I’m stepping outside the usual fare because I saw something a few weeks ago that surprised me, and I was curious what others thought. I walked into a local discount store, and the first thing I saw was Big League Chew. For those who are unfamiliar, Big League Chew is bubble gum that is made to resemble chewing tobacco. It was really popular when I was a child, and at that time, chewing tobacco was popular with baseball players, so the idea was that if you had Big League Chew you could be popular like your baseball heroes. As the popularity of tobacco has declined, I haven’t seen this product as readily advertised or promoted–the same for candy cigarettes¹. However, I was under the impression that these products are not only less popular today, but illegal. I personally wouldn’t support a law against pseudo-tobacco products for kids because I think it’s too much government intervention, but I would be more than happy to launch a boycott or letter writing campaign against companies who produce and distribute pseudo-alcohol, tobacco, and drug products to children. I’m not sure what correlation there is between the use of pseudo-tobacco/alcohol/drug products as a child, and subsequent use of tobacco/alcohol/drugs as an adult. What do you think?

Would you allow your kids to buy these products? Do you think the products should be banned? Do you think they affect children’s likelihood of using the “real thing” when they get older?

1. Apparently there are also marijuana candies, but I’ve only seen them when a local TV station did an expose a few years ago. (back)

The Carnival is really growing, and Susan has managed to piece together a long list of posts for this month. Go check out the posts!

Next month’s Carnival will be held over at Kill Bigotry, and in November the Carnival will be at Eric Stoller’s place.

If you are interested in hosting a future Erase Racism Carnival or submitting a post, you can check out the Carnival Homepage for available dates and contact information.

Editor’s Note: I don’t often share very personal stories, but I think there is something instructive in this story, so I am prepared to deal with the blowback.

I remember an argument I had with my mother a few years back. I had brought my boyfriend, a black man, who I had been dating for 4 years, to a family picnic. At the picnic, my grandfather and his wife refused to shake my ex-boyfriend’s hand because he was black. I knew something like this was going to happen, as my maternal extended relatives had made numerous bigoted comments going back to my childhood. I felt terrible for putting my ex in that situation, and I felt terrible that nobody in my family stood up and said something. They pretended like nothing happened. I was sobbing and furious, and he and I left the picnic soon after. We stopped at a fast food place, and he said, “I’ve never had anything like this happen to me before. I’m so glad we left.” I was glad to be gone, too.

After leaving I had an over the phone discussion with my mother, where my mother suggested that it was unfortunate that we left because my young cousins were crying. They liked and missed my ex and could not figure out why he had left. Her tone suggested that my ex and I were responsible for my cousins being upset, and perhaps, if we came back, they would stop crying. I remember being furious with my mother’s reaction, and I blurted out, “They should be upset. Racism hurts people. The fact that they are crying is a good thing. Hopefully, when they grow up, they will remember this so they don’t ever treat people that way.”

Later that evening, my mother and some of my aunts and cousins who felt bad about the situation came over to my apartment. I guess it was their way to try to make up for not saying anything at the picnic. They brought my younger cousins, so they could actually talk to my ex and hopefully feel better. At some point, they tried to tell me how my grandfather felt uncomfortable, and he felt like everybody was looking to see what he would do, and he made the claim that this was why he and his wife refused to shake hands. They also reminded me that my grandfather was notorious for being an abrasive person outside of his racism. But I wasn’t having it. To me this was all bullshit. Racist bullshit. Yes, he had been an asshole on other occasions, but this time he was a racist asshole.

I had listened to him and some other relatives in my extended family say pejorative things about blacks and Latinos for years. These offensive comments ranged from using the word nigger, to talking about lazy “colored” people, and making all kinds of statements about Mexican migrant farmworkers. It was rare for anybody but me to challenge this, and I didn’t even do it every time. In fact, it reached a point where people didn’t saying these things around me anymore because they knew I would get mad.¹

The next Christmas my father and brother showed their solidarity with my ex (and me) by refusing to attend any events that my maternal grandfather attended.

I half forgave my grandfather and his wife even thought they never apologized and most likely they weren’t sorry for what they did. I’m not exactly sure how my ex dealt with this in the long run. By the time I saw my grandfather again, about 2 years later, I was no longer is that relationship. I had recently found out my grandfather was diagnosed with cancer, and I sat at the table and bit my tongue, while trying my best to act friendly. I know my mother, who felt torn over these events, was happy to see me sitting at that table, and I cheered when I saw him again 6 months later, and he announced his cancer had gone into remission. But I can’t lie. I was happy to be living very far away from him; I knew I didn’t have to confront this issue over and over again.

In my first month in New York, he suffered a severe stroke and heart attack. He suffered a great deal for a month or two, and then he passed away. I was sad that he died, and part of that sadness was with the fact that he never confronted any of the pain he visited on others. That racist incident defined my relationship with him over the last few years of his life. It’s really hard to remember the jokes he made when I was a child, before I knew or understood the depth of his bigotry.

This incident didn’t only change my view of him; it still lingers in the background of the relationships with many of my relatives. Some people may believe the lesson in this story is that you should make up with your loved ones before they die, but I don’t see it that way. I didn’t do anything wrong, and I didn’t want to expend any more emotional energy fighting an uphill battle. It would have been nice to get an apology for my ex and myself, but the odds of that happening were slim. To me, the lesson is that racism destroys relationships. It makes, otherwise decent people, turn a blind eye to suffering. The theory that says many white people don’t care about racism because it doesn’t effect them or their loved ones makes sense until you realize that in many cases loved ones are either perpetrators or inactive bystanders when racism is directed at their loved ones.

