Why? Because comments about how it's not just black people who are not represented by Barbie, but Asians, Greeks, Irish, Russians, brown-eyed girls, brunettes, the near-sighted, etc. are not the point. In fact, comments like these miss the point entirely. These experiences/issues are, of course, valid, and have a place in the world, but not on a post about black issues. Comments like, "Where is the freckled Barbie?" have nothing to do with the issue at hand, which is the historic and systemic racism against a specific ethnic group in this country. The marginalization of African-American people from the mainstream culture. We have seen lots of these kind of comments persist on stories about race — and race as it pertains to hair — and not only are they off-topic, they're insulting, insensitive and dismissive. Why? Because what they do is:

— Insinuate that it's a personal issue, when, in fact, it is cultural, societal and global.
— Diminish racism to lookism or oversight
— Undermine the original post
— Degrade and disrespect the struggle of black Americans

We have a strong commenting community, but many of the comments on posts about race are, quite frankly, embarrassing. In a post I wrote about the politics of Michelle Obama's hair, there were many comments along the lines of "I'm [not black], but my hair is curly, and I wear it straight because I like to." Again: The topic is not so much a personal issue as it is one with cultural and racial implications. The politics surrounding a black woman who is also the First Lady straightening her hair and a some other woman straightening her hair are very different, as are the intricacies of Mattel creating and designing a black Barbie, as opposed to one who looks Irish.

The writers on this site have a job to do, which is post commentary on stories in the media, and, where appropriate, insert opinion/personal experiences. Though these posts welcome comments, commenters should realize that inserting their opinions or experiences is not always furthering the discussion. A post about the issues with the black Barbie is not a call for everyone to write about how Barbie makes them feel. And as Latoya wrote in long, thoughtful and yes, frustrated comment on her own post late last night, "People keep deliberately inserting their experiences into a narrative that does not fit. It's not the same experience." Please keep this in mind.

Earlier: Keeping Michelle's Hair In Perspective
Black Barbies: A Question Of Representation

"[If anyone was offended], I apologize because that was not my intent… It's my number one passion in my life to stretch the definition of beauty. I listen to many heartbreaking stories of women who thought they would be happier if they looked different. I want every girl to appreciate the skin she's in."

It's clear that Tyra had good intentions and meant to celebrate diversity, Hawaii and hapa people. And it's true that the photoshoot did not involve blackface in yhe historical sense of the word — as a minstrel-type of impersonation.

The fact remains: Race is a construct, and Tyra and her team acted as though it has a rigid structure. She used certain signifiers — hair, skin — to indicate a model's racial makeup. If you have brown skin, does that mean you are black? Tell it to all the light-skinned black people out there, or to someone from Fiji or South America. Does wearing something made of grass make you Polynesian? If you wear feathers on your head, are you Native American?

Also, how can you look at this and think that it's okay?

But It's just fashion, right? It's just about an interesting picture. Mixed people are cool, looking mixed is cool. As one blogger noted, "it's not like the girls were made to pull their eyes back while standing in the middle of a rice paddy or wearing blackface while eating watermelon." But as I wrote in October, race is not silver eyeshadow, a bubble skirt or couture gown. It's not something you put on for a photo shoot to seem "edgy." Race is not trendy; you can't take off when you feel like it. Tyra apologized to those offended, but not for the concept… Does that mean we'll see her do it again?

Tyra Banks Apologizes Over Bi-Racial Episode of 'ANTM' [StyleList]
'America's Next Top Model' biracial photo shoot: Uh, been there, done that [Zap2It]
Today on 'The Tyra Show': Tyra Addresses Biracial Controversy... And MY Headline! [BuddyTV]

Earlier:

ANTM: Biracial Is The New Black (Face)
ANTM Models In Oh-So-Trendy Blackface Shoot
ANTM: A Mildly Autistic Girl In Mildly Offensive Blackface
Oh No They Didn't: French Vogue Does Blackface

The episode airs tonight, but these pictures reveal that Nicole Fox, seen in the image above, has dark skin, a bone necklace and a West African-looking headwrap.

Nicole is actually a pale-skinned redhead.

Jennifer An, an Asian-American model from Philly, also appears to have had her skin darkened.

This is what Jennifer usually looks like.

This is Erin Wagner, as she appeared early in on the show — she's since received a makeover in which her eyebrows and hair were bleached.

In an image from the Maui shoot, you see she's getting some kind of textured wig, and you can clearly see the brown makeup that's being smeared on her arm.

Erin's shot from Maui is the "bi-racial" version of herself.

Since the recent issue of French Vogue features model Lara Stone in blackface, and Madonna has admitted that she did a blackface shoot, it begs the question: Is blackface somehow trendy?

Guest Contributor Minh-ha wrote on Racialicious that when women have their skin tones changed, it's what Nirmal Puwar describes as "the universal empty point" that white female bodies are able to occupy precisely because their bodies are racially unmarked: "[Thus] they can play with the assigned particularity of ethnicized dress without suffering the ‘violence of revulsion.'"

