Anyway, lately I've been in a drawing mood. I'm doing lots of ancient Egyptians and fantasy people now, though I may return to dinosaurs in a few weeks.
College student
Thursday August 20th, 2009
I haven't done so in a couple of weeks.
Anyway, lately I've been in a drawing mood. I'm doing lots of ancient Egyptians and fantasy people now, though I may return to dinosaurs in a few weeks.
Anyway, lately I've been in a drawing mood. I'm doing lots of ancient Egyptians and fantasy people now, though I may return to dinosaurs in a few weeks.
Friday August 7th, 2009
Sara Robinson at Orcinus has written a post asserting that the conservative movement in America has taken on a nearly fascistic form. She cites a prominent scholar's analysis of how historical fascist movements evolve and compares it to today's conservative political developments.
Having read Orcinus for a while now, it has become very apparent to me that the far right has acted very unhinged ever since the possibility arose that Obama would become President. They've thrown many a childish insult at him: Muslim terrorist, black supremacist, socialist, etc. Some have even accused him of not being born in America even though he released a birth certificate proving he was born in Hawaii. For me, however, the most damning example of conservatives showing their ugly side was when the government released a report discussing right-wing extremists. The conservatives immediately accused the government of slandering conservatives, even though the report's focus clearly was on far-right extremists, not mainstream conservatives. That conservatives should feel so uncomfortable about a report targeting extremists says to me that they somehow identify with the extremists.
Will the conservative movement eventually evolve into a fascist movement? I cannot say for sure, as I haven't watched conservatives' behavior as closely as the Orcinus bloggers have. Even if they do become fascistic, however, I see room for optimism. My prediction is that the conservative attacks will grow so childish and volatile that they will lose the respect of most right-minded Americans, including a large percentage of their support base. At least, I hope that becomes the case.
Having read Orcinus for a while now, it has become very apparent to me that the far right has acted very unhinged ever since the possibility arose that Obama would become President. They've thrown many a childish insult at him: Muslim terrorist, black supremacist, socialist, etc. Some have even accused him of not being born in America even though he released a birth certificate proving he was born in Hawaii. For me, however, the most damning example of conservatives showing their ugly side was when the government released a report discussing right-wing extremists. The conservatives immediately accused the government of slandering conservatives, even though the report's focus clearly was on far-right extremists, not mainstream conservatives. That conservatives should feel so uncomfortable about a report targeting extremists says to me that they somehow identify with the extremists.
Will the conservative movement eventually evolve into a fascist movement? I cannot say for sure, as I haven't watched conservatives' behavior as closely as the Orcinus bloggers have. Even if they do become fascistic, however, I see room for optimism. My prediction is that the conservative attacks will grow so childish and volatile that they will lose the respect of most right-minded Americans, including a large percentage of their support base. At least, I hope that becomes the case.
Thursday August 6th, 2009
Man, I haven't posted for a long time on the subject of anthropology since my big Ancient Egypt essay.
If you've read that essay, you'd probably encountered the term "Afroasiatic", which denotes a language phylum that appears to have originated in Africa during the late Paleolithic. Well, there exist a handful of people who deny the phylum's African origin. One of these is a housewife by the name of Mathilda, who has a post on her blog "Mathilda's Anthropology" arguing for an Asian origin. She claims that proto-Afroasiatic has words for animals native to southwest Asia, not Africa. Unfortunately, she does not cite a source. I therefore decided to ask an actual linguist about whether proto-Afroasiatic does indeed have words for Asian animals. This is what the linguist, Christopher Ehert (who specializes in African languages) had to say in response to my inquiry:
So if there's no valid reconstruction of proto-Afroasiatic mentioning Asian animals out there, where is Mathilda getting her information? My suspicion is that she (pardon my language) pulled it out of her ass. Either that or she's relying on a discredited reconstruction. Whichever, it's odd that she does not cite the reconstruction she's using.
