Recently in Race Category

Regular readers will have noticed that in recent months, Feministing has brought in a number of new contributors: Ariel, Jos, Lori, Rose and myself. No doubt you're getting to know them by reading their posts and engaging with their ideas in the comments section, but I also suspect that you might want to know a little more about these wonderful women (I know I do!). Over the next few weeks, I'll be interviewing my fellow new contributors so that you and I can get to know them a little better. This week I interviewed Jos Truitt.

Jos joined Feministing as a contributor this July, and in the past few months has been blogging up a storm (those of you who love Mad Men Mondays, you can thank Jos for that!). Jos grew up in Boston and graduated from Hampshire College, where she studied philosophy of race, feminist organizing and sequential art, which, she informed me, is the academic term for comics.

Jos now lives in DC, where she is pursuing her passion for reproductive justice. She recently started working part-time at the National Abortion Federation hotline and she serves as a clinic escort with the Washington Area Clinic Defense Task Force. She has also worked and blogged for Choice USA. In her spare time, she likes to bake and spend time in the printmaking studio, and when I asked her which feminist she'd take with her to a desert island, she gave by far the sweetest answer I've heard yet.

And now, without further ado, The Feministing Five, with Jos Truitt.

"Status is Everything": These are the words repeated in the new HIV testing campaign to be launched by the Newark, NJ African American Office of Gay Concerns (AAOGC).

The website is not functional yet, as the campaign will be revealed on December 1, 2009, and officially launched in January 2010, but their preview photo shoot for the advertising campaign was released on flickr this week.

Photos feature young gay African American men with the caption "Status is Everything," and the ad campaign will refer viewers to a hotline and website where they can schedule free HIV testing at local clinics.

Not found in this campaign, however, is the need for a cogent campaign that's inclusive of young women of color. In 2007, blacks accounted for 44% of the 455,636 people living with AIDS in the 50 states and District of Columbia. And as Advocates for Youth reports,

Black women and Latinas account for 79 percent of all reported HIV infections among 13- to 19-year-old women and 75 percent of HIV infections among 20- to 24-year-old women in the United States although, together, they represent only about 26 percent of U.S. women these ages.

One idea that has circulated this year accuses black men on the "down low," that is, closeted black men who have sexual exposure to other men while dating women, of contributing to the HIV epidemic and women's infection rates in the US. Yet, the director of the Centers for Disease Control's National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention, Kevin Fenton, concluded that the cause of increased infection rates among black women was instead the incidence of black men with multiple heterosexual partners. He cites data that shows a lack of bisexual self-identification among the community of HIV-positive black men. (Is it possible that the accusation that "down low" men spread HIV is an extension of the race-fueled trend of the feminization of black men?)

This advertising campaign, while potentially powerful in the gay male community, won't help the black women who comprise 61 percent of all new HIV cases among women.

One thing is certain: Newark's new campaign, while not targeted toward the women affected most by HIV, is a nice change from other disturbing HIV advertising we've seen.

The New York Times Magazine that made Precious actress Gabourey Sidibe a cover girl was almost a too-good-to-be-true moment. All at once, the world was a more inclusive place for people of dark complexions, ample body sizes and for people living in the shadows of the less visible differences her Precious character embodies. It's crazy how powerful representation can be. I am a dark-complected, Harlem girl who has survived violence. And while it's on the self indulgent side, I must admit: seeing that chocolate girl on that measly little cover with her pride held high made all the difference to me.

A few days remain until Precious debuts across the country on Nov. 6th. The story, originally told by Sapphire through the novel Push, is an ode to negotiating inclusion and exclusion in the media. It's about much more than the New York Times' account: a "Harlem girl raped and impregnated by her abusive father." (That's practically all the ink dedicated to Precious the character despite an accompanying a column that extends for 5 pages.) It's about inclusion and what it says about who is valuable in our society. That's best captured in Push, when Precious explores this:

I am comp'tant. I was comp'tant enough for her [Precious' mother] husband to fuck. She ain' come in here and say, Carl Kenwood Jones--thas wrong! Git off Precious like that! Can't you see Precious is a beautiful chile like white chile in magazines or on toilet paper wrappers. Precious is a blue-eye skinny chile whose hair is long braids, long long braids. Git off Precious fool! It time for Precious to go to the gym like Janet Jackson. It time for Precious hair to braided.(64)

But what I love about the book is that Precious is not a defenseless subject. She is a survivor who resists against her exclusion by striving for her own inclusion. She does this by learning how to read. She then uses her literacy to read about the lives of Black women through writers such as Alice Walker, Ann Petry, Ann McGovern and others. The story ends with her literally penning her own story fully epitomizing the agency she had all along despite sexual trauma and despair.

Lil' Wayne recently pleaded guilty to gun possession and next year he will likely join the cadre of rappers that have gone to jail post-fame and post-economic security. He will lose many rights as a prisoner in New York. However, it is likely that he will also lose the right to wear his hair in the natural style of locs:

"Male prisoners are only allowed to wear their hair in cornrows, going straight back. And they can't exceed the 'natural hairline' in length." Now of course our question is: what does 'natural hairline' mean?

"It means it can't extend the neck." But there is one loop-hole in the issue - though I'm not sure it's going to help Wayne. "Prisoners who claim Rastafarri as their religion are allowed in most cases to keep their locks. But even then there's a process to determine if it's genuine."

I know there is a tendency to not prioritize an injustice until it happens to an entertainer. I also know that it's more likely to see the freezing over of hell than to hear a feminist coming to the defense of a man that has contributed to the worldwide mass distribution of words, sounds and images that present women as sexual beings and nothing else. But I cannot allow my contempt of his misogyny to allow me to be silent on this. To be silent on this is to collude with racism that masquerades as "rules on personal grooming."

I will admit that this hits even closer to home for me. I have had my locs for 2 years and 2 months. Already, they are such a big part of me. They represent my ability to strive for patience, as they have gone through different lengths and stages. (Last spring was the first time I could put my hair in a pony tail.) But most of all, my hair texture and it's ability to coil tightly like tendrils, simply with shea butter and some drying time, represents my heritage. My Blackness. Me. And while this is one variation of blackness, it's a legitimate one that shouldn't be sanctioned by the prison system.

Now here is a Barbie that you don't see everyday. This one was done by Loanne Hizo Ostlie. She is a bad-ass artist who sells Barbies on ebay with the hair re-rooted in diverse styles that are more representative of Black women today.

I often have this image on my desktop because it's the closest image of Barbie that resembles my look and we all need a little affirmation every now and then. It's not to say that Barbie with locs is problem free. But this work is an important contribution and it should be acknowledged.

I don't know if I am on a hair kick because I am still reeling from Chris Rock's Good Hair shenanigans, but I can't help thinking about this image in the wake of the disappointment regarding these new black Barbies that were released this month.

Here are just some of the notable quotables about the hair texture of these new Barbies:

A 'So In Style' hairstyling set that allows girls to straighten their dolls' hair completely has alarmed observers, who say it will fuel the "beauty issues" that many black girls have .

"Black mothers who want their girls to love their natural hair have an uphill battle and these dolls could make it harder," said Sheri Parks, an associate professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland.

Barbie's skinny figure has long come under fire for promoting an unrealistic body image. But Kumea Shorter-Gooden, author of Shifting The Double Lives of Black Women in America, said the diminutive, primarily Caucasian frame of Barbie dolls had a more negative impact on black girls.

"They are already struggling with messages that 'black skin isn't pretty and our hair is too kinky and short'," she said.

Mattel needs to employ Loanne as a consultant if they truly want to create a doll that represents black women.

I wear a few hats on campus. Along with being a graduate student and a Feministing contributor in constant search of my next post, I am also the President of the Campus Coalition for Sexual Literacy (CCSL). CCSL, an org that is an affiliate to the National Sexuality Resource Center, promotes sexual literacy through community forums and serving as a liaison between students and campus health providers. This past Wednesday, with the help of HBO, film distributor Roadside Attractions, University of Michigan academics and student organizations, we held a private screening of Chris Rock's Good Hair 2 days before the film premiered in Michigan.

While the event, and the conversation that followed with the 300 audience members was powerful and revealing, the film really underwhelmed me. The sexist comments and the framing of black hair issues was striking. In addition, the portrait of Black hair excluded some important voices that were equally vital to the black hair conversation. However, the film did make a contribution by grappling with the relationship that decision-making about hair has with age. Lastly, it educated the masses about the harm involved with relaxers using two methods that are bound to be widely received--humor and famous people.

So let's break this down.

