Being Conscious of Your Own Race and Fitting In

An original version posted on 10/11/2008 as "Unconsciousness, Consciousness, Popular Discourse, Race, and the Presidential Election" @ throwascrewinit.blogspot.com

When I think of the word "consciousness", I think of Mos Def's line in his Close to the Edge Freestyle on the Chappelle Show.

So, stop with the nonsense, like he conscious
I'm just awake dawg, I'm doin' great dawg

He was talking about "conscious", meaning a state of knowing what's going on. He says "being conscious" is not really a state worthy of praise or congratulated for; it's just him simply being awake. By implication, this means he's noticing things.

Consciousness, specifically human consciousness was the main topic in the book the User Illusion by Tor Norretander.

The main thing I got from the book was that 80% of what we do is done unconsciously. Breathing, heart rate, thoughts, especially during sleep. Unconscious. We can sense a billion things a minute, but only a few bits actually enter our stream of thought and movement called our "consciousness."

I'm inclined to say that consciousness is about maintaining and exacting control. Consciousness acts so you don't go crazy processing every bit of information. It acts as yet another filter of information for the world around you.

Consciousness simplifies your life, your thought, emotion, movement process --- the way that the User Interface on your computer simplifies your life as a computer user.

You don't have to enter code just to do anything. You can click on your My Computer icon, the start button, which is nice, but there's so much work involved in making it look that easy. The binary coding, the programming language, the time it took to develop all that. That's all hidden.

Consciousness is like that user interface that hides a lot of those details like the binary code and the programming language.

One thing I notice is that what you do become conscious of, you're probably insecure about. Which brings me to self-consciousness.

I'm conscious right now about my math abilities.

Kanye West says he's so self-conscious, but he's the only one to admit it.

It's a bad thing in this socio-cultural milieu to be "self-conscious" because it means you're too worried about what people think. You don't act the way you want to because you're trying to control what people think about you. Or at least limit the bad thoughts.

When you become conscious, it seems like you don't really do anything but observe. The "I" part of you becomes active, but you cannot envision that "I" part of you committing to an action.

Basketball players, soccer players are said to be unconscious when they're making quick decisions with their respective balls. In those contexts, where timing is of the essence, you're not supposed to think, you're supposed to act. There is no room for pondering. There is no room for the "I" to perceive, and then decide to act because the moment is already over. Hesitation usually doesn't mean anything good in sports. The solution is to act before you think. Acting unconsciously.

Essentially, the book by Norretrander is about how happiness tends to happen more when we are unconsciously acting. Unconsciousness means we act rather than let the consciousness creep in and instill doubt.

Lets think again about what Mos Def said about consciousness.

So, stop with the nonsense, like he conscious
I'm just awake dawg, I'm doin' great dawg

Even outside of Mos Def's context, we use "consciousness" within urban contexts here in the US of A to indicate someone who seems to be thoughtful and knows about harsh realities. As opposed to someone who isn't conscious. By implication, a person who isn't conscious isn't thoughtful and skips over harsh realities.

There is even a demarcation of "conscious" hip-hop and non-conscious hip-hop. "Conscious hip-hop" is hip-hop that invokes thoughtfulness and harsh realities.

There seems to be a parallel between consciousness and harsh realities. Consciousness seems to recognize "harsh realities" all the time. With its recognition of harsh realities, it notices limitations as well. Consciousness by proxy notices limitations.

Consciousness. Realities. Limitations. Consciousness knows realities and knows limitations.

Acting unconsciously. Happiness. When you act unconsciously, you're generally happier.

Notice that we don't really care whether or not Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan, or Paris Hilton are "conscious." I rarely hear that word used in any Hollywood Infotainment show. "Conscious."

It's probably because there's a kind of happy and upbeat discourse always surrounding them, regardless of what they actually are feeling. They live in an unconscious world where each of their missteps are exposed and judged harshly, yet anything positive they do, including losing 0.5 lbs of weight, is celebrated as an achievement. With the worlds they live in, they can fuck up royally,

When explaining why people are addicted to gossip about Hollywood celebrities, Danielle Fishel, formerly of Boy Meets World and apparently now a gossip host, said something to the effect of: "it's fun to follow their stories because their worlds are limitless." Limitless. Boundless. Unconscious. By implication, they have choices and can act on any whim, which makes their story more intriguing.

They get to act as unconsciously as they want.

