Article on the Language of the GOP

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/04/opinion/04blow.html?scp=1&sq=blow&st=cse

This is an article by this guy Charles Blow. He write every saturday i think, maybe friday, for the NEw York Times. Very eclectic writer. You should look out for him.

California Politics

I've enjoyed reading all of your great thoughts and I was interested in any feedback you had on this piece I wrote for my College Democrats about California Politics.

Obligation of Athletes

http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/basketball/news;_ylt=Al7S8QYQzBPij6pPVGHczC68vLYF?slug=dw-darfur080708&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

I think this is extremely interesting. Should athletes speak about issues such as Darfur? The olympics is about cross cultural cooperation and peace so isn't kind of antithetical to the idea of the games to ignore issues of international importance? In 1980 the US boycotted the games due to protest of a war, which I think shows that politics and human rights should be part of the olympics. For those of you that know me, you know that I also think that American athletes should also address issues of inequality because they are such public figures and carry weight in communities that are often oppressed. Do you think that there is a difference between the olympics and regular American sports in terms of having an obligation to discuss and bring fourth important societal issues? Or do you think they are the same? My friend had an essay question on the GRE which asked whether athletes have an obligation to give back to their communities- she said they were looking for you to say no, looks like I'm going to fail my GRE's.

I will respond to Coos's post soon.

To Label

Below are two articles ... the first is about how to measure gender for the olympics, the second is about John McCain's treatment of Barack Obama as the Black candidate. Both articles are somewhat provocative, considering the ideas floating around these days, and for the record i agree with the sentiments of both articles. Two articles that seemingly have nothing to do with each other on the surface, are in fact dealing with the same issue. It is the issue of the label, or the name. 

Barack Obama is the Black candidate--that is for sure. His presumptuous trip abroad where he may not know his place comes from a white supremacist mindset.  The mainstream media is one step shy of calling him boy. His campaign is referred to as historic, which is a constant reminder of his blackness. We must keep in mind that everything is historic, for it turns into history in the blink of an eye. Let not the label of history hide the intentions of white supremacist beliefs. They run deep amongst us. And so we name him the black candidate, conscious or un-conscious. 

Gender testing at the Olympics is very practical on the one hand, if we are to have fair competition. Right?  Sports have been separated by gender as each gender couldn't compete with each other because that would be unfair to either of the given genders. Each is better at some stuff and worse at others. And thus separate but equal conditions ensue. But we are too smart to know what leads to separate but equal situations (Hint: it's a mindset of domination) and we are too smart to know what occurs with separate but equal (Hint: it's not equal). And so we have Men's sports and Woman's sports, and one of them gets unprecedented media attention, and thus our attention (Hint: it's not the woman). 

Men are supposed to be competitive and in some sports, brutal. While woman are supposed to act like ladies. Just as blacks are not supposed to be in a position of control that goes with confidence. White confidence equals black presumptuousness. Male brutality equals female dykiness. And so we are all left with "black" and "female" are lesser than "white" and "male." 

None of this is new--people have been saying this for years. I only wish to show how widespread this male dominated white supremacist ideology continues to be.  No matter how small it shows itself, it exists. And it is all related! 

The two articles deal with the issue of how we label...we think that labels exist to separate and create ease of recognition. But what are we recognizing in a label but a preconceived notion of whatever it is we are labeling? So do we not label anything? How would we define anything? To go to a "Label-free" society might have a similar oppressive feel as a "color-blind" society. Color-blindness is a neo-conservative political tool to undermine issue of race. A similar disaster could occur for gender and class and the physically and mentally "disabled." 

So i don't know what we can do. But I ask us all to keep in the back of our head the oppression that is inherent in a label. Because who is it that is doing the labeling? 

  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/02/opinion/02herbert.html

  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/opinion/03boylan.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&_ref=opinion

 

More Election

Well to continue on with my comments on the biggest election I've ever seen; I have two more interesting bits of info. Going by polling data Obama would have 323 electoral votes compared to 206 for McCain; extremely lopsided. And, maybe because someone has picked up on this, the media might be backing down from calling this a horse race (as this link shows http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/7/22/72553/8490/286/555014). Maybe someone from Time read the blog!

College Tuition

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/21/education/21endowments.html?ex=1217304000&en=5f2da12e1a9c4dfc&ei=5070&emc=eta1

On The Election

As the summer extends andthe Dog Days of August approach, I find myself worrying about my Red Sox and David Ortiz's hand a little too much, and worrying to little about the poll numbers in the biggest election I've ever seen. RealClearPolitics.com has Obama only up 4 points nationally, and hes down 2 points in Florida (huge as we know) and 2 points in Missouri (called the bellwether state because its ability to predict the winner of the presidency every year since 1904, excluding one). And yet, I can't think of a single reason to elect John McCain as president (being an Obamaholic, I could give you pages upon pages of flowery prose on the Democrat's savior).
McCain is old. Hes really old. He would be the oldest president ever. He has had every known skin cancer, which on the outside doesn't seem like something that is working against him but in reality the American people are voting for their president, not vice-president (in the case of death). Hes a Neo-Con on foreign policy. He has claimed to not really understand the economy in the past. He doesn't know how to operate a computer. He has great admiration for one of the most unpopular presidents in America's history. In his one area of expertise, foreign policy, he displays both rigidity and his age; where we need a new era of world politics that combines fluidity with poise. A great example of this is his recent insistence on calling the Czech Republic, Czechoslovakia, basically ignoring the 1980's and 1990's and the fall of the Soviet Union. He has a widely known anger problem that will pop up in the next couple months. And this is all before the questions of Iraq, taxation, the "War on Terror" (god am I sick of this phrase), the woman's right to choose and other issues that the American public has trouble with.
And yet hes only 4 points down, when he should be at least double digits. A big question has to be why?
I think a lot of people will jump to racism against Obama, but it is my firm belief that while this may exist, a big reason for the small gap lies at the feet of the Media. The Media, in a large sense, and 24 hour news in a specific sense seem to have given McCain a protective bubble to hide in, in his title as a "Maverick". John McCain, the "Maverick" is a straight-talker. He doesn't play the Washington political game, he doesn't seem wishy-washy on any position, he always comes down on one-side. He also is the most dedicated champion for the American military.
It's odd how McCain gained this credibility with the Media, because as we've seen in the past and recently its not true. The most recent version of the GI Bill, sponsored by Virgina Congressman Jim Webb, McCain voted against. McCain pointed to ability for the serviceman to have full funding towards college after they serve as a reason, because they would be inclined to leave the military and not reenlist. Webb, also a decorated war veteran, called McCain "full of it" (I think he was missing the sh in front of the -it).
In my opinion the Media does this to hype the election, that every non-partisan expert believes Obama should win. They need ratings. It feeds their power. And personally it pisses me off. So my response is that in the fall I will be campaigning for Obama hard, not because I think it will be very close but because I want to kick the media in the metaphorical nuts.

