TresSugar

Chris Matthews Discusses "White Ethnic" Vote

LibertySugar — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 06:00:40 -0800

Now that the dust has sort of settled from Junior Super Tuesday, and 24-hour cable news is no longer playing in my head while I sleep, one thing I heard Tuesday night just won't go away. I heard Chris Matthews of MSNBC talk about the "White Ethnic Vote" a group he described as white Americans who do not have a four-year college degree.

The use of the term "ethnic" to refer to someone's level of education boggles my mind. I am all for "whites" celebrating their specific immigration histories, and identifying themselves as something more than the nondescript term "white."

I just don't understand what Chris Matthews was talking about when he called whites without a college degree "white ethnics." Why can't he just call them whites without a college degree? It dangerously implies that whites, without higher education are different than other whites, and somehow, because they are less educated, they are more like minorities, who he thinks are also less educated. Why are we obsessed with demographic politics in the first place?!

The term may be an off-the-cuff slang term tossed around by political strategists, but the lazy and stereotypical characterization does not need to be repeated or perpetuated on national television. This isn't the first time Matthews has gotten in trouble for his irresponsible reporting style. He had to apologize for saying on air that "the reason she's [Clinton] a U.S. senator, the reason she's a candidate for president, the reason she may be a front-runner is her husband messed around." The thing is, I really like watching Hardball. I just wish he wouldn't be so unnecessarily ridiculous. Do any of you find Chris Matthews' use of the term "white ethnic" offensive?

Microsoft Changes Race in Photo, Then Apologizes

TresSugar — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:00:00 -0700

If you're going to change someone's race on your corporate website (which you shouldn't!), you might want to do a better job with the Photoshop. Microsoft got itself in a bit of trouble when its Polish-based unit altered a photo on its website by replacing a black man's face with that of a white man's but forgetting to change the color of the man's hand.

Microsoft's US web site had the original photo of two men: one black, one Asian. But apparently Poland isn't ready for that. Some point to Poland's ethnic homogeneity as a motive for the (sloppy) alteration, and in the meantime Microsoft has apologized.

What do you make of Microsoft's offense?

L'Oreal in Hot Water For Racial Discrimination

TresSugar — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:30:00 -0700

"Because you're worth it" is L'Oreal's brand slogan - but in France, a few bad apples seemed to think only white Garnier hostesses were worth hawking their shampoo to customers.

An executive from Garnier, L'Oreal's beauty division, sent out a fax in 2000 instructing headquarters to find an all-white team of sales staff to promote Fructis Style. The code term? Find Garnier hostesses, the fax instructed, who are "bleu, blanc, rouge" (blue, white, red), the colors on the French flag and code in business recruitment circles, apparently, for white French people born to white French parents. This directive would have ruled out black, Asian, or Arab representatives, in effect excluding around four million ethnic minorities and people of color that make up France.

France's equivalent of the US Supreme Court, La Cour de Cassation, said that the policy was illegal under French employment law. Although the employee who sent out the fax denies discriminatory intent, claiming that she just wanted hostesses who could "express themselves correctly in French," employees claimed that they were given verbal instructions to favor white sales staff.

Supreme Court Pick Brings Back Affirmative Action Debate

TresSugar — Wed, 27 May 2009 14:00:00 -0700

“Affirmative action standards are a bad way to pick one of the nine most influential jurists in the US."

Such is the reaction of affirmative-action opponent Richard Epstein to President Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. Epstein and other critics believe that the president wants to chose "a daughter of Puerto Rican parents raised in Bronx public housing projects to become the nation's first Hispanic justice," instead of an accomplished jurist. What they seem to forget is that Sotomayor has more experience on the bench than any nominee in the last 100 years, was a criminal prosecutor, and graduated with honors from Princeton and Yale.

Sotomayor herself doesn't seem blind to her ethnicity. She's (now infamously) quoted as saying: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." In this quote, Sotomayor invokes an argument for affirmative action: diversity is desirable.

The Obama administration has neutralized the affirmative action meme by being clear about one thing: Sotomayor's impressive accomplishments and exceptional legal mind were a prerequisite for her nomination. Her background is just a bonus.

The assumption that affirmative action gives minorities an "unfair" advantage often means they need to work twice as hard to earn respect. Do you think the solution is getting rid of affirmative action, or trying to change people's attitudes?

