The Chronicle of Higher Education
March 8, 2012, 10:19 am
By Laurie Essig
We live in a postracial America. NOT! But alas, this is what a large number of white Americans believe. In fact, polls consistently show that blacks and Latinos see discrimination in their daily lives even as whites deny such discrimination. For instance, in the U.S. over 80% of blacks experience “day to day discrimination.” Meanwhile 56% of whites say there is “too much attention paid to racial issues” and whites were 235 times more likely to rate blacks as “lazy” than they were whites.
Full Commentary:http://chronicle.com/blogs/brainstorm/its-funny-cause-its-racist/44680?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Showing posts with label post-racial society. Show all posts
Showing posts with label post-racial society. Show all posts
Monday, March 12, 2012
Friday, September 10, 2010
The Season of Racial Discontent
Diverse Issues in Higher Education
Dr. Elwood Watson
September 10, 2010
For anyone who thought the election of Barack Obama ushered in an era of post-racial harmony, several events that have transpired over the past few months should assuage any doubts of such a notion. Here are a few of the incidents:
Shirley Sherrod, a 62-year-old Black woman with a long history of civil rights activism, was falsely accused of racial bias by right-wing blogger Andrew Breitbart and is forced to resign from her position as Georgia state director of rural development in the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Oscar-winning director Mel Gibson is caught (for a second time) spewing racist language to his wife including the word ‘nigger’.
A brawl between several Black and White men at a state fair in Iowa City, Iowa was believed to have racial overtones.
Talk show host Laura Schlessinger, in a conversation with a Black female caller, launches into verbal tirade repeating the word ‘nigger’ multiple times.
Fox News host Glenn Beck leads a march in the nation’s capital in an effort “to reclaim the civil rights movement.
Michael Enright, a 21-year-old White college student, is charged with stabbing Ahmed Sharif, a New York cab driver and 43-year-old Bangladeshi immigrant.
A number of right-wing organizations have drummed up perverse propaganda in an effort to convince Americans that Obama is not a Christian.
Full Story: http://diverseeducation.com/blogpost/298/the-season-of-racial-discontent.html
Dr. Elwood Watson
September 10, 2010
For anyone who thought the election of Barack Obama ushered in an era of post-racial harmony, several events that have transpired over the past few months should assuage any doubts of such a notion. Here are a few of the incidents:
Shirley Sherrod, a 62-year-old Black woman with a long history of civil rights activism, was falsely accused of racial bias by right-wing blogger Andrew Breitbart and is forced to resign from her position as Georgia state director of rural development in the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Oscar-winning director Mel Gibson is caught (for a second time) spewing racist language to his wife including the word ‘nigger’.
A brawl between several Black and White men at a state fair in Iowa City, Iowa was believed to have racial overtones.
Talk show host Laura Schlessinger, in a conversation with a Black female caller, launches into verbal tirade repeating the word ‘nigger’ multiple times.
Fox News host Glenn Beck leads a march in the nation’s capital in an effort “to reclaim the civil rights movement.
Michael Enright, a 21-year-old White college student, is charged with stabbing Ahmed Sharif, a New York cab driver and 43-year-old Bangladeshi immigrant.
A number of right-wing organizations have drummed up perverse propaganda in an effort to convince Americans that Obama is not a Christian.
Full Story: http://diverseeducation.com/blogpost/298/the-season-of-racial-discontent.html
Monday, March 15, 2010
The Nation: The New Jim Crow
NPR
by Michelle Alexander
March 15, 2010
Ever since Barack Obama lifted his right hand and took his oath of office, pledging to serve the United States as its forty-fourth president, ordinary people and their leaders around the globe have been celebrating our nation's "triumph over race." Obama's election has been touted as the final nail in the coffin of Jim Crow, the bookend placed on the history of racial caste in America.
Obama's mere presence in the Oval Office is offered as proof that "the land of the free" has finally made good on its promise of equality. There's an implicit yet undeniable message embedded in his appearance on the world stage: this is what freedom looks like; this is what democracy can do for you. If you are poor, marginalized, or relegated to an inferior caste, there is hope for you. Trust us. Trust our rules, laws, customs, and wars. You, too, can get to the promised land.
Perhaps greater lies have been told in the past century, but they can be counted on one hand. Racial caste is alive and well in America.
