Skin Color: Hispanic

I logged into Myspace right now and was notified of an "AMBER Alert" in my area (end of post). I clicked on it only to find the worst possible description ever: the young four year old girl and her kidnapper have the skin color "Hispanic."

Okay, this is just off. A "Hispanic" skin tone does not exist. Anyone can be Hispanic, and you might not even know it.



Asian Latino and former astronaut Franklin Chang Diaz, Afro Latina singer/actress Cristina Milan (Flores), and white Latino James Roday (Rodriguez) from the USA series Psych, are but a few examples.

Well, since Latinos/Hispanics have every possible skin tone under the sun, maybe they should start replacing the skin tone description of "Hispanic" with "George Lopez." Just as offensive, but it would get more to the point, I would say.

In all seriousness though, I hope this girl is found:

ATTENTION: There is an AMBER Alert in your area.
Please CLICK HERE to find out more information.

Missing From: Thousand Palms, CA
Missing Date: 2/23/2009 12:00 AM

Contact: Riverside County Sheriff's Department
760-836-3218

Circumstances: On February 23, 2009, at 0930 hours, Monica Ruby Morales was abducted from Thousand Palms, Riverside County, California.


Missing Child
Name: Monica Ruby Morales
Hair Color: Brown Eye Color: Brown
Skin Color: Hispanic Age: 4YO
Gender: Female
Description: Short hair, wearing a yellow shirt with white print on the front, blue pants, yellow sandals

Suspect
Name: Unknown Unknown
Hair Color: Brown
Skin Color: Hispanic Age: 30YO
Height: 5FT5 Weight: 150LBS
Gender: Female
Description: Wearing a white shirt and jeans

Vehicle Information
Model: Van
Color: Green
Vehicle: Full sized

Image of Irony

I admit it, I like to browse "lol" pictures. Here's a great one.

You'd think that a lack of historical knowledge would be the only thing wrong with these people. You'd think that the irony of this ideology would end at race, ethnicity, culture, xenophobia.

...but no, I am proven wrong, it's much more than that. As much as I despise her hatred and ignorance, I have got to thank that lady for pushing the envelope of senselessness.


see more politics and fun!

Tongue-in-cheek, I can't help but say that it sounds like "...fecal." Might seem a bit forced to you, but it honestly jumps out at me.

Pointing Our Dirty Finger At China

The controversy about the 2008 Olympics in Beijing is deeper than it might appear on the surface. Westerners pointing to its human rights violations and other issues are doing more than just that--they are carrying a long-held note sung by our country for about half a century. Ever since China turned communist, there has been a bitter-sweet diplomatic history between it and the United States.

This Olympics controversy is throwing fuel into the flame of anti-Chinese sentiment. From the Los Angeles Times:

As the Olympic torch made its way through the streets of Paris, London and San Francisco, tens of thousands protested China's treatment of Tibet and the Dalai Lama.

But inside some Chinese American communities, notably the San Gabriel Valley, the view of Tibet and its spiritual leader is far more complex.

On Cat Chao's Mandarin-language talk show "Rush Hour" on KAZN-AM (1300), most callers haven't been debating whose side to take but why the Western media has been so biased against China in its reporting of the riots that rocked Tibet earlier this month.

"They're pretty angry," Chao said. "People usually trust Western media because they think it's balanced. Not anymore."

Others complained that the torch protests have gone beyond criticizing the Chinese communist government and have a decidedly anti-Chinese feeling.

Our country's people are voicing a lot of objections to China, especially now in light of the Olympics controversy. But we should keep in mind that as much as we try to disassociate ourselves from China through discussions of human rights abuses and environmental abuses, our country has been and currently is guilty of the same things.

I'm talking about our companies that set up sweatshops and/or factories in foreign countries--abusing local workers, their families, and their environments. Such as the Mexican maquiladora industry.

There is a lot going on with the Olympics controversy, we can't just try to target China because in doing so we are implicating ourselves. In other words, who are we to point the finger? It's not that no finger should ever be pointed, but come on, the United States?

Nothing Like An Annoying Headline

It's amazing what a ridiculous headline can do.

"Whites to become minority in U.S by 2050" -from Reuters

Is this supposed to scare white people? Does it even? And would that change anything? Yes, I don't know, and no.

Before reading the article, I'm pretty sure that Latinos and their gosh-darned high fertility rates have something to do with it. Blacks and Asians are probably in there too, and then there are the whites. The whites, with their low-fertility rates and so-on. And I'm pretty sure that people of color--especially Latinos--are going to be sexualized. This is not gender-neutral. It implicitly sexualizes women of color...though to me, it's pretty explicit.

