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Dexter: Serial Display of -isms

Last night I was watching an episode of Dexter (season 1. yes, I know I'm behind!). While I really am enjoying this show, the episode last night really bothered me. Well, there's a lot about the show that bothers me. One example at a time, right?

In the episode I just watched, the Ice Truck Killer (a serial killer that kills prostitutes by draining their blood and cutting them into pieces) is still at large. Tony Tucci, the security guard the Ice Truck Killer forced to position a body on the ice rink and then kidnapped and amputated his hand and his foot. In this scene, Tucci is in the hospital room with Deb Morgan, a cop and sister to main character Dexter Morgan. Tucci mentions how no one will love him now that's he's broken. Deb smiles and says "Don't be crazy. Someone will." Of course, this means someone other than her, despite their easy flirtation and her admission that Tucci is a great guy. Later Deb brings her friend Shanda -- who is a prostitute -- in to meet Tucci to prove that women will want him. Oh, and she's a Woman of Color, while Deb is white.

I take issue with the fact that Deb proves that Tucci is lovable by "gifting" him a prostitute. Is the intented message that Tucci will have to fulfill his desires with meaningless sex because he couldn't possibly have a real relationship now that he is 'broken'? Or is it that he can feel better about himself because there will always be a supply of nameless women to fulfill his needs? What about the fact that Deb, who is supposed to be a fully functional human being, feels that she is giving something great to Tucci by giving him this prostitute friend of hers -- effectively pimping the girl to Tucci. Deb is complicit in the objectification of Shanda. Tucci's stupid grin while Shanda takes her top off doesn't help the situation either. Apparently, he also buys into the "i'll be happy as long as I have a beautiful woman to have sex with" idea. Oh, and hey, there are no strings attached here because she's a prostitute and so clearly beneath him. Patriarchy at its best.

Further, the color lines here need to be addressed. Shanda is an acceptable woman for Tucci to get involved with while Deb is clearly not. That is never an option. Which, alright is necessary for the plot to proceed as planned for the season. But why is Shanda a Woman of Color? Is the implication here that an acceptable pairing in a Black woman and a disabled man, but not a white woman and a disable man? I think there is some kind of hierarchical logic going on here that means that white women must end up with white men and vice versa. The only exception being if that white man is 'broken.' Quite frankly I was disgusted by this implication.

The rest of Dexter is no better. While I am sadly addicted to this show now, the show is horribly sexist. For example: in all of the episodes I've watched (all of season 1), not one of the criminals has been a woman. And not only that, but it is automatically assumed to be the work of a man when someone shows up dead. Which, ok, a part of me is glad that women are not considered to be as violent because that means that maybe women are better (I didn't say this part of me was older than 6!), and a part of me realized that statistically this is good police work because more men commit crimes than women do. But it also means that on the show, the only women shown are victims of crimes, fragile girlfriends, prostitutes or hardnosed, career hungry women with no families -- all tired stereotypes of women.

Anyway, I will continue to watch the show, but thought these things deserved airing. These are things that are not exclusive to Dexter, but show up on numerous shows on TV.

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The Truth about Feminism

I attended a workshop today entitled Women's Poverty Through the Lens of Social Documentary Photographer Milton Rogovin. His photographs were beautiful, taken of women at work throughout the US, Chile, Spain and Mexico during the last 50 years. It was intended to be women at work and looking at women working throughout the years. I was excited to look closely at images of women of color working and discussing disparities. But the discussion was based on assumptions about women and femininity.

One photograph picturing two women in tight jean shorts and cut off tops was confirmed to be a photograph of two sex workers. A woman in the audience rejected this title because "they were not wearing high heels," therefore they could not possibly be sex workers. ... The sole reason why they couldn't possibly be sex workers is becuase they didn't have the stereotypical 'stripper' heels you see in movies. And the whole room agreeed... Is this where feminism is? AT the US social forum, where leftists, radicals, and people generally working to be outside teh norm and predetermined structures, this is what feminism was. Maybe feminism is only useful to movements when it is angry and in your face. Maybe we, as feminists, have failed in further education of our peers about how we talk about women and femininity.

