Greg Sanders

Race and Defense Acquisition: Renaming the Stennis

When my field of defense acquisition comes up in present national debates about equality, it tends to be in terms of resources/national priorities or spillover effects and police equipment (see Radley Balko’s Rise of the Warrior Cop or Spencer Ackerman’s upcoming Reign of Terror), or questions of minority owned small business promotion policies. I hope to write some on those topics in this coming year, but for now am thwarted from applying my quantitative analyst lens by my slow writing and a backlog of old reports I need to publish.

In the meantime, Rueben Green makes a compelling case for removing the name of renaming the carrier USS John C. Stennis:

Stennis, on the other hand, almost singlehandedly derailed the cultural changes being attempted by then-Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, as Zumwalt detailed in his memoir, On Watch. Stennis was vehemently opposed to black equality, and spent his entire career, both as a Mississippi prosecutor, judge, and state senator attempting to ensure it did not happen. He ordered congressional subcommittee hearings on “Permissiveness” in the Navy, led by Louisiana Senator Eddie Hebert, in a thinly veiled attempt to thwart Zumwalt’s initiatives.  . .

During a meeting on the topic, requested by Zumwalt, Stennis told Zumwalt, “Blacks had come down from the trees a lot later than we did.” The subcommittee ignored the mountain of evidence Zumwalt presented that showed systematic and pervasive racism in the Navy. Zumwalt still prevailed, however, with his seminal directive, Z-Gram Number 66, on equal opportunity, but the battle continues.

Green goes into additional detail and draws on his personal perspective as an African American naval officer (he’d written about the topic in his memoir Black Officer, White Navy). I think he makes a very compelling case as, like the critique of Woodrow Wilson in the context of the Public Policy school, this is based primarily not just on Stennis’ beliefs and words, but his use of power to the detriment of those serving in the U.S. Navy and civil service respectively.

I did a little searching and the most prominent defense of the name comes from columnist Sid Salter who lays out the case for the positive parts of Sen. Stennis’ legacy, in particular his role as a champion of the carrier program and opposition to Joseph McCarthy. However, neither Salter, nor the family members quoted in other articles I’ve skimmed, present any evidence to counter Green’s case.

Robert Farley, whose post first brought the Green piece to my attention, adds on a useful practical point in favor of renaming; “Nobody outside the United States knows who John C. Stennis was (most people inside the U.S. have no idea), and acknowledging the political role that aircraft carriers are intended to play demands an appreciation of how names affect the reaction of foreign audiences. “ An obscure name can educate, of course, but this is a name choice that seems aimed at a Congressional audience rather than the sailors who will serve on it or the friends and rivals who will note its presence in nearby ports or waters.

Finally, there has been some backlash to the recent resignation of a Boeing communications executive who had written a piece in 1987 that he renounced as “embarrassingly wrong and offensive.” I’ve skimmed the piece and agree with his current assessment. In particular, re: Personnel Management, I’d note that if male members of our military cannot be trusted around female colleagues, then they also cannot be trusted to interact with the local population on overseas deployments, interaction which is often core to counterinsurgency, hybrid conflicts, or maintaining alliances. Regardless, I don’t know any specifics of the Boeing case beyond what was reported, but I don’t think the two cases are comparable. Green easily clears the bar set by the Yale Committee to Establish Principles on Renaming. Green’s case against Stennis doesn’t just rely on Stennis’ views and the terrible Southern Manifesto he signed along with all other Southern Democrats; it comes down to specific things he did with power that are directly relevant to the CVN-74’s ability to fulfill its mission today. The process to rename it should begin post-haste.

Procrastinated on your Maryland Ballot? Resources for Tuesday Mail-in Election

As a general rule, I recommend going to check out Vote411.org/Maryland, the League of Women Voters sends surveys to all the candidates asking about key issues pertinent to their position. They don’t endorse, they just pass on the answers.

For Montgomery County, the most contested election is school board. Here’s a background piece on the school boundaries dispute. I come to this as a child of Montgomery County schools, well served by a magnet program at a majority minority East county school (Montgomery Blair). I think the approach to addressing overcrowding and segregation taken by the current board make sense. Unfortunately, we still use a jungle primary system, rather than ranked voting, so if you feel similarly it probably makes sense to vote for one of the front runner candidates for that approach. Here’s Dan on the two:

Sunil Dasgupta of Rockville is a political science professor at UMBC and former PTA president who emphasizes student mental health and reducing class sizes, and wrote a seven-part series looking at the politics of school boundaries. Dasgupta has endorsements from the teachers’ union, Progressive Maryland, and SEIU Local 500, county councilmembers Sidney Katz and Hans Riemer, and YIMBY MoCo.

