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

Obama, 'Black Man' With Authority

What do you think when you hear about the latest critique of Obama? From remarks about his "lack of experience," to his pastor's preachings, and now to his "bitter" remarks about xenophobic Americans, Obama's racialized identity is implicated in every remark made of him.

When we look at criticism of Obama, there is a lot going on there, but you just can't separate it from the fact that he is a man of color, and mixed at that.

David K. Shipler has written a very insightful piece in the Los Angeles Times, giving us context by which we can understand the deeper meaning of what's going on here. He writes,

Obama has made some real missteps, including his remark last week that "bitter" small-town Americans facing economic hardship and government indifference "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them." Perhaps he was being more sociological than political, and more sympathetic than condescending. But when his opponents branded him an elitist and an outsider, his race made it easier to drive a wedge between him and the white, rural voters he has courted. As an African American, he was supposedly looking down from a place he didn't belong and looking in from a distance he could not cross.

This could not happen as dramatically were it not for embedded racial attitudes. "Elitist" is another word for "arrogant," which is another word for "uppity," that old calumny applied to blacks who stood up for themselves.

At the bottom of the American psyche, race is still about power, and blacks who move up risk triggering discomfort among some whites. I've met black men who, when stopped by white cops at night, think the best protection is to act dumb and deferential.

Furthermore, casting Obama as "out of touch" plays harmoniously with the traditional notion of blacks as "others" at the edge of the mainstream, separate from the whole. Despite his ability to articulate the frustration and yearning of broad segments of Americans, his "otherness" has been highlighted effectively by right-wingers who harp on his Kenyan father and spread false rumors that he's a clandestine Muslim.

In a country so changed that a biracial man who is considered black has a shot at the presidency, the subterranean biases are much less discernible now than when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. They are subtle, unacknowledged and unacceptable in polite company. But they lurk below, lending resonance to the criticisms of Obama. Black professionals know the double standard. They are often labeled negatively for traits deemed positive in whites: A white is assertive, a black is aggressive; a white is resolute, a black is pushy; a white is candid, a black is abrasive; a white is independent, a black is not a team player. Prejudice is a shape shifter, adapting to acceptable forms.

So although Obama's brilliance defies the stubborn stereotype of African Americans as unintelligent, there is a companion to that image -- doubts about blacks' true capabilities -- that may heighten concerns about his inexperience. Through the racial lens, a defect can be enlarged into a disability. He is "not ready," a phrase employed often when blacks are up for promotion.

Noose Mania Just As Deadly Today

For African-Americans who haven’t yet received a noose, it’s only a matter of time according to Blaxplanation.

“I don't know about you but I'm patiently waiting to receive mine.

Maybe I'll get one early one morning when I open up the door to my office. Perhaps I'll see one hanging from a lamp post outside of my window.
...
The unimaginative bigots responsible for hanging these nooses know exactly what they're doing. They seek to disrupt the social equilibrium of their black targets. They know that some noose recipients will be shaken but most will be forced into a position in which they become distrustful of nearly all of the whites with whom they work or fraternize.”

This statement specifically points to modern day racism that is embodied by a symbol of the past, but not any less destructive.

However, this is not the message most people are getting from mainstream media reports.

The terror of slavery and violent racism that was most obvious until the 1970s is now treated as a thing of the past. Mainstream reports of the noose-frenzy taking over the nation perpetuate the notion that the racism of today is tiny, weak, and isolated compared to its stronger, violent, incarnation in the past.

Unlike the Blaxplanation report, mainstream media is making it seem as if these nooses are small racist blips of the past popping up in our present social system.

Our popular notions of racism at its worst are anchored down to specific periods of historical time such as the [1950s?] 1960s, or to specific geographical cultures such as the antebellum South (I’m not sure if “antebellum” needs to be capitalized).

What does this mean? It means that reports like this happen:

ABC News dutifully reports,

“But do the nooses reflect a resurgence of racism in America?

The noose has an infamous reputation in American as a hate symbol dating back more than a century. It was used in the past for violent lynchings against black Americans, so the revival has some concerned.”

A dumb question: what is a noose? Is it only that piece of rope tied into a loop? No, it is the manifestation of directed evil--especially for African-Americans, but to other people of color as well.

ABC's report is clear; the noose is a hate symbol that carries with it terrorism of the past. But that's the thing, it reports the noose as a symbol of the past.

The "revival" of the noose is an inappropriate statement that upholds the mistaken modern day ideas of what racism really is. It assumes that nooses do not exist in every corner of society--which they do, just not in the forms of looped ropes.

It assumes that slavery does not exist today--which it does, in the form of disproportionate rates of African-American and Latino incarceration. It assumes that Jim Crow no longer applies--which it does, in the form of substandard education for children of color, or in the overall second-class citizenship of people of color.

Can we say that the impact of the noose upon African-Americans is equivalent with the impact of a photo of Hitler on survivors of the Holocaust?

