Writing to Mark Steyn, Mark Adomanis points out that the “infant mortality rate is significantly higher in the US than it is in the UK. In fact, if you want to be precise, it’s 34% higher.”

Steyn replies:

As to infant mortality rates in general, as with “life expectancy at birth”, that’s a very interesting topic that I will be writing about at length in the weeks ahead. But, even without taking into account the significant variations in the definition of “live birth”, one thing you notice is that, by comparison with the United States, the countries with the lowest “infant mortality rate” have some of the lowest fertility rates on the planet. That’s to say, it’s not just that they have fewer infant deaths, they have fewer infants, period. They have so few, indeed, that over the medium-term (in Italy, Germany and elsewhere) it will render their government health systems unsustainable. But, as a general proposition, I would say that, when fertility rates get as low as they are in Germany, Italy, Spain and elsewhere, to the point that you now have upside-down family trees of four grandparents, two children, one grandchild, it’s hardly surprising that “infant mortality” is lower.

I’m a little confused as to what Steyn is saying. It’s possible that Steyn is arguing that a lower infant population, in and of itself, explains a lower infant mortality rate. As PG points out, if that’s Steyn’s thought, then Steyn misunderstands basic statistics.

Another possibility is that Steyn is saying that if there are more parents and grandparents per infant, that infant will get more attention and thus be less likely to die. That would make more sense, but I can’t find any evidence to support this proposition. (For instance, all else held equal, are only children significantly more likely to survive infancy than second children?)

That said, even if Steyn is mistaken about the cause of the link, he’s right that low infant mortality rates and low fertility rates are strongly correlated. As this World Bank paper points out, the trends mutually feed into each other: “Lower infant mortality can lead to lower fertility by reducing the need for replacement births. Conversely, birth spacing improves the chances of child survival.”¹ (And, of course, both lower infant mortality and lower fertility are made more likely by wealth.)

However, Steyn is wrong to imply that the U.S. can’t lower our appalling infant mortality rate without dropping our fertility rate. Contrary to what Steyn seems to believe, there are many countries with low infant mortality rates where the fertility rate is similar to the U.S.’s. For instance, the UN rates the US and Iceland as having virtually identical fertility rates (the US is ranked 127, Iceland is ranked 128). But Iceland has the lowest infant mortality rate in the world.

There are countries which probably won’t be able to significantly lower infant mortality without lowering fertility rates — Niger, for example, which has about 7 births per woman, a number that’s way too high for health either of women or of children. But the US, with a fertility rate barely above 2 births per woman, is not in that situation. Because our high infant mortality rate isn’t being caused by a high fertility rate, we can lower infant mortality without lowering fertility.

Finally, no one should discuss US infant mortality without pointing out the elephant in the room, which is race.

(Graphic from PRB.)

In effect, whites, Asians and Latinas in the US are living in a reasonably good wealthy nation, when it comes to infant mortality — not as good as Sweden or the Netherlands, but the equivalent of New Zealand, say. But for Blacks and American Indians, it’s like living in an exceptionally poor nation — Tongo, say, or the Palestinian Territories.

Research indicates that the difference isn’t genetic; it’s discrimination. From Science Daily:

They compared birth weights of three groups of women: African American, whites and Africans who had moved to Illinois. Most African-American women are of 70 to 75 percent African descent.

“If there were such a thing as a (pre-term birth) gene, you would expect the African women to have the lowest birth weights,” David said. “But the African and white women were virtually identical,” with significantly higher birth weights than the African-American women, he said.
The researchers did a similar analysis of births to black Caribbean women immigrants to the United States and found they gave birth to infants hundreds of grams heavier than the babies of U.S.-born black women.

For black women, “something about growing up in America seems to be bad for your baby’s birth weight,” David said. [...]

David and Collins spoke with black women who had babies with normal weights at birth, comparing them with black women whose babies’ birth weight was very low — under three pounds.

They asked the mothers if they had ever been treated unfairly because of their race when looking for a job, in an educational setting or in other situations.

Those who felt discriminated against had a twofold increase in low birth weights. And for those who experienced discrimination in three “domains,” the increase was nearly threefold.

As depressing as this is, this also shows us that the US’s high infant mortality rate is — or should be — a solvable problem.

1. For a more detailed discussion, see this paper (pdf link). (back)

I’ve been struggling with writing this post for some time now. On the one hand there are things I feel need to be said about the treatment of Caster Semenya (especially in light of the news that she has been placed under a suicide watch), on the other hand I don’t want to add to the ridiculous, offensive, dehumanizing treatment that she’s been receiving to date. There is this sick undercurrent to the coverage reminiscent of the treatment of Saartjie Baartman (better known as the Hottentot Venus) particularly with the framing of the discussions of her body. There has been a rush to compare Caster to “real” women with pundits pointing to the size of her breasts, her shoulders, even the shape of her jaw as “proof that she is a he and should be disqualified” because somehow there’s a specific concrete metric for “normal” femininity.

And if you’re deemed to be outside the range of “normal” all the basic rules we were taught as children about polite behavior and common courtesy fly out the window. If the press coverage is any indication many people feel entitled to poke and prod and discuss her body like she’s specifically on display to satisfy their curiosity. After all it’s not like she’s human or anything, what with her having the temerity to (maybe) be born intersexed. Instead she’s a freak with no feelings, no right to privacy, and above all no right to her own body. Right? If you’re staring at your screen right now and contemplating asking if I have lost my everloving mind? I totally understand that reaction. Because it’s how I’ve felt every single time I’ve read an article about Caster’s “condition” or seen someone expounding at length on her body without once pausing to consider that her humanity is being questioned along with her gender. Looking at the descriptions of the treatment of Sara Baartman I’m sure a modern reaction would include an acknowledgment that the way Sara was treated was abominable.

Of course it was abominable and shameful and disgusting. So is what’s happening right now to Caster. And it’s not just about the treatment of Caster Semenya. Yesterday I got into a long protracted discussion about someone wanting trans people to explain the workings of their sexual organs so that they could include a sex scene in a story they were writing. And I explained over and over again that no one should feel entitled to such intimate information, especially to satisfy what amounted to prurient curiosity. And all the basic arguments from the bingo card were laid out (including my favorite “Well how else are people supposed to know if they don’t ask?”) because apparently for a lot of people it has never occurred to them that they don’t have a right to someone else’s body or to their experience. It has literally never occurred to them that people who are not like them have boundaries. Because they’re curious about the “freaks” and their curiosity trumps any delusions of humanity or equality.

Between the misogyny and the racism and the privilege and the sheer entitlement on display this is one of those areas where intersectionality cuts to the bone and then beyond. Being human isn’t about fitting into a box designed by someone else. It’s not something other people get to define for you. And if you think that the way Caster has been treated makes sense because she’s a public figure, or you think you have a right to treat people like an exhibit to satisfy your interest in their experience? You’re directly using your privilege (whatever it may be) to oppress someone. This idea that examining and inspecting and discussing someone else’s body is acceptable behavior because they are “different” is so reprehensible. But, it is also an idea that permeates our culture. That’s the point of tabloids and gossip and fatphobia and every other ‘ism I can think of right now. That’s why a friend just posted about having to tell someone repeatedly that they were not going to be allowed to touch her hair only to be met with questions about why she was refusing. As though she owed this person access to her body.

Curiously enough I think we can all agree that we expect our boundaries to be respected. That we expect people to have some sense of manners and decorum and not stare or point or generally treat us poorly. So then, why are we as a culture so comfortable deciding that the Other (as defined by us) is supposed to accept our intrusion? What is this idea that that they should explain their experience to the world at large? It’s always framed in terms of normal and different, but other than being a member of the majority what gives us the right to define normal? The oppression inherent in turning the public’s gaze to someone and demanding that they explain themselves is often waved away as just a part of life. Because somehow the public’s desire to know has become the public’s right to know. And the idea that knowledge is power has been turned on its head to give the “normal” the power over those that they deem to be Other. It’s unacceptable behavior no matter how you frame it and we should all be ashamed of ourselves.

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The following open letter to Eric Kripke contains spoilers for all currently-aired seasons of Supernatural (though nothing about season five). It also includes a racial critique of all currently-aired seasons.

Dear Eric Kripke,

I want you to know that this is a fan letter. I’m saying this upfront because I’m aware that it might not seem like that as I go on. There are some problems I need to discuss, some issues that have repeatedly cropped up on your show that I just have to talk about.

But this is still a fan letter. I love Supernatural. In my opinion, it’s the best speculative genre show on the air at the moment. I love the snappy dialogue, I love the dense, multi-faceted characterization, I love that the plots hold together and continually surprise me (especially the season finales!) I love the actors, I love the writing, I love the car and I love the endless American landscapes. I love that the boys never eat in a Denny’s or stay at a Motel 6. I love that such a strange premise became such an intelligent show, when it could so easily have turned into self-parody.

Like I said, I’m a fan.

I’m also a black woman, and I’ve gotta tell you, that’s been giving me some grief.

Because as a black woman, I can’t ignore the aversive, stereotypical and damaging ways that your show deals with race. I can’t ignore the fact that there hasn’t been a single black woman on your show who has lasted more than one episode. This includes Cassie in “Route 666″– the only woman the show ever states explicitly that Dean loves. And even that was so frustrating. First, because it put a promising character in a ham-fisted Very Special Episode about a racist monster truck. Second, because instead of taking her out of that context and providing some depth to Dean’s relationships with women, she vanishes completely from the show. (This is, of course, an issue with most of the boys’ relationships with women, but I don’t want to get into that here).

Perhaps you will understand the extent of my problem when I say that I can count the named black female characters who have appeared on four seasons of a television show on one hand: Missouri Moseley (in “Home”), Cassie, Taylor (in “Hookman”) and Tamara (in “The Magnificent Seven”). That’s four women–there were none in third or fourth seasons.

