p.j. sent in this radio clip from Howard Stern’s show. Some guy (not associated with Stern’s show, from what I can tell) went to Harlem to ask people if they supported Barack Obama. He would then present some of McCain’s proposed policies but say they were Obama’s and ask people if they agreed with the stance. People overwhelmingly agreed with McCain’s proposals when they were told the proposals were Obama’s. The guy hints that this is because Black people are voting for Obama simply because he’s Black.

Now, I’m sure that in some cases that’s true, just as it’s true that some White people are voting for McCain just because he’s White (hi, Mom!). And the lack of basic knowledge about the stances of the two candidates makes my head hurt.

But I suspect that if you did a similar experiment with other groups of voters, you would find a similar tendency–that is, I think lots of groups choose their prefered candidate based on all types of factors and may not have a thorough (or even vague) understanding of any specific policies. I am sure you could tell my grandma that *anything* was a Bush policy and she would say she supported it. I find it highly unlikely that this is something unique about Black voters, or even Obama supporters more generally. I would be willing to be that a decent portion of the electorate isn’t highly knowledgeable about the candidates’ stances and, once they’ve chosen a candidate (which might be because of race, but just as well might be because of the that they’re from, party affiliation, or that whole thing about being someone voters could “have a beer with”), would support whatever policy they were told the candidate supported. You can read that as voters being uneducated or stupid, but you could also see it as a rational reaction to the complexity of many issues: as a voter, you choose the candidate (or party) you believe in general has an outlook that will lead to the best decisions about public policy, and you assume that that candidate’s policies are probably preferable to what the other side would offer.

The other thing to keep in mind, which may be difficult for those of us who are political geeks and news junkies to really comprehend, is that not everyone is familiar with what phrases like “pro-choice” or “pro-life” mean. If you don’t care about politics that much, or about abortion as an issue, then those terms may be meaningless. I could be wrong here, but I bet my mom wouldn’t have a clear, immediate knowledge of which side of the issue each term refers to. So it’s possible that some of the individuals saying they liked Obama for being “pro-life” may not have even interpreted the phrase in relation to abortion.

This could be useful for a discussion of how things are attributed to race if non-White people are involved. On the way to work I was listening to a call-in show and a woman called in and identified herself as African American. She said that people keep thinking she’s voting for Obama just because he’s Black, but that they’re missing the important factor: she’s voting for him because he’s a Democrat, and she’d vote for a White Democrat over a Black Republican without hesitation. While I’m sure some of the people in the radio clip were loyal to Obama because of race, it’s also possible that some are just die-hard Democrats who vote for the Democratic candidate no matter what. I’m not saying that’s a good way to pick a candidate, just that the automatic assumption that African Americans who support Obama but don’t seem highly knowledgeable about his agenda are voting simply based on race might be inaccurate.

Thanks, p.j.!

Shoshannah F. sent in this clip (originally found here) from Bill Maher’s show, in which he makes fun of many stereotypes of African Americans by applying them to Whites and imploring viewers to not let their prejudice against Whites keep them from voting for John McCain:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iM0mUfATJk[/youtube]

It would make a great clip for discussing differences in how behaviors are attributed to race. Negative behaviors committed by African Americans (say, engaging in crime or being lazy) is often seen as an inherent trait of Blacks. When a White person does the same thing, his or her Whiteness is rarely brought up as a reason for the behavior. Whites are evaluated as individuals, while non-Whites find they are often evaluated as group members. Thus, the fact that the vast majority of the individuals involved in the financial meltdown is White is unlikely to lead to a stereotype that Whites are incompetent, bad with money, or inclined to engage in crime. Yet negative behaviors of non-Whites are often believed to provide evidence of what non-Whites are essentially like. For instance, I once had a conversation with a woman who told me about a coworker quitting without giving notice and then expressed her belief that it was because the woman was Black, and Blacks don’t have a good work ethic. Yet when I quit a crappy job at a college bookstore without giving notice back in college, I doubt it was attributed to Whites just not having a good work ethic.

This clip from “The Daily Show” also plays on some stereotypes about Blacks and Whites, as well as the idea that Obama isn’t “really” Black:

Thanks, Shoshannah!

In her book The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls, Joan Jacobs Brumberg argues that increased access to mirrors in the 1800s helped spur middle-class Victorian obsessions with the body, particularly skin and the presence of acne on the face. Mirrors gave the average person more of an ability to imagine themselves through others’ eyes and to inspect every part of their body (and presumably find it lacking).

Samantha J. showed me the logical end-point of this association between mirrors and negative appraisals of one’s body: mirrors that don’t make you do the work of negatively judging your body, but just go ahead and do it for you.

The one on the left says, “Is this one of those CARNIVAL mirrors?!” and the one on the right says, “I’m MUCH too young to be this OLD” (found here). The mirror below (found here) says, “Are you really gonna wear that?”

Of course, if you want a self-esteem boost, or already feel really good about yourself, you could buy this one (found with the one above), which says, “I’m the fairest of them all…”:

Anyway, they might provide a (sort of silly) illustration to go with a discussion of how increased access to mirrors or other technologies (is a mirror a technology?) have affected perceptions of the body and our ability to scrutinize every inch of it (which could, of course, be part of a larger discussion about how changes in technology can affect cultural trends).

