Race and Racism
gregladen | March 7, 2014Imagine that there is a trait observed among people that seems to occur more frequently in some families and not others. One might suspect that the trait is inherited genetically. Imagine researchers looking for the genetic underpinning of this trait and at first, not finding it. What might you conclude? It could be reasonable to conclude that the genetic underpinning of the trait is elusive, perhaps complicated with multiple genes, or that there is a non-genetic component, also not yet identified, that makes finding the genetic component harder. Eventually, you might assume, the gene will be…
gregladen | October 21, 2013This story is not getting the attention it probably deserves in national press. Which would be more than zero (I've not seen any coverage at all).
Rather than rehashing what has already been summarized elsewhere I'll just point you to some sources:
The North Dakota Neo-Nazi Take-Over HAS ALREADY HAPPENED
The small town of Leith, North Dakota recently took center stage on social networking sites, even while most media outlets barely reported on the story getting all the buzz. A network of white supremacist groups had come together to purchase properties in the small town, so as to create a…
gregladen | September 16, 2013Maggie Koerth-Baker has an amazing story at Boing Boing. The link is HERE. You just have to go read it. It is about what happened to the body of Addie Mae Colins, one of the people killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing by the KKK. Just go read it.
gregladen | September 7, 2013Melissa Harris-Perry hits on so many important points here that I'll probably use this in class:
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
gregladen | July 23, 2013 Does this picture of Hitler make you like him?
I dislike Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's, that dislike contingent on his guilt yet to be proven (but very likely, it seems). His picture on the cover of Rolling Stone makes a point that struck me during the mayhem in Boston, and it is a good point. Those who reacted to this photograph negatively are seeing this situation in the first order, missing the point, missing the nuance. They are operating at the bodice-ripping romance novel level of thinking, not even the semi-complex Hercule Poirot level, of thinking. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts cop…
gregladen | July 2, 2013How to break into a car with your white privilage, or driving while black in America.
gregladen | May 30, 2013Elizabeth Chin has written an excellent scholarly takedown, in the form of a "letter from your thesis reader," of Jason Richwine's 2009 Harvard PhD dissertation, " IQ and Immigration."
I've not read Richwine's thesis, though I probably will at some point. And you probably haven't either. But, you'll still find Chin's post informative and compelling.
It is here: What Jason Richwine Should Have Heard from his PhD Committee
While you are on the subject have a look at this: Harvard Students Demand Investigation Into Jason Richwine's Thesis On Hispanic IQ
Hat tip: Jennifer Raff.
gregladen | April 17, 2013Hopkins High School is one of the top public schools in Minnesota, which prides itself, though not always with justification, as having excellent public schools. Hopkins is in an "outer ring" suburb of the Twin Cities. This is a set of bedroom communities developed over the last several decades as well-to-do city folk moved out of the urban core, and American immigrants from the coasts and elsewhere moved to the Twin Cities during periods of economic prosperity and growth. These suburbs and their schools are relatively white and relatively privileged. We see racist things in these places…
gregladen | March 31, 2013This is why we can't have nice things, like immigration reform.
From MSNBC:
Amid a hot-button debate in Washington over how to overhaul the nation's immigration laws, Rep. Don Young, a 21-term lawmaker, referred to immigrant workers as "wetbacks" — a term that could threaten to inflame the debate about immigration reform.
"My father had a ranch; we used to have 50-60 wetbacks to pick tomatoes," Young said in an interview with radio station KRBD. He was discussing the number of jobs that have been made irrelevant due to advances in automation.
Young is one of the top Republicans in the House.…
gregladen | March 23, 2013I've been waiting for people to die before I told this story on my blog, but certain people seem to take forever to do that so I'm not waiting any more. Besides, it happened a long time ago. The story I'm telling you happened to me a long time ago (about 1990) and the thing that happened to me really amounted to someone telling me a story, which in turn happened a long time before that (about 1977).