You know your show better than anyone. You know that the boys are spending a significant amount of their time south of the Mason-Dixon line. There are black people everywhere in this country, and even setting your show in, say, the pacific northwest really isn’t much of an excuse, but I find it mind-boggling to watch episode after episode where Sam and Dean drive through a landscape of such exquisitely evoked Americana…except without the black folk.

It’s like some sort of freaky horror movie.

Not the kind you were going for? Then let’s talk.

Because it’s not just the black women. In fact, that’s the mildest part of my problems with race on the show. Because, for better or worse, it’s difficult to mess up the portrayals of a demographic you have excised from the world of your characters.

Black men, on the other hand? Well, that’s where I really hit some brambles.

Because you have some black men on the show. They have major roles across multiple episodes. They engage the plots, have multiple interactions with all sorts of people and have as much of an emotional life as any other non-Winchester character does. But there’s a problem. A big one, really, and this has to do with the space in the story that these black men occupy. Because every single time they are tragically evil, and they are killed off to add to the emotional angst of your white leads.

Nothing is wrong per se with a tragically evil character. You have plenty of tragically evil white people on the show, too. Ruby comes to mind, but also Travis (in “Metamorphosis”) and Eva (one of Azazel’s other special children).

But something is wrong when you follow the same pattern with every single black character of any importance on your show across four seasons. First there was Jake, the Iraq War soldier who was manipulated by the yellow-eyed demon into killing Sam and opening the Devil’s Gate. He lasted two episodes, and ended with a clip of bullets pumped into him.

Then we met Special Agent Henriksen. He was awesome: tough, ironic, smart. A worthy adversary for the boys. When Henriksen is finally confronted with unequivocal evidence that The Supernatural Is Real And About To Fuck You Up, he responds with those same qualities that made him such a scary opponent. And then…he dies. Within twenty minutes of his final empowerment as a fully-fledged good character (as opposed to good, but doing bad things mistakenly), Lilith murders him, along with everyone else in the police station. It was a dramatic, breathtaking moment in the context of the show, but once again I had to check a black man off of my list of characters I enjoyed.

Next came Gordon Walker. He was a lone hunter whose philosophy of a black and white world clashed brilliantly against Sam and Dean’s increasingly murky shades of gray. He was insane, but enjoyably so: I loved watching him hunt Sam, and his role in “Bad Day at Black Rock” was hilarious. He was a quintessential tragically evil character: doing bad while convinced he was good. When he was turned into a vampire, I couldn’t wait to see where the show would go with him. Imagine all the drama in that situation: the man who hates supernatural creatures more than anything has become one. Does he still hunt them? Does he struggle with himself?

No, of course not. Sam kills him.

And then there’s season four. Uriel is an angel, so it’s understood that he’s simply possessing his body, but for the purposes of us in the real world, he’s still a black character. I’m pretty sure he was still a black character for you writers, as well. Because isn’t it funny that he’s the one who wants to lay waste to municipalities and break Dean’s psyche by forcing him to torture, while Castiel (the attractive white male) has the emotional arc and the implied romance and the tortured wrestling over the nature of free will and the existence of God?

Did I mention that Uriel also dies, tragically evil?

I suspect that if you were going to grasp my point, you’d have done so by now, so I won’t belabor it. Suffice it to say that now when a black character appears on Supernatural I wince and reach for my pillow, because I’m pretty sure he’ll be checking out in some less-than-pleasant way in a few episodes.

But, like I said at the beginning, this is a fan letter. It’s one in more ways than you might appreciate right at this moment. It’s only because I am such a fan that I am sticking with this show and hoping you’ll do it better. And it’s only because I’m such a fan that I’m writing you this letter.

The fifth season starts on Thursday, and I’m so excited I could sing. I can’t wait to see more of your deliciously amoral angels, your conflicted demons, and–inevitably, perfectly, fraternally–Sam and Dean. The final season four scene of them gripping each other’s shirts as the screen fades to white was one of those storytelling moments where I felt the pure contentment of a well-executed narrative. There is so much going for Supernatural into this season that part of me just wants to lay back and enjoy the ride.

The trouble is, I can’t. Each episode, these problems worm their way inside my head. They’re too obvious to ignore. As a black woman who consumes a lot of pop culture, I’ve learned to compartmentalize. To acknowledge problematic aspects of things I like and still enjoy them. But I’m aware of the process, and when I find myself doing that to such a degree with a show that I otherwise love so much, I can’t help but feel sad.

Mr. Kripke, I certainly hope that you care about social justice and historical power imbalances and the struggles for racial equality in this country. But I don’t actually intend for this letter to appeal to your ideals. Because you’re a writer. A damn good writer, and I can tell from the way you handle the rest of the show that you prioritize characterization and narrative flow and plausibility and other major touchstones of good fiction.

So, consider this as a bit of advice from one professional writer to another: in this aspect, you have really fallen down. The patterns I have identified above don’t just harm black people, or people of color. They harm every viewer of your show.

Every single person who watches and enjoys Supernatural for a hundred good reasons is being subjected to this shoddy, sub-par evocation of one of the most important aspects of the American experience. Every fan you paid homage to in “The Monster at the End of This Book” is damaged by the utter absence of black women (particularly the one that one of your two main characters fell in love with). They might not notice it, they might figure it doesn’t matter, but even so it takes away from the power of the story.

Here’s my point: a richer, fuller, more completely-evoked America with black people and Native Americans and Asians and other people of color (and more women who don’t only exist as sexual objects) would make Supernatural even better.

Maybe I’m the first person to seriously lay out these issues for you. If so, I hope you won’t dismiss this critique reflexively. I assure you, if no one else has said this, it’s not because the problems don’t exist, but because racism (particularly aversive racism) is still so prevalent in this country that many white people can go their entire lives without thinking seriously about race. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist– it means you don’t see it.

Mr. Kripke, I wish you the best of luck with this season. I can’t wait to see what you do with it.

And I hope I’ll get to see what my favorite TV show would be like with a black man who doesn’t die; with a black woman who has a voice.

Sincerely,

Alaya Dawn Johnson

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If you’ve been paying attention to the U.S. Open, you’ve probably heard about the run of Melanie Oudin. Ranked 70th in the world, Oudin has nevertheless made a Cinderella run into the quarterfinals, knocking off world #4 Elena Dementieva and former U.S. Open champ Maria Sharapova in the process.

It’s a nice story, and probably foretells a bright future for the 17-year-old American. Hey, everyone loves to see an unseeded player make a run. And if the stories were about Oudin’s run and her future, that would be great.

Unfortunately, they aren’t. Instead, we’re getting stories like this:

For American women’s tennis, Oudin’s arrival has been a long time coming. Not since the 1970s, when Chris Evert rose to the top of the pro-tennis scene, has this country seen such a girl-next-door-style sweetheart in the sport, said Michelle Beadle. “From Day 1, I’ve never heard the Williams sisters referred to as sweethearts,” she added.

Yeah, neither have I. Funny, that. Because of course, all Venus and Serena Williams have done is go out and kick butt throughout their careers. Serena is currently ranked second in the world, Venus third. Serena has a career grand slam, and at one point held all four major titles. Venus merely has seven major titles, and has reached the finals of all four majors. Both have won Olympic gold medals and WTA championships. And in winnings, Serena ranks first all-time, followed by Venus.

Venus and Serena Williams are arguably the best two female tennis players of their generation, and certainly among the all-time greats. They’re gifted athletically, and both play with tenacity and skill on the court. And not for nothing, but both are attractive women, with compelling life stories and a dramatic rise from a meager upbringing to worldwide superstardom.

It’s hard to imagine why Melanie Oudin — a fine tennis player with a bright future, to be sure — would be viewed as America’s Sweetheart, while Venus and Serena Williams are not. Except, of course, for the fact that Oudin is a pretty, young, blonde white woman, and Venus and Serena Williams are African American.

You see, you can’t be America’s Sweetheart if you’re black. I mean, the very idea! After all, that would mean that African American women could be viewed as attractive, just like a white girl. And that is simply not considered acceptable.

Of course, in a fair world, “America’s Sweetheart” would be the last sobriquet a tennis player would aspire to. Chris Evert, after all, is second all-time in WTA titles in the Open era, trailing only the great Martina Navratalova (who also could never have been America’s Sweetheart, even if she hadn’t been from Czechoslovakia, for obvious reasons). And she has the best singles win-lost record of any player — male or female — in professional history, having won an astonishing 90 percent of her matches. Evert is one of the greatest players to play the game, and possibly the best. And yet we talk of her legacy as her 1970s period — because that’s when she was young and pretty, and dating Jimmy Connors, and that’s far more interesting than the fact that she won 18 major titles and four WTA championships over a 17-year professional career.

It’s disgusting. Because it demeans everyone — Oudin, the Williamses, Evert — everyone who’s playing the U.S. Open in a skirt, or ever has.

Don’t get me wrong — there’s nothing wrong with finding an athlete attractive. Tom Brady is lusted after by as many heterosexual women and gay men as Brady’s wife is by people of the opposite orientations. Finding someone attractive is fine and dandy. But reducing their accomplishments to their attractiveness reduces their value to that of an image. Serena and Venus Williams are superstars. Chris Evert is an all-time great. And Melanie Oudin is making a compelling run that we may look back on one day and see as the start of a fabulous career. And all of these women share something in common: they are all fabulous athletes. That should be the measure of their worth as tennis players. That, and nothing else.

(Via Jezebel)

The other day I asked folks to name me some mindblowing sf stories, novels and authors in response to this silliness here. As I expected, you came through, as did a bunch of other people over on this post asking for mindblowing sf by women. I collated all of the data and came up with these massive lists of mindblowing SF. Thank you for all of your help :)

There were a couple of reasons why I posted it on Tor.com instead of here or the Feminist SF blog. One, I can always link to them, and that’s important and useful, too. Two, I wanted these lists to exist on a mainstream site that wasn’t particularly about race or gender activism but instead about science fiction and fantasy in general. Because I want people who stumble across or seek out those lists to see that these are not just the concerns of women and POC, but concerns of the entire community. Some folks need a reminder of such.