Yesterday was the The National Day of Action Against Police Brutality, and guess what went down in Brooklyn? Yes, just that. From a reader:

This morning at 11:30am a young woman was having an altercation with about 8 folks from the nypd at the R/M 25th st stop in bklyn. After it was over and she was on her way to the turn style, they came back to arrest her. When she resisted, they tasered her. Clearly, I don't know the background, but she was one, unarmed, woman and the tasering was undeniably excessive.

This is breaking news, so I don't know if anyone is organizing around this incident, but please use the comments section as a place to link folks to that work if and when it happens!

Related posts:
Police Taser Disabled Man for Not Leaving Bathroom
Obama on Skip Gates
Understanding the Dialogue Around Lovelle Mixon
Understanding the Dialogue Around Lovelle Mixon Part II
Justice for Oscar Grant-Please spread widely!
Justice for Oscar Grant: Update on Fruitvale BART Protest

When I had originally posted on Facebook this shockingly well summarized study from OKCupid about race and reply rates on the popular dating website, I had just written the word, "duh." Race has always been a part of dating for me, whether it be what race my parents find acceptable, finding that my white boyfriend that I thought wasn't racist really was, or figuring out on first glance when a man likes you for you, or because he has a thing for Indian chicks. But my friend Dave took me to task and noted that they actually analyzed an enormous set of data that they then published, so that gets more than a, "duh." I will upgrade to a, "that is fucked up," and "duh."

But enough with my Facebook shenanigans. This study is interesting to no end and not just because I am writing a book on dating. The study found that even though OKCupid has a unique matchmaking system where race shouldn't matter...

First of all, how do we know that race shouldn't matter? Are we just making some after-school-special assumption that "true love is colorblind?" No, we're not: we know race shouldn't matter to replies because the races all match each other more or less evenly, and reply rate correlates to matching.

...it does:

* Black women are sweethearts. Or just talkative. But either way, they are by far the most likely to reply to your first message. In many cases, their response rate is one and a half times the average, and overall black women reply about a quarter more often.

* White men get more responses. Whatever it is, white males just get more replies from almost every group. We were careful to preselect our data pool so that physical attractiveness (as measured by our site picture-rating utility) was roughly even across all the race/gender slices. For guys, we did likewise with height.

* White women prefer white men to the exclusion of everyone else--and Asian and Hispanic women prefer them even more exclusively. These three types of women only respond well to white men. More significantly, these groups' reply rates to non-whites is terrible. Asian women write back non-white males at 21.9%, Hispanic women at 22.9%, and white women at 23.0%. It's here where things get interesting, for white women in particular. If you look at the match-by-race table before this one, the "should-look-like" one, you see that white women have an above-average compatibility with almost every group. Yet they only reply well to guys who look like them. There's more data on this towards the end of the post.

Professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell has an amazing piece up at the Nation about marriage. If you don't know Harris-Lacewell's work, you should. Check out our recent interview with her.

As someone who also feels critical of the institution of marriage, it makes me really happy to see a straight feminist ally so thoughtfully reflect many of my feelings about the work ahead of us.

You can read the entire piece here.

So what are we to make of marriage? It is both a deeply personal relationship for which people will make almost unthinkable sacrifices, and it is a declining social institution offering little security for most who enter it.

As a black, feminist, marriage-equality advocate I reside at an important intersection in this struggle. This movement must acknowledge the unique history of racial oppression, while still revealing the interconnections of all marriage exclusion. This work must reflect the feminist critique of marriage, while still acknowledging the ancient, cross cultural, human attachment to marriage. This work must be staunchly supportive of same-sex marriage, while rejecting a marriage-normative framework that silences the contributions of queer life.

Typically advocates of marriage equality try to reassure the voting public the same-sex marriage will not change the institution itself. "Don't worry," we say, "allowing gay men and lesbians to marry will not threaten the established norms; it will simply assimilate new groups into old practices."

This is a pragmatic, political strategy, but I hope it is not true. I hope same-sex marriage changes marriage itself. I hope it changes marriage the way that no-fault divorce changed it. I hope it changes marriage the way that allowing women to own their own property and seek their own credit changed marriage. I hope it changes marriage the way laws against spousal abuse and child neglect changed marriage. I hope marriage equality results more equal marriages. I also hope it offers more opportunities for building meaningful adult lives outside of marriage.

I know from personal experience that a bad marriage is enough to rid you of the fear of death. But this experiences allows me suspect that a good marriage must be among the most powerful, life-affirming, emotionally fulfilling experiences available to human beings. I support marriage equality not only because it is unfair, in a legal sense, to deny people the privileges of marriage based on their identity; but also because it also seems immoral to forbid some human beings from opting into this emotional experience.

We must do more than simply integrate new groups into an old system. Let's use this moment to re-imagine marriage and marriage-free options for building families, rearing children, crafting communities, and distributing public goods.

Via The Economist, some data about teenage pregnancies in the US:

On one point, however, experts agree: when it comes to teenage births, the United States is backsliding. Between 1991 and 2005 the teenage birth rate declined by 34%, according to the National Centre for Health Statistics. Between 2005 and 2007, the last year for which statistics are available, it crept up 5%.

A quick and easy blame game points to the Bush era abstinence-only policy, which is scientifically proven to fail.

But those working on the issue of teen pregnancy know it's more complicated than that. Access to sex education and birth control are key to preventing teen pregnancies--but not all teen's want to prevent their pregnancies. Some want to be parents, despite their young age.

Silvia Henriquez, the ED of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health (disclosure: I work for them), is quoted in the article:

Latina teenagers, for example, have a considerably higher birth rate than any other group, even though they have similar rates of sexual activity. Silvia Henriquez, the executive director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, reckons that access is the problem. Latina teenagers are less likely to have health-care coverage for contraceptives, and are more likely to lack transport to the free clinics in their cities.

For some Latina teens (and others), parenting may actually be a choice. Now often it's a choice that is couched within the context of little hope for their own future--why "wait" to parent if you don't have access to college education or real career options? The same can be said of other groups, but Latinas are focused on because of our particularly high rates of teen parenting.

I don't think being young makes you a bad parent. It does mean you're less likely to make money in a society that rewards high levels of education and long working hours.

For me, an ideal strategy to address teen pregnancy and parenting is a situation where young folks are given access to education, birth control, but also support if they do decide to parent at a young age.

I am currently watching a panel discussion with three young leaders and each are so inspiring that I find myself repeatedly holding back tears. Jensine Larsen, Alberta Nells and Lateefah Simon have in common deep roots in community based organizing efforts and a deep connection with a spiritual force that is moving them to action.

First up, Jensine Larsen founded World Pulse an interactive media center that projects the stories of women around the world and analysis of international issues through their eyes. She believes that "pulse" symbolizes the electricity of women's voices rising around the earth. She says, "the creative human potential of women and girls is the greatest untapped resource on the earth and we can use technology and communications to connect and empower these voices." To add she says,"When women control the communications channels, they control their destiny."

There are countless examples of women having even a tiny bit of access utilizing it to share their voices, be it one computer, text, one blog or the strategic use of web 2.0 technology, she tells us. Often women don't have time to be online to blog, their husbands sitting next to the computer disallowing them from using it. She concludes with an example of a woman in Kenya that had been dying of AIDs but managed to retrieve retroviral drugs for herself and 17 other women in her village. Through the use of World Pulse and web 2.0 technology, they were able to bring her story to life and is now flown all over the world to tell her story and train other rural women in how to organize their communities. "How can I go to sleep when my country is burning and Pulse-Wire is my light?"

Up next, Alberta Nells, a young leader/organizer, Navajo organizer. Southwest organizer, her work is focused on protecting indigenous rights to land. When she found they would use recycled waste water as snow on sacred land, that is when she knew she had to speak out, "I can't allow this to happen to my people, to the teachings of my people." She speaks tenderly of her relationship with her grandmother and the power of teachings from a previous generation on how to move our people. She speaks to the power of song to organize and uplift and specifically the teachings of women. When asked about Navajo relationship with feminism, she says she doesn't understand the question as they believe in the balance between the feminine and masculine energy, or recognition of two-spirit in all of us. And concludes, "each one of us is indigenous to a different place and we must tap into that energy."

Finally, Lateefah Simon, 32 feels old as we carry the weight of our grandmothers and came to this work because of our grandmothers and mothers. Lateefah became an organizer by giving out condoms she got in her girls group in high school. It was her informal realization that this is what organizing is. She worked deeply with communities that people wouldn't touch, drug addicts, sex workers and holding them and giving them support. She understood at a young age how to raise money and build resources, "if we could battle pimps on the street, it was easy." When she realized that there was a choice to parent, she embraced the power of that choice and decided to become a radical choice organizer for the African American community. In talking about the prison industrial complex and re-entry programs she says, "human and civil rights issues are women's issues" and concludes, "of all that we have learned in our work how to do we move that power and use it in a man's world?"