Lynne Harris of Silver Spring is a teacher at Edison High School, a longtime PTA parent, and a former president of the Montgomery County Council of PTAs whose platform includes increasing access to advanced classes for students of color. Harris has support from County Executive Marc Elrich and councilmembers Evan Glass and Gabe Albornoz, Ananya Tadikonda, the former student school board member, and YIMBY MoCo. [She subsequently got the endorsement of the Post and Silver Chips]

I’ve heard good things from advocates for Harris and Dasgupta and respect endorsers on both sides. They both have pretty good websites linked above, I haven’t followed the race that closely, so I’ll just point you again to Vote411.org/Maryland and Equity Questionnaire that Dan Reed links to in a subsequent post.

For delegates, you can always go with supporters of your favorite candidate + neighbors/electeds that you like. I tend to use whether they answered the League survey as a tie breaker. Hint hint candidates!

Highly engaging 'Shipment' rekindled my affection for satire (Forum Theater, Silver Spring, through 6/13)

I recently saw a horror play that, with the exception of an amazing entrance and particularly clever scene or two, didn't do that much for me. That's just a matter of taste; when I want to be made uncomfortable and a little scared, I want the focus not on supernatural monsters but frightening topics with which I actually wrestle. The Shipment's genuinely dangerous topic is focused on the African-American experience as perceived from within and without with special attention to portrayals in the culture.

Let's get a disclaimer aside: if you aren't at some level able to handle sustained vulgarity, skip this one. The stand up comic scene near the beginning is too much to handle otherwise. Similarly if uncomfortable but entertained and bracingly toyed with but in good hands isn't a place you want to be for 90 minutes, then it's not for you. However, if you dare brave experimental theater, know that this is a 90 minutes of entertainment that is very attuned to craft, entrancing dance, multilevel portrayals, and moments of great wit and beauty.

For a full discussion you can see the Post's review or an even more detailed review of an earlier production in the Root. The short version is that this is a variety show that wrestles with the format of minstrel shows past and some of their present descendents. The five players take a variety of roles which echo one another. This isn't a parody primarily concerned with an arch version of a particular story; it's outright satire and far more vicious to its source material. This can easily misfire, but with playwright Young Jean Lee and director Psalmayene 24 we are in able hands. Changes of scene bring new provocations, but also relief.

As an audience member, particularly in the first half, I felt connections as much to the five actors as to the characters they played. Particularly in the middle section, a stylized take on an after school special on urban African American poverty, each character was played one step removed with tactical choices made on when to commit and when to stick with stylized and stilted portrayals. In much the same way that a favorite comedian can bring a range of history to even a thinly sketched character, this kept me engaged with the actors when a lesser performance would have just had me alienated from the characters. The play doesn't wallow in ironic distance. That would be too easy. Instead it walks a thin line of discomfort as Shannon Dorsey plays a conventional mother character at the start of the scene only by the end to tell an absurdist parable of the origin of a very damaged world through the lives of disfigured cranes. Similarly Mark Hairston's earnest and emotionally vulnerable prison radical is a very different approach on sentiments earlier expressed by his shock comic.

The second half, after an achingly beautiful vocal performance and a scene changing palette cleanser, gives the cast a chance to play what seems a more conventional parlor comedy. Mark Hairston goes from earlier broad character types to a vey specific neurotic partygoer who, despite his insistence that he read a study that seltzer water might rot your bones, portrayed the sort of very real person I'd want as a guest. Gary L. Perkins III similarly went from a stock character rap inguéne to the person who was slightly too good for the party, an outsider there in part because the host

Technorati Tags: Forum Theater,Silver Spring,Young Jean Lee,The Shipment

liked him more than his actual friends. Dexter Hamlett goes from an oft malevolent puppet master to a character whose secret puts him in somewhat in the power of another, at least when it comes to picking the evening's entertainment. The other two players take a similar turn, but to learn why the cast is only allowed real depth at the end, I'd recommend watching the play yourself.