I’m really grateful to everyone who commented because you introduced me to some authors and fiction I hadn’t heard of or previously considered. I hope it spurs others to read some new stuff as well.

Another reason I’m grateful is that, when arguments about representation happen, often times we’re asked to give long lists of authors and stories the editor/reader/whoever should read or pay attention to or whatever. Just going off the top of my head I can often give them a few, but a big huge list is usually beyond me. I do not know of every author, every piece of fiction. When we’re confronted by people who claim that there just aren’t very many outstanding women or POC writers in the field, we can point to this and say: bullshit, bucko. Try again.

We have to be responsible for keeping track of and highlighting and celebrating and giving notice to our own and recording the accomplishments of our best. Because no one else is going to do it for us. If they’re not ignoring, they’re actively suppressing. Neither of which is acceptable.

Make lists, write reviews, pass on books, stories, and authors you love. Be heard.

(x-posted to Feminist SF: The Blog)

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Personal disclosure: this guy is my first cousin. Which in no way invalidates what I’m saying below.

OK, so like many of you I’ve done my share of “diversity workshops”. Which were mostly, I have to admit, pretty good — generally because they were long enough (several days) to dig deep; hands-on and interactive; integrated into everyday practice thereafter; and run by extremely patient/knowledgeable workshop facilitators. This is one of the benefits of working in education versus the corporate world; most educators don’t expect to tackle a complex and emotional subject in a quick soundbyte.

That said, I have done some diversity workshops that reached fathomless depths of assitude. There was the one run by a very young, white, self-identified heterosexual and Christian, visibly anxious facilitator who gave me a blank look when I asked a question about privilege. (I didn’t bother asking any more questions after that; spent the rest of the session working on a short story.) There was also the one in which, after a fellow black woman shared a painful and powerful anecdote about being on the receiving end of some blatantly racist treatment as a college student, a white female participant shared her feelings about being so, so sorry “on behalf of white people” and then broke down crying, at which point everyone in the workshop started comforting her. (Except me and the other black women, who shared a deep spiritual eyeroll.) And then there was the diversity workshop that lasted only one hour out of a six-day, 48-hour training session. No matter how good that workshop was, the amount of time devoted to it sent a message on behalf of the trainers: reducing harm to non-privileged people means so much to us that we’re going to spend 2% of our time on it. Go us! (Yes, go. Please. Really.)

These kinds of workshops are a waste of everyone’s time — no, worse. They make the privileged participants feel better about themselves (for completing the workshop) without actually challenging their privilege, and they make the rest of us feel very fucking tired.

But I want to spread the word about the best short anti-racism workshop I’ve now seen: comedian W. Kamau Bell’s “Ending Racism in About an Hour”.

It’s not a comedy show. (As my aunt, Kamau’s mom, has very emphatically informed me.) It’s a solo theatrical performance… which just happens to be funny as hell. Kamau is the latest of a wave of black comedians who do more than merely exaggerate stereotypes and “keep it real”, whateverthehell that means; he openly confronts the issues of power and the status quo, and the LogicFails that allow racism to perpetuate itself. (I’ve been avidly following another comedian who does this too: Elon James White of This Week in Blackness.) Here’s an example of Kamau in action:

In his latest show, Kamau does everything I’ve ever seen in a good anti-racist workshop: he explains privilege and the power dynamics of racism; gives examples of aversive racism, objectification, and stereotyping; and doesn’t pull punches about the life-and-death impact racism has on politics, economics, health care, and more. But he does all of it without ever using the terminology, and without losing his audience. (Yeah, including Angry Black Women.) Well, scratch that — when I attended his performance on Saturday, he mentioned that a white guy once walked out on him, complaining of guilt. But one out of thousands ain’t bad.

Anyway, I’ve said all this to note that Kamau is in New York City this week for a limited run, as part of NYC’s International Fringe Festival. Most of the shows are already done — sorry, but I wanted to see it before I blogged about it, and I’ve been crazy busy lately — but he’s got one last NYC performance coming up on August 29th at 5 p.m. The one I attended was standing-room-only, so you might wanna buy tix early. If you can’t catch him in NYC, though, he’s a regular at the Punch Line in his adopted home of San Francisco (where he’s Best Comedian of 2008 according to SF Weekly).

Oh, yeah — and if you bring a friend of a different race, you get a free gift! (So if you’re stuck being somebody’s Special Black Friend, bring them to this show so you can get something out of it for a change.)

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I need to wash and twist my hair. I do not feel like twisting it, but it needs washing and if I wash it I have to twist it since it refuses to even think about locing and thus water = losing its shape. So, as I’m sitting here doing everything but my hair, my mind is wandering over how my perception of beauty has changed since I went natural. I admit I used to be one of those black women that thought natural hair looked a mess. Then I started growing up and really paying attention to what well maintained natural styles looked like on friends and neighbors. And over time I start wishing I could wear a twist out or puffs. And then hormones (combined with yet more breakage) made me cut off all the relaxed hair. Those of you reading my LJ back in 2005 probably remember me posting about the Big Chop. What I don’t think I mentioned (though I might have) is that I had no idea how to do my hair. None. Because I always went to a beauty salon as a kid, Jesse’s Place where my hair was pressed bone straight, braided, or relaxed regularly for years. Not once that I can remember was my hair allowed to just be the way it grew out of my head. My grandmother took me to the salon every two weeks like clockwork. She meant well, but she had a whole lot of internalized race issues that meant I didn’t see myself with natural hair until I was 17, it was damaged again and I started trying to rebel against that “Natural is not good enough” aesthetic.

Even before the perm that burned¹ at 3 the few pics I’ve seen of me as a toddler make it clear that my family always did something to straighten it. So at 17 when I first tried to go natural I had no idea how to take care of my hair, and I eventually caved under the pressure and got it relaxed again. Post chop (after the initial shock) I started learning how to deal with it. And for a long time I wasn’t entirely sold on natural. Mostly I was convinced that I had consigned myself to looking unfortunate for some months. Then it got long enough for me to want to do things to it. And the more I learned, the more I liked having natural hair. Because all of sudden doing my hair didn’t have to involve any pain. None. And some of you are probably thinking “Why the hell do black women do that if it hurts?” and there’s a whole list of answers to that question from preference, to not being burned by relaxers, to internalized racism. And this isn’t a “You’re not black enough if you straighten your hair” post. Because let’s be real, if blackness were that easily defined we wouldn’t be discussing the diaspora every time someone insisted that “All black people experience X”. No, this post is about a new definition of beauty and moving away from the idea that there is only one aesthetic.

Now that I’m old enough to see the trap in “You’re pretty for a black girl” I can also see the trap in trying to define beauty for all races by the ideals of one race. So, I’m going to continue to ignore beauty ideals that center around women with skin and hair nothing like mine. Funnily enough the more I do that, the more I find myself being amused when I get the “Pretty for a black girl” routine. Hearing those words used to hurt, because of course the message for young black women is a whole lot of “No one wants you unless you change X and Y and Z” interspersed with “You’re all sluts and on welfare” because that’s what happens when you’re sitting at the intersection of Racism and Misogyny² from birth. And some of us buy into it³ but when you know that the end result of adhering to the mindset is bad plastic surgery and ugly contacts while women of other races are lauded for the same features⁴ you’re trying to change? You start to get over it. Because if someone can’t appreciate my hair, my lips, my butt, and my color? That’s not my problem. I appreciate them. My spouse appreciates them. And those messages hanging on the corner of Racism and Misogyny? Well, I’ve got gasoline and a match. I’m learning to think that my hair is amazing (even when I don’t want to do it) and that black girls are just plain pretty.

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Footnotes

1. A super perm containing lye was used and I wound up in the hospital with chemical burns and no hair on the bottom half of my head.
2. Here’s a handy list of list of popular stereotypes.
3. See any episode of the Tyra Banks Show where she talks to black women who hate being black
4. Look up Angelina Jolie, Kim Kardashian, and Jennifer Lopez and compare their pics to Little Kim’s over the years.

Every now and then I find myself in the position of being somone who believes in a cause but severely dislikes an organization dedicated to the cause. I want to yell at said organization: OMG get out of my cause, you just make things worse! Such is how I’m feeling about PETA at the moment.

Just so we’re clear on where I stand here: I am very much behind anti-animal cruelty activism. I find many of the ways humans treat and mistreat animals despicable. I am not down with animal testing, not down with fur, not down with the way food animals are handled, and not down with the idea that because we have opposable thumbs, we have the right to act in any way we please toward non-humans. I support some extreme measures to put a stop to these things. And I’m all in favor of messages that don’t dance around a subject and say flat out: this is wrong, it needs to end.

Having said that, PETA is working my damn nerve, they are wrong, they need to end it.

In case you’re unaware, this is the latest in a long line of PETA wrongness:

Click the image to see the blog post announcing this atrocity of an ad campaign.

There are plenty of people out there talking about the reasons why this shit is unacceptable. Even vegans cannot countenance this.

And let us not forget PETA’s ill-advised use of racist and sexist language and imagery to try and win converts to their side. I know when I see someone dressed up like a KKK member, I want to listen to their views with an open mind.

As a person who cares about animals, and as a person who does not shy away from extreme forms of activism, I still feel compelled to say: PETA, stop with your bullshit. Being racist, sexist, and fat-phobic is never, ever cool. Never. No seriously. Stop. Your official statement on this matter is full of some of the most asinine fuckwittery I’ve come across that I cannot even bear to grace it with less vulgar words. Because you, PETA, are just a fountain of vulgarity right now, and that is not cool.