Now that's something I wish I could do as a middle-class Filipino kid in America. I'm happy, but it feels like I have to walk on eggshells still. I have to carefully be something. I mean I wish I could just act ridiculous and stupid and then somehow bullshit my way into popularity. Or even something like the US presidency ala George W.

Only it feels like I can't. It feels like I can't just walk into a job interview and chum it up with old whitey.

No matter the qualifications or knowledge I have, I have to match an employer's "comfortability, fit" factor (or maybe that was just me). The employer is usually somebody white. It feels like I can't just be an Eric Kandel from Vienna who studies literature and history as an undergrad, becomes a psychiatrist in training, and becomes a Noble Prize winning neuroscientists. My point is that it seems like everyone's doing something unconsciously, except me.

I'm just sitting here consciously, and observing.

Now this brings me to a question of whether or not I could act unconsciously on my way into something like the US Presidency?

Would I as a Filipino middle-class kid be able to George W. Bush/Sarah Palin my way through anything en route to the presidency?

It feels like I have to do everything by the book while other people, namely the white folks and asskissers of color get by on a steady diet of bullshit. I feel like I've had to do things at a higher and tighter level, so good just to get something that white people could get with just a minimum of effort.

The same I could say about Barack Obama.

Community organizer from the creme-de-la-creme, professor, organizer, awesome communicator matching up against an old guy who is respectable but is probably going to continue the Bush push, and some lady who came out of nowhere and prides herself on being a hockey mom.

It feels like this presidential "race" shouldn't even be a competition anymore. However, the polls are close. He still seems to be walking on eggshells and is perpetually in doubt over the Bubba votes and the Bradley effect.

He's still defending against so many things: Reverend Wright, the unfettered linking of his middle name to Saddam's last name, the claims against his links to Islam.

All of these things shouldn't be issues, but have been made so, and he's had to straddle the line delicately to appease voters.

I think it took a lot of consciousness to play his positions the way he has. I do believe in his commitment to ALL working class folks. I really doubt he actually likes to support Israel, that he's actually steadfastly Christian, or that he's all for some kind of border security. Those seems like things in his form, his identity, that he consciously changed to make him palatable to broader demographics.

Not saying that's wrong, but that's how you win in politics --- more form than function. The right form to carry out the function. With the right form, the collective feels that it can unconsciously carry on with their functions.

Oh, Now There Are Male Filipino Role Models

An original version posted on 11/16/2009 as "Filipino Male Role Models in the Present Day: Manny Pacquiao" @ AMMMO

It's a different day than what I experienced as a kid.

This is a day of high interconnectivity, instant and constant information from just about any source. I'm not just restricted to the TV and/or the newspapers to see what's big. Today its Google, blogs, tweets, message boards, UStream, youtube feeding me information about any and everything. With such interconnectivity comes more of an aura of global consciousness, and seamless integration of diverse-LOOKING individuals into advertisements, everyday news ephemera, and populist conversation.

That was very difficult to find as a kid. The news on TV, the people whose stories were talked about were all white people. I wondered why my family or other people of color wouldn't be interviewed by Dateline or 20/20. Guess we were not interesting enough? We weren't real Americans to be talked about? It was such a feeling of invisiblity.

As a preteen, pre-internet, as I mentioned in this post about Filipino male role models as a kid, I used to keep an eye out for Filipinos who "made it," that is Filipinos who've been seen by lots of people, doing something cool and somewhat positive.

I was cheering my ass off when I saw Ernie Reyes Jr. make a slight appearance in the Rock's crappy movie, the Rundown. And that was as a grown-ass 19-year old kid in 2003.

Why have "role models" in the first place?

Perhaps as a source of inspiration to do something.

Why a celebrity?

Because they're doing it for lots of people to see. It's nice seeing them being validated in the public and popular spheres like the newspaper articles, the TV shows, etc, and it makes me think, "hey I kind of have the same background as that guy, I can do like he does! Perhaps even better!"

Why did it have to be a celebrity emphasizing a racial or ethnic connection or kinship?

Because it's hard to imagine yourself doing something successfully and/or finding inspiration if the people doing what you want to do don't exactly look, talk, perhaps even think like you.

If you haven't seen people with whom you can identify with do something successful, you're probably susceptible to an inferiority complex --- you're not tall enough to play basketball, you don't talk white enough, you don't know much about politics, you don't sound that "professional" to really fit in with this program --- this is all stuff that has crossed my mind plenty of times.