So how did it rekindle my love of satire? Like one of my fellow audience members, I tended more towards to British than American satire, probably in part because the distance makes it easier. I do enjoy the Daily Show and Colbert, but that's less often work that I'm directly implicated in and discomfort more often comes from interviews and the interaction of people out of character with those in character. By comparison, actively uncomfortable satire has also been particularly prominent in our culture of late as a catchall defense for offensive speech or discussion of French satire after the murders of Charlie Hedbo staff. That said, the most insightful piece I'd read recently was by Film Critic Hulk on Fight Club (warning, caps). A key insight from that piece is that a failing of Fight Club is that it is too compelling in terms of the nihilism it is sending up. He compares David Fincher's work to Paul Thomas Anderson, who "implicitly understood that in order to undo the seduction and allure of his pornographic inclinations in Boogie Nights, he essentially had to spend half the length of the film completely undoing that. He clearly understood the responsibility not to being indulgent."

I think everyone involved with this production understood that responsibility and took it very seriously. I meant it when I called the production dangerous at the start. There weren't any walkouts the night I went, but that's not true every night. This would be easy material to botch at any stage of the production and even though I found it successful and discomforting, an African-American woman in the audience who made the earlier comment about satire also found herself angered by the stand up comedy bit and felt it punched down at times. This is an area where I think Forum Theater's after-production discussions really shine. Dramaturge led up a strictly voluntary chat with about a half dozen of the audience members. I think it's important that art challenge us, but Forum understands the responsibility of satire in my view. I particularly appreciated actor Dexter Hamlett joining the conversation, although I did not fully recognize him at first as he shed at least ten years when he went out of character. I do think that the way we talk about race has changed some since the play was first written, and the way the stand-up trades on a range of taboos may now distract from rather than heighten some of the power of the scene (there's a line about walking on eggshells that made the whole bit worthwhile to me). But every part of this play left me with moments I hope to long recall. If you'll be anywhere near Silver Spring, go see it. If you miss this show, check out the Forum's future offerings. They've never let us down.

Production photos by Forum Theater available on Flickr by C. Stanley Photography. Technically they're all rights reserved, but I think this is how they're meant to be used. Correct me if I'm wrong there.

Osaka Human Rights Museum 2014-05-31

While my wife and mother were cooling their heels at the the closed Modern Transportation Museum, I was at a different station, searching for the Osaka Human Rights Museum. It was a bit of a walk from the station, made longer by my misreading of the map. I ultimately gave in and turned on data roaming to pull down some digital navigation assistance. Thankfully for you, dear reader, I'm not subjecting you to another post (primarily) about wars, past or present. This museum is primarily focused on the human rights situation in modern Japan and many of the displays, including AIDS quilts and rainbow flags, were instantly recognizable even though the displays were in Japanese.

The first zone of the single floor of exhibits was entitled Shining Light. This section could be a bit sign-heavy, but there were pictures to help and I got both an English audio guide and a printed notebook with translations to help. The displays were also rich in photographs and pictures taking on issues of gender discrimination, LGBTQ rights, the rights of the disabled, and even a significant section on children. My comprehension level wasn't quite high enough to grasp how some of the displays might have been different than their equivalent in the United States, although I know that the struggle for gender equality in Japan is very much ongoing.

I dwelled the longest in the second zone, Living Together/Creating Society which focused on ethnic minority groups within Japan as well as other communities facing human rights issues, often for health or environmental reasons. Displays included rich coverage of Korean and Chinese immigrants, the Ainu people, and native Okinawans. In the Korean section, I found particularly affecting a set of captioned home videos on the post-War Korean community in Japan including a celebration in Kyoto of the liberation of the peninsula on the first anniversary of Victory in Japan day. The section on the Ainu and the Okinawans both focused on their living culture, although of course in the latter case the U.S. military base adds a whole different set of issues to the discussion.

One piece that did particular catch my eyes was a flag that was both instantly recognizable and unfamiliar. To the left is a was the banner of a Christian group in Japan, a red crown of thorns on a black field. The museum really did do an admirable job getting at the history of a range of groups and the last section on Dreams/The Future as well as the staffers in the front office and bookstore all left me feeling good about the Japanese activist community.

I left a bit before closing, rushing back to the loop train to try to get a half hour in at the Modern Transportation Museum, which unbeknownst to me had been closed this whole time. I somehow managed to miss Kate and Mom on the platform and wandered around the building once before running into them. Happily, we did have one fond train story coming out of that particular excursion. At the transfer station on the way to meet up with Moti and Francis we spied the poster on the right, celebrating the 110th anniversary of Osaka's transit system. One of the booth attendants saw us doing that and rushed up, but gladly this was not a fusspot of the paranoid American-style. Instead, the gentleman had just recognized us as transit geeks and gave us three post card copies of the poster to send out as we wished. That encounter brightened our day and took some of the sting out of the missed connections at the museum.