Another comment was made about a photo of a woman working in a factory with work gloves on -- "she's doing hard work for a woman." ... For a woman. Somehow in that one phrase, he managed to degrade the possibility that the woman could do the same job as a man and expressed concern over her 'decreasing' femininity. As if by including that clause, he can recapture the type of femininity that belongs in a home.

In another set of pictures, a young Black woman was pictured working making twine in a factory setting. She was dressed in a revealing black tank top, that hugged her slender torso. The next picture was of three older Scottish women in sweaters and old button down shirts (possibly men's shirts). The first woman was received in a much different way than the three women. Comments were made about the stylishness of the first woman and how she didn't belong in the factory. Someone commented that she had clearly bought the shirt (although it would have been easy to make). All of these things were used to make the point that this woman wanted a better life, deserved a better life. The other three women were talked about as depressed, or more steady in their lifestyles.

This is a direct response to femininity. The young woman who was perceived as still looking 'good' and still in touch with her feminine side was labeled as not giving up, and not belonging among the poor. The other three were labeled as having given up because they were not displaying feminine qualities. Someone femininity has been tied to this idea of giving up. When some women get married, they talk about giving up looking 'good,' meaning that they give up doing their makeup or wearing stylish clothes, which is equated with being unfeminine. Why is femininity tied to this? Why is maintaining femininity a sign of wanting to move forward in life, and why is it femininity? Why is my performance of gender a sign of what I want out of life?

Finally, is a comment about women maintaining femininity in the workforce a way to maintain the idea that women should be paid less? If we say that women must maintain some aspect of 'femininity' in the fields, or in the factory, or in the office, then we are saying that they must maintain that they are different from men, which then creates a platform where it can be justified (however wrongly) that women can be paid differently. By maintaing this way of thinking we are only serving to strengthen our opposition.

As a final note, I am not saying that women shouldn't enjoy being feminine if they want to (key words being, if they want to. I'm not trying to force anyone to be what they are not). I personally enjoy dressing up and being 'feminine.' But femininity should not limit me, it should not define me, and it should not restrict my ability to do a job. I should not be judged based on my level of femininity.

So what is the truth about feminism? The truth is that it has been pushed aside by the social justice movement -- at least the social justice movement in attendance at the US Social Forum. Maybe we are not current enough, or not vocal enough anymore. Whatever it is, it is clear that there is still work to be done, and it can't be done soon enough.

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The Greening of Southie: Bringing to Light Issues of Environmental Justice

I recently watched two awesome documentaries relating to the environment. One was Flow, about the effects of privatization on water resources and communities around the world, was an excellent reaffirmation of how important water issues are. The other was The Greening of Southie, about the first green building to go up in South Boston. It is the latter that left me with several questions about the impacts of green building.

First, let me start by saying that the film does a great job of explaining what green building is, how one gets the LEED points necessary to be a 'green building,' and the challenges that go with creating a green building. It also brought up issues about community impact, without actually saying anything about them, that I will expand on below.

LEED is a standard of building that promotes using green materials to reduce the impact of a building, whether residential or commercial on the environment. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. There are several different kinds of LEED, one for neighborhood design, one for renovations, and several others. While the movie was from 2007 and thus a little dated, the property managers aimed for earning enough points to earn a gold rating. Each point comes from doing something green -- using local vendors is worth one point each, using renewable resources like bamboo over hardwood is one point, etc.

All of this sounds wonderful, and there have even been updates to LEED to take into account new technologies and the transportation costs of transporting materials. However, there are some drawbacks to green building that the film did a wonderful job of pointing out.

