Welcome Orbusmax readers.

First, the Furniture.  Apparently a Canadian family bought a new couch, and on reading the product label, they found a bad word.

Racial slur on sofa label stuns family

When the new chocolate-coloured sofa set was delivered to her Brampton home, Doris Moore was stunned to see packing labels describing the shade as “Nigger-brown.”

She and husband Douglas purchased a sofa, loveseat and chair in dark brown leather last week from Vanaik Furniture and Mattress store on Dundas St. E.

Moore, 30, who describes herself as an African-American born and raised in New York, said it was her 7-year-old daughter who pointed out the label just after delivery men from the Mississauga furniture store left.

“She’s very curious and she started reading the labels,” Moore explained. “She said, `Mommy, what is nig … ger brown?’ I went over and just couldn’t believe my eyes.”

She said yesterday each piece had a similar label affixed to the woven protective covering wrapped around the furniture.

“In this day and age, that’s totally unacceptable,” Moore said.

As the story unfolds it appears the furniture is from a supplier in China, so this is apparently not a KKK plot.

I have to wonder what the explanation will be.  I know that translations from China to English can have comical turns to them when they are done badly, but this is not quite comical.

While I can safely wonder if this was an accidental translation, or some other innocent explanation or not, I do find the families reaction interesting as well.  While noting that no one has used the word against her:

Moore, who has a younger son and daughter, said she’s heard the word used many times, although it has never been directed in anger at her.

She now faces a dilemma:

Moore said she’s not sure she wants the sofa set in her home.

“Every time I sit on it, I’ll think of that,” she said.

I dunno, ripping the label off and moving on is an option isn’t it?  I mean, as a friend on a discussion list noted, it is just a word, right?  No one directed it specifically at her and heck she cannot really know for sure why it was used can she?  Wouldn’t it be better to just ignore it, and maybe be grateful that by her own admission, this is really the worst usage of the word she has faced?  As Mike, my friend noted:

I’ve never been an oppressed minority, (and neither has the woman who bought the couch), but my first

reaction is “grow up”.  It is a couch, not a burning cross.  Letting yourself be so controlled by a word and imparting that reaction to your child, (another generation away from oppression), is pathetic.

True.  But he and I, according to many, cannot truly understand, being the product of White Privilege. 

And speaking of White Privilege, that has made the news in Seattle, where the over compensating racial policies have turned a new page, are now sending students to a white privilege conference:

https://www.seattleschools.org/area/equityandrace/whiteprivilegeconference.xml

For the first time, Seattle Public Schools are sending students from four high schools to attend the annual White Privilege Conference, sponsored by the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, the University of Denver, Teaching Tolerance, Study Circles Resource Center, The Matrix, Center for Judaic Studies, GLSEN, and many more organizations. Speakers include Geneva Gay, Peggy McIntosh, Joy Leary, John-Paul Chaisson-Cardenas and many others who are actively engaged in anti-racism.

This year’s conference takes place in Colorado Springs from April 18th through the 21st. There are workshops designed specifically for youth, as well as sessions open to all conference participants. We are very excited about this opportunity for students and teachers to grow and learn together at an intense 3-day conference. In support of increasing student voice related to school reform and equity, funding for students to attend the WPC is provided through the small learning communities grant.

From their website:

” The annual White Privilege Conference (WPC) serves as a yearly opportunity to examine and explore difficult issues related to white privilege, white supremacy and oppression. WPC provides a forum for critical discussions about diversity, multicultural education and leadership, social justice, race/racism, sexual orientation, gender relations, religion and other systems of privilege/oppression. WPC is recognized as a challenging, empowering and educational experience. The workshops, keynotes and institutes not only inform participants, but engage and challenge them, while providing practical tips and strategies for combating inequality.

“The conference participants and presenters include corporate and non-profit community members, students, educators, activists, musicians and artists. This conference is not about beating up on white folks. This conference is about critically examining the society in which we live and working to dismantle systems of power, prejudice, privilege and oppression.”

