RaceMash

"And the hippies are jingling, jangling, blowing smoke all over Haight Ashbury, and they were letting..."

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 14:29:22 -0500

“And the hippies are jingling, jangling, blowing smoke all over Haight Ashbury, and they were letting their hair grow long. To the male Indian, this was a phenomenon, because for an Indian to grow his hair long was a violation of federal policy of 1906. According to the 1906 policy, food was withheld until compliance—in other words (by terms of this policy), we could be starved to death until we cut our hair.”

- Adam Fortunate Eagle (Red Lake Chippewa), on white privilege and the hippie movement in the Bay

This is why I have absolutely no patience for white men complaining about how their long hair isn’t socially acceptable—Native men were banned from having their hair long on threat of death, and for Native peoples, long hair has cultural significance that goes beyond the typical white dude’s aesthetic interest in growing his hair out. Asian men also forcibly had their hair chopped off (re: Chinese in California, for example), and there’s a long history of stigma against men with afros; for MOC to have their hair grown out is, while an aesthetic choice, also a cultural choice and in many cases can be seen as part of the day-to-day struggle against racism and colonialism. Long hair just does not carry that meaning for white men, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna sit there and listen to them complain about how marginalized they are because they choose to have long hair because they think it looks cool (and let’s face it: they’re bitching because women don’t wanna date them—which could be for any number of reasons, or they’re whining about other more wealthy and powerful white men not taking them seriously; I don’t give a fuck about any of those struggles).

Not to mention the fact that white men created the very same system of sexist heteropatriarchy which defined long hair as feminine and made it socially unacceptable to the general populace in the first place. You don’t get to systematically destroy and marginalize an entire gender, assign that gender narrow physical characteristics and ideals of beauty, reappropriate and reuse those beauty ideals (usually feeding from racist romanticized colonial ideals of Nature and indigenous peoples anyways), and then complain because people don’t like your choice of hair style, like somehow you, the white dude, could ever be marginalized in any context.

(via doveilmiosoldi)

(via bad-dominicana)

omg i needed to see this post about long hair :c

(via lasiguanaba)

POC-CREATORS: Art School is Hell: Call for Submissions

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:11:12 -0500

POC-CREATORS: Art School is Hell: Call for Submissions:

niaking:

Are you a writer/dancer/photographer/cartoonist/musician/sculptor/actor or other creative type?

Did you ever encounter resistance or discouragement while trying to learn your craft?

Did you ever feel like it was because you were a person of…

medievalpoc: MEDIEVAL POC IS ACCEPTING SUBMISSIONS! As much as...

Sun, 09 Jun 2013 22:05:04 -0500

medievalpoc:

MEDIEVAL POC IS ACCEPTING SUBMISSIONS!

As much as i love doing research for this blog, I could certainly use some help in fleshing out the queue! Here’s a quick overview of the submission guidelines:

This blog is focused on works of art from the Middle Ages and Renaissance in Europe, but also accepts text posts and links on the topics at hand. Work previous or latter to these general (and overlapping) eras will also be considered, as will works from outside of Europe.
Historical and period garments featuring influences from, depictions of, or designed by people of color are also welcome.
If possible, please provide sources for artists, subjects, designers, countries of origin, dates, or any other information you have about the work in question.

Submit Here.

Follow Here.

Ask Here.

signal boost!

In recent news, both John McCain and John Boehner’s kids...

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 20:47:00 -0500

Wedding of Jack McCain and Renee Swift

In recent news, both John McCain and John Boehner’s kids married black spouses.

infamousnfamous: TODAY IS JUST A GREAT DAY FOR WHITE GUY FUCKERY SOMEONE TOLD ME TO CHECK OUT THIS...

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 17:28:38 -0500

infamousnfamous:

TODAY IS JUST A GREAT DAY FOR WHITE GUY FUCKERY

SOMEONE TOLD ME TO CHECK OUT THIS BAND AND I GO ON BANDCAMP AND THEY HAVE A FUCKING SONG CALLED NEGRO SPIRITUAL

AND THEN I GO ON FACEBOOK AND THIS IS ONE OF THEI RPICS

AfroLatina Student Midwife Fund

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 11:44:58 -0500

AfroLatina Student Midwife Fund :

ynannarising:

My name is Ynanna Djehuty, also known as Carmen Mojica. I am reaching out to you today to ask for your help on my journey to become a midwife. I have just been accepted to Maternidad La Luz, a midwifery school and birth clinic in El Paso, Texas. I am overjoyed and overwhelmed with excitement as I prepare for my studies to begin in September. I need help securing donations, grants and scholarships for my tuition, books, room and board.