There are definite race and class lines drawn by who can afford green building. The building in the film, the Macallen Building, was a residential luxury condo complex, ranging from $500,000 to $2 million per condo. South Boston has traditionally been a working class neighborhood, meaning that a majority of the people in South Boston would not be able to afford homes like the ones brought into the neighborhood -- not to mention the definitive racial line that exists between high income and low income families.

In addition, the new building will drive up property values and rents displacing people from the homes or forcing them to give up local businesses. With the incoming of a luxury apartment complex, there comes other amenities like shopping franchises, which threaten the life of mom and pop stores in the area.

My final point of contention with green building is that it is intended to promote the use of local materials. Yet in the film, they ordered innovative environmentally friendly materials from China, Australia, Bolivia, and from the Midwest in the United States. The one vendor that was awarded a point for being 'local' was 3 hours away in Maine. Granted, this is substantially closer than China or Bolivia, but to me it still does not signify local. How do we promote environmentally friendly design and innovation in the United States (making it local) if we are importing the technology from abroad? And how does one reconcile the fact that we are using so much oil and energy to transport materials from abroad with the fact that we are building and environmentally friendly building? Does saving energy costs outweigh reducing fossil fuel consumption? Should it?

These are some of the questions I was left with at the end of the film. I know that LEED has sought to reconcile some of these concerns since the film was released in 2007, and I know that there are more companies in the United States producing environmentally friendly materials now than when this building was being built. However, I think the questions are still justified and timely as we look at the future of green building. How do we pair green building and being environmentally conscious with social justice issues of race/class? Environmentally friendly extends beyond reducing carbon emissions and replacing light bulbs with CFLs -- it needs to be a holistic approach which includes community sustainability as well.

Why does green building have to be another thing on the list of things that are only for upperclass white people? Environmental movements are about more than just saving the environment, but about environmental justice meaning making sure that everyone has equal access to environmental solutions. Why must they make living in or creating a green building something that can be bragged about? Is that the point of being environmentally friendly? a badge of honor to say that you did something?

Within the LEED certification there are levels as well: certified, silver, gold and platinum, with each level representing the amount of environmentally friendly effort and materials that went into the building (aka the amount of money spent on making it environmentally friendly). Again, it reduces being green to being the best at being green, or having the most money to become the most green. So some people can say they are they best at being green, yet not live green lifestyles, or sustainable lifestyles, or even have buildings that do not support sustainable lifestyles or life choices.

Environmental issues should not be reduced to monetary value or an award that someone can hang on their wall. Yes, the innovations and technological advancements in green building are moving in the right direction. But, as Steve Ma (the owner of Live Green.net) said last night, it needs to be a holistic approach, and people should 'go green' because it's about people and doing what's right for people.

The most poignant moment in the film for me, was when one construction worker (who had been hesitant about this 'green stuff') looked at the camera and commented how great this building was -- he'll never see it fully finished/lived in but one day he can drive his kids past it and tell them how he was a part of it. Here is someone who was a skeptic, got turned on to the idea, and can't yet achieve it. Green building and making environmentally friendly choices for your home should be available to anyone who is on board -- if we limit who can become green by class (and thus race. even gender was not fully represented as leaders in the green building movement), we are turning people away from doing something good.

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Race and Climate Change: Double the Fear?

I had the privilege today of attending a round table discussion about messaging in a post-Copenhagen world. Most of what was brought up I had already come across, but one idea struck me as something that would interest here, and that is this: is there racism in people's unwillingness to admit climate change in happening?

I have also believe that people who say that climate change is not happening were either swayed by the media or too stuck in their own way of life to admit that that way of life is having negative effects on the environment. This has always made me incredibly sad to think that we as Americans can't wrap our collective head around climate change because we love our stuff too much. But now I think there is more to it (although this doesn't make me happier).

A women today pointed out that getting people to admit that climate change is happening means framing it a way that picks at their self-interest, or in a way that builds on their fear of terrorism. Those ways are the most proven to win over conservatives to the environmental movement. Correct me if I'm wrong, but these seem like the same motivations that create colonialism: greed and fear.

