conuly, posts by tag: race - LiveJournal (original) (raw)
conuly, posts by tag: race - LiveJournal Believing in six impossible things before breakfast

11:14 pm June 13th, 2012

08:51 am May 13th, 2012

09:33 pm October 6th, 2010
conuly Flag Sometimes I despair. A few weeks ago I read this book The Candy Shop War.It's a fun, exciting book, and I don't recommend it because of how the author deals with race (which is to say, pretty badly.)And I wrote a review about it! On Goodreads and LibraryThing I'm not alone, and on Amazon I largely am, but that's to be expected.Anyway, I got into a conversation about it on somebody else's review.**( Read more...Collapse )**WTF? Did I not just say how I'd rather he describe all his characters, of all races? I'm sure I did. Am I wrong? Is this miscommunication on my part, or willful misunderstanding on theirs? Because I just don't see what went wrong.Tags: books, race, rantlingsI'm feeling: annoyed annoyed

12:16 am July 28th, 2010

11:19 pm July 5th, 2010
conuly Flag A few random articles One on race and the economyOne on the IB program - which, though it isn't explained in the article, stretches down to preschool( Read more...Collapse )One on iPhone apps for debating the existence of God. One of them says with a straight face that Christians should claim to atheists in random, spontaneous debates, that the Bible has no inconsistencies or contradictions whatsoever! This is supposed to prove some sort of point, I don't know what, but I'm hung up on the blatant lie there. You can ignore it or find a way around it or justify it or whatever you like, it's your own holy book, but don't tell me lies that I can easily check for myself. That's just insulting! (Unless these people have never read the Bible and therefore have no idea...?)( Read more...Collapse ) Tags: articles, economy, education, race, religionI'm feeling: calm calm

02:35 pm July 3rd, 2010
conuly Flag I'm not an Airbender fan. Never watched the show or anything, so I wasn't going to see the movie in the first place.However, I know many of you are upset over the serious fail-y issues of the movie, so you may be interested to know (if you didn't already) that the movie apparently sucks.This is good news and bad news.It's good news, of course, because if you're boycotting the movie it's a relief to know that you're not missing anything.It's bad news for the same reason. If you're boycotting something, you kinda lose some of that feeling of moral strength when you're boycotting something that's not worth your time anyway. It's just disappointing, am I right? It's like making a moral stand by boycotting durian fruit. It's like ME boycotting this movie I had no interest in from the start!But, yes. Apparently the movie? It sucks.Tags: links, media, race, videosI'm feeling: cheerful cheerful

11:37 am May 19th, 2010
conuly Flag Two quick articles This is one on how US schools are more segregated today than in the 1950s. This is no surprise, I think I've seen articles on this before.And here's one on three citywide gifted programs in Manhattan, two of which are predominantly white, and one of which is largely black.Now, to explain, the "citywide" gifted programs aren't zoned in any way. Other gifted programs are limited to children in a certain borough or district, or you have to get a variance to go there. (Going to a school out of district has some arcane rules I don't understand, and in all honesty schools don't always follow those rules. They didn't when I was a kid, and I doubt they really do now.)As far as other schools sharing the building, in the past NYC public schools were huge affairs. Now the push is for smaller schools, but there isn't really any place to PUT these smaller schools, so many of these older school buildings have been divided up so that there's several smaller schools within them, each with their own principal and teachers... and uniforms, and teaching styles and so on. My understanding is that some of these schools, the different schools work together to share their building, thus enabling them to save money on certain resources, such as books or instruments. It's not impossible for two schools to share one music teacher or something like that, or to offer a shared afterschool program. And in others, they don't, for various reasons.This should help clear up some of the background information there.( Read more...Collapse ) Tags: articles, education, race, united statesI'm feeling: busy busy

