The following is a guest post by Catalan journalist Lluís de Nadal Alsina. He’s worked for four years at Public Catalan Television, and now serves as a reporter at the private TV station, 8TV.

In Catalan:

Xenofòbia en una Catalunya dividida

El Rubén i la Mai passegen amb els seus tres American Pit Bulls pels carrers foscos i freds de Salt un vespre plujós de novembre. “Jo sense els meus gossos no surto”, diu ella, “molts moros m’han amenaçat que em violarien”. Ell, que s’autodefineix com a “racista”, es queixa que la majoria de magrebins a Salt viuen de robar o vendre droga i que està fart de veure com van “amb Audis A6” quan ell no pot pagar-se “ni un ciclomotor”. Tots dos estan a l’atur i esperen un fill, que no volen que creixi aquí.

Només uns minuts després, des de la mateixa zona, comencen a sentir-se crits de “Racistes, fora de Salt!”. Una manifestació d’immigrants subsaharians i magrebins es dirigeix cap al poliesportiu on la Plataforma per Catalunya de Josep Anglada està a punt de començar el primer acte de la campanya de les eleccions del 20N. Un cordó policial els barra el pas per evitar els enfrontaments d’altres ocasions. “Salt és una olla a pressió”, em diu un Mosso d’Esquadra, “qualsevol espurna ho fa saltar tot. Aquí no hi ha convivència, la gent se suporta”.

En el context actual de crisi, polvorins com el de Salt, amb un 50% d’immigració, són el caldo de cultiu de l’onada de xenofòbia que escombra Europa. Amb la por a l’Islam com a únic argument electoral, partits neo populistes ja s’han fet un lloc als parlaments d’una dotzena de països de la Unió Europea. Mentrestant, els partits tradicionals coquetegen amb el racisme per mantenir el suport del seu electorat. La vella Europa, bastió de la democràcia i la llibertat, cedeix davant del populisme i la xenofòbia.

Dinamarca, per exemple, va reinstaurar els controls fronterers per frenar la immigració il·legal, en un moviment que va provocar consternació entre els seus veïns europeus, ja que el Tractat de Shengen va abolir l’any 1995 les fronteres internes; França va deportar l’any passat gairebé 10.000 gitanos rumanesos; i Suïssa va prohibir la construcció de minerets a les mesquites. La massacre d’Oslo, perpetrada per l’ultra dretà Anders Behring Breivik, ha demostrat que l’odi i el fanatisme latents poden defermar episodis puntuals d’extrema barbàrie.

A Espanya, en plena campanya electoral, el candidat de CiU Josep Antoni Duran i Lleida es mostrava “preocupat perquè neixin més Mohammed que José” o perquè “els catalans perdem la nostra identitat”. La líder del PP català Alícia Sánchez Camacho proclamava que “el burka s’havia de prohibir a tot el país”. Per primera vegada a la història de la democràcia espanyola, un líder xenòfob, Josep Anglada, podria arribar al Congrés.

“A por ellos”, crida Anglada. És la traca final del míting a Salt davant d’un centenar de fanàtics que aplaudeixen enfervorits cada vegada que deixa anar un comentari racista, com que “d’aquí poc no sabrem si vivim a Catalunya o l’Afganistan”.

Hores abans, a Vic, la seva ciutat natal i feu electoral, Anglada mostra una cara ben diferent. A la plaça Major, reparteix ell mateix propaganda electoral durant tot el matí, saludant pel seu nom pràcticament tothom qui s’acosta a la paradeta de PxC. Es treballa cada vot amb un somriure.

Amb l’habilitat de qui s’ha mogut sempre al límit de la democràcia -va ser membre de l’organització d’ultradreta franquista Fuerza Nueva-, esquiva les meves preguntes. “Jo no sóc radical”, m’interromp, “només sóc l’altaveu de la gent, que ja s’ha cansat del políticament correcte”.

