God-Given Rights

I may be too young to remember past Presidential transition periods, but there seems to be something unique about public opinion over the last few months, something that defies reason or logic. Across the various “tea party” protests and town hall disruptions, a plethora of arguments have been levied against Barack Obama, the federal government in the abstract, and, well, whatever happens to bother protestors at any given moment.

Dissent vacillates from the understandable, if wrongheaded (fear of big government) to the outright outlandish (the government wants to kill old people). One of the most glaring issues with the “tea party” protests is the ridiculous claim of growing socialism, fascism, and (un)American-ness. One protestor glibly quipped at the recent 9/12 event in Washington, “Barack Obama is an eloquent speaker. But you know who else was? Hitler.” Well for what it's worth, Hitler wasn't exactly an "eloquent" speaker. He was a fiery speaker. An angry, erratic, and emotional speaker. A bit of a difference. Opposites, in fact.

But no argument is as egregious as the idea that we need to return to the vision of our founding fathers—a vision that includes so-called “God-given” rights. A vision from the same founding fathers that owned slaves. A vision from the same founding fathers that institutionalized rights for all men. If we are supposed to follow the intentions of our nation’s founders, shouldn’t we get rid of all the constitutional amendments that altered their original vision? Can I own slaves, and realize my right to life, liberty, and property? Why move forward and progress, when we can revert back to the glory days?

Recently, Glenn Beck offered his own take on our founding fathers’ vision of God-given, inalienable rights. We’ve entrusted too much in government, you see, and instead need to rely solely on our God-given rights. We don’t need government handouts because God has handed out everything we need. Interestingly, conservative blogger Allahpundit, of conservative pundit Michelle Malkin’s Hotair.com, disagrees with Beck’s empirically vacant, inaccurate historical argument:

“[…] If the key to American governance is the passage in the Declaration of Independence about god-given inalienable rights, why’d the authors of the Constitution go ahead and enumerate some of those rights anyway? And why, if they’re inalienable and god-given, weren’t those rights made exempt from amendment or repeal via Article V? The touchstone of the Constitution isn’t God, it’s rule by popular consent; religion may well influence the public in deciding which rights are so critical that even the popularly elected government should be forbidden to touch them, but when push comes to shove, it’s your call, not God’s. Slavery was once a right too, after all, and I’m sure there were plenty of apologists who found religious backing for that, fair or not. […]”

Politicians, in fact, create laws and rights. Different nation states enforce different laws and protect different rights because, of course, they contain different politicians and govern through different political structures. God didn’t bestow the democratic process; people created different ideas of governance.

The gospel of the Constitution has been romanticized to such an extent that pundits and citizens alike are deifying a man-made historical document. Whether or not you believe in God or any other spiritual entity, the fact remains that rights are not “God-given.” We fight for rights. We struggle for rights. We—as in, “we the people”—create rights for ourselves: We define what exactly constitutes a right, mobilize and pressure politicians to enact them, and then rely on our leaders to protect them.

Rights aren’t uniformly deployed, decontextualized, from a spiritual construct that may or may not exist. They emerge from the bottom up, from the same “ regular people” Beck and others claim to represent.

How (Not So) Far We’ve Come: Still “Doing Gender”

Last week I attended an Inequality Seminar here at Harvard. An attractive bonus to attending these lectures beyond exposure to work from scholars across the country is, to be honest, the free food. And due to the old habit of practicing good hygiene and the fear of Swine Flu, I went to the restroom to wash my hands before fixing me a plate. When I was leaving the bathroom I noticed that there was a baby changing station (pictured above) in the men's room. I smiled. For someone who was a Women's and Gender Studies major undergrad, I was happy to see that there was a baby changing station in the men's room as I have noticed the lack of them in many of the sporting, movie, and entertainment venues I frequented in the last year. And I think it is safe to say that I have only seen a few of the baby stations in men's bathrooms over the course of my life (of course more on this side of year 2000). This was, to me, was a step in the right direction. Go Social Progress!

