Saturday, December 29, 2007

Race and Politics -- The Finale

So just a few more notes about race and politics--namely a few articles to check out (click on each to be re-directed):

*New York Times article about Barak Obama, specifically about his bi-raciality and its effects on his political career and presidential campaigning.

*Article about a poll showing younger Asian Americans leaning towards the Democratic party.

*Blog post on "What Tami Said" about Michelle Obama.

and finallly

*Another post on "What Tami Said" about mean people (OK, maybe this one isn't so specifically about race and politics but it's got a good message about reminding us all to be nicer in the blogosphere, and quite frankly, especially when we talk about controversial, hot button issues, I think remembering civility and the lessons from kindergarten (play nice with others, don't hit, treat others as you want to be treated yourself) are really important.

2 comments:

Tami said...

Thanks for including my posts on this list.

I hopped over to Politico and read the article about young Asian Americans and Repubs vs. Dems. The article was interesting, but my God, the COMMENTS!

Although I have long heard about Politico, I had never visited. Now I am wondering if rational political discourse in this country is possible. Initial comments to the post were so hateful and racist. I kept hoping for a Dem to jump in with the voice of reason, but the one that did chime in spouted "model minority" stereotypes.

Aaah! I need a drink and it isn't even 9 a.m.

Jennifer said...

Tami,
Oh Dear! I just read the comments on the Politico blog (I had somehow managed to forget about the comments and only focused on the article itself) and they are SO DISTURBING!

I'm so tired of people equating an attention towards race with being racist. As in, if you want to call yourself Asian American then you are drawing attention to your race and hence you must be racist.

Are people really this simplistic in their logic??? And why the venom???

I wish more people would read your blog post about mean people and try to think before they type (sigh).

And it is sad that the one Dem spouted out all that Asian American model minority stuff--and what was up with the person writing in about "The Big Three" of Asian American ethnic groups--I've been studying Asian American issues for a while (since I entered college actually) and I've never heard this phrase used, or at least if it was used, sporadically and colloquially (ie: not in the literature I read, which tends to be lit crit/cultural crit and a smattering of history).

I thought about posting there but then I just thought no one is really listening to one another--they just want to rant and rave about their own particular topic and not even engage the issues in the original post. (sigh)

I need a drink too!