Quit doing things to push away people who would otherwise be passionate supporters of your cause. We want to help animals, too, but being in any way associated with you right now is repulsive to me.

I’m going to donate to the Humane Society until I feel clean.

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Aside from my deep seated belief that at least some of the Obama = Hitler people are being paid to make these appearances, I’ve often wondered why anyone entertains their nonsense. Finally someone does not and it is amazing. I’m still trying to work out how Obama’s health care plan = return to Nazi Germany when France, Italy, Israel, Canada, the UK, and a few other countries that have absolutely nothing to do with Hitler all have socialized medical plans. But, I’m pretty sure that’s me trying to apply logic to insanity. The more I look at the bill, the less sense the tone of the opposition makes to me unless we go back to the idea of paid shills hyping the crowd and false propaganda being deliberately spread by folks in the pocket of the American insurance industry. If someone has a better explanation of what is behind the conspiracy theories and screaming of “Heil Hitler” I’d love to hear it. Because from where I’m sitting incidents like this one:

are pretty much proof that the inmates are trying to take over the asylum. For weeks now these town hall meetings have been overrun with folks who seem to have left their humanity and critical thinking skills at home. And I can’t figure out the logic behind the incessant hyperbolic attacks (Sarah Palin really believes there are death panels? Really?) and the huge quantities of misinformation that seem to be professionally condensed into nice little soundbites of crazy rhetoric designed to amp up the fear. I have government run healthcare through the VA (I’m a vet with a service connected disability) and there is no better feeling than knowing that if I get sick I can see a doctor. Without the VA I wouldn’t be eligible for most (nearly all) private insurance plans because of my pre-existing condition and my choices would be no coverage or (since I have children) Medicaid. Which is…government funded health care. Just like Medicare. And I have to say that my kids had Medicaid at one point and it was great. There were problems at times but they were the same problems we had with private insurance. Namely long wait times and irritating conversations about the bill. The big difference was that Medicaid actually covered everything without me having to fill out half a dozen forms in triplicate and without any arbitrary spending limits. From my perspective I’d rather have the public option because then my entire family could be covered under one plan. I have no problem paying for it either as long as we have decent coverage and can’t be retroactively dropped.

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So I got the name of the town wrong, and looked up the wrong town. Due to my error, I thought the National Review had made a huge error. But it turns out I’m the fool today.

The original post is recorded below the fold for posterity.

Read the rest of this entry »

So, Ms. Lamplighter apologized here and on her LJ. And yes, there are things I could respond to in both places, but as you can see on the first link I’ve already made my decision on how to handle it. Why that road and not another? I have work to do. And I’m learning to prioritize. Things that could benefit me and the people I care about over things that will not is the order of the day.

In that vein it has been suggested to me that if I can get a working outline together and a synopsis I can shop Frenzy around a bit and see if anyone bites. Verb Noire needs to get the naming contest going for the first anthology as well as start dealing with the submissions for the second. And get cracking on cover art for the novel (Martin’s War) that’s being edited right now. Plus there’s a kid’s book I wrote that is illustrating to finish so that we can shop it around. That’s in between blogging for ABW and dealing with the mundane bits of life like getting #1 ready for 5th grade and deciding if #2 should stay where he is (home daycare) or head to bigger pastures this fall.

I’ve been told (rather forcefully and by people who love me) that I need to figure out where this train that is my life is going so that I can drive it instead of letting it drag me along. Basically I am too busy to get bogged down in this mess right now. Mind you, I am not saying that you have to follow my lead when it comes to your response. I have already seen many people who are willing to wade in and keep fighting the good fight. I am in no way trying to devalue that effort, I am merely stating the reasons behind my approach.

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As some of you know I went to Montreal for Verb Noire last week. It was…an experience. See, I don’t really like conventions. They are important and necessary to the success of my business and I get to hang out with some great people. But if it weren’t for the business I probably would not go to them. Aside from not being a big fan of crowds I tend to wind up in at least one discussion of race that leaves me feeling like I need a drink. Maybe three. And that’s just not good for my liver. Case in point, I was on a panel last Sunday entitled “Writing Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Geographic Terms” that went nowhere near a good place. I was a last minute substitute for my business partner (who now owes me a bottle of Riesling and a lifetime supply of chocolate) and I planned to discuss all the reasons why making the bad guys POC in epic fantasies are a terrible idea. Instead we spent the panel dealing with one L. Lamplighter and her insistence on saying awful things about race (highlights include calling someone extraordinarily black right after insisting that she literally does not see color and had to have the race of friends pointed out to her as well as whining about the difficulties of being criticized for writing POC poorly) and derailing the panel from the topic at regular intervals. The moderator and I have since been the focus of a few posts on her LiveJournal. Those posts….well I’ll link to them and you can see for yourself. The first post seemed to be particularly dismissive of Kate Nepveu and I thought “Well there goes a prime example of being a jerk online” ala my panel with John Scalzi on Sunday morning. Then I got to her post about me being called a nigger ¹ and I was a little perplexed to see just how wrong she’d gotten the details of that anecdote. Mostly I was offended by her repeated use of the word “girl” since at 32 I’m well past the point of being taken for a small child. But of course there’s a whole lot of history attached to using such language towards POC² and I’m certain she’s well aware of that history. If she’s not, then she really didn’t belong on that panel or on any programming to do with race. Or anywhere outside her narrow little bubble.

Then again anyone that feels it necessary to make statements like:

My son’s favorite friends from school are a boy the color of pitch whose family is from Africa, a Korean boy, and a Spanish boy whose family hardly speaks English.

as proof of her “colorblindness” is such a mess of aversive racism³ and outright bigotry that I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. She’s dressed it up a little, but her real meaning when she claims to be colorblind is “I can treat you with some semblance of respect as long as I ignore the color of your skin. If you force me to see you as a whole person then you’ve brought my bigotry on yourself and it isn’t my fault. It’s yours for being so extraordinarily of color. Because I can’t handle the possibility that your reality is informed by experiences that I don’t share.”

To be completely honest I am not interested in educating her or changing her mind or even speaking to her again in my life. I am not in the mood for some aversive racist bullshit reframing of my life. I am not in the mood to be patient, kind, gentle or even brutally polite. This is not a teaching moment. She had plenty of those during the panel (so many that we never did get to have the actual discussion because she kept on whipping out the fail every time she came near the microphone and we’d have to stop to correct her so that the audience didn’t get the wrong idea) and all that effort clearly made little or no impression upon her entrenched bigotry. Let us be clear…this conversation started in a room face to face so there can be no question of body language or tone. She had all of that on hand, and she…well let’s just say that she performed mental gymnastics worthy of a Matrix movie to miss the point of the conversation. It was not that she could not hear us, instead she chose to ignore our words⁴ in favor of hanging onto her prejudices. That’s her choice and she’s welcome to the path that she is on. But, that choice doesn’t come without criticism. She has the right to hold these beliefs and I have the right to call her on them.

So, for the record I am appalled and offended and just plain disgusted by her attitude and her condescension and her racism. Because make no mistake that is *exactly* what she has proven with her own words. No need for slurs or grandiose terrorist gestures when devaluing and disrespect will do. No need to listen to the words of those “girls” that are trying to tell you that your ass is showing. Because clearly we aren’t enlightened enough to know that the best way to approach life is to seek harmony with people who will tolerate our differences by ignoring them. My hair, my skin, my entire life is not something that I can pick or put down at my convenience. And the privileged assumption that the road to harmony is to ignore the parts of my reality that make you uncomfortable? Enough to make any sane person ill. Now, I’m not telling anyone to go over there and beat their head against the brick wall of her racism. Instead I’m encouraging you to hold her up as an example of what not to do and what not to say. Because really that’s the best approach to this kind of willful ignorance. Ignore her and maybe she’ll go away. And even if she doesn’t? Just consider the source the next time you hear someone spouting off about being colorblind.

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Footnotes

1. I was 12. It was a cop who had an established pattern of harassing me and my friends on the way to school. My grandmother’s pastor was affiliated with Operation Push so we had some juice with the city. There was no rallying around by anyone, there was some phone calls and a watch commander who didn’t want the publicity that comes from such an incident.
2. aside from being dismissive and disrespectful in general, the use of the word girl has the same connotations as using boy, namely that one thinks an adult is incapable of making their own determinations and they need someone to guide them
3. Color Blind or Just Plain Blind? is a great place to read up on what’s wrong with colorblindness and why it is just a new twist on the old standby of racism
4. Not to mention the words of another panelist, a male author of some renown who was unbelievably diplomatic

SFSignal: Here is the table of contents for a new anthology called The Mammoth Book of Mindblowing SF, it is edited by Mike Ashley.

The General SF Reading Public: WTF there are only men in that anthology.

Many SFSignal Commenters: OMG this is messed up! Only men? Boo.

Some Black Chick: Yeah and also: no POC.

Many Other SFSignal Commenters: EVEN WORSE, omg.

Paul Di Filippo¹: Dear Friends of SF–

I generally steer clear of controversies in my senescense, having participated in more than my share as a card-carrying cyberpunk²–but I simply cannot allow the unanimity of asinine comments on exhibit here to go unremarked-upon³.

Every single commenter here seems to me to be committing a logical fallacy of tremendous dimension, one so big it distorts entire worldviews:

DEMANDING THAT EVERY SINGLE INSTANCE OF EVERYTHING COMPOSITE SHOULD BE ABSOLUTELY STATISTICALLY REPRESENTATIVE OF THE COMPOSITION OF THE ENTIRE COSMOS⁴

You know what:  a potato field is not likely to contain corn plants⁵.  A pine forest might feature an oak or three, but be 99% pine trees⁶.  The Beatles were 4 white guys⁷.  Sonic Youth has no people of color⁸!  My ream of copy paper is all white, with no sheets of lettuce included⁹!

