White Evangelicals and their "Toolsets"

An excerpt from my other blog about race relations and white evangelicals:

The racially important cultural tools in the white evangelical tool kit are “accountable freewill individualism,” “relationism” (attaching central importance to interpersonal relationships), and antistructuralism (inability to perceive or unwillingness to accept social structural influences).

…

Absent from their accounts is the idea that poor relationships might be shaped by social structures, such as laws, the ways institutions operate, or forms of segregation. Again, understanding evangelicals’ cultural tools illuminates why this element is missing. White evangelicals not only interpret race issues by using accountable freewill individualism and relationalism, but they often find structural explanations irrelevant or even wrongheaded…Evangelicals are thus also antistructural because they believe that invoking social structures shifts guild away from the root source—the accountable individual. However, evangelicals are selectively aware of social institutions—they see those both impact them in their own social location and tend to undermine accountable freewill individualism. For instance, they are aware of affirmative action because such programs can impact them in their social location, and they tend to oppose such programs because they go against evangelical understanding of accountable freewill individualism.

"Japan Probe" Here to Defend the Most Oppressed People on Earth...Whitey!

So while browsing through Twitter I saw a Tweet by the women over at Disgrasian that stated:

We Don't Care About White People, Apparently

They then linked to a blog post that took "offense" to their position on the McDonalds "Mr. James" ads over in Japan. In their blog post they wrote:

Interestingly, there are some foreigners and non-natives in Japan riled up about this humiliating depiction of themselves, going so far as to compare Mr. James to Stepin Fetchit. Because there aren't enough positive depictions of beautiful and sophisticated foreigners selling things to the Japanese, apparently.

Sothese riled up white people are actually comparing this ad campaign to Stepin Fetchit, who played every single bad and humiliating stereotype associated with Black people during the 1930s. Disgrasian blogs:

I find the outrage leveled at this Mr. James character by certain people to be verging on histrionic. Comparing Mr. James to Stepin Fetchit? Really? Stepin Fetchit was an African-American stereotype popularized in the 20's and 30's. He was known as "the laziest man in the world," and "a befuddled, mumbling, shiftless fool." But one of these fools is not like the other. It's important to remember context here, that Stepin Fetchit was a minstrel character created during the time of Jim Crow laws, segregation, and the systematized oppression of African-Americans that followed slavery. I mean, slavery, okay? Over two hundred years of slavery. It's morally bankrupt to put a fool like Mr. James on par with a fool like Stepin Fetchit; stereotypes like Stepin Fetchit were instruments, ultimately, in reinforcing the second-class status of blacks--and not just socially, mind you, but legally. Stepin Fetchit didn't merely offend. Stepin Fetchit made the abuse of our constitution, the miscarriage of justice, the legalization of inequality, and the back of the bus only that much easier to live with.

But, one thing that really undermines Japan Probe's argument is not just the stupidity of their argument but the fucking advertisements on their god damned page!

Such as this one
And if that one doesn't scream fucked up and racist this one sure as hell does!

Hey, Japan Probe, not that I want to give you sound advice or anything, but before you make an argument about...No, wait, never mind, I definetly do NOT want to give you dumb mother fuckers sound advice on anything.

Racial Targeting Within the Thin Blue Line

I recently read an illuminating article in the New York Times about the recent shooting of Black police officer Omar J. Edwards by his "fellow" white cop Andrew P. Dunton. Now its not exactly getting to the heart of the systemic institutionalized racism that is at the heart of this country (that would be expecting too much, unfortunately, from an elite newspaper) but it did do a good job in going over the incidents of inter-racial police shootings of fellow officers since the shooting death of John A. Holt Jr. (pictured) in 1940 to the present.

One thing that is most glaring that (except in one incident presented by the article) all of the shooters were white and all of the victims were Black or Latino. Yet in the color blind ideology that pervades our present day society many folks are quick to point out that while racial motivations might have been a factor in the past they weren't a factor in this one. What is a factor is "training." In fact, one of the interviewees pointed out:

“Same deal always,” he says of the deadly encounter between colleagues on Thursday night. “They’ll say it’s about training.”

In fact, that is what exactly was said in a article in that same days paper:

“[S]omething is going to have to be done,” added Mr. Glenn, an officer with the 67th Precinct in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, choking up. “Maybe more training or something. I don’t know what we are going to do.”

I'm not suggesting that more training won't prevent more inter-racial shootings but by focusing solely on reactionary training people are ignoring the causes of the shooting, racial prejudice.

Obviously, as Edwards' father-in-law points out, Dunton didn't walk onto the streets with the mindset of actually wanting to kill a fellow Black officer but what was in his mind, more than likely, are all of the stereotypes of Blacks that are perpetuated by our media, national mythologies, everyday conversations, and our society in general. One succinct quote sums it up well:

“If you speak with nine out of 10 officers of color they would tell you that when they hear sirens, in their head they are thinking: ‘I hope these cops know that I’m one of the good guys.’”

All of this points back to the systemic racism that makes Blacks and people of color in general more likely the victims of police misconduct, shootings, harassment, and target ting. A system in were people or color are ghettoized by political institutions while many whites get to live in suburbs. Unless we address this system (as the police force is a part of that system and is obviously made up of folks who grew up in this system, which is everyone) shootings like these will continue to happen, and it won't just be cops of color who are the victims.

Crazed Euro-Centric Whitey Bullshit I Deal With at Graduate School

Cross-posted from The Mustard Seed.

Whitey committing genocide against the Native population...No wait...I need to be "objective." I mean, whitey "negotiating land rights" with the Native population...there we go.

As those of you who have read my About page will know I am pursuing my Masters in Divinity (same as Masters in Theology but one extra year of "pastoral formation" and such) at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. Here is an example of some of the great fantastic knowledge I have to put up with.

For an online class (in where we meet for discussion once a week) one of the questions was this:

What are some ways the new context of independence and establishment of the United States shaped American religion?

And my very mild answer was this (bold was added for this blog, just me being slightly snarky)...(Click here to read the rest)

SPEAK! CD Radical Women of Color Speak Out

Cross-posted from The Mustard Seed.

Found it via cripchick's weblog:

Compiled and arranged by Liquid Words Productions, the spoken word CD weaves together the stories, poetry, music, and writings of women of color from across the United States. The 20 tracks, ranging from the explosive “Why Do You Speak?” to the reverent “For Those of Us,” grant a unique perspective into the minds of single mothers, arrested queer and trans activists, excited children, borderland dwellers, and exploring dreamers, among many others.

John Hope Franklin, Black Scholar and Activist, Died at Age 94

John Hope Franklin, a prolific scholar of African-American history who profoundly influenced thinking about slavery and Reconstruction while helping to further the civil rights struggle, died Wednesday in Durham, N.C. He was 94.

...

In an article in The Atlantic Monthly in 2007, he wrote, “If the American idea was to fight every war from the beginning of colonization to the middle of the 20th century with Jim Crow armed forces, in the belief that this would promote the American idea of justice and equality, then the American idea was an unmitigated disaster and a denial of the very principles that this country claimed as its rightful heritage.” (Read the rest of the obituary here)

When White Kids Have Spontaneous Fun, Working Class People of Color Left to Clean Up Their Shit

[Hat tip: xMabaitx and SF Chronicle]