Issues of Race, (specifically in America)

Eli Goodman

10/26/14                        Issues of Race

A big misconception is that saying something that’s racist means you are racist or have intentionally racist thoughts. This is not true though. Racism can be internalized, there are so many subtle examples of racism in American society. For instance, a comment you made in class could offend someone without you even realizing it. The best thing to do is to recognize that although your intentions may be good, you may have offensive, subliminal ideas. 

As a nation it’s impossible to look at Michael Brown innocently walking and getting shot repeatedly and excessively with his hands up, to see a teenager Trayvon Martin shot with nothing on him but candy and a drink, to watch unarmed Keijime Powell shot for walking towards the police, and to see homeless women Marlene Pinnock savagely beat by an officer who was trying to “detain” her on the side of a freeway and pretend that racism is nonexistent in America.

Racism has existed since Europeans both wiped out tribes of Native Americans and later immigrated to America, bringing slaves through the Middle Passage who were seen as inferior on account of skin color and culture. As much as we like to deny, this racism has been passed down through generations up to today as if it is apart of DNA. The media, movies, TV shows, music, how we educate, and in treatment by law enforcement are only some examples of this very real, very prevalent racism.

I would encourage anyone reading this to look up the videos of Keijime Powell being shot and Marlene Pinnock being beat. It is incredibly disturbing and you can see genuine hate in these grotesque actions. So racism may not be intended or may not be intended, but to say it doesn’t exist is false.

Skin Bleaching

Eli Goodman

10/26/14                         Skin Bleaching Blog Post

As ridiculous and degrading as it sounds, people of color can bleach their skin to make it lighter. Doing this will make clients of bleaching products appear more “beautiful”, “acceptable”, and let’s address the elephant in the room and say more “white”. These bleaching products are largely marketed/targeted to African-American women. People of color consistently face institutional racism, symbolic racism, micro-racism, and “colorism”.

Last year in Race Reels, we watched a documentary called Dark Girls that discussed this idea of “Colorism”. They defined colorism as “prejudice or discrimination based on the relative lightness or darkness of the skin and generally a phenomenon occurring within one’s own ethnic group”. The second piece of the definition was interesting.

This concept goes all the way back to slavery and slave rapes that changed complexions through generations. It is the difference between the “house n*ggas and the field n*iggas”. A “test” of beauty called the paper bag test basically states that if you’re lighter than a paper bag than you are pretty, smart, and ultimately pass the test. If you don’t pass the test, you are considered unattractive. 

Interestingly enough, the women who spoke in the documentary said a lot of this colorism comes from within the race. One woman said that she receives a lot of praise from white people about her skin, but she questions her complexion from the feedback of black people.

A black female talked about how her cousin made a Facebook status saying, “I love white girls!!! and nobody can do anything about it”. Black females receiving this type of attitude will have incentive to make their skin lighter and to boost their self esteem. It’s hard to fight unless you have confidence and it isn’t fair.

Skin bleach products come with serious health risks such as, premature aging of skin, skin cancer, infections, unwanted skin discoloration, and more.

Racism Concerning Ebola

Eli Goodman

10/26/14                          Racism Concerning Ebola

I think we’ve all been aware of the Ebola epidemic, and it’s major presence in the news. Thomas Eric Duncan, a black, poor Liberian national traveled to the United States carrying the fatal virus unknowingly. 

What is Ebola?

Ebola is a virus, also known as Ebola hemorrhagic fever; a rare and deadly disease caused by infection of an Ebola virus strain.

Obviously this is a pretty frightening problem. The fact that can cannot handle it with American Medicine shows the type of league Ebola is in. Duncan is said to have contracted the disease while helping to transport a woman with the disease, a heroic and selfless act. However the American media is demonizing him. He has been turned into an “unsympathetic” figure contagious with disease. This has also made Africa look like a “diseased” continent, at fault for infecting citizens and innocent visitors.

When Duncan was looking to check into a hospital, he was turned down at a Dallas Hospital because he was an “uninsured Liberian immigrant” who simply suffered from a “low--grade virus disease”. It’s hard to think that this would have been the case if he were white. 

In a New Jersey school, Rwandan (a country 2600 miles away from an infected area) children were pressured to stay home, a high school soccer player of Guinean descent faced chants during an away game like, “Ebola!”, a building in Berlin went into lock down after an African woman fainted, and politicians are crying out for immigration restrictions. Racism and Xenophobia are strongly intertwined with this chaos. It shows the ignorance of knowledge of the location of African countries and it makes the entire continent of Africa look diseased rather than a few infected areas.