While Filipinos were coming up in boxing, now that we have the mega-superstar Manny Pacquiao, there seems to be more Filipinos interested in boxing, and more opportunity in general for Filipinos to be in conversation. As a result of this fight, anyone think that these Filipino news reporters are even given the same platform on HBO to speak their opinion on what will happen in the fight?

If its true that I'd be susceptible to inferiority complexes if I don't see anyone someone I can identify with, why can't I just identify with anybody so I can get over my obssession with other Filipinos?

I'm not sure if its a conscious decision to choose anyone I can identify with.

I identify with plenty of people that are not Filipino, but usually only after I've come to learn their story. I particularly identify with Albert Einstein's story of working as a lowly patent clerk while drawing up his theory of relativity. I identify with Nobel Prize winner Eric Kandel's story of being a humanities student entering the sciences and being acknowledged for his work on neurobiological memory. I can identify with Kirk Hinrich's habits on the basketball court, the Unabomber's thoughts on technology --- just as I get to know more stories, there's usually something I can identify with in another human person.

However, the ethnic category of "Filipino" instantly brings to those of us who've grown up with Filipinos a sense that we share the same story. "Instantly" is the key word. I don't have to go out and bump across an individual story to identify with if someone identifies themselves as Filipino (at least in the American context of where I sit), I can sort of understand where they might be coming from already, so I'm going to bust out my Tagalog and hopefully they can get what the hell I'm saying. It's exciting that there is now consciousness of the word "Filipino" worldwide and its associated stories can be brought out for the rest of the world to see. I never felt as much chill in the back in Lupang Hinirang until that group sang it before Pacquiao-Cotto.



Didn't have anything to do with the greatness off their voices, it's just a great feeling of having something that may act as a hindrance in some context (like fitting in with job interviews, social situations) being acknowledged and respected.

The Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao, the Filipino-Americans in the Jabbawockeez, that Filipino-Irish basketballer Erik Spoelstra, all are people I can sort of look up to as strong, cool, knowledgeable, and they all roughly come from where I come from. These are Filipinos who have appeared at one time or another on the New York Times, LA Times, Wall Street Journal, Good Morning America, Regis and whoever, ESPN, CNN, MTV, channels, networks watched by a diversity of people, who have to acknowledge our existence.

I can infer those Filipinos, Manny, the Jabbawockeez, and Erik Spoelstra probably may have eaten some adobo, are hardwired to play basketball, can bust some lines in Tagalog --- stuff that I do! And that's where I feel connected to their stories even though I might not know it as well as I do an Einstein or an Eric Kandel. The trajectory of their storylines as Filipinos are shooting towards success and widespread acceptance by other respected people in what they choose to do. Brian Urlacher, Magic Johnson, Derek Jeter, Mario Lopez, P.Diddy, Jay-Z, Mariah Carey, all people I've seen and admired at one point or another coming out to see this 5'6 cross-eyed, humble, happy, simple-seeming brown guy knock out another relatively small brown guy.

Said 5'6, cross-eyed, humble, happy, simpleton is now entering conversations and comparisons to icons like Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson --- boxers I've only known through pictures, stories, and myths. Whoever thought a lil ugly brown guy with boxing gloves could hold such sway and become so admired?

Seeing Hints of Racism on Message Boards in Characterizations of USA Basketball

An original version posted on 8/20/2004 as "Racist Agenda Towards USA Basketball" @throwascrewinit.blogspot.com

It's always interesting to see how racist people really are when people from different countries come together. But that's to be expected.

What isn't really expected is when your own country is racist towards you.

One act of racism is committed when one or more individuals think that there is something inherently wrong with a group of people based on physical characteristics, namely color of skin.

Whether intentional or not, message boarders People seem to be (whether intentional or not) blaming the urban culture of hip-hop, dominated by minority races in these Team USA basketball losses. And since the USA team is composed of all black people, some people see it fitting to associate them with hip-hop. Most people do. I mean, when one thinks of hip-hop, one will most likely think of a black person's face.

People bashing Team USA start out blaming things strongly associated with hip-hop like street basketball, the And 1 Tour (sometimes even mockingly using hip-hop terms). They imply that these aspects associated with hip-hop are what is causing the US team to be selfish and lose. They claim that these players are being selfish as a result of liking hip-hop/urban.