In some respects, yes, because both carry a terror that will not die because there are always people--many or few--who embrace the terrorist ideology and seek to perpetuate it. You only need to look at the Neo-Nazis and members of the Ku Klux Klan for examples.

But in another respect, no. Hitler and his Nazis were the faces of the Holocaust--and the swastika represented their cause. A photo of Hitler will always represent the terror of the 1930s and ‘40s, but a noose today does not merely represent the terror of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is a mistake to try to tie the noose of today down to our violent racist past because the violence and racism is not simply in the past.

Racism is just as deadly today as it was forty years ago and a hundred forty years ago.

ABC's report defines the latest noose trend as a "revival" of past racism. This creates a notion that all those nooses that are appearing across the country are the products of white people stuck in pro-slavery or pro-Jim Crow mentality.

What happens is that our media’s reports of nooses then ignore the harsh reality of racism that exists throughout society, and what happens is that the FBI will hunt down and punish the noose hangers and essentially get rid of the most visible traces of racism of modern day society.


Footnote: A caveat to my Hitler comparison (so that I am not ignorantly pulling the Hitler card)

I am not subscribing to what Jon Stewart calls "Hitler Mania"

We must not throw around the Hitler card because it is disrespectful to those who carry in their veins the passion and struggle of the generations before them who experienced the terror of Hitler.

Plus, it makes us “look crazy.”

San Diego Is Not All White And Rich!

I am sick and tired of San Diego county being generalized as all white and rich and favored by the government.

San Diego is being reported as having special treatment as opposed to Katrina because apparently we San Diegans are all white and rich!

...hold on...Okay I'm back, I went to go look in the mirror. Not rich and white.

...hold on...Okay I'm back, I went to go check my myspace friends. Not rich and white.

I am not going to analyze two very different tragedies. Yes, many rich whites have been affected and treated much better than blacks in Katrina. But this is another side of the story.

La Jolla, Rancho Bernardo, and a couple other places are very wealthy in general, and mostly white. However, my hometown Escondido and a lot of other San Diego towns are full of lower class people--not just of color, but white too!

And surprise surprise, we did not all come here to live in pools of money isolated by rich landscapes for the effect. Too many of us are here for the same reasons as you are there.

I have to write this, I owe it to all of my friends from high school, to my loving parents, and to everyone who does not fit the San Diego "lifestyle" according to the rest of the country.

Yes, most houses that were consumed were in rich areas--but houses aren't the only issue. The smoke is everywhere. Business has stopped all over. Too many of my people have lost their jobs for a week, too many are out of school, and too many cannot afford this temporary setback. There's more I'm probably forgetting too.

This is a shout out to everyone, white or black or Latino or Asian or Native American or Middle Eastern, and more. To those who are not rich. To those who do not deserve to be singled out by other communities of color.

As one anonymous comment stated in response to the Too Sense post:

"...the Katrina experience was a national disgrace; however, your attempt to draw this black and white paralllel is simply not in concert with the facts on the ground. You needed to do some more local research before you set this to print."

My heart out to Katrina, of course, but let's not advocate for some people of color at the expense of others.

And let's not forget that not all whites are rich and everything.

I apologize for the more informal rage of this blog--not because it is considered informal by our Eurocentric standards, but because I fail to oppose those standards in my other blogs by taming my rage and forging it into formal-sounding pieces.

I am so conflicted.

This Eurocentric Western Civilization Thing Gets Really Annoying

Whenever I come home to visit my parents I blab on and on about Eurocentric this and racist that. They hear me, they agree with me, and then they say--así es (or, that's how it is).

Their tone of accptance, although frustrating to my young fervor, is understandable. Racism is just too deeply embedded in every aspect of society. It is where we see it and where some don't see it.

For example, I told them, look at the table we are sitting at right now. This glass table that reaches our lower chests when we sit in our chairs to eat upon it.

Does it seem racist? Heck no. It is thought of radically liberal to say that this is racist. Yet why do the Japanese have tables closer to the ground, upon which they eat as they sit on the floor? How about the forks and knives thing?

To eat correctly is to eat according to our Eurocentric ideas. Yet I, of course am just a blabbering liberal brainwashed to think that tables are racist or something.

Well, let's take a look at this video. It is a satire of spongebob, set in evil communist China:



What offends me is that China's political framework is not what is truly being attacked...the people subject to it are being attacked.

The Chinese Spongebob here is depicted as a brainwashed hardworker who proudly submits to "soul crushing labor" because that is the way of his country.

Chinese Patrick, on the other hand, has used "Google" to learn about Western things such as his rights as a human being.

I am disgusted at this. The video de-humanizes hard working Chinese, making them into stupid animals who are willing to be abused and controlled.

I am no fan of communism, but I am also no fan of Americanism that struts its stuff around giving the finger to all other non-Eurocentric cultures.

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?