Search results for privilege

Over at Bloomer Girls Blog, a site devoted to sports and gender, Lydia posted about ESPN’s online resources for the NCAA March Madness basketball tournaments. The layout of the site, and the format of the brackets, makes the women’s basketball tournament relatively invisible.

As we often see in sports, the men’s version is taken as the default. The apparently neutral “NCAA BB Home” link goes to the men’s tournament, specifically. To get information on the women’s tournament, you have to choose the “Women’s BB link” lower on the page:

Lydia also found differences in the features available on the brackets you can fill out. The men’s bracket provides a range of features that encourage ongoing participation. While a game is occurring, the bracket is updated with the current score and how much time is left in the game, cluing potential viewers in to particularly close (and exciting) games. After a game, the final score is posted; you can also see the scheduled time of upcoming games:

None of these features that add to the value of the bracket were integrated into the women’s brackets — no updates of the scores of games that are in progress (so no chance of drawing in viewers to a particularly exciting or intense game), no schedule to tell you when the next game is, not even the final scores of past games:

Lydia argues that by making the men’s tournament resources more engaging and informative, it reinforces the sense that the women’s tournament is a side event, not worth the same level of attention as the men’s. As she points out, ESPN probably devoted less time and energy to the women’s tournament website because they assume fewer people will sign up and use it. But by creating less engaging resources, they provide less incentive for fans to bother signing up, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Amid accusations of racism, the European Union (EU) has withdrawn a two-minute video designed to raise awareness about “Neighbourhood Policy,” an approach to establishing “deeper relations” with neighboring state the need for unity among EU nations and acceptance of candidate states hoping to enter.  In the video, sent to us by Claire P., the EU is personified by a white woman, who is facing attacks from all sides.

Bruno Waterfield, writing for the Telegraph, describes the scene:

First the EU heroine… is menaced by a Chinese Kung Fu master. Then a second threat appears as a urbaned practitioner of Kalaripayattu, a southern Indian martial art, levitates towards her brandishing a scimitar.

UPDATE: Reader Katrin says the video was about increasing integration and cooperation of states and the European Commission’s enlargement policy, not about the “neighborhood” policy as reported by the Telegraph:,

It was for greater unity of existing EU member states (which is why the video is entitled “Growing Together”) and candidates for membership (which is why it says “the more we are the stronger we are”) in order to show a united front to the rising powers China, India and Brazil. It was intended to portray that if the EU acts united, then China, India and Brazil will be willing to engage with the EU constructively…Current candidates of accession are e.g. Iceland, Macedonia, Montenegro, Turkey and Serbia. Enlargement and unity as a tool for greater power when facing rising economies was the intended message of the clip, not the ENP.

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.

Originally posted at In Transit and Racialicious.

I’m still trying to work my way through my discomfort and analyze exactly where my discomfort of this Sociological Images post is coming from, so if this critique seems a bit scattered, it’s because my thoughts about it, at the moment, are that way.

First: I agree with where the post is coming from, in that the disenfranchised rarely ever have a voice of their own in mainstream Western culture, are always portrayed as the Other, which is defined as everything that said mainstream Western culture isn’t (at best as something that props it up and provides an aesthetically pleasing contrast, at worst as something that must be exterminated). And this leads to remarkably similar cycles of dehumanization and disenfranchisement. As so many minority thinkers/activists have noted, manufactured binaries between the privileged West and everyone else, even seemingly positive ones, ultimately end up reinforcing destructive hierarchies.

Where I disagree with the poster is the framing, which I feel makes the post, in some ways, as reductive as what it’s critiquing. Because there are different contexts in which the above cycle/process of exotification occurs, and those contexts matter and shouldn’t be handwaved, even (and I would say especially) if you’re taking the pov of the white outsider and attempting to deconstruct it. Social justice discourse loses its meaning when it becomes divorced from one of power relations.

In this specific example, while making its comparison of India as a magical negro, the post fails to both note and appreciate the following bits of context:

That both the main white actress and the main desi actor in the film are British, with Dev Patel adopting an Indian accent and playing the part of a “native”. That all the featured Indian characters are coded as middle/upper class (the dress, able to speak fluent English, etc) and light skinned. That in many ways this is how India is actively marketed by its tourism sector (and also its government. Did a project once which involved collecting promo material from the Indian consul — I think in Chicago? — and it was quite hilariously illuminating), because they’ve judged that this type of pandering will bring in the tourist dollars.

And this exotification of India in the West has been happening since before the time of Columbus, and reducing said things to a “phenomenon in which a white character in a tv show or movie finds enlightenment…” seems rather glib. (Just because it appears in tvtropes does not mean TV created it!) And that’s not even getting into how most isms seem to inevitably become just like the racism that blacks (had) face(d) in the US.

I also thought it was telling how none of the links elaborating on the “magical negro” trope went to one of the many black writers who’ve done the major work of deconstructing and dissecting it, much less linking to desi writers talking about colonialism and othering.

