- Didier Fassin from When Bodies Remember
November 7, 2010
Readings: Etiologies
As Randall Packard and Paul Epstein have written, “The medical research community expected the social scientist to adhere to the dominant behavioral model. Constructed in this way, the question immediately narrowed the range of sociological data relevant for the discussion. It became not: ‘What is the social context within which HIV transmission occurs in Africa’? but rather: ‘What are the patterns of behavior which are placing the Africans at risk of infection?’ While the first construction would have allowed for open-ended discussion of a wide range of social, political and economic conditions that might be affecting health levels in Africa, the latter formulation quickly narrowed discussion to an inquiry into the ‘customs of the natives.’” Not only is this approach to the problem ineffective, as many studies conducted since have shown, it is also unjust, because it leads to laying responsibility for their affliction on people with AIDS themselves, a classic reversal of the order of things that consists in “blaming the victim.”
September 26, 2010
Conspicuous Aliens
In my dream, I'm waiting next to my car. I'm waiting because some people that I've never yet want to borrow it. In my dream, it made more sense why I was waiting and how this whole borrowing thing worked - maybe it was some variant of Flexcar of something.
A family shows up to pick up the car and I ask them if they don't mind dropping me off nearby. I explain that I would be grateful if they helped me although I could manage either way. They seem congenial enough and agree to take me. We climb into the car, I get in the back seat with the kids and the mother while the father sits in the front - on the passenger side. No one gets in the driver's seat.
Then, the car starts driving.
I get suspicious. Mainly because the car is diving but no one is in the driver's seat.
The father is sitting on the passenger side and smiling contently. The whole family sits calmly while the car drives itself. It takes me a moment to realize why all this is happening but I come to the obvious conclusion fairly quickly. These people are aliens, not humans at all. To test my theory, I say a couple things in alien.
In a buzzy insect-like alien language:
"What are you doing? That's right, I speak alien and I know you understand me."
Now, they start to glance at each other nervously.
"Look", I say, "I know you're aliens. That's fine. But don't you realize that when you drive a car someone is actually supposed to drive the car? You can't do it like this, you'll get pulled over. You people are so bad at this. Where did you learn about humans anyway? Seriously, if you get caught it'll be straight to the alien autopsy for the lot of you. I don't even know if I want you to borrow my car now."
End of dream
A family shows up to pick up the car and I ask them if they don't mind dropping me off nearby. I explain that I would be grateful if they helped me although I could manage either way. They seem congenial enough and agree to take me. We climb into the car, I get in the back seat with the kids and the mother while the father sits in the front - on the passenger side. No one gets in the driver's seat.
Then, the car starts driving.
I get suspicious. Mainly because the car is diving but no one is in the driver's seat.
The father is sitting on the passenger side and smiling contently. The whole family sits calmly while the car drives itself. It takes me a moment to realize why all this is happening but I come to the obvious conclusion fairly quickly. These people are aliens, not humans at all. To test my theory, I say a couple things in alien.
In a buzzy insect-like alien language:
"What are you doing? That's right, I speak alien and I know you understand me."
Now, they start to glance at each other nervously.
"Look", I say, "I know you're aliens. That's fine. But don't you realize that when you drive a car someone is actually supposed to drive the car? You can't do it like this, you'll get pulled over. You people are so bad at this. Where did you learn about humans anyway? Seriously, if you get caught it'll be straight to the alien autopsy for the lot of you. I don't even know if I want you to borrow my car now."
End of dream
September 11, 2010
Readings: Modern Parents
The first enemy was sugar, then sweets and biscuits, then brands such as Coca Cola, and bigger temptations such as Barbie dolls and the ubiquitous gun: ‘an unceasing struggle between what is regarded as the world of nature and the artificial world of commodity materialism’.* The battles over diet and gender are regarded as efforts to resist commercialism and consumerism, efforts that invariably end first in capitulation and then in the withdrawal that characterises the grandparental generation, who find it easier to allow the child freedom to choose its own style...
Parents do not give up without a struggle, within which their concept of biology plays a major role. It is very common for such parents to insist that their infants have an allergy to anything artificial. It is as though the infants’ bodies have antennae attuned to the mothers’ ideology of nature. Infants are said to come out in spots as soon as they ingest any kind of additive or the wrong E-number. If the children do not oblige (with spots) then the parents may claim these additives cause behavioural problems, which is a harder claim to contest.
=====
* Miller, Daniel. 1997. How infants grow mothers in North London. Theory, Culture and Society 14: 67 –88.
Parents do not give up without a struggle, within which their concept of biology plays a major role. It is very common for such parents to insist that their infants have an allergy to anything artificial. It is as though the infants’ bodies have antennae attuned to the mothers’ ideology of nature. Infants are said to come out in spots as soon as they ingest any kind of additive or the wrong E-number. If the children do not oblige (with spots) then the parents may claim these additives cause behavioural problems, which is a harder claim to contest.
- Marilyn Strathern from "Kinship, Law and the Unexpected"
=====
* Miller, Daniel. 1997. How infants grow mothers in North London. Theory, Culture and Society 14: 67 –88.
May 17, 2010
Happy Late Mother's Day
Consider this: In American politics today, the “perfect” mother is one who does not work and stays home with her children. Unless she’s poor. Poor women who want to stay home with their children are called lazy, welfare cheats. If you’re poor, you can only be a good mother by working.
- Lisa Wade in sociologicalimages
May 7, 2010
February 18, 2010
February 11, 2010
January 22, 2010
January 5, 2010
Readings: Foreign Investment
Investments in emerging markets have done better than investments in the U.S. in the 2000s. China and Japan have continued to buy U.S. debt, not because they are impressed with Silicon Valley's growth potential, but in order to cripple American manufacturing by keeping the dollar artificially high and the yuan and the yen artificially low. Their debt purchases are part of their strategic industrial policies on behalf of their own export-oriented manufacturers, not a vote of confidence in future American economic dynamism.
