Tag: racism

Welfare Benefits and Racism

People on the left such as NYT columnist and economist Paul Krugman have long held the view that white Americans resented minorities at least in part because they felt that they received more government benefits than whites did.  A new study now shows him and others right. Having been conducted by academics however, the phrasing of the findings is put in more cautious language. Robb Willer professor of sociology and social psychology at Stanford and Rachel Wetts of UC Berkeley call this the welfare backlash. They explain that as minorities make up an increasing Continue reading “Welfare Benefits and Racism”

Using The Word Dark and Racism

I was driving listening to well known, well liked, remarkably able Larry Mantle on KPCC doing a segment on suicide where people called in and some professionals spoke. One of the professionals from Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services, a respected center, kept using the word dark when speaking about the place most people with suicidal ideation find themselves in. Then Larry Mantle in summarizing what she Continue reading “Using The Word Dark and Racism”

War Babies and Bi-Racial Children

After the Viet Nam war there were countless children fathered by American GIs, children who belonged nowhere because they were only half Asians, children the US did not particularly want. That was not a new phenomenon.  It has happened in every war, and the racism that accompanies these occurrences is far from new. Still when I read a recent BBC Magazine article about the children of black WWII GIs in the UK, I was struck anew with compassion on the one hand as well as with anger on the other. There were 100,000 black GIs in the UK during WWII, obviously and inevitably inviting love affairs. US law however made it difficult for GIs to marry and for black GIs race complicated the issue even further.  Inter-racial marriages were illegal and miscegenation laws were on the Continue reading “War Babies and Bi-Racial Children”