Now, it was also pointed out how those can lead to racism or serve to solidify racism. So my question is, if these are the motivations that are most likely to get people to make significant changes, and these motivations can lead to racism, can objections to climate change be racist? I know that not everyone who objects to climate change is or will be racist, but is there a link between the two? One man pointed out that people are generally afraid of what they don't know, which makes them not want to change. Fear of an unknown is one of the drivers of racism (in my humble opinion).

Can the fear about admitting climate change exists and not wanting to make the necessary changes be tied to a fear about and outsider taking our place? One woman brought up China, and how we need to find a way to be both competitive with China while at the same time finding solidarity with them as they fight climate change. But doesn't that play into the idea that we would be funding our competitors, who happen to be of a different race, making the competition racially charged in some way?

These thoughts have been bouncing around in my head all day. I'm not sure if they made sense here, but I'd love to get this discussion going!

PS: I also think that gender plays a huge role in how we look at/talk about climate change. It is undeniable that women around the world are most affected by climate change. The profound gender inequalities in the developing world (and the developed world!!) make it difficult for those most affected to come forward or to have a hand in the solution. If white men were the most affected, we would have solved this problem a long time ago. The People's Summit on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth that took place in Bolivia is the perfect example of how marginalized populations like men and women of color get locked out of the debates and even when they come together in full force, the Western world won't listen.

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Adapting to Climate Change: Do We Have the Right Answer Yet?

For this post, I want to build off of my previous post a bit and vary a little from our theme of race and gender, although race and gender are certainly not missing from this discussion.

Last week I had the opportunity to attend two events on adapting to climate change. I was initially excited to attend, as the speakers were excellent and I had done research on adaption to climate change in the past. My research had been on the necessity of adapting to the effects of climate change like building sturdier houses to withstand flooding, or making changes to water storage methods to prepare better for droughts.

These events shared none of those feelings. Rather than discussing how people will have to adapt to climate change, the information presented focused on the ‘benefits’ of climate change — namely, that certain latitudes (the ones the United States, Europe and most developed countries happen to be in) will actually benefit from the warming of the globe. With an increase in warmth, agriculture can flourish more in the lower latitudes, while areas in the higher latitudes around the equator will not benefit from the warmer weather. I'm sorry...we're going to talk about benefits of climate change to developed countries??? Just omit the fact that millions of people with become climate refugees when their homes are demolished by floods. Or the millions of people who will starve because they cannot afford the upkeep on their farms anymore because climate change has pushed food prices up.

Another point made by these climate experts was that there is no concern for water scarcity, because climate change will actually bring more precipitation. Just how that precipitation would occur was not mentioned, nor was how people would be able to collect precipitation that came down in the form of blizzards, hurricanes, and tsunamis. Yes, there will be more precipitation and that will help the higher latitudes grow their argibusiness. But the more intense storms and droughts will do nothing to help or benefit the poorer people in the world, who btw, are mainly people of color. Coincidence that their concerns were not brought up by either of these institutions? I think not. If you ignore people of color, they will just go away, right?

My final point of contention with these events is that both were supposed to be about adapting to climate change in developing countries. Yet developing countries were brought up only a handful of times during both events. At the first event, a seminar at the Elliot School on George Washington University’s campus, developing countries were only referred to as ‘poor people’ and only mentioned to point out that poor people wouldn’t be able to adapt well, and that there wasn’t much hope for them. The speaker just glossed over that, as if they didn't matter. The seminar was only about the good that can come from climate change and how wonderful it will be for the US. Anything to get rid of the responsibility for climate change right? If we claim all the benefits, we don't have to acknowledge the impact of our actions or change the way we live.

