Thursday, August 22, 2013

Teach a Racist Series - FREE Lessons 1-25 and counting

(INCLUDES "Raging Racism in Motion Award" nominations on applicable posts.)



Teach a Racist Blog Series, PT XXV - Raging Racism in Motion Award: Ted Cruz
Call to Action: Call a Racist out; Lend your voices to a unified outcry
http://bellwork-inprogress.blogspot.com/2013/09/raging-racism-in-motion-award-ted-cruz.html

Teach a Racist Blog Series, PT XXIV - Raging Racism in Motion Award
University of Alabama Sorority
http://bellwork-inprogress.blogspot.com/2013/09/raging-racism-in-motion-award-sorority.html

Teach a Racist Blog Series, PT XXIII - Raging Racism in Motion Award
Another Unwarranted Police Shooting of an innocent citizen
http://bellwork-inprogress.blogspot.com/2013/09/raging-racism-in-motion-another.html

Teach a Racist Blog Series, PT XXII - Raging Racism in Motion Award: EVERYDAY in FLORIDA
Call to Action: Boycott Florida
http://bellwork-inprogress.blogspot.com/2013/09/raging-racism-in-motion-award-everyday.html

Teach a Racist Blog Series, PT XXI - Boycott Red Lobster (call to ACTION)
http://bellwork-inprogress.blogspot.com/2013/09/teach-racist-series-pt-xxi-boycott-red.html

Teach a Racist Blog Series, PT XX - Raging Racism in Motion Award 
Texas Prosecutorshttp://bellwork-inprogress.blogspot.com/2013/09/8-year-old-black-child-shot-by-36-year.html

Teach a Racist, PT XIX - Raging Racism in Motion Award- CNNhttp://bellwork-inprogress.blogspot.com/2013/09/teach-racist-series-pt-xix-raging.html

Teach a Racist Blog Series, PT XVIII - Raging Racism in Motion Award - Deborah Brown Community School & No Child Left Behind ACThttp://bellwork-inprogress.blogspot.com/2013/09/teach-racist-series-pt-xviii-attacking.html

Teach a Racist Blog Series, PT XVII - Raging Racism in Motion Award: DUNKIN' DONUTS

Teach a Racist, PT XVI - Raging Racism in Motion Award: Sarah Palin

Teach a Racist Blog Series, PT XV - Raging Racism and Stupidity in Motion-Zimmerman AGAIN!

Teach a Racist Blog Series, PT XIV The "LOST CAUSE RACIST" and PROTECT POTUS

Teach a Racist Blog Series, PT XIII: Talking to "Non-racists" About a Racist Idea
CASE STUDY: ONE FACEBOOK CONVERSATION

Teach a Racist Blog Series, PT XII: Raging Racism in Motion Award - The Confederate Flag

Teach a Racist Blog Series, PT XI:

Raging Racism in Motion Award--Wild Wing Cafe in North Charleston

Teach a Racist Blog Series, PT X: Use your White Privilege to Make a Difference. (video link included)http://bellwork-inprogress.blogspot.com/2013/08/teach-racist-pt-x-use-your-white.html

Teach a Racist Blog Series, PT IX: Raging Racism in Motion Award (Neo-Nazi White Supremist in ND).http://bellwork-inprogress.blogspot.com/2013/08/teach-racist-pt-ix-raging-racism-in.html

Teach a Racist Blog Series, PT VIII: There IS MORE THAN ONE RACE in America “Raging Racism in Motion Award” (Congressman Tom McClintock)

Teach a Racist Blog Series, PT VII: Having a Black President does NOT mean racism is gone!

Teach a Racist Blog Series, PT VI: NC Voter Suppression (delightful Maddow slam at NC)

Teach a Racist Blog Series PT IV & V: Racist Hate as Entertainment & News “Raging Racism in Motion Awards” (MO State Fair, Glenn Beck)

Teach a Racist Blog Series, PT III: Introducing the “Raging Racism in Motion Award,” (GZimmerman)

Teach a Racist Blog Series, PT II: About the Trivialization of Racism

Teach a Racist Blog Series, PT I: FREE Easy Lesson for Teaching Racists


ON-GOING SERIES on BellWork-InProgress@blogspot.com

 
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Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Teach a Racist Part II -- About the Trivialization of Racism


Racism is ugly, damages lives, and is often perpetuated out of a simple mass confusion about what racism is and what it is not. Worse, it is also perpetuated by those who DO know what it is and DO use it to their own advantage...and to the disadvantage of people of color.

