The pardon process relies on the recommendations of a special office of the White House, which takes a number of factors (not skin color) into account overtly, including things like level of remorse or financial or family factors. The process was, wisely one would have thought, depoliticized by George Bush at the beginning of his first term, so that the professional pardon lawyers’ recommendations are routinely followed, plus or minus only small variations….
Category Archives: Race and Racism
Michele Bachmann, Saint Cloud, Racism, Teabaggers and the Office of Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education
Just so you know, it’s all connected.
Is Gun Control Racist?
This is an assertion that has made the usual rounds. Here’s a recent essay on the topic, a worthwhile update:
Continue reading Is Gun Control Racist?
Morgan Freeman on the Tea Party Racism
One of those dumb British Travel Shows explores South African Racism
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Oliver – World Cup 2010: Into Africa – The Amazing Racists | ||||
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And, let’s make some fun of Dan Roodt, who should be flogged. And, then, let us contemplate the importance of primarily American based racist IQ research.
The Best of Quiche: My Journey Through Race and Racism
When I was a kid, everyone in my neighborhood was divided into categories along three dimensions. There were color differences (light vs. dark hair and skin), there was the Catholic vs. Protestant divide, and there was the binary distinction of whether or not your dad served in World War II. In fourth grade and again in seventh, I attended a new school and each time encountered a greater diversity of kids and teachers and learned about new kinds of people. At the same time, I would often visit my father at work, and during the summer he and I would have breakfast downtown at the Dewitt Clinton. Then we’d go our separate ways to our respective jobs (he had a real job…I had one of those urban make-work jobs designed to get the kids off the streets), and in these contexts, I met some adults that were different from the ones in my neighborhood.
What does an illegal immigrant look like?
Republicans Scuttle Climate Change, Immigration Reform, and Their Own Credibility.
I can’t wait until the Hispanic vote totally abandons the Republican party. Because they are certainly working on that.
(Note the Phillipe Rushton/Bell Curve, Psychometrics link)
Continue reading What does an illegal immigrant look like?
Rushton on Race and IQ
Canadian racist “scientist” J. Philippe Rushton (now dead) has made the argument that the brain size of “Blacks” is about 1267 cc’s, and for whites it is about 1347 CC’s. Rushton also claims that the average IQ of Blacks is 85 and he average IQ of whites is 100. But does Rushton say that there is a link between the two?
Continue reading Rushton on Race and IQ
Average Brain Size for the Three Races
Philipe Rushton, in his book Race, Evolution and Behavior, reports average brain size for the three races. The following is the graph from Rusthton’s book:
I put this post here for reference in a couple of conversations. The data are bogus and any conclusions that might be drawn from it are equally bogus.
My Journey Through Race and Racism (Part I)
Joey: “Hey, Greg. You’re a regular Walking Encyclopedia!”
Greg: “Thanks, Joey. I like to learn lots of stuff.”
Joey: “Mugrphhhmmmft.”
(Mugrphhhmmmft is the sound Joey’s fist makes giving Greg a bloody nose.)
Human Brain Size: Does it matter? And has it decreased?
Sometimes people walk around with only half a brain, or a large portion of their brain disconnected, or simply having never developed, or an extra large brain, and we usually take little notice. But when there is a five or ten or twenty percent difference between two groups of people we are quickly willing to use that to decide (as in the Bell Curve) that those people with the (on average) smaller brain are inferior. The fact that all the well known studies comparing groups of living people that show such differences have been shown to be bogus (i.e. made up or doctored data) is often ignored.
Anyway, the following is the abstract of a 1998 paper by M. Henneberg that is still relevant of some interest:
Continue reading Human Brain Size: Does it matter? And has it decreased?
Primitive Cultures are Simple, Civilization is Complex (A falsehood) I
This is yet another in a series of posts on falsehoods. To refresh your memory, a falsehood is a belief held by a number of people that is in some way incorrect. That incorrectness may be blatant, it may be subtle, it may be conditional, it may be simple, it may be complex. But, the unraveling of the falshoodosity of the belief is a learning experience, if it is accomplished in a thoughtful manner and without too much sophistry. In order for a falsehood to “work” as a learning opportunity it is important to define the statement in terms of the thoughts the falsehood invokes in the target audience, which may be very different than the logic intrinsic to the statement itself. For instance, with the present falsehood, I will argue that civilizations actually are complex and primitive cultures actually are simple, when looked at in a certain way. However, most people look at this issue a different way, and get it wrong. Yes, I will be deconstructing some of your cherished beliefs if you are a run of the mill Caucasoido-occidentalonormative middle class suburbanite. Which I’m sure you’re not, but if you were…
Continue reading Primitive Cultures are Simple, Civilization is Complex (A falsehood) I
A Trail of Shame: Racism and the Anti-Obama Movement
A couple of weeks ago, I published a very controversial post titled “Maybe We Should Have Elected a White President After All” about the ongoing, possibly growing racism in connection with Obama’s presidency. The idea that a lot of the anti-Obama, including anti-health care reform, rhetoric and action was racially motivated was understood by some and rejected by others who seem to not want to see any significant racism in the mix. This was parallel to the head in the sand reaction to my earlier post on the the arrest of Skip Gates in Cambridge Massachusetts last July.
There are those of us who have been saying all along that racism has played a role in anti-Obama sentiment. Does this mean that we think people who supported Hillary instead were all racists? No. Hell, they were Democrats. The vast majority were not orienting their politics in an overtly racist manner, choosing Clinton over Obama because Obama is black (though some were, as you will see below). Does it mean that we think that every objection to an Obama policy is racist? No. There are many valid objections, depending on one’s point of view, to various policies by Obama. Hell, Obama is a smart guy. He probably objects to some of his own policies! Does it mean that we think that every utterly unprecedented outburst of “You Lie!!!!!” in congress by a known racist from South Carolina during a Presidential address to the Joint Session of the House and Senate is a racist act? Well, duh…
Over the last few days the left of center and centrist/moderate wings of the mainstream press have gotten on board with this and have begun to discuss issues of racism in the current health care debate. As usual, the liberal blogosphere leads!!!
Anyway, I thought it would be fun (in a “this whole thing makes me kind of nauseated” kind of way) to compile a random grab bag, ordered in time, of racist bits and pieces from way back before the election up to recent times. Even more recent bits and pieces on this important discussion can be found by just paging back through this blog over the last two days or so.
The reason for doing this is to have a post to point to when people say “Oh yeah? What racism!!!11!!”
Here we go:
Continue reading A Trail of Shame: Racism and the Anti-Obama Movement
How racism works
Rachel Maddow and Jonathan Alter Agree with me on the Racism Thing
This is a bit long but very much worth the watch. Rachel and Jonathan Alter discuss the racialized rhetoric, the Republican strategy, and the political pattern that the current wave of unhinged and uncooth behavior is part of.
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