At the second event, a mini-conference put together by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, developing countries were brought up as examples of potential markets for genetically engineered seeds and new agricultural technologies. Forget my feelings toward genetically modified food/seeds/ and the switch to ‘modern agriculture,’ the plan for developing countries to adapt to climate change involves opening them up as new markets for technology? Sounds too familiar -- do we really need to resurrect horrible neoliberal policies to screw around with markets even more??

I can manage to give the speaker and presenters at these two events credit for their science — the data for what they were looking at is legitimate. The problem was in what they left out of their models and business plans and scientific research: the people who will be affected. We can’t forget that there is a human face to climate change — and that it is fellow human beings that will be affected. Hearing leading policy makers in the efforts for climate change talk about people in developing countries as if they were disposable was really discouraging, and quite frankly, I was outraged. The key to adapting to climate change isn’t to ignore problems or try to ‘invent our way out’ of them, but to change our lifestyles to counteract what climate change we can no longer change, and prevent any future climate change. And I can't ignore the fact that the people they were forgetting are the same people that are already made invisible by our society's structure. How can anyone pretend that they are presenting on ways to adapt to climate change in developing countries when they clearly have no concern for anyone but the business paying for their research?

I heard a man from Syngenta, a genetically modified seed organization talk about how climate change would be great in opening up markets for them. I was glad to hear him admit that there were problems with their seeds, like the fact that bugs will adapt to them and other technological advances in herbicides, pesticides, and fertlizers. His response? They're excited to be able to present new product lines for their consumers. Excited??? That you're product failed? It doesn't matter that thousands of farmers lost their livlihoods due to those adatptions and now can't afford your new products...those silly small farmers aren't the future of agriculture anyway. It's all about big aribusiness. The solution to all of this was to celebrate the big farmers. Syngenta-man said that organic farming is a fad and not really good for the environment...and pesticides and herbicides and genetically modified foods are??

If we use the model of big agribusiness as the success story, and add the fact that climate change will make farming harder to do in developing countries, then the result is that we have large factory farms producing primarily feed crops and not able to produce the necessary food to sustain a population. This is a problem. Solution? Stop pretending that we know what's best for farming (we killed the small farm industry in the US) and stop pretending that we can just invent our way out of the problem and stop pretending that people of color do not matter. They do.

Sorry for the length. Very Very Angry about this (clearly). Thoughts are welcome!

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Human Rights: Who Decides?

The past two days I had the opportunity to get knee deep in water at a Right to Water conference in Syracuse NY. While there is so much that I could sit and write about regarding water, water, rights, women and water, I won't. Mostly because it would take forever. But you should ask me about it (seriously. ask). There is one thing that really resonated with me as a place where the discussion about the right to water clearly demonstrated the intersections of race and human rights. One presenter, Rocio Magana, spoke about criminalizing water.

Before I summarize her main points, I want to throw out some ideas about the right to water, the right of water, and water rights. The right to water is often framed in a human rights discussion -- basically that all humans have a right to access to clean water because it is necessary to live. The right of water is more of an ecological approach, talking about the respect that water deserves and thus it should be clean. Water rights include things like rights to fish in streams, ownership of water etc.

Ok so back to Rocio. Her presentation focused on the case of a man being taken to court in Las Vegas for littering in a national park. What was he found to be littering? Gallon jugs of water he was leaving for migrants trying to cross the Sonara Desert just over the border from Mexico. The man is just one of the many volunteers and organizations that work to provide water for these migrants. Thousands of migrants die of dehydration, heat stroke, and other heat related illnesses when trying to cross the desert. These group function on the principle that no one should be denied water regardless of where they come from or whether they are legal immigrants or not.

Obviously, border patrol and other civilian border control groups are not a fan of these groups. The migrants are illegally crossing the border in the United States and should not be aided in any way.

