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This is How Fascism Comes

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 18:28:00 GMT

(Mailing list information, including unsubscription instructions, is located at the end of this message.)  This is How Fascism Comes: Reflections on the Cost of Silence By Tim Wise October 12, 2008 For those who have seen the ugliness and heard the vitriol emanating from the mouths of persons attending McCain/Palin rallies this past week--what with their demands to kill Barack Obama, slurs that he is a terrorist and a traitor, and paranoid delusions about his crypto-Muslim designs on America--please know this: This is how fascism comes to an ostensible democracy. If it comes--and if those whose poisonous, unhinged verbiage has been so ubiquitous this week have any say over it, it surely will--this is how it will happen: not with tanks and jackbooted storm troopers, but carried in the hearts of men and women dressed in comfortable shoes, with baseball caps, and What Would Jesus Do? wristbands. It will be heralded by up-dos, designer glasses, you-betcha folksiness and a disdain for big words or hard consonants. If fascism comes, it will spring from the soil of middle America, from people known as values voters but whose values are toxic, from simple folk whose simplicity, far from being admirable, is better labeled ignorance, from "all-American" types whose patriotism is a dagger pointed at the very heart of the national interest, for it so forsakes all the best principles upon which the republic was founded, choosing instead to elevate and ratify the narrow-mindedness, the bigotry, and the intolerance that also marked our country's origins. If fascism comes, it will be ushered in by tailgaters at the big football game, by Joe Six Pack, who, upon finishing his sixth beer and belching forth the stench of a mediocre life lived, will gladly announce its arrival, so long as it comes with a steady supply of Pabst Blue Ribbon and hot dogs on the grill, and giant foam hands with a "We're Number 1" finger, some Mardi Gras beads and a good titty bar. If fascism comes it will dress like a hockey mom, or a NASCAR dad. It will believe Toby Keith to be an artist, Larry the Cable Guy to be a comic, and that the world was made in six literal days less than 6000 years ago. If fascism comes it will come from the small towns; the ones Sarah Palin, quoting a famous racist and Jew-hater, said "grow good people," and which occasionally do, but which, just as often grow provincial, isolated, fearful and superstitious ones. If fascism comes it will come from faux populism, from anti-immigrant hysteria, from persons who have more guns in their homes than books, or whose books, when they have them, are principally volumes of the Left Behind series, several different copies of the Bible, and a plethora of romance novels. If fascism comes it will be welcomed, lock stock and barrel by persons who pray at every meal to a God they visualize as white, whose son they also think was white, and who they believe is going to rapture them all into the sky upon the blowing of some heavenly trumpet, after which point all those who don't think as they think will be burned in an eternal lake of fire. Their vision and version of God is itself fascistic--to love a God who would do such a thing is to love an abusive, sadistic and evil deity after all--so it should come as little surprise that their conception of the state would be equally authoritarian or worse. If fascism comes it will be at the behest of those who hold a contempt for what they call "book learnin," who prefer Presidents who mispronounce basic words because they make them feel smarter, and who are looking for nothing so much as a commander-in-chief with whom they would enjoy having a beer, or two, or twelve at some backyard barbecue. If fascism comes it will be interviewed, lovingly, on talk radio, by hosts whose cerebral inadequacies are more than made up for by their bellicosity, their bombast, their willingness to shout down those with whom they cannot argue, for argument requires knowledge, and this is a commodity with which they have not even a passing familiarity. If fascism comes it will come wrapped in red,white and blue, carrying a crucifix and a shotgun, projecting its own sexual confusion and insecurity onto others, substituting volume for veracity and rage for reason, and landing on the New York Times best-seller list as a result. If fascism comes it will have a pajama party at Ann Coulter's house, pop pills with Rush Limbaugh, and go gay-bashing with Michael Savage, all in the same weekend. And it will refuse to learn another language or get a passport, because doing either of those would make one cosmopolitan--which is just another word for "faggot." If fascism comes it will come because a lot of people who aren't like the folks I'm talking about here, won't stand up to the ones who are. Because we're too busy, don't want to make waves, don't want to lose friends, or alienate family. It will come, in other words, because those who know better are cowards, more concerned with getting along, making nice, and being liked than with telling the truth, calling out evil and saving their country. If fascism comes it will come because of the silence, and thus, collaboration of those who think themselves good, and certainly superior to the knuckle-draggers they can see on YouTube at the McCain rallies, but who in the end are no better and in some ways worse than they: after all, at least fascists stand up for what they believe in. They are telling us, in no uncertain terms what kind of United States they want and are willing to fight for, and maybe even to kill for. But many "progressives," many liberals, many of the so-called enlightened are doing nothing at all. If fascism comes it will come because those liberals thought voting for Barack Obama was all they needed to do; it will come because they allowed themselves to believe that politics is what a person does every four years, but not at work, and not in the neighborhood, and not at the dinner table. Meanwhile, know-nothings filled with hate, nurtured on racial and religious bigotry and who have overdosed on the kind of hypernationalism that has always proved fatal to those places foolish or craven enough to allow it a foothold, talk of their visions for America at every opportunity. They raise their kids on that sickness, they build churches whose very foundation is rooted in that cancerous rot, and they will think nothing of steamrolling those who get in their way. So when, exactly, do we fight back? When do we say enough? When do we stand up to our relative or friend who sends us the e-mail about Obama being a Manchurian Candidate or al-Qaeda sympathizer, or the one about the decency of Midwestern flood victims as opposed to those stranded after Katrina, or about how God was punishing New Orleans because of its tolerance of homosexuality, and tell them what we think: namely, that they are a bunch of racist, heterosexist loons, whose friendship or familial connection we neither want nor intend to pursue unless they get help. When do we decide that we love our country and humanity too much to allow these people one more day of decent sleep, one more day of self-assured confidence in their craziness and the willingness of the rest of us to just take it? When do we decide that every irrational, Jeezoid, racist thing that comes from their mouths will be attacked, will be rebutted, until they can no longer take for granted the ability to say any of it in mixed company without being called out? Why, in the face of the fascism they would surely introduce if given the chance, are we intent on being so nice? Why are we not more offended? Offended not merely at what such persons say about others--like Obama, or Latino immigrants, or whatever--but even about we who look like them? After all, their open exhortations of racism presuppose that they are speaking for us, and that this kind of brain-dead ventilation is something to which all white folks should aspire as though it were virtually the essence of enlightenment. If fascism comes it will come because we did not see in their actions a sufficient threat, or because we allowed ourselves to believe that it couldn't come, that our institutions were too strong, our people too good, for that to happen. If it comes it will come because we allowed ourselves to believe the rosy and optimistic version of America spun by Obama, without tempering that optimism with a clear-headed appraisal of the way that (sadly) a still huge number of Americans actually think: because we allowed the vehicle of our hopes to outrun the headlights of truth; because we convinced ourselves that we actually lived in the country of our aspirations, rather than the nation we have at present. And if fascism doesn't come--if, rather, democracy does--it will come because good people said no. It will come because we saw in this moment the opportunity to demand the full measure of our humanity and to pour it forth upon the national soil. It will be because we understood that democracy isn't what you have, it's what you do. But if we are to issue that demand, if we are to stand straight and fulfill the potential we possess to do justice, we had best exercise the option quickly, for the opponents of justice are on the move. They are preparing to enter on the winds of our silence and indifference, and complacency. Let them find no quarter here. Tim Wise is the author of <a href="http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-933368-99-3">White Like Me</a> (Soft Skull, 2005, revised 2008), and of <a href="http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=978-1-59376-207-0">Speaking Treason Fluently</a>, publishing this month, also by <a href="http://www.softskull.com">Soft Skull</a>. For review copies or interview requests, please reply to <a title="E-mail us" href="mailto:publicity@softskull.com" id="pgb1">publicity@softskull.com</a>  The following information is a reminder of your current mailing list subscription: You are subscribed to the following list: Soft Skull Announce using the following email: example@example.com You may automatically unsubscribe from this list at any time by visiting the following URL: <a href="http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/Soft_Skull_Announce/"> http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/Soft_Skull_Announce/ </a> If the above URL is inoperable, make sure that you have copied the entire address. Some mail readers will wrap a long URL and thus break this automatic unsubscribe mechanism. 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Tim Wise on How Conservatives Scapegoat Minorities, Even for the Wall St Bail-out

