voxygen.net » Race and Racism

Cultural Identity Activity

~LS~ — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 12:56:32 +0000

Since teaching at BRCC I have struggled with introducing issues of racism and other identity categories into the classroom. Given the diversity of the campus population, I’m not sure why. As I posted previously, the responses to racial topics are completely unpredictable.

Last semester, for instance, my students claimed that black people really do like fried chicken. Although part of that discussion was intentional provocation on some of the students’ part, I think many genuinely bought into the stereotype.

Perhaps my difficulties derive from the increasing hostility in conservative rhetoric toward people of color. The “love it or leave it,” English-only mentality is surprisingly prevalent. Although many, many white students don’t fall into this category, there are enough of them to make conversations tense and uncomfortable.

If the students of color (predominantly black, though we’re seeing a rise in other minorities) aren’t comfortable enough to [...]

Black doll white doll

~LS~ — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 10:11:03 +0000

Today in class I showed a clip from A Girl Like Me, a documentary made by a 17 year old young woman who revisits the Black Doll White Doll test. The test asks black children to choose between a white doll and a black doll, asking questions such as “which doll is the prettiest” (they pick the white doll), “which doll is the nicest” (they pick the white doll), and “which doll is the most like you” (they flounder and then pick the black doll). Watching black children struggle with those questions is very sad. I show this video in class when we talk about the relationship between perception, the self, and communication.

What always amazes me about this video is the responses that it provokes. Sometimes students completely shut down and getting them to talk is impossible. Sometimes students [...]

A day of lessons in stereotypes

~LS~ — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 06:40:21 +0000

Today has been an interesting lesson in stereotypes.

Lesson one:

I had a guest speaker from Deaf Services in BR come to my Interpersonal Communication class. He was dynamic and interesting and the students loved him. Before his visit, I decided to learn a little more about Deaf culture the capital D is important to people in the Deaf community). I’ve been fascinated about it ever since a friend of mine demonstrated the way that sign language is not a literal interpretation but a more poetic one. She did this by signing a song. I’ve learned a long time ago that it’s your responsibility to educate yourself about others who are culturally different rather than to expect them to translate for you. I think the most memorable statement came from Audre Lorde who said that white women expect women of color to “stretch across the gap of ignorance.” So in [...]

Whoopi and Disney

~LS~ — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 04:25:25 +0000

I adore Whoopi. Ever since I saw her Direct From Broadway show on HBO many years ago. I haven’t seen the 2oth anniversary version, though I would really like to. In the orignal HBO special, her character Fontaine, who is a junkie, goes to the Anne Frank house. It is a profound piece about race and humanity that I wish I could see again.

I was excited to see Whoopi join The View, which is one of my favorite shows to watch when I’m not really watching TV. I was terribly disappointed in her “rape rape” comment about Roman Polanski, for which she’s being skewered all over the net, and deservedly so. Still, I think she’s got an incredible talent for raising people’s consciousness through comedy.

I remember when she was filming in Sister Act and she was at war with Disney over the script. [...]

Tea party protest signs and some other stuff

~LS~ — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 03:01:26 +0000

We’ve all seen the tea bag party’s stupid, misspelled protest signs these days. No surprise there. We all immediately recognize the painful hypocrisy of those misspelled signs that demand we make English America’s “offical” language. We all also recognize by now the anti-anti-war protester of a few years ago who called us all “morans,” which some thoughtful person has turned into a motivational poster. The illiteracy of the tea baggers party is just depressing — it just underscores that these people are victims taken advantage of by astroturfing corporate interests. So depressing. Now, to be fair, the left has its fair share of misspelled posters. My fave: “Will sombody please give Bush a blowjob so we can impeach him.” Misspelling aside, the sentiment is funny. Anyway, these tea party folks are working against their own interests, which makes [...]

The Glenn Beck Boycott

~LS~ — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 04:55:07 +0000

As everyone knows by now, ColorOfChange.org is sponsoring a successful boycott of Fox New’s Glenn Beck. Right on!