There had been some kind of thing, a barbecue, at the home of Scotty MacNeish. If you don't know who Scotty is, you should. He is the archaeologist who discovered and documented the origins of…
gregladen | November 13, 2012You probably already know that when Obama won the presidency a large number of people, many teenagers, tweeted racist comments about that. Funny story: I found out about the use of the n-word in relation to the re-elected President in one person's tweet, so I figured I'd investigate. I went to twitter and entered the appropriate search terms, and found a bunch of hateful hideous tweets, as expected. About 20 down I found my friend Debbie Goddard. She had done the same search and tweeted about it. Sort of like hearing a bad noise in the yard and when you go out there to check it out you…
gregladen | October 9, 2012The evidence that if you are a Republican you are a member of a club that you should be embarrassed to be a member of mounts. In this case, Jon Hubbard and Loy Mauch of Arkansas speak out in favor of slavery and blame African Americans for the results of institutional racism.
"Arkansas Republicans tried to distance themselves Saturday from a Republican state representative's assertion that slavery was a "blessing in disguise" and a Republican state House candidate who advocates deporting all Muslims. The claims were made in books written, respectively, by Rep. Jon Hubbard of Jonesboro and…
gregladen | October 6, 2012No matter how much one may have disagreed with a colleague in life, no matter how much damage one might feel a particular person's work may have done, when that colleague finally dies one says a few good words, pays respect, and puts aside past differences.
But not in this case. I met Jean Philippe Rushton a couple of times but never got to know him as a person. But I do know that he was convinced of the inferiority of Africans compared to, for instance, himself, and spent his entire life improperly manipulating data, sometimes just plain making the data up, to "prove" this. If you look…
gregladen | June 29, 2012Just came across this snapshot of an exhibit panel from the Science Museum of Minnesota's exhibit on race.
SMM Race Exhibit Panel addressing the common misconception that a forensic anthropologist can look at a skull and accurately attribute "race." (photo by Greg Laden)
gregladen | March 6, 2012This is something that started last midweek, but that travels, a cold, and intermittent internet connectivity conspired to distract me from until now. Jerry Coyne was writing about human "race" and in so doing may have made a number of statements that some people disagreed with, and one of those people contacted me and asked my opinion, which I gave, etc. etc. etc. And, of course, the whole conversation got blogged HERE. The conversation in the comments is also very interesting. Go have a look.
gregladen | August 18, 2011Plymouth, Minnesota plays a fairly important role in my life. It is a big suburb to the west of Minneapolis, a mainly liberal or progressive middle class bedroom community linked to first ring extra-urban commercial development based mainly on corn. Kellogs, Cargill, Mosaic, other companies that grow corn, use corn in making products, sell corn based products and generally control a large percentage of the corn market have their Headquarters out in the Western Suburbs and many of the people who work in those places live in Plymouth, which is fairly large.
When I first moved to the twin…
gregladen | August 7, 2011I have lived among Cannibals, according to a lot of people who claim to know. The number of times that the "tribal" people of the Congo have been called cannibals is too great to be counted, most notably in great literature like The Heart of Darkness but most commonly, I suspect, from the pulpit or soap box by those raising money to spread this or that word. Most Europeans and Americans don't know it, but many people who live in the Congo are quite convinced that the bazunga ... the white foreigners ... are cannibals. I've listened closely these assertions, made by many individuals, and I'…
gregladen | July 15, 2011At about this time in 1931, a black family moved into an all white neighborhood. The resident whites tried to stop it from the beginning, even offering to buy the house at a price over that paid by Army vet Arthur Lee and Edith Lee. When these early efforts failed, the denizens of the segregated neighborhood found the solution that what was most obvious to them: Thousands of them surrounded the home, screamed racial slurs and threw stones at the house and family until they finally moved out.
Except that last part didn't happen. Arthur and Edith stayed, and the racist citizens of this…
gregladen | July 7, 2011Behaviors are not caused by genes. There is not a gene that causes you to be good, or to be bad, or to be smart, or good at accounting, or to like bananas. There are, however, drives. "Drives" is a nicely vague term that we can all understand the meaning of. Thirst and hunger are drives we can all relate to. In fact, these drives are so basic, consistent and powerful that almost everyone has them, we share almost exact experiences in relation to them, and they can drive (as drives are wont to do) us to do extreme things when they are not met for long periods of time. While eating…