2007 The Year in Race, Ethnicity, and Racism: The Top 10 List of the Most Fashionable Racial Trends

In 2006, inspired by Racialicous, I put up a post of the top trends in race and racism for 2006. Given the popularity of that post, and the general enjoyment I get from discussing folks’ perceptions of trends, I figured I would make a list again this year. Here is the list in no particular order:

1. Return of the Noose and Lynching Metaphors–Nooses were everywhere this year. Some think the Jena 6 Case brought the noose as a hate symbol back to the forefront. In reality, it’s hard to know if there actually were more hate crimes this involving the brandishing of nooses, since there are not concrete statistics kept on this. Diversity Inc., which attempted to keep track of noose incidents across the US, notes 67 noose incidents across the US ((Unfortunately, they do not specify a time frame for the 67 incidents.)). Whether or not the rates of noose related hate crimes were up, discussions of the noose and it’s connection to lynching were everywhere even CNN had a special called “The Noose An American Nightmare.

2. Rise of Black Bloggers as a Political Force— While I have noticed a big increase in the number of African American blogs since I started blogging in 2005, this was the first year black bloggers seemed to coalesce as a social force. Group blogs like the Afro Spear and What About Our Daughters helped focus debate on cases such as the Jena 6 and Dunbar Village. Now to be fair these were just two groups of bloggers, several more independent bloggers ((Sorry I don’t have the space to promote everyone’s site here, but a quick scroll through the blogroll on the left will reveal some great blogs that are often overlooked.)) also helped shed light on stories that were generally ignored in the mainstream media. In some cases like Jena 6, blogs were created specifically for the issue at hand, and those blogs helped organize thousands of people to write, march, and speak out. Thanks to the organizing power of black bloggers thousands of protesters turned out in Jena, LA and this was just the most widely known social movement fueled by black blogs.

3. Anti-Chinese Rhetoric–You’d think there was a vast Chinese conspiracy to poison American children and pets if you watched one media outlet after another report on product recalls. The problem with most of these stories is what they didn’t tell you. For example, most toys sold in the US are from China, so it should come as no surprise that most of they toys being recalled are from China. For a good comparison, checkout recalled food products, since most foods eaten in the US are grown in the US, you will see a list with many US based growers and companies. Does this mean we should not eat food made in the US? What reporters also didn’t tell us is that most toys were recalled for design problems not manufacturing problems, and guess what? The toys weren’t designed in China. Furthermore, only a tiny portion of Chinese made toys were actually recalled. The vast majority of Chinese made toys were safe! I think the popularity of Chinese toy phobia, is related to some of our general stereotypes of Chinese people in particular and Asians in general. It reminds me a little of the 1980s when similar comments were made about Japanese products. It seems that every time an Asian country starts to become a strong economic competitor these stories emerge. I’m not disputing that there are problems in China’s labor and safety standards, and I think the plethora of stories on rampant pollution in China are accurate, but the primary people harmed by these social problems are the Chinese people. Furthermore, the American news media’s rhetoric greatly exaggerated the extent and significance of these problems. I can help thinking that the smear campaign is also related to the upcoming Olympics being help in China, but that remains to be seen.

4. Xenophobia and Anti-Immigrant Sentiment— Immigrant haters were out in full force this year. In fact, the xenophobes have single-handedly attempted to turn the word illegal in a noun. Bigots like Lou Dobbs banged the anti-immigrant drum the loudest. They encouraged Americans to believe that illegal immigrants were destroying America. They opposed laws that would allow undocumented children, who were brought to the US by their parents, to get college financial aid; they separated breastfeeding mothers from their infants; they blamed undocumented immigrants for crime even though studies have shown immigrants have a lower rate of crime than native born folks; and some even suggested the US get rid of birthright citizenship. What is incredibly fascinating about most of the debate on immigration is that most Americans don’t have a clue about immigration trends and laws. Today’s immigrants are wealthier and more educated than ever, but this doesn’t seep into the debate.