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 15:57:00 GMT

(Mailing list information, including unsubscription instructions, is located at the end of this message.)  In light of how much members of this list enjoyed (if that's the right word) Tim Wise's "This is Your Nation on White Privilege" two weeks ago, here's another essay by Tim: Racism as Reflex: Reflections on Conservative Scapegoating By <a style="font-family: Georgia;" title="Tim's own website" href="http://www.timwise.org" id="v.n0">Tim Wise</a> September 28, 2008 If hypocrisy were currency, conservatives would be able to single-handedly bail out the nation's free-falling financial system in less than a week, without the rest of us having to front so much as a penny. So on the one hand, folks like this always tell others�especially the poor and people of color�to take "personal responsibility" for their lives, and not to blame outside factors (like racism, or the economic system) for their problems. But on the other hand, these same persons then demonstrate that their own ability to blame others for their personal setbacks, or the nation's problems, knows no rival. So, for instance, if they or someone they know didn't get the job they wanted, it must be because of affirmative action or because the job was "taken" by an illegal immigrant; if their child didn't get into the college of his or her choice it must be because of some preference given to a black kid; if they can't afford to send their child to college it's because all the scholarship money was given to students of color; if their local schools are falling apart it's because of integration or multiculturalism; if their taxes are too high it's because of all those government programs for "those people." On and on it goes, with never so much as a nod to personal responsibility. Whatever goes wrong in the lives of white conservatives is almost always the fault of black and brown liberals, or so the story goes. The right is so predictable when it comes to this kind of thing, that you can almost set your watch by their daily eruptions of stupidity. And so in the past several weeks, we have been treated to three fresh examples of conservative scapegoating and buck-passing, in which they seek to blame the poor or folks of color for various social problems for which the latter are not the least bit responsible. First, we have Neil Cavuto of Fox News, followed by Rush Limbaugh a few days later, along with smaller-market talk radio hosts and commentators, insisting that the nation's current financial mess is not the fault of greedy investors, free-wheeling bankers, speculators and other assorted rich people taking advantage of a largely deregulated market for bogus investments. Rather, it is the fault of poor people and those who seek to serve their communities, and especially folks of color, and those who insist on such things as civil rights. How so? Simple: according to these blowhards, laws like the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act, which seeks to steer investments to economically marginalized communities so as to stimulate economic development and reverse the longstanding process of racial and economic redlining, is the real culprit. If banks hadn't been forced to throw good money after bad, and make loans to "minorities and risky folks" as Cavuto said on September 18th, none of this would have happened. Of course, none of the reactionary cranks making this argument has seen fit to present even a single, solitary piece of statistical evidence to support their scapegoating of CRA. Evidence doesn't matter. Simply saying it, simply insisting that it's the black and the brown and the poor who are to blame is supposed to be enough. Sadly, for lots of Americans it will be. The kind of people who listen to the Limbaughs of the world, after all, rarely care much for facts. But for those who still put a premium on truth, and who place more value on honesty than their own need to nurture their anger, here are a few things to keep in mind. First, the Community Reinvestment Act only applies to banks and thrifts that are federally-insured. This means that the independent mortgage brokers, who are responsible for half of all the nation's sub-prime lending�and who have been writing such loans at more than twice the rate of banks and thrifts�aren't even covered by the law. And make no mistake, it was the hand of the mortgage broker, more than any other, that precipitated the housing bubble. These are folks who were writing "stated income" loans (which means you don't have to prove your income, you can just tell them a number and get the OK), not caring about whether the borrower might default, since they were going to turn around and dump the loan at a profit, onto the secondary market, by pawning it off to investors who were gobbling up debt, betting on the further expansion of home values. In this scenario, neither the original broker nor the investor who bought up the debt was concerned about what would happen to the borrower who took out the initial loan. After all, if a borrower defaulted, but the housing market was still going up in value, they could swoop in, foreclose and sell the house again at a profit. On neither end of this equation were poor people to blame. The persons getting stated income loans were overwhelmingly middle class, perhaps hoping to keep up with the richer folks down the block, but certainly not the poor. Most poor folks are still renters, or just hoping to get a modest home. And let it suffice to say that none of the vultures snapping up the mortgage debt on the secondary market were poor, and very few were persons of color. These were affluent white people, willing to gamble on the potential misfortune of others. Secondly, the idea that loans to the poor or to moderate income folks could create this mess is almost inherently absurd. Fact is, the risk involved with loans to such persons is quite low. The amount of money lost, even when a low income family does default, is quite minimal. On the other hand, when a middle class family, striving to live above their means, takes out a note that eats up half of their income, the amount lost when the bubble bursts is quite a bit more substantial. This is one of the reasons that, according again to the evidence, loans to those with more moderate incomes are actually less risky than those to the affluent. Looking at CRA-related loans, for instance, the fact is, these represent nearly one-fourth of all loans written, but less than 10 percent of the high-cost, high-risk loans that precipitated the current crisis. These loans actually have lower default and foreclosure rates than non-CRA connected loans, and are twice as likely to be retained in the portfolios of the banks that originated them than other loans. In other words, it is not CRA loans being dumped into the hands of greedy speculators, and then falling flat, taking the economy with them. Finally, to the extent low-income folks of color are shuttled into the sub-prime market, and then unable to pay their house notes, this unhappy fact owes more to discrimination than anti-discrimination efforts such as CRA. As several studies have shown, banks often reject borrowers of color, even when they have credit records similar to whites with the same incomes. Then, these rejected applicants are steered towards sub-prime lenders which charge far higher interest and place the borrowers in great jeopardy by driving up the amount they must repay. A few years back, a study of Citigroup (which includes Citi, the group's sub-prime lender), found that Citi in North Carolina was charging higher interest even to borrowers who could have qualified for regular loans. In the process, over 90,000 mostly black borrowers were roped into predatory loans, and as a result paid an average of $327 more per month for mortgages than those getting loans from a prime lender. This added up to over $110,000 in excess payments over the life of the loans, on average. In other words, folks of color who could have qualified for lower-interest loans (that they would have been able to pay back far more easily) were steered to higher-cost instruments by greedy financial institutions, looking to make a quick buck at their expense. That's not the fault of civil rights protection, it's the fault of economic civil rights violations. As if blaming the global financial squeeze on the poor wasn't putrid enough, along comes the National Review Online, which descended even deeper into the pit of obvious racism on September 26th. To wit, the blog entry entitled "Cause and Effect?" by Mark Krikorian, executive director of an anti-immigration group in DC, in which he notes failed S&L Washington Mutual's stellar record on corporate diversity, as if this were somehow connected to their insolvency. The fact that WaMu had been ranked as one of the top ten businesses in the Hispanic Business Diversity Elite, and had received a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equity Index (which focuses on equity for lesbian and gay folks), are, in Krikorian's mind, linked to their financial troubles. Because, ya know, if you have too many Latinos and gays working for you, well, clearly you can't care anything about the bottom line. That Krikorian presents no evidence, or even logic, to suggest a linkage between workplace equity and financial incompetence doesn't matter: his readers, predisposed to scapegoat the non-white and non-straight for anything and everything, can be expected to take the bait. And then there's Louisiana state lawmaker, John LaBruzzo, who proposes solving the problem of poverty by giving financial incentives to poor women on public assistance to be sterilized, so as to cut down on their birthrates. LaBruzzo, whose legislative district was once represented by neo-nazi David Duke (who also proposed something like this in 1991), insists his plan isn't racist, sexist, or classist, but merely aimed at cutting down on excessive welfare costs. He also claims that his plan would reverse the current pattern, whereby poor women are encouraged to have more babies so as to collect more welfare. Putting aside the inherently Hitlerian, eugenic rationale for such actions, LaBruzzo, as with Duke, and most right-wingers, ignores every bit of logic and evidence so as to push this kind of nonsense. First off, he ignores the now-twelve-year-old welfare reform law, which prevents additional payments for persons on welfare who have additional children. Although these "extra" monies were never very much (in Louisiana they amounted to less than $100 per month at the time the law was changed), now they are essentially non-existent. Secondly, LaBruzzo ignores the evidence from more than twenty years of research, which indicates that persons receiving public assistance do not, in fact, have more children, on average, than non-welfare receiving families. So the idea that poor women need incentives not to have babies is nonsense. What they need is decent-paying jobs, something LaBruzzo has no idea how to create. And finally, the underlying premise of LaBruzzo's plan�which, if the public comments posted to Nola.com (New Orleans' main media website) are any indication, is quite popular�is entirely bogus. Contrary to conventional wisdom (or at least, contrary to what a lot of white people think, whether wise or not), the numbers of people even receiving cash welfare in Louisiana are ridiculously small. LaBruzzo, who said the idea for this bill came to him after seeing folks in New Orleans during Katrina who were dependent on so-called government handouts, apparently doesn't feel the need to do any homework. For had he done so, he would have discovered that at the time of the flooding, there were fewer than 5000 households in the entire city receiving cash assistance, out of nearly 200,000 households in all. Fewer than four percent of black households, and only about one in ten poor households were receiving the kind of welfare that LaBruzzo would seek to tie to sterilization. Since Katrina, the number of persons on state aid have fallen even further, as the poor muddle through with very little assistance of any kind. But rather than push for rental assistance for low-income folks, which would improve the lives of poor folks and their communities dramatically, LaBruzzo is content�as conservatives almost always are�to blame the poor for their condition and seek to change their behavior (or in this case, compel their infertility) so as to solve the problem of economic deprivation. How very typical. So there you have it: white conservatives who simply cannot bring themselves to blame rich white people for anything, and who consistently fall back into old patterns, blaming the poor for poverty, black and brown folks for racism, anybody but themselves and those like them. That anyone takes them seriously anymore when they prattle on about "personal responsibility" is a stunning testament to how racism and classism continue to pay dividends in a nation whose soil has been fertilized with these twin poisons for generations. Unless the rest of us insist that the truth be told�and unless we tell it ourselves, by bombarding the folks who send us their hateful e-mails with our own correctives, thereby putting them on notice that we won't be silent (and that they cannot rely on our complicity any longer)�it is doubtful that much will change. Tim Wise is the author of <a style="font-family: Georgia;" href="http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-933368-99-3">White Like Me</a> (Soft Skull, 2005, revised 2008), and of <a style="font-family: Georgia;" href="http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=978-1-59376-207-0">Speaking Treason Fluently</a>, publishing this month, also by <a style="font-family: Georgia;" href="http://www.softskull.com">Soft Skull</a>. For review copies or interview requests, please email <a style="font-family: Georgia;" title="E-mail us" href="mailto:publicity@softskull.com" id="pgb1">publicity@softskull.com</a>  The following information is a reminder of your current mailing list subscription: You are subscribed to the following list: Soft Skull Announce using the following email: example@example.com You may automatically unsubscribe from this list at any time by visiting the following URL: <a href="http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/Soft_Skull_Announce/"> http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/Soft_Skull_Announce/ </a> If the above URL is inoperable, make sure that you have copied the entire address. Some mail readers will wrap a long URL and thus break this automatic unsubscribe mechanism. 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How Conservatives Scapegoat Minorities, Even for

