I had a pretty nifty word spin last night but it seems that the post got lost somewhere between the iPhone wordpress 2.2 app and the blog. A casual search shows a possible bug. Any more comment on this?
Anyway. Achtung, baby.
Umerka: On The Persistence of Xenophobia
March 3rd, 2010Written by Big Rome
Leaving aside for a moment the fact that intergenerational linguistic assimilation is faster for the present wave of Spanish-speaking immigrants than for any large group of immigrants in U.S. history AND the fact that this country has NO national language, this sticker got me thinking. U.S. history is full of fears about Chinese, Irish, Italian, German, Slavic immigrants and their allegedly inferior character and slowness of assimilation.
There was great paranoia, for instance, in Cincinnati in the middle of the 19th century that the Germans were not speaking English and that the immigrants would “take over” the city. When immigrants come into a nation- into a community- they most often occupy the lowest strata in the labor market. It turns out that no matter which racial group (however contemporaneously defined) is represented, these poor immigrants are always believed to be violent, lazy, highly sexualized, unintelligent, and generally immoral. This way of understanding immigrant groups — and perhaps more importantly their lifestyle and life chances — makes their exploitation and subjugation all the easier to explain and tolerate. The ways in which today’s immigration “debate” is framed include plenty of these old and deeply troubling stereotypes.
My last thought on this for today: I wonder if the chain-smoking guy in the rebel flag hat that occupied this car considered that “America” is a hemisphere, not a country- and that the majority of the folk who inhabit this half of the world speak a language that is presumably not his own. Irony much?
12127
March 2nd, 2010Written by bp
And so I begin day two of my unemployment journey in the California Republic. One of my first steps at finding somewhat a locus of control on myself and situation has been to contact the State of California Emplopyment Development Department, in hopes of filing for some sort of unemployment insurance payments, until I secure regular employment again. Monday I racked up 86 call attempts, shut down in the phone cue, hung up automatically on because of number of callers. The system is too overloaded to even place callers in a cue. The irony of this, of course, costs this heavily in debt state even more pain to the tune of billions of dollars for just the failed calls.
The World is Flat
February 22nd, 2010Written by bp
In the span of a weekend, I went to regions of France, Korea, and Japan…all without traveling more than a 10 mile radius, no passport needed. Omelets, croissant, and cheesecake, sushi and sake, and beef tongue and octopus. Signage, language, and “authentic customers” included. File this one under “Reasons I Like Living in Los Angeles.”
Silver Screen
February 19th, 2010Written by bp
I’ve been in Hollywoodland for six months, and have been to about the same number of movies in as many months. An interesting event has happened at every one of these movies that I’m mildly fascinated by. At the beginning and closing of the movie, the audience breaks into applause and cheers.
Granted, I’ve only attended some of the more headlining movies, so my sample size is small and narrow. However, in my years of attending movies, I can only count on about two or three fingers the number of times I’ve heard noise from an audience in the midwest, save for the midnight geek fest showings: Dark Knight, Rocky III, Top Gun, Matrix, Star Wars.
Is this because I’m in the Hollywood, the land where movies and stardust is born from? And somehow it settles on the localized population, causeing such outbursts? Is it because a notable count of the populous is involved directly or indirectly in the entertainment industry? Does this happen elsewhere, and on a regular basis?
I’ll continue to collect data and monitor the situation.
Explaining Stratification: The Power Of Ideology
February 10th, 2010Written by Big Rome
I’ve been interested a lot of late in how folk make sense of the inequalities in our system and how we all arrived where we are. Of particular interest for me has always been the role of race in mitigating situational/structural/environmental explanations of poverty/disadvantage among those who identify as white. The race element of that whole discussion is something for another day…
I’ve long been fond of the NYT special edition on “How Class Works”- and there are some data there that speak to some of the above mentioned concern. Namely, when one follows the link below, then to the “A Nationwide Poll” tab, then to the “What it takes to get ahead..” link on the left, something interesting is revealed.
While the value of education and hard work seems to be fairly evenly distributed across income categories, those making over $150,000 a year are the least likely to agree that intergenerational wealth transmission or social connections have any impact on how one gets ahead in life. Also, They are the most likely to attribute success to “Natural Ability”. To be direct, for the rich, it is not who they know or who their parents were, but it is all about their own talent and hard work. The strength of this kind of attribution of the reasons for success seem to be particularly strong for the wealthy.
While we do not have (quickly accessible) corresponding data for suppositions about how or why one does poorly, we can imagine similar patterns of attribution. Those with power and privilege see primarily individual agency as the reason for life chances much more than others. While this is what one familiar with research of stratification and inequality might expect, these data make the case pretty clearly- and in plain- as they say- black and white. Taken alone these data might just be the odd curiosity of a Sociologist, but when we take into account what we also know about where wealth really comes from- namely that most wealth in the world is still inherited rather than earned, and that access to social networks of power and prestige are still at least as important as formal education in gaining opportunity and wealth, one is left with a very interesting picture of the wealthy in the US. Interesting, indeed.
