Controversial Headlines: ‘Africans are less intelligent than Westerners, says DNA pioneer’

This heading leaped out at me from one of my favorite UK newspaper The Independent, last Thursday, and as expected, led to a great surge of controversy and debate for days to follow. What I found particularly striking about this, besides of course the obvious problems of continuing to perceive of race as a biological fact, one with a determining role in a group’s intelligence, was the manner in which this story was first covered.

The above caption screams out in large font, beside a picture of James Watson, a renown scientist and winner of a Nobel Peace Prize for his research on DNA, with only a small addendum at the bottom: ‘Fury over scientist’s theory: “All our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours—whereas all the testing says not really.”’ This headline could incline the reader to believe that because the person making this claim is a ‘DNA pioneer’ there must/could be some truth in it. Furthermore, allocating the entire front page to this title and the story associated with it places a lot of importance on Watson’s theory, without making the questionable aspects of this theory as obvious. This can be quite dangerous in a society where racism and racial discrimination are still predominant.

Eyes on Zimbabwe

                                  

2005, Harare, Zimbabwe     An MDC party member with his face wrapped in party campaign materials at a mass rally on the outskirts of Harare. MDC is the opposition party to Mugabe’s ZANU-PF.     Credit: Halden Krog/Polaris

The following video, with interviews from Zimbabwe human rights advocates, explores the increasingly desperate political and economic situation. 

After helping his country become Africa’s breadbasket, Mugabe has now created a basket case.

Michelle Bachelet, Pres. of Chile, on Democracy

On Monday, I had the privilege and honor of hearing Michelle Bachelet, Chile’s first woman president, speak on the meaning of Democracy in Chile, Latin America, and the world.  She presented her remarks at the World Leaders Forum.  In an attempt to increase the accessibility and reach of these kinds of lectures, I thought I would briefly summarize President Bachelet’s most salient points:

• In order to achieve democracy, we should focus more on the outputs rather than the inputs of politics.  In other words, instead of focusing all of our time and energy on political parties and campaigns, we should be more concerned about policies and their outcomes.
• True democracy can only be achieved through popular representation, not through indirect representation of the people via political parties, congresses, or electoral colleges.
• Economic growth is not enough to decrease poverty.  We must also tackle social and economic inequality to achieve this goal.  In addition, we should strive to implement social policies that counter the negative effects of the liberal economic market in the areas of health care, education, and income assistance.  Along the same lines, economic growth needs to be paired with social equity and social justice initiatives in order to decrease poverty and achieve true democracy.
• The weariness and disenchantment of youth towards politics is a direct threat to democracy.  It is essential to include youth in the political process in order to ensure true democracy.
• It is not enough to just be concerned with “implementing” democracy.  We must also be concerned with improving its quality.  For example, we must tackle social inequality (e.g., gender and racial inequality) in order to guarantee that the benefits of economic growth reach all citizens.  In additon, we should strive to build consensus among parties of differing social, economic, and political interests in order to create win-win situations for all.  The process of concensus building will in turn ensure the greater sustainability of social policies.
• Lastly, representative democracy is not enough.  We need to actively build a culture of democracy that values diversity, equity, human rights, and social justice and includes the voice of all people.

For more on women world leaders: http://www.terra.es/personal2/monolith/00women2.htm.

For more on democracy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy.

For social commentary on U.S. democracy: http://www.logosjournal.com/west.htm.

m.

Bill O’Reilly. He knows black people.

If you haven’t heard already, Bill O’Reilly is really surprised that black people are civilized. He was taken aback when, entering Sylvia’s restaurant, no one yelled, “M-Fer give me more iced tea.”

Now, let’s take a moment.

There have been various news articles and bloggers tracing the O’Reilly, um, phenomenon. Most recently, in the New York Times, Mike Nizza notes that a local New York TV station interviewed a patron at Sylvia’s, who wasn’t upset at O’Reilly’s race-dumbed comments; he was just concerned about the mindset. Somehow, the fact that O’Reilly was speaking in the past tense — “they weren’t all yelling and cursing” — rips racism from his statements.

Nah, it doesn’t.

I feel almost guilty giving this time, as I do whenever O’Reilly does something stupid. Yet, once again, we have a television personality uncritically celebrating how “similar” we all are, how black people are no different than white people!, how he doesn’t even notice color when they go to an Anita Baker concert and everyone is dressed sharp!!

