December 6, 2007

Racist like Mommy?

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Via Salon’s Broadsheet, we learn today that white mothers, more so than white fathers, teach their kids to be racist. Or, white kids get whatever racism they learn from their mothers. Or something like that.

The study focused on white kids 4-7. Since I have two half-white kids in that age group I have to agree with the broads at Broadsheet that any info gleaned from them has to be taken with a boulder-sized grain of salt. What about the other kids at school, regular babysitters, movies, TV, toys and just plain listening to what adults do and not just say? Bravo to researchers for studying weird stuff like this, but what about the racism and or racial attitudes of non-white kids?

Only an abstract of the study is available (for free), so we cheap bastards can only know so much about this finding, but I spend a fair amount of time with black folks. Let’s just say that we tend to be pretty straight forward with our ‘observations’ about white folks. Racism or hard-won knowledge gleaned from centuries of ‘interaction’? You be the judge, but I’d bet that a study of black kids’ racial attitudes would make for some pretty interesting reading.

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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