What populist small-government sentiment is about.

For some reason, I'd lost Ta-Nehisi Coates feed for a few weeks.  Not surprisingly, I've been missing out, here's an piece from earlier in the week he has on the the Death Penalty. Specifically, the oddity that many "small-government" conservatives are iffy about the government exercising its power to tax but are sanguine about it exercising its power to kill.

There's more over at his place. But I'd offer one theory. I think a sizable, maybe not a majority, of the conservative base doesn't actually believe in small government. They believe in government not not taking their tax dollars and using it to help people who they don't like. This goes back to state's rights, Jim Crow and reconstruction. I don't mean to impugn principled liberarians, but there's certainly a strain of "small government" conservativism that's rooted in those old racist notions.

... This is all a long way of saying that some conservatives don't hate big government, they simply want big government to work strictly for them.

This isn't really surprising.  I mean nobody was happy about government money going to AIG bonuses.  That was definitely personal.  Similarly, the has long been incorporated into liberal thinking.  There's a reason we're hesitant to means-test programs.  If a program doesn't benefit "people like me" than there's no way it will be immensely popular.  Similarly, moving from race-based to class-based programs is in part an attempt to at least weaken these feelings.

How do white Marylanders vote?

Andrew Gelman has great charts breaking down how did white people vote in the 2008 election.  He gives the overall election maps based on income categories. When glancing over it I focued on my home state of Maryland and the results surprised me a bit.

When voters of all races were included, Maryland was consistently a blue state regardless of income level.  However, when you're talking about just whites, we're consistently red except for the <$20k and $20k-$40k income groups.  This is about the same pattern as Pennsylvania and NJ, but New England tends to be much more solidly blue.

Considering that Montgomery County is a huge funding base for the Democractic party, I would have figured that even upper-income whites would have tended that way.  Seems I was wrong.

Obviously 2008 Presidential elections results are not the most detailed way at looking at a state's politics.  Maryland was always in the bag for Obama but he put some work into Pennsylvania.  However, my quick take away is that a lot of Maryland's liberalness should be ascribed to its diversity and not cross-racial liberalness.

Race and DnD: Responding to the medievalist defense

Last week James Edward Raggi IV over at Lamentations of the Flame Princess listed my old post on Race and Dnd among a few he was responding to.  Not sure if he puts me in the “thought provoking” or “thought suppressing” category. He’s an old school first edition grognard (war-gamer) type whereas I am quite pleased with the newest edition, but there are enough similarities that some aspects of his defense to hold over.  His post is a long one and I don’t particularly agree with much of what he says, but he anticipates common critiques which makes his points easy to engage.

To start with, he argues against racism in the real world.  There aren’t real differences between the races, so acting as a racist just doesn’t make sense.

In a fictional world, that often isn’t the case. Humans are different than elves are different than dwarves are different than orcs, and objectively so. Good and Evil exist as objective forces, and certain races are predisposed to a certain moral outlook. This does not mean that authoring, playing, or accepting this as objective fictional fact means endorsing or accepting this as truth in real-world ethnicities or that it's at all related to how the real world works.

This single paragraph gets to my problem.  Objective fictional facts are fine in the mechanics of the game or in non-normative aspects of the game.  Super powers and floating cities are part of the fun.  But I think incorrect objective fictional facts regarding morality are problematic.  At best the player simply ignores them, at worst it negatively effects our outlook.  Long version after the cut.

Meh, seat Burris

So I do tend to think the allegations against Illinois governor compelling.  He’s now picked Burris, an African American former opponent for the Senate seat and is trying to play the race card to get him in.  I think Ta-Nehisi Coates effectively demolishes that argument.