11:13 am February 28th, 2010
conuly Flag A few articles (with possible commentary!) First, this one isn't really related to the others, but I'll link to it now anyway. Apparently the president gave a speech where he mispronounced one word out of many, he said "aks" or possibly "aksk" instead of "ask". Normally I'd give the "aks is a historically valid pronunciation of ask" lecture, but no worries, Rush Limbaugh gave it for me, saying:“Obama can turn on that black dialect when he wants to and turn it off.” This is because Limbaugh is one classy dude.Now, the link above (and Language Log's second post on the subject here) take the view that this is the sort of speech error that people make all the time and that nothing more should be said on it.I didn't see the original speech, so I'll just go with their interpretation but also add: Even if he was saying "aks" as his normal mode of speech (in the same way that Bush said "nucular" all the time), who cares? There's nothing wrong with it and we all understand it. And if he sometimes speaks in one dialect and sometimes in another, this is a bad thing? Since when? Having more than one way to speak can only help you in this world, how could it harm you in any way?Of course, I'm missing the point, which was no doubt just a chance to go "Look, he's STILL BLACK, and I don't like that but if I say that outright people will think I'm an ass, because I am, so I'll pretend there's some reason for not liking him."~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Now, we've got two... well, interesting links.So first we have Representative Trent Franks, who seems to think... well, let me let him speak_And yet today, half of all black children are aborted. Half of all black children are aborted. Far more of the African-American community is being devastated by the policies of today than were being devastated by policies of slavery._Yes, he actually went there. And he's not just an isolated loon, no, let's look at this article from the Times:**( Read more...Collapse )**It's easy to try to brush off the promoted conspiracy theory as just that - a conspiracy theory. And you're probably right except that there were unethical and discriminatory practices not that long ago which did harm to black people (and poor people in general) and forced sterilizations did happen. This is no secret. So while I don't think there's any big conspiracy now, I can see why people can believe there might be.Except, as always, the anti-abortion groups are taking this from the wrong angle. Look, I'm as happy as anybody to see a sweet little baby whose parents are glad to have him. But people don't have abortions just for fun, or just because they've been misled into thinking they can't take care of a child (when really they can). They have abortions because, hey, they can't take care of a kid. If they think they can't, they're probably right. If there's a conspiracy here, it's not with the abortion providers. It's with the people who, time after time, enact laws which help the rich at the cost of the poor. It's with the people who set up and support the conditions which make it so that any one person will feel she cannot have a baby now, and needs an abortion (and chances are she's correct) and then go around insulting women for making this choice. People know this! They know this, but they fall for their lines anyway.I don't see abortion as a moral issue at all. But if I did, and wanted to stop it, I'd go to the source. These same people who don't want you to have an abortion, you know they don't like you anyway. They're not going to help you when you need help, they won't help you keep your family together.Incidentally, a special note about that OTHER guy, the one who made that comment about disabled babies being a punishment for abortion.......Actually, I have nothing to say to him. But I'm tempted now to start a poll asking which comment was really more offensive.Tags: abortion, articles, disability, feminism, language, race, racismI'm feeling: predatory predatory

07:14 pm January 17th, 2010

04:08 pm January 10th, 2010
conuly Flag So, I saw Avatar yesterday. Now, prior to seeing this movie, I'd read a bit about it, and truthfully, what I read wasn't all that complimentary. Even the language (or, at least, the process of making it) didn't really escape this scrutiny. (And on the subject of language, I'm impressed that they went through all the effort of conlanging up a whole language and making the actors learn it, but meanwhile, why did the Na'vi consistently pronounced "Sully" as "Sooly"? That's a mispronunciation I'd expect from somebody who had seen the word written, but not somebody whose first (and possibly only) association with the word was hearing it spoken. Those two phonemes aren't that similar, are they? I'd expect them to replace the unfamiliar phoneme with one that is more similar, not less.)Well, apparently the guy I went to see it with had not read all I'd read beforehand, and neither was he clued into the fact that "long braid down the back +/- sparse beads and/or asymmetrical feathers = INJUNS! Native Americans! So I was there the second he figured it out. "Wait - they're supposed to be Indians! That's not... that's not right!"(If those braids had been a little more cornrow-y, they would clearly have been Africans, and if we'd heard a little more of that random didgeridoo that was in one of the background music bits I could've called them Australians... but (gratuitous, non-alien Western musical scales aside) I can't blame them for that one, the didgeridoo is a pretty awesome instrument.)So, now, what did I think of the movie? Well, I took a day or so to think about it. And then I thought, before I posted, I'd head over to TVTropes and see what they have to say. (And that sucked up my entire day, yes, yes, when will I learn?) And boy, do they have a lot to say on the subject! Holy FUCK!So I'm gonna take some parts and talk about them, but I'm not tackling the whole thing. That *is* what TVTropes is there for.**( Read more...Collapse )**So, basically? It's a so-so movie with great imagery. It has some troublesome aspects (seriously), but they're mostly troublesome in the context of... well, everything else that shares those aspects. This wouldn't be so bad if the story itself weren't largely formulaic. But it is.So I saw it once, liked it well enough once I turned my brain off, and don't intend to see it again any time soon. If you aren't spending your life on TVTropes you might like it more.Tags: disability, movies, race, thoughtsI'm feeling: content content