I don't think this live-blog can even start to do justice to how powerful this session was. We took some video so we will be posting that as well.

A couple weeks ago The New York Times published a compelling and far too brief article titled Afghan Youths Seek a New Life in Europe. The focus is on "Afghan boys" immigrating to France.

Thousands of lone Afghan boys are making their way across Europe, a trend that has accelerated in the past two years as conditions for Afghan refugees become more difficult in countries like Iran and Pakistan. Although some are as young as 12, most are teenagers seeking an education and a future that is not possible in their own country, which is still struggling with poverty and violence eight years after the end of Taliban rule.

The boys pose a challenge for European countries, many of which have sent troops to fight in Afghanistan but whose publics question the rationale for the war. Though each country has an obligation under national and international law to provide for them, the cost of doing so is yet another problem for a continent already grappling with tens of thousands of migrants.

European nations have a much greater obligation than that created by national and international law. The article frames poverty and violence in Afghanistan as existing despite the war. In reality aggression from countries including the U.S. and European nations is productive of increased instability and refugee populations. The article discusses the experiences of "Afghan boys" now living in France but hardly addresses their reasons for leaving home in the first place.

Age and gender are obvious features of the population discussed in this article so it's strange they are not addressed directly. I am particularly interested in young men immigrating to France as a result of war given the country's history of gendered immigration.

I want to discuss the history of immigration to France from North Africa as I see a lot of potential parallels and think it will provide context. Knowledge of North African immigration should show how important it is to explore the reasons for young male immigration, why it is this particular part of the population that is moving to France and how this might impact individuals, families, and communities. It can give us hints as to how the country may treat this population and the potential for more people from Afghanistan to follow. France's history with immigrants who are understood as Muslim is a history of exploitation and marginalization that has led to extreme social and political exclusion and violence. So this current moment when similar or related patterns could occur deserves a historical perspective.

North Africa and Afghanistan are very different places, but both have populations understood as Muslim. I am interested in how these populations may be understood as similar, not claiming any inherent similarity or spreading the idea of the so-called Muslim World.

There's an article in today's New York Times about Chris Rock's much anticipated new documentary, Good Hair, which explores black women's complex relationship with hair and all the historic, racial, economic, gendered, and of course comedic, connotations. It won the jury prize at Sundance. The trailer:

In the Times article, Ingrid Banks, an associate professor of black studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara, breaks it down: "For black women, you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you've got straight hair, you're pegged as selling out. If you don't straighten your hair," she said, "you're seen as not practicing appropriate grooming practices."

There is so much at stake here. Not only are black women subjected to and sometimes perpetuate a system that infuses their hair choices with all sorts of social and political implications, but there are major economic implications as well. The Times article reports that "Last year, sales of home relaxers totaled $45.6 million (excluding Wal-Mart), according to Mintel, a market research firm, a figure that has held steady in recent years."

Things aren't getting cheaper, but they may be getting more complicated:

Noliwe M. Rooks, the associate director of the Center for African American Studies at Princeton, had many conversations about what it meant when the hair of Sasha and Malia Obama was pressed straight. "Unlike earlier times," the conclusion wasn't "clearly she had sold out, or she's saying straight hair is better," Professor Rooks said. "There's a complexity to who we are now. There wasn't an easy answer to why."

Thanks to reader Rachel for the reminder.

It is always interesting reading what different people get out of conferences and how they apply it to the work they do. Netroots is one of those spaces that are unique in that people from all walks of life converge for something they are passionate about, something that they often don't get paid to do and something that is trying to bring some semblance of justice and accountability to our legislative process. It is this process that Feministing has given me some access to, by having such a loud megaphone to discuss issues that I think are important and I want you, the voting public, to read about.

Netroots was an interesting experience for me, but not for the same reason it may be for other bigger bloggers, or bloggers that are professional, maybe more moderate and often, don't write about their personal experiences or opinions in the way that I do. Netroots was exciting because it connected me with a subculture of people that drift around the Netroots and connect everywhere we go, constantly engaging in what we have learned thus far, how far we have come and what we can do to better incorporate the voices of our most marginalized in our coverage.

I won't lie, I was critical of how I would feel at Netroots, similar to how I am critical of many mainstream conferences that are consistently by and for a very specific subset of able-bodied, heteronormative, white, male, middle class, college educated constituency. And I was right, the conference at a cursory glance was not as diverse as say, The Allied Media Conference or the US Social Forum, or Sister Song and other spaces that foster and centralize diverse voices.

But what was notable, and made me happy to be there was to be able to connect with all the people that make my world go round and to further make our impact known in a world that has been historically dominated by certain voices. Perhaps it was the hallway conversations with Baratunde Thurston and Jill Filipovic. Or the late night drinks with Amanda Marcotte and Khari Mosley. Or bumping into Melissa Harris-Lacewell and James Perry (or rather, them catching us staring at them and admitting what big fans we are, FYI MHL loves Feministing!). Or late night eats with Davey D and Goddess Jaz. Or bumping into Biko Baker and Billy Wimsatt in front of the convention center. Or partying with Jaclyn Friedman and our very own Ann. Or hanging out with the bad-ass ladies of the Media Consortium. Or finding out that Atrios knows who I am? Or seeing a fantastic panel on Immigration coverage with Rinku Sen and Cheryl Contee and some other awesome folks and watch them call out progressive bloggers for their inability to effectively cover immigration. Or the sit down I was graciously invited to with Jerry Nadler, aka "one of the good ones." Or perhaps it was sitting on a panel with some really talented lady-bloggers and watching as people inhaled our every word, that made me realize, again and again, we need to be here.

It is easy to have our voices drowned out, even in a crowd that may have the same values as we do. But despite that reality, we cannot deny the constant murmur of justice as held by the figureheads I named above and the impact of the work they do, to not only bring diversity in the Netroots but in bringing the power of the netroots to their diverse constituents.

That is what made Netroots rock for me, and yeah, that story is not about specifics on how to change policy, how to use these tools in accountability or how to reframe the healthcare debate. But all of that is affected by the diversity of the people doing the work, and the more diverse it is, the more effective and comprehensive any change we make using new technology will be.

The question is, how in the world are they going to get it?

Via HuffPo:

"On the issue of the Hispanic voter, we have to do a lot more. We Republicans have to recruit and elect Hispanics to office," McCain told CNN's State of Union. "And I don't mean just because they're Hispanics, but they represent a big part of the growing population in America. And we have a lot of work to do there. And I am of the belief that unless we reverse the trend of Hispanic voter registration, we have a very, very deep hole that we've got to come out of."

While he was one of only a handful of Republicans willing to tackle immigration reform in 2007, McCain faced a massive deficit with Hispanic voters in the 2008 election. His aides have said that, were he not the home state senator, he would have lost Arizona to Barack Obama, in large part because Hispanics had left the Republican Party in droves.

It's hard to imagine how a party which is staunchly anti-immigrant, anti-social programs, anti-bilingual education, who is opposing the first Latina Supreme Court Justice nominee, is going to find a way to lure more Latino voters.

Thanks for stating the obvious McCain, that the Latino population is a growing minority in the United States and you're in trouble if you don't get some of them into the ballot box for you. Some estimates are that by 2050 one in every four person in the US will be Latino.

There is no way your party is going to get the support of Latinos until you change your politics. Favoring immigration enforcement (aka border fences, raids and inhumane treatment of immigrant detainees) over immigration reform isn't going to win you much favor with a primarily immigrant community. Even Cuban-Americans (of which I am one) who have traditionally voted Republican because of the Republican anti-Castro hard line, are starting to swing toward the Democrats.

Maybe the changing demography of this country will finally force the party to realize it can't only support the interests of a small sector of upper-middle class white folks and be successful. Here's to hoping.

UPDATE: McCain declared today that he will oppose Judge Sotomayor's confirmation. Thanks for proving my point McCain.

I wanted to highlight that a new documentary is now out and available on DVD, Still Black. Below is a clip from the documentary, which I would love to see.

About the film:

STILL BLACK: a portrait of black transmen, is an alternative feature-length documentary that explores the lives of six black transgender men living in the United States. Through the intimate stories of their lives as artists, students, husbands, fathers, lawyers, and teachers, the film offers viewers a complex and multi-faceted image of race, sexuality and trans identity.

Check out the website to purchase the documentary, or see here for festival viewing.

GLAAD has released their third annual Network Responsibility Index, a review of LGBT representation on television. I found this report particularly interesting as I'm a pop culture addict who constantly finds myself consuming deeply problematic media that seldom represents my community.