Racism is so insidious that it anesthetizes people to suffering of others (even others who they care about). It destroys empathetic reactions to human suffering. The victims of racism are expected to be the “bigger people” while the perpetrators get the “Get Out of Racism Free” card. Even when they know racist behavior is wrong and harmful, many white observers of racism suffer from moral paralysis. Rather than doing what is morally right, they do nothing.²

Moral paralysis is learned. It is not something that you are born with. This is actually why I was happy that my little cousins were crying when we left that picnic. Even though they didn’t quite know what was going on or why this situation was bad, it showed me that they hadn’t quite learned to be immune the suffering that racism causes. I hope, nearly 10 years later, they still get upset in those situations. I hope they have the courage to respond to bigots inside and outside our family. It may be the more difficult path to take (as I can attest to), but it’s the right one.

1. I’d like to think that some stopped because they had a change of heart, but I’m not so convinced. (back)
2. I’m not saying that it is easy for people who observe racist behavior to speak out. In these cases of family racism, there are often long protracted battles where people choose sides, which is not easy to do when you love someone but don’t love their behavior. Personally, I chose to withdraw rather than lobby for support. Partly, because I knew I was right; partly because I had been fighting on this issue for years prior to this; and partly because I didn’t expect to get too much support. In fact, I suspect that the amount of sympathy my partner and I received would have been inversely related to how much lobbying we did. (back)

In case you haven’t been paying attention to international affairs, there is a major protest (estimates of 100,000 people) against the military dictatorship in Burma,which is now called Myanmar. The protest, lead by Buddhist monks, has been peaceful, but tension is rising, and as I writing this post I just found out that 4 monks have been killed by the military.

This dictatorship has been in place for 20 years, and the last major protest ended with the military killing thousands of protesters. You can learn more about the history of Burma/Myanmar in this article.

Here’s a photo of the protest from the AFP.

Caption: “Buddhist monks protest by marching with a banner that reads, “We shall replace (crackdown) unjustice with justice” before police conduct a crackdown in downtown Yangon. Myanmar security forces used batons, tear gas and live rounds Wednesday in a violent crackdown on mass protests against the military junta, killing at least four people including three Buddhist monks.(AFP)”You can also find more info. at Women of Color Blog.

I think the answer is no. Nearly all of the Republicans would not participate in the Univision debate((If you don’t know, Univision is a Spanish language network; however, the debate was conducted in English.)), and now they are ducking out of a debate on minority issues hosted at Morgan State University by African American commentator Tavis Smiley. Here’s a summary:

Arizona Sen. John McCain, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney have declined to participate in the Sept. 27 debate at Morgan State University. “I feel good,” Smiley said, about the odds of getting former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson. Five candidates trailing in national and state polls will be there.

The Univision debate, co-sponsored by the University of Miami, was scheduled for Sept. 16, but canceled after only one candidate — McCain — accepted. “We’re looking for a new date,” said Univision spokeswoman Rosemary Mercedes. However, Romney and Giuliani already have declined.

Republican campaigns blamed scheduling conflicts for their candidate’s absence from the Baltimore debate, citing, for example, a McCain speech on Iraq and a flurry of fundraising events before the third-quarter deadline on Sept. 30. All eight Democrats participated in their PBS debate at Howard University — and that was on June 28, a similarly frenetic fundraising period.

Kevin Madden, a Romney spokesman, said his candidate has “a very heavy travel schedule” that has led him to decline invitations to several debates.

Florida Sen. Mel Martinez, chairman of the national party, has said GOP candidates are not snubbing Hispanics; they are just busy with other campaign events.

Smiley said he intends to press his case tonight on NBC’s Tonight Show with Jay Leno. “We’re talking about one 90-minute conversation,” he said. “It gives these Republicans a wonderful opportunity. They complain all the time that black and brown voters won’t give them a chance. We offer a platform on PBS.”

Republican presidential candidates typically receive less than 15% of the black vote in general elections and tend to oppose policies important to some minority voters, such as affirmative action. Right now they are competing for conservative primary voters.

You have to wonder–is this 1900 or 2007? How can any reasonable person snub entire constituencies like this? We not talking about just two events. Only Tom Tancredo agreed to appear in an NAACP forum in Detroit, and they have rejected other forums oriented towards blacks and Latinos.

This is so pathetic that even a few of their fellow Republicans are chiding them. Check out this article from the Washington Post:

“We sound like we don’t want immigration; we sound like we don’t want black people to vote for us,” said former congressman Jack Kemp (N.Y.), who was the GOP vice presidential nominee in 1996. “What are we going to do — meet in a country club in the suburbs one day? If we’re going to be competitive with people of color, we’ve got to ask them for their vote.”

Making matters worse, some Republicans believe, is that the decision to bypass the Morgan State forum comes after all top GOP candidates save McCain declined invitations this month to a debate on Univision, the most-watched Hispanic television network in the United States. The event was eventually postponed.

“For Republicans to consistently refuse to engage in front of an African American or Latino audience is an enormous error,” said former House speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.), who has not yet ruled out a White House run himself. “I hope they will reverse their decision and change their schedules. I see no excuse — this thing has been planned for months, these candidates have known about it for months. It’s just fundamentally wrong. Any of them who give you that scheduling-conflict answer are disingenuous. That’s baloney.”

Former Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman urged candidates to “reconsider this opportunity to lay out their vision and other opportunities in the future.”

“Every one of these candidates I’ve talked to is sincerely committed to offering real choices to African American and Hispanic voters, and in my opinion have records that will appeal to many of these voters,” he added.

Mehlman, a longtime aide to President Bush, aggressively courted the minority vote as RNC chairman in 2005-06. He recruited black candidates to run for office as Republicans and condemned electoral tactics that showed hints of race-baiting.

Mehlman’s successor at the RNC was Sen. Mel Martinez (Fla.), a backer of legislation that would allow illegal immigrants now in the country to stay and eventually become citizens.

Except for McCain, the top GOP candidates have distanced themselves from that proposal, which Kemp worries will become another strike against the GOP with Hispanics. Bush received 40 percent of the Latino vote in 2004, but the Republican base remains inflamed about illegal immigration, leading the candidates to focus on border-control proposals.