07:13 pm December 25th, 2009
conuly Flag My father was very active in the Civil Rights Movement. There's a funny story my mother tells where my dad never got a ticket as a cabdriver in New Orleans because all the politicians and whatever had been elected on a civil rights platform, and when they saw his arrest record they let everything drop. My mother eventually figured this out for him.So, you know, if I look at a book (as I often do when reviewing them online) and say "Great book, but out of a cast of 1000 odd characters there's only white folks", it's not because of my nieces that I pay attention (although I certainly keep them in mind when choosing books for them, because the last thing I want is for most of their books to only feature kids who look nothing like them), but because I was taught at a young age to pay some sort of attention to these things. I doubt I'm such a better person for it, although I try, but I can at least say I make the effort to notice, if nothing else, if there's a general lack of representation going on.For Christmas, the nieces got new scooters. Evangeline's was from Radio Flyer and I, bored, picked up the catalog to flip through it today.Wouldn't you know it - 61 children, and out of them all but three are white. And, as my mother said when she finished counting after I pointed this out to her, the three black kids (there are no Hispanics or Asians or god forbid Arabs in Toyland, remember!) aren't very dark-skinned either.If ~20% of the US population is black, you would expect to see... um... 12 black kids. 3 is not 12. 3 is much less than 12. In the past, I've heard people commenting sardonically on how "activists" insist on "full proportional representation" in books and whatnot. Well, this is why. If you don't keep kicking and screaming and carrying on about having the pictures match reality, what happens is you don't even get those three kids in the little pamphlet. It'd be all white kids all over. And it seems like a stupid thing to complain over, but it's such a little thing! How hard is it to get this stuff right?Tags: race, rantlingsI'm feeling: aggravated aggravated

10:24 pm December 11th, 2009
conuly Flag I got a set of copied-from-the-board letters from a class from DonorsChoose today. Really, I shouldn't've, because they're supposed to do that for people who donate over 100,andIdonated100, and I donated 100,andIdonated2, but I'm not complaining. It's a first grade class, so of course Jenn and I pored over it to compare and contrast with Ana's handwriting and tell ourselves how INCREDIBLY good at writing Ana is :) (BTW, I copied out Ana's introductory letter for her penpals and typed it up if anybody else is having a last minute desire to have their kids write back and forth.)I took notice of one of the names signed on the letters - Brenda.Now, I know that when it comes to names everything old is new again. People like nostalgic names right now, they're very popular. This is no doubt why Ana's grade at school contains a Lucy, a Bonnie, and an Edwina. This is probably why Evangeline's class has a Billy and a Bobby. It's certainly why Ana and Ava are such popular names with children their age.But Brenda? Brenda isn't an "Old fashioned from 100 years ago name" - it's an "Old fashioned from the 50s name". That's even more old-fashioned from one suitably distant enough to be trendy. It took me completely by surprise.Anyway, thinking about all this led me to find out that not only does NYC post its own baby name statistics independent of the rest of the state, they divide it up by ethnic group. (PDF!) What's very interesting about that is not how they divide it up, but how they group people together. In a very diverse city, it's not surprising that we have a variety of infant names. We have the standards that are popular everywhere right now, and some that you KNOW are only popular in some groups. So when you look at a list of, say, Asian Females... the truth is that I don't need statistics to tell me that the guy who names his kid Fatima (or, in the male list, Ibrahim) is not the same person as the one who names his kid Yu or Xin. And in the "White, Non-Hispanic lists", it doesn't take much to guess that the people naming their kids Schlomo and Rifka, Mordechai and Gittel aren't the same people naming their children Christian, Christopher, or Christina... nor yet Antonio and Maria. So, you know, these lists aren't that useful unless you know how to read them. Of course, "useful" assumes they have a use at all, which they probably don't unless you're writing a book or are seeking to discriminate against somebody's resume and aren't even bright enough to do that without assistance.They're interesting, though.Tags: names, race, random, untaggedI'm feeling: bored bored

