This is a great video to show the complexity of economic life. When you think “economics,” consider consumption and production. People accumulate resources, manipulate them in some way, and then repackage or resell them at a higher price to someone else–produce and consume. Or they offer some service to fulfill some need of others. Economic exchange never stops–not even in an earthquake or when it appears as though an entire social structure has fallen apart.
When this in mind, check out this video about life in one of the refugee camps in which over a million Haitians now call home. (it might take a minute to load…)
In the event that you’d like to revisit the lecture (I can’t imagine) or that you know someone who would like to see it (a bit more likely), here it is. This particular version of the lecture took place during the Fall 2009 semester.
I’ve been saying for over a decade that students should learn Mandarin if they want to ensure that they’ll have a future in the economic marketplace that includes unlimited upward mobility…and a job. Out of the thousands who have heard the message, a few have listened. Not bad.
So here is an article about the increase in the number of high schools teaching either Mandarin or Cantonese, even though there is an overall reduction in teaching of foreign language classes. (Spanish remains constant, by the way.) Hmm…someone is listening. Not teaching language in high school is probably not a big deal; I’ve rarely met anyone who truly learned to speak a foreign language after even four years of study. So why waste the time? But if we’re going to invest, I suppose Mandarin (and Spanish) is the way to go.
So globalization is bringing about some profound changes as the United States makes the final turn onto the home stretch toward a truly multicultural society. We’ve long predicted that white people will become a minority group by mid century (around 2050), but this is the first real marker on that journey–their children are soon to be in minority status.
It doesn’t really matter, mind you, and I’m sure that most people reading this are wondering why it’s being reported on at all. So what is the big deal? Do you feel some sort of way about this? White people…do you feel even a twinge of concern, as though you’ll be forgotten and soon holding the short end of the stick? People of color…do you feel a tiny bit emboldened at the thought that one day people like you will be holding most of the levers of control? From within the dialogue about race and ethnic relations, this is a major issue and one that will surely reflect and change how we get on with one another down the road. Transformation happens…
This is a story that will humble most any listener. And frankly, I’d love to have every undergraduate business student in the U.S. listen to it–particularly those who assume that they’ll eventually land in six figure jobs with complimentary gold cards and regular frequent flier upgrades. (Not all do, of course, as most Penn State business majors are simply happy to get a job interview…I fully recognize that.) Nonetheless, many of them will make this kind of money, of course, and not necessarily because of their own abilities. Somebody has to fill those positions and, being staffed by mostly washrag talent from top to bottom, most companies simply reproduce what they know drawing on the vessels of empty vision and stale thinking that are available to them.
If that sounds judgmental and harsh, it is. But only because I just listened to this story and in my lifetime and travels I have met far too many people like Yvrose Jean Baptiste, the woman highlighted by NPR in this story. Had the creator/fate decided that her spirit should enter a body in a more developed nation, she’d very quickly have risen to the top and won any race or competition that required guts, determination, stamina, and outside-the-box creative thinking. This is a woman with an unmatched entrepreneurial spirit and a gutsy grit that would shame all but a few standouts on the path toward financial security here in the U.S. — people who are on THAT path only because they were born in a land a few hundred miles north of the land mass we call “Haiti.”
I hate to sound so damn uppity myself, especially because I’m pretty “wash rag” and mediocre in most of what I do, but listen to the story and then ask yourself: How would I get on in Haiti and what might Yvrose do if she had the opportunity walk through the world wearing my shoes?
US Airways Express Flight 3079, bound for Kentucky, landed in Philadelphia after an attendant reported a passenger who was praying and wearing tefillin.
Strange how there is so much going on in the world that is boringly normal for one group and totally off-the-hook bizzare for another. While I am undoubtedly in the group of people in the U.S. that could be labelled “more aware” of others and their cultures, I would be quick to admit that there are things going on around me, cultural practices if you will, that I don’t understand and cannot make sense of.
So here is this quirky story about a young Jewish man who made the “mistake” of praying and wearing tefillin while flying on an airplane. Most of you don’t know what “teffilin” is–and why would you if you’re not Jewish? Hmm… Actually, why would you if you’re not Jewish and familiar with a wide range of Jewish religious practices?
