Interesting article on the Washington Post about race and the Obama presidency. A recent survey from the Pew Research Center found that a majority of African Americans said they believe Obama's election has improved race relations (though that number has shrunk since the days just after the election). Thirty-two percent of whites and 42% of Hispanics think relations have also improved. Furthermore, the survey found that the African American community's assessment about the state of black progress in America has risen more dramatically during the past two years than at any other time in the past twenty-five years. In comparison to 2007, nearly twice as many African Americans (39%) now say that the "situation of black people in this country" is better than it was five years ago. Fifty-six percent of African Americans and nearly two-thirds of whites says the standard of living gap between whites and blacks has narrowed in the past decade. The president of the Pew Research Center said, "We expected that there may be an Obama effect, and it really was quite dramatic, which isn't to say that this era as measured in this survey means that all is fine between blacks and whites."
As the article points out, there has been "racial frictions" unearthed since Obama's presidency. The article mentioned the incident involving Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and the most recent Harry Reid incident (in a private exchange between Reid and the authors of a book, Reid said that Obama had a good chance in getting elected because he is "light skinned" and has no "negro dialect.") Reid apologized repeatedly for his comments. Obama accepted the apology, and said that Reid is a "good man" who simply used "inartful language", and that Reid has always been "on the right side of history."
Some interesting commentary on the issue:
Peniel E. Joseph, a Tufts University historian and author of a new book on the shifting racial attitudes that allowed for Obama's election, said, "He's light enough and mainstream enough to appeal to a broad audience. Those who are not really stand out in a conspicuous way as 'the other.'"
Douglas Wilder ran for governor in Virginia two decades ago, and became the first African American governor in the country. He likened Reid's comments to white voters he would meet in rural southwest Virginia, who said they would vote for Wilder but that they were not sure that other whites would. Wilder found that notion implicitly racist. Wilder also thinks Reid's comments uncovered his own stereotypes -- "Reid was saying: 'It's okay with me because the fair skin and that lack of dialect gets over with me.'"
Eddie S. Glaude Jr., a professor of religion and African American studies at Princeton, said that Obama's choice not to discuss racial topics results in a failure to bring about a more meaningful discussion about race in this country.
Shelby Stelle, a fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, said, "Obama basically is a bargainer and appeals to whites by communicating to them that he will not see them as racist. Someone such as Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson...would be off-putting to whites. Obama sort of cleanses himself of that. And whites are grateful."
In a study published in November in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, research participants were shown three photos of Obama -- one in which his skin tone was darkened, one in which it was lightened, and one that was unaltered. Participants were asked to rate how well each photo represented who Obama "really is." Those who shared political views with the president tended to think the lightened photos were more representative. People who did not share his political views chose the darkened photos.
Obama's supporters point out that many of his policies are helping the African American community. They say policies such as extending unemployment benefits, expanding education aid, and expanding health care coverage benefit a broad spectrum of Americans that are struggling economically, and that many are disproportionately black. They say that is action is more important than rhetoric. According to a Washington Post-ABS New poll, Obama's approval rating is nearly 90% among African Americans, while his approval rating among whites has dropped from 61% in February to 41% last month. (
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Surrounding the Reid craziness, I don't think Reid's comments are necessarily indicative that he himself feels that way. That he personally voted for Obama because he was "light-skinned". From what he said, it seems to me that he was commenting on how our society view minorities: That Obama could stand a chance because he is "light-skinned" and doesn't speak with a dialect -- because, unfortunately, that is how a lot of Americans look at race. I believe that is the case in our country -- that there is a hesitancy among white people (not all white people, obviously) to elect an African American president that is "too black". And it's unfortunate that people think this way. I think what Reid said was racially insensitive and it was really unfortunate he used the word "negro" (get with the times, Reid!), but I don't think Reid is racist. He has shown, through action, his support for the African American community. I also don't think there is a double-standard of allowing racism -- as the Republicans have complained about. Despite what the Republicans say, it's not at all like the Trent Lott situation -- where Lott said he wished Strom Thurmond had won the presidential election in 1948, when he ran on a platform that endorsed segregation; and that if Strom had won, the U.S. wouldn't have had "all these problems over all these years." There's no way out of that one.
Google has said that it might pull out of China after their e-mail service and corporate infrastructure faced a sophisticated cyber attack that originated in China. This could mean shutting down Google.cn and the Google offices in China. The company said they will "review the feasibility" of its Chinese operations. Google said they have evidence that the primary goal of the hackers was to access gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on their investigation to date, Google believes the cyberattack was not successful. They said that only two accounts appear to have been accessed, and that was limited to account information (such as when the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of the e-mails. Google officials said they found that the gmail accounts of dozens of China human rights advocates in the U.S., China, and Europe have been "routinely accessed by third parties". They said the hacking most likely occurred through phishing scams (tricking users to download malicious software by opening innocent looking e-mails) of malware placed on users' computers, rather than by breaking into's Google's infrastructure.
Moreover, at least 20 other large companies have been the targets of similar attacks -- including finance, media, and chemical firms. The hackers appeared to be after information on weapons systems from defense firms, as well as seeking companies' "source code" which is "the most valuable form of intellectual property because it underlies the firms' computer applications". U.S. authorities, including the National Security Agency, are investigating the attacks. Several of the internet addresses the hackers used correspond to the same ones used in attacks against the defense industry last year. These internet addresses are thought to be linked to the Chinese government or proxies.
U.S. officials have refrained from publicly accusing China for cyberattacks because of the difficulty in determining with certainty who is behind the attacks. However, as China is among only a handful of countries considered to have these cyber-offensive capabilities, and as attacks on China human rights activists has increased, suspicion has been growing against the Chinese government. "China -- or its broad army of proxies -- has been the suspected aggressor behind a series of attacks on U.S. and other countries' computer systems dating from the late 1990s. Those events include Titan Rain, a campaign of cyberattacks against the Pentagon, nuclear weapons labs, NASA, and defense contractors from 2003 to 2005; penetrations of the Commerce and State department networks in 2006; and GhostNet, a widespread spying operation targeting supporters of Tibetan independence in 2008."
In response to the attacks, Google has said that they have decided to stop censoring its search results on Chinese Google sites, which China had requested (probably demanded) when Google set up a subsidiary in China in 2005. Google's senior vice president said the company will discuss with the Beijing government how they could operate "an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all." I think it's great Google said they will stop censoring its search results, but it's too bad they're only doing it after being upset by an attack. They should have never conceded to China in the first place and allowed censorship for the sake of business. (
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