“That Conversation about Race” category archive
The Trumpling Goes Viral 0
This is your–our–country on Trump.
(snip)
But as a bus rolled past, the man again yelled out, this time screaming at the driver to “run them all over,” Zhu said.
He turned to her and she knew it was coming.
“Please don’t,” she said.
“Right after I said that, he spit on me,” Zhu said. “I didn’t really know what to do.”
The story goes on to describe a web site being created to track such hate-full incidents.
Words fail me.
Contagion 0
Chauncey DeVega analyzes the role of racism in the spread of coronavirus in the United States and in the federal government’s less than competent response thereunto.
No summary or excerpt will do his piece justice. Just read it.
A Notion of Immigrants 0
The Des Moines Register’s brilliant Rekha Basu tags the Maytag Foundation (which is no longer in any way related to the appliance manufacturer) for its financial support of an anti-immigrant spin factory.
The Bush that Is Beaten Around 0
When someone argues that Confederate Monuments symbolize history, ask him or her to clarify what precisely is the history that they symbolize.
Bigotry Goes (Corona)Viral 0
I have noted from time to time in these electrons the increase of incidents of cruelty and bigotry directed at persons (who look as if they might be) of Asian descent since stories of the coronavirus entered the news. As if a virus gave a damn . . . .
Valentina Stoycheva, writing at Psychology Today Blogs, examines how persons excuse themselves from culpability for their cruelty during such a health scare. An excerpt (emphasis added):
Racism Goes Coronaviral 0
At The Philadelphia Inquirer, television newsperson Nydia Han, who is of Asian descent, makes a request:
My dad does not have coronavirus. Neither do I. So please don’t treat us like we do.
Follow the link for the rest, and feel shame that she had to say it.
The Colorbind Society 0
At the Hartford Courant, sociology professor Johnny E. Williams reminds us that “race” is a social construct fiction created to legitimize white dominance. Specifically, it was formed in the English colonies in the colonial period so as to justify chattel slavery and theft of labor.
Here’s a bit from his article:
But there is no “white race.”
Whiteness is a shared conglomeration of fabricated meanings and ideas about biologically insignificant human differences. Whiteness only exists in relation or opposition to blackness and other fictitious racial categories created by whiteness adherents for the purpose of cementing a higher status and material advantage over other people that are excluded from being white.
A Notion of Immigrants 0
The writer of a letter to the editor of The Tampa Bay Times asks a good question regarding Donald Trump’s latest attempt to restrict the American dream to persons whose looks he likes (follow the link for the complete letter):
The Law’s Delay 0
Nancy LeTorneau reports on the years of efforts to pass a federal anti-lynching law that preceded the recent successful passage of such legislation (which, as of this writing, has not yet been signed).







