. According to a Washington Post report published on Saturday, March 25, 2006:
An organization of civil engineers questioned the soundness of large portions of New Orleans's levee system, warning that the city's federally designed flood walls were not built to standards stringent enough to protect a large city.
Complete Story...
Today is Friday, September 03, 2010 5:00AM
VISUAL: Interactive Graphic, Hurricane Katrina’s Inundation of New Orleans
August 29, 2010 by BBN Editors,
An Ode to Black Women and a Fair, Firm Message to ALL Others.
August 25, 2010 by Sharon D. Toomer, BBN Managing Editor
As a Black woman in America, I have never known a time in my life when I have felt more unsafe, vulnerable and unprotected. This acute sense of insecurity is sometimes a challenge to articulate.
Complete Story...
'How the Media Treat Murder.' Story of Missing Black Women in NC Ignored
November 08, 2009 by Krista Gesaman , Newsweek
Ten women have been found slain or have been declared missing in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, in recent years. But the rest of the country hasn't heard about a possible serial killer stalking the young women in this Southern town of 60,000.
Complete Story...
(Video) Immigrant Families Torn Apart by Harsh Deportation Laws
July 05, 2009 by BBN Editors,
Harsh deportation laws break up and torment immigrant families. Undocumented parents are deported leaving behind their children who are in the United States legally.
Complete Story...
Take Note: News Corp Quietly Owns NYC Neighborhood Newspapers
March 27, 2009 by Sharon D. Toomer, BBN Managing Editor
. I am embarrassed as the founder of a digital media source of news and information that I am only now learning of something that happened in 2007.
Complete Story...
(Video) Diversity and Inclusion in the American Work Place
February 10, 2009 by bbn editors,
The election of Barack Obama as President of the United States has reignited the benefits of diversity and inclusion in the work place and higher education. The history of affirmative action and diversity efforts in the United States was the subject of a recent State University of New York television interview with Kevin Antoine, JD, chief diversity officer at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Complete Story...
‘Youth no longer a refuge.’ More of Boston's shooting victims are under 17.
September 25, 2008 by Milton J. Valencia, Globe Staff
For Lakeyia Mumford, the scar on her right cheek is a painful reminder of the bullet that pierced the comfort of her home, grazing her and hitting her aunt in the torso while they braided their hair and practiced dance routines.
Both collapsed to the floor.
Complete Story...
White Fright. One crucial element of the American subconscious is about to become salient and explicit and highly volatile. It is the realization that white America is within thinkable distance of a m
August 30, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(slate) One crucial element of the American subconscious is about to become salient and explicit and highly volatile. It is the realization that white America is within thinkable distance of a moment when it will no longer be the majority. This awareness already exists in places like New York and Texas and California, and there have even been projections of the time(s) at which it will occur and when different nonwhite populations will collectively outnumber the former white majority. But it also exerts a strong subliminal effect in states like Alaska that have an overwhelming white preponderance.
Until recently, the tendency has been to think of this rather than to speak of it—or to speak of it very delicately, lest the hard-won ideal of diversity be imperiled. More...
“Are you a U.S. citizen?” Border Patrol agents in the north routinely board Greyhound buses and Amtrak trains to check the immigration status of riders.
August 30, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) The Lake Shore Limited runs between Chicago and New York City without crossing the Canadian border. But when it stops at Amtrak stations in western New York State, armed Border Patrol agents routinely board the train, question passengers about their citizenship and take away noncitizens who cannot produce satisfactory immigration papers.
“Are you a U. S. citizen?” agents asked one recent morning, moving through a Rochester-bound train full of dozing passengers at a station outside Buffalo. More...
Who Is Bankrolling the Tea Party? Read and find out...
August 28, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) There’s just one element missing from these snapshots of America’s ostensibly spontaneous and leaderless populist uprising: the sugar daddies who are bankrolling it, and have been doing so since well before the “death panel” warm-up acts of last summer. Three heavy hitters rule. You’ve heard of one of them, Rupert Murdoch. The other two, the brothers David and Charles Koch, are even richer, with a combined wealth exceeded only by that of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett among Americans. But even those carrying the Kochs’ banner may not know who these brothers are. More...
America is better than Glenn Beck. For all of his celebrity, Mr. Beck is an ignorant, divisive, pathetic figure.
August 28, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(Bob Herbert/nyt) America is better than Glenn Beck. For all of his celebrity, Mr. Beck is an ignorant, divisive, pathetic figure. On the anniversary of the great 1963 March on Washington he will stand in the shadows of giants — Abraham Lincoln and the Rev. Dr. More...
Shirley Sherrod Says She'll Sue Andrew Breitbart. USDA Employee Forced Out of Job over Doctored Video Will Likely Sue for Defamation.
July 29, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(cbs) Ousted Agriculture Department employee Shirley Sherrod said Thursday she will sue a conservative blogger who posted a video edited in a way that made her appear racist.
Sherrod was forced to resign as director of rural development in Georgia after Andrew Breitbart posted the edited video online. In the full video, Sherrod, who is black, spoke to a local NAACP group about racial reconciliation and lessons she learned after initially hesitating to help a white farmer save his home.
Speaking Thursday at the National Association of Black Journalists convention, Sherrod said she would "definitely" sue over the video that took her remarks out of context. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has since offered Sherrod a new job in the department in advocacy and outreach. More...
Hispanic GOP group backs Arizona law
July 23, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(politico) A group of Arizona Republicans on Wednesday became the nation’s first Latino organization to back the state’s immigration law, setting the stage for a heated, and potentially emotional, showdown within the Hispanic community.
The Arizona Latino Republican Association filed in federal court a motion to intervene with the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against SB 1070, which is being heard in a Phoenix courtroom. The department is arguing that only the federal government has the authority to enact immigration laws.
Another lawsuit against Arizona is also getting its day in court Thursday. The second one argues that the law could lead to racial profiling by police, who will have the authority to question the citizenship of any person “reasonably suspected” of being in the country illegally. More...
Willie Nelson: Shirley Sherrod, a Family Farmer's Friend
July 23, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(willie nelson/hupo) Shirley Sherrod has been a great friend to me, Farm Aid and family farmers for 25 years. She has always worked to improve economic opportunities for family farmers in the South, going back to when I first met her as the director of the Georgia Field Office for the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund. Like Ms. Sherrod herself has said, she's always tried to help those who don't have so that they can have a little more.
The real story of Shirley Sherrod deserved to be told a long time ago. More...
Renters: Know Your Health Rights
July 23, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(Erin N. Marcus, M. D. ). . More...
The Only Child: Debunking the Myths
July 20, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(time) The Lonely Only?
The image of the lonely only was the work of one man, Granville Stanley Hall. About 120 years ago, Hall established one of the first American psychology-research labs. But what he is most known for today is supervising the 1896 study "Of Peculiar and Exceptional Children," which described a series of only-child oddballs as permanent misfits. For decades, academics and advice columnists alike disseminated his conclusion that an only child could not be expected to go through life with the same capacity for adjustment that children with siblings possessed.
No one has done more to disprove Hall's stereotype than Toni Falbo, a professor of educational psychology and sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. More...
Shirley Sherrod Resignation Story: The wife of the white farmer allegedly discriminated against by the USDA's rural development director for Georgia said Shirley Sherrod "kept us out of bankrupt
July 20, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(ajc) The wife of the white farmer allegedly discriminated against by the USDA's rural development director for Georgia said Shirley Sherrod "kept us out of bankruptcy. " Eloise Spooner, 82, awoke Tuesday to discover that Sherrod had lost her job after videotaped comments she made in March at a local NAACP banquet surfaced on the web.
Sherrod, who is black, told the crowd she didn't do everything she could to help a white farmer whom she said was condescending when he came to her for aid. She said the video was selectively edited but regardless U. S. More...
(Strongly Recommend) The Washington Post’s Top Secret America: What Does It All Mean?