I am an Afro-Dominicana born and raised in the Bronx. I am a certified birth doula and artist. I am a member of the International Center for Traditional Childbearing (ICTC). The focus of my work is the empowerment of women and people of the African Diaspora, specifically discussing the Afro-Latina Identity. I utilize my experience as a birth doula to raise awareness on maternal and infant health for women, highlighting the disparities in the healthcare system in the United States for women of color. Becoming licensed as a midwife is my direct and physical contribution to ensuring future generations are born into peace and calm environments.Midwifery is my calling. I see a huge need for compassionate, woman-centered care for women of the African Diaspora and am stepping up to serve my community. I have been particularly interested in being trained in a bilingual environment so that I may use my native Spanish language to assist women who otherwise would not have access to compassionate midwifery care. Women who are native Spanish speakers often are not truly listened to and in turn are not completely informed during their birth process. My presence in the global community is essential to adding to the number of Spanish-speaking midwives.

As a student, I will be serving a mostly Spanish-speaking population of Mexican and Mexican American women. Attending Maternidad La Luz would allow me to be licensed as a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) by the end of 2014. I have chosen this particular path to midwifery because I am interested in providing birthing women of color with a option of care that is mother-centered. I have dreams of opening up my own birth clinic in the future, and studying at a birth center such as Maternidad La Luz is excellent training for this endeavor. I am currently fundraising on my own via the link I’ve enclosed as well as reaching out to individual people and organizations like you to reach my goal by this September. Your support is a large contribution to reducing the perils women of color are facing currently in the world. Thank you for your time. Be blessed!

Fundraising Campaign: http://www.gofundme.com/thesewatersrundeep

*SIGNAL BOOST PLEASE!!!*

Journos of Color: "Who?" and "What?"

Fri, 31 May 2013 04:55:30 -0500

Journos of Color: "Who?" and "What?":

journosofcolor:

It occurs to us that we haven’t actually said anything about who we are and what this is.

It’s straightforward: Journos of Color is a place to highlight the work of writers and journalists of color. We read, we curate, and we take submissions. We hope to send recognition to the many…

racialicious: From the Navajo Times: Carapella recently...

Wed, 29 May 2013 23:25:18 -0500

racialicious:

From the Navajo Times:

Carapella recently released “Map of our Tribal Nations: Our Own Names and Original Locations,” which shows 584 North American tribes and roughly where they were located (since most tribes were nomadic, and there weren’t any boundaries to speak of, Carapella has placed the name of the tribe over the area where its people originally lived before being displaced by European settlers).

Carapella is pretty well convinced it’s the first map of its kind.

“I’ve never seen anything like it before,” he said. “I can definitely say it’s the first time anyone has copyrighted this.”

Clarenda Begay, exhibit curator at the Navajo Nation Museum, agrees.

“This is the first time I have seen this,” she emailed after being directed to Carapella’s Web site. “What an informative map!”

Carapella made it precisely because other maps he looked at were so uninformative.

“You can get maps of what our reservations look like now,” he noted. “And you can get maps that have, like, the 50 main tribes. But I was interested in what our land really looked like circa 1490, before Columbus got here.”

"One could point out that most black Americans celebrate the same holidays and eat the same food as..."

Wed, 29 May 2013 19:45:00 -0500

“

One could point out that most black Americans celebrate the same holidays and eat the same food as most white Americans, but that would be quibbling. The fact is that America was founded by Westerners (call them “white people”) who believed they were advancing the ideals and values of centuries of Western civilization. Why were Westerners alone expected to apologize for their own culture and to refrain from criticizing aspects of other cultures or subcultures that struck them as dysfunctional? In truth, among the WPC14 offerings that I sampled, not a single one of those “difficult and critical dialogues” about race, class, and privilege that the conference promised took place. Audience pushback to the speeches and workshop presentations was minimal to nonexistent. During Jody Alyn’s “Great White Male” conspiracy workshop one man did crack, “Somewhere right now conservatives are holding a conference just like this one saying there’s a huge liberal conspiracy.” A workshop by Moore himself titled “N!gga/DJANGO: Why Are These White Folks Laughing in the Dark?” generated a lively challenge to his premise that a racism-pandering corporate entertainment industry—and not black rappers—was responsible for the resurgence of the taboo n-word, used prolifically in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained. That was about it. Otherwise, it was a roomful of Mmmm-hmmms when, say, Robert Jensen called his employer, the University of Texas, a “white-supremacist organization.”

