Nursery staff must be alert for racist remarks among toddlers, a [U.K.] government-sponsored agency report has said.
The National Children’s Bureau guide, Young Children and Racial Justice, is meant to help identify potentially racist attitudes in youngsters.
OK, so far, so good. After all, prejudice is learned, and learned early, right? And there are certain red flags in childhood that indicate a possible tendency toward, say, serial murder. So it’s not unreasonable to watch for signs of “potentially racist attitudes,” and try to steer a child in the right direction.
The 336-page guide said staff should investigate the reasons behind apparent racial prejudice.
It said: “A child may react negatively to a culinary tradition other than their own by saying, ‘Yuck!”‘.
That may indicate a lack of familiarity with that particular food, or “more seriously a reaction to a food associated with people from a particular ethnic or cultural community”.
What? Are they serious? Did it ever occur to these people that kids say “Yuck!” because, oh, I dunno, maybe the food in question just tastes lousy?
Let’s see… When I was a kid, I hated tomatoes and mushrooms. And since tomatoes and mushrooms are key ingredients in pasta sauce… OMG! That must mean I hated Italians! (Never mind that I’m an Italian-American.) And now that I’m grown up, and I love tomatoes and mushrooms, that must mean I’ve stopped hating Italians.
One more thing: I happen to have a very special fondness for Filipinos (I don’t know why; I just do), and have always wanted to visit the Philippines — but you couldn’t pay me to put a balut in my mouth, no matter who I offended. Do I associate baluts with Filipinos? Sure. Does refusing to eat a two-week-old, half-formed duck embryo in the shell mean I’m having a racist reaction to Filipinos? No, it means I refuse to eat a two-week-old, half-formed duck embryo in the shell, that’s what it means.
Next, an illustration of the frightening ignorance of one Dallas city commissioner, and one Dallas judge:
A special meeting about Dallas County traffic tickets turned tense and bizarre this afternoon.
County commissioners were discussing problems with the central collections office that is used to process traffic ticket payments and handle other paperwork normally done by the JP Courts.
Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said it seemed that central collections “has become a black hole” because paperwork reportedly has become lost in the office.
Commissioner John Wiley Price, who is black, interrupted him with a loud “Excuse me!” He then corrected his colleague, saying the office has become a “white hole.”
That prompted Judge Thomas Jones, who is black, to demand an apology from Mayfield for his racially insensitive analogy.
Mayfield shot back that it was a figure of speech and a science term. …
Good god, every ten-year-old knows what a black hole is!
I bet Price and Jones think the word “niggardly” (adj, “scant, meager, very little”) is a racist slur, too.
Adds the Dallas Morning News:
A black hole, according to Webster’s, is perhaps “the invisible remains of a collapsed star, with an intense gravitational field from which neither light nor matter can escape.”
What do they call collapsed matter so dense that neither light nor matter can penetrate it? Is there such a term? If not, there should be — in honor of John Wiley Price.
(Houston, Texas) A Houston city worker accused of shooting a co-worker in what her father claims was retaliation for homophobic bullying has been released on bail.
Natasha Latrice Akins, 24, is charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. She was ordered not to have any contact with her alleged victim, Dave Whitfield Jr.
Police say the shooting occurred as the two were clocking in at the Houston Department of Public Works and Engineering. Whitfield was shot six times, suffering wounds to his chest and leg. The injuries are not life-threatening and Whitfield is expected to make a full recovery. …
In an interview with Houston television station KHOU Akins’ father, Monroe Hoggart, said his daughter told him Whitfield was harassing her because she is gay.
Hoggart said that Whitfield told Akins that he “didn’t like gay women working for the city.”
Whitfield admitted to the station that he once got into a physical fight with Akins, but denied it had anything to do with her sexuality. …
At first, we thought the Great State of Texas was intending to levy a fee on Polish people, and that would indeed be unconstitutional. And then we thought, well, maybe this is an animal story, and it had something to do with polecats.
But, no: The fee in question was a proposed pole tax — essentially an extra five-dollar cover charge for strip-club patrons to be handed over to the state to fund healthcare and sexual-assault prevention programs.
Which all makes for noble intentions, but doesn’t make a whole lot of sense: When men go to strip clubs (face it, folks, there just aren’t a lot of strip clubs catering to female customers), they’re sating some arcane compulsion to buy overpriced, watered-down liquor while throwing even more money at naked women in a relatively safe, secure environment. In other words, strip clubs keep drunken horny guys off the streets.
Judging by my one experience with a straight strip club (on a lark at age 18, I decided I wanted to see Carol Doda, before she was too old and too disabled by those gigantic, silicone-filled gazongas to descend into the Condor Club on her famous flying piano), guys who patronize strip clubs are too drunk (read: impotent) and too broke (there was a two-drink minimum, at $13.50 a pop, back in 1980) to be able to assault, sexually or otherwise, anybody.
