super rich kids

Frank Ocean - Super Rich Kids from dustin sussman on Vimeo.
This post was contributed by SOC 3013 student, Brittany Nicole Cannan.

In my opinion, Frank Ocean is one of the best rap artists of our time. He recently came out with an album, Channel Orange, and "Super Rich Kids" is one of its feature songs. I've posted the lyrics below along with the video so you can better visualize what he is saying. The song is a play on children who grow up in families with lots of money, but with parents who are neglectful due to over-involvement with careers. These kids then are often unsupervised and have plenty of time to mess around. I really relate to this as much of my childhood and teen years was also spent at home alone, and although I didn't get into too much trouble, plenty of other children in my neighborhood did. There were parties thrown every weekend, kids getting arrested, and cops always seemed to be circling the neighborhood. This song includes drug references as well, such as "too many bowls of that green, no lucky charms" and "too many white lies and white lines." In all, Ocean provides vivid insights about some of the struggles facing children who grow up in otherwise privileged homes.

Too many bottles of this wine we can’t pronounce
Too many bowls of that green, no Lucky Charms
The maids come around too much
Parents ain’t around enough
Too many joy rides in daddy’s Jaguar
Too many white lies and white lines
Super rich kids with nothing but loose ends
Super rich kids with nothing but fake friends
[Verse 1: Frank Ocean]
Start my day up on the roof
There’s nothing like this type of view
Point the clicker at the tube
I prefer expensive news
New car, new girl
New ice, new glass
New watch, good times babe
It's good times, yeah
She wash my back three times a day
This shower head feels so amazing
We’ll both be high, the help don’t stare
They just walk by, they must don’t care
A million one, a million two
A hundred more will never do
[Refrain]
[Bridge]
Real love, I’m searching for a real love
Real love, I’m searching for a real love
Oh, real love
[Verse 2: Earl Sweatshirt]
Close your eyes to what you can't imagine
We are the xany-gnashing
Caddy-smashing, bratty ass
He mad, he snatched his daddy's Jag
And used the shit for batting practice
Adam and Annie thrashing
Purchasing crappy grams with half the hand of cash you handed
Panic and patch me up
Pappy done latch-keyed us
Toying with Raggy Anns and Mammy done had enough
Brash as fuck, breaching all these aqueducts
Don’t believe us
Treat us like we can’t erupt, yup
[Alternate Verse 2: Frank Ocean]
Polo sweats and Hermes blankets
Them label hoes be stealing my shit
And all they clothes revealing they tits
Pills, high enough to touch the rim in that bitch
We party in my living room
Cause father is gone
And he left me this empire
That runs on its own
So all I got to do is whatever the fuck I want
All we ever do is whatever the fuck we want
[Verse 3: Frank Ocean]
We end our day up on the roof
I say I’ll jump, I never do
But when I’m drunk I act a fool
Talking bout, do they sew wings on tailored suits
I’m on that ledge, she grabs my arm
She slaps my head
It's good times, yeah
Sleeve rips off, I slip, I fall
The market's down like 60 stories
And some don’t end the way they should
My silver spoon has fed me good
A million one, a million cash
Close my eyes and feel the crash
[Refrain]
[Outro]
Real love, ain't that something rare
I’m searching for a real love, talking bout real love
Real love yeah
Real love
I’m searching for a real love

Talking bout a real love

austerity versus possibility

This post was contributed by SOC 3013 student, Rebekah Miller. 

Austerity is supposed to be a miracle fix for the economy, but the promises made when cuts are proposed often do not come true. Political power goes hand in hand with those holding the most money. When political control is concentrated among a small elite, austerity programs will likely work against the masses, and particularly those classes with the least power. 

