Heather Boushey
Center for Economic and Policy Research, Washington, DC, USA
Published in: Feminist Economics,
Formats available: HTML (English) : PDF (English)
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Abstract
In the United States, a recent spate of popular media attention has focused on whether mothers, especially highly educated mothers in their thirties, are increasingly "opting out" of employment. This paper uses data from the Current Population Survey's Annual Social and Economic Survey (ASEC) to examine whether children cause women to exit employment. This paper finds that the "child effect" on women's employment has fallen since the end of the 1970s. The child effect was -21.8 percentage points in 1979 and has fallen consistently over the last two decades to -12.7 percentage points in 2005. Between 2000 and 2005, the child effect grew from -11.1 to -12.7, but the change was statistically insignificant. Recent declines in women's employment may be more an effect of the weak labor market for all women, mothers and non-mothers, rather than an increase in mothers voluntarily choosing to exit employment. http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content?content=10.1080/13545700701716672
Monday, January 14, 2008
Women Are Never Front-Runners
The New York Times
January 8, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
By GLORIA STEINEM
THE woman in question became a lawyer after some years as a community organizer, married a corporate lawyer and is the mother of two little girls, ages 9 and 6. Herself the daughter of a white American mother and a black African father — in this race-conscious country, she is considered black — she served as a state legislator for eight years, and became an inspirational voice for national unity.
Be honest: Do you think this is the biography of someone who could be elected to the United States Senate? After less than one term there, do you believe she could be a viable candidate to head the most powerful nation on earth?
If you answered no to either question, you’re not alone. Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life, whether the question is who must be in the kitchen or who could be in the White House. This country is way down the list of countries electing women and, according to one study, it polarizes gender roles more than the average democracy.
That’s why the Iowa primary was following our historical pattern of making change. Black men were given the vote a half-century before women of any race were allowed to mark a ballot, and generally have ascended to positions of power, from the military to the boardroom, before any women (with the possible exception of obedient family members in the latter).
If the lawyer described above had been just as charismatic but named, say, Achola Obama instead of Barack Obama, her goose would have been cooked long ago. Indeed, neither she nor Hillary Clinton could have used Mr. Obama’s public style — or Bill Clinton’s either — without being considered too emotional by Washington pundits.
So why is the sex barrier not taken as seriously as the racial one? The reasons are as pervasive as the air we breathe: because sexism is still confused with nature as racism once was; because anything that affects males is seen as more serious than anything that affects “only” the female half of the human race; because children are still raised mostly by women (to put it mildly) so men especially tend to feel they are regressing to childhood when dealing with a powerful woman; because racism stereotyped black men as more “masculine” for so long that some white men find their presence to be masculinity-affirming (as long as there aren’t too many of them); and because there is still no “right” way to be a woman in public power without being considered a you-know-what.
I’m not advocating a competition for who has it toughest. The caste systems of sex and race are interdependent and can only be uprooted together. That’s why Senators Clinton and Obama have to be careful not to let a healthy debate turn into the kind of hostility that the news media love. Both will need a coalition of outsiders to win a general election. The abolition and suffrage movements progressed when united and were damaged by division; we should remember that.
I’m supporting Senator Clinton because like Senator Obama she has community organizing experience, but she also has more years in the Senate, an unprecedented eight years of on-the-job training in the White House, no masculinity to prove, the potential to tap a huge reservoir of this country’s talent by her example, and now even the courage to break the no-tears rule. I’m not opposing Mr. Obama; if he’s the nominee, I’ll volunteer. Indeed, if you look at votes during their two-year overlap in the Senate, they were the same more than 90 percent of the time. Besides, to clean up the mess left by President Bush, we may need two terms of President Clinton and two of President Obama.
But what worries me is that he is seen as unifying by his race while she is seen as divisive by her sex.
What worries me is that she is accused of “playing the gender card” when citing the old boys’ club, while he is seen as unifying by citing civil rights confrontations.
What worries me is that male Iowa voters were seen as gender-free when supporting their own, while female voters were seen as biased if they did and disloyal if they didn’t.
[To read the entire op-ed, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/opinion/08steinem.html?em&ex=1200459600&en=4d398271b1a7c7da&ei=5087%0A]
[See one response to Gloria Steinem's controversial op-ed from a young feminist:
http://www.glamour.com/news/blogs/glamocracy/2008/01/an-open-letter.html ]
January 8, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
By GLORIA STEINEM
THE woman in question became a lawyer after some years as a community organizer, married a corporate lawyer and is the mother of two little girls, ages 9 and 6. Herself the daughter of a white American mother and a black African father — in this race-conscious country, she is considered black — she served as a state legislator for eight years, and became an inspirational voice for national unity.