July 19, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(Washington Post Special Report)
For nearly two years, The Washington Post has been working on a massive investigative piece on the state of the post-9/11 intelligence and security industries which would have been impossible before the Internet. Titled “Top Secret America,” the Post’s exposé required the labors of more than 20 journalists. The report’s key takeaways may not be terrible surprises with respect to the conventional wisdom about the military-industrial complex — that it wastes money and is so disorganized that key pieces of intelligence get ignored to potentially perilous effect — but its thoroughness and searchability make it a uniquely 21st century piece of reporting, both for its subject matter and for its own composition.
Here’s the heart of the report on the 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies involved in America’s counterterror, homeland security, and intelligence operations, as summarized by veteran investigative journalists Dana Priest and William M. Arkin:
1). More...
Militia With Neo-Nazi Ties Patrols Arizona Desert
July 18, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(ap/nyt) Minutemen groups, a surge in Border Patrol agents and a tough new immigration law are not enough for a reputed neo-Nazi who is now leading a militia in the Arizona desert.
Jason Ready is taking matters into his own hands, declaring war on what he calls “narco-terrorists” and keeping an eye out for illegal immigrants. So far, he said, his patrols have found only a few border crossers, who were given water and handed over to the Border Patrol. Once, they found a decaying body in a wash, and alerted the authorities.
But local law enforcement officials are worried, given that Mr. More...
Obama turns the key on big change: From public housing to AIDS policy, Obama shows long-range vision
July 15, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(nydn) If "Change We Can Believe In" was the winning slogan during Barack Obama's campaign for the White House, "Change Hiding in Plain Sight" might be the theme of the Obama presidency.
In one domestic policy area after another - at a pace that often eludes a press corps addicted to polls and sound bites - Obama's aides are reorganizing federal programs and priorities in ways that won't be fully perceived for years.
This week, for instance, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Dovonvan gave a morning speech describing an ambitious plan to revitalize public housing nationwide with billions in public and private dollars.
"The status quo is unacceptable," he told a group of ministers from around New York State attending an all-day conference organized by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N. More...
Michelle Obama to NAACP: Move Past Slavery and Segregation and Deal With Today's Issues
July 14, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(rollinout) The first lady of the United States was eloquent and polite but blunt in her address to the NAACP national body. Michelle Obama implored the NAACP to cast aside continual references and talk about slavery and segregation and join her in the fight to eradicate ills of the new millennium, particularly the cause she has championed, childhood obesity.
At the organization's annual convention in Kansas City, Mo. , on Monday, the first lady said that obesity — and the legion of diseases that are associated with being morbidly overweight like diabetes and heart problems – are continually victimizing young black boys and girls. Obama, who has launched her own health initiative, "Let's Move," says children's bodies are rotting while sitting in front of the TV, playing video games or surfing the Internet. More...
Oscar Grant, a Victim of American Fear. Why even decades after the civil-rights era, a cop shooting an unarmed black man is barely a crime.
July 12, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(altnet) ohannes Mehserle, the former BART police officer who killed Oscar Grant while he was lying face down and handcuffed in an Oakland train station, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter -- his crime, according to the jury, was negligence in not knowing the difference between his heavy black gun and his light yellow Taser. Of the possible outcomes Mehserle was facing, involuntary manslaughter was the best he could have hoped for short of acquittal. He faces a maximum sentence of four years for the original crime, possibly more for the use of a firearm. I want to focus for a moment on the distinction between voluntary and involuntary manslaughter. To convict on the higher charge of voluntary manslaughter, the prosecution would have had to prove that Mehserle's fear of Grant and his friends was "unreasonable. More...
Dave Zirin: Cavaliers Owner, Gilbert, known as "Subprime Dan," made his millions as CEO of Quicken Loans, offering zero percent, no money down mortgages to potential home buyers over the Int
July 12, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(hupo/d. zirin) Dan Gilbert needs to spare us the moral outrage. Forget about the fact that this is an utterly graceless, classless move given how much coin James has put in Gilbert's pocket. Gilbert is the man known as "Subprime Dan," the who made his millions as CEO of Quicken Loans, offering 0%, no money down mortgages to potential home buyers over the Internet. This kind of legalized loan sharking of course wrecked the US economy. More...
Fundraising
July 11, 2010 by winfreylee (View Source)
Are you looking to fundraise for your organization? The Were Worth It organization can help you raise money. Just have a minimum of 10 people, be located in the New York City area or Long Island. You can be raising money for a non profit, a church, a youth sports league, your family reunion, etc. Call us at 646-824-9447 to arrange a meeting with you and your organization. The top fundraiser in your group will win a free massage with our affiliate spa organization, plus other incentives. More...
(Chicago) Graduation Is the Goal, Staying Alive the Prize. Last school year, 258 public school students were shot in Chicago, 32 fatally.
July 02, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) Last school year, 258 public school students were shot in Chicago, 32 fatally, on their way to or from school, traveling through gang-infested territory and narcotics wars on the South and West Sides. In an effort to get ahead of the next killings, the schools conducted an analysis to identify the 250 students most at risk of being shot (by studying profiles of 500 recent victims). Since December, each of those students has had an advocate like Ms. Tinajero on call to offer caretaking and support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
National experts consider it to be perhaps the most intensive safety intervention tried in big-city schools; its results are being watched nationally. More...
The Recession's Long-Term Impact on Black Kids. Our children may be most vulnerable to damage from the economic downturn.
July 01, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(theroot) As adults wrestle with rising foreclosure rates and disappearing jobs, child-development experts are reporting that children may end up shouldering some of the most severe, long-lasting consequences of the recession of 2008, according to the Foundation for Child Development (FCD). Working with an index of 28 indicators of quality of life called the Overall Composite Child Well-Being Index (CWI), the foundation looked at seven key areas to see how the nation's children are bearing up under the stress of the recession and how they will do in years to come. The results show that kids from preschool to age 19 may have to fight the detrimental impact of America's financial crisis for much of their lives. African-American kids will be "harder hit than their white counterparts because a larger proportion of children of color live in poverty," the report states.
The CWI reveals that "virtually all of the progress made in family economic well-being since 1975 will be wiped out for many," as individuals, organizations and governments trim budgets. More...
Women had key roles in civil rights movement. But few achieved prominence with public.
June 30, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(msnbc) Ella Baker. Septima Poinsette Clark. Fannie Lou Hamer.
They and others risked their lives and worked tirelessly, demanding a social revolution — but history has often overlooked them. They were the women of the civil rights movement. More...
Supreme Court ruled for the first time that Second Amendment provides all Americans a fundamental right to bear arms. Ruling gives a legal basis for challenges where gun owners think government has b
June 28, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(wapo) The Supreme Court ruled for the first time Monday that the Second Amendment provides all Americans a fundamental right to bear arms, a long-sought victory for gun rights advocates who have chafed at federal, state and local efforts to restrict gun ownership. The court was considering a restrictive handgun law in Chicago and one of its suburbs that was similar to the District law that it ruled against in 2008. The 5 to 4 decision does not strike any other gun control measures currently in place, but it provides a legal basis for challenges across the country where gun owners think that government has been too restrictive.
"It is clear that the Framers . . More...
Racial tensions flare in the wake of the hanging death of Lester Wells Jr.: Hate Crime or Suicide?
June 11, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(riverfrontnews) In the dim gray dawn of Sunday, April 25, on the southern outskirts of Cahokia, Illinois, a pickup truck was creeping along the Prairie du Pont Creek levee and stopped. Behind the wheel, Bob Shipley of the Metro East Levee District was supposed to be checking the creek's water level. Instead, he found himself staring down at an obsolete railroad bridge that crossed the dark, treeless expanse. The body of an African American boy was dangling from one of the wooden bridge supports.
"I thought maybe it was a hoax," Shipley recalls. More...
A Victory for Native Americans? Following the House's approval, the Senate is considering whether to approve a $3.4 billion settlement of a 15-year-old lawsuit.