The smile, however, faded quickly after I looked pass the family of elephants and saw the stereotypical, gendered depiction. Before I continue, I want to point out that the elephant family is a normative one—father, mother, and child—which is, to some degree, problematic in and of itself. Now I am not trying to make a mountain out of an anthill but one cannot (or at least should not) ignore the more subtle undertones of the seemingly "innocent" and "innocuous" depiction of the parent changing the child. This was a men's room yet still it was "Mommy" changing the child. Even in the quintessential, gender segregated location to which we all must abide lest we are called perverts or some kind of outcast by others in society, gendered norms and expectations are still as present, alive, and strong as ever. If one takes gender as a masternarrative, an ever-present entity in the background influences interactions between individuals in a myriad of ways, one sees the ways in which our actions and the behavioral expectations others have of us are scripted. Furthermore, we are looked upon to abide by those scripts. Where is Daddy elephant while Mommy changes Jr.? At the watering hole with the other bulls?

I think this cartoon on the baby changing station is an example that gives even more credence to the argument that we all do and are expected to "do gender." To paraphrase their 1987 article where Sociologists West and Zimmerman developed their revolutionary hypothesis that one can "do gender," gender is something one performs. This idea is important because it states that gender is not natural, not an innate characteristic of men and women. Rather, they assert that gender is

A routine, methodical, and recurring accomplishment. We contend that the 'doing' of gender is undertaken by women and men whose competence as members of society is hostage to its production. Doing gender involves a complex of socially guided perceptual, interactional, and micropolitical activities that cast particular pursuits of masculine and feminine 'natures.'

In essence, gender is determined not by one's biology, but by society's reaction to and perception of one's biology. Gender is one's conduct that affirms one's sex category. In other words, if one is male then one must act like a male, and if female, one must act female. A person's sex is a "biological fact;" sex categories reserve certain activities and characteristics for particular sexes, but gender consists of the "routine, methodical, and recurring accomplishments" of everyday life. West and Zimmerman argue that accountability plays a key role in producing gender, because not only are we responsible for "doing gender" on a daily basis, we are held socially accountable for all our actions—all decisions must be made as if being watched because each action either affirms or disproves our gender. But what do examples like this say about the expectations we have for women and men to perform in 2009?

I bring up West and Zimmerman here specifically because I think this picture shows the inertial force behind deeply held gendered expectations. Rubbermaid could have easily drawn one cartoon depicting a male caregiver changing his child and one showing a female caregiver doing the same. To my knowledge, very few places have only one single sex bathroom in their establishment. Even all girls all boys school have both men's and women's bathrooms. I would assume you have to buy the pair anyway. Or why not leave off the "human side" of things all together and remove oneself from the question of who to put changing the baby? If this post is seen as a one where the author is being nitpicky then so be it. But as the slogan from years ago simply and emphatically states, men are caregivers too. The last thing I will say is this: I believe it is time for us all to move beyond these false binaries which based on unfounded constructions of reality that are themselves the result of sociomental processes aimed at alleviating cognitive dissonance for living in a blurred instead of a dichotomous world.

What The Notorious BIG Can Tell Us About Race and Immigration

In Black Identities, Harvard sociologist Mary Waters analyzes the racial and ethnic identities of first and second generation West Indian immigrants in New York City. At its core, Black Identities is a study of paradox. Waters eloquently states, “[For West Indians], America is a contradictory place…a land of greater opportunities than their homelands but simultaneously a land of racial stigma and discrimination. Immigrants readily buy into an image of American affluence, but are grounded in American racial and economic realities. One respondent noted despair that America is a “white world” in which “white people have all the money,” but in the same breath rejoiced in the fact that America is “a place where everyone has opportunity.” This is the inherent contradiction of the “American dream:” First generation West Indian immigrants must reconcile their lofty expectations of achievement with the myth of American social mobility as they grapple with structural and interpersonal racism in their day-to-day lives.

Second generation West Indian immigrants are also directly confronted with uniquely American race relations, resulting in contradictory immigrant identities. On the one hand, some immigrants embrace their Caribbean ancestry and construct social boundaries separating themselves from black Americans. On the other hand, many young, second generation West Indians (a plurality of her sample) buy into the uniquely American racial caste system and self-identify as black, abandoning other “ethnic options.” There wouldn’t be anything wrong with indentifying as “black,” if of course a slew of disadvantages and prejudices didn’t follow as a result. When race collides and interacts with social structure and culture, West Indian immigrant identity precariously wavers between ethnic loyalty and American assimilation. Paradoxically, the choice to remain loyal to their West Indian heritage affords these immigrants more social mobility than direct incorporation into American culture, as buying into American stereotypes often means downward mobility.