Parlant amb els ciutadans de Vic, un s’adona que el seu discurs ha calat fons. “S’han de dir les coses pel seu nom”, em diu un veí passejant per la plaça, “no pot ser que els d’aquí de tota la vida hagin hagut de marxar perquè se’ls ha omplert el barri d’immigrants. Ningú els vol al costat. Si un marroquí ve a viure al teu bloc, el teu pis perd valor automàticament.” “La gent calla”, afegeix, “però tothom vota Anglada”.

Rafael Jorba, periodista i autor del llibre “La mirada del otro. Manifiesto por la alteridad”, m’explica que “no estem davant d’un problema de discursos, sinó de recursos”. “Amb l’augment de la immigració, els que van arribar fa 30 anys i els que arriben ara s’han de repartir les beques menjador o la renda mínima d’inserció. La lluita és entre pobres i miserables.”

“En època de crisi”, continua Jorba, “els únics governs que resisteixen són els que millor administren les pors. Però el futur no es construeix a partir de les pors, sinó de les esperances. Tot i que l’Europa actual sigui una foto sèpia, una imatge fixe del passat, ha de venir una nova generació capaç d’administrar les esperances. Més tard o més d’hora, els indignats de la Spanish Revolution o del moviment Occupy Wall Street governaran. Ells han crescut en aquesta crisi, però han vist molt món gràcies a les beques Erasmus o als vols low cost”.

El futur, però, avui sembla encara molt lluny de Vic o de Salt. “No entenc per què nosaltres hem de ser els dolents de la pel·lícula”, es queixa una marroquina. El seu únic desig és poder-li donar un futur a la seva filla de tres anys, però està preocupada perquè a la guarderia pública on la porta el 100% dels alumnes són immigrants. Mentre xerrem al mercat de Vic, ens insulten dues vegades perquè sembla ser que el cotxet està bloquejant el pas.

I attended a terrific lecture last night by Harvard sociologist Frank Dobbin, as part of Baruch College’s Ackerman Lecture Series on Equality and Justice in America. If Dobbin’s research isn’t familiar to you, here’s the breakdown, based upon his work with several decades of federal employment statistics: many of the most cherished organizational diversity-management programs happen to be the worst in advancing employee diversity and promotions, while some of those least used happen to be the very best. Dobbin’s research centers upon the idea that three practices, in particular, can most contribute to creating the conditions for greater equality in the workplace: mentorship programs, the existence of a diversity manager within an organization, and a diversity task force in each institution made up of managers and others committed to forwarding such ideals.

Dobbins was careful to not extrapolate too far beyond his data, but called for citizens and the government to propagate these best practices in every public and private institution. On the other side, the millions of dollars and hours that go into many organizations’ diversity
programs should be cut in favor of these more effective methods—particularly in climates where, as also appears to be demonstrated, employees and top managers have even grown more hostile to such causes as a result of poorly conceived diversity training efforts. Further information on some of these studies are encapsulated in Time and even Contexts articles on Dobbin’s website: http://scholar.harvard.edu/dobbin/biocv

In light of the Occupy Wall street protests across the nation picking up steam (check out this video from Oakland) it is worth looking back on the sources of the protest. Here is the best video I’ve been able to find that explains the mortgage crisis.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Michael Weiss offers a provocative argument for why the OWS/99 movement faces serious challenges:

OWS sees itself as a battalion against a lifestyle and a mindset that people don’t, in fact, deplore so much as they do the ruin that that lifestyle and mindset causes. Until the movement figures out how reconcile this uniquely American contradiction, and account reasonably for why it exists, OWS will only be subject to further derision and dismissal.

Andrew Sullivan references a classic scene from the movie Boiler Room to support this point.

What do you think of Weiss’ argument?

I have a new article out in Communication Quarterly on the Onion News Network: “Crafting Hyperreal Spaces for Comic Insights: The Onion News Network’s Ironic Iconicity.” I’ve been an admirer of ONN’s humor for quite a while, but also believe the inundation of comic discourses that have emerged in American political communication since the 1990s has been relatively undertheorized.