Be honest: Do you think this is the biography of someone who could be elected to the United States Senate? After less than one term there, do you believe she could be a viable candidate to head the most powerful nation on earth?
If you answered no to either question, you’re not alone. Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life, whether the question is who must be in the kitchen or who could be in the White House. This country is way down the list of countries electing women and, according to one study, it polarizes gender roles more than the average democracy.
That’s why the Iowa primary was following our historical pattern of making change. Black men were given the vote a half-century before women of any race were allowed to mark a ballot, and generally have ascended to positions of power, from the military to the boardroom, before any women (with the possible exception of obedient family members in the latter).
If the lawyer described above had been just as charismatic but named, say, Achola Obama instead of Barack Obama, her goose would have been cooked long ago. Indeed, neither she nor Hillary Clinton could have used Mr. Obama’s public style — or Bill Clinton’s either — without being considered too emotional by Washington pundits.
So why is the sex barrier not taken as seriously as the racial one? The reasons are as pervasive as the air we breathe: because sexism is still confused with nature as racism once was; because anything that affects males is seen as more serious than anything that affects “only” the female half of the human race; because children are still raised mostly by women (to put it mildly) so men especially tend to feel they are regressing to childhood when dealing with a powerful woman; because racism stereotyped black men as more “masculine” for so long that some white men find their presence to be masculinity-affirming (as long as there aren’t too many of them); and because there is still no “right” way to be a woman in public power without being considered a you-know-what.
I’m not advocating a competition for who has it toughest. The caste systems of sex and race are interdependent and can only be uprooted together. That’s why Senators Clinton and Obama have to be careful not to let a healthy debate turn into the kind of hostility that the news media love. Both will need a coalition of outsiders to win a general election. The abolition and suffrage movements progressed when united and were damaged by division; we should remember that.
I’m supporting Senator Clinton because like Senator Obama she has community organizing experience, but she also has more years in the Senate, an unprecedented eight years of on-the-job training in the White House, no masculinity to prove, the potential to tap a huge reservoir of this country’s talent by her example, and now even the courage to break the no-tears rule. I’m not opposing Mr. Obama; if he’s the nominee, I’ll volunteer. Indeed, if you look at votes during their two-year overlap in the Senate, they were the same more than 90 percent of the time. Besides, to clean up the mess left by President Bush, we may need two terms of President Clinton and two of President Obama.
But what worries me is that he is seen as unifying by his race while she is seen as divisive by her sex.
What worries me is that she is accused of “playing the gender card” when citing the old boys’ club, while he is seen as unifying by citing civil rights confrontations.
What worries me is that male Iowa voters were seen as gender-free when supporting their own, while female voters were seen as biased if they did and disloyal if they didn’t.
[To read the entire op-ed, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/opinion/08steinem.html?em&ex=1200459600&en=4d398271b1a7c7da&ei=5087%0A]
[See one response to Gloria Steinem's controversial op-ed from a young feminist:
http://www.glamour.com/news/blogs/glamocracy/2008/01/an-open-letter.html ]
Why Obamamania? Because He Runs as The Great White Hope
The Washington Post
By David Greenberg
Sunday,
January 13, 2008; B04
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's upset victory in the New Hampshire primary last week was every bit as impressive as Sen. Barack Obama's Iowa caucus breakout five days before -- if anything, more impressive, since his win was predicted and hers unforeseen. But the reactions to the two events couldn't have been more different. Obama's Jan. 3 triumph let loose a giddiness bordering on exhilaration among voters and, especially, media commentators, who hailed his triumph as "historic," even though he was not in fact the first African American to win a major presidential nominating contest. (Jesse Jackson won 13 primaries and caucuses in 1988.) By contrast, when Clinton overcame long odds to become the first woman in U.S. history to win a major-party primary, no leading news outlet trumpeted this landmark feat. Many failed to mention it at all.
This startling difference underscores one of Obama's advantages heading into the do-or-die Feb. 5th contests. "Obamamania" sputtered in the Granite State, but it is far from dead. Many of the voters and pundits who were thrilled by Obama's compelling Iowa speech 10 days ago remain intoxicated, heady with the hope that he can deliver not just "change" -- any candidate running would do that -- but a categorically different kind of change from Clinton or the Republican candidates. So what explains the magic?