Most people don't like it when I say this. It makes them angry. In the "era of colorblindness" there's a nearly fanatical desire to cling to the myth that we as a nation have "moved beyond" race. Here are a few facts that run counter to that triumphant racial narrative:
• There are more African-Americans under correctional control toda—-- in prison or jail, on probation or parol—-- than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.
• As of 2004, more African-American men were disenfranchised (due to felon disenfranchisement laws) than in 1870, the year the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified, prohibiting laws that explicitly deny the right to vote on the basis of race.
• A black child born today is less likely to be raised by both parents than a black child born during slavery. The recent disintegration of the African-American family is due in large part to the mass imprisonment of black fathers.
• If you take into account prisoners, a large majority of African-American men in some urban areas have been labeled felons for life. (In the Chicago area, the figure is nearly 80 percent.) These men are part of a growing underca—e -- not class, ca—e -- permanently relegated, by law, to a second-class status. They can be denied the right to vote, automatically excluded from juries, and legally discriminated against in employment, housing, access to education, and public benefits, much as their grandparents and great-grandparents were during the Jim Crow era.
Full Editorial: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124687663
by Michelle Alexander
March 15, 2010
Ever since Barack Obama lifted his right hand and took his oath of office, pledging to serve the United States as its forty-fourth president, ordinary people and their leaders around the globe have been celebrating our nation's "triumph over race." Obama's election has been touted as the final nail in the coffin of Jim Crow, the bookend placed on the history of racial caste in America.
Obama's mere presence in the Oval Office is offered as proof that "the land of the free" has finally made good on its promise of equality. There's an implicit yet undeniable message embedded in his appearance on the world stage: this is what freedom looks like; this is what democracy can do for you. If you are poor, marginalized, or relegated to an inferior caste, there is hope for you. Trust us. Trust our rules, laws, customs, and wars. You, too, can get to the promised land.
Perhaps greater lies have been told in the past century, but they can be counted on one hand. Racial caste is alive and well in America.
Most people don't like it when I say this. It makes them angry. In the "era of colorblindness" there's a nearly fanatical desire to cling to the myth that we as a nation have "moved beyond" race. Here are a few facts that run counter to that triumphant racial narrative:
• There are more African-Americans under correctional control toda—-- in prison or jail, on probation or parol—-- than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.
• As of 2004, more African-American men were disenfranchised (due to felon disenfranchisement laws) than in 1870, the year the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified, prohibiting laws that explicitly deny the right to vote on the basis of race.
• A black child born today is less likely to be raised by both parents than a black child born during slavery. The recent disintegration of the African-American family is due in large part to the mass imprisonment of black fathers.
• If you take into account prisoners, a large majority of African-American men in some urban areas have been labeled felons for life. (In the Chicago area, the figure is nearly 80 percent.) These men are part of a growing underca—e -- not class, ca—e -- permanently relegated, by law, to a second-class status. They can be denied the right to vote, automatically excluded from juries, and legally discriminated against in employment, housing, access to education, and public benefits, much as their grandparents and great-grandparents were during the Jim Crow era.
Full Editorial: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124687663
Friday, January 22, 2010
Higher Education Leaders Urged To Recognize U.S. Disparities, Their Impact on the Academy
Diverse Issues in Higher Education
by Ronald Roach and Arelis Hernandez , January 22, 2010
WASHINGTON – Barack Obama’s presidential election may have convinced some Americans that they’re living in a post-racial society, but societal disparities persist between racial groups and are accentuated in American higher education, said Dr. Ramon Gutierrez, a University of Chicago historian and expert on race, during a keynote address at the annual meeting of the American Association of Colleges and Universities.
Gutierrez’s address, “Talking About Race and Ethnicity in a Post-Racial America,” emphasizing the turbulent history of race relations between the U.S. Supreme Court’s Plessy v. Ferguson decision in 1896 and the Kerner Commission Report of 1968, helped set the tone for the three-day meeting, which has attracted more than 1,800 attendees. With this year’s theme, “The Wit, the Will, and the Wallet,” a number of conference sessions delved into how U.S. higher education confronts social inequities. The Washington-based American Association of Colleges and Universities champions the cause of undergraduate liberal education.