In a later telephone interview I asked Moore why, if the conference was supposed to foster difficult dialogues, there hadn’t been any discussion of the genuine reasons that white people might have for looking down on inner-city black culture: the breakdown of the family, for example, that has led to high crime levels among young men growing up without fathers at home. “That’s the kind of commentary [the WPC attendees] hear every day,” said Moore. “So sometimes they want to be in a place where they can hear the other side—at least that’s what I’m hearing from them. If people are always coming down on you and your culture, and you feel that you can’t even raise the issue of racism, you want to be in a place where you feel safe to raise it.”

”

- -Beyond the Pale, by Charlotte Allen; a piece in which a white woman attends a conference on white privilege.

(Be forewarned, the website this piece is featured on is catered to conservatives - that fact may also explain the dismissive tone of the writer)

"Despite the fact that American black families, on average, have only one seventh the wealth of white..."

Wed, 29 May 2013 18:56:38 -0500

“Despite the fact that American black families, on average, have only one seventh the wealth of white families, our calculations show that African-American families are spending (exclusive of scholarships and other aid) about $3 billion a year in tuition, room and board, and books. Surely, for this sum they are entitled to have clear and detailed information about which institutions have successfully integrated their campuses and provide a hospitable educational and social environment for black students.”

- from The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, a resource that is “dedicated to the conscientious investigation of the status & prospects for African Americans in higher education”

If you have 3 minutes to spare do yourself a favor and watch...

Wed, 29 May 2013 18:00:37 -0500

If you have 3 minutes to spare do yourself a favor and watch this video of a charismatic 9 year old child from Chicago speak at a public rally, taking down Rham Emanuel and blasting the city’s massive school closings

“WE ARE NOT TOYS, WE ARE NOT GOING DOWN WITHOUT A FIGHT”

“This is racism, RIGHT HERE”

“Education is a right, that is why we have to fight!”

A black child fighting for a cause? Not trying to be a rapper or baller?! Shhh, don’t tell the Obamas

11 Trans Artists Of Color You Should Know In 2013

Tue, 28 May 2013 02:00:49 -0500

11 Trans Artists Of Color You Should Know In 2013:

Art has been an important site of resistance and identity making for trans people of color. We’ve used the medium to share our stories, document our lives and express our humanity. Fortunately for us, we are living in a media moment that thirsts to understand the trans experience.

strugglingtobeheard: angryasiangirlsunited: svartskalleroy: Ro...

Sat, 25 May 2013 19:47:19 -0500

strugglingtobeheard:

angryasiangirlsunited:

svartskalleroy:

Rough translation: People who live in the blue line - don’t go out! The nazis have lighter fluid, batons etc and they are in Rinkeby right now.

To non white followers in Sweden.

If you live in the blue line or even nearby, please stay indoors. Also, yesterday these motherfuckers were in the Tumba area and if you live there or nearby (for example Flemingsberg, Huddinge, Tullinge), please don’t leave your house.

Boost!!!

When Martin Luther King Was Hated and Unpopular

Fri, 24 May 2013 14:33:00 -0500

Why was King so unpopular in 1966? You could read Taylor Branch or Rick Perlstein, and it is Friday, so you might have the time. The short version: In 1965 and 1966, King started working on housing in northern states, starting in Chicago. The 1966 Gallup poll here was taken around the time of the disastrous Marquette Park march, which King credited for the ugliest crowd of counter-protesters he’d ever seen. (We can read some hyperbole into that if we like.) He was starting in on his anti-war activism. He had moved on from the causes of Southern integration and voting rights to the far more volcanic issues of housing and red-lining and economic redistribution — he became, fully, a man of the left.
King’s subsequent political sainthood has very little to do with his post-Nobel Prize activism. It’s left for guys like Cornel West to dig that up; to everyone else, King’s “dream” was some easily-appropriated stuff about color-blindness.

(source)

ikenbot: anarcho-queer: NYPD Data Proves White People Are More...

Fri, 24 May 2013 12:33:18 -0500

ikenbot:

anarcho-queer:

NYPD Data Proves White People Are More Likely To Possess Drugs Or A Weapon Than Racial Minorities When Stopped, Yet 84% of Stop & Frisk Victims Are Black/Latino

During the just-concluded trial on the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk program, the city argued that officers’ disproportionate targeting of black and Latino New Yorkers was not due to racial profiling but because each stopped individual was doing something suspicious at the time. The data, however, tells a different story: weapons and drugs were more often found on white New Yorkers during stops than on minorities, according to the Public Advocate’s analysis of the NYPD’s 2012 statistics.

White New Yorkers make up a small minority of stop-and-frisks, which were 84 percent black and Latino residents. Despite this much higher number of minorities deemed suspicious by police, the likelihood that stopping an African American would find a weapon was half the likelihood of finding one on a white person.