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 15:54:00 GMT

(Mailing list information, including unsubscription instructions, is located at the end of this message.)  In light of how much member sof this list enjoyed (if that's the right word) Tim Wise's "This is Your Nation on White Privilege" two weeks ago, here's another essay by Tim: Racism as Reflex: Reflections on Conservative Scapegoating By <a style="font-family: Georgia;" title="Tim's own website" href="http://www.timwise.org" id="v.n0">Tim Wise</a> September 28, 2008 If hypocrisy were currency, conservatives would be able to single-handedly bail out the nation's free-falling financial system in less than a week, without the rest of us having to front so much as a penny. So on the one hand, folks like this always tell others�especially the poor and people of color�to take "personal responsibility" for their lives, and not to blame outside factors (like racism, or the economic system) for their problems. But on the other hand, these same persons then demonstrate that their own ability to blame others for their personal setbacks, or the nation's problems, knows no rival. So, for instance, if they or someone they know didn't get the job they wanted, it must be because of affirmative action or because the job was "taken" by an illegal immigrant; if their child didn't get into the college of his or her choice it must be because of some preference given to a black kid; if they can't afford to send their child to college it's because all the scholarship money was given to students of color; if their local schools are falling apart it's because of integration or multiculturalism; if their taxes are too high it's because of all those government programs for "those people." On and on it goes, with never so much as a nod to personal responsibility. Whatever goes wrong in the lives of white conservatives is almost always the fault of black and brown liberals, or so the story goes. The right is so predictable when it comes to this kind of thing, that you can almost set your watch by their daily eruptions of stupidity. And so in the past several weeks, we have been treated to three fresh examples of conservative scapegoating and buck-passing, in which they seek to blame the poor or folks of color for various social problems for which the latter are not the least bit responsible. First, we have Neil Cavuto of Fox News, followed by Rush Limbaugh a few days later, along with smaller-market talk radio hosts and commentators, insisting that the nation's current financial mess is not the fault of greedy investors, free-wheeling bankers, speculators and other assorted rich people taking advantage of a largely deregulated market for bogus investments. Rather, it is the fault of poor people and those who seek to serve their communities, and especially folks of color, and those who insist on such things as civil rights. How so? Simple: according to these blowhards, laws like the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act, which seeks to steer investments to economically marginalized communities so as to stimulate economic development and reverse the longstanding process of racial and economic redlining, is the real culprit. If banks hadn't been forced to throw good money after bad, and make loans to "minorities and risky folks" as Cavuto said on September 18th, none of this would have happened. Of course, none of the reactionary cranks making this argument has seen fit to present even a single, solitary piece of statistical evidence to support their scapegoating of CRA. Evidence doesn't matter. Simply saying it, simply insisting that it's the black and the brown and the poor who are to blame is supposed to be enough. Sadly, for lots of Americans it will be. The kind of people who listen to the Limbaughs of the world, after all, rarely care much for facts. But for those who still put a premium on truth, and who place more value on honesty than their own need to nurture their anger, here are a few things to keep in mind. First, the Community Reinvestment Act only applies to banks and thrifts that are federally-insured. This means that the independent mortgage brokers, who are responsible for half of all the nation's sub-prime lending�and who have been writing such loans at more than twice the rate of banks and thrifts�aren't even covered by the law. And make no mistake, it was the hand of the mortgage broker, more than any other, that precipitated the housing bubble. These are folks who were writing "stated income" loans (which means you don't have to prove your income, you can just tell them a number and get the OK), not caring about whether the borrower might default, since they were going to turn around and dump the loan at a profit, onto the secondary market, by pawning it off to investors who were gobbling up debt, betting on the further expansion of home values. In this scenario, neither the original broker nor the investor who bought up the debt was concerned about what would happen to the borrower who took out the initial loan. After all, if a borrower defaulted, but the housing market was still going up in value, they could swoop in, foreclose and sell the house again at a profit. On neither end of this equation were poor people to blame. The persons getting stated income loans were overwhelmingly middle class, perhaps hoping to keep up with the richer folks down the block, but certainly not the poor. Most poor folks are still renters, or just hoping to get a modest home. And let it suffice to say that none of the vultures snapping up the mortgage debt on the secondary market were poor, and very few were persons of color. These were affluent white people, willing to gamble on the potential misfortune of others. Secondly, the idea that loans to the poor or to moderate income folks could create this mess is almost inherently absurd. Fact is, the risk involved with loans to such persons is quite low. The amount of money lost, even when a low income family does default, is quite minimal. On the other hand, when a middle class family, striving to live above their means, takes out a note that eats up half of their income, the amount lost when the bubble bursts is quite a bit more substantial. This is one of the reasons that, according again to the evidence, loans to those with more moderate incomes are actually less risky than those to the affluent. Looking at CRA-related loans, for instance, the fact is, these represent nearly one-fourth of all loans written, but less than 10 percent of the high-cost, high-risk loans that precipitated the current crisis. These loans actually have lower default and foreclosure rates than non-CRA connected loans, and are twice as likely to be retained in the portfolios of the banks that originated them than other loans. In other words, it is not CRA loans being dumped into the hands of greedy speculators, and then falling flat, taking the economy with them. Finally, to the extent low-income folks of color are shuttled into the sub-prime market, and then unable to pay their house notes, this unhappy fact owes more to discrimination than anti-discrimination efforts such as CRA. As several studies have shown, banks often reject borrowers of color, even when they have credit records similar to whites with the same incomes. Then, these rejected applicants are steered towards sub-prime lenders which charge far higher interest and place the borrowers in great jeopardy by driving up the amount they must repay. A few years back, a study of Citigroup (which includes Citi, the group's sub-prime lender), found that Citi in North Carolina was charging higher interest even to borrowers who could have qualified for regular loans. In the process, over 90,000 mostly black borrowers were roped into predatory loans, and as a result paid an average of $327 more per month for mortgages than those getting loans from a prime lender. This added up to over $110,000 in excess payments over the life of the loans, on average. In other words, folks of color who could have qualified for lower-interest loans (that they would have been able to pay back far more easily) were steered to higher-cost instruments by greedy financial institutions, looking to make a quick buck at their expense. That's not the fault of civil rights protection, it's the fault of economic civil rights violations. As if blaming the global financial squeeze on the poor wasn't putrid enough, along comes the National Review Online, which descended even deeper into the pit of obvious racism on September 26th. To wit, the blog entry entitled "Cause and Effect?" by Mark Krikorian, executive director of an anti-immigration group in DC, in which he notes failed S&L Washington Mutual's stellar record on corporate diversity, as if this were somehow connected to their insolvency. The fact that WaMu had been ranked as one of the top ten businesses in the Hispanic Business Diversity Elite, and had received a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equity Index (which focuses on equity for lesbian and gay folks), are, in Krikorian's mind, linked to their financial troubles. Because, ya know, if you have too many Latinos and gays working for you, well, clearly you can't care anything about the bottom line. That Krikorian presents no evidence, or even logic, to suggest a linkage between workplace equity and financial incompetence doesn't matter: his readers, predisposed to scapegoat the non-white and non-straight for anything and everything, can be expected to take the bait. And then there's Louisiana state lawmaker, John LaBruzzo, who proposes solving the problem of poverty by giving financial incentives to poor women on public assistance to be sterilized, so as to cut down on their birthrates. LaBruzzo, whose legislative district was once represented by neo-nazi David Duke (who also proposed something like this in 1991), insists his plan isn't racist, sexist, or classist, but merely aimed at cutting down on excessive welfare costs. He also claims that his plan would reverse the current pattern, whereby poor women are encouraged to have more babies so as to collect more welfare. Putting aside the inherently Hitlerian, eugenic rationale for such actions, LaBruzzo, as with Duke, and most right-wingers, ignores every bit of logic and evidence so as to push this kind of nonsense. First off, he ignores the now-twelve-year-old welfare reform law, which prevents additional payments for persons on welfare who have additional children. Although these "extra" monies were never very much (in Louisiana they amounted to less than $100 per month at the time the law was changed), now they are essentially non-existent. Secondly, LaBruzzo ignores the evidence from more than twenty years of research, which indicates that persons receiving public assistance do not, in fact, have more children, on average, than non-welfare receiving families. So the idea that poor women need incentives not to have babies is nonsense. What they need is decent-paying jobs, something LaBruzzo has no idea how to create. And finally, the underlying premise of LaBruzzo's plan�which, if the public comments posted to Nola.com (New Orleans' main media website) are any indication, is quite popular�is entirely bogus. Contrary to conventional wisdom (or at least, contrary to what a lot of white people think, whether wise or not), the numbers of people even receiving cash welfare in Louisiana are ridiculously small. LaBruzzo, who said the idea for this bill came to him after seeing folks in New Orleans during Katrina who were dependent on so-called government handouts, apparently doesn't feel the need to do any homework. For had he done so, he would have discovered that at the time of the flooding, there were fewer than 5000 households in the entire city receiving cash assistance, out of nearly 200,000 households in all. Fewer than four percent of black households, and only about one in ten poor households were receiving the kind of welfare that LaBruzzo would seek to tie to sterilization. Since Katrina, the number of persons on state aid have fallen even further, as the poor muddle through with very little assistance of any kind. But rather than push for rental assistance for low-income folks, which would improve the lives of poor folks and their communities dramatically, LaBruzzo is content�as conservatives almost always are�to blame the poor for their condition and seek to change their behavior (or in this case, compel their infertility) so as to solve the problem of economic deprivation. How very typical. So there you have it: white conservatives who simply cannot bring themselves to blame rich white people for anything, and who consistently fall back into old patterns, blaming the poor for poverty, black and brown folks for racism, anybody but themselves and those like them. That anyone takes them seriously anymore when they prattle on about "personal responsibility" is a stunning testament to how racism and classism continue to pay dividends in a nation whose soil has been fertilized with these twin poisons for generations. Unless the rest of us insist that the truth be told�and unless we tell it ourselves, by bombarding the folks who send us their hateful e-mails with our own correctives, thereby putting them on notice that we won't be silent (and that they cannot rely on our complicity any longer)�it is doubtful that much will change. Tim Wise is the author of <a style="font-family: Georgia;" href="http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-933368-99-3">White Like Me</a> (Soft Skull, 2005, revised 2008), and of <a style="font-family: Georgia;" href="http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=978-1-59376-207-0">Speaking Treason Fluently</a>, publishing this month, also by <a style="font-family: Georgia;" href="http://www.softskull.com">Soft Skull</a>. For review copies or interview requests, please email <a style="font-family: Georgia;" title="E-mail us" href="mailto:publicity@softskull.com" id="pgb1">publicity@softskull.com</a>  The following information is a reminder of your current mailing list subscription: You are subscribed to the following list: Soft Skull Announce using the following email: example@example.com You may automatically unsubscribe from this list at any time by visiting the following URL: <a href="http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/Soft_Skull_Announce/"> http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/Soft_Skull_Announce/ </a> If the above URL is inoperable, make sure that you have copied the entire address. Some mail readers will wrap a long URL and thus break this automatic unsubscribe mechanism. You may also change your subscription by visiting this list's main screen: <a href="http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/list/Soft_Skull_Announce"> http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/list/Soft_Skull_Announce </a> If you're still having trouble, please contact the list owner at: <a href="mailto:publicity@softskull.com"> publicity@softskull.com </a> The following physical address is associated with this mailing list: <a href="http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/what_is_dada_mail/">Mailing List Powered by Dada Mail</a>