01:56 pm December 8th, 2009

04:07 pm December 2nd, 2009
conuly Flag It's harder for black people to get jobs (even with comparable college) than white people It's the shocker of the century, I tell you.**( Read more...Collapse )**Of course, the comments are atrocious. A lot of people there blame affirmative action, citing studies (that they can't name) proving that black people get into college 100, 300, 500, or 800 points lower on the SAT than their white peers. At some number that might be true, I don't know what number that is. Of course, getting into Harvard at 300 points lower than everybody else is still a major accomplishment... especially when, on the other side, "everybody else" includes people who got in because Daddy went to school there and bought them a new building last year.In the end, though, it doesn't amount to much. "Oh, their diplomas aren't worth as much because they got in at a lower SAT score!!!!" So? Look, it doesn't really matter if you got in because of the color of your skin or the color of your money - or heck, the color of your goddamn panties! What matters is staying in. Unless I'm mistaken, grading isn't typically done with affirmative action in mind (although bribes of cash or sex might be part of the equation, I guess), is it? If anything, I'd assume that the proportion of graders who think "oh, affirmative action!" and grade accordingly is about equal to the proportion of bosses and HR folks who think that and hire accordingly.And then there are the comments that combine that line about affirmative action with "Well, the black people I've met don't dress right and don't know how to talk and I don't like them". Who the hell are they hiring? I've yet to meet the person (of any race!) who didn't understand that you talk and dress and act one way with your family and friends and another way at the office and at church. (Worst is the person who phrased that exact argument as "Unlike ME, black people insist on clinging to their ethnic identity in clothes and hair and speech". Somehow that contrives to sound even more offensive than "They dress like slobs and can't string one word in front of the other and are all going in to work drugged up and playing loud music at their desks all day".)Edit: Telling quote from a comment by cumaeansibyl:Fun fact: while I was at K, a fellow student discovered that the average high-school GPA of male students was lower than that of female students, low enough to be statistically significant. At another school this might be explained by athletics, but K is a Division III school, which means nobody gives a shit. Rather, as one of my profs pointed out, the majority of applicants to most co-ed colleges are female, and school administrations are loath to admit too many women for fear of being labeled a "girls' school" -- this is especially a problem at small, private liberal-arts schools like mine. Generally they aim for a max 60/40 split female/male split, but even that means rejecting more qualified female applicants in favor of their male counterparts. And guess what? We had hardly any black students when I went there, so it definitely wasn't about race. It was discrimination in favor of white men.Now, like I said, if they could hack it, good for them. But I'd like to see some of those commenters argue that those nice white boys' diplomas are worth less because they got let in for being white boys, because that's where their logic takes them.Tags: articles, economy, race, racismI'm feeling: annoyed annoyed