If you've read that essay, you'd probably encountered the term "Afroasiatic", which denotes a language phylum that appears to have originated in Africa during the late Paleolithic. Well, there exist a handful of people who deny the phylum's African origin. One of these is a housewife by the name of Mathilda, who has a post on her blog "Mathilda's Anthropology" arguing for an Asian origin. She claims that proto-Afroasiatic has words for animals native to southwest Asia, not Africa. Unfortunately, she does not cite a source. I therefore decided to ask an actual linguist about whether proto-Afroasiatic does indeed have words for Asian animals. This is what the linguist, Christopher Ehert (who specializes in African languages) had to say in response to my inquiry:
Dear Mr. Pilcher,
There are absolutely no valid reconstructions of terms for specifically Asian animals back to the proto-Afroasiatic language. Note the adjective 'specifically.'
One book on Afroasiatic reconstruction by Orel and Stolbova includes a number of proposed root terms, some of which probably do reconstruct fairly far back in Afroasiatic language history, which in one branch of the family or another refer to a sheep or a goat,but which in other branches (often not noted by Orel and Stolbova) refer to African antelope species.
There are also a very few terms which always denote goats or sheep but which are suspect as or can be demonstrated to be loanwords that spread long after the family diverged into branches. They indicate the diffusion of the animals from Asia but not of people.
There is a valid old root word for 'cow', but cows were a wild animal of the Sahara, probably as far south as Eritrea, as well as the regions from Europe to India. The presence of a name for the cow is thus not diagnostic of an extra-African origin for the family. In any case the term does not go back to the very earliest stage, the proto-Afroasiatic period.
A single domestic animal, the donkey, does have a validly reconstructible Afroasiatic root word, but the donkey's wild area was Africa, not Asia, and the donkey was domesticated by Afroasiatic speakers in Africa.
So if there's no valid reconstruction of proto-Afroasiatic mentioning Asian animals out there, where is Mathilda getting her information? My suspicion is that she (pardon my language) pulled it out of her ass. Either that or she's relying on a discredited reconstruction. Whichever, it's odd that she does not cite the reconstruction she's using.
Wednesday August 5th, 2009
Right now, I'm drawing dinosaurs with colors like those of modern day animals. Currently, I have:
A T. rex based on a harpy eagle
A Triceratops based on an okapi
A Deinonychus based on a colobus monkey
A T. rex based on a harpy eagle
A Triceratops based on an okapi
A Deinonychus based on a colobus monkey
Tuesday August 4th, 2009
Friday July 31st, 2009
This is an essay I wrote for my English class the past spring. The essay discusses modern-day anti-black racism and discrimination. It got a pretty good grade---in fact I recall my teacher wanted a copy of it so she could use it as a model for future classes.
Ever since Barack Obama was considered a viable candidate for the Presidency of the United States of America, there has been a lot of babbling about the supposed “post-racial” era we have entered. Supposedly, now that a black man has run for office and won it, racism, that ancient evil that has plagued our country since its founding, is no longer a serious issue in America. Now, say the people who throw “post-racial” around, we can all come together and forget the racial lines that divided us in the past.
It certainly does seem that overt racism is less widespread in the current decade than in preceding ones. No longer do black people have to sit at the back of the bus. No longer do whites use “nigger” as if it were a household term. And rarely if ever do whites threaten blacks with violence if they stay in predominantly white communities after sundown, as was once common throughout the US (Loewen 2005).
While these facts are irrefutably evidence of some degree of progress in race relations over the last forty years, to conclude that we have entered a post-racial era, that we have completely rid ourselves of racism, is incorrect. Just because we don’t express our racism as openly as we once did does not mean we have shed our prejudices. In fact there is empirical evidence showing that racial prejudice is still widespread in America.
Consider, for instance, a survey taken in 2001 which measured how widely espoused certain anti-black stereotypes (e.g. laziness, aggressiveness, or preference for living on welfare as opposed to working) are among white Americans. The survey found that approximately sixty percent of white Americans admitted that they held at least one negative stereotype about blacks (Bobo 2004).
It is important to note, however, that surveys like the one just cited measure not so much how commonly prejudicial views are held as to how often people are willing to admit them when confronted by someone else. It is therefore possible that many of the poll’s respondents were lying about the anti-black stereotypes they held, which would make the poll’s results an underestimation of the degree of prejudice rampant among white Americans.