Some key findings:

• HBO led all networks with 58.5 (42%) of the network's 140 total programming hours featuring LGBT representation. This is an increase of 16% over the previous season. Of HBO's 14 original series, 10 included LGBT content and of the four that did not, three were sports news programming.

• For the third year in a row, ABC led the broadcast networks in LGBT-inclusive content. Of its 1,146.5 total hours of primetime programming, 269.5 hours (24%) included LGBT impressions and 9% were transgender-inclusive, making ABC the most fair, accurate and inclusive of the five broadcast networks.

• For the first time since GLAAD began this analysis, the network rankings changed and Fox rose to third place with 82.5 (11%) LGBT-inclusive hours, out of 782.5 total primetime programming hours. This is an increase from last year's analysis, in which Fox's LGBT content was tallied at 4% and received a "failing" grade. However, Fox also aired some problematic LGBT programming.

• CBS saw the greatest decline among the broadcast networks this year, dropping to last place with 60 hours (5%) of LGBT-inclusive content, out of 1,148 total hours of primetime programming.

• Of the 10 cable networks evaluated, Showtime was the only network to receive a Good rating, airing 20.5 (26%) LGBT-inclusive hours, out of 77.5 total hours of primetime programming.

• TNT had the biggest increase among all networks. In last year's NRI, TNT received a Failing grade for airing a single hour (1%) of content. This year, TNT rose 18%, airing 13 LGBT inclusive hours (19%) out of its 69 total hours of original programming.

• TBS only offered a half hour (1%) and A&E aired two hours (1%) of LGBT-inclusive programming out of 39.5 and 166.5 total hours of original primetime programming, respectively. This resulted in the networks tying for the lowest ranking and score among the 10 cable networks evaluated.

Some of my thoughts, with a few minor spoilers from this past year of TV:

This story has been written about to death, but it is rare that you have a high profile black academic maligned by the police, spoken about by the POTUS and a national conversation about racial profiling and the police state. Yesterday the 911 call that was made was released and it turns out that Officer Crowley misquoted the caller. She never mentioned race on the call, making the police report highly suspect.

But outside of the details of this case, I read a comment over the weekend that really struck a chord with me and I wasn't going to write about it since it is a few days old, but as I sit here thinking more about it, I really want to share it. It was a comment from Ta-Nehisi's blog, (paraphrased via PostBougie),

Setting aside all of the other meta-discussions on race and class that surround this issue, the thing about all of this that creeps me out the most is that so many people are willing to defend this officer who, assuming the most charitable possible interpretation, arrested a guy because he didn't like his attitude. That is what [Mike Barnicle] is defending. That is what the execrable Mika Brzenski is defending. That is what I have read numerous commenters on a multitude of sites from the entire political spectrum defend.

They are, as far as I am concerned, defending the indefensible... [The panelists] were saying that if you cannot agree that arresting Gates was just plain wrong then there is no possibility of moving the argument forward. There is no good faith argument to be had without starting from the point that officers do not get to arrest a guy because he says unkind things to him.

I have decided that I no longer have anything to say to people who can, with a straight face, defend this nonsense. Forget about race. Forget about class. Forget whether or not Gates or Officer Crowley are nice guys who treat their mothers well. The bottom line here is that an officer used the authority of law to restrict the liberty of a man who was expressing displeasure with him. If you think that is right, then you fundamentally disagree with the basic principle of a free society.

That is not hyperbole. If you are willing to grant any individual with a gun and a badge the authority to arrest people because they don't like them, then you and I share no common principle on liberty and the right of people to be free from oppression. None.

Emphasis mine.

I think this gets at the heart of this issue. People seem to get blind sighted by rage when you talk about the police and race and it descends into a conversation between innate qualities between two groups of people, a battle of good and evil. The question of justice never enters the conversation, folks are generally stuck on, "well he shouldn't have done that," "wrong place at the wrong time," or "the cops were doing their job." It is rare we step back and think about what that job entails and what it would really look like if it was done properly.

Exciting news. Next to the Senate for confirmation.

The committee voted 13-6 to send its recommendation to the full Senate, which is expected to confirm Sotomayor's appointment next week.

With all of the committee's Democrats supporting Sotomayor, Sen. Russell Feingold of Wisconsin called the president's nominee "a thoughtful, careful and intelligent judge" with "a perspective that the court sorely needs. ... Not only will Judge Sotomayor be the first Latina to serve on the court, and the third woman, but also the first with experience as a trial judge."

Via LA Times.

Last night while watching Obama address the country on health care, I was indeed shocked like everyone else when Lynn Sweet asked Obama what he felt about Skip Gates. I was both, disappointed that she was derailing the focus on health care and anxious about the potential answer. Obama has not talked much about violence or police brutality, even though during his administration there have been many incidents of violence between police and people of color.

So what did he actually say? Watch the video below.

(Transcript after the jump.)

I never imagined that he would make jokes about "getting shot in front of the White House," and how "it could have been me." These comments show an understanding of racial profiling that no other president has ever had. Being so candid in expressing these comments, I almost wondered if it was political suicide. Granted, Obama has worked on the issue of racial profiling in Chicago so he has experience on the topic and maybe it would seem odd if he were to deny it.

But what are the implications of what he said? As Adam Serwer said on twitter (yes on twitter), " Reporters are going to act like this was a "betrayal" of a post-racial promise Obama never actually made." Obama is defying the most popular election/post-election meme which is that we are in a "post-racial" time. Many whites in this country are committed to the idea of being in a post-racial space, it makes them feel relieved and less bad about the racism of the past. It also gives them a pass on harboring racist sentiments about things like affirmative action. Furthermore, Obama's comments reminded Americans (who are more committed to the task of remembering to forget racism) that Obama is actually black like "those" that can be picked up by the cops, not "almost white" or a "decent black," that isn't a threat to you. That racism is so endemic in our society even the POTUS can't get away from it. I have written about this tension amongst moderate/liberals about the legibility of his blackness (and will shamelessly quote myself here),

The topic of hate crimes has been in the news a lot lately with the movement of the Matthew Shepard Act through Congress and the trial and conviction of Lateisha Green's killer. Many may take it as a given that all members of the queer and trans communities support hate crime legislation and convictions. This is not the case, though. Myself and many other queer and trans organizers and activists oppose this approach to violence against our communities.

It is important to recognize violence motivated by bigotry, and difficult to see alternatives to hate crime convictions as a means to this end. A sense of justice for the family and friends of people who have been killed because of their sexuality or gender identity is also valuable. But the ultimate goal should be to end such violence. Harsher sentencing does not decrease the amount of hate crimes being committed. A focus on sentence enhancement for these crimes does nothing for prevention. Putting our energy toward promoting harsher sentencing takes it away from the more difficult and more important work of changing our culture so that no one wants to kill another person because of their perceived membership in a marginalized identity group.

Hate crimes legislation puts the power to bring and pursue such charges in the hands of a law enforcement and criminal justice system that disproportionately targets marginalized communities. As a result, hate crime charges are brought against black folks for allegedly targeting white folks and against queer folks for allegedly targeting straight folks. In fact, as the Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP) points out in their non-endorsement of GENDA, so called anti-white hate crimes constitute the second highest amount reported by the FBI. Self defense in the face of a racist, homophobic or transphobic attack can equal a harsher sentence for the person being attacked in the first place.

Incarceration is supposed to deter crime, and harsher sentencing for hate crimes is supposed to deter crime even more. However, this is not the reality. In fact, longer time spent in prison actually increases recidivism. Our current system of imprisonment is producing more violence, not less. Hate crime verdicts will only add to this sad reality.

The past few weeks have seen important news related to race and the Supreme Court. In the June 29 Ricci v. DeStefano decision the court ruled in favor of white firefighters in New Haven who claimed they were subjected to racial discrimination when the results of a test for promotion were thrown out because white candidates outperformed non-white candidates. Since President Obama announced Judge Sotomayor as his nominee for Supreme Court Justice one of the primary attack lines leveled against her has been that she is a racist. Both examples represent an attempt to redefine racism without a recognition of history or sociopolitical reality so as to posit people of color as the oppressors and whites as the victims of racial discrimination.

Much more after the jump.

The Women's Media Center just released this assemblage of clips showing the ridiculous treatment that Sotomayor has already experienced at the hands of right-wing pundits and the mainstream media.

Take action here so that she can get the most fair nomination hearing possible.

You could say he was just another celebrity, another pop star, the King of Pop, but Michael Jackson did have an impact on our society. For his time, he made it ok for white girls to scream at a black man, to say that they wanted him. He made it ok for white boys to do the moonwalk. But you know, it wasn't ok for Michael Jackson to be Michael Jackson. It was written all over his face -- or the face that he changed into. And that's a shame.

