Its like folks don't even think about it anymore

So it would seem that in all the rush to make a quick remark about Jeremy Lin showing signs that he may not be the second coming of Kareem Abdul Jabbar (or whatever famous past player that played the same position as Lin) someone decided to say something that in this day and age they should know better than to say about an Asian person.

Apparently ESPN's mobile site ran a headline that said "Chink in the Armor" about a less than stellar performance by the rising star.

Honestly more than likely the person that ran this (its already been taken down an and apology has been issued) didn't even think about the implications of using that word in reference to an Asian person. I bet its not the first time someone has used "Chink in the Armor" to describe a rising or current star athlete that's on a hot streak that shows a little bit of imperfection.

And that's the problem. They didn't think.

You have to take that stuff into consideration when writing. If this had been LeBron James and DeWayne Wade back when the Heat lost the NBA finals how well do you think it would be taken if someone had said, "Boy I bet the folks in Miami are ready to hang LeBron and Wade for losing the Finals."? That shit would not have flown. And I bet one could think of more examples but let's not get bogged down in that.

As I said the problem here is that the writer didn't even stop to consider, "Is it okay to use that word in reference to an Asian person?". Racism hasn't just disappeared and now people are free to use whatever words they want under the impression that they no longer hurt people. Its still there, it still hurts (in fact that Huffington post I linked to mentions that Lin has said that he was called that during his college years at Harvard), and we still have to think about it.

The Blaze is still really racist

I can't help but pick on the seriously deranged people who comment on The Blaze articles.  In an article about allowing Texas drivers to purchase license plates with the Confederate flag on them (strangely titled "Not Everyone Thinks A Confederate Flag on Some Texas License Plates is a Good Idea"), the racial bitterness and resentment came out in full force.  Some of my favorites (click to enlarge):

Blazing racefail

It's too easy, I know.  But I can't help myself.  Glenn Beck's "news" website, The Blaze, recently ran a story about the apparently new trend of Asian women getting plastic surgery to "Westernize" their eyelids (something that the progressive blogosphere -- and the mainstream media -- consistently addresses). The comments, as you can imagine, were utterly astounding in their racefail:

TOMSINCLAIRJR

Posted on May 24, 2011 at 7:00pm

Asian people are have such soft and beautiful features. Such vanity. Besides, where do they get the money to do this. Plastic surgery is not cheap. It is the most expensive type of surgery you can have and it is not covered by most health insurances.

DEVIL DOG 7175
Posted on May 24, 2011 at 7:03pmMy wife is asian, and thats what I love about her (and them) is the exotic look.  

MILITIAMAN
Posted on May 24, 2011 at 7:18pmYes, I agree. Some of the most beautiful women in the world are Orientals.
I was watching a video last night of Paul Potts’ tour of South Korea. The chorus to his songs…and the orchestra…. were sung and played by South Koreans, and I was suprised at how good-looking several of the North Korean Women were.
I don’t think they need cosmetic surgery to look more Western, quite frankly, but I can see if some….like Western women….want to change a feature to look a bit different. 

ARI BEN TZION
Posted on May 24, 2011 at 9:00pmNothing strange about this…
Michael Jackson mutilated his face and lightened his skin to look white. Sammy Sosa lightened his skin to look white.
It’s called an inferiority complex. 

ATLAPPRAISER
Posted on May 24, 2011 at 9:20pmMaybe now all Asian people won’t look the same. ;-) 

DRATTASTIC
Posted on May 25, 2011 at 2:07amAsian chicks are hot in humble opinion,very feminine. 

JEDIUSETHEFORCE
Posted on May 25, 2011 at 3:43amWhite Power!!!! 

The racism of Andrew Breitbart and the Tea Party

By now, Andrew Breitbart is simply a laughingstock to the majority of the progressive world.  In the real world, you shouldn't be able to deceptively edit videos of your ideological opponents in order to further your own agenda, have your lies discovered, keep doing it, and then expect to receive the respect of the nation.  But, alas, he is respected in the world of Kool-Aid-drinking Tea Partiers who pretend that the Tea Party isn't filled with racist, homophobic Christianists.  In fact, he's so angry that people dare to call out the Tea Party's racism, sexism, and homophobia, that he has dedicated much of his time to retweeting so-called Leftist tweeps who use related slurs against him, in order to prove that it's the left that's full of bigotry, and not the right.  Naturally, he doesn't hesitate to use his own slurs as well, but, contrary to his intention in retweeting the bigoted slurs of his opponents, he doesn't seem to believe that words like "sand n*gger," "fag," and "pussy" are actually indicative of any kind of prejudice.  This isn't just an Andrew Breitbart problem, of course; much of the Tea Party, as well as many, if not most, far-right individuals (including, of course, Rush Limbaugh, who Breitbart seems to think has never uttered a single racist statement in all his time on the air) seem to believe similar, ridiculous things.  They repeat, endlessly, this tired and absurd notion that not only is there a war on white men in America, the left is actually orchestrating false attacks on the right wing for being racist, sexist, and homophobic, when they just aren't.