June 07, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(atlmonthly) Mistreatment of Indians is America's Original Sin, and the narrative is consistent. They lose their land, get portrayed as caricatures of social maladies, and are ripped off by the likes of Jack Abramoff. So it's no surprise that a tale with a very different ending, namely the righting of a horrible wrong affecting 500,000 Native Americans, proceeds with virtually no notice.
Indeed, you'd think that even Tea Party diehards should rally to this cause, given their anti-government and pro-property rights passion. They might even want to pay homage to the intrepid female accountant-turned-banker, who inspired one of the most fiercely litigated disputes against the federal government in history. More...
Growing Obesity Increases Perils of Childbearing. Obesity might be contributing to record-high rates of Caesarean sections and leading to more birth defects and deaths for mothers and babies.
June 06, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) As Americans have grown fatter over the last generation, inviting more heart disease, diabetes and premature deaths, all that extra weight has also become a burden in the maternity ward, where babies take their first breath of life. About one in five women are obese when they become pregnant, meaning they have a body mass index of at least 30, as would a 5-foot-5 woman weighing 180 pounds, according to researchers with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And medical evidence suggests that obesity might be contributing to record-high rates of Caesarean sections and leading to more birth defects and deaths for mothers and babies.
Hospitals, especially in poor neighborhoods, have been forced to adjust. They are buying longer surgical instruments, more sophisticated fetal testing machines and bigger beds. More...
Intermarriage Slows Among Hispanics, Asians. Changing Attitudes and Immigration Patterns Prompt a Break From the Overall Trend of More Unions Between Ethnic Groups .
June 01, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(wsj) The overall number of interethnic and interracial marriages continues to grow, as taboos against it have faded significantly. An estimated 8% of all couples in the U. S. belonged to distinct ethnic groups in 2008—with more than 10% in California and Texas—a sharp increase from the 3% overall rate in 1980.
But new research concludes that intermarriage rates between Hispanics and non-hispanic whites and between Asians and whites have declined or stagnated over the past two decades, due in part to a surge in immigration that has expanded the pool of people of marrying age in those groups. More...
Detained Immigrants Being Counted in Census. About 30,000 people on any given day, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs and Enforcement.
May 31, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(komo) Paulo Sergio Alfaro-Sanchez, an illegal immigrant being held at a detention center in Washington state, had no idea that the federal government would count him in the census.
No one gave him a census form. No one told him his information would be culled from the center's records.
But counted he was, along with other illegal immigrants facing deportation in detention centers across the country - about 30,000 people on any given day, according to U. S. More...
Bias Payments Come Too Late for Some Farmers. Wrangling over the federal budget in Washington has delayed payouts from a $1.25 billion settlement
May 31, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) On a recent Sunday in rural Macon, N. C. , John W. Boyd Jr. , the president of the National Black Farmers Association, went to his fourth funeral in a week. More...
Psychologist: Implicit Bias May Make Evenhanded Application of New Immigration Law Impossible.
May 20, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(American Psychological Association) Arizona recently adopted a new law giving police the authority to inquire about a person’s immigration status during a stop, detention, or arrest. The APA interviewed social psychologist John Dovidio, PhD, of Yale University about the new law. Dr. Dovidio studies issues of social power and social relationships including the influence of explicit and implicit bias. (view source for the interview). More...
Change.org Women's Rights: Where Is the Justice for Aiyana Stanley Jones? why are military-type weapons being used in civilian homes?
May 18, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(change. org) This weekend, Detroit police shot and killed a little girl named Aiyana Stanley Jones. At the little girl's home to execute a search warrant in a homicide investigation, they threw a flash bang — also known as a stun grenade — through the front window of the crowded apartment . . . More...
Hispanics Take Aim at Arizona's Law. Latinos galvanized to become more actively involved in the political process.
May 17, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(washtimes) The new Arizona immigration law has yet to take effect, but it already has galvanized Hispanic voters to become more actively involved in the political process, according to two recent telephone polls.
Arizona's Hispanic voters overwhelmingly oppose the law, which takes effect this summer and authorizes state police to arrest anyone reasonably suspected of being an illegal immigrant. But they are increasingly frustrated by federal inaction on comprehensive immigration reform and are moving swiftly away from candidates who support the Arizona law, the polls said.
The polls were conducted by two research and opinion firms — Latino Decisions and Grove Insight — for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), with 2. 2 million members in the U. More...
Much Ado About Straightening: Old Black Salons Face New Rivals
May 17, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(wsj) Delshawn Rollins once trusted only fellow African-Americans with the delicate task of styling and straightening her tightly curled brown hair.
But that meant enduring hours of salon gossip, ordered-in lunch (and sometimes dinner, too) and occasional mishaps, like the time the ends of her hair snapped off after she had it dyed. Fed up, the 35-year-old respiratory therapist last fall pulled out a flier she had for a new salon that promised to "work magic" using "Dominican styling. " She was in and out of The Hair Co. USA, which displays the Dominican flag in the front window, within two hours, sporting a straight, feathery "do" for $20 less than she had been paying her old stylist. More...
Detroit girl, 7, fatally shot by officer during search.
May 16, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(freep) A 7-year-old Detroit girl was shot and killed this morning after a Detroit Police officer’s weapon discharged while executing a search warrant for a homicide suspect on the city’s east side, police said this morning. The officer involved is on paid leave pending the investigation, said Assistant Police Chief Ralph Godbee.
The shooting occurred while officers from the police department’s Special Response Team were looking for a suspect connected to the Friday shooting death of 17-year-old Jarean Blake, a Southeastern High School student.
And it comes at a time when the city is reeling from two weeks of tragic shooting deaths — including that of Detroit Police Officer Brian Huff on May 3.
In today’s incident, officers threw a flash bang device — which causes a bright flash and noise — into a home in the 4000 block of Lillibridge on the city’s east side at about 12:45 a. More...
The Black Male Privileges Checklist, By Jewel Woods
May 11, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(Jewel Woods) What does "privilege" have to do with Black men? We understand some kinds of privilege. The privilege to call a black man "Boy", even if that black man happens to be 60 years old or older. The privilege to drive a car and never have to worry that the police will racially profile you. Privileges that have nothing to do with what a person has earned, but rather are based entirely on who a person is, or what color they are.
As African Americans, we have the ability to critique and condemn these types of "unearned assets" because we recognize that these privileges come largely at our expense. More...
Will South Carolina Follow Arizona’s Lead? There are 10 additional states where lawmakers have said they’d do the same.
May 10, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(racewire) South Carolina is the first and only state to have introduced a SB 1070 copycat bill since Arizona passed the law. There are 10 additional states where lawmakers have said they’d do the same. While many of those states are unlikely to see a bill actually voted into law, South Carolina’s particularly dangerous mix of states’-rights conservatism, anti-immigrant politicking and a devastating jobs crisis make it a different story.
Donna Dewitt, an immigrant rights advocate who works for the South Carolina AFL-CIO, says that although the state is unlikely to pass an Arizona copycat bill this year because the legislative session is coming to an end, “the chances of a bill passing next year are very very high. It will be passed here. More...
Seattle Police Officer Caught on Video: "You got me? I'm going to beat the (expletive) Mexican piss out of you homey. You feel me?"
May 09, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(komo) A 15-year-veteran of the Seattle police force, seen in a video roughing up an innocent detainee and saying ethnic slurs, came forward Friday evening to publicly apologize.
Detective Shandy Cobane gave a tearful statement expressing remorse for not only his derogatory comments, but for shedding a negative light on the Seattle police department.
"At no time did I ever dream that I would do anything that would bring such negative notoriety to my department," Cobane said. "Sadly, I did. "
Cobane, a member of the gang unit, was on the scene April 17 as Seattle police detained three people including one Hispanic man in their hunt for possible armed robbery suspects. More...
Arizona's SB 1070: 'Stupid' law or 'soul' of the US? National Embarrassment.