This doesn’t even fit in colorblind racism, folks.   It’s just racism.

What’s more, a while back Glenn Beck explained that he doesn’t have black friends because he is afraid THEY will MISUNDERSTAND something that HE IS SAYING. It’s their fault, of course, not his own for uttering the words.  O’Reilly echoes the same crazy logic.

Glamour warns: Don’t sport afros and locks to work!

Outrageous.

According to a Glamour editor, afros and “dread locks” are inappropriate hair styles for the work place.  The editor justified her/his position during an info session on corporate hairstyle dos and donts at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton by citing the styles’ historical ties to political activism.  Not surprisingly, political dissent apparently has no place in corporate America’s boardrooms. 

But the worst part is that the editor makes sweeping generalizations about why women sport the hairstyles and wrongly assumes that all are motivated by political dissent. Hmmm. Let’s see, maybe women wear locks and afros because they like them! Go figure!

But don’t get too alarmed.  As Clearly Gottlieb’s managing partner reassures us: “I assume she was oblivious; I doubt she’s racist.”

Because being “oblivious” and ignorant are valid excuses for making racist statements. And because racism only refers to blatant and extreme racially-motivated actions, like lynching or de jure segregation…and not to the more subtle yet just as problematic and harmful day to day insults of having your values consistently questioned and dismissed by the dominant group.

Riiiight.  Could have fooled me.

m.

Jena 6: “Pastoral Scene of the Gallant South”?

A tree. A noose. The American South.  If that doesn’t conjure notes of that old Billie Holiday song “Strange Fruit,” I don’t know what would. Let’s also add “Playground fights and Sentencing disparities” to the above images, just to move us into the 21st century…

In case you haven’t heard of the Jena 6, take a look.  While there’s a lot of analysis to do, and many in the blogosphere have deepened our understanding of the intersections of American justice, racism, and historical oppression surrounding this case, it has not – ta da! – received  attention in the mainstream media, especially not on TV, where most Americans get their news.  The only intelligent, caustic criticism I’ve heard has been from Mos Def and Dr. West last week on Bill Maher.  (Note Bill’s quotation, “White America does not know this story.”  Yet another case of stating the obvious.)

There’s a rally down in Jena on Sept. 20th, with Mos Def, NAACP members, and others.  People all over the country will be wearing black in solidarity.

 Sign the petition at COLOROFCHANGE

The 2007 VMA’s: “A Beautiful Disaster?”

I think not.  There was nothing beautiful about the VMA’s this year.  In fact, they were quite possibly the worst I’ve ever seen.  Poor Timbaland (he produced this one…).  He certainly won’t be adding this one to his long list of accomplishments.

The show started with a lackluster performance by the dethroned Pop Princess herself — Britney Spears.   By the looks of it, alcohol and drug abuse can do more than just make young starlets do outrageous things; it also makes them forget how to dance and sing!  Britney’s long years of dance training and video-move making both seem to have gone out the window.  Not only was her choreography washed out and uncreative (think one body roll after the next…), but she performed them with the energy, confidence, and enthusiasm of someone who just knows they fell off.  Britney couldn’t even get it together enough to match her lip syncing to the wording of the song.  Not even her black leather-wearing backup dancers could save the performance.  They too seemed lost and confused on stage.  This was a long cry from Britney’s raved about “Slave For You” VMA performance several years back.

But it wasn’t just Britney.  They whole show was a disaster.  First of all, where were all of the celebs? Even Fergie was MIA.  Apart from Diddy, Beyonce, and Eve, the biggest star there was Nicole Scherzinger of the Pussycat Dolls. 

Enough said. 

The entire concept for this year’s VMA’s left a lot to be desired.  Even though the stars throwing their own individual suite parties seemed to be having a heck of a lot more fun than the celebs with front row seating at the awards show, the whole ”suite party” concept was pretty confusing.  With the dim lighting and frenzied camera shots, we were lucky if we caught a glimpse of the performers running up the stairs or navigating the overly zealous crowd.

