Those People

The G-word

2007-06-19T20:06:00.000-04:00

An interesting conversation on utilizing ethnography in a "national security" (sorry, I can't say it with a straight face)/military context:

Steve;

a nice lady named Anne at Space and Culture.

Also pertinent because at the moment I am gestating a new blog documenting my latest career arc in what we will broadly call "social work". As Neha says, there are social workers and then there are social workers-- more on that in the new blog, to be announced.

Those Dark-skinned People

2006-06-09T09:22:00.000-04:00

Washington Post, The Color of Disaster Relief

Remember when we were in the midst of Katrina media-coverage, and many people were pointing out the racial disparities of who got help first, and what kind of help they got? And how other [politically-correct/naive/dishonest] people would respond: "Oh, that's ridiculous. We don't do racism in the U.S. Stop complaining."

Yeah, well, actually, we do.

Those Latinos

2006-05-18T09:08:00.000-04:00

Remix: The Anthem en Espanol
from The Courant

[Hear it here.]

This is an ironic position to take for many reasons, not least of which being the fact that the national anthem itself represents a neat little piece of cultural cross-pollination, borrowing its famously tough-to-sing tune from "Anacreon in Heaven," an old British song of revelry.

More importantly, though, those who dismiss "Himno" reveal they've somehow missed the point of America.

This country, as has been argued repeatedly in recent weeks, was founded, built and made great by immigrants. Regardless of what rapper Diddy might claim, it was our founding fathers who, in breaking from Great Britain, invented the remix, laying the groundwork for a nation that would create its own culture from the scraps of others.

[Musically, it's as bad or worse than every other pop rendition of the Anthem. Culturally, I think it's fascinating, and wonderful, actually. People who are getting their panties in a twist about this are in DENIAL about the heritage and the future of our country.
I'm not going to get into a big evaluation of the whole immigration reform issue because it's really complex, but if you want to know my view on something in particular, leave a question in Comments. ~ AMM]

An update on Those Palestinians

2006-04-13T14:20:00.000-04:00

DC Indymedia: GW Students Rally for Freedom of Speech, Condemn Repression

Those Palestinians

2006-04-11T08:53:00.000-04:00

This is outrageous, yet not surprising. A former colleague of mine from George Washington U's Students for Justice in Palestine is being slandered as a hater of Jews and a terrorist.

In fact, he is perhaps the most passionate fighter for Palestinian human rights I have ever met. In working with him for over a year on various projects on campus, I never heard anything close to an anti-Jewish statement from his lips. He is wickedly smart, and full of spirit in his fight for a just and peaceful resolution to the conflict. He eats, sleeps, breathes Palestinians' rights. As an activist and a human being, I really admire him. I feel honored to have worked with him, and I'm proud to say, "Hey, I know that guy!"

Decency to 'Those People'

2006-03-28T08:47:00.000-05:00

From the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson:

"If we lump undocumented immigrants into an undifferentiated mass of Those People, we can avoid really looking at the immigrant experience. And we can convince ourselves that it is somehow different from the periodic waves of immigration that have shaped this nation -- that suddenly it is not an issue, or even a problem, but an urgent crisis."

Those Africans

2006-03-24T18:43:00.000-05:00

"In the jungle, the mighty jungle..."

From the New York Times:

... Some 150 artists eventually recorded the song. It was translated into languages from Dutch to Japanese. It had a role in more than 13 movies. By all rights, Mr. Linda should have been a rich man.

Instead, he lived in Soweto with barely a stick of furniture, sleeping on a dirt floor carpeted with cow dung.

Mr. Linda received 10 shillings — about 87 cents today — when he signed over the copyright of "Mbube" in 1952 to Gallo Studios, the company that produced his record. He also got a job sweeping floors and serving tea in the company's packing house. ....

More Sontag

2006-03-20T18:55:00.000-05:00

"Now many victim peoples want a memory museum, a temple that houses a comprehensive, chronologically organized, illustrated narrative of their sufferings. Armenians, for example, have long been clamoring for a museum in Washington to institutionalize the memory of the genocide of Armenian people by the Ottoman Turks. But why is there not already, in the nation's capital, which happens to be a city whose population is overwhelmingly African-American, a Museum of the History of Slavery? Indeed, there is no Museum of the History of Slavery-- the whole story, starting with the slave trade in Africa itself, not just selected parts, such as the Underground Railroad-- anywhere in the United States. This, it seems, is a memory judged too dangerous to social stability to activate and to create. The Holocaust Memorial Museum and the future Armenian Genocide Museum and Memorial are about what didn't happen in America, so the memory-work doesn't risk arousing an embittered domestic population against authority. To have a museum chronicling the great crime that was African slavery in the United States of America would be to acknowledge that the evil was here. Americans prefer to picture the evil that was there, and from which the United States-- a unique nation, one without any certifiably wicked leaders throughout its entire history-- is exempt. That this country, like every other country, has its tragic past does not sit will with the founding, and still all-powerful, belief in American exceptionalism."

Also, from today's NY Times:
Wage Slavery, and the Cult of Incarceration: Plight deepens for black men, studies warn

Those Third Worlders

2006-03-18T18:54:00.000-05:00

Today, I was bored out of my mind. So I picked up Regarding the Pain of Others, by Susan Sontag (2003)-- you know, light reading. She wields language like a finely wrought rapier: elegantly formal, but devastatingly sharp and concise. This book is an examination of how atrocities around the world and throughout history have been represented/ manipulated/ filtered by photographs and other images. It is fascinating. Read it.

