Okay good, so I'm not a bad feminist for being utterly absorbed in the Crazy that is Tyra and Top Model...does it count if I only like it for the finished photos? I'm a big art geek.

Regardless, what really smacks me about her comments is that she's talking about boycotting Black History Month in September. Black History Month isn't for another 5 months. Surely, she could start her complaining in another 3-4 months when it would actually be relevant.

(please note, her opinions would only be RELEVANT although not necessarily particularly insightful)

Also, does this remind anyone else of that guy a few years ago who started a scholarship for white students?

And really, it's the shortest month anyway, even with the leap year. The pain of it will be over in 29 brief days.

BTW, what's the difference between "dumb" and "honest and ignorant"?

I know that her opinions seem (and are) absurd, but I think its really important to consider the fact that this viewpoint is not uncommon. I went to school in Missouri and I would say that this concept was mainstream, even prevalent, among well-intentioned white students who were unaware of the fact that racism is actually still a problem.
I don't really know how to fix it, but it is important to recognize that this attitude does need to be addressed.

This debate, color-blind versus social justice, is a very real debate that goes on even in the Supreme Court affirmative action cases.

Color-blind people believe that the best way to deal with racism is to have no special programs be based on race, in other words, to be color blind. They believe that the playing field is level and we should just go on from this point treating everyone as equal.

Social justice people do not believe that the playing field is level at this point and believe in special programs based on race as a means to "level the field."

(These are simplifications.)

I am a social justice person, but I agree that the attitude expressed this person shouldn't be minimized as just "dumb." If we (social justice people) see the color-blind side of the debate as dumb, I think we ignore the fact that there are people in power who share these views, even intelligent people. I think the only way to defeat these views is to understand the intellectual arguments that are fueling these ideas and then engage with those intellectual arguments.

Clearly racism in America ended w/ the abolishion of slavery. So just get over it already! :rolls eyes:

There ARE channels for white people; they’re called ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, C-SPAN, CMT…

And white people have their own months too! It’s called everything other than February, when we can sweep the accomplishments & tribulations of blacks under the rug and get back to celebrating this country's real heroes.

This is the woman who married Peter Brady and had that VH1 show, right? Riiiiight.

"I don't really know how to fix it, but it is important to recognize that this attitude does need to be addressed."

I agree with this--this attitude kind of reminds me a lot of people who also think that feminism isn't necessary, or that feminists want "special treatment". As in, "Let's forward the HUMAN RACE ALTOGETHER!" I personally don't understand/share Curry's viewpoint, but it should be noted that a lot of people do, apparently.

The timing of the story is funny, given that October is European Heritage Awareness Month.

I think they need to add a disability history month. That would kick ass

[not to threadjack, but that reminds me: I don't think I've ever seen a post about gender and disability on feministing. Being disabled completely changes your ability to enact gender roles and how people of the same and other gender treat you. It seems like it would be an issue of strong interest to feminists, but haven't seen much about it here].

It's also important to remember where Adrianne came from- Joliet, IL, which is just shy of where I went to high school in Lockport. It's a somewhat diverse, lower middle class to poor community. Odds are she went to school and grew up with a lot of different people and is influenced by that.

She's silly, and not bright but I can see where she'd think what she was saying was relevant. As stated up post, a lot of people feel this way.

I think part of the problem with color-blind people is that they consider all trace of prejudice “personal preference.� They unabashedly express unwillingness to date black people, hire black people, befriend black people, trust black people, listen to black people’s music, wear black people’s clothes, watch tv geared toward black people, or read black people’s books, but because they believe these prejudices to be legitimate personal choices, they refuse to consider the political implications of an entire nation of white people sharing those preferences.