Sound familiar? Oddly reminiscent of a certain Brooklyn born rap legend? Indeed, The Notorious BIG represents an interesting case study—and exemplar—of Waters’ extensive empirical data. Biggie was born to a hardworking, loving Jamaican immigrant mother. While his father was largely absent from his life, Biggie’s mother held steady employment as a pre-school teacher and by all accounts was an involved parent. She enrolled her son in a private middle school in Brooklyn where he thrived academically. This scholastic success, of course, came to an end when Biggie began selling drugs at age 12. A (pun intended) notorious crack dealer, he eventually dropped out of high school, only to reach temporary stardom but ultimately suffer an untimely death.

A scene near the beginning of the recent biopic Notorious, in which Biggie’s character exhibits admiration and lust for the life of a street hustler, is telling. Waters’ research suggests that Biggie’s identity as a second generation West Indian immigrant could have, presumably, led him to continue his studies and perhaps achieve upward mobility—distancing himself both from the general stereotypes of American blacks and the actual hustlers in his immediate surroundings. But, when confronted with the reality of American race relations—in this example, Bed-Stuy/Clinton Hill in the early ‘90s—Biggie could have just as easily been propelled to identify more with the black Americans selling drugs on the corner by his house. Like many poor second generation West Indian immigrants, Biggie lacked local models of success, a disparity caused by urban economic marginalization and resulting in a push to identify with a certain type of black American.

Big had an ethnic “choice,” sure; claim his Jamaican roots, or step in line with America’s vision of race. But it was a structured choice provided under economic duress and within the context of a uniquely American racial order. The problem is, both paths of ethnic identity formation have problematic results for blacks as a whole. By distancing themselves from the “black underclass,” many West Indians reaffirm long-standing stereotypes of blacks as lazy, violent, and generally inferior. In this model, immigrants achieve individual mobility at the expense of group advancement. In other words, individual immigrants can use this boundary work to catapult themselves toward success, but it negates the possibility for the advancement of blacks as a group. West Indians face American stereotypes and norms of black insolence, and their rejection—and even acceptance—of this identity solidifies white preconceptions. This puts West Indian immigrants in a uniquely difficult position—a Catch-22 in which either path of identity formation reinforces a firm black-white color line.

Biggie’s life story dovetails nicely with Waters’ analysis, complicating traditional studies of race, immigration, and assimilation in the United States. Of course, Biggie’s life obviously doesn’t reflect the experiences of all second generation West Indian immigrants. Still, Waters’ analysis in Black Identities does help explain, in part, why “G-E-D, wasn’t B-I-G.”

The White Racist Meme

It would be an understatement to argue that the mass media has taken on racial analysis with unprecedented zeal since the election of Barack Obama. Unfortunately, in attempts to present fair and balanced news coverage, cable news programs have typically included panels with representatives from both sides of the Left-Right ideological spectrum.

The problem with this method, of course, is that subsequent analyses usually follow the same tired pattern: “That was racist!” vs. “That is ridiculous! Race was not a factor!” At best, this produces unproductive exchanges. At worst, it woefully simplifies complex social process and interactions, institutionalizing diametrically opposed ideological camps instead of offering nuanced analysis.

Luckily, the Washington Post has Eugene Robinson, who wrote an important op-ed last Friday:

“Of course it's possible to reject Obama's policies and philosophy without being racist. But there's a particularly nasty edge to the most vitriolic attacks -- a rejection not of Obama's programs but of his legitimacy as president. This denial of legitimacy is more pernicious than the abuse heaped upon George W. Bush by his critics (including me), and I can't find any explanation for it other than race.

I'm not talking about the majority of the citizens who went to town hall meetings to criticize Obama's plans for health-care reform or the majority of the "tea bag" demonstrators who complain that Obama is ushering in an era of big government. Those are, of course, legitimate points of view. Protest is part of our system. It's as American as apple pie.

I'm talking about the crazy "birthers." I'm talking about the nitwits who arrive at protest rallies bearing racially offensive caricatures -- Obama as a witch doctor, for example. I'm talking about the idiots who toss around words like "socialism" to make Obama seem alien and even dangerous -- who deny the fact that he, too, is as American as apple pie.”

