Beyond White Guilt

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/07/german-trial-hijab-murder-egypt

The headscarf martyr: murder in German court sparks Egyptian fury

Kate Connolly in Berlin and Jack Shenker in Cairo
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 7 July 2009 21.21 BST

It was while Marwa el-Sherbini was in the dock recalling how the accused had insulted her for wearing the hijab after she asked him to let her son sit on a swing last summer, that the very same man strode across the Dresden courtroom and plunged a knife into her 18 times.

Her three-year-old son Mustafa was forced to watch as his mother slumped to the courtroom floor.

Even her husband Elvi Ali Okaz could do nothing as the 28-year-old Russian stock controller who was being sued for insult and abuse took the life of his pregnant wife. As Okaz ran to save her, he too was brought down, shot by a police officer who mistook him for the attacker. He is now in intensive care in a Dresden hospital.

[...]

Unemployed Alex W. from Perm in Russia was found guilty last November of insulting and abusing Sherbini, screaming "terrorist" and "Islamist whore" at her, during the Dresden park encounter. He was fined ¤780 but had appealed the verdict, which is why he and Sherbini appeared face to face in court again.

Even though he had made his anti-Muslim sentiments clear, there was no heightened security and questions remain as to why he was allowed to bring a knife into the courtroom.

[...]

In Germany the government of Angela Merkel has been sharply criticised for its sluggish response to the country's first murderous anti-Islamic attack. The general secretaries of both the Central Council of Jews and the Central Council of Muslims, Stephen Kramer and Aiman Mazyek, who on Monday made a joint visit to the bedside of Sherbini's husband, spoke of the "inexplicably sparse" reactions from both media and politicians.

They said that although there was no question that the attack was racially motivated, the debate in Germany had concentrated more on the issue of the lack of courtroom security. "I think the facts speak for themselves," Kramer said.

[...]

because it occurred just days after Nicolas Sarkozy gave a major policy speech denouncing the burka, many Egyptians believe the death of Sherbini is part of a broader trend of European intolerance towards Muslims...

More news:
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/foreign/display.var.2518524.0.Egyptian_anger_after_mother_is_stabbed_to_death_by_fanatic.php
http://www.menassat.com/?q=en/news-articles/6786-egyptian-woman-s-death-germany-outrages-egyptian-blogosphere
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/world/04-egyptians-cry-racism-woman-slaying-germany-qs-07
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8141130.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8141900.stm
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=85&art_id=nw20090709124747147C631375

I'm having a hard time articulating exactly why this New York Times article bothers me as much as it does. A lot of it's the title - "Interracial Roommates Can Reduce Prejudice, Campus Studies Find" - which focuses entirely on the effects that interracial housing has on white students. Although the article does talk about the increased stress that PoC feel when housed as freshmen with white students, the focus of the article remains on all of the positive effects that such housing arrangements can have for the white kids.

There's this quotation from an Ohio State hall director that bothered me, too --

“I had one student who chose to move out, who said they just didn’t like the roommate’s friends, who were too loud,” Mr. Badaszewski said. “I thought there was a racial piece to it, but I didn’t bring it up and name it. It’s one of those topics — race, religion and politics — your parents tell you not to talk about at dinner because it can be explosive. And in this case, I knew it wouldn’t make things better.”

For me, my reaction is -- no, probably it's good that a roommate with racist opinions is moving away from his PoC roommate, I doubt anything Mr. Badaszewski could say could immediately solve that problem. But not to mention at all - not to call out in any way - a student's racist assumptions and actions, because it's explosive? Don't admissions directors go on and on about how diversity on campus is supposed to broaden (never explicitly specified) white minds? How do they think that's going to happen, if challenging racism never occurs?

And then there's this bothersome sequence of passages. Mr. Boakye, a Ghanan student at Ohio State, is cited for his opinion about the effect that interracial housing has had on him and on other black students: "'If you’re surrounded by whites, you have something to prove,” said Mr. Boakye, now a rising senior who was born in Ghana. 'You’re pushed to do better, to challenge the stereotype that black people are not that smart.'"

Several paragraphs later, the Times posts this bit of brilliant analysis: "Russell H. Fazio, an Ohio State psychology professor who has studied interracial roommates there and at Indiana University, discovered an intriguing academic effect. In a study analyzing data on thousands of Ohio State freshmen who lived in dorms, he found that black freshmen who came to college with high standardized test scores earned better grades if they had a white roommate — even if the roommate’s test scores were low. The roommate’s race had no effect on the grades of white students or low-scoring black students. Perhaps, the study speculated, having a white roommate helps academically prepared black students adjust to a predominantly white university."

