So it's International Blog Against Racism Week again. I'm not planning anything specific for it, but here's a reposted comment and some links, via ibarw:

Inspired by
( Read more... )

I can't believe we're leaving for Japan on Saturday. And are leaving here on Friday.

. . . I only have thirteen or fourteen chapters of Genji left and yet I still don't think I'm going to manage to finish it before we leave.

Anyway. The week that was:

Dear new massage person,

When I say, "I have bursitis in both hips, and just got a cortisone ( Read more... )

In Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights, Kenji Yoshino argues for a new way of looking at discrimination and civil rights. As the title indicates, this centers on the concept of covering, or downplaying a disfavored trait to blend in:

Famous examples of covering abound. Ramón Estévez covered his ethnicity when he changed his name to ( Read more... )

This is an American-only post, as I understand that "nationality" has different connotations in different countries. For the general version, which I fully agree with, see karaadora's post, "Where are you from?" "London" "No, where are you FROM?": why this annoys me and other stories. (Also, Supernatural fans, there is a link to a picture of her with Jensen ( Read more... )

Another post I should have made earlier!

As the subject says, (almost) all of the conventional race labels are dumb. "White"? Paper is white. People of European descent-which in contemporary American discourse, and probably elsewhere too (international folks?), is what "white" really means-are pink or olive or light brown. [*] "Black"? Likewise ( Read more... )

Really quick this time, but to put up-front something I mentioned in a few comments:

I am trying to talk about actions and ideas, not about people, when I'm talking about racism. Here are two reasons why.

gaudior, [IBARW] The “gotcha” game: How not to undermine your own anti-racism work.

[When anti-racism activists are educating/arguing the anti- ( Read more... )

A quick morning link: Scientific American has a story this month entitled "Race in a Bottle." It looks at the history of the approval of the first "ethnic" drug, BiDil, approved to treat congestive heart failure specifically in African-Americans, which is actually a combination of two generic drugs. It concludes that "no firm evidence exists that ( Read more... )

I try to post quickly by building on other people's posts! (Seriously, this has been nagging at me, which combined with its relatively short length, is why it's jumping the queue. Even though it ended up taking longer than I wanted.)

While I was on vacation, John Scalzi posted about science fiction and race [ETA: Wayback version after database ( Read more... )

I realized that I wanted to participate more in International Blog Against Racism Week this year a few months ago, when I happened to look at my introductory post from last year.

Here's what I said then about this icon:

I read the Lorde poem as saying two things. First, other people's attitudes toward and treatment of you (racism, sexism, child ( Read more... )

I have the post-vacation blahs in a big way, not helped by an upset digestive system (bad airline food? reaction to Northeast allergens? just not wanting to be here? who knows!) and a serious lack of sleep. Have very briefly skimmed over reading list and marked a rather large quantity of things "read" on Bloglines.

Feeling overwhelmed at the idea ( Read more... )