Other keynote speakers on Thursday included Dr. Martha Kanter, undersecretary for the U.S. Department of Education; Jamie Merisotis, president and CEO of the Lumina Foundation; and Dr. Ronald Crutcher, president of Wheaton College, who spoke about the Obama administration’s ambitious goals for college completion. The conference ends Saturday morning.
by Ronald Roach and Arelis Hernandez , January 22, 2010
WASHINGTON – Barack Obama’s presidential election may have convinced some Americans that they’re living in a post-racial society, but societal disparities persist between racial groups and are accentuated in American higher education, said Dr. Ramon Gutierrez, a University of Chicago historian and expert on race, during a keynote address at the annual meeting of the American Association of Colleges and Universities.
Gutierrez’s address, “Talking About Race and Ethnicity in a Post-Racial America,” emphasizing the turbulent history of race relations between the U.S. Supreme Court’s Plessy v. Ferguson decision in 1896 and the Kerner Commission Report of 1968, helped set the tone for the three-day meeting, which has attracted more than 1,800 attendees. With this year’s theme, “The Wit, the Will, and the Wallet,” a number of conference sessions delved into how U.S. higher education confronts social inequities. The Washington-based American Association of Colleges and Universities champions the cause of undergraduate liberal education.
Other keynote speakers on Thursday included Dr. Martha Kanter, undersecretary for the U.S. Department of Education; Jamie Merisotis, president and CEO of the Lumina Foundation; and Dr. Ronald Crutcher, president of Wheaton College, who spoke about the Obama administration’s ambitious goals for college completion. The conference ends Saturday morning.
Picture: Ramon Gutierrez, Diverse Issues
Full Story: http://diverseeducation.com/article/13335/higher-education-leaders-urged-to-recognize-u-s-disparities-their-impact-on-the-academy.html
Full Story: http://diverseeducation.com/article/13335/higher-education-leaders-urged-to-recognize-u-s-disparities-their-impact-on-the-academy.html
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Civil Rights Pioneer: Post-Racial World Doesn’t Exist
AFL-CIO Now Blog
by James Parks, Jan 18, 2010
The Martin Luther King Jr. holiday is a good time to assess that post-racial world we’re supposed to be living in now. So, how’s it working out?
Not very well, according to Franklin McCain. He’s one of the four trailblazing students whose sit-in 50 years ago at a lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., ignited a nationwide effort that resulted in passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Says McCain:
I don’t know where I was when racism disappeared from these United States of ours. This new right and the Tea Partiers have taken the position that anybody who talks about racial discrimination or affirmative action is a whiner or a civil rights pimp. We have to get off the sidelines and attack [that kind of language]….They are taking parts of our gains and using it against us. And it’s ridiculous.
McCain, 67, and three of his fellow students at North Carolina Agricultural & Technical College sat down at the whites-only lunch counter in the Woolworth’s in downtown Greensboro on Feb. 1, 1960, and refused to leave until they were served. Their bold action inspired protests in more than 50 cities across the South against segregated public facilities.
by James Parks, Jan 18, 2010
The Martin Luther King Jr. holiday is a good time to assess that post-racial world we’re supposed to be living in now. So, how’s it working out?
Not very well, according to Franklin McCain. He’s one of the four trailblazing students whose sit-in 50 years ago at a lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., ignited a nationwide effort that resulted in passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Says McCain:
I don’t know where I was when racism disappeared from these United States of ours. This new right and the Tea Partiers have taken the position that anybody who talks about racial discrimination or affirmative action is a whiner or a civil rights pimp. We have to get off the sidelines and attack [that kind of language]….They are taking parts of our gains and using it against us. And it’s ridiculous.
McCain, 67, and three of his fellow students at North Carolina Agricultural & Technical College sat down at the whites-only lunch counter in the Woolworth’s in downtown Greensboro on Feb. 1, 1960, and refused to leave until they were served. Their bold action inspired protests in more than 50 cities across the South against segregated public facilities.
Picture: From left, David Richmond, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair and Joseph McNeil, the four North Carolina A&T students who staged the 1960 sit-in, are shown leaving Woolworth’s.
