Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with minorities

Help find a book for a Social Psych course

lassie — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 09:24:45 -0800

Bookfilter: Books on prejudice and concealed identities? Posted for a friend:

"I'm teaching an undergraduate class on prejudice in which I combine scientific articles on stereotyping and prejudice with a couple of novels that serve as vivid everyday examples. I want to change up the fiction I've used in the past. I'm looking for fiction (or even journalistic books) that captures the experience of what it means to be stigmatized because of one's membership in a particular social group. I'm especially interested in concealed or invisible groups where "passing" is possible, where people can sometimes disclose their identity and at other times conceal it (e.g., books about LGBT people, religious minorities, people with mental illness, etc).

To give you a sense of what I'm looking for, I've used "Black Like Me," and "Caucasia" when I've taught this class before, and was considering "Self-Made Man" this year, until I decided it might be too graphic, even for a college class. Can you think of other books that fit the description above? Thanks in advance."

The Hood Internet

dihutenosa — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 03:33:50 -0800

Hood+Tech Filter: Help me give these kids a fighting chance. I've a friend who's in a newly established community association geared towards sustainability and such. Recently, I, the resident nerd, have been asked to help bring computers/tech into the hood.

This area is, figuratively and literally, the “wrong side of the tracks”. I know, I grew up here. No redeeming economic activity, depressingly high crime rates, awful education. Students are falling behind, in part, because they never learn to type an essay. No PC at home, no internet.

I’ll start with the computers.

Both my friend and I have been involved in the community as volunteers/teachers for a while. We’ve been offered free, used PCs for obviously struggling families by friendly techs at PC repair shops in the past, so we know we can fairly easily score a good number of usable PCs at zero cost (hitting up the middle class areas should also net some more free boxes).

My initial thought is that we should select a “pilot” community – probably a housing complex of 15-50 households, and first give them PCs, and provide some basic training. Once we get this group established, it will (I think) make our grant/support requests more “marketable”, as we’ll have a proven track record.

Back to the PCs, I feel like Linux (I’m thinking Ubuntu?) is our best move, since we’ll be dealing with a bunch of old hardware, and we need things to be unbreakable, free, and include all necessary word processing / browsing software a kid/family would need.

The association is sold on my ideas, and has given me the reins of this operation. To give you a bright-eyed, idealistic roadmap for our future, we want to get every home in the community a computer, get them all free wireless, and then start an online/LPFM radio station as a community central point. One step at a time though – so first the computers, and maybe a little internet (#2).

So – I guess I’m looking for input on the following:
1. Ubuntu (with the included Openoffice, etc): Good choice? Better ideas?
2. We want to also try to get some households online via an ad-hoc shared network during this pilot. I realize that there have been questions about sharing wireless in the past, but things change over the space of a few months…what pitfalls (security, etc?) might be a concern? Any tools that might make this easier?
3. Any funding ideas or people we should talk to about making the wireless thing happen? This is in Southern California.

Any ideas are welcome. Thanks, everyone.
I've read this thread, and am taking some of the advice therein.

Books on Ethnic Minorities in Developing Countries Dominating Said Countries' Economy?

jare2003 — Tue, 05 Oct 2004 13:28:59 -0800

Amy Chua's book "World On Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability"discusses how ethnic minorities in many developing countries dominate the country economically. (The Chinese in many southeast Asian countries, whites in parts of Africa, etc)

Do any other MeFites know of other books or resources that discuss this phenomenon? (which undoubtely will only become more prevalaent as the world globalizes)

Gay Rights and Religious Minorities

WolfDaddy — Wed, 18 Feb 2004 17:28:41 -0800

Why do so many leaders and members of non-gay minorities seem to refuse, if not outright stubbornly unwilling, to admit common ground between their own struggles to attain basic rights and what gay people have been and are going through? I've never been able to get an answer that, to my own ears, sounds anything but irrational, but I acknowledge my being a white male can obfuscate my point and overrule any other experience I might be able to relate as a gay person when trying to find common ground. But I don't think that's very fair, and am looking for ways to better argue that idea. Suggestions, please?