Cinco de Mayo should bring about excitement, as should “May the Fourth Be with You” and May Day, for that matter. But around here, they’re signaling the winding down of a semester and the ramping up of all those projects shunted aside when professors and students are too busy in classrooms to tie up the loose ends on their dissertations and articles and books (oh my!). The good news is that this brings a bumper crop of great material for TSP, too, and we have lots of great articles coming your way in the next few weeks—so long as we manage to get our next two book manuscripts to press! In the meantime, here’s what’s going on across our (luckily) vast site.

The Editors’ Desk:

“Donald Sterling Sociology,” by Doug Hartmann. “I still have no idea how this guy was set to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the NAACP in L.A.” more...

Or: On Snark and Solutions

Eds note: This is a guest post from Max Fitzpatrick of Central New Mexico Community College and the University of New Mexico.

Recently there has been a lot of righteous finger-wagging at racist comments uttered by older white personalities. When celebrity chef Paula Deene, Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, and rebellious rancher Cliven Bundy spoke bad words about black people, mainstream and social media pounced.

Deene and Sterling are economic elites who have made fortunes employing black labor and selling black culture. It is sadly ironic that they disparage the very group whose alienated labor they exploit and whose culture they have commodified. But the popular criticism of their racist statements has not approached such a systemic analysis—remaining instead at the surface level of the individual. The uproar chastises these people as racist celebrities, when the real danger is that they are authority figures presiding over economically powerful institutions with broad cultural influence. Racism matters most when it is combined with power. But the internet snarkfest has avoided that point almost entirely. more...

So a number of students, media members, and colleagues have been asking this afternoon what I think of NBA Commissioner Adam Silver’s lifetime ban of Clipper’s owner Donald Sterling following the release of racist comments apparently directed at his mixed-race mistress. (Silver says the league will also fine Sterling $2.5 million and do “everything in his power” to force Sterling to sell the franchise.) I guess I’m glad that the league came down hard and did so quickly. Sterling’s most recent comments are obviously just the tip of the iceberg—his whole history of racist attitudes and behaviors, and the fact that he had the wealth and power to actually act upon these views reminds of the familiar definition of racism: prejudice + power. I still have no idea how this guy was set to receive a Lifetime Achievement award (was it his second?) from the NAACP in LA.

more...

Pretense: Dropped.

That’s right, we’re just going with it. I sometimes don’t have time to do the Roundup on Fridays, but I know you, the adoring TSP public, need to know! Hence, most likely the Friday Roundup will continue on Mondays for a bit, but hey, sometimes I’ll mix it up. Isn’t that what good Internetz users do? Wait. I’ve gotta go check with the hip kids…

Here’s what’s happened on TSP in the last week!

Brilliance: Also Dropped.

Features:

“Music and the Quest for a Tribe, with Jenn Lena,” by Sarah Lageson. From rockabilly kids to dubsteppers and punks, finding our musical tribe can be a key part of creating identity. more...

Sometimes, it turns out to be Monday.

But there’s still great stuff to read from last week!

Office Hours:

“Matt Wray on the ‘Suicide Belt’,” with Scott DeMuth. A podcast on the wide swath of the Western U.S. where suicides cluster.

There’s Research on That:

“On Heartbleed and Hackers,” by Evan Stewart. What sociologists know about the subcultures and criminal habitus of the hacker.

Citings & Sightings:

“Young Girls Consider Sexual Violence Normal,” by Kat Albrecht. #EverydaySexism in full effect. more...