Guest Columnist

15th Erase Racism Carnival! Read all about it!

Welcome to the July Erase Racism Blog Carnival!

Every month, a different blog gathers posts from throughout cyberspace that explore issues of racial justice. The goal is to enhance the discussion of race online and connect bloggers working hard to make that happen. We thank everyone who submitted pieces for this, the 15th carnival.

This month we wanted to highlight some topics we feel don’t get enough time in the sun. So we sought out several pieces on topics that matter: Media Representations, the Green Economy and Black/Brown relations.

In addition, we grouped the blogs under a few other topics we hope you find pertinent and interesting:

—Race and the Green Economy
—Race, gender, and the media
—Black/Brown relations
—Historical identities
—Whiteness revisited
—Darfur

Without further delay, here is this month’s Erase Racism Carnival! Let’s Celebrate!

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RACE AND THE GREEN ECONOMY

Van Jones
The New Environmentalists
More people of color have not yet grabbed the microphone for three reasons: our long-standing pattern of viewing environmental issues as luxury concerns; the mainstream media’s “whites only” coverage of the green phenomenon; and serious structural impediments to action within the racial justice movement itself.
Colorlines

Toxic Waste and Environmental Justice
A report
A DC Birding Blog

RACE, GENDER IN THE MEDIA

Kai Chang
Food Racism and Capitalism
What I find rather amazing is that so many non-Asians continue to find these moronic clichés funny and/or fascinating, to the point that lurid stories about tainted Chinese food have been at or near the top of corporate fake-news for weeks.
Zuky

Rachel Tavern
It’s About Interracial Sex Folks
The truth of the matter is that the US is a culture obsessed with interracial sex, but nobody will say this in polite company
Rachel’s Tavern

Changeseeker
War is Hell
The end result, of course, is that many people in very poor neighborhoods have at least one member of the family in pushing “product.”
Why Am I Not Surprised?

David Mills
Q&A: Yancey Arias
In July, Arias will begin work on “Fire Bay,” a feature film about the Bay of Pigs invasion, in which he plays an exiled Cuban doctor. We had a conversation over lunch a couple of weeks ago…
Undercover Black Man

dnA
Too Sense Sunday: Debasing Rap, Singing Soprano
Contrast the media’s uncritical appreciation of The Sopranos with their cultural illiteracy and blanket condemnation of Hip-hop music. While I can’t think of a single Op-Ed in the Washington Post or the New York Times in recent years questioning whether The Sopranos is in any way responsible for the continuing existence of organized crime…
Too Sense

Wendi Muse
An Open Letter to “Buffie the Body”
Another aspect of your statement that makes me give pause is your indirect assertion that people of multiracial descent (which, in fact, accounts for most American blacks just like you), whom you seem to target here as your beauty rivals, are not members of your true black woman club.
The Coup Magazine

Leon
L’Oreal found guilty of racism
L’Oreal claims its business is a “celebration of diversity” and it’s famous slogan is “Because you’re worth it”. Obviously in L’Oreal’s view, you’re worth a lot more if you’re white.
Sox First

Carmen Van Kerckhove
Roger Williams University board chairman gets bitten by the racist fairy
Yeah, give him a break already! He already apologized! What is he supposed to do? Ritualistically disembowel himself like those chinks? Oops, I mean… Orientals? Or whatever the hell we’re supposed to call those Chinamen nowadays?
Racialicious

BLACK/BROWN RELATIONS

Juan Tornoe
The delicate balance of black and brown
The future political clout of the African American community may, in fact, partly depend on the ability of its candidates to win outside historically black areas because the number of predominantly black districts will continue to shrink. Carter’s victory, and the early successes of the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, are provisionally hopeful signs.
Hispanic Trending

HISTORICAL IDENTITIES:

Nadia Abou-Karr
Do Arabs Experience Anti-Semitism?
I immediately thought about the impact of all these wars, massacres and genocidal starvation campaigns and their impact on our identity formation. For these reasons, I use this framework to think about how to name and describe this particular experience of being Arab American.
No Snow Here

Edith Yeung
Fresh Off the Boat!
FOBs are the ugly ducklings. When I first came to the U.S., I spoke with a Chinese & English accent (Hong Kong was a British colony until 1997 for those who didn’t know.) I was really conscious about it.
Edith Yeung.com

Rachel S.
The Cherokee Election: Ramifications for Progressive Politics (or Why Leeds is the Better Candidate)
What first drew me to this story was the fascinating racial dynamics of the story; in particular I was interested in how whiteness and blackness were influencing the definition of who is/isn’t Cherokee.
Alas! A Blog.

IMMIGRATION AND MIGRATION

Zenobia
The daily life of refugees in Europe
Faced with this barrage of misinformation, it’s quite hard to stay clear-headed and not go and bang a few heads together. Instead, I’ll share what little information I have on the situation of refugees in Europe. So here goes.
Mind the Gap

Jan Adams
Migration and its Consequences [–A book review]
Like Boyle, I’ll describe the story using the language of the period. A white man was killed by shots fired by Negroes. Detroit boiled with the passions unleashed by the case. People and socials forces mixed in unlikely combinations. Some of the characters included:
Happening Here

WHITENESS REVISITED

KitKat
A review of “Community Builder: The Life & Legacy of J.C. Nichols”
Why can’t my fellow white people be more freakin’ self-aware and do the same thing with their own documentaries? If it’s “white areas” we’re talking about, then don’t talk about it as a history of “Kansas City.” Talk about it as a history of “white neighborhoods [from 18__-19__ that later became mixed neighborhoods from 19__-20__] in Kansas City.”
KitKat’s Critique

The Curvature
Being a racist doesn’t make you Margaret Sanger
The case of Laura Stevens, a 76 year old woman who was arrested for trespassing after she started giving unsolicited birth control advice to a Latina mother of six could just be brushed off as a case of a racist old woman failing to mind her own business. That’s certainly what I would have done. That is, until Salt Lake Tribune columnist Rebecca Walsh called her a modern day Margaret Sanger.
The Curvature

Eric Stoller
Why I blog…
Sometimes I think about shutting the whole thing down. Then I am reminded by an internal alarm that tells me that yes, as a white heterosexual man, I can walk away from this blog. I can go through my entire life on this planet and never have to think about my race, my gender, or my sexual orientation. It’s the combination of a set of unearned privileges.
Eric Stoller

Eric Stoller
The Meritocracy Myth
I’ve written about white privilege and the meritocracy myth before but I feel that I need to add a few more bits of content.
Eric Stoller

Eric Stoller
The Wealthiest Americans ever
The 30 Wealthiest Americans list was calculated by each person’s total wealth as a percentage of the economy of the time.
Do you see any commonalities among the people in this list?
Eric Stoller

Natasha Sky
Passing and Privilege
If White parents are not fully invested in learning about their child’s heritage and incorporating their child’s culture into the family’s traditions and culture, this responsibility falls to the child. The fact that race does not seem to matter to many transracially adopting parents is the epitome of White Privilege.
My Sky ~ Multiracial Family Life

DARFUR

Charles Modiano
“The Devil” Brings Death in Darfur… and to Indifference [a movie review]
Like most of our elected officials, I have been far too quiet on this. However, when it comes to fighting for “the side of right”, I’d always rather show up late, than not at all.
KILL BIGOTRY! … in Our Society and in Ourselves

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Posted at 2:26 PM, Jul 27, 2007 in Green Economy | Health | Identity | Immigration | Katrina | Music & Film | News | Obama | Open Thread | Politics | Pop Culture | Upcoming Events | Permalink | View Comments