Variety is great.  Heterogeniety is great.  Bias and prejudice suck.  A genre–VIEWED AS A WHOLE–must feature a million different voices to be accurate and interesting¹⁰.

BUT NOT EVERY SINGLE BOOK OR MAGAZINE OR BAND OR WORK OF ART NEEDS TO CONFORM TO THE LATEST CENSUS RESULTS¹¹.

SFSignal Commenters: WTH was that shit?

Paul Di Filippo: But let me reiterate that there is no law of the universe or of sensible human culture that demands that every institution or product fully represent every possible choice in its compositional makeup¹².

If you go to a restaurant, do you demand to see the staff of the kitchen to ensure that they represent the full spectrum or genders and races and ethnicities¹³?  I hope not!  You order food and if you like it you patronize the place again.  (We’re omitting elements of atmosphere, price, fellow customers, etc. here¹⁴.)

If this particular anthology delivers stories that fulfill its premise and title, then it’s done its job¹⁵.  If you or someone else chooses not to support its existence because it does not meet extra-literary criteria¹⁶, then that is perhaps a morally superior, wonderfully principled, honorable stance¹⁷.  Or perhaps it’s an addled, PC, chip-on-the-shoulder stance¹⁸.  But there was never any obligation or constraint on Mike Ashely to satisfy these demands¹⁹.

Now, if you got the annual LOCUS survey of books published and pointed out to me that there were N number of anthologies published in 2008 featuring Y number of stories, and that only X percent of these stories were written by folks who were not WASP males, and then you argued that X percent was way too low, I would consider you had the beginnings of a rational argument and gripe²⁰.

SFSignal Commenters: Are you HIGH?

Some Black Chick: Dear Paul Di Filippo, What the hell is wrong with you?

Paul Di Filippo: I’d like to raise two matters: First, how are anthologies assembled?  By 1)  an editor’s reference to his past reading experience, for reprints; 2) “invitation only” for new stories; 3) “open call” for new stories.

The book in question was assembled by a combo of 1) and 2).  Obviously, Mike Ashley recalled only stories by men and invited stories only from males²¹.  (Or possibly, invited women who did not respond or qualify²².)  This resulted in a men-only book.  Is this sexism²³, or is it a function of the phenomenon illustrated in the SEINFELD episode of the big-breasted waitresses?  Elaine was incensed that a certain diner featured only big-breasted waitresses–until she discovered that all the women were the owner’s daughters.  In other words, what seemed to be sexism was “family bias.”  Mike relied on his “family connections,” to the dead or living²⁴.  And that family included no women.  Limited family maybe, but sexism?  Your call²⁵.

Second, I think in any such argument it’s always useful to ask “whose ox is being gored?” and to “follow the money.”²⁶

I don’t want to cast aspersions on anyone’s motives, or attempt to mind-read²⁷.  But I have to say that when ANY WRITER (not just female writers or writers of color) complains about being excluded from a venue and cites issues of platonic principle and idealism, I always first posit underlying jealousy²⁸ and a desire for status underneath all the lofty hypothetical talk²⁹.  Why do I posit such a cynical thing³⁰?  Because I’m a fucking writer³¹, and guilty as all others³²!  I vividly recall my sense of exclusion from the “adult table” after having had one or two stories published, but before being able to sell regularly³³.  Hell, I still feel this way, being without a major publisher³⁴.

Now there’s nothing wrong with wanting a place at the table for one’s personal, individual works.  If a writer did not believe in her stuff, why would she bother?  And if you believe in your stuff, you’ll want it to get the best possible treatment.  But to cloak one’s personal gripes, however subconsciously, in the cloak of solidarity with all downtrodden is just plain disingenuous–to use the nicest word³⁵.

I really wonder, as an unperformable thought experiment, whether if the MAMMOTH book had included a token one or two writers of color or female gender, if these writers would have returned their paychecks or even spoken out when the current controversy arose³⁶.

“Walk it like you talk it” remains the operative phrase³⁷.

SFSignal Commenters: What. The. Hell?

Paul Di Filippo: I don’t have time to answer all your petty questions about my ridiculous statements, I have a story to write! Email me if you want, but I have more important things to take care of. *flounce!*³⁸

SFSignal Commenters: What. The. Hell? No, just no.

Paul Di Filippo: Oh, also, Walt Whitman is gay, so therefore you won’t mind if I quote from him. What does Walt Whitman being gay have to do with anything here? Well, Some Black Chick said that he hated men! Okay, bye for realz now! *flounce again!*³⁹

SFSignal Commenters: [attempt to pick up the pieces of the conversation and return it to something resembling sense, all the while on the lookout for further resurgences of greater internet fuckwaddery.]

The End.

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Footnotes

1. Who is, incidentally — or perhaps not — in the anthology in question
2. this is the part where he tries to position himself above everyone else in the conversation — oh, ho ho silly beings. I will lower myself to your level, but only this once!
3. if he allowed it, it would be like some free speech or something.
4. notice how actually no one was demanding this.
5. what?
6. And this is relevant to the discussion how?
7. …
8. and strawmen have no brains, what the hell is your point, Paul?
9. So, I’m given to understand that women and people of color SF writers are like lettuce in copy paper? The Othering going on here is just astounding.
10. But viewed as just a section we don’t need all that pesky diversity! Gotta have some safe spaces for the white men.
11. I again wonder who ever suggested this? Oh wait, no one. Okay then.
12. Show me a universe or sensible society where a deliberate selection is uniform by accident.
13. No, but that’s because I assume that any business that wishes to stay in business will conform to laws that say it’s illegal to discriminate on the basis of several factors, including gender and race. SF anthologies are not subject to this law. Nor should they be. But it would explain the variation in how I approach two completely different and unrelated situations such as you have posited here.
14. also omitting anything that makes any damn sense at all.
15. if that job is presenting its readers with a heteronormative, white and male view of SF, then yes. If it claims to be presenting the “The 21 Finest Stories of Awesome Science Fiction”, then no.
16. Here’s what you don’t get: the specifics about the authors are not extra-literary, Paul. Who a writer is, where a writer comes from, how they see and experience the world, all feeds into their writing. I thought you were a writer, surely you understand this.
17. Only inasmuch as it doesn’t exclude and marginalized oppressed groups, yeah.
18. Oh, you’re about to pull THIS argument out?
19. Nope, there sure wasn’t. And look what he produced: 21 stories of the same old monochromatic maleness.
20. Actually, I believe people have done this and more and left out the bad algebra to boot.
21. Yes, obviously, and if you had any damn sense you would see why that’s extremely problematic.
22. I guess they don’t qualify if they only write stories about “people and feelings and crap”.
23. Yes.
24. And while it’s acceptable to have your family staff your restaurant, if you’re putting together an anthology of “best” stories and you only ever choose authors you’ve heard of, you’re not really choosing a best, are you? You’re choosing the best of a narrow subset of stories. That is: the best by white men whose writing appeals to someone who can’t be bothered to read anything by women or people of color.
25. Oh good. Cuz I say: yes. Or, at the very, very least: bias borne out of lazy ignorance.
26. Yeah because women and POC don’t have money to spend, or when they do they don’t buy books. I think they buy pretty dresses and “bling”.
27. Liar. Cuz you’re about to do just that.
28. ABW takes off her earrings.
29. So, let me see if I rightly understand you: the only reason anyone would ever have to complain about this kind of thing is jealousy and a desire to be included? Even when the people complaining are readers, not writers? Even when the writers complaining are not just women and people of color but white men? Even when other publishers and editors are like: “Dude, that’s not right.”? Even when ALL of those groups get together to call this out as a problem it all comes down to some jealous, whiny women and darkies causing a fuss because they want to be included? Listen, Paul, I have something very important to say: FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE. You are NOT, I repeat: NOT allowed to dismiss the concerns of readers and writers and editors and fans and lovers of the genre and those who strive to erase racism and sexism and other forms of prejudice just because they have an issue with an anthology you are in. Seems to me that the reason this upsets you so much, the reason you obviously find it so threatening, is that if someone were to judge your writing up against that of, say, Octavia Butler, Nisi Shawl, Nnedi Okorafor, Samuel R. Delany, Stephen Barnes, Tobias Buckell, L. Timmel Duchamp, Elizabeth Hand, Nancy Kress, Connie Willis, Yoon Ha Lee, or any number of the amazing women and POC writers in this field, it would be found wanting and you’d find yourself in fewer anthologies. And while I strive to see more diverse voices in anthologies just for its own sake, I have to say that the idea of them edging you out is just buttercream icing on the cupcake. Because I don’t care how good a writer you are, this genre and this community does not need people like you spewing this utter, utter bullshit all over its public places. What we need are people who don’t use the term PC like it’s a dirty word, who don’t compare women and minorities to pieces of lettuce, who don’t stomp into conversations around contentious and important issues and proceed to pull down their pants and wave their asses around with vigor. Get out of my genre, dude! We do not need your crazy!
30. because you’re projecting?
31. Wait, you mis-spelled that last word. Should be: wanker
32. yeah, projection. Look, our issues are not yours, Paul.
33. …if sitting at the adult table means being next to creepy uncle Paul who no one ever leaves you in a room alone with then, um, yeah I’ll stay over here at the kids table.
34. No comment.
35. THANK GOD YOU’RE USING THE NICE WORDS.
36. I guess we’ll never know, since the editor doesn’t believe in tokenism. But good to know that if there had been some women or people of color in there, they’d just be tokens and undeserving! Also of note: had there been any women or POC, we would not be having this conversation because the controversy would not have arisen. People don’t get all upset when anthologies are inclusive. Well, normal, sensible people.
37. Indeed. It just doesn’t mean what you think it means.
38. This one is paraphrased.
39. Yes, paraphrased. But yes, Walt Whitman and gayness did randomly come up.

