http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog5/ Dr. J. W. Wiley has possibly orchestrated and engaged in more conversations about diversity & social justice than anyone else in the North Country of New York. He is as eager to get in your ear as he is to have you share your thoughts. en Copyright 2013 Tue, 09 Apr 2013 20:49:02 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss What an Interesting time to be an American, or even a so-called American. We are living through the era of a reelected Bi-racial president whom the country continues to insist is Black; a moment featuring controversy about an Academy Award nominated film about a rambunctious ex-slave who literally kills a whole lot of White folks when not kicking their racist-rears during his effort to reunite with his lady love; an ongoing dysfunctional debate over gun control in the aftermath of one of the most heinous crimes in American history; and a major college basketball coach caught on camera psychologically as well as physically bullying his athletes. What do all these things have in common? They each contribute to informing us about the construction of the American Identity, how that identity construction rules us, as well as the rules that apply in terms of how we respond to the many dimensions of our American Identity. http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog5/2013/04/our_identity_rules.html http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog5/2013/04/our_identity_rules.html Tue, 09 Apr 2013 20:49:02 -0500 In the films Unfaithful and Closer, infidelity is a primary reason for tremendous strain on the marriages/monogamous relationships within both films. Julia Roberts and Clive Owen, Richard Gere and Diane Lane as married couples, and Jude Law and Natalie Portman as an unmarried couple all exemplify relational struggles similar to those we see and encounter daily. While relationships begin and end daily, often we don’t necessarily attribute a more sophisticated way of seeing differences as possibly beneficial to assisting couples in negotiating/navigating the often treacherous terrain that they must travel during their relationships. http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog5/2012/11/would_we_be_unfaithful_or_beco.html http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog5/2012/11/would_we_be_unfaithful_or_beco.html Wed, 21 Nov 2012 14:29:07 -0500 http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog5/2012/10/looking_for_love_romance_sex_m.html http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog5/2012/10/looking_for_love_romance_sex_m.html Sun, 07 Oct 2012 05:37:26 -0500 Though most people seldom if ever process the socio-economic class implications of how they see race, once we stop and really ponder it, it is hard to deny the relationship. The pejorative phrase, “poor white trash” immediately conjoins the two so the need to unpack the phrase probably would feel like overkill. However, when we look at the word “nigger” the undertones of its meaning are vast if not duplicitous. Nigger originally meant property, which morphed into a problem for those who either had to compete against the so-called Negroes attempting to define themselves, or those who no longer had legally sanctioned control over niggers-as-property that of course were once viewed as second class if not the bona fide underclass; criminal (though as newly liberated without resources what were their options), and less than human (legally 3/5 of a person). While all of these aren’t always consciously in a person’s mind when they say or think “nigger,” subconsciously perhaps they are. At least, that is what I’ve discovered from teaching “The Philosophy of W.E.B. DuBois,” African American Culture from 1865 to the Present” and “Examining Diversity through Film” at a predominately white university, working around the country with Dr. Eddie Moore Jr. presenting The Nigger Word” workshops, and reading a plethora of scholarship on the topic. Has that definition changed? I would make the argument that is hasn’t. Subtlety being what it is, or isn’t, I would make the argument that a wealthy, well educated Black person who is bold enough to have been successful in America, could still be seen as a nigger subconsciously by Blacks suffering from self-hatred/internalized oppression. As well, many non-Blacks who think they are of a liberal mindset when it comes to race struggle with seeing once so-called Negroes as anything other than niggers the moment a Black person threatens to adversely affect their reality. This isn’t a reaction racially restricted to non-Blacks ways of seeing. Any seeming oppressive gesture by a White person, for many Blacks, is conveniently considered Cracker-like (as in the overseer cracking his whip over the back of a slave). http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog5/2012/08/the_more_things_changethe_more.html http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog5/2012/08/the_more_things_changethe_more.html Sun, 26 Aug 2012 09:28:41 -0500 I recently received a phone call from Tabatha Finnegan, granddaughter of one of the North Country’s most active citizens, Harold Brohinsky. She informed me that this founder of the region’s Human