Monthly Archives: October 2010
A Halloween two-fer
At a Children’s Memorial Hospital fundraiser, not one but two guys chose to dress in blackface. One was Lockport alderman John Robert Krzos. The other guy is apparently lucky enough not to have any kind of fame, because he wasn’t named.
You do have to wonder about all the people at the party and why they didn’t say anything. Krzos apparently posted his picture in blackface on facebook. So either nobody said anything to him, or he didn’t listen when they did.
It is somewhat encouraging to see the Tribune has run two articles about blackface in the past two days, especially given its previous vigorous defense of dressing up as Indians. Although I suspect most people don’t learn their lessons as concepts (making an identity into a costume is unacceptable) but rather as individual bits unrelated to systemic racism (black people are offended by blackface). Therefore I am still not hopeful that racist concepts and the racist imagination will be recognized.
The annual Halloween post
2007. 2008. 2009. I don’t have the energy to write the long post every year. But I write a bunch of short ones. Use the handy search box and input “Halloween” or “blackface” or “yellowface” and a scad of posts will pop up for your reading pleasure.
In the year 2010, one might hope that one might not have to tell people that they are contributing to systemic racism through their Halloween costumes. That such costumes play into dehumanization and ridicule of other groups. That our ethnicities are not something you can try on for fun.
But people still need to be told. And even when they have been told, they still just don’t get it. (I’m looking at you, dreadlock crafter! And don’t think I didn’t notice that you deleted a lot of comments that explained quite clearly just what was wrong with your Halloween costume.) Read the rest of this entry
‘Shifting the blame’
“Justice not Vengeance.”
That will be the banner flying on Wednesday at a Rutgers rally. But what would justice look like for Tyler Clementi, the college student who committed suicide after his roommate streamed video of him during an intimate encounter? How does it differ from vengeance?
Commenters on this post about Molly Wei mentioned the anti-Asian racism directed towards Wei and Ravi. But here’s the first I’ve heard of it from the media: Read the rest of this entry
Where are you from?
No, I mean where are you really from?
Somebody from one of the Asian American listservs told me that the Evil Chinese Professor ad was filmed in Washington D.C. As usual, the Angry Asian Man has the scoop:
So yes, I was an extra for this commercial. The way I got involved in this commercial is by signing up to be an extra for Transformers 3, which was being filmed in DC. So I got an email from my Kollaboration staff (I am on the board for Kollaboration DC) saying that they were filming Transformers 3 (Our show just ended btw too, like a week ago). Some of us signed up to be extras and a couple of us got called for this commercial because the Transformers 3 shoot was full, and they informed me that it was for a conservative – political ad, so I was aware of the political stance (thinking it wouldn’t be a serious issue). So thats basically how I got involved.
USCIS fee changes effective November 23
If you want to petition for an Alien Relative, do it now. Adoptive parents, get that Certificate of Citizenship and save big time.
Interestingly, one of the fees that is decreasing is the Petition for Alien Fiance(e).
Full schedule of fee changes after the jump. Read the rest of this entry
‘Hate-crime laws turn thoughts into crimes’
From the Washington Post:
Almost as bad as hate crimes themselves is the designation. It is a little piece of totalitarian nonsense, a way for prosecutors to punish miscreants for their thoughts or speech, both of which used to be protected by the Constitution (I am an originalist in this regard). It is not the criminal act alone that matters anymore but the belief that might have triggered the act. For this, you can get an extra five years or so in the clink.
Except hate crime legislation doesn’t actually penalize hateful thoughts. But this sort of rhetoric is a good example of the wild exaggeration made by people in the majority when they feel their privilege begin to slip. It’s another flawed Free Speech! argument. Read the rest of this entry
Word substitution
From USA Today:
Infants follow the gazes of robots who adults treat as people, a study shows, but ignore ones they don’t. The study offers clues to how children learn to think of others as people, not things.”Children learn from us all the time, even when we think they aren’t watching,” says psychologist Andrew Meltzoff of the University of Washington in Seattle. “One of the things they are watching is who we treat as thinking beings.”
By the way, I saw that kid again recently. Somebody kept trying to give her to me because they thought she was my child. You know, because I might not understand English very well and I said, “No, she’s not mine.” She was doing her darndest to avoid my gaze.
Michael Futi – update
Michael Futi was 14 days old and flew to Honolulu for medical treatment with his mother and a nurse. He and the nurse held U.S. passports. Customs and Border Protection detained them. Michael Futi died. His parents sued. The decision was in July 2010. Here is the the conclusion of the Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law:
Without establishing the time that Michael would have arrived at Kapiolani, the court cannot determine whether Michael would have survived, much less whether he would have had a chance of survival. Further, even accepting Plaintiffs’ timeline, Plaintiffs have presented no evidence that had Michael arrived at Kapiolani by 6:08 a.m., he had any chance of survival. Specifically, no doctors and/or experts provide any opinion which allows the court to go beyond speculation in determining Michael’s chances of survival at 6:08 a.m. Accordingly, Plaintiffs have failed to establish that the loss of chance doctrine should apply to these facts.
146. In sum, the court concludes that Plaintiffs have not established actionable negligence on the part of the United States. As such, no discussion of damages is warranted or necessary.
Because of course your chance of survival is equal, whether you are locked inside a room with no monitor or on your way to a hospital.
You can read the whole thing here.
