activism/social movements

Cross-posted at Cyborgology.

On Thursday Syria’s internet was shut down.

This is a serious situation with literal life and death implications.  Much of this story has yet to play out. Right now, I want to take a moment to explore one aspect of what this all means. Namely, I want to explore the question: why did the internet shut off now? To do so, I turn to Derrick Bell’s interest convergence theory.

Derrick Bell’s theory of interest convergence is a canonical statement on race relations. Bell famously argues that whites promote racial justice only when doing so converges with their own interests. The key example is the 1954 Brown V. Board of Education case, in which racial integration in schools served the larger U.S. message within the Cold War of human rights, freedom, and equality.

Although many scholars critique the strong version of Bell’s argument for its failure to incorporate agency among blacks, the root of the argument is quite useful in explaining power relations. In short, interest convergence theory tells us that the will of the powerful wades towards the direction of self-interest. When these interests converge with those of the less powerful, the less powerful are better able to achieve their will.

To a degree, I think this framework helps us understand the decision of the Syrian government to shut down communication channels. Syrian rebels utilized digital communication channels to both organize among themselves, and share their experiences — often in real time — with the outside world. This was instrumental in their cause both on the ground and internationally. The real question then, is why did the government maintain these channels for so long? This question is particularly blaring in light of extreme government atrocities, including mass killings of innocent citizens — including children. Moreover, why did the government decide to cut off these channels now?

Internet and communication blackouts are not unique among the Arab uprisings. Egypt and Libyan governments both shut down communication during their respective battles. The Syrian government, however, is unique in its deft use of digital technologies to quash protests, locate dissidents, and suppress the movement. In short, the interests of the powerful (i.e. the government) converged with the less powerful (i.e. the rebels). In addition to appearing somehow less oppressive to the international community, we see here a possible reason for maintaining Internet capabilities despite their strategic importance in the rebel movement.

However, we may speculate that the costs got too high for the government. We may speculate that in light a persistent rebel force, culminating in massive protests in Damascus — so large that the major airport had to be shut down — it no longer served governmental interests to maintain digital connectivity. The interests of the powerful and the less powerful no longer converged.

Certainly, there are other factors in play. This is a minuscule fraction of the story. With that said, this framework suggests that perhaps today’s act by the Syrian government was one of desperation. They were forced to give up a key oppressive resource (digital communication capabilities). This resource was no longer adequately effective for keep the uprising at bay. Now, they must all battle in the dark.

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Jenny Davis is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at Texas A&M University, where she studies the intersection of culture and identity. You can follow her twitter feed at @Jup83.

Cross-posted at Reports from the Economic Front.

The good economic news, which got plenty of attention, is that the U.S. economy added over 170,000 new jobs in October.  The largely unreported negative news is that average real hourly wages in the private sector declined that month, and have been in decline for most of the past year.

It is hard to remember that the economy has been in expansion since June 2009.

Jeffrey Sparshott, in a Wall Street Journal blog post, offered the following chart of the trend in hourly earnings in private industry, with each point showing the change from a year earlier.

Citing a Labor Department report, Sparshott noted that:

…hours worked were flat [in October] for the fourth straight month. Meanwhile, average hourly earnings for all employees on private payrolls fell by 1 cent to $23.58 in October. Over the past 12 months, earnings have risen a scant 1.6%. That’s not enough to keep up with inflation. The consumer price index was up 2% in September from a year earlier.

It’s even worse for blue-collar workers. Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees edged down by 1 cent to $19.79, only a 1.1% increase over the past year.

The blog post quoted the HSBC’s chief U.S. economist who said:

This is the smallest increase in wages on record for the data going back to 1964. The persistently high level of unemployment over the past few years is clearly restraining wage gains and suppressing any inflationary pressures that might have possibly emanated from the labor market.

It also quoted the chief U.S. economist at J.P. Morgan Chase who said:

This pace of labor income growth may be quite acceptable for corporate profits, but it does pose headwinds for consumer spending growth.

Consumer spending did rise last quarter, helping to boost third quarter U.S. GDP, but this was largely because of a decline in the personal savings rate, which fell from 4.0% in the second quarter to 3.7% in the third.

We clearly don’t have a foundation for a sustained economic recovery, certainly not one that brings benefits to the majority of workers.  Instead of talk about austerity we need a real debate about the best way to strength worker bargaining power.

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Martin Hart-Landsberg is a professor of Economics and Director of the Political Economy Program at Lewis and Clark College.  You can follow him at Reports from the Economic Front.

A few years back we featured a series of Playboy drawings from the 1960s and ’70s that trivialized the social movements of the time: feminism, the anti-war movement, native rights, and the civil rights movement.  You should really go take a look; they’re something else.

In any case, Peter from Denmark sent in another example from the same time period.  A 1970s JC Penney ad for pants; “slack power” is a reference to “Black power” and it’s no coincidence that an African American man is modeling.  Notice, too, that it calls the pants “anti-establishment” in the bottom right.

