QUOTE(A Horse With No Name @ Thu 18th November 2010, 12:59pm)
They are seven and nine years old, respectively. I'd love to put up photos, but ... times have changed. Sorry. They are, however, spectacularly beautiful, people rave over them. Smart, talented, etc., etc. Kind and considerate, and the Ethiopian smiles like the sunrise, something that she did inherit from her people, I visited the region, and she was raised by them for her first three years.
Can you tell that I'm a proud papa?
The Asian girl was raised by me from 10 months old, so the African may have gotten the better deal.... but, well, you win some and lose some. There are some advantages both ways.
Ah. I have two other daughters. Adults, ages 40 and 35. One is very happily married, the younger one just came back from India, she's divorced. Good luck. I will not provide any details at all about my grandchildren, except that there are five going on six. I am "exposed" to the possibility of great granchildren, but probably not quite yet!
QUOTE
QUOTE(Abd @ Wed 17th November 2010, 9:46pm)
(I.e., "black" is a cultural identity, strongly associated with cultural background in some contexts, such as American society, and very sloppily.
Well, there are also "black people" in Europe, the Caribbean, Latin America, Africa and Australia. Is Fred talking about African Americans, or every demographic in the African diaspora?
figuring out what Bauder is talking about is not a fruitful enterprise, since I think he has not really thought about all this. The tipoff is his continual reference to "black people" as if they were some monolithic entity. At worst. At best, he qualifies it a little, i.e., "those who harm themselves by thinking of reading as 'white.'" (something like that.)
It is still stereotypical thinking. There can be some value to that, but what Bauder is betraying is his underlying attitudes. Example: his assumption that successful blacks are not inclined to volunteer. The reality is that they do, (using demographic definitions of "black") but they volunteer elsewhere, on average.
This whole "don't volunteer" argument was completely bogus, as shown by the statistics. The ratio, even with what may understate some kinds of volunteer work, was 28% for "white" and 20% for "black." So ... that could not explain the vast under-representation of apparent black participation.
However, there is another assumption that some are making: that participation in wikiconferences is a cross-section of Wikipedia editors. It may be highly warped. Otherwise, how the hell do we know what racial grouping editors belong to? You know my "race" only because I've disclosed it, it's common that it is assumed that I'm black -- Lomax is not an uncommon black family name in the U.S. -- or that I'm Muslim by birth -- which would not say anything about "race," since Muslims could be Asian, Arab, Bosnian, etcl, or Nigerian, etc.
The explanations will be cultural, I'm sure, and have to do with Wikipedia and wikicultural qualities, similarly to the greatly reduced numbers of women who participate.
It would be highly advisable for Bauder to apologize, for the WMF to distance themselves from those remarks. They don't have to crucify him. Unless he refuses to apologize.
This will go over great in India.