Adrienne Maree Brown on the responsibility of his fans:

When it became clear that the boy's face we had loved had become the face of a man who didn't love himself; we judged him. We tore at him and he fell apart. He was living proof of the impact of our rabid pop culture, an early sacrifice to the new mechanisms of fame which allow no privacy, no time to learn, no mistakes.

Still, he kept producing for us.

When the rumors and the truth were all too prevalent (the children, both his and others), and he wasn't getting the psychological support and accountability he needed, we turned from him and derided him. We made the distinction of loving the child, but ridiculing the man.

Toure at the Daily Beast on how Jackson broke the color barrier with his music:

I like Off the Wall and Dangerous better, but I can't help but think about Thriller's massive socio-cultural impact. Rev. Al Sharpton referred to Michael as a pre-Obama Obama-esque figure in that he's a black man who knows how to make millions of blacks and whites fall in love with him. He's an integrationist, a racial unifier. He made two pop songs as overtly about race as anyone's ever made: Ebony and Ivory with Paul McCartney and Black or White. He was a Motown guy, after all. But he left Berry Gordy's house and went to CBS/Epic, a big-time label, to forge an adult solo career. CBS pushed his record as hard as they did their huge white stars and Off the Wall was a huge crossover success: young Michael was established as not an artist for black fans but an artist for everyone at a time when that was rare. Four years later, when Thriller came out it broke the radio color barrier: black and white stations played its singles until MTV, which had not previously played videos by black artists, had to play Michael. For a while they played Thriller every hour at the top of the hour. Back then he was MTV's Jackie Robinson.

I'm at a summit today in Detroit, Michigan on environmental justice--specifically looking at climate change. It's an issue that I'm learning more and more about thanks to one of the amazing subjects for my book, Nia Robinson, who is the Executive Director of the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative.

In short, the environmental justice movement (formally born in the 80s, traced back to indigenous Americans by some people), is aimed at calling attention to the ways in which low income people and people of color have been disproportionately affected by environmental issues (toxic power plants are often built in low income areas, those most vulnerable to the effects of global warming are in the Gulf South etc.). Hurricane Katrina was the most obvious recent example. Like feminism, environmental justice is based on looking at intersections--race, class, gender, environment, economics etc.

The whole community is really excited. A new report out by the Obama administration takes climate change seriously and a climate change bill is in the works. All of this is in anticipation of Climate Conference in Copenhagen in December.

One of the sponsoring organizations of this summit is WEDO--Women's Environment & Development Organization. An excerpt from their mission statement:

Today, WEDO recognizes that policy commitments alone are not enough to improve women's daily lives. That is why WEDO is collaborating more deeply with Southern partners on implementing global policy gains at the national level and holding governments accountable to their commitments on women's rights.

Climate change is the talk of the town today in Washington as the American Clean Energy and Security Act is up for a final vote in the House of Representatives.

At 12pm CDT (1pm EDT, 1800 GMT) Shark-Fu will be on BBC World's Have Your Say discussing race and the fashion industry.

Click here to listen live!

Or catch the episode on their podcast.

Today the FDA approved the first generic version of Plan B; it will be available to women ages 17 and under with a prescription. (Emergency contraception will also soon be available without a prescription for 17 years-olds.)

Related Posts: Plan B for teens? It's orgy time!
Walgreens harasses woman buying Plan B
It's a pregnancy test, not Plan B
Emergency Contraception approved for over-the-counter sale in Canada
Happy First Anniversary, Prescription-Free Plan B!
Federal Court: Pharmacists Can Refuse to Dispense EC
Conservatives say FDA politicized Plan B decision
Plan B-acklash
Over-the-counter Plan B: The First Month
Stores collecting information on Plan B users
White House subpoenaed over Plan B delay
Not over-the-counter, not even behind it...

*Potentially triggering*

This story is intense. An 11 year old was brutally raped. Members of her community beat up the man they think committed the crime. The neighbors will not be charged for the beating. Here's why,

Before making his decision, Ramsey said, he monitored Carrasquillo's condition and reviewed surveillance video of the assault. As soon as officers arrived at the scene, he said, the group stopped the beating.

"These people saw him, he attempted to run and they caught up with him," Ramsey said. "If the injuries had been severe, maybe we'd have to rethink it."

The Philadelphia chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police had offered a $10,000 reward in the rape case.

Carrasquillo has not been charged in the rape, but Ramsey said investigators have very strong forensic evidence and witness identification placing him at the scene.

Marc Lamont Hill makes the point that because of the erasure of the experiences of women of color and specifically black women with sexual violence in the justice system and the news media, there is an understanding within the community that no one is going to do anything about this injustice. So while we may fall on the side of never resorting to violence, many people do not have this privilege.

Salamishah Tillet has a great post up at The Root about reproductive rights, African American women and how we need to push the frame of civil rights when we talk about womens' access to reproductive health care, along with pushing civil rights leaders to add it to their campaign agenda.

While abortion is rarely seen as a civil rights issue, the dismantling of Roe v. Wade would have dire consequences for African-American women. The roots of reproductive injustice for black women date back to the nation's founding, for enslaved women had no control of their reproductive rights and often were forced to bear children in order to replenish their slave master's labor force. Dorothy Roberts writes in her book, Killing the Black Body, that slave masters considered black women "objects whose decisions about reproduction should be subject to social regulation rather than to their own will."

Today, reproductive injustice continues to adversely affect African-American women. Federal underfunding of adequate family-planning programs and lack of access to inexpensive, readily available contraceptives certainly play a role. And legislation, such as the Hyde Amendment, that denies women full access to safe and affordable abortions makes it more likely that African-American women and low-income women (who are disproportionately African-American) are adversely impacted. The reversal of Roe v. Wade would quite simply prevent African-American women from realizing full reproductive freedom.

While organizations such as Black Women's Health Imperative (BWHI), Black Women for Reproductive Justice (BWRJ) and the Third Wave Foundation are in the foreground of the fight for reproductive justice as a social justice, racially progressive mainstream organizations, such as the NAACP, have yet to incorporate black women's "right to choose" as a fundamental part of their civil rights agendas.

Given the racial history of reproductive rights, it is not just Planned Parenthood and the Feminist Majority that needs to push Obama on whether or not Sotomayor will uphold Roe v. Wade. Former Planned Parenthood president and African-American feminist Faye Wattleton once said, "Reproductive freedom should not be seen as a privilege or as a benefit, but a fundamental human right."

Go read the rest. This is a really powerful argument for why many black leaders should take a stance on reproductive rights because of the unique implications for black women. At a certain point we have to stop being scared and hold our community leaders accountable for the things they are saying and the impact that has on our communities. The agenda for women's rights and the agenda for civil rights has to overlap at a certain point. That said, I don't necessarily think of the NAACP as the center of progressive anti-racist activism, similar to how I don't really see many mainstream feminist groups as having a truly intersectional approach. But this is one way they both could move towards the direction of justice, as opposed to a solely identity politics based approach, playing to the common denominator.

This is my ballad to identity politics in America.

The conservative reaction to Sonia Sotomayor has not only been telling of the clear paranoia and fear that conservatives have around women of color and their appropriate place in our society, but is also really predictable. That doesn't change how racist it is. Lindsey Graham's testament to how he is critical of Sotomayor for her "fiery" temperament is probably the best encapsulation of white male fear of a woman of color in a position of power. Fiery is frequently a term used to describe women of color that are considered outspoken or hot. It is both racist and sexually demeaning, catering to fantasies about Latina women's sexual potency. It wouldn't make sense as a pejorative if the one accused was white or was not female.

There has already been a lot written about Sotomayor, both about her stance on judicial issues (imagine that!) and about the racism endemic in many of the criticisms of her. All I can really add to this is that it is a sad state of affairs that she is being called a "reverse racist" and as Roger Simon discusses in anunusually solid piece (or, as Mattbastard called it, so full of WIN), it seems the only kind of racism conservative white men get enraged about.

How come the only racism that bothers some people is reverse racism?

People of color have been oppressed for centuries in this country, and while progress has been made, it has come slowly.

But Sonia Sotomayor makes one speech suggesting that her background as a Latina might actually give her superior insight or wisdom to a white man, and there is an explosion -- an eruption! a volcano! -- of indignation.

She is a reverse racist! She has dared to suggest that a nonwhite woman could ever be superior in any way, under any circumstances, to a white man. So how can she now sit on the Supreme Court (a court that for most of its existence has resembled a country club board)?

