Kids React to Interracial Family in Cheerios Commercial

A Cheerios commercial with a biracial family got a lot of negative attention and comments. This video shows kids’ reactions.

 

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A Majority of Black Americans Feel They’re Treated Unfairly by Just About Every Major Civic Institution by EMILY BADGER, The Atlantic Cities

“With the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s“I Have a Dream” speech approaching next week, Pewreleased today a new survey on public perception of the progress blacks have made in America since then. The top-level finding is unsurprising: African-Americans are much more pessimistic than whites are in rating the extent to which they still face inequality and unfairness in American society. And they’re significantly more likely to say that a lot of work still needs to be done.”

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2013/08/majority-black-americans-feel-theyre-treated-unfairly-just-about-every-major-civic-institution/6636/

Comparing US and World Covers for Time Magazine – by David Harris Gershon

A great resource for talking about social construction of reality and perceptions/knowledge about the world! 

“Yes, what you see is TIME devoting its cover in international markets to a critical moment in Egypt’s revolution – perhaps the most important global story this week – while offering Americans the chance to contemplate their collective navels (with a rather banal topic and supposition, to boot).

This is not an isolated incident, for perusing TIME’s covers reveals countless examples of the publication tempting the world with critical events, ideas or figures, while dangling before Americans the chance to indulge in trite self-absorption.”

time

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/25/1039957/-STUNNING-Comparing-U-S-World-Covers-for-TIME-Magazine#

The Racial Dot Map: One Dot Per Person for the Entire United States. Created by Dustin Cable, July 2013

“This map is an American snapshot; it provides an accessible visualization of geographic distribution, population density, and racial diversity of the American people in every neighborhood in the entire country. The map displays 308,745,538 dots, one for each person residing in the United States at the location they were counted during the 2010 Census. Each dot is color-coded by the individual’s race and ethnicity. The map is presented in both black and white and full color versions. In the color version, each dot is color-coded by race.”

http://www.coopercenter.org/demographics/Racial-Dot-Map

Intersectionality: Feminism Can’t Be Just for White Women by BY JAMIE NESBITT GOLDEN, Salon.com

“Because for most of us, intersectionality isn’t a buzzword or a catchphrase. It’s our life. When Quvenzhané Wallis was insulted by the Onion, brown feminists were told by their white allies to take the joke or reclaim the word used to insult a 9-year-old girl. Others, as Clutch writer Kirsten West Savali pointed out, chose to remain silent. When George Zimmerman was freed by five white women, many white feminist allies still chose to remain silent. Our stories are ignored or half-told or erased completely. (A perfunctory Google search about the hashtag will yield several stories from sites like Jezebel and Al Jazeera where Kendall’s involvement has been minimized or glossed over — Jezebel has since edited the story to include Kendall’s contribution.) These aggressions — both micro and macro — along with a host of others, have made bridging the divide nearly impossible.

Honestly, there is little expectation of real, radical change. If this current kerfuffle has taught us anything, it’s that we don’t need to rely on mainstream feminist sites to tell our stories or champion us. It would be nice, though. But some of us remain hopeful that — now that this conversation is public — it will continue in an open and honest way. And it won’t be nice, or pretty, but it will finally be productive.”

http://www.salon.com/2013/08/15/feminism_cant_be_just_for_white_women/

Conflict in Egypt – Cultural Case Study

The situation is Egypt is discouraging for democratic ideals and the violence is disturbing. Not even addressing the problem of the military coup and the illegality of removing an elected president (and the US and other foreign governments’ approval/disapproval/complicity), from an intercultural perspective it is an example of how differences between groups can result in societal and governmental conflict. However, we can also use this case with students to demonstrate the different ways that reality is constructed and the role of the media in that process. Much of the coverage in outside of Egypt has focused on one version of reality, but there are opportunities for us to find alternative perspectives, thanks to technology.  As this situation continues to evolve, the difficulty of ongoing, generational cultural conflict becomes clearer. While not unique to Egypt, this certainly can be used to demonstrate and try to understand a bit of the complexity of culture, politics, power, and identity.