Not to be outdone, Frank Rich weighed in on Saturday:

“But there is a national conversation we must have right now — the one about what, in addition to race, is driving this anger and what can be done about it. We are kidding ourselves if we think it’s only about bigotry, or health care, or even Obama. The growing minority that feels disenfranchised by Washington can’t be so easily ghettoized and dismissed.”

Robinson and Rich hit the nail on the head. To argue one way or another that current debates over healthcare or other social policies are solely “about race” is to miss the point entirely.

Race is omnipresent in this country. Racial distinctions inform policy debates, delineate opportunity, and structure social interactions. But that doesn’t mean that all white people, or all white protestors, are uniformly “racist.” Nor can the omnipresence of race sufficiently and adequately capture the nuance of white racial identity. For different people, different social processes precipitate racial prejudice. Some learn from their parents, while others learn from conflict in the workplace. Some develop prejudices from economic competition with minorities, while others experience blind ignorance as a result of extreme social isolation. Among the so-labeled “racists,” some hold disdain for “welfare queens,” while others fear random violence from young black men. Some are overwhelmingly concerned with illegal immigration and “protecting our borders,” while others can’t even stand the thought of sitting next to a minority. Some believe in the racial profiling of Middle Eastern folks at airports, while others blame blacks for their own disadvantage. Some engage in recreational racism, while others use disdain for social policies like affirmative action as proxies for bigotry. Some whites hold a combination of these prejudices, while others hold none. Sometimes these prejudices are grounded in real life experiences, but sometimes they aren't. At the very least, white racial identity and prejudice is complicated and takes innumerable, varied forms.

To discuss and analyze race is not to revert to an either/or, racist/not racist false dichotomy. Race matters as an everyday reality of inequality, yes, but it’s not as simple as the White Racist Meme suggests. Race matters because it’s always mattered. But racism matters in increasingly complex ways.

The question is not if race matters. The question is how.

The Unintentional Effects of Seemingly Mundane Public Policy

Tyler Cowen, Matt Yglesias, and Ryan Avent recently engaged in a fascinating back and forth discussion regarding the role of highways in the development of contemporary American suburbs.

The precise causality—did highway construction cause suburbanization?—is, of course, debatable. But the discussion points to a larger connection between metropolitan development, inequality, and seemingly mundane, unrelated public policy.

Interstate highway construction owes its development to Cold War paranoia and military mobilization. With the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, the federal government devised a transportation plan that would facilitate easy travel for military equipment and soldiers. An extensive highway system, coupled with the affordable production of automobiles and within the context of a consumer-driven economic culture, precipitated suburban housing development.

Of course, that doesn’t exactly explain the racialization of suburban residential patterns. Indeed, it was purposive, intentional, deliberate policies—particularly red-lining and other discriminatory lending policies facilitated by the Federal Housing Authority and officially sanctioned by the federal government—that laid the groundwork for a metropolitan environment initially typified by “chocolate cities, vanilla suburbs.” Within the context of deindustrialization, decentralization, and other impersonal (read: non-deliberately racial) changes in the urban economy, the basis for metropolitan inequality is clear.

That’s not to discount the role of overt racism—you know, like block-busting, racial steering by real estate agents, violent defense of urban and suburban neighborhoods against black “invasion,” and so on—in the creation of racially homogenous suburban neighborhoods. These processes have been well documented by many talented historians. Not to mention racially-charged, failed political struggles over issues like busing and policing that precipitated white flight. And labor market struggles, played out in employment practices and labor union policies. But racism alone can’t explain metropolitan development and residential patterns. No, racism and racial animus shape, and are in turn shaped by, public policy.

Highways made residential development both feasible and desirable in the outer metropolitan fringes, as a suburban populace could easily commute to employment opportunities located within the urban core. It doesn’t exactly explain why individuals and business eventually fled from the inner city (we can thank zoning and tax subsidies for that), but it does illuminate the structure that made such residential patterns possible. It created social and physical distance from which many suburban homeowners could leverage political power, acquire economic resources, and cement inequality.

