I can’t believe I actually have to answer this question

Greta Christina has put up the Bat Signal:

But it’s also a ridiculous question because the reality of racism is extremely well-established, with study after study after study. Charging into a conversation about racism and saying, “Give me scientific evidence that it exists!” is about as absurd as charging into a conversation about vaccinations and saying, “Give me scientific evidence that vaccinations even work!” It’s one of the reasons that, in the Race and Inclusivity — A To-Do List post I put on my blog, “Get your “Race and Racism 101″ on Google or at the library. Don’t expect people of color who come to your group or event to bring you up to speed” was on the list. It’s incredibly frustrating to have to re-introduce ground-level concepts to people who are jumping into the conversation but haven’t bothered to do their homework. (And since atheists are a subset of our society at large, it would be an extraordinary claim indeed to assume that atheists are somehow miraculously free of this racism.)

However, I’m swamped today, and I really don’t have time to do Google-Fu, and email all my friends and colleagues who have sociology and psychology studies at their fingertips, and otherwise spend the entire day lining up links to the countless studies demonstrating the reality of racism. So I’m going to crowd-source it. People here who do have sociology and psychology studies at your fingertips… can you please provide links to scientific studies on racism? Thank you.

So I’m going to help out, because I like Greta.

I’m a little annoyed that Emil Karlsson, for whom this list is being assembled, hasn’t bothered to put any effort whatsoever into looking into the question before deciding that it’s all a bunch of hooey that needs to be proven to his own satisfaction before he’ll accept that the problem is a problem (and I wonder if he would stand up on that soapbox and demand the same kind of evidence to substantiate discrimination facing atheists). That being said, I just so happen to run a blog that talks specifically about racism. So Mr. Karlsson, and others who are hyper-skeptical about the existence of racism, hopefully some of this will filter through. [Read more…]

Kiva Project Update: July 2012

It’s that time of the month again, Cromrades – where we sink our hard-earned money into Kiva loans! Here are this month’s recipients:

Mary – Kenya

Mary is age 36 and married with one child who is age 12 years and in school. Mary has been in farming for 14 years running and currently produces milk, maize, beans, vegetables, and poultry birds. She runs a retail business in the local market dealing with grocery items. Mary has made a loan request of 31,200 Kenya shillings (KES) from Juhudi Kilimo to buy and insure a dairy cow. She believes this will improve her farming income, which she will then use to expand her retail business and purchase more land. Mary says the major challenges in farming include substandard input materials and high cost of feeds. She is happy with her Juhudi Kilimo partnership and believes she will be able to meet her family’s needs adequately.

Julius – Kenya

Julius is 48 years old and married to Emily. The couple is blessed with six children between the ages of five and 19 and they jointly provide for their family. For the past 14 years, Julius has been selling cereals and earns a monthly income of 5,000 KES. Julius is requesting a 25,000 KES loan through KADET LTD to pay university fees for his child. This is his second loan and he successfully repaid his previous loan. His dreams and hopes are that his children are educated well for a brighter future.

Canaana Group – DR Congo

This client, Kabugho, is the leader of the Canaane loan group. She is a young entrepreneur, bravely dealing with her situation, and is 30 years old. She is married and has three young children. Her husband is a broker for a transportation carrier. This featured client sells beignets and cakes that she makes using local technology. She began this business with her own funds, given to her by her husband. However, she just received her first loan with the microfinance institution Hekima. This group recently joined Hekima’s microfinance program. This client is full of hope for her business. This new loan should allow her to supply herself with one bag of flour, 10 kg of sugar, yeast, etc. She is grateful to Hekima for this first loan she is receiving without the need for a material guarantee, because thanks to this loan, she is going to improve her capital and provide for her family’s various needs.

This is our 7th round of loans, and brings us to a total of 21 loans since we started this project back in January. Traffic took a little drop in May (because of my vacation) and has been up for the past two months, so depending on how the numbers shake out, we may end up with a fair chunk more to loan going into the fall.

For the month of October, we made $46.38, and loaned $50.
For the month of November, we made $65.81, and loaned $50.
For the month of December, we made $44.76, and loaned $50.
For the month of January, we made $58.59.
For the month of February, we made $57.33 and loaned $125.
For the month of March, we made $78.68 and loaned $125.
For the month of April, we made $64.62, and loaned $57.50
For the month of May, we made $58.45, and loaned $75.00

Total amount loaned so far: $525.00
Total loan funds repaid: $93.78
Fund balance: $19.70

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Introducing Edwin Hodge

It is my great pleasure to introduce a new contributor to the Manifesto, Edwin Hodge.

A picture of Edwin Well hey there! You’re probably asking yourself exactly why, after finding your way to the blog of the Crommunist, you are instead reading a pile of words written by me, a complete stranger.  Well, that’s a great question, my friend, I’m so glad that you asked it! Introductions are in order, and so I will oblige!

My name is Edwin, and I am a blogger, author, and political scientist soon to be attached to the University of Victoria. While my academic work is focussed almost exclusively on the subjects of gender and white supremacy, my non-academic ramblings are rather more wide-ranging. Over at my own little piece of the Internet – an obscure blog called the “Skeptical Cubefarm” – I write about pretty much anything that interests me, which usually includes the nonsense that is cult archaeology, the vapid mouthings of creationists, or the baseless assertions of alt-meddlers.

Every now and again though, I get it into my head to pick a fight with those groups who I feel are specifically poaching on my professional turf, and that more often than not tends to include the perpetual whiners from the Men’s Rights Movement. When I said that my academic work is concentrated around gender, it’s more accurate to say that I study masculinities in contemporary North American society – an area that MRAs seem to think is their area of expertise. It’s not. It’s mine, and they can’t have it. [Read more…]

Some administrative notes

Hey all, just want to keep you in the loop about what’s going on.