So here are my questions for you: Where should humanitarian aid stop? We are talking about people dying in this country -- so many that they can't even collect them all from the desert. Does anyone deserve to die of thirst? Yes they are crossing illegally, but once they are here, I think they should be treated as citizens and given the right to water. No one should be denied that right. To me, it is the same as seeing that someone is starving, having plenty of food in front of you, and not giving her any of your food. It is consciously depriving someone of what they need to survive, and who are we to deny someone that? Doesn't that makes us akin to murderers?

The water being handed out is free, it comes straight from a tap (no bottled water here!!!) and the empty jugs are picked up and recycled in most cases. The water jugs are placed along trails that are thought to be frequented by migrants. This is not a program where the volunteer stand along the trail to hand out water, like at a race. The jugs are left in certain areas for migrants to come across. This is why the only charge that can stick is a littering charge, and the groups are using that charge to call into question the definition of garbage (is laying out something that would sustain life really the same as throwing garbage out?) and to come out in greater numbers.

If we define water as a human right, how can we deny the right to water to a group of people -- specifically one race of people? It seems to me that this borders on the realm of eugenics. One race is denied a basic human right with the intention that they would die without it. I realize that may be going a little far, but I think its important to think about this in that framework of human rights. Who deserves the basic human rights and who does not? and who gets to decide?

Thoughts?

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The Bachelorette and Feminism

First a confession: I watch the Bachelor. Religiously. It is trashy and goes against so many of my values but I just can't help it. It's delicious trashy fun. I would like to think that I will be able to resist this next season, but the truth is that I will probably watch the new Bachelorette despite the huge major issues I have with it. I fully acknowledge my hypocrisy here.

In case you are not also an avid watcher of trash TV, let me fill you in. Jake, the most recent bachelor, was down to four women. One of his top four, Ali, found out that if she did not go back to work the next week she would lose her job. (I'm assuming that she was taking all of her vacation time + unpaid leave time and was hoping that if she got this far in the competition, she would be able to work something out with her employer.) She was really upset, because she was "falling in love" with Jake, and didn't know whether to quit her job and take a chance on it working out, or go back to her job and wonder what could have happened with them. So far, I totally get this. For women in our mid-twenties, work and relationships have major roles in our live and when they conflict, there is going to be dissonance and some emotional decisions to make. She and Jake have long, tortured, tearful talks in which he tells her that he is definitely planning to give her a rose this week, but cannot guarantee if she will make it to the final one. To me, that's kind of a major red flag, Ali. If someone REALLY loves you, even if you're on a game show, he would be willing to break the rules, and tell you he wants to be with you, no matter the consequences. He begs her to stay (which he knows means she will be let go), although the most he can offer her is a spot in his "final three" (AKA the sex dates). Eventually, she said "I have to go" and my inner feminist cheered. Here was a woman who had found a career that she enjoyed and a job that she loved, and was not willing to sacrifice it on an off chance! A woman who showed that modern women need men who are willing to build a life that includes their career goals, rather than men who want you to deny your own needs for his! Could it be? A woman on the bachelorette faced a realistic relationship issue and decided to put herself first!

Nope. I should have known better. The next episode showed Ali phoning Jake and begging to come back (although the massively staged nature of this scene leads me to conclude it was actually added in later), and him telling her that he's moved on. (Those overnight dates must have been pretty great if he is now willing to cut off the woman who he couldn't live without last week!) She wails that she "made a mistake" by choosing work over love! Now, she is back as the next Bachelorette (and considering the time demands of filming, and the fact that she has apparently used all of her allotted vacation time for the year anyway, I'm guessing the job is history) and the spin is: this time, I won't let love slip away! I've learned my lesson, and I will never sacrifice love for a job ever again!

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!?!?!

1. This is inherently a false dichotomy. Women, if you are in a position where you are forced to choose between career and relationship, look more closely. In a good relationship, both people make sacrifices. BOTH people. Sometimes, you may have to give up your needs for your spouse, but sometimes it should be the other way around. A good husband (Hi Randy!) wants you to be successful, and wants you to explore your career options. When problems like this come up, you solve them together. You find a solution that works for best for you as a couple, whatever that may be.