Some may say, “Why try to court votes that you have little chance of winning?” However, this misses the larger issues. First, this will not only alienate blacks and Latinos. Many moderate whites will find this suspicious, so they risk alienating whites who would like to see the Republican party as non-racist and open to everyone. Unlike their black and Latino counterparts, I think moderate whites will be much more likely to bamboozled by the empty platitudes about reaching out to people of color. The second point is that this is demographic suicide for Republicans. The country is changing, and no matter how many border fences they try to build, they are faced the reality that people are color are going to make up half the population in this country within the next 30-40 years. When you spend an inordinate amount of time lambasting the largest minority group, then you could hurt your party’s future, as this article from the Hispanic Business Journal notes.

Before I end up writing a how to manual for Republicans :) , let me make a few more criticisms. The Republicans know that they have created policies that are harmful to blacks and Latinos, which is why they don’t have the nerve to tell Latinos to their face that want to cut immigration and incarcerate immigrants. They don’t have the nerve to tell blacks that they are fine with the fact that numerous blacks are sitting in jails on drug charges while whites with similar charges go free. If they really believed that their policies are helping people, then they don’t need to hide from people of color and pretend like they don’t exist.

This month’s Carnival will be held at Reading, Writing, and Living.  Due to some computer difficulties it’s going up a little late, so if you haven’t already submitted a post, there is still time.  It’s going up on the 27th, so you need to have posts in by the 25th.

You can send one to Susan at this email: susan@susanito.com

I haven’t covered this story thoroughly, mostly because so many others have done a great job. It’s great to see the power of African American blogger activists.

At this point, I’ve read so many posts on the story that I don’t even remember where I first heard about it.

Here are a few links. If you still don’t know the story, here’s a summary on the background of the race.

The Color of Change

FreetheJena6.org

Elle PhD has the list of contacts and the petition so you can support the Jena 6.

This case, and the Shaquanda Cotton Case are glaring examples of criminal justice inequality. Next stop the war on blacks drugs.

Editor’s Note: I’m posting this hastily, so it still needs a cold proofread. You may notice a few little changes after I cold proofread it tonight. Ok, it should be fixed.

My partner and I were having a discussion the other day with a mutual friend of ours. Our friend is a middle to upper middle class professional black man, and he has recently experienced some trouble in his workplace, in particular being passed over by a coworker who failed a qualifying exam three times¹ We were joking about racism, like we often do, and we got into a discussion of some of the more subtle ways that whites are advantaged in the workforce.

He made a joke that was funny, but unfortunately this joke is indicative of some serious problems in the labor force. in this conversation, we were discussing a Latino friend who is woefully underemployed. He was trained at a fairly good private university in a applied technology field, but in spite of having a degree from a good school, he’s struggled to get a good job in the 10 years he’s been out college. Given the rapid changes in his field since his graduation, his likelihood of getting a job in that area today are slim. The nature of his field, like many, is such that a person goes into a job with basic knowledge, but much of the training comes when the person actually gets the job. My partner said, “Yeah, you only know 50% of what you need to know for a job before you start it.” Our friend had a great come back in the form of a joke² –”The problem is Carlos is the 50% brother. Nobody wants to hire the 50% brother.”³ The two black men (my partner and his friend) in the conversation were high fiving and laughing hysterically, “That’s minorities in the workforce.” I got in a few laughs myself, but the sad thing is that their joke reveals a truth that most people of color know–you need to be more than just a qualified person of color to get a job.

They were arguing that it is much harder for people of color (and white women) who have the 50% knowledge to get their foot in the door for jobs that require more on the job training. Moreover, they felt that even though it would be expected that a person would not know everything required for one of these jobs, lack of knowledge is often held against people of color as a sign that they are unqualified or less qualified, whereas whites without that knowledge are viewed as trainable. In fact, they both felt that an overqualified or very highly qualified person of color (or white woman) stood a better chance of getting a job than even their white counterparts, in part because employers would be surprised and would be more likely to see this as an opportunity to diversify.⁴ I’m not a sociologist in the field of work and occupations, so I don’t know much of the research emanating out of that field, but I have heard the 50% Brother/Sister Argument before from many people of color, and I tend to think it is true.

The first issue that many people of color (and white women) face in 50% jobs, is the fact that their lack of knowledge is held against them more than it is for whites. Part of this problem relates to camaraderie, which I discuss below, but the other issue is that there is a common stereotype that people of color are less qualified than whites in the first place. Some people of color worry about acknowledging that they do not have a particular skill, fearing that their lack of knowledge of this particular skill will be viewed as a sign of being unqualified. On the other hand, there is also a fear of saying that they know everything because it can come off as bragging.⁵ When a person feels close to an interviewee or a co-worker, their lack of knowledge fades more into the background and their trainability is more evident.

These 50% jobs require that the person hired work closely with the others around him or her, so the extent to which potential coworkers feel a degree of camaraderie with this person will make a much greater difference in evaluations during a job interview. Carlos has spent most of his life in NYC, and he’s spent very little of his time in predominantly white environments. He doesn’t necessarily know the insider jokes and norms that middle income whites have, and most middle incomes whites are probably unfamiliar with the same insider norms and jokes the he grew up with in his predominantly black and Latino neighborhood. My partner and his friend were arguing that this was one of the key problems Carlos was having.

One of the biggest barriers, when it comes to race, is the level of interactional comfort and camaraderie that people feel when they are in the presence of people of other races. I think this is one of the primary manifestations of contemporary racism. Many people have a discomfort that is conscious or unconscious, and this hurts people of color in the job market because it profoundly affects how they are evaluated by higher ups and co-workers⁶ I think this is really hurting Carlos and many other people of color like him, who don’t have extensive interpersonal interactions with the middle class whites who will be hiring them.