Big Water. small boat.
February 10th, 2010Written by bp
Hang on, as this ride will be quick and wicked as I get up to speed. This waxing will also be shot from the hip, and unabashedly less poetic than perhaps I prefer it to be.
About six months ago, I left Indiana and moved to LA for a change in career; moreso, I did this for a change in life and scenery. The job I had in Indiana was pretty good. The work, the environment, the cash, the benefits. Some good people. All great things. However, I wanted to taste life a little differently than I had been. So I took a risk and left it behind. A leap. And during a tremendous national economic strife.
Get busy livin, or get busy dyin.
Well, more of a calculated gamble. I was fortunate to have a good job lined up. That being said, I knew there were risks, as the new gig was clearly fraught with its own perils of chance and being impacted by the recession. However, the move west happened, and life was an adventure. Much good new life, and reflection on experience past.
And then winter happened (a crazy thing for a midwestern volk to experience, their first “winter” season in southern California). Mid January, one of our clients dropped. Such is business, and such is the entertainment/TV industry. Our workload slacked (particularly mine since I directly handle work from this account). Panic stunk the air, like burned out electronics; not sure where it is burning or what it is burning, but you know it is just not good. Danger of shakeup in the company.
I’m not here.
February 6th, 2010Written by bp
Really, this just seems so far away in my mind…
Photo Chris Bergin, The Star Press (Muncie, IN)
On Pessimism
January 28th, 2010Written by Big Rome
Continuing the recent riff on the distinction between optimism and hope, I had a thought in the doctor’s office this afternoon. I spend a lot of time thinking about underlying assumptions and motivations for orientations to this or that issue. In the midst of that consideration this afternoon, something novel occurred to me: pessimism is, at bottom, an expression of vulnerability. Many friends who self-identify as pessimists have related to me over the years that if one is pessimistic, one is never disappointed. When one is vulnerable to disappointment, one is best served to protect against that disappointment- or so the argument goes. While on the surface, this ethos seems pragmatic and utilitarian- it reveals a deep interest in, engagement with- and vulnerability to- expectations and outcomes. Pessimists are not apathetic and they are not naive. In a very real sense, then, pessimists -not blind optimists- are the best candidates for conversion to the camp of HOPE. Facing the fear of disappointment, taking into account the obstacles faced and remaining open to life’s tough bargains seems to me to be a useful enterprise.
Perhaps not, but I am hopeful.
A Friendly Reminder To Challenge Your Assumptions
January 22nd, 2010Written by Big Rome
While I am not ready to accept the argument that it is a “natural” human trait, there is certainly plenty of evidence of a particular kind of logical fallacy swimming around in analysis and arguments of all kinds. Often, when folks describe the actions, intentions, or character of a group of someones with whom they disagree, they ascribe to that group a a great deal of homogeneity. We’ve all heard it and we’ve all done it: “They’re all the same…They all read from the same playbook…They all do this or that.” When folks talk about what “Black folks think” or “How religious people are” or “How women drive,” they are assuming that all members of those groups are the same. That their identities and interests are all the same, or at least markedly different from members of other groups.
The fact is- as the diagram above represents- that in-group variation is often greater than between group variation. Put another way, two members of the same group (Category A) might be more different from one another than any two members of different groups (a person from Category A and one from Category B). To use a practical example, two randomly sampled pizza delivery guys are just as likely to be different from one another as they are to be similar- in many, many ways.
This post is meant to serve as a reminder, not least to myself, to question my own assumptions about the groups and categories of people that I encounter and study.
Race and the Religious Right: Example 4,342
January 15th, 2010Written by Big Rome
It’s not just that what Pat Robertson said is heartless, mean-spirited and hateful. It’s not that it is totally historically inaccurate, and it’s not that it is a nearly unprecedented example of blaming the victim. It’s also worth noting, however briefly, that it is terribly racist as well.
Robertson, and I suspect millions for whom he is a guiding light, has a hard time explaining how it was that people of African and Native American descent threw off the chains of imperialism so long ago without the help of a some supernatural force. Yes, long before much of the rest of the hemisphere had emerged from colonization and subjugation, proud group of people of color- led by revolutionary Toussaint L’ouverture- crushed the mighty French empire. So invested is Robertson in his own whiteness, that he cannot imagine a situation in which black folks might get the better of white folks without the help of the Devil. Robertson’s quirky theory is not just about his usual God-on-our-side attribution of disaster (see his comments about 9/11 and Katrina)- this time it is a clear representation of his racial politics.