What’s interesting about this misadventure in flying and cultural interpretation is how the Jewish families (and other Jews who were interviewed) reacted to it–they were very nonchalant and understanding. “Are you kidding,” you can almost hear them say. “Have you seen someone praying with tefillin?” It’s a very rational response to what could otherwise be seen as a mistake made by a rather provincial and unworldly airline employee.
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.
No doubt a few of you know this guy, MC Hotdog. He’s been around for a minute, as they say, and is popular in Taiwan and known in Southeast Asia. He is recognized for his gritty lyrics and many supporters and critics claim that his music represents a vision of “real life.” Sound familiar? Gangsters, fast women, tough talk, fast living…you know the standard schtick.
This particular song is about perceptions of people, women in particular, that northern Taiwanese have of people from the south Of that country, and a general commentary of the nexus between the north and south Taiwan. But alas, it’s mostly about women and the fact that he prefers the Taiwanese “beauties” over those women with cultural ties to mainland China. Watch the video:
What jumps out for me is how you could use Photoshop and FinalCut and replace all the people in the video with African American actors/artists and you’d never know. You could probably keep 98 percent of the lyrics and just replace names like “Taipei” (the capital of Taiwan) with “Compton” (a community in Los Angeles) throughout it. And so I’m struck by the enormity of this globalized village in which we’re living, of how some artist on the other side of the world can take the hip-hop formula and very easily reproduce it to become a well known artist in his own land.
Here is a video from Zanka Flow, a popular hip hop group from Morocco:
I have no idea what they’re saying–they’re spitin’ it in Arabic, although they might be using some local dialects–but it sounds like it might be rather hard core. Morocco is a pretty poor country–rich in history and culture, poor in terms of resources that would help them compete in the global economy. The unemployment and underemployment rate for young men is extremely high in this Muslim land, and so I can imagine the kinds of things that young males might be saying to the world.
Any thoughts on this world wide dissemination of hip hop and rap? Personally, I find it pretty cool that people around the globe are tied together by music. They always have been, of course, though it has happened much more quickly this time around.
So I heard on the radio this morning that Egypt’s most powerful (Muslim) cleric, Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, has spoken out against the niqab, the full, face-covering/headscarf (not to be confused with the burka–a full body covering). He has proclaimed that these should be banned from the various schools of the Al-Azhar University. He has asserted that niqab “has nothing at all to do with Islam.”
This is from the Press Trust of India:
Cairo, Oct 9 (PTI) Egypt’s prestigious Al-Azhar University has barred students from wearing face-veils or Niqab in female-only classrooms and dormitories.
The Al-Azhar supreme council, in a statement yesterday, said that it has decided to ban students and teachers from wearing the Niqab inside female-only classrooms that are taught by women.
The ban extends to women dormitories and to schools affiliated with the university.
It said that the aim of the ban is to spread the spirit of confidence, unison, comfort and sound understanding between the teachers and their students.
The decision was announced by Sheik of Al-Azhar Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi, who was recently criticised for forcing a girl to take off her face-veil inside an institute affiliated with the university.
The Muslim brotherhood, the largest opposition bloc, has asked for his removal, describing his action as part of a larger plan to de-Islamise Egypt.
This struck me because it sounds rather progressive and, dare I say, “feminist.” It does not sound at all like some proclamations I’ve heard recently by other Egyptian (Muslim) clerics. Listen to this one:
Now that’s what I’m talking about. Real machismo. I’ve always thought that God/G-d/Allah wanted straight men to have a way to unequivocally express how manly they were in their own homes so as to show that he is on our side — he is a “he,” afterall, isn’t he?
So here’s the deal. This should show all of us that Islam, like all other religions, is ripe for interpretation. I mean, c’mon, god–the g is lower case now in deference to the atheists among you–either wants women to be beaten or to not cover up. Not sure if a bikini is acceptable, but these are two very different interpretations of the will of the creator and I’m struck by how anybody at all can speak for god. Reminds me of some words I read years ago: “You can be pretty certain that you’ve created god in your own image when your god hates all of the same people and things that you do.”