Yes. Having to face constant prejudice about one's abilities simply because one is black is such a good and helpful thing! Black students really should seek out the whitest possible campuses - that'll really encourage them to improve. No danger of burnout or excessive stress or, heck, insult or assault by white students - nope!

What do y'all think?

Nigaz name sparks racism debate

A marketing blunder in Nigeria has got online communities all of a twitter, after a joint oil and gas venture with Russia was named Nigaz.

I notice the "impartial" BBC is trying to squeeze a pun into the opening paragraph of this - obviously very funny - story.

Russia's Gazprom and Nigeria's state-operated NNPC formed the company - pronounced "nye-gaz" - last week.

...
"The fact is that whenever there is a blunder like this it delights people, it gives them something to talk about and it gives them a bright moment in what might otherwise be a dull day," he told the BBC Network Africa programme.

The delighted people probably have something in common for the most part. Looks like a bored BBC journalist is the delighted one judging by this pathetic coverage.

He admitted that it could be seen as offensive, but said it was fairly uncommon for companies to change their names.

[H]e says the fuss is likely to die down.

"People will soon forget that the name sounds bad," he says.

And we can all go back to pretending we don't live in a white persons world. That's a world where massive fossil fuel companies (an industry loaded with racial dynamics at the global level) pick obviously controversial names for a laugh and their supporters tell the affected people to stop reading too far into things.

Posted to powerswitch and debunkingwhite.

What white privilege did the two BNP seats (or any other aspect of the election) bring out of the woodwork in the last couple of weeks, in your eyes?

"Why vote? They're all the same."
Privilege. This both understandable and quasi-accurate position does not change the fact that to people who aren't white, the differences might appear bigger.

"I have my own problems - like the bills."
Privilege. Being working class and having legitimate problems doesn't absolve you of caring about racism - especially something as relatively simple as voting.

"If I vote when I don't really know anything about politics it feels like unfairly taking away the counteracting vote of someone else."
Privilege. There are many reasons why some people don't give a damn about what they percieve to be politics, and they are legitimate. On the other hand, some treat it as if an interest in politics is no different to an interest in dresses, or beer. Whites really do have a responsibility to learn about racism, for example, precisely in order to counteract the politically clued up BNP member at the polling station.

( Okay, that's the easy ones. What about people who did vote and are against the BNP? )

Tomorrow (23rd) is the first official day of the week-long No Borders Camp in Calais - exposing Fortress Europe and the bottleneck that Britain purposefully creates for migrants inside France. Expect the (largely foreign-but-white owned) British media to demonise everyone there/not give a fuck, in whatever balance works best.

There’s something that’s been niggling at me for awhile and I thought I’d ask the comm’s advice.

So I’m a white girl in Boston. Recently my mother went on a trip to the Grand Canyon. When she came back, she brought back two Navajo-made necklaces for me and my wife. My wife’s has a dreamcatcher on it, and mine has a bear. They both came with little cards explaining, in very exoticized-for-white-tourists terms, the meaning of these symbols in Navajo tradition/religion.

Obviously we’re not going to wear them due to cultural-appropriation squick, so they’ve just stayed in a drawer with the rest of our jewelry. But they’re lovely handmade pieces (at least I think so), and I never see them without thinking that it’s a shame that they’re just sitting in a drawer. I have no idea whether the design is authentic or whether they’re designed with an eye for what white people like to think Navajo jewelry looks like. Nor am I sure what the appropriate thing to do with them would be in either case.

Does anyone have any thoughts on what we should do with this jewelry?

Why the U.S. military is ignoring its own regulations and permitting white supremacists to join its ranks. (source)

By Matt Kennard

June 15, 2009 | On a muggy Florida evening in 2008, I meet Iraq War veteran Forrest Fogarty in the Winghouse, a little bar-restaurant on the outskirts of Tampa, his favorite hangout. He told me on the phone I would recognize him by his skinhead. Sure enough, when I spot a white guy at a table by the door with a shaved head, white tank top and bulging muscles, I know it can only be him.

