As we draw closer to that special time of year — readying ourselves for parades from Peoria to Paris, why don’t we take a closer look at the real scope of influence that emanates from this Celtic island about the size of Maine . . .

5. Ever wonder why so many kids have Irish surnames as their first names? I personally know multiple Logans, Ryans, Shannons, Dylans, Kennedys, Finns, Connors, MacKenzies, Barretts, and even Rowans. They’re everywhere. Why? Why are those names umpteen times better than Hans or Neville or Snur? How come nobody wants to cuddle a little Vlad? Sad little Vlad.

[Read more →]

Tags: race & culture, travel & foreign lands
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Tags: movies, race & culture
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At some point in past years I have had students in freshman writing courses read Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and, more often in classes devoted to persuasive writing, his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” Aside from the obvious historical importance of these works, there’s plenty to learn about writing by studying them. Of course, with speeches, good delivery helps. So here’s the famous speech, in case you haven’t listened to or watched it in a long time. But also read the letter.

Tags: politics & government, race & culture
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I have been more than a little slack in my blogging in recent weeks. But, sometimes, the actual world will do that … make demands upon the time you would normally spend in the virtual world. Such was the case with me for the better part of two weeks this month. Sure, at times, it was tiring and annoying … but it was also educating and inspiring … and it reminded me that the best way to shut out the hectic hustle of the holiday season might not be shutting one’s self into a darkened and sound-proofed room but, instead, to go out into the world to serve, to accept added tasks and responsibilities.
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Tags: race & culture
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The article screams “Obama wants stimulus projects to hire more minorities, women”.  One quick glance at that headline tells you pretty much all you need to know about the information presented in the article.  For the people who only read headlines, it’s a pretty good one at communicating the message.  [Read more →]

Tags: money, politics & government, race & culture
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Saw this bumper sticker here in Houston this week, and I cannot help but applaud that sentiment. Over the last decade or so, Americans have felt increasingly threatened by Christianity. You would have thought the September 11^th attacks were masterminded by Jack Van Impe, or that we had a few hundred thousand troops in Vatican City, by all the bias and mockery of Christianity in pop-culture and media. [Read more →]

Tags: race & culture, religion & philosophy
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If you’re like me and consider watching reality television a full-time job, then you’ll be setting your TiVo for the second installment of Jersey Shore tonight on MTV. It’s arguably the worst that television has to offer these days, which is why I love it and cannot wait for tonight’s episode. In fact, it’s so bad (and by “bad”, I mean brilliant) that I’m considering skipping the TiVo and watching it in real time. [Read more →]

Tags: race & culture, television
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This New York Times story caught my eye today because of the the linguistic choices in the headline — “US Agrees to $3 Billion Deal in Indian Trust Suit” — as well as many within the story’s body. Some examples of the latter:

The tentative agreement, reached late Monday between Obama administration negotiators and lawyers for some 300,000 individual American Indians[…]

“This is an historic, positive development for Indian country[…]” said Ken Salazar, the Interior Department secretary[….]

Under the settlement agreement, the government would pay $1.4 billion to compensate the Indians[…]

[Read more →]

Tags: language & grammar, race & culture
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Until Thursday, I was perfectly happy to be the tail wagging the very, very end of the Baby Boomer dog. But, apparently, I am in reality part of the lamest-ass generation since Generation Y (how sad are those afterthoughts?)

That’s right, Generation Jones. What does it mean, you ask? How is it that one surname can so succinctly encompass the dreams and lives of those born between 1954 and 1965? [Read more →]

Tags: race & culture, television
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I feel more than a little sympathy for President Barack Obama when it comes to the criticism he has received over ‘the bow’ and what it represents to a new generation of virtual, international Miss Manners out there. [Read more →]

Tags: race & culture, travel & foreign lands
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As you might have seen elsewhere and as the New York Post reported, a “prominent Columbia architecture professor punched a female university employee in the face at a Harlem bar during a heated argument about race relations.”

