The Mess Beneath the Words

This article critiques the way political groups find ways to discuss the brutal facts of war and combat without having to upset anyone in the process. Similarly, you might notice how we learn to use and not use certain terms in our conversations about race and culture by using words that "scrub up" the facts that are uncomfortable to face. And so we use language that permits us to exchange ideas without having to feel the facts that lie below those ideas. Think about it: We can discuss "inequality" without picturing children who truly do not know where their next meal is coming from -- those facing empty refrigerators and no heat or roofs over their heads -- or imagining others who regularly throw out large amounts of edible food and have more than enough warm space in their homes. And when we discuss "privilege," we don't have to imagine individuals with an attitude of detached entitlement to comfort and status, people who may actually be connected to that empty refrigerator. (Those privileged individuals, by the way, would clearly be anyone who is reading this blog -- if we contrast our lives to the less fortunate two-thirds of the world's population.)

Read the article:
"The Words Have Changed, But Have the Policies?"

Consider the term "enemy combatant." Many agree that this term is functional to us. This is tantamount to agreeing on a stereotype without having to consider the person who is being labeled "enemy combatant." How different is this than calling someone "ghetto" or "dot-head" or "illegal immigrant"? "Dot head" is a great term here because that mark on the forehead of a person who is Hindu (the "bindi" or "tilaka") actually has meaning that is related to a religious belief system as well as a person's station in life. This is quite different than "ghetto" -- a term that refers to an existing geographic location, an actual physical place that some people would always consider a "neighborhood" and not a "ghetto." How many of us could walk through New York City and agree on which parts of it are actually "ghettos," for example?

So "enemy combatant" doesn't reveal the meaning behind some line that we draw in the sand. How do we determine who is on one side of it and who is on another? So we must mystify and whitewash our language in order to convince ourselves that a person is inherently bad or good or violent or of one mind or another.

Now reflect on the article with the following questions in mind:

1. Which terms of the race dialogue fail to personalize life conditions and experiences that are important to understand?
2. To what degree is the current (Obama) administration constrained by the same assumptions as the former (Bush) administration?
3. How much are we being manipulated so that our collective thinking gels into a mindset that supports the status quo? And how might that benefit YOU and for all of us?

With all of this in mind, I feel obliged to relay what President Obama said yesterday to a group of Turkish students: The United States is like a giant oil tanker. I moves very slowly and cannot be easily turned. Give it time...give me time. We cannot change things over night. (I'm not putting quotes around this because I don't recall his exact words.) So perhaps he sees some things more clearly than it might at first seem. Who's to say?

So You Think You Deserve an "A," Do You?

I'm reluctant to say much about this for fear of being labeled a crusty old relic who is out of touch with the demands of the new global marketplace and the difficulties of landing a job or a position in some post graduate program. However, as we enter the final weeks of this academic year, I suppose now is as good of a time as any to push the issue, even if it doesn't have much to do with race and ethnicity.

I do want to say that it's a relief that some people are starting to seriously explore this issue of grades and entitlement. Here at Penn State I've watched the total number of "A" grades jump from 27 percent when I started teaching in 1990 to over 40 percent today. I'm reasonably certain that students have not gotten THAT much smarter, although I'm happy to stand corrected if I'm wrong.

This issue doesn't stop here at Penn State but rather appears to be a nationwide phenomenon -- and one that is most visible at more expensive private schools. And from within my own anecdotal experience, grade inflation has occurred at the same time as we see a widespread decline in reading -- which is to say, my students seem to read less and less.

Just read the article. I'm sure you'll have much to say: "Student Expectations Seen as Causing Grade Disputes"

I want to add that many schools have pursued policies of "grade deflation," in which they have tried to actually limit the overall number of A grades. Check this out from USA Today:

Since Princeton took the lead among Ivy League schools to formally adopt a grade-deflation policy three years ago — limiting A's to an average 35% across departments — students say the pressure to score the scarcer A has intensified. Students say they now eye competitive classmates warily and shy away from classes perceived as difficult.

"It used to be that you'd let someone copy your notes if they were sick," says Mickel, 21, of Monroe, La. "Now, if someone misses classes, you'd probably still let them, but you're also thinking: 'Gee, you might get the A while I don't.'"

There is no quota in individual courses, despite what students think, says Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel. Still, the policy has made an A slightly more elusive. In the first two years, A's, (A-plus, A, A-minus), accounted for 41% of undergrad grades, down from 47% the two previous years.