Over a plate of chicken wings, he tells me about his path into the white-power movement. "I was 14 when I decided I wanted to be a Nazi," he says. At his first high school, near Los Angeles, he was bullied by black and Latino kids. That's when he first heard Skrewdriver, a band he calls "the godfather of the white power movement." "I became obsessed," he says. He had an image from one of Skrewdriver's album covers — a Viking carrying a staff, an icon among white nationalists — tattooed on his left forearm. Soon after he had another white power symbol, a Celtic cross, emblazoned on his stomach.


Probably just wanna click the link to read the whole thing. There is some language in the article that may be disturbing, so I won't post the full piece here (and it's 3 pages).

Who Killed Mr Ward?, 8.30pm Monday 15th June (tonight!(*)) on ABC1. (And I imagine it will be downloadable from the ABC site after it airs)

I'm pretty sure I posted about this already (not that you'd be able to find it with the tags on the blink :/) but I think this is worth mentioning since as well as this being an indepth report, since I posted it's now been shown that (a)The coroner agrees it was the security company's fault and (b)There was a pattern of abuse which the government should have done something about (since I'm sure a lot of people would love to pretend it was all an unforseeable accident/the fault of a few "bad apples" etc)

For more context, there's "related stories" on the disturbing article Detainee 'forced to drink own urine'.

(*)Because of time zone differences, by the time it's the 15th in America it will probably be downloadable :)

Hi folks,

I'm looking for any blogs or discussions of race and gender in CoralineI. I saw it this afternoon, and some of my impressions are below the cut, but I wanted to seek out any further resources because I tried discussing this with my moviegoing friend and he got confused, then annoyed and defensive and told me was reading into it too much, then disclaimed a need to take part in the conversation because he is not 'well versed' in race and gender 'issues'. Yeah. THAT was a nonstarter.

( Anyway. On to my initial impressions... (and this is literally an hour after seeing it including home-commute time so I'm way open to discussion...) )

I don't know. This is why I want further resources on the movie. I am NOT interested in the book at this time, because the movie is an adaptation, and therefore needs to be read (I believe) as a separate text.

I've just read Jessica Hoffman's Open Letter to White Feminists. It addressed a lot of things a friend and I, both white, have been critiquing about the history of the white feminist movement, which is generally not something we feel we can get behind. Too often white feminism fails to be allied to anti-racist movements, remaining invested in self-protective, self-centering politics that ignore POC and immigrants and uphold a racist status quo. I agree with Hoffman that white feminists need to fight those systems of power that give white women some protection from patriarchy and misogyny, but only by upholding their racialized privilege.

I'm curious what people's reactions are to Hoffman's letter. What does it mean for a white person to be an anti-racist feminist? How can we debunk whiteness in self-declared feminist spaces that claim to be anti-racist, but fall short? How do white feminists keep themselves accountable? What is the role of the white liberal in social change?

I also want to do more reading about prison abolition. Can anyone recommend good introductory resources?

( An Open Letter to White Feminists )

We folks who are striving to act in anti-racist ways (while being racist, in the case of us white people) use the definition racism = prejudice + power. Most white people use a narrower definition that usually excludes themselves. They rationalize that "real" racists are the people with the most extremely bigoted views, people who wear hoods and burn crosses, and Nazis.

I recently saw the movie The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
Cut for possible spoilers: ( Read more... )

I think it's important to remember the humanity of racism while we work at debunking whiteness: To stop us from thinking us (anti-racists) vs. them (racists). To counter the mainstream view of us (good regular white people) vs. them (klan members, Nazis).
It's true that when I emphasize the human nature of it, I'm including people of color. It's racist and absurd to exclude people of color from a discussion of human nature, so instead of excluding them (as in, "of course I don't mean POC, 'cause they can't be racist"), I want, instead, to simply not highlight them. (I would do that by asking a potential derailer to focus on the folks who have all the institutional power backing up their worst impulses.) Please, fellow whiteness debunkers, help me by pointing out flaws in doing that, better ways to do it, (or maybe the folly of trying to do it at all). Thanks!

Also, I recommend the movie.

Hey people,

I wondered if maybe we could do something like this on here... a lot of the time part of the problem with debunking, when it does happen, is that it happens online. Debunking work always has to take place but in the mean time, I have an idea. I'm going to run it by you. It's not revolutionary or anything so keep your shorts on.

I wanted to see if we could generate a kind of UK/EU roll call for people and then take a bit of action.

