We need to talk about race

[Ninety-Three]

I understand this logic, but it seems to break down in the case of someone migrating to another country. Consider a black person raised in a country where they are the racial majority and do not experience discrimination: they're not "black" in the same way an African-American is, and if they were to move to America they would be changing their own context and acquiring that of a new culture. If race is purely a social construct then it varies by society, "South African black" is hugely different from "American black" (probably having more in common with "American white"), and the hypothetical African migrant has no more claim to the "American black" identity than Dolezal does.

 

 

I've been thinking about the hypothetical you cite here. I think the difference may be that when a person with dark pigmented skin and typical african body-traits comes to the United States, there is an understanding that the totality of american race-circumstances is about to be imposed on them. So they are involuntarily entering the context due to how they look rather than purposely changing their body's appearance.

 

Volition is a difference between them, but I fail to see how Dolezal's action being voluntary is what makes it not okay. Is the contention that both the African migrant and Dolezal are doing something bad by becoming a part of a new culture, but the migrant has no choice in it which makes it acceptable?

[namman siggins]

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/27/diversity-in-publishing-gregory-pardlo-pulitzer-poetry-race-gender

But recognition, no matter how prestigious, for one black writer is not enough. “There are many revolutions that have to happen at once for a substantive change,” says Jones, a BuzzFeed culture editor who read from his essay Self-Portrait of the Artist as an Ungrateful Black Writer. He argues that the industry not only has enduring problems with racism, sexism and powerful gatekeepers that “don’t have their act together”, but the proliferation of unpaid internships shuts people out and means that “we are depending on rich people to examine the human experience for us”.

 

According to Jones, the diversity report helps explain why so many blind spots are still present in the publishing world, to the extent that people outside the (white, male) norm end up doubting their own experiences. “Whenever I’ve had one of these moments and spoken to a woman about misogyny or a queer person about homophobia, they say ‘I thought I was kind of crazy, I thought I was whiny,’” he says. “It’s cruel to do racism and sexism but even worse to, you know, let someone sit with that silence – isn’t that the antithesis of our art?”

[clyde]

Dude in this video gives an interesting example of how Clash of the Titans removes blackness being seen as beautiful from the greek story.

[namman siggins]

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/author/george-yancy/

 

Exploring race through various different philosophical lenses 

[namman siggins]

Posted this on the wrong thread

https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/decoding-discrimination-in-americas-temp-industry/

https://www.revealnews.org/article/when-companies-hire-temp-workers-by-race-black-applicants-lose-out/

[Bjorn]

Every time I listen to Reveal, I'm simultaneously impressed by the quality and bummed by the content.  I caught up on a few others today after listening to the temp one, including the strawberry picking one, which featured an interview with a farm worker who was happy to have been hired by a new farm that not only paid fairly, but provided amenities like shade for breaks and working toilets. 

[namman siggins]

"I am not advocating legal censorship here, partially because I’m not wholly sure where and on what basis to draw the line.

What I am calling for is an evaluation, whether artistic, academic, or otherwise, that respects the humanity of people of color. We are not merely subjects of debate; we are people, and our voices need to be heard."

http://womenwriteaboutcomics.com/2016/01/18/educated-into-our-freedom-what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-charlie-hebdo/

[clyde]

For the impatient, I recommend skipping to 23:14

 

 

36:30

Bernie: "Now I want to ask you guys a question. Alright? Here is the question: In your judgment why is it that some many white, working-class people are voting against their best interest?"

Dr Cornel West: "Well you got a long history of the wages of whiteness, they invest in their white-identity that obscures their perception of reality. That's part of the vicious legacy of white-supremacy in America, to think that somehow if they can scape-goat the most vulnerable, identify with the powerful symbolically as the powerful is concretely still manipulating and dominating them."