Stereotypes of a Black Woman

 Stereotypes of a Black Woman

A study done by Simone Ispa-Landa at Northwestern shows that black girls are seen as “ghetto” or “loud” for behavior that would be accepted from male counterparts. Black girls are seen as “aggressive” and “undesirable” from white and black boys. Many black women feel that the media portrays black females in a negative manner.

An article on theroot.com, presents even more stereotypes in a list. “Gold diggers, baby mamas, uneducated sister, ratchet women, angry black women, mean, and unhealthy. These are the stereotypes that show up in the media commonly and are sometimes very subtle. Negative imagery of black women is seen twice as often as positive imagery.

Looking into the grand skeem of things, this is detrimental in multiple ways. Walking around as a person who is “undesirable” based on physical appearance does not encourage a high level of confidence. This low confidence translates into school, work, and other environments. And ultimately, this contributes to where you live, your annual income, and more.

We watched a film called, Dark Girls in Race Reels last year that discussed this issue a great deal. It’s really heartbreaking to see how much self hate these women generated from outside influences. What I’m curious about is when and why did black women start getting labelled with these offensive titles.It’s surprisingly hard to search around on, but I’m going to keep looking around. Being a minority and the “inferior” sex, puts a black female in the worst position on the rankings of societies social hierarchy. Nanny in Their Eyes Were Watching God puts it well, “So de white man throw down de load and tell de nigger man tuh pick it up. He pick it up because he have to, but he don’t tote it. He hand it to his womenfolks. De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see." 

Is the NBA Comparable to Slavery?

Black Athletes (NBA to be specific here) = Slaves?

Long time Detroit Pistons power forward, now with the Portland Trailblazers Rasheed Wallace made a statement that created a lot of controversy at the time. Wallace took a shot (no pun intended) at the NBA, calling it “an institution of slavery”. You may be thinking what’s he talking about, he makes $17 million a year? However the points he makes hold a lot of validity.

In the sense that there is money to be made, playing in the NBA is different than your historical image of slavery; but other aspects are comparable. Wallace claims that the NBA exploits young black players. He states that young players can easily get “caught up and captivated into the league”. The NBA Draft is said to be the next slave ship arriving at NBA offices. Wallace thinks that the league wants to draft players who are “dumb and dumber... all these high school cats, because they don’t know no better”. High school players with less education than a college graduate are easier to exploit. They can more easily be cheated out of money. You may think, it’s ridiculous to be picky, professional basketball players make a lot. What if I told you that the commissioner David Stern made more than 75% of the players in the league. Stern, a white spectator at games makes more money than those who he profits from. Starting to look familiar?

Wallace gets the impression that the league expects black athletes to, “shut up, sign for the money, and do what they tell” them. This is a strong argument and more recognized by a veteran like Wallace. I can see how a young player could get cheated.

Wallace: “ I see behind the lines. I see behind the false screens. I know what this business is all about”.

Racial Profiling by Law Enforcement

 Racial Profiling by Law Enforcement 

The definition of Racial Profiling on the National Institute of Justice website is “a practice that targets people for suspicion of crime based on their race, ethnicity, religion or national origin”. Obviously this brings up a lot of concern over civil rights and justice. Also according to the NIJ website, officers are put in training to avoid discrimination. However, it seems that arrests are still made under cultural, racial, and gender stereotypes.

I continued exploring this website and clicked on a link about racial profiling at traffic stops. Research confirms that more people of color are pulled over than whites. It’s far fetched to claim that this is completely based on driving patterns. Neighborhoods that have more patrol officers will pay close attention for any minuscule driving infraction and will still pull minority drivers aside without an infraction.

A group of trained observers ran a study in Savannah, Georgia where they joined policers officers on their patrols for upwards of 130 tours. These observers asked about the officers suspicions after each traffic stop. One statistic that came out of this study is that, out of all the people who were thought to be suspicious, 74% were male and 71% were minorities. Another study in Cincinnati, shows that black drivers were stopped for longer periods of time and searched more than white drivers. The NIJ appears to buy into that this was due to the “time, place, and context” of the stops. I couldn’t disagree more. This study must have had some bias, I’d be interested to see who specifically conducted this study. I think it’s conveniently coincidental that black drivers are in the wrong time, place, and context and that this what the higher stoppage rate is credited to. It’s certainly a scary system to be a minority male in.

