More feelings than facts in coverage of inequality
by Janine Jackson
After a tour of the country last year, a United Nations special rapporteur (4/28/09) urged Washington to do more to address “the depth of racism [that] still permeates all dimensions of life of American society.” Not “questions of race,” not “past racism,” not “personal biases”–but present-day, institutional racism, as expressed in, for example, “racial bias in conviction rates and length of sentences of both juvenile and criminal courts,” “direct discriminatory practices in housing…as well as in mortgage lending,” and in the educational system, “racial bias in the type of disciplinary action given to white or minority students.”
Restrained and conciliatory in tone, the report nevertheless went leagues beyond most corporate news reporting simply by recognizing racism as a demonstrable reality–not uncomplicated (laws and policies may have racially disparate impacts though non-discriminatory on their face; there is overlap with issues of class) but not reducible, either, to matters of personal sentiment or individual interactions.
via Institutional Racism Ignored | CommonDreams.org.
Categorized in Anti-racism, Human & Civil Rights, Institutionalized Racism, Social Justice and White Privilege
I see the collusion between the pharmaceutical industry and American psychiatry to corral treatment of mental and emotional issues under wide-scale drugging and electroshock as a huge social justice issue that very few within the profession are brave enough to confront.
Dr. Breggin has long been one of my heroes on this front, speaking truth to power on behalf of children — many of whom are children of color — who can’t speak for themselves.
Check out my blog, The Daily R-r-r-ibbit, for a link to information on the conference.
Categorized in Anti-racism, Human & Civil Rights, Institutionalized Racism and Social Justice
For weeks the media have been covering “racism in health care reform opposition.” For the most part I’ve found this political moment to be an interesting opportunity to discuss the meanings of race, the history of racial exclusion and violence, and the ongoing realities of racial inequality in America.
But I have also been a little baffled as to why so many liberal white Americans are shocked about the sometimes explicit, but far more often, simply implied racial bias that has infected some of the opposition to the Obama administration. My scholarship and teaching center on issues of race, blackness, and African American politics, and while I believe “racism” is interesting and important; it is not exactly breaking news. Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune laughingly suggested that he was telling his white liberal friends who were aghast at the vitriol aimed at President Obama, “welcome to my world.”
via Yes, You Can Be a Democrat and Racist at the Same Time | | AlterNet.
Categorized in Anti-racism, Institutionalized Racism and Political Psychology
It all depends on what you mean by racism. If you mean that the average American consciously believes we should discriminate against Mexicans because their skin is brown, no, any more than the average American consciously believes a black man is incapable of being President. But does it mean that the average American harbors unconscious biases that render Mexican immigrants less “like us” than English immigrants–and that those biases make it easier for many to wonder whether a black President shares their values, loves his country, or can put his country before “his people”–even though the people who reared him were his white mother and grandparents?
What’s been missing from our national discourse on “is it race or isn’t it?” is the distinction psychologists and neuroscientists have made for over two decades between conscious and unconscious (often called “explicit vs. implicit”) prejudice.
via Drew Westen: How Race Turns up the Volume on Incivility: A Scientifically Informed Post-Mortem to a Controversy.
Notes:
Drew Weston gets at the point I made yesterday on another blog about resistance to notions of anything “unconscious” in the American collective. I believe this is a valuable article for anyone desiring a better world and wondering how we make one, wondering what makes change happen.
One gripe I’ve had with many approaches to grassroots organizing — which I think is a key to change for the better — is a failure to apprehend and integrate necessary elements of individual psychological wiring and process into theories of organizing.
The reverse is often true, of course, for people — including me — who came into such discussions from psychoanalysis, psychology, etc. My involvement is grassroots activism and anti-racism training over the past few years has been extremely valuable for exploring those places where the rubber of the individual psyche meets the road of society.
I think this is one reason I so much appreciate Drew Westen, George Lakoff, Slavoj Zizek and others who bring thinking about individuals (and individual brains) into thinking about culture (and brains of the Other).
Anyway, this is a subject that I am passionate about and will be writing more on at this blog, as well as Hawk Works.
Categorized in Anti-racism, Human & Civil Rights, Institutionalized Racism, Political Psychology, Social Justice and White Privilege
