Back to the Drawing Board. Seriously.

According to an article in the New York Times, college degrees aren't helping black men find jobs. "Well, No1KState, everybody's struggling now." At a ratio of 8.4 to 4.4 for black men with college degrees to white men with college degrees?

The administrators at racismreview noted that the article failed to explicitly say white hiring managers had a problem with black job applicants. The closest Michael Luo came to blaming white people was quoting stories like this one:

Mr. Williams recently applied to a Dallas money management firm that had posted a position with top business schools. The hiring manager had seemed ecstatic to hear from him, telling him they had trouble getting people from prestigious business schools to move to the area. Mr. Williams had left New York and moved back in with his parents in Dallas to save money.

But when Mr. Williams later met two men from the firm for lunch, he said they appeared stunned when he strolled up to introduce himself.

“Their eyes kind of hit the ceiling a bit,” he said. “It was kind of quiet for about 45 seconds.”

The company’s interest in him quickly cooled, setting off the inevitable questions in his mind.

Mr. Johnny R Williams has JPMorgan Chase and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago on his résumé.

I'm not really surprised Luo fails to acknowledge that if companies were excited about a particular job applicant until they see him, then the problem is with the interviewers, not the applicant. After all, have you listened to the way people talk about slavery? Almost as though the country just had black slaves running around with no white slaveowners. As for today, this whole problem that black men with amazing resumes are having a harder time finding jobs than white men isn't white people's fault. After all,

The discrimination is rarely overt, according to interviews with more than two dozen college-educated black job seekers around the country, many of them out of work for months. Instead, those interviewed told subtler stories, referring to surprised looks and offhand comments, interviews that fell apart almost as soon as they began, and the sudden loss of interest from companies after meetings.

And plus,

There is also the matter of how many jobs, especially higher-level ones, are never even posted and depend on word-of-mouth and informal networks, in many cases leaving blacks at a disadvantage. A recent study published in the academic journal Social Problems found that white males receive substantially more job leads for high-level supervisory positions than women and members of minorities.

See? None of this alleged "discrimination" has anything at all to do with some supposed racist conspiracy white people have against black men with degrees from Yale and MBAs from the University of Chicago. No! White employers would love to hire more Morehouse me, but

. . . [they simply gravite] toward similar people, casting about for the right “cultural fit,” a buzzword often heard in corporate circles.

After all,

they conceded, there are times when their race can be beneficial, particularly with companies that have diversity programs. But many said they sensed that such opportunities had been cut back over the years and even more during the downturn. Others speculated there was now more of a tendency to deem diversity unnecessary after Mr. Obama’s triumph.

In fact, whether Mr. Obama’s election has been good or bad for their job prospects is hotly debated. Several interviewed went so far as to say that they believed there was only so much progress that many in the country could take, and that there was now a backlash against blacks.

Now that you've gotten the basic gist of the article, I can share my true feelings. Of course, I absolutely agree with the "blacklash" theory. Also, are we really gonna consider being black "beneficial" just because some company has realized they've already met the quota for white men? Cause actually, diversity improves performance and profits.

And what the hell is "cultural fit" and doesn't it already raise a red flag?

Essentially, the phrase refers to an employee or applicant who shares the employer's business attitudes, values, goals, and overall view of how the particular business should be run. Every workplace has a style that is reflected in the way its employees act and dress; how they deal with clients, customers, and each other; and how they comport themselves in the larger work world.

I found another definition/explanation here:

In the work setting, lack of fit between an employee and an organization can be described as culture clash. Culture encompasses the shared, taken-for-granted assumptions that a group has learned throughout its history -- values held in common that extend beyond the framed mission statement hanging in the lobby. It includes the following:

 Work style -- the way work is done.

• Team orientation -- hierarchical versus egalitarian.  
• Management style -- collaborative or commanding. 
• Customer orientation -- a nuisance as opposed to reason for being.  
• Political style -- the importance of what you know versus who you know.  
• Attitudes toward things like learning and risk taking.  

Lack of cultural fit is largely due to a misguided hiring process supported by ineffective execution. Even the best-intentioned organizations - those that focus on competencies and relevant behaviors, in addition to education and experience -- frequently don't assess the issue of cultural fit accurately. Failure to do this minimizes the likelihood of arriving at a successful match.