We'll have to watch tonight to hear what Tyra has to say about the concept, but as a mixed-race person, I'll admit that the pictures are interesting. It seems like it's not just blackface, but an exploration of the mixing of cultures and ethnicities, and imagining the models in different cultures. I suspect it's no coincidence that this shoot took place in Hawai'i — where those with white, Asian, black and South Pacific backgrounds have produced lots of multiracial people — and "other" or "mixed" is 23% of the population (Asian is 42%; white is 24% — a minority). There's even a word for it: hapa.

Growing up mixed, having cousins and Aunts and Uncles with all different skin tones, I've always found an attraction to — and a resonance with — people who look like they are ethnically ambiguous (or ambiguously "ethnic"?) But the problem, of course, is that race is not silver eyeshadow, a bubble skirt or couture gown. It's not something you put on for a photo shoot to seem "edgy." Race is not trendy. The thing is, fashion is a visual language; playing with colors and tones will always be something stylists and photographers gravitate towards. So is this creativity actually insensitivity?

As a black woman working in fashion, Elizabeth Gates wrote for the Daily Beast that she was not surprised by the French Vogue blackface, saying: "I would be fooling myself if I thought the draftsmen behind fashion's most beautiful things were ever going to be sensitive to race, black women, or how they represent our cultural history. In fact, I'm not exactly sure why this was a shock to anyone."

But this ANTM shoot was put together by Tyra Banks: Black model, creator, host, head judge and executive producer of the show. You'd think that she would be sensitive to racial issues. I have to assume her intent was probably to showcase bi-racial beauty. Is this a case in which the action can be forgiven if the motive comes from a good place?

Tyra Transforms The 'America's Next Top Model' Hopefuls [ET]

Earlier: Oh No They Didn't: French Vogue Does Blackface
Fashion Photographer Steven Klein Has Done Blackface Before

Jenkins' original remarks, found on the video below, caused controversy because a "great white hope" is generally thought of to describe racist attitudes over African American boxer Jack Johnson's heavyweight title in the early 20th century.

"I don't know how the president got injected into this debate," Jenkins said. We don't know how Jenkins has never taken an American history class.

Congresswoman Defends 'Great White Hope' Remark [LA Times]
Jenkins' Remark Raises Eyebrows [Topeka Capital-Journal]

At Charleston High, even though black students and white students learn in the same classrooms, there is always a "white prom" and a "black prom."


Freeman gathered the senior class together and asked them if they wanted to have an integrated prom. It was a little bit of a set-up; no white students were willing to raise a hand and admit — in front of the black students, on camera, and in front of a black celebrity — that they or their parents didn't want to dance with their black peers.

But the senior class agreed to have an integrated prom after Freeman urged them to — and after he agreed to pay for it.

This turned out to be troubling for white students — or their parents. A competing "white prom" was organized.

The "white prom" was held at a location near the town, and only white students were invited to attend. But it wasn't racism! As a lawyer for some of the white students' parents says, the attendees just "happen to be" white.

Heather and Jeremy were the only interracial couple in the senior class. Heather's father was not happy that Heather likes Jeremy, and said he'd like to see them grow apart. Later in the film, Heather said she wants to marry Jeremy someday, and have his kids; Jeremy agreed that the relationship is headed in that direction. In school, they kept their relationship pretty quiet, just meeting by lockers and texting a lot, but the prom gave them the opportunity to show off… and actually attend a school function at which they would dance together.

The film did attempt to question why there is fear surrounding black students and white students dancing together — when they have grown up together and attended the same schools for years. It came down to sex, and the centuries-old stereotype that black men are sexually aggressive maniacs who will "dance up" on the town's precious white daughters and sully/ ruin/ impregnate them. Unfortunately for Heather and Jeremy, their dynamic — white female/black male — means that some people in their town will just never accept the relationship; and that includes Heather's father.


This is what will put a smile on your face: The limo ride! A giant white stretch limousine, rolling through dusty Southern roads, picking up dapper seniors, both black and white. (Yes, that is Erykah Badu singing in the background.)


In the end, the prom was like any other: Teenagers danced and enjoyed socializing together. And there was some intense krumping going on, from which a young lady emerged victorious.

Uplifting as it was to see these students make history, it hardly canceled out the rage at that small portion of the class who felt the need to segregate themselves at the white prom. There were a few white students who attended both the white prom and the integrated prom; and conflict was evident in their faces — on one hand, they wanted to party with friends; on the other, they didn't want to be perceived as racist themselves. Morgan Freeman is to be applauded for his initiative (he actually tried this once before, in 1997, but got nowhere), and the students of Charleston High should be proud of their efforts. You can't dance your troubles away, but it's a start.

Prom Night In Mississippi [HBO]
(view the screening schedule here.)

The first objectionable phrase Martin and Visconti discuss is, "You're not diverse." Visconti tells an anecdote about a hospital system employee who told him that the system was "81% diverse." She really meant it was 81% women and people of color, and Visconti uses her words to talk about the assumption that white people are not a part of a diverse workplace. Obviously diversity means including a wide variety of different groups, and if one of those groups is white men, the entire community isn't necessarily less diverse. However, this is more of an issue of language than Visconti makes it out to be — measuring the company's "percentage of diversity" is misleading, and calling a single person diverse or not diverse is just bizarre. The assumption that white people can't be included in diversity at all is a bad one, but we're not sure how often people actually make it.

