Archive: May 2010

Thea Lim at Racialicious posted this travel advertisement for Newfoundland-Labrador, Canada:

Text:

How many times can one place be discovered?  We’ve been asking ourselves that question for over a thousand years.

Discovery is a fearless pursuit. Certainly, this was the case when the Vikings, the first Europeans to reach the new world, landed at L’Anse aux Meadows. While it may only be a three-hour flight for you, it was a considerably longer journey a thousand years ago. But it’s a place where mystery still mingles with the light and washes over the strange, captivating landscape. A place where all sorts of discoveries still happen every day. Some, as small as North America. Others, as big as a piece of yourself.

As the recent Vancouver Olympics reminded us relentlessly, Canada was home to many peoples when the Europeans arrived.  The ad sanitizes this history, turning it into “discovery.”   Lim points out that “discovery” has a certain ring to it that “genocide” or “colonization” simply does not.

She quotes Ronald Wright, author of Stolen Continents, who points out how ridiculous it is to use the term “discovery” to describe what happened when Europeans arrived in North America:

…I was told by Dehatkadons, a traditional chief of the Onondaga Iroquois, “You cannot discover an inhabited land.  Otherwise I could cross the Atlantic and ‘discover’ England.”  That such an obvious point has eluded European consciousness for five centuries reveals that the history we have been taught is really myth…  those vanquished by our civilization see that its myth of discovery has transformed historical crimes into glittering icons.

The use of the myth of discovery in advertising like this demonstrates just how deeply many of us have internalized it.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

A recent study by Chelsea Schafer and Greg Shaw found that, as of 2006, over a quarter of Americans would still rather not live near homosexuals.  This percentage has been decreasing, however; in 1990 and 1995, 38% and 30% of people, respectively, wanted to keep their distance:

But tolerance for Muslims and immigrants has not increased alongside tolerance for gays and lesbians.  The data show that rather high levels of tolerance in the ’90s (with about 90% of people being happy to have these groups as neighbors) disappeared and, by 2006, 22% of people did not want to live near Muslims and 19% did not want to live near immigrants.

The data on tolerance for Muslims is likely due to the way the attacks on September 11th, 2001, have been spun to stoke hatred against Muslims.  What do you think about the increased intolerance for immigrants?  Have “foreigners” been collateral damage in the smear campaign against Muslims and Arabs?  If it were simply growing conservatism, wouldn’t we see the same pattern for homosexuals?  Other explanations?

Borrowed from Contexts Discoveries.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

In the U.S. today we largely accept and encourage girls’ experimentation with boy-coded things, but we are still extremely ambivalent, if not downright condemnatory, of boys experimenting with girl-coded things.

This excerpt from an Ann Landers advice column from 1974 shows that Landers had the same asymmetrical concerns almost 40 years ago.

The parents ask about the sex-crossed play behavior of both their daughter and their son, but Landers fixates on the son, suggesting that if he continues such play he should get checked out.

From Ms.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

It is commonly claimed and, in fact, I have claimed it on this blog (here and here), that the U.S. is especially individualistic.  Claude Fischer, at Made in America, puts this assertion to the test.  “There is considerable evidence, ” he writes, “that Americans are not more individualistic – in fact, are less individualistic – than other peoples.”

He operationalizes “individualism” as “gives priority to personal liberty” and offers the following evidence.

Question: “In general, would you say that people should obey the law without exception, or are there exceptional occasions on which people should follow their consciences even if it means breaking the law?”

Question: “ Right or wrong should be a matter of personal conscience,” strongly agree to strongly disagree.

Question: “People should support their country even if the country is in the wrong,” strongly agree to strongly disagree.

Question: “Even when there are no children, a married couple should stay together even if they don’t get along,” strongly agree to strongly disagree.

Fischer entertains several explanations for these findings.

(1) Americans aren’t really individualistic (anymore).

(2) Americans means something else by individualism (like freedom from government or pulling yourself up by your bootstraps).  Fischer thinks that these are different values, though: anti-statism and laissez-faire, pro-business economics.

(3) Americans are individualistic, but they are also religious and sometimes religion outweighs individualism.  If that’s so, Fischer argues, then maybe it is true that we’re not that individualistic.

(4) American individualism is found not in people’s opinions, but in how we organize our society.  Fischer calls this “undemocratic libertarianism.”

Finally, (5) maybe what is meant by individualism is really voluntarism, the right to leave and join groups as we see fit.

The argument and the answers clearly revolve around how we define (or operationalize) “individualism.”  In any case, the comparative data does put the U.S. into perspective and Fischer’s discussion leaves a lot to unpack.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

An article in press at the journal, Medical Hypotheses, suggests that detection of underlying medical problems that affect skin color can be facilitated by placing patients in hospital gowns matching their skin. If their skin starts to change color, then the contrast will make it suddenly obvious; without the contrast, it might go entirely unnoticed.

The article, though, includes only illustrations featuring light skin. These are them:

A search for words that might suggest even a nod to the idea that darker-skinned people exist — e.g., black, race, ethnicity, Latino, etc — turned up nothing.

Via BoingBoing.  See also our posts on “flesh-colored,” Michelle Obama’s “nude” colored dress, the new in-color, and this post on lotion for “normal to darker skin.”

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Why does the iconic New York City paper cup look so… Greek?

The designer of the cup, Leslie Buck, arrived in the U.S. after fleeing the Nazis during World War II.  He joined a new company called “Sherri Cup” in the ’60s.  He designed the cup, with no art training, with a Grecian theme and in the colors of the Greek flag, to appeal to… Greeks.  It turns out that a large portion of the city’s diners at that time were owned by Greeks.  It was an instant hit.

So, we have immigration, ethnic occupational segregation, and Buck’s ingenuity to thank for decades of cozy, New Yorky feelings inspired by that little cup.

Buck died this April.  You can read his obituary, and the whole story of the cup, at the New York Times.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

After reading my recent post on how Gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt survived World War II (hint: rank-and-file Nazis loved jazz!), Dmitriy T.M. sent me a link to a fascinating account of a German jazz band, called Charlie and His Orchestra, that was put together by Joseph Goebbels, a Nazi propaganda guy.

To recap, jazz music was labeled “Neggernmusik.”  Attributed (rightly) to blacks and Jews, it was considered pollution to German sensibilities.  Jazz lovers, jazz musicians, and swing dancers were all sent to concentration camps.

Nevertheless, Undercover Black Man describes how Goebbels saw potential in the music and, so, “weaponized” it to “screw with British and American minds.”

Charlie and His Orchestra recorded jazz standards, but changed the lyrics to “anti-British, anti-American, anti-Communist or antisemitic messages.”

The songs were broadcast via medium-wave and short-wave radio to Great Britain and North America. It was all about taunting and demoralizing the Allies… and trash-talking Winston Churchill and F.D.R. by name.

In this clip, the Orchestra, covering Goody Goody, is accompanied by WWII photographs. The propaganda starts at 1:04:

For more, check out the Charlie and His Orchestra versions of You Can’t Stop Me From Dreaming, You’re Driving Me Crazy, and Makin’ Whoopee.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Existing data suggests that, for college students graduating during an economic recession, wage depression will follow them throughout their life.  The figure below shows that, for every one percentage point increase in the national unemployment rate, a college grad’s wages will drop by about six percent.  Five years later, their wages will still lag by five percent.   Fifteen years later they’ve recovered their losses to about three percent, but they’re still behind where they would have been.  And remember, this data is for each percentage point increase in the unemployment rate.

Data borrowed from the Office of Management and Budget, via Matthew Yglesias.

For more happy graduation news, see here.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.