May 08, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(MLevine/ajz). . . It is hard to know precisely what Arizona governor Jan Brewer's intentions were in signing the US' most restrictive illegal alien law, SB 1070.
One thing is for sure, she got Washington's, and the US public's, attention and caused one of the biggest political conflicts in years. More...
Mario Solis-Marich: Happy Cinco de Boycott! Mario Solis-Marich
May 05, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(Mario Solis-Marich/hupo) The fabled Mexican battle at Puebla will be commemorated today although most people celebrating it wont know what they are celebrating. Cinco de Mayo is not as celebrated in Mexico as it is in the US. Cinco de Mayo is in fact a uniquely American celebration about one of it's many cultures' historical mile stones. The holiday was only big in Puebla until it was big here. A signal that being Latino is as American as a double Patron margarita strained into a large salted martini glass ( try it if you haven't yet). More...
Will Puerto Rico Finally Become Our 51st State?
May 03, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(nymag) On April 29 the House of Representatives passed a bill 223–169 that authorizes a two-part plebiscite on the question of Puerto Rican statehood. The first vote would simply ask Puerto Ricans whether they want to change the status of their territory. If "yes" wins, another vote would be held with the options of statehood, keeping the status quo, full independence, or "sovereignty in association with the United States. " Even if Puerto Rico voted for the first time to become the 51st state — similar votes failed narrowly in 1998 and 1993 — Congress would still have to concur, and that's where the politics would get interesting. . More...
Jesse Jackson: Chicago Is in a State Of Emergency. ( 113 people have been killed in Chicago this year)
April 27, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(hupo) Chicago is in a state of emergency. It has been reported that 113 people have been killed in Chicago this year. The same number of U. S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan during the same time period. More...
Ending the Slavery Blame-Game: how to parcel out blame to those directly involved in the capture and sale of human beings for immense economic gain.
April 27, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) THANKS to an unlikely confluence of history and genetics — the fact that he is African-American and president — Barack Obama has a unique opportunity to reshape the debate over one of the most contentious issues of America’s racial legacy: reparations, the idea that the descendants of American slaves should receive compensation for their ancestors’ unpaid labor and bondage.
There are many thorny issues to resolve before we can arrive at a judicious (if symbolic) gesture to match such a sustained, heinous crime. Perhaps the most vexing is how to parcel out blame to those directly involved in the capture and sale of human beings for immense economic gain.
While we are all familiar with the role played by the United States and the European colonial powers like Britain, France, Holland, Portugal and Spain, there is very little discussion of the role Africans themselves played. And that role, it turns out, was a considerable one, especially for the slave-trading kingdoms of western and central Africa. More...
Response from Melissa Harris-Lacewell on ABC's Nightline Face Off: Why Black women can't get a man?
April 22, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(BBN Editors) If you have followed ABC Nightline's treatment of the single Black woman in America, we recommend what we think is a far more responsible treatment of the greater issue of why there are more single Black women than single Black men. . . . . More...
UPDATE: Indian Tribe Wins Fight to Limit Research of Its DNA.
April 22, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) Seven years ago, the Havasupai Indians, who live amid the turquoise waterfalls and red cliffs miles deep in the Grand Canyon, issued a “banishment order” to keep Arizona State University employees from setting foot on their reservation — an ancient punishment for what they regarded as a genetic-era betrayal. Members of the tiny, isolated tribe had given DNA samples to university researchers starting in 1990, in the hope that they might provide genetic clues to the tribe’s devastating rate of diabetes. But they learned that their blood samples had been used to study many other things, including mental illness and theories of the tribe’s geographical origins that contradict their traditional stories.
The geneticist responsible for the research has said that she had obtained permission for wider-ranging genetic studies.
Acknowledging a desire to “remedy the wrong that was done,” the university’s Board of Regents on Tuesday agreed to pay $700,000 to 41 of the tribe’s members, return the blood samples and provide other forms of assistance to the impoverished Havasupai — a settlement that legal experts said was significant because it implied that the rights of research subjects can be violated when they are not fully informed about how their DNA might be used. More...
Carolyn Rodgers, a leading poet of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s , Dies at 69
April 22, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) Carolyn Rodgers, a leading poet of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s whose work wove strands of feminism, black power, spirituality and writerly self-consciousness into a sometimes raging, sometimes ruminative search for identity, died on April 2 in Chicago. She was 69. The cause was cancer, said her sister Nina R. Gordon.
A student of Gwendolyn Brooks and a contemporary of Nikki Giovanni, Ms. More...
(Largo, Md) Women Upset by Six Flags' Grooming Policy. Denied Jobs at Six Flags because of their hairstyles.
April 20, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(wjla)Two women are outraged after they say they were denied jobs at Six Flags because of their hairstyles.
Twenty-three-year-old Janet Bello says when she applied for a part-time job at Six Flags in Largo, she was told her "locks" hairstyle disqualified her from employment.
"I think it's outrageous and I really think it's just sad," Bello said.
She says a supervisor told her management is adhering strictly this year to a years-old corporate grooming policy that considers dreadlocks to be an extreme hairstyle. Bello considers the characterization to be offensive. More...
Arizona State Senate on Monday passed an extensive immigration bill which tells police to check immigration status.
April 20, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(cnn) The Arizona state Senate on Monday passed an extensive immigration bill that is widely considered to be some of the toughest immigration legislation in the nation, requiring police officers to determine whether a person is in the United States legally.
Currently, officers can only take that route if a person is suspected in another crime. Critics, including immigrant advocates and the ACLU of Arizona, are concerned the new law will foster racial profiling, arguing that most police officers don't have enough training to look past race while investigating a person's legal status.
The Senate passed the bill in a 17-11 vote Monday. The bill was approved in a House vote last week and awaits the signature of Gov. More...
Longtime Civil Rights Leader Benjamin L. Hooks Dead at 85
April 15, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(ap) Benjamin L. Hooks, a champion of minorities and the poor who as executive director of the NAACP increased the group's stature, has died. He was 85.
State Rep. Ulysses Jones, a member of the church where Hooks was pastor, said Hooks died early Thursday at his home, following a long illness. More...
U.S. Census Bureau Sued for Hiring Discrimination. Applicants for 2010 Census with arrest record for any offense at any point in their lives face an arbitrary barrier to employment.
April 13, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(censusdiscriminationlawsuit) he work conducted by Census forms a cornerstone of our democracy, and it is imperative that Census carry out its mission accurately and in a manner that is fair and free of discrimination for all individuals and communities. That imperative must apply consistently not only to the counting work at the core of Census’ mission, but also to the way in which Census hires its workforce. If this hiring were done appropriately, Census would identify the most qualified workers and screen out those who pose a legitimate risk to public safety and the integrity of the census. Unfortunately, that is not the case.
All applicants for the 2010 Census with an arrest record for any offense at any point in their lives – no matter how trivial or disconnected from the requirements of the job – face an arbitrary barrier to employment. More...
Sex and the single black woman. How the mass incarceration of black men hurts black women.
April 09, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(economist) IMAGINE that the world consists of 20 men and 20 women, all of them heterosexual and in search of a mate. Since the numbers are even, everyone can find a partner. But what happens if you take away one man? You might not think this would make much difference. You would be wrong, argues Tim Harford, a British economist, in a book called “The Logic of Life”. With 20 women pursuing 19 men, one woman faces the prospect of spinsterhood. More...
President Obama: "Unacceptable" for Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell to omit any mention of slavery from a proclamation designating April Confederate History Month.
April 09, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(politico/abc) President Obama told ABC News it was "unacceptable" for Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell to omit any mention of slavery from a proclamation designating April Confederate History Month.
"I don't think you can understand the Confederacy and the Civil War unless you understand slavery. And so, I think that was an unacceptable omission. I think the governor's now acknowledged that," Obama said in an interview with George Stephanopoulos. More...
Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens retiring. Who will Obama nominate?