The problem isn't necessarily that these people are upset by being called racist, sexist, and homophobic; there are very few people who would welcome such an accusation, and it's expected that most people would fight back against it.  The problem is, of course, that Breitbart, Beck, Bachmann & Co. don't actually understand racism, sexism, or homophobia.  

To most of Mainstream America, racism, sexism, and homophobia are defined by simply the overt and blatant hatred of people who are not white, are women, or are LGBT.  Since BBB&Co subscribe to said definition, they are bewildered at where the accusations come from.  After all, Palin and Bachmann are the Tea Party stars; how could the Tea Party be sexist?!  Also, many of them have black friends, or even know a gay person or two who don't mind that their Tea Partier friends don't think they should get to marry their partners!  Clearly, no bigotry exists within the Tea Party!

The problem, of course, is that racism and other forms of oppression are much more than this image of the hooded white men we grew up associating with the term "racist."  It's more than simply saying you don't like X person because of their gender, race, or sexual orientation.  Isms are rooted in stereotypes, misinformation, and ignorance-- all of which Tea Partiers like Breitbart tend to carry in abundance.

A good list of different ways in which racism manifests itself has been making the blogosphere rounds, and it applies to any and all other -isms:

• Aware/Blatant Racism: Outright racists that, without apology or confusion, tell people of color, that because of their color, they “don’t appeal to them.”
• Aware/Covert Racism: When racists are being racist but just not saying it. For instance, upon seeing that a potential tenant is Indian, rather than saying it directly, a landlord will pull the apartment “off the market” without providing an explanation.
• Unaware/Unintentional Racism: “With the best of intentions, the best of educations, and the greatest generosity of heart, whites, operating on the misinformation fed to them from day one, will behave in ways that are racist, will perpetuate racism by being ‘nice’ the way we’re taught to be nice.”
• Unaware/Self-Righteous Racism: “The ‘good white’ racist attempts to shame Blacks into being blacker, scorns Japanese-Americans who don’t speak Japanese, and knows more about the Chicano/a community than the folks who make up the community.”
• Internalized Racism: Stereotypes and attitudes of the white hegemonic system are internalized by members of oppressed groups and peoples and taken for truth or inform the ways they think about themselves and others from similar backgrounds or cultures.

I'd like to expand on the third type of racism, the unaware/unintentional type, because, if I am being generous, it is how I would describe BBB&Co's racism.  People who are unintentionally racist and unaware of their racism are the people whose stereotypical understanding of people who are different from them informs their ideological viewpoints, their interactions with those people, and/or the things they say about those people.  Calling President Obama "articulate," for example, is one way in which many people (including Vice President Biden*) have used this type of racism.  Clearly, the intent was not to insult Barack Obama because of his race; it was to compliment him.  But when does anyone take special care to describe a white presidential candidate as "articulate"?  They don't.  Most people who said he was articulate said so because they still believe in the stereotype about black people that they are not articulate, that black people are uneducated, or, apparently, unshowered (see Biden link).  They think that, because they assume those things to be true, that "articulate" and "clean" are compliments; ones that they often wouldn't think to give to a white person.  An articulate white person surprises no one, and an inarticulate white person is not seen as representative of the entire white population.  This is not the case for people who are not white.  This really isn't disputable.

I don't personally personally believe that the majority of the Tea Party is Racist Type #1.  I agree with them, when using their own presumed definitions of racism, that they are largely not racist.  I don't think the Tea Party and conservatives hate black people.  The majority don't necessarily even hate women-- they just don't understand how mentioning a potential Supreme Court Justice's inevitable menstruation is sexist.  And as far as their alleged homophobia, well... well... okay, I really cannot be convinced that the majority of the conservatives and Tea Partiers who are the loudest and actually in power are not homophobic, because that's just, well, not true.  They definitely are.  


Not actively hating someone because of their race, gender, or sexual orientation is not enough to be free of the bigot label.


Of course, none of this matters.  "Racism = prejudice + power" is not a paradigm the right would be at all willing to entertain.  Because socialism.  Duh.