Newt Gingrich, a former Republican speaker of the House, called her a "Latina woman racist" and said she should withdraw her name from consideration.

Pat Buchanan, an MSNBC commentator and former Republican presidential candidate, said on "Hardball With Chris Matthews" that Sotomayor was an "affirmative action" choice for the job.

And so while the Repubs play their unwieldy and inaccurate "damned if you do, damned if you don't," game of identity politics, liberals have been forced to call it out for the racism it is. And while I obviously fall on the leftier side of things, I am concerned about this kumbaya attitude about Sotomayor feeds into the post-racist doctrine a tad bit. Sotomayor is a good person for the job and then also happens to be a person of color. The way that racism functions, we can't have both things without them being related to each other. Liberals want her to be a POC because this shows that the American dream works, POC can be whatever they want irrelevant of their POC-ness. Conservatives want to highlight her POC-ness to show how she is different and play off stereotypes of how she is both unfit for the job and also because she doesn't deny that she is a POC or the keen and unique insight this might give her, is also a reverse racist.

Sotomayor is caught in the trap that most women of color face when they gain any degree of visibility. Their race and gender is necessary to the conversation for both camps to justify or deny her progress. It is still a form of tokenism, even if an unavoidable form. It is progress on one level that she is a WOC that is going to be on the SCOTUS. She is hardly the most liberal person for the job, which is what keeps her in the running and such a smart choice. But the question I am grappling with is, is this really progress or just another round in the identity politics game? Is her nomination going to change the way Latina women are treated globally? (Or am I the one "asking the wrong questions and opening the wrong doors"...as Stephin Merritt would say..)

I suppose it would follow that, after a byproduct of anal sex has been named after you because you do things like group together gay sex with incest, you would shut up and never open your stupid mouth about anything that has to do with copulation, dating, or really anything. You would think that, but that is not the way of Rick Santorum. Only this time it is about how black men don't like to get married and if the Obamas want to be a role model they better stick to some more normal and regular dating rituals.

via Salon quoting Santorum,

Number one, I think it's great that the president has a date night with his wife. He's a role model.He's a role model in particular, whether he likes it or not, in the African-American community.

And you have an African-American community, particularly in the poor inner city areas, we're looking at out of wedlock birthrates in three quarters to 75 percent (sic) of children being born out of wedlock. Marriage is an institution that's a bridge too far for too many African-American woman and is not desirable among African-American males

Um, what? Conservative logic is baffling and will stop at nothing to demean, since it is not just gays that are destroying the institution of marriage it is those "welfare queens and deadbeat dads too." Santorum has to play off every stereotype he can find.

But he continues,

Here we have a president of the United States who says that marriage is cool. You have respect for your wife, and you treat her with the respect and dignity that she deserves. And she is part of this team. And it's not just part of professional team, but it's also part of a personal, romantic team. I think that's all great. So I think it's important that he keeps having his date night.

I think he has to realize that flying to New York is self-indulgent. Go down to the corner bar and have a drink, a shot and a beer. It does not matter where you go with your wife, is that it's with your wife. That's really the point... I would make the argument, the simpler the date, the more normal it is.

Santorum is so glad that Obama is being an Upstanding Black Man, but lest he get too showy, Santorum must put the Obamas on notice, since he knows how to be "normal."

I know it is hard to deconstruct something that is so devoid of logic, you start to feel like you are talking in circles. It is not just an insult to the black community that they are "looking at out of wedlock birthrates in three quarters to 75 percent (sic) of children being born out of wedlock." That is not just offensive but it is inaccurate. Statistically more women are choosing to have children out of the institution of marriage. It is certainly not a sign of a crumbling world and a crumbling community, but instead showing us that marriage is not something that should be the backbone of our society as would have it.

Personally, I think the date thing was not something to get all in a fit over, but I also didn't fall for the "oooh ahhh they love each other so much, marriage is so great and the Obamas have shown me why!" Great, people are excited that the First Lady and her dude have a great thing going, but the bigger issue of what constitutes as normal marriage and not hasn't changed. The Obamas have to play up their marriage as stable and normal so they can fight every ignorant stereotype about black people and marriage, along with reinforce that fundamental to the American dream is getting married, being "normal," staying married and having some babies within the sanctity of that marriage. It is quite a conundrum.

Two important race scholars, Ron Takaki and Ivan Van Sertima, passed away this week.

Ivan Van Sertima was an anthropologist, linguist, literary critic, and the author of They Came Before Columbus (on Africans in ancient America) and Black Women in Antiquity, a history of real and mythical images of black women, from goddesses to queens to madonnas, presented in a powerful and respectful way. Watch Van Sertima discuss one of the themes that underlines his work:

Key quote: Human beings are equal. What makes human beings unequal is they can for example be forced to believe they are unequal. And then they start acting unequal. They could be forced into certain economic disadvantages that don't make the fullest use of their capacity. Or they could be made to think they are inferior, therefore they behave inferior, they begin to think inferior. But those are passing things. As they begin to become aware of their capacity, that they are equal to all human beings, changes occur dramatically.

Van Sertima played a major role in the process of changing how we understand human beings' equal capacity. His passing is a huge loss.

Ron Takaki was an activist and scholar who pioneered the field of ethnic studies. Did you talk about multiculturalism in your college classroom? Chances are you have Takaki to thank. Oiyan at the APAP blog (via Angry Asian Man) has a powerful personal take on the impact of Takaki's work:

I first encountered his book Strangers from a Different Shore at the local public library in Springfield, Massachusetts. It had just been published, and I was 16. I'm not sure how I came across the book, but I found myself feeling like I needed to hide as I read the book. Each chapter detailed Asian American history, which until that point, I had no idea existed. With each chapter read, I began feeling more and more power. The knowledge the book presented almost felt illicit. Having grown up in a provincial, all-white, lower-middle class, mostly immigrant community, and being told over and over by the society in which I was growing up that my experience did not matter, the book was electrifying. I remember checking the book out, going straight home, and sitting in the corner of my bedroom on the floor, door closed, and the book lit by my desk lamp I had brought with me to the floor. I'm not sure why I read it like that, but I remember shaking as I devoured the book. You have to understand that in my experience, true relevant knowledge was made out to be illicit and dangerous. When I was 13, I wasn't allowed to do a book report on the Autobiography of Malcolm X. Maybe that's why I hid in a corner to read Takaki's book when I was 16. I do remember that the book was critical in helping me make sense of the violently racist experiences I had and the historical contexts for these experiences, and my relationship to the rest of the world around me, as an Asian American. It was the first time I realized I was Asian American, and I began to develop a voice.

Both Van Sertima's and Takaki's scholarly contributions -- their writing of the unwritten histories of people of color and of race in America -- are testament to the idea that knowledge is a deeply powerful and often radical thing. I love this anecdote:

Takaki was hired and in 1967 taught the university's first African American history class.

When the young Japanese American, sporting a crew cut, walked into the classroom for the first time, the students, some wearing Afros and dashikis, fell silent. One student finally spoke up.

"Well, Prof. Takaki," the student said in a challenging tone, "what revolutionary tools are we going to learn in this course?" Takaki replied: "We're going to study the history of the U.S. as it relates to African Americans. We're going to strengthen our critical-thinking skills and our writing skills. These can be revolutionary tools if we make them so.' "

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the best way to remember these scholars is to continue to use writing and critical thinking as revolutionary tools.

Hyphen has info on where to send memorial donations for Takaki. There is also a more informal memorial on Takaki's Facebook page. No official word yet on memorials for Van Sertima.

It's been interesting to catch up to the Sotomayor coverage this morning. I really like this clip from CNN, which features Erica Gonzalez, the opinion page editor for El Diario/la Prensa, the third largest Spanish-language daily newspaper in the country. She actually manages to position Sotomayor's accomplishments in the history of Hispanic people contributing to this country in diverse ways. (It's incredibly difficult to say such complex, historicized statements on our soundbite news shows.) It also has "man on the street" interviews with folks talking about how her roots are inspiring, and of course the requisite America Dream talk from the pundits.

My personal feeling is that the American Dream stuff always gets oversimplified and overplayed when exceptional political leaders like Obama or Sotomayor get their due. It's important that we not lose sight of the fact that though our government, at the highest levels I might add, is becoming less white, male, and less historically privileged, that doesn't mean that the majority of barriers have been smashed or the majority of Americans of color given truly equal opportunities to become the next Obama or Sotomayor. Will it be easier? Probably. It's hard to aspire to be what you can't even see. But will it be easy? Absolutely not--especially with our failing public education system, health care inequities, rampant environmental racism etc. etc. None of these things are eradicated just became Sotomayor steps into her rightful place of power. Neither does her election eradicate the sexism--both institutional and social--that still prevents so many women from living the lives they want to live.