So how does this play out in real life terms? Let's take a look at one of Harvard's Baker Scholars (awarded only to the top students of the MBA graduate class), a black man named James who kept being rejected because he wasn't the white, oh, I mean, right cultural fit. His race wasn't necessarily the problem.

He mentioned, for instance, that he was extremely fastidious in his working style, and would stay long hours to ensure that he always produced work of the highest quality. Admirable within some companies, perhaps, but others might see it as being detrimental to team spirit if James were not able to prioritise, or to relax once in a while if the work he was doing at the time wasn’t critical.

He also mentioned that he liked to take initiative and present the people around him with highly-polished work. But if the organisation was used to getting everyone involved in the problem so that the solution was jointly developed, would James accommodate this or not?

So, although the recruiter could be more helpful to James in the feedback which is given to him, there is nothing underhand going on. In fact, the recruiter is working in James’s interests to ensure that he does not join a firm where he will not fit in and excel.

So black men, here's some job advice, based mostly on what I've laid out and in the spirit of this particular post (Which I hope you realize is mostly sarcasm . . . about the reasons for the disparity in employment between black male college grads and white male college grads, not the disparity itself.).Don't demonstrate initiative.

1. Don't be so committed to high-quality work that you stay extra hours on the job making sure you get things just right.
2. Send a white guy as a stand-in for your interviews and talk into his ear using blue-tooth.
3. Use initials if you have an ethnic name.
4. Don't mention any awards you've received or organizations you've joined as a high achieving minority.
5. And if all else fells, don't get a college degree. Particularly one from a prominent university.

James became neither an investment banker nor a consultant. The deeper he looked into those careers, the more he realised himself that he would not succeed. He is now a teacher just outside of Chicago where he is able to develop young minds. And Lord knows we need more black male teachers!

No, sarcasm aside, we really do need more black male teachers in our public schools. But I'm not sure I'm okay with black men going into teaching as a last resort. What are we supposed to tell our kids? You can be anything you want, just stay in your place? Cause no matter how much you accomplish, you can still be arrested in or protested against in your own home.

World AIDS Day

Yes, I'm a day late. Sorry. World AIDS Day is on the first of December. But this is important. Black women . . . well, just read this post courtesy racismreview.com/blog. I'll try to post all the links in the post asap. ~ No1KState

World AIDS Day: Black Women, Racism and HIV/AIDS
By Jessie

Today is World AIDS Day, when people around the globe stop to reflect on those lost to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which is almost in its third decade. While many people may associate the disease with white, gay men because they were one of the groups initially infected and affected by HIV and among the most political vocal about it, the fact is the epidemic has changed. Within the U.S., if you examine the epidemic across racial and ethnic groups, you will see that HIV/AIDS is not a disease that exclusively, or even primarily, affects whites. Blacks and Latinos are increasingly affected by the disease, as this graph based on 2007 CDC statistics illustrates:

The changing nature of the epidemic is even more striking when you include gender.Today, black women are the group with the highest rates of new HIV/AIDS infections. According to CDC:

■African American women account for a majority of new AIDS cases (66% in 2006); white women and Latina women account for 17% and 16% of new AIDS cases, respectively.
■African American women account for the largest share of new HIV infections among women (61% in 2006), an incidence rate nearly 15 times the rate among white women. (For more detailed look at statistics about the epidemic’s impact on African Americans, see: “Black Americans and HIV/AIDS” compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation, opens PDF.)

During the first decade of the epidemic, most social science research focused on changing individual behavior (e.g., wearing condoms, using clean needles) as the primary intervention strategy to prevent HIV infection, these efforts often failed in the face of complex settings of social inequality. For example, telling a woman that her partner should wear a condom becomes a risky proposition if she is economically dependent on that man for survival and he sees the request to wear a condom as an affront of some kind. Thus, researchers and community activists interested in stopping the spread of the disease began to look at the dynamics of sexuality within a broader social and cultural factors.