The most obvious explanation is Obama's stirring oratory, with its notes of generational change and unity. The key to his seduction, though, resides not just in what he says but in what remains unsaid. It lies in the tacit offer -- a promise about overcoming America's shameful racial history -- that his particular candidacy offers to his enthusiasts, and to us all.
Obama's allure differs from the infatuations of past election cycles because it can't be traced to what he has done or will do. In his legislative career, Obama has produced few concrete policy changes, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a rank-and-file fan who can cite one. Not since 1896 -- when another rousing speechmaker, William Jennings Bryan, sought the White House -- has the zeal for a candidate corresponded so little to a record of hard accomplishment. But merely asking if Obama has done enough for us to expect he'd be a good president misses the point, because that measures the past rather than imagining the future.
Yet if Obama charms us by pointing to tomorrow, he doesn't come bearing a new ideological vision. In the 1980 primaries, the insurgent Ronald Reagan won on his robust, pro-military, anti-government conservatism, a philosophy that until then had languished even within the GOP. Similarly, in 1992, Bill Clinton triumphed because he was the first Democrat since the 1960s to formulate a viable and vital new liberalism -- one rooted in years of policy wonkery, a frank reckoning with his party's failures and an early recognition of the importance of globalization.
But where Clinton converted voters to his philosophy with binder-thick proposals, from AmeriCorps to welfare reform to the earned-income tax credit, Obama fans rarely tout his specific ideas. No one claims his agenda entails radical innovation or differs much from Hillary Clinton's. On the contrary, Obama's ideology, insofar as he has articulated it, seems to be a familiar, mainstream liberalism, heavy on communitarianism. High-minded and process-oriented, in the Mugwump tradition that runs from Adlai Stevenson to Bill Bradley, it is pitched less to the Democratic Party's working-class base than to upscale professionals.
The Obama phenomenon, then, stems not from what he has done but who he is. As the social critic John McWhorter has written, "What gives people a jolt in their gut about the idea of President Obama is the idea that it would be a ringing symbol that racism no longer rules our land." He is the great white hope.
None of the candidates has discussed race much this year. Even John Edwards's focus on poverty primarily stresses class, not race. But silences can reveal as much as words.
[To read the entire story, go to: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/11/AR2008011101414.html?nav=most_emailed_emailafriend]
By David Greenberg
Sunday,
January 13, 2008; B04
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's upset victory in the New Hampshire primary last week was every bit as impressive as Sen. Barack Obama's Iowa caucus breakout five days before -- if anything, more impressive, since his win was predicted and hers unforeseen. But the reactions to the two events couldn't have been more different. Obama's Jan. 3 triumph let loose a giddiness bordering on exhilaration among voters and, especially, media commentators, who hailed his triumph as "historic," even though he was not in fact the first African American to win a major presidential nominating contest. (Jesse Jackson won 13 primaries and caucuses in 1988.) By contrast, when Clinton overcame long odds to become the first woman in U.S. history to win a major-party primary, no leading news outlet trumpeted this landmark feat. Many failed to mention it at all.
This startling difference underscores one of Obama's advantages heading into the do-or-die Feb. 5th contests. "Obamamania" sputtered in the Granite State, but it is far from dead. Many of the voters and pundits who were thrilled by Obama's compelling Iowa speech 10 days ago remain intoxicated, heady with the hope that he can deliver not just "change" -- any candidate running would do that -- but a categorically different kind of change from Clinton or the Republican candidates. So what explains the magic?
The most obvious explanation is Obama's stirring oratory, with its notes of generational change and unity. The key to his seduction, though, resides not just in what he says but in what remains unsaid. It lies in the tacit offer -- a promise about overcoming America's shameful racial history -- that his particular candidacy offers to his enthusiasts, and to us all.
Obama's allure differs from the infatuations of past election cycles because it can't be traced to what he has done or will do. In his legislative career, Obama has produced few concrete policy changes, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a rank-and-file fan who can cite one. Not since 1896 -- when another rousing speechmaker, William Jennings Bryan, sought the White House -- has the zeal for a candidate corresponded so little to a record of hard accomplishment. But merely asking if Obama has done enough for us to expect he'd be a good president misses the point, because that measures the past rather than imagining the future.
