Philosophy
It was 150 years ago today that Fort Sumter was attacked starting the Civil War. The war over slavery was indicative of a problematic view of race that we have had in this nation since it began. We hold up the first African-American President as evidence that things have changed.
But in a poll published just last week by Public Policy Polling, a widely respected polling organization, when they asked a representative sample of 400 likely Republican voters in Mississippi whether interracial marriage should be legal or illegal, a 46% plurality answered illegal.
I remember being an adjunct at Towson University (back when it was Towson State University) and having a cubicle across from an English prof who had an African-American student in her cubicle during "office" hours who was loudly railing that nothing had changed in terms of race in America. She emerged after the conversation shaking her head. She looked at me and said that this kid could have no idea what it was like to be in an interracial marriage in the 50s. Things, she said, had changed.
The question is how much and in what way? We love to point to our first African-American President and say that things are different. But are they? On the 150th anniversary of the start of the war to protect slave owners' rights, do we still have the same sorts of racist views, only we deny them in public because they have become unfashionable outside of Mississippi Republican circles? Do we have better code words for the same ideas or have the biases themselves changed? Are they decreased or more subtle? Has racism become institutional instead of individual? Have the biases turned more towards class, than race or is race still the issue? how different are things?
- Acquring Diversity
One of the shocks in moving from grad school at a research university to a small liberal arts college was the degree of homogeneity within the community. Johns Hopkins, where I was, is a microcosm. There are people there from everywhere. Yes, they were...
- Is Nothing Sacred?
Thinking about the defeat of gay marriage in Maryland which came at the hands of Republicans and African-American Democrats(something we'll discuss later in the week). But the line from those seeking to make sure that an oppressed minority of tax-paying...
- "it's Not About Race."
TheWife and I were in Baltimore Saturday to see the President Elect speak as a part of his whistle-stop tour. It was crowded. I saw Americans of many, many backgrounds: Middle-Eastern, East Asian, Latino, South Asian, African-American, European-American,...
- The Moral Arc Of The Universe
I was sitting in with a student on Aspazia's history of 19th century philosophy class yesterday because an independent study project led us to Hegel and no one does Hegel like she does. During the discussion, when we were trying to set out the merits...
- Sankofa
I saw an interesting piece of art on the New York City subway last week. The work consisted of a depiction of the Sankofa bird with an inscription underneath: ?If you don?t know where you have been, how will you know where you are going?? The view implicated...
Philosophy
How Different Is It?
It was 150 years ago today that Fort Sumter was attacked starting the Civil War. The war over slavery was indicative of a problematic view of race that we have had in this nation since it began. We hold up the first African-American President as evidence that things have changed.
But in a poll published just last week by Public Policy Polling, a widely respected polling organization, when they asked a representative sample of 400 likely Republican voters in Mississippi whether interracial marriage should be legal or illegal, a 46% plurality answered illegal.
I remember being an adjunct at Towson University (back when it was Towson State University) and having a cubicle across from an English prof who had an African-American student in her cubicle during "office" hours who was loudly railing that nothing had changed in terms of race in America. She emerged after the conversation shaking her head. She looked at me and said that this kid could have no idea what it was like to be in an interracial marriage in the 50s. Things, she said, had changed.
The question is how much and in what way? We love to point to our first African-American President and say that things are different. But are they? On the 150th anniversary of the start of the war to protect slave owners' rights, do we still have the same sorts of racist views, only we deny them in public because they have become unfashionable outside of Mississippi Republican circles? Do we have better code words for the same ideas or have the biases themselves changed? Are they decreased or more subtle? Has racism become institutional instead of individual? Have the biases turned more towards class, than race or is race still the issue? how different are things?
- Acquring Diversity
One of the shocks in moving from grad school at a research university to a small liberal arts college was the degree of homogeneity within the community. Johns Hopkins, where I was, is a microcosm. There are people there from everywhere. Yes, they were...
- Is Nothing Sacred?
Thinking about the defeat of gay marriage in Maryland which came at the hands of Republicans and African-American Democrats(something we'll discuss later in the week). But the line from those seeking to make sure that an oppressed minority of tax-paying...
- "it's Not About Race."
TheWife and I were in Baltimore Saturday to see the President Elect speak as a part of his whistle-stop tour. It was crowded. I saw Americans of many, many backgrounds: Middle-Eastern, East Asian, Latino, South Asian, African-American, European-American,...
- The Moral Arc Of The Universe
I was sitting in with a student on Aspazia's history of 19th century philosophy class yesterday because an independent study project led us to Hegel and no one does Hegel like she does. During the discussion, when we were trying to set out the merits...
- Sankofa
I saw an interesting piece of art on the New York City subway last week. The work consisted of a depiction of the Sankofa bird with an inscription underneath: ?If you don?t know where you have been, how will you know where you are going?? The view implicated...