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Should We Pick a New Word? Minorities to Be Majority by 2042

CitizenSugar — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:01:48 -0700

According to new Census Bureau projections, ethnic and racial minorities won't be that way for very long. The census calculates that by 2042, Americans who consider themselves a minority including Hispanic, black, and Asian will in combination outnumber non-Hispanic whites. Even earlier, minority children will be the majority by 2023.

The change happened quicker than previously expected, one reason being significantly higher birthrates among immigrants. Also projections of the growing influx of foreign-born immigrants show it's set to rise from 1.3 million per year now to 2 million per year by the mid-2000s, and the aging and dying of the less prolific whites. It's like a melting pot on speed; a demographer says, “no other country has experienced such rapid racial and ethnic change.”

To see what this means for the state of the population, read more.

Some states have already made the shift, with "minorities" becoming "majorities," like in CA and TX. The way we talk and report about race will follow suit. Chief Census Bureau projector says, “The way people report race 20 or 30 years from now may be very different."

Perhaps more interesting than the shift in racial makeup is the sheer growth in population: they're predicting the total US population will top 400 million in 2039, a couple of decades earlier than previously thought. Where will all those people go? Is it time to start building more condos? How will the bigger population and greater diversity affect the country?

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Student Punished for Wearing American Flag Shirt: Right Call?

CitizenSugar — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 08:00:06 -0700

Students protested by wearing red, white, and blue duds to school after a fellow student was punished for wearing an American flag shirt. The sophomore wore the tee, which featured a tie-dyed flag motif and the words, "United States of America, Washington, DC" on the school's "hippie day," part of their homecoming festivities. The school's assistant principle deemed the shirt a violation of the school's dress code which forbids, "shirts/blouses that promote specific races, cultures, or ethnicities."

For wearing the flag shirt, the student was forced to remove it and wear a bright yellow tee in its place that read, "DCV: Dress Code Violator." His sister said the punishment shirt was pretty traumatic, "It was really embarrassing and humiliating to have to wear that all day - and just for supporting your country." The school has since reversed its decision amid the protest and publicity. The superintendent says that the assistant principle felt it was in violation of the dress code, but they've now changed their interpretation of the clause. He says, "Certainly we are taking responsibility for it and it will not happen again. A shirt that has an American flag, a shirt that has a Chinese flag or a Mexican flag, is certainly not a violation of that part of the dress code." District officials have apologized to the student, and the student body turned out fully clad in red, white, and blue the following day.

Was the administrator right to interpret the clause as she did?

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Jon Stewart Stands Up For Fake Americans

LibertySugar — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 15:45:00 -0700

Last week in North Carolina Sarah Palin said, "We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation." In what may have been her "cling-to-guns" moment, Sarah Palin potentially alienated the large portion of America that does not live in small towns.

Some critics say Palin's comments were polarizing at best, and perhaps at worst a veiled attempt to say real America is white, not multi-ethnic like the cities. Jon Stewart found a positive edge – if McCain loses the "American" election, he can still be president of the real America that matters. Despite his attempt at silver lining, Palin's comments obviously upset Jon, who also said on last night's show: "I guess if you're from New York City and you signed up to fight in Iraq and died, it doesn't count."

Jon went on to issue a quiz to help viewers figure out if they're in fact "real Americans." To take the quiz with Jon, read more.

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Front Page: World Embraces Obama, Aid Leaving Myanmar, Economy Adds Jobs

CitizenSugar — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 07:00:59 -0700

World Embraces Obama: Just after Barack Obama secured the delegates needed to win the Democratic nomination, favorable reaction to the news came in from around the world. An editor of the Times of London said of the historic event, “In 220 years a country that has steadily multiplied in diversity, where ethnic minorities and women have risen to the very highest positions in so many fields of human life, has chosen a succession of 42 white men as its leader. For good measure, the vice presidency, the only other nationally directly elected position in the US government, has been held by a succession of 46 white males. But last night, in a tumultuous break with this long history, the ultimate realization of the American dream moved a little closer, and a black man became his party’s nominee for the presidency.” In addition to focus on that historic detail, news sources in China, and Pakistan also gave favorable reactions, and many European outlets gave the story the same amount of attention in garnered in the US.