April 09, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(wapo) Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, the court's oldest member and leader of its liberal bloc, he is retiring. President Barack Obama now has his second high court opening to fill.
Stevens said Friday he will step down when the court finishes its work for the summer in late June or early July. He said he hopes his successor is confirmed "well in advance of the commencement of the court's next term. "
His announcement had been hinted at for months. More...
Study Finds More Woes Following Foster Care. "Once they leave foster care, these most troubled youths often have no reliable adults to advise them or provide emotional support."
April 07, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) Only half the youths who had turned 18 and “aged out” of foster care were employed by their mid-20s. Six in 10 men had been convicted of a crime, and three in four women, many of them with children of their own, were receiving some form of public assistance. Only six in 100 had completed even a community college degree. The dismal outlook for youths who are thrust into a shaky adulthood from the foster care system — now numbering some 30,000 annually — has been documented with new precision by a long-term study released Wednesday, the largest to follow such children over many years.
Researchers studied the outcomes for 602 youths in Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin, and compared them with their peers who had not been in foster care. More...
Job Prospects Grim For Youth, Especially Black Teens
April 05, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(npr) The unemployment rate for teens — particularly African-American teens like Livingston — shows just how difficult it may be to turn around job losses after the recession.
On Friday, the Labor Department reported that the while the country gained 162,000 jobs in March, the overall unemployment rate remained unchanged at 9. 7 percent. And it's much tougher for teenagers; The jobless rate for those between ages 16 and 19 rose to 26. 1 percent. More...
Youth suicides epidemic on tribal reservation rates among Native Americans are 10 times the national average. Decades of shame and silence among tribe members compound the problem.
March 30, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(natamertimes/ap) At 15, high school sophomore Coloradas Mangas knows all too much about suicide.
He’s recently had several friends who took their own lives, and he survived a suicide attempt himself.
Coloradas, a member of the Chiricahua Apache tribe, lives on the Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico, where there have been five youth suicides since the start of the school year. All were his friends.
Coloradas went to Capitol Hill Thursday to tell lawmakers about the urgent problem of suicide among Native Americans. More...
NY Mayor Bloomberg Sends Stern Letter To Obama Demanding Gun-Control Action
March 30, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(hupo) New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg -- who at one point was considered an Independent ally of the White House but has proven to be a somewhat reliable critic -- is going hard after the president, accusing Obama of dragging his feet on gun control.
In a letter sent earlier this month from his coalition -- Mayors Against Illegal Guns -- Bloomberg comes intriguingly close to assigning blame for ongoing gun violence to the Obama administration. The mayor and his co-signer, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, point to a separate report they sent the administration in early August 2009, which laid out 40 recommendations to "improve enforcement of existing gun laws" that simply required enforcing existing statutes. That report was apparently given only a perfunctory response from the Department of Justice and little tangible political action -- prompting a harsh follow-up letter from Bloomberg and Menino.
"We appreciate the Department's consideration of the report, but this is an urgent matter: further delay will almost certainly result in the needless loss of innocent lives, including many children. More...
(Video) Anti-Latino Comments at Tavis Smiley's Black Agenda Roundtable?
March 30, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(National Institute for Latino Policy) On March 20, 2010, radio personality Tavis Smiley pulled together an impressive national roundtable discussion, "The Black Agenda," in Chicago, to address the major issues facing Blacks/African-Americans in the context of the Obama Presidency. There is an ongoing debate in the Black community about whether or not Presidnt Obama should be addressing an explicitly Black policy agenda or not.
One of the panelists, former Chicago Alderman, Dorothy Tillman, made some troubling remarks about Latinos, to the enthusiastic applause of the audience and whooping approval of Cornell West. Here is what she said:
"
When you look at our community, our communities are bring gentrified. People are being spread out all over te poace to keep moving,but you be quiet. More...
New SPLC Report: "Patriot" Groups, Militias Surge in Number in Past Year
March 29, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(splc) he number of extremist groups in the United States exploded in 2009 as militias and other groups steeped in wild, antigovernment conspiracy theories exploited populist anger across the country and infiltrated the mainstream, according to a report issued today by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
Antigovernment "Patriot" groups - militias and other extremist organizations that see the federal government as their enemy - came roaring back to life over the past year after more than a decade out of the limelight.
The SPLC documented a 244 percent increase in the number of active Patriot groups in 2009. Their numbers grew from 149 groups in 2008 to 512 groups in 2009, an astonishing addition of 363 new groups in a single year. Militias - the paramilitary arm of the Patriot movement - were a major part of the increase, growing from 42 militias in 2008 to 127 in 2009. More...
HIV Still Plagues the U.S.: Some Areas Have Higher Rates Than Africa
March 28, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(newsweek) Recent research published in The New England Journal of Medicine shows that within certain populations in America, the prevalence of HIV-infected people is higher than in certain parts of Africa:
More than 1 in 30 adults in Washington, D. C. , are HIV-infected—a prevalence higher than that reported in Ethiopia, Nigeria, or Rwanda. Certain U. S. More...
Immigrant Groups Reach Out To Blacks hoping to bring the two communities together.
March 21, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(wapo) Organizers of a march for immigrants' rights in Washington are reaching out to African Americans, hoping to bring the two communities together around an issue that has been a wedge between them. The campaign includes ads for the march on urban radio stations along the East Coast, asking for listeners to lend their support. "Everyone has been hurt by the economy, especially African Americans and immigrants. The truth is, together you can demand real change," the ads state.
The effort is part of a broader strategy among Hispanic, black and Asian civil rights groups to unite on areas of common interest and to get Congress and the Obama administration to enact major legislation on jobs and immigration -- even as the nation's political leaders are focused on health care. More...
(NYC) The Obesity-Hunger Paradox. Survey: Most severe hunger-related problems in the nation are in the South Bronx, long one of the country’s capitals of obesity.
March 17, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(NYT) WHEN most people think of hunger in America, the images that leap to mind are of ragged toddlers in Appalachia or rail-thin children in dingy apartments reaching for empty bottles of milk.
But a recent survey found that the most severe hunger-related problems in the nation are in the South Bronx, long one of the country’s capitals of obesity. Experts say these are not parallel problems persisting in side-by-side neighborhoods, but plagues often seen in the same households, even the same person: the hungriest people in America today, statistically speaking, may well be not sickly skinny, but excessively fat.
Call it the Bronx Paradox.
“Hunger and obesity are often flip sides to the same malnutrition coin,” said Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger. More...
Tips From a Successful Black Marriage: There are African-Americans who are happily married; we should look to them for inspiration and advice.
March 16, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(assatashukur) Seems we're always hearing that marriage is an endangered institution among Black folks, but you can't prove it by this long-married couple.
Once, a friend sent me a copy of Joy Jones's (no relation) March 2006 column in The Washington Post, "Marriage Is for White People. " In it, Jones, a single Black woman, reflects on the notion that African-Americans have given up on the institution of marriage altogether. After reading it, my friend and I began sharing our views about what we thought were the solutions.
I've heard all of the gloomy statistics before. More...
Study: For all working-age black women 18 to 64, the financial picture is bleak. Their median household wealth is only $100. Hispanic women in that age group have a median wealth of $120.
March 10, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(postgazette) Women of all races bring home less income and own fewer assets, on average, than men of the same race, but for single black women the disparities are so overwhelmingly great that even in their prime working years their median wealth amounts to only $5.
In a groundbreaking report released Monday by a leading economic research group, social scientists turned a spotlight on the grave financial challenges facing an often overlooked group of women, many of whom could not take an unpaid sick day or repair a major appliance without going into debt.
Among the most startling revelations in the wealth data is that while single white women in the prime of their working years (ages 36 to 49) have a median wealth of $42,600 (still only 61 percent of their single white male counterparts), the median wealth for single black women is only $5.
Researchers at the Insight Center for Community Economic Development, based in Oakland, Calif. , analyzed data from the 2007 Survey of Consumer Finances, a voluminous report the Federal Reserve Board issues every three years that examines household finances in this country. More...