A policy as simple as highway construction—intended to make military mobility across the nation easier—can nevertheless have dramatic, unintended consequences. Mundane policy may not directly cause, by itself, resulting patterns of disparity; most social phenomena are, after all, multi-causal. Still, it can lay the groundwork—the structure—from which metropolitan inequality materializes.

Direct cause, in this context, matters less than unintentional effect.

Beyond The Tramp Stamp

(x-posted at Feministe)

I wouldn’t be surprised if many of the regular readers of Social Science Lite and Feministe cringe upon hearing the phrase “tramp stamp.” I dug through Feministe’s archives, and found this insightful post from Jill back in ’07. She wrote about an issue many of us are all too familiar with: sexist interpretations and judgments of tattoos on women’s bodies.

But a recent conversation with a friend pointed to another “–ism”—latent classism—that undergirds many objections to tattoos.

The conversation began simply enough. We were walking through a mall and noticed a fair amount of body art. We commented on arm bands, lower-back tattoos, and arm sleeves. Interestingly, our judgments of the tattoos differed dramatically: I liked creative tattoos but disliked some awkwardly placed ink, whereas my friend uniformly disapproved of body art.

Our conversation was relatively rational until a single word was uttered: trashy.

“I just think tattoos look trashy,” my friend innocently stated. Fair enough; the ugly tribal arm band we noticed on a young man’s tanned bicep did look a bit corny. But I pressed further. “Why is it trashy?” I asked. “I don’t know. Tattoos just look lower-class to me.” I swear I saw her nose tip up in the air, ever so slightly.

And with that, the floodgates opened.

She explained how she associates tattoos with working class men and women, a sign of their lack of refinement and sophistication. Moreover, the very decision to get a tattoo pointed to their lack of decorum, which she directly associated with their class position. In other words, all poor people are trashy, and their tattoos merely accentuate this universal fact.

I replied, naturally, by putting her classism in check: Does simply having a tattoo—any tattoo—equate with being “trashy,” which signals lower class status? By extension, does that mean that all lower class people are “trashy?” Is being “trashy”—and thus, having a tattoo—simply a byproduct of one’s class position, implying that lower class people uniformly make stupid, unrefined decisions? And are all tattoos “trashy?” Who are we to decide what’s trash, and what’s art? Are certain civilizations and cultures that engage with body art “culturally trashy” and “lower class?” And so on.

My friend’s objections to tattoos were infused by her own classism and normative assessments of “proper” behavior. I put her nonsense in check, but that didn’t exactly dissolve her prejudices. See, her take on tattoos was so fundamentally ingrained in her mind that she had difficulty breaking from her blanket associations. She was beginning to see her classism, and recognize her privilege—but it wasn’t exactly a “light bulb” moment. She could see how her prejudices were classist, but had trouble letting them go.

The end result of this conversation produced just that: a conversation. It’s often hard to draw firm conclusions when dealing with such complex and subjective topics. But it’s an ongoing process. We can’t expect people, like my friend, to immediately abandon their classism; we are social beings, after all, beholden to larger social forces that often influence our desires and prejudices. It’s part and parcel of moral boundary work—a social process of defining in-groups and out-groups, often predicated on the policing of “proper” behavior—that’s learned from an early age. Many whites, for example, would be simply lying if we said we didn’t get nervous when approaching young black males on the street. No matter how much we tell ourselves “This is really racist to fear them just because they’re black,” it’s a gut reaction—one embedded in larger structures of social relations.

Classism—like racism, sexism, and other –isms—persists, no matter how forcefully we call our friends’ prejudices into check. But we still try. And hopefully, after continued and repeated conversations, we’re able to alter our preconceptions and begin to view the social world in a slightly different light. Dismantling interpersonal prejudices is, of course, an ongoing social project.

Ted Kennedy’s Call to Service (And How I Got Into Harvard)

It’s not wholly surprising, given the current political climate, that Ted Kennedy’s legacy has been framed by the mass media in relation to healthcare reform. But Kennedy’s political and public impact reached far beyond bipartisan policy legislation. For me at least, Kennedy’s most powerful (and, successful) leadership came in the form of support for service and collective social change.

