the clothes on your back

Several months ago, The Toronto Star published  a series of articles and videos on the global supply-production-consumption chain of clothing, The Clothes on Your Back. The series examines such interrelated topics as slave labor in Uzbekistan cotton fields, clothing production in Asian sweatshops--particularly involving child labor, and the current retail boom in Canada.

Plant Money makes a T-shirt

Consider the global supply and production chain involved in making a simple clothing article, such as a T-shirt. NPR's Plant Money recently did, and from it created this enlightening rich-media series. Each of the five parts (cotton, machines, people, boxes, you) is comprised of a short overview video, followed by images, text, graphics, and links to additional resources, deconstructing the process. The series was initially funded as a Kickstarter project, in which the intent was to finance the manufacture of 2,000 shirts; 25,000 were ultimately made. Note: the deadline for ordering a project T-shirt is December 31, 2013. (YouTube playlist available at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2Zod7Sd3rQ&list=PLp-wXwmbv3z8aAJrhyttiqPMiKy0WVJym).

knockout game, media, and race

Racial political controversy is heating up again as the conservative press recently began keying off on the "knockout game," a pastime presumably perpetrated by black youths against unsuspecting whites encountered in public space. Two recent articles put this phenomenon into context. These NPR and NY Times pieces address it in terms of larger issues of violent assault and youth crime. The latter article also suggests it may well be simply "urban myth."

"catch an illegal immigrant" contest backfires

A recent attempt by a campus club, the Young Conservatives of Texas, to generate discussion about the issue of undocumented immigration was called off after UT Austin administrators stated that it would violate the school's "honor code." However, publicity about the contest did spark a counter demonstration on campus, which included a pro-immigrant statement by actress America Ferrera (see this newstory for information relevant to the organization's rationale for the event and reasons for cancelling it).   

black bruin

viral homeless vet video

This timelapse of Jim Wolf, homeless Army veteran, has had over 7 million YouTube hits since Nov 6. It was placed on the Internet as a fundraising vehicle by Degage Ministries and has already generated more than $15,000 of its $20,000 goal. The Grand Rapids, Michigan charity claims that Wolf's participation in the project has also transformed his life in other ways as he is now involved with AA. 

self-sufficiency standard

Critics have long held that the federal poverty line underestimates the real level of economic hardship in our society. Based largely on the market-basket price of groceries for households of various sizes, the official poverty measure has been criticized for failing to reflect the rising cost of other basic necessities, as well as changed consumption patterns over the past 50 years. A more realistic measure, the Self-Sufficiency Standard, is now being touted as superior as it takes into consideration how much income is minimally necessary to meet a list of key expenses for households of varying size and composition across diverse U.S. places, such that households would not have to receive welfare assistance. In this recent PBS NewsHour story, Dana Pearce of the University of Washington School of Social Work, discusses the measure she developed and how it is being used.

the most unequal place in America

This short documentary, which explores Lake Providence, LA, presumably the "most unequal place in America," is part of a recent CNN series on economic inequality in America 
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/29/opinion/sutter-lake-providence-income-inequality/index.html, which in turn is a part of a larger series entitled "Change the List," a project addressing the 5 most extreme-case problems as defined by CNN viewers 
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/18/opinion/sutter-ctl-vote-results/index.html .  

racial profiling: stop and frisk

See the full infographic at http://www.vera.org/stop-and-frisk-study-infographic

The Vera Institute has recently published a study on stop and frisk practices in New York City based on survey interviews with about 500 young adults. The full report can be downloaded at 

http://www.vera.org/pubs/special/stop-and-frisk-reports

An excellent companion to any treatment of racial profiling is the short video, Stigma, produced in 2011 by the Yale Law School Visual Law Project. 

hunger amid plenty

This recent KQED documentary details the irony of severe hunger among workers in California agriculture.

know the chain

Modern slavery is everywhere around us, and we are likely to be supporting it in terms of the goods we purchase!
As discussed in this Free The Slave Blog article http://ftsblog.net/2013/10/21/slavery-in-your-shopping-cart-new-website-helps-you-know/ slave labor is common in the supply chain of modern production. Now a new website, Know The Chain https://www.knowthechain.org/, spells out the extent of involvement of hundreds of corporations.

intersectionality

What about those of us who belong to more than one subordinate group? For example, are you perhaps, black, poor, and female? This relates to the concept of "intersectionality." Check-out this great information graphic by Miriam Dobson that appeared several months ago in The Sociological Imagination: 
http://sociologicalimagination.org/archives/12975.

lobster boy: new Republican poster child

As discussed in this NPR story, Congressional Republicans have seized upon this FOX News video in their attempts to generate support for cutting back the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). See the entire collection of FOX News' "Great Food Stamp Binge" at http://youtu.be/rXoTX1sP-jo.

PhDs as indentured servants

Source: Online-PhD-Programs.org

PhDs in many fields face significant obstacles to gainful employment in academia. This information graphic defines the problematic nature and scope of the current exploitation of adjunct professors.

British social class calculator

The BBC has published this interactive calculator allowing readers to determine their class position. The tool was developed by a team of sociologists based on recent survey data of the adult UK population (N>160,000). Seven categories were derived from the study which presumably reflects the contemporary class structure more accurately than previous definitions.