Funmurphys: the Blog

The Triumph of Hope over Experience

Posts Tagged racism

Stupid Headline

Jan 8

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Science | No Comments

Here’s a stupid headline:

Mental Health Risks Vary Within the U.S. Black Population

Is that a surprise? Would we ever read “Mental Health Risks Vary Within the U.S. White Population”?, or “Mental Health Risks Vary Within the U.S. Population”? Are black people some sort of homogeneous entity where no variation is expected?

This was another shocking line from the report: “He believes clinicians need to look beyond crude categories of race in order to learn more about the backgrounds of their clients in order to better treat them.” That’s your tax dollars at work, funding Captain Obvious.

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The New Reality

Sep 18

Posted by Kevin Murphy in TV | No Comments

My two favorite network TV shows (actually, the only two network TV shows I watch) are back, and with an extra dose of diversity. First up, Survivor is back and as I’m sure you know if you’ve kept reading past the word Survivor they’ve divided the contestants by ethnic background. In order to do that, they had to find 5 asian-americans, 5 african-americans, 5 hispanic-americans, and 5 white-americans to appear. They have never had any problems with the white-americans, but they had to recruit extra hard for the others. Interestingly enough the 3 teams that weren’t made up of white-americans immediately worried about representing their people, as if 5 random strangers thrown together for the entertainment benefit of all americans really did somehow represent everybody of that ethnic background.

The Amazing Race launched it’s tenth season last night and while not explicit, they too seem to have worked overtime to assure diversity. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. The problem is that after Survivor voted off a black man, The Amazing Race took only 1 show to get rid of the Moslem AND the Hindu teams – with Phil reminding us when the Moslems got the ax halfway through the show that they promised the contestants surprises. Yeah, like early handicappers were picking those two guys to go all the way.

I suppose it’s a sign of progress that a big network like CBS can go out of their way to have minorities suffer embarassing losses on their flagship reality series without worrying about repurcussions.

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Moral Depravity

Nov 21

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Culture | 2 Comments

I’m the number one hit for “moral smugness” on Google. I now turn to what I find to be moral depravity –an email sent to Archpundit from a white supremacist. I warn you, it is revolting, not for the obscene language, but for the sentiments expressed. While on a theoretical level I understand that people like Mr. Holt exist, it’s a shock to read such brutal hatred, and another shock to find out this guy was recently on the School Board for St. Louis and currently has a radio show here in St. Louis.

There is some irony to the email – the torrent of abuse on “nigros” and “nigro lovers” was set loose by Archpundit calling Mr. Holt a white supremacist.

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Rabbidity

Jan 21

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Culture | No Comments

I spent some time at the end of last week over at Eschaton engaged in discussion about Affirmative Action. I found it interesting that by taking the position that judging people by race or ethnicity was wrong, I was told I might (giving me the benefit of the doubt) be a racist; others didn’t give the benefit and said anyone who said anything along the lines that either you shouldn’t discriminate or that we live in a colorblind society or just bringing up the word quota is racist. The interesting thing was, nobody said we DO live in a colorblind society; a few said we OUGHT to live in a colorblind society. Anyway, rabid partisans are rabid partisans whether they are on the left, right, center, or uncategorizable. They’re always right and those whom they oppose are always wrong. They divide people into two categories – allies and enemies. Allies are always right, enemies are always wrong. Anything an enemy does is another example of why they aren’t just wrong, they’re evil. They don’t need to listen or try to understand; attack, attack attack is all that is needed. As I said, rabid partisans exist all across the political spectrum (and always have). Bush haters, meet Clinton haters.

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