Following his death, Be The Change founder/City Year co-founder/potential candidate for Kennedy’s vacant senate seat Alan Khazei offered a moving tribute that highlighted Kennedy’s influence on nationwide opportunities for service and civic engagement. In part, Khazei wrote:

Senator Kennedy is the true godfather of the service movement. Without his tireless commitment, this movement as it thrives today never would have come about. He indelibly changed the fabric of America by not just inspiring, but personally enabling millions of citizens to give their time and skills to improve their communities and country. Through his visionary and bipartisan leadership in authoring the National and Community Service Act of 1990, the legislation that created AmeriCorps in 1993, and most recently with his good friend Senator Orrin Hatch, the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act of 2009, he created the infrastructure that empowers people all across our nation to put their energy and idealism to work addressing critical social needs.

While Kennedy’s service-oriented community development legislation continues to empower and invigorate communities across the country, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the personal impact these organizations had on my own life.

In the summer of 2006, I received a community-based research fellowship through the University of Michigan. The fellowship paired me with a non-profit community development corporation in Detroit, where I created and administered a neighborhood-wide survey. But the non-profit didn’t foot the bill for my services. Nor did Michigan. Instead, my research was subsidized by funds from AmeriCorps. In fact, two other Michigan students also worked at this particular non-profit for the summer, and both were funded by AmeriCorps. One was a graduate student in urban planning, and catalogued the non-profit’s real estate holdings. The other, an undergraduate student in Michigan’s business school, created and organized the Northwest Detroit Farmer’s Market, now in its third year of operation. If you know anything about Detroit, you know how monumental it is to offer fresh produce to the city’s residents. And all this work was made possible by AmeriCorps funding.

My research with the non-profit later became my research on the non-profit, forming the basis for my senior Honors thesis. That research became the basis for my applications to graduate school, which led me to Harvard where I study inequality and public policy. So in a Kevin Bacon-esque “six degrees of social justice separation,” Ted Kennedy helped me get into Harvard.

On a larger sociological level, Kennedy’s commitment to government-funded service organizations and legislation influences two related, critical components of urban poverty: civic engagement and social organization. When work disappears from central cities, as Harvard sociologist William Julius Wilson has so brilliantly argued, the rhythm and pulse of neighborhoods are disrupted. A lack of employment opportunities not only influences neighborhood economic stability, but it also removes valuable role models from day-to-day urban life. Social organization—the kind of informal rules and regulations that act as social control mechanisms and structure interpersonal interactions—is undermined when men and women don’t work regular, consistent hours.

Moreover neighborhood poverty, in part influenced by the aforementioned lack of employment opportunities, often reduces levels of civic engagement. Low levels of civic engagement often means less community cohesion and cooperation, which suppresses political power and places formidable barriers against paths to upward mobility. But organizations like AmeriCorps and other service groups empower impoverished neighborhoods and encourage active civic engagement—powerful mechanisms that help reduce inequality.

To be sure, service organizations like AmeriCorps are not without their conservative critics. But that’s probably just a testament to their continued relevance and effectiveness in bringing about social change. It’s also a testament to Ted Kennedy’s lasting legacy, one that stretches far beyond the fight for healthcare reform.

The Insolence of Understanding

I was on the T heading to Boston Common to watch (500) Days of Summer (amazing movie) when I looked up and saw the above advertisement situated on top of the door. Me being over six feet tall and damn near color blind, the relative “loud” sign stood out on the otherwise dim train. I didn’t think about it that much but when I looked again, it made me uneasy. The picture isn’t the best quality but it is a flyer for the BeBoldBeBald campaign, a call to arms of sorts began by the Small Army for a Cause organization, that is raising money for cancer research. September 17 is the day we are to show our solidarity with those living with or those who have died from cancer by wearing a “bald cap”. I find this "show of solidarity" problematic. Before I continue, I hope what I say below does not come off as my denigration of a group of sympathetic individuals who work for a noble cause. Rather, I question the entire process of dawning on another’s identity, persona, or physical characteristic for a cause when one always has the freedom to eschew any such constraint, hindrance, or restriction it places on one’s abilities (taken abilities to include those things one ordinarily are able to do).

Just to be clear, I had this same feeling when watching My Sister’s Keeper when Cameron Diaz's character dawned the “bald cap” when she opted to show her solidarity with her ailing daughter’s struggles. I remember similar conversations with friends when Will Smith puts on a “fat suit" in the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air to know what it means to be and feel fat.



