posted by Sam Richards

That’s me after planning one of my lectures on the Old Main lawn back in the early 1990s. I was having a sudden flash of insight…and then it was gone. Just like all of us eventually.

So we’re at the end of another semester and I’m at the halfway point of my 20th year at Penn State and my 19th year of teaching SOC 119. It’s all different; it’s all the same. Things were more raucous back in those days–like when I had to ask an offensive lineman for an NFL team (who was finishing his degree in the off season) to sit in the middle of a couple of groups of people who wouldn’t stop arguing with each other. And it kept getting heated to the extent that I was certain that eventually things were going to “go down.” They never did. He was bigger than all of them…combined.

There was another guy who told me that for the first twelve weeks of the semester he secretly fantasized about how he’d like to participate in my demise. “I hated you,” he told me, “with ever fiber of my being. I REALLY hated you.” But then he started to “worship” me because I “saved his life” (his words), which is how I found out that he hated me. “I’ll never forget you,” he kept saying over and over. That’s a long story and I’m not about to tell it here.

Or they guy who condemned me to hell in front of the entire class in the middle of my LGBT lecture. That’s when I started asking God to leave. It’s just too much pressure. That was surely the most surreal moment of all time in the SOC 119 class–even more surreal than me falling flat on my back on my birthday this past September.

But alas, here we are. Why don’t you just take this last opportunity to put some words down about what you saw in yourself and others around you this semester. Feel free to use the reply button and respond to something that someone else (or several people) has or have said. And enjoy it…because you might be dead before you hit the send button.

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posted by Sam Richards

The problem we’re dealing with in 2009 is that we’re not asking people to THINK. We are feeding them information and few engage in dialogue with people who ask “why” and “how” and “if what you are saying is true, then what about…” Rusty thinking is what happens when we don’t sharpen our understanding of the world by conversing with people who are inclined to say to us “please tell me more about what you think about that.” These are, more often than not, people who have ideas that are different than those we espouse.

Imagine not having taken the opportunity to ride a bicycle for thirty years and suddenly somebody asks you to take an old, rusty bike out for a cruise. How do you imagine that you’d fare? Thirty years without ever being asked to spin those wheels and now you need to perform with all eyes upon you.

So we have this idea that people around us are thinking, that they’re truly using their brains. But have you listened to the conversations going on around you recently? No? Give them a listen now and then. There’s very little back and forth. I’d like to even be able to say that those are just opinions that people are throwing about but it’s hard to even hear the random, shallow, sophomoric ideas as “opinions.”

Okay, so really, the video below was put on the web by people who are critical of Sarah Palin and the people who support her. I’m putting it up, however, because it says nothing about Palin or her supporters and everything about Americans with rusty brains — including the millions of Obama fans who would answer similar questions about him and his policies in the same sort of awkward ways because they, too, drink in “fast food news” without being asked to give their brains a workout and interpret it.

And now…on to the show. And please, don’t laugh at them unless you have answers to the questions that don’t make you sound like a lost soul.

UPDATE: I’ve been reading some of the comments and I have to say I’m not entirely impressed. It’s the standard muckety-much about “my generation” and “people today” rounded out by “but I have to be honest and admit that I don’t know anything about politics.” C’mon people, how does it FEEL to be woefully and utterly ignorant about basic social and political issues? Take ownership, ya’ll. Lay it out there. Don’t grovel in it…but say something about what it means for you.

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posted by Sam Richards

Totally amazing!!

I think I’m finally getting my head around a solution the race conundrum. It’s been twenty years of my own indecision and chaotic contemplation and inner struggle to figure out where and how to weigh in.

So recently, for example, I finally figured out where to stand on the issue of gun control and the Second Amendment. Basically I came upon the idea that either we disseminate guns widely so that everyone has one (or two or twenty) or we ban then entirely. It doesn’t seem to really matter which route we take, and we’re sure to keep arguing about the issue for another 200+ years if we don’t get extreme in one direction or the other. But back to the race solution…

Here it is: Just have everyone become white. It seems as though we now have the technology to make that happen and it comes, evidently, in the form of a simple cream that a person can apply before going to bed. We could all become brown, of course. However, the “quick tanning creams” currently on the market seem to make people’s skin more reddish or orange than brown. And white appears to be easier on the sensibilities of so many black and brown people anyway — who deep down seem to have been so affected by white supremacy that they secretly harbor desires for whiteness. Crazy world.

And Sammy Sosa seems to have the skin whitening product that works. It’s all good; it’s all white. It’s all a perfect storm of celebrity sports marketing that can hype us into oneness and togetherness.

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posted by Sam Richards

[I just read a few of the earliest responses to this post and not one mentioned the insane number of whacky ways that Brazilians described themselves on a census thirty years ago. It's in the box below the video. Please read through those. Very funny and telling.]

Check out this story about affirmative action and discrimination in Brazil. To quickly summarize it, Brazil is trying to combat centuries of discrimination against Africans and Indians (people indigenous to that country) and one way they’ve done it is through a very aggressive affimative action program in their universities. There still remains some blistering discrimination in Brazil (think Jim Crow in the United States) and so it’s not difficult to make the argument that something needs to be done. But what, exactly?