Visconti also has some odd things to say about the concept of white privilege. He tells Martin,

White privilege, I tell other white people, is the most amazing thing. You can give away your white privilege by helping other people gain access, and it never diminishes your white privilege. You're born with it, and it remains with you, so it's the gift that keeps on giving.

Throughout the interview, Visconti comes across as someone who genuinely wants to work toward a more equal society. However, his idea of white privilege as a "gift" that whites can bestow on others is somewhat paternalistic. It promulgates a view of race relations in which white people "give access" to minorities, rather than everyone working together to create equal access. It also assumes that white privilege is something you can give away, when the idea that it "remains with you" is probably closer to the truth. Helping a person of color does not make that person white, and does not confer upon them all the unconscious benefits that society gives to whites. All people can work to reduce the influence of privilege, but that involves a widespread change of behaviors and attitudes — not individual "gifts."

That said, Visconti does have some good ideas about race relations. He says no one should ever say the phrase, "There's no way you as a white person can understand." He should have mentioned that people of color do have experiences that white people probably can't fully understand (similarly, a man can't really know what it's like to be a woman, nor can a woman know what it's like to be a man). However, he's right that by focusing only on differences or on what is incommunicable, "you eliminate potential allies, and you shut people down."

Many in the past have said that white people have no place in creating equality, or in erasing the wrongs they themselves have perpetrated, but Visconti makes a persuasive case for including whites in the drive to end discrimination. He mentions the many white men he has known whose lives were affected by prejudice, perhaps through an interracial relationship or a gay family member. Many of these men want to work against the discrimination they have seen, and Visconti argues that their help is valuable. Of his work for diversity, he says, "what this is all about is enabling people to bring themselves to work 100%, so they can be engaged, productive, and innovative, because their heart is in it." Despite his missteps, Visconti's heart seems to be in it too, and his message of inclusion deserves a hearing.

Diversity 101: What Not to Say to White Colleagues [NPR]
9 Things NEVER to Say to White Colleagues [DiversityInc]

The problem, specifically, is a story titled "15 Years Of Skin." The concept is explained thusly:

"In honor of MC's 15th anniversary, this month we're celebrating a decade-and-a-half of wow-worthy skin. From stars peddling zit zappers and foundations to tanorexics and bronzer-phobes, here's how we put our best face forward."

The "story" is a photo-driven piece in three pages:

Page one: The '90s!


Page two: The early '00s!


Page three: Now and next!


To recap: The '90s was about "ghostly faces"; the '00s was the "rise of the bronzed bombshell," and now, pale is in again — "fair ladies" have "porcelain-pretty" complexions. And even the future is about being light: Fall '09 is "got sunblock?"

So what if — heavens forbid! — your skin is brown? You are represented, in the '90s, by Iman, Halle Berry, and RuPaul. Who is a man. Mariah Carey? Sure, she's half black, but she's bronzed. Also, Marie Claire apparently doesn't even recognize that Asian people have skin.

One interesting thing about this story is that on the three pages that face it, there is a three-part, three-page ad for Olay Pro-X products. It's almost as if the "15 Years Of Skin" story was whipped up at the last minute to support the advertising — something the magazines I have worked for were known to do. Too bad Marie Claire couldn't pull together a story that was a little more inclusive.

Earlier: May Marie Claire: Starlets, Hormones, & Porn Star Preachers
Marie Claire: Be A Green Recessionista With More Stuff!

It seems like every time these people are questioned by the press, they are lying through their teeth. The same goes for Betty Jessop (no relation to Willie Jessop, although who the hell knows because FLDS family trees look more like braids), whose mother Carolyn escaped from the sect with her children, only to have Betty return to the compound, of her own volition, four years later. In this clip, Betty tells Oprah that she doesn't know any females who were married under the age of 16, despite the fact that it's well documented that during the raid, 12 underage girls who were removed from the ranch were married, more than half of them already mothers.

Last May, Oprah had Elissa Wall on her show, the star witness in the trial against Warren Jeffs, that ultimately led to his conviction. She was forced to marry her first cousin when she was 14, despite her begging not to. Throughout her two-year marriage to the man that Warren Jeffs assigned her, she was raped repeatedly. Elissa wrote about her experience growing up within the FLDS, becoming a child bride, and how she escaped in the book Stolen Innocence.

I've read the book, and distinctly remember passages about how she, and all the other children in her FLDS school, were taught to regard black people as evil. Here, she talks about her brother—who was kicked off the compound as a teenager—was living in the secular world, and had moved in and had a child with a black woman:

The mother of his child was African-American. Hearing this came as a huge shock to me, although today I am embarrassed to admit it. All I could think of were Warren's words from Alta Academy that nonwhite people were the most evil of all outsiders. His racist remarks and hate-filled bigotry were a routine part of the classroom experience at Alta Academy, and from them, I had developed a prejudice about anyone whose skin looked different from my own. I had been told that my brother was damned to hell for even associating with Whitney.