What I do find persuasive is Sandy Levinson’s argument:

I suppose it's true that the Senate could/should consider the bona fides of a gubernatorial appointment if there is good evidence that it was procured by criminal means, including bribery. The problem is that there is not a scintilla of such evidence in this case. Governor B. might well be guilty of "attempted sale of the Senate seat," but it's clear that it didn't work, and that he, clever politician that he is, reached out to strengthen himself with a key constituency and, an added bonus, to discomfort many of his erstwhile Democratic Party allies. I don't see how one can mount a good-faith argument against seating Burris unless one is willing to open each and every gubernatorial appointment to some kind of "good-government" scrutiny. Consider, for example, the shameful appointment of Lisa Murkowski to the Senate by her father, the former Senator who became Governor of Alaska. There is no plausible evidence that anything other than nepostism explains the appointment…

If one feels "stuck" by that incredibly stupid clause, with consequences far, far worse than allowing a presumptively competent, if somewhat superannuated Illinois politician to serve a couple of years in the Senate, then I think we should recognize that the 17th Amendment, too, generates a relatively hard-wired rule that limits the possibilities of further Senate scrutiny and the political mischief it invites. (Imagine, for starters, that the Senate is closely divided and that accepting the appointment would change the political control of the Senate (as in 2001) or provide/prevent a "filibuster-proof" majority.)

I’d say seat the Senator and let the Illinois legislature decide whether to remove the governor.  In the longer term, I think Yglesias is right and we should switch over all Senators to being picked by special election (absent rather short period of service or national emergency).

Stuff White People Eat

Ta-Nehisi Coates stereotyping of white people as cucumber eaters has been bouncing around for a few days when Brad Delong reminded me of something.

Matthew Yglesias:

Matthew Yglesias: The Cucumber Factor: Ta-Nehisi Coates is getting ready to foreswear the smear against white people that we eat cucumber. And yet just yesterday here in Finland where the white people are twice as white as back home (Nordic ancestry + subarctic winter = pale), I was in fact served a sandwich of cucumbers and cheese on a croissant.

And here in Vienna while seated next to Dani Rodrik I was just served not a cucumber sandwich but an egg salad sandwich on white bread with the crusts removed.

When I caught an intra-China flight, I got a meal of a ham sandwich on white bread, crusts removed, with mayo.  It really felt like they were aiming for American or European cuisine but went so far over the top that they produced something entirely new.

 

When I went to an event with Jennifer 8 Lee on her book the Fortune Cookie chronicles, I mentioned this particular story.  She said that she loved those sandwiches, although while they weren’t horrible I don’t really see the appeal.  I then suggested that it would be only fair if they were called “General Washington’s Sandwich” or something like that.

Picture of a similar sandwich by ulterior epicure used under a creative commons license.

Race and DnD, how problematic?

Ta-Nehisi Coates linked to a piece on race and DnD by Chris Van Dyke.  As a side note, I think the comments on Coates blog are the most interesting of the bunch.

Anyhow.  Here’s my take.  First, he scores a lot of points against first and second edition.  I won’t complain that he has done much on fourth, it’s less than a year old, but third edition has been out for a decade.  The current company, Wizards of the Coast (WotC) does play up the legacy, so some such shots are fair enough.  But to critique where the game normally is today, you’ve at least got to talk about 3rd edition.  But enough concern trolling, I think there’s three or so key points that strike true and are worth addressing:

• Few PCs of color in illustrations.
• Racial stats
• Sub-human intelligent races

This is fairly geeky and long, so I’ll put the rest under the cut.  Also may come back later to look at some of these issues in MMORPGs, but this post is already too long.  [Update: It came up in the comments on the original piece so I should put in a plug for Stephen Erikson’s  series which starts with Gardens of the Moon.  Among other things, he effectively subverts the whole skin-color morality thing while building a compelling world that actually feels rather different than Tolkien.  Sadly a lot of the American cover art is generic, British/Canadian versions are better.]

Full citizenship

Ta-Nehisi Coates, a great blogger now on the Atlantic, has a great point that I hadn’t seen before. There’s already been a fair amount of discussion out there on racism versus racial resentment. I tend to agree with the idea that when you see race relations as a zero-sum game you tend to get into racism, and that sort of attitude long pre-dates affirmative action.

The newer point gets to the question of why immigrants should have to deal with America’s racial baggage. Whole argument is worth reading, but here’s the key point:

Let us jouney to the heart of things--what the "immigrants didn’t do it" defense offers is an a’la carte brand of citizenship where one gets to pick and chose what you will or won’t claim. Here is fellowship on the cheap--scarfing down hot dogs and cheering for fireworks on the Fourth of July(despite the fact that said commenter’s forbears did absolutely nothing to liberate the country) while slinking away when the subject of slavery or Jim Crow arises. I should thank the heavens that I had nothing to do with the forced removal of the Native Americans. But I recognize that I live in Manhattan--on land that I didn’t settle. Moreover, I certainly had nothing to do with the murder of millions of Jews by the Third Reich, but I’m quite proud that my taxes help pay for the Holocaust Museum. Either you’re an American, or you are not. If you are, welcome to the family--the entire family.