2. The man wants you to give up a good job (according to the internet, a marketing position at Facebook) in a terrible economy but is not willing to make any concessions on his part. That is an ultimatum. Get out.

3. Finally, the feminist issue: this whole "whoops, silly me, thinking I needed a job to be happy when what I really need is a man!" seems a little too fifty years ago. She is sending a message that a job is a way you while away your time until you meet the man of your dreams. I thought we were past that. (*note: this does not mean that choosing to be a stay at home parent after marriage is anti-feminist. if that is a choice made by both spouses that best meets the needs of the family, than that's the best thing for that family. see #1.) Women need to develop their own independent identities in order to be able to fully enter into a loving adult partnership. Doing so does not mean that you're giving up love in favor of you. It means that you are sure enough in your own identity to wait for a relationship that embraces and strengthens that identity. Read more...

Color-blind or color-conscious?

A friend on mine passed this article onto me awhile back, and it's been sitting in the back of my mind since then -- this part especially:

We’re very comfortable now talking to our kids about gender stereotypes: we tell our kids that women can be doctors and lawyers. Heck, Barbie can be a computer engineer! What Bronson and Merryman point out is that we should say the same thing about race: doctors can be any skin color.

So often in my classes we use race as a kind of marker, or blueprint for how gender should be discussed. I'm not sure I've had a class were we didn't compare the issues of gender to the issues of race. Has gender really surpassed race as something that is mainstreamed? Does it signal the end of feminism (making my chosen field completely irrelevant...)? Or is it just easier for white parents to talk about gender equality than it is to talk about racial equality?

Sometimes I wonder if we've made it so difficult to have an honest, open discussion about either race or gender through our desire to not offend anyone. I'm in no way advocating a less-PC world, or one where we can all just say what we're thinking all the time -- respect for people's differences is too important. I am wondering if we've made it so hard to make a space where these questions can be answered truthfully that it's easier/better to just be 'color blind' or 'gender blind' which as the article points out, doesn't help anything.

On the other hand, its dangerous to go too far in the other direction too. I recently attended a forum when one of the speakers spoke about how there was a need for development programs to be gender-neutral because men were being forgotten. Her point was that we should have a more community focused approach that aimed to help both men and women, but it's a statement that comes from the backlash against feminism in global development -- all the programs focusing on women have left men out in the cold or turned men's lives on their heads. We are not ready yet for development programs to be gender-neutral -- they are still not gender-equal.

Its almost as if we push so hard for things to look equal that we force it to be so before its ready. We are so anxious for the fantasy of a color-blind society to be real that we make it so, at the cost of teaching real understanding. Rather than teaching that race or gender doesn't matter to achievement, we teach that there's no such thing as race differences. There's a fine line out there somewhere. Thoughts on where that is?

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What is race?

I have talked about race a lot in my life. I have thought about it even more. (The whole growing-up-biracial thing tend to do that.) I realized today, though, that I'm still not sure exactly what that is. My urban education class just finished reading Jay MacLeod's Ain't No Makin' It, which looks at a small sample of "project kids" and their experiences over twenty years. (Quite an interesting read.) Some of them (mostly white) have checked out of the system, rejecting school because they don't think that it will make any difference in their circumstances. Another group (mostly black) are determined to play the game and make something of themselves by graduating from high school. The results are varied (and the sample size is small), but to me the most startling aspect was how much worse off the black students who checked out of the game ended up than their mostly white friends- although all were poor, addicted to drugs, and had frequent run-ins with the police. It seems as though race matters more than attitude, even among people in the same socioeconomic class. Now I am wondering: what do I do with this? The truth is, working hard will not necessarily fix your problems when the deck is so stacked against you, but not working at all makes things even worse.
Back to my original question: what is race? I have no idea. To some extent its a social construct, but it has a physical (biological) aspect as well. The genetics of race are still hazy (are you what you have the most genes of? How do you define someone with genes from multiple races, which is most of us these days?) Race affects how people view you and how you view others. It can be a way to define who is like you and who is not. It gets tangled up with ethnicity and appearance. Race can mean skin color or eye shape. It can mean who you were raised by. Although race has played such a major role in how I think about the world, I have trouble coming up with a concise definition of just what it means. Thoughts? Read more...