Warren Jeffs recorded his teachings and sermons, and eventually, FLDS members were no longer allowed to listen to secular music, because as he explained it, when you do so, you are "enjoying the spirit of the black race," an activity he says will "rot the soul and lead the person to immorality, to corruption, to forget their prayers, to forget God." They were instead encouraged to listen to his tapes. Here are some passages from those recordings:

You see some classes of the human family that are black, uncouth or rude and filthy, uncomely, disagreeable and low in their habits, wild and seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind.

So I give this lesson on the black race that you can understand its full effect as far as we are able to comprehend. And that we must beware, if we are for the prophet, for priesthood, we will come out of the world and leave off their dress, their music, their styles, their fashions, the way they think - what they do, because you can trace back and see a connection with immoral filthy people.

Today you can see a black man with a white woman, et cetera. A great evil has happened on this land because the devil knows that if all the people have Negro blood, there will be nobody worthy to have the priesthood.

If you marry a person who has connections with a Negro, you would become cursed.

Oprah said that she couldn't leave the ranch without asking the women one very important question: What's with the hair?

Anti-gay bigots are back in court in California this week, and not to defend against the suits that seek to overturn Proposition 8 or even to meet the kind of people that will invite them to the gay orgies they know are going on but swear they don't want to go to. They're in court to try to get the court to overturn California's open records laws on political donations that require all contributions in excess of $100 be disclosed. Although the federal contribution disclosure standard is $200, conserva-lawyer James Bopp — once literally laughed out of court — says that the standard should be way higher to prevent bigoted donors from being identified publicly as bigots and being subjected to harassment campaigns — like boycotts by LGBT people and their supporters who don't want our money funding bigots or their bigoted political causes. Boo fucking hoo.

In other news, both African-Americans and white Americans seem to think that racism is less of a problem in this country on the whole than it was 15 years ago, though more white people than black people think that blacks have achieved racial equality and don't have any problems anymore. I guess that's because race had no apparent effect on the election so, since Barack didn't "suffer" from racism no black person does anymore. Yay equality.

Obama is, however, having a worse time of it in Congress than anyone suspected, with significant differences between his stimulus plans and Nancy Pelosi's ideas continuing to spill out in public. And if it weren't bad enough that Pelosi wants to repeal Bush's tax cuts now and Obama wants to wait for them to expire next year, the media insists on drumming up this big rift because it's more interesting if it's a fight rather than a boring disagreement on mundane tax policy. They also disagree about whether to investigate Bush and his Administration over everything that has ever happened, but that's good because it will allow Obama to keep his hands clean and call for unity up until the House investigations that were always going to happen anyway unearth something prosecutable, at which point Obama can with great sadness appoint a special prosecutor and let the games begin.

Speaking of games, Rod Blagojevich has asked his lead lawyer not to show up for his impeachment trial next week because Ed Genson thinks it might be a bad idea to call the trial "a lynching," which (and I never thought I'd say this), good for Ed Genson. Everyone is freaking out about who New York Governor David Paterson will appoint to take over Hillary Clinton's seat this week and the Obama camp is unofficially officially behind Caroline Kennedy but Paterson is still thinking about some new info that has come to light. And that pilot guy that ditched the plane in the Hudson River last week will be at the inauguration of Barack Obama this week with his family in what will no doubt be many of this Administration's cribbing from former Presidents' PR playbooks.

On the international front, the Iraqi shoe-thrower is looking for asylum in Switzerland because he's fine throwing his shoes at a world leader on camera and less fine with paying the consequences for it. North Korea has finally admitted that it's got enough weapons grade plutonium for 4-5 nukes which they totally promise not to use on Alaska as long as Obama gives them lots of other cool shit with which to occupy their time in between figuring out how to starve their own people more efficiently and mint more fake U.S. currency. Gaza is pretty well fucked up but, as I predicted, Israel has signed a cease-fire and is starting to withdraw its troops just in time for Obama's inauguration tomorrow. That's change, if not exactly progress.

"Black And White" by "I Must Be Dead", via Flickr.

It's not that education is a bad place to start — studies all show that the average college-educated person of whatever race and gender makes more than the high-school graduate of the same race and gender. No one is suggesting otherwise. But the case can and should be made — National Black MBA Association meetings aside — that trying to fix the problems that are causing the wage gap can't stop there. Studies show that lip service and diversity-recruitment initiatives aside, race and racial stereotypes still feed into hiring decisions — to the detriment of women of color and to, frankly, companies themselves, many of which could probably use fewer yes-men and more people with a diversity of thought and experience from whom to draw ideas.

Women of color, naturally, face a more than a double whammy as studies show that they don't do as well as either white women or men of color in getting jobs or getting equal pay. This comes even as 44 percent of black households have a woman and the main breadwinner. Black women's median pay only increased by 22 percent between 1975 and 2000, while white women saw an increase of 32 percent. Race and gender seemingly play off each other to a point where women of color aren't merely as disadvantaged as women or as men of color, they're more disadvantaged than either grouping regardless of education achievement, which is a hard pill to swallow in a country that promises equality of opportunity.