To be honest, I don't necessarily see a problem with what she's saying. I also don't see an issue with being "colourblind" in terms of how we treat people. The issue here is that a lot of racism is very, very regional. I grew up in Southern California, where racism really isn't an issue -- though I'm white, my godfather's black and nobody's ever thought twice about our family vacations that have big mixed-race group photos. I don't get weird looks when I show pictures of his daughter around and say, Hey, this is my niece, isn't she cute? That being said, I spent a week in rural Iowa a few summers ago and befriended the only black student at a theatre arts summer camp and was stunned at the quiet snubbing that he endured. Nobody was violent or vicious or anything -- just. Quietly exclusionary.

If you've grown up in an area where races are pretty evenly integrated then the idea that BET and other race-specific entertainment segments of pop culture are not only welcome but vital is somewhat alien, and I think that's probably where she's coming from.

It's true that she's extremely ignorant of the world at large around her, but frankly I'm glad that she's at least thinking, however shallowly. That's better than not paying any attention at all. Calling her dumb is catty and mean. Calling her ignorant and uneducated is accurate.

Honestly, a lot of my family think like Adrianne Curry. A lot of the people who think like that don't seem to realize that every day in America is White History Day.
Reminds me of when the College Republican's were trying to mobilize students on my campus to eliminate African American studies and women's studies. Because we're all equal now.

If you've grown up in an area where races are pretty evenly integrated then the idea that BET and other race-specific entertainment segments of pop culture are not only welcome but vital is somewhat alien

But if you grew up in an area where the races were integrated, wouldn't you notice that your reality doesn't match the one on tv? As in, there are few black characters on tv? And almost none in leading roles? And that that's why BET is needed?

I highly recommend everyone read Lorna Dee Cervantes Poem "Poem for the Young White Man Who Asked Me How I, An Intelligent, Well-Read Person Could Believe in the War Between the Races" (you can find a copy online here: http://www.chicanas.com/lornabridge.html

I think my favorite line is
"there are snipers in the schools.
(I know you think this is nothing
but faddish exaggeration. But they
are not shooting at you.)"

I think it is very very easy for people who are not discriminated against, and who consider themselves color or sex blind to dismiss prejudice other people are subjected to because it isn't always obvious and in your face, or because it's "not serious." They completely fail to understand how pervasive and subtle (yet still very damaging) most forms of everyday prejudice are.

But if you grew up in an area where the races were integrated, wouldn't you notice that your reality doesn't match the one on tv?

Maybe it's different where you live, but reality has never matched TV-land from my point of view. As a kid, I just assumed it was something that the grown-ups had done just "because" -- do you get my meaning here? I honestly never really thought about it because I never thought that television was supposed to accurately represent the world. If so, then the characters on every NYC-based sitcom would have to be making a shit-ton more money than the plotlines indicate.

Again, I'm not saying her reasoning is bullet-proof -- it isn't -- but I don't think it warrants an attack of any sort.

To anyone else who watches the show: Did you notice that, in the latest seasons and the new one, they cut Adrianne out of the opening credits? They start with Yoanna when they show the previous winners. I wonder if this is due to Adrianne's questionable post-Top Model "career" in reality TV and Playboy. And stupid shit she says like the quote in this post.

Even though I disagree with what AC is saying, I commend her for being loopy enough to put this out there, to broach the subject that most people wouldn't even touch.

I think it's interesting that the response to what she says has mostly been to laugh at her. Putting aside the complexities of color-blind justice (a tall order, I know), it seems that someone who argues for abolishing BET, who believes the playing field is level, is deemed so absurd to be laughed at. A positive step?

Of course, they're probably just laughing at the hopped-up model. Any excuse to feel superior to a woman...

Telis, perhaps it doesn't warrant an attack, but a serious critique is appropriate here. It's wonderful that your family and your community are well integrated, but that's not how most of the rest of the United States is. I also don't think racism itself is regional, though I believe that the expression of racism is.

My parents never raised me with racist ideas, but I am white-identified, and growing up in this culture instilled (however insidiously) racist ideas in me. Just as men have to fight the sexist ideas they've been indoctrinated with and learn that their privilege is not warrented, white and white-identified people also have to fight their indoctrinated racism and their feelings of entitlement. I've been quite lucky to have almost all magazines, television shows, movies, and other media depict and tell the stories of people like me. It is a privilege. It's why BET is necessary. Having that channel is a first step into normalizing black people in the media. It's disgusting that it's something that has to be normalized.