(BK-NY) Nannygate in Slope! The hand that rocks the cradle is underpaid and off-the-books
March 09, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(BBN Editor's Note: Please keep in mind Brooklyn Paper is a conservative leaning, Rupert Murdoch/News Corps Publication). . . . . More...
Haitian adoptions: Why race matters. The mainstream media celebrates "white saviors" but avoids a necessary discussion about transracial parenting.
March 06, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(salon) Why is the white-savior storyline so entrenched? And why is it so hard for the "objective" journalistic voice to talk about race?. . . . . More...
'3 Calif. teachers suspended for honoring O.J. Simpson, Dennis Rodman in black history parade'
March 04, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(lat) Three Los Angeles elementary school teachers accused of giving children portraits of O. J. Simpson, Dennis Rodman and RuPaul to carry in a Black History Month parade have been removed from their classrooms, a school district spokeswoman said Wednesday.
Children from other classes at the school displayed photos of more appropriate black role models, such as Nelson Mandela, Harriet Tubman and President Barack Obama, Los Angeles Unified School District spokeswoman Gayle Pollard-Terry said.
The incident occurred Friday at Wadsworth Avenue Elementary School in South Los Angeles, where the student body is more than 90 percent Latino. More...
(NY) ABC Investigation (VIDEO) -- NYPD Quota: Arresting Innocent Black and Latinos
March 04, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(WABC) An Eyewitness News investigation talks to a police officer who reveals the pressure they are under to make quotas.
When Officer Adil Polanco dreamed of becoming a cop, it was out of a desire to help people not, he says, to harass them.
"I'm not going to keep arresting innocent people, I'm not going to keep searching people for no reason, I'm not going to keep writing people for no reason, I'm tired of this," said Adil Polanco, an NYPD Officer.
Officer Polanco says One Police Plaza's obsession with keeping crime stats down has gotten out of control. He claims Precinct Commanders relentlessly pressure cops on the street to make more arrests, and give out more summonses, all to show headquarters they have a tight grip on their neighborhoods. More...
Multiracial no longer boxed in by the Census. The government will give the nation's more than 308 million people the opportunity to define their racial makeup as one race or more.
March 03, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(usat) Jennifer Harvey was raised by her white mother and white stepfather in what she calls "a Caucasian world. " Harvey never met her father but she knew he was black and Cuban. That made her Hispanic, white and black.
"Blacks think I'm black," she says. "Hispanics think I'm Hispanic. More...
Rage on the Right - The Year in Hate and Extremism: Anti-immigrant vigilante groups soared by nearly 80%, adding some 136 new groups during 2009.
March 02, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(splc) The number of extremist groups in the United States exploded in 2009 as militias and other groups steeped in wild, antigovernment conspiracy theories exploited populist anger across the country and infiltrated the mainstream, according to a report issued today by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
Antigovernment "Patriot" groups - militias and other extremist organizations that see the federal government as their enemy - came roaring back to life over the past year after more than a decade out of the limelight.
The SPLC documented a 244 percent increase in the number of active Patriot groups in 2009. Their numbers grew from 149 groups in 2008 to 512 groups in 2009, an astonishing addition of 363 new groups in a single year. Militias - the paramilitary arm of the Patriot movement - were a major part of the increase, growing from 42 militias in 2008 to 127 in 2009. More...
(NY) Inside a Divided Upper East Side Public School. Whites in the front door, Blacks in the back door.
March 01, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(village voice) If you're a white student and you arrive at the public elementary school building on 95th Street and Third Avenue, you'll probably walk through the front door. If you're a black student, you'll probably come in through the back.
It's a very New York kind of school facility: two completely different elementary schools sharing the same space. The boxy, utilitarian structure was built in 1959 to house P. S. More...
HIV Still Plagues the U.S.: Some Areas Have Higher Rates Than Africa. 1 in 30 adults in Wash., D.C. HIV-infected. In NYC, 1 in 40 Blacks, 1 in 10 men who have sex with men.
February 28, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(newsweek) Recent research published in The New England Journal of Medicine shows that within certain populations in America, the prevalence of HIV-infected people is higher than in certain parts of Africa:
More than 1 in 30 adults in Washington, D. C. , are HIV-infected—a prevalence higher than that reported in Ethiopia, Nigeria, or Rwanda. Certain U. S. More...
(Audio) Hispanic Farmers Fight To Sue USDA
February 17, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(npr) In Texas and across the Southwest, Hispanic farmers have been fighting the Agriculture Department for close to a decade.
The farmers say the department's Farm Services Agency discriminated against them — denying or delaying loans, and refusing to investigate when they cried foul. The government settled a similar complaint brought by African-American farmers for $1 billion. And while the claims of discrimination and other factors are almost identical, the Hispanic farmers have gotten nothing. Noe Obregon, 47, looks exactly like the South Texas farmer he's been all his life: cowboy hat, blue denim shirt, jeans and cowboy boots. More...
(Audio) Black Farmers Rally For Discrimination Settlement
February 17, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(npr) After rallying across the South last week, black farmers plan to be in Washington, D. C. , on Monday to call on the government to "pay up" on its more than 10-year-old promise to compensate for discrimination.
Despite the conditions of the 1999 civil rights settlement, more than 70,000 black farmers have yet to see a penny.
Vern Switzer is 63 years old, but he still single-handedly farms 19 acres of land along a busy country road just outside Winston Salem, N. More...
(OH) Hundreds of Kids Forced Into Sex Trade in Ohio. Weak laws on human trafficking,growing demand for cheap labor, proximity to the Canadian border key contributors.
February 11, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(aol) About 1,000 American-born children are forced into the sex trade in Ohio every year and about 800 immigrants are sexually exploited and pushed into sweatshop-type jobs, a new report on human trafficking in the state said Wednesday.
Ohio's weak laws on human trafficking, its growing demand for cheap labor and its proximity to the Canadian border are key contributors to the illegal activity, according to a report by the Trafficking in Persons Study Commission.
"Ohio is not only a destination place for foreign-born trafficking victims, but it's also a recruitment place," said Celia Williamson, an associate professor at the University of Toledo who led the research.
Formed last year by Ohio Attorney General Richard Condray, the commission also found that hundreds more in the state are at risk of being forced into sex trafficking or to work against their will in fields, restaurants, sweatshops or constructions sites.
Nationwide, between 45,000 and 50,000 people are trafficked into the United States, according to a 2001 report by the U. More...
Imari Obadele, Who Fought for Reparations, Dies at 79
February 10, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) Imari Obadele, a teacher and writer whose commitment to black empowerment fired a militant, sometimes violent effort to win reparations for descendants of slaves and to carve out, however quixotically, an African-American republic in the Deep South, died on Jan. 18 in Atlanta. He was 79. The cause was a stroke, said Johnita Scott, his former wife.
Mr. More...
Latino and African-American Unemployment Remains Disproportionately High
February 08, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(americano) Despite White House claims about a rebounding economy, both Latinos and African-Americans are suffering the effects of a jobless “recovery. ”
The Government reported that last month overall unemployment dropped to 9. 7 percent from 10 percent but the data shows a rise in Latino and African-American unemployment.
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for Latino households in January was an estimated 12. 6 percent, compared to 8. More...
Shocker: Tea Party Convention Opening Speaker Suggests a Return to Jim Crow Voting Laws
February 05, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(altnet) GOPer Tom Tancredo suggests "literacy test" to protect America from presidents like Obama -- a segregation-era method employed by southern US states to keep blacks from voting. . . . . More...
Black students leave OH college after threat of ‘mass killing’ of Blacks
January 28, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(ap/wapo) An attacker could find many places to hide at Hocking College, a campus carved into a forest in the Appalachian foothills. And with the threat of a mass killing looming over black students at the community college, Allen Edwards is steering clear of the trees.
"I don't feel too safe walking by the woods," said Edwards, a 19-year-old black student from Canton. "There's woods everywhere. And somebody could be out in them, and I don't know. More...