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Tim Wise: "This is Your Nation on White Privilege"

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 17:03:00 GMT

(Mailing list information, including unsubscription instructions, is located at the end of this message.)  Tim Wise's latest opinion piece: This is Your Nation on White Privilege By Tim Wise 9/13/08 For those who still can�t grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help. <ul> <li>White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because �every family has challenges,� even as black and Latino families with similar �challenges� are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay. </li> <li>White privilege is when you can call yourself a �fuckin� redneck,� like Bristol Palin�s boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll �kick their fuckin' ass,� and talk about how you like to �shoot shit� for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug. </li> <li>White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action. </li> <li>White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don�t all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you�re �untested.� </li> <li>White privilege is being able to say that you support the words �under God� in the pledge of allegiance because �if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it�s good enough for me,� and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the �under God� part wasn�t added until the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals. </li> <li>White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you. White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was �Alaska first,� and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she�s being disrespectful. </li> <li>White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor--and people think you�re being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--you�re somehow being mean, or even sexist. </li> <li>White privilege is being able to convince white women who don�t even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a �second look.� </li> <li>White privilege is being able to fire people who didn�t support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt. </li> <li>White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God�s punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you�re just a good church-going Christian, but if you�re black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you�re an extremist who probably hates America. </li> <li>White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a �trick question,� while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O�Reilly means you�re dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced. </li> <li>White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it a �light� burden. </li> <li>And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren�t sure about that whole �change� thing. Ya know, it�s just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain. </li> </ul> White privilege is, in short, the problem. Tim Wise is the author of <a href="http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-933368-99-3">White Like Me</a> (Soft Skull, 2005, revised 2008), and of <a href="http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=978-1-59376-207-0">Speaking Treason Fluently</a>, publishing this month, also by <a href="http://www.softskull.com">Soft Skull</a>. For review copies or interview requests, please reply to <a title="E-mail us" href="mailto:publicity@softskull.com" id="pgb1">publicity@softskull.com</a>

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Tim Wise: "This is Your Nation on White Privilege"

