trayvon martin and racism today.

trayvon martin and racism today.

the news about trayvon martin is shocking and tragic.

on february 26, trayvon martin, a florida teen, was shot and killed by george zimmerman in a gated community for “suspicious behavior” in an “act of self defense.” police arrived on the scene, filled out a report, questioned mr. zimmerman, and wrapped up the case.

florida law is peculiar. it goes to extraordinary lengths to protect those who use deadly force against others. passed in 2005 was the “stand your ground” law, which allows a potential crime victim who is “in fear of great bodily injury” to use deadly force in public places.

trayvon was unarmed. george zimmerman was never arrested.

the implications of this case go to much greater lengths than those surrounding the truth of zimmerman’s story. as the facts continue to be released to the public, an outcry has occurred, especially from the african american community, about the racial implications of the tragedy. trayvon’s mother, sybrina fulton, said yesterday on national television that zimmerman ”was reacting to the color of his skin,” and she isn’t the only person who thinks so.

many prominent black members in the media have been questioning and scrutinizing the details of this case for far longer than the rest of the national media has cared to pay attention. writers and speakers have wondered what was so suspicious about trayvon that required an emergency call to authorities, and what was so threatening about trayvon that convinced zimmerman that deadly force was necessary.

there are other questions surrounding the 9-11 calls (which can be listened to here), the intent of george zimmerman, among other issues, but we should also be questioning issues from a much bigger picture.

why is a young black man wearing a hoodie automatically assumed to be a threatening figure? why, when police questioned zimmerman, did they assume that he was telling the truth about the boy being a threatening figure? why did the police run a background check on trayvon but not on zimmerman, the man who actually pulled the trigger?

social perception will be different from person to person but it’s hard, for any set of eyes, to look at the circumstances of this case and not see racial implications. our problem in america is that we go to great lengths to avoid racism. it is an issue we tend to turn a blind eye to and the reality is that it occurs every single day.

21st century racism is a covert issue because our collective opinion is that america solved that problem already – that it was handled in the 1960s during the civil rights movement and we don’t have to worry about it anymore. it is true that, for the most part, a lot of racial barriers have been torn down. black americans have made tremendous strides achieving success and equality over the past few decades, in the business world and (obviously) the political world.

unfortunately, civil issues still take a back seat for depressed, predominantly black, areas and circumstances. urban decay is rampant, especially after the economy crashed in 2007, and these areas see little growth and prosperity. with regard to schooling, neighborhoods and school districts that are home to so-called “dropout factories” are predominantly black neighborhoods.

this is not because black americans are lazy, criminals, thugs, or bad people. the opportunities afforded these neighborhoods, schools, regions, etc. are simply lesser than what may be seen elsewhere. this is through no one’s fault, and is not wholly a result of racism, but it does promote negative social perception.

social perception of personality and character goes a long way in our judgments of others. unfortunately, when people see crime and depression with black perpetrators at the heart of tragedy, it negatively affects their social perception of all african americans. our social perceptions of others that allow us to quickly assess one another are commonly known as stereotypes, and there is nothing inherently wrong with a stereotype. without them it would take far too long for people to analyze a social situation – so long that we wouldn’t be able to function socially at all.

the problem stems from using those stereotypes to negatively profile another person. when it seems like every time an arab american is subject to a “random” bag check at an airport or a jewish american is considered a cheapy, stingy penny-pincher, there is clear racial and religious profiling going on. when the judgement escalates to extreme negative behavior and rhetoric towards the subject in question, we typically associate that behavior with racism.

with regard to african americans, a negative stereotype is associated with dress and behavior, among other things. this is what happened to trayvon martin. a perfectly normal kid, apparently minding his own business, was negatively stereotyped and profiled by george zimmerman. the extreme reaction (zimmerman shooting and killing martin), in conjunction with the poor excuse of an investigation conducted by police, is what has many prominent black americans crying racism.

we need to accept that racism in america is not a problem that went away decades ago. the hot button issue on everyone’s minds right now is sexual equality in america, and remember, a student at rutgers was just convicted of bias intimidation (a hate crime) a week ago for actions he committed against his gay roommate.

clearly, social equality is still an issue today. hate crimes are not a thing of the past. and as reporters ask the difficult questions and the justice department releases the relevant facts, we may be seeing a hate crime surrounding the tragedy of trayvon martin’s death.