I may be jaded in my assessment because of my reading of John Griffin's Black Like Me, a “study” of a white man who wanted to know what the Negro experience was in the South so he chemically darkened his skin and entered the hostile world as dark enemy rather than white friend. I acknowledge that I have grouped physical ailment, body type, and race in the same category. However, I argue that this goes beyond these individual examples. When I look at the show 30 Days, I have the same underlying criticism: walking in someone’s shoes for a while to show solidarity can be a tricky encounter for one must always remember that one is borrowing the shoes and mimicking the walk. And here we arrive at another double-edged component to such an activity. We must realize that we do not become who we pretend but also that those who we pretend to be are real. It is the mismatch between the show of solidarity and the reality of the life of those individuals that I find most troubling: the insolence of understanding.

Furthermore, in the case of this organization, undoubtedly doing work for a good cause, I believe that they make too light of a very serious and, often times, grave situation. They have a feature on their website called the “Balderizer” where you can upload an image of yourself and, basically, make yourself look like one has been through chemotherapy or another treatments that forces one to lose one’s hair. The face that is positioned next to the link that leads to the actual face is a smiling, happy go lucky one. Now, let me be clear, I am not a fan of extremes in any direction: showing the always downtrodden cancer patient is just as erroneous and problematic as the forever, elated smiling one. To make the effect of the treatment into a game of sorts, however, takes it beyond the extreme continuum previously outlined and perverts it in such a way that it makes it more of joke, a fun activity to do, than anything else. I know that there will be those who disagree with this assessment of the computer program (I will call it that and not use a more colorful description) but I stand by my stance that it flattens the reality of the experience of chemotherapy and other cancer treatments has on the body and the family.

I leave with these questions, what are we really saying when voluntarily and temporally “take on” someone else’s struggles in the physical form? What are we to gain or take from those tournaments when healthy individuals voluntarily restricting themselves to wheelchairs for a basketball or volleyball tournament? The fat suit? The bald cap? In my opinion, the experiences between those with the “condition” and those who adopt it for a while are incommensurable for there is always that option, that privilege of exiting from the play that is someone else’s life story.

"The Rest All Look Alike"

Last week’s episode of Mad Men was filled with thought provoking social commentary. Daniel wrote an excellent wrap-up, but one point deserves deeper context and discussion.

Roger Sterling’s hilarious rendition of “My Old Kentucky Home”—donning sloppily applied blackface—was just one of the episode’s jaw-dropping moments. Sterling’s minstrel performance was timely, airing only a few weeks after rapper Nas and Nick Cannon’s mock minstrel Youtube video went viral.

While Mad Men situates minstrelsy in the late 1950s/early 1960s, blackface remains a staple of American pop culture. Just swing by your local university’s frat row during Halloween and you’ll see my point. And no, this isn’t a false generalization because, yes, I’ve seen it with my own eyes.

That’s not to suggest that dressing in blackface carries a maliciously racist intent, however. Indeed, minstrel shows are just one example of what historian David MP. Freund brilliantly refers to as “recreational racism.” Think of it as the ultimate “What do you call a group of black guys running down a hill?” joke: a collective celebration of whiteness and white superiority at the expense of racial and ethnic minorities. Whites that engage in such rituals of racial entitlement often rationalize their behaviors by noting, “It’s all in good fun”—implying that recreational racism is less incendiary than more overt forms of racial prejudice or discrimination.

The image accompanying this post comes from my own research on a Detroit neighborhood—a community I refer to as Woodline Gardens, to preserve anonymity. It was published in the neighborhood’s local newsletter in July of 1947, quite a few years before Roger Sterling’s fictional performance on Mad Men. Woodline residents were exceptionally proud of their new community tradition, including three separate pictures of their inaugural minstrel show in the community newsletter. The caption of this particular picture reads: “The two white mean are C.R. Richards and C.H. Buckwater, interlocuters. The rest all look alike.”

This picture perfectly (and succinctly) articulates the underlying logic of minstrel shows and other forms of recreational racism. The rest all look alike, as if any race other than Caucasian represented a monolithic group worthy of degradation and parody. The logic of this phrase, rooted in privilege, elitism, and social isolation, wipes any semblance of humanity away from African Americans. Do blacks have individual personalities, morals, or feelings? Nope; they all look alike.