Fortunately, psychologists in recent years have invented special tests to determine the degree of prejudice held within people’s heads. A detailed explanation of these tests’ methodologies is beyond the scope of this paper, but basically what they do is measure how quickly people will associate certain words with certain images. For instance, test-takers take less time to associate negative words with images of insects than they do positive words, because of an anti-insect bias within our culture.
These very tests find that almost ninety percent of white test-takers more quickly associate negative words with photos of black people than positive words, and more quickly associate positive words with photos of white people than negative words (Vedantam 2005). The implication here is that most white Americans more naturally have negative than positive thoughts about their black compatriots.
Readers at this point may ask why this is relevant. Even if so many white people still hold prejudices and stereotypes in their subconsciousness, they may claim, such whites may not necessarily express those prejudices openly or discriminate against blacks. While it is true that not everyone with bigoted thoughts shows their bigotry, there is still evidence that many whites do let their anti-black bias affect their treatment of blacks. To name only a few pieces of this evidence:
• One study found that, adjusting for qualifications and skills, black job applicants without criminal records were less likely to be called back by an employer than white applicants with a criminal record (Prager 2003).
• Another study, this time on housing discrimination, found that blacks are 60 percent more likely to have a mortgage rejected than whites, even after adjusting for 38 different factors that could affect the likelihood of having a mortgage rejected (Turner and Skidmore 1999).
• Black men with college degrees earn 20-25 percent less than comparable white men of the same age (Carnoy 1994).
• Doctors presented with identical patient histories and symptoms are more likely to refer white patients to advanced medical treatment than black patients (Schwartz et al. 1999).
• Policemen are more than twice as likely to search vehicles driven by black people than white people even though whites are more than twice as likely to be found in possession of illegal contraband. Blacks also constitute thirty-four percent of arrests for violent crimes even though they only commit around twenty-eight percent of violent crimes. An even greater disparity is found with regards to drug-related arrests; although blacks only constitute thirteen percent of users and sixteen percent of dealers, they make up more than a third for all drug-related arrests (Wise 2005).
Some readers, despite being confronted with this evidence, may ask, if racism and discrimination are really so prevalent in America, what can explain the success of certain black individuals, such as Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, or Barack Obama, in American society? My answer to this question is that these blacks achieved their success in spite of our racial discrimination. They had enough gumption, or perhaps luck, to overcome the barriers that stood in their way. That they ultimately got ahead does not mean that those barriers do not exist.
Some may also wonder what can be done to solve the racial disparities that still exist. Obviously, admonishing white people for being racist and discriminating, the tactic favored by the politically correct in the last four decades, has not destroyed the disparities; it has only made the discriminatory less honest about their prejudice.
A better solution would be some sort of affirmative action program. Affirmative action is admittedly not too popular with whites, thanks to its demonization by conservative rhetoricians as “reverse discrimination”, but what else could protect blacks from “traditional” discrimination but a program that guarantees that they would have adequate access to good jobs, good health care, good housing, etc? Without affirmative action working in their favor, blacks will still suffer from prevalent anti-black bias.
Before we can come up with any effective solution to the problem of racism, however, we must acknowledge that we have a problem to begin with. As much as we lie to ourselves about it, we do not live in a post-racial America.
Works Cited
Bobo, Lawrence. "Inequalities That Endure? Racial Ideology, American Politics, and the Peculiar Role of the Social Sciences." The Changing Terrain of Race and Ethnicity. Ed. Maria Krysan and Amanda Lewis. N.p.: Russel Sage Foundation, 2004. 19-20.
Carnoy, Martin. Faded Dreams: The Politics and Economics of Race in America. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Loewen, James W. Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism. N.p.: New Press, 2005.
Pager, Devah. "The Mark of a Criminal Record." American Journal of Sociology 108.5 (2003): 937-975.
Schwartz, Lisa M., Steven Woloshin, and H. Gilbert Welch. "Misunderstandings about the Effects of Race and Sex on Physicians' Referrals for Cardiac Catheterization." New England Journal of Medicine 341 (1999): 279-83.