The "G" Word?

In the July 4^th, 2008 issue of the “Belmar Summer Rental News,” published by the Borough of Belmar, NJ, several derogatory comments were included amidst the usual corny and cheeky jabs that the newsletter is known for. At least two articles used the slurs ‘guido’ and ‘guidette,’ and included offensive descriptions of summer renters.

The newsletter includes among its articles a list of houses that have received noise complaints or other “quality of life summonses” that week, and is decidedly a humor rag meant to entertain the year-round residents and those summer visitors with a sense of humor. However, the particular issue in question may have gone too far.

In distributing this newsletter, is Mayor Ken Pringle accidentally making a stupid mistake which will force down revenue due to a boycott? Probably not.

Belmar has become more well-known for its party-style atmosphere than some of its neighbors on the shoreline, such as the family-oriented Spring Lake. By attempting to offend, and thus drive out, the summer renters from Staten Island, the town of Belmar potentially has a lot to gain.

Wealthier vacationers, turned off by the partying in Belmar, may now consider the Borough when making their beach plans for the summer. Mayor Pringle may be thinking that wealthier vacationers will spend more money and be less abrasive. The mayor and other year-round residents may think this is a good thing, justifiable by any means.

However, the insults thrown by Pringle are reprehensible on two levels. First, there is the human level. Should a middle-aged white male, graduate of Georgetown Law School, be deriding a minority group (typically a ‘guido/ette’ is a lower- or middle-class person of Italian descent) from a position of power? Of course not. For a more in-depth look at the use of derogatory terms, see Watson’s post below.

Then, there is the political level. According to an NYTimes.com reader, Pringle is an investor in property along the Shark River Inlet in Belmar, and would reap substantial monetary gains should Belmar property values be driven up to meet demand from wealthier buyers. He title places him in a position to artificially raise property values by creating town laws and ordinances that serve his own purposes.

In short, the misguided use of derogatory words in a printed medium by a government official is bad. However, the intentional use of those same terms by a government official for potential personal gain is simply appalling. And I find it hard to believe that a man living on the Jersey Shore for at least 20 years does not know the derogatory meaning of the word ‘guido.’

This Blog

In reading Watson's post below I think he raises some very important points about our privliage that must be discussed right away. Currently, there are only four members of this blog, who are all white (Half for Watson), wealthy, males. One of the goals of this blog is to put together 100 authors who are economically, socially and racial diverse. That needs to be a cetnral goal of this blog if we are going to get an honest and powerful dialouge started. Some might say that because of the issues we want to discuss and the priviliaged possition of our lives, that the blog will never be able to diverge from the heternormative and ethnocentric roots at which it began. While I try to pride myself on being open minded, I have experienced my life in a certain way that always effects the way I look at any situation or issue. I would love for this to be a running issue in the posts. Who is allowed to speak? Why? What can I speak about as a white male, what can't I speak about? Does the fact that I created this blog only renforce the power structure that currently exists in our society? I will respond more specifically to the Nas issue in a comment, but I thought all the new members should read this.

Nas' New Album

Today while bored at work, I came across an article on CNN.com discussing Nas' new controversial album. Leaders of the African-American community, like the Rev. Al Sharpton, pressured Nas to change the name of his new album which was initially titled the n-word- resulting in Nas refusing to include an album title.

Here are some highlights from the article:

"With a host of racial issues -- the Jena Six, Don Imus, nooses -- fresh on America's mind, naming an album "Nigger" seems ill-advised. Nas, however, said his goal wasn't to upset; it was to upend a society that focuses more on pejoratives than the racial plights that spawn them."

"There's still so much wrong in the whole world with people -- poor people, people of color -- I just felt like a nice watch couldn't take that away, make me forget about that. A nice day on a yacht with rich friends couldn't make me forget about reality, what's going on," he said. "That's why I named the album that -- not just that the word is horrible, but the history behind the word, and how it relates to me, how it's affected me, offended me."

After reading this article, I wondered if I could even be able to discuss this issue in a constructive manner without sounding paternalistic or ignorant. I can't relate to the n-word and its effect on my identity or my community.

I was wondering if anyone else shared my sentiment? While this article was in the Entertainment section of CNN.com, it evidently is a complicated issue.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Music/07/16/music.nas/index.html

First Post

Hey guys-
Well I finally made the blog. A lot of us have been sharing thoughts about politics, race, class and education for years. We have sent emails and talked for hours, but I think it would be great to get some of this in written form, so we can get more of an audience involved in the dialogue. I only invited a few people, but it is open and you should invite people you think may be interested.
I love you all,
Fam