5. Asian Male TV Characters— Late in 2006, Racialicious had a series of posts on the 5 (Part 1; Part 2) most fascinating Asian Male TV characters. There was a time not long ago when there weren’t even 5 recurring Asian male characters on network television. While there is still a long way to go, I think this was a relatively good year for Asian men on TV. I even noticed more commercials with Asian men in them, and as atlasien noted in a recent comment, several reality TV shows had Asian cast members prominently featured. Some may wonder why I said Asian men and not Asian women. Although I don’t have any numbers in front of me, the representation for men seem to increase much more rapidly.

6. “Model Minority” Black Immigrants–This was one of my predictions for 2007, and I was right about this one. There were several stories about African and Caribbean immigrants, focusing on the grand achievements. While some people think comparing African American blacks with foreign born blacks provides evidence that African Americans could really do better if they just “worked harder” and stopped “using the race card,” they miss how immigration law shapes the social status of foreign born blacks, especially African born blacks. Given the current structure of immigration policy, most of the African born blacks who are able to come to the US come as professional and students. The number of refugees and poor immigrants is fairly small, but the number of diplomats, professors, and students is fairly high. My partner and his relatives are good examples of this–He and his sister were the first to arrive in the US. His sister has a PhD, speaks 5 languages, and is a translator for the United Nations, and my partner was a excellent sprinter who was able to convince three Division I American Universities to give him track scholarships based on his race times in Nigeria. For both of them, it was the demand in the US for their talents, combined with a great deal of determination, that brought them to the US, but they hardly represent the typical Nigerian.

7. College Racism–Oh how I wish I didn’t have to put this on the list again, but a quick look at Vox Ex Machina,, which maintains the definitive list, reveals numerous incidents of racism on college campuses. From nooses to racially themed parties to rogue newspapers and all kinds of other incidents, students were busy this year. Often, the racist students posted their racist handy work on facebook and other social networking sites. I’m not really sure if today’s college students are any more racist than the college students were back when I was in college (mid-1990s). Social scientists could use survey data to track racial attitudes of college students, but the colorblind ideology is so prevalent that students know how to give the “right” answers even if their behavior belies such sentiments.

8. Celebrity International (Transracial) Adoption–I’m not sure if this trend fits better into 2006 or 2007, but nonetheless, it seems like every celebrity wanted to adopt a child from outside the US. Following the lead of Madonna and Angelina Jolie, numerous celebrities were rumored to be looking to adopt. I don’t think many of these celebrities will actually follow through and adopt, but there is something unsettling about transracial, international adoption being hip and cool. We are talking about the well being of children, but when adoption seems to be a media fad, I can see many unprepared and otherwise ignorant people adopting for the wrong reason and not respecting the rule of law like this French charity in Chad.

9. Begging to Apologize to Blacks via Al Sharpton–Apparently, racist whites have anointed Al Sharpton the “King of Black America” because every two bit loser who made a racist comment this year went begging to apologize to black folks via Sharpton (and sometimes Jesse Jackson, who must be second in line to the thrown). Don Imus, Michael Richards, Dog the Bounty Hunter, and I’m sure others who I have forgotten, all either went on Sharpton’s show or begged to meet with him. Do I really need to say anything else?

10. Using Racist Comments By Whites To Talk About How Blacks Need to Change–This may be number 10 on the list, but it was by far the most annoying trend of the year. It seems like every time a well known white person made racist comments the discussion ended up being refocused on how blacks need to fix themselves. I dedicated a full post to this topic in Oct. because I just couldn’t take it anymore. In fact, many of these discussions remind me of of children’s excuses for bad behavior. For example, let’s say I find little Timmy’s hand in the cookie jar. What’s the first thing little Timmy says, “Well Sarah did it, too?” Now, any good parent is not going to be fooled into turning Timmy’s cookie theft into a reason to punish Sarah. Unfortunately, when it comes to racism, many in white America act just like little Timmy, so racist comments from Don Imus and other whites turn into discussions of the pathologies of Blacks.

So there you have it, my list of the top trends in race and ethnicity.  I realize that this list is very US biased, so I’m curious to see what some of the readers outside of the US noticed in their countries this past year.

What do you think? Did I miss anything? Do you agree that these were popular trends?