Keep in mind that there is considerable opposition to this policy. Much of it sounds like opposition faced here in the U.S. — things aren’t that bad so let sleeping dogs lie. CHECK OUT THIS BBC ARTICLE.
CHECK OUT THIS BBC ARTICLE.

So here is the problem. Here are the racial classifications from the 1976 Brazilian Census — all 134 of them. And you thought the U.S. was complicated! Read some of these names. Mind you, these are how people categorized themselves and not the categories that the Brazilian government used to classify its citizens.

Acastanhada (cashewlike tint; caramel colored)
Agalegada
Alva (pure white)
Alva-escura (dark or off-white)
Alverenta (or aliviero, “shadow in the water”)
Alvarinta (tinted or bleached white)
Alva-rosada (or jamote, roseate, white with pink highlights)
Alvinha (bleached; white-washed)
Amarela (yellow)
Amarelada (yellowish)
Amarela-quemada (burnt yellow or ochre)
Amarelosa (yellowed)
Amorenada (tannish)
Avermelhada (reddish, with blood vessels showing through the skin)
Azul (bluish)
Azul-marinho (deep bluish)
Baiano (ebony)
Bem-branca (very white)
Bem-clara (translucent)
Bem-morena (very dusky)
Branca (white)
Branca-avermelhada (peach white)
Branca-melada (honey toned)
Branca-morena (darkish white)
Branca-pálida (pallid)
Branca-queimada (sunburned white)
Branca-sardenta (white with brown spots)
Branca-suja (dirty white)
Branquiça (a white variation)
Branquinha (whitish)
Bronze (bronze)
Bronzeada (bronzed tan)
Bugrezinha-escura (Indian characteristics)
Burro-quanto-foge (”burro running away,” implying racial mixture of unknown origin)
Cabocla (mixture of white, Negro and Indian)
Cabo-Verde (black; Cape Verdean)
Café (coffee)
Café-com-leite (coffee with milk)
Canela (cinnamon)
Canelada (tawny)
Castão (thistle colored)
Castanha (cashew)
Castanha-clara (clear, cashewlike)
Castanha-escura (dark, cashewlike)
Chocolate (chocolate brown)
Clara (light)
Clarinha (very light)
Cobre (copper hued)
Corado (ruddy)
Cor-de-café (tint of coffee)
Cor-de-canela (tint of cinnamon)
Cor-de-cuia (tea colored)
Cor-de-leite (milky)
Cor-de-oro (golden)
Cor-de-rosa (pink)
Cor-firma (”no doubt about it”)
Crioula (little servant or slave; African)
Encerada (waxy)
Enxofrada (pallid yellow; jaundiced)
Esbranquecimento (mostly white)
Escura (dark)
Escurinha (semidark)
Fogoio (florid; flushed)
Galega (see agalegada above)
Galegada (see agalegada above)
Jambo (like a fruit the deep-red color of a blood orange)
Laranja (orange)
Lilás (lily)
Loira (blond hair and white skin)
Loira-clara (pale blond)
Loura (blond)
Lourinha (flaxen)
Malaia (from Malabar)
Marinheira (dark greyish)
Marrom (brown)
Meio-amerela (mid-yellow)
Meio-branca (mid-white)
Meio-morena (mid-tan)
Meio-preta (mid-Negro)
Melada (honey colored)
Mestiça (mixture of white and Indian)
Miscigenação (mixed — literally “miscegenated”)
Mista (mixed)
Morena (tan)
Morena-bem-chegada (very tan)
Morena-bronzeada (bronzed tan)
Morena-canelada (cinnamonlike brunette)
Morena-castanha (cashewlike tan)
Morena clara (light tan)
Morena-cor-de-canela (cinnamon-hued brunette)
Morena-jambo (dark red)
Morenada (mocha)
Morena-escura (dark tan)
Morena-fechada (very dark, almost mulatta)
Morenão (very dusky tan)
Morena-parda (brown-hued tan)
Morena-roxa (purplish-tan)
Morena-ruiva (reddish-tan)
Morena-trigueira (wheat colored)
Moreninha (toffeelike)
Mulatta (mixture of white and Negro)
Mulatinha (lighter-skinned white-Negro)
Negra (negro)
Negrota (Negro with a corpulent vody)
Pálida (pale)
Paraíba (like the color of marupa wood)
Parda (dark brown)
Parda-clara (lighter-skinned person of mixed race)
Polaca (Polish features; prostitute)
Pouco-clara (not very clear)
Pouco-morena (dusky)
Preta (black)
Pretinha (black of a lighter hue)
Puxa-para-branca (more like a white than a mulatta)
Quase-negra (almost Negro)
Queimada (burnt)
Queimada-de-praia (suntanned)
Queimada-de-sol (sunburned)
Regular (regular; nondescript)
Retinta (”layered” dark skin)
Rosa (roseate)
Rosada (high pink)
Rosa-queimada (burnished rose)
Roxa (purplish)
Ruiva (strawberry blond)
Russo (Russian; see also polaca)
Sapecada (burnished red)
Sarará (mulatta with reddish kinky hair, aquiline nose)
Saraúba (or saraiva: like a white meringue)
Tostada (toasted)
Trigueira (wheat colored)
Turva (opaque)
Verde (greenish)
Vermelha (reddish)

Frankly, I’m inclined to think that the reason that Brazilians never had a “race issue” is because people are too confused about their own racial identity to have any thoughts about the matter. Affirmative action is bound to fail, at least without the help of a supercomputer.