*See?!  You might say, in regards to the above-mentioned fact that Democratic Vice President Joe Biden was responsible for a pretty racist, albeit well-intentioned, statement about then-candidate Barack Obama.  Of course, it was racist.  No one said anything about white Democrats and other "leftists" being free of any racial stereotypes and racist assumptions.  But look! Breitbart obviously has a point when he retweets all of these leftists' racism!  Sure, and I get that point.  He wants to show everyone that, not only is the Tea Party and the rightwing not the bigots we paint them to be, but we're actually just as bad, if not worse!  And anyway, it's not as if Biden, or anyone else on the left for that matter, gets away with this kind of thing on the level that the right does with their own party.  Have you read any page of the progressive blogosphere?  There was that whole #MooreandMe campaign that Sady Doyle started a few months ago, in which lefties all over pushed Michael Moore for an apology over what he said about Julian Assange's alleged victims.  The point is that racism persists in American culture, and while Biden and many other progressives are just as likely as conservatives to be unintentionally racist, progressives tend to at least champion policies that will help overcome racism, sexism, and homophobia, among other institutionalized bigotry.  Conservatives are not.  Conservatives pretend that marginalized people bring it on themselves, and that if they'd just get some bootstraps or something, they'd be just fine.

On Obama's birth certificate

Jeff Fecke summarizes well the shamefulness of the Birther nonsense:

Let us state this clearly, and let us not shy away from it: those who peddled the birther myth are racists. Those who continue to cling to it, and who cling to all its myriad facets, are racists. Those who have and who continue to insinuate that a man born in America is not a real American are racists.

They are racists. They are racists. They are racists. And if they don’t like being called racists, they should stop being racists. They should be ashamed of their conduct, apologetic for their actions — not “honored” as Donald Trump claimed to be. Their actions bring shame on this country, on Americans as a people, and most certainly, on themselves.

Followed by a most eloquent response from  Baratunde Thurston:

Random thoughts about where I live

I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota.   It's taken me awhile, but I love it here. Everything that I need or want in my daily life can be found in Minneapolis, and best of all, I don't need to drive to get to any of it.

Driving, and the ability to choose not to do it, is a big deal to me. Like most people of my generation, I have been a licensed driver since I was 16. I easily accepted that in order to get to work and go out and visit friends and family, I needed to drive everywhere. I needed to pay a car payment, I needed to get insurance, and I needed to make sure I had gas money. I was used to the idea that my car could break down at any time and I'd need to come up with yet more money to fix it.

Jesse, my boyfriend (whom I live with), has a car, but I never replaced my 5th car when the transmission finally died. I didn't feel the need to: my job provides a deeply discounted MetroPass, which allows unlimited use of all public transportation, and deducts the $20 automatically from each paycheck. I don't even notice the deduction. Since I live in Minneapolis, work in Minneapolis, and my social life is in Minneapolis, I rarely drive anywhere. I use my MetroPass to get nearly everywhere and save driving for going to my mom's house, which is about 20 miles away in a northern suburb.

Just this summer, Jesse and I decided to get bikes. It only made sense, as everyone we knew commuted by bicycle regularly, and according to Wikipedia, Minneapolis has the 2nd largest population of bicycle commuters. Bike trails are all over and the city is, for the most part, impressively bike-friendly.

The other day, Jesse and I needed to go to St. Louis Park, a nearby suburb of Minneapolis. He asked me to drive because he was having knee problems. I drove approximately 3 blocks, and Jesse asked me to pull over and switch places with him. I guess driving is not like riding a bike; I do not know how to do it well at all anymore. I'm also paranoid behind the wheel, especially on freeways. It's gotten so bad that when we go to my mom's, Jesse drives (the majority of the commute is via freeway) and I cover my eyes with my hands.

Becoming a cyclist (or, trying to) has been a fun adventure. It's getting a bit too cold for my comfort now, so I'm back to the bus, but hopefully I'll get braver as I get more used to it. I still go out of my way to find a bike lane and freak out about traffic, but I'm slowly growing more comfortable with being on the road.

...Which brings me to my larger point. Since buying a bike, I have begun to absolutely loathe my neighborhood. There is an odd lack of awareness of bicycle laws and rights on this side of the river, and I don't know what to do about it. I am supposed to ride in the street, but no one in their cars believe this to be true, and as a result, they taunt me and swerve too close to me and honk. In addition to this, I cannot ride the 5 blocks to the grocery store by myself without being harassed and threatened. It's incredibly frustrating, and it makes me ride my bike less often than I would otherwise. Even leaving the neighborhood to get into more bike-friendly areas is panic-inducing. I realize that I am often more paranoid than most people, but the fear is there when it shouldn't be.

The neighborhood I live in now is fairly new to me. Jesse and I moved there in August with his younger brother, into the upper unit of a large duplex owned by a married couple that Jesse knows fairly well. Downstairs is a good friend of Jesse and his brother's. It's a great setup; basically we live in a miniature dorm, only it's actually giant and newly remodeled and spacious. We can hang out with our neighbor, everyone has privacy if they want it. The only problem is the neighborhood.

