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White People! Start Fucking More!
The New York Times reported today that the inevitable unthinkable has happened: White people are the minority.
OK, they aren’t the minority. They are just pumping out babies at a lower rate than all other races combined. In it’s totality, “other” is now pumping out more kids than non-Hispanic Whites. Now, I don’t know what a “non-Hispanic White” is, but it sounds like this is a big deal.
The Census Bureau reports that white babies only make up 49.6% of births, making white babies a minority for the first time in American history. This information has been expected, but the date was ambiguous. Finally, after some 200 years of inviting immigrants of non-white heritage in to this country–literally importing them at one point–the melting pot has boiled over, and the contents are browner than they are white.
This shocks me not, but the entire article seems to be written from a perspective that feels just a bit racist, with a pinch of fear. White women are averaging in their forties, “past their peak fertility,” while Latino women are in their premium child-bearing years with a median age of 27.
It also asks whether the elderly are going to be willing to fund education for a young population that “looks less like them.” Wow, so we’re saying that the elderly are racist? Duh. They are a bunch of conservative bigots with oxygen tanks. If we don’t like the idea that the elderly are bigots, then I say we stop inventing shit to keep them around longer.
I say good riddance to the white past. To hell with it. Who cares? This is what you get when you build a country on the backs of other races. When you keep asking people to come here, you can only think that they’re gonna fuck. It is a country that champions the pursuit of happiness, after all.
Who gives a damn for the Anglo-Saxon forefathers and their bullshit outlook on human rights and equality. I hope to hell and back that our forefathers are rolling over in their graves. Most of those bastards are in hell anyway. What, you don’t think raping slaves is a sin? If it takes more minorities to dull the blade of racism, then I welcome the little brown, yellow, and black babies that are getting pumped out at, literally, a record pace.
I won’t miss the white America of the past. It never really was white. Sure, the face on TV were white in the 50’s. Sure, token black characters and shows were a spectacle in the past, but that isn’t the times today. If this information tells me anything, it’s that gay is the new black. Instead of Sanford and Sons and the Jeffersons, we have dyn-o-mite shows like Glee and Smash. It’s gayer than ever. Don’t even get me started on Bravo, but this too will move in to a past issue as more open-mindedness and social liberalism come in to the mainstream.
The people who must be shaking in their boots is the GOP. Man, they are gonna be in some trouble. White people are their white bread and butter. Minorities chose either liberalism or just don’t get involved. Latinos don’t seem to vote at all, even though they make up an ever-growing segment of the population. According to the NYTimes article, some 50,000 Latinos turn 18 every month. Holy shit. Now that’s a strong voting base if you can get ‘em to the polls.
The article goes on to show some high points for white people to be excited about. As I read it, I almost heard, “but not all is lost” in the back of my head. Old people are all really white. Like, 73% white in some areas, but the youth don’t even account for 20% of a particular population segment. Well, at least we have the old folks. God forbid those bastards finally die and let us move forward as a nation.
With all this said, I am thinking about a couple of points the article doesn’t raise. It makes note of Hispanics having larger families at a younger age than white people. That sounds like a sex education problem, not some idea that whites are losing their foothold in this country. I also don’t know why the idea of rationed health care for the elderly isn’t discussed a bit more in the article. We’ve got a financially back-breaking amount of old white fucks that might not want to support education for brown people? Fuck ‘em. That should be part of the SS questionnaire. “What are your thought on minorities?” Depending on what they say, we decide whether we even want these people on the planet. There’s a thin line between Arian Nation and Archie Bunker. I say, Let the Archie Bunkers of the world die, and as far as the article says, it looks like the ranks of the Arian Nation are doomed as it is.
Hey, I’m all for a darker future. Bring on the adorable brown babies. Who gives a shit? If you’re on this planet and you’ve got a problem with white people being out numbered by “other” in America, then move to fucking Canada. Good riddance. I for one love the food of minorities, the music of minorities, and the hospitality. White people are dicks. The fact that this is an article in the NYTimes that required a jump is ridiculous. Let’s all admit it, the NYTimes is written for white people. You find it on more white men’s lawns mowed by Mexicans than the other way ‘round. So, leave it to a white paper to report that white people are outnumbered and then discuss the very serious policy issues this presents for politics, the economy, and education. Fuck you, NYT. This was an article written for white people, and from the tone I felt, it might as well have been titled, “We’re Being Overrun!” I say, bring on the world’s best tamales, jazz, and fried rice. I for one, am looking forward to a browner America.