If you've grown up in an area where races are pretty evenly integrated then the idea that BET and other race-specific entertainment segments of pop culture are not only welcome but vital is somewhat alien, and I think that's probably where she's coming from.

I don't think that's where she's coming from. Before I got hip to my own racism (b/c I thought I was colorblind, too), I was in high school spouting things like "My family never had slaves," and "Affirmative action just fosters an 'us vs them' mentality." I'm ashamed of the things that came out of my mouth when I was sixteen. I thought that I was being colorblind, and that my insistence that we don't acknowledge racial difference was the best thing for racial relations. I was ignorant.

I know better now. The point is, white people who talk about being colorblind are ignorant and lying to themselves. Refusing to acknowledge race and asking why we need a Black History month is eurocentric and spoiled. It's easy to think we don't need these things when you're white and the whole world caters to you. White and white-identified people have to make the effort, acknowledge the parts of themselves that absorbed these ideas, and cut them out of themselves. We can't make change if we can't even acknowledge what's wrong.

What's bothered me most about all of this is the energy people have poured into burning Ms Curry instead of trying to educate. It's fun to tear apart someone so visible, but as it was pointed out by Jen in her summation of the blog post, a lot of white people commiserate with this! It's not a case of "oh, how horrifically stupid and crass you are, Adrianne" it's a case of "how woefully uninformed of you. here's an open invite to come to my rally/protest/etc etc and see what's really up". Good lord. Be proactive. And how lovely is it that people are tearing her apart for being on ANTM? And having a "questionable" career? So what? Is she not a woman as well? Is she not an individual worthy of being enlightened on race or women's issues? Get over your petty selves and educate.

sorry, I didn't mean to make that seem directed to people here, per se. Maybe...maybe over on jezebel though. Le sad. Poor kid really thought she was saying something beautiful and unifying.

Ugh. Most "colorblind" people are racist plain and simple. They don't see that the opposite of black isn't white, in fact there is no one opposite. Analogous "things" to "Black" are: Irish, Swedish, Jewish, Catholic, Gay.

Many many ethnic groups that we'd consider white have institutions, parades, churches, advocacy groups, PACs, scholarships, academic departments.

And out of all this, for some reason these color-blind people are always bitching about Blacks. Should we also destroy every Swedish church in the country? And end Irish parades? And Catholic or other religious schools? And make it illegal to provide a scholarship for people of Norwegian ancestry?

The "why isn't there a white history month?" argument gets pretty old after a while. But so does the "every other month is White History month" response.

There's good reason to have BHM (though from a historical perspective, it'd be easier to teach with 4 separate black history weeks that hit the eras more accurately. But i digress.) But the fact that BHM is reasonable doesn't make the claimed "11 months of only white history" any more accurate. Giving that as an answer doesn't advance the discussion much.

Why does the response get old, Sailorman? The fact that blacks are largely ignored for the rest of the year IS the reason BHM is necessary. A better solution would be to, you know, just include black people in with "regular" history, but apparently that doesn't other them enough.

BET doesn't exist because black people want to segregate themselves. That's not why the "black shows" are all on The CW, or magazines like Essence exist. These things exist because of the lack of representation beyond tokenism in popular culture.

I have to tell this to people all the time. It gets very annoying.

I think that Black History Months and months like it exist as a sorry attempt to fill a void in our education. After all, who did we all learn about in February? Martin Luther King Jr, Rosa Parks, and George Washington Carver (because everybody loves peanut butter). In a sense, we don't even have [Blank] History Months because we don't learn about that heritage's history anyway.

YOUR response doesn't get old, because your response is accurate. It's the same response that I give, actually.

But the "the other 11 months are white history months" gets old, because it's not true in context. The rest of the year isn't aimed at trying to be "white history months" in the same way that BHM is.