I think camaraderie is always going to be a factor in job hiring and promotions, but we can work on the two other problems. We can make sure that race doesn’t affect people’s perceptions of qualifications.⁷ This may mean making parts of the hiring process more race blind and other parts more race conscious. We also need to address the issue of comfort and camaraderie. Until the discomfort many people feel in the presence of people of other races subsides, people of color are routinely going to be passed over for hires and promotion when they are definitely qualified. I understand that racial discomfort is often a two way street with both whites and people of color feeling discomfort at times, but if we are talking about this in relation to institutional power, people of color are significantly more likely to be negatively impacted by whites discomfort than the reverse. There is no way in a short blog post I can detail all of the ways we can work to stop the interactional uneasiness created by racism and racial prejudice, but the workplace and most other social institutions will never be equal until this problem is addressed.

1. If I remember correctly this coworker is Latino, and race is likely one of the factors in the background of our friend being passed over, but he thinks the greater problem is cronyism. (back)
2. Yeah, it doesn’t read like a joke, but he was laughing and talking goofy when he said it. (back)
3. I’m changing his name here. (back)
4. I don’t think they are right about this, and I’m not sure what exact comparison they were using. I’m not sure if they meant to compare the overqualified black candidate to overqualified whites, qualified whites, or whites at all levels of qualifications, but it was interesting argument. I have seem a few cases where this has happened, but I’m quite reluctant to say it’s a trend unless I see some data. (back)
5. I’m going to do a second post on race and bragging in the workplace because this was the second part of the conversation we had that day. (back)
6. Here is an example of a study that found whites experience increased stress when they are around people of color. This finding does not appear to be an anomaly. (back)
7. I’m reminded here of a recent discussion we had at Alas about Barack Obama’s qualifications. In that discussion Amp, linked to a post by Dave Schraub, where he notes that Obama has more experience in elected office than Clinton, Giulinani, Romney, Thompson, and Edwards. But somehow, Obama is viewed as inexperienced and less qualified. (back)

Update: Some students at CCSU have started their own blog–Take Back the Recorder– in opposition to the paper’s editorial staff. Go show them your support.

Last February we heard the story of a college newspaper in Connecticut that printed an article saying “rape is a magical experience” and “rape only hurts if you fight back.” The author claims he was trying to satirize rape, which he clearly did not achieve. ¹ Well it looks like this bunch is at it again and more emboldened than ever since they managed to survive their last go round. This time, among other offensive diatribes, the Central Connecticut State University newspaper has published a cartoon about urinating on a 14 year old Latina, who is locked in a closet.²

I found out about this debacle from a comment left in the thread on the West Virginia rape and torture case over at Feministing. A commenter named prof/activist provided a link to the PDF copy of the paper. The offending cartoon can be found in its original context if you scroll to page 16, the final page of the PDF file. The cartoon consists of two figures one triangular and the other square. The triangle says that his urine smells like honey after he eats certain cereals, and the square asks if it tastes like urine. Then the triangle says, he doesn’t know he’ll have to ask the Latina girl tied up in the closet. Then, it jumps to the final frame where the square says, “Tell Juanita I said Hola.” The cartoon also has a sentence printed under it that says, “The Recorder Does Not Support the Kidnapping of (and Subsequent Urinating on) Children of Any Age.” I was going to repost the cartoon here, but it’s not worth the bandwidth. You can open the PDF file above to read it.

Students and faculty members, disgusted by the paper’s racist and sexist reputation, protested the cartoon on Friday. The story was covered in the local paper and it received national attention. Here’s a quote from the AP article in the New York Times:

The university’s president vowed on Friday to cut off advertising in the paper, and its critics have planned a protest on Monday on campus to push for reforms, including the ouster of the paper’s editor, Mark Rowan.

“We believe the climate here at Central is one that fosters this kind of behavior,” said Francisco Donis, a psychology professor and president of the university’s Latin American Association, “so we want more systematic changes to create a welcoming environment for everyone to feel safe and secure.”

About 5 percent of the 9,600 undergraduates are Hispanic, according to university figures. The campus is in New Britain, a racially diverse city of 71,000 about 12 miles southwest of Hartford.

Mr. Rowan, 21, was the editor in February, when the newspaper was criticized for publishing a satirical opinion piece titled “Rape Only Hurts if You Fight It.” The satire called sexual assault a “magical experience” that benefits “ugly women.”

The author of the article lost his position at the paper and apologized, but Mr. Rowan was allowed to retain his post.

The university created a task force that recommended providing more training for its student journalists, buying libel insurance and creating a student-run alternative paper or Web site.

Mr. Rowan, who is set to graduate in December, said lingering anger over that controversy was adding to outrage over the cartoon. He said he did not know if he would be asked to resign.

Rowan and his cronies have caused enough trouble for the University, ushering the school into the national spotlight on two separate occasions. It seems clear that Rowan lacks the ability to judge the quality and appropriateness of the paper’s content. Both pieces in question were not only offensive, but they also were of poor quality. Petroski’s rape article didn’t succeed at being satire, and this cartoon didn’t succeed at being funny. In fact, only a person like Ted Bundy would find either of these articles amusing, which makes me wonder if there are some sociopaths running this paper.

Mr. Rowan has shown poor judgment, and has allowed the student newspaper become a bottom feeder with little journalistic integrity. Right now Mr. Rowan holds two journalism related positions. He’s an editor of the CCSU student paper, and he has an internship with the Hartford Advocate, but at the rate he’s going he may never have another position in journalism. How is he going to explain these gaffes to potential employers? Who would want to hire someone, who routinely brings negative attention to their publication? He hasn’t learned his lesson, and that’s going to come back to haunt him in the future. A good editor thinks about getting the story, and getting quality material, not just pushing his political agenda and publishing anything that comes across the desk.

I know the retorts that the student editors will have–We have free speech. We didn’t mean to offend. Lighten up, it’s just a cartoon. You’re being too sensitive. I hear these arguments every time someone engages in offensive behavior like this. Rather than taking responsibility, they try to deflect the criticism by condemning the condemners. At this point, it’s pretty clear, that the University needs to step in and revamp the paper. If the student editors are unwilling to do this themselves, it is incumbent upon the University administration and the majority of students to oust the paper’s editors. This surely doesn’t represent the school, its administrators, and the vast majority of its students.