Page One Review
Page One is a compelling and revealing look in to one year at the New York Times; the Old Grey Lady. By dumb luck, the documentary is filmed during an incredible and controversial time at the paper. During a round of layoffs, as the news world crumbles around their feet causing people to question whether the paper can survive, and during the publishing of the wikileaks of secret government cables; the viewer gets an unfiltered look in to the behind-the-scenes goings on at the paper.
The film really centers around David Carr, a journalist for the NYT. David is a compelling character to center the film around. He is outspoken, unapologetic, and profound in his writing. David, after years of drug abuse, alcohol abuse, and dark times in his life, shines as a traditional reporter in the new media world. The documentary covers the Media Desk, which was created to follow the changes in the media and new industry, including what was happening at the NYT.
It is a fascinating study in the changes in news-gathering, which includes film from symposium about news, and how many new media figureheads seem to resent the NYT and big newspapers for a perceived lack of credibility, which David Carr takes an exception to, and at one presents a web front page from one of the aggregate sites, with all the stories taken from big newspapers cut out…there wasn’t much content left.
David is a great protagonist for the film, the look in to story pitch meetings, and real news gathering, trying to get confirmation on stories, get people to go on record, and the minutia of doing proper journalism which seems to occur mostly through a series of tedious phone calls.
The documentary is fascinating. As a “writer,” I found it to be truly provocative, exciting, and a fascinating look in to the back room hard work that goes on to make a daily publication such as this happen. There are great retrospectives in to some scandals the NYT has endured to compromise its integrity, a little history, and a daily walk through reporting and getting copy from a journalist’s desk to the front page.
It comes from some of the people behind Waiting For Superman; Food, Inc.; and An Inconvenient Truth. Though you can argue that there is a liberal bias to these earlier films, there is enough stark fact and truth to keep it from feeling too much like an agenda-bent film. I highly suggest a look in to the film to see what work goes in to the words, and to maybe make you reconsider your potentially toxic distaste for “lame-stream” media.
Page One is available for online streaming on Netflix, so pop it in to your queue.
Loitering Like a Patriot
September 17th marked the beginning of the “Occupy:” movement. It finds its roots in the idea that we, the 99%, are fighting class warfare with the 1% and we are fed up with it. There is the idea that capitalism, democracy, and freedom, have been privatized and leveraged for personal gain both monetary and otherwise. Whether this is true or not has nothing to do with the actual cause. This is the kettle boiling over as the masses have had enough and simply want…something.
It started innocuously enough with about a thousand people responding to a Canadian-based site that called for the peaceful occupation of Wall St. to make their voices heard that they are tired of the corporate greed and the toxic environment that not only feeds the problem, but is at its core is profiting from it while so many others suffer. There isn’t time nor space for me to recount the events of the last three years, the wars we are fighting, the middle and lower class suffering that has occurred, or the overall tone of commentary about the poor and unfortunate rich that are being targeted in some weird version of class warfare. Suffice to say, people are tired and hungry for change, and they finally just want to stand shoulder to shoulder with their compatriots.
This kind of protesting is nothing new to me. I grew up in Oregon. The NW has been rife for protest and demonstration for decades. We had the WTO riots in Seattle. I know that people sit-in often, protest loudly, and are constantly chaining themselves together in the middle of an intersection for the purpose of one cause or another. The NW pioneered this kind of organization of the masses and we have been the ones to do it best to date. Occupy: Seattle…you knew it was only a matter of time.
All over the country we are seeing events planned out. This thing has gone viral, and ever since the protestors in NY attempted to bring traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge to a standstill, the front has been galvanized.
Charlotte, Seattle, Topeka, Detroit, Cairo, Tallahassee, and on. Occupiers are assembling in the places to let their voices be heard. But to what end? OccupyTogether.org even admits that this is a leaderless movement. A truly organic and grassroots uprising of the people saying enough is enough, but is it enough?
What are they saying in the streets?
“Banks are corrupt and corporate America has held us down for too long!” Really? Yeah, that’s not news. Big corporations are the only reason this industrialized country even exists. What, you think the railroads were built by little momand pop railroad building companies?
