The recent Supreme Court decision in favor of white New Haven fire fighters continues to percolate in the blogosphere:
- A. Serwer (subbing for Ta-Nehisi Coates) at The Atlantic has a thorough analysis of color-blindness, racism and disparate impact.
- Larry Roberts at Scoop4 takes on the charge of ‘reverse racism’ and points out that this rhetoric is deployed by those who misunderstand the nation’s history.
As does the Senate’s apology for slavery:
- Senator Brownback got credit for Senate apology, this blog details what happened in the backstage, where Brownback worked against reparations and added the anti-reparations disclaimer to the “apology” Was it an apology, really?
The Pew Research Foundation continues to be a valuable resource for survey data:
- A survey (2006) reveals the generally positive views Black Americans have on immigrants, even though many people write as though they should be angry, as they lose jobs to them. These findings highlight the humanity and human rights framing in the black community, generally.
- A more recent PEW survey shows public thinks women are more empathetic than men. Relevant to debates on Sotomayor, who comes up soon for grilling: “A Pew Research Center survey taken last year found that 80% of Americans believe that women, generally speaking, are more compassionate than men, while just 5% say men are the more compassionate sex. Empathy and compassion aren’t synonymous, but they’re close cousins. The dictionary defines the former as ‘an ability to share in another’s feelings’ and the latter as “sorrow for the troubles of another, accompanied by an urge to help.”
Michael Jackson’s Death + BET + white flight in social media:
- R. L’Heureux Lewis, a CUNY colleague and fellow blogger, has a heartfelt memorial post to Jackson and his legacy of social justice at his blog Uptown Notes.
- In honor of Jackson’s passing, the BET Awards morphed into a quasi-memorial to the King of Pop, and set Twitter off with trending topics that trended black. That led to a lot of white people leaving Twitter in a racist huff.
- And, speaking of BET, Elon James White has a funny /not funny take on the network here, in “BET Doesn’t Care about Black People.”
- Danah Boyd points to a similar ‘white flight’ in the use social networking sites; according to her talk this week at the Personal Democracy Forum, she reports that U.S. teens now regard MySpace as “ghetto” and Facebook as “more upscale,” code language for race and class.
The World Beyond the U.S.:
- The U.S. is not the only white-dominated country with a racism problem. We get little news on Australia, but here is a major survey suggesting white Australians may be more aware than white Americans? “Some 85 percent of Australians believe the country has a problem with racism, new research has shown following renewed ethnic tensions in recent weeks. The study, led by University of Sydney social science professor Kevin Dunn, found one-in-five had experienced racial abuse while one-in-10 had been excluded from activities on the basis of race.”
Transracial Parenting:
- The Anti-Racist Parent has good discussions for white parents of children of color. Clearly, not every white parent is reading here.
- Frank Lombard, white man employed by Duke University, has been sentenced to two years for offering his adopted African American five-year-old son over the internet to be raped. This story is beyond horrific, and there are more details at Resist Racism, if you’ve got the stomach for it.
Fighting Racism, Hate:
- Rinku Sen offers her analysis of “How Racism Works” at TPM Cafe.
- Crusader has an in-depth analysis of “How We Can Conquer Hate” at his blog.
Happy Friday!