This vision of the Haitian people and their history also absolves people of European descent- especially those from the United States- of any complicity in the degradation and overwhelming poverty suffered by the Haitian people for so long. No market reforms, no amount of economic or humanitarian aid will make a difference- these people are cursed and doomed to their fate. This kind of supernatural attribution, then, serves both to rob black folks of their agency and proud history of resistance while obscuring the role of the rest of the world in creating a situation in which Haitians (even without natural disasters) live and have lived for so long.
As with any comment like this one, it is not so shocking that an individual holds such a worldview. What warrants attention is that Robertson’s choice to publicly endorse such a position suggests that there are millions who share this way of seeing the world. And that, not unlike the earthquake that destroyed thousands of human lives, is a true disaster.
Another In A Long Line of Random Observations
January 12th, 2010Written by Big Rome
I was just listening to an interview with folks involved in the making of the movie The Big Fan and something occurred to me. For most folks, being a true sports fan is about having strong opinions- to be filled with certainty about a team’s personnel decisions or what factors might cause a team to do well or to do badly.
I offer an alternative: in sports analysis, like political analysis, being truly engaged is about seeing things from multiple points of view, understanding that things have many causes, and that solutions are seldom simple. To be clear, this kind of understanding- this kind of orientation to the situation- is not mutually exclusive with strong opinions or strong engagement. I submit that perhaps the opposite is true. One can only truly arrive at a strongly held perspective when one understands the full complexity of the issue at hand- including evidence to the contrary of that strongly held perspective.
A big part of our problem, it seems to me, is that this kind of analysis is (so they tell me) not good TV. So we have Jim Rome and Glenn Beck. But once again, I stand astride the the disappointment of today and am hopeful for tomorrow. I am a Chicago Cubs fan, after all.
Let’s Make A Deal
December 20th, 2009Written by Big Rome
Dear Conservatives:
I would be more than willing to grant you your absurd suggestion that anthropomorphic climate change is just a big hoax if you would be willing, just for a moment, to suspend your certainty that the market is always and forever the best and only arbiter of a just society.
I look forward to that discussion.
A Quick Point of Historical Order
December 9th, 2009Written by Big Rome
In the flurry of reaction to Senate majority leader Harry Reid’s comparison of conservative resistance to passing health care reform to historical instances of conservative resistance to change, one is taken back a bit. It’s true that Reid’s argument was stiff and awkward, but the substance of his point is not really a historical controversy whatsoever: political conservatives have resisted change throughout the history of these United States.
We would do well not to confuse or conflate the conservative political philosophy with the Republican party- especially in historical terns. Contemporary conservative Republicans – especially in the South- have often (if deceptively) pointed out that it was the Democratic Party that resisted Civil Rights in much of the South from the 1890s to the 1960s. What this rhetorical slight of hand ignores is that those Southern Democrats were unambiguously philosophically conservative. Every major advance toward a more just society in the history of these United States has been opposed by conservatives. The record is clear. Below is but a sample of the changes and advances that were opposed political conservatives (whatever their party) at the time of of the change (whether through legislation, legal precedent, or general practice).
- Extension of the franchise to landless (poor) White men.
- Publicly funded education for all male citizens.
- Abolition of the Slave trade and limitation to its practice in established zones.
- Abolition of the practice of slavery.
- Extension of the franchise to all non-whites and women.
- An end to child labor.
- The 8-hour work day & worker’s compensation.
- Establishment of Social Security and a basic Social Safety Net.
- Glass-Stegall Act- establishment of the FDIC and regulation of the financial sector.
- Passage of the GI Bill and the Fair Housing Act
- Creation of the FDA, EPA, Department of Labor, and other Worker and Consumer Protections
- Brown vs. Board of Education- desegregation.
- Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts.
- Passage of Minimum Wage Laws.
- Loving vs. Virginia (an end to bans on interracial marriage)
- Higher Education Act- creation of the Pell Grant and Loan Programs
- Establishment of National Parks and land set-aside for non-commercial use.
- The Equal Rights Amendment (not passed)
- Clayton Act – Trustbusting and other regulation of commercial interests
- Establishment of Miranda Rights
- Establishment of Medicare & Medicaid
Very, very few folks who identify themselves as conservatives in the modern political environment would argue agains the existence of any of these rights and institutions. One wonders- on the one hand, why do so many conservatives ignore their own ideological genealogy- and on the other, how many issues currently debated will be as shocking to the conscience of future generations as the idea of debate over the moral imperative of the above issues is to our own.
A Constitution Day Drive-By Thought
September 17th, 2009Written by Big Rome
On this Constitution Day, it’s worth considering how it is that the so-called “strict constructionists” or those who strive to find the “original intent” of our founding document might interpret the following passage from the preamble:
…to promote the general welfare…..
as:
“you’re on your own, bitch”
Just a thought as we consider the way forward in our developing society. Ironic that those who presume to have the received wisdom have an interpretation surprisingly close to their own worldview.