“That Conversation about Race” category archive

At the Portland Press-Herald, Victoria Hugo-Vidal hears a rhyme. Here’s a tiny bit of her column:

Simplicio (the author’s great grandfather–ed.) was also mixed-race. His father was a Chinese merchant and his mother was native Filipino and Spanish. This made my great-grandfather mixed-race as well. In the America of the 1920s and 1930s, that was a major barrier to success. So the young man born Jose Maria Ysidro Bonifacio Seraller Jugo became Victor Joseph M. Hugo-Vidal. And he passed as white . . . .

At the same time as Victor was hiding his heritage, on the other side of the family on the other side of the country, in upstate New York, my other great-great-grandfather, Garrett MacEachron, joined the domestic terrorist group known as the Ku Klux Klan.

I commend the entire piece to your attention.

_________________

*Mark Twain.

At Psychology Today Blogs, Robert Bartholomew notes that there is nothing new about stories of immigrants eating pets Here’s a bit of his article (emphasis added); follow the link for context.

In the 19th century, West Coast Chinese immigrants were alleged to be eating cats and dogs, and this was used to justify discriminatory policies like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. It was also a way to dehumanize them as “the Other.” After the Vietnam War, there were widespread rumors in America that Vietnamese immigrants were stealing dogs as a food source. There have long been stories across the U.S. that pets have mysteriously gone missing near Chinese restaurants. Urban legends about Haitian migrants eating dogs and cats became prominent in the 1990s and coincided with an influx of people migrating to America from Haiti. These stories spread organically, fueled by the fear of those who are different from us and concerns that they will change the fabric of American society.

The things that you’ve seen,
And can read on your screen,
They ain’t necessarily so.

Writing at the Detroit Free Press, Arlene Frank, a daughter of Holocaust survivors who immigrated to the United States, listens to Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and hears a rhyme.

Here’s a bit:

The lies, blame, xenophobia, antisemitism and anti-immigrant sentiments that are currently being advanced are reminiscent of the Nazi propaganda that forced my father into a concentration camp and my mother to scrub the streets of her beloved Vienna while hate was spewed at her.

Follow the link to read the article.
______________

*Mark Twain.

At Psychology Today Blogs, Joseph A. Shrand considers why so many would dehumanize those from other countries and cultures, aka “aliens.” Here’s a tiny bit from his essay; follow the link for the complete article.

For one human to hurt another we first have to dehumanize them. You are not going to hurt someone you care about until they dip below the threshold of being human.