The professor, Lionel McIntyre, is black and the woman he punched is white. Read the Post article for details. Or google Lionel McIntyre. As you can imagine, some bloggers are probably having fun with how much race relations have improved in the age of Obama. Others are surely asking whether the public outcry (is there one?) would be greater if the race roles were reversed — if a white man — a prominent man in a position of respect — had punched a black woman. Some have asked if this should be considered a hate crime. All fodder for bloggy sniping back and forth that we love so much. So have at it if you’d like.

But since the puncher is a professor of architecture and not of English, let those of us who profess to teach writing pay attention to the way words are used. [Read more →]

Tags: language & grammar, race & culture
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A couple in Louisiana was refused a marriage license by a justice of the peace due to the fact that they were an interracial couple. My favorite part of this story is this quote:

“I’m not a racist. I just don’t believe in mixing the races that way,” Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. “I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else.” [Read more →]

Tags: politics & government, race & culture
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At least 60% of Americans have a Vitamin D deficiency. As we avoid the sun more and more for fear of developing skin cancer, we may be creating an even bigger problem. Vitamin D is absolutely essential for our bodies and 15-45 minutes of direct sunlight each day is the best way to get it (the darker your skin, the more time you will need in the sun).

When an adult does not get enough D they can experience the following: aches and pains, lowered immunity to disease, bone softening, increased rates of cancer (especially breast, prostate, and colon cancers), heart disease, diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, and high blood pressure. Men, age 40-70, with low levels of Vitamin D have a significantly higher risk of heart attack than men of the same age group with normal D levels.

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Tags: family & parenting, health & medical, race & culture
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For the record, I know how Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates felt — just a little bit — when he was arrested by white police officers for the crime of answering the door in his own home. By now the facts and meaning of Gates’ arrest have become an international incident viewed through the prism of race and resentment, especially after President Barack Obama used the words “acted stupidly” to describe the behavior of the Cambridge, Mass. police in the Gates’ house arrest. Such is the power of race in America to distort and magnify every issue. [Read more →]

Tags: on the law, race & culture
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Paula: I am curious to have your take on the recent incident in which Henry Louis Gates, the Harvard professor of African-American Studies, was arrested by the Cambridge police as he tried to push open the door of his home, which was stuck, after returning from a business trip. I am unsure as to whether he was arrested because he was suspected of breaking into the home or whether he became disorderly when he thought he was being accused of doing this.

Whatever actually happened, the police officer involved clearly pushed Gates’s buttons. [Read more →]

Tags: conversations with Paula and Robert, race & culture
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Saturday is the Fourth of July. For most Americans, it is a day to barbecue and watch fireworks. For me it is a chance to watch the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Championship on Coney Island, sandwiched by a Twilight Zone marathon. Whatever the tradition, some Americans, including our President, have become almost apologetic for America over the last decade. They have  no problem confessing our imperfections to others around the world… and yes, we do have a lot of them. Other Americans are downright adamant about being American. They say that we are the best country in the world, and they are biased against other countries. But do they know what they are proud of? [Read more →]

Tags: race & culture
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If there’s one thing African Americans love it’s having babies out of wedlock, and if there’s one thing they hate it’s marriage. Those are just facts. Luckily for them, as former PA Senator Rick Santorum pointed out Monday on Fox News’ On the Record, they have a wedlocked African American president to act as a role model. One who “says that marriage is cool” and knows how to treat his lady. He cautions Obama, though, against treating her too well, in light of his recent trip to New York. 

