MetaFilter posts tagged with prejudice

What kind of Asian are you?

kmz — Wed, 29 May 2013 11:59:00 -0800

X-Mensch

Artw — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 08:38:11 -0800

Is antigingerism a hate crime?

acb — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 11:58:26 -0800

In the New Statesman, Nelson Jones argues that prejudice against red-haired people in Britain should be addressed by hate crime legislation. Anti-gingerism, as he calls it, seems to be a mostly English phenomenon, possibly rooted in anti-Celtic prejudice from imperial times, along with old folk prejudices about the supposed characters of red-haired people. Many red-haired schoolchildren report being bullied because of their hair colour, and it's still commonly considered acceptable to make derogatory jokes and remarks about red-haired people, even by people who would never make racist remarks. More seriously, anti-ginger prejudice sometimes escalates to violent attacks and serious harrassment. English hate crime legislation, however, currently does not recognise that such prejudice exists and has no provision for victimisation based on prejudice against hair colour. Writing in The Guardian's Comment Is Free, Ally Fogg argues that to call it a hate crime trivialises other forms of bigotry and discrimination. Meanwhile, red-haired London-based comedian Tim Minchin has a musical comment about the issue.

The Frenzy on Fox will be glorious...

dejah420 — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 19:51:59 -0800

Al Jazeera has purchased Al Gore's Current TV, giving them a much wider American audience. However, the deal suffered an immediate casualty when Time Warner Cable Inc., the nation's second-largest cable TV operator, announced it is dropping Current TV due to the deal. "Our agreement with Current has been terminated and we will no longer be carrying the service. We are removing the service as quickly as possible," the company said in a statement.

scary bikers like beer

wilful — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 17:59:25 -0800

This ad from a beer company raises interesting questions about acceptance and prejudice. What would you do?

Starting by fighting for her own children's rights, she ends up in government implementing the UN Convention on Disability Rights.

maiamaia — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 15:41:20 -0800

Mother of disabled children changes country to suit their needs.

Too fat to pass.

Ouisch — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:37:24 -0800

25 students at Lincoln University may not graduate, because they failed -- to lose weight. The students are members of "the first graduating class required to either have a BMI below 30 or to take 'Fitness for Life,' a one semester class that mixes exercise, nutritional instruction and discussion of the risks of obesity" in order to graduate from Lincoln. In a similar vein, you may remember last year's piece of stunt legislation that would have banned fat people from eating in Mississippi restaurants. The bill did not pass into law. The Yale University Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity conducts research on weight bias, and has found that bias against fat people is prevalent in employment, health care settings, interpersonal relationships, media, and education. Other scholars have recently suggested that the stigma attached to body size may contribute to diseases thought to be caused by obesity.

Why We Stare, Even When We Don’t Want To

shetterly — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:49:47 -0800

Why We Stare, Even When We Don’t Want To “When a face is distorted, we have no pattern to match that,” Rosenberg said. “All primates show this [staring] at something very different, something they have not evolved to see. They need to investigate further. ‘Are they one of us or not?’ In other species, when an animal looks very different, they get rejected.” The article is about why humans stare at disfigurements, but it may say something about why we stare at anyone who seems different. Previously: Seeing race: the Other-Race Effect.

Seeing race: the Other-Race Effect

shetterly — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 08:26:30 -0800

Seeing race: the Other-Race Effect. Why do so many people think people of other races look alike? Babies as young as three months old "tend to recognize faces from their own race better than those from other races," but "babies raised with frequent exposure to people of other races don’t develop this early bias." The Other-Race Effect, aka the Cross-Race Effect, "carries practical implications for cases of mistaken eyewitness identification." A follow-up study with Chinese babies confirmed the effect, and notes that it can change: "Korean adults who were adopted by French families during their childhood (aged 3–9 years) demonstrated the same discrimination deficit for Korean faces shown by the native French population." Yes, you have to be carefully taught.

Not ginger whingers!

Grrlscout — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:43:03 -0800

Bullied, teased, and in need of a refuge? Photographer Jenny Wicks' new project, Root Ginger, asks the question: Is gingerism one of the last acceptable prejudices?