Here's an excerpt pertinent to this blog:

"Victims, grieving relatives, consumers of news-- all have their own nearness to or distance from war. The frankest representations of war, and of disaster-injured bodies, are of those who seem most foreign, therefore least likely to be known. With subjects closer to home, the photographer is expected to be more discreet. [...] With our dead, there has always been a powerful interdiction against showing the naked face. [...] By the time of the landing in France-- June 6, 1944-- photographs of anonymous American casualties had appeared in a number of news-magazines, always prone or shrouded or with their faces turned away. This is a dignity not thought necessary to accord to others.

"The more remote or exotic the place, the more likely we are to have full frontal views of the dead and dying. Thus postcolonial Africa exists in the consciousness of the general public in the rich world-- besides through its sexy music--mainly as a succession of unforgettable photographs of large-eyed victims [...]

"Generally, the grievously injured bodies shown in published photographs are from Asia or Africa. This journalistic custom inherits the centuries-old practice of exhibiting exotic-- that is, colonized-- human beings: Africans and denizens of remote Asian countries were displayed like zoo animals in ethnological exhibitions mounted in London, Paris, and other European capitals from the sixteenth until the early twentieth century. In The Tempest, Trinculo's first thought upon coming across Caliban is that he could be put on exhibit in England: 'not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver. . . When they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian.' The exhibition in photographs of cruelties inflicted on those with darker complexions in exotic countries continues this offering, oblivious to the considerations that deter such displays of our own victims of violence; for the other, even when not an enemy, is regarded only as someone to be seen, not someone (like us) who also sees. But surely the wounded Taliban soldier begging for his life whose fate was pictured prominently in The New York Times also had a wife, children, parents, sisters and brothers, some of whom may one day come across the three color photographs of their husband, father, son, brother being slaughtered-- if they have not already seen them."

[Personal note - I fully agree with this assessment of the Times: "An ample reservoir of stoicism is needed to get through the great newspaper of record each morning, given the likelihood of seeing photographs that could make you cry."]

Those... hmmm...

2006-03-15T13:50:00.000-05:00

Oh, Hartford.

I remember sitting on a Greyhound bus going to Virginia for a weekend last spring. A middle-aged black man sat down next to me, and we started chatting. He was on his way to Tennessee. I told him I was from Connecticut. He said, "I've heard a black man can do pretty well for himself up there." I didn't really know how to answer him.

The Courant: Students' Racial Identities Altered

Those Arabs and Muslims

2006-03-09T08:49:00.000-05:00

Telling poll results from the Washington Post, via MSN:

Negative perception of Islam increasing

A musical note

2006-03-02T15:07:00.000-05:00

A wise message of tolerance from one of my favorite musicians, Loreena McKennitt:

Through my music, I have tried in my own humble way to explore many facets of history and humanity through the strong belief that there is more to bind us together than tear us apart. Although on one hand we all cherish the right to freedom of expression, the greater challenge, I believe, is having the wisdom in the interests of social harmony and respect to know when to exert it. I would like to add my voice to the many others around the world who come from various religious and non-religious persuasions who believe that the voice of sensitivity, moderation, tolerance, forgiveness and love is the one which must prevail. In all the ways we can make music in the world, hopefully we can make sure that that raising our voice for peace is heard.

Introduction

2006-02-22T08:49:00.000-05:00

I was prompted to start this blog to chronicle what I have recently seen: that racism is alive and well in the U.S., in spite of everyone's politically correct and oh-so-polite statements to the contrary. I'm not targeting any one group as perpetrators of racism-- it comes from the mouths and actions of people of all skin colors, ethnicities, religions, and education levels.

It is shocking to me because human society has made so many advances in many other arenas: medicine, transportation, agriculture, etc. Yet people persist in manifesting their fears and misunderstandings in derogatory language and prejudicial behavior.

It is horrifying and it has to stop.

"The more I traveled the more I realized that fear makes enemies of people who should be friends."--Shirley McLaine

Those Muslims

2006-02-22T08:35:00.000-05:00

The precipitating event that led me to begin this blog was the recent uproar over the insulting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad published in Europe, and the following characterizations of people throughout the Muslim world who protested against them. I personally don't agree that such an ignorant and disrespectful thing as a cartoon of a revered religious figure merits a violent reaction of any kind. I also don't agree with the European papers' decision to simultaneously publish the cartoons-- it seems a little too much intended to provoke, in my eyes.

Anyway, what bothered me the most was discussions I heard locally: "THOSE PEOPLE don't understand democracy and human rights and freedom of expression," blah blah blah. Well, actually, human rights and democracy are some of the basic tenets of Islam. And the common people who are protesting are poor and under-educated, but they know when their beliefs are being insulted and they have a right to protest. Finally, the repressive regimes that seem to plague the Muslim world should in no way be equated with the intelligence or desires or abilities of the people.

Those kind of comments just highlighted for me, once again, how little most people in the U.S. know about the rest of the world, and how eager they are to make massive, derogatory generalizations about extremely diverse groups of people.

A great opinion piece from the Hartford Courant: Vilifying The Victims

And a wonderful letter from a Connecticut Muslim in the Hartford Advocate.