Why the Federal Government Can’t Recruit and Retain Hispanic-Americans
January 27, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(ere. net) The U. S. is subject to powerful cultural forces rooted in demographics and ethnicity. Nowhere is the influence of these cultural crosswinds more evident today than in our growing Hispanic population and its increasing claim on a share of the American Dream. More...
S.C. Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer Compares Helping Poor to Feeding Stray Animals
January 26, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(abc) South Carolina Lt. Governor Andre Bauer, who hopes to succeed fellow Republican Mark Sanford as his state's governor, drew a comparison between government help for poor people and "feeding stray animals" – who, he noted, "breed. "
"My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals," Bauer said during a town hall meeting, as the Greenville News reported over the weekend. "You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. More...
Indian Tribes Await Their Due. Compensate hundreds of thousands of American Indians for billions of dollars lost by a government that failed miserably to manage tribal lands that had been entrusted t
January 26, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(nyt editorial) After more than a century of obstruction and delays, still another deadline looms for a settlement that would compensate hundreds of thousands of American Indians for billions of dollars lost by a government that failed miserably to manage tribal lands that had been entrusted to it.
A law passed in 1887 conveyed the land in trust to the federal government. The government-controlled trust accounts were mishandled and lost, cheating the Indian owners out of fees from grazing livestock and gas and oil royalties.
Last month, after 13 years of court wrangling, both sides agreed to a historic settlement that would pay $3. 4 billion to the Indians. More...
Bob Herbert: Blacks in Retreat. "The I Got Mine Syndrome"
January 20, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(BobHerbert/nyt) It has been easy for people to forget in the decades since we lost the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that he was a passionate fighter for economic justice as well as civil rights. The two goals were as closely linked as the hydrogen and oxygen atoms in water. More...
Barack Obama and Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King Jr. was a strategic political leader. He was a realist whose choices were often upsetting and unpalatable to those on his left -- much like Obama.
January 19, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(altnet) Barack Obama accepted the Democratic nomination for the presidency on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr. 's historic "I have a dream" speech. He was inaugurated the day after our national holiday celebrating the life and accomplishments of Dr. King. Many asked if Obama's presidency was the realization of King's dream. More...
Workplace: Are You a Victim of Idea Theft? How to Respond.
January 18, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(careerbuilder) Crime in the workplace may be more prevalent than you suspect -- and it doesn't have anything to do with missing office supplies or petty cash. In a recent Robert Half International survey, 29 percent of employees interviewed said that a co-worker has at some point taken credit for their ideas. And those who steal the limelight from their more deserving colleagues may be getting away with it. More than half (51 percent) of those whose ideas have been nabbed said they did nothing in response.
The competitive nature of today's workplace may be contributing to idea theft. More...
Creams Offering Lighter Skin May Bring Risks. Dermatologists are seeing people of Hispanic and African descent with severe side effects from the misuse of skin-lightening creams.
January 18, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) For years, Allison Ross rubbed in skin-lightening creams with names like Hyprogel and Fair & White. She said she wanted to even out and brighten the tone of her face, neck and hands. Mrs. Ross, 45, who lives in Brooklyn, also said that she used the lightening creams “to be more accepted in society. ”
Allison Ross used creams for years to lighten her skin. More...
Report: Blacks Upbeat about Black Progress, Prospects a year after Obama election. Are you "upbeat"?
January 18, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(pew) Despite the bad economy, blacks' assessments about the state of black progress in America have improved more dramatically during the past two years than at any time in the past quarter century, according to a comprehensive new nationwide Pew Research Center survey on race.
Barack Obama's election as the nation's first black president appears to be the spur for this sharp rise in optimism among African Americans. It may also be reflected in an upbeat set of black views on a range of other matters, including race relations, local community satisfaction and expectations for future black progress.
In each of these realms, the perceptions of blacks have changed for the better over the past two years, despite a deep recession and jobless recovery that have hit blacks especially hard. . More...
(Audio) Introspection After Allegations Of Discrimination in Lawsuit brought by African American employees.
January 12, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(npr) In 2006, the food services and facility management giant Sodexo Inc. settled an $80 million class action discrimination lawsuit, brought by African-American employees who claimed they were not being promoted at the same rate as their white colleagues. Four years after the settlement, Sodexo executives say they have made great strides toward becoming a more diverse workplace.
Sodexo's Global Chief Diversity Officer Rohini Anand was hired shortly after the African-American employees brought their suit against the company.
"It was a very painful thing for the company," she tells NPR's Steve Inskeep about the lawsuit. More...
CQ: Obama's Winning Streak On Hill Unprecedented
January 11, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(npr) In his first year in office, President Obama did better even than legendary arm-twister Lyndon Johnson in winning congressional votes on issues where he took a position, a Congressional Quarterly study finds.
The new CQ study gives Obama a higher mark than any other president since it began scoring presidential success rates in Congress more than five decades ago. And that was in a year where Obama tackled how to deal with Afghanistan, Iraq, an expanding terrorist threat, the economic crisis and battles over health care. . . More...
Officials Hid Truth of Immigrant Deaths in Jail. One hundred and Seven (107) Deaths Since 2003.
January 10, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) Silence has long shrouded the men and women who die in the nation’s immigration jails. For years, they went uncounted and unnamed in the public record. Even in 2008, when The New York Times obtained and published a federal government list of such deaths, few facts were available about who these people were and how they died. But behind the scenes, it is now clear, the deaths had already generated thousands of pages of government documents, including scathing investigative reports that were kept under wraps, and a trail of confidential memos and BlackBerry messages that show officials working to stymie outside inquiry.
The documents, obtained over recent months by The Times and the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act, concern most of the 107 deaths in detention counted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement since October 2003, after the agency was created within the Department of Homeland Security. More...
Use of word Negro on 2010 census forms raises memories of Jim Crow.
January 06, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(nydn) The census form for 2010 features a word more often heard in 1966: Negro.
For many New York blacks, the word conjures visions of Jim Crow and segregation - even if the Census Bureau says it's included to ensure an accurate count of the nation's minority residents.
"It's a bad vibe word," said Kevin Bishop, 45, a Brooklyn salesman. "It doesn't agree with me, doesn't agree with my heart. "
Pamela Reese Smith, visiting the city yesterday from Rochester, said the term was outdated. More...
(CA) L.A. needs a healthy Latino middle class. The success of the region's largest ethnic group is the key to the future for everyone.
January 05, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(Tobar/lat) The middle is what holds Los Angeles together.
Not too rich, not too poor. Right in the middle of the curve -- a place that doesn't inspire much passion.
But without the middle class, what is Los Angeles?
Imagine a metropolis where all the homes have either iron bars on the windows or walls and guards to keep away the riffraff. A city of castes. More...
No Longer Majority Black, Harlem Is in Transition
January 05, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) For nearly a century, Harlem has been synonymous with black urban America. Given its magnetic and growing appeal to younger black professionals and its historic residential enclaves and cultural institutions, the neighborhood’s reputation as the capital of black America seems unlikely to change soon. But the neighborhood is in the midst of a profound and accelerating shift. In greater Harlem, which runs river to river, and from East 96th Street and West 106th Street to West 155th Street, blacks are no longer a majority of the population — a shift that actually occurred a decade ago, but was largely overlooked. By 2008, their share had declined to 4 in 10 residents. More...
(VIDEO) President Obama effigy hanged in President Jimmy Carter's home town
January 04, 2010 by editor (View Source)
(bbc) The US Secret Service says it is investigating after an effigy of Barack Obama was found hanging in the home town of former President Jimmy Carter.
TV footage showed the doll hanging by a noose in front of a red, white and blue sign that reads "Plains, Georgia. Home of Jimmy Carter, our 39th President".
Witnesses said the effigy had President Obama's name on it.
Plains Mayor LE Godwin III said the fire department had been called to take it down. More...
