Immediately after the Seattle Seahawks beat the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday, Richard Sherman gave an intense, boastful post-game interview.  This triggered the always-present racism, as illustrated by many tweets that followed.  Here is just a sample from Public Shaming:

These are obviously cruel and full of hate, but the ones in which he was called a “thug” got somewhat less attention:

In interviews about the racist response, Sherman made some really nice points about what this means about the state of America and the specifically racial insults.  In a press conference, for example, asked about being called a “thug,” he argued that it’s just “the accepted way of calling someone the n-word these days.”  He points out that, in no way was what he was doing thug-like:

Maybe I’m talking loudly, and doing something… talking like I’m not supposed to, but I’m not… there’s a hockey game where they didn’t even play hockey, they just threw the puck aside and started fighting.  I saw that and I said, “Aw man, I’m the thug? What!? What’s going on here?”

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPSiOCC8nvc[/youtube]

In another video, he expands on this point, saying: “I’m not out there beating on people, or committing crimes, or getting arrested, or doing anything; I’m playing a football game at a high level and I got excited.”

Sherman’s making two points.  First, that there was nothing thug-like about his behavior.  Thugs are violent criminals.  He’s just playing a game.  And, second, the term is decidedly racial, applied to him largely because of the color of his skin.  Meanwhile, hockey players, who are overwhelmingly white, as well as other white athletes, don’t as often get these sorts of labels even if they are physically violent in ways that exceed the demands of their sport.

Young black adults are less likely than whites to use marijuana, but extraordinarily more likely to be arrested for its use, according to a new report by the ACLU.  This is old news, but the data never fails to stun.

First, notice that arrests for marijuana possession have grown over the past 15 years, even relative to arrests for other types of drugs.  The first chart is total marijuana possession arrests, the second is the percent of all drug arrests that were for marijuana (note that in neither chart does the vertical axis start at zero and truncated axes tend to make data look more dramatic, as if that were necessary here).

This rise in arrests has disproportionately affected African Americans.  The arrest rate for blacks has consistently been substantially higher than that of whites, but it increased, even so, over the 2000s.

According to the report:

…in every state the Black arrest rate is disproportionate to Blacks’ percentage of the population.  In fact, in 42 states the Black percentage of marijuana possession arrests is more than double the Black percentage of the population, while in 18 states Blacks account for more than three times the percentage of marijuana possession arrests than they do of the population.  In four states, the difference is a factor of at least four.

Most of these arrests are of young people.  Almost half (46%) involve 18 to 24 year olds:

The black arrest rate cannot be attributed to different rates of use.  Overall, blacks and whites have very similar rates of marijuana use (the first figure below), but among 18 to 25 year olds — the population being arrested the most — whites have slightly higher rates than blacks (second figure):
This is a long-standing, well-documented Civil Rights issue.  The war on drugs is a war on black people.  These practices are harmful to individuals, their families, and their communities.  It functions to further the disadvantage faced by black Americans in a society rife with institutions already stacked against them.

More than half of Americans would like to see marijuana legalized.  Legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana would relieve this egregious attack on black communities and save states billions of dollars.  There is little downside.  Relative to other substances, it’s a minor problem.

Cross-posted at Pacific Standard.

Thanks to a tip from Jay Livingston, I came across this quote from The Pursuit of  Loneliness by sociologist Philip Slater.  It’s long, but wow:

[I]t can’t be denied that the female ideal in America is nonaggressive and nonthreatening, to the point of caricature.  Take for example the film personality of the much-idolized Marilyn Monroe: docile, accommodating, brainless, defenseless, totally uncentered, incapable of taking up for herself or knowing what she wants or needs. A sexual encounter with such a woman in real life would border on rape – the idea of “consenting adults” wouldn’t even apply.  The term “perversion” seems more appropriate for this kind of yearning than for homosexuality or bestiality, since it isn’t directed toward a complete being.  The Marilyn Monroe image was the ideal sex object for the sexually crippled and anxious male: a bland erotic pudding that would never upset his delicate stomach.

It’s important to realize that this Playboy ideal is a sign of low, rather than high, sexual energy.  It suggests that the sexual flame is so faint and wavering that a whole person would overwhelm and extinguish it.  Only a vapid, compliant ninny-fantasy can keep it alive. It’s designed for men who don’t really like sex but need it for tension-release – men whose libido is wrapped up in achievement or dreams of glory.

Slater wrote this passage in 1970, hence the reference to Marilyn Monroe.  I would have to think hard about whether I think it still applies broadly, but I think it’s fair to say that the “bland erotic pudding” is still part of the repertoire of essentially every female celebrity who is successful in part because of her appearance.  I did a search for some of the most high-profile female actresses and singers today, looking specifically for images that might fit Slater’s description.  I invite your thoughts.

B.A. in Sociology, Morehouse College, Class of 1948. 