I don’t know -why- I read AOL’s “Politics Daily” blog on occasion, but I do. The audience is heavily conservative, so the comments are vitriolic, vituperative, and vigorous (I needed another v-word for balance). They make me point-laugh. So, yesterday, Carl Cannon wrote some stupid bullshit about the boycott, claiming that it’s censorship and not good citizenship. Well, after reading pages of comments, I got totally frustrated and I actually posted a comment. I suppose it’s just a means of blowing off steam. It’s buried 5,000 comments in, so I doubt a soul will read it. But it was fun and it made me feel better. So here’s what I wrote:

I know I’m stupid to post here given the [...]

“The Blacks vs. The Gays”

~LS~ — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 19:40:41 +0000

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference has recently had some internal conflicts over gay rights and Proposition 8. I learned about this from a group on Facebook called the Empowering Spirits Foundation. Apparently the national SCLC leadership has threatened to remove the Los Angeles chapter’s president (Rev. Eric P. Lee) because of his outspoken support of gay marriage. My first response was of course, SCLC…Southern…Christian. What should we expect? But it’s disheartening nonetheless.

The tension between “blacks and gays” (a linguistic construction that perpetuates the invisibility of gay blacks, not to mention the complete absence of the L, B, and T part of GLBT or of any other non-white queer in this struggle) has been part of the national discussion of Proposition 8 for a while now. This tension is particularly painful when the media cites various statistics around the country that show black people reject gay [...]

Institutional racism or acts of meanness?

~LS~ — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 04:25:49 +0000

Recently I’ve been working a lot with the YWCA Dialogue on Race again. The dialogues have frustrated me for as long as I’ve been a participant. I think the process is invaluable and important. Necessary, even. But I also think it is highly problematic – beyond the problems and tensions that /any/ dialogue on race necessarily entails.

First off, the conversations about race that I’ve had with sympathetic people (of all races) in Louisiana are generally very flat. Conversations here don’t broach essentialism and intersectionality or question identity politics. While racism in Louisiana feels much more entrenched and deep-seated than in other places I’ve lived, the general understanding of racism here lacks nuance. Of course, some might say, “what is there to understand?…racism is racism. The people who are suffering under the burden of racism already understand. They’re oppressed. They live it. Simple as that.” But [...]

Sweet Honey in the Rock and Some Political Thoughts

~LS~ — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 07:56:00 +0000

Sweet Honey in the Rock is one of my all-time favorite musical groups. I got to thinking about Sweet Honey the other day when I was donating my clothing and I wrote about the politics of second-hand clothing. In learning about what actually happens to donated clothes, I was left with a sick feeling about my own consumption and how easily I succumb to buying things. I regularly feel guilty about going to Wal-Mart despite full awareness of why shopping there is so utterly wrong. I haven’t reflected on this problem the way I used to in women’s studies classes — the hopeless, damned if you do, damned if you don’t feeling you get when your consciousness is raised about consumption. I don’t want to donate my clothing to exploitative rag-making multinational corporations. I don’t want to toss my clothes in a landfill, either. So the only [...]

Obama, Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Dangerous Negro

~LS~ — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 21:17:00 +0000

Today in the Huffington Post there’s an article saying that Rupert Murdoch called Obama “dangerous”:

“I think Barack Obama would describe himself as a pragmatic leftist but he’s not an extremist,” Murdoch said. “I think he sees himself as a president for change and that involves bigger government. He’s made no secret of that. I think that’s dangerous.”

This statement reminded me of something I read in the YWCA Dialogue on Race reading packet. I first heard this phrase of “dangerous negro” in an article called “Struggle and Transformation: The Challenge of Martin Luther King, Jr.” by Vincent Harding, written in the mid-80s. Vincent Harding is a Professor Emeritus of Religion and Social Transformation at Illiff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado, he was an adviser to SNCC, and he was a speechwriter for King. In his article, Harding reminds us that the FBI called King [...]