As you'll know from the earlier posts, the BNP and PVV (among others?) gained seats in last week's EU parliamentary elections. These parties are in their essence white-nationalist parties that appeal to racism and anti-immigrant sentiments to exploit what is already there in order to push often violently anti-immigrant, anti-POC agendas above all else.

The BNP deflects claims of racism by pointing to things like one board member 'of Jewish descent' and their plans for a 'voluntary' repatriation program for both British and immigrant POC.

What I am proposing is that people comment with their location the name of at least one anti-fascist OR anti-racist organization that serves their area. If you haven't already worked with them, send an email or make a call asking what you can do to help. If you have, please share your experiences in a comment if you feel comfortable doing so.

For me it's the North Wales Race Equality Network.

I also have some discussion questions, facets of which have all been discussed in the press in the wake of the elections. But I'm curious to hear your views. This is an excellent chance to work on debunking, I feel.

I think the success of the BNP here might point to a need for a better, public discussion of aversive racism. But I don't know if I am right.

How do we help debunk both the navel-gazing press coverage and the 'hidden' racism of people voted for NICK 'I'm not racist' GRIFFIN?

One thing of note in this election was the way they targeted 'everyday people' rather than people who likely outwardly agree with their REAL causes of overt hatred and violence toward POC and immigrants. It obviously worked. We need to look at why. Someone like my father might vote BNP if he was British and given the chance- but that's not that surprising. He's a poorly disguised bigot.

What made people in Yorkshire/Humber and the North West vote differently in this election? It appears to be a case of extremely low voter turnout that worked rather bizarrely... these elections apparently work on a modified version of proportional representation, which in effect meant that more mainstream-party voters needed to make a showing at the polls in order to prevent the BNP or UKIP from getting seats.

What is missing in our public/press treatment of the BNP that allows people to think the BNP are a legitimate party rather than hatemongers? <--this question is generating some discussion. Can something think of a better one?

How can we go about debunking pro-BNP colleagues, acquaintances, etc.?

Finally, naath reminds us that BNP are not the only concern in Britain- UKIP have been more influential in terms of raw vote numbers in the past.

Edited to clarify a few things and add a question and links.

Links list that might be of interest if you aren't UK or EU oriented or are just curious...

Searchlight Magazine (anti-fascist)
Searchlight Wales, which organizes Hope not Hate in Wales
Hope not Hate Blog
A useful visual if you are interested in UK electoral breakdowns
This is something I have found helpful in outlining arguments/discussions with my Dad before I get in over my head. US-centric but several have broader applications and help get me thinking.
A link on Finland's political fight.
And on Greece
More on Greece, from my own links
Previous discussions in DBW on debunking overt racists/ism.
Related post from May in DBW.

Any links you want to share that help get you thinking about How To Debunk, that could be specific to this situation?

I find this really depressing, but post it up because I think it's important. I don't really know what to say other than that I really really wish my country was better than this, and I hate that there are so many people out there who were willing to vote for them.

I thought this clip was pointed and rather hard hitting, as well as funny.

Enjoy!

Activist Convicted for Leaving Water Jugs for Migrants

In Arizona, a human rights activist from the group No More Deaths has been convicted for leaving plastic jugs [of water] for undocumented immigrants crossing near the US-Mexico border. The activist, Walt Staton, says the water jugs were left to prevent migrants from dying of dehydration. On Wednesday, Staton was found guilty of “knowingly littering” in the Buenos Aires Wildlife Refuge. In a move criticized by defense attorneys, the jury was ordered to reach a verdict after initial deliberations ended in a deadlock. Staton is a member of No More Deaths, which has worked for years to provide migrants with humanitarian aid. Over the past decade, nearly 2,000 men, women and children have died while trying to cross the border into Arizona. In a statement, No More Deaths said, “By penalizing life-saving work, the United States is showing callous disregard for the lives of our neighbors to the south, whose only crime is to seek a better life.”

(source)

The organization's website: No More Deaths - No Mas Muertes

I've got two thoughts:

1. When people do this on the Pacific Crest Trail, they're not charged with littering. No, they're deemed "Trail Angels." It's not what you do that makes you an angel or a criminal, it's who you do it for.
   