Yet if Obama charms us by pointing to tomorrow, he doesn't come bearing a new ideological vision. In the 1980 primaries, the insurgent Ronald Reagan won on his robust, pro-military, anti-government conservatism, a philosophy that until then had languished even within the GOP. Similarly, in 1992, Bill Clinton triumphed because he was the first Democrat since the 1960s to formulate a viable and vital new liberalism -- one rooted in years of policy wonkery, a frank reckoning with his party's failures and an early recognition of the importance of globalization.
But where Clinton converted voters to his philosophy with binder-thick proposals, from AmeriCorps to welfare reform to the earned-income tax credit, Obama fans rarely tout his specific ideas. No one claims his agenda entails radical innovation or differs much from Hillary Clinton's. On the contrary, Obama's ideology, insofar as he has articulated it, seems to be a familiar, mainstream liberalism, heavy on communitarianism. High-minded and process-oriented, in the Mugwump tradition that runs from Adlai Stevenson to Bill Bradley, it is pitched less to the Democratic Party's working-class base than to upscale professionals.
The Obama phenomenon, then, stems not from what he has done but who he is. As the social critic John McWhorter has written, "What gives people a jolt in their gut about the idea of President Obama is the idea that it would be a ringing symbol that racism no longer rules our land." He is the great white hope.
None of the candidates has discussed race much this year. Even John Edwards's focus on poverty primarily stresses class, not race. But silences can reveal as much as words.
[To read the entire story, go to: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/11/AR2008011101414.html?nav=most_emailed_emailafriend]
Deep Thoughts so well expressed
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL: Here's some food for
thought for 2008:
(author Robert Jensen, University of Texas)
Here's what white privilege sounds like:
I am sitting in my University of Texas office,
talking to a very bright
and very conservative white student about
affirmative action in college
admissions, which he opposes and I support.
The student says he wants a level playing field
with no unearned
advantages for anyone. I ask him whether he
thinks
that in the United
States being white has advantages. Have either of
us, I ask, ever
benefited from being white in a world run mostly
by
white people? Yes,
he concedes, there is something real and tangible
we could call white
privilege.
So, if we live in a world of white
privilege--unearned white
privilege--how does that affect your notion of a
level playing field? I
ask.
He paused for a moment and said, "That really
doesn't matter."
That statement, I suggested to him, reveals the
ultimate white
privilege: the privilege to acknowledge you have
unearned privilege but
ignore what it means.
That exchange led me to rethink the way I talk
about
race and racism
with students. It drove home to me the importance
of
confronting the
dirty secret that we white people carry around
with
us everyday: In a
world of white privilege, some of what we have is
unearned. I think much
of both the fear and anger that comes up around
discussions of
affirmative action has its roots in that secret.
So
these days, my goal
is to talk openly and honestly about white
supremacy
and white
privilege.
White privilege, like any social phenomenon, is
complex. In a white
supremacist culture, all white people have
privilege, whether or not
they are overtly racist themselves. There are
general patterns, but such
privilege plays out differently depending on
context
and other aspects
of one's identity (in my case, being male gives me
other kinds of
privilege). Rather than try to tell others how
white
privilege has
played out in their lives, I talk about how it has
affected me.
I am as white as white gets in this country. I am
of northern European
heritage and I was raised in North Dakota, one
of
the whitest states in
the country. I grew up in a virtually all-white
world surrounded by
racism, both personal and institutional. Because
I
didn't live near a
reservation, I didn't even have exposure to the
state's only numerically
significant non-white population, American
Indians.
I have struggled to resist that racist training
and
the ongoing racism
of my culture. I like to think I have changed,
even
though I routinely
trip over the lingering effects of that
internalized racism and the
institutional racism around me. But no matter how
much I "fix" myself,
one thing never changes--I walk through the world
with white privilege.
What does that mean? Perhaps most importantly,
when
I seek admission to
a university, apply for a job, or hunt for an
apartment, I don't look
threatening. Almost all of the people evaluating
me
for those things
look like me--they are white. They see in me a
reflection of themselves,
and in a racist world that is an advantage. I
smile.
I am white. I am
one of them. I am not dangerous. Even when I voice
critical opinions, I
am cut some slack. After all, I'm white.
My flaws also are more easily forgiven because I
am
white. Some complain
that affirmative action has meant the university
is
saddled with
mediocre minority professors. I have no doubt
there
are minority faculty
who are mediocre, though I don't know very many.