So of course, after reading the article, the headline was on target.

The headlines that hurt the most are ones such as this one. They say everything without saying anything at all. "Whites to become minority..." Whereas for other races or ethnicities, it wouldn't mean much to know they'll still be 'minorities,' it's a big deal for whites because they will no longer be the majority. Hmm...

If this were a movie, it would merit a "Whaaat?" As if white people are somehow going to be the shockingly new marginalized group of our time.

It might as well say "whites to become the new 'coloreds' by 2050." That darn 'm' word. Minority is not a race-neutral word. It's a tool of oppression.

These eight words are pure racism and pure sexism. This headline makes a lot of noise about race/ethnicity, gender, and even class--since lower classes of color have higher fertility rates--but I scoff at the tactlessness of this 'whites' over 'non-whites' language.

That's hypocritical of me to say because I am doing the same thing when I use the words "people of color," which creates the same white/non-white binary I am so passionately against.

Ayayay.

Dangerous Research: Listing Our "Most Dangerous Cities" Doesn't Give The Whole Story

A picture of Oakland you won't get in the news:


Morgan Quitno Press has published its annual nationwide list of the top 25 most dangerous cities, and Oakland is officially number 8.

cbs5 news reports:

Using 2005 figures, Oakland was ranked the eighth-most dangerous city in America, with researchers saying only two other cities in the nation showed worse increases in crime over last year. The East Bay city of Richmond ranked 11th on the so-called "Most Dangerous 25."

The only California city to rank worse than Oakland was the Los Angeles suburb of Compton, ranked fourth worst in the nation overall.

Morgan Quitno Press, a private research and publishing company specializing in state and city reference books, compiles the annual listing of most dangerous and safest cities in the nation.

On tonight's ten o'clock news, cbs5 went to several Oakland residents for personal accounts in response to the list. Residents did not deny the danger, yet several of them protested the danger of labeling any city, let alone Oakland, as dangerous.

Not only does this label hinder business and economic flow into the city, it also has a damaging effect on the potential for recovery. This list does nothing but strengthen the harmful conditions of places like Oakland--it stigmatizes Oakland as a space, alienating its residents from the rest of the country. It normalizes violence; giving violence a name, a look, and a feel.

As I have had my own share of dangerous encounters in Oakland, I admit that my language often 'ghetto-tizes' Oakland in casual conversation with friends or family. Unfortunately, this kind of 'ghetto-tization' grows into a media monster that triggers such negative images that are quickly embraced by our punitive United States public.

Instead of compiling a list of most dangerous cities, why aren't private research and publishing companies like the Morgan Quitno Press working on advancing these cities towards improvement?

Take a look at the Applied Research Center in Oakland, which I interned for this past summer. At the heart of Oakland, going to do research required stepping into the 'dangerous' city and traversing its space into another space of racial progress:

ARC's vision for racial justice is changing the way our society talks about and understands racial inequity. ARC conducts research to expose the subtle racism of laws and regulations that result in real hardship for Black, Latino, Asian and Native communities. We use public policy as a key tool to repair these historic injustices by designing and implementing creative solutions to contemporary problems.

Revolutionary! Conducting research on a subject that you are not separated from! The difference between the Morgan Quitno Press and the Applied Research Center is that the former looks at its subjects in white lab coats, wearing latex gloves, with a microscope separating it from its study. The latter is immersed in the very space it is researching. It swims around in the petri dish, taking away the microscope--making its subject of research a part of its environment rather than an isolated bacteria.

The result is spectacular. Rather than stigmatizing 'most dangerous' cities with negative portrayals of criminals and delinquents of color, the Applied Research Center comes out with the truth:

This summer ColorLines and The Chicago Reporter conducted a joint national investigation of fatal police shootings in America’s 10 largest cities, each of which had more than 1 million people in 2000. Several striking findings emerged.

To begin, African Americans were overrepresented among police shooting victims in every city the publications investigated.

The contrast was particularly noticeable in New York, San Diego and Las Vegas. In each of these cities, the percentage of black people killed by police was at least double that of their share of the city’s total population.

This is progressive research--this is the kind of stuff we need to be looking into. I can only speak for Oakland, but if you were to go into these dangerous cities, you would find real people, full of life, strength, purpose, and culture.



Really, just go to 9th and Broadway at noon on any Friday and you'll find them selling simosas, empanadas, tamales, and lots of produce...

It's not all guns and drugs people!