One cool thing about Sen. Webb

Given that I support the argument against making him Veep, I think it’s only fair to also highlight one area where he’s a Democratic standout.

Take it away Spencer Ackerman:

Katrina vanden Heuvel reports on Jim Webb’s efforts to do something profoundly valuable for the country: end the drug war.

In addition to the drug supply remaining constant, the incarceration epidemic has failed to curb illegal drug use while also “devastating our minority communities.” Senator Webb said, “the number of persons in custody on drug charges increased thirteen times in the past 25 years…[And] when it comes to incarceration for drug offenses, the racial disparities are truly alarming. Although African Americans constitute 14 percent of regular drug users, they are 37 percent of those arrested for drug offenses, and 56 percent of persons in state prisons for drug crimes…Our current combination of enforcement, diversion, interdiction, treatment and prevention is not working the way we need it to…There has been little effort to take a comprehensive look at the relationship between the many interlocking pieces of drug policy.”

And that’s by design. For an entire generation, avaricious white politicians have ignored how the repeatedly-refuted drug war has compounded, not alleviated, the scourge of narcotics in minority communities. Why? Because there aren’t enough votes in solving the problems of poor, non-white America.

For me, it was actually international relations that took me from skeptical of the war on drugs to strongly opposed. Civil wars and organized crime the world over are financed by drugs. It all sees so futile to me. We’re genuinely winning in Columbia, FARC has lost a lot of men and leadership and the country is doing better as a whole, but even so the amount of coca cultivation rises. Trying to fight poppy cultivation is a critical complicating factors we’re facing in Afghanistan.

To be clear I love the U.S.’s moves against smoking in recent years. They’ve been highly effective and made many places much more pleasant for non-smokers to boot. I’m perfectly fine with even some harsh public health measures, but how about we do it without shooting people, eh?

And sometimes I don't really see it

Via ZeroOmegaZX at Evil Avatar, "Yahtzee" of Zero Punctuation is being criticized by Loot Ninja, for a comment Yahtzee made in his latest post.

This episode had me smiling all around and I enjoyed the topic of reviews until he began to speak about people only being able to afford one console, he states that this is what creates fanboys, which I guess makes some sense. He loses me at the very end of his video monologue when he refers to “being white enough to afford all of the consoles”, I have to say this comment really sat with me badly and shone an ugly light on an otherwise great episode.

I can only hope that Yahtzee had some kind of temporary lapse in judgement or his statement is not translating well, because to me this statement screams racist. We joke about a lot of things, but never racist remarks, to say that luckily he is “white enough to afford all of the consoles” is a slap in the face to any non-white person that plays video games or listens to his show.

Video is available in the post. First off, I should say that this does seem like a reasonable and measured post to me. The writer will probably end up the subject of a lot of highly critical vehement disagreement, and that’s a shame. That said, I don’t really see it in this case. I think Yahtzee’s more making a crack about the economics of racial inequality. Having more money isn’t the same as having earned more money. I took it as a shorthand for "I’m white, so I have more economic privilege."

Zero Punctuation does pointedly skirt controversy by often being fairly insulting and actively "edgy." I do think some of his jokes about homosexuality tend to at very least skirt the line, although I think he’s getting better on that. On the other hand, his discussion of "Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune" gave him some credit for noting that the game seemed to be all about killing people of color.

So, make of it what you will. Loot Ninja certainly has every right to be bothered by the statement. But since I do watch Zero Punctuation, saw this in Evil Avatar, and have blogged before about the intersection of race and games, I figured it is worth noting for better or worse that I don’t always see it. Best of luck against the hordes Loot Ninja.

Controversies [relavant] to my blog roll.

I do keep Pandagon on my blogroll and Amanda Marcotte (who along with Pam Spaulding is the main blogger on the site) has gotten in a couple big fights lately that tie into larger issues with women of color and feminism. In the latest one, she’s taken some hard hits from people I respect so I figured it was worth posting on. More after the cut/

MTV Multiplayer series on Black Professionals in Games

I’ve seen a few entries in the series and I think they’re pretty good. There’s a good discussion with Tomb Raider Senior Producer Morgan Gray who didn’t think being black really hurt or helped his career but was annoyed at the lack of diversity in black characters in games. N’Gai Croal, a game journalist over at Newseek, had similar comments including a tangential observation that DDR should really teach you moves you can take to the dance floor. I was also fairly amused by the interview with Brian Jackson, creative design director who is working on a game called Black College Football Experience which apparently has battle of the band mini-games at half time. I don’t do sports game, but it made for a fun read.