Seattle has a history of this overly sensitive multi culturalism, and reading back in previously blogs, you will note that White Privilege is an old theme that previously generated a lot of controversy:

Caprice Hollins needs to go

Today’s P-I has a news article on the swirling controversy over the Seattle School District’s bizarre definition of racism and the woman responsible for it, “Director of Equity and Race Relations” Caprice Hollins. The P-I’s headline reiterates what I noted yesterday: “School district pulls Web site after examples of racism spark controversy“. The original definition of racism is still in the google cache. And the statement that replaces it is just as appallingly un-American and racist as the original:

Our intention is not to … continue to hold onto unsuccessful concepts such as a melting pot or colorblind mentality.

If these people think that a colorblind mentality is somehow inimical to racial equality then they’re at odds with an awful lot of people, including the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and his family —

School District spokesman Peter Daniels offered the P-I this nonsensical non-defense of the perverted definition of racism:

“It did not have enough context for people not working on this issue, and it was poorly written,” Daniels said. “… It’s about institutional racism, particularly in an educational setting. There are particular structures and practices in place that disadvantage other students who are not of the Caucasian or white majority.

One wonders where Peter Daniels gets his information that non-whites are inherently disadvantaged in Seattle schools. As I’ve written many times before, the School District’s own data show that the most successful ethnic blocs of students in Seattle public schools are not white, but east Asian.

What bothers me about approaches like Seattle’s, is the presumption that melting pot and color blindness are not good enough.  The theory should be that equality means equal.  But that must also be a delusion of my white privilege.

And I should note that the Seattle School District has had money issues that forced school closures and all ammner of complaints about acedemic levels.  So the question needs to be asked, is spending money sending “students” to a conference in Colorado a good use of money?

I cannot help but wonder if any of this is a good thing or not.  First of all, despite my whiteness, I don’t feel particularly privileged, but then according to the concept, how could I?  I have been shielded from the world by my privileged status, right?  But the logic inherent in that reads like a self fulfilling prophecy.

I am not sure I buy this as a valid issue.  According to a web definition I read, white privilege is reflected in things like:

• Whites can turn on the television or read the newspaper and expect to see members of their own race widely represented;

If anyone has a right to complain about under representation, it is Asians, Muslims or East Indian.

• Whites can expect their children to read books and materials in school that affirm and discuss the history of their race;

Sorry, you lost me here.  There are so much diversity based curriculum in schools now, this is not an issue.

• Whites can swear, dress in second-hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having others attribute these behaviors to the bad morals, the poverty, or the illiteracy of their race;

Ask Bill Cosby about that one…

• Whites can speak their opinions without being asked to speak for their race;

And yet one stupid comment by an ignorant white person is said to reflect all white people.

• Whites can do well without being called credits to their race;

Only because diversity demands the recognition of the non whites.

• Whites easily locate books, greeting cards, toys, and magazines prominently featuring members of their race;
• Whites do not have to wonder whether they are being singled out because of their race when being approached by the police;

I agree racial profiling is a problem, but there are far too many factors to dismiss it is WP.

• Whites can take jobs without accusations that they were hired as part of racial quotas;

Sure, likely because they were not hired under quotas.  While I agree that there should be no presumption that anyone hired was done so because of racial preferences, the fact remains that the reason those accusations exist is that people in many places are actually hired because of quotas ans other affirmative action programs, and there

• Whites are most often evaluated by members of their own race;
• Whites do not appear threatening to those of the dominant culture.

Except Hillary.

• Whites have higher incomes than African or Hispanic Americans.

Wonder why they excluded Asians?

The thing is that while there are some things to be concerned about here, some of them are as much internal perceptions that lead to false accusations of racism.  Real racism exists but people dropping the race card is in some ways a worse issue.  Cynthia McKinney for example.   By signing on to the issue of WP, any perceived lack or inequity is assumed to be the advantage of whites or racism in general, and sometimes it is just that life is unfair.

And really that is the attitude I see in the Seattle Schools, this pandering presumption about White Privilege or White Majority.

Our society is very aware of racial inequity, and it should be.  Racial injustice and intolerance is unacceptable.

But the goals are equality and justice and trying to instill a culture of white guilt in our children is not going to make it happen.  All they are doing is enabling non whites to feel resentment against Whites, and attempting to guilt the whites  into an attitude of contrition for something they cannot control.

Bryan Suits on the radio last night also mentioned a study that showed that African immigrants do better in income and literacy then blacks living here all their lives.  That also makes one wonder where the real problem is.

We need to focus our children on acceptence and achievement, not blaming and exclusion.

But that is just my White Privilege talking

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