10/7/14

The article I read for this blog post is a Huffington Post article that discusses racial segregation in schools and the relation of income to segregated school. It is a fact that 43% of Latinos and 38% of black students are enrolled in “intensely segregated schools” in which are at most 10% white. On the contrary, white students usually attend schools that are 75% white. There is a clear divide. I found it almost comical that two of the three most integrated states in terms of education are Kansas and Nebraska. I’m curious to know what the percentage of minority population is in these states to begin with. Poor schools that have a high minority population tend to have less resources, less qualified teachers, higher teacher turnover rates, lower quality facilities and materials. These factors widen what is called the Minority Achievement Gap. Fact, “On average, African-American and Latino high school seniors perform math and read at the same level as 13-year-old white students.” I find this incredibly concerning. The black high school graduation rate staggers behind that of white students. “Re”-integrating the schools would more equally distribute the resources and advantages that are associated with dominantly white schools. Even the highest achieving students living in low income are less likely to make it through college, graduating with a degree. 

I found this article very disturbing. It’s discouraging that the income you are born into has such control over your path of education, regardless of how high you achieve. As a country we feel that we have come so far since the Civil Rights Era, but looking at how our schools are functioning nationally it is apparent which race will achieve higher for yet another generation. 

 “An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.” 

-Isaac Newton’s First Law of Motion

This rule of physics can apply to the direction our education system is going. Unless we make a legitimate effort to even the educational opportunities across the country, nothing will change. Looking at our schools right now really makes me wonder, how far has Brown vs. Board of education has actually taken us.

10/7/14                               Blog post 2

For my second blogpost I looked at a Huffington Post report on the shooting of 25-year old black man, Kajieme Powell in St. Louis, Missouri. Like many that have been prevalent in the news lately this case demonstrates unethical practice and reasoning by law enforcement, consequently resulting in the taken life of Kaijieme Powell. The owner of the convenience store where Powell had purchased donuts and drinks, called the police accusing Powell of robbery. Shortly after the police received another call from a woman reporting that Powell was acting “erratically” with a knife in his pocket.

Sam Dotson, St.Louis Police Chief addressed the media claiming that Powell came within a few feet of the officers that opened fire. While approaching the officers, he reportedly held a knife “in an overhand grip”. Powell was apparently given verbal commands to stop and drop the weapon, but he continued forward, shouting “shoot me now, kill me now”. Dotson also claims that the officers did not draw their weapons until they saw the knife.

Well, the whole incident was captured on camera by someones cell phone. I saw Powell walking with no knife, with his hands at his side. He was much farther away from the officers than just a few feet. And he was shot multiple times. I got chills watching these St. Louis police offers murder a non-threatening man in cold blood. So the video evidence does not line up with Dotson’s information.

Even if the officers felt threatened shooting him multiple times is inhuman if you can kill with one bullet. But after watching the video it is clear that there was no need to draw a weapon, if anything a teaser or pepper spray would have been suitable.

I was deeply disturbed by this video. Watching a man get shot in real footage is numbing. Law enforcement has a long way to come. It has equal responsibility to all citizens in the United States. I continue to realize how lucky I am when I appear before a police officer.

10/7/14        

Blog Post 3   

For my third blog post, I took a look at racism in the housing industry. Such discrimination may be harder to spot than in the past. However, it is currently very alive. The report I read was released by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development showing patterns of leasing real estate among different races. It is shown that leasing agents do not show minorities as many available properties to rent or buy. Blacks were told about 17 percent fewer homes than white homebuyers. Asians were told about 15.5 percent fewer homes and 19 percent fewer properties. 

I can see a clear connection between the discrimination in housing and the segregation in our schools, which I wrote about in my other post. White people get grouped into one neighborhood of elite value, and minorities are shown homes in the remaining neighborhoods. The discrimination leaves minorities in worse schools, in less safety, and limits job opportunities. Creating this socioeconomic divide (where the whites are in wealthier areas than other minorities) allows white schools and facilities to get more funding and vice versa for the other schools. You can see how this cycle unfolds.

This housing discrimination is a clear violation of the Fair Housing Act, which at the very basic level denies a seller to refuse rent or to make housing unavailable on basis of race, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, or disability.

It’s unfair that people are categorized by race or culture. You would think it would be by economics but in this case the chicken came before the egg. What I mean by this is, although white people make up the wealthiest race, it is only because they are provided with opportunities in housing, schools, the job market, and elsewhere. Ultimately, this categorization only generates more ignorance across racial and cultural lines.