1. If you want to see real rape satire, go here to Marcella’s site. (back)
2. The writers and editors clearly haven’t learned their lesson. While scrolling through the electronic copy of the paper I found an article written by Justin Kloczko. The primary purpose of the article is to taunt a local reporter who is leaving the New Britain Herald to write for the Hartford Business Journal. The taunts and insults are directed at this reporter because he was one of the people who brought the February rape article to light. The article appears next to a picture that says “Crotch Shots, Nipple Slips, Cellulite Legs! The Recorder is not looking for the above, but is looking for dedicated photographers to cover local and campus events. Contact us at ccsurecorder@gmail.com and make us forget that Britney picture.” (back)

Update: I wrote this post this afternoon before the announcement that prosecutors will not bring hate crimes charges in this case.  I’ll make a more detailed update tomorrow. 

So I guess that some of the people in the West Virginia case have long histories of violence, including killing people. Check this out from the New York Times:

The Brewster family and their trailer has a history of violent crime, the police said.

Mr. Brewster killed his stepfather there when he was 12, the authorities said, and served time at a juvenile correction facility.

In July 1994, Mrs. Brewster shot and killed an 84-year-old woman she was looking after, also in the trailer, according to court records.

Mrs. Brewster, who was charged with first-degree murder, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and served six years at a state correctional facility. She was paroled in 2000.

In 2005, two men got into a fight outside the trailer, the police said, ending with a fatal stabbing.

In January, the police were again called to the trailer, where they found a man who had been slashed across his abdomen; the man survived, according to court documents, and Mr. Brewster was a witness in that case.

Also being held in the case of the young woman were Danny J. Combs, 20, who was charged with sexual assault and malicious wounding; George A. Messer, 27, who was charged with assault during the commission of a felony and battery; Karen Burton, 46, who was charged with malicious wounding, battery and assault during the commission of a felony; and her daughter, Alisha Burton, 23, who was charged with assault during the commission of a felony and battery. The four were being held in $100,000 bond each.

The Brewsters were being held pending bond hearings.

The authorities said they were still deciding whether to file additional charges, of hate crimes, against the defendants.

“The whole family is shocked,” a sister of the victim said.

Relatives said the victim has mild learning disabilities but graduated from high school. The relatives would not comment on whether the victim was living at home or had a job.

It would seem to me that the fact that the victim has learning disabilities also makes the release of her name more suspect, and if you watch this video, it does not appear that the victim is in any shape to consent to have her name released to the whole world.

On a side note, clearly these people are dangerous, violent, and disgusting, but they didn’t do this because the are Appalachians, rural whites, or poor whites. They did this because they are criminals, thugs, and racists, so I will not be accepting any comments or commentary like these:

Hillbilly Hell in West Virginia

West Virginia: No Thanks

Mama! Mama! Look At The White Trash!

Six Held In Rape, Stabbing of Woman in WV

Despicable Deeds

I know plenty of hill folks and poor whites, and the vast majority are not at all like these wackos.

Update: The AP, in a rather suspect move, is reporting the victim’s name, which will not be appearing on this site.  They are saying they have permission; however, to me it feels like they are taking advantage of this young woman, who will likely get a bunch of hate mail and death threats from white supremacists.

I’m not sure that I can find words to adequately describe the brutality of this crime.  You can read more details below.  Here’s the initial report:

Authorities are investigating whether a woman who was tortured in a southern West Virginia home for more than a week may have been lured there by a man she met on the Internet.Police were still looking for two people they suspect drove the 23-year-old Charleston woman about 50 miles to the Big Creek home where she was abused, said Logan County Chief Deputy V.K. Dingess.There, according to police, she was beaten, sexually assaulted and humiliated.Logan County Prosecutor Brian Abraham said police are investigating the possible Internet connection into what some are calling one of the most shocking crimes in the county’s recent history.In 30 years of law enforcement, Logan County Sheriff W.E. Hunter said he’s never seen anything like this.It’s “something that would have come out of a horror movie,” he said Tuesday.

Deputies were interviewing the victim Tuesday morning and are scheduled to meet later in the day to discuss the case with Abraham, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s office. The officials may decide then whether to file hate crimes charges.

Bill Crowley, spokesman for the FBI in Pittsburgh, confirmed that the agency is looking into possible civil rights violations.

Six Logan County residents, including a mother and son and a mother and daughter, remained in custody Tuesday on $100,000 bonds each. They are charged in the weeklong kidnapping and abuse of the woman.

All six are white. The victim, who was being treated Tuesday at the Charleston Area Medical Center General Hospital, is black.

“Every one of these people who were arrested are no strangers to law enforcement,” Hunter said.

Deputies found the woman Saturday after going to the home in Big Creek to investigate an anonymous tip from someone who had witnessed the abuse, Sgt. Sonya Porter said Tuesday.

One of the suspects, Frankie Brewster, was sitting on the front porch and told deputies she was alone, but moments later the victim limped toward the door, her arms outstretched, saying, “Help me,” the sheriff’s department said in a news release.

Besides being sexually assaulted, the victim had been stabbed four times in the left leg and beaten, Porter said. Both of her eyes were black and blue. The woman’s wounds were inflicted at least a week ago, deputies said.

During her capture, the victim was forced to eat rat and dog feces and drink from the toilet, according to the criminal complaint filed in magistrate court. The woman also had been choked with a cable cord and her hair cut, it alleges.

One of those arrested, Karen Burton, is accused of cutting the woman’s ankle with a knife. She used the N-word in telling the woman she was victimized because she is black, according to the criminal complaint.

Deputies say the woman was also doused with hot water while being sexually assaulted.