While companies like Komen are getting a lot of critical attention these days for turning cancer awareness into consumption, this strategy has been around a long time.

For examples of appropriation of feminism, see these framing consumption of clothes, make-up, jewelry, cigarettes, magazines, and cosmetic procedures as expression of freedoms.

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 NFL referees have been on strike.  In their place the league has hired replacements in order to keep the season underway.  Word on the street is that the replacements are doing a distinctly terrible job. Writes Ed at Gin and Tacos:

Since professional and amateur football have different rules — in some cases very different — the results have been predictably disastrous. From their failure to do basic things like spot the ball and operate the game clock to major rules of which they appear to be totally ignorant, they have proven thus far that there is nothing they can’t botch.

Others, too, are finding humor in their ineptitude.

Ed wonders if NFL fans are internalizing the economic lesson in this debacle:

In a surplus labor market you can always find someone willing to do a job for less, but they’re probably not going to do it well. Even the type of person who blames the work stoppage on the union… can’t deny that the end result is the replacement of trained, experienced professionals with a clown car load of knuckleheads who act like they’ve never seen a football before.

He concludes, suggestively: “maybe all human capital is not interchangeable …and maybe there are some noticeable downsides to a market in which whoever will work for the least gets the job.”

The NFL, being entertainment and all, isn’t the best example, but when we apply the same logic to occupations like school teachers and air traffic controllers, we should sit up and notice.  Maybe at this moment, when something so beloved is at stake, it’ll raise America’s consciousness just a little bit.  Ed, for what it’s worth, isn’t optimistic.

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.

Katrin sent in a set of signs and advertisements, collected at Buzzfeed, urging young people to refrain from doing methamphetamine, or “meth.”

What I found interesting was how many home made signs in rural areas were included.  It suggests that many people in small towns feel that their children are under attack.  Meanwhile, there’s no big money in drug addiction prevention.  Hence the town-specific, home made signs that contrast so starkly to the generic, glossy, high-production value advertising we are so used to seeing.

Many examples at Buzzfeed.

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.

Jarrah Hodge, the woman behind the Canadian feminist blog Gender Focus, has started a new video series called Feminism F.A.Q.s.  They’re short videos aimed at addressing myths about gender inequality and the people who care about it.  She’s already got 10 videos up, but here are a couple of my favs.

What Have Women Been Told They Can’t Do?

Ride bicycles (’cause of “bicycle face”), get a credit card, run marathons, and much more.

Did Feminists Burn Bras?

Answer: Nope!

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 little annotated image is a humorous contrast to the call to help an Africa that is portrayed as corrupt, miserable, or pitiful.  Thanks to Amy H. for submitting it!

See also challenging stereotypes of African men, the “single story” of Africa, how not to write about Africa, and portraying poverty in Africa.  Found at themetapicture.

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.

Yesterday NPR discussed the results of a new study on charitable giving by the Chronicle of Philanthropy.  The study affirmed that lower income people give a larger percentage of their income to charity, but also discovered that how much wealthy people give is strongly correlated with the type of neighborhood they live in.

It turns out that wealthy people who live mostly with other wealthy people give the least amount of money to charity, on average.  Here are five zip codes with high-densities of rich people according to the IRS (= % of “wealthy filers”) and the percent of their incomes that they donated to charity (= “percent given”):

In contrast, here are five zip codes with a great deal of economic diversity.  In this case, the far right column shows a dramatic increase in the percent of their incomes that they donate to charity:

Wow, so rich people in Manhattan donate less than 1% of their income to charity, whereas the rich in Brooklyn give 35%.  That’s a pretty amazing divergence!

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There are (at least) three explanations for this finding.   One is that living in a diverse neighborhood makes you more inclined to give, whatever your inclination before moving there.  Another is it that generous rich people move to diverse neighborhoods and stingy rich people isolate themselves.   A third is that some other variable (e.g., political affiliation, religiosity) is correlated with both neighborhood preference and generosity.

A social psychologist interviewed by, Paul Piff, suggests that it’s the first explanation.  Rich people tend to be isolated, he says, so they just don’t notice that other people need help. But, if they see need, they do show compassion.

I’m sure Piff knows his stuff, but if I had the opportunity to follow up with him on this argument, I’d ask him more about what he means by “see.”  It seems to me that anyone that reads the news these days will be exposed to plenty of evidence of economic need and, if you care enough to dig for it a little bit, you’ll find stunning data documenting income inequality and heart-rending stories of widespread suffering.  It may be easy to be isolated, but I imagine one would have to at least occasionally turn a blind eye to these things.

But perhaps knowledge about need isn’t sufficient; perhaps we only “see” need when we come into direct contact with human beings, the ones with who become familiar to us. There is evidence that we find it easy to blame strangers for their misfortune, but chock it up to bad luck when it’s us, our friends, or our families.  So perhaps raising consciousness about poverty isn’t enough, perhaps we really do need to get the rich to rub elbows with the disadvantaged.

In any case, the results are pretty impressive and no doubt have some wide-ranging implications for how to make us a more compassionate and generous society.

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.