Thanks, Samantha J.!

Nevada is a battleground state, and the state elections have gotten nasty (on both sides); the mailers I get every day don’t even pretend to be about issues any more, they’re just attack ads. I got this one, against a Democratic candidate, a couple of days ago:

I thought the photo they chose to illustrate “radical groups” was interesting. There were no specifics about what type of “radical” groups, or what they are radical about. To me, this image seemed like it was supposed to bring up the threat of radical (angry) feminists, but I don’t know if that was the specific type of radical this was meant to evoke or if that’s just what it makes me think of.

Anyway, it might be useful for a discussion of political discourses (for instance, how groups selectively use words like “radical,” “progressive,” “traditional,” “regressive,” and so on to depict change as either good or threatening), as well as what types of political agendas even appearances have become associated with “radical” politics (for instance, a woman wearing multiple necklaces and dreadlocks symbolizes radicalism).

Apparently for the last several presidential elections 7-11 has had a “7-Election” marketing campaign, in which they offer blue and red coffee cups and customers “vote” by choosing one or the other. Here is a screenshot from the 7-Election 2008 website:

You can go to the website and see the “voting” results map (current as of this morning), which shows two states at 50/50 and every other state going for Obama:

If you go to the actual website, you can hover over each state and see what the % breakdown is.

Now, in and of itself, I just thought this was slightly interesting as an example of the commodification of political choice (“express your voting preference through a coffee cup!”), and I thought it could be used as an example of made-up statistics that are entirely meaningless. For instance, at the 7-11 near my house, I noticed they only have blue cups available, so it would be impossible to “vote” for McCain. Anyone with just some basic common sense could think of tons of problems with this as a real methodology–it didn’t even really seem worth my time to go into much detail about why a poll based on sale of coffee cups is unscientific and stupid.

But then I noticed something on the website: according to the website, results are reported weekly in USA Today (although I wasn’t able to find links to any weekly reports, which seemed odd). I know USA Today isn’t considered a high-quality newspaper by a lot of people, but still, it’s at least ostensibly reporting news. The 7-Election website also has a link to CNN, so perhaps they are partnering with them, too. Editor & Publisher ran a story on it. The results of a marketing scheme to sell coffee is being treated as news. I’m going to try to use it in class to discuss how things get defined as “newsworthy,” and who sets the agenda for what we’re going to talk about. Here we have a company getting free publicity for its marketing promotion because that marketing promotion has been declared “news.” What important information about the world is being ignored in favor of this? How does treating this as newsworthy legitimize it, as though these statistics are meaningful or accurate? Does that increase sales for 7-11?

I found a lot of comments on blogs where people claimed that after hearing about this campaign, they went out and bought coffee just to “vote” for their preferred candidate, and a few who said they refused to buy coffee because the store was out of the cups they wanted. I find this entire thing incredibly bizarre, and I don’t see why news outlets and individuals are buying into the idea that this is anything other than a way to convince more people to buy 7-11 coffee.

NEW!  In our comments, Penny pointed out that Baskin Robbins does the same thing.  Here are the results from this suspicously delicious poll as of the morning of Nov. 4th:

English First is an organization advocating the adoption of English-only laws in the U.S., which would mean government agencies and officials would not be allowed to conduct any type of business in a language other than English. They also oppose bilingual education and bilingual ballots. Here is a screenshot of their homepage’s banner; perhaps you will note a small irony, coming from an organization concerned about people being unable to use the English language:

There is a very clear anti-immigrant stance, which in some cases bleeds over into a general anti-Latino perspective. For instance, the website has a link to a letter sent to Attorney General Mukasey, expressing concern over Department of Justice statements about plans to crack down on voter intimidation:

Yet under the new DOJ policies as we understand them, anyone who dares complain when they see a busload of illegal aliens pulling up to a polling place could be arrested on the spot by agents of their own government.

What’s interesting here is the idea that you could immediately spot “a busload of illegal aliens.” I could be wrong here, but I’m guessing that to at least some members of the organization, any vehicle with Latinos (or other brown-skinned people) in it might be targeted as full of “illegal aliens.”

The organization also blames Hispanic legislators for the failure of the original financial bailout bill.

One of English First’s projects is No Statehood for Puerto Rico. Technically speaking, the population of Puerto Rico has the right to become a state, should a majority ever vote to do so. All Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens and can travel freely between the island and the mainland, with no need for a passport or visa. Here are some images from the homepage:

I think the hand at the bottom of that last image is supposed to be begging for a handout.

All of these images portray Puerto Rico as a money-sucking burden on the rest of the U.S. The website questions Puerto Ricans’ patriotism (because they protest military training at Vieques, unlike the good people of Oklahoma, who do not protest military training at Ft. Sill), links Puerto Rico to terrorism, and argues that Puerto Rico is a “proud, Spanish-speaking nation” and thus wouldn’t want to be a state anyway (leading to questions of why any of this is an issue, since the population would presumably never vote for statehood anyway). I am unclear whether English First advocates total Puerto Rican independence from the U.S., or just keeping it from becoming a state.