For example, they'll say things like "it's all about And 1 basketball with these guys. They don't know anything about team basketball or fundamentals."

Yeah, I completely missed the off-the-backboard 360 dunk by Tim Duncan followed by the Emeka Okafor off BOTH Carlos Arroyo's and Carlos Boozer's head dribble all with 4 fingers while keeping his middle finger up at the US flag in the loss to Puerto Rico.

Oh wrong game?

I guess I was watching the game where Allen Iverson was actually passing the ball. The rest of the team thought that was such a great idea that they decided to do just the exact same. The team was playing defense. They may have these reputations as selfish players (which is an issue in itself), but that's not what they have shown in the games.

In other words, I've observed the exact opposite of what they have been accused of doing by message board posters.

Racist ? Check with a big fat red, white, and blue mark !

People seemed to immediately placed labels on the team based namely on Allen Iverson. They have romanticized FIBA style basketball. They call the whole team selfish, some have even said that they lacked pride.

I definitely saw that they lacked pride because they're all too black for us to see their hearts.

Team USA's just one example of how hip-hop and everything associated with it has become such a great goat for these mostly American message boarders to put all their own bad traits of Americana into and kick repeatedly.

I'm not sure that people actually watched the game. "Hip-hop" style of basketball doesn't really affect how they play the game. Hip-hop, blackness is not to blame because it had absolutely nothing to do with the team USA loss.

If there's anything to blame it's probably how the NBA Rules are structured.

Let's just all ignore the facts that this team was poorly conceived and sorely unadapted to the competition. Sure, they're top players, but all of them have the same skills and lack the same ones. It also doesn't help that none of them are great shooters.

How is that possible in basketball you ask ?

In the NBA game, these guys are taught to be aggressive and attack the hoop. What faciliates going to the hoop is that there is this 3 second rule in the NBA which prohibits players from staying in the painted area for more than 3 seconds. It was a rule conceived to add more action to the NBA game. International basketball has no such rule and so the strategy for these international teams has been to clog these lanes.

Another reason USA basketball has slipped is that these international teams don't select players from a big pool. There's a tryout process for them. The USA team basically threw together a team composed of young, inexperienced, good players. They're still the most talented team, but unlike the previous Dream Teams in 1992 and 1996, they're not good enough to plow through other teams on just talent alone. They actually need team chemistry. Not fundamentals.

More reactions of hidden racism here.

The Only Filipino I Saw in US Media Growing Up

An original version posted on 11/2/2009 as "Conrado Baylon Fiel: My Filipino Role Model Growing Up" @ AMMMO

When I was 9 years old, I knew that unless it was news-related or on Filipino news, it was a bit of a pipe dream to see Filipinos regularly on television, magazines, or newspapers.

It was as if no one knew my race and ethnicity existed, though I did see a lot of them in grade school and was surrounded by them. But I knew that they wouldn't be on the LA Times (least till my sister got into the Orange County Edition in 1994) or Eyewitness News or anything. That was a black and white dominated world. And if they did have to acknowledge Asians, it would be the Chinese. Filipinos, in my opinion, were too ordinary and boring to do anything cool.

It would be an event every time I saw some Filipno on any kind of any medium at all. I was thrilled to see Mr. Dante "Bang-a-Rang" Basco play Peter Pan's sidekick, even though he was kind of a bad guy.

But that was only one time. Basco played a fictional character, and kind of a bad guy to boot. That was all there was to him after that movie. He never showed up again. Back in 1993, there was no sense of character to him, there would be no back-story, there wasn't any googling his name to see what he was up to now. That was the end of Dante Basco, at least until the explosion of the internets and community events. So for a while, he was just kind of an afterthought of a Filipino.

Same thing with Ernie Reyes Jr. whose had one of the more successful careers in Hollywood as a Filipino martial artist and played the protagonist in Surf Ninjas, my most favoritest movie of all time as a 9-year old.

In my most formative preteen years, there weren't many real-life Filipinos to look at over and over again as heroes. I thought Filipinos were really boring people who would always be ignored until...

This guy...



Conrado Baylon Fiel!

Found...

In this book...



I knew clearly that this was a bad guy book and other than Street Fighter it was the first time I remember seeing Latinos and Middle Eastern people being in print as well.

"Victor Manuel Gerena, that guy looks like the Mexican who lives next door!"

"Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, kinda looks like Scottie Pippen, but he comes from the Middle East. You know *a far away place where they cut off your eat, if they don't like your face (quoted from Aladdin)"

It was compelling reading. Or perhaps intent staring and voyeurism - trying to see the criminal traits inherent within their faces. Very 1890s-esque, except adjusted to reflect America's trans-national diversity. It was also interesting how they didn't put any of the women on this cover, even though there was one in the book.

The statistics and descriptions this book gave about each of them made it look like a Street Fighter Profile or a basketball card





Place of Birth

Height

Weight

Highlights

Of course none of these individuals were heroes, nonetheless it was compelling for me.

The Filipino guy's profile (2nd place was the Chinese guy following him) is what I stared at the most, complete with Street Fighter II-esque attributes and descriptions.

That "swarthy, heavyset" Fiel could've been an uncle of mine! Matter of fact, every time I ran into Mr. Galicia, one of my friends' dads, I thought of Conrado. His skin color probably looked like my dads, and he was born around the same time my mom and dad were born too! In the 2nd picture, he even actually kinda looked like my dad. Filipinos wouldn't be just boring, regular people who liked to folk dance and become nurses, they could be murderers on the FBIs Most Wanted List as well!

I didn't see too many Filipinos at all in print unless it was in the Los Angeles Asian Journal, but this one book was different. It was 25 cent pocket book that was in wide circulation! It would be read by lots of people, even white people, standing in line at the supermarket.

The Racial Identity of Your Favorite Sports Protagonist Does Matter

An original version posted on 2/3/2008 as "Your Leader's Identity" @throwascrewinit.blogspot.com

In the American team sports that I follow both on TV and online be it the NBA, NCAA football, or the NFL, I see black, white, pacific Island, Spanish-speaking players and coaches emerging all the time. It’s nice because I definitely didn’t see much of that growing up, if at all.

Growing up and not seeing my culture, my people represented was the kind of thing that made me question why the hell I had to be Filipino.

Why did I have to be a culture that no one’s heard or talked about? Nowhere to be seen on ESPN. How the heck would I ever become famous or even get on a newspaper (where I wasn’t being described as a murder suspect or an FBI wish list) with a name like I had? Delas Armas anyone? Could they even fit that in the back of a jersey? We used to joke that the last name Delespiritusanto on the back of a jersey would have to come full circle.

However, At least nowadays in sports, I’m seeing little trinklets of multiculturalism. More folks from different races and ethnicities in sports representing.

While that counts as a few steps forward, I ask myself what power do these people of yellow, black, brown-skinned identities hold?

When observing fans of all sports on message boards, forums, comments after articles, I noticed one thing: people really really love the idea of the white guy as the head honcho, top dog, the leader. People will fight hard to have the white guy be the guy on top.

It’s why a white guy like Kirk Hinrich, the Chicago Bulls’ point guard automatically gets compared to players like Steve Nash, the NBA MVP and hall-of-famer John Stockton, despite not having any of their abilities AT ALL.

Those guys were actually known for passing the ball, and making good decisions with the ball.

From my own observation, Hinrich did/does little of the described activities above. Instead, Hinrich dribbles the basketball aimlessly around the court, and panics when time is running out. The man is nowhere near their class and basically has earned his prestige because he shares their pigmentation in a league where the pigmentation is generally much darker.

The guy is not even that good on this team. He’s had his starting spot on the team saved for him ever since he’s been a rookie — he’s the only guy in the Bulls backcourt who hasn’t had to fight for playing time despite his lack of actual impact.

Since he’s not really that talented, people make stupid unquantifiable, highly subjective statements: “he’s a 2-way player, he plays really great defense.” Even more outrageous is that this guy has had one of the worst fall-offs, yet he’s never involved in trade rumors or criticized nearly as much as his more impactful, higher-scoring, clutch counterpart Ben Gordon.

Ben Gordon is currently the team’s leading scorer, despite being relegated to the bench, receiving a lowball contract offer, and being ignored on offense by Hinrich. However, when compared to Hinrich, it’s his negative traits that are emphasized: he’s undersized and one-dimensional.

The naturalness of a white leader also applies to another sport I follow. The societal expectation that the best leaders would be white is probably why people at Bruinsnation couldn’t stomach the idea of a Norm Chow (Asian) and Dewayne Walker (black)-led team.

