Joe's dead phone

campus racism part 3: "I'm not racist but ... "

… nothing good ever follows that sentence. It’s solidly reemerged as a trope in the American cultural lexicon. I’ve been hearing / seeing it a lot. (I say seeing, because so much of the social fabric of America now unfolds over social media, and also because in face to face conversation, people seem to behave better.)

A few weeks ago, I was going to write a lengthy follow up piece to my post about white student unions, but so many other things (mostly shootings; also an uprising in anti-Muslim sentiment) have stolen my attention since I first began composing my thoughts about this new uprising of racism, all my ideas got eclipsed by distressing and immediate events that call for as much examination and which have faded from the spotlight in rapid succession. It’s good that we have all developed short attention spans, because it allows us to process shock and outrage in a quick compressed cycle and move on before another stunner hits the news. Back to it though, a summary of my philosophy on the matter: the Black Lives Matter movement, and before BLM the election of Barack Obama, have provoked an enormous racist backlash. Obvious. There’s a great book about the concept of backlash against social momentum, and though it’s about responses to female progress, I have stolen the term and applied it to social movements of all types. Social progress is hard earned and demands a fight. Demands it, absolutely. I do not use that word sloppily. But what happens when you fight? Someone fights back. Privilege fighting back, pushing against a movement for equality, is a backlash.  It is predictable, like a tide. Two steps forward, one step back (although when economic inequality grows, social progress erodes along with it ... a whole nother can of worms).

I was going to write about Amazon’s dumb retort to suggestions that they should remove (contextually appropriate but offensive to the unaware) subway ads for The Man in the High Castle; I was going to talk about a New York Times article about campus racism culture (if there’s rape culture, I’m going to call it if I haven’t already: there also is racism culture) that with some words changed, might have been mistaken for a fluffy human interest piece about siblings squabbling over TV time (I don’t know where that article is. Probably I read it in a fumed state of mind.) … but as I said, too many other things have grabbed my attention, and I could not follow up on any of those tiny tree branches.  So off they go into the wind. American culture needs a therapist.

Worth noting is that I read an article proposing that the white student unions were largely the work of one or a group of trolls. It's pretty flippant. I don’t know if that’s the truth, but it’s worrying even if so, and there are plenty of signs that racists are mobilizing whether more hate groups exist in real space or are just growing conceptually. I have removed the schools’ contact info from that post. I had written a few in California to inquire about their response to having a white student union forming, and none responded. In the letters I framed my concern something like this: although I am not a student at their school(s), the influence of students on the community around them is an important one. And I believe this. Student dialogue is important. This is where a lot of great thinkers and great writers (and great observers of human behavior and cultural trends) develop their communication skills. I was implying, additionally, that colleges have a connection to the rest of their culture and are not just elite institutions where rich kids talk about nothing.

Also I’ve rubbernecked, like a car accident, a number of social media conversations about Black Lives Matter and am always stunned by people openly expressing their hostility towards the movement, unaware or unperturbed by the frequency of police executions of people of color in this country (or possibly: unaware of their inner racist).

Further, I’m going to go right ahead and blame Donald Trump’s presidential bid for smoking out all the latent bigots.

And I guess that sums up the icing on what I would have written in the past month, if I'd had any philosophizing in me.

campus racism part 2: white student unions

See PART ONE.

This, which is occurring right now in 2015, national student "white rights" organizing is very troubling. It can't possibly lead anywhere good.

I'm sure this does not represent all of them, and I'm sure also the list will grow and grow, but for now here (below) is a list of American and Canadian colleges and universities that have "white student unions" (that I was able to discover easily - they are networking like a fraternal organization on Facebook).  Most of them are copy/pasting their mission statements from UCLA's, which someone has worded very carefully if not stolen from a minority student union text (but in the context of expressing "white rights" – which historically have not suffered systemic oppression – the tone of the statement is clear, the organization is obviously meant to be provocative, and the page contains obvious white supremacist interaction, as well as objections from international students and students of color).

See what Wikipedia has to say about the White Student Union.

Example mission statement posted below.