It's a bit like English. I studied a variety of nonwhite authors as part of "regular" English--though it was only a small percentage. But of course, there were no white authors in the "Black authors" course. Which makes perfect sense (it's necessary; back to our shared answer again) but which also made me roll my eyes at the "the rest of the course offerings are white English" claim.

I am a stickler for accuracy. "Few" and "none" are very, very, different; "not enough" and "none" are different; "most" and "all" are different. People who say BHM is just an analogue of the rest of the year are conflating those terms.

FWIW, I fully agree with you that it'd be better to split stuff up. It makes a hell of a lot more sense to study the buffalo solders during their historical era that it does to link them to blacks from centuries away. It makes more sense to study MLK during his time; and so on.

If I trusted the standards folks more, I'd lobby for general inclusion. But as it is, BHM is probably a reasonable compromise. I don't think it's an attempt to other blacks through BHM, I think it's more a recognition of the fact that we can't trust educational boards to do a good job of inclusion. Which is depressing in its own way of course.

Oooo, there's also happy fun time class issues going on here. I grew up in a rather affluent neighborhood (in a suburb of Houston), where different races were fairly well represented (white disproportionately heavy, but they only made up about 50% of my block). Everybody all treated each other the same; however, 'poor' people were treated differently (whether consciously or not; of course, when combined with institutional racism it gets interesting).

Anyway.

If she is existing in that upper level where money becomes more important than race in determining a person's worth, then its possible that she doesn't see race, and the problems associated with racism.

(I, for one, thought it was all classism until I hit high school and was introduced to the concept of institutionalized racism; I didn't see blatent racism until in college, and that was a weird experience)

I laugh to keep from crying because I know how many people believe/feel as Curry does.

How do you answer things like "It's 2007. You're not being oppressed by the man anymore. Stop whining and assert your equality instead of whining about it."

"Maybe it's different where you live, but reality has never matched TV-land from my point of view. As a kid, I just assumed it was something that the grown-ups had done just "because" -- do you get my meaning here? "

I think I do understand what you are saying, but as a child I wondered WHY the people on TV and in magazines, and billboards, and well everywhere, looked nothing like me. It's probably a lot easier to think, hmmm, things are different just "because" when you aren't constantly feeling like the odd one out. Which is how white privledge is born. It's not evil for a white child to not really be struck by how everyone on tv looks like them, and not black or asian or hispanic.

I'm mixed race, and sometimes even "pass". I've had numerous well-meaning white people tell me, surprised when they hear of my racial background, "oh, I thought you looked NORMAL".

Telis and Sailorman, I think that both of you are having trouble understanding the nature of racism. Telis, racism isn't just about individual people saying mean things-- it is about an entire system that unfairly benefits whites. Though overt racism is certainly worse in some places than other, that does not mean that racism "is not an issue" where people don't constantly make disparaging remarks about people of color. It exists in ways that can be very difficult to see if you're white, but very obvious when you're not.

Sailorman, it doesn't matter if the intent of the other 11 months is to be "white history months." What matters is that they are. And that is what all of the "colorblind" people take issue with, that we don't LABEL them white history months, so they must not BE white history months. It makes no sense. And whether or not a person or a system has the intent of being racist has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not the person or system actually is racist.

And for the record, I know a hell of a lot of people who think like Curry. I grew up with those points of views, and from a very young age I knew that they were wrong, but could not articulate why until I was much older.

I think that it is a poor reflection on our society that black history is ignored on such a regular basis that we need black history month. I think that it is horrible that there aren't more shows featuring black people and that there needs to be a seperate network for that. It is sad that in the hair care aisles, there are "hair products" and "ethnic products". I could go on, but I won't. It would be much better if everyone were represented equally.

Agreed, SassyGirl-- I think that we would all like to see that world.

What Curry is failing to realize is that sticking our fingers in our ears and screaming LALALALALA isn't going to get us there any faster.

Just because a lot of people feel the way Adrianne feels doesn't mean that they are in touch with reality at ALL. First of all, all of these so called 'separate' institutions were created because blacks have been and continue to be ignored not only by the media but by society in general.