- Michael Lind in The Clintonites Were Wrong
December 16, 2009
December 11, 2009
War is Peace
Dear President Obama,
I hate to break it to you but a non-violent movement could have halted Hitler's armies. A robust German peace movement would have stopped WWII before it started.
I hate to break it to you but a non-violent movement could have halted Hitler's armies. A robust German peace movement would have stopped WWII before it started.
December 7, 2009
Where Have all the Fishmongers Gone
My brother keeps talking about how much he misses his days in London when he had a butcher and a fishmonger on his block.
November 29, 2009
November 19, 2009
Hang It Up and Hang It Out
Earlier today, I made the hang up gesture and said "click" to emphasize it.
Then, I spent about ten minutes explaining to the 22 year old that I was talking about how I wasn't flashing a gang sign and how, in the old days, we had to literally hang up the phone in order to hang up the phone.
(photo via nypl)
Then, I spent about ten minutes explaining to the 22 year old that I was talking about how I wasn't flashing a gang sign and how, in the old days, we had to literally hang up the phone in order to hang up the phone.
(photo via nypl)
November 18, 2009
Bicycle as Doomsday Machine
In fact millions of pedestrians, standing at crosswalks, have experienced real terror, exposed as they now are to the mercy and moderation of bicycle riders, people whose lawlessness and viciousness are a matter of record...
Not only are bicycles dangerous, they are as antiquated a form of transportation as the rickshaw. In no advanced city on earth will you find civilized people cycling to work. The urban cyclist is generally a crank, either profoundly antisocial or hopelessly narcissistic and following the strenuous life in hopes of achieving immortality or a legendary sex life.- Emmett Tyrrell Jr. in the Indianapolis Star Op Ed circa 1980
(via Andrew Leonard via Copenhagenize)
November 12, 2009
Race Words and Nationalities
I caught a really neat post over at language log today. Turns out, the term "darkies" is not offensive to South African blacks. They often use it to refer to themselves and are not offended by it. Well, when some South African blacks started using "darkies" on twitter things got a little messy and feeling were hurt. Kinda cool how this global interweb is allowing us to learn about each other while we insult each other.
Anyway, in an earlier post, I featured a video about the black middle class. These things interest me. The stereotype of what it means to be black can easily be broken by recognizing that being black can mean so many different things.
Where I live in DC, there are a lot of east African immigrants - many 1st generation from Ethiopian, Somalia and Kenya. Their English is fine but accented and they all speak languages that I don't recognize. I am constantly fascinated watching the interactions between these people and the black people who have grown up in DC. There's a strange mix of familiarity and awkwardness through a lot of these interactions like if you met a relative from another country that you've never met before.
This is the exact reason that I don't use the term African American. This term really washes over the differences in experience between an Ethiopian immigrant from an upper middle class background whose first language Amharic and an working class American who is black. Most Americans that are "African American" have about as much to do with Africa as I do (which is to say very little). As I understand race in this country, it is not about culture or heritage or genetics it is about the color of your skin and to a much lesser extent the way you talk and the way you dress. I'm pretty sure that race is skin deep. Of course, what you do with your race, how you incorporate it into your identity is much more complex.
Think for a minute about Barack Obama. Here's a guy whose mother was a white lady from Kansas and his biological father was a black man from Kenya. He was born in Hawaii and raised in Indonesia by his mother and his step father, an Indonesian man. He went to high school in LA and college in New York City then law school in Boston and a political career in Chicago. Now, why the hell is this guy African American? Is it because his father, whom he only met once in his life was from Kenya? Yeah. That makes sense.
Anyway, in an earlier post, I featured a video about the black middle class. These things interest me. The stereotype of what it means to be black can easily be broken by recognizing that being black can mean so many different things.
Where I live in DC, there are a lot of east African immigrants - many 1st generation from Ethiopian, Somalia and Kenya. Their English is fine but accented and they all speak languages that I don't recognize. I am constantly fascinated watching the interactions between these people and the black people who have grown up in DC. There's a strange mix of familiarity and awkwardness through a lot of these interactions like if you met a relative from another country that you've never met before.
This is the exact reason that I don't use the term African American. This term really washes over the differences in experience between an Ethiopian immigrant from an upper middle class background whose first language Amharic and an working class American who is black. Most Americans that are "African American" have about as much to do with Africa as I do (which is to say very little). As I understand race in this country, it is not about culture or heritage or genetics it is about the color of your skin and to a much lesser extent the way you talk and the way you dress. I'm pretty sure that race is skin deep. Of course, what you do with your race, how you incorporate it into your identity is much more complex.
Think for a minute about Barack Obama. Here's a guy whose mother was a white lady from Kansas and his biological father was a black man from Kenya. He was born in Hawaii and raised in Indonesia by his mother and his step father, an Indonesian man. He went to high school in LA and college in New York City then law school in Boston and a political career in Chicago. Now, why the hell is this guy African American? Is it because his father, whom he only met once in his life was from Kenya? Yeah. That makes sense.
November 2, 2009
October 29, 2009
Consent
Leave it to Dan Savage to find this guy:
(Warning, this video contains Dan Savage and the types of things that he usually talks about)
This is the best counter to anyone who thinks that homosexuality is a gateway to bestiality - a man who has regular sex with a horse and also happens to be appalled by the thought of being gay.
(Warning, this video contains Dan Savage and the types of things that he usually talks about)
This is the best counter to anyone who thinks that homosexuality is a gateway to bestiality - a man who has regular sex with a horse and also happens to be appalled by the thought of being gay.
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