Just as an increasing amount of research demonstrates that mothers who experience racism are more likely to have low-birth-weight babies, the experience of racism and sexism are part of the social and cultural factors affecting HIV/AIDS rates among African American women. One way to measure this combined racism and sexism, is to look at what national leaders have to say about the HIV/AIDS epidemic among black women. In 2004, when journalist and vice-presidential debate moderator Gwen Ifill raised this important issue in the form of a question to then-candidates John Edwards and Dick Cheney, neither one could stammer out a coherent answer. It was clear that the alarming rates of HIV/AIDS among black women were simply not a concern for powerful political leaders (who also happened to be white men).

Some of the most exciting research that attempts to address this inequality is the pioneering intervention studies conducted by Gina Wingood and Ralph DiClemente of Emory University who, drawing on Connell’s gender and power theory, began to think differently about HIV prevention for young, black women. Wingood and DiClemente developed an intervention study for African American adolescent girls that used workshops that emphasized ethnic and gender pride along with the usual HIV-prevention information. Basically, the researchers included a consciousness-raising group about race and gender along with the usual health education information. These positive messages about racial and gender pride are important for enabling and empowering young, black women who encounter a layered burden of racism, sexism and often, poverty.

However, not all black women who are HIV-infected are poor, as several activists remind us. Marvelyn Brown, for example, diagnosed at age 19 with HIV/AIDS has become an outspoken proponent and visible spokesperson for HIV-prevention among young, black women. The author of Naked Truth: Young, Beautiful and (HIV) Positive, Brown has won several awards for her activism. Rae Lewis-Thornton, diagnosed at age 23, was featured on the cover of Essence magazine in 1994 and described as, “I’m young, I’m educated, I’m drug-free, and I’m dying of AIDS.” It’s been fifteen years and, fortunately, Lewis-Thornton is still very much alive and an tireless activist. Yet, she struggles with the legacy of her diagnosis (powerful video interview with Lewis-Thornton here). And, young black women who are allies, are harnessing the power of new media to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS, such as Karyn and Luvvie of the Red Pump Project.

The growing epidemic among black women in the U.S. reflects a global trend. The World Health Organization’s estimate (via AIDS.org) is that there are over three million women with HIV in the world, most of them in Africa. In fact, one in 50 women in sub-Saharan Africa is infected with HIV. AIDS is the leading cause of death for women ages 20-40 in major
cities in the Americas, Western Europe, and Africa. The fact that this disease is shape-shifting into one what disproportionately affects black women both here in the U.S. and globally raises important questions about whether or not we will, collectively, be able to put aside our racism (and sexism) to address this epidemic.

As you go to a service, attend a vigil, or just hold a good thought or observe a moment of silence on this World AIDS Day, reflect also on the ways that racism shapes the epidemic and who we lose because of it. If you care about racial and gender equality, you need to start paying attention to HIV/AIDS. IF you’re concerned about HIV/AIDS, you need to start learning about racism and sexism.

For more on the public health crisis affecting black women, you can watch this video (approximately 27 minutes) which features a discussion with C. Virginia Fields, President of National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS, Monica Sweeney, MD, Assistant Commissioner for the Bureau of HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control of the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and Marvelyn Brown.

Just a Few Tears

Well, no analysis. You got CNN and MSNBC for all that. PBS.

Just feel like sharing. Not feeling this at all. Not because I disagree with the policy, but I'm just not okay with war. I'm a just war advocate, so I'm not against all wars just because they're wars.

I just feel like crying. For the time parents will miss with their kids. The lives that will be flipped upside-down because of a stray bomb or because Al Qaeda or the Taliban is using a village of innocent people as a buffer. Or, maybe even because the war has just gotten to our own soldiers so they wil' out on innocent people, whether there or over here.

So excuse me please and pass some tissue. War is hell and our shared humanity demands that we sympathize with our military families, including but not limited to my cousin and her husband, and the Afghans alike.

You Just Too Damn Fat!!

Lincoln University, an HBCU in rural Pennsylvania, is getting international attention and coverage, and lots of heat for requiring students with BMI over 30 to take a specific PE in order to graduate.