• The likelihood a stop of an African American New Yorker yielded a weapon was half that of white New Yorkers stopped. The NYPD uncovered a weapon in one out every 49 stops of white New Yorkers. By contrast, it took the Department 71 stops of Latinos and 93 stops of African Americans to find a weapon.

• The likelihood a stop of an African American New Yorker yielded contraband was one-third less than that of white New Yorkers stopped. The NYPD uncovered contraband in one out every 43 stops of white New Yorkers. By contrast, it took the Department 57 stops of Latinos and 61 stops of African Americans to find contraband.

It’s unlikely that the appropriate lesson to take from these findings is that stops of white people should increase because they are more likely to carry weapons and drugs. Rather, they suggest that police are excessively targeting minorities. Officers may be netting more successful stops of white New Yorkers because they are only likely to stop a white person when they actually suspect that person of committing a crime. Considering one officer’s testimony that superiors explicitly directed him to target young black men, minorities are judged by a much more flexible definition of “reasonable suspicion.”

In general, stop-and-frisk has proven to be remarkably ineffective; nearly 89 percent of all stops result in no charges. The city has also had to settle a surging number of civil rights lawsuits against police to the tune of $22 million in one year.

In positive news, actress Eva Longoria recently graduated with a...

Fri, 24 May 2013 12:13:00 -0500

In positive news, actress Eva Longoria recently graduated with a Master’s degree in Chicano Studies from Cal State Northridge.

from the LATimes:

She titled her thesis “Success STEMS From Diversity: The Value of Latinas in STEM Careers.” “STEM” is an acronym for science, technology, engineering and math. The petite actress also has a bachelor’s of science degree in kinesiology from Texas A&M University, according to IMDB.

Longoria celebrated the happy occasion with none other than her parents, friends and family.

“In my cap and gown with mom and dad! I look like Harry Potter!” she wrote, posting another pic. And friends in the Twitterverse and online were quick to send her congrats.

Great job!
In case anyone is interested, here are a few extra resources on STEM and diversity:

Latinas in Stem (twitter link)
Fact sheet on Latinas in STEM (published in Dec 2008)
The Center for STEM Diversity at Tufts University

Notes on the Doll test

Fri, 24 May 2013 11:23:30 -0500

Out of everything we’ve posted and reblogged here, it’s crazy to see how it was the doll test video that blew up.

A lot of the commentary has been wonderful to read, but admittedly it is quite disheartening to see some of the other ill informed commentary. So here is some background info (links embedded) on the origins of the doll test:

It was originally performed with black children in the 1940’s by Kenneth and Mamie Clark
“They showed the dolls to black children between the ages of three and seven and asked them questions to determine racial perception and preference. Almost all of the children readily identified the race of the dolls. However, when asked which they preferred, the majority selected the white doll and attributed positive characteristics to it. The Clarks also gave the children outline drawings of a boy and girl and asked them to color the figures the same color as themselves. Many of the children with dark complexions colored the figures with a white or yellow crayon. The Clarks concluded that “prejudice, discrimination, and segregation” caused black children to develop a sense of inferiority and self-hatred.”
The results of the study were used in the landmark Brown v. Board of education case
The test has been repeated numerous times since the 1940’s with similar results
The test has been performed with Asian children too! Any guesses which doll 14 out of the 20 kids picked?

Hopefully this sheds a little more light so that we don’t feel compelled to reblog each ill informed commentary and continue to clog dashboards.

Have a great weekend!

Filmmaker Brings Attention To A Latina Soldier Who Fought In The U.S. Civil War

Fri, 24 May 2013 10:40:43 -0500

fylatinamericanhistory:

nbclatino:

The U.S. military may have recently lifted the ban on women in combat, but Loreta Velazquez, a wealthy Cuban planter’s daughter who immigrated to New Orleans in 1849, secretly fought in the U.S. Civil War 150 years ago — first as a soldier in the Confederate Army, and later as a Union Army spy.

Read More

I wrote a post about this woman last year! PBS will be airing a documentary on her life today (May 24).

the-contemplative-vegan: racemash: 2ndadolescence: le-kif-kif:...

Fri, 24 May 2013 10:38:18 -0500

the-contemplative-vegan:

racemash:

2ndadolescence:

le-kif-kif:

nedahoyin:

siddharthasmama:

sourcedumal:

racemash:

The classic doll color test performed with a white child, complete with the parent’s ~~excuses~~ reactions

The little girl even says she picked the white figures as the good child because it “looks like me” and the dark girl as bad because “she’s dark”. When Soledad O’Brien asks the girl’s mother about it, we’re met with quite a few colorblind based excuses and “well, we just don’t talk about race”.

