Search results for white privilege

Jay Smooth posted a 2-minute clip of rapper Brother Ali discussing why he, as a White rapper, decided not to use the “N-word,” and the need to be sensitive to the fact that being friends with African Americans, or being social disadvantaged in some ways (economically, due to a disability, etc.) doesn’t erase White privilege. The visual effect is sort of wonky, but it’s an interesting conversation:

Partial transcript, available at Jay Smooth’s website:

The thing with the ‘n word’: it’s very very confusing for white kids who have a lot of black friends and are accepted. And I can’t stand here and say that when I was 9 years old, and all my friends were black, and they were telling me ‘you’re basically black,’ that I didn’t believe that. Now I’m at a place where I’m just like ‘not everybody knows me and nobody should ever have to, like, why should I impose on other people to have to confront that question in their mind?’ You know what I mean?

Count how many times the players wearing white pass the basketball, then continue after the jump:

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We’ve written several posts about how the words “nude” and “flesh” tend to be used to refer to colors associated with light-colored skin.  For examples, see our posts on “flesh-colored,” Michelle Obama’s “nude” colored dress, the new in-color, “nude is the new black” (and by black we mean white), lotion for “normal to darker skin,” and color-assisted medical diagnosis.  Readers have sent in an additional example and several counter-examples.

Catherine M.P. snapped this photo of an ad for Ripley in Santiago, Chile (she says English is often used to make a product seem “edgy”):

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.

The Associated Press, a news service subscribed to by news outlets all over the world, distributed a story about the first Obama Administration State Dinner. In the story, sent in by Elisabeth R., Samantha Critchell describes Michelle Obama’s dress as “flesh-colored.”

[Thanks to Madeline T., Anne Marie, Therese S., and Drugmnky for the screencap!]

Gee, what could possibly be wrong with calling this dress “flesh-colored”?

This is what happens when white people are considered people and black people are considered a special kind of people, black people.  “Flesh-colored” becomes the skin color associated with whites and darker-skinned peoples are left out of the picture altogether.  We see this all the time.  Bandaids, for example, are typically light beige (though they rarely call them “flesh-colored” anymore), as are things like ace bandages.

See our post on “flesh-colored” for these examples and more.  See also this post on lotion for “normal to darker skin.”

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

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

In this nine and a half minute clip, Tim Wise describes the way in which race was invented by elites in early America in order to divide and conquer the working class… and is still used to do so.

Found here via Alas A Blog.

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.

This is a tough one, but there is something about this image advertising the Metropolitan Museum of Art that just screams privilege. Is it the perfect blonde hair? The perfect white teeth? The neat upper-class masculinity? The turtleneck? I can’t quite put my finger on it!

Thanks Jason!

Movie Reviews

• Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
• A Year Without Santa Claus

The History of Christmas

• Did the Nazis Celebrate Christmas?
• When Santa Sold Cigarettes
• Militarizing Santa: Then and Now
• A Short History of Santa Claus
• The Pagan Roots of Christianity

Christmas and Consumption

• The Ugly Christmas Sweater: From Ironic Nostalgia to Festive Simulation
• 1/3rd of People Say Commercialism is the Worst Part of Christmas
• Disguising the Gift of Money

Christmas Across Cultures

• Christmas as Social Control, featuring Elf on the Shelf
• Befana, the Christmas Witch
• Santa’s Evil Side Kick
• Black Pete (NSFW; trigger warning for images of blackface)
• Protestantizing Christmas Gift Giving: The ChristKind
• Snegurochka: Santa’s Granddaughter
• Culture and Coordinating Human Action
• Jewish Christmas — The Chinese Connection

The Economics of Christmas

• International Comparison of Christmas Spending
• Christmas has an Economy
• The Christmas Tree Industry

Racializing Christmas

• Racism and Xenophobia in “War on Christmas” Rhetoric
• White Privilege and the Snow White Santa
• New York Times Gift Guide for People of Color
• Black Pete (NSFW; trigger warning for images of blackface)
• Holiday in the Hood

Christmas and Gender

• Exploiting Gender at the Holidays
• Gender-Swapping Christmas
• Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You”: 1994 versus 2011
• 12 “Mums” Makes the Workload Light
• Christmas is Women’s Work
• Tis the Season for Reinforcing Gender Differences
• Holidays: A Time for Men to Buy Themselves Stuff
• Christmas at the White House: A Role for the First Lady

Gift Guides and the Social Construction of Gender

• The Heterosexual Gift Giving Imperative
• Gender, Technology, and Toys ‘R Us
• Gender in Toy Catalogs
• Body Messages in Christmas-Themed Ads
• Gift Giving with Gender Stereotypes
• More Gender Gift Giving and Advertising
• Another Gendered Gift Guide
• And more Gendered Gift Guides
• And more Gendered Gift Guides!
• Or, you could just buy her a clothesline

Sexifiying Christmas

• Sexy Women as Toys
• Move Over Halloween, Here Comes Christmas
• O-O-Oh Santa!

Christmas Marketing

• Support the Troops. Shop Walmart?
• Fun with the 2009 Target Catalog
• Guns for Christmas
• A Shorty History of Santa Claus
• 1930s Ad Touting Razor Technology
• Gap Thinks Girls are Vapid

Just for Fun

• Even Though Such Things Are Socially Constructed…
• Have a “Gay” Holiday!

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.