Meanwhile, write to the dean's office of some schools with white student unions and ask how they intend to address the threat these organizations imply to students of color.  (Many universities have several dean's offices corresponding to school of business, school of arts and sciences, etc .. generally I have picked the one that best corresponds to the liberal arts campus, or when possible, a direct link to student affairs)

(update Dec 24/15 - I am excising the contact info - see "campus racism part 3" for explanation, but what follows is the original list of schools that I posted)

UCLA, UC Berkeley, Penn State, U of Illinois, Georgia State U, Tarrant County College, Ohio State, Princeton, University of Western Ontario, Florida International University, U of Central Florida, University of Florida, Loyola Chicago, Washington State U, Rutgers, University of Cincinnati, University of Missouri (Mizzou), NYU, Umass Amherst (boo!), Stanford, U of Minnesota, McMaster University, NC State, University of Arkansas, UT Austin, University of Tennessee Knoxville, Occidental College, UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, Texas Southern University, University of British Columbia, CSU Fullerton.


*DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT CONDONE THIS CONTENT* - SAMPLE WSU STATEMENT (I have just copy/pasted this, removing a repeated paragraph, but the emphasis is mine):

We welcome students of European descent (and allies) to follow and contribute to the ____ White Student Union. We were inspired by the new White Student Union at UCLA and hope that our initiative will move our brothers and sisters across the country to do the same.European-American students on college campuses face unique and immediate challenges that are ignored or even actively denied in today's cultural climate.We unapologetically provide a safe space for white students to air their true feelings about the future of our nation, discuss and reflect on the lessons laid down for us by our great European writers, philosophers, and artists, and develop a positive program to restore the pioneering will and greatness of our unique and virtuous people.
We affirm the dignity and ancestry of our proud people who have gifted the world with countless works of beauty, science, and wisdom, and are committed to promoting a dialogue and political resistance that will secure a future for our posterity and spirit.
At the same time, we do not wish to denigrate or harm any other group or ethnicity.
We condemn the cowardly campaigns of moral subjugation and propaganda that seek to instill self-hatred and surrender within European-American youth and justify the continued invasion and degradation of the lands, institutions, and cultural heritage that is rightly ours.
We seek to honor our past while promoting a positive, peaceful vision of the future; one in which every ethnic group has the right to organize and represent themselves and their interests.

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to be sick ...

campus racism - what year is this?

Campus racism has gotten out of control. UCLA and UC Berkeley (and Penn State and others) now have "White Student Union"...
Posted by Laverne Shirley on Sunday, November 22, 2015

Cinema PTSD

Great movies I can't bear to watch a second time:

Morvern Callar

No Country For Old Men

Maria Full of Grace

Network

Dancer in the Dark

American History X

The Deer Hunter

The Piano

Life is Beautiful

Manhunter

Reservoir Dogs

Taxi Driver

The Professional 

Monster

Panic

Boys Don't Cry

favorite stills #2

Some more TV and film stills that I like.

Return of the Secaucus Seven

Gilmore Girls: Nothing alive or gross (please)

Gilmore Girls: Rory's mug shot on the fridge

Mad Men

Pushing Daisies: Emerson knitting

Pushing Daisies

Mr. Robot: F Society

Halt and Catch Fire

Orphan Black: Felix's loft

Orphan Black

(this way to favorite stills #1)
NOTE: blogger has schmutzed with the layout so photo size can no longer be edited beyond "too small" or "falling out of frame" as far as I can figure - sorry they are so darn small.  I guess you can just go into slideshow mode and see them probably at all kinds of sizes but somewhat bigger.  Also I'm noticing a bug I noticed years ago that they evidently have not fixed, which is that sometimes photos go missing ... and but possibly only when viewed in Firefox.  Grr... hm.

There is no excuse for my not having learned to build websites by now.   Except: yawn.

Also sorry if you don't think "schmutz" should be verbed. Alternate word submissions welcomed.

Jennifer Parker's pants, revisited

I hereby eat my words from the previous post, regarding Back to the Future, in which I claim Jennifer Parker v.2 (Elizabeth Shue) wears a lame reproduction of her original pants, as today I received my copy of Back To The Future: The Ultimate Visual History, and was able to pore over photos of Elizabeth wearing pants in BTTF 2, from which one can only conclude she was wearing the same pants after all, or if not the very ones, a close enough facsimile that they did not and do not deserve my mocking.  See for yourself (pic 1: Claudia Wells; pics 2 & 3: Elizabeth Shue)

Also, I attended the last day of We're Going Back 2015 and watched BTTF in the parking lot of Puente Hills Mall, timed so the clock tower lightning strike happened at 10:04 (or within a minute or so) and with a live Delorean chase by a van full of Libyan terrorists.  So many fan-driven Deloreans were in attendance, I kept losing count – at least 15, maybe half of which were time machines.

People were handing out "Save the Clock Tower" flyers, and the mayor of City of Industry announced they would be keeping the Twin Pines Mall sign forever.

I love Los Angeles, my weird home.