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Tags: his & hers, race & culture
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CNN’s Roland Martin complains in his recent column about the use of “qualified” when discussing minority and female appointments to the Supreme Court, and hires for other positions. Why, he asks, “do we as a society feel the need to say it’s important to have “qualified” women or minorities?” [Read more →]

Tags: on the law, race & culture
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Ahhh, ‘tis almost St. Patty’s Day, and ‘tis almost time for us Irish to further perpetuate the Irish stereotype of drinkin’, singin’, laughin’, and then fightin’. As the ides of March come creeping closer, we Irish get all the more excited about putting our livers to the test on the 17th.  [Read more →]

Tags: drugs & alcohol, race & culture
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A terrible thing happened last year. The Chinese restaurant that my family has been going to for ten years suddenly shut its doors. Well, I guess it wasn’t really that sudden. They had been complaining of diminishing profits since 9/11, as had many Chinatown businesses. Then one sad evening, we showed up for dinner and the place was deserted. I called my husband in disbelief. No more crisp and delicious salt and pepper squid. No more al dente lo mein (my dad’s favorite). Sigh. Once we got over the initial shock, we realized that we had to get serious about the task ahead — we would have to find a replacement for our beloved Kam Chueh (RIP). 

Chinese Restaurants are as American as apple pie. Chinese food, as we know it, was invented in America in the mid-1800s. Chinese immigrants headed west to the California Gold Rush like everyone else, but were discriminated against and denied mining jobs. They quickly learned to adapt, opening restaurants for the miners and railroad workers. They served dishes like General Tso’s chicken and chop suey, which the workers ordered by number rather than attempt to pronounce the strange, new, words.

As the Gold Rush came to an end, violent crime surged out West. Chinese workers headed towards the Northeast where there were better job opportunities and less ethnic discrimination. In 1878, the first Chinese grocery store, Wo Kee, opened on Mott Street. That same year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Chinese Immigrants would not be permitted to gain American citizenship. The next 60 years were incredibly difficult for the Chinese living in America, as several laws were passed making it nearly impossible for any new Chinese citizens to enter the United States, including the wives and children of the men already here.

[Read more →]

Tags: race & culture, recipes & food
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I knew there was a reason I loved Morgan Freeman. He could narrate the phone book and they could charge nine bucks to listen, and that would be fine with me — no, I’m not tired of his voice-overs. Yes, in The Bucket List it didn’t work, but that’s because that movie sucked — even Morgan Freeman couldn’t save it. But man was he great in Unforgiven, and I could listen to him tell me about Shawshank prison over and over. It isn’t just his voice. Watch how quickly he thinks and how completely he flummoxes Mike Wallace in this video (which I found at atlasblogged.com) in which he says he doesn’t want a black history month.

Tags: art & entertainment, race & culture
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There’s nothing funnier than a bullet riddled chimpanzee corpse to make a humorous point about the see-no-evil, hear-no-evil logic of Washington deal makers. At least that must have been the considered opinion of the editorial leadership of the New York Post when the best and brightest at the Post agreed to run the dead monkey gag by cartoonist Sean Delonas on the the paper’s saucy Page Six. On the pavement of the cartoon lies a great ape turned to Swiss cheese by bullet holes. Behind the smoking gun, from the mouth of the police officer who shot him, come the words, “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”

Har-Dee-Har-HAR-Dee-Har-HAR!

Boy, did he skewer the Washington elite with that topical gag “ripped out of the pages” of this week’s newspapers. See, there was this famous performing chimp in Stamford, Conn., that went nuts and almost killed an old lady. When police responded to a frantic 911 call from the animal’s owner, the chimpanzee named Travis turned its anger on the men in blue who — get this — ran away and jumped inside their patrol cars. Tee-hee!

Eventually, the police fired several shots at the 200-pound primate, which has between five to seven times the strength of a man that size. Travis ran back into his house where he was found dead inside his cage. His 70-year-old victim lies in a hospital bed clinging to life. Meanwhile President Barack Obama signed the $787 billion stimulus package that was greeted by investors on Wall Street with a 300-point drop in the Dow.

