posted by Sam Richards

These are great questions. Let me be clear about what I was trying to say so as to make sure that you respond to what is cool about the questions — because they’re great questions.

As to the LLBean photos, at issue is that if you’re in the Immersion Stage as a person of color, then those people of color in the LLBean catalog are “questionable” people of color. In other words, you’re going to feel some kind of way about the ways in which they’re blending into the “majority society” (i.e., white society). And you’re going to critique them by saying things like, “They’ve been whitewashed” or “They’re acting white,” etc. In essence, you’re going to laugh at THAT depiction of blackness or brownness. If you don’t think that when viewing these photos, then you’re likely not in the Immersion stage.

As to Jesse Jackson, returning to one’s roots is simply indicative of the “Pseudo Communitarian” stage. If you feel no special pull toward your own roots and instead choose to follow any path that is calling to you, then it’s an indication that perhaps you’ve moved on to the Humanitarian stage.

Share on Facebook

Posted by Sam Richards

I don’t know how many people have been paying attention to the so-called “Tea Party” protests, but some of these folks are really off the hook. Signs portraying Obama as a Nazi are within the boundaries of “acceptable protest” over the past twenty years — as both Clinton and Bush were regularly depicted as Hitler with the little mustache below the nose. This doesn’t make those protesting appear level-headed, but people on both the right and the left use the image when they think that it serves their cause. But the racism and anti gay bigotry are unique to some folks in the Tea Party movement. I say “some” because I am certain that most people who support the movement condemn calling Rep. John Lewis the n-bomb and Rep. Barney Frank the f-bomb. That’s raw.

And how about the message in the above photo. The people holding these signs are threatening violence against elected officials. At what point is THAT a crime? These are some crazy times.

Check out this article. It’s from the Huffington Post, a well known left-leaning news source/blog. However, I’ve searched around on the web and the stories noted here are validated by a wide range of sources. I’m using this Huffington Post version of the story because it’s actually the most comprehensive. Read the article: “Tea Party Protestors Shout at Members of Congress”

Share on Facebook

Posted by Sam Richards

This question is getting at the issue of white guilt. If past history of discussing this issue offers any clues about how people will respond, most white people will say that they don’t feel guilty, that it’s silly to feel guilty. And I respond to that by saying that most of these white people are missing the point of white guilt, that a deeply rooted shame for past history exists in most white people. Remember the example of walking through a Native American reservation…and not take this example and walk through other communities with a full understanding of their history. What I’ve experienced is that white people have an inner sense that things went really wrong in the past, and that there are lingering affects of those wrongs still with us today–although they cannot readily articulate what those are. Anyway, this is an interesting questions about how we might move beyond white guilt if we just talking about things more openly…

Share on Facebook

Posted by Sam Richards

Share on Facebook

Posted by Sam Richards

Share on Facebook

Posted by Sam Richards

I’m not sure if people realize that Laurie wrote this book while sitting through hundreds of SOC 119 discussion groups each year a while back. Because she was the supervisor for the TAs she couldn’t speak and respond to different things that people would say–both white students and students of color. So I encouraged her to put her thoughts down in writing so that I could use them in class. The book very much focuses on “race relations” and not inequality and social justice and the like.

Share on Facebook

Posted by Sam Richards

Frankly, it’s odd that in this world where most of us want to be more multicultural than we are that we don’t see lots of race/culture mixing on a show such as this. Maybe it happens on other shows…I certainly don’t know. But that it doesn’t happen on this one is odd. I wonder if this particular show caters to an slightly older (read: set in their ethnocentric ways) crowd of viewers.

Share on Facebook

Posted by Sam Richards

Share on Facebook

Posted by Sam Richards

Share on Facebook

Posted by Sam Richards

Share on Facebook

Posted by Sam Richards

Share on Facebook

Share on Facebook

Posted by Sam Richards

Share on Facebook

Posted by Sam Richards

Share on Facebook

Posted by Sam Richards

Share on Facebook

Posted by Sam Richards

Share on Facebook

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.

Share on Facebook