I guess I’d like to leave you with the following: Just like your secular and religious leaders have different interpretations for their people’s actions, so too do the leaders of other lands and cultures. Keep that in mind the next time you hear something that sounds really crazy that has been proclaimed by one of a billion or so followers of some belief system. Perhaps it’s just that one person’s sense of reality! Maybe not every so-called follower agrees with that person — like when Ahmadinejad in Iran expresses his desire to Nuke Israel, or when the Pope decides that using condoms will not help prevent the spread of HIV.
There are scores of ethnic groups in China and the majority group, the Han Chinese, make up over 90 percent of the population and remain relatively entrenched in their power to influence Chinese society. Think European Americans in the United States before the 1960s. The problem is that China has not had it’s 1960s civil rights movement and accompanying “conscientization” and so many of the Han are thinking about the rights of minorities in much the same way as many white southerners were fifty years ago–that is to say, “rights” are not on the table for a public conversation.
So remember the riots that broke out in China this past summer between minority Uighurs (who are Muslim) and majority Han? Not likely…because it’s probably not an issue for you. But do know that these riots were big news in the world’s most populated country. Many hundreds died all because of an overt racism that we rarely see on this side of the Pacific. Both the majority Han and minority Uighurs violently clashed over the issue or rights. Imagine thousands of majority Han (think white people) roaming the streets with knives and meat cleavers looking for Uighurs (think people of color) to kill after Uighurs had killed over 150 Han. The Uighurs attacked, so they said, as a response to racist attacks and policies by the Han. So yeah, big news in China.
Read this is from a James Fallows column in the New Yorker to get a sense of the racism in China. Fallows has had considerable experience living there as a Westerner/foreigner.
Regarding the “no Uighurs” sign [that is often seen in the Xinjiang region], that type of thing is pretty common in China. Many advertisements for foreign English teachers will include something like “Whites only” or a “Looking for Caucasian teachers” sentence somewhere in the text. Additionally, many a native speaker have flown from their country to China only to find upon arrival that regardless of the applicant’s qualifications, the job could only be performed by a white person. At these times the Chinese are usually polite and a little embarrassed (most Chinese are very nice people and mean no harm), but they will remain very firm in their conviction that a person with darker skin than theirs could not possibly make a good teacher.
I have experienced this on a number of occasions. But after living in China for a while I realized that what we would consider racism in the West is simply a deeply ingrained cultural characteristic of mainland Chinese people. White skin (the Chinese like to consider themselves white) and/or being a Han (the dominant ethnic group) means a person is good. Dark skin or not being Han means a person is inferior (and more likely to be a bad guy/a thief/incompetent etc.). It does not equal KKK style hatred. It does not even mean a Han Chinese wouldn’t be friends with a person from India or Africa. It simply means that if a person is non-white or a member of certain Chinese minorities [like Uighurs], they simply are to be considered less smart, less competent and less trustworthy than the average white person or Han.
On a lighter note, the Chinese are not inflexible and when exposed to nice people of color they usually will change their minds quickly, as with Obama. However, the tendency towards ethnic and racial chauvinism is a current running through Chinese culture that is unlikely to change in any meaningful way anytime soon.
These are pretty graphic scenes. I realize that there are many sides to this issue and there is no way that I can begin to present them all here. Nonetheless, these riots are not much different than the riots we have seen here in the United States in terms of their causes and consequences. What I want you to get a window into is the idea that ethnocentrism and prejudice and discrimination occur all over the world. I say this because I often hear people say something to the effect that the U.S. is the “most racist country in the world,” when in fact that know little to nothing about other countries in that world of which they speak.
This post is just a window into another culture and their struggles for civility and understanding.
Do you have any idea how many times you’ve been lied to and didn’t know it? Really…think about it. How often does your silly, gullible self accept something as true because…well…because you believed the source? And how often have you passed on the lie to others? It’s painful for me to even think about it in my own case.
