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spot on
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ethan z on somalia and US proxy wars: “I’m obsessed because I fear that Somalia is how America will fight wars in the future, if its citizens don’t demand we stop fighting this way.”
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“it now appears that babies learn to deceive from a far younger age than anyone previously suspected.”
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new book on how minds shape other minds, based on baby research
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susan carey’s homepage, lots of papers on early childhood cognition, etc.
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bring back ebog!
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i don’t like any of this stuff, i swear
videyoga :: (via)
I’m still somewhat bemused at how “white” has come to mean “upper middle class” in daily American parlance. Surely you have a fairly large poor white section of the population too?
Here in Sweden, the #1 rap song liked by “white” people (ie. upper-middle-class indie person, everyone is pretty much white here) is definitely “Insane in the Membrane” by Cypress Hill. The group it’s Acceptable To Like is Gang Starr. And everyone loves “Can’t Touch This” in an ironic manner.
That’s true, Birdseed. There’s a largely unspoken use of “white” on the sites above to mean “white middle (upper) class,” though it hasn’t gone unremarked in the comments. Perhaps it has a great deal to do with mainstream media representations of whiteness, which not only present white as the racial norm but middle(upper) as the class norm.
But Birdseed & w&w, don’t you think the ellision of “white” with “whiteuppermiddleclass” has to do with the slide between whiteness and white privilege? All the making fun of whites has a lot to do with making fun of power, of the assumed “norm” in AngloUS culture. All my students in college, even the ones who qualify for public assistance, think of themselves as “middle class” or at the very least “middle class aspiring.” There’s no real working class consciousness as such. Therefore the only options for identifying with whiteness are “uppermiddleclass” (The Man and his snotty ass chillun), “white trash” (people with accents too thick and/or uncool conspicuous consumption) and “middle class” (everyone else). It’s all about getting as far as possible from “whitetrash” as possible, pulling your leg out of reach of the crab claws at the bottom of the barrel.
Yes, absolutely. Thanks for adding that, Caro.