‘Dangerous resentment’?

A mom drove two 12-year-olds, an 8-year-old, a 7-year-old and a 3-year-old to the mall and dropped them off.  Then she drove home to get some rest.

What does a New York Times columnist have to say about this?

What really sent my head spinning after reading Kevane’s story was the degree to which it drove home the fact that our country’s resentment, and even hatred, of well-educated, apparently affluent women is spiraling out of control.

Really? And how do you think the police might have responded if the parent wasn’t well-educated and was poor? Do you think she might have felt some of the country’s “resentment”?

Tracing roots

An interesting story from the New York Times about children born during the war to French women and German soldiers.

July 10, 1941

Caption:  Florin, Sacramento County, California.  A soldier and his mother in a strawberry field.  The soldier, age 23, volunteered July 10, 1941, and is stationed at Camp Leonard Wood, Missouri.  He was furloughed to help his mother and family prepare for their evacuation.  He is the youngest of six children, two of them volunteers in the U.S. Army.  The mother, age 53, came from Japan 37 years ago.  Her husband died 31 years ago, leaving her to raise six children.  She worked in a strawberry basket factory until last year when her children leased three acres of strawberries “so she wouldn’t have to work for somebody else.”  The family is Buddhist.  This is her youngest son.  Her second son is in the army stationed at Ft. Bliss.  453 families are to be evacuated from this area.

From Impounded: Dorothea Lange and the censored images of Japanese American internment

Our national complexion

It is a-changing.

So CJsDaddy linked to this depressing story about some black day camp kids who were refused admittance to a private club.  The day camp had contracted with the Valley Swim Club for use of its pool. However, the day after the camp’s first swim, the club canceled its membership:

“There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club,” John Duesler, President of The Valley Swim Club said in a statement.

In stepped Girard College, which offered its pool. It very nearly gives me faith in the human race. Yes it does.

Edited to add: The Valley Swim club has modified its website to read as follows:

The Valley Club is deeply troubled by the recent allegations of racism which are completely untrue.

We had originally agreed to invite the camps to use our facility, knowing full well that the children from the camps were from multi-ethnic backgrounds. Unfortunately, we quickly learned that we underestimated the capacity of our facilities and realized that we could not accommodate the number of children from these camps. All funds were returned to the camps and we will re-evaluate the issue at a later date to determine whether it can be feasible in the future.

Our Valley Club deplores discrimination in any form, as is evidenced by our multi-ethnic and diverse membership. Whatever comments may or may not have been made by an individual member is an opinion not shared by The Valley Club Board.

‘Interracial Roommates Can Reduce Prejudice’

Except!

Several studies have shown that living with a roommate of a different race changes students’ attitudes. One, from the University of California at Los Angeles, generally found decreased prejudice among students with different-race roommates — but those who roomed with Asian-Americans, the group that scored the highest on measures of prejudice, became more prejudiced themselves.

And why might that be, you ask? From the study:

Oh my.

I never went to see Borat, because just about everybody I know told me that I would hate it.  Plus I hate to pay money to be aggravated when so much free annoyance is available.

And yet I got a funny little twitch at the corner of my mouth when I found out that Paul Cameron appears in Bruno. Who is Paul Cameron, you ask?  Why, he’s the chair of the Family Research Institute.  Its stated mission is to generate research on issues that threaten the traditional family.

As you might imagine, South Carolina governor Mark Sanford and Homosexuality are two of those issues.  (I’m sure they’re going to get around to Mark Sanford soon, since adultery is nearly as big of a threat to opposite marriage as homosexuality.) 

Didn’t get the memo

Manolo Blahnik of shoe fame:

They asked me who I wanted to give me the award: Chloë Sevigny? I said, ‘No, I don’t get her.’ Lucy Liu? Oh, she was divine, I looooove oriental girls. Do you love oriental girls? And she was wearing something by [Givenchy designer] Riccardo Tisci, who is my favourite boy – what were we talking about?”

What we were talking about? We were talking about objectification.

Dear Howard Kurtz

Your Washington Post article is titled “Black Reporters on the beat of Michelle Obama:  Does race play a role in coverage?“

Allow me to answer your (rhetorical?) question:  Why yes, it does. But you don’t nearly go deep enough in your analysis.

First, you list five (five!) black female reporters among “nearly two dozen journalists.”  Why, that’s more than 20 percent!  I’m actually a little shocked by this, because typically the White House press is a pretty white bunch.

The land of the free

Well.

Thomas Parker, who was linked to a number of sexual assaults against Asian women, was found dead in his jail cell.