Don’t laugh: There are brazillions of studies showing that porn consumption cuts down on sex crimes (you can read about some of them here, and here), so it would make sense that strip clubs serve the same function.
(Granted, there’s always the danger that these drunken horndogs will then get behind the wheel of a car and kill somebody on the way home, but drunk driving is a whole ‘nother issue; if somebody’s going to drive drunk, they’re going to drive drunk at some point, regardless of the circumstances.)
I’ll leave it to you, dear reader, to worry about whether strip clubs (or porn) contribute to the dehumanization of women as sex objects.
Anyway, the “pole tax,” which the state started collecting this past January, is kaput for now. Sez MSNBC:
A state district judge ruled Friday that clubs can’t collect the fee. …
Judge Scott Jenkins wrote that the fee, “while furthering laudable goals, violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and is therefore invalid.”
The Texas Entertainment Association Inc., which is a group of topless clubs, and Karpod Inc., the owner of an Amarillo club, sued Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and Comptroller Susan Combs over the fee.
Witnesses for the strip clubs testified at a hearing last year that the clubs would go out of business if they had to collect an additional $5-per-patron fee. …
Attorneys for the state have argued that the fee does not prohibit nude dancing, does not regulate what entertainers wear and does not regulate the businesses in other ways. The state can appeal the decision.
There is a great deal of activity right now across America in the ongoing battle for LGBT Equality. I’d like to say that most of the news is positive but unfortunately that’s rarely the case. Nonetheless there have been some strides forward, and that is something for which to be grateful.
The Washington Senate just passed a Domestic Partnership Expansion Bill that will substantially increase the number of benefits and protections same-sex partners are eligible for.
After already passing the Washington State House 62-32 back in February, the Senate today voted to 29-20 to pass a bill that would add roughly 160 rights, responsibilities and protection to same-sex couples and their families.
Washington’s existing Domestic Partnership bill currently consists of about a dozen rights and responsibilities.
The attempt to provide same-sex couples in Maryland any type of unions is proving difficult. Legislators have been forced to water things down repeatedly, and now are reduced to providing very limited benefits that they don’t even know what to call. Why? Because many bigots can’t handle the notion of same-sex couples having Domestic Partnerships or Civil Unions as they “would weaken the institution of marriage”. I myself would like to suggest an institution for those people…
Concerned that they won’t be able to muster the votes for a comprehensive bill on same-sex unions this year, state lawmakers are considering a tactical shift toward legislation that would grant a number of rights to gay and lesbian couples but stop short of full-fledged marriage or civil unions.
…..
The same-sex marriage debate has divided the State House, hampering efforts to build a coalition behind one legislative approach. Many lawmakers say they are uncomfortable with equating same-sex relationships with marriage but that they could back a piecemeal approach to grant some protections to those couples.
…..
Some lawmakers contend that civil unions are tantamount to marriage and would tarnish the institution. Sen. Bryan W. Simonaire, an Anne Arundel County Republican, said he would not support legislation that grants rights based on sexual orientation, though he would consider some rights for unmarried couples regardless of gender. He noted that two elderly people might be in a committed relationship but decide not to marry.
“If we’re going to start down this path, we need to make sure we’re making a comprehensive policy that affects everyone,” he said. “Why would we carve out rights for one single group if we’re concerned about equal rights.”
What do you mean “carve out rights for one single group”? If same-sex couples could get married (and do all of the other things you take for granted) there would be no need to “carve out rights” for them in the first place. Did you ever think of that?
The Maryland Court of Appeals, in its opinion, identified nearly 340 Maryland laws that provide for benefits and rights conditioned on marital status.
Equality Maryland, in a separate report, has identified 425 Maryland statutes that rely on the definition of marriage or a legally recognized family relationship, including the right to make burial decisions, mutual responsibility for debts, the right to file joint income taxes and protections for children.
It is unclear which rights and benefits would be included in the alternative bill and what the same-sex relationships would be called, if anything. Raskin said some suggestions that have been floated are domestic or household partners and mutual or reciprocal beneficiaries.
Strides have been made in Texas politics as four openly gay candidates are now advancing past the primaries to their runoff and general elections.
Lupe Valdez, known for being the first female, Latina and lesbian sheriff to ever hold the office of Dallas County Sheriff, took a big step toward re-election by defeating three opponents in her Democratic primary. More impressively, she won more than 50 percent of the vote, avoiding a potential runoff election.