 

music.

the world has changed so much since this song was first recorded in 1975, and it’s astonishing how relevant is remains today:

 

news.

additional news on trayvon martin:

“‘stand your ground’ fathers: trayvon martin’s killer should likely be arrested, doesn’t deserve immunity” - http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2012/03/stand-your-ground-fathers-trayvon-martins-shooter-should-likely-be-arrested-doesnt-deserve-immunity.html

“girl on phone with trayvon martin destroys shooter’s self-defense claim, lawyer says” - http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/20/justice/florida-teen-shooting/

 

final notes.

follow me on twitter @ericjVT, connect with me on linkedin, check out my staff page at the collegiate times, and email any questions, concerns, or user submissions to drivewayspotted@gmail.com.

please don’t hesitate to leave comments, subscribe to the blog, and share it on facebook/twitter!

got an idea? think bike.

got an idea? think bike.

in what has got to be the most extreme examples of motivation ever seen, two men are tackling an adventure quite unlike any other.

meet morgan hartley and chris walker, 20-something post-grads from diverse backgrounds looking to find something new and exciting in life. morgan just graduated from the university of chicago and according to his bio is “trying to figure out what’s next.” chris recently wrapped up studying at ucla, and he is devoted to “striking a balance between my interests in international entrepreneurism while encouraging personal growth through the inevitable challenges that lie ahead.”

so what are they doing? what’s next? what are the challenges? meet postulate one, a project devoted to self-discovery, travel, and international entrepreneurship. the tagline is appropriately worded “a journey to find the world’s young visionaries,” and this project might perhaps be the most ambitious method ever conceived to do just that.

the gist of the project is a 10,000 mile trip across 19 eurasian countries, almost entirely by bike. yes, you read that correctly. by bike. hartley and walker are biking roughly 8000 miles (and flying the rest, to avoid sticky international hotspots like iran and water like the arabian sea) from paris to hong kong. along the way, they are seeking the most unique, gifted visionaries trying to improve the world in any of three ways – through microfinance, environmental issues, and education.

this wonderful infographic from the project website sums up the specs quite nicely:

 

the duo describe their journey as a new kind of citizen journalism (somewhat like what i am doing here) by finding a young thinker and expanding on the struggle that this thinker has encountered trying to solve a unique problem. their initial task is aptly described as “dropping in on universities, microfinance institutions, incubators, chambers of commerce, anything we can think of that’s remotely connected to entrepreneurship and has a door we can knock on.” from there, they will ask for nominations from sources of people who fit a specific set of criteria.

after the nominations go through, hartley and walker will tally up the count and begin making selections. this is where the fun begins. the duo will spend at least one week living with each selection (one week is the bare minimum) and documenting (for the world to follow along at the website, and on facebook and twitter) how each young visionary has spent at least 18 months devoted to solving a problem, innovating in a new way, and making a change in the world.

their route is unique as well. one glance will tell you that they plan to hit every type of major culture along their journey, from western individualism in france  to eastern collectivism in china, and everything in between. the stark contrast will undoubtedly encourage the most unique collection of thought and creativity available in one independent project.

but why bike it? the journey is going to take roughly two years (morgan and chris approximate 24 months in the infographic above, but a separate source said they’d be done by september 2013, and then their youtube video says december of 2013, so who knows?) and could obviously by conquered far more quickly by car or plane. but the duo insist that biking is the best way to interact with all kinds of people on the ground. and “it’s fun,” of course.

here is the “trailer:”

 

so there you have it. 10,000 miles. 24 months. 19 countries and a wide array of cultures. 7 visionaries. 2 men. 2 bikes. 1 goal.

citizen journalism.

despite what traditional news sources may have to say about citizen journalism, projects like postulate one show how such an undertaking can be beneficial in a social world. a traditional journalist, i.e. a professional writer working with a major publication, will say that citizen journalists dilute the media market with opinionated viewpoints and unfounded information. but projects like postulate one are wonderful examples of how citizen journalism can go above and beyond anything a traditional news source could ever accomplish.