As
Henry Louis Gates
Jr. once pointed out, if affirmative action
policies were in place for
the next hundred years, it's possible that at the
end of that time the
university could have as many mediocre minority
professors as it has
mediocre white professors. That isn't meant as an
insult to anyone, but
is a simple observation that white privilege has
meant that scores of
second-rate white professors have slid through the
system because their
flaws were overlooked out of solidarity based on
race, as well as on
gender, class and ideology.
Some people resist the assertions that the United
States is still a
bitterly racist society and that the racism has
real effects on real
people. But white folks have long cut other white
folks a break. I know,
because I am one of them.
I am not a genius--as I like to say, I'm not the
sharpest knife in the
drawer. I have been teaching full-time for six
years, and I've published
a reasonable amount of scholarship. Some of it is
the unexceptional
stuff one churns out to get tenure, and some of
it,
I would argue,
actually is worth reading. I work hard, and I like
to think that I'm a
fairly decent teacher. Every once in awhile, I
leave
my office at the
end of the day feeling like I really accomplished
something. When I cash
my paycheck, I don't feel guilty.
But, all that said, I know I did not get where I
am
by merit alone. I
benefited from, among other things, white
privilege. That doesn't mean
that I don't deserve my job, or that if I weren't
white I would never
have gotten the job. It means simply that all
through my life, I have
soaked up benefits for being white. I grew up in
fertile farm country
taken by force from non-white indigenous people. I
was educated in a
well-funded, virtually all-white public school
system in which I learned
that white people like me made this country great.
There I also was
taught a variety of skills, including how to take
standardized tests
written by and for white people.
All my life I have been hired for jobs by white
people. I was accepted
for graduate school by white people. And I was
hired for a teaching
position at the predominantly white University of
Texas, which had a
white president, in a college headed by a white
dean and in a department
with a white chairman that at the time had one
non-white tenured
professor.
There certainly is individual variation in
experience. Some white people
have had it easier than me, probably because they
came from wealthy
families that gave them even more privilege. Some
white people have had
it tougher than me because they came from poorer
families. White women
face discrimination I will never know. But, in
the
end, white people all
have drawn on white privilege somewhere in their
lives.
Like anyone, I have overcome certain hardships in
my
life. I have worked
hard to get where I am, and I work hard to stay
there. But to feel good
about myself and my work, I do not have to believe
that "merit," as
defined by white people in a white country, alone
got me here. I can
acknowledge that in addition to all that hard
work,
I got a significant
boost from white privilege, which continues to
protect me every day of
my life from certain hardships.
At one time in my life, I would not have been
able
to say that, because
I needed to believe that my success in life was
due
solely to my
individual talent and effort. I saw myself as the
heroic American, the
rugged individualist. I was so deeply seduced by
the culture's mythology
that I couldn't see the fear that was binding me
to
those myths. Like
all white Americans, I was living with the fear
that maybe I didn't
really deserve my success, that maybe luck and
privilege had more to do
with it than brains and hard work. I was afraid I
wasn't heroic or
rugged, that I wasn't special.
I let go of some of that fear when I realized
that,
indeed, I wasn't
special, but that I was still me. What I do well,
I
still can take pride
in, even when I know that the rules under which I
work in are stacked in
my benefit. I believe that until we let go of the
fiction that people
have complete control over their fate--that we
can
will ourselves to be
anything we choose--then we will live with that
fear. Yes, we should all
dream big and pursue our dreams and not let
anyone
or anything stop us.
But we all are the product both of what we will
ourselves to be and what
the society in which we live lets us be.
White privilege is not something I get to decide
whether or not I want
to keep. Every time I walk into a store at the
same
time as a black man
and the security guard follows him and leaves me
alone to shop, I am
benefiting from white privilege. There is not
space
here to list all the
ways in which white privilege plays out in our
daily
lives, but it is
clear that I will carry this privilege with me
until
the day white
supremacy is erased from this society.
Frankly, I don't think I will live to see that
day;
I am realistic about
the scope of the task. However, I continue to
have
hope, to believe in
the creative power of human beings to engage the
world honestly and act
morally. A first step for white people, I think,
is
to not be afraid to
admit that we have benefited from white
privilege.
It doesn't mean we
are frauds who have no claim to our success. It
means we face a choice
about what we do with our success.
Jensen is a professor in the School of Journalism
in
the University of
Texas at Austin. He can be reached at
rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.
God seldom becomes a reality
until God becomes a necessity!
thought for 2008:
(author Robert Jensen, University of Texas)
Here's what white privilege sounds like:
I am sitting in my University of Texas office,
talking to a very bright
and very conservative white student about
affirmative action in college
admissions, which he opposes and I support.