Turner, Margery Austin, and Felicity Skidmore. "Mortgage Lending Discrimination: A Review of Existing Evidence." Urban Institute Press (June 1999).
Vedantam, Shankar. "See No Bias." Washington Post 23 Jan. 2005: W12.
Wise, Tim. "Excuses, Excuses: How the Right Rationalizes Racial Inequality in America (Part Two: Criminal Justice)." The Black Commentator 19 May 2005..
Ever since Barack Obama was considered a viable candidate for the Presidency of the United States of America, there has been a lot of babbling about the supposed “post-racial” era we have entered. Supposedly, now that a black man has run for office and won it, racism, that ancient evil that has plagued our country since its founding, is no longer a serious issue in America. Now, say the people who throw “post-racial” around, we can all come together and forget the racial lines that divided us in the past.
It certainly does seem that overt racism is less widespread in the current decade than in preceding ones. No longer do black people have to sit at the back of the bus. No longer do whites use “nigger” as if it were a household term. And rarely if ever do whites threaten blacks with violence if they stay in predominantly white communities after sundown, as was once common throughout the US (Loewen 2005).
While these facts are irrefutably evidence of some degree of progress in race relations over the last forty years, to conclude that we have entered a post-racial era, that we have completely rid ourselves of racism, is incorrect. Just because we don’t express our racism as openly as we once did does not mean we have shed our prejudices. In fact there is empirical evidence showing that racial prejudice is still widespread in America.
Consider, for instance, a survey taken in 2001 which measured how widely espoused certain anti-black stereotypes (e.g. laziness, aggressiveness, or preference for living on welfare as opposed to working) are among white Americans. The survey found that approximately sixty percent of white Americans admitted that they held at least one negative stereotype about blacks (Bobo 2004).
It is important to note, however, that surveys like the one just cited measure not so much how commonly prejudicial views are held as to how often people are willing to admit them when confronted by someone else. It is therefore possible that many of the poll’s respondents were lying about the anti-black stereotypes they held, which would make the poll’s results an underestimation of the degree of prejudice rampant among white Americans.
Fortunately, psychologists in recent years have invented special tests to determine the degree of prejudice held within people’s heads. A detailed explanation of these tests’ methodologies is beyond the scope of this paper, but basically what they do is measure how quickly people will associate certain words with certain images. For instance, test-takers take less time to associate negative words with images of insects than they do positive words, because of an anti-insect bias within our culture.
These very tests find that almost ninety percent of white test-takers more quickly associate negative words with photos of black people than positive words, and more quickly associate positive words with photos of white people than negative words (Vedantam 2005). The implication here is that most white Americans more naturally have negative than positive thoughts about their black compatriots.
Readers at this point may ask why this is relevant. Even if so many white people still hold prejudices and stereotypes in their subconsciousness, they may claim, such whites may not necessarily express those prejudices openly or discriminate against blacks. While it is true that not everyone with bigoted thoughts shows their bigotry, there is still evidence that many whites do let their anti-black bias affect their treatment of blacks. To name only a few pieces of this evidence:
• One study found that, adjusting for qualifications and skills, black job applicants without criminal records were less likely to be called back by an employer than white applicants with a criminal record (Prager 2003).
• Another study, this time on housing discrimination, found that blacks are 60 percent more likely to have a mortgage rejected than whites, even after adjusting for 38 different factors that could affect the likelihood of having a mortgage rejected (Turner and Skidmore 1999).
• Black men with college degrees earn 20-25 percent less than comparable white men of the same age (Carnoy 1994).
• Doctors presented with identical patient histories and symptoms are more likely to refer white patients to advanced medical treatment than black patients (Schwartz et al. 1999).
• Policemen are more than twice as likely to search vehicles driven by black people than white people even though whites are more than twice as likely to be found in possession of illegal contraband. Blacks also constitute thirty-four percent of arrests for violent crimes even though they only commit around twenty-eight percent of violent crimes. An even greater disparity is found with regards to drug-related arrests; although blacks only constitute thirteen percent of users and sixteen percent of dealers, they make up more than a third for all drug-related arrests (Wise 2005).