postulate one not only intends to be very thorough in its endeavor, the project offers its audience an extremely unique point of reference for the work being done. in no way can a political or economics writer embark on a 10,000 mile bike trip to accumulate sources and information. and in no way can a cultural commentator provide such a comprehensive review of different cultures by interacting with regular people over 2 continents and 19 countries.

there is a clear advantage in collecting information resources with the postulate one project. the scope and scale of the project approaches a threshold very rarely seen in journalism, precisely because people like morgan and chris have embraced the progressive nature of social media and social journalism.

also present in this progressive style of journalism is a sense of community and a motivator for similar endeavors. as hartley and walker share their progress and their experiences, their audience gets an intimate sense of the goals that the duo have set out to accomplish. if two guys persevering through a 10,000 mile bike trip looking for people who try to change the world isn’t inspiration enough to get off your butt and do something productive, nothing else is.

we like citizen journalism because it is easy for us to get involved ourselves. a corner office with some interns doing boring web research is not a requirement in journalism. we like the progressive style because it challenges the status quo at a time when journalism is in need for a change more than ever. we like to read about absurd projects because they catch our attention in an otherwise attention-deprived, mobile, web-based world. and of course, we will never get enough of ordinary people accomplishing extraordinary things.

 

postulate one tracker.

i am so inspired by this project that i will periodically update hartley and walker’s journey with a small summary of where they are, how long they have been on the road, who they have met, and how far they have traveled. from the looks of the site they will have youtube videos and blogs documenting their progress so i will post some of those as well for a first hand account.

they left paris on march 7, 2012 and two days ago they made it to dijon, france – roughly 200 miles so far. check the website for a bit of writing and a series of videos about who they have met already.

interested in helping out? you can donate (they estimate needing about $40,000 dollars, $20,000 each way, to handle food, equipment, visas, lodging, translators, etc. – they have about $31,500 so far) or spread the word with some good ole’ fashioned press and social media at their join/help page. please check it out – word of mouth/facebook/twitter can go a long way.

 

music.

here is something that fits the theme. sort of.

 

and here is a great tune by young the giant, “my body,” remixed by two door cinema club. you read that correctly. epic. check out the original song on youtube, of course.

 

news.

“these guys are traveling 10,000 miles by bike to discover europe and asia’s young visionaries” - http://tnw.co/wyHymI

the above article is how i found out about postulate one. thank flipboard for this. probably the best news app on the iphone, hands down.

 

“the titanic: live-tweeted to mark 100 year anniversary” - http://tnw.co/ydyNpy

an interesting build-up to april 15, using tweets that would be considered “real-time” for people to follow. it is hard to believe that this happened 100 years ago…

 

final notes.

in the works at driveway spotted: some possible theme/design changes to open doors to logo/branding opportunities; a facebook page (please do not use just yet, it is blank in every way possible); and a twitter page (also pretty blank). obviously readers will be notified when these things go online.

in the meantime, as usual follow me on twitter @ericjVT and hit the subscribe button in the right sidebar to stay up to date via email.

my staff page at the collegiate times is now included under the links section, as well as the postulate one website. check those out!

and finally, download flipboard (linked above in news) if you have an iphone or ipad. especially the new ipad. which i am sure some suckers are already waiting in line to get.

foxconning the global workforce.

foxconning the global workforce.

among the mountains worth of news focused on apple these days, from their record profits at the end of 2011 to the ipad 3 announcement coming up to the chinese lawsuit over “ipad 2,” the most significant of it all has to be the impossibly bad working conditions seen in some of the largest manufacturing plants in the world that specialize in making apple products.

most of these plants are situated in china, where labor is cheap and the workforce is enormous. companies have been outsourcing their manufacturing to china for decades, using cheap parts and paying next-to-nothing wages and turning around in america and selling at high prices for immense profit.

it’s hard to blame companies like nike, apple, microsoft, and sony for doing this – the point of a business is to blow up the bottom line and keep that sucker in the black. profit is end all, be all. with low manufacturing costs, high demand and high prices, that’s what they get. profit.

