I am...Markita. 21. Nutritional Sciences Major. Amazing. Enjoy the food, quotes, fandoms, culture, posts on international and multicultural issues, images of lovely people and things, and random posts that make me laugh.
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thesmithian:

As minority bus ridership rises, the racial stigma against the transportation form compounds. When Atlanta launched its Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) system in the 1970s, some hissed that the acronym stood for “Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta.” Today, though 78 percent of MARTA riders are black, many black residents still struggle to access the city bus lines, which fail to stretch deep enough into the sprawling black suburbs. (One critic has characterized the lingering problem as “transportation apartheid”). And the racial stigma against buses lingers even in lines that have not yet been built and boarded. When a new bus route was charted through a white Tempe, Arizona, neighborhood a few years ago, neighbors complained that the line would attract serial killers and child rapists. Also: “bums,” “drunks,” and “Mexicans,” who the commentators feared would soon be “drinking out of our water hoses.”

more from “Race, Class, and the Stigma of Riding the Bus.”

karnythia:

So let’s talk about this idea that racist depictions in the media is a thing of the past for black people again. Or not. People could just try looking shit up.
It is important that a feminist who chooses to engage in comparative analysis learn to suspend judgment in analyzing differences. Differences should be viewed in their cultural context. This is not to say that feminists should not examine the ways in which women are disadvantaged in cultural systems. A global universal truth is that women are disadvantaged socially, politically, legally, and educationally in most cultures. However, the nature of the disadvantage will not be the same as that experienced by white, liberal, middle-class feminists in the United States. Rather, women’s oppression may be linked to broader social, political, and cultural issues. For example, poor women in Third World countries who are interested in obtaining credit for their microbusiness for their economic survival are more interested in the availability of credit on their terms. Credit problems faced by middle-class divorced women in the United States focus on their problems establishing credit because their husbands paid the bills during their marriage.
— Global Critical Race Feminism (via angrywomenoftumblr)

Minorities underrepresented in selective colleges

education-policy:

A new Stanford study finds that black and Hispanic students were underrepresented in the most selective universities between 1982 and 2004.  As recently as 2004, white students were five times more likely as black students to enroll in top schools even after accounting for income differences.  White students were three times as likely as Hispanic students to enroll in such schools.  Read the full report here.

While race is not biology, racism can certainly affect our biology. Racial social structures, from access to health care to one’s own racialized self-image, can impact the ways our bodies and immune systems develop. This means that race, while not a biological unit, can have important biological implications and significant societal impacts. So what do we know about human biological diversity?

There is substantial biological variation within and between the thousands of human populations on the planet, but population ≠ race. These patterns of variation are shaped by culture, language, ecology, history, and geography. The vast majority of social and biological scientists recognize that race is not an accurate or productive way to describe modern human biological variation. However, race in the USA is a cultural construct that affects our social realities, and racial inequality (racism) can affect individuals’ biology.
The colonization of the Americas, Africa, and the Asiatic world by the European powers set the foundation for contemporary racial inequality. These colonial processes divided the world between conquered and colonizer, master and slave, white and non-white (i.e., other). It included the development of an ideology, and processes of spreading that ideology (mostly through education), to justify colonization. From these past relationships, legal practices, ideologies, and social mores emerged the construction of racial difference as natural and fixed. Law upon law, practice upon practice, and construction upon construction has brought racial inequality to its current state.
— Zamudio et al., Critical Race Theory Matters: Education and Ideology (via wretchedoftheearth)

More reasons as to why I love Neil Gaiman.

Run your own Race

It’s hard to remember that different people get to the same conclusion in a myriad of ways. There’s all of these comparisons, and these thoughts get into your head that really mess you up, like Why am I not getting to where I want to be fast enough? and Why is this person getting it, and not me? What am I doing wrong?

We need to realize that we’re not necessarily wrong…we just have our own path. If you remember that we’re all on our own paths, and that you can’t mimic someone’s path completely, nor can you completely control your own path, then you’ll be in a better place. You won’t get jealous as easily, and if you do recognize that feeling arise within you, you can grab a hold of it and remember that there’s no reason for you to feel this way.

You’ll get to where you want to be eventually, and not everything adheres to our desire for instant gratification. You’re not going to write a book in a day, or invent something, or reach enlightenment, or get rich/successful/insert your own goal here instantly (Although if you do, kudos to you). It takes time. Time that we don’t want to spend. Time we don’t have to waste. Time that we don’t think we have. But it’s going to happen.

Know that some things that you want take months to happen, and they don’t necessarily come in the format that you expect. They also come when you least expect it, choosing to appear in the form of a person, an encounter, or an accident. That’s life.

Of course, you’re not perfect. There are going to be days where you think that you are completely failing, and everyone else is doing better than you, and you’re never going to accomplish anything. Experience those feelings, and then search for the ways that you are succeeding so that you don’t feel hopeless or give up.

Man, I sound like one of those self help books. Basically, don’t get caught up in what other people are doing. You’re only doing yourself a disservice because it makes you feel horrible and it’s a detriment to achieving your goals. Do what you need to do and be happy with it.

The end.