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 20:24:00 GMT

<html> <head> <title>Tim Wise: "This is Your Nation on White Privilege"</title> </head> <body>  (Mailing list information, including unsubscription instructions, is located at the end of this message.)  Tim Wise's latest opinion piece: This is Your Nation on White Privilege By Tim Wise 9/13/08 For those who still cant grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help. <ul> <li>White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because every family has challenges, even as black and Latino families with similar challenges are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay. </li> <li>White privilege is when you can call yourself a fuckin redneck, like Bristol Palins boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll kick their fuckin' ass, and talk about how you like to shoot shit for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug. </li> <li>White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action. </li> <li>White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people dont all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means youre untested. </li> <li>White privilege is being able to say that you support the words under God in the pledge of allegiance because if it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me, and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the under God part wasnt added until the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals. </li> <li>White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you. White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was Alaska first, and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think shes being disrespectful. </li> <li>White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor--and people think youre being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--youre somehow being mean, or even sexist. </li> <li>White privilege is being able to convince white women who dont even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a second look. </li> <li>White privilege is being able to fire people who didnt support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt. </li> <li>White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is Gods punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think youre just a good church-going Christian, but if youre black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, youre an extremist who probably hates America. </li> <li>White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a trick question, while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill OReilly means youre dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced. </li> <li>White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it a light burden. </li> <li>And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters arent sure about that whole change thing. Ya know, its just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain. </li> </ul> White privilege is, in short, the problem. Tim Wise is the author of <a href="<a href="http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-933368-99-3">White">http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-933368-99-3">White</a> Like Me</a> (Soft Skull, 2005, revised 2008), and of <a href="<a href="http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=978-1-59376-207-0">Speaking">http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=978-1-59376-207-0">Speaking</a> Treason Fluently</a>, publishing this month, also by <a href="<a href="http://www.softskull.com">Soft">http://www.softskull.com">Soft</a> Skull</a>. For review copies or interview requests, please reply to <a title="E-mail us" href="<a href="mailto:publicity@softskull.com"">mailto:publicity@softskull.com&quot</a>; id="pgb1"><a href="mailto:publicity@softskull.com<">publicity@softskull.com&lt</a>;/a>  The following information is a reminder of your current mailing list subscription: You are subscribed to the following list: Soft Skull Announce using the following email: example@example.com You may automatically unsubscribe from this list at any time by visiting the following URL: <a href="<a href="http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/Soft_Skull_Announce/">">http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/Soft_Skull_Announce/"&gt</a>; <a href="http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/Soft_Skull_Announce/">http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/Soft_Skull_Announce/</a> </a> If the above URL is inoperable, make sure that you have copied the entire address. Some mail readers will wrap a long URL and thus break this automatic unsubscribe mechanism. You may also change your subscription by visiting this list's main screen: <a href="<a href="http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/list/Soft_Skull_Announce">">http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/list/Soft_Skull_Announce"&gt</a>; <a href="http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/list/[list">http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/list/[list</a>] </a> If you're still having trouble, please contact the list owner at: <a href="<a href="mailto:publicity@softskull.com"">mailto:publicity@softskull.com&quot</a>;> <a href="mailto:publicity@softskull.com">publicity@softskull.com</a> </a> The following physical address is associated with this mailing list: <a href="<a href="http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/what_is_dada_mail/">Mailing">http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/what_is_dada_mail/">Mailing</a> List Powered by Dada Mail</a>  </body> </html>