I think their distaste for those two as coaching candidates was not necessarily rooted in their race, but it seems that the fans at that site had a tendency to assume the worst with anyone outside of their fellow white folks.

Norm Chow, Chinaman, apparently had no "personality" to get the job done. They cited his lack of experience, intensely putting out the question why a 61-year old (Asian) guy (in a white and black league) hadn’t had a head coaching job. This ire drawn despite the years of coaching experience, coaching some of the most elite quarterbacks in college football history, and having won a national championship.

There "must" have been something wrong with Norm. There had to be.

Dewayne Walker was characterized by the Bruinsnation writers as a self-promoting Karl Dorrell-holdover. This despite being respected as the incumbent UCLA Bruin defensive coordinator.

Together, Norm Chow and Dewayne Walker as the leading coach candidates, earned the derisive name “Choker.”

I looked for nicknames attributed to other (white) coaching candidates.

Needless to say, no other coaching candidates (most of whom were even LESS qualified than these two) received such names.

There was “Slick Rick” for Rick Neuihesel, but that disappared once it was clear that Walker and Chow were being considered as coaching candidates.

Nothing personal against the new white guy at UCLA, Rick Neuheisel, I admit I like what Rick’s been able to do so far as far as the working-togetherness of his hired guns and recruiting, but the same people who were pulling strongly for him initially balked at the idea of him becoming coach.

The Bruinsnation people thought we had run a lackluster coaching search campaign.

It seems like they only really rallied around Rick Neuheisel NOT because he was a effusively qualified and overly strong candidate (he definitely brings that baggage of cheating with him) but only because he was NOT Norm Chow or Dewayne Walker. He was decidedly not the "timid, stoic, cold" white guy nor was he the "self-promoting" black dude who since he was black obviously was still attached to everything from the fired black coach.

In a twist of irony, when it was announced that Norm Chow and Dewayne Walker would be retained on staff, these same fans calling Chow and Walker, Choker were going apeshit over their hirings.

They were most happy when it happened because in their own words,”it was Rick Neuheisel’s choice” as if white people’s choices are the only good decisions made. It was Rick Neuheisel’s choice, so naturally, it had to be good and trustworthy.

I wonder what it would be like had it been the inverse in any way, with Neuheisel as a coordinator, and Chow and Walker as the guys running things.

When we jump back to professional basketball, with Kirk Hinrich/Ben Gordon, fans like to do much of the same. They will characterize and put the players of color as successful in one-dimensional, specialized roles, but not broad, leadership ones.

Leadership, colored people, never that. One dimensional scoring guard, offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, as opposed to 2-dimensional player, quarterback, and head coach.

For years, people have talked about the issue of the leadership roles being assumed by people of color, but it’s probably been a “minor” issue or something just not talked about.

The paucity of black owners, black coaches, black quarterbacks in sports where the number of players who are black are high is not really a social justice issue, but I think it reflects some lessons about the way our society in the US of A works.

In general in this context, it’s become “natural” for white people to be “our” leaders. They need to be the decisionmakers because they’re usually defaulted and perceived as the ones with the experience, the education, etc, especially when running against a person of color.

What bothers me is that we as a society don’t question what exactly makes their decisions better or how they end up with all the experience and education in the first place.

We've relied on white leaders for so long that its weird and unexpected by the society to not have any. Without a white guy as leader, it’s unnatural and odd, or so my dad implies when discussing how weird it is to have a president by the name of Obama.

Quotes: On Why Asian-American Legendary Coordinator Norm Chow Did Not Get a Job as a Head Football Coach

"You know, it's possible that Chow's not been getting these jobs because, you know, he's Asian. If you believe that racism plays a part in the lack of minority hiring in the college ranks (not necessarily on behalf of the ADs themselves, but from boosters who aren't excited about hiring, say, a black coach), then obviously racial prejudices would also pertain to an Asian candidate as well.

There are plenty of people out there who are upset at how "Asians" have ruined UCLA. Stereotypes about Asians are out there. Or maybe people just think an Asian couldn't connect with black and/or inner-city recruits. I don't know.

Think about Ralph Freidgen -- the guy never got a shot at being a head coach until his alma mater called. Why? The common explanation was that he was too fat. Charlie Weis had the same knock on him. If people can be as so narrow-minded as to by pass a worthy candidate because he's fat, what would they think of someone who's Asian?