Okay. Let's deal with some particulars. Body mass index (BMI) is a measure of body fat based on height and weight that applies to both adult men and women. BMI Categories:

• Underweight = 18.5
• Normal weight = 18.5-24.9
• Overweight = 25-29.9
• Obesity = BMI of 30 or greater

Personally, I'm just on the edge of normal weight. Whew. You can calculate your BMI at the link. Remember, though, the muscle weighs more than fat, so you could have a high BMI and still be considered normal weight.

People with a BMI over 30 are obese and at risk for lots of health problems including diabetes and heart disease. Now, perhaps with the exception of white women, there is nothing definitive that weight has a negative impact on income. But, a higher BMI, with its associated health risks, in the end costs more.

As for the university, they don't have the resources to offer this course to everyone, which is what they'd like to do. So they make a requirement for people with BMIs over 30 not to be discriminatory, but to target the class to those who need it most. And there's no doubt they could've done a better job communicating the specifics to students and others.

That said, I completely agree with the universities decision to make this a requirement. The health risks to our community of obesity are too large and have too much of an impact to big ignored. Now sure, some of the problem in the Black community is related to poverty and urban planning, ie lack of access to healthy food. And of course, the older you get, the less likely you are to lose weight, and policies like these would have a greater impact on school children. But college students aren't exactly adults, sorry. Though, this is more about whether or not you're set in your ways than it's about being qualified to vote. And regardless of the neighborhood, we need to empower ourselves to make healthier decisions. If you can't run outside because it's not safe, I'm not suggesting you by a bullet-proof vest and go jogging; but maybe you can do some jumping jacks or push-ups in your house?

And, I don't know. I just think the black community stands to gain a lot by improving our overall health. First off is the lives that'll be saved not to mention money spent on on health care! It's important to send the message that healthiness is important. And who knows? Once we're healthier, maybe we'll have the energy and time to invest in anti-racist activities. We don't know the impact this can have, yet.

Even if they change the particulars, Lincoln definitely needs to keep the idea. Definitely. Go Lions!

Let's Just Bring Everybody Home

h/t SNCC listserve ~

via enduswars.org. We've had enough.
You can add your name by writing to sign@enduswars.org

Open Letter from the Peace Movement to President Obama on His Upcoming Decision Regarding the Afghan War

Dear Mr. President:

According to press reports, you intend to decide sometime in November whether or not to send tens of thousands of American soldiers to Afghanistan. We are writing in advance of that decision to add our voice to those of Sen. Feingold, many House Democrats, and of a clear majority of Americans in urging you not to escalate this war, but rather to announce an immediate cease-fire followed by a withdrawal of all US troops in the fastest way consistent with the safety of our forces. We urge you to end the policy of using Predator drones to assassinate Pakistani civilians on the territory of their own country, in defiance of all concepts of international law. We also call upon you to cease all covert CIA and Pentagon operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran.
(Click here for rest of post.)

They Did What to Their Own Kids?

I think it's not talked about a lot, though Macon D does on occasion, but racism is bad for white people, too. Especially white kids. Now, let's be clear. Child abuse knows no racial boundaries. And so the truth as truth doesn't surprise me, it grieves me.

Michelle Chen
“Good White Stock”: Child Refugees of the British Empire

Forced migration, displacement, and racial social engineering are ugly modern phenomena that we typically associate with the denigration of oppressed racial and religious groups.

But we recently got a glimpse of a colonization effort that in some ways inverted the brutality of the imperial project. From the 1940s through the 1960s, the British government sent thousands of children—many of them from poor and distressed homes—to Australia in a program that blended social reform with manifest destiny. The massive migration was part of a scheme to transplant“good white stock,” to outer territories, including New Zealand, Canada and Rhodesia, because, as one clergy official reportedly explained, “we are terrified of the Asian hordes.”

In personal narrative on the “Lost Children of the Empire,” Eileen Fairweather recounts stories of forced migration in language that smacks of the child welfare crisis in communities of color:

Only a third of the child migrants were actually orphans - the rest had been abandoned by their parents or effectively stolen from them. As was common at the time, some parents put their children into care during hard times - a situation they hoped would be temporary. But when they returned for them, they were often told the children had died.

To make matters worse, the young migrants' documents were frequently destroyed, so they did not even know their parents' names and had no way back into the lives from which they had been ripped....