So, what to do? Few of the authors of these pieces offer any concrete answers given that the reasons the wage gap persists are so varied. But maybe, as Bill Clinton said on The View this morning, the first step really is to acknowledge not how far we've come but how far we have left to go. As these studies indicate, that's quite a way.

Women of Color [The American Prospect]
Understanding the Black-White Earnings Gap [The American Prospect]
Black Women: The Unfinished Agenda [The American Prospect]
McCain Dismisses Equal Pay Legislation, Says Women Need More 'Training And Education.' [Think Progress]
Less Notorious BIG, More PhDs [The Guardian]

MEGAN: Hey, there, what's up?
MOE: I'm getting coffee. I'll be online in 5. I really feel like its the seventies today. Even the good news on the front of the Times about the natural gas in Louisiana is kind of dark.
MEGAN: Sure, no worries
MOE: Well the good news is that former Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle is in on some Kurdish oil deal. That is bound to make him a lot of money and he sure deserves it having had the foresight to liberate The Iraq and also suck up to Bill Clinton's friend that dictator guy across the border in Kazakhstan, even as Seymour Hersh and his cabal of elite treason-loving freedom haters were knocking that for being a "conflict of interest" or whatever. Thanks to Wikipedia, we know Richard Perle explained back in 2003 that Sy Hersh was basically a terrorist, so we probably don't need to spend much more time on his smears. Especially with such other positive energy deals in the works as this one that is making everyone in De Soto Parish, Louisiana, suddenly a card carrying Cadillac owning rich person! And that makes 1 place GM might make a profit this year.
MEGAN: Well, unless they bought it outright, I'd say GMAC bought a bunch of Caddies more than people in DeSoto did, but no matter.
By the way, Bush has signed off on the first military execution since 1961. It's also the first actively-pursued execution since then. Can we all take a moment to be unsurprised that the soon-to-be executed man is black?
MOE: There are six other men on military death row. Are you saying that's why he got to go first? Incidentally, I never thought much about the death penalty before The Idiot wherein the lead character is this charismatic Christ figure named Mishkin, which happens to be the name of the retiring Federal Reserve board governor who apparently wants to set inflation targets, something I don't have much of an opinion on today, although I read somewhere else that only about a third of jobless are receiving unemployment benefits these days, down from 44% in 2001 and 52% when all "social safety net" stuff was actually taken seriously, before the breakdown of the family made us all stupid and neighbors started locking their doors at night and buying homes in ever farther-flung suburbs, a trend no one thought would ever ever end but boy were they wrong, but hey, on the bright side, it's a good thing we didn't turn out Berlin, right? All opera and free education and cheap rent and richly endowed cultural institutions and SO LITTLE GDP GROWTH??? Anyway, we were supposed to "weigh in" on that Tennessee guy. Um, he sucks is my opinion.
Because all the drawbacks of breakneck economic growth are so easily reversible! Oh wait.
MEGAN: Yeah, I'm sort of all like, meh, whatever, another crazy person went on another crazy shooting and we're supposed to go, ohhhh, it's because he hated liberals? Well, maybe he just hated Unitarians, it's not like he went to the local Democratic Party offices. Why would anyone expect that the guy's homicidal/suicidal rantings would make sense? It was like 4 pages long. I haven't written a letter that long since my best friend in junior high moved to Canada, not even the one time that I got a letter from a guy I'd been dating in college 3 weeks after the school year ended telling me what a stupid, slutty, vicious cunt I was but that he was only writing to make sure that he hadn't knocked me up so then he really wouldn't have to have speak to me again. God, damn, I wonder if I still have that letter somewhere. Anyway, even he didn't merit a 4 page reply. But God knows what Mr. Crazypants in Tennessee will write when he learns GOP hero Dan Quayle is about to turn Mr. Fancypants and is in talks to join Dancing With the Stars.
MOE: Yeah, oh god, Dan Quayle, it's the nineties again all right. Except insofar as the pollution in China is hella worse.
MEGAN: They're even still defending their human rights record. Seems like it would've been easier to try harder not to be human-rights violators in the last 20 years or whatever, but whatever.
MOE: Pitchfork crapsters: previous link contains JARVIS COCKER, J MASCIS, SEBADOH, LIZ PHAIR, BUILT TO SPILL, MISSION OF BURMA annnnnnnd Flava Flav, referencing his popular reality TV show! To get us back on the Dan Quayle angle. Lou Barlow does not sound like he held up too well, but we'll forgive him because his cover of Ratt's "Round And Round" was such a sparkling contribution to the culture. Okay, and also, pollution. because it's kind of a really good story with implications for the whole next century.

Shougang Steel Group, the giant steelmaker whose name translates as "Capital Steel," was ordered to relocate most of its operations hundreds of miles away to a partly manmade island. Xiang Dong, who worked at the company for 16 years, says he cried when his unit was shut down on March 31. Most of his 600 or so colleagues were transferred to the new facility. "Of course I was sad. A lot of coworkers cried when it stopped," says Mr. Xiang, who continues to work as a caretaker at the mothballed production line. "But this is for the Olympic dream. We do some sacrifices for that."