In other words, we need a better vocabulary for teasing out the operations and functions of these evolving comic formats, which I argue give us a great deal of insight into contemporary public discourse in the larger mediascape—and tell us about what forms of communication
are most amenable to democratic possibilities in the future. This article describes an innovative hyperreal, socio-political technique called “ironic iconicity,” which differentiates the communication strategies of ONN from other formats such as The Daily Show. Here’s one of my favorite, classic ONN clips, which is unpacked in the article:

In the Know: Situation in Nigeria Seems Pretty Complex

The Occupy Wall Street protests have garnered a great deal of attention in recent weeks. The core argument is that the “top one percent” has gotten a free ride in the last few decades, particularly during the last few years where the financial sector has seemingly not been held to account for their role in the financial crisis. But who is the “top one percent”?

Suzy Khimm on Ezra Klein’s blog sheds light on this question.

You’d be in the top 1 percent of U.S. households if your income in 2010 was at least $516,633. Your net worth in 2007 was $8,232,000 or more, and your average income this year is $1,530,773.

Khimm also shares some charts from Dave Gilson that looks deeper into who these “1 percenters” really are. In this chart, he notes that those in the top one percent have a broad range of professions. You’ll note from the chart than only 14 percent come from the financial sector, and a scant 2 percent are classified as “entrepreneurs.” As a side note, how did any professors make this list (1.8 percent)!

This data doesn’t play into the story the “99 percenters” want to tell about the “top 1 percent.” The preferred narrative is that the top one percent come from the financial sector (e.g. their wealth is not earned in the same way an entrepreneur’s wealth is earned).

But another of Gilson’s charts does help the 99 percenter’s story. According to this chart, the top one percent owns a majority share of the nation’s stock/mutual funds, securities, and business equity) when compared to the “bottom 90 percent.”

What does this say about the validity of the Occupy Wall street movement? Should they be focusing their efforts on challenging concentrated wealth regardless of whether it is in the financial sector or not? Or is Wall Street the perfect villain? It is easier to claim that Gordon Gekko should pay more in taxes (Yah….that was his name. I know, we weren’t very ironic in the 1980’s). Does it matter if the story of who constitutes the “top 1 percent” is more muddled if the objective is met? Do the means justify the ends?

A Liberal minority government, one seat shy of the coveted majority.  The turnout was a record low and many pundits are saying that the Progressive Conservatives and Tim Hudak frittered away a golden opportunity to unseat the Ontario Liberals and Premier Dalton McGuinty. Some cynical journos are folding their arms decrying the state of politics as reaching an alltime low with inflammatory rhetoric…sometimes, ironically, shovelling more inflammatory rhetoric onto the fire. {As an aside, I really don’t recall the alleged Liberal insinuation Coyne is referring to, let alone it entering into the political discourse in the 2007 election. If someone has a reference/quote/cite, please comment.}

Some are saying the “hat trick” comment by Stephen Harper at derailed Hudak’s Tories::

My take is that the Ontario Liberals dodged a bullet. They lost their majority, losing 19 seats to the PC {-12} and NDP {-7}, but hold on to power. I thought McGuinty was in trouble, but the Liberals ran a smart campaign given the circumstances and it paid off. This election could have been much worse for the Liberals. While watching the election from New York and Illinois, all of the campaigns {well, let me clarify, the big 3} were appealing to centrism and there were big issues that really motivated voters to go to the polls. My guess is that explains the low turnout more than anything {BTW, Elections Ontario will be looking into the decline.} After all, the PCs and the NDP were left with the charge of advocating a change, but not too much change, since the mantra of this election was the middle of the road. I think the big winner is Andrea Horwath, leader of the Ontario New Democrats, who increased her political capital in this election, as well as her likability and visibility. The Conservatives in Ontario at the provincial and federal levels must be scratching their heads to a certain extent. A Liberal implosion at all levels failed to materialize and the idea of a new era with the Conservative Party of Canada being the natural governing party of Canada seems far from a certainty.