Rights Commission and long-time local business owner was deathly ill and requesting a conversation with me. I immediately rearranged my schedule. http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog5/2012/06/a_local_legend_his_human_right.html http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog5/2012/06/a_local_legend_his_human_right.html Sat, 23 Jun 2012 06:54:52 -0500 I know, just like most Americans, that the Obama presidency has not been inhibited by his race, that his being a bi-racial president, and as a result, also construed by many as a Black president, hasn’t affected him one iota. That is why I am asking my readership to assist me in proving that America is finally colorblind to our leaders racial difference. This is why U.S. Senator from Kentucky, Mitch McConnell’s statement that the G.O.P.’s number one goal was to assure that Barack Obama would only be a one term president could not have been associated with race. After all, Kentucky’s history of race relations could not have adversely influenced McConnell’s perspective on the ascendance of a two-term Senator to the highest political position in the U.S. http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog5/2012/03/3d_glasses_required_real_stree.html http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog5/2012/03/3d_glasses_required_real_stree.html Sun, 11 Mar 2012 23:36:01 -0500 COACH KING Martin, Where is it that you placed your dream and why is it that as a team we always appear to be in a game we cannot win. How badly we need you to return and coach again. http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog5/2012/01/coach_rev_dr_martin_luther_kin.html http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog5/2012/01/coach_rev_dr_martin_luther_kin.html Mon, 16 Jan 2012 11:40:55 -0500 When you hold hands, situate yourself for a kiss with a potential lover that doesn’t happen though both want it, badly; when you actually do kiss, or don’t allow foreplay to become an afterthought; or actually put some thought into the style of love making that is apropos this coming Friday as opposed to last Sunday; do we really consider any and/or all those intimate gestures related to notions of diversity & social justice? How so? To what varying degrees and relative to what dimensions/themes of diversity are any of these actions? http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog5/2011/11/romance_sex_love_marriage_stra.html http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog5/2011/11/romance_sex_love_marriage_stra.html Sat, 19 Nov 2011 01:39:39 -0500 Occupy Wall Street! Presently, is there a phrase more spoken in the world? Because of Steve Jobs and Steve Zuckerman it isn’t hard to believe that people who have reached the threshold of what they can endure would one day refuse to be oppressed anymore. More-so, that they would launch an international movement by occupying a high profile street to make a socio-political statement-is visionary at its best, and gangsta as a quest. I must admit that I myself have also been preoccupied. http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog5/2011/10/preoccupied_with_my_change.html http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog5/2011/10/preoccupied_with_my_change.html Tue, 18 Oct 2011 03:59:40 -0500 It’s been a while since I’ve blogged. I wanted to really be passionate about the next thing I wrote so that the words would just flow. I’ve had many topics that I’ve considered but dismissed them almost as soon as they popped in my head because of their already being overtly discussed. The Obama presidency is always an easy route to go because whether we want to believe it or not, we are undergoing a period in American history that historians further down the road will be salivating over. The fact that people want to downplay this bi-racial president’s Black presidency is almost as comical as it is tragic. First, if I were bi-racial I’d be very upset about the fact that the first bi-racial president is being put into a box that eliminates the richness of his identity. Secondly, bi-racial or Black, anyone, including Obama himself, who doesn’t want to discuss his racial reality is ignoring the biggest elephant to ever saunter though our political discourse. As well, the fact that we have political legislative bodies more invested in the return of their political party to prominence than the good will of the people is the epitome of dysfunctional if not exceedingly selfish. And to know you are doing dirt to thousands, no, millions of people who count on you to do the right thing is abominable. But I don’t want to talk at length about that or I’ll just get pissed off and morph into another rendition of the angry Black man. So, I’ll just admit to being peeved. http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog5/2011/09/considering_a_type_of_unexamin.html http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog5/2011/09/considering_a_type_of_unexamin.html Sun, 25 Sep 2011 13:30:49 -0500 I recently had a friend tell me that when I was asleep I had said to her that “I can see myself in my dreams.” I wondered what I could have meant when I said that. Was it my vanity revealing itself, some preoccupation with seeing