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posted by Sam Richards

Watch this video and read the text. And while you’re doing so, think about two things:
1. For those of you who think you “know” when someone is LGBT…would you ever think that Darren Manzella is gay?
2. A recent report from military officials investigating whether having LGBT soldiers on a unit “weakens morale” decidedly determined that it does not and that the DADT policy should be abandoned.

CHECK OUT THE ARTICLE

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posted by Sam Richards

Back to hate crimes. At issue is finding ways to predict who is and is not likely to attack other people because of who they are or what they (the victims) believe. If we know this, then we can more readily protect people who might be attacked.

Hey, shouldn’t people who incite others to violence be somehow subject to scrutiny for their indirect participation in the attack(s)? So all of the anti-immigrant vitriol directed mostly towards Mexicans is whipping people into a frenzy. We know this and we can see a link (notg causal, of course). Let’s talk about it at the very least.

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Diana Nicholson, the mother of Taraha Shenice Nicholson, is comforted during a news conference in Tarboro, N.C.

posted by Sam Richards

Part of this story is about social class…maybe most of it is. I don’t know and nobody does. Race and class are so intertwined that they’re impossible to disentangle. My raised eyebrow to the fool who says it’s all clear to him or her.

All I know is that when I read this story I cannot even possibly imagine that these events would be silenced if the victims were middle class, and certainly not middle class and white. I really don’t expect the media outlets to cover every negative and sad event from across the land, but I have to wonder how much a life is worth and why some lives are worth more than others.

Read the story and chew on the question that is embedded into that last statement. It’s going to take you a few minutes, but it should keep you thinking. HERE IS THE LINK TO THE STORY.

UPDATE: Perhaps you’ve been following the case of the man in Cleveland who tortured and killed 10-11 women whose bodies were buried or hidden in his house in a poor section of the city. The man is black, as were most (perhaps all) of the women. This case juxtaposes well with the one in North Carolina in that the relatives of the missing Cleveland women all report that the police entirely disregarded their attempts to report someone as a “missing person.” In one case the aunt of a missing woman was (purportedly) told to just sit tight because her niece would return “when all of the drugs were gone.” It seems as though the message is the same: the rape, assault, and disappearance (i.e., murder) of poor and marginalized women is not really a public concern.

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posted by Sam Richards

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posted by Sam Richards

So one of the great mysteries has been solved, or so it seems. Having a (half) black president and a mostly black first family doesn’t have much of a long term impact on attitudes about race relations. Check out these Gallup poll numbers that just came in at the end of October 2009. (You can click on the graphs to make them larger.)

Be sure to note that these numbers are the same as they were in 1963. Yeah…1963! And in case you want to know what different groups think, here they’ve controlled for ancestry.

The following graph is actually a bit promising. I suppose the numbers have to play out in this way with Obama in the White House. I mean god help us if more, rather than fewer, people think black people have less of a chance to get a job for which they are qualified today than in the past.

These data are interesting because they point to the optimistic accessment of how things are unraveling.

And it appears as though the backlash against the “white man” has come to fruition. Sucks to be white.

Here is how the Gallup folks summarize the results:

Despite the election of the first black president in U.S. history, Americans’ optimism about a solution to the race problem in the U.S. and their views about the prevalence of racism against blacks are not substantially more positive now than they have been in previous years. In fact, optimism about race relations is now almost identical to where it was 46 years ago, when Gallup first asked the question.

Blacks remain significantly more negative than whites about their status in society and about the potential for an eventual solution to the race problem. The data do not suggest that blacks have become disproportionately more positive than whites as a result of Obama’s election as president.

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posted by Sam Richards

Arab and Jewish children doing what they naturally do -- play!

It seems as though there are some people in Israel who don’t like the idea of people taking the dictum “Know thy enemy!” too literally–who have, one might say, taken it to heart.

I’m talking about the story going around the wires of Jewish groups who are patrolling lover hangouts so as to ensure that Jewish women do not get too intimate with Arab men. I’m not sure if they care about Jewish men and Arab women. Probably not; (straight) men seem to be like that; the more women the better. Hmm…

In any case, my guess is that there are Arab groups looking to put an end to those hook-ups. Not sure why THAT story hasn’t made the headlines yet.

I’m struck by all of this because it’s tough to stop love when people live so intimately on such small parcels of land. Having been to Israel and Palestine twice, I can say that most Jews would laugh at the insanity of trying stop the inevitable–and probably a higher percentage than would Arab and Christian Palestinians. And I’m also struck by the irony of such a committee for pureness. I can only imagine what some of these love detectors might say if vigilantes of white people roamed the United States looking for cross cultural love affairs. My guess is they’d have a long list of critical commentaries about the racist backwardness of Americans.

But here you are. Listen for yourself.

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