Though a typical Princeton overachiever might blanch at the mere mention of a B, the university is sticking by its policy, Malkiel says. Students' employment and graduate school placements actually have improved the past two years, she says.

Perhaps we'll start doing this at Penn State.

Those Damn Mexicans Are At It Again

The other day I received and email from a friend that contained a video of a story that Fox News broadcast a couple of years ago. The tag line said that I needed to watch it to understand a terrible injustice brought about by liberals, illegal immigration, and political correctness -- not necessarily in that order. It was one of those emails that I receive once or twice per week. Take a look at the video for yourself (it's only a 36 second clip):



If your first response is to tilt your head to the side and scratch the back of your skull while having a dazed and confused look on your face, then you know exactly how it affected me. The thought that went along with said reaction, however, was the same one that I had when I was a kid and someone offered me the opportunity to see a "bearded lady" at the local carnival that passed through my home town each summer -- "this simply sounds too crazy to be true."

Being the skeptic that I am, I decided to conduct an investigation to see if I could get to the bottom of it and find out what really happened. I started by reading some of the comments that were being made on YouTube. They were pretty scathing: "Round 'em up and send 'em home," said one patriot. Another brain surgeon in the making chimed in, "This is what happens when we elect a black man as president." (The politically correct violation that is referenced in the video occurred a couple of years ago, by the way, long before Obama entered our national spotlight.) Clearly, these blockheads were not searching for the real story and so I would not find it there.

So I plugged some combination of words such as "Oregon Mexican firefighter fired" and quickly found what I wanted: a statement from the State of Oregon's Department of Forestry that explained the matter in considerable detail. It took me all of about 45 seconds to read, but what it revealed was very depressing (given the number of people who watched and believed the original story).

It makes sense that so many people hate liberals and Mexicans and political correctness. With stories like this floating around on the WWW, who wouldn't be clamoring for the microphone to add to the shouting chorus of red-blooded Americans who want to preserve the United States for the "real Americans" (not to be confused with Native Americans, of course).

So how many times have you been duped by such an email or a rumor? How often do you find yourself saying, "No way. Can't possibly be true. I've got to look that up before I let it lodge into my RAM?" As opposed to, let's imagine, "This sounds fishy and so I'd better explore it before I pass it on."

This stuff cuts both ways, mind you, because misinformation enters the public discourse from both the right and the left wings of the political spectrum. (This story originally aired on Fox News, but left-wing blogs and web sites picked it up and carried it as though it was true, by the way.) My gut inclination tells me that the right is slightly better at putting out misinformation than the left, and that the right has less scruples about lying--but only by about a 51/49 margin. Perhaps that's just because more of their political operatives have written tell all books about their strategies and misdeeds. (If you haven't read any of these and you fancy yourself a conservative, then perhaps you ought to take a look.)

An addendum: One respondent who is a firefighter noted the utmost importance of communication while fighting fires and pointed out that non English speaking firefighters would be problematic on English speaking crews. I absolutely agree and would maintain that Mexicans who do not speak English should NOT be on crews with U.S. firefighters who only speak English. The point of this blog entry is to highlight anti-Mexican hysteria.

For the Sake of the Children, Please Keep the Disabled in the Closet

I just read through today's copy of the New York Times but I'm feeling none of that pessimism and negativity that I usually feel about my fellow Americans. In fact, I'm feeling a might chipper about living on this side of the Atlantic, a bit palpably relieve to be an American -- and all because I stumbled across this story about some narrow-minded Brits. My how advanced we Americans have become. How open-minded we are. How 21st century.

And I'm suddenly feeling nostalgic and fuzzy about political correctness. Thank goodness for the PC police...bless their finger wagging souls.

Okay. I should let you in on the story. You can either read about it or pull the same information from a video.

Disabled Host of Kids Show Draws Criticism



So would this happen in the United States? Can you imagine a network here receiving this many complaints? If we're different on this side of the drink, is it because we're beyond this issue or is it because we've learned NOT to discuss it, that it would be crass or improper to raise this as an issue?

I'm struck by a couple of things. First, I'm amazed that it's legal to have children before we know what to say to them when they encounter a human being with only one hand. I've thought about the merits of sterilization for people who believe it's fine for children to free base coke or chase the dragon, or even for adults who do not believe in child safety seats. But now along comes these people. Obviously these parents have learned to write (since their complaints seem to take the form of the written word), so they didn't suddenly emerge from a cave where they've been living. But to need so much rudimentary parenting advice is really beyond the pale.