Congressman Ted Yoho is nominated as today's CASE EXAMPLE of Raging Racism in Motion. He could use some lessons about racism after his remarkably ridiculous claims that a tax on tanning bed services would be racist. Really Ted?

In an ongoing effort to combat racism by dissolving the lies that mask it, distort it, and strengthen it, I offer a guest article for Teaching a Racist, Part II. 

Clarifying the Problem is a necessary step in any serious effort to erode and eventually dismantle the prevailing racist structure in America. 

Congressman Ted Yoho and the Trivialization of Racism









Ted-Yoho
When Florida Congressman Ted Yoho this week denounced a ten percent tax on tanning beds as a “racist tax”, he illustrated the GOP’s unwillingness to grasp the true scope and depth of real racism. A small tax that an individual pays for the voluntary and unnecessary act of going to a tanning bed may seem inconvenient for the consumer, but real racism is about much more than suffering mild inconveniences. However, to a US Representative who has grown up as a beneficiary of white privilege, perhaps the “oppression” of having to pay taxes on a suntanning session, is as “oppressive” a system of discrimination as he can imagine.
Ted Yoho thinks a tanning tax is racist. Never mind that the tax applies to anyone who enters a tanning salon, regardless of race. Never mind that the tax, like a cigarette tax, is a user tax imposed upon a specific behavior that assumes unnecessary health risks. Never mind that the tax would fund a health care system that could in return be used to pay for the very skin cancer treatments tanning salon patrons might require later in life, as a result of their choice to expose themselves to excess radiation. To Ted Yoho, the tax is racist because Congressman Yoho believes in white victimhood, and in his mind it is so unfair that the tanning bed tax might disproportionately burden people who look like him. Boo hoo.
It would be easy to dismiss Yoho’s comments as simply the product of his manifest and monumental stupidity, but unfortunately his claims of being oppressed by “Obama’s racism” is an all too familiar chorus from today’s Republican right-wing. By trivializing racism, and by reversing the role of victim and oppressor, the Republicans are engaged in an active campaign to undermine efforts to address real racism in this country and to perpetuate the racial inequality that continues to exist. If they can reduce our conceptualization of racism to petty injustices perpetrated against people of privilege, they can by extension attempt to discredit all claims of racism by trivializing the very definition of the term.
What Republicans would like us to overlook is that real racism is institutionalized and its effects are far more pervasive and damaging than a mere inconvenience like paying a tanning tax. Institutionalized racism affects housing practices, income levels, labor market discrimination, incarceration rates, educational opportunities and health care accessibility, all of which, taken together are not matters of convenience but can literally be matters of life and death.
Evidence of real racism that involves significant real life consequences is plentiful. For example, according to Marc Mauer’s May 2009 Congressional Testimony for The Sentencing Project, 56 percent of  inmates housed in state prisons for drug offenses are African-American despite the fact that blacks only make up about 14 percent of illicit drug users in the United States. Obviously, if a drug suspect is arrested and imprisoned instead of being released or put on probation it affects his life chances a lot more than a ten percent tanning tax. A  sociological study conducted by Devah Pager and published by the University of Chicago, found that white job applicants with a felony conviction were more likely to be called back for a job interview than black applicants with no criminal history. That type of discrimination affects unemployment rates and household income and is far more pernicious than the imposition of a simple little tax on tanning beds.
In nearly every aspect of life, institutional racism creates structural barriers that have a negative impact on the life chances of people of color. This reality is apparently unrecognized by Congressman Yoho, who instead casts Obama as a racist because of a tax on tanning beds. With such a tone deaf understanding of racism, it is no wonder that the GOP is having a hard time attracting minority voters. The fact that Republican voices in Congress are railing against “racism against whites” because of a small tax on tanning beds instead of addressing the very real problem of systemic structural racism that affects people of color daily, is symptomatic of the problems inherent within a political party that has become so insular and so white that they simply cannot comprehend what real racism looks like.

If you have not yet had the chance, please feel free to see the premiere 
Teach a Racist -Part I 
(with important training video link included)