Actually, Wells Fargo has been getting sued quite a lot. First the NAACP, then Baltimore, and now Illinois.

The New York Times has some statements from former Wells Fargo employees, describing how the system works. Some of the details are jaw-dropping:

Wells Fargo, Ms. Jacobson said in an interview, saw the black community as fertile ground for subprime mortgages, as working-class blacks were hungry to be a part of the nation’s home-owning mania. Loan officers, she said, pushed customers who could have qualified for prime loans into subprime mortgages. Another loan officer stated in an affidavit filed last week that employees had referred to blacks as “mud people” and to subprime lending as “ghetto loans.”

“We just went right after them,” said Ms. Jacobson, who is white and said she was once the bank’s top-producing subprime loan officer nationally. “Wells Fargo mortgage had an emerging-markets unit that specifically targeted black churches, because it figured church leaders had a lot of influence and could convince congregants to take out subprime loans.” [...]

Mr. Paschal, who is black and worked as a loan officer in Wells Fargo’s office in Annandale, Va., from 1997 to 2007, offers a sort of primer on Wells Fargo’s subprime marketing strategy by race.

In 2001, he states in his affidavit, Wells Fargo created a unit in the mid-Atlantic region to push expensive refinancing loans on black customers, particularly those living in Baltimore, southeast Washington and Prince George’s County, Md. [...]

“They referred to subprime loans made in minority communities as ghetto loans and minority customers as ‘those people have bad credit’, ‘those people don’t pay their bills’ and ‘mud people,’ ” Mr. Paschal said in his affidavit. [...]

Both loan officers said the bank had given bonuses to loan officers who referred borrowers who should have qualified for a prime loan to the subprime division.

One example given: Loan officers would falsely claim that Black borrowers had declined to provide documentation of their income, which “flipped” the loan from prime to subprime.

As The Chicago Reporter Blog points out, Wells Fargo isn’t alone. Throughout the industry, Blacks get loans on worse terms than whites with lower earnings.

Wells Fargo is not the only lender giving high-cost loans more often to its highest-earning black customers. Nationwide, African Americans earning more than $300,000 were more likely to get high-cost loans than Asian, Latino and white borrowers earning less than $40,000, according to a Reporter analysis last November.

While income may not accurately reflect credit worthiness, fair lending advocates often point to the racial disparities between wealthy blacks and lower-income individuals of other races and ethnicities as red flags.

I hope these suits encourage a lot of other attorney generals to go rooting through records for evidence of lending racism.

* * *

One thing to keep in mind: It’s not like the lending market just suddenly turned racist now. It’s been like this all along; it’s just that sub-prime lending has made it especially evident.

(Thanks to Brian for reminding me of this story.)

Originally I wasn’t going to write any posts for IBARW. Then it was just going to be the one. I’m up to three* now. Because it’s been that kind of week. And since this post is about emotion it’s probably not going to be as polished as some of my other pieces. Or as polite. But, that’s the risk you take when you talk about race and racism with a POC. One of the things people tend to say to me (especially after they’ve tried to hammer sense into someone’s head for hours only to discover that bigotry can be a security blanket to some people) is that they don’t know how I keep my calm in these conversations. And I tend to wave it off, because really I don’t see a point in talking about the emotional impact of participating in these discussions. No, that’s a lie. I do talk about it. In safe spaces, behind closed doors with people I know I can trust. Because that’s the only place it’s (generally) acceptable to show weakness as an anti-racist POC. Otherwise the slurs and the misconceptions and the appropriation and the fucking fail will make you cry in front of people who have already made it clear that your feelings don’t matter to them.

Because if they cared about the feelings of POC they wouldn’t use racial slurs, they wouldn’t insist that we have no right to dictate the treatment of our cultural icons, they wouldn’t say that we were too angry (By the way, who stays calm and patient when someone is shitting on their shoe?) to discuss things “rationally”, they wouldn’t insist that being called out on their bigoted statements is more painful than being the target of bigotry. Basically they’d treat us the way they want to be treated and stop expecting POC to meekly accept being spit on, their culture, music, and religion picked apart for a moment’s entertainment, their families dehumanized and disrespected, their history and their literature discounted and ignored…all without ever once expressing their anger or their hurt. Because that’s the wrong tone. And of course when POC say “Turnabout is fair play, if I can’t talk about my emotions then yours don’t count either” suddenly we’re so cruel or we’re attacking or we’re still not using the right tone if we want to end racism. Because clearly if we’re calm enough and nice enough in the face of offensive behavior then everything will get better right? After all that’s usually what’s implied someone trots out MLK Jr. as an example of how POC should behave in the face of racism. I heartily suggest the next person to feel that urge spend some quality time reading Letter From a Birmingham Jail and recognize that nonviolent protests didn’t include smiling sweetly and eating shit.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Now this might shock and/or offend some people, but I have to say that today is not a day when I give a fuck. Because when POC have teaching moments? It costs us. Sometimes a little. Sometimes a lot. It’s a sacrifice that we choose to make in an effort to improve things. It’s a moment (or more) out of our lives that we knowingly open ourselves up to things that any sane person would want to avoid under normal circumstances. Because there is no other option. Oh, we could leave the people saying awful things to wallow in ignorance. But in the long run isolationism is not actually a helpful position. Especially since we are living in a global society, and there really is nowhere to withdraw to for the long haul. So, we wade in when we can, and we try to make sure that if even if the person saying offensive things doesn’t get it; other people reading will have access to the right information. And sometimes when the fail is too big and the pain is too acute? We get sarcastic and snark the stupid. Because you have to do something to ease the trauma when you’re 100 comments in and people are still insisting that the 65 links to respectable websites, 23 bits of anecdata, and the entire weight of history are all wrong and it’s the fault of POC that racism isn’t gone because they insist on being people of color instead of “normal” white people. It’s hard enough to stand strong in the face of willful stupidity, don’t expect us to be nice about it too. Gallows humor is often the best coping mechanism available. For the record, anger is a perfectly valid emotion but don’t get confused…we have others too…you just don’t get to see them.

* This post is actually a couple of days old so I think my count is 4 or 5 posts now. Originally I wasn’t going to post this here, but after reading some of the responses to IBARW I think it’s important that a wider audience sees this and gets a little reminder of our reality.

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In case you haven’t been aware, this is International Blog Against Racism Week. It is, in fact, the fourth annual such week. A bunch of our posts this week have been tagged ibarw, but I did want to provide a pointer to the community where there is a massive collection of links from dozens, maybe hundreds, of bloggers taking part. As I say every year, we always blog against racism on the ABW but I still like to take part in ibarw. This time around I decided to tackle an issue I have not specifically written a post about.

Lately I’ve been thinking about intersectionality a great deal. In terms of my own work as an activist against racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression and in how I would like to see the anti-oppression structures and organizations around me behave. Recently I had a big intersectionality fail which set the gears in my head turning. The more I contemplate it, the more I feel as though I want to center my activism around this concept. Well, moreso than I am doing at present.

For those of you unaware, Intersectionality is a theory which “holds that the classical models of oppression within society, such as those based on race/ethnicity, gender, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, class, species or disability do not act independently of one another; instead, these forms of oppression interrelate creating a system of oppression that reflects the “intersection” of multiple forms of discrimination.”¹ You’ve seen us talk about it a lot as concerns feminism, and how mainstream feminists relate (or don’t relate) to women of color. How the issues that we face as people of color, as people of color from various cultural, ethnic and national backgrounds, AND as women are different to the ones faced by white women. They are related, but not always the same. We cannot divorce our gender from our race/ethnicity.²

As an antiracist activist I like to think that I am less prone to fail when it comes to issues of race and ethnicity, but as recent events have shown, I am not completely devoid of it. I hope that my experiences have helped me in that I can admit it when I fail and apologize and do better, but obviously not failing at all is the goal. I don’t often recognize what I’m on about in instances like that because I enter territory where the oppression is not about me, it’s about someone else. I can understand on one level and still not Get It on a deeper level.

This is why intersectionality is important — so that we can all strive to Get It on every level.

Striving for better understanding of intersectionality will help eliminate instances of Oppression Olympics — folks going on and on about who has it harder or better in this or that area is not going to solve the core issues. Focusing on just one oppression without considering how it intersects with others is alienating and often results in a lack of real progress.

This is true on the big picture level and all the way down to individuals. It’s even harder for some people to grasp that the resolution to one group’s problems may not lead to the resolution for everyone’s.

When groups or individuals fail at intersectionality it can often lead to people who should be working together instead feeling resentful or hostile toward one another (see again: feminism and WOC). It gets particularly messed up when people who work against one aspect of prejudice engage in prejudicial or oppressive behavior themselves then get upset when folks call them on their problematic behavior.

A recent example: A few months ago during a coda to RaceFail (called MammothFail), a series of events led a POC that goes by the handle neo_prodigy³ to call for a day of creativity featuring fans and writers of color. He created a LiveJournal community called Fen of Color United, hilariously shortened to foc_u. A lot of people were excited and jumped on board and loved the idea (because it was a good one).

Then (white) blogger Nick Mamatas pointed out that neo_prodigy had been involved in a heated debate a few years ago with Nick’s then girlfriend and, in that debate, neo himself had called the girlfriend a bitch and used other gendered or otherwise prejudicial slurs against her and her friends. Then neo’s female best friend, alundra001⁴, came along to call her a cunt, and neo had no problem with that at all. He encouraged alundra’s going after her.⁵ Nick pointed out that this was the guy in charge of our new “safe space”, as neo had advertised foc_u.

Many people were Not Pleased. When commenters and members of foc_u attempted to bring this up on the group and get clarification or explanation or even some kind of “that was wrong of me”, the comments were, as I understand it, often deleted or ignored. I participated in the foc_u day of creativity and had joined the community, but after it became clear that neo was not going to address the issue in any real way (see: evasion, blaming everyone else, strawmen, you name it⁶ ), I left.