Also what she doesn't seem to get is that at the biological level, race DOES NOT exist. It has been created for the express purpose of subjugating certain members of society to the advantage of others.

There doesn't have to be a White Entertainment Television channel because almost every channel IS catering to White America. Try finding out about the last five black women that have gone missing this calendar year. Having trouble? Of course you are! They weren't white so they didn't make the headlines!

The irony of this type of thinking is that if we are ALL AMERICANS and ALL THE SAME then we have to stop catering and favoring certain members of the society. So no more treating white women as the epitome of beauty, no more domination of news articles, no more preferential treatment from the medical system or the educational system!

Are you all really ready for that? I think not!

Cara,

from my perspective there is a significant difference between direct acts and indirect secondary acts. The former are far more compelling for good or evil.

I think there's a huge difference, for example, between segregation where the government says "no blacks allowed in this school" or where district lines are deliberately drawn to exclude, than segregation where population changes mean that few blacks live in the area.

The former is magnitudes worse than the latter, because intent matters. Intent isn't EVERYTHING, but it's important.

Those KKK shitheads in the other thread are disturbing because they MEANT to be disturbing. The guys who drove by with nooses at the Jena 6 rally were racist because they MEANT to be racist--a well-meaning cowboy coming to march in favor of the Jena 6, who happened to have a lasso hanging over his truck because he packed his gear in a hurry wouldn't be blameworthy or nearly as frightening in that context, even if someone thought it was a noose. And you know it.

You're setting up a false choice. It can STILL be important, or wrong, or worthy of getting fixed, AND intent can be relevant in deciding how important it is.

So this:whether or not a person or a system has the intent of being racist has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not the person or system actually is racist
is wrong IMO. Not everything that is racist is as bad as everything else, and I don't see why such a polarized view is needed.

"But if you grew up in an area where the races were integrated, wouldn't you notice that your reality doesn't match the one on tv?"

Weirdly enough, something like that happened to me when I was a kid, except I was stupider.

I grew up in a mostly white and Asian suburb, and sometimes went to a more diverse city for a field trip or museum visit or whatever. Then during a trip to sure-seemed-mostly-white-and-Asian Sydney, I had this gut feeling of "something's wrong, someone's missing!" in the city even though I also thought "duh, foreign country, don't expect American demographics!"

"And out of all this, for some reason these color-blind people are always bitching about Blacks. Should we also destroy every Swedish church in the country? And end Irish parades? And Catholic or other religious schools? And make it illegal to provide a scholarship for people of Norwegian ancestry?"

Right on.

Let's not forget that a lot of this shit storm is because of the way she handled criticism. Bad enough that she's sitting online spewing a bunch of ignorant - and yes, racist - crap. When truckloads of people try to get you to see their viewpoint and you retaliate by calling them stupid, don't be surprised when people don't let you slide on "she's just ignorant". As for Joliet, let's not forget that the brilliant Lynne Thigpen was also from Joliet. Adrienne's ignorance is largely Adrienne's fault.

Forgeting about race is not the way to get past it. You have to reconize it and then reconize that it does not matter. Culture is slowly intertwining and race does not count for anything. People are not what the sterotypes allow for, but they still might have a different color skin than you.

Forgeting about race is not the way to get past it. You have to reconize it and then reconize that it does not matter. Culture is slowly intertwining and race does not count for anything. People are not what the sterotypes allow for, but they still might have a different color skin than you.

"Every fund set up to only help people of one race is SICK and RACIST."

I don't know how anyone can argue against this.

How about: Except when said race is a class of people who have been systematically and disproportionately been barred access to education, equal pay, and adequate home/living situations, etc.

How about: Except when said race is a class of people who have been systematically and disproportionately barred access to education, equal pay, and adequate home/living situations, etc.

I just looked back at my post and saw a rather large blunder. I meant to strike through "SICK". Funds based on race are inherently racist, but that does not mean they are sick, or wrong.