Michael's worst tormentor enjoyed holding him naked upside-down over a river while beating him, so that the water drowned out his cries. 'He told me it was easy to drown and accidents happen all the time.' Another enjoyed setting his dogs on him.

So this was where Britain's great experiment in replenishing the colonies had led. It was a brutal yet predictable outcome for the little boy abandoned to predatory priests.

The wholesale removal of children from their communities and into alien homes condemned many to devastating physical and sexual abuse. They were captives in a land to which they were supposed to deliver civilization and the great white hope. We'll never know exactly how many children and families were harmed. But the Australian government's recent, long-awaited apology for inflicting this trauma (coupled with apologies to others institutionalized by the country's cruel, discriminatory child welfare policies) suggests that the scope of the injustice, generations later, has barely begun to come to light. As with other struggles to redress historical grievances, demands for reparations haven't brought recompense for survivors.

The child migration system reveals the monstrous consequences of British imperialism's white-supremacist ideology, not only for indigenous peoples but for the colonizers' “own kind” as well. Mythologies of race privilege corrode society from within and dehumanize everyone--even “good white stock”--in the name of the grand hypocrisy of empire.


Posted at 5:47 AM, Nov 26, 2009 in Child Welfare | History | Immigration | Youth | Permalink |

Day of Mourning: Who's Really Giving Thanks?

No, this isn't about American consumerism. This is about historical fact. ~ No1KState

On Thanksgiving: Why Myths Matter

By Matthew Hughey

The Myth:
The Pilgrims landed in 1620 and founded the Colony of New Plymouth. They had a difficult first winter, but survived with the help of the Indians. In the fall of 1621, the grateful Pilgrims held their first Thanksgiving Day and invited the Indians to a big Thanksgiving-Day feast replete with turkey and pumpkins.

The History:
In 1614, a band of English explorers landed in the vicinity of Massachusetts Bay. When they returned home to England, they took with them Native slaves they had captured, and left smallpox behind. By the time the Puritan pilgrims sailed the Mayflower into southern Massachusetts Bay, entire nations of New England Natives were already extinct or greatly disseminated due to disease.

There was indeed a big feast in 1621, but it was not “Thanksgiving.” It was a three-day feast described in a letter by the colonist Edward Winslow. Moreover, it was a shooting party; there was neither a “Thanksgiving Day” proclamation, nor any mention of a 1621 thanksgiving celebration in any historical record.

The history of the colony was chronicled by Governor William Bradford in his book, History of Plymouth Plantation (written circa 1650, republished in 1968 by Russell and Russell publishers). Bradford relates how the Pilgrims set up a “geoist” system (a merger of what we now understand as libertarianism and communism). The land was owned in common and could not be sold or inherited, but each family was allotted a portion, and they could keep whatever they grew on that portion. As Governor Bradford describes it, “At last after much debate of things, the governor gave way that they should set corn everyman for his own particular… That had very good success for it made all hands very industrious, so much [more] corn was planted than otherwise would have been.” Yet, poor harvests prevailed, especially over the summer as the rains stopped. In response the Pilgrims held a “Day of Humiliation” in which they fervently prayed. The rains finally came in the fall and the harvest was saved. Many of the Pilgrims saw this as a sign that God blessed their new economic system and Governor Bradford proclaimed 29 November 1623 a “Day of Thanksgiving.”

This was the first proclamation of thanksgiving found in Bradford’s chronicles or any other historical record. Much later, this first “Day of Thanksgiving” was confused with the shooting party of 1621. Until approximately 1629, there were only about 300 Puritans living in widely scattered settlements around New England. As the numbers of Puritans grew, the question of ownership of the land became a major issue. It was clear to the new Puritans that there was no definite claim on the land because it had never been subdued, cultivated, and farmed in the European manner. The land was seen as “public domain.” This attitude met with great resistance from the original Puritans and so they were summarily excommunicated.

