Race and Racism
gregladen | September 18, 2017A lot of people will object to the title of this post. I will be told to take the post down. I will be told to modify the title or to change what I say in the post.
Nope.
Ta-Nehisi Coates is correct, and his presentation is brilliant. Watch the following interview (in two parts) and read his book We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy.
Chris Hayes is correct to point out that the historical source of Coates title is critically important and deeply disturbing (this is something we've talked about here in the recent past). He is incorrect, as Coates points out near the end of…
gregladen | September 14, 2017You'll remember that Philando Castile was killed in cold blood by a St. Anthony cop, who was later acquitted with the defense that "he was a black guy, I wuz scared."
A couple of days ago, tragically and sadly, a cop in a town near me was run over by a driver who was probably on drugs and drunk, who was told by the courts she was not allowed to drive because she is so dangerous but was driving anyway. That is very sad. That particular cop was said by others to be "one of the good ones" and I believe that. He had a boy Huxley's age, in the same school system (but a different building). The…
gregladen | September 6, 2017This is a response to "Removing statues of historical figures risks whitewashing history: Science must acknowledge mistakes as it marks its past," a commentary published in Nature. For the most part, the commentary reads like a caution to not un-name things and not remove monuments in at least some if not many cases, though it is a bit more nuanced than that. What is needed, in Nature, is a different position: Find memorials (statues or things named) to scientists who carried out horrible acts such as infecting countless people who are members of repressed groups in order to study disease,…
gregladen | August 21, 2017One mean spirited decision intended to end the effort to end slavery led to one million dead and the end of slavery anyway.
I spent some time this weekend comparing prosecutors and other legal eagles, who were all hoping to get the job of Attorney General. They were Candidates General, I guess. Trump was mentioned, and somewhere along the line, Dred Scott was mentioned as well. I turned to a highly placed official sort of dude and said, "Did you know that Dred Scott lived in Minnesota?" He did not know that. So I asked a couple of other people if they knew, and they did not. Finally I…
gregladen | March 24, 2017You all know about this: It is being said that the OK sign is used to indicated "White Power" and this use has been spotted among politicians and celebrities everywhere. Is this real? I don't know. Is it a valid symbol for "White Power"? Certainly not.
The problem with the white power symbol is that it is not a symbol. Or, if it is a symbol, it is a baby symbol that doesn't know how to be a symbol yet, so don't expect much from it.
Semiotics Ahead Index (not an icon, not a symbol, but yes, it is a sign. With a sign on it.)
Try this.
Move your hands in front of you as though you were…
gregladen | February 2, 2017The Dogs Still Bark in Dutch
I grew up in the old Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, now known to you as the State of New York. There, I carried out extensive archaeological and historic research, and along the way, came across that phrase, “the dogs still bark in Dutch.”
It is an idea that might occur to a denizen of Harlem, the kids off to Kindergarten, sitting on his stoop eating a cruller, or perhaps some cole slaw with a gherkin, and pondering the Dutch revival architecture down on Wall Street.
There was a war between the Dutch and the English in the 17th century, and as a result of that…
gregladen | January 30, 2017A brief update: This morning, Senate Republicans set aside the rules that say that both parties must be present, with at least one member, for a committee vote to advance a Presidential nominee for a cabinet appointment.
In other words, as outlined below, our system is based not only on enforceable laws but also on rules that only work if everyone involves agrees to not be the bully on the playground who ignores the rules. The Republicans are the bully on the playground.
The system requires honest actor playing by agreed on rules. So, without the honest actor, you get this. This fits…
gregladen | January 15, 2017A lot of people are just catching up on who John Lewis is. One way to do that is to read his memoir, Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement.
U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) is presented with the 2010 Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.
He is a senior African American Representative to the House who was famously involved in the civil rights movement of the 1960s, along side Doctor King. If you watch any news at all you've seen him plenty of times. He is now also known as the latest person Donald Trump decided to denigrate and insult on Twitter.
I would like to see everyone…
gregladen | November 28, 2016Trigger warning: This post contains several images of racist or similar messages found through history and throughout the world, including a handul from the US over the last few weeks. These are provided as documentation to go along with the text of this blog post and to inform the reader of the nature of these messages. Most of the images are from mainstream media and are regarded as genuine. If you feel any are not, indicate so in the comments if you like.
An antisemitic graffiti in Lithuania.
I am a scientist who studies race and racism and related topics. This includes the critique…
gregladen | November 24, 2016Clinton beat Trump by a large margin, by electoral standards. A couple of percent is actually a lot these days. Yet so far it appears that Trump won the electoral vote, even though those votes are not yet cast and who knows what is actually going to happen.
But this year, strange as it it and stranger thought it may become, is not the strangest ever. That goes to 1876.