So what my disagreement boils down to, I think, is this: that this is a discussion about the Othering/exotification of India in mainstream Western culture that succeeds in further marginalizing/disenfranchising desis and other minorities. It doesn’t consider that we might be among the audience for this post (much less making room in the conversation for us, much less acknowledging all the times we’ve already discussed this), and in the way it takes something that rose out of certain contexts, misidentifies said contexts while applying it to different ones with no mention of the consequences of the differences, makes it, again, similar to what it’s aiming to critique.

And it brings home the point that, for all its social justice aims, this is a blog for a specific group of white people, by a specific group of white people, with all the marginalizations that entails.

Another note: it is interesting to read the comments, to see all the places East/West binaries crop up. For example, this comment (which thankfully was critiqued):

So, this is probably why you’ll never find a movie about a Westerner in Latvia trying to find himself- “finding oneself” usually requires immersing oneself in a setting completely different from the everyday humdrum norm.

I do find India humdrum normy, actually. And infrastructure specifically designed to ape the west is increasingly common in cities, and you can always find people in the touristy parts who speak English and cater to Western tastes in a thousand and one ways. (Actually, you won’t need to find them, if you are white they will find you and you will not be able to escape them!) Latvia, I am assuming not so much?

I feel as if the manufactured differences that so many Westerners create for India, while completely missing the deeper and more significant ones, are part of the same binary that Fanon was talking about when he said: “The settler is all that is good and of value. The native is the negation of the settler’s value”. And a lot of the appeal of India, the reason for it not being “everyday humdrum normy”, is that it still gives middle class white Westerners who go there chances to personally experience the colonial British sahib lifestyle.

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Colorblue blogs at In Transit.

 Los Angeles SocImages Meet Up this Sunday!

Gwen Sharp, Caroline Heldman, and I will be at The Escondite (downtown L.A.) on Sunday, March 4th starting at 6pm.  All ages.  Food and drink.  Great company guaranteed.

Please RSVP to socimages@thesocietypages.org.  Thanks to Dolores R. for picking the place!  And, yes, she’ll be there too!

SocImages News:

Sociological Images has been awarded a Public Sociology Award from the Sociology Research Institute at the University of Minnesota!  Thanks so much to our nominators, the professors who support us, and to our readers who make it all worthwhile!

I have a new paper out tracing 30 years of academic debate about female genital “mutilation” (full text). I try to tease out the constructive and destructive parts of the discussion, closing with some observations about how these lessons translate to other topics.

Ben Martin put together a nice interview, hoping to help advertise my talks at Harvard University later this semester.  Meanwhile, Yale student Anya Grenier did a nice follow up piece to my visit there.

And, well shucks, Gwen Sharp and I are among the top 50 sociologists on Twitter.

Upcoming Lectures and Appearances:

Gwen and I will both be visiting the University of Minnesota to accept our award.  That fun day will be Apr. 20th, during the annual Sociology Research Institute.

I’m also looking forward to giving talks at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (Mar. 27), Boston University,  (Mar.  27 and 28), Harvard (Mar. 26 and 28), Dartmouth (Mar. 29), and Indiana State University (Sept. 17-19).  If you’re in town, I would love to meet you! Details here.

New Pinterest Boards:

I admit, I’m a little bit in love with our Pinterest page.  New this month:

• The Great Recession
• Comics and Cartoons

Best of February

Our hard-working intern, Norma Morella, collected the stuff ya’ll liked best from this month.  Here’s what she found:

• Jay  Livingston, Christian Privilege: Santorum Tries to Woo the Jews
• Lisa Wade, Defining Women’s Oppression: The Burka vs. the Bikini
• Dan Rose, The Economics of Disease Prevention and Treatment
• Celia Emmelhainz, The Rhetoric of Luck Among the 99%
• Gwen Sharp, Embodying Gender Differences
• Lisa Wade, Fox News Versus the Netherlands

Social Media ‘n’ Stuff:

Finally, this is your monthly reminder that SocImages is on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Pinterest.  Gwen and I and most of the team are also on twitter:

• @lisadwade
• @gwensharpnv
• @familyunequal
• @carolineheldman
• @jaylivingston
• @wendyphd

On this second-to-last day of Black History Month, let us return to posts past.

We have been urged to celebrate Black History Month…

• …with fried chicken and collard greens.
• No really, with fried chicken and collard greens! (pictured)
• …by relaxing our hair and drinking kool-aid.
• …by conflating them with “underprivileged” people.
• …with a “Compton Cookout” complete with blackface and nooses!
• …by buying stuff from companies that do nothing but acknowledge Black History Month.

<sarcasm> Good times. </sarcasm>

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.

Here’s another one for our collection of instances in which we describe light tan as “nude,” “skin-,” or “flesh-colored” (symbolically erasing the existence of people without light tan skin).  Yahoo’s OMG! describes uses the word “nude” to describe the color of Lil’ Kim shirt.