“We don’t talk about race!!”

And your kid is saying racist shit regardless.

That should fucking tell you something, lady.

But of course, it won’t. I bet you cash money she won’t change a thing, continuing to use that color blind bullshit.

This is why the whole idea of not discussing race with white children is bullshit. No, it won’t “taint” them. When you don’t talk about it, they still form opinions — racist ones — because they don’t know any better, so to speak. Then one day they grow up into adults that are, guess what, still racist. As Black folks, we pretty much all had “the talk” as kids/young people; our existence in this society dictates that we do, because racism is a part of our lives at an incredibly young age. Colorblind ideology has been proven to be toxic as blatant racism. And little white kids can be just as racist as their parents.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOP..!!

we dont talk about race with kids but a small child ran up to my professor’s wife and said she had a terrorist baby.

we dont talk about race with kids but white children were encouraged to go to lynchings to see white supremacy. because (trigger warning: graphic details) jesse washington, whose charred body is floating around on tumblr posts, had his teeth yanked out by white children so they could sell them as lynching souvenirs.

we dont talk about race with kids but kids clearly PICK UP ON RACE. many POC parents dont explicitly discuss race but clearly, white ppl, kids pick up on it!!

The video above is no longer available, but judging from the image this should be the same footage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opULrjQv0Kg

Just a quick note: The original video is actually still up and working just fine, but because it’s CNN there may be international restrictions or some sort of Adblock detection bc I’ve seen only a few other people say it’s not working for them.

Either way I’m glad you were able to find it!

Actually this has little to do with racism. What you are listening to is evolutionary psychology at work here, and something like this was repeated on 9 month olds and 14 month olds. In general, and without parental prompting, small children prefers those who are similar to them and dislike those who are disimilar to them. Also they prefer those who help those who are similar to them and dislike those who are helpful to those who are disimilar to them.

This makes sense in terms of evolution. Children wanted to be able to identify those who were similar to them since it most likely signaled someone who would protect them from harm.

Now what does this test mean? What this test really is measuring here, if it is measuring racism at all, is a child’s implicit racism. IMPLICIt. This is what they exude naturally and they are not trying to be racist. Even adults who think they aren’t racist have levels of implicit racism that can be brought forward with the correct stimuli.

So instead of viewing it as the parent’s fault for not explicitly teaching the child that racism is wrong, you can also look at it as either evolutionary forces at work OR implicit racism. She could, for all you know, love playing with the little black girl at her school but only made this choice since she had to thus measuring implicit racism.

Ok but if what your apologist commentary saying is true, then why do black children consistently choose dolls who are white and dissimilar to them?

"Whenever I start feeling too arrogant about myself, I always make a trip to America. The immigration..."

Thu, 23 May 2013 20:44:15 -0500

““Whenever I start feeling too arrogant about myself, I always make a trip to America. The immigration guys kick the star out of stardom. They always ask me how tall I am and I always lie and say 5 feet 10 inches. Next time, I am going to get more adventurous. If they ask me ‘what color are you?’ I am going to say white.””

- Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan on being detained at the U.S. Airport—twice. (Once, he was detained while promoting a film called “My Name is Khan” which was ironically about a person with the last name Khan suffering from repeated racial profiling.)

Multiple actors and other prominent individuals in the film industry with the last name “Khan” have been detained when entering the country. Irrfan Khan (The Life of Pi, Slumdog Millionaire, Spider-man) described the three times he was stopped—while on the way to receive honors for his roles in films such as The Namesake—as “humiliating.” Actor Aamir Khan was stopped and stripped searched in 2002. Director Kabir Khan, was reportedly detained at least three times in 2008 while filming in the United States. The New York Times ended up remarking on The Dangers of Fying While Khan

This much is clear:

Despite being an incredibly common surname, in the United States, Khan is a racialized last name and those who carry it suffer from additional, insulting, stigma and scrutiny.

There is no shortage of talented actors of South Asian descent whether from within the United States, from the UK, or Bollywood—and many of them even have the last name of Khan.

With Star Trek Into Darkness the name “Khan” is once again stigmatized as antagonistic, but the actors named Khan, the Khans of the world, and those who look like Khans once again have no voice about how they are represented in American media.

If you’re an award winning actor named Khan, you will still get stopped and humiliated at the airport. When that rare character in American media finally shows up sharing your name, he will be played by a white British man. That actor will wear your name for one movie and sneer and strut to great critical acclaim. You will wear your racialized name, your skin color, and hope you don’t get detained another time.

(via racebending)