The student says he wants a level playing field
with no unearned
advantages for anyone. I ask him whether he
thinks
that in the United
States being white has advantages. Have either of
us, I ask, ever
benefited from being white in a world run mostly
by
white people? Yes,
he concedes, there is something real and tangible
we could call white
privilege.
So, if we live in a world of white
privilege--unearned white
privilege--how does that affect your notion of a
level playing field? I
ask.
He paused for a moment and said, "That really
doesn't matter."
That statement, I suggested to him, reveals the
ultimate white
privilege: the privilege to acknowledge you have
unearned privilege but
ignore what it means.
That exchange led me to rethink the way I talk
about
race and racism
with students. It drove home to me the importance
of
confronting the
dirty secret that we white people carry around
with
us everyday: In a
world of white privilege, some of what we have is
unearned. I think much
of both the fear and anger that comes up around
discussions of
affirmative action has its roots in that secret.
So
these days, my goal
is to talk openly and honestly about white
supremacy
and white
privilege.
White privilege, like any social phenomenon, is
complex. In a white
supremacist culture, all white people have
privilege, whether or not
they are overtly racist themselves. There are
general patterns, but such
privilege plays out differently depending on
context
and other aspects
of one's identity (in my case, being male gives me
other kinds of
privilege). Rather than try to tell others how
white
privilege has
played out in their lives, I talk about how it has
affected me.
I am as white as white gets in this country. I am
of northern European
heritage and I was raised in North Dakota, one
of
the whitest states in
the country. I grew up in a virtually all-white
world surrounded by
racism, both personal and institutional. Because
I
didn't live near a
reservation, I didn't even have exposure to the
state's only numerically
significant non-white population, American
Indians.
I have struggled to resist that racist training
and
the ongoing racism
of my culture. I like to think I have changed,
even
though I routinely
trip over the lingering effects of that
internalized racism and the
institutional racism around me. But no matter how
much I "fix" myself,
one thing never changes--I walk through the world
with white privilege.
What does that mean? Perhaps most importantly,
when
I seek admission to
a university, apply for a job, or hunt for an
apartment, I don't look
threatening. Almost all of the people evaluating
me
for those things
look like me--they are white. They see in me a
reflection of themselves,
and in a racist world that is an advantage. I
smile.
I am white. I am
one of them. I am not dangerous. Even when I voice
critical opinions, I
am cut some slack. After all, I'm white.
My flaws also are more easily forgiven because I
am
white. Some complain
that affirmative action has meant the university
is
saddled with
mediocre minority professors. I have no doubt
there
are minority faculty
who are mediocre, though I don't know very many.
As
Henry Louis Gates
Jr. once pointed out, if affirmative action
policies were in place for
the next hundred years, it's possible that at the
end of that time the
university could have as many mediocre minority
professors as it has
mediocre white professors. That isn't meant as an
insult to anyone, but
is a simple observation that white privilege has
meant that scores of
second-rate white professors have slid through the
system because their
flaws were overlooked out of solidarity based on
race, as well as on
gender, class and ideology.
Some people resist the assertions that the United
States is still a
bitterly racist society and that the racism has
real effects on real
people. But white folks have long cut other white
folks a break. I know,
because I am one of them.
I am not a genius--as I like to say, I'm not the
sharpest knife in the
drawer. I have been teaching full-time for six
years, and I've published
a reasonable amount of scholarship. Some of it is
the unexceptional
stuff one churns out to get tenure, and some of
it,
I would argue,
actually is worth reading. I work hard, and I like
to think that I'm a
fairly decent teacher. Every once in awhile, I
leave
my office at the
end of the day feeling like I really accomplished
something. When I cash
my paycheck, I don't feel guilty.
But, all that said, I know I did not get where I
am
by merit alone. I
benefited from, among other things, white
privilege. That doesn't mean
that I don't deserve my job, or that if I weren't
white I would never
have gotten the job. It means simply that all
through my life, I have
soaked up benefits for being white. I grew up in
fertile farm country
taken by force from non-white indigenous people. I
was educated in a
well-funded, virtually all-white public school
system in which I learned
that white people like me made this country great.
There I also was
taught a variety of skills, including how to take
standardized tests
written by and for white people.
All my life I have been hired for jobs by white
people. I was accepted
for graduate school by white people. And I was
hired for a teaching
position at the predominantly white University of
Texas, which had a
white president, in a college headed by a white
dean and in a department
with a white chairman that at the time had one
non-white tenured
professor.