Today’s post

Will be late. This was the first really nice weekend we had in Vancouver, so I spent all of it outside and shunned my computer almost entirely. Lots to talk about though, so I will do my damnedest to catch up.

The return of Brian Lynchehaun

Long-time Cromrades will remember guest contributor Brian Lynchehaun. Brian has been running all over hell’s half acre (by which I mean Japan) for the past few months and hasn’t had an opportunity to do much writing. I’ve just heard from him that things have evened out a bit, so expect more from him soon.

Welcome a new face to the Manifesto

I’m happy to report that there will be another new guest contributor here, Edwin Hodge. Edwin writes the insightful and compelling blog Skeptical Cubefarm. I will let him introduce himself in his own post.

Remnants of the Blogathon

Two people are still owed song requests. I haven’t forgotten them, and I am working on them but I’ve had my hands rather full over the past couple of weeks. Luckily I have a bit more free time coming up, and I plan to record and post those songs as soon as possible. JT Eberhard and I are also working on getting out duet recording underway, so I appreciate your patience.

Busy busy busy busy. I wish I could say that I see an opportunity to go back to ‘normal’ on the horizon, but abnormal appears to be the new normal. More to come soon.

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A response to geraldmcgrew on harassment

I have been going back and forth with a commenter under the handle ‘geraldmcgrew’ who was ousted from a Pharyngula comment thread. He feels that his expulsion was unfair. For the record, while I understand why he received the rough treatment he did, I think the initial response to his question was egregious and unfair. I don’t have a banning procedure here, but I am satisfied that geraldmcgrew’s behaviour (specifically, repeatedly posing a question to which he had received several responses) was the reason for his banning, not simply the fact of his dissent.

That being said, he asked the following question in response to the related question of sexual harassment policies:

Except “being hit on = sexual harassment” is exactly what is repeatedly stated in this community. Heck, it was expressed in PZ’s first post to TF!

“The argument encompasses meetings, but also the larger geek and atheist culture, which turns out to be pretty damned sexist. You do not correct the broader problem by turning a blind eye to the specifics; it doesn’t work to say that you reject misogyny, but oh, that meeting there? It’s OK if you hit on women there. It’s OK if you abuse women in a bar; bars are free-range markets for men to exercise their will.”

Hitting on someone is lumped in with abuse of women? Sheesh…

My response to this question, coloured as it was by my zeal to provide a mindful response (as opposed to the accusations that I “mindlessly” defend anything), ran a bit long. I am posting it here both to avoid making the already-loaded comments section of that post grow to an absurd length, but also to highlight what I think is a reasonable response to a question that I suspect many people do not fully understand.

[Read more…]

Kiva project update: July 2012

Hey Cromrades,

I just sent out our 6th Kiva loan. Because of the speed of turnaround of many of the projects listed on the website, crowdsourcing the selection is very cumbersome. I’m sorry to preclude you from the discussion of which loans we select. I don’t see a way around this, but maybe you do. Maybe if I pre-schedule the day of the loan, y’all can submit your input in a flurry?

Anyway, here’s where our money went: [Read more…]

Free thoughts from the hive mind

There is a meme, perhaps more accurately described as a complex of memes, about Freethought Blogs. This complex is made up of at least one of the following statements:

  • FTB is run as essentially an extension of the egos of PZ Myers and Ed Brayton
  • FTB does not tolerate dissent, and enforces its repressive agenda through banning, mockery/ridicule, and flying monkeys (this being a descriptor of regular denizens of the Pharyngula comment threads)
  • FTB is run by (or home to, depending on who you ask) radical feminists
  • FTB is a leftist, ultra-PC, political entity
  • FTB spends too much time talking about things that aren’t material science and/or atheism
  • FTB is a hive mind that promotes a ‘party line’ of thinking that precludes disagreement on anything substantive

Now obviously, since I am part of Freethought Blogs, any and all opinions I have on the subject are irretrievably biased. It is in fact more than likely I am simply repeating instructions given to me from on high (in exchange for which I receive a monthly pittance that I give away anyway). However, given the recent nonsense that precipitated the ejection of one of our bloggers (Greg Laden left as well, but for an entirely different reason), I thought you might be interested to hear an insider’s perspective. You will have to judge for yourself, based on my history, if I can be thought of as a reliable narrator. [Read more…]

Intercepted message from the hive mind

On Sunday morning I had another opportunity to participate in a Google+ hangout with some of my fellow FTBorg:

We talked about, among other things, why these ‘social justice’ issues – feminism, anti-racism, gender and sex equality, etc. – are so prevalent on the Freethought Blogs network. The video is below the fold:

[Read more…]

SSA Blogathon songathon – Lagavulin

Well… apparently I’m not done yet.

jolo5309 requested some next-level jazz stuff that I simply couldn’t pull off with an acoustic guitar, so I asked him to re-request something. He foolishly asked me for some Canadian prairie rock, not realizing that I am newly a huge fan of Saskatchewan’s Wide Mouth Mason. I’ve been looking for an excuse to learn this song for a while, so it worked out perfectly I’d say.

Compare this to the original here.

There’s a couple more requests to handle, and then I am calling it quits for reals.

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SSA Blogathon Songathon wrap-up

Phew! I think it’s all done.

My original plan to play the 5 or 6 song requests that would trickle in over the course of a single Sunday afternoon was COMPLETELY BLOWN OUT OF THE WATER. Apparently you were far more generous than I thought, because I received a total of 22 requests! A summary of these is below: [Read more…]