Treyvon Bandwagon

So, you know I had to do it, right?  I know that this blog post won’t be about anything that y’all haven’t already heard, read or seen in the media, but still, as I sit here listening to my 4 year old son singing “Twinkle, Twinkle” in his room, I can’t NOT say something.  I am sad, frustrated, wounded and a little scared!

I know what African Americans have gone through in this country.  I know the history of this country and how minorities are treated today.  All I have to do is look at my own community and I can tell what’s going on.  I first heard about this story and obviously, I didn’t want to jump to conclusions.  As someone who has worked in the prison system and the daughter of a civil servant (retired fireman), I generally, think that police and the like do their due diligence!  I didn’t want to automatically think anything like this was race based.  I didn’t want to think that it’s another Florida death where the accused murderer got off.  I just didn’t want to assume anything. 

However, over the past few weeks, I can only think about what this inaction and confusion and finger pointing means for my son.  It also makes me think about our community and what our “friends” REALLY think about race and race related issues.  I have read so many posts on Facebook and Twitter and heard people’s opinions about how it was or wasn’t racially motivated.  I have read how people don’t “see” race, so they don’t understand how others can just assume that this was racially motivated.  I have read people getting mad and even incensed about people of color gathering around a cause and being frustrated or hurt or confused.  I have seen how some people just want to “sweep” it under the rug and get upset when we don’t just “walk in love!”

Well, I too am confused.  I too am frustrated.  How do I, a white woman who is OUTRAGED by this, explain this kind of thing to my son?  I know the simple answers and I am not looking for advise, but it does make me think!  Clearly, K and I are not having this conversation today, but someday, we will—this I know for sure.  How do I explain why talking about race is tough for some people but we do it all the time? 
I know that most of my questions (these and the other ones roaming around in my head) will work themselves out and when the time comes, I will be able to have a dialogue with K about such things.  I trust myself on that one.  I also feel that  even if I don’t have an answer for him, we can figure things out together or I will point him in the right direction or to the person who I hope can help him.  These are conversations that can wait for now, but this is a conversation that I need to add to the ever growing list of things that I know we will need to talk about; things we should most certainly talk about: Martin Luther King, Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin, Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, the Freedom Riders, Thurgood Marshall, Zora Nealle Hurston, Colin Powell, Alvin Ailey, Robel Teklemariam, Frederick Douglas, Sojourner Truth, Medger Evers, Langston Hughes, President Obama, Nelson Mandela and the like!

I don’t know… maybe this is just me brain dumping—it most likely is.  But please, parents, let’s have these kinds of talks with our kids.  Let’s open the doors of conversation about race and race related issues—not forcing them, but dealing with them.  Let’s celebrate how different we are, in a good way.  Let’s also put politics and religion and whatever aside and be outraged that this kid was killed. 

So...what you're saying is...

The Lighter the Skin, the Shorter the Prison Term?

By: Topher Sanders

Posted: July 5, 2011 at 12:01 AM

A recent study of women convicted of crimes shows that dark-complexioned blacks serve more time in jail.

Colin Powell said it, Sen. Harry Reid hinted at it about President Barack Obama, and black folks have known it for hundreds of years. There are advantages to being a light-skinned black person in the United States.

Research on those advantages isn’t new, but with the release of a recent study by Villanova University, the breadth of quantitative studies that examine colorism, or discrimination based on skin tone, continues to increase. From housing opportunities to employment chances to which women have a good shot at getting married, the lighter-is-better dynamic is at play, research shows.

Villanova researchers studied more than 12,000 cases of African-American women imprisoned in North Carolina and found that women with lighter skin tones received more-lenient sentences and served less time than women with darker skin tones.

The researchers found that light-skinned women were sentenced to approximately 12 percent less time behind bars than their darker-skinned counterparts. Women with light skin also served 11 percent less time than darker women.

The study took into account the type of crimes the women committed and each woman’s criminal history to generate apples-to-apples comparisons. The work builds on previous studies by Stanford University, the University of Colorado at Boulder and other institutions, which have examined how “black-looking” features and skin tone can impact black men in the criminal-justice arena.

But researchers say this is the first study to look at how colorism affects black women and how long they may spend in jail. Part of the reason may simply come down to how pretty jurors consider a defendant to be, and that being light-skinned and thin (also a factor studied in the research) are seen as more attractive, says Lance Hannon, co-author of the Villanova study.

Racism gets all the headlines, but colorism is just as real and impacting, Hannon explains. How “white” someone is perceived matters. “Colorism is clearly not taken as seriously or is not publicly discussed as much as racism, and yet these effects are pretty strong and the evidence is pretty strong,” he says. “It’s a very real problem, and people need to pay attention to it more.”

Christina Swarns, director of the Criminal Justice Practice for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, says the study’s findings are part of a larger problem in how the justice system deals with African Americans. “It is obviously part and parcel of the problem of overincarceration of the African-American community in this country,” she says. “There is unquestionably … an association between race and criminality, and I think this study emphasizes how skin color plays an important role in that perception of a link between race and criminality.”