“We have all been praying and asking the Lord to take us through this,” the victim’s mother told The Charleston Gazette on Monday. “It’s hard to deal with it. We are very angry. … She will be scarred for a long time.

“She wakes up in the middle of the night screaming, ’Mommy,”’ the mother said. “What’s really bad is that we don’t know everything they did to her. She is crying all the time.” 

Some evidence suggests that the crime was racially motivated.  We’ll have to watch the details as they come out. 

This month’s Carnival will be held at Reading, Writing, and Living.

The Erase Racism Carnival is a collection of blog posts dedicated to creating a world free of racism. The Carnival is published around the 20th of every month.

If you would like to submit a post written by you or someone else, just go here and click on “submit your blog article to this carnival”. Along with the URL of the article, be sure to include your name and email.

You can also submit directly to Reading Writing and Living:susan@susanito.com

We have also booked the Carnival through the end of the year. You can check out some of the sites in advance:

October 2007 @ Kill Bigotry!
November 2007 @ Eric Stoller
December 2007 @ Present Progressive Mood

Editor’s Note: This post is a follow-up to a series of earlier posts. If you are confused about some of the measures of segregation, you can look at this post from July 2nd where I discuss the different dimensions of residential segregation. That post discusses a few of the methodological issues, and it links to the Census Bureau report where the data comes from. If you link to the actual Census report, they show the statistical formulas that are used in calculating segregation using each method described. They also discuss other issues related to measuring segregation.

You should also keep in mind this is only measuring segregation for American Indians and Alaska Natives, and it’s only measuring urban segregation. If you want to read the previous posts in the series, here is the link.

This is the final post in my series on the dimensions of residential racial segregation. I saved American Indians and Alaska Natives for last because there are some dramatic differences between this group and other groups that affect how we talk about segregation, which I highlight at the end of the post.

The analysis of American Indians and Alaska Natives includes 13 metro areas which met the Census criteria of having at least 3% representation–the number was 43 metros for African Americans, 36 metros for Latinos, and 20 metros for Asians.

All data comes from the US Census Bureau.

Since there are only 13 cities that meet the requirements of the study, I’m going to rank order the metros on each measure.

Evenness (metro areas rank ordered from the least evenly spread to the most evenly spread; the number is the percent of people who would have to move for the group to be evenly distributed across the metro area)

1. Yakima, WA
2. Fort Smith, AR-OK
3. Phoenix-Mesa, AZ
4. Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA
5. Albuquerque, NM
6. Rapid City, SD
7. Bellingham, WA
8. Yuma, AZ
9. Great Falls, MT
10. Anchorage, AK
11. Lawton, OK
12. Tulsa, OK
13. Oklahoma City, OK

Exposure Metros (metro areas rank ordered from the lowest exposure to highest exposure; exposure refers to the likelihood of having contact with whites)

1. Albuquerque, NM
2. Yakima, WA
3. Phoenix-Mesa, AZ
4. Fort Smith, AR-OK
5. Bellingham, WA
6. Anchorage, AK
7. Rapid City, SD
8. Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA
9. Tulsa, OK
10. Yuma, AZ
11. Lawton, OK
12. Oklahoma City, OK
13. Great Falls, MT

Concentration (metro areas ranked from most to least concentrated; concentration refers to how densely concentrated or evenly spread throughout the metro area a group is)

1. Anchorage, AK
2. Rapid City, SD
3. Yuma, AZ
4. Great Falls, MT
5. Pheonix-Mesa, AZ
6. Bellingham, WA
7. Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA
8. Alburquerque, NM
9. Yakima, WA
10. Oklahoma City, OK
11. Tulsa, OK
12. Lawton, OK
13. Fort Smith, AR-OK

5 Most Centralized Metros (cities ranked from most to least centralized; centralization measures proximity to the central core of the city)

1. Yuma, AZ
2. Rapid City, SD
3. Anchorage, AK
4. Great Falls, MT
5. Phoenix-Mesa, AZ
6. Bellingham, WA
7. Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA
8. Tulsa, OK
9. Yakima, WA
10. Albuquerque, NM
11. Oklahoma City, OK
12. Lawton, OK
13. Fort Smith, AR-OK

5 Most Clustered Metros

1. Albuquerque, NM
2. Yakima, WA
3. Phoenix-Mesa, AZ
4. Fort Smith, AR-OK
5. Bellingham, WA
6. Tulsa, OK
7. Lawton, OK
8. Rapid City, SD
9. Yuma, AZ
10. Anchorage, AK
11. Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA
12. Oklahoma City, OK
13. Great Falls, MT

Overall Segregation Levels for American Indians and Alaska Natives (metro areas rank order from most to least segregated)

1. Phoenix-Mesa, AZ
2. Yakima, WA
3. (tie) Rapid City, SD and Albuquerque, NM
4. Bellingham, WA
5. Anchorage, AK
6. Yuma, AZ
7. Fort Smith, AR-OK
8. Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA
9. Great Falls, MT
10. Tulsa, OK
11. Lawton, OK
12. Oklahoma City, OK

A Few Points for Discussion:

American Indians and Alaska Natives stand out for several reasons. First, their levels of urban segregation are much lower than the other groups. On the surface, one could view this as a sign that Native Americans are the most integrated or most accepted of all minority groups, but this really doesn’t provide an accurate picture of the status of American Indians and Alaska Natives. On many measures, such as poverty, certain health status variables, and incarceration rates, American Indians are not doing well at all–their rates are generally the worst in these categories.