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Soft Skull Announce Message

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 19:46:00 GMT

(Mailing list information, including unsubscription instructions, is located at the end of this message.)  LE SOFT SKULL NEWSLETTER, vol. 2, AUGUST 2008 Welcome, welcome internet readers! Here today for your grazing pleasure is the Second Edition of the all-electronic Soft Skull Press Monthly Newsletter, featuring a full re-cap of this months most delicious deep-fried news tid-bits, smothered in a rich, savory informational gravy. So, dear internet readers, gorge yourself on this news-feast without shame, and whatever your plate may be - laptop, blackberry, your grubby awful jealousy-inducing iphone - be sure to lick it clean! It begins! ------------------------------- FIRST OFF - a light salad of selected scrumptious reviews: David Ohle's "The Pisstown Chaos" has received recent praise from a number of leading leafy publications. Time Out New York calls it <a title=""tragically hilarious"" href="http://www.timeout.com/newyork/articles/books/37431/absolutely-fabulist" id="avtp">"tragically hilarious"</a> and recognizes Ohle as "a beacon to younger, loosely experimental fiction writers;" The Village Voice praises the book's "<a title="cool logic of the insane" href="http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-08-12/books/david-ohle-s-journey-through-the-pisstown-chaos/" id="udnz">cool logic of the insane</a>;" and the ever-satisfying and hearty Huffington Post calls Ohle's approach to political satire "<a title="potent and compelling" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-vandermeer/summer-political-fiction_b_118486.html" id="pp4z">potent and compelling</a>." Not one to be left out of the praise-jamboree, the Brooklyn rail had the following to say: "<a title="Ultimately... The Pisstown Chaos revea ls itself to be a sly and rambunctious satire, devilishly well-imagined and playfully rough with the reader" href="http://www.brooklynrail.org/2008/07/books/fiction-illness-as-metallurgy" id="nkdx">Ultimately... The Pisstown Chaos reveals itself to be a sly and rambunctious satire, devilishly well-imagined and playfully rough with the reader</a>." Ah, so crisp! Do make sure to keep you ear to the wind, for blowing in from this nation's far Left Coast in the frighteningly-near future will be an wee article on Mr. Ohle Himself, courtesy of  those language-wizards over at San Francisco's The Believer! SECOND - Even when enjoying the fruits of a fine harvest, one mustn't forget to pay attention to their global current-events. For this, we direct your attention to the War Nerd's <a title="most recent revelations." href="http://exiledonline.com/war-nerd-south-ossetia-the-war-of-my-dreams/#more-270" id="m1w3">most recent revelations.</a> And while you chew over that particular morsel, take care to wash it down with a few words from <a title="Mother Jones" href="http://www.motherjones.com/arts/books/2008/08/war-nerd.html" id="ydo7">Mother Jones</a> and the <a title="Washington City Paper" href="http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/display.php?id=35934" id="dclz">Washington City Paper</a>. THIRD - Review Soup! What is more satisfying than soup? Nothing! Everyone loves it! We drink it up! Enjoy this hodge-podge stew of recent reviews from our most-visually stimulating of offerings, E. Robert Arellano's "Dead in Desemboque" and Ilan Stavans' "Mr. Spic Goes to Washington." New Mexico�s Read Five magazine's cavernous cauldron-style feature about about "Dead in Desemboque" yields the following lip-smacking nugget: �The combination of great art and the story of a heroic rake chasing loose mujeres and being dogged by posse of unsavory hombres makes Dead in Desemboque an historieta worth experiencing over and over again, no matter which side of the border you�re on.� Bookslut�s John Zuarino recently conducted an interview with Arellano, discussing <a title="powerful recollection of a genre that has somehow been primarily unexplored in anglophone literature"" href="http://www.bookslut.com/blog/archives/2008_07.php#013127" id="nx7o">�powerful recollection of a genre that has somehow been primarily unexplored in anglophone literature"</a>. Never one's to skimp on portion, Bookslut also featured an interview with Ilan Stavans,  discussing Stavans� ideas of <a title="progressive revolution to an old-fashioned system that sometimes seems like it will never change." href="http://www.bookslut.com/blog/archives/2008_07.php#013155" id="hbat">�progressive revolution to an old-fashioned system that sometimes seems like it will never change.�</a> More love for Stavans came in from <a title="The Amhearst Bulletin" href="http://www.amherstbulletin.com/story/id/101522/" id="teda">The Amhearst Bulletin</a>, <a title="My San Antonio Entertainment" href="http://www.mysanantonio.com/entertainment/books/Review_Idealistic_Mr_Spic_shocks_and_provokes.html" id="aafz">My San Antonio Entertainment</a>, and <a title="Tu Boston" href="http://www.tuboston.com/article-515-libro-expone-estereotipos-sobre-latinos.html" id="ho_o">Tu Boston</a>, along with blog-luvvin' from <a title="Tex[t]-Mex" href="http://textmex.blogspot.com/2008/07/ilan-stavans-goes-to-bat-on-mr-spic.html" id="o0ji">Tex[t]-Mex</a>, <a title="LaBloga" href="http://labloga.blogspot.com/2008/08/comings-and-goings-and-end-of-book-as.html" id="urbx">LaBloga</a> , and <a title="Tejaztlan Notebook" href="http://tejaztlan.wordpress.com/2008/07/27/mr-spic-delivers-latino-history-lessons-with-comedic-bows/" id="egut">Tejaztlan Notebook</a> (which are, by the by, the three greatest blog names in the short, epic history of blog name). Allow their combined mellifluousness to dance about your senses, be they confused and prone to synesthesia as my quickly unraveling extended news=food metaphor! (P.s. Check out a teeny excerpt of Mr. Spic <a title="here." href="http://lae.greenwood.com/blog/" id="gy43">here.