I got the impression that neo_prodigy felt he shouldn’t have been called out on his past actions or that they did not matter in the context of the work he was doing with foc_u. They do matter, though, because the membership of the community (both that specific one and the wider SF/fan one) is made up of women as well as men. And the language he used and condoned and encouraged is not beneficial to, is offensive to, and is actively worked against by most of those women.

This is the biggest evil of Intersectionality Fail: not recognizing that your activism, useful and wonderful though it may be, does not give you a pass on other problematic behavior. No matter if that behavior is active, such as the above, or passive, as when the concerns of one group are simply ignored or not considered. People aren’t going to ignore your sexism just because you work against racism. People are not going to ignore your racism because you campaigned for marriage equality. No one is going to allow you to oppress others just because you’re oppressed yourself.

This issue is not limited to sex and race, it applies to all oppressions, marginalizations, prejudices, discriminations.

As activists, as people who wish to eliminate -isms, I think it’s imperative to get a better grasp on intersectionality and incorporate it into the work we do and the words we speak. I feel that marginalized groups have a better than average chance of making this work because we already know what it means to be casually dismissed or slurred against or even to have to suffer cluelessness. We just have to be willing to admit it when we don’t get it right and learn from that. I hope it then makes it easier to deal with when someone says “You’re engaging in these activities/this speech and it’s offensive/hurtful/wrong.” Even if they say it in anger or with the wrong “tone”.

Intersectionality doesn’t have to be about reactions to mistakes or fail, though. It’s also about taking in on yourself to learn, to form better bonds, to understand, to change yourself the way you’ve asked others to change. I’m working on it, and it’s hard. But I won’t stop, it’s too important.

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Footnotes

1. that would be from Wikipedia, yes.
2. Recent example of this very discussion right here.
3. neo_prodigy publishses under the name Dennis R. Upkins, which I assume is his real name.
4. It’s been postulated that alundra is actually just neo’s sockpuppet. This seems likely since she seems to exist solely to ego boost, back up, and attack people for neo. Specifically to say things he can’t/shouldn’t say — like calling a woman a cunt; because it’s completely acceptable  for another woman to do so. Tip: it is not.
5. You can no longer see the original posts where this went down because they are locked/private, but you can see Nick’s post and the explanations in the comments. Having seen neo’s original posts myself, I can say that the descriptions are accurate.
6. After he made a public post on foc_u about it in May I messaged him privately about my concerns. He body-swerved the issue by claiming I was only against him because I know the people involved and insisted that everyone else had “moved on.” Note: they had not. He then sent possible-sockpuppet alundra to taunt me a second time, telling me I was “doing feminism wrong”.

I was totally planning to talk about something other than race and racism today. But then I read this post about residential schools and the subsequent fallout in Canada. And it got me thinking about the long term impact of racism on our community and the half life of such a virulent disease. (Some of the comments also pissed me off, but again we’re back to context and respect and I’m just not in the mood today.) And the fact that even though reparations for the descendants of slaves has been a hotly debated topic for years now, no one seems to be willing to make reparations for the effects of racism itself. I’m not even talking about cash (or the famed 40 acres and a mule) moreso I’m thinking of steps being taken to heal the damaged thought processes that have become such a part of our society.

Obviously we can’t change what’s being taught at home. But, what about investing in teaching history properly with all the facts from K-12th grade instead of letting college be the place where people (those who take the right classes and pay attention in them) get a clue about race relations throughout history? Or spending less money on jails and weapons and more on targeted social programs and funding quality schools for all? Access to quality medical care and decent food couldn’t hurt, especially if we stop criminalizing poverty and start trying to eradicate it. There is so much that could be done to actually level the playing field and benefit everyone. Racism (and the other ‘isms) will destroy society if left unchecked so let’s vaccinate our children.

Mind you, none of these ideas are new and none of them are going to fix what’s wrong right here and right now. But, if we took a long term view and we set a stage for our kids where diplomacy and respect trumped “Those people are all X” and “We have to protect our way of life” then just maybe 200 years from now there won’t be a need for conversations about whether or not people forced into schools dedicated to destroying their culture and their language were abused “enough” to qualify for reparations. Possibly we could be a society that doesn’t think assimilation is the key to success. Maybe (and I know this is a big maybe) we could stop bigotry before it starts and really turn this into a post-racial, post-classist, post-sexist society?

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As is often the case during major online blowups of one kind or another, I have lately found myself having to explain more often than I would care to the difference between “You said something racist” and “You are a racist.” Granted, a lot of people, including anti-racist activists, make a step from the first statement to the next with no problem. But it isn’t always the case that someone who says racist or sexist or other oppressive/prejudiced things is themselves a prejudiced, racist, or sexist person. They can be, certainly. And if you give certain people enough time and space to talk, they’ll prove themselves so.

But not always.

I want to try and unpack this in a way that will benefit future discourse because I think this is a very important point. I’m not the only person to point this out, of course. But it helps me to be a better debater in the future if I make posts and put my thoughts in order.

The truth is, everyone can make prejudiced, offensive or oppressive statements. Many people have prejudiced thoughts. And I mean people as in humans as in everyone, not just those whose groups have historical power.

In the case of those who do not belong to the dominant group, those statements can be hurtful, but often do not have the same impact. This is due to power imbalance.¹ When someone in the dominant group says something prejudiced or offensive, many people will (perhaps correctly) assume that they said such a thing because they really think and believe it. And if a person really believes that prejudiced thing, they must be prejudiced themselves. This is not illogical.

However, humans often are.

Bias, prejudice, wrong thinking can be the product of conscious thought or unconscious/unexamined thought. It seems to me that a large percentage of people who bust out with really ignorant statements often do so because they have not ever, ever truly thought them through to their logical conclusions. If they did, or if someone challenged them to, their thinking could change.

Most activists realized this about people long ago. And thus many attempt to make a distinction between “You said something X-ist” and “You are a X-ist.”

Doing this is hard. Especially when the words that come out of people’s mouths are so very, very hurtful or very, very ignorant. It also doesn’t help when the person is acting like a jerk, all prejudicial talk aside. That is usually when people make the leap from “you said” to “you are” — I include myself in this.

So, two thoughts. One for those who say things that get them in trouble, one for those who hear/read these things.

First, the guide to How Not To Be Insane When Accused of Racism is very, very useful and I suggest you read it. Also, I urge you to read or listen carefully when someone takes exception to something you said/wrote. Are they saying that you’re an X-ist? Or are they saying that what you said is X-ist? If they say the latter they’re trying to make the distinction I’ve been talking about here, and you will not help the conversation by assuming they’re accusing you of the former.

If you are being accused of X-ism, then it would behoove you to examine what about your statement made people say that about you. Do not attempt to destroy, suppress or otherwise derail the discussion of racism (it’s not helpful either to you or to other arguing against you). And remember that admitting that you were wrong to say that X-ist thing is not the same as admitting you are an X-ist yourself.

Second, for those who see or read offensive, X-ist, prejudicial, or stereotypical things, I suggest attempting to make a distinction between what folks say and what they are. It’s not an easy path to take, and it involves a lot of giving the benefit of the doubt, patience, and tolerance. But I think it does help to start by saying “you said something x-ist/offensive” instead of “you are an x-ist because you said that” unless this person has proven, through past or further statements and actions that they are indeed x-ist.

Then you can have at.

That’s my advice, take it or leave it as you will. I do admit that for the activist, this can be hard. Especially when you run up against the thousandth instance of a particular prejudicial or offensive mindset. I make no claim on being perfect or even halfway decent in this regard at all times. I’m just trying.

I’m hoping for better discourse, but I have little hope of getting it from certain quarters of the population.

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1. A black person calls a white person a cracker: that’s not cool. But it does not have the same impact, or have the same level of wrongness, as a white person calling a black person a nigger. Still, doing both things is wrong, period.

By now, you’ve probably heard all about the dust-up surrounding Justine Larbalestier’s latest novel, Liar.

If you haven’t, you can start with Justine’s big post on the subject, and follow that up with this Publishers Weekly article, in which Bloomsbury has some very fascinating things to say.

The short version: Justine Larbalestier, a fairly well-known YA writer, wrote a novel featuring a bi-racial main character with short, kinky hair and fairly dark skin. These features and her bi-racial identity are crucial to her characterization and certain aspects of the book. This is particularly important because the character, Micah, is a pathological liar, which means that what the reader can discern as unequivocally true about her character becomes crucial to the reading experience.

Let me pause here to note that, unbelievable though it may seem, authors generally have very little input on the direction of the covers of their books. Often they have no input at all, and even when they do, publishers frequently strong-arm them into covers they are not happy with. Though it might seem strange for those who don’t have much experience in publishing, this is true of even relatively Big Name Authors, let alone one who is still building her career and reading base like Larbalestier. I just wanted to make this clear, because some people seem to think that authors have creative control or the final say over what appears on the covers of their books. Alas, this isn’t so (and, frankly– though certainly not in this case– one could make the argument that authors are perhaps not the best arbiters of what would work on their covers).

What happened is that Bloomsbury USA (her publisher) took this (truly excellent) book and designed a cover I suppose they felt would appeal the most to their base.

With a white girl. A white girl with long, straight, light-brown hair.

Here, take a look:

Now, pursuant to the discussion above (authors have not much/no say over their covers), plenty of photo realistic covers misrepresent characters in some way. Indeed, if you plow through the comments at Larbalestier’s blog or (if you dare) here at Boing Boing, you will see plenty of people happily Missing The Point and telling the sad tale of the time their red-haired protagonist was portrayed as auburn or something.