Image at HBCU.

Last week the controversial killing of 29-year-old Mark Duggan by police in North London was ruled lawful by a jury.  His killing sparked riots across London and elsewhere in England.  To many, it seemed like another unnecessary killing of a young man found prematurely guilty in the minds of police by virtue of the color of his skin.  While the court case is over, many still believe that Duggan was murdered without cause.

In the meantime, the news covered Duggan’s case quite extensively and, while there is a lot to say, here I want to draw attention to how the story was illustrated.  A Google search for his name offers a glimpse into the many faces of Duggan, as uploaded by the media.   Outlets choose which to picture to include, ranging from a smiling face with cherubic dimples (upper left), to a  posturing blue “hoodie” photo (bottom left), to the stoic stare with a knitted brow (upper right hand corner).

Each of these, together with a headline, potentially leaves the reader with a different impression.

Cropping matters too.  You might notice that third image from the left in the top row is a cropped version of the bottom right.  Two other frequently used photos were also cropped.  All exclude connections to others: a visit to a grave site, a plaque commemorating a daughter (“Always in our hearts”), and a baby in his arms.

It may make journalistic sense to exclude context and focus on the individual.  Likewise, I don’t know why some photos were chosen over others and surely there are factors that I’m unaware of.  So, I don’t mean to criticize the media agents making these decisions.  I do want to draw attention, though, to the fact that these decisions are being made.  And they inevitably color our reading of the news stories they accompany.

Hat tip to Feminist Philosophers.

In a comprehensive analysis of young men’s and women’s aspirations to public office, Jennifer Lawless and Richard Fox discover that part of the reason we see so few female politicians is because women just aren’t interested in running.  There are lots of reasons for this.  A absence of role models, a lack of encouragement from their parents, and the intimidating role that sexist attacks play in media coverage of campaigns.

But Lawless and Fox discovered another interesting correlation, one between political aspiration and sports.  More men than women — 74% compared to 41% — played on a college or intramural team and, for both, playing sports was correlated with political aspirations.  The figure shows that running for office had “crossed the minds: of 44% of women who played sports and 35% who hadn’t.  The numbers for men were 63% and 55% respectively.

The authors suggest that the mediating factor is “an opportunity to develop… a competitive spirit.”  Sports, they argue, may build or reinforce the tendency to find pleasure in competition, which may make politics more appealing.

While sports increased both men’s and women’s interest in politics, it had a greater effect for women, shrinking the gender gap in political ambition by half.

Cross-posted at Pacific Standard.

While the first flight attendants were male and many early airlines had a ban on hiring women, flight attending would eventually become a quintessentially female occupation.  Airline marketers exploited the presence of these female flight attendants.  Based on my reading — especially Phil Tiemeyer‘s Plane Queer and Kathleen Barry’s history of flight attendants’ labor activism — there seem to have been three stages.

First, there was the domestication of the cabin.  As air travel became more comfortable (e.g., pressurized cabins and quieter rides), airlines were looking to increase their customer base.  Female “stewardesses” in the ’40s and ’50s were an opportunity to argue that an airplane was just like a comfortable living room, equally safe for women, children, and men alike.  Marketing at the time presented the flight attendant as if she were a mother or wife:

Twenty years later, air travel was no longer scary, so airlines switched their tactics. They sexualized their flight attendants in order to appeal to businessmen, who still made up a majority of their customers. Here’s a ten-second Southwest commercial touting the fact that their stewardesses wear “hot pants”:

The intersection of the labor movement and women’s liberation in the ’60s and ’70s inspired women to fight for workplace rights. Flight attendants were among the first female workers to organize on behalf of their occupation and among the most successful to do so.  Their work won both practical and symbolic victories, like the discursive move from “stewardess” to “flight attendant” that transformed women in the occupation from sex objects to workers.  A quick Google Image search shows that the association — stewardess/sex object vs. flight attendant/worker — still applies. Notice that the search for “stewardess” includes more sexualized images, while the one for “flight attendant” shows more images of people actually working.

“Stewardess”:

“Flight attendant”:My impression is that today’s marketing tends to feature flight attendants in all three roles — domestic, sex object, worker — echoing each stage of the transformation of the occupation in the public imagination.

Cross-posted at The Huffington Post, Pacific Standard, and Work in Progress.

We’re cultivating a Pinterest page featuring revealing examples of re-touching and photoshop.  Here are our nineteen newest contributions, borrowed from Jezebel, Buzzfeed, and Photoshop Disasters.

Perfect without a belly button (ebay); Lindsey Lohan once also had a mighty migrating belly button:

Terrifying proportions (Westfield Mall):

And Good Housekeeping too:

Take care with the placement of that right hip (Victoria’s Secret):

Let us count the ways (Speigel, Victoria’s Secret, and Laffy Taffy via Photoshop Disaster):

See our full Pinterest page here.