09:52 pm October 29th, 2009
conuly Flag A while back I posted about a few rewrites to Little Black Sambo. The entry is here.At the time, I mentioned Pancakes for Supper, which I hadn't yet read. As I recall, I noted that the protagonist in *this* version is a blonde-haired white girl, and... to tell you the truth, I'm quite uncomfortable with the concept of erasing racism by erasing race (and yes, erasing race *does* mean everybody looks like me but with still more blond, how could you tell?)I actually got a chance to read the book today at the bookstore, though, so I did - eagerly! (It's on sale at B&N, just $6 for hardcover.)And I have something more to be annoyed at. The review at Amazon points out clearly that it's a rewrite of Little Black Sambo. The other rewrites I've seen make this point clear in forewords, explaining that the authors liked the story but that they felt it wasn't going to be shared in its older format, so they rewrote this and that aspect of it.This book? Doesn't actually say anywhere on it that it's a rewrite, not that I saw. No foreword. No afterword. Nothing on the bookflap, or on the front or back cover. And it's not *much* of a rewrite either. The setting (and race!) change, but the story hews pretty closely to the original. Look, I get the fact that a little black Indian non-white boy was changed into a white girl. I'm not happy about it, but apparently we're living in this brave new color-blind postracial world that coincidentally puts white kids into protagonist roles where black kids used to be and we're not supposed to notice that because it's racist to see race. Fine, whatever, I'm sure the author and illustrator had no malicious intent.But copying another person's work - even work in the public domain! - without explicitly crediting them? NOT COOL. At all. I mean, sheesh, people sometimes add dissertations to their reimaged versions of Cinderella, and these guys can't manage to put a little line "Based upon the book..." under the title?Unless you can stick it to the man by buying it used, I wouldn't get a copy. For my rewritten needs, I stick with Sam and the Tigers. It's funny; it doesn't have creepy race issues in the old, racist way or the new, postracial way; and both the author and illustrator thought it was appropriate to, gosh, credit the source.Tags: books, race, rantlingsI'm feeling: aggravated aggravated

11:11 pm September 8th, 2009

10:47 am July 27th, 2009
conuly Flag Some articles and a randomly chosen icon Backers of Gay Marriage Rethink California Push ( Read more...Collapse )As Charter Schools Unionize, Many Debate Effect ( Read more...Collapse )Files Vanished, Young Chinese Lose the Future ( Read more...Collapse )Kyrgyzstan: At the Crossroad of Empires, a Mouse Struts ( Read more...Collapse )Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man ( Read more...Collapse )Meet the New Elite, Not Like the Old ( Read more...Collapse ) Tags: articles, china, education, gay rights, politics, race, scienceI'm feeling: busy busy

12:59 pm July 14th, 2009
conuly Flag Taken from multiple sources So, over at Conservative Free Republic they have a forum. Lots of places have forums.And over there, occasionally they have people making and commenting with objectionable matter. Lots of forums have that problem.And hey, there it's racist and people are attacking the President's young daughters, which is abhorrent. Okay... it happens... but hey, their policy forbids racist content! (And anything which advocates for rebellion and secession as well.) So you'd think that they'd deal with that fast before it made them look bad... right?Well... no, don't make me laugh. They waited a day, and then only removed it because a guy doing research made a complaint. And... then they put it back up, only removing it for good once liberal blogs got a hold of this.Link oneLink twoLink three.Now, everybody is commenting on the vicious comments left about the President's kids, which is as it should be. Attacking anybody's young children (and 11 is still young) with slurs and misogyny (as well as racism and some basic classism, they've hit the trifecta there) is wrong, that goes without saying.But what gets me is the comment about Obama's Mother-in-Law, that she's "free-loadin'". I've heard that before, but without the overt racist subtext, and it makes no sense to me, firstly because she is, as I'm told, there to help keep things normal for her grandkids, and second because she's seventy-one! Seventy-one! What sort of family values allow you to insult people for taking care of their parents? If she were sitting around doing nothing, isn't she entitled? Surely, after 71 years, she gets to rest and be with her family? (Well, I suppose those are the same family values that tell you it's okay to insult defenseless 11 year old girls who haven't even done anything.)Some choice comments ( cut for offensivenessCollapse ) Tags: america, articles, politics, raceI'm feeling: sick upset

03:51 pm June 28th, 2008

12:04 am January 22nd, 2006