Some readers, despite being confronted with this evidence, may ask, if racism and discrimination are really so prevalent in America, what can explain the success of certain black individuals, such as Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, or Barack Obama, in American society? My answer to this question is that these blacks achieved their success in spite of our racial discrimination. They had enough gumption, or perhaps luck, to overcome the barriers that stood in their way. That they ultimately got ahead does not mean that those barriers do not exist.
Some may also wonder what can be done to solve the racial disparities that still exist. Obviously, admonishing white people for being racist and discriminating, the tactic favored by the politically correct in the last four decades, has not destroyed the disparities; it has only made the discriminatory less honest about their prejudice.
A better solution would be some sort of affirmative action program. Affirmative action is admittedly not too popular with whites, thanks to its demonization by conservative rhetoricians as “reverse discrimination”, but what else could protect blacks from “traditional” discrimination but a program that guarantees that they would have adequate access to good jobs, good health care, good housing, etc? Without affirmative action working in their favor, blacks will still suffer from prevalent anti-black bias.
Before we can come up with any effective solution to the problem of racism, however, we must acknowledge that we have a problem to begin with. As much as we lie to ourselves about it, we do not live in a post-racial America.
Works Cited
Bobo, Lawrence. "Inequalities That Endure? Racial Ideology, American Politics, and the Peculiar Role of the Social Sciences." The Changing Terrain of Race and Ethnicity. Ed. Maria Krysan and Amanda Lewis. N.p.: Russel Sage Foundation, 2004. 19-20.
Carnoy, Martin. Faded Dreams: The Politics and Economics of Race in America. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Loewen, James W. Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism. N.p.: New Press, 2005.
Pager, Devah. "The Mark of a Criminal Record." American Journal of Sociology 108.5 (2003): 937-975.
Schwartz, Lisa M., Steven Woloshin, and H. Gilbert Welch. "Misunderstandings about the Effects of Race and Sex on Physicians' Referrals for Cardiac Catheterization." New England Journal of Medicine 341 (1999): 279-83.
Turner, Margery Austin, and Felicity Skidmore. "Mortgage Lending Discrimination: A Review of Existing Evidence." Urban Institute Press (June 1999).
Vedantam, Shankar. "See No Bias." Washington Post 23 Jan. 2005: W12.
Wise, Tim. "Excuses, Excuses: How the Right Rationalizes Racial Inequality in America (Part Two: Criminal Justice)." The Black Commentator 19 May 2005.
Thursday July 30th, 2009
They've jailed a woman in Sudan and threatened her with lashes for the crime of wearing pants.
I normally consider myself a liberal, pro-multicultural person, but I have had it with the Muslim fundamentalists. They're a bunch of violent, misogynistic barbarians who get their morality from some millennium-old book. Their kind should have disappeared centuries ago.
I also happen to hate Christian fundies, Jewish fundies, Hindu fundies, Buddhist fundies...all kinds of fundies. They are nothing but obstacles to social progress.
I normally consider myself a liberal, pro-multicultural person, but I have had it with the Muslim fundamentalists. They're a bunch of violent, misogynistic barbarians who get their morality from some millennium-old book. Their kind should have disappeared centuries ago.
I also happen to hate Christian fundies, Jewish fundies, Hindu fundies, Buddhist fundies...all kinds of fundies. They are nothing but obstacles to social progress.
Monday July 27th, 2009
The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better
The book's argument is that more egalitarian societies (i.e. societies with a smaller income gap between the rich and the poor) are healthier and suffer fewer social problems (crime, teen pregnancy, substance abuse, etc.) than more unequal societies such as Great Britain and the USA. Judging from the reviews, it seems to have very compelling evidence. I should look for it next time I visit a bookstore.
The book's argument is that more egalitarian societies (i.e. societies with a smaller income gap between the rich and the poor) are healthier and suffer fewer social problems (crime, teen pregnancy, substance abuse, etc.) than more unequal societies such as Great Britain and the USA. Judging from the reviews, it seems to have very compelling evidence. I should look for it next time I visit a bookstore.
