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Levy Rivers

Marcia G. Yerman: Race, Gender and the Media in the 2008 Elections - 0 views

  • Several themes coalesced over the two-day period. A prominent one was the oft repeated, "Did race trump gender?" Dr. Cynthia Neal-Spence, Associate Professor of Sociology at Spelman College, spoke about the dilemma of the black female. Asking, "Are we as a group more gender conscious or race conscious?" she then suggested "the media coverage had helped black women to choose sides." Despite Obama offering a post-racial approach, she sensed the same "tensions resurfacing that were in place during the suffragette movement." She also saw the media's analyzation as being "racialized."
  • However, Vojdik said, "Those in the media insisted on gendering her candidacy, taking her from the public sphere to the private construction of her identity as a wife and a mother." This was often accomplished through the use of specific language. She gave as examples the terms, "shrill, emasculating, castrating," with oft used analogies of Hillary as "the hectoring mother," or "the wife as ball-buster." Hillary was not male, but she "had failed as a female." On the other hand, Vojdik saw Sarah Palin as seeking to be elected because she was a woman in the "good wife and mother" mode. Projecting herself as stereotypically feminine, albeit a "pit bull with lipstick," she "appeals to the 80's concept of the superwoman." "But," Vojdik asked, "where are the supports for ordinary women?"
  • Although feminine for Sarah Palin is an asset, "feminine" attributes in general are considered a negative. "The process of gender," as phrased by Vojdik, is a methodology employed by the Republicans where they "feminize" a male candidate -- to his detriment.
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  • Frank Rudy Cooper, Associate Professor of Law at Suffolk University, spelled out that "Obama had to deal with the media representation of black masculinity." He posited that Obama had to be "a unisex president." Despite trying to run a "post-racial campaign, Obama had to be careful avoid "the angry black male" stereotype by not being too aggressive. Cooper explained that in pitting McCain against Obama, the masculine vs. feminine style is emphasized. Obama's empathetic style has been criticized, and as "feminization is a slur," he is forced into a precarious balancing act.
  • That concept was illuminated by Anthony E. Varona, Associate Professor of Law at American University. He pointed out why the 2004 Karl Rove election strategy based on the "unease felt by religious and social conservatives" wasn't going to work in 2008. Plainly put, "Things have changed. New media and the blogosphere have made it impossible."
Levy Rivers

Love is not the enemy - Resilience « On Happiness - 0 views

  • Poet-performer Jessica Care Moore’s “Love is Not the Enemy: Manifesto for 28″, Moore conveys a tough-minded resilience and a mature return to self in the face of disappointment. She isn’t sure what’s ahead of her, but there’s no doubt about how she’ll face it
Levy Rivers

Eugene Robinson - Two Black Americas - washingtonpost.com - 0 views

  • Today, about 25 percent of African Americans are mired in poverty. In many ways, being black and poor is a more desperate and hopeless condition now than it was 40 years ago. For those who managed to enter the middle class, however, most of the old generalizations no longer apply.
  • On April 4, 1968, it was possible to make the generalization that being black in this country meant being poor; fully 40 percent of black Americans lived below the poverty line, according to census data, with another 20 percent barely keeping their heads above water.
  • But the gap in wealth, or net worth, is huge, even when you control for education, age, family size and whatever else you want to throw in. Still, African Americans control an estimated $800 billion in purchasing power. If that were translated into gross domestic product, a sovereign "Black America" would be the 15th- or 16th-richest nation on earth.
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  • Then again, if "The Jeffersons" were being produced today, George and Louise probably wouldn't live in an apartment at all. More realistically, they'd be on a cul-de-sac in a suburban community. In Washington and a growing number of cities, more African Americans now live in the suburbs than within the city limits.
  • That's not to minimize the prospect that a nation midwifed by slavery could soon have its first black president. But O'Neal did something that would have been equally unimaginable 40 years ago. He rose to become chief executive of Merrill Lynch, one of Wall Street's biggest firms; by all accounts, he was a taskmaster of a boss who cared less about whether subordinates liked him than he did about the bottom line.
  • The African American poor are a smaller segment than they were 40 years ago, but arguably they are further from full participation in society than they were in King's era. It's not that they have no interest in climbing the ladder, it's that too many rungs are missin
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