I have nothing to declare except my prejudice.

goodnewsfortheinsane — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:22:08 -0800

"Let them arrest me". Vehemently anti-Islamic Dutch MP Geert Wilders was scheduled to travel to London tomorrow to attend a screening of his controversial short film Fitna (wiki, mefi). Yesterday however, the UK's Home Secretary notified Wilders that his presence in the UK would pose a "serious threat to [...] public security" (PDF), presumably intending to refuse his entry into UK. Wilders plans to board the flight anyway, daring British authorities to arrest him. Not that he's sitting so comfy at home either, however: Wilders faces prosecution in the Netherlands for hate speech and inciting discrimination. The decision to bar the self-styled "freedom fighter" from entering Britain has met with widespread criticism from the Dutch cabinet -- which by the way is completely made up of Wilders' political opponents -- and fellow MPs. The Dutch Foreign Minister has phoned the UK Foreign Secretary and stated he was "deeply upset and disappointed" by the decision. British papers join the chorus of condemnation.

Public Domain Is A Wonderful, Scary Thing

mannequito — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 08:53:43 -0800

Coming Soon : Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (from the authors of such classics as Mansfield Park and The Big Book Of Porn).

The Dream is Alive

caddis — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 18:40:30 -0800

Happy Birthday Dr. King. Today is Martin Luther King Day. He was born 80 years ago, on January 15th, 1929. He was assassinated on April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was just thirty-nine years old. Tomorrow, more than four decades after Dr. King’s death, Barack Obama will take his oath of office to become the 44th president of the United States and the first African American president in US history. The Reverend Joseph Lowery, a civil rights icon who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Dr, King, will deliver the benediction at the inauguration ceremony. Obama accepted the Democratic party nomination on the 45th anniversary of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, arguably his most famous address. While Dr. King is primarily remembered as a civil rights leader, he also championed the cause of the poor and organized the Poor People"s Campaign to address issues of economic justice. Dr. King was also a fierce critic US foreign policy and the Vietnam War. Amy Goodman had a fantastic show today commemorating Dr. King. It is perhaps some stuff that we have heard before, but here now, some 40 odd years later when he predicted a black president, and it has come true, it takes on a bit more poignancy. (I am re-posting this for Huplescat who perhaps did not word the same stuff well.)

For The Bible Tells Me So

Ira.metafilter — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 17:42:13 -0800

For The Bible Tells Me So. (documentary, Google Video. Trailer.)

Amchi Mumbai ~ My Mumbai

hadjiboy — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 12:16:11 -0800

Politics of Hate: What's happening to the city of Mumbai

Britain: we discovered the queue

hadjiboy — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 03:01:06 -0800

Oh, I say old chap--do you mind not going all "immigrant" on me, and spitting all over the place? Thank you very much. (how Britain proposes to solve the problem of integrating its migrant population)

Sometimes I think nothing is simple but the feeling of pain.

koeselitz — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:32:26 -0800

The White Noise Supremacists: Lester Bangs on race, words, post-punk, and society. from The Village Voice, 1979: ... around the same time I was actually rather proud of myself for writing things like (in an article on David Bowie's "soul" phase): "Now, as we all know, white hippies and beatniks before them would never have existed had there not been a whole generational subculture with a gnawing yearning to be nothing less than the downest baddest niggers. . . . Everybody has been walking around for the last year or so acting like faggots ruled the world, when in actuality it's the niggers who control and direct everything just as it always has been and properly should be." I figured all this was in the Lenny Bruce spirit of let's-defuse-them-epithets-byslinging-'em -- out in Detroit I thought absolutely nothing of going to parties with people like David Ruffin and Bobby Womack where I'd get drunk, maul the women, and improvise blues songs along the lines of "Sho' wish ah wuz a nigger / Then mah dick'd be bigger," and of course they all laughed. It took years before I realized what an asshole I'd been, not to mention how lucky I was to get out of there with my white hide intact. I'm sure a lot of those guys were very happy to see this white kid drunk on his ass making a complete fool if not a human TV set out of himself, but to this day I wonder how many of them hated my guts right then. Because Lenny Bruce was wrong -- maybe in a better world than this such parlor games would amount to cleansing jet offtakes, and between friends, where a certain bond of mutual trust has been firmly established, good natured racial tradeoffs can be part of the vocabulary of understood affections. But beyond that trouble begins -- when you fail to realize that no matter how harmless your intentions are, there is no reason to think that any shit that comes out of your mouth is going to be understood or happily received. Took me a long time to find it out, but those words are lethal, man, and you shouldn't just go slinging them around for effect. This seems almost too simple and obvious to say, but maybe it's good to have something simple and obvious stated once in a while, especially in this citadel of journalistic overthink: if you're black or Jewish or Latin or gay those little vernacular epithets are bullets that riddle your guts and then fester and burn there, like torture-flak hailing on you wherever you go. Ivan Julian told me that whenever he hears the word "nigger," no matter who says it, black or white, he wants to kill. Once when I was drunk I told Hell that the only reason hippies ever existed in the first place was because of niggers, and when I mentioned it to Ivan while doing this article I said, "You probably don't even remember --" "Oh yeah, I remember," he cut me off. And that was two years ago, one ostensibly harmless little slip. You take a lifetime of that, and you've got grounds for trying in any way possible, even if it's only by convincing one individual at a time, to remove those words from the face of the earth.