Second, I'm struck by how it is that any of us would be uncomfortable around someone with only one hand. I understand that most people have two hands and that we all experience surprise at things that are unnatural or abnormal for us. But I'm thinking now about how strange it is that we so quickly establish standards of normalcy and walk through the world with those standards lighting our paths. Why do we do that?

So am I alone on this issue? Granted they only receive twenty-five complaints, but since the story broke they have received even more complaints -- I guess people who thought themselves rude if they spoke up. Keep in mind that the vast majority of Brits think the complainers are idiots, dolts, and blockheads.

Where do you think Americans would stand on this issue?

White People Will Never Win the "Race Game"

Take a look at this clip from a 60 Minutes interview that Mike Wallace conducted with Morgan Freeman. (You might want to watch it twice -- it's only 55 seconds.)



Here's what Bryson Nobles, the former program director with the Race Relations Project, had to say about it:

While I've never been all that enthusiastic about Black History Month, I've also never thought it to be something to get all bent out of shape about. I love Morgan Freeman - but I think he's wrong here. I imagine that at his age he is exhausted by being a "black actor," and with the feigned and unconvincing empathy that many white people exhibit during February. But I also think that having a month to celebrate black people is no less silly than having a day to celebrate your birthday - both are spaces of time set aside to give someone who deserves year-around acknowledgment attention for something they played a relatively small role in bringing into the world -- mostly because it is customary.

White people are not relegating our history to a month; most are simply being cordial the same way that our family and friends are cordial on our birthdays so as to avoid the consequences of not acknowledging what most people probably find unimportant (or uninspiring) to acknowledge in the first place. Some of us love birthdays, but probably most of us hate the attention and find birthdays more annoying as we get older.

So indifference is more likely to be the emotion people feel about BHM - let's not displace our disinterest or make white people play the race game that we all know they can never win.

Not talking about race doesn't improve race relations any more than ignoring a cavity helps your tooth or ignoring lust helps your marriage. Race is real and it's okay to talk about and it's only as boring and unproductive as your inability to say anything original about it.

Morgan Freeman had an opportunity to say something constructive, and if he couldn't, the default should not be a disarming attack that only makes white people more unwilling to talk about race. He should have just graciously moved on to another subject.

So what do you think about Bryson's words? How is Freeman playing into the race game? And what do you think he means by calling it a game "that white people can never win"? Hint: What happens if Mike Wallace says, "Well, yes, I think that Black History Month is silly and that we should stop celebrating it?"

Follow-up comments from Bryson Nobles:

Try to imagine the overplayed black guy who grew up in "da hood," plays basketball, wears “do rags” and “tims,” will eat a small mountain of chicken (with hot sauce, of course), wash it all down with "red" kool-aid and top it off with watermelon flavored Now 'n Laters for dessert . . . then throw in one more ridiculous stereotype for fun - that's the Bryson Nobles you've been responding to.

I wanted to thank you for taking the time to watch, read and respond to the Morgan Freeman clip. This is important stuff that many people are afraid to touch it so please keep talking, asking questions and not be put off by those who are too afraid and/or too lazy to talk about it.

If you will permit me, I'd like to round out the Freeman discussion with a few thoughts:

I, like most of you, believe Black History Month should not be "the" means for learning about black people's involvement in American history. But THAT is the unfortunate consequence of being birthed and distributed by an education system that tends to compartmentalize things. The roots of Black History Month actually begin with an educator (a black one in fact, Dr. Carter G. Woodson, circa 1926, based upon his teachings at Howard University) to celebrate the "birthdays" (ironic to my analogy) of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass and their importance to black people. As a side tangent here, this is what's curious about black people who frame Black History Month as though it was created by white people to pacify us or "relegate" our history to one month. With all due respect, this is why talking matters because most people don't seem to know that or fail to talk about it.