On that note, I find it interesting that a lot of the coverage I saw while surfing around this morning seems largely focused on her ethnic background with just a mention of her gender identity. Perhaps it is still easier for the mainstream media to figure out how to talk about ethnic "uplift" because it fits so nicely into the American Dream narrative than to explore the ongoing gender issues still so implicit and insidious in our daily experiences.

My name is Courtney Martin and I'm a gentrifier.

Like so many young, urban writerly types, I live in a neighborhood that is predominantly and historically composed of folks very unlike myself. I'm white, they're West Indian. I'm a writer, they mostly hold traditional jobs (my neighbor Mary is a nurse, my other neighbor is a security guard etc.). In my building, I'm young, they're mostly 40+. I'm agnostic, they're more likely to be religious.

I've long been fascinated by issues of gentrification--intellectually--but also trying to understand my own roles and responsibilities when it comes to gentrification--practically speaking. People throw the word around, pay it lipservice from time to time, but rarely do we really untangle all the issues. I think it's especially egregious among progressives, like myself, who want think that we're not the "bad gentrifiers" because we care about the original culture of the neighborhood and try not to be too snotty about wanting a coffee shop with wireless or whatever. But you know what? Chances are, that if you pay rent or a mortgage in a neighborhood that has historically been inhabited by folks who look and live a lot differently than you do, especially if that rent or mortgage seems like a steal to you and raises the bar for everyone else, you're a gentrifier. Face facts and then figure out how to deal with it. (I'm still in this process, of course.)

I recently read this amazing article about one aspect of this issue--the social interactions. From the Brooklyn Rail:

I'm an urban planner. As part of my job with MIT's Community Innovators Lab, I spent four months interviewing residents of Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant and Clinton Hill neighborhoods with the goal of understanding what gentrification means for the longstanding community, at a time when that community is being threatened by swanky glass-faced co-op buildings and hordes of new residents fleeing high Manhattan rents.

I re-listened to hours of audio recordings and found what I knew was already there: tape after tape of Bed-Stuy stalwarts lamenting that the new people moving into their neighborhood, specifically the new Caucasian people, were un-friendly. My interviews revealed that the arriving gentry didn't say hello on the sidewalk, didn't hold doors open, and didn't try to meet their neighbors.

She goes on to detail some of the interviews, and then analyzes gentrification in a historic context:

Gentrification is a re-shuffling. It's part of a relentless American history of moving populations en masse from one location to another when their presence becomes inconvenient. This country moved Native Americans out, and brought slaves in. In more recent history, it drew middle class people to the suburbs, and redlined African Americans into urban ghettos. It tore down and displaced whole neighborhoods with Urban Renewal in the 1950s and 60s. Hope VI, the most recent iteration in American housing policy, was meant to build mixed-income communities, but in practice displaced thousands of low-income people from functional homes and neighborhoods. Gentrification, in many ways, feels like a new name for an old game. At least we now have a multi-racial gentry class.

And one of the positive perspectives on such an often ugly and difficult phenomenon:

In my twenty interviews, one wish came through stronger than friendliness. People want diverse neighborhoods, including different races, ages, and sexual orientations, with an array of careers, representing different socioeconomic classes. Brooklyn native Tyrone Harris said, "The diversity in the neighborhood is so good, that we can learn about the whole world in just one neighborhood, because we have Chinese, African American, Latino, and White. We have everything here. Puerto Rican, Spanish--you name it, we got it. But the thing is, are we using our assets? Or are we just sitting back saying, 'We don't like this or we don't like that.' See, it's easy to complain, but the question is: What do you want to do?"

A really important question. Anybody have ideas of how those of us in gentrifying neighborhoods--both folks who have lived "here" forever and those who are just moving in--can collectively benefit from our assets?

I've developed good relationships with my neighbors; Mary visits me with her amazing birds and is generous enough to take my packages. I thank her with candles and free books. She never minds when Nik plays Rockband late at night. And this, I think, actually matters a lot...as small as it all may sound.

But beyond that, I'm hungry to interact with those in my community in a way that feeds us all.

Thanks to Ramin for the heads up.

Sorry, not OK to rename the swine flu to the "Mexican" flu. Channing Kennedy writes at the Racewire blog,

Let me be among the first to say that the move by some to rename 'swine flu' to 'Mexican flu' is offensive on its face and in its roots. It does everything to fuel unfounded fears, and it politicizes a serious health crisis in a thinly veiled effort to stoke hatred toward an already-vulnerable group. Worst of all, it doesn't even blame the right people!

And better yet, renames it to Spring Breaker flu. Go read the rest. High-larious.

This is the second incident this month of a young man of color that killed himself because of anti-gay bullying. The first was an 11-year-old Massachusetts boy, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover. The second is eleven year old Jaheem Herrera hung himself last week and speculation suggests it was due to homophobic bullying.

Jaheem was bullied relentlessly, his family said. Keene said the family knew the boy was a target, but until his death they didn't understand the scope.

"We'd ask him, 'Jaheem, what's wrong with you?'" Keene recalled. "He'd never tell us."

He didn't want his sister to tell, either. She witnessed much of the bullying, and many times rose to her brother's defense, Keene said.

"They called him gay and a snitch," his stepfather said. "All the time they'd call him this."

In an interview with WSB-TV, Bermudez also said her son was being bullied at school. She said she had complained to the school.

She said she asked him about the bullying Thursday when he came home from school and he denied it. She sent him to his room to calm down. It was the last time she would see him alive.

At what point do we start paying attention to kids that are being called "gay" as an epithet? It is never OK and no matter how much it is happening, it seems that our cultural fixation with masculinity and homophobia subsides. My heart goes out to his family, this is truly devastating.

Also check out GLSEN's 4-steps you can take to stop anti-LGBT bullying in your school.

(h/t BiancaLaureana via Twitter.)

Just go read this whole post that Cara wrote and was reposted on Racialicious about Lil' Wayne discussing on Jimmy Kimmel how he "lost his virginity" or rather was raped, when he was 11 years old.

*trigger warning*

This leaves me speechless, but to be honest I have hated Jimmy Kimmel since the Man Show, but Cara gives more analysis then my stumped ass can do at this point.

Last year I attended Burning Man and wrote a piece about my experiences with what I considered the culture of unapologetic appropriation at Burning Man in the name of freedom and art. This post started a huge flame-war, both here at Feministing, along with Burning Man message boards across the country. I knew I had hit a nerve but this latest incident between the Burning Man community and the indigenous community in the Bay Area sheds more light on the point I was trying to get at.

via East Bay Express.

There was supposed to be a "private" Burner party last Saturday night at the Bordello in Oakland, complete with three hundred guests, twenty DJs spinning thumping techno and bass, dancers, a fashion show, micro-massages, raw food, an absinthe bar, and coconuts. Instead, the event ended in tears.

More than fifty Bay Area Native American rights activists converged on the historic East Oakland property at 9:30 p.m. to ensure the shutdown of popular Burning Man group Visionary Village's "Go Native!" party. The fired-up Hopis, Kiowas and other tribal members spent more than four hours lecturing the handful of white, college-class Burners about cultural sensitivity until some of them simply broke down crying. The emotional crescendo capped a month-long saga that started with a tone-deaf dance party flyer, led to an Internet flame war and a public excoriation of Visionary Village's young, neo-hippy leaders before real tribal elders in the East Bay demanded a cancellation of the event.

"Go Native?" Wow, just wow.

Thanks to Legba for the heads up!

There are so many incredible people doing activism these days about climate change. I'm especially excited about those acting at the intersections of racism, classism, health issues, and the environment, like Van Jones and Majora Carter. Check out this great video profile of Kari Fulton, Brower youth Award Winner and general badass.

Knowing that Kari and so many others like her exist make me feel safer and happier. I can almost imagine this huge generation of new, savvy environmental activists coming up under folks like Majora and Van. Wahoooo!

And don't miss out on other great video profiles over at the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative.

Last Tuesday's post on the man in Oakland that killed 4 police officers yielded heated responses and I wanted to follow up after everyone (especially me) had some time to mull things over. I want to draw from some of the themes that came up and to update the news that broke last Tuesday night that Lovelle Mixon was also linked to the rape of a 12 year old girl. This act, along with the murders of John Hege, Mark Dunakin, Ervin Romans and Daniel Sakai, are reprehensible acts. I am stating this upfront so that it is not lost that this is a tragedy and there is no excuse for this kind of tragedy.