There certainly is individual variation in
experience. Some white people
have had it easier than me, probably because they
came from wealthy
families that gave them even more privilege. Some
white people have had
it tougher than me because they came from poorer
families. White women
face discrimination I will never know. But, in
the
end, white people all
have drawn on white privilege somewhere in their
lives.
Like anyone, I have overcome certain hardships in
my
life. I have worked
hard to get where I am, and I work hard to stay
there. But to feel good
about myself and my work, I do not have to believe
that "merit," as
defined by white people in a white country, alone
got me here. I can
acknowledge that in addition to all that hard
work,
I got a significant
boost from white privilege, which continues to
protect me every day of
my life from certain hardships.
At one time in my life, I would not have been
able
to say that, because
I needed to believe that my success in life was
due
solely to my
individual talent and effort. I saw myself as the
heroic American, the
rugged individualist. I was so deeply seduced by
the culture's mythology
that I couldn't see the fear that was binding me
to
those myths. Like
all white Americans, I was living with the fear
that maybe I didn't
really deserve my success, that maybe luck and
privilege had more to do
with it than brains and hard work. I was afraid I
wasn't heroic or
rugged, that I wasn't special.
I let go of some of that fear when I realized
that,
indeed, I wasn't
special, but that I was still me. What I do well,
I
still can take pride
in, even when I know that the rules under which I
work in are stacked in
my benefit. I believe that until we let go of the
fiction that people
have complete control over their fate--that we
can
will ourselves to be
anything we choose--then we will live with that
fear. Yes, we should all
dream big and pursue our dreams and not let
anyone
or anything stop us.
But we all are the product both of what we will
ourselves to be and what
the society in which we live lets us be.
White privilege is not something I get to decide
whether or not I want
to keep. Every time I walk into a store at the
same
time as a black man
and the security guard follows him and leaves me
alone to shop, I am
benefiting from white privilege. There is not
space
here to list all the
ways in which white privilege plays out in our
daily
lives, but it is
clear that I will carry this privilege with me
until
the day white
supremacy is erased from this society.
Frankly, I don't think I will live to see that
day;
I am realistic about
the scope of the task. However, I continue to
have
hope, to believe in
the creative power of human beings to engage the
world honestly and act
morally. A first step for white people, I think,
is
to not be afraid to
admit that we have benefited from white
privilege.
It doesn't mean we
are frauds who have no claim to our success. It
means we face a choice
about what we do with our success.
Jensen is a professor in the School of Journalism
in
the University of
Texas at Austin. He can be reached at
rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.
God seldom becomes a reality
until God becomes a necessity!
University Alliance Works To Increase Robotics Education, Research at Historically Black Colleges and Universities
Contact:
Byron Spice
412-268-9068 mailto:412-268-9068bspice@cs.cmu.edu
Anne Watzman
412-268-3830 mailto:Watzman412-268-3830aw16@andrew.cmu.edu
University Alliance Works To Increase Robotics Education,Research at Historically Black Colleges and Universities
PITTSBURGH — Carnegie Mellon University and six other research universities have joined forces with eight historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in a collaborative project to promote robotics and computer science education for African-American students.
The Advancing Robotics Technology for Societal Impact (ARTSI) Alliance grew out of a previous collaboration between Andrew Williams, associate professor of computer and information science at Spelman College in Atlanta and David Touretzky, research professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon, which established robotics education labs at Spelman and three other HBCUs.
Funded by a three-year, $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation, ARTSI will develop outreach programs to encourage African-American students at both the K-12 and college levels to pursue careers in computer science and robotics and will provide mentoring programs for undergraduates. The alliance, with Williams as principal investigator and Touretzky as director of robotics education, also will provide professional development activities for HBCU faculty teaching computer science and robotics courses.
African-Americans now account for just 4.8 percent of almost two million U.S. computer and information scientists, a job category that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects will be among the fastest growing occupations over the next decade.
Touretzky said ARTSI activities will vary from institution to institution, depending on the need of each. "Some of these schools are getting their first research-quality robots," he said, adding that those institutions will need to develop basic curricula. Spelman and three other schools, by contrast, already have established robotic programs based on Tekkotsu (Tekkotsu.org), a robot programming system developed in Touretzky's lab and distributed for free by Carnegie Mellon.