I'm curious about how Chow has supposedly "bombed" these interviews. He never seems to bomb them when it comes to being hired as an OC. What happens when he interviews for a head coaching job?

(Looking at resume)
AD: So, you've been title winning assistant coach for over thirty years. Your offenses have always been productive and innovative. Why do you think you can be as a head coach?

Chow: Well, I'm... oh wait, it's 2:00. It's time for my daily meal of eating a live puppy and raping a school boy. Can you give me 10 minutes?" - Bruinsnation user haoledave

Explaining the Social Infrastructure of White Privilege Through an Urban Planning Metaphor

An original version originally posted on 1/12/2010 as "Social Infrastructure of White Privilege and Bike Lanes" @ AMMMO

I felt very aware of my race and ethnicity almost all the time during my most formative years.

I knew that I was Filipino before I began going to the "puti" high school. It was going to be different from the more homely Filipino-dominated grade school.

I knew that I was one of only a few Filipinos in my college dorms. I didn't have too many white friends going to the "puti" high school.

I know that I am one of the few Filipinos interested in pursuing anthropology and science studies as a career. I come from a background of nurses and future nurses, and in my stage of liminality, I keep getting pulled towards a career like that.

There's just a bit of a "disconnection" between where I've gone/where I want to go and what has surrounded and currently surrounds me.

I use the word "disconnection" because that's exactly how I feel when I become "aware" of my race/ethnicity in a setting. I feel "disconnected" from the people who inhabit the space, like I can't make a connection, like we share almost nothing in common.

I can become "aware" of that when I'm in an academic conference full of older white guys as the key speakers and experts, when I'm in a wine-tasting shop in Silver Lake. I don't become as "aware" of this when I'm at the basketball court in Glassell Park.

My thinking implies that people who have a feeling of "fitting in" either consciously or unconsciously feel or have a connection. Let's assume that's true. What fosters that connection?

It is at this point that I'll borrow the term "infrastructure." "Infrastructure" fosters that connection.

"Infrastructure" is used in the context of public works projects. It is defined as the "basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise." Infrastructure is the freeways, roads, BIKE LANES, power plants, power-lines water sources, the internet, phones, and other forms of communication. I use the term "infrastructure" to mean "a collection of connective strands used to maintain a system."

When you are a white American, and probably male, there is an "infrastructure" that firstly, helps you forget the negative parts of your identity and secondly, fosters the ability to go in and fit in almost anywhere.

You see your likeness reproduced in all kinds of public discourse and spaces. You see yourself in movies, academia, arts and high-class theater, corporate jobs. You can literally identify with being almost anything cause you know that no matter where you are, someone with your identity, perhaps even your looks, are there and you can probably talk to them, and they can hook you up.

If you're a white guy in America, unless you're queer and/or poor, you don't really have to constantly (whether conscious or not) re-evaluate your "belongingness" in mid-high class settings. You don't have to think about where you come from because you're already everywhere and the possibilities are endless. You can do this and this and this. You can just be "human" and not focus on your color. You know that your opinion really counts. The infrastructure in the form of movies, academia, arts carries these people any and everywhere and they don't have to stop and think as much cause they're so connected to whatever they want to do.

Conversely, the existence of an "infrastructure" working so well for a white American male implies that there is little to no infrastructure for a person of color. There isn't as much infrastructure that would firstly help a person of color forget the negative parts of their identities. There isn't as much infrastructure that would help a person of color fit in almost anywhere.

There are infrastructures that help people of color, but are more insular (or at least can be perceived that way). The demarcation that something like a Scholarship fund is for blacks, or Asians, or Latinos makes it seem to plenty of white folk that there is just all this opportunity for people of color. The very naming and labeling of the organization makes it very explicit that it benefits who it does. There is no formal naming if any involved in the process of a white guy getting into a business or high position because he "fits" the culture or "knew someone". Without that formal naming, is an informal, connected, embedded network.

Like the BIKE LANES in LA that last for one block, the infrastructure for people of color is piecemeal and far and few between.

Bike lanes and infrastructure are built only on certain streets.

Even without any BIKE LANES/INFRASTRUCTURE on streets and avenues, a few people will still bike, but it's not expected that they will bike.

People could technically go anywhere with their bikes without "infrastructure" but it isn't a safe bet, and usually most drivers, pedestrians, don't expect bikers on their streets. The streets are reserved for drivers.