</a>) AND NOW THE MAIN EVENT! Adjust your waistbands and spectacles, my dears, for we give you now the entertainment portion of the evening! Put down your forks, remove your pudgy fist from the french-fry dish, and plug in your RealPlayer - it's time for some Audio/Visual stimulation! Perhaps you remember way back when, during summers on Cape Cod, you would gather 'round the children, plop them down on the sofa, and fire-up the boob tube for the once-a-year showing of the only movie that has ever really mattered: the Wizard of Oz. Oh, the joy in their eyes! Well, those days are gone! The Age of Film is dead and buried, replaced by a blinding fusion of all media (or so some would have you think.) Either way, a NEW version of L. Frank Baum's classic story is being forged as we speak, a remarkable cyborg of text and illustration by none other than Graham Rawle. Behold, in a fabulous YouTube preview, the<a title="WIZARD" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt6hRpEOv3w" id="lkh3"> WIZARD</a> of <a title="OZ" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wmsjiJA5E4" id="ygku">OZ</a>. And while you are there, on that most distracting of sites, check out this little <a title="youtube clip" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEUwGGXYJGw" id="m0v0">youtube clip</a> about the <a title="acclaimed" href="http://www.timeout.com/newyork/articles/books/38931/all-about-lulu" id="y_oi">acclaimed</a> "All About Lulu." Speaking of Lulu, we must mention a recent rights acquisition by a certain Brazilian publisher: Arx has bought the rights to Mr. Evison's novel, and will soon be spreading Lulu love all over their fine country. In other rights and acquisitions news, "War Nerd" is going international! It will soon be published in Spanish by Enrique Murillo's new publishing venture Los Libros del Lince. Next time you find yourself enjoying tapas under a heavy Catalonian sun, consider picking up a copy. AND our beloved Black Flies will soon see release, courtesy of Random House, in those most United of Kingdoms, THE United Kingdom. Perhaps you live under a rock. Perhaps your genetic capacity to laugh was removed at birth. Perhaps you have embraced irony to a point so deep that the only "funny" things in the world are extinction and apocalypse. Whatever the reason, your too-cool-for-school days-without-laughing streak is over. BEHOLD.....the animated, the unbelievable, the red-white-and-blue <a title="FIRST EPISODE" href="http://www.236.com/d/?video=1703403258" id="tbj9">FIRST EPISODE</a> of GET YOUR WAR ON! The hilarity spilling out of Get Your War On's animated edition has been recognized by quite a few little internet soap-boxes. Ladies and gentleman, a run down: From BoingBoing, who call it their "<a title="absolutely my favorite political comic" href="http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/31/get-your-war-on-the.html" id="wav4">absolutely my favorite political comic</a>" - From <a title="Comedy Central" href="http://ccinsider.comedycentral.com/cc_insider/2008/08/get-your-war-on.html" id="j6.f">Comedy Central</a>, and it's <a title="Indecision 2008" href="http://blog.indecision2008.com/2008/08/01/get-your-war-on-who-do-you-have-to-kill-to-get-on-the-terrorist-watch-list/" id="hmrt">Indecision 2008</a> blog - From <a title="Wired" href="http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/08/get-your-war-on.html" id="i3vp">Wired</a>, the overlords and chroniclers of all thing techno-trendy.  From a <a title="French politics blog" href="http://www.ilovepolitics.info/Get-your-war-on,-le-comics-anime-qui-fait-la-guerre-a-George-W-Bush_a750.html" id="dtq3">French politics blog</a> - From <a title="Raw Story" href="http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Get_Your_War_On_gets_its_0801.html" id="uw_2">Raw Story</a> - From <a title="The Guardian" href="http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/usa/2008/08/friday_morning_memo.html" id="smuu">The Guardian</a>: and finally, from <a title="the Times" href="http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article4472880.ece" id="irup">the Times</a>! But now, back to the cinema! sort of! Alex Cox's fascinating "X-Films" has been drawing the attention of some note-worthy outlets over there on the distant, expensive shores of the United Kingdom. The Independent calls the book "a very revealing look at the day-to-day difficulties of being an independent filmmaker" and suggest that  <a title=""every student at film school should be obliged to read it."" href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/x-films-by-alex-cox-874673.html" id="gt_i">"every student at film school should be obliged to read it."</a> Continuing the academic hints, Film in Focus writes that <a title=""the book...reflects Cox's own generous, passionate, instinctively polemical nature: he makes a great teacher both of film production and film history."" href="http://www.filminfocus.com/faber-and-faber/alex-cox-dedicated-to-the-stru.php" id="s.-y">"the book...reflects Cox's own generous, passionate, instinctively polemical nature: he makes a great teacher both of film production and film history."</a> Somebody hire this man! Let him instruct your visionary children! X-Films will be out this fall from Soft Skull. Ah, so this edition of the Soft Skull Newsletter draws to a close. The bones have been picked dry, the casks of ale nearly exhausted, and the mighty towers of dessert Jello - once so wiggly and gravity-defiant - have been consumed down to their giggly, jazzy basements. Let the dish wait till morning. All there is left to do is slip into our robes, retire to our leather-trimmed studies, and contemplate the ungodly media ingestion that has just taken place, until sleep - that dusky, ancient phantom - falls over our brows like so much devils food cake at a sloppy birthday party food-fight. I leave you with <a title="this" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qmglGWMsdk" id="spii">this</a>, and perhaps <a title="this" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcPQhS8W8g4" id="zir:">this</a>, to help you along the way. Alas, Jonathan Lazzara Newsletter Editor Soft Skull Press  The following information is a reminder of your current mailing list subscription: You are subscribed to the following list: Soft Skull Announce using the following email: example@example.com You may automatically unsubscribe from this list at any time by visiting the following URL: <a href="http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/Soft_Skull_Announce/"> http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/Soft_Skull_Announce/ </a> If the above URL is inoperable, make sure that you have copied the entire address. Some mail readers will wrap a long URL and thus break this automatic unsubscribe mechanism. You may also change your subscription by visiting this list's main screen: <a href="http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/list/Soft_Skull_Announce"> http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/list/Soft_Skull_Announce </a> If you're still having trouble, please contact the list owner at: <a href="mailto:publicity@softskull.com"> publicity@softskull.com </a> The following physical address is associated with this mailing list: <a href="http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/what_is_dada_mail/">Mailing List Powered by Dada Mail</a>

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April Silver and CAConrad readings in August

