the world looks like from the perspective of black men. He knows what you can do as a black man, what you can't do, and when you will get questioned because you look out of place.

The majority in the US do not have this first hand experience. The majority live by a different set of truths. They often think that there is no difference between people based on race. (Because in their experience there isn't.) They think that if something happens to you, it's because of something you did, not because of who you are, where you are, or what you look like. (Because in their experience, it is.)

Every time someone voices an experience that is not shared by dominant culture, the majority, that act challenges the status quo.

I've seen it a hundred times in my classes. It takes guts, it makes people uncomfortable, and it makes them mad.

Attorney General Eric Holder did it.

And President Obama did it. People have spent a lot of time this past week saying that he shouldn't have said what he said. He shouldn't have weighed in on the side of Henry Gates. They have said that up until now he has avoided divisiveness in racial matters, he has proven that he is 'beyond race'.

It seems to me he had been waiting for this moment. It seemed to me that he was eloquent, speaking freely without notes, for exactly that reason. He had been preparing for it for a long time. He knew exactly what he wanted to say, what hidden truth he thought needed to be lifted up: Racial profiling exists. The world looks different to a black man than it does to someone who is white.

White people, dominant culture people, often think that talking about race makes it worse. That if we don't talk about differences they don't exist. What they fail to see is that that is their truth. It's true for them that if we don't talk about differences they don't exist because they don't exist in their lives. But that is not true for anyone of color, any LBGTQ person, any woman, or anyone with a disability.

So if we don't talk, the only thing we accomplish is more of the same. We continue to buy into the "truth" that is produced by the dominant group, for their own benefit.

I think it's great that the United States has a president who is willing, and prepared, to challenge that.

No, that's an understatement. It make me teary, that's what it does.

And then it makes me mad that the fact that a black president says that "race remains a factor in society" can cause controversy.

"the first in American history guilty of being p.w.b., president while black"

Stanley Fish's column in The New York Times on the Gates scandal ends like this:

Gates and Obama are not only friends; they are in the same position, suspected of occupying a majestic residence under false pretenses. And Obama is a double offender. Not only is he guilty of being Housed While Black; he is the first in American history guilty of being P.W.B., President While Black.

But you really need to read it all.

the president is black (II)

LA Times today: The measured and cautious Obama that Americans have come to know might have demurred when, at the end of his prime-time press conference, he was asked about the arrest last week of Henry Louis Gates Jr., a prominent African American-studies scholar and friend of the president's.

But Obama was surprisingly emotive and unequivocal when answering the question and concluding that the Cambridge, Mass., police had "acted stupidly" in arresting Gates, who is black, after he tried to pry open a stuck door to gain entry to his own home.

Obama said he did not know what role if any race played in the matter. But he also seemed to welcome the opportunity to teach a larger racial lesson. Obama used the question to recall his sponsorship as an Illinois state legislator of legislation to crack down on racial profiling, noting that "there is a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped" disproportionately by police. (Read more.)

you can put a man on the moon but you can't fix... this.

Prom Night In Mississippi: Nothing changes until you do.

she lets him have it

Watch Rachel Maddow and Pat Buchanan debating Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, and affirmative action, on the Rachel Maddow Show.

it's true

President Obama's pick for Surgeon General is a woman. A black woman. Her name is Dr. Regina Benjamin.

Some people think she is too fat to be top doc.

I am not even going to comment.