Most recently, they posted an interview with N’Gai Croal on the whole Resident Evil 5 controversy . Croal’s first rection was “Wow, clearly no one black worked on this game.” Interestingly enough Morgan Gray didn’t have a problem with it. Anyhow, I’m with Croal. I did a post on this back on a personal journal in August. I intend to update that post, but not until I’ve at least played RE4 which was when the Resident Evil series really made the switch from normal zombies to expressive baddies. I’m not going to get a Wii anytime soon, so maybe I’m just going to have to play the original RE4 and go off that.

My original post is after the cut. I’ve trimmed to remove some a survey and a few friend’s names. There was also some good back and forth in comments, but I’m not going to repost that sort of thing without permission.

Oh drat

Apparently there’s trouble getting a caucus in Michigan. Sullivan thinks this "can’t be good news for Clinton."

I think he’s quite wrong. Good news for Obama would be putting this to bed. If Michigan isn’t resolved, Clinton can hang on to the possibility of seating the full delegation and can make her argument based on that.

Here’s hoping the news is wrong.

Good speech

So on Rev. Wright again, here’s the whole Obama race speech. Kevin Drum did a good job picking excerpts that in which Obama shows how he intends to reach across America’s racial divides. James Fallows says that this, not the Mitt Romney’s speech, is equivalent to the JFK speech on Catholicism.

The really short version is that there’s resentment in the African American community as a result of terrible treatment by the government, with older members like Rev. Wright having lived through segregation. Moreover, the legacy of that discrimination does still live on, even though the situation has improved.

At the same time, many white and other Americans had the immigrant experience, feel they earned what they got, didn’t directly discriminate against anyone, and have been having a hard time economically. With the stagnating median wage and many people losing jobs, things look like a zero-sum game and any advantage given to someone else breeds resentment as well.

People tend not to talk about these resentments in mixed company and any discussion tends to be controversial, which further widens the gap. That said, he specified that Rev. Wright’s mistake was seeing America as static and missing both some changes that had happened and the hope for the future. Obama proposes both an ethic of individual responsibility and economic and education policies to benefit all American workers and break the cycle of poverty.

Anyways, that’s obviously a vast oversimplification, but if you want more detail click above. Suffice to say I’m proud to be backing him. As he said, no election or candidate is really going to magical heal America’s race divides, but I think he may be in a position to make real progress both against drivers of resentment and some of the factors that lead to some elements of the African American community being in a poverty trap.

On the latest campaign fight

So as most of you know, there’s a flap now regarding incendiary comments made by Obama’s pastor, Rev. Wright. Obama has condemned the remarks but not the man. I’m quite satisfied with that response.

To get a bit more detailed my take is that Rev. Wright has made some comments that can accurately be described as anti-American. That said, I don’t think the "Chickens coming home to roost" comment qualifies as slander, it’s just a fairly hurtful thing to say shortly after 9/11. However, Wright’s undermined his credibility some by citing conspiracy theories on other occasions. I think his comments on Sen. Clinton (well, more directly about Bill Clinton) were not necessarily sexist but were vulgar and inappropriate.

In short, I think given Obama’s close relationship it’s appropriate that the Senator condemned the remarks and formally distanced himself. That said, I think it’s also appropriate that Obama didn’t condemn the man who has done other good works. While Rev. Wright is definitely fairly critical of America it appears that crossing the line was the exception rather than his standard sermon. Similarly, unlike say Louis Farrakkan or Ward Churchill I don’t think any of the Wright’s statements I’ve read sink to the level of bigotry.

Ross Douthat argues that Obama’s taking criticism mainly because Wright’s comments are not just controversial but outside of the mainstream American conversation. I’d say the mainstream American conversation has definite double standards, but at the same time I’m happy to criticize conservatives when they say things I disagree with that are out of the mainstream. That said, I think it’s ridiculous to say that remarks Obama has condemned reflect negatively on his character.

Sullivan notes that Obama plans to give a major speech tomorrow on race issues in the campaign. I’d say what he’s already said is fine, but it’s probably politically wise to go for the full speech.

First WTO ruling against China and the potential for WTO evolution

Dani Rodrik notes that the WTO has just ruled against China.