So why are Native Americans so integrated compared to Blacks, Latinos, and Asians when they fare so poorly on many indicators of racial equality? I think a big part of the answer is a statistical artifact. Here’s why. Only 58% of Native Americans reside inside urban areas, so 42% of the population is missing from this analysis. People trapped on impoverished nations or in other rural areas are not in this analysis. The people who are in this analysis are “urban Indians.” They are disproportionately people who have left the communities where they were raised and they are disproportionately people who have recently connected or reconnected with their I know 58% may sound like a higher number, but the percentages of Blacks, Asians, and Latinos who live in urban areas are all well over 90%.¹

I can’t say exactly how segregated rural American Indians and Alaska Native are. They may be less segregated than rural people from other minority racial/ethnic groups, but in focusing only on urban segregation we missing the major form of segregation that has been forced upon Native Americans–the reservation system. I do understand that many American Indian groups now have their own sovereign nations, so the meaning of reservation is changing. However, the isolation is not changing much. Contrary to racist myths, most American Indians and Alaska Natives are not getting huge cash flows from casinos or huge government handouts. According to the 2000 census, 25.7% of American Indians and Alaska Natives lived in poverty, which is higher than any other racial/ethnic group in the US.²

1. I couldn’t find the exact figures for whites, but the number is somewhere around 80%. Data on urbanization come from Majority-Minority Relations, 5th Ed. by John Farley (back)
2. Some American Indian ethnic groups fared much worse than others–38.9% of Sioux, 37% of Navajo, 33.9% of Apache, and 29% of Pueblo people lived in poverty. To see the full Census Report on American Indians and Alaska Natives click on this link. (back)

I’ve written in the past about European countries being forced to confront racism and xenophobia, which is especially the case in nations where large scale immigration is making the countries more ethnically and racially diverse. One of the latest countries confronting discrimination is Ireland. Unlike many other Western European countries, Ireland was never colonial power. In places, like France, Spain, and Britain many immigrants are coming from former colonies, but since Ireland didn’t have colonies, Irish immigration is a little less predictable. Nevertheless, Ireland is facing some of the same problems as other European countries. Many Irish people do not accept the new immigrants, and this is especially true for Black immigrants, who come mostly from West African countries like Nigeria.

Traditionally, Ireland has been a country of emigrants.¹ Given this fact, it should be no surprise that there are more people of Irish descent in the US alone than there are in Ireland, but in a surprising twist of fate, the trend is beginning to reverse.² With Irish birth rates above replacement level and a new wave of immigrants from Africa and Eastern Europe, Ireland is actually gaining more people than it is losing. Some hope that this will contribute to growth in the Irish economy, which has been one of the weakest economies in western Europe.

Right now, there is little research on this trend, and the manifestations of anti-immigrant attitudes and racism come to light with stories this one. The gist of the story is that in a suburb of Dublin nearly all of the approximately 90 children who couldn’t find a school to attend were black kids.

The children will attend a new, all-black school, a prospect that educators called disheartening.

About 90 children could not find school places in the north Dublin suburb of Balbriggan , a town of more than 10,000 people with two elementary schools. Local educators called a meeting over the weekend for parents struggling to find places and said they were shocked to see only black children.

“That overwhelmed me. I’m not quite sure what to make of it. I just find it extremely concerning,” said Gerard Kelly, principal of a school with a mixture of black and white students in the nearby town of Swords.

The parents at Saturday’s meeting in a Balbriggan hotel said they had tried to get their children into local schools but were told that all places had to be reserved by February.

Almost all of the children are Irish-born and thus Irish citizens, under a law that existed until 2004.

There is no way this is merely a coincidence, especially when a neighboring town has mixed schools. It should be noted that they are not starting a school that only admits black pupils, like this poorly worded headline from The Times Online suggests. The school is made up overwhelmingly of black children because those children “mysteriously” were not allowed to enter many of the local schools.

Part of the problem is that the Irish government allows schools to discriminate on the basis of religion, which ends up being a form of indirect institutional racism.

About 98 percent of schools are run by the Roman Catholic Church, and the law permits them to discriminate on the basis of whether a prospective student has a certificate confirming they were baptized into the faith. Some of the African applicants were Muslim, members of evangelical Protestant denominations or of no religious creed.

Since many immigrants are not Catholic, these schools were allowed to not accept them without a Catholic baptism certificate. It is difficult to know how many black children who were Catholic were also excluded. I know many of the African children are Nigerian, and many Christian Nigerians are Catholic, so I’d be curious to see how much religious discrimination and racial discrimination overlapped in this case. Clearly, this is a great case for the separation of church and state, and this is an issue that the Irish will have to confront as they become a multicultural nation.

I suspect that the 2004 referendum changing laws that allow parents of Irish citizen children to also become citizens is part of an anti-immigrant backlash. It will also be interesting to see how the role of the Catholic church changes because of immigration. They may lose some power. Ireland can’t call itself democratic when 98% of their schools are run in an openly discriminatory fashion.

Over the next few years, I expect to see more stories on discrimination like the case in Balbriggan. Hopefully, we will see more pro-immigrant organizations developing from ethnic Irish and immigrants.

1. Emigration with an “e” refers to people exiting the country. This is how I teach the words in class: Immigration with an “i” means into and emigration “e” means exit. (back)
2. Unfortunately, this article is now a paying article, but I was able to read in my New York Times home delivery. (back)

Idaho Senator Larry Craig was arrested and pled guilty to disorderly conduct after he was caught propositioning an undercover police officer for sex in an airport bathroom.  Pam has the run down on his votes on key gay/lesbian policy issues:

* Voted YES on constitutional ban of same-sex marriage. (Jun 2006)
* Voted NO on adding sexual orientation to definition of hate crimes. (Jun 2002)
* Voted NO on expanding hate crimes to include sexual orientation. (Jun 2000)
* Voted YES on prohibiting same-sex marriage. (Sep 1996)
* Voted NO on prohibiting job discrimination by sexual orientation. (Sep 1996)

This would be funny is this guy didn’t wield so much power, but at least he didn’t say a black man scared him into offering a blowjob like the last Republican who was caught doing this.

Is anyone keeping count of how many Republican politicians have been caught in gay sex scandals this year?

I’m going to organize this as bullet points for each episode. 

