Boycott California?

Prop. 8 passed in California on November 4th. The same day that swept Barack Obama into office also saw the first constitutional amendment to California's state constitution that eliminated a civil right already accorded to California citizens. As you probably already know, Prop 8 amended California's constitution to outlaw same-sex marriage, and was a reaction to a May 2008 state supreme court decision that legalized marriage equality.

What's an equity-minded sociologist to do? The Pacific Sociological Association and the American Sociological Association both have their annual meetings scheduled in California. The National Communication Association just announced that 300+ members are boycotting their annual meetings because they are being held in a San Diego conference hotel whose owner contributed big bucks to a Yes on Prop 8 organization. (Read more about this here: http://chronicle.com/news/article/5510/scholars-boycott-annual-meeting-of-national-communication-association ). I'm tempted to suggest that PSA and ASA move their meetings away from California, in effect to boycott the state. Several years ago, a tourism boycott of Alaska successfully put pressure on state officials who advocated in favor of aerial wolf extermination. In the past, the ASA has moved the meeting in support of workers. What about in support of marriage equality?

I am not a big proponent of marriage. In fact, I disagree with the assumption that tax, inheritance, and health benefits should in any way be distributed according to marital status. But the fact is that the California supreme court in May 2008 legalized marriage equality, and thousands of people got married. Then a bare majority--52.5% at last count--voted away this civil right. As far as I know, this is the first time in California history that the state's electorate voted away a civil right.

I find it notable that rightwing religious organizations were the primary money and energy resource for Prop 8. I have read several articles that say that most of the money for the Yes on 8 movement originated outside of California. So, obviously, this means that Californians can be swayed by outsiders. So I think that a boycott of California might work. After all, money talks, eh?
Photo of anti-Prop 8 protest from http://xml.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-me-prop816-2008nov16,1,2339869.story?page=1

The n-word

Alisha recounts an intense moment when she came to a new understanding of the n-word.

A bit ominous

Mika describes the incident that pushed him towards an anti-racist activist viewpoint.

I thought it was dead

Emmanuel remembers an incident during his senior year in high school that changed the way he thought about racism.

Eye opener

Nate recounts how being in Idaho brought him face-to-face with racism and a life-changing experience.

That's when race affects us

Melissa tells about color from the eyes of a four year old family member.

Opened my eyes

Unika tells another race story, this time about how a semester at another university opened her eyes to a different reality.

Awakening

Korey talks about how college courses helped her to understand inequality, and challenged what she had learned as a child.

I had to learn that

Clare recalls how she learned about ethnicity in her own family, highlighting how we learn to think about difference, that race-based thinking is anything but natural.

Even now

Unika describes how race-based thinking extends even to family matters.

Parts of who I am

Jessa talks about the ordinariness, and extraordiniariness, of ethnicity.

What are you

Amy recounts being asked about her ethnicity, and being confused about what that meant.

Solid as concrete

Josh relates how some of the people he knows in rural Arkansas think of the racial divide as timeless and unchanging.

Always aware of race

Brian describes how he is always aware of race, and has been since he was a boy visiting family members in Milwaukee.

Race: why?

As part of our Race Stories Project, Jing asks the question: what is race? But more importantly, why?

"I just never know that… what is race? You know, I just never understand it. Why people have, why we have, why society has to divide us. I just don’t know the reasons why. I know there are differences between us. White, black, brown, anyhow. I just don’t know why people need the categories. I just don’t understand why."

What white means

Kari describes the moment she first realized that white meant something.

"So I had a hard time coming up with a race story. I’ve never had… I’ve seen it, but I’ve never been a part of it. So I could, um, when I was trying to come up with a race story, I was thinking about my family, and situations with them. But it wasn’t really my story. It was just a… our past, I guess. Um… but I guess the first time I became conscious of it being an issue of what it meant to be white, I was working down in Philadelphia in an inner-city school program through Americorps. And one of the team members that I worked with, she was black and she was very light skinned. And um… I didn’t really know what that meant."

There is color

As part of our Race Stories Project, Heather tells about the incident that made her see color for the first time.

"That was probably the point in my life where I was like, you know, there is color. Like there are differences among people and just because of the way someone looks, apparently, you know, other people will hate for it."

Truck Update

Someone liberated the bumpersticker from the Dodge Ram that sports the Confederate flag license plate. It wasn't me, I swear.

White supremacy in the parking lot

You might be surprised if I told you that this truck, with its Confederate flag license plate, is located not in the Deep South, but in a university parking lot in Fairbanks, Alaska. The Confederate battle flag is the most widely recognized symbol of white supremacy, and it is quite common in North Carolina, my home. But I do not recall ever seeing it on a license plate in Alaska until this truck showed up earlier this fall. (There is also an extremely sexist bumper sticker on the truck, and perhaps I will take up the issue about the bumper sticker in another post.) Always sociologically curious, of course I searched for analysis of the Confederate flag in the sociological literature. A recent post in the Contexts blog notes that there seems to be a revival of the Confederate flag, or a "resurgence", as the author puts it. The author theorizes that the resurgence of the flag is backlash against globalization and immigration as much as it is a symbol of persistent racism. I wonder if the owner of the truck is knowingly participating in a backlash movement against globalization. Or deliberately trying to flaunt hus racist beliefs. Many Confederate flag apologists claim that the flag is about "heritage, not hate." Regardless of the owner's beliefs about white supremacy or the Confederate flag, I wonder if the owner knows that hu is violating a state statute by not displaying both license plates (A.S. 28.10.171). It's an $85 fine, BTW.

Unruly Soc Students Strike Again!

On April 22, some sociology students chalked the sidewalk to commemorate Equal Pay Day, the day in late April when women's average salaries catch up to the average salaries men earned by December 31 of the previous year. Click below to catch them in the act.