Symbolic Racism in the 08 election

Sacramento GOP Web site encouraged people to 'waterboard Obama'

Sacramento County Republican leaders Tuesday took down offensive material on their official party Web site that sought to link Sen. Barack Obama to Osama bin Laden and encouraged people to "Waterboard Barack Obama" — material that even offended state GOP leaders.

By Ed Fletcher

Sacramento Bee

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Sacramento County Republican leaders Tuesday took down offensive material on their official party Web site that sought to link Sen. Barack Obama to Osama bin Laden and encouraged people to "Waterboard Barack Obama" — material that even offended state GOP leaders.

Link

Political elections usually bring out the worst in people, but I've never seen such extreme statements made by such high status organizations. Is this a sign of symbolic racism?

Racism and mental contamination in the election

Mental contamination is when one concept becomes associated with another concept via association. It's just strengthening the linkages between nodes in a semantic network.

Here is a very subtle attempt at that during the election.














I've been told that's it's a Republican ad (tho I haven't been able to confirm that).

It's not just that Obama lacks experience. That's related to him being black.

Study Finds Blacks Reap Smaller Financial Gains From Certain Majors

From the Chronicle of Higher Education

November 7, 2008

Study Finds Blacks Reap Smaller Financial Gains From Certain Majors

Jacksonville, Fla. — Black students who major in high-paying fields appear to reap smaller financial gains when they enter the job market than do comparable Asian- and Hispanic-American students, according to a new study of minority scholarship applicants.

The study, scheduled to be discussed here tomorrow at the annual conference of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, tracked about 350 students who had applied for the Gates Millennium Scholars Program for low-income minority students and had gone through its selection process. The students, who graduated from high school in the spring of 2000 and entered college the following academic year, were surveyed by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago at various intervals until six years after their graduation from high school.

Because the Gates program looks well beyond the SAT scores of scholarship applicants, and examines a host of psychological traits related to college persistence and early earnings, focusing on that population helped the researchers ensure comparability among the students being studied.

Even when comparable students majored in the same fields, the economic benefits they reaped from college upon entering the job market varied substantially by race and ethnicity, according to a paper on the study’s findings by Tatiana Melguizo, an assistant professor of higher education at the University of Southern California, and Gregory C. Wolniak, a research scientist at the National Opinion Research Center.

The salary premium that Asian- and Hispanic-American students received from majoring in science, technology, mathematics, or engineering was 50 percent higher than what black students who had majored in those fields were earning soon after college, the study found. Asian- and Hispanic-American students also reaped a higher salary premium than did black students for majoring in professional fields such as business or law.

The researchers say they did not look into whether discrimination explained the gaps they found because they did not have sufficient data matching students with their employers. They found some evidence that variations in occupational choices may play a role, but said more research was needed there as well.

Their paper concludes that, “in a scholarship program or campus-based policies aimed at promoting economic outcomes, attention needs to be placed on how and why students choose their field of study, as well as the manner in which their education influences their occupational attainment.” —Peter Schmidt

http://chronicle.com/news/article/5456/study-finds-blacks-reap-smaller-financial-gains-from-certain-majors

Racism in the 2008 Presidential Campaign?

Earlier this week, Palin told a group of donors in Colorado that "this is not a man who sees America like you and I see America."


A half-minute clip of the "that one" remark.

Wall Street Journal's article.

This article is from Canada.

CNN's editorial holds that it wasn't racist.

A civil rights leader: McCain is playing with fire.

Racism - alive and well

Louisiana State Lawmaker Considering Legislation to Fund Sterilizations

Louisiana State Representative John LaBruzzo is considering proposing a plan that would pay poor women $1,000 to be sterilized. He has said the program would be voluntary, could involve sterilization of both women and men, could encourage other forms of birth control, and could include tax incentives that would encourage people in higher socio-economic classes to have more children.

Shana Griffin, interim director of the New Orleans Women's Health Clinic said that "if we really want to improve the lives of people in our communities we would think about raising the minimum wage, holistic health care, improving labor laws, employment opportunities for all people and the educational system….Instead he wants to use a form of medical experimentation and forces sterilization on poor women of color, using their economic status as a way to make them more vulnerable to the offer."

Link

Punishment in schools and racism

DALLAS – More than 200,000 US public school students were punished by beatings during the 2006-2007 school year, Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union said in a joint report released today. In the 13 states that corporally punished more than 1,000 students per year, African-American girls were twice as likely to be beaten as their white counterparts.

link

More racism - economic

I just saw this today:

Now, what kind of American is ‘sub-prime.’ Guess. No peeking. Here’s a hint: 73% of HIGH INCOME Black and Hispanic borrowers were given sub-prime loans versus 17% of similar-income Whites. Dark-skinned borrowers aren’t stupid – they had no choice. They were ‘steered’ as it’s called in the mortgage sharking business.

Greg Palast outlines what this sub-prime morgage crisis is (and how it relates to NY state).

Construction of Racial Identity

Are you black enough?


What is being black?

United Nations Finds US Not Combating Racism Effectively

The United Nations (UN) Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination called attention to the wide racial disparities that continue to exist in the US. The Committee concluded March 7 after finding the US lacking in its pursuit of the end of racial discrimination. The Committee's report on the US criticized persistent racial profiling, the dismantling of affirmative action, inadequate access to health care, and the racial disparities in the US criminal justice system. The UN also condemned the racial inequities in reproductive and sexual health care in the US. The Center for Reproductive Rights reports that that the Committee urged the US to reduce its high rates of maternal and infant mortality, to decrease the rate of unplanned pregnancies, and to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS. The Reproductive Health Reality Check pointed out that women of color have significantly worse sexual health than white women.

From, Feminist Daily News WireMarch 17, 2008

Black people in advertising

Consumed Edward F. Boyd b. 1914
Sales Leader
By ROB WALKER
Published: December 30, 2007
He knew that advertising was all about fantasy, but it was a fantasy that black consumers might want a part of.