race/ethnicity

Elizabeth H. sent in the trailer for the movie Precious (based on the novel Push), which should be released later this year:

As Elizabeth says,

It seems to reinforce…negative associations [of] underclass or working class African-Americans: poor education, single motherhood, teenage pregnancy, abuse, child obesity, etc.

The trailer brings up some interesting issues about skin color as well. Precious’s desire for a light-skinned boyfriend highlights the emphasis placed on skin color as a measure of attractiveness: a light-skinned boyfriend would indicate her own success in the world, just as fame and wealth would. Elizabeth points out that all the “good” adult characters are light-skinned (and thin) as well.

Also see our posts on kids’ perceptions of skin color and attractiveness, an ad for skin lightener, a club letting light-skinned girls in for free, Malaysian anti-racism parody of skin lightening cream ad, and an ad that shows darker skin as more exciting.

Eugene Robinson:

Republicans’ outrage, both real and feigned, at Sotomayor’s musings about how her identity as a “wise Latina” might affect her judicial decisions is based on a flawed assumption: that whiteness and maleness are not themselves facets of a distinct identity. Being white and male is seen instead as a neutral condition, the natural order of things. Any “identity” — black, brown, female, gay, whatever — has to be judged against this supposedly “objective” standard.

Thus it is irrelevant if Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. talks about the impact of his background as the son of Italian immigrants on his rulings — as he did at his confirmation hearings — but unforgivable for Sotomayor to mention that her Puerto Rican family history might be relevant to her work. Thus it is possible for Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) to say with a straight face that heritage and experience can have no bearing on a judge’s work, as he posited in his opening remarks yesterday, apparently believing that the white male justices he has voted to confirm were somehow devoid of heritage and bereft of experience.

Stephen Colbert:

If you can’t view the video, there’s a transcript after the jump, thanks to Macon D at Stuff White People Do.

Jay Livingston:

In the Sotomayor confirmation hearings, Republicans have swarmed on Ricci v. DeStefano, the New Haven firefighters case. To hear them tell it, Sotomayor flung the law aside in upholding the lower court decision. She, the majority of the Second Circuit Court, the Federal judge who wrote the original opinion, and the four dissenting Supreme Court justices all based their opinions entirely on a preference for blacks and Hispanics and an animus towards whites. They didn’t consider the law.

By contrast, the five males (four of them white) on the Supreme Court who sided with the white male plaintiffs based their decision wholly and impartially on the law. Their race had nothing to do with it.

The Republican strategy depends on the tendency for privilege to remain invisible.

The transcript after the jump:

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I’ve posted in the past about surgical procedures used to give “Asian” eyes a more “Caucasian” or “Western” look. As Alexia R. showed us, though, there are temporary means of getting a similar effect, particularly gluing a fold into eyelids. A quick google of “eyelid glue” came up with products such as this for sale on ebay:

I don’t have many thoughts to to add that I didn’t say in the earlier post, except that watching that video has made my eyelids really itch and I can’t imagine what it must feel like to have them glued together. And also I’m kind of horrified by what apparently counts as not wearing much makeup; I had no idea I could conceivably be putting three different products on my eyelashes as part of my daily beauty regimen.

NOTE: Some commenters have made a good point about my post title and the implication that people who try to get an eyelid crease are trying to look more “Caucasian,” given that about half of people living on the Asian continent have an eyelid fold. I put “Caucasian” and “Western” in quotes to acknowledge the fact that I know these categories are socially created. But I think they have a good point about making assumptions as to why someone might use a product like this. The websites for eyelid surgery often DO very explicitly advertise their procedures as producing a “Caucasian” eye, so I think there often is that understanding or motivation, but people may use products like these for a variety of motivations, and I shouldn’t automatically imply that it is to approximate U.S. standards of (White) beauty. Thanks for the comments, everyone!

Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.

I’m not quite sure what to make of this but, after clicking through this Time magazine slide show of Bruno hype by Sacha Baron Cohen, I noticed that there appears to be a rule regarding his entourage: all its members must differ from him in one consistent way and, in that same way, they must all be alike.  This translates, in these images, into his entourage always being (a) women or (b) men of color, but never both:

Any thoughts? Is there some social psychologist out there with some speculation? Readers, what do you think?

P.S. – To the person who commented in the thread of our last Bruno-related post about never wanting to see his face again: I say, “Sorry.”

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

Cole S.H. sent us this clip, via Salon, from Fox and Friends.  It features Brian Kilmeade, in a discussion about how marriage is positively related to mental health in Finland and Sweden, saying that the problem in America is that “…we keep marrying other species and other ethnics and other…”

So he’s against inter-ethnic and -racial marriage (and willing to say so on national television) and either he is inclined to believe that racial groups are actually different “species” or he is delusional in thinking that some states U.S. states allow us to marry (other) animals.

“That’s the rule,” people. Write it down.

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

Genderkid, Andrea J., Laura S., and Jessica C. all sent in links to the Fallen Princesses photographs. About her project, photographer Dina Goldstein writes:

These works place Fairy Tale characters in modern day scenarios. In all of the images the Princess is placed in an environment that articulates her conflict. The ‘…happily ever after’ is replaced with a realistic outcome and addresses current issues… Disney’s perfect Princesses [are] juxtaposed with real issues that were affecting women around me, such as illness, addiction and self-image issues.

You may want to check out a discussion on Racialicious about presenting Jasmine in a war zone and Women’s Glib‘s discussion of the representation of fatness as “fallen” (and the stereotype that fat people gorg on fast food).

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

AdFreak drew my attention to a South African liqueur called Wild Africa Cream.  The advertising suggests that drinking it will “unleash your wild side.”

We have posted before about the tendency to associate black people, especially black women, with animals (see here, here, here, and here), as well as the historical roots of this discourse.  But, in this case, the advertising uses both black and white, male and female models.

I think what is interesting here is the association of Africa itself with animalism and primitiveness (an association that no doubt also colors our thinking about black people).  (Notice that the first and only Disney film to be set in Africa, The Lion King, included only animals.)  Catherine MacKinnon coined the term “anachronistic space” to refer to the idea that different parts of the globe represent different historical periods.  See other examples of representing Africa in this way here, here, here, and here.

In line with this tendency to think in this way, in this advertising it’s almost as if black Africans are meant to represent white humans’ own more primitive past (ergo the drink “unleashing your wild side,” whoever you are).

I like to point out to my students that Americans are not more modern than Africans (purposefully eliding the abstract meaning of “modern” in a way that tends to surprise them out of their easy associations).  It is 2009 there, also, and human evolution has progress no further from the “wild” in either place.

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

In Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, they are dedicated to the development of a multicultural population.

Two points:

First, as Angry Asian Man asks, why is the Asian child in a rice paddy hat?  This anachronistic representation reminds me of what we do to American Indians all the time.

Second, the sign reminds me of the pitfalls of using euphemisms. What do they really mean when they say “multicultural”? They probably actually mean multiracial, but they don’t want to use a word with such harsh connotations (in the U.S.).  So instead they use the word culture because it sounds nice and is often imagined to be restricted to things like language, food, clothes, and dancing (as opposed to inequality, oppression, and exploitation).

If they actually meant multicultural, then maybe the hat actually kind of makes sense!  But I think they mean multiracial. In which case, see point #1.

Via Racialicious.

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