This short video by Workers Uniting summarizes the issues that working-class and poor people are now facing across the country: lowered wages, unemployment, and welfare cuts. Canadian economist Armine Yalnizyan makes a statement at 4:41, "You can't cut your way into growth..." She later refers to these cuts being made as a "fiscal fantasy"--that cutting programs will magically solve budget deficits and help redistribute wealth. This logic is a bit backwards. If it were this easy to solve economic problems, would it be right to cut those programs that assist our "have-not" citizens? At 7:07 Robert Kuttner suggests that we end politics that bring austerity, and elect those who will bring "possibility". Government needs to find alternatives to grow the economy, and in turn slash deficits without cutting programs that help the under-represented 99%.

Burn joins Detropia: docs on community collapse

Detropia, last year's acclaimed doc on the disintegration of Detroit, is now joined by a companion film providing a graphic description of the city's ongoing physical destruction from the standpoint of firefighters battling the problem of arson there. Read this article by Jones for a review of Burn.

perks of privilege: doing Disney NYC-rich style

Some Manhattan visitors to Disney World apparently have translated their wealth into significant social privilege. Paying over $1,000 a day for an off-duty disabled Disney "tour concierge" is a common practice among those who wish to avoid long lines at the Florida theme park (see original NY Post article and CNN interview with whistleblower, Wednesday Martin).

global rich list

Feeling overworked, underpaid, and tapped out? Visit the Global Rich List, and you may be surprised to learn you're actually among the global economic elite. Developed by Poke out of the UK, the interactive first went online in 2003 as a response to lists focusing on the super-rich, such as that published by Forbes. According to partner, Believe.in, these lists tend to distort the true picture of global inequality by ignoring the fact that the general populations of developed nations are incredibly better-off than the masses elsewhere. Like the first edition, the interactive encourages you to plug in personal data relative to income and then compares where you stand to the rest of the world. Comparisons are interestingly localized to enhance contrasts and to stimulate user contributions to Care International. The new edition however also includes a wealth option, and as well incorporates continually updated comparative information.

code switch

NPR has a great series running since last week relative to the changing nature of race and ethnicity in the U.S.  Check it out at http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/

As I Am: poverty in Memphis

Check out this incredible Alan Spearman video about high school student Chris Dean's poetic take on life in his impoverished Memphis neighborhood. It was recently named winner of the NAPPA "Best Use of Multimedia" award (see story at https://nppa.org/node/60194).

stop owlcatraz!

The GEO Group, a private prison corporation, is willing to pay Florida Atlantic University 6 million dollars for the naming rights to the new university football stadium, and this has sparked demonstrations by FAU students. The protest organization, Stop Owlcatraz, claims the corporation engages in human rights abuses, particularly against minority prisoners, and they don't want it to be associated with their university. A recent story in The Nation has framed the controversy as the "ground zero fight against new Jim Crow."

wealth inequality: perceptions and reality

Although uploaded to YouTube last November, this animated video has gone viral in recent days. It provides a graphic overview about current inequalities in the U.S. by considering disparities in wealth in terms of (a.) how Americans think wealth is actually distributed, (b.)  how Americans believe wealth should be distributed, and (c.) how wealth is actually distributed. Of particular note is the great discrepancy between perceptions and beliefs versus reality: actual wealth inequality is so much greater than how we perceive it to be distributed and how we believe it should be ideally distributed. The video is an excellent example of how video can transform complex, abstract ideas into compelling, understandable terms. Read this story in the Daily Kos for the possible role of such videos in sparking public action and social change. For a conservative critique of the video, see this article from National Review Online. 

Inocente wins Oscar

Inocente is a teen artist, who also happens to be homeless and undocumented. A film about her won the Academy Award last Sunday as "Best Documentary Short." The making of Inocente was funded in part through donations to the Kickstarter project.  

saving the savior: Africa for Norway

The following post was written by Lester Andrist and originally appeared at The Sociological Cinema.