It was a perfect storm of non sequiturs. [Read more →]

Tags: race & culture, trusted media & news
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During the same week that America’s caramel colored First Family made its debut before a delighted nation and a fascinated world, I saw two new TV commercials for national brand-name products featuring biracial married couples. In one, the husband was black and the wife was white. In the other, the husband was white and the wife was black. In both commercials the wives did the talking. I don’t remember ever seeing a biracial couple in a commercial before, so seeing two in one week caught my eye. Could this be a sign of the new Obama nation? Or is it merely commerce imitating reality?

I’m old enough to remember when a biracial couple in Philadelphia meant an Italian boy dating an Irish girl. I remember when Protestants were forbidden friends and Jews were exotics, people mentioned in the Bible by the nuns who taught us not to hate them, which was easy because I never met one. I remember when blacks were Negroes and whites were Caucasians and Jews were something else altogether. Muslims were nonexistent, except in stories about the Crusades, and even then they were called either Arabs or Mohammadeans. As for Buddhists, Hindus, Wiccans or Scientologists. . . fuhgeddaboudit.

I grew up a Catholic school Philadelphian back in the day. I didn’t have a black or Jewish classmate, let alone friend, until junior high school, when I became a Public. In grade school I had one Protestant friend named Elliott Jones, who lived on my street, and I kept trying to convert him to Catholicism. He was an Episcopalian, which to me meant he was something like a Communist. I was naive and shameless and comfortable in my prejudice. That was how I grew up. Those were my values.

I get annoyed and impatient with people who explain their wrong thinking, if not behavior, with the words “that was how I was raised” as if everything there is to learn in life stops at the age of ten. As if not doing to their own children what their parents did to them is a betrayal of mom and dad. My father used to beat me and my brothers with a belt he would snap like a lion tamer before he whacked us. This was considered normal when I was growing up.

Somehow what I learned from this experience was never to hit my children. And I never have. In a single generation what was once common in my family had become unthinkable. And in America, what was unthinkable a generation ago has become our face to the world.

Tags: family & parenting, race & culture
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Obama was elected months ago but today he became our president. I can’t help but feel hope. I know we have a long road to travel before this country gets back up on its feet — but the swearing in of our first black president says so much about how far we’ve already come, as a people and a nation. I feel as if we can do anything.

In his inauguration speech Obama said:

“This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed — why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent Mall, and why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.”

Wow… that just says so much about how far we really have come. But it’s important to note that my feeling of hope for this country is not because Obama is black; it’s because Obama seems to inspire change. He inspires influential people to try to inspire change. He inspires the average citizen to want to help create positive change.

Also, I can relate to Obama. The leader of our country is also just another guy, a father. I watch his speeches culminate in applause and then see his older daughter give him the equivalent of a high-five. Her excitement, her interest, and her words, “great speech dad,” say so much about him as a man and as a father.

I am not sure if this feeling of hope will last — especially as more people continue to lose their jobs and their homes — but maybe it will help to get us through the hard times ahead.

It’s 1pm and I just watched Barack and Michelle walk former president Bush and Barbara to their ride out of D.C., a presidential helicopter. Man — it feels so good to see Bush go away and to see Barack standing on the steps with confidence. I know Barack will mess up at some point. I know he will make decisions I don’t agree with, but it’s true that, for right now, I have a renewed sense of hope and pride in my country. I will ride this wave as long as I can.

Tags: politics & government, race & culture
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In light of our selection of the first black president, there is — for good reason — lots of talk of race relations here and elsewhere. We have come such a long way to correct the mistakes of our past but there are still so many people out there who can’t even say they have had the opportunity to be friends with someone of a different race. I grew up in an urban neighborhood where some of my best friends were black and Korean. I believe those friendships helped to make me a better person. So, when I saw this short CBS piece about an unlikely bond between an elephant and a dog it made me think, if an elephant and a dog can get past their physical differences, why can’t we?

