The 30-second (or so) videos below have been interspersed with MTV’s regular programming as part of Black History Month. MTV got Cornel West to be their superstar academic and expert on the Black American experience. The videos serve as the occasion for some interesting questions:

First, how do we evaluate the use of Black musicians, actors, and personalities by MTV? Is “representation” enough? Or does contemporary representation look uncomfortably like the representation of the past? (If you haven’t seen it, watch Spike Lee’s Bamboozled.)

Second, what does it mean that Cornel West signed on with MTV with what is, in effect, a mutual endorsement? Do we approve of Cornel West using his significant influence and importance in this way? Is this good from a reformist perspective? Problematic from a radical perspective? Did he “sell out”?

Third, how effective are these spots? I know little about the audience of MTV, but I imagine there are a lot of people who do not know who Cornel West is and are not inclined to offer him immediate respect. Cornel is idiosyncratic. Does your average MTV viewer see a gap-toothed, afro-wearing guy with odd mannerisms called “Professor” (which, we know, could mean anything) as authoritative? Or a buffoon?

Further, what do we think of the spots themselves? Is their content helpful? Do they teach us anything? Do we like what they teach us? Or is it just more empty lip-service to Black Americans?

Watch and tell us what you think:

[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/63979709[/vimeo]

[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/63979813[/vimeo]

Thanks to Richard for the heads up on this one.

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.

Before ADD/ADHD, ritalin was prescribed to tired, overworked mothers. This 1967 ad claimed that ritalin could cure “Tired Mom Syndrome”:

Amazing!

Thanks to my friend, Jake L!

New (or new to me) body modification trends (the first four found here):

Look like a dragon (found here):

Likes spikes (found here):

Eyebrows (found here):

Boob job (found here):

This one is braille (found here) :

It might be interesting to discuss the different reactions to the body modifications… that is, people might think the braille one is kind of sweet, but the boob job one as disgusting. How do we decide which body modifications are good or bad, neat or stupid, etc?

A picture of Bush laughing with attractive, shirtless, colorfully dressed men in Ghana:

Does anyone know anything about whether the Bush administration has been good for Ghana?

Found at TMZ under the headline “African Men Like Bush.”

This bit appears on the Maxim magazine website. It uses rape, and women’s apparent attraction to men who look like rapists, in order to be humorous. I think it’s particularly interesting that it includes a jab at a Republican (or is it just “the establishment”?). If they are obviously leftist/anti-establishment, are we to believe that they must be good guys, therefore this use of rape for comedic value is okay? Or is this just another manifestation of the equal opportunity insult comedy found in products like South Park and Knocked Up? There is a lot going on here and I’m pretty sure I have yet to fully grasp it. Any thoughts?[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVcyNANK5cY[/youtube]

Text: “Back then, you didn’t look through your closet for something to wear. You wore your closet. You’ve come a long way, baby.”

The image below is the cover of a comic book designed to teach adults about birth control (it seems to have been published in 1956 and again in 1962). Find it all online here.

Found here via copyranter.

When I was in grade school, I remember having one of my first sociological “aha moments” during geography. We were starting a unit on Latin and South American countries and each of us had to draw a map showing the countries and capitals to show how much we already knew. We all had those school issued atlases of the world, but we had to draw the map of Latin and South America without using the atlas.

What I ended up with was similar to most kids at my table– a huge United States with a skinny little piece of land under it, just barely larger than Florida and then a larger piece of land under that about the size of Alaska. As elementary school kids in Maine we obviously knew very little about anything south of say, Washington D.C. and this was reflected in the little pieces of land we drew. I opened up my atlas and looked at how large Latin and South America really were and was shocked. It was nearly as large as Africa, and certainly larger than the the U.S.

How things are measured makes all the difference and cartography (map making) has a fascinating history in colonial empires and imperialism (charting “unknown” far off lands filled with “savages” etc.). So when SWS member Jeanne Flavin sent me a link to the ODT Maps website I had to share some of them here.

Let’s start with a pretty “typical” North America-centered map of the world–

Now how about this equal area ODT map?

© www.ODTmaps.com

And how about an actual equal area Pacific-centered map from ODT?

© www.ODTmaps.com

And how about this South-up map, challenging North-South perceptions (how do we know which end of the world is “up” anyway– who decides that?).

© www.ODTmaps.com

And my favorite– the population map.

© www.ODTmaps.com

There are more maps and resources for the classroom on the ODT website. Thanks Jeanne!