The Manitoba New Democrats rolled to a 4th straight majority win over the Progressive Conservatives. Canadian election campaigns are mercifully short and while the Manitoba contest was a curt 4 weeks, the advertising and rhetoric was brutal in this battle for the political middle. The Manitoba economy, like parts of the upper Midwest of the US isn’t reeling like the rest of North America, so there wasn’t a great thirst for change. The opinion polls had the Progressive Conservatives up earlier in the year, but the New Democrats rallied under Premier Selinger.

The Progressive Conservatives narrowed the gap in terms of the popular vote, but gained no additional seats. Andrew Coyne of Macleans expressed his annoyance at the current first-past-the-post {candidate with a plurality of votes wins the riding, i.e., district}::

He used the “anomalous” results to plug his articles on election reform. I’m actually in favor of election reform, such as STV, but I have serious doubts if it would matter in Manitoba. The province is divided:: the rural south votes Progressive Conservative by a wide margin, while urban Winnipeg and the aboriginal North votes NDP by a sizeable but lesser margin, on average. The unofficial results are here. Given the geographic party split of the province and the two-party “duopoly”, I’m not seeing a lot of opportunity for vastly different results. If there were larger ridings with more seats per riding, the STV gamechanging math breaks down when one looks at the regional breakdowns for 2007. The NDP and PCs had their respective regional strongholds and it will be interesting to see how the final 2011 shake out.

This doesn’t mean I feel STV shouldn’t be implemented, but that the 2011 Manitoba results might not be the best case to pitch for it. Tomorrow’s Ontario provincial election, well, that’s a different story. Ontario has three strong provincial parties {PC, Liberal, NDP} and strategic voting is likely to be a factor in quite a few ridings.

Hank Williams Jr., sporting a Joaquin Phoenix look à la the actor’s I’m Still Here-related appearance, is in hot water for this Fox News interview::

It’s a bit hard to take someone who isn’t blind and wears sunglasses indoors too seriously. Williams compared Obama to Hitler, in reference to Obama’s golf outing with Speaker of the House John Boehner, evoking another instance of a TV variant of  Godwin’s Law.

ESPN pulled Williams’ Monday Night Football theme and Hank Jr. offered a statement, but not an apology::

“Some of us have strong opinions and are often misunderstood. My analogy was extreme — but it was to make a point. I was simply trying to explain how stupid it seemed to me – how ludicrous that pairing was.”

Fox News was eager to leverage Williams’ celebrity and get his 2¢ on the 2012 Presidential candidates, billing him as a pundit of sorts who knows “a little bit about politics.” I’m not sure which would be the more cynical move. Having Williams on the show with the high likelihood that he would bash the Democrats or having him on knowing he might self-immolate, providing fodder for viral video and subsequent ratings boosts.

College professors around the world struggle with Facebook for their students attention (It’s OK, we know). Most of them take care of this by forbidding laptops from the classroom. But doing that removes an essential tool for “note taking” or learning further about the topic (some students I know actually do this).

The Web is a useful supplement for classroom learning, opening students up to the world of ideas and concepts the may be unfamiliar with or, more to the point, uncomfortable with. However, there is the sneaking suspicion on the part of faculty that our students aren’t “taking notes” on their laptops, they are checking Facebook.

How could they not. Facebook is the biggest social networking application in the world. The site is still in its toddler phase, but has achieved an impressive global reach, with 750 million users world wide. But this ubiquitousness happenened in a matter of months. A mere three yeras ago, MySpace had a larger user base than Facebook. To Internet scholars, that seems like a million years ago. Because of Facebook’s rapid rise, we know little about the impact the application has on our experience of the social world?

I’m writing a book for Ashgate Press where I make the case that Facebook produces a preference for “the personal” in ways that make users disdainful of, although not averse to, “the impersonal”. I argue that the emphasis on disclosure and connection on Facebook colors by the nature of our engagement with public (political) life.

To return to the classroom example, the power of disclosure and connection to a network of intimates is difficult for a professor to compete with. I am a stranger to most of my students. They don’t know me. They have no way of knowing whether what I’m saying in the classroom will be useful, or uncomfortable by making them think about things they have little control over.

