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:
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!
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Friday, November 27, 2009
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.)
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.)
Thursday, November 26, 2009
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:
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 |
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.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.
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 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
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.
On Thanksgiving: Why Myths Matter
By Matthew HugheyThe 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.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Christian Side Hug
I just think it's funny. I still give Christian side hugs unless I'm trying to, you know, flirt.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
Share This Article
But Don't Jack My Genuis
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.