MEGAN: Speaking of human rights records, did you know the American Medical Association didn't support the 1964 Civil Rights Act? That they deliberately shut down black medical colleges, understaffed black hospitals while forcing the segregation issues, allowed affiliates to keep black doctors out and are only just now apologizing? Because I didn't.
MOE: Oh God, I looked at that story and had no idea what it was about, other than I didn't feel like I needed another reason to disrespect doctors this week. Holy shit.
MEGAN: Ahem. I'm feeling a little disrespectful to the medical establishment this morning, though, but I will change the subject before I rage out for the 2nd time in as many days and so we can talk about the Doha talks in which they're still debating the same fucking issues they did 2 years ago when I got my writing start authoring a "humorous" round-up of the week's events in the WTO negotiations. No, for real.
MOE: Oh, great last graf:

Consider this statistic: In 1910, when Abraham Flexner published his report on medical education, African-Americans made up 2.5 percent of the number of physicians in the United States. Today, they make up 2.2 percent.

MEGAN: Yeah, that was the best kicker I'd read all day.
MOE: Anyway, I have to go sort of. But the buzz today is Obama closing in maybe on Tim Kaine for VP. Do you think Obama could win your state? Maybe I could go home and vote there since Philly seems to have forgotten I existed. Garry Kasparov thinks O needs to go hard on Russia, not a shock, the Ataturk Thought Association is worried the country is turning into Iran following a raid on their headquarters. And I'm still hung up on China, because at some point the world needs to figure out how to make the whole green collar jobs thing work, and just to spite the fucking Republicans I hope they do it in Berlin.
MEGAN: One of my friends just took a green collar job! He mostly took it, though as a third job because his former employer outsourced a bunch of their work and his second job as a tattoo apprentice doesn't pay the bills either so now he's working at a recycling plant. He says he doesn't feel very green except on the really hot days and then he does, but only around the gills.
As for Virginia, polls show it's tight, so who knows. The Washington Post keeps running stories I'm too lazy to find at the moment that Obama's operation in the state just keeps expanding and expanding so maybe? I don't think Kerry was within a point or two of Bush, like, ever in 2004.

Leah and two co-workers decided to spend their lunch break shopping instead of working out and headed over to an Old Navy store, at which they were detained by 6 police officers for shoplifting for more than ninety minutes. They hadn't taken a thing, hadn't put anything in a purse — but they did have the "misfortune" of being being black while trying to shop. Mall security had called police upon spotting a "gang of shoplifters" entering the store — Leah and her two friends. No one in the store, the mall or certainly among the police bothered to apologize to the women for the mistake, though a letter from Leah to the CEO of The Gap got the store manager fired for his behavior.

Leah and her friends are exactly the kind of shoppers The Gap should be (and probably is, at the corporate level) trying to attract — the kind of shopper who will drop by regularly on a lunch break or one the way home for an impulse buy. Affluent, young, successful women who would likely remain loyal to the brand for years to come, who have now soured on the experience and the company (and who are talking to the press about it) because some manager assumed that they were shoplifters because of the color of their skin.

Brand Loyalty Strong Among Minorities [Brandweek]
New 'Buying Power' Report Shows Blacks Still Outspend Other Ethnic Segments [Target Market News]
Behind the Scenes: Black and shopping in America [CNN]

MEGAN: Hey, how is Austin?
SPENCER: It's filled with liberals, positive reinforcement, beef products, Johnny Dash-themed dive bars, extremely cheap beer, and bloggers with pulverizing hangovers.
MEGAN: HuffPo has been Twittering it.
SPENCER: I have met a lot of FDL commenters, who rule; Brandon Friedman of VetVoice gave Wesley Clark a terrorist fist jab at the keynote; I was told to pipe down because I was telling off-color stories during Howard Dean's keynote.
MEGAN: I get told that a lot, too, but really? Howard Dean is that important to listen to?
SPENCER: yeah, Nico asked me if I'd be on the HuffPo twitter feed, but that would require unlocking my Twitter and inviting people I don't know to see it, and there's a lot of stuff that I really don't want to make public on there.
MEGAN: I know, because you never accepted even me as one of your Twitter friends. I'm trying not to be mad about it.
SPENCER: I didn't? I'll put you on. Anyway we should probably talk about the news and shit.
MEGAN: Yeah, probably. So, at an ad conference, someone asked Arianna to play Karl Rove and run plays against Obama. Arianna's not that creative, but hearing her say aloud what we all know is going on at RNC HQ is sort of freaky.

Barack Obama may be Muslim, we're not sure, but he is definitely a Muslim sympathizer. He is the candidate of Hamas. He wants to negotiate with terrorists. He does, basically, not really care for America.