The broad claim that certain groups have power over others—that racism, sexism, and classism exist—is hardly controversial. Yet mention privilege and tempers flare. But privilege is simply the other side of the power coin. Just as some racial groups are systematically oppressed and marginalized, other racial groups are systematically privileged, and just as forms of oppression vary, so too do forms of privilege. For instance, a white privilege might simply be living in a world where one can count on being paid more on average than Blacks or Latinos. While pay gaps may be easily quantified, forms of privilege that are less amenable to statistical analysis exist as well. Consider the male privilege of being immersed in a media environment that consistently depicts men as important and powerful. Or consider the white privilege of living in a media environment that assures audiences that white heroes are nearly always capable of transcending adversity. The above clip is from "Africa for Norway" and parodies the narrative typically deployed by Western charity organizations in their campaigns to secure funds and drum up support. It draws attention to a kind of Western privilege, a privilege both forged from and bound up with the experience of colonialism, the application of the rule of colonial difference (i.e., representing the 'other' as inferior and radically different), and Western racism. Whether it is the Kony 2012 campaign or the 1985 song "We Are the World," the story being peddled to publics is of a compassionate West saving the 'other' from unbearable poverty or some other grave injustice. Author Teju Cole famously named this dominant cultural narrative and the practices it calls forth the white savior industrial complex. While the components of the narrative can be spotted in the viral videos of these NGOs, Cole points out that it can also be found in countless Hollywood films, such as Out of Africa and The Constant Gardener. Time and again, moviegoers and YouTubers are asked to consider a rather narrowly defined hero. He's a compassionate white westerner, who stands apart in his uncommon ability to recognize the basic humanity of the many black and brown foreigners he has encountered while on his journey through an unfamiliar land; and against the advice of civilization, he heroically commits himself to the mission of saving these people from their plight. Although the perception that it is a criticism against charity will likely be a point of contention with viewers, the real critique, which is aimed at neocolonialism and the privileges it supports is incisive. It is a peculiar kind of Western privilege to be able to wade through the media pool each day, soaked by the various incarnations of this narrative, a day full of subtle reminders of one's intrinsic goodness and extraordinary abilities.

as black as we wish to be

Hear a fascinating audio documentary about a county in Ohio where racial identity has been historically defined by place of residence and exceptionally ambiguous for generations. This State of the Re:Union story is comprised of interviews about local racial formation practices and attitudes, where physical features and ethnic identity often do not match. The interviews are set within a historical narrative on racism within the locale. In this area
"...residents have shared the common bond of identifying as African-American despite the fact that they look white. Racial lines have been blurred to invisibility, and people inside the same family can vehemently disagree about whether they are black or white. It can be tense and confusing. As a result, everyone’s choosing: Am I black? Am I mixed race? Or, am I white?"

American Experience: biographies of wealth

PBS' American Experience recently broadcast documentaries on the life and times of John D. Rockefeller and Henry Ford. Made in 2000, the 3+ hour treatment of Rockefeller and family is now available online, as is a new 2-hour examination of Henry Ford. Both documentaries include extensive supporting articles, clips, and interactives. Unfortunately, the first part of the early-capitalist trilogy by American Experience, that on Andrew Carnegie, is not available online, although many of its clips and supporting documents are (one of the more interesting ancillaries is an article on Carnegie's relationship with the Social Darwinist, Herbert Spencer).

why change? aren't we the best?

Ethnocentrism is universal to all societies, but we Americans are particularly given to assuming that our nation and way of life are superior. However, as suggested in the above clip from a recent episode of HBO's The Newsroom, our nation fares rather poorly in comparison to many others on numerous indicators of life quality, and the reasons it does so largely seem to be linked to social and economic inequality. In related vein, this recent article by Mark Santow places the notion of American "exceptionalism" into perspective as he describes the various ways inequality exacerbates life for many of us.

shades of gay

Dominant conceptions of sexual orientation are both inaccurate and destructive, according to this excellent TED presentation. iO Tillett Wright describes her unique personal experiences with gender and sexuality, critiques mainstream notions of gayness, and previews her photographic project to document variability across the LBGTQ population.

This video dovetails nicely with scientific treatment of sexual orientation that goes back to the work of Alfred Kinsey over 60 years ago (see/take Kinsey Scale).