Aid Leaving Myanmar: US Navy ships carrying aid for the victims of the Myanmar cyclone are due to leave the coastline after continued refusal of the government to allow them to help. After 15 failed attempts to convince the regime to let them in, the Navy said it would withdraw the four ships, carrying helicopters and landing craft. French and British navy ships have also been withdrawn after being refused permission to operate. Recent estimates show the cyclone left more than 133,000 people dead or missing.
Economy Adds Jobs: The US private-sector job market added 40,000 jobs in May, surprising analysts who had predicted a drop of almost that many. The news of growth comes after April saw the addition of 13,000 new jobs. All figures are according to a private report by ADP Employer Services released today.

Barack Obama Speaks on Black and Wright Issues

CitizenSugar — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 08:38:30 -0700

Barack Obama has just delivered a speech addressing the spiraling recurrence of questions and debate surrounding remarks made by Obama's pastor Jeremiah Wright. The inflammatory statement made by Obama's spiritual adviser led to poll results released yesterday showing that 56 percent of voters would be less likely to vote for Obama given the remarks. Acknowledging that the subject of race has also become unavoidably prominent, Obama boldly and powerfully addressed the effect of both on his candidacy saying,

On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

He then unflinchingly tackled the issue of race, acknowledging that "anger" and "resentment" have built over time on all sides of racial divides. He said by addressing the issue honestly, therein lies the only path to growth.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day, and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

Did these words move you? Is this the path to change? Do you think that a bold and inclusive statement like this speech will satisfy those who disagree with Obama's relationship to Wright, or who may be considering the issue of race? Did he succeed in both silencing the Wright controversy, and addressing the broader issue of race in this country? Is this the appropriate time to make this statement?

Did he sound presidential to you?

To read the most personal explanation of both his relationship to Wright and his race, read more.

I can no more disown him [Wright] than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe. These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Yes We Can?

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Exclusive! We Talk to SF Mayor, Mastermind of Gay Marriage

CitizenSugar — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:00:12 -0700

Last night at the San Francisco premiere of the short movie The Butler's in Love (directed by David Arquette) Pop shimmied up to Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco and instrumental force in the brand new rights for all to marry in the state of California, and popped a couple of questions of our own.

Since we've been closely following the burst of new weddings, we had to ask the political trailblazer:

What’s next after the gay marriage victory?

The biggest most important thing is to defeat the initiative this November. It is absolutely critical we not allow this extraordinary moment in time where the Supreme Court has stepped up and adjudicated that the Constitution did not allow us to discriminate against same-sex couples for the public to then just a few months later write discrimination into the Constitution - so that’s the most important thing then, is to defeat it. And then to continue our efforts to expand rights and to expand opportunities for everyone regardless of their race, ethnicity, or their gender, or their sexual orientation and then to continue to build upon these efforts and to continue to address the issues of racial injustice and gender injustice that continue to this day - so there’s still a lot of work to be done.

Newsom supported Hillary Clinton during her campaign - now that Obama's the candidate, we asked the big unity question. To find out what he had to say, read more.

As a former Hillary supporter, do you think the Democratic party can unite behind Barack Obama?

I was just with him two days ago in Miami - wildly enthusiastic. . . Look, at the end of the day we’re going to be united, at the end of the day there's no question in my mind that Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States and there’s no question that the overwhelming majority of Hilary Clinton supporters will enthusiastically support Barack Obama. There is so much at stake and one of the most important things at stake is the next US Supreme Court - and if people care about the issue of choice, particularly women that say, ‘Well I just loved Hillary and what she represented and I’m just not ready to support Barack’ – just think about the alternative and think about the constitutional consequences of having a Supreme Court with all but one or two judges appointed by conservative Republican presidents, and the impact that will have on a generation. I mean beyond any other issue that should be an issue that should drive those that are unsure - particularly women - to the polls enthusiastically in support of Barack Obama. And let's just dispense with the issue of the war and the economy, education and health care and the environment - all fundamental issues to our party - that we have a real champion, and someone we can be proud of to support and endorse and again, I was one of her national co-chairs, I traveled across the country for Hillary Clinton. I appreciate her, and I admire her, and I can say as a Clinton supporter and I am an enthusiastic Barack Obama supporter and if I can come on this easily and readily as I have, still maintaining my admiration for Hillary Clinton I think so many others certainly can and I hope and expect they will.

He's definitely young, but . . . do you think he could be a contender in the Democratic Veepstakes? Obama/Newsom '08? It could be a wildly welcome change - in scenery at the very least - and maybe what the White House needs? What do you think?

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