The excommunicated Puritans and others that wished to find new lands, decided to push further West away from the sea. Joined by British colonizers, they seized land, took Natives as slaves to work the land, and killed the rest. When they reached the Connecticut Valley around 1633, they met a different type of force. The Pequot Nation, a large and powerful nation that had not entered into any peace treaty as other New England Native nations had done. When two slave raiders were killed by resisting Natives, the Puritans demanded that the killers be turned over. The Pequot refused. What followed was the Pequot War, the bloodiest of the Native wars in the northeast. Pequot villages were attacked and Pequot were sold into slavery in the West Indies, the Azures, Spain, Algiers and England; everywhere the Puritan merchants traded. This rather forgotten aspect of the trans-Atlantic slave trade was so lucrative that boatloads of 500 at a time left the harbors of New England.

In 1641, the Dutch governor of Manhattan offered the first scalp bounty; a common practice in many European countries. This was broadened by the Puritans to include a bounty for Natives fit-to-be-sold for slavery. The Dutch and Puritans joined forces to exterminate Natives from New England. Following an especially successful raid against the Pequot in what is now Stamford, Connecticut, the churches of Manhattan announced a “Day of Thanksgiving” to celebrate victory over the “heathen savages.” This was the second Day of Thanksgiving that was officially celebrated. It was marked by the hacking off of Native heads and kicking them through the streets of nearby Manhattan.

The killing took on frenzied tone, with days of thanksgiving held after each successful massacre. Even the relatively friendly Wampanoag did not escape. Their chief was beheaded, and his head placed on a pole in Plymouth, Massachusetts—where it remained for 24 years. Each town held thanksgiving days to celebrate their own victories over the Natives until it became clear that an order for these occasions was needed. It was George Washington who brought a system and a schedule to thanksgiving when he declared one day to be celebrated across the nation as what we now know as “Thanksgiving Day.” And it was Abraham Lincoln who decreed Thanksgiving Day to be a legal national holiday during the Civil War (on the same day he ordered US troops to march against the Lakota nation in Minnesota).

Why Myths Matter:
That we believe in such myths is not, in and of itself, shocking. And that the US has achieved “greatness” through criminal brutality on a grand scale is not news. These arguments have been well-rehearsed and mud-slinging for its own sake does little. This myth matters because it can serve the purposes of unethical and anti-democratic interests.

A key vehicle for taming history toward such narrow interests, remain our various patriotic holidays, with Thanksgiving at the heart of our social myth-building. From an early age, we are taught a wonderful story about the hearty Pilgrims, whose search for freedom took them from England to Massachusetts. There, aided by the friendly Indians, they survived in a new and harsh environment, leading to a harvest feast. It is a disturbingly pleasant fiction.
______
Since history is not stable, but open to protestation and debate, I propose we replace our social practices of remembering “Thanksgiving Day” with fasting and/or service to the homeless and hungry, done together with our families and our friends. Some indigenous people have offered such a model; since 1970 many have marked the fourth Thursday of November as a Day of Mourning in a ceremony on Coles Hill overlooking Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, one of the early sites of the European invasion of the Americas.

Matthew W. Hughey, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Mississippi State University. His current research investigates racial identity formation, racialized organizations, and mass-media representations of race. He can be reached at MHughey@soc.msstate.edu.

Christian Side Hug

I just think it's funny. I still give Christian side hugs unless I'm trying to, you know, flirt.

Oh, Yes He Did! (Updated)

Yes, there're other things in the news; and yes, I gotta give big props to the Congressional Black Caucus as black America is officially in an economic depression; and yes, this happened almost a month ago. But there is no excuse for

to be on an 8th grade pre-algebra assignment!

The good news is that some of the kids complained. The bad news is that one child teased the only black student in the class. Personally, I don't know what's more racist: that the teacher decided to use the picture, or that the teacher claims to have seen nothing wrong with it. Trust and believe, he had other options. I had to get to page 6 to find the picture myself.

In trying to find more information on the matter, since it did happen almost a month ago, I came across one blogger who commented that the fact that the mother went to the NAACP hurts her credibility, even though it was the county office. Don't get me wrong, this particular blogger ultimately decides what the teacher did is racist, but he also disagreed with the mother of the only black student in the class keeping her child out of school. So, I think I'm gonna have to do some of my best work.

Now, if you don't find the picture offensive, then I don't know what to say about that. I can hardly stand to look at the picture myself. I'm only displaying it to grab your attention.

