The Mixed Chicks

If you are not familiar with the Mixed Chicks, you are missing out.

The Mixed Chicks = Actress, Producer, Comedienne, & Educator Fanshen Cox, and Author, Attorney, & Blogger Heidi Durrow. These were the girls who finished #1 in everything in your High School... (& perhaps college too) they were the really gifted, extraordinary students.

They co-host their own weekly podcast on TalkShoe.com. Shows usually run for approximately half an hour. They usually get together to have interesting discussions about issues that impact mixed raced individuals and families.... sometimes focusing on racism and the social awkwardness that comes with being mixed or that comes with being in interracial relationships. They cover everything from racial identity, the use (or misuse) of words, to the absurdities that mixed raced people often face. Sometimes their discussions get deep and uncomfortable (metaphorically, they really strip themselves down sometimes for these discussions)...almost like intellectual/emotional S&M. (That's what makes the show work). But usually the show is a balance between humor and the uncomfortable. Some of their discussions can be a little edgy or controversial. They leave no doubt that the issue of race in America is still very real.

For a taste of a Mixed Chicks discussion, take a listen to one of their podcasts from earlier this month. This episode was a slightly different format from their usual show, because this installment was part of the Story Corps program.

You can find 3 links on my sidebar for the Mixed Chicks...yes, they have a lot of websites. But on my sidebar, you will find: 1. Lightskinned-ed girl (Heidi Durrow), 2. Mixed Chicks Blog, and 3. Mixed Chicks Podcast (scroll down to the bottom of their site for archived shows).

Whitefare - It impacts YOU and ME everyday

There have been discussions regarding the meaning of many issues and words related to "RACE" on the AfroSphere. We have discussed the Fear of “Dark Skin”">Fear of “Dark Skin”Fear of “Dark Skin”">, The Crisis of the African-American Male, Racism and Extreme Color Arousal to name a few. Yet, it appears we may have forgotten about one issue that impacts on all of the issues mentioned above, and that is the issue of "WhiteFare."

You know what I'm talking about, not "Welfare" in which most Americans are taught that black folks are on, but a majority of the people on the welfare rolls are white. Not Corporate Welfare, in which a majority of major corporations in America are on.

Yes, I'm talking about WhiteFare. You know, the issue that will impact on whether America will have a black President, or whether major American core urban areas, like Washington, DC, New Orleans, and Harlem, NY (of all places) will turn from black to white. WhiteFare, it impacts on US everyday.

OK, some of us need an explanation. (some of us don't) Well here it is. Let me know what you think.

Source: Reparations the cure.org

WHITEFARE

What is Whitefare? I use the word to describe a system that permeates the daily lives of everyone living in the United States of America. It is an economic and political system, and it is a set of beliefs and a set of rules of behavior as well. It is most commonly known as institutional racism. But I think it deserves the name Whitefare.

This name takes the attention off of the sickness of a few bigots -- what most of us think of when we see the word "racism". Because that sickness is only one small facet of the problem. The real problem is the complacency and ignorance expected from the majority of so-called white people, and the distortion of our society that complacency and ignorance allow to continue.

We have been taught to resist the idea that we are racists, whatever we actually do in our lives, short of burning crosses and wearing hoods. Having talked to hundreds of white people about this issue, I know that. But the idea that we are dependent on a system of Whitefare might just be different enough to be thinkable.

The word "Whitefare" is intended to be a response to the myths around "welfare" being used to attack African-Americans and others. Welfare or relief programs, have, for about half a century, shifted a measly amount of our society's resources to some of the poorest among us. A majority of those recipients have always been, and still are, white.

Meanwhile, for several centuries, institutional racism, or Whitefare, has ensured the best jobs, housing, infrastructure, security from crime, medical care, tax breaks, and other benefits to one part of the society, and mostly to a small leadership group. It has led to incredible government and business waste, not through minuscule relief programs, but built into the major government programs and social expenditures of this nation -- for military weapons, highway and infrastructure construction, mortgage and business lending, and every other major economic area. A 1994 study found that $104 billion of the federal budget (including tax loopholes) consisted of corporate welfare, that is, fairly narrowly defined direct benefits to business. Welfare for the poor in the same year was $75 billion.

Yet this minimal welfare system, which never reached most African-American families, is being stigmatized as having undermined the work ethic and community morality, and created an African-American underclass. And nobody even thinks about the moral or social impact of Whitefare. Like gravity, it just exists.

Whitefare is invisible. It is most invisible to those who benefit from it, and who also suffer from it in ways that are hidden from them. This book seeks to change that.

Here, I define Whitefare primarily in terms of privileges over African-Americans. The fact is that the modern system of racism gives whites advantages over all people of color, though the privileges take different forms. I focus on black and white people because the system of Whitefare was formed in relation to, and still revolves around, the relations between European-Americans and African-Americans.

White privilege is most sharply defined against African-Americans, in most parts of the United States. This is not to say that African-Americans suffer more than any other group. Oppression is not an Olympic event. No group needs to take a gold medal as the one that suffered the most. Certainly the native nations that were here when Columbus arrived have gone through, and continue to go through, devastation at the hands of whites. More HERE

Source: Reparations the cure.org

Black Hate?

What is a hate crime?

Howard Witt, a Chicago Tribune senior correspondent has written another article involving the issue of race and hate crimes. This time he is covering the issue of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom, a young Knoxville couple out on an ordinary Saturday night date, was undeniably brutal. He reports on how the pair were carjacked, kidnapped, raped and finally murdered during an ordeal of unimaginable terror last January. It’s another must read article regarding hate crimes, race, media and crime in America. Here is a link to the story. Photo of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom (below).

Defendants Cobbins, Coleman, Davidson and Thomas.

What is a hate crime?

Special Report: Some are asking why there has been no media outcry over murders in which victims were white and accused killers are black. More HERE

African American Opinion asks the same question. Why no media outcry? Why no Black blogger outcry? See our previous post regarding the Channon Christian-Christopher Newsom Murders.