“Politicians are corrupt and pandering to big business as they make huge contributions to campaigns and are treated better than the people are!” No shit. Corrupt politicians who will say anything for a buck? Yeah, we can get them in bulk by the palate at Costco for fuck’s sake. Tell me something that isn’t as old as the story of humanity.
“We are sick and tired of the rich being coddled while the non-one-percenters get taxed and left with no help or recourse. It is time the rich started paying more and time that the government stopped bending over for them because they have all the money!” Keep fucking dreaming. Hell, companies are actually people now. We live in a world where “inc” has all the rights as “jr.” You think for one second that there is any going back from this? Not unless we go all post apocalyptic and start killing each other for oil, food, water, and power…wait a minute…
I have been watching the coverage, the videos, reading the articles, and I am still a little foggy on what the eventual Utopia is going to look like. What is the end goal? The end of large companies and world banks? Are we looking to tar and feather, draw and quarter, those responsible for this economic/democratic mess we find ourselves in? I doubt it, we just don’t have the horses for that.
With no clear end game and the looming eviction of the Occupy: Wall St.’ers at 7 am tomorrow, what is next? There is clearly no political party that will come out of this. The Tea Party was a well-funded conservative movement that gained a lot of traction and now has it’s hands inside the rusty gears of politics. Is “Occupy:” going to find itself a candidate? I think they did, but he hasn’t worked out so well for anyone up to this point.
The comparisons to the Tea Party movement are a little premature and a little grandiose. These are people loitering in parks and in public spaces. This is peaceable assembly, but for what cause? I’m not saying that the Tea party protestors had a clear message, but I could speculate that given enough rope and enough time with a microphone, any random occupier would eventually hang themselves in a tirade about the injustice and work there way to the idea of destroying it all and starting over again (well, maybe there is a little similarities in basic message). I don’t know if I can get there with you on that one, young blonde girl in dreadlocks, but this soccer mom in period authentic Revolutionary war outfit in the tri-corner hat is making a lot of sense. It’s all about the packaging.
What hurts the movement is that there isn’t another plan. If most protestors got their way then we’d throw every Wall St. broker in jail, close the big banks, and then rebuild democracy from the ground up. That’s the big difference between the Tea Party and Occupy:, the Tea Party had the sage words of forefathers and a Constitution to prostitute to their cause. The Occupy: movement is really gonna just be stuck with a manifesto and a couple parts of the Bill of Rights…with none of the forefather quotes to take out of context. Without some patriotic drum to beat, what it looks like is anarchy, dissent during hard times, and political mutiny (or at the very least an act of terrorism, maybe?).
It’s the protestors themselves that are hurting their own case. It’s like the crowds from Bonnaroo and Burning Man got lost on their way home and set up shop in any town they could find. Blocking the Brooklyn Bridge? Getting arrested? Shitting in the streets? Also, I have never seen so many backpacks at a protest in my life (no one take anyone wearing a backpack seriously). This is not going to play well to middle America. You just look like lazy and unemployed misanthropes. I’m not saying this is what you are, but that is how it is playing out.
I love the enthusiasm, but it’s misdirected. More than anything, if political involvement for real change is the end goal, then you blew your load too early. This will all be forgotten by January, but had this event taken place at this same time next year, than a voting base might have been able to be put in to action at the precipice of the election night. With Obama on the campaign trail and the GOP clamoring to create conservative sound bites, then you might have gotten more attention closer to the eleventh hour.
This doesn’t remind me of the Tea Party and it certainly doesn’t remind me of the uprising in Iran that got its start through the internet and social media. Though you’ve got hotlines, mailing addresses, and soon it’s own newpaper thanks to pledges at Kickstarter, this reminds me of the “Vote or Die” campaign…and we all know how well that turned out. Yeah, the t-shirt was cool, it was cool to repost links on Facebook, but it didn’t get the youth vote anywhere, and it didn’t stop Bush from getting elected. Once a movement is on MTV, it’s been dead for a week already.