English First has a handy list of states that have English-Only laws, as well as which ones have been overturned.

You might also check out Lisa’s recent post on an organization that linked anti-immigration and pro-environment stances.

Last week, John Kerry made a joke about John McCain’s age, implying that he wears Depends (that is, adult diapers). I have searched everywhere and haven’t been able to find any video of Kerry telling the joke; all the discussions I’ve been able to find of it seem to lead back to an original story at PolitickerMA.com. It brought up something that has bugged me throughout this campaign: the cheap shots about McCain’s age. For example (thanks to Burk for finding me all these images):

Found here.

Found here.

The Baltimore Sun posted this photo and asked readers to provide captions for it:

Suggested captions included jabs about Ensure, reaching out to senior citizens, nursing homes, forgetfulness, and so on.

While I’ve heard a lot of people talking about racism in depictions of Barack Obama, and sexism in portrayals of Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton, I have heard very few people discuss the very negative depictions of the the “old” being used to ridicule McCain. Depictions of older people range from out-of-touch, doddering fools to crazed racists to pathetic invalids. Although Kerry’s joke drew some criticism, jokes or comments about McCain’s age have generally been given a pass–they’ve been declared fair game. You might get in trouble in our culture for being sexist or racist, but apparently ridiculing people for being old is fine.

I don’t know about you, but I know some old people, and they are healthy, coherent, mentally competent people who appear to have complete control of their bladders and bowels. My grandmother is 70 and runs a 110-cow ranch on her own in Oklahoma, doing all of the labor herself (except that she hires someone to come in and bale the hay each year). Just as I thought it must be awful to be an Arab American and hear accusations that Obama is secretly Arab or Muslim used as a slur against him, I’ve wondered how my grandma feels, hearing McCain’s age ridiculed. My guess is that she finds it mortifying, but I haven’t gotten up the courage to ask.

I have also on more than one occasion heard people mock John McCain’s physical appearance, particularly the fact that one side of his face is swollen because he had a patch of skin removed due to skin cancer. The times I overheard this, they weren’t expressing concern that he might have a serious form of cancer that could kill him or force him to leave office; they were just laughing at how he looked.

If McCain showed evidence of dementia or osteoporosis or some other condition that you could maybe directly relate to his age, then ok, fine, I could see people commenting on it. But that’s not what’s going on here. This is just making fun of his age for the sake of it–it’s funny that he’s old, because old people are laughable. It’s an interesting statement about the value we place on older people in this culture.

The video “The Great Schlep,” featuring Sarah Silverman, is part of The Great Schlep campaign, which, according to the website,

…aims to have Jewish grandchildren visit their grandparents in Florida, educate them about Obama, and therefore swing the crucial Florida vote in his favor. Don’t have grandparents in Florida? Not Jewish? No problem! You can still become a schlepper and make change happen in 2008, simply by talking to your relatives about Obama.

(Go here if the video isn’t working.)

The Great Schlep’s Facebook page has a link to talking points (titled “Obama Talking Points for Jews”), including,

*He is a Christian and has never been a Muslim.
*Obama ran the business side of his primary campaign significantly better than any other candidate of either party…
*His love for the United States is similar to that of generations of Jewish immigrants, who loved America for giving them an opportunity to succeed if they worked hard enough…
*Obama represents a different kind of black leadership, less interested in the confrontational tactics favored by many who came of age in the 1960s and 1970s…
*Biden’s knowledge of Middle Eastern affairs and his decades of strong support for Israel (he identifies himself as a Zionist) are well documented.

It’s an interesting list, drawing on the “up by your bootstraps” immigrant ideal (“…an opportunity to succeed if they worked hard enough”), the idea of Obama as a non-threatening Black leader, and that Jewish voters would be particularly impressed by Obama being able to manage the “business side” of his campaign.

Now watch this clip of Dave Chappelle’s “Reparations” skit:

(Go here if the video isn’t working.)

These would be great videos for discussing humor and the way that in-group members may be allowed to make jokes that others would be criticized for. Both of these videos are full of images and statements that, should a non-Jew or non-African American say them, would almost certainly be considered incredibly offensive. Are they necessarily not offensive simply because the person presenting them is a member of the stereotyped group? How can we distinguish between humor that pokes fun at stereotypes and humor that just uses them for a cheap laugh?

On the one hand, Whites often use the “it’s just a joke” disclaimer to deny responsibility for racist content in jokes; on the other hand, minorities may use the “I’m a member of the group I’m making fun of; how could the jokes be racist?” argument to deflect criticism. And of course, we may legitimately feel differently about a joke depending on who said it (the whole “are you laughing with us, or at us?” phenomenon). But at the same time, I think it’s sort of fascinating that we’re often allowed, or encouraged, to laugh at racist stereotypes, as long as the person saying them is a member of the stereotyped group–and in fact, we often wouldn’t really know how to go about criticizing them if we felt it was warranted.