There seemed to be some concern that the way I approached my discussion of this topic made me sound like an apologist. Perhaps a matter of semantics but despite some folks understanding it was not my intention, there still seemed to be a need to accuse me of it. To clarify, there is a big difference between understanding what creates a condition/thought/action and then justifying that said action.

Thea Lim at Racialicious gave a very thorough breakdown of the fall-out around my post last week and the idea of trying to hold two thoughts at once. She writes,

Now, Mixon actually was guilty. But Mixon's guilt doesn't neutralise the rottenness of the system. In other words, just because Mixon was actually a dangerous felon doesn't mean that we are absolved from the duty to question how justice and innocence is defined and meted out in our culture.

It is not only possible for us to hold these two facts at once, but it is imperative in understanding the consequences of Mixon's actions for the greater community in Oakland and also for understanding how the youth in Oakland are dealing with this atrocity. Perhaps the huge backlash against my piece was due to a desire to use Mixon as an excuse to voice their own racism, whether conscious or subconscious. As lefties it is our job to point out these subtle nuances, as the implications are deadly.

With regard to the poster I chose to repost here, after posting the artist's statement and some conversation via comments and emails, I would just like to clarify why I thought it was powerful. I should have known that putting it up would make me look like I was complicit in making Mixon a poster-child, but the poster says, "Cop-Killer" not "American Hero" so I thought that the fact that I didn't think he was a hero was pretty self-explanatory. What I saw in that poster was several questions come up about what we need to be American. We need our villains, we need our heroes or the story is never complete. In short, people of color become the poster children for whatever we want them to be, Obama is on one side of the American dream, Mixon on the other. Also, while I don't totally agree with all of Weston's take, the one part I do agree with is that Mixon is a product of a culture of violence in America and we can either address that or we can write this off as a one off crazy man.

It is understandable why many different people are bound to the 'one off' point of view. It makes us feel comfortable to think that someone like Mixon is a 'one off' case because it takes responsibility off of us to look at, and, ultimately, change the systemic causes of violence. On the other hand, the belief that he is not a 'one off' incident will most definitely be used to justify further violence in the black community in Oakland and that is what we are afraid of. It is almost effective and more logical for those that live in the community to write this off as an aberration (which statistically it is) as opposed to part of a systemic problem.

But this story is not just about Mixon and his inability to get out of cycles of violence. This is about all the themes and ideas that have come out around Mixon and what that tells us about public perceptions of police brutality, black masculinity and why Oakland youth might be so juiced about this issue. As Puck clarified at the end of the comments section,

Regardless of whether or not she believes cop killing is a message of hope (and it's pretty clear that she doesn't), it's important to recognize that an image like the "poster" was created in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. It's important to recognize that there are a lot of people who see this as a tit-for-tat situation... and there are a lot of people who are conflicted - at once feeling sorry for the people who were killed (and their families) and simultaneously feeling like the system had it coming. Recognizing that these are perspectives that are very real and shared by a lot of people is not the same thing as holding such a perspective. Ignoring that such perspectives are worth considering or even exist stifles our capacity to understand all the angles on a tragedy such as this.

Mixon is a difficult person to build a narrative of police brutality around, but this story isn't about him. He is dead, he can do no more harm. But the police state can, and most likely will, use this case as an excuse to continually police and brutalize people of color in Oakland. Mixon was a very extreme example of violence, but he is still part of an entire system of violence. The more we have a repressive police system that engages in extreme forms of violence, the more people will support the actions of a cop-killer. Some have suggested that if perhaps Oakland police and stood up against what happened to Oscar Grant, Oakland youth would be singing a different tune right now.

To clarify, I did not create this picture but was created to accompany this piece. When the creators put up a statement I will add it.

Update: The artist's statement here.

Last week, Lovelle Mixon allegedly shot 5 cops, killing 4 of them. This fact is tragic. It is not only tragic because 4 public servants who have families were killed, but also because the retaliation in the black community in Oakland by police will be severe. If you know what I know, angry cops are capable of anything.

I suppose you are thinking what many Americans are thinking. How could he do this? He deserves to die. Armed dangerous gunmen deserve to die. Why are black youth so violent? But I want to push your thinking on this situation.

As Kevin Weston points out in a really controversial piece at New American Media,

If there were a scoreboard that displayed the number of police killed by black people versus the number of black people killed by police - it would look like the scoreboard of the Lakers playing a junior high school team. So when an aberration like Mixon appears - a once in a generation kind of event -- the implications are cosmic.

When police officers are found to have murdered young black men, they are almost always let off the hook, they do not face life in prison and they are not then hunted and killed. This is not to suggest that the murder of cops is justified, but to ask that we look at it within the context of police brutality and the damage it has wreaked on the black community.

The power that resides in the laps of armed police officers is terrifying. Imagine living in these conditions, in the kind of world where you can be gunned down just for being young, black, male and walking down the street. This story is almost impossible to understand given dominant narratives around race, class, gender and black masculinity. It is considered OK to kill young black men, often violently. We may be outraged, but not nearly as outraged as when cops are killed.

I do not deny that Mixon was armed, dangerous, a career criminal and potentially linked to the rape of a young woman. Lovelle Mixon's actions are deplorable. But if we look at them within the context of police brutality, they sadly start make sense. Lovelle Mixon was trying to get out of going back to jail and this compounded with not finding work led him to desperate actions. Earl Ofari Hutchinson reports,

A general consensus is that it was a deadly mix of panic, rage, and frustration that caused Lovelle Mixon to snap. His shocking murderous rampage left four Oakland police officers dead and a city and police agencies searching its soul about what went so terribly wrong. Though Mixon's killing spree is a horrible aberration, his plight as anunemployed ex-felon isn't. There are tens of thousands like him on America's streets.

In 2007, the National Institute of Justice found that 60 percent of ex-felon offenders remain unemployed a year after their release. Other studies have shown that upwards of 30 percent of felon releases live in homeless shelters because of their inability to find housing. And those are the lucky ones. Many camp out on the streets.

A significant number of them suffer from drug, alcohol and mental health challenges, and lack education or any marketable skills. More than 70 percent of all U.S. prisoners are literate at only the two lowest grade levels. Nearly 60 percent of violent felons are repeat offenders. They are a menace to themselves and, as the nation saw with Mixon, to others. In some cases, they can be set off by any real or perceived slight, insult, or simply lash out from bitter rage. Mixon was one and he made four Oakland police officers victims and left a terrible trail of grieving and distraught families and a shell-shocked city and police department.

I don't support young people in Oakland suggesting that this is somehow fair revenge for Oscar Grant, but I think it is apparent that Oakland is fed up with watching our young men die at the hands of our public servants. While the conversation in mainstream media is really focused on Lovelle Mixon's history of crime, violence and imprisonment, let's try and change the dialog and have a honest conversation about police brutality, the production, harassment, imprisonment and murder of "angry black men" everywhere, and ways we can work collectively to bring peaceful solutions to our communities. And I ask the youth of Oakland to hang back, look at the bigger picture and think honestly about what will help your community the most in this volatile situation.

Melissa Harris-Lacewell, Princeton professor and fearless commentator, has a great post up over at The Kitchen Table about the media's obsession with Michelle Obama's new commitment to gardening at The White House. An excerpt:

In planting her garden Michelle Obama is drawing on traditions of American localism, a growing spirit of American environmentalism, and even a deep, black, Southern tradition of family farming. In this age of global commerce and interdependence, her vegetable garden is a symbol of self-reliance. As the economy declines, she is ensuring that something will grow. Planting food is always a symbol of hope because it requires faith in the unseen; the belief that something sustaining can emerge from a small seed. The new vegetable garden is a perfect political symbol for our country in this moment.

Gardens also have particular meaning for African American women. Alice Walker wrote of being in search of our mother's gardens. Walker explains that gardens were creative outlets for black women whose labor and family obligations often frustrated their artistic genius and left them little opportunity for self expression. Michelle Obama's garden manifests and makes concrete these black feminist tradition in such an inclusive and fully American way. It is as though she will symbolically nourish a nation from the deep tradition of black women artists while retaining her agency and personal power.

Check out the rest here.

From the Washington Post:

Many are firsts -- as in the first black woman to run the Domestic Policy Council, the first black EPA chief and the first black woman to be deputy chief of staff. Last week, Obama tapped Margaret (Peggy) Hamburg to lead the Food and Drug Administration. If confirmed, Hamburg -- who is biracial (her mother is African American, her father Jewish) -- will also be a first.

Seven of about three dozen senior positions on President Obama's team are filled by African American women. Veterans in town see them as part of the steady evolution of power for black women, not only in the White House but also across the country -- in the business world, in academia, in policy circles.

Read the rest here.

Thanks to Jessica for the link