...students arrived at the local high school to find three hangman's nooses dangling from a tree in the courtyard. ...

amberglow — Wed, 23 May 2007 16:20:20 -0800

Under the ole shade tree... Welcome to Jena, LA -- mix high school segregation, racism, nooses, fights, ineffective school administration, attempted-murder charges, shotguns, and a town in upheaval--a "racial powder keg". Much more here, including links to help.

People with disabilities in "we can be prejudiced too" shocker

patricio — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 07:26:16 -0800

New study reveals prejudices amongst disabled. A research paper by Mark Deal, a PhD student and researcher at UK disability charity Enham reveals the news that disabled people have the same prejudices about disability as non-disabled people: the research points to a hierarchy of impairment, ranking Deaf as the most ‘desirable’ impairment followed by Arthritis, Epilepsy, Cerebral Palsy, HIV/ Aids, Down’s syndrome and Schizophrenia amongst disabled people. These prejudices are almost identical to those held by the non-disabled sample, with the only difference being that Cerebral Palsy and HIV/Aids were placed in reverse order.

heterosexual activists plan on recruiting your children into their lifestyle

amberglow — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 20:40:14 -0800

The Heterosexual Agenda: Exposing The Myths --No longer satisfied with “mere acceptance” by our society, heterosexual political pressure groups have launched a well-planned, well-financed campaign, which, if left unchecked, threatens to destroy the most fundamental structures of American society. (actual report itself is a pdf from there--a takeoff on this stuff, which is NSFHumans)

...515 to material with a homosexual theme or “promoting homosexuality,” ...

amberglow — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 21:52:44 -0800

Banned Books Week -- 25th anniversary year. How to deal with a challenge, what you can do generally, and of course, lists, and more lists. Captain Underpants is a more recent entry, i notice.

Shouldn't retard be singular?

nooneyouknow — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 17:08:50 -0800

Caution: Retards In Area

Still, neither Nixon nor Reagan changed the division's procedures for hiring career staff

amberglow — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 12:53:17 -0800

"If anything, a civil rights background is considered a liability." Meet the politically-appointed career staffers of the Justice Dept.'s Civil Rights Division: ... the kinds of cases the Civil Rights Division is bringing have undergone a shift. The division is bringing fewer voting rights and employment cases involving systematic discrimination against African-Americans, and more alleging reverse discrimination against whites and religious discrimination against Christians. ... Thorough Boston Globe article on how the administration disbanded the hiring committee in 2002 to appoint lawyers with a very different vision of what civil rights are, and the ensuring and ongoing results.

"What if a person felt their religious view was that African Americans shouldn't mingle with Caucasians, or that women shouldn't work?"

amberglow — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 17:10:56 -0800

...a growing campaign to force public schools, state colleges and private workplaces to eliminate policies protecting gays and lesbians from harassment. ...Christian activist Gregory S. Baylor responds to such criticism angrily. He says he supports policies that protect people from discrimination based on race and gender. But he draws a distinction that infuriates gay rights activists when he argues that sexual orientation is different — a lifestyle choice, not an inborn trait. By equating homosexuality with race, Baylor said, tolerance policies put conservative evangelicals in the same category as racists. ... "Think how marginalized racists are," said Baylor, who directs the Christian Legal Society's Center for Law and Religious Freedom. "If we don't address this now, it will only get worse." Should Christians be able to sue for the right to not tolerate or abide by anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies meant to apply to all? Should they still be able to get school activity funding?

somos indios?

dhruva — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 21:21:36 -0800

El Indio in Hispanic proverbial speech "The proverbial speech of Hispanic America preserves, even today, numerous traces of the interaction between explorers, conquerors, or settlers and the native populations they found in the various regions of the so-called New World"