Rosemary Lehmberg earned the most votes in the Democratic Primary in her bid to become Travis County District Attorney. Lehmberg got 35 percent of the vote, while her nearest opponent received 31 percent. Outgoing District Attorney Ronnie Earle, known for his prosecution of Tom Delay, has endorsed her. Lehmberg faces a runoff election for the Democratic nomination.
Additionally, two of Victory’s judicial candidates–Steve Kirkland (215th Civil District Court) and Andres Pereira (190th Civil District Court)–won their Democratic primaries and will advance to the Nov. 4 general election.
In Iowa an attempt to force a vote on a same-sex marriage ban failed. Although the measure had failed to gain approval in a House committee this year, Chris Rants (R) thought requiring a vote on it would achieve his desired results. He was wrong.
Rants tried a procedural vote that would have moved the measure, House Joint Resolution 8, out of committee and before the full House for a possible debate.
Rants’ maneuver failed on a 46-49 vote, with majority Democrats defeating it.
Rants said he was disappointed some Democrats, seven by his count, who have supported a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in the past did not vote along with him this time.
“If those seven had voted with us, it would have passed, but I guess they will have to explain to their constituents why they flip-flopped on this issue,” Rants said.
Because the vote was a procedural vote, no debate was allowed, although the rhetoric surrounding the gay marriage issue has grown more heated in recent weeks at the Statehouse.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, D-Des Moines, said Democrats felt the issue should be settled in the courts before the Iowa Legislature might take action.
“It was primarily done to generate press, which I think it certainly served that purpose,” McCarthy said after the vote.
The issue currently is before the Iowa Supreme Court.
My, my, my. Some people are so anxious to enshrine bigotry into their state constitution that they have to grandstand in order to do it. Would it really kill Rants to wait for the Iowa Supreme Court to make the decision, or is he afraid the court might decide against bigotry?
So that’s the state of affairs across the nation for the present. It’s no surprise in my opinion that the debate over same-sex unions seems to be coming to a crescendo all at once. After all, we have a presidential election in a few months. Should the Democrats lose this one again, it can be conveniently be blamed on the LGBTs, as usual. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Hillary Clinton won state primaries in Ohio, Rhode Island and Texas tonight. One of Obama’s supporters, who has never been known for tact or graciousness, took it as expected. In response PurityOfEssence crafted this amazing little ditty, which she has allowed us to share here. (To the tune of “Home on the Range”)
Oh give her her due with her victimized spew,
when that karma comes back into play…
Where never is heard an encouraging word,
and the skies are all cloudy and grey.
Home, home in a rage,
with a keyboard to slash at the prey
Oh, she’s got all that juice for bombastic abuse
and inferiors plague her all day…
Home, home in a rage,
snorting page after page after page
How can we not see her pristine gloating spree
and not ralph at the saccharine glee?
That’s going to have me laughing for a good, long while.
Another friend of ours, maddiejoan, has this brand new video that I just stumbled across:
Congratulations Senator Clinton! You did an amazing job tonight. Here’s to continued success in Wyoming, Mississippi and beyond!
In addition to this magnificently worded missive, Obama also announced plans to run the aforementioned open letter in an ad campaign specifically targeted to the gay community.
But my question is: Where was all this love, respect and concern for the gay community back in October, 2007, when the junior Senator from Illinois was actively courting the conservative African-American vote in South Carolina with his pal and supporter, ex-gay minister Donnie McClurkin? …
Where were the ads in the local gay press in South Carolina talking about what a friend the Senator was to the LGBT community? …
And in what forum back in South Carolina, when his campaign was struggling, did Obama espouse lofty goals like using “the bully pulpit to urge states to treat same-sex couples with full equality in their family and adoption laws,” as he does in this new and timely appeal to the LGBT community?
Senator Obama had none of these messages in South Carolina, more than likely because it was not politically expedient for him to write such a letter back then. However now, with the race tight and the stakes high, Obama is now finally extending an olive branch to the very gay community that he quite unashamedly distanced himself from in South Carolina.
The fact of the matter is that when the Human Rights Campaign’s Joe Solmonese and other gay rights leaders urged Obama to cancel Donnie McClurkin’s appearance at one of his Faith and Family Values tour stops, their arguments fell on deaf ears. …
Boldly ignoring the obvious implications of such a slight, Obama and his staff brushed off the criticism simply citing the Senator’s belief that the country needed to broaden its reach of equal rights.
. . .
It’s clear that if McClurkin had been a Nazi sympathizer, Senator Obama would not have expected the Jewish community to accept the singer’s appearance on a program designed to attract votes from a constituency known to have neo-Nazi tendencies. Nor would the Obama campaign now be reaching out to the Jewish community in Texas and Ohio touting their candidate’s long-standing friendship and support for them.