More Grey than Black and White

I recently attended a lecture entitled "Working with Race" about confronting race in a classroom setting and how to create a space where race can be openly explored. Originally, I attended because my favorite professor was on the panel, but am glad I went as the lecture has spawned great discussions with fellow feminists.
I was intrigued by the labeling of our society as "post racial" and the realization that the discussion boiled down to a discussion about confronting black-ness. I was disturbed by this for three reasons. 1) there was no discussion of what "post racial" meant; 2) if, in fact, we are living in a post racial society, what does that mean that we only discussed white and black? and 3) what does it mean for people hailing from a women's studies discipline (which focuses on giving voice to people who have been marginalized and oppressed) to disregard or to lump all minorities in with African-American?

"Post racial" society. The leader of the discussion who deemed this a "post racial" society cited President Barack Obama as prove of this, meaning that we must be beyond race if we have elected a black president. However, Obama is mixed rather than black, a point which gets forgotten when convenient. The fact that he is mixed, I think points more to a "post racial" society more than simply because he is a powerful black man. My point is this: why is a post racial society contingent on the election of a black man? Why is Black the marker for post-racial society, or for us to supposedly be beyond racism? Furthermore, why is it contingent on the success of a black man? Wouldn't the true marker of "post racial" be one where all minorities, both men and women, can achieve the same level of success and have access to the same opportunities as white men? Additionally, as pointed out here and here, the election of a Black man does not mean that all other issues facing minority men and women will be immediately solved.

I struggle with the idea that race is black and white that seems to be prevalent in discussions about race, whether in the field of women's studies, or in general conversations. The second wave of feminism opened up a new approach when Black women clarified to the predominately white-led movement that they did not appreciate being spoken for. The concerns and issues facing Black women and white women were different, are still are. From this, came the wonderful writings of bell hooks, Alice Walker, and Audre Lorde, to name a few. The rise of multicultural feminism and global feminism gave women from all cultures the forum to raise their own issues and to not have white women speak on their behalf. How, then, can the discipline of women's studies partake in discussions of race that leave out anyone but white and black? How can a field that is so conscious of the detriments of marginalization accept a discussion that effectively marginalizes any other minority group? It is as if we have created a hierarchy of race issues that says "we can only deal with black issues right now. we'll get to the rest later." To me, this is eerily reminiscent of those second wave white women who declared the issues of women (meaning white, middle class women) to be more important than the issues of black or other minority women. Even feminists who discuss the implications of race tend to generalize all women of color as having the same Black experience. This piece points out some of the debate surrounding race and feminism, and this is a great piece about issues concerning women of color. While both are great discussions of race and feminism, both also illustrate my point about discussion of race being very broadly about all minorities, until examples are given which are limited to experiences of Black women. Why does the term "women of color" become another way to talk about the experience of Black women?

I think that both of these issues are the result of the same thing. We, as a society, are not prepared to discuss something from more than one angle. It was pointed out to me (by my wonderful co-author!) that there is not as much research done for/by/ and about other women of color. While I accept that this is true, why is that? If we claim to be moving forward, and progressing to a point that is "race-equal", there is no excuse as to why these issues have taken a backseat. It is not as if it was just discovered that Latina women face oppression in a different way than white or black women do. This is not a new concept. And that should no longer be our excuse.

I am not saying that the election of President Obama is not a marker of how race relations have progressed, or that continued discussions concerning white and black are somehow unnecessary or undeserved. We need to keep having those discussions. But we need to start having them about other minority groups as well.

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