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 17:37:00 GMT

(Mailing list information, including unsubscription instructions, is located at the end of this message.) __ Hello from Soft Skull Press! We just wanted to check in with you and let you know that if you're tired of the summer heat and want to sit in the tranquil, air-conditioned comfort of a bookstore while listening to some of our fabulous authors read, there are some upcoming events by April Silver (Be A Father To Your Child) and CA Conrad (Deviant Propulsion) that you should definitely stop by at. April Silver, editor of Be A Father To Your Child: Real Talk from Black Men on Family, Love and Fatherhood will be reading with anthology contributors activist Thabiti Boone, award-winning poet Mo Beasley and Loren Harris at Barnes and Noble in Brooklyn (106 Court Street) next Thursday, August 14, at 7pm. This new anthology compiles the poems, lyrics, short stories, essay, interviews and commentaries on parenting and relationship from the perspective of fathers and sons born during or at the same time that hip hop culture emerged. Be A Father To Your Child has been cited as an absolute must-read book for anyone involved or interested in the black community. It is a mind-bending anthology that examines the broad socio-historical and cultural contexts behind fatherhood within the African-American community but also includes more personal and anecdotal pieces which provides the writers' full range of experiences with the fathers and father figures. For anyone who is located a l ittle further out of New York City, Silver will also be reading in Nanuet, NY on August 7th at 7pm (Barnes & Noble, 140 Rockland Plaza). On August 10th, at noon, CAConrad, author of Deviant Propulsion, will be reading at the Bowery Poetry Club (308 Bowery) along with authors Tim Peterson and Laura Goldstein. Deviant Propulsion is a collection of energetic, flamboyant poems that are grounded in queer culture, where the right to where the right to act on basic desires can become a battleground, and everyday acts of love and devotion must be enacted as a political form of defiance. With an immediacy and fervor that jumps off the page, CAConrad suggests that in a world paralyzed by fear, moving at speed of deviants is the only way to transform potential into action, and desire into positive change. Hope to see you there! Sincerely, Soft Skull Press -- The following information is a reminder of your current mailing list subscription: You are subscribed to the following list: Soft Skull Announce using the following email: example@example.com You may automatically unsubscribe from this list at any time by visiting the following URL: <<a href="http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/Soft_Skull_Announce/>">http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/Soft_Skull_Announce/&gt</a>; If the above URL is inoperable, make sure that you have copied the entire address. Some mail readers will wrap a long URL and thus break this automatic unsubscribe mechanism. You may also change your subscription by visiting this list's main screen: <<a href="http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/list/Soft_Skull_Announce>">http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/list/Soft_Skull_Announce&gt</a>; If you're still having trouble, please contact the list owner at: <<a href="mailto:publicity@softskull.com>">mailto:publicity@softskull.com&gt</a>; The following physical address is associated with this mailing list: Mailing List Powered by Dada Mail <a href="http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/what_is_dada_mail/">http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/what_is_dada_mail/</a>

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Bynoe on CNN's "Black in America"

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:15:00 GMT

(Mailing list information, including unsubscription instructions, is located at the end of this message.) __ CNN taps nationally recognized Hip Hop expert and author Yvonne Bynoe (<a href="<a href="http://www.yvonnebynoe.com"">http://www.yvonnebynoe.com&quot</a>; id="ijnr" title="www.yvonnebynoe.com">www.yvonnebynoe.com</a>) to weigh in on the controversial topic of Black womens images in contemporary rap music videos. Her interview was taped this past weekend as part the networks  two-part series Black in America, airing today (Wednesday) and Thursday of this week.     "My key contribution to the dialogue is to challenge the idea that rap artists and video actresses are the key decision-makers regarding which images of Black women are disseminated. Radio conglomerates, cable television stations and record companies are the real image makers. These multi-national entertainment companies will have Black women doing more than swinging from poles in rap videos when it becomes financially detrimental to do otherwise. For this to happen the public is going to have to strike these companies pockets in strategic and sustained ways," says Bynoe. Bynoe is the editor of the forthcoming book, Who's Your Mama? (<a href="<a href="http://www.softskull.com"">http://www.softskull.com&quot</a>; id="vnip" title="Soft Skull">Soft Skull</a>, May 2009), an anthology of women's writings about motherhood that addresses race, class, sexuality, identity and intimate partnership. Her other books are the acclaimed <a href="<a href="http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-932360-10-7"">http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-932360-10-7&quot</a>; id="gomx" title="Stand & Deliver: Political Activism, Leadership and Hip Hop Culture">Stand & Deliver: Political Activism, Leadership and Hip Hop Culture</a> (2004) and the Encyclopedia of Rap and Hip Hop Culture, the first comprehensive reference book on the topic. Earlier this year, another two Soft Skull authors were featured a major MSNBC special "A Live Conversation About Race,"  broadcast from Howard University's Washington, D.C. campus and stream simultaneously on msnbc.comKevin Powell the author of <a href="<a href="http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=978-0-9796636-9-7"">http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=978-0-9796636-9-7&quot</a>; id="z792" title="No Sleep Til Brooklyn: Selected Poems">No Sleep Til Brooklyn: Selected Poems</a> (2008) and <a href="<a href="http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-933368-57-8"">http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-933368-57-8&quot</a>; id="w:qz" title="Some Day We'll All Be Free">Some Day We'll All Be Free</a> (2006); and Tim Wise the author of <a href="<a href="http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-933368-99-3"">http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-933368-99-3&quot</a>; id="ab5q" title="White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son">White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son</a> (Soft Skull 2005, revised edition Jan 2008), and the forthcoming <a href="<a href="http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=978-1-59376-207-0"">http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=978-1-59376-207-0&quot</a>; id="w3v4" title="Speaking Treason Fluently">Speaking Treason Fluently</a> (Soft Skull, Sept 2008). The other panelists were Tom Joyner, Michael Eric Dyson, Malaak Compton-Rock, Kriss Turner, Mike Barnicle, Rev. Buster Soaries"NBC Nightly News" Anchor and Managing Editor Brian Williams moderated the event. -- The following information is a reminder of your current mailing list subscription: You are subscribed to the following list: Soft Skull Announce using the following email: example@example.com You may automatically unsubscribe from this list at any time by visiting the following URL: <<a href="http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/Soft_Skull_Announce/>">http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/Soft_Skull_Announce/&gt</a>; If the above URL is inoperable, make sure that you have copied the entire address. Some mail readers will wrap a long URL and thus break this automatic unsubscribe mechanism. You may also change your subscription by visiting this list's main screen: <<a href="http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/list/Soft_Skull_Announce>">http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/list/Soft_Skull_Announce&gt</a>; If you're still having trouble, please contact the list owner at: <<a href="mailto:publicity@softskull.com>">mailto:publicity@softskull.com&gt</a>; The following physical address is associated with this mailing list: Mailing List Powered by Dada Mail <a href="http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/what_is_dada_mail/">http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/what_is_dada_mail/</a>

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