William Darity, professor of African-American studies and economics at Duke University and director of the Research Network on Racial & Ethnic Inequality, has studied the impact of skin shade on marriage rates for women and employment for men.

Darity says the Villanova study expands previous research and underscores a known truth. “This has been a long-standing issue and problem that all blacks don’t face the same type or degree of discrimination,” he says.

Treating people differently because of the lightness or darkness of their skin isn’t exclusive to whites. As an example, Darity cites his research, which found that there are “real” disadvantages for darker-skinned black women when it comes to their chances of getting married.

“And one would have to say that’s to a large degree the consequence of preferences on the part of black men,” he says. That same preference for lighter-skinned black women over darker-skinned black women is true for white men, Darity adds.

But there has been recent movement by the government to take colorism more seriously, Hannon says. He pointed to a 2008 initiative by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that explicitly considers colorism. Hannon also notes that because the Civil Rights Act refers to “color” and not simply race, the door is open for litigation around colorism, which could also push the policy dial.

Darity believes that the benefits of light skin have to be addressed to cause change. “There are clear social and pecuniary benefits to being lighter-skinned in America,” Darity says. “Unless we eliminate those benefits, this will go on, because the advantages are real.”

Topher Sanders is a newspaper reporter living in Jacksonville, Fla., with his wife and son.

So…what you’re saying is…

The Lighter the Skin, the Shorter the Prison Term?

By: Topher Sanders

Posted: July 5, 2011 at 12:01 AM

A recent study of women convicted of crimes shows that dark-complexioned blacks serve more time in jail.

Colin Powell said it, Sen. Harry Reid hinted at it about President Barack Obama, and black folks have known it for hundreds of years. There are advantages to being a light-skinned black person in the United States.

Research on those advantages isn’t new, but with the release of a recent study by Villanova University, the breadth of quantitative studies that examine colorism, or discrimination based on skin tone, continues to increase. From housing opportunities to employment chances to which women have a good shot at getting married, the lighter-is-better dynamic is at play, research shows.

Villanova researchers studied more than 12,000 cases of African-American women imprisoned in North Carolina and found that women with lighter skin tones received more-lenient sentences and served less time than women with darker skin tones.

The researchers found that light-skinned women were sentenced to approximately 12 percent less time behind bars than their darker-skinned counterparts. Women with light skin also served 11 percent less time than darker women.

The study took into account the type of crimes the women committed and each woman’s criminal history to generate apples-to-apples comparisons. The work builds on previous studies by Stanford University, the University of Colorado at Boulder and other institutions, which have examined how “black-looking” features and skin tone can impact black men in the criminal-justice arena.

But researchers say this is the first study to look at how colorism affects black women and how long they may spend in jail. Part of the reason may simply come down to how pretty jurors consider a defendant to be, and that being light-skinned and thin (also a factor studied in the research) are seen as more attractive, says Lance Hannon, co-author of the Villanova study.

Racism gets all the headlines, but colorism is just as real and impacting, Hannon explains. How “white” someone is perceived matters. “Colorism is clearly not taken as seriously or is not publicly discussed as much as racism, and yet these effects are pretty strong and the evidence is pretty strong,” he says. “It’s a very real problem, and people need to pay attention to it more.”

Christina Swarns, director of the Criminal Justice Practice for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, says the study’s findings are part of a larger problem in how the justice system deals with African Americans. “It is obviously part and parcel of the problem of overincarceration of the African-American community in this country,” she says. “There is unquestionably … an association between race and criminality, and I think this study emphasizes how skin color plays an important role in that perception of a link between race and criminality.”

William Darity, professor of African-American studies and economics at Duke University and director of the Research Network on Racial & Ethnic Inequality, has studied the impact of skin shade on marriage rates for women and employment for men.

Darity says the Villanova study expands previous research and underscores a known truth. “This has been a long-standing issue and problem that all blacks don’t face the same type or degree of discrimination,” he says.

Treating people differently because of the lightness or darkness of their skin isn’t exclusive to whites. As an example, Darity cites his research, which found that there are “real” disadvantages for darker-skinned black women when it comes to their chances of getting married.

“And one would have to say that’s to a large degree the consequence of preferences on the part of black men,” he says. That same preference for lighter-skinned black women over darker-skinned black women is true for white men, Darity adds.

But there has been recent movement by the government to take colorism more seriously, Hannon says. He pointed to a 2008 initiative by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that explicitly considers colorism. Hannon also notes that because the Civil Rights Act refers to “color” and not simply race, the door is open for litigation around colorism, which could also push the policy dial.

Darity believes that the benefits of light skin have to be addressed to cause change. “There are clear social and pecuniary benefits to being lighter-skinned in America,” Darity says. “Unless we eliminate those benefits, this will go on, because the advantages are real.”

Topher Sanders is a newspaper reporter living in Jacksonville, Fla., with his wife and son.