Scrolling through Facebook over coffee this morning, I came across a story from Huffington Post. Eight hours later that story was still with me, and the Muse insisted we talk about it tonite. She's insistent when she wants to be, so check your check your stereotypes at the door and follow me below the orange cloud of internalized bias after a word from our sponsor...
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The HuffPo article by Rachel Garlinghouse, begins as follows:
I was running errands with my youngest two children in tow when an acquaintance of ours spotted us and came over to say hello. She looked at my son, marveling over how much he had grown since she last saw him a few months ago.
"Yes," I smiled, "He's a big boy!"
She replied, "Such a cute little thug."
My son is 2 years old.
For a chance to win
fabulous prizes hi-fives from your diarist du jour, care to guess whether her son is light or dark-skinned? DINGDINGDING, you got it right!
I have a nephew who'll turn two later this spring. He is a beautiful little boy, blonde and blue-eyed. He is almost but not quite (OK, we may be slightly biased :-)) as beautiful as my son was in the first pictures we have of him, at the age of three. My nephew may be called many things, but I'm pretty sure thug isn't ever going to be one of them. I'm also sure that cute little and thug NEVER were intended to be used in the same sentence, and that thug is NOT a term of endearment for anyone, black or white.
Just like the author, I don't believe that acquaintance meant to be racist. I suspect she simply didn't think about her word choice, what it conveys about both her internal bias and that of society in general. In the words of a friend of mine, after reading this article: "Another example of people being so unaware of their own prejudice they have no clue they are part of the problem." And it's people being unaware that makes it so tricky to bring to their attention... telling someone "your internal racial bias is showing" tends to make people defensive and reactive, because they take it as a spotlight shining on them while a megaphone-wielding activist points and declares them to be Horrible Awful Racists instead of an opportunity to notice and influence something so subtly there, it's hard to see if you look straight at it.
This Sunday was a special music service at my UU church, and hopefully it will be part of next week's TC. Something happened though, that fits well with tonight's topic. We had a number of special instrumentalists and singers present for the service, and because it was so special we gave K2 the option of skipping church school and staying to listen. He thought about it, then decided sitting still for that long wasn't going to be possible and he went off to church school. A fellow congregation member came up and after greetings and the well-deserved "wasn't that a wonderful service?!" comments, said "It's a shame your son wasn't here for it." I explained he'd decided not to stay, and the person responded "Oh well, too bad, he would have enjoyed seeing and hearing Regie."
That would be Regie O'Hare-Gibson, poet and Unitarian Universalist. For your second chance to win fabulous prizes mad props from me, can you guess whether or not Regie is white?
Now if this church member had said "Too bad, because I know he'd have loved the music" or something to that effect, the little hairs on the back of my neck wouldn't have bristled. But instead the reason she thought K2 would have enjoyed was because Regie was there. Point of fact, they met when Regie spoke at our MLS Jr. service, and remembered one another. She wasn't trying to say something insensitive, and as a Unitarian Universalist congregation we tend to be way above average in confronting our own biases. And yet there it was.
We have a lot to do, and the conversations and introspection required will be long and hard. I'm asking each of you to do what you can to help foster them even when they're hard, and also to understand that it's NOT easy to dig out parts of your subconscious so deeply ingrained they are almost invisible. Be kind to one another as we do the hard work.
Speaking of hard work, please shower BeninSC with Mojo since he did all the heavy lifting formatting tonight!
Brillig's ObDisclaimer: The decision to publish each nomination lies with the evening's Diarist and/or Comment Formatter. My evenings at the helm, I try reeeeallllyy hard to publish everything without regard to content. I really do, even when I disagree personally with any given nomination. "TopCommentness" lies in the eyes of the nominator and of you, the reader - I leave the decision to you. I do not publish self-nominations (ie your own comments) and if I ruled the world, we'd all build community, supporting and uplifting instead of tearing our fellow Kossacks down.
Brillig's ObDisclaimer: The decision to publish each nomination lies with the evening's Diarist and/or Comment Formatter. My evenings at the helm, I try reeeeallllyy hard to publish everything without regard to content. I really do, even when I disagree personally with any given nomination. "TopCommentness" lies in the eyes of the nominator and of you, the reader - I leave the decision to you. I do not publish self-nominations (ie your own comments) and if I ruled the world, we'd all build community, supporting and uplifting instead of tearing our fellow Kossacks down.
From rikon snow:
Every once in a while someone nails it. (This time it's ColoTim!)
From a2nite:
This is an excellent comment worthy of a diary from StevenD.
From FishOutofWater:
I would like to nominate this great (rant) comment on drought by defndr from my diary today.
From blue aardvark:
Ontheleftcoast provides a new mascot for the Republicans.
From Yours Truly, brillig:
From Eclectablog's Anti-trans* woman uses Michigan civil rights act to sue Planet Fitness for cancelling her membership, Angie in WA State absolutely nails what to do about public accomodations.
Top Mojo for Monday, March 23, 2015, first comments and tip jars excluded. Thank you
mik for the mojo magic! For those of you interested in How Top Mojo Works, please see his diary
FAQing Top Mojo.
1) GOOD. by raptavio — 179
2) You're off to a great start! by blonde moment — 172
3) shaming the poor by anna shane — 151
4) He could have kept his ass planted in his by gooderservice — 149
5) Um, that'd be The Tea Party Geniuses. by Eileen B — 136
6) Loaves only. No fishes for you! Isn't that what... by Sister Havana — 135
7) A few months after 9/11 a friend told me by poco — 120
8) The idea that Ferguson by Kristina40 — 119
9) These are incredibly powerful images. by moose67 — 108
10) Nothing has been done as of yet. by David Harris Gershon — 106
11) Let's see what happens at the United Nations by skywriter — 105
12) I'm sorry that woman had to go through that. by mumtaznepal — 101
13) That one act and Trayvon Martin by JoanMar — 94
14) My pleasure! by CSPAN Junkie — 94
15) Atrios had this item.... by dweb8231 — 94
16) I am happy to say by high uintas — 91
17) Why not just limit it to fried chicken and by SphericalXS — 90
18) Gosh, George ... let's think for a moment by niemann — 86
19) She just pitched a no hitter against casselberry . by indycam — 84
20) I also think that by gjohnsit — 84
21) I plan on fighting! by SouthernLeveller — 83
22) I found out recently that by Youffraita — 82
23) Like Single Payer Healthcare by Phoebe Loosinhouse — 81
24) You. Stalked. And. Murdered. A. Child. by polecat — 80
25) Yes ... but its a BIG crack in the wall. by nosleep4u — 80
26) Make yourself feel better by kicking downwards! by polecat — 75
27) The skeevy fuck head by high uintas — 75
28) "income inequality" is weak tea, and plays along by Jim P — 71
29) We need a national database by Mindful Nature — 70
30) Key concept there: by anon004 — 69
2015-03-24 Top Comments with Pictures, courtesy of
jotter!