My least favorite performance of the night, however, was during the pre-show when Nicole Scherzinger attempted to up her “street cred” by teaming up with the one and only Lil’ Wayne.  She also tried to increase her hip hop appeal by throwing in a little booty shaking, mean mugging, and asking the crowd to “throw [their] hands up.” Sorry, Nicole.  You’ll have to do more than that to prove that you’ve got what it takes to run in hip hop circles.  Maybe if she knew anything about the social and political roots of hip hop in 1970’s New York City’s black and Latino neighborhoods, and its close ties to political activism and liberation movements (see Public Enemy for old school versions of this and Dead Prez for current interpretations), she would realize that there’s a lot more to the game than sex appeal, bling, and expensive clothes.

Even Jennifer Garner, presumably one of “America’s sweethearts,” couldn’t get her act together during the show.  Come on Jenn—”Gym Class Fallout?!?!”  To her defense,  she was probably distracted by Jamie Fox who couldn’t seem to stand still or stop interrupting her.  I’m sure Jenn’s PR rep was probably thinking: “I knew we shouldn’t have agreed to her co-hosting with Jamie.  Those black people, they just don’t know how to act.”  By the looks of it, Jenn was thinking the same thing.

Last but not least, the VMA’s featured a commercial for the soon-to-air new MTV show, A Shot with Tila Tequila.  In this latest version of reality dating shows, My Space vixen, model, and singer Tila Tequila announces that she’s bisexual and that “16 gorgeous lesbians” and “16 gorgeous straight guys” will be engaging in the “ultimate battle of the sexes” for her affection.  Why bisexual men and women were ineligible to participate as contestants, I’m not sure.  But most importantly, while I understand that this show is a big step for bisexual representation in popular media culture, it unfortunately perpetuates the same old stereotypes about bisexuals — mainly that men and women who identify as bisexual are 1) attracted to both men and women at any given point in time; 2)  equally attracted to both men and women at any given point in time; and 3) pinning men and women head to head when deciding who they want to engage in an intimate relationship with.  

Contrarily to what the commercials for this show might suggest, bisexuality is much more fluid than that. In fact, men and women who identify as bisexual are rarely always and unequivocally attracted to both men and women 50/50 at any given point in time.  Also, from my own experiences and those of friends and acquaintances, bisexuals’  rationale for selecting a partner rarely involves a full-on “battle of the sexes” between men and women.  Instead, bisexuals are much more likely to be attracted to a person as a result of his/her individual character, personality, and physical traits, with the person’s gender featuring more or less prominently in that decision.  The person’s gender can often be an afterthought when evaluating their ”pontential” as a partner.

With that said, I will definetly be watching Tila’s show and sounding off here on the range of issues that it will likely raise about sexuality and gender.

What I probably won’t be watching, however, are next year’s VMA’s… 

m.

Racial profiling? Civil liberties? Weird, never heard of that.

Wow.

“Following a pattern of past fashion bans, the sagging prohibitions are seen by some as racially motivated because the wearers are young, predominantly African-American men.”

Wow.

They love stating the obvious.

Let’s break it down…
A. Did we incarcerate young, white, 60’s-era hippies for their sartorial styling — for their ponchos and long hair and counter culture, drug-championing aesthetic? (Or, even more, did we put them in jail for low-level drug offenses and create draconian sentencing policies based on an unfounded and unscientific fear? …present day crack/powder disparity…)

B. Can we move beyond simply tracing it back to “prison fashion”? Really. Can we please step deeper into our mention of incarceration, and open the door on the prison industrial complex, and walk back out talking about the 2.2 million people in prison, less than 30% of whom have committed violent offenses, and the 5 million either on parole or probation?

C. Please, can we give Dr. Dyson a better quotation?

D. There’s just so much wrong with this article. It doesn’t even start with the right question.

 But, in NY Times style, it does leave us with some hope that people are getting it right. Like Dr. Chavis: “The focus should be on cleaning up the social conditions that the sagging pants comes out of,” he said. “That they wear their pants the way they do is a statement of the reality that they’re struggling with on a day-to-day basis.”

A word (up) about stats (down)

This is no surprise. 

I love these New York Times census reports. 

I especially cream my pants when they fail to mention that, as the poverty rate has, er, “declined,” the top tier of Americans are getting richer and richer. 

When the top 10% control 70% of the wealth, isn’t it time to analyze those census statistics, not just regurgitate?