It's not a safe area for anyone. No one in the house is willing to walk around alone at night, and the only place that delivers to us is Pizza Hut, which is conveniently located two blocks away, but it's no one's favorite. Before we moved, our downstairs neighbor warned us to be careful when pulling into the driveway through the alley, because sometimes people would be loitering in the alley and they would mug you.

We haven't run into any problems parking in out own driveway, but the warning was surprising.

As a result of buying a bicycle and hating my neighborhood, I have found myself wanting to move to Uptown. This is a rather embarrassing thing to admit, though, as I always used to make fun of Uptown residents and the people who hang out there. I mean, it's always so fun and easy to make fun of self-righteous hipsters and self-described punks.

Prior to recent developments, Uptown was a place for young artists, musicians, and the like. It was defined as a trendy place to live for young hipsters and artists and had a slew of independent restaurants, coffee shops, and other businesses. In the past few years, though, Uptown has changed dramatically. If you read the Wikipedia link provided, scroll down and read what they have to say about recent gentrification and the Uptown artists relocating to Northeast Minneapolis. Uptown is now where young, wealthy professions live. In other words, yuppies in condos.

Now, I am not necessarily complaining about the "yuppiness" (although I'm not going to try and tackle gentrification in this post). I am not really old enough (or cool enough, some might say) to truly remember Uptown fondly for what it used to be. I hung out in Uptown occasionally, to go to various bars or restaurants or live shows, but I was not immersed in the culture. Most of my going-out activities were located in Downtown Minneapolis. I spend more time in Uptown now than I did in years past because more of my friends and acquaintances live here these days. This means that the majority of the time, I am actually hanging out at people's houses or apartments, during the day, and not just bar-hopping. I have also made the journey into Uptown on my bike. Uptown is much, much more bike-friendly than my current neighborhood. In fact, it's preferred, as driving and parking in Uptown is unbelievably frustrating for a person like me, if not nearly impossible.

I also feel a bit of apprehension at admitting that the reason I want to move to Uptown is because of how much I dislike my current neighborhood. Where I live is a predominantly black neighborhood, and it's very easy to cross the line between wanting to feel safer in one's neighborhood to disliking the fact that people of color outnumber you, whether you mean to or not.

I asked Jesse the other day how he perceived what I was saying, and my intent, when I expressed my dislike for our current neighborhood. He understood that I did not want to leave because I don't like that the neighborhood is predominantly black, but because I'd rather be in an area that better accommodates my own lifestyle. That is, bike-friendly areas, locally-owned independent coffee shops and restaurants, local food co-ops and art fairs. I'd rather be in an area where I can ride my bike to the local grocery store and not get verbally harassed and threatened in the 5 blocks it takes to get there. Whether it was because I'm white, a woman, or just the next person to ride a bike down the middle of the street, I'm not sure, but no one should have to feel threatened simply running an errand in their neighborhood. It's frustrating, and it makes me feel resentful and afraid. I'm not used to not being able to walk around as I see fit, when I want. What's more frustrating is that I knew this before moving. I knew that I'd be sacrificing personal freedoms in order to live in a huge, remodeled house with awesome landlords and a familiar neighbor. And I thought I'd be fine with it.

I'm so afraid that I'll be judged as a racist for wanting to move from my predominantly black neighborhood into a predominantly white neighborhood that it took me a long time to even mention it to Jesse. I don't know why; I am clearly not moving because of the color of my neighbors' skin, but because of my distaste for not feeling like I can have as much freedom as I would like. But it's hard to discuss things like this with anyone when I read blogs like Feministe and Womanist Musings, where criticizing anything that can be associated with any oppressed group of people is almost always interpreted as an "-ist" action. I know my reasons for wanting to move aren't racist, and I shouldn't need validation, but I did, and I do. It's why I asked Jesse immediately if he thought I was racist. Now, Jesse's white and while he is a rational, reasonable and progressively-minded person, a person of color would obviously be a better judge of what is and is not racist against them, but it's not like I can just go up to the next person of color that I see and ask them if they think that my desire to move to Uptown is a racist one.

Well, I guess that ultimately, I know my own intentions better than anyone else. And it's certainly not like my moving would hurt anyone's feelings. And anyway, I'm here until August, at the very least, so... yeah. I'd better get used to it, I suppose.

In the meantime, biking, bussing, or even -- heaven forbid -- driving to Uptown and sitting at a coffee shop while I type at the internet isn't so bad. Incidentally, I think I've found a new favorite place to hang out.