The publisher would like us to pretend that this is not a particularly egregious case of racist whitewashing (a problem endemic in publishing), but a matter of taste, perhaps even a bit of a literary game, a visual play on a admittedly secondary, but still valid interpretation of Larbalesteir’s text.

Don’t believe me? Let’s listen to Melanie Cecka, who worked on Liar, and defended the cover in Publishers Weekly:

“The entire premise of this book is about a compulsive liar,” said Melanie Cecka, publishing director of Bloomsbury Children’s Books USA and Walker Books for Young Readers, who worked on Liar. “Of all the things you’re going to choose to believe of her, you’re going to choose to believe she was telling the truth about race?”

Well, imagine that! Never mind that the author herself, and any reasonable interpretation of the text, would say otherwise. Never mind that Micah’s racial identity is crucial to the book. She’s a liar, so of course she would lie about her race. And of course the publisher only intended to make a clever play on this fact with the cover:

“Clearly, our striving for ambiguity with this cover, and for it to be interpreted as a ‘lie’ itself didn’t work for everyone. But again, if this jacket proves a catalyst for a bigger discussion about how the industry is dealing with its books on race, that’s a very large good to come of this current whirlwind.”

As someone noted in one of the comment threads (apologies– I can’t find the exact one at the moment), it’s a given that Cecka and Bloomsbury would have put a black girl on the cover of a book about a white pathological liar.

Wait, what’s that? You mean to tell me that there are criminally few YA books that prominently feature black faces? And those that are tend to be relegated to the “Urban” section of the bookstore? You mean that a YA novel with a black face on the cover has never had the full weight of a publishing house behind it (announced print run for Liar: 100,000 copies)?

I’d hope this would speak for itself, but if not, here’s the explicit version: Bloomsbury is in high ass-covering mode, and they are grasping at the only defense they have, despite the way it disrespects both the text and their audience, because they know on some level that what they did was wrong.

Not just wrong, but racist.

Frankly, I don’t think we should let them get away with it. Write about this on your blogs, your livejournals, your facebook updates and your tweets. If you like, contact Bloomsbury by phone or email and let them know that you find this behavior unacceptable.

And let me just say this, even if it were unequivocally true that Black Covers Don’t Sell (the thinking that pervades the industry), that would still make what Bloomsbury has done equally abhorrent. Money and marketing does not give you a free pass to be racist. “Practical” considerations don’t make it okay to pretend that a black character is white just to attract more readers. For the record, I doubt this is true, but you know what? I don’t fucking care. Morals for profits has never been an even trade.

I am very glad that this conversation is happening, but not in the way Cecka seems to think it is. I’m glad that we are finally getting a glimpse behind the curtain, an insight into the way racist thinking pervades the still almost-entirely-white publishing industry. I am also glad that we are seeing the vast disconnect between multi-cultural, engaged, and online YA readers and the apparently clueless people publishing books for them. It has been heartening to read the multiple posts by librarians and bookstore buyers who have expressed their desire for more black and non-white faces on book covers, because their readers are hungry for them. ***

In the spirit of that, here’s a great list of YA about POC, compiled by a YA reader of color as part of a guest post on Larbalestier’s blog. And if you know of other great YA that explicitly feature a person (or people!) of color on the cover, please link to it in the comments. Surely the best way to prove Bloomsbury wrong is to make sure that Black Books DO Sell.

*** It’s not really appropriate for this post, but I do want to get into the impression that some people seem to have that books about race are therefore about racism (scroll down a bit). I am baffled about the presence of most of those books on that list (Their Eyes Were Watching God?) Invisible Man is about racism. It’s also one of the finest books of the 20th century. The rest? They’re about the experiences of black people in regards to a whole host of issues, of which race is an integral part. Why do some feel it’s okay to dismiss books as being “about racism,” even if it were true? Is this just another example of the apparently pathological desire of some people to pretend/wish/pray that race doesn’t exist, such that any mention of race becomes, in their minds, automatically a depiction of racism? Does this say much, much more about them than the books they discuss? But yes, another post.

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We talk a lot about racism in America (particularly the violent sort of racism usually tied into supremacy groups) and it tends to be viewed as the only “real” problematic behavior by a lot of people. A smaller set of conversations also recognize aversive racism (stereotypes, even “positive” ones are not okay and often are completely invalid), and occasionally we even wade into this new ground of what I call “victim” racism. What’s that? That’s when people say racist things and then swear up and down they are not racist and are deeply offended at any implication that they are racist. This one often involves someone saying things like “Why is it okay to have the United Negro College Fund? That’s reverse racism” and seems to be rooted in a refusal to grasp even the slightest bit of historical context. Then again, it’s not like high school history classes are about putting events in context. For some reason in most places that doesn’t happen until college and by then the classes are mostly optional. But that’s a whole other conversation and while I might write that post, today’s offering for International Blog Against Racism Week pertains to the things that don’t get discussed outside of closed doors most of the time.

Namely what happens when you grow up in a culture saturated with racism and you are a POC. I’ve talked some about learning to love my appearance, but I don’t think I’ve ever talked about learning to love my culture. About learning to see being black as a gift and not a curse. There’s a community on LJ called Oreos which is devoted to black folks that don’t feel like they are like “those” black people. And of course there is no true yardstick of blackness, but then again that feeling of being separate isn’t about being black enough, it’s about not liking the parts of yourself that you’ve deemed as being too black. Quiet as it’s kept, I went through this whole phase where I was the black friend that said I didn’t mind white people saying nigger or who sat there silent and uncomfortable while the white people around me said things about black people and then offered (sometimes with a hint of shame) that they didn’t mean black people like me.

And of course my discomfort with myself meant that I had my share of conflicts with the “mean” black girls of such renown. Now that I am a mean black girl? I can totally see what they were trying to do when they teased me for always hanging out with white kids and my (terrifying) tendency to put up with the kind of ill shit that I’d slap someone for now. It wasn’t (just) about being mean, it was about knocking some sense into me. Because I drank from the Goblet of Internalized Racism and in between my moments of looking down on them for being ghetto (too loud, too rough, too dark, and whatever else I was so busy judging I couldn’t even consider the reality that we were growing up in the same damned neighborhood) I was setting myself up to play Happy Token Darkie. And no one likes to watch a black person coon…well except for bigots. I can’t even claim that I had no idea that I was cooning, because of course when I heard the “those black people” comments a part of me wanted to scream at them. But I didn’t. Not at first. Certainly not at Whitney Young (admittedly it wasn’t anywhere near as overt as at Downers Grove North) and it took me a while once I was surrounded by overt racism to start to find my blackness and my love for my skin and my culture. But in the pressure cooker that was life between 15 and 25 I finally found it and I’ve had to learn over the years since to nurture it and let it grow.

Of course this process hasn’t been easy or comfortable or even particularly straightforward. Because self-hating black folk have a lot of reasons to keep the hate. Start with the rewards they can reap from the establishment for jumping on the bandwagon (if I never see another black Republican sharing a stage with a guy who makes no secret of being proud of flying the Confederate flag it will be too soon) and add all the pathology that can form as a result of the reinforcement provided by the institutional racism that is part of our society and you get people that have their whole identity invested in telling other black people that they are doing it wrong. And this phenomenon isn’t limited to Bill Cosby’s rantings about pound cake, La Shawn Barber or whoever is playing Uncle Ruckus this week. They’ll expound on the subject of marriage in the black community (bonus points if they trot out that tired old gem about more black men in jail than in college), the evils of single motherhood (Welfare Queen anecdata is a given, but the real deal involves expecting them to have a crystal ball and foresee any possible changes in their circumstances), or explaining why black women aren’t attractive (something about being too independent, not feminine enough, or just flat out saying that only lighter skin tones are attractive to men of any color), because tearing each other down is a primary drive when you’ve internalized the message that you’re worth less simply because of the color of your skin. Hence we get fun things like colorism and growing up hearing about “acting white” and even the train wreck that is skin bleaching.

Now, the purpose of my posting this wasn’t to have a Race 101 conversation about terms and being nice to people who didn’t mean to say “those black people” or even to have the age old “Why are all the black kids sitting together?” discussion. No, it’s a Race 498 conversation about the insidious way racism worms it way into the fabric of a society. It’s a chance to point out that saying “My black friend X says that nigger doesn’t bother him…” doesn’t win you any cookies in a discussion about race because the people you’re talking to have already swum that stream and they know X has some shit to deal with, but that shit isn’t part of *this* conversation. See, I don’t care about your black friend (though I do want you to reevaluate how you define friend if there’s any sort of power imbalance in the relationship since generally people don’t want to torpedo their career by telling a colleague off mid-meeting) or if you’re crying hot bitter tears about someone calling you a racist. Because that’s your problem to work out, and I will never think being called a bigot (especially after you say something ignorant) is more painful than being called a nigger. I’ve been called both over the years (and I’m sure someone will say I’m projecting), but I can laugh off bigot pretty easily while nigger always draws me up short for a second or ten. So no, I don’t care about fixing race relations by using the “right tone” or about comforting the “victims” of the crime that is being called a bigot.

I care about what racism is doing to little girls with Afro puffs sitting at the mirror and wishing for straight hair. I care about little boys that can’t quite imagine their dreams coming true because of the color of their skin. In these discussions about race and representation? It’s not about the dominant culture finding us worthwhile. It’s about making sure that our children can find themselves worthwhile. It’s about being able to see our reality instead of the ugly lies that pass as the stereotype of the week. So yes, while it is a TV show, it isn’t *just* a TV show. They say money is the root of all evil, and I suppose that’s technically true. But racism is the toxin in the water flowing over those roots and unless and until we manage to purify the stream, evil has more than a toe hold in this world. It will make sure the Tree of Life continues to bear a bitter fruit that poisons us all. Combating it will require more than laws, pretty words, and the occasional step forward in the recognition of racism. It’s hard internal work that we all have to do, even if we’re not all doing the same kind of work.

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