Yes, we see a few people of color here and there in some movies, some academic fields, some arts, some sports, infrastructure that holds up popular culture. But there are only certain professions and things that people of color can be acknowledged to do, like my whole my family and the nursing profession.

People of color could technically go anywhere with their careers without "infrastructure", but it isn't a safe bet and usually families and people in power, won't expect those people of color to be in professions like that dealing with Science Studies or Anthropology. The streets are reserved for white Americans and obssessive Asian kids.

So the question is how do we keep building that infrastructure for people of color?

For me...Manny Pacquiao is a start.

Conversation on Race and Barack Obama

An original version posted on 3/25/2008 as "Conversation on Race and Barack Obama"@ throwascrewinit.blogspot.com






Barack Obama's speech on race was one of the big highlights of his remarkably successful 2008 Presidential campaign.

As you might remember, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, someone Obama had clear ties with, made some remarks that didn't sit well with a lot of the big talking heads of America.

He cited various instances of US government deceit. He said that the government(s) lied about a gross number of things from Pearl Harbor to the treatment of Nelson Mandela.

He also cited various instances of the US government mistreating people of color. He cited the administration of the Tuskegee experiment, the internment of Japanese Americans, the taking of Indian lands, and the overall mistreatment of African-Americans throughout American history.

Essentially, the public and media had largely perceived him to be saying that America's bad kharma was simply coming back to haunt them. What Wright said in the sermons reflected back negatively on Obama. How could the American people a man whose spiritual leader hated America?

Hot on the campaign trail, Barack was pestered for a response to Wright's comments.

At first, he tried to distance himself. Apparently, he didn't hear of Wright's comments.

However, as the questioning heat up and it was no longer acceptable to say that he wasn't aware, he finally confronted Reverend Wright's comments in his dramatic speech "A More Perfect Union."

He condemned Wright's comments, but didn't condemn Reverend Wright the person. He explained before a national audience where Reverend Wright was coming from and bridged that with an anecdote about his white grandmother's own racial beliefs.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

The speech was as great synthesis and explantion of the touchy issue racial relations as you could expect from a politician.

Most of the media outlets covering the speech made me indifferent.

Then, there was one that dropped a ton of big red bricks of dumbass on me.

The tired LA Times columnist Jonah Goldberg with enough pomposity to fill a hot-air balloon.

Then there was one that got the neurons firing, the white matter connecting, the soul uplifting.
A piece by a quick-rising, quick-rhyming Blue Scholar.

Goldberg said that we already talk about race so much. He listed the things we already have dedicated to race: We have a Black history month, the movie "Crash", entire majors devoted to race, books about race, corporate diversity consultants. What more could we possibly need?

Goldberg represents talks as if that there aren't anymore race problems. Now that good ole Martin Luther King Jr. bravely fought against segregation, thus effectively ending racism as far as he was concerned, people of color are now just "creating or re-hashing problems."

In his world, race issues in regards are merely deliberate schemes to hustle billions of dollars from the good old American system. If it's a problem, people of color or at least the ones "making race an issue" by continually producing these books, producing these graduates of race and ethnic studies, and generally making a living off of emphasizing race.

In reality, it's actually been a very unhealthy passive-aggressive relationship between white folk and people of color.White people shit-talk folks of color. Folks of color shit-talk white people. Unless they agree to do it and/or happen to understand each others' humor, they just never actually do it in front of each other.

So where do the two sides meet?

Prometheus Brown, the eminent Blue Scholar, makes the simple but poignant point: racism is everyone's problem.

However, it's hard to see how it actually is everyone's problem.

The subject of race is only mentioned in media lock-in-step when it involves people of color, which gives the image that race is a one-street in which only people of color participate. Otherwise, for most white Americans, it's an issue that seemingly doesn't exist.

"Some people point to Obama’s successes as a sure sign that America has taken many steps forward in resolving its racial contradictions. But isn’t the fact that Obama gets singled out for his views on race a big red flag? Where do Clinton and McCain stand on this issue, and why haven’t they weighed in? Why is nobody asking them what they think about racism?"

The point I glean from all this is just that white folks and folks of color need to actually be engaged in conversation together about race, and not so polarized in their own circles discussing things. White folks reach out. Folks of color reach out.

It's an easy common sense solution, but not so in reality.

The question has been here way before Obama and will probably still be there after him, but the question is will there ever be any political or social will to ensure anything happens towards that dialogue?