   
2. From what I can tell, this is a group of mostly-white volunteers who are working to provide humanitarian aid to Mexican migrants. Most of the home page is taken up with the littering charges against volunteers (I can't find photos of the accused, so I can't say if these particular individuals are white or not), and a letter-writing campaign is being organized on their behalf. Similarly, most of the "news" section of the website is about the volunteers' arrests. Am I being cynical, or is this whiteness asserting itself again? White people in this organization are risking far less than the people of color are -- and suffering far less harm -- but when the dice rolls badly for them (i.e. they get convicted of littering), the story (and the org?) becomes all about their pain.
   
   Or, alternatively, is this org attempting to leverage the only-whiteness-is-interesting effect (I'm seeing mentions of volunteers refusing to pay small fines, preferring to go to court instead) in order to make the issues of people of color more visible? If that's what they're trying to do, are they pulling it off?

http://www.derailingfordummies.com/

Has this made the rounds here already? It has.

Since I missed it the first time around, I'd like to ask how you use this. Is it a resource for you, or something you link to as an explanation for others, or...?

I am in a paramedic class right now, and we recently went over hypoperfusion (Shock) and how to recognize it. One of the tell-tale signs of shock, specifically hypovolemic shock, is pallor or a greyish-blue color coming over the skin. But every photo that I've found shows caucasians with that condition. Seeing as how I live in Durham, and may be called to one day use these skills on people who are not caucasian, I was wondering if anyone knew of any resources online that shows the visual effects of cyanosis and hypoperfusion on PoC. For some reason, my google sauce is weak.

What sucks even more, on the state exams, 'normal' skin is defined as Warm, Pink, and Dry. Warm and dry are okay, but how hard would it be to say non-discolored? I've mentioned this to my instructor, and he agrees with me, and in class those are the terms that we use. I've already written a letter to the textbook publisher, but I think we all know how effective that is going to be.

It's just really frustrating because I feel like I cannot adequately assess a good 60% of the population that I will be working in.

Police officers in Oklahoma pulled over an ambulance taking a patient to the hospital, and started a fight with an EMT of color, while the family of the patient (also people of color) begged them to allow the ambulance to continue taking their mother/wife to the hospital. The son of the patient took a video.

The EMT's story:
http://www.ktul.com/news/stories/0509/626636.html
The cops didn't arrest him, probably because the dude DID NOTHING WRONG, but that didn't stop them from threatening him, "ooh, you better be prepared to turn yourself in, in case we put a warrant out on you!"

Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KluItc365hU&feature=popular

I got many of these from Hexpletive but afaict she hasn't got a post which combines them all together. These are all about the Northern Territory, which has been in the news a lot recently.
( On the banning of porn and knowing about underage sex )

it is a cop out to think that you don't need to address rush limbaugh's argument because people like rush won't change.

that is not debunking white.

arguments like rush's need to be addressed, not because people like rush come up with them, but because other people hear them and are persuaded by that kind of argument. arguments like rush's spread.

rush's argument isn't original. it's the same crap that comes up over and over and over.

you need to understand that argument. you need to know what's wrong with it. you need to be able to shoot it down when it appears.

A Prom Divided

Okay, this article is about the segregated proms in places like Mississippi. There is a "white folks prom" and a "black folks prom". Anyone can go to "black" prom, but only white people can go to white prom.

First off, the thought that there's black and white and no other races is wrong. It's not "white prom" and "black prom", it's "white prom" and "non-white prom".

And to the writer of the article: I know you meant well, but did you have to go out of your way to spend three paragraphs writing about how all the black kids went to KFC and ate 2 buckets of fried chicken? Did that have anything to do with anything at all?

But what really irks me about this article is one line in particular, and how people are responding to it:

“Most of the students do want to have a prom together,” says Terra Fountain, a white 18-year-old who graduated from Montgomery County High School last year and is now living with her black boyfriend. “But it’s the white parents who say no. … They’re like, if you’re going with the black people, I’m not going to pay for it.”

The responses to this article on a forum I visit were to the extent of "Oh, the students aren't racist, it's just their parents making them uphold these traditions! Cookies for the white kids!"

The hell they are! If these white students were really as pro-integration as they say they are, they could pay for their own fucking prom! They're all for racial equality... so long as it doesn't cost them anything or involve any effort!

Their black so-called friends are sitting outside the auditorium while they have fun, and they're okay with this? These kids don't deserve to be praised! Saying "My mom won't pay for my prom if I go to 'black' prom," is a bullshit excuse. I paid for my own damn prom, you fucking can too! Do without the limo, buy a dress that doesn't cost $500, and actually do what you say is right.

Hailing these white kids as non-racist is giving credit where none is due.