So in what way does Obama’s latest outreach to the LGBT community at this critical juncture in Texas and Ohio not appear disingenuous? …
How on earth is “equality for all” achieved when one constituency’s value is weighted differently from others possessed of more mainstream appeal, until such a time as that constituency’s support becomes critical?
Sorry Mr. Obama, this is where the rubber hits the road. …
This is the ad Barack Obama is running in LGBT publications in Ohio and Texas, beginning Friday, February 29:
“While we have come a long way since the STONEWALL RIOTS in 1969, we still have a lot of work to do. Too often, the issue of LGBT rights is exploited by those seeking to divide us. But at its core, this issue is about who we are as Americans, it’s about whether this nation is going to live up to its founding promise of equality by treating all its citizens with DIGNITY AND RESPECT.”
I have so much to say about this — so very, very much — and none of it good.
I’m just too angry right now to write.
Right now, I just want you to see this hollow, meaningless, pandering piece of B.S. Obama is running in gay publications, starting Friday, February 29th, as an eleventh-hour bid to win over gay and lesbian voters in Ohio and Texas presumably too freaking stupid to see right through this gossamer-thin stagecraft.
Look at it. Look at the “tear” running down Obama’s cheek.
Boo-freaking-hoo!
Read the words. Resist the urge to hurl, if you can.
This is the biggest pile of steaming garbage from the Obama camp yet.
When my blood pressure goes down, I’ll tell you what I really think.
Stay tuned.
P.S. Stampp Corbin, you stay tuned as well; I’ve got plenty to say to you, too.
Hypocrisy in the Republican party? Say it isn’t so!
(Houston, Texas) The district attorney who defended the Texas law criminalizing homosexuality before the US Supreme Court is desperately trying to keep his job following the discovery of e-mails containing sexually explicit videos, racist jokes and what is described as torrid love notes to his executive secretary.
Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal (R) is facing a state investigation into the emails which were discovered on his office computer.
…..
But in 2002 it was “family values” Rosenthal who argued before the US Supreme Court that the Texas law against sodomy was upholding the moral values of the state and was in place to protect families. The case was Lawrence v Texas.
In his arguments he condemned adultery and homosexual acts.
“I think that this Court having determined that there are certain kinds of conduct that it will accept and certain kinds of conduct it will not accept may draw the line at the bedroom door of the heterosexual married couple because of the interest that this Court has that this Nation has and certainly that the State of Texas has for the preservation of marriage, families and the procreation of children,” Rosenthal told the justices.
Apparently adultery is bad, except when Republicans are engaging in it. And gay sex is always bad of course–except when Republicans are doing it in public restrooms with the full forgiveness of God.
[Last month, Gilbert Carrillo’s] tattoos kept him and his wife, Melissa, from moving into [a San Antonio] apartment complex called the Villas at Medical Center. “We liked the apartment, we brought them a check for the deposit and a check for the application fee,” says Melissa.
Later, Gilbert went by to look at the apartment wearing a short sleeve shirt. The next day, the Carrillos were told they didn’t qualify to live there, because the tattoos on Gilbert’s arms violated the policy on personal appearance.
So, he’d reject this guy — all-American Norman Rockwell icon — too.
. . .
The manager, Daisy Salazar, said she wasn’t allowed to talk to us. … We contacted one of the owners of the apartments: A southern California doctor named Edward Frankel.
Frankel e-mailed us a statement saying his apartment complexes do, in fact, “reject prospective tenants who have… tattoos exposed on the neck, head, hands and wrists, or large tattoos that cover over 40% of the lower or upper arm.”
Frankel says, “We do not discriminate. The above applies to persons of any race, color, gender, etc.”
Frankel, and his partners, have purchased numerous upscale apartment complexes in San Antonio and Dallas, where they’ve also banned pierced eyebrows and tongues. Tenants can’t have more than one nose piercing, or more than five earrings.
Local fair housing officials say the rules may be unusual, but they are not illegal. …
Most schoolteachers have to take part-time and summer jobs to help supplement their income, but this week a Texas teacher’s moonlighting may have cost him his job.
The school board is investigating into allegations that one of their faculty members has appeared in over 50 sexually explicit, gay wrestling videos.
. . .
The teacher, who vehemently denied the allegations, has not been named because although he looks similar to the video star, there is no confirmation that he is in fact the performer.
The school board, however, did not take any chances and told the Houston Chronicle the teacher had been put on administrative leave until further investigation had been conducted.
. . .
The teacher, who vehemently denied the allegations, has not been named because although he looks similar to the video star, there is no confirmation that he is in fact the performer.
The school board, however, did not take any chances and told the Houston Chronicle the teacher had been put on administrative leave until further investigation had been conducted.