It also made me question how people will ever get over their racial bias if we continue to live in towns with minimal integration. How will the opportunities for friendships ever arise if people of different races do not live and work together? How do we see past the color of our skin if we never really get to know each other — allowing us the chance to see how similar we really are. And in friendship, my hope would be that we gain a new respect for what makes us all different. Cheesy as that sounds… white people who wouldn’t normally have voted for a black man, voted for Obama. They didn’t vote for him just because they wanted Bush out of office (although that may have been part of the reason), they voted for him because they felt like they got to know him during his campaign — and they liked him and they liked his politics. Maybe, in fact, he is the first black man they’ve ever gotten to know.

Hat Tip to Dixie

Tags: animals, race & culture
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I didn’t vote for Barack Obama.

While I am not a fan of President-elect Obama’s politics, I — am — a realist. Since it became obvious to me last summer that Mr. Obama was going to win the election, I have been nursing the hope that his victory would have a profound effect on the issue of race relations in this country. The elevation of a black man, in an open and free election, to the highest office in this land and, indeed, one of the most powerful positions in the world, is a clear indication of how far we have come.

While it would be foolish to expect the ripples from this election to be felt so soon, it is human nature to hope. The deafening silence from renowned race-baiters Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton over the last few months has fed those hopes.

All is not sugar and spice, however. [Read more →]

Tags: race & culture
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At a time of unprecedented national pride and renewal, as we approach the inauguration of America’s first nonwhite president, it’s hard to imagine anything more squalid than the behavior of the president-elect’s home-state governor, Rod Blagojovich of Illinois, who was arrested Nov. 12th on charges of conspiring to sell Mr. Obama’s own seat in the U.S. Senate. Nothing could be more distracting or at odds with the spirit of the moment. Or so it seemed.  

Gov. Blagojovich will of course have the day in court to which he is entitled — followed, most likely, by many years of incarceration. But from the standpoint of racial harmony and conciliation, which is a key subtext of the past election, the present time, and the coming administration, I would single out another chapter of this story for its inappropriateness: something less despicable than what Gov. Blagojovich allegedly did, but in a way, more depressing. That is the reaction of some African-American leaders in Illinois and in Congress, to the Governor’s nomination of a distinguished black politician, Roland Burris, to fill Obama’s Senate seat.

Blagojovich remains governor as of this writing, with the powers pertaining to that office. He himself claims to have a legal duty to fill the seat; duty or not, his nomination of Burris is perfectly legal.

The problem is that the governor is so deeply compromised, not just by the charges pending against him but by the nationally-publicized recordings of some particularly damning evidence for those charges, that any act he performs in his remaining time as governor bears the taint of corruption. [Read more →]

Tags: politics & government, race & culture
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Jewish kids get creamed during the holiday season. Every single television show is about Christmas and Santa. My daughter was watching Dora the other night and after the show ended, she turned to me and said in this tiny little voice (mind you, she’s 2 ½), “Mommy, Santa come and bring me presents?” My heart sank. Years of childhood angst gurgled in my stomach and started to well in my throat. I remembered the feeling I had as a little Jewish kid during Christmas. It sucked. Plain and simple. I wanted a tree and lights and stockings hanging above my fireplace. I wanted to put out cookies and milk at night and pretend that it wasn’t my parents that ate them and left all those presents under the tree. I wanted all of it. No matter how many times they tried to beef it up, I never fell for the idea that eight nights of Hanukkah were way better than one day of Christmas. I wasn’t buying it. There was no escaping the fact that I felt left out of the biggest and greatest day of the year. I understood that the world basically ignored Jews during the holiday season. But I still felt burned. Even as a kid, if I saw a menorah in a store, it felt patronizing next to the 40 foot tree and 50,000 lights that covered it. The Thanksgiving Day Parade even ended with a kick in the teeth for me. Who’s the big star of the show? Who closes out the parade with that condescending grin? Santa!