James Watson And The Science Of Racism

James Watson, credited for his research on the Double Helix, has jumped onto the racist-comment media bandwagon.


Malcom Ritter Reports:

"A profile of Watson in the Sunday Times Magazine of London quoted him as saying that he's "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really.

While he hopes everyone is equal, "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true," Watson is quoted as saying. He also said people should not be discriminated against on the basis of color, because "there are many people of color who are very talented."

Well thank you Watson, on behalf of all the people of color that white people "have to deal with," we are so flattered to know that there are many of us who are talented.

What is this language? Why don't all people recognize that we can't live in a color-blind world because this world is founded on the underlying assumption that white is the norm, and people of color have to be dealt with carefully?

Why don't we ever say "people who have to deal with white folks know that there are many of them who are very talented," and why do white people applaud people of color for being talented as if it were not a part of their nature?

Even more, why do we isolate racist comments like these to the individual white person who says it (like Don Imus) and overlook the fact that this is the mentality of many--but not all--white people?

I am very critical of the media backlash that Watson has become the target of...mostly because I feel that there are many white people pitting themselves against Watson as if racism only exists in those who are blatantly racist--in which Watson has now been 'revealed' as entirely racist.

Racism exists in degrees, it is not an all-or-nothing effect.

But there is another issue here. Watson is a special case because we must understand that he has been granted great power by our society, and has commanded the utmost respect from the Western world. He is up there in the list of names with Einstein, Thomas Edison, and many more--mostly white, men, and usually scientists.

When we look at Watson's racist comments, we need to talk about the fact that this is no Don Imus. This is a man who has become one of the kings of Knowledge by tagging the double helix with his name. The danger is not in his words, but in the man who said them.

Although Watson has retracted his comments, and although there has been a strong backlash against him by many people of all races, what Watson said is not all that uncommon--it's just more easy to detect.

When most of the scientific world is monopolized by Eurocentric paradigms, it is not surprising that it pumps out racist ideas.

Esquire Magazine Asks If Sen. Edwards Is Last White Hope

Does Race Matter? has recently posted a response to the latest cover of Esquire Magazine, which boldly asks, “can a white man still be elected president?”

On the cover towers Sen. John Edwards, positioned in a superman stance (as one person commented on Racialicious) and looking ahead in all of his white glory.

Let’s not forget the icing on the cake. Above John Edwards lies a half-naked woman accompanied by the headline, “sexiest woman alive.” This cover says enough. We are being told that women and people of color are rising above a history of injustices, yet the reality is that the injustices persist today. Even if we do elect a white female or Black male president, people like the editors at Esquire, will continue to forget what racism and sexism looks like, especially as they make ‘white man’ synonymous with man and leader.

Ultimately, Esquire can’t see how Sen. Hillary Clinton does not represent all women, and Sen. Barack Obama all people of color. Which is why Esquire conveys the message of the dawning of an age of “minorities”—a dystopia for the white man, as Wendi Muse reports.

However, women and people of color are far from beating ‘the white man’ in other, non presidential races. Our television remains dominated by ideas of white masculinity, our celebrities, our news, our schools and other institutions remain Eurocentric. The current way in which our world is dominated by the white man will not be overcome by mere change of the American president.

Further, racism and injustice are strongest when they give the appearance of their absence. So while I hope we elect a president who is not a white man, I hope also that we will not use this election as a way of discrediting future claims of inequality by women and people of color.

Thoughts?

A Conservative Encyclopedia You Can Trust

Have you ever questioned the neutrality and so-called omnipresence of Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia that “anyone can edit”?

Well, 58 home-schooled children who created Conservapedia sure have.

Initiated last November, the website began as a World History class project in New Jersey and turned into a go-to place for those seeking pro-Christian and conservative interpretations of things.

You can visit this site to get your daily dose of breaking news, bible verses, and moral virtue. Most importantly, it has proven to be a good guide to being a conservative, white Christian in America.

Unsure about your fear of Mexicans? Conservapedia will pat you on the back, assuring you that “the fear of the influx of Mexican culture in the border states” is an “understandable form” of xenophobia.

And when it comes to hip hop, Wikipedia is just so unnecessarily long in its explanation—it gives you a thorough contextual description of hip hop’s origins and significance in society.

But according to Conservapedia, all you really need to know about hip hop is that it’s a “style of African American music in which African Americans chant over beats.” Really, why give so much credit to something so simple?

What’s more? Conservapedia uses many Biblical references to defend slavery—specifically stating that slavery is referenced, permitted and regulated in the Bible—justify homophobia, and explain male superiority over women.

No worries, anything is better than being a liberal.