I appreciate the effort, and I know you probably don’t have anywhere else to be anyway. Hang out, play bongos, chant, cheer, and march. It’s good for TV ratings and I’ll hashtag a post or two on Twitter, but don’t expect real change. It’s chaotic camaraderie at it’s best and it’s squatting and loitering all other times of the day. I support you, in theory. As does Soccer Mom Jane and Joe the Plumber, but Joe’s got a job and Jane’s got three kids to raise, so don’t expect their participation in anything but the Cliff Notes. They don’t have the time to camp out for a month in the name of a cause, and that is the major difference between the Tea Party and Occupy…priorities. Take a shower and put together a position, or get back to loitering outside Starbuck’s, hitch-hiking to Denver, and playing bongos for spare change outside a Virgin Records store. You know, the stuff you did before someone sent you an email to occupy something.
www.avaaz.org www.occupytogether.org #occupytogether #OTW www.facebook.com/occupytogether
Filtered to Death
Out of Site Out of Mind:
The Rampant Desire for Personalized Digital Media Exposure
It began innocently enough, I suppose. I could go back to newspapers and even as far back as newsreels that played before movies back in the day. I could trace the steps of the advent of the digital age and the shift in American consumer tastes spurred on by the growing outcry calling for more news distilled in to short bites and clips so as to stay abreast of what was going on beyond our purview. I could go there, but I think I want to start more recently with the very modern form of news as we know it. Yes, there are papers which no one really reads anymore, but with the undeniable power of aggregate news sites battling demographic targeted broadcast and cable news channels, I think we might have gone a touch too far. Digital ratings-based advertising coupled with the algorithmic world that now surrounds our every waking moment makes for a dangerous cocktail of inadvertent censorship and willing non-participation that we have created and embraced, filtering content to the point that we are now able to literally shape the world that we allow to be known to us.
The most subtle, and probably the most rewarding, form of filtration really goes on without our consent; algorithms. Algorithms are like open-ended lines of code and equations that power some of the most wildly popular and engrossing forms of media entertainment and access. Your TiVo has them. Netflix, Hulu, and iTunes wouldn’t really even be the programs that they are without them. As you rate, record, listen to, or watch something, a little line of code is having a circle jerk with all the information therein. As you rate a movie five-stars on Netflix, that information, all the defining aspects and genre information of said movie, is being run through a program and it is able to spit out similar movies and TV shows which it will bet that you like. It also takes that information and begins to eliminate from your view all the movies you won’t like. So even as you are taking in media, companies and corporations have decided on your behalf what you want to be exposed to from that moment forward. There is no going back even after watching one TV show or buying one single song on iTunes, your tastes will be extrapolated to an almost pornographic level and what makes it to your eyes and into your song catalog will now be censored for your viewing pleasure, courtesy of Faceless Entity, Inc.
What also exists is the wonderful world of personalization. Oh, this glorious form of self-expression extends from the iPhone case to how you get your news. Well, thanks to the geniuses of Let Then Eat Cake, LLC; you can now personalize everything news related from your NYTimes.com homepage to your myESPN.com homepage. Gone are the days of all relevant news and information getting to you. No, now you can get only the news that matters to you. So do away with local stories about government, national stock information, foreign news, and fuck cricket scores or LPGA rankings; those aren’t real sports anyway. Now you can get just the news you want to know, not what you NEED to know. The paper was nice because it was all there for you to read or not to or even to not want to read but be interested after skimming a headline. Screw that shit, I don’t even want to be bothered with crap that doesn’t amuse me. Just simply set up your page with a few ticks of boxes, a couple simple questions, and a few loading pages later we have successfully ousted even being bothered with anything that doesn’t get my brain all riled up like Anthony Weiner’s Jockey shorts.
Most disturbingly I have found that this is also happening to us in our search for knowledge. At it’s best and most ideal the internet is simply a wealth of knowledge. You can learn quite possibly anything on the internet. (I have recently been toying with the idea of writing a book about how I taught myself how to pass the California Bar Exam and other ridiculous accomplishments through free information on the web) One might think that portals to this wealth of knowledge should have no filtration or any oversight beyond what a parent is allowed to limit from the innocent minds of their progeny. Alas, this is not the case. Google for one will filter and order the news, unless you specify otherwise in “search settings,” according to previous methods of searching. So, based quite possibly on the sites you click on and the hours you spend searching for nutshot videos or dramatic squirrels, this could effect the outcome of a search on struggles in Tunisia for a freestanding and non-corrupt post-revolution government. Those two search-types seem independently exclusive, but algorithms at work in search engines kick back to you what they thinks you will want to see, not what might be most relevant or even the most up-to-date information. I for one get wikipages with almost every search I do because I went on a tear over the wikileaks and warlogs.*
Is any of this dangerous on it’s own? I think it certainly could be innocent if any of this existed wholly separate from the rest. Your Netflix preferences are nice, you like when TiVo gets it right, and you like that iTunes can make you hip to a new sound not unlike the other sounds you already like. Hey, so do I! I don’t mind my tastes that make me an individual broken down in to key numeric values and variables, fed into a machine, and then the very tastes and preferences that make me human are displayed on a homepage in so many unfeeling pixels and sums to a numbers problem; who doesn’t like their humanity dissolved down to nothing more than a solution to a math problem that humans cannot even fathom solving with scratch paper and a pen!?