Also, she said "Hawai'i barely counts" as growing up in America and Michelle is "angry and bitter."
SPENCER: The first piece of Obama literature I saw when I got here was a doorknob flyer that read COMMITTED CHRISTIAN.
MEGAN: Which is part of the current messaging that this committed agnostic (no, it's not an oxymoron) doesn't really love, but whatevs.
SPENCER: Arianna's probably right that the sotto voce campaign will move away from the statement "Obama is a Muslim" to "We can't be sure that Obama isn't a Muslim". At this point, it's a safer play to make that sort of epistemic claim — there's absolutely no way Obama could disprove it, it's not the sort of statement that admits of the facts, as they taught me in epistemology class.
MEGAN: Hasn't it already?
SPENCER: It has? My prediction has come true already? See, that's why I'm an A-list blogger.
MEGAN: Indeed! I mean, it's (not to bring up old wounds here) but totally where Clinton went, "I have no reason to doubt it" and "not that I know" and such.
SPENCER: Let's. Not. Talk. About. That.
SPENCER: There is sooooooo much relief-slash-jubilation that the primary is over here — at our FDL caucus yesterday, a review of the last year on the blog tread delicately on the subject of the Great Interfamilial Unpleasantness.
MEGAN: I'm glad at least some bitches are hugging it out after the whole Ricki Lieberman thing that left a bad taste in my mouth. So, moving on to something everyone can be pissed about, there's a new anti-Michelle ad.
SPENCER: YES LET'S. It actually ends with these women pledging allegiance, and what's up with that Reagan quote at the end? "Freedom is never more than a generation away from extinction?" is that like, a threat?
MEGAN: Yes, the Pledge of Allegiance, the vaguely martial music and the use of all women in the add is rather pointed. All in all, still shit but far better done than the North Carolina ad.
SPENCER: Did you see the NYT/CBS poll about Michelle Obama? Her negatives are stunning, or, rather, the racial discrepancy in views of Michelle is stunning

There was even racial dissension over Mr. Obama’s wife, Michelle: She was viewed favorably by 58 percent of black voters, compared with 24 percent of white voters.

MEGAN: Yeah, that would be what freaks me out a little more, that and the whole "where are the feminists that are so opposed to sexism in the media" doing right now?
SPENCER: What accounts for this, Megan?
MEGAN: Oh, God, where to start? I mean, mean girls, the legitimacy of female anger, fear of strong women, envy... Did I ever tell you I have actually met people that have never met a black person until they were an adult. And I'm not talking until they were 18 and went off to college, I'm talking as a legitimate adult. They still exist. They aren't few in number. I mean, I think we've seen this reflected in Crappy Hour comments before:

Nearly 60 percent of black respondents said race relations were generally bad, compared with 34 percent of whites. Four in 10 blacks say that there has been no progress in recent years in eliminating racial discrimination; fewer than 2 in 10 whites say the same thing. And about one-quarter of white respondents said they thought that too much had been made of racial barriers facing black people, while one-half of black respondents said not enough had been made of racial impediments faced by blacks.

I think this is also horrifying and telling:

Nearly 70 percent of blacks said they had encountered a specific instance of discrimination based on their race, compared with 62 percent in 2000; 26 percent of whites said they had been the victim of racial discrimination. (Over 50 percent of Hispanics said they had been the victim of racial discrimination.)

Seventy percent of blacks have encountered at least one incident of racial discrimination. And I'm one of the 26 percent, as once when I broke up a party as an RA in college, I was called a "racist Jewish bitch." And I still know that's nothing by comparison.
SPENCER: Can I tell a story here? I once had this girlfriend who grew up in a mostly-white area, and I took her to my mom's house in Flatbush for the first time. Flatbush is majority-black but rather internally diverse — lots of immigrants from West Africa, the Caribbean (Haiti esp) as well as African-American; and it also contains Russians and Jews. As we were driving down Foster Ave, my GF took a look at the people on the street and said, "So, does your mom's house have a blackyard?". True story
MEGAN: Whoa. Um, how long until you broke up with her?
SPENCER: You were called a Jew?
MEGAN: Yes. A racist Jew because as an RA, I was breaking up a loud frat party 4 doors down from my apartment during finals week and it happened to be the one African-American fraternity on campus. And, obviously, I was just doing it because I hated them and not because I had a 17 page paper to finish and a 25 page paper to finish by the next day and it was finals week and because they were heard by the head of housing. But, yes, Jewish.
SPENCER: So, seriously, where's the organized defense of Michelle Obama? She's an extremely accomplished woman and while she may not have been the professional powerhouse that HRC was by 1992, I don't understand why organized feminism doesn't evidently identify with her. that was badly expressed — I'm hungover — but you get what i'm saying i hope.
MEGAN: No, I think it was said pretty well, it's close to how I've said it. Where's Geraldine Ferraro decrying the attacks by the media on her working status? Where's Gloria Steinem's impassioned defense of righteous anger and women? Did we all just admit that sexism triumphed and go home? Is it only sexism if it's Hillary?
SPENCER: A couple months ago, my friend Ann Friedman of TAP and Feministing wrote a really prescient piece called "Solidarity Politics" about this sort of thing

Let's make this election about the issues, everyone says — and rightfully so. Our presidential nominee should be chosen primarily on the issues. But most of us don't separate issues from identity as cleanly as we'd like to believe. When it comes down to it, everyone is an "identity politics" voter. The problem is that phrase, as commonly used by right-wingers and some on the left who are tone-deaf on issues of race and gender, has the effect of cutting down the political choices and involvement of women, people of color, and gays and lesbians.