But my original criticism is that we should not spend February talking about "we only get February." Morgan Freeman hardly added anything meaningful to the race dialogue. Just because talking about it hasn't worked to this point doesn't mean it can't. Maybe we need to learn how to talk about race. I sharply disagree that talking about our differences has to result in driving us apart. Men are different from women. Sure we have tons in common but we are different and that's awesome. A lot of white people can't dance (save Justin Timberlake - lol). A lot of black people like chicken (I do). A lot of Hispanics come from huge families and play the music God-awful loud (I married into one). A lot of Asian dishes are made of noodles, and yes, a great many Hollywood executives are Jewish. But how do any of those things rank us among each other? They don't, but they do exist all the same whether you share my light-heartedness or not. All those "differences" make for an interesting story - one that we would be remiss for overlooking.

Lastly, I agree that we should learn about all these cultures and races and histories. I earnestly do. But I am afraid that this is not one that we should leave up to the school systems. Mark Twain said, "Don't let schooling get in the way of your education." A school system's poor handling of sharing our histories is EXACTLY why we can't stop talking about it.

Say "Hello" to My New Black and Brown Friends

Here's a great Washington Post article by Roxanne Roberts and Krissah Thompson on black integration in the "A list" world of Washington, DC.

D.C.'s High-Level Social Scene Now Mingles Black and White

Here's what stands out to me. There is a national assumption that black Americans are, as a collective group, on average, poorer than white people. Not that every black American is poor--but when people think "black" they'd be much more inclined to connect it to the word "poor" rather than the words "middle class" or "rich." This is damaging to our collective psyche in general and race relations in particular because it means that other groups, especially white people, don't naturally feel as though they have something in common with large blocks of black Americans. But the truth of the matters is that half of all black Americans are middle class -- which means that those in the other half are either rich or poor. And as middle class Americans, fifty percent of blacks have all of the same struggles as all other members of the middle class--including all of the mundane and often boring concerns such as whether using the coupon to purchase a toaster at Wal*Mart is a smarter option than sending in the rebate that Target offers.

Granted, a disproportionately larger number of black Americans are poor when compared with white and Asian Americans, and racism continues to affect the life chances of people with dark skin who live in America, but the focus of this article is wealthy black Americans. That is to say, RRRRRRICH black people whose powerful and privileged lives would be so alien to most white Americans that the latter would not even have a longing to be like them. This has absolutely nothing to do with affirmative action, by the way, and everything to do with using connections to make more connections and cashing in privilege to gain more privilege. And while these black men and women might feel some unease walking the halls of power given the history of "their people," one likely would not know it by listening in on their conversations. Moreover, these black A-listers probably care about black people in need just about as much as white A-listers care about white people in need. You can decide for yourself if you think that both groups care "a great deal" or "not much at all."

And keep in mind that this article could well have been written about the privileged strata of Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans because the elites of each of these groups have also carved out lives that by and large remain mysteries to many tens of millions of white people.

So how does this article stack up against how you think of black Americans and, if you have time to listen to his shtick, what might you say to Chris Rock? When you think about "white privilege," how do you integrate these African American (and Latino, Asian, American Indian) "A-Listers" in to your thinking?

Embracing Muslims in the Heartland?

Here is a story about an interesting experiment. A professor took a few of his students on a journey across the United States in order to better understand how people react to Muslims, members of the world's second largest religious group.

"Muslim in America: A Voyage of Discovery"

A couple of things stand out from this story.

First, even in small towns the film crew dressed as Muslims were largely treated with detached respect or perhaps benign indifference. According to survey data, many people they encountered had negative thoughts about Muslims, but they didn't seem to let on that they held antipathy toward them.

"Recent national polls find that four in ten Americans have an unfavorable view of Islam, five in ten believe Islam is more likely than other religions to encourage violence, and six in ten believe Islam is very different from their own religion. All this despite the fact that seven in ten admit they know very little about Islam. And yet Americans rank Muslims second only to atheists as a group that doesn’t share their vision of American society."

Second, for as much as Islam is in the news these days, and has been in the news for the past eight years, people don't seem to know much about the religion. Nobody should be surprised by this--and yet I continue to feel my head shake back and forth in wonderment. (Keep in mind that half of all Americans cannot name the U.S. Vice President at any one moment because, as one might imagine, it's not an easy thing to keep track of between episodes of the Real World and American Idol...and searching out good deals at Wal*Mart.) Nevertheless, I'd like to think that people would put a modicum of attention into some basic elements of a religion that is followed by nearly a quarter of the world's population.

So what do you think about both this project and how they were treated?

Click HERE to watch an interesting video of the crew visiting in Arab, Alabama.