It’s always particularly amazing when they use the word to talk about something a black person is wearing.  Like, um, Michelle Obama.

For more examples, see our posts on products designed for white people, the widespread use of such language to describe light tan in the fashion world,  and lotion marketed as for “normal to darker skin.” See also our Contexts essay on race and “nude” as a color.

For contrast, see this post about how the generic human in Russian cartoons is colored black instead of white.

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.

During the height of the Occupy Movement, thousands of individuals submitted pictures of themselves to the We are the 99 Percent tumblr blog.  They posed with letters and signs, telling individual stories of what it’s like to be in the 99%.

There’s been a solid critique of how whites, youth, and those with college access have a larger voice on this site, as well as dismissive responses from those on the right, but I’m struck by the rhetoric used. One word stands out to me as particularly jarring: Luck.

[Written for a child] “I am 3 years old and lucky to go to preschool, have a roof over my head and spaghetti-o’s in my belly. I am lucky to have Medicaid while my parents don’t qualify.”

“i am 22, living in a trailer in exchange for labor… We eat 69c mac’n’cheez or ramen; i drive a car illegal with disrepairs. And i’m lucky.”

“I am lucky my husband has a decent job because before I was on his health insurance my coverage  denied normal, annual GYN visits because ‘Being a woman is a pre existing condition.’ And we are the lucky ones!!”

“But I am one of the lucky ones. I was finally diagnosed with borderline personality disorder I am properly medicated”

“I’m one of the lucky ones. I enjoy my part-time job… yet… [have a] $65,000 [student] loan. 4 side jobs – not enough for rent. No health insurance. No children, so I don’t qualify for any aid, but I’m one of the lucky ones.”

“I am a lucky one. I have enough money to eat 3 of 4 weeks of the month…”

Luck is a word that comes up incredibly frequently among the 99 percenters, alongside words like debt, crisis, and unemployment. But what kind of luck is this? What does it mean to be “one of the lucky ones?”

In these posts, people struggling to hold multiple jobs call themselves “lucky” for having food most of the month, enough work to survive, or health care for part of their family — even as they report drowning in debt, losing work, and losing hope.

This isn’t our usual meaning for luck, and it only makes sense in comparison — to the “unlucky ones.” But if the “99 percent” is lucky, who exactly is unlucky? And how does this “luck” relate to the accompanying uncertainty, stalled careers, and failure to attain personal and collective dreams?

After sending in an early picture, I was startled to realize I’d also used the rhetoric of luck as a frame for my complaint. Of course I live in relative privilege to others, but why subsume my experience of uncertainty and dislocation beneath that privilege?

On the one hand, the rhetoric of luck acknowledges our relationships to other human beings, including those with greater struggles. To observant readers, it can also point to the structural and economic challenges that even “lucky” people face.

But I’d argue that the same rhetoric turns our lives into happenstance. It moves our stories harmlessly to the side, so that larger — and often deceptive — narratives about luck, hard work, and the American Dream can continue as planned. By prefacing our stories with an admission of luck, we displace our own voices and cast doubt on our experiences as something that just “happened to us.”

Yet the current economic and political situation didn’t just happen to either the “lucky” or the “unlucky” ones. As in other periods of U.S. economic history since the 1700s, the underemployment, debt, financial instability, and lack of affordable life-goods that Americans face are the result of deliberate policies designed to streamline and protect growth for investors, large corporations, and other profiteers — often at the expense of individual citizens, workers and business owners without large amounts of capital or political access.

So rather than slip into the rhetoric of luck, what other frames can we use to talk about our experiences? Framing our experiences in light of multiple takes on economic history may allow us to draw from previous generations in assessing our options for greater involvement in setting the guidelines for our society. Initiating discussion on the civic responsibility of every stakeholder may involve bringing to task those who have instituted policies beneficial only to a small minority of elite Americans. And collective effort from the left and the right could enable us to ensure that economic activity bears appropriate fruit for individuals, households, and families, and that the people actually have a voice in our towns, states, and nation at least equivalent to other sources of power.

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Celia Emmelhainz, M.A., is an economic anthropologist who conducts ongoing research on citizenship, economics, and religion in Central Asia. With a degree in anthropology from Texas A&M University, she currently works as an academic librarian in Kazakhstan.

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.

We’ve posted in the past about awkward or puzzling attempts by companies to recognize Black History Month. The L.A. Clippers let underprivileged kids attend a game for free, though technically in the wrong month. The NBC cafeteria offered fried chicken and collard greens, as did a grocery store. Or maybe you prefer to celebrate Black History Month by buying hair straightener. And sometimes companies just sort of say they’re celebrating Black History Month, but without any specifics.

Emma A. sent in our newest example. Chad Ochocinco, of the New England Patriots, tweeted this pic of Black History Month being celebrated…with a sale on Kool-Aid:

Yep.