So I recently received an email from a friend that contained a video of a story that Fox News broadcast a while back. The tag line said that I needed to watch it to understand a terrible injustice brought about by liberals, illegal immigration, and political correctness — not necessarily in that order. It was one of those emails that I receive once or twice per week. Take a look at the video for yourself (it’s only a 36 second clip):
If your first response is to tilt your head to the side and scratch the back of your skull while having a dazed and confused look on your face, then you know exactly how it affected me. The thought that went along with said reaction, however, was the same one that I had when I was a kid and someone offered me the opportunity to see some freak such as a “bearded lady” at the local carnival — “this simply sounds too crazy to be true.”
Being the skeptic that I am, I decided to conduct an investigation to see if I could get to the bottom of it and find out what really happened. I started by reading some of the comments that were being made on YouTube. They were pretty scathing: “Round ‘em up and send ‘em home,” said one patriot. Another brain surgeon in the making chimed in, “This is what happens when we elect a black man as president.” (The politically correct violation that is referenced in the video occurred a couple of years ago, by the way, long before Obama entered our national spotlight.) Clearly, these blockheads were not searching for the real story and so I would not find it there.
So I plugged some combination of words such as “Oregon Mexican firefighter fired” and quickly found what I wanted: a statement from the State of Oregon’s Department of Forestry that explained the matter in considerable detail. It took me all of about 45 seconds to read, but what it revealed was very depressing (given the number of people who watched and believed the original story). I’ll summarize it for you here:
Oregon’s Department of Forestry contracts private fire crews. (Remember conservatives, privatization = cost savings = free market capitalism.) If these companies choose to hire non-English-speaking firefighters for a crew, then they must have bilingual crew leaders because while English is the official language of firefighting in the U.S., crew leaders MUST be able to communicate with their crews for purposes of safety. If a private company hires Mexican firefighters, then English only speaking crew leaders can’t lead that team. If they hire only English-speaking firefighters, then the crew leaders need only have the ability to speak English.
It makes sense that so many people hate liberals and Mexicans and political correctness with stories like this floating around on the WWW. Who wouldn’t be clamoring for the microphone to add to the shouting chorus of red-blooded citizens who want to preserve the United States for the “real Americans” (not to be confused with Native Americans, of course).
So how many times have you been duped by such an email or a rumor? How often do you find yourself saying, “No way. This can’t possibly be true. I have to tell everyone I know so this outrage will stop.” And how often do you follow that up with, “This sounds fishy and so I’d better explore it before I pass it on down the rumor mill.”?
This stuff cuts both ways, mind you, because misinformation enters the public discourse from both the right and the left wings of the political spectrum. (This story originally aired on Fox News, but left-wing blogs and web sites picked it up and carried it as though it was true, by the way.) My gut inclination tells me that the right is slightly better at putting out misinformation than the left, but only because they have more money to do so. I think that both are equal in terms of their scruples about lying–but the right-wing is better at it and more flagrant about it than the left-wing. My personal opinion, folks. Perhaps that’s just because more of their political operatives have written tell all books about their strategies and misdeeds. (If you haven’t read any of these and you fancy yourself a conservative, then perhaps you ought to take a look.)
An addendum: One respondent who is a firefighter noted the utmost importance of communication while fighting fires and pointed out that non-English speaking firefighters would be problematic on English speaking crews. I absolutely agree and would maintain that Mexicans who do not speak English should NOT be on crews with U.S. firefighters who only speak English. To which I respond…no kidding.
Clearly slavery is one of those touchy subjects for people in the United States. White people don’t fully understand it’s lasting legacy and often have the idea that after the Civil War ended in 1865, slaves were free to climb on up the mobility ladder as far as they wanted to go. People of color, African Americans in particular, are generally more cognizant of how white supremacy has continued to affect the life paths of the descendants of former slaves. They are much more likely to understand the ways in which black Americans were rarely offered the opportunity to compete fairly for the “prizes” that awaited white Americans at the finish line of the race to embrace the American Dream.
The problem is that with all of this talk of the legacy of slavery we forget that the institution has never ended for nearly thirty million people around the world. And we forget that all of us help to keep these “modern day slaves” in bondage when we purchase goods that they have manufactured. And by “all of us” I do mean to include the living descendants of slaves.
In keeping with my iconoclastic image, I just want to put this out there for people to chew on…
