Sociology 255

Federal Judge: Enough With the Stupid Names The Peoples News

After Judge Cabrera’s historic ruling, little Clitoria Jackson
will likely undergo a name change. 

(DETROIT) In a decision that’s expected to send shockwaves
through the African-American community-and yet, give much relief to
teachers everywhere-a federal judge ruled today that black women no
longer have independent naming rights for their children. Too many black
children-and many adults-bear names that border on not even being words,
he said.

“I am simply tired of these ridiculous names black women are
giving their children,” said U.S. Federal Judge Ryan Cabrera before
rendering his decision. “Someone had to put a stop to it.”

The rule applies to all black women, but Cabrera singled out
impoverished mothers.

“They are the worst perpetrators,” he said. “They put in
apostrophes where none are needed. They think a ‘Q’ is a must. There was
a time when Shaniqua and Tawanda were names you dreaded. Now, if you’re
a black girl, you hope you get a name as sensible as one of those.”

Few stepped forward to defend black women-and black women
themselves seemed relieved.

“It’s so hard to keep coming up with something unique,” said
Uneeqqi Jenkins, 22, an African-American mother of seven who survives on
public assistance. Her children are named Daryl, Q’Antity, Uhlleejsha,
Cray-Ig, Fellisittee, Tay’Sh’awn and Day’Shawndra.

Beginning in one week, at least three white people must agree
with the name before a black mother can name her child.

“Hopefully we can see a lot more black children with sensible
names like Jake and Connor,” Cabrera said.

His ruling stemmed from a lawsuit brought by a 13-year-old girl
whose mother created her name using Incan hieroglyphics.

“She said it would make me stand out,” said the girl, whose name
can’t be reproduced by The Peoples News’ technology. “But it’s really
just stupid.”

The National Association of Elementary School Teachers
celebrated Cabrera’s decision.

“Oh my God, the first day of school you’d be standing there
sweating, looking at the list of names wondering ‘How do I pronounce
Q’J'Q’Sha.’?” said Joyce Harmon, NAEST spokeswoman. “Is this even
English?”

The practice of giving black children outlandish names began in
the 1960s, when blacks were getting in touch with their African roots,
said historian Corlione Vest. But even he admits it got out of hand.

“I have a niece who’s six. I’m embarrassed to say I can’t even
pronounce her name,” said Vest, a professor at Princeton University.
“Whenever I want to talk to her, I just wait until she looks at me and
then I wave her over.”

Cabrera’s ruling exempted black men because so few of them are
actually involved in their children’s lives.

What do you all think about this article? I know that we have discussed what’s in a name but what if Blacks no longer had the right to name their children and Whites had to do it for us? That just screams racism!

President Obama met with the President of Mexico, Felipe Calderon and talked about the border and illegal immigration.In the last town meeting my character talked about making changes in Mexico instead of fighting issues here. The article talks about border issues but it also shows that the Mexican government understands that it plays a role in preventing illegal immigration. The article quotes Obama as saying:

“For those immigrants who have put down roots — they have come here illegally — I think they need to pay a penalty for having broken the law. They need to come out of the shadows. Then we need to put them through a process where, if they want to stay in the United States, they have an opportunity to earn it,” Obama said.

Calderón said the key to reducing illegal immigration is to grow jobs in Mexico, which he pledged to do.

Here is the link to the full article on CNN.

What do you guys think about border issues like gun and drug trafficking and also Obama’s stance on illegal immigrants paying a penalty but also being allowed to go through the process of becoming citizens?

Hmmm, here I am minding my business googling myself and I discover that I’m one of an esteemed group of people who, apparently, offended The Nationalist Movement.  When I was in graduate school, I had a link for my race class to a list of “hate organizations.”  The Nationalists were on that list.  They decided to mount a campaign to get any such mention of them removed from webpage.  They claim to have found me and gotten my page removed.  Here’s the text.

University of Arizona, Hateful Web Sites. This “Enemies List” attacking Nationalists as “hateful” was posted on the Internet by Negro sociology graduate-student Richard N. Pitt using the University of Arizona computers. Pitt had received funding for his ill-fated project from the Ford Foundation pre-doctorate fellowship program. The Nationalists objected to the posting, describing it as an unconstitutional Bill of Attainder. The page was immediately dropped by the school. Visitors thereafter received the message “hate.html not found on this server.” The posting ran for a few days.

See here for the auspicious list of other schools that were a part of the “Great Hate-Purge“.  For the record, they (UA) didn’t remove my page because of this objection; it removed the page because I had graduated.  I’ll leave it up to you, if you check out the rest of the Nationalist movement’s webpage, if their organization is in the business of promoting the opposite of hate.

I wrote a literature review for another class and decided to use the topic of how minority students’ consciousness of racial stigma affect their academic achievement. Being a minority student myself, I was pretty excited to see what research had proven, but as I read through articles I discovered that research has been pretty inconclusive. Some researchers argued that being aware of negative stereotypes hurts a student’s chances for success, while other studies show that it increases students’ motivation because it gives them a reason for their achievement by giving them something to overcome.