but lately their manufacturing methods have been scrutinized like never before. the public is very much aware of some of the stark details of what’s going on overseas, thanks to how efficiently news spreads across social networks and the web at large. the outcry has even, believe it or not, caused some of these companies to take action to address the concerns. when a company has a customer, they don’t want to lose that customer – so keeping us happy is part of the job.

most of the news is focused on a very large manufacturing company primarily stationed in china, trading on the market as foxconn. they specialize in consumer electronics, piecing together things like iphones, ipads, kindles, playstation 3s, xbox 360s, and wiis. the company employs around a million people, and it’s so large that it practically functions as a city within a city. they provides amenities like grocery stores, restaurants, housing, and the like, so that farmhands who move to the city to work and make a better life for themselves have a place to stay.

as plain as that sounds, a large amount of human rights abuses are practiced within those whitewashed walls. here’s a clever report by jon stewart on what foxconn is like:

 

these kind of things are well documented beyond the comedy of the daily show. workers are subject to wholly unreasonable hours, performing the same menial task over and over, hundreds upon hundreds of times a day, and they get paid dirt for it. some workers are underage and are even forced to work overtime, defying all kinds of child labor laws.

afl-cio industrial union council executive director robert baugh laughs at the idea that china is lax on labor laws, that such a suggestion is an “understatement” and that regulations “mandating decent wages, safety, and overall wellbeing are sparse and sparsely enforced.”

apple has recently asked the fair labor association to audit the working conditions at foxconn as a response to the outcry from consumers, and the results haven’t been pretty. workers were ordered to lie to inspectors and underage workers were hidden during inspections, all in the name of maintaining the low cost work practices at the facility.

and the fact that workers have been given a 25% raise is downright laughable. a 25% increase on 31 cents an hour is a whopping 38.75 cents an hour. i’ll be generous and round up to 39, since it’s probably the only time workers see generosity during their 80 hour work weeks.

at 39 cents an hour, working 80 hours a week without any defined overtime laws, the average worker at foxconn will take home $31.20 at the end of the week – enough to save up a small fortune, right? the 25% raise, in perspective, is perhaps the most absurd attempt to subdue the storm i think i’ve ever seen in labor issues. sure, workers don’t pay for housing, they stay for free onsite, but only if they are available at all hours (which has caused a stir too, when 8000 workers were woken in the middle of the night not too long ago to assemble the glass case on iphones).

unfortunately for most workers at foxconn, leaving the facility and heading back to the farm is near impossible. most rural conditions in china are far worse than those at foxconn – at least they get restaurants and some form of stress relief. so packing your bags up and heading back to the slums is out of the question.

this issue is far from over, and new information is revealed every day. so be watchful, stay informed, and most importantly, be thankful we have very defined labor laws in america, with 40 hour work weeks and overtime benefits and being able to form a union. life could suck so much harder than it does now.

 

music

can’t wait to hear this jam at bonnaroo 2012!

 

news

some extra reading on foxconn and the mess in chinese manufacturing:

“the foxconn reality: ‘better’ is still bad” - http://gizmodo.com/5887276/

“watchdog group: foxconn hid young workers before inspection” - http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-57382760-17/watchdog-group-foxconn-hid-young-workers-before-inspection/

and some crazy news about space:

“black hole creates fastest wind ever clocked” - http://mashable.com/2012/02/23/black-hole-wind/

 

final notes

i’ve decided to include some miscellaneous notes at the end here – reminders and tips and suggestions about whatever. and perhaps doing a “what’s next” kind of thing if i’ve already planned out what i want to write about.

follow @longreads on twitter to get your fix on traditional journalism (aka long reads) and if you have an article to share give it a #longreads hashtag. long reads typically have at least 1500 words and often far more. but they’re the most detailed reporting out there and it’s starting to make a comeback in journalism.

in case you missed it here’s a link to my last post “take the marshmallow” - http://drivewayspotted.wordpress.com/2012/02/22/take-the-marshmallow/

don’t forget to look at my staff page at the collegiate times and my article on the greedy 3d industry - http://www.collegiatetimes.com/stories/19271/greed-fuels-3d-craze

up next: i’ve read a few articles on nanotechnology in medicine that are fascinating so i might touch up on that.