Carnegie Mellon will host a faculty development workshop this summer in Pittsburgh. Carnegie Mellon faculty participating in ARTSI include Illah Nourbakhsh, an associate professor of robotics with special expertise in educational robots and community outreach, and Sara Kiesler, a professor in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute who will be responsible for the alliance's evaluation activities.
In addition to Spelman, the participating HBCUs are Hampton University, Morgan State University, Florida A&M University, Norfolk State University, Winston-Salem State University, the University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff and the University of the District of Columbia.
Curricula, research internships and mentoring opportunities will be made available by Carnegie Mellon and other alliance members, including the University of Pittsburgh, the Georgia Institute of Technology, Brown University, Duke University, the University of Alabama and the University of Washington. Corporate partners include Seagate Technology, Microsoft, Apple, iRobot and Juxtopia.
Activities will include:
Academic-year student research activities at HBCUs;
Summer research internships for HBCU students in the labs of university faculty;
An annual student research conference and workshop;
Local outreach at middle schools and high schools serving minority populations in each HBCU's community;
National outreach through an ARTSI Web portal, currently under development (an interim Web site can be viewed now at http://artsialliance.org/);
"Viral marketing" through student-produced robotics videos on YouTube that showcase the achievements of ARTSI-affiliated students and faculty.
The ARTSI Alliance will hold its official kickoff event during a Martin Luther King celebration Jan. 14 at the National Science Foundation in Arlington, Va.
###
Byron Spice
412-268-9068 mailto:412-268-9068bspice@cs.cmu.edu
Anne Watzman
412-268-3830 mailto:Watzman412-268-3830aw16@andrew.cmu.edu
University Alliance Works To Increase Robotics Education,Research at Historically Black Colleges and Universities
PITTSBURGH — Carnegie Mellon University and six other research universities have joined forces with eight historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in a collaborative project to promote robotics and computer science education for African-American students.
The Advancing Robotics Technology for Societal Impact (ARTSI) Alliance grew out of a previous collaboration between Andrew Williams, associate professor of computer and information science at Spelman College in Atlanta and David Touretzky, research professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon, which established robotics education labs at Spelman and three other HBCUs.
Funded by a three-year, $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation, ARTSI will develop outreach programs to encourage African-American students at both the K-12 and college levels to pursue careers in computer science and robotics and will provide mentoring programs for undergraduates. The alliance, with Williams as principal investigator and Touretzky as director of robotics education, also will provide professional development activities for HBCU faculty teaching computer science and robotics courses.
African-Americans now account for just 4.8 percent of almost two million U.S. computer and information scientists, a job category that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects will be among the fastest growing occupations over the next decade.
Touretzky said ARTSI activities will vary from institution to institution, depending on the need of each. "Some of these schools are getting their first research-quality robots," he said, adding that those institutions will need to develop basic curricula. Spelman and three other schools, by contrast, already have established robotic programs based on Tekkotsu (Tekkotsu.org), a robot programming system developed in Touretzky's lab and distributed for free by Carnegie Mellon.
Carnegie Mellon will host a faculty development workshop this summer in Pittsburgh. Carnegie Mellon faculty participating in ARTSI include Illah Nourbakhsh, an associate professor of robotics with special expertise in educational robots and community outreach, and Sara Kiesler, a professor in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute who will be responsible for the alliance's evaluation activities.
In addition to Spelman, the participating HBCUs are Hampton University, Morgan State University, Florida A&M University, Norfolk State University, Winston-Salem State University, the University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff and the University of the District of Columbia.
Curricula, research internships and mentoring opportunities will be made available by Carnegie Mellon and other alliance members, including the University of Pittsburgh, the Georgia Institute of Technology, Brown University, Duke University, the University of Alabama and the University of Washington. Corporate partners include Seagate Technology, Microsoft, Apple, iRobot and Juxtopia.
Activities will include:
Academic-year student research activities at HBCUs;
Summer research internships for HBCU students in the labs of university faculty;
An annual student research conference and workshop;
Local outreach at middle schools and high schools serving minority populations in each HBCU's community;
National outreach through an ARTSI Web portal, currently under development (an interim Web site can be viewed now at http://artsialliance.org/);
"Viral marketing" through student-produced robotics videos on YouTube that showcase the achievements of ARTSI-affiliated students and faculty.
The ARTSI Alliance will hold its official kickoff event during a Martin Luther King celebration Jan. 14 at the National Science Foundation in Arlington, Va.
###
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