But here's the thing. Blacks in Bucks County, PA where this happened make up just 3.2% of the population there, 10 points less than the national average. Now, there's a general feeling of vunerability among black Americans. Being less than the national average can only make things worse. I don't blame the mother for bringing in her county's NAACP office or keeping her child out of school. And this is allegedly one of the best schools in the nations. It's not about fear of physical danger. It's about the psychic toll such an assault can have on the child. It's not an emotionally safe place to learn. As someone who's had to learn under similar circumstances, I can tell you it takes extra mental juice to overlook something like that and learn. Think of it the same way you think of sexual harrasment. Would you have your daughter in class with a teacher who plastered Pamela Anderson on a homework assignment?

Listen. We're not going to solve race by colorblindly acting like it doesn't matter any more. So stop denying that it exists. And if it shows up in an 8th grade math teacher, it's probably down at those tea party rallies, too.

That's my first point.

Here's my second. Studies have shown that allowing someone to tell a sexist joke leads to an environment where sexism is tolerated and women are discriminated against. Other forms of "disparagement humor," whether they're about racial minorities or a lower socioeconomic class, also have the "potential to be a powerful and widespread force that can legitimize prejudice in our society."

And so this teacher gave us a perfect example of how this operates. He pastes this picture on a math worksheet. He probably really didn't see the problem with this disparagement humor. (Hint to white people and men, if your "joke" puts someone down, it's offensive. Don't get me wrong, I can understand how white people would find jokes about smelling like wet dogs offensive. But, first, I feel quite safe in saying you don't know our white jokes because you haven't heard very many. After all, Bernie Mac and the man from 227 went through a list of "nicknames" for white people, but Ashton Kutcher told 4 jokes. And if your anti-black jokes work the same way our yor-mama jokes do, then I know there are hundreds of other jokes, maybe more; and, the ones Ashton told have are probably no longer in fad.) White people rarely do, even if the only way to get the "joke" is to already be familiar with the historic racist stereotype of black people and watermelons. (If you're not, I mean really not, please watch this mockumentary.) I guess that's because if you tell the same joke dozens of times around white people, it may never occur to you that others would be offended.

Wow. That's privilege.

So, there are some students who protest the picture, but the teacher hands out the worksheets still. Then, one classmate turns to the only black child and asks if that's his daddy, cause we all know most black kids don't know who their father is.

This teacher doesn't mean a class on tolerance or sensitivity. He needs a history class and an, pardon my languagne, ass-whooping.

What the what!?!?!

I hardly know what to say about this, people using Psalm 109:8 as an anti-Obama slogan. I mean, did they miss the W Bush years or the part about loving your enemies? And what is it that they're accusing Pres Obama of anyway. If you're one of these haters, please let me know. And being specific. Don't go into bland, political ideological talking points about healthcare reform or the bail out. No, I want you to be specific. Did you not receive your share of the stimulus? Perhaps he aborted your baby. Maybe he started one war and then forgot about it, or maybe he lied us into a completely unnecessary war and let contractors defraud the country out of billions, maybe even trillions of dollars.

Really, I wanna know. But I want specific descriptions of what he did and why it warrants this reaction. No accusations about destroying America. Tell me how he's destroying America, allegedly. Understand? Less adjectives and adverbs, more nouns and verbs. I mean, if it's that bad, I want to know. So what is he doing that you find so abominable that you advocate violence against him?

Good News for NOLA

Apparently, the government is going to appeal, but I should hope Pres Obama will do the right thing.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

This Is Why Healthcare Should Never Be Left to the Free Market

. . . er, duh!

Goldman To Private Insurers: No Health Care Reform at
All Is Best

Sam Stein
11-12-09

The Senate Finance Committee bill, which Goldman's
analysts conclude is the version most likely to survive
the legislative process, is described as the "base"
scenario. Under that legislation (which did not include
a public plan) the earnings per share for the top five
insurers would grow an estimated five percent from 2010
through 2019. And yet, the "variance with current
valuation" -- essentially, what the value of the stock
is on the market -- is projected to drop four percent.

What If?

h/t Prometheus 6