CVK
Here’s another installment of our Time Machine series… when we take a look back at what we were blogging about a year ago this month.

MIXED RACE STUDENTS IN THE CLASSROOM

Appropriately enough for back-to-school season, Jen wrote an article offering advice for teachers who have mixed race students in their classroom:

“What I am suggesting is that teachers acknowledge mixed identity in their classrooms. I am not suggesting that you give mixed students special treatment. I am also not recommending that you go overboard by trying to pinpoint all of the mixed students in your class so that you can rush to talk to all of them about how it is to be mixed. Not only will you scare a few by this method, but you are also bound to make a mistake…”

HURRICANE KATRINA AND RACE

We also discussed the way media coverage of Hurricane Katrina underscored America’s race problem:

“Everyone’s been talking about the “looting” vs. “finding” controversy, where blacks were labeled by the media as looting food, while whites simply “find” it… Oh, and guess what Condee has been doing all this time? Shopping for shoes at Ferragamo. That’s right. And when an angry shopper confronted her on her bad timing, she actually had her PHYSICALLY REMOVED from the store…”

CRAP ON TV
September 2005 was a good month for sensationalistic garbage on TV when it came to race issues. Not only did Dr. Phil interview a white man who disowned his daughter for becoming pregnant with a black man’s child, but Dateline did a followup story on the infamous Dutch twins of “different races:”

“Dr. Phil has a plan to make Charlie unlearn his history and relearn the truth in a loving and open way … Will Charlie be up for it? Oooh! Any minute? Perhaps they will convince her to give birth right there on stage so that they can force her dad to make up his mind up about whether or not to accept his mixed grandchild…for all to see!! I hate talk shows…”

“…Using in-vitro fertilization, the mother got pregnant by the sperm of two different men. One white (her husband, I presume), one black. Hence, two sons — one white, the other labeled “black,” although he is really mixed since their mother is white…”

THE INTERROBANG (NO IT’S NOT WHAT YOU THINK)

Jen gets all excited about a new punctuation mark: one that mixes (get it? get it?) an exclamation mark and a question mark:

“…OK. This may only be exciting to me, but I just needed to share. My brother, Dave, the fabulous graphic designer, just introduced me to the interrobang. Not only is it exciting to me because it’s a MIXED punctuation mark , but also because I always use question marks and exclamation marks together!?! SEE!?!…”