Despite my clear reticence to accept our future robot overlords, I do embrace some of these comforts that technological advance and free-market consumption have offered us. I just wonder if this move to changing and shaping what gets to us is starting to do that world “out there” a disservice. I like my TiVo, Netflix, and even my Hulu. To a large extent I know those kinds of filtration are for my convenience and my pleasure. I am glad Netflix knows I don’t want to see Tyler Perry present ANYTHING, and I get that this system is really meant for entertainment only, but these things also represent a portal to learning new things and that kind of power should not be taken lightly. Think of what a mind-bender someone might get from the right documentary or the right film that doesn’t fit their designed preferences. Genius can be struck through any forum, and just because a person’s tastes say they might not like Citizen Kane, doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be exposed to it on their Netflix homepage and given the chance to watch the greatest film ever made.
When it comes to building my own filters I like having a choice to only watch the sports highlights that I wanna see and follow teams or players very carefully as a fan on ESPN.com. I sure as shit don’t give a holy hell about rugby or cricket unless it is 4am and ESPN3 has a replay of what apparently was a really big game and then try and figure out the rules as I watch it, but I like to be given the option to see it when I want and then otherwise forget it is a thing at all.
It is the way of the times that we even personalize our news pages and sites. This is where fear starts to creep in for me. This is where people now have control not to pick and choose sports, but the things happening in reality all over the world. Depending on a person’s views, morals, beliefs, business interests, location geographically, they can design a filter through a homepage and email updates catering to their specific needs and desires. This is where a slippery slope comes in as we begin to live in a more global society where issues in any one place can and do effect us all. Didn’t know that the Supreme Court ruled violent and sexual video games are protected as free speech same as books like Catcher in the Rye and Howl and are legally allowed to be sold to minors? Well, change up your page and you might learn a thing or two about the reaches of the Constitution.
In the end I guess it is all about pleasing the customer. This might be as much the problem as the solution though. We should filter the world a bit, I will admit. You have to box things up because there are 3,000 kinds of cereal, 500 kinds of soda, and 1,000 different energy drinks, and if you try to look at everything your brain will fucking explode (paraphrasing Budo); but if it is that or being obtuse and ignorant to particular, meaningful things because you can’t be bothered, then I think we might be headed to personalizing ourselves in to a corner. Maybe filtration should be used to only a limited extent. I don’t think anyone has ever complained about being offered more. Give people options, but always keep certain things on any page. Major developments, updates to stories, and anything pertaining to a region or a story of any great weight should have a place on a page no matter if a person decides that they care or not; and don’t forget Citizen Kane. I also think it is dangerous and almost criminal on the part of search engines to throw algorithms at what shows up when I desire to go out and learn; whether it’s movie quotes or reports on warcrimes, I want to be able to access the most relevant information, not what you think I am looking for, Google. Exposure is key to changing and opening minds and if someone isn’t exposed to new ideas, music, movies, or news, I fear it could retard our growth as individuals which can have dire consequences at the relatively cheap cost of having to skim through the “crap” on our homepages for an extra five seconds.
*If you’re reading this (all five of you), then I would like you to do a search of “Tunisia” on Google and list the first three sites or listings you get. My first three are two wikipages: Tunisia and Tunisian revolution, I get Google images (which doesn’t count) and the third entry is a NYtimes.com entry. I will bet that your three links, minus photos, will be different, unless you read a lot of wiki and love the NYTimes as I do. POST THOSE LINKS IN THE COMMENTS BELOW. I doubt you will do this, but if even a couple people do then I think we are in for an interesting experiment to see if I’m lying about algorithm intervention or if there is a little credence to what I have to say. God knows I love to be proven right.
