Another great article on race came out today, this one talking about racial discrimination in sports. The author, LZ Granderson, describes his infuriation at the stereotypes that continue to taint our perception of great athletes. In a nutshell: if you want to say that black guys can be great QBs, then you also have to allow that white guys can be great NBA centers.
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Apr 022008
Mar 052008
I was flipping through the news channels yesterday, when I came across the following banner: Steinem: Racism Taken More Seriously Than Sexism. Unfortunately, the commentators had already moved on to rehash the already stale arguments about the role of “identity politics” in the Democratic Primary. As a result, I have no idea if the banner accurately stated Gloria Steinem’s position, or when that position was stated, or what her intention actually was. On the flip side, the banner doesn’t sound all that different than the New York Times op-ed she published on January 8, entitled “Women Are Never Front-Runners“. I have some problems with the op-ed, although those are tangential to the current discussion. But after an initial negative reaction to that banner headline, in the last 24 hours I have come to the position that it was fundamentally correct: society does take the problem of racism much more seriously than the problem of sexism. Why?
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Feb 122008
I’ve been thinking a lot about Hillary Clinton lately. Some of this has stemmed from our recent debate about media coverage of the Clinton campaign. Some of it has come from Stanley Fish’s recent columns over on his New York Times blog. In any case, the upshot has been that I’ve been trying to logically reexamine my own feelings and attitudes towards Hillary in particular, and women politicians and the Clintons in general, given their history and given the general feelings of the population and the media. And at the end of the day, I’m left with a lot of questions, and not a lot of answers.
Nov 082007
The House just passed a bill that would outlaw employment discrimination based on sexual identity. It’s a compromise bill in that it exempts groups with religious affiliations and does not protect against transsexual or transgender discrimination. Good for the House, and I hope it passes the Senate and becomes law.
In any case, the New York Times article on the debate had the following quote:
Representative Doc Hastings of Washington, who led the Republican effort to get a vote on the amendment, said he opposed the overall bill in part because many states already had similar laws and because he viewed it as intrusive. “I do not think it is the place of the federal government to legislate how each and every place of business operates,” Mr. Hastings said.
Oct 192007
The last few days I’ve been reading Come On People, by Bill Cosby and Alvin F. Poussaint. The book, and the extensive book tour that they’ve been doing to support it over the last week, is a call to action for black community leaders, teachers, and parents, among others. I’m only about half-way through it, and I might write a more extensive review when I’m finished, but as of now I’m finding it very intriguing.
In any case, the most interesting thing about the book so far is that it mostly sounds a lot like what the most conservative, white evangelical preacher would say. Among their prescriptions for the black community, for instance, are the following:
- Encouraging men who father children to not abandon that child
- Returning at least some of the social stigma on becoming an unwed mothers
- Teaching young men to be good fathers
- Speaking proper English
- Dressing professionally
- Disciplining children appropriately
- Avoiding “gangsta rap” and other violent and degrading media images
- Going to Church regularly
Because of these admonitions and others, at times you have to wonder if they authors aren’t taking their cue from James Dobson. This is traditional conservative family values, spelled out in great detail, with only one or two variants (in particular, they are very critical of using physical punishment as discipline). The authors want to live in a world full of two-parent households, with well-dressed, well-behaved, and well-spoken children, where the hard work of both the parents and children is rewarded and where laziness and slovenliness is punished.
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