Understanding social isolation is paramount to placing minstrel shows in the proper context of American race relations. Residents of Woodline Gardens, like Roger Sterling, were socially and spatially isolated from poor, black, and poor black communities. Part of this isolation stemmed from physical boundaries (residential segregation), but cultural boundaries (styles of life, patterns of consumption) were also important. This isolation fueled racial stereotypes and precipitated the communal embrace of recreational racism.

Your everyday American probably doesn’t know the historical context behind blackface or minstrelsy. Movies like Spike Lee’s Bamboozled and Nas & Cannon’s awkward public service announcement largely fall on deaf ears as a result. To the average person, blackface appears to be a theatrical device employed sporadically across film and television, whitewashed of its less than wholesome history.

But blackface is not without a history firmly nested in contentious race relations and struggles for racial equality. As David Freund argues, it’s recreational racism, but that doesn’t make its continued use any less problematic. Hopefully, with each reference to minstrelsy in pop culture, we move that much closer to a clearer understanding of blackface in its proper historical context. Widespread, accurate historical knowledge is never a bad thing.

Faith, Family, and Football

Ask any former high school football player to reflect on his playing days and you’ll undoubtedly notice a certain sparkle in his eye. He’ll crack a smile, look off into the distance, and wave his hands as if he were fending of blockers or stiff-arming a potential tackler.

But sometimes high school football means more to a community than just a game.

It may sound trite, but in Parkersburg, Iowa—a deeply religious community in America’s heartland—high school football is an institution. Each Friday night is a community event. Football is the source of community identity. Football is a community lifeline. Indeed, the Aplington-Parkersburg Falcons have helped unite the sleepy Iowa town after two devastating tragedies. First, in 2008, tornadoes and floods ravished the community, decimating businesses and homes. Buildings could be rebuilt, but nothing shook the foundations of Parkersburg more than the destruction of the Aplington-Parkersburg High School football stadium.

The community rallied together, ultimately placing a priority on rebuilding the football stadium rather than their own homes. You see, a return to normalcy in Parkersburg was defined more by their Friday night community routine than any other aspect of their lives. As one parent eloquently put it, “They might not have their home or their car or their X-Box or any clothes, but they still have each other. They still have football.”

A second tragedy beset the community a mere two months ago: Falcons head coach Ed Thomas was murdered by a former player in the high school weight room. After 35 years of coaching, Thomas was as much a Parkersburg institution as high school football itself. But the team—and the community—pulled through. ESPN ran a special on the tragedy, showing footage from Thomas’ emotionally charged funeral. In one of the most poignant gestures I’ve ever seen, countless Iowa high school football teams, all dressed in their respective team jerseys, lined the road as the funeral procession drove to the cemetery.

Last Friday, the Falcons took the field against archrival Dike-New Hartford for the first time since their coach’s murder. ESPN carried the game nationally, and I tuned in. The play-by-play commentators discussed both the tornado and the murder, noting Parkersburg’s unique resilience. Reese Davis mentioned that university researchers have recently descended upon the community, studying how Parkersburg was able to rebound from adversity so quickly and so successfully. Herm Edwards replied that the answer was simple: “Faith, family, and football.”

But the scene at Thomas’ funeral procession, with hundreds of local football players paying the ultimate respect to a coach they never knew personally, points to a larger phenomenon. What sets Parkersburg apart from other communities isn’t so much their profound religiosity; rather, it’s strong community cohesion and extraordinarily high levels of collective efficacy that distinguishes Parkersburg from comparable communities. Unlike other communities, local residents here are more engaged, more willing to help their neighbors out in times of need. Political scientist Robert Putnam has made a career analyzing this social process, studying how civic engagement affords social capital, which in turn can be leveraged for political power and other resources. Faith may be important, sure. But it’s strong social organization and a collective identity—defined by the local football team—that makes Parkersburg so unique, and so resilient.

When I played high school football, I distinctly remember gazing up into the stands, thinking, Where are all these people were coming from? I mean, they couldn’t all be parents cheering for their sons, or former gridiron giants reflecting on their glory days. In fact, the majority of fans were local community members, old and young, coming together each Friday night to collectively embrace the local team.

I never really grasped what prompted them to put their lives on hold and come watch us play week after week. Now I do.