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| Wednesday, October 15, 2008 |
| The South, changing |
"Times change."
Rachel, on what she'd have said if I had asked her, four years ago, about the possibility that a mixed-race presidential candidate might win the electoral college votes of Arkansas.Labels: Arkansas, Obama, race, Rachel |
posted by Steve @ 10:43 PM  |
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| Tuesday, May 13, 2008 |
| West Virginia: FAIL. (Or: quote of the day) |
From Gawker, on a Clinton supporter's assertion (from the Financial Times article)that "Obama is a Muslim and his wife's an atheist":
Mr. Simpson, that does not even make sense. You think a secret radical Muslim would marry an atheist? Even if it was purely to piss off Christians? Sleeper agent jihadists are not known for their tolerance of Enlightenment principles! Seriously, West Virginia, we are going to give you back to Virginia unless you can demonstrate that you can handle statehood again. And no one wants that.
West Virginia, everybody! Land of rampant racism*, morbid obesity, and it's so poor and so unemployed that there is a town named Poverty in West Virginia. I'm making fun of you, WV. Buck up and raise yourselves.
*Although, as my Dad pointed out, the other primary of the day was the home of the largest KKK rally of all time, in Kokomo, Indiana.Labels: idiots, money, Obama, politics, race |
| posted by Steve @ 11:49 AM |
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| Friday, April 25, 2008 |
| Post-Racial |
Every generation considers itself an improvement on the previous. In some areas, it is probably true. The World War Two generation (in addition to that whole World War Two thing) was far more responsible with alcohol than the people who came of age around the 1900's. Their excesses made Prohibition sound like a good idea. Their children - the boomers - led some bone-fide revolutions in culture. But some dirt remains on their shoes, and due mostly to circumstances, the Gen-Xers and the Millennial Generations are moving the bar higher in the department of racism.
Unfortunately in total, the benefits of these generation shifts are slow - there's still plenty of the WW2 generation lowering the overall bar in terms of racism, and so it's no coincidence that the second-oldest state in the nation (Pennsylvania) used the "America isn't ready for a Black President" line with disturbing regularity. This is also an indication that Democrats are no more (or less) enlightened than Republicans; they play the race card, too. It's still everywhere.
That stark reality has garnered some fascinating sociological press, though. Philly.com has two great articles, for example.
Along those same racial lines, (and partly because the airing of these types of issues is becoming more acceptable and relevant) Harold & Kumar: Escape from Guantanamo Bay got a positive review from the New York Times largely because of the way its gross-out stoner-movie premise manages race in remarkably subtle and intelligent ways. Here is one sentence I never expected out of a review of a movie like this:
The signal achievement of both Harold and Kumar films is that they make race incidental without taking racism lightly; they presuppose an enlightened audience. "When we start to write, we're under the assumption that everyone knows racism is bad," Mr. Schlossberg said. "If you don't know that, you're a moron. Harold and Kumar's attitude toward racism is more frustration at having to deal with idiocy than moral outrage. We try to create a world where racism is stupid." Labels: old, people, race |
| posted by Steve @ 6:08 PM |
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| About Me |
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Name: Steve
Home: Tucson, Arizona, United States
About Me: I like to think about things, and I occasionally like to write what I think.
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