Wow.
gregladen | November 22, 2016Question: How do we wipe out racism by making racists not be so racist?
Answer: We don't.
We do something else that actually works.
The expanding Trump-fueled conversation about racism
It has been absolutely fascinating to observe myriad conversations reacting to the Trump electoral win. All the usual suspects are engaged, but also, many others who had previously been little involved, or not at all involved, in the national political conversation, are saying things.
And along with this has come a certain amount of method or concern questioning. I won't call it trolling because only some…
gregladen | November 12, 2016OK, lets start out with the assumption that it does not matter who you or anyone else supported in the last election or what your politics are. If it happens, hypothetically, to be the case that a vulnerable person feels threatened by some sort of bully, wouldn't you like that vulnerable person to know that you are an upstanding citizen of good character who is willing to stand up for that person? This is especially true if you are a teacher, or you work in a retail business, or any place where there might be bullies and victims.
One way to convey your willingness to stand up against…
gregladen | September 18, 2016Update:
From WCCO:
An Islamic State-run news agency claims the man who stabbed and wounded eight people at a mall in Minnesota before being shot dead by an off-duty police officer was a “soldier of the Islamic State.”
Original Post:
We know nearly nothing about the Saint Cloud attack, but I'm going to offer some preliminary context-related thoughts anyway. Not conclusions or guesses, just context. (See below for some basic info on the attack.)
One thing you need to know is that Minnesota is a state with the least racist and most socially and culturally enlightened people in it. And, some of…
gregladen | August 9, 2015I have a few thoughts I want to float on the recent #BLM activism that involved, as of this writing, two takeovers of public events. One takeover was at a Netroots Nation event that included Bernie Sanders, the other at a Sanders rally.
First, I think it has to be understood that disruptive actions like this need to be carried out, and carried out more. Unless you can somehow convince me that there is a way to deal with violence in and against the African American community, widespread incarceration, habitual attacks by police on African Americans (and some others), etc. without civil…
gregladen | January 17, 2015I will assume you are paying some attention to the discussion of racism vis-a-vis Charlie Hebdo, Muslim bashing, obnoxious religious (in this case Islamic) rules of behavior, freedom of speech and expression, etc. If you were thinking that this situation is simple you better check your thought process, or your privilege, or something. Get an oil change. Take a class on race and racism. Something. Because it is not simple.
The following thought experiment is still an oversimplification but perhaps worthy of consideration, as a means of parsing out the very first level of complexity and…
gregladen | September 8, 2014Donald Sterling appears to be a hard core racist, and this, appropriately, got him in trouble. Recently, Atlanta Hawks owner Bruce Levenson released an email he had written some time back, which discusses race related issues vis-a-vis the Hawks, and announced that he was bowing out of ownership from the team because of this racist email.
The media reaction to this has been fairly uniform, and includes an aspect that I think should be examined more closely. Bruce Levenson, and his statement, have been placed in the same category as Donald Sterling and his statements. But they should not be.…
gregladen | August 11, 2014A list of reviews of Nicholas Wade’s book “A Troublesome Inheritance,” mainly by anthropologists and others who have investigated issues surrounding the concept of “race” in humans.
Bethune, Brian: Inheritance battles
Daniels, Anthony: Genetic disorder
Dobbs, David: The Fault in Our DNA
Fuentes, Augustín: The Troublesome Ignorance of Nicholas Wade
Geneticists, Lotsofthem: An Open Letter
Goodman, Alan: A Troublesome Racial Smog
Johnson, Eric Michael: On the Origin of White Power
Laden, Greg: A Troubling Tome
Marks, Jonathan: The Genes Made Us Do It
Marks, Jonathan: Review of A Troublesome…
gregladen | June 18, 2014The United States Patent Office has decided that "Redskins" is a term offensive to Native Americans and can not be trademarked. Details here.
Will the team challenge this, and if so, on what basis? Free speech? Freedom to be offensive?
Maybe this video had an effect.
gregladen | June 17, 2014I first heard about Wade's book when a colleague started talking about bits and pieces of it. He was reading it pursuant to a writing a review. I asked the publisher for a review copy, which they kindly supplied, and started tracking the pre-publication reactions. After reading the first couple of chapters, I realized that I needed to write a review of this book, but I wanted to do something a bit more than a blog post. So, I contacted American Scientist. I had reviewed two books for them earlier. American Scientist is actually my very favorite science magazine (among magazines that are…
gregladen | June 11, 2014From WaPo:
When sports fans tuned into the NBA finals Tuesday night to see the San Antonio Spurs take on the Miami Heat, they got a look into another fierce standoff.
A California tribe paid for the anti-Redskins advertisement “Proud to Be” to run in seven major cities during halftime. The airing marked the first time the ad, which initially appeared online in time for the Super Bowl, had run before such a wide television audience.