Gods Jewish Warriors

• I thought this was the best one of the series. 
• It was balanced in showing both the extremist settlers, and the more mainstream Jews who were opposed to the extremists.
• They gave ultra-orthodox Jews a free pass on the sexism issue, which was unfair.  They noted the treatment of women by Muslim and Christian fundamentalists, but mentioned nothing that I recollect.
• I was also impressed with how they discussed the international dimensions of the settler movement, and the fundamentalist Christians and right wing Jews who provided money and support to the settler movement.
• They also discussed the changes throughout history and covering the various peace agreements between Israel and its neighbors.  One of the most disturbing parts of the special was the discussion of the killing of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.  If you don’t know the story, you can click on the link.

God’s Muslim Warriors

• I felt like this one was a little more predictable because we are quite accustomed to critiques of Muslim fundamentalists–people promoting violence, Jihad, etc.  I do wish they would have highlighted more of the moderate leaders, and more people opposed to Islamic fundamentalism.  They did interview a few people who left extremist groups, which was interesting, but I wish they would have talked with people who were fighting these extremists all along.
• I thought the scenes of the Iranian women protesting were the most moving.  Heart has several postings on the women’s movement in Iran; you can find them here.  Many of the Muslim countries in the Middle East have draconian anti-women policies, and these policies are often justified in the name of religion.  By far one of the most consistent trends with Muslim, Christian, and Jewish extremists is their disdain for the rights of women.
• They did very good at focusing on the international dimensions of the movement; in particular the growing movement in Europe.  What I also found interesting was how both the Christian and Muslim fundamentalists were obsessed with the “cultural decay” in the West, focusing mostly on the decline in traditional definitions of family, materialism, and hedonistic popular culture. 

God’s Christian Warriors

• This was by far the worst of the three.  First, they didn’t show any of the Christian fundamentalists who advocate murder and violence.  There was a brief mention of bombing abortion clinics, but I wish they would have had an in-depth interview with someone like American terrorist Eric Rudolph or any of these people who have engaged in violence at abortion clinics. What about the Christian Identity movement?  What about Fred “God Hates Fags” Phelps and his family?  They did talk with Christian fundamentalists, but they didn’t talk to the ones who engage in or promote violence like they did in the first two parts of the series.
• I was happy to see them discuss gender, and the treatment of women, especially when Christiane Amanpour told the one minister that the Taliban said the same thing as him. That was classic.  But they didnt get into the depth that they could have– discussing churches who barred women from being ministers.
• There were not enough interviews with people opposing Christian fundamentalism.  They had two ministers who stepped away from some parts of the movement.  I liked the Minnesota minister, who couldn’t figure out why these groups were so obsessed with homosexuality as a sin, but not materialism, greed, or gluttony.
• There was no coverage of the international nature of Christian fundamentalism.  You would think it is only in the US, but there are places like.  Several of the countries in the pink on this map prohibit abortion even in the cases of rape and incest, and Christian fundamentalists are responsible for promoting this in many countrries.  This list also includes some of the various Christian based terrorist groups around the world.

What do you think?

CNN is airing a special on relgious fundamentalism; it is a 3 part series.  Tonight is God’s Jewish Warriors, and in the next two days they will cover God’s Christian Warriors and God’s Muslim Warriors.  If you are watching, what do you think?

New York City has been debating the merits of a program that would charge drivers a $8.oo a day fee to travel into the most congested part of Manhattan during peak travel hours (For those unfamiliar with New York, we’re talking downtown where all the big skyscrapers are.).  The fee was called congestion pricing, and it is designed to reduce pollution and traffic congestion in the city of New York.  The fee would only be charged once a day, and tolls coming into the city could be deducted from the fee.  Many were complaining that this is an undue burden on middle and working class people.  Some said it would harm businesses, and others felt it would not reduce traffic.  Some suburbanites are up in arms because this will make their commute much more expensive.

I have to be honest, while I’m sure this is a burden on some middle class people, I feel that many people are being really whiny about this and they are refusing to take the financial hit that many of us in the New York metro area already take.  I don’t even drive into Manhattan, and I have to pay $8 a day in tolls.  I travel from Westchester to Long Island and route that is basically inaccessible via public transportation.  People who travel from Queens to the Bronx also have to pay the same toll, and we aren’t even talking about the most congested parts of the city.  People who drive into Manhattan at least have the chance to take reliable public transportation.  So right now the people who are not heading into the primary areas for rush hour traffic are paying out the wahzoo, and those traveling into Manhattan, are not going to have to pay a premium to do so.  To me this seems absolutely backwards.

I know $8 is costly I’ve been paying it for years, but I don’t have much sympathy to others who are heading into a very inaccessible area and are refusing to take on any burden to do so.  I also know this is hard to understand for people who haven’t lived in the NYC metro area.  This area has horrible traffic, and the geography does nothing to help.  Manhattan is an island, and Queens and Brooklyn are part of another island (Long Island).  You also have Staten Island, which is obviously an island.  The only borough that is not an island is the Bronx.  So everywhere you go you are crossing bridges, and most of those bridges have tolls ranging from about $2.50-to $8.00 (The default seems to be $4 or $4.50 if you don’t have a EZ pass.).  The bridges are often bottle necks for traffic, and an accident on a bridge can cause major delays (sometimes hours) The good news is that even though traffic is really bad, public transportation is well developed, especially in Manhattan.  There are some weak spots for public transportation–traveling from suburban area to suburban ares is generally not easy via public transportation.

However, in the long run we are going to have to make some sacrifices.  If I can already pay $8 a day to travel from suburb to suburb, my neighbors can pay the $8 to go into Manhattan.  We need to reduce air pollution in New York, and cutting down on car traffic is one way to do that.  I’m sympathetic to the small percentage of folks who are plumbers and other service workers who cannot take pubic transportation into Manhattan because they have to lug tools with them, but others who drive to Manhattan don’t get a lot of sympathy from me, especially when people who are not even driving in the most congested areas pay the same (or more) in tolls.