Archive for links
Race and the Death Penalty, IV: Resources
Posted by: | CommentsIn this last post of our four-part blog series on race and the death penalty, we* would like to provide you with some additional links. As our series this week illustrated, the death penalty today looks very much the same as in the past. If you would like to learn more about race and the death penalty, please visit:
- The Innocence Project
- Death Penalty Information Center
- The Sentencing Project
- American Civil Liberties Union: Race and the Death Penalt
- Amnesty International Death Penalty and Race
While the death penalty has undergone what some would call a legitimacy crisis in recent years with issues of innocence and cost becoming prominent, we argue that we should still pay attention to issues of racial bias.
~ *We are a group of four sociology students studying the death penalty in Danielle Dirks’ “Capital Punishment in America” undergraduate course at University of Texas-Austin. This is the first post of our four-part blog series on race and the death penalty. Please read and feel free to comment or ask questions. Thank you for your time!
Racism Link Roundup
Posted by: | CommentsTime for another roundup of links about racism from around the web. Here’s what we’ve been reading on the web:
Blogging Against Racism
- Last week was “International Blog Against Racism Week,” wherein people that blog about things other than racism dedicate a blog post or two to racism. We didn’t mention here because, well you know, that’s what we do here every day. Shakespeare’s Sister has a good post up for this event, noting that they blog about racism frequently.
- Angry Black Woman does an excellent job taking on the issue of intersectionality and the fact that it’s so rarely addressed.
- And, Tempest Bedford provides an illustrative example from the world of Science Fiction (SF) genre writing, about the epic failure of not taking multiple perspectives into account.
- If you haven’t followed the SF controversy, do a search for “Race Fail 2009″ to see what it’s about, or check this summary from Prometheus 6.
Police Violence
- Latino Grandfather, Pregnant Woman Tasered at Baptism - It’s hard to know what to say about this except that this is another shocking example of the kind of police violence targeting people of color that we’ve been talking about on this blog for some time now.
- Bob Herbert, New York Times columnist, has a couple of recent columns in which he highlights the problem of police conduct toward POC, writing in one that “Anger Has Its Place.”
Media
- Lou Dobbs’ gets called out by Media Matters (via HuffPo) for his racist promotion of the “birther” agenda.
- Perhaps not too surprisingly, the Daily Kos reveals that the “birther” movement (those who contend President Obama was not born in the U.S.) and white supremacists make up overlapping networks.
- Glenn Beck’s rhetoric gets increasingly racist and apocalyptic.
- While some wonder what it will take to have a smart conversation about race, others on the left speculate that the “ugly racism of the right will be their undoing.” Let’s hope so.
- Critics contend that the media failed on the “teachable moment” of the Gates’ arrest.
Global Issues
- Claire Wright has an thought-provoking law review article, “Reconciling Cultural Diversity and Free Trade in the Digital Age.”
- Horace Campbell offers an analysis of “Obama and US Policy Towards Africa.”
Anti-Racism
- Looking for ways to get involved in anti-racism? If you’re in the NYC area, there’s a workshop “Racism as Resource” facilitated by CUNY Professor and , that you should consider attending.
- Lilliana Segura ponders whether hate crime laws, a major focus of anti-racist organizing, do any good.
- Finally, in this long blog interview with Crusader, I offer some suggestions about what I think can be done to fight racism.
Race, Racism & White Supremacy: Link Roundup
Posted by: | CommentsHere are some interesting links on race, racism and white supremacy. The blogosphere seems to be heating up on some of these issues. There is no shortage of racism material to write on!
The Holocaust Museum Attack and Cyberhate
- Rinku Sen writes about The White Supremacist in All of Us at the Huffington Post. Sen criticizes the discussion of the Holocaust Museum shooting has boiled down to the idea that racism is an intentional, violent act of a lone crazy white man. She writes “Collectively, we bemoan the backwardness of ‘some’ people before we move on, thinking of racism as isolated extremism.”
- Christopher Wolf, a D.C. attorney and former head of the International Network Against Cyberhate, writes about the Hatemongers New Tool: The Internet for CBS News.
- C.N. at The Colorline has an excellent analysis of Internet Technology, White Supremacy & Internet Technology
- Leonard Lopate of WNYC interviews Leonard Zeskind about von Brunn and the history of the white supremacist movement in his Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream.
- David Niewert writes at Crooks and Liars about the infiltration of the army by neo-nazis, first reported by Salon this week. Jim Burroway at Box Turtle points out the irony of a military that is happy to include white supremacists but not openly LGBT members.
- Jesse Walker thinks the threat of right-wing terror has been blown out of proportion.
- Joshua Holland at Alternet has some probing thoughts on the Eliminationist (that is, killing) Mindset of many on the racist right.
Judge Sonia Sotomayor
- Transgriot calls out Pat Buchanan – and others of the “vanilla privileged” class - for their treatment of Sotomayor.
Education
- Over at DailyKos, Tristero 312 has a good analysis of the Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE) charges at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that argue the educational policies of school “turnarounds,” one of the “Renaissance 2010″ policies, is discriminatory, especially for black teachers.
Demography
- Over at Asian-Nation, there is an interesting analysis of some U.S. demographic data showing that among Asian-Indian, Chinese, and Korean Americans, there is a significant gender imbalance among children, boys being more common than girls, as in some Asian countries—apparently mainly for Asian immigrant couples in which both spouses are foreign-born.
Pop Culture
- Feministing offers a discussion of Melissa Harris-Lacewell’s critique of Tavis Smiley’s recent documentary “Stand,” in a provocative post called, Aretha v. Beyonce: Please Don’t Let this Be the Future of Political Discourse
- And, Newsweek did a cover story on Oprah’s controversial on-air medical advice (related to ‘cures’ for autism) and then poses the question “Is it Racist to Criticize Oprah?”
Idiocy in America
- And, though not online and not exactly on racism issues, there is the new book Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free by Charles P. Pierce. The book is uneven, full of ranting on conservatives like Limbaugh (who deserve it), but the general points are quite accurate about stupidity becoming a virtue. Here is his response to a question in an interview: “With the election of President Obama, is Idiot America coming to an end? Or, will there always be a place for idiocy in America?” [Pierce answers]: Look at the political opposition to President Obama. “Socialist!” “Fascist!” “Coming to get your guns.” Hysteria from the hucksters of Idiot America is still at high-tide. People are killing other people and specifically attributing their action to imaginary oppression stoked by radio talk-show stars and television pundits.
Black Masculinity
- Mark Anthony Neal offers his readers a review of the book, Performing Black Masculinity: Race, Culture and Queer Identity (AltaMira Press, 2006), by Bryan Keith Alexander.
