white weekend links

"Web Site Uses MLK Name to Attack Him" (Ty Tagami @ The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
Type the name “Martin Luther King” into the popular Google Internet search engine, and find a surprise: among the expected university and newspaper links, one site—-the third highest ranked link—-stands out.

It attacks the personal life of the slain civil rights leader and, by extension, the movement of nonviolence he championed. It rehashes allegations of plagiarism and adultery and accuses King of fraud, claiming he was not a “legitimate reverend” or “bonafide Ph.D.” It also invites visitors to learn about civil rights by reading the work of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.

The site, martinlutherking.org, is run by a white supremacist group called Stormfront, described by one watchdog organization as the largest “hate group” online. It has used King’s name for its Web address since 1999. . . .

The site continues to rank high on Google —- even ahead of the King Center’s own Web site (www.thekingcenter.org).


"Dakota 38 Riders Gallop through Flandreau" (Moody County Enterprise)
Jim Miller, a 60–year–old Vietnam veteran, Lakota Spiritual Leader and a descendant of the Dakota Sioux Tribe, said he dreamt of himself on a horse, traveling east. . . .

Miller, who lives on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in Porcupine, S.D., had his dream in 2005. In the dream, he traveled 330 miles on horseback, eventually coming to a riverbank in Minnesota where he saw 38 of his own ancestors hanged. Miller then realized that he had dreamed of an event that took place in 1862.

It was the Dakota Sioux Uprising, which ended in the largest mass execution ever recorded in U.S. history. On Dec. 26, 1862, 38 Dakota men were hanged in what is now Mankato, Minn. Also, a federal policy and a newly formed state resulted in the removal of Dakota people from their lands, scattering them from Saskatchewan to Nebraska.

Miller stepped forward with his vision in December of 2005, and riders from several tribes rode over from the Lower Sioux Indian Community near Morton, Minn., to the site of the execution in Mankato. The purpose of the ride was to commemorate the men, women and children who were forced to march across the cold winter prairies to the hanging at a large concentration camp at Fort Snelling, Minn. The event became known as the Dakota 38 Reconciliation Ride. . . .

“We are doing this so our kids don’t lose their culture and their customs,” he said. “We will keep going, not only to honor the dream, but to show that our people were marched first, out of Minnesota in the wintertime. It’s been a humbling experience for me.”

In addition to preserving culture, Miller explains that the rituals at the end of the ride are about forgiveness and forgiving.

In the final stretch through Mankato, the riders gather around a buffalo monument, where they pray for their ancestors. A rider-less horse carries four offerings of sacred food, which Miller said is meant to discourage negativity.

“The negativity then goes to that horse,” he said. “It creates brotherhood and unity, linking a new relationship with white people. It shows we are the first ones to forgive, to apologize. We want to be forgiven too, to be able to live out our lives in harmony.”


"My Triumph Over Kwanzaa!" (Ann Coulter @ Human Events; Adware Popup Alert, in some browsers, though not in my version of Mozilla Firefox--thanks for the alert, Restructure!)
This is a holiday for white liberals -- the kind of holiday Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn probably celebrate. Meanwhile, most blacks celebrate Christmas.

Kwanzaa liberates no one; Christianity liberates everyone, proclaiming that we are all equal before God. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28). Not surprisingly, it was practitioners of that faith who were at the forefront of the abolitionist and civil rights movements.

Next year this time, we'll find out if our new "Halfrican" president is really black or just another white liberal. If he's black enough to say the "brothers should pull up their pants," surely Obama can just say no to Kwanzaa.


"Which Race Has the Most Beautiful Women?" (Renee @ Womanist Musings)
I was reading topix when I came across a questionnaire. Today's question was which race has the most beautiful women.



Surprise, surprise look who made the top of the list. Even in an anonymous poll black and indigenous women end up finishing last with white women on top. We're colour blind and post-racial right? Is it any wonder that top models featured in magazines are largely white unless there is some sort of ethnic feature (think Italian Vogue)?


"Influx of Black Renters Raises Tensions in Bay Area" (Paul Elias @ Associated Press)
As more and more black renters began moving into this mostly white San Francisco Bay Area suburb a few years ago, neighbors started complaining about loud parties, mean pit bulls, blaring car radios, prostitution, drug dealing and muggings of schoolchildren.

In 2006, as the influx reached its peak, the police department formed a special crime-fighting unit to deal with the complaints, and authorities began cracking down on tenants in federally subsidized housing.

Now that police unit is the focus of lawsuits by black families who allege the city of 100,000 is orchestrating a campaign to drive them out.

"A lot of people are moving out here looking for a better place to live," said Karen Coleman, a mother of three who came here five years ago from a blighted neighborhood in nearby Pittsburg. "We are trying to raise our kids like everyone else. But they don't want us here."


"Isn't It Cute When Kids Sound Racist?" (Gwen @ Sociological Images)

[In this video,] the parents clearly think it’s funny that when their toddler daughter says “sparkling wiggles,” it sounds like she’s saying something very different . . .

What struck me, though, is the parents egging her on to repeat it, and to say things like “Get a job, sparkling wiggles!” To them, the fact that when she says “sparkling wiggles” it comes out sounding like a racial epithet is funny and endearing, enough so that it’s worth getting her to repeat sentences with the phrase in it.

This is an example of what I think of as casual racism. By casual, I don’t mean unimportant or harmless. What I mean by that is the type of prejudiced behavior and language that doesn’t necessarily reflect a deep-seated hatred or extremely bitter attitude, but rather is a taken-for-granted way of acting or speaking about non-Whites.


"What I've Learned from Being Called a Racist" (tupelo lights @ Beyond White Guilt/Debunking White)
Someone once said that calling a white person a racist is the only word guaranteed to make them as angry as calling a POC by a racial slur. While I don't like the way that comparison calls up a lot of so-called "reversed racism" ideas, I do appreciate that statement for the way it highlights two aspects of white privilege:

1. That we have the power (among other things) to hurt POC with racist language.
2. That we would rather die than admit we have such racist power.

During a week of anti-racist action on my campus last year there was an event called Speak-up/Speak-out, an open forum where POC and some white allies spoke out about issues of racism on campus. One white friend got up and said that, having gone through 12-step programs for substance abuse, he then started using the same language for talking about privilege. Into a microphone on the main lawn of our campus he said: "Hi, my name is Steve, and I'm a racist."



"Twincredibles" (The Sun)
Black and white twins Hayleigh and Lauren Durrant proudly hold their new sisters Leah and Miya — who incredibly are ALSO twins with different coloured skin.

Their mixed-race parents Dean Durrant and Alison Spooner repeated the two-tone miracle after a seven-year gap.