Full Story: http://blog.aflcio.org/2010/01/18/civil-rights-pioneer-post-racial-world-doesnt-exist/
Full Story: http://blog.aflcio.org/2010/01/18/civil-rights-pioneer-post-racial-world-doesnt-exist/
Saturday, February 28, 2009
The Corporate Media Is Shamelessly Pretending Racism Died When Obama Got Elected
AlterNet
By Janine Jackson, FAIR.
Posted February 28, 2009.
The elite white press corps has a myopic understanding of how racial inequality works. Their coverage has been squirm-inducing so far.
There were early indications that corporate media coverage of Barack Obama’s candidacy would be squirm-inducing, putting on display the elite (mainly white) press corps’ murky ideas about race much more than any straightforward reckoning of black Americans’ situation or what an Obama presidency might mean for their concerns. Journalists were sometimes embarrassingly frank about how they interpreted Obama’s blackness and what they hoped his success might mean. “No history of Jim Crow, no history of anger, no history of slavery,” declared NBC’s Chris Matthews (1/21/07). “All the bad stuff in our history ain’t there with this guy.” “For many white Americans, it’s a twofer,” opined the New Republic (2/5/07). “Elect Obama, and you not only dethrone George W. Bush, you dethrone [Al] Sharpton, too.” (See Extra!, 3–4/07.)Looking to find parallels for the “stuff” they did like, journalists turned to fiction, as when Jonathan Alter (Newsweek, 10/27/08) alleged that voters “decided they liked Obama when he reminded them more of Will Smith than Jesse Jackson,” or when CNN (6/22/08) told viewers that Michelle Obama “wants to appear to be Claire Huxtable and not Angela Davis.”The fondest hope seemed to be that an Obama victory (if not his strong candidacy alone) would absolve us of any need to talk about racism any more. Newsweek’s Howard Fineman (5/14/08) wrote that, in announcing his run for office, Obama was making a statement: that his candidacy would be the exclamation point at the end of our four-century-long argument over the role of African-Americans in our society. By electing a mixed-race man of evident brilliance, moderate mien and welcoming smile, we would finally cease seeing each other through color-coded eyes.
It’s not clear if Fineman meant Obama said that exactly, or if it was just implied by the way he “radiat[ed] uplift and glorious possibility.” Alas, he continued: “Well, that argument did not end. He and we were naive to think it would.”
Full Story: http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/129381/
By Janine Jackson, FAIR.
Posted February 28, 2009.
The elite white press corps has a myopic understanding of how racial inequality works. Their coverage has been squirm-inducing so far.
There were early indications that corporate media coverage of Barack Obama’s candidacy would be squirm-inducing, putting on display the elite (mainly white) press corps’ murky ideas about race much more than any straightforward reckoning of black Americans’ situation or what an Obama presidency might mean for their concerns. Journalists were sometimes embarrassingly frank about how they interpreted Obama’s blackness and what they hoped his success might mean. “No history of Jim Crow, no history of anger, no history of slavery,” declared NBC’s Chris Matthews (1/21/07). “All the bad stuff in our history ain’t there with this guy.” “For many white Americans, it’s a twofer,” opined the New Republic (2/5/07). “Elect Obama, and you not only dethrone George W. Bush, you dethrone [Al] Sharpton, too.” (See Extra!, 3–4/07.)Looking to find parallels for the “stuff” they did like, journalists turned to fiction, as when Jonathan Alter (Newsweek, 10/27/08) alleged that voters “decided they liked Obama when he reminded them more of Will Smith than Jesse Jackson,” or when CNN (6/22/08) told viewers that Michelle Obama “wants to appear to be Claire Huxtable and not Angela Davis.”The fondest hope seemed to be that an Obama victory (if not his strong candidacy alone) would absolve us of any need to talk about racism any more. Newsweek’s Howard Fineman (5/14/08) wrote that, in announcing his run for office, Obama was making a statement: that his candidacy would be the exclamation point at the end of our four-century-long argument over the role of African-Americans in our society. By electing a mixed-race man of evident brilliance, moderate mien and welcoming smile, we would finally cease seeing each other through color-coded eyes.
It’s not clear if Fineman meant Obama said that exactly, or if it was just implied by the way he “radiat[ed] uplift and glorious possibility.” Alas, he continued: “Well, that argument did not end. He and we were naive to think it would.”
Full Story: http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/129381/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)