The WTO has made a ruling that Chinese import surcharges on car parts violate WTO rules. This is the first time that the WTO has ruled against China since the country joined in 2001. China’s intention with the policy was clearly to discourage imports of car parts and thereby encourage upstream production of inputs for its auto assembly industries...

In other words, policies encouraging domestic content were successful--at least in these two important cases (Sutton speculates that they would have been less successful in smaller economies).

Perhaps such policies have outlived their usefulness and the WTO decision makes economic sense. Perhaps. But what is clear is that there is no room within the WTO procedures for the relevant economic arguments to have played a role. Domestic content preferences are illegal period, regardless of whether they help a country industrialize and grow.

The decision is up for appeal, the final ruling gets made in 2009. If memory serves, the effect of China losing this case against the U.S. would be that if China doesn’t drop the program, the U.S. can place proportionate measures against China that also violate WTO rules. In one fairly extraordinary case against the U.S. these measures would be be to allow violation of intellectual property rules proportionate to the impact of variable U.S. rules on online gambling.

Anyways, I think this is actually an area where the WTO could helpfully evolve. I mean, it’s all well and good for China to pursue policies that help its economy but why shouldn’t that then allow other countries to pursue proportionate policies (or perhaps proportionate environmental or labor protections). Perhaps distinctions could be made between policies that accomplish demonstrable good for the country and policies, like corn ethanol subsidies, that just represent state capture by a powerful interest group. Good policies could be countered only by other good policies. Also countries could give aid, and be acknowledged as giving such, by waiving retaliation in such cases.

Unfortunately, the obvious economic problem is how to determine what’s a good policy. I don’t think there’s consistent ways of knowing in advance. So maybe you’d just have to set benchmarks and give something a couple years to play out, if it meets the benchmark, by saying increasing upstream production, than it qualifies as good. If it doesn’t, than the WTO becomes a helpful kill mechanism for failed policies.

The demographics of race relations

From an interesting reader email to Andrew Sullivan:

In states where the black population is less than 5%, Obama has a
record of 7 wins, 2 losses and 1 undecided (NM). In states where the
black population is 20% or higher, he is undefeated at 4-0. However, in
states that are between 5-20% black, his record is a fairly dismal 4-10
(with one of those victories being Illinois).

I remember reading about this idea in Clarence Page’s Showing My Color. Page’s example described differing perceptions of native American groups based on how common they were in the community. When tribe A was at 15% they were described as lazy, drunk, etc. Tribe B at 5% was hardworking and generally a model minority. In a different area where the population figures were reversed, tribe B was described as lazy and tribe A was suddenly the model group.

He mentioned the dividing line being at about 15% although he didn’t cover the fact that there also seemed to be an upper bound. The upper bound might not mean that stereotypes have gone away, but that stereotypes are countered by political clout. Also we’re talking the Democratic primary, so the effective clout of African Americans is probably doubled relative to the general election.

This is not to say that voting against Obama is racist, but I do think the politics of race and racism do play into the election. The same is of course true of sex and sexism, but the demographics on sex of course have a totally different dynamic.

Jena-6 protests

Pam Spaulding over at Pandagon complains about the lack of coverage in the progressive blogosphere of the current Jena 6 protests.  Fair enough.

Here's the Post's coverage of the protest, which has drawn thousands to a small town in Louisiana. All and all a pretty impressive turn-out considering that the one of the worst of the consequence of the scandal have already been overturned.

Quick summary.  Jena had a serious of racist incidents, black students sat by a segregated tree during lunch and the next day nooses were hanging from the tree (the students who hung the nooses got a three day suspension).  A black student was beaten up by white students at a party and [update: was charged with a misdemeanor assault].  Some of the black students later confronted one of the attackers who brandished a shotgun.  The white student that pulled the shotgun wasn't charged but the black students that took it away from him were charged for theft.  Subsequently a group of black students beat up a white student.  They were arrested and one of them was charged as an adult, although the level of charges were reduced in response to protest.  A few days ago, the attempt to charge him as an adult was thrown out of court.  The jury that sentenced Mychal Bell and all the relevant officials were white.

For details on all that, check the article.  Short version, I support the protest movement, oppose beating people up, and think that if the locals don't get their act together PDQ the Feds should intervene.  More discussion and a bit more detail about the crime in question, after the cut.

[Update: Changed the summary thanks to what seemed like a credible, albeit critical, account from Slate.]