myself? Was it a throwaway statement, so obvious it wasn’t worth unpacking beyond the fact that everyone probably stars in their own dreams. But then I realized that, because of the work I do it might resonate a bit deeper if I dared to go there. So, I dare to go… http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog5/2011/08/dreams_of_freedom_an_impossibi.html http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog5/2011/08/dreams_of_freedom_an_impossibi.html Thu, 11 Aug 2011 13:32:17 -0500 Sexism is an intriguing thing in our current society. You can see this in the way many people responded to ex Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, and are now responding to Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann. Both of these women are often mocked as intellectual lightweights, as if all men who are seeking forms of higher office are intellectual giants. Somehow Hillary Clinton avoided the complex criticism of her aptitude to do the job that both of her female Republican counterparts couldn’t avoid. It could be related to her ability to answer both complex and simple questions with a level of clarity that the others often appear to struggle with. However, no matter how you see what should not be seen as the phenomenon of women in politics, the evaluation of a female candidate will always require teasing out sexist’s views. But a question that might be quite intriguing for you to consider is exactly to what extent does this work both ways in our society? http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog5/2011/06/in_the_card_game_of_gender_her.html http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog5/2011/06/in_the_card_game_of_gender_her.html Wed, 22 Jun 2011 10:02:00 -0500 I often refer to a very close personal female friend of mine as “a voice of reason,” because she always has tremendously insightful things to share. When I am lost at sea she finds ways to guide me back to shore, and for that I very much appreciate her. Recently, I was drifting, floating, and reached out to her to assist me in pondering the Obama-Osama conundrum, the awkwardness that abounds relative to the celebration of Osama Bin Laden’s demise at the hands of a Navy Seal covert operations team sanctioned by President Barack Obama in response to 9-11. During that conversation I shared with her a conversation I had with my daughter who was taken aback by what she saw as bizarre adult behavior. My daughter felt that many adults should be admonished for their overt celebration of the end of Bin Laden’s life. In that regard I have a couple of philosophical points to make before I crescendo into a Churchill (Winston or Ward, you decide) conclusion. http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog5/2011/05/hypocrisy_isnt_hip_at_all_what.html http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog5/2011/05/hypocrisy_isnt_hip_at_all_what.html Sat, 07 May 2011 08:51:03 -0500 It dismantles my sensibilities (essentially blows my mind, but that saying has become a bit trite, don’t you think?) when people immediately want to fight off the accusation that they are racists. They’ll own the fact that their thoughts on women may be limiting, disrespectful, or antiquated. They somehow find a way to attribute their thoughts and behavior to the way they were raised and somehow also find a way to rationalize their sexism as not so much of a problem because they don’t really mean anything by it. Have you found this to be true? http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog5/2011/04/okay_im_sexist_maybe_homophobi.html http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog5/2011/04/okay_im_sexist_maybe_homophobi.html Mon, 04 Apr 2011 22:35:03 -0500 In the Examining Diversity through Film class I co-teach with colleagues at SUNY-Plattsburgh we had a very intriguing moment arise as we exited our much less anxiety ridden "ability" theme and cautiously entered our "race" theme. A young woman, who often is very much in the game in terms of the energy and insight she brings to a conversation, admitted that she struggled with the notion that because she is White she is privileged. She argued that she has never felt that way and that when she accomplishes something of merit she doesn’t want it undercut by assertions that her race might have been a factor in her achievement. As the discussion ensued, it was pointed out to her and of course the rest of the class that the reason they often don’t/can’t see their racial privilege is that it is a dominant attribute and we are less apt to focus on those qualities that give us unearned privileges. They were then asked if they thought men had an advantage (privilege) over women in our society. They were then asked did they think it was more advantageous to live a heterosexual lifestyle, or to not have a so-called disability. Upon agreeing with the fact that some cultural groups in our society do have advantages (privilege), why would the dominant race in our society be any different? http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog5/2011/02/why_is_acknowledging_privilege.html http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog5/2011/02/why_is_acknowledging_privilege.html Fri, 25 Feb 2011 11:07:42 -0500