By contrast, on Facebook, they can build deeper connections with people they have already vetted, people to which they are socially proximate. They can share intimate, subjective, feelings and observations about the world around them. They can talk about people they like, what professors are wearing, or how much fun they had the night before. Each update from a friend is a small burst of oxytocin that is next to impossible for someone talking about macro-economics to compete with.

But what if I am saying something my students need to know? What if I’m talking about impersonal systems and strucutres that do not have Facebook accounts or provide status updates. What if a discussion about addressing the Greek debt crisis isn’t based on how you feel about Greece, but requires the development of reasoning about how one builds institutions in an increasingly complex world. What if global warming is actually a “thing out there” and isn’t subject to how you or your friends “feel” about it. A tsunami caused by radical shifts in temperature that is about to crash over you isn’t interested in whether you “like” it or not.

This is what I suspect Facebook does to us….it engages us with the appealing world of disclosure and connection when many of our large scale problems have little to do with those two things.

Several people, including Doug Hartmann, Brayden King, and Jeremy Freese, have commented on the booing of David Brooks at ASA as he received the award for “Excellence in the Reporting of Social Issues”. I’m late to chiming in here in part because of the arrival of the new school year and partially due to a desire to reflect on the issue a bit. The consensus seems to be that booing was a poor tactic for registering discontent with Brooks as an award recipient and that the Left-wing dogmatism of sociology is troubling. On both counts, I agree. What I’ve yet to hear is an account of why people booed. While I have no systematic evidence to support this claim, I see the booing as a symptom of a clash between different worlds of sociology. Like society as a whole, sociology is profoundly stratified and, occasionally, underlying resentments manifest themselves in mundane forms (e.g., white or wheat bread, Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays, giving David Brooks an award or booing him).

Though there are many divisions within sociology, one I have personally experienced is how utterly bizarre ASA is to a faculty member at a small liberal arts college. For most of us at SLACs, we’re more likely to apply Marx, Durkheim, and Weber to contemporary social problems than we are to be aware of the latest issue of ASR or AJS. We are deeply invested in the learning and lives of our students and course releases are unthinkable. Big NSF grants and the latest greatest modeling techniques using Stata or R seem like a foreign language. At ASA, as we encounter our grad school buddies who now work at research schools, we listen to their insider gossip and stories of whiz-kid grad students with a mixture of awe and self-conscious insecurity. For many SLAC faculty members, ASA is a project in sense-making. All too often, we are painfully aware of our own marginality within the discipline.

Don’t go feeling bad for us. Speaking for myself, I love that I am a teacher first and foremost. I’d rather talk with colleagues and enthusiastic young people about contemporary politics than contemplate the results of multi-level models. But life at a SLAC is a different world of sociology than life at a R1.

For many of us teachers, David Brooks is a regular figure in our brand of sociology. He’s not someone who we read merely for leisure whose columns exist quite apart from our work. He is someone who tends to misrepresent scientific findings and sociological theory to buttress often conservative opinions that would steer American society away from social justice and equality. Being disgusted with the latest David Brooks column really means something to us. So, when ASA gave him an award, it felt like one more sign of how marginal we are.

And it’s not just SLAC or community college faculty. The same holds true for many sociologists who study gender, racial, and class inequalities as well as some qualitative researchers who feel marginalized in Top Journal Sociology. The boos at the awards ceremony were not truly aimed at Brooks. They were aimed at ASA for picking him. They voiced greivance and resentment over a feeling of alienation within sociology. The boos speak not so much to the Left-leaning ideology of the discipline (which, let’s face it, is longstanding), but to the stratification within it.

Now, I personally believe in a sociology that is scientific and seeks the truth absent of political ideology (not one in which sociology courses are indoctrination sessions). But I also believe in a sociology where questions spring forth from deeply-held values and one where we use our findings to pursue a more informed, democratic, and just society. I think David Brooks believes more or less the same, even if he is less scientifically rigorous and arrives at some different conclusions. We shouldn’t have booed him, but if ASA more fully represented all sociologists, I doubt he would’ve received the award.