Since I couldn’t conclude much from the research I did for my paper, I’m kind of curious to hear how racial stigma have affected other people like me. In high school, as a hispanic student in a predominantly white suburb of Atlanta, I always felt the need to disprove the stereotypes. For other minority students in the class, how–if at all–has awareness of negative stereotypes about you academically?

Today (Monday March 23, 2009) there will be a rally against Bay Buchanan who is coming to speak on behalf of a group on campus called “Youth for Western Civilization”. This group is against multiculturalism, diversity and immigration. You might have seen few posters from them around campus with a fence blocking the word immigration. A group of students are waging a protest against this “hate group” at 7:30pm in front of Garland (posters will be made on the promenade at 6:30).
My friend sent me a link to an article with more information about the group: click here.

There is also going to be an article in The Hustler tomorrow, so be sure to check it out and learn more about the organization.

What does everyone think about this group? (This is kind of a precursor to the town meeting on immigration that is coming up soon)
Do you think that any of their word counts are legitimate? If so, why?
Does this group count as a “hate group”? because they are not so much for hating people but about mixing different types of people (ethnocentricity) and are xenophobic.

This group is a clear example of the “white is right”/ westernized standard of living incorporated fully into the ideologies of others.

This post kind of relates back to our class discussion a few days ago.
When we were talking about beauty and who decides what is beautiful. In the commercial that we saw for the Fair and Lovely skin bleaching cream, it focused on young adult/ adult women. I think it is interesting to see how conceptions of beauty that are constructed around race manifest themselves in the ideologies of children.

For example, this video, “A Girl Like Me” by Kiri Davis, shows the recreation of an experiment that had been done in support of the Brown vs. Board of Education case. The study was meant to show the adverse affects that segregated education had on black children. Davis recreated the experiment and was shocked by the results and wondered how it affected black girls and their images of themselves.

Please view this short documentary and expound on your thoughts about the social construction of beauty. Are you surprised by these results? What struck you the most about this documentary? How do cultural stereotypes influence beauty?

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/

Apparently President Obama has some Irish blood in him and is not hesitant to admit it.  His great-great-great grandfather hailed from Ireland.  Clearly this does not change his “master status,” but it is interesting to note.  I want to know, though, how does everyone feel about St. Patrick’s Day?  I heard some Black students talking outside the Pub yesterday, saying “well I’m not Irish, why should we celebrate white day?”  I have a similiar sentiment; it seems not only dumb, but a little ridiculous to have a holiday that primarily exists presently as a celebration of whiteness.  How does everyone feel about President Obama claiming some Irish ancestory and the celebration of St. Patrick’s Day as a whole??

I recently read an article in The New York Times about educating immigrant students. One aspect of the article that really struck me is the fact that these schools often have separate classes for immigrant students. Although educators argue that these classes help the students do well on standardized tests and prepare them for “the next level,” these classes also isolate the students from the rest of the student body and to some degree prevent the students from assimilating into American culture.

What do you think? Are separate classes the best way to educate immigrant students? Or would assimilation be more beneficial to them in the long run?

I was watching TV and saw this commercial:

Consider the following:

The ad reflects the real-life story of Staff Sgt. Thomas Hill, a senior drill instructor at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, S.C., according to a Marine recruiting Web site, our.marines.com.

Hill volunteered to tell his story when he heard the Corps was looking for ideas for a new commercial, according to the site. “He wants others who approach life the way he did to understand what being a Marine can do for them.”

The popular blog Gawker.com, however, derided the ad as “subtle stereotyping.”

“The Marines send a simple, straightforward message: ‘Hey, black people. We know you can’t swim. That’s okay! We’ll teach you how, and then let you ride in a cool boat, if you just sign up for the Marines now. Okay? In 1993, then-Commandant Gen. Carl E. Mundy Jr. launched a storm of controversy by telling an interviewer on “60 Minutes” that whites outperform blacks in objective military tests, including swimming.

“In the military skills, we find that the minority officers do not shoot as well as the non-minorities… They don’t swim as well. And when you give them a compass and send them across the terrain at night in a land navigation exercise, they don’t do as well at that sort of thing.”

More recently, a retired Army reserve officer running for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2006 was videotaped at a Christian Coalition making similar comments: “I grew up in Alabama and I understand and I know this from my own experiences that blacks aren’t the best swimmers or may not even know how to swim.”

Do you think the commercial is using the stereotype that blacks can’t swim for recruitment purposes?

Today we talked about mean differences in IQ scores among racial and ethnic groups.  Below is a debate between two of the most famous figures in the topic, Charles Murray and James Flynn.  Murray is most famous for his work The Bell Curve, which was mentioned in class, and Flynn is most famous for the Flynn Effect, the discovery that group differences in IQ have changed dramatically over time.

Murray and Flynn: On the Black-White IQ Gap

Questions to consider:

How valid is their evidence?

Is there anything good that can come out of these debates?

Is there any way to scientifically investigate this topic?

How does this topic relate to the social construction of race?

Thomas Sowell has also written extensively on the topic .

« Older Entries