And now, here I was, faced with the first of what I imagine will be millions of questions about Christmas and Santa. I felt sad for my daughter. There she was, watching her favorite person in the world (Dora) enjoying an afternoon with Santa, his reindeer and that goofy looking monkey she hangs out with. What was I supposed to say to her? Do I tell her that Santa doesn’t exist? That Santa doesn’t visit Jewish kids? Or do I dish the shit like NORAD and tell her that Santa visits anyone who believes in him? What a load of crap. I believed in that tubby bastard and he never came to see me.

I had to think fast. I told her that Santa is for people that celebrate Christmas and that we celebrate Hanukkah. She looked at me, smiled, and asked for pudding. Crisis averted. But what about next year? And the year after that? What happens when there’s no pudding in the fridge? Or worse, Santa’s big fat face is on the pudding container?

Tags: family & parenting, race & culture
5 Comments »

The question is rhetorical. Partly because I hope most parents would know better than to name their kid after one of the most evil men in history, and partly because if you would, I don’t think I would want to know.

A mom and dad in New Jersey named their little boy Adolf Hitler and they are angry because the local ShopRite refused to create a birthday cake that said “Happy Birthday Adolf Hitler.” One might argue that it’s just a name and there is no reason to be offended. This boy can be raised in a way to give the Hitler name new meaning; however, I doubt that’s going to happen here. Adolf has two sisters, one named JoyceLynn Aryan Nation and another named for Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler. Oh yeah… and their house is complete with a swastika in every room.

The thing that gets me the most angry about this is not his parents’ beliefs — I think they are morons, but this is a free country, so they can believe what they want. The thing that gets me the most angry is that these idiots gave their kids names that will will affect them in a negative way for all of their life. I think naming your kid Apple is stupid too, but it’s no Adolf Hitler.

Tags: family & parenting, race & culture
10 Comments »

I sent a link to this blog post to a gay friend — a parent, blogger, and Democrat who supported Obama. In the post, Radley Balko notes that black voters were in favor of a ban on gay marriage at significantly higher rates than were other ethnic groups. In California, the “Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage actually failed among white voters, 51-49. It was the 70 percent support from black voters that put the measure over the top.”

Gay people overwhelmingly vote Democratic and it is fair to assume that many were rooting for and some were even actively working to encourage high black voter turnout, so Obama would be elected and the Republican would not, (partly) because of the view that many gay people have that the Democrats are their best hope for legalized gay marriage. Yet that high black voter turnout is the reason that in California gay people cannot marry. It also didn’t help their cause in other states. But something troubles me aside from the irony that Balko discusses.

It is this response from my friend: “I was contemplating writing a blog very similar to this but was worried I would come off as racist, so I shelved it. This statistic is infuriating.”

We will soon have a black President. If you thought that this would make for better race relations and a more open dialogue among ethnic groups, consider people like my friend, who, despite being gay and being parents and having voted for Obama, are too worried about being perceived as racist to risk discussing something that is not only infuriating but has real consequences in their lives.

People have to get over this fear of being labeled racist, especially now.

Yes, we will soon have a black President, and he won a lot of electoral votes. But fifty-five million Americans voted against him. Many don’t share his views. Even the people who voted for him are going to disagree with him from time to time. There can’t be any walking on eggshells, any political correctness, any fear that dissent will get you labeled racist. You can’t be afraid to criticize a politician or fellow citizens, whatever group they belong to. 

We all must be free to speak our minds.  We must refuse to be paralyzed by political correctness and the imagined possibility of accusations of racism, which perhaps were not going to come at all. We must refuse to be cowed if those accusations do come. And we, all of us — black, white, Latino, other, gay, straight, liberal, conservative, libertarian — must leap to the defense of anyone who is falsely accused of racism.

Otherwise we’ll have a President — even if he’s the one you voted for — who can do whatever he wants, with the opposition too frightened to speak up. And then he’s not just a President any longer, is he?

Tags: his & hers, race & culture
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