MEGAN: I have to say, please introduce me to Ann sometime and I promise not to fan girl out. I almost always really love her stuff — thoughtful, well-written, etc.
SPENCER: and Ann is right about this, but the character assassination of Michelle Obama demonstrates that the argument needs to be taken a step further — recognizing that cross-cutting identities within the context of identity politics is fucking up people's expectations too
MEGAN: I took the best class ever in college in Microsociology (mind-blowing topic) and one of the things that stuck with me was the professor's assertion that we are a collection of equally accurate but not equally relevant identities and roles.
SPENCER: You were saying in the car yesterday that there's a cohort within the feminist movement that's increasingly indistinguishable from an HRC machine and how bad that is for the movement as a whole — it was a really good point that you should tease out for the benefit of CH readers.
MEGAN: Like, because you're white, you'd never call me your white friend, or because we know a zillion bloggers, you'd never call me your blogger friend. I'd never introduce myself to your friends as Pam's sister or Butch's daughter or Greg's ex-girlfriend.
SPENCER: Or George Costanza's father's lawyer.
MEGAN: Yes, exactly. And so I feel like, for many people and sadly probably too many women, the identity that more people associate with Michelle Obama right now is that she's black. Not that she's a woman, or a lawyer, a wife, a mother or anything else. And that's why the Obama campaign is trying to play up the prominence of those roles.
SPENCER: It's depressing that a core mission of the Obama campaign is to teach white America that black people are, like, people.
MEGAN: Or like people, commas deliberately excluded.

I thought of how badly I hated George W. Bush in 2000 because he reminded me of this kid I ran against for some lofty student council position in fifth grade. He was an idiot, a total, shameless unabashed tool, and yet inexplicably well-liked! No one seemed to notice the emptiness of his charm. No one seemed to care because he was so...confident! They believed the hype. (Fools! I would have been soooo much more competent!)

Okay, so, to the present. Barack. He's got a little of that light-skinned black guy thing happening. In high school he signed yearbooks with little Afros over the B and O. BTW, do you think anyone ever teased him for having those initials, B-O? Nah, he'd have laughed it off, cocky bastard. He openly admits he played a "flashy," "street" game of basketball, clashing with coaches who thought he wansn't disciplined or team player-y enough. Oh man, then that guy gets into Columbia? What were his SATs, even? Does anyone know? Why isn't that public?

Okay, so... done with the rhetorical exercise! So here's the thing. I think I get what Geraldine Ferrarro was saying, and that's what's so despicable about it. She's trapped in high school, at the student council election she couldn't win because she wasn't popular enough. Lady, grow the fuck up! Have you read anything Barack Obama has written? Turns out the black boy can write pretty good! (Oh yeah, and teach constitutional law.) His blackness is very much a part of his identity. He struggled with it. Felt alienated. Funny thing that, the way "confidence" can sometimes result from experiencing/conquering alienation at an early age! And seriously, the kid was raised in fucking Indonesia. Would anyone want a fortysomething first-term senator in charge of making every major American foreign policy decision at one of our most tricky moments in history if he hadn't been raised in Indonesia? I probably wouldn't!

But WAIT: that's hardly the only advantage Barack Obama's being born a Kenyan Irish Hawaiian whatever has afforded him in his life and career. Having his flameout father abandon him — he got a whole BOOK DEAL on the basis of coming to terms with that! What's more, it also clearly afforded him not only an element of empathy for underprivileged Americans that furthered his career, but a nuanced perspective on the foreign policy challenges posed by poverty in Africa and maybe even the entire Third World! Beyond that, the fact that he is black has drawn OTHER BLACK PEOPLE who had maybe been previously disillusioned by politics into actually voting. But the fact that he is successful and black makes him relatable to all those other successful black people who go through life hounded by the nagging perception that wherever they are, whatever they have accomplished, affirmative action is to credit for all of it. Successful black people like Michael Eric Dyson totally dig that the Obamas understand this phenomenon.

It is all so unfair!

If you are thirteen years old!

I think I've truly seen it all now - check this out: The Brazilian Butt Enhancer. Seriously, I've never met someone who wanted a larger rear, have you?

And she basically replied that she had been told that the original Glamour racist was a "junior person," as Glamour editor Cindi Leive herself claimed in a letter to the magazine, in which she identified the employee simply as "junior staffer" who, while "not a beauty editor" was nevertheless an "editor." So did Cindi simply fall on her subterfugesword to cover up for an incurable, irredeemable racist? Or does Glamour actually employ TWO separate editors who have never heard the song "Baby Got Back"?

Would You Ever Wear This? [Glamour]

Text reads: "In Africa, kids don't come to school late, but not at all"
Quit hit: Makeup for some? [Feministing]
UNICEF's Blackface Faux Pas [Mediabistro]
Earlier: 'Glamour' Editor To Lady Lawyers: Being Black Is Kinda A Corporate 'Don't'