End of An Era: Percy Sutton, pioneering civil rights attorney, dies at age 89.
December 27, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(abc) Percy Sutton, the pioneering civil rights attorney who represented Malcolm X before launching successful careers as a political power broker and media mogul, died Saturday at age 89.
Marissa Shorenstein, a spokeswoman for Gov. David Paterson, confirmed Sutton's death. She did not know the cause. His daughter, Cheryl Sutton, declined to comment when reached by phone at her New York City home on Saturday before midnight. More...
Latino Leaders Use Churches in Census Bid, fearing that millions of illegal immigrants may not be counted in the 2010 census.
December 23, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) Fearing that millions of illegal immigrants may not be counted in the 2010 census, Latino leaders are mobilizing a nationwide drive to urge Hispanics to participate in the survey, including an intense push this week in evangelical Christian churches. Latino groups contend that there was an undercount of nearly one million Latinos in the 2000 census, affecting the drawing of Congressional districts and the distribution of federal money. Hispanic organizations are far better organized for next year’s census, but they say that if illegal immigrants — an estimated eight million of whom are Latino — are not included, the undercount could be much greater.
One study suggests that Congressional delegations in eight states with large Hispanic populations could grow if all Latinos — the nation’s largest minority at some 47 million — are counted. . More...
Projections Put Whites in Minority in U.S. by 2050
December 17, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) Without new immigrants, by the middle of the century the nation’s population would begin to decline, the elderly would account for nearly one in four Americans and non-Hispanic whites would remain a majority, according to new projections by the Census Bureau.
But if immigration were to merely slow, rather than stop, non-Hispanic whites, who now account for nearly two-thirds of the population, would become a minority by 2050, according to the projections released Wednesday. If the pace of immigration increases, that benchmark could be reached as early as 2040.
Depending on the pace of international migration, the nation’s population, currently at 308 million, could grow to as much as 458 million by midcentury, with immigrants accounting for up to 136 million of the increase.
Since 2000, the population has been growing by just under one million immigrants annually. More...
Black leaders urge census to change how it counts inmates. Call to tally inmates in state and federal prisons in their home communities instead of the towns where they are incarcerated.
December 17, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(wapo) A coalition of African American leaders concerned about minorities being undercounted in the 2010 Census called Wednesday for inmates at federal and state prisons to be tallied in their home communities instead of the towns where they are incarcerated.
Marc H. Morial, president of the National Urban League and chairman of a census advisory committee, said the practice now shortchanges communities in money and democratic representation. Census statistics are used to calculate the allocation of more than $478 billion in federal funds and to draw political boundaries.
Noting that about 1. More...
(WI) Teacher Cuts Off Girl's Braid In Front Of Class. Police Issue Teacher $175 Ticket For Disorderly Conduct.
December 16, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(wisn) A Milwaukee teacher is charged with disorderly conduct after punishing a first-grader by cutting her hair. scared by the incident last week in which the apparently frustrated teacher cut one of her braids off after she wouldn't stop playing with them in class.
Cammon, 7, sports a few dozen braids, but one is conspicuously absent.
"She told me to stop playing with it. Then cut it off and sent me back to my desk," Cammon said. More...
(NY) Gov. Paterson: New York Has Now Run Out of Cash. Gov. also stepped up to defend Wall Street firms that have been heavily criticized for continuing to pay large bonuses to employees.
December 09, 2009 by editor (View Source)
Governor David "Downer" Paterson was at the Museum of American Finance on Wall Street earlier today to talk about how screwed New York is. He called the state "ground zero for the recession" and said, "We have a ‘lack of cash’ crisis in this state. We are in a very deep quagmire. New York is now at the breaking point. We are about to cross the financial Rubicon into fiscal disaster. More...
(Chicago) HIV, AIDS Rising Fastest Among Chicago Black Women. Some 3,500 African-American Women In Chicago Are Living With The Disease
December 09, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(cbs) According to public health officials, some 3,500 African-American women in Chicago are living with HIV and AIDS, but of even greater concern is the rate of new infections. CBS station WBBM-TV found some African-American women who are infected are beginning to speak out, to battle the myths and misconceptions that keep so many vulnerable.
Pointing to herself, Patricia Johnson said, "This is the face of HIV, and it's real. "
Even though she was diagnosed with HIV two decades ago, Johnson, 47, calls herself the new face of the infection because it's spreading so fast among African-American women.
"It's almost going to be like an annihilation of our women because we're not going to be able to produce babies like we should," Johnson said. More...
For the first time Native Americans get official apology from one of America's oldest Protestant churches for massacring and displacing Native Americans 400 years ago. Now What?
December 03, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(connpost) Members of one of America's oldest Protestant churches officially apologized -- for the first time -- for massacring and displacing Native Americans 400 years ago.
"We consumed your resources, dehumanized your people and disregarded your culture, along with your dreams, hopes and great love for this land," the Rev. Robert Chase told descendants from both sides. "With pain, we the Collegiate Church, remember our part in these events. "
The minister spoke on Native American Heritage Day at a reconciliation ceremony of the Lenape tribe with the Collegiate Church, started in 1628 in then-New Amsterdam as the Reformed Dutch Church. More...
Food Stamp Use Soars. Program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children.
November 29, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) With food stamp use at record highs and climbing every month, a program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children. It has grown so rapidly in places so diverse that it is becoming nearly as ordinary as the groceries it buys. More than 36 million people use inconspicuous plastic cards for staples like milk, bread and cheese, swiping them at counters in blighted cities and in suburbs pocked with foreclosure signs.
Virtually all have incomes near or below the federal poverty line, but their eclectic ranks testify to the range of people struggling with basic needs. They include single mothers and married couples, the newly jobless and the chronically poor, longtime recipients of welfare checks and workers whose reduced hours or slender wages leave pantries bare. More...
The mysterious deaths of three Arapaho teenage girls. National media has seen fit not to cover their unsolved deaths on the Wind River Indian Reservation in WY.
November 23, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(Tim Giogo Opinion for modestobee) Who are Ohetica Win Elyxis Gardner, 13; Alexandria White Plume, 14; and Winter Rose Thomas, 15? If you don't know, you are not alone. Millions of people may never know about these three young ladies because for all intents and purposes, the national media has seen fit not to cover their unsolved deaths on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming.
The people of Wind River have not forgotten them. Jake Bell, the grandfather of Ohetica, is still mourning her death and he is still trying to find out how and why she died in a rental home in the Beaver Creek housing development on the Wind River Reservation on June 6, 2008.
All three girls were members of the Northern Arapaho Tribe of Wyoming. More...
(NOLA) A US judge has ruled that negligence by army engineers led to massive flooding in an area of New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005.
November 19, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(bbc) A US judge has ruled that negligence by army engineers led to massive flooding in an area of New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005.
The court upheld complaints by six residents and a business against the US Army Corps of Engineers over its maintenance of a navigational channel.
They were awarded damages totalling $720,000 (£431,000), and the ruling could lead to thousands more claims.
About 80% of New Orleans was flooded by Hurricane Katrina.
More than 1,800 people died on the US Gulf coast in the devastating storms. More...
'The 15 Biggest Congressional Recipients Of Wall Street Campaign Cash.' Guess Who Number One Is.
November 17, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(hupo) Reforming Wall Street is a hot topic on Capitol Hill these days. Congress is currently weighing two financial reform bills that would, to varying degrees, reshape the way the financial system is regulated.
Still, Wall Street's influence in Washington appears to be as strong as ever. After all, it was just last spring that Senator Dick Durbin, frustrated by pushback on bankruptcy reform, denounced the financial sector's influence on the Senate: the banks, he said, "they frankly own the place. " The Center for Responsive Politics, a research group that tracks money in politics, reports that financial industries -- the finance, insurance and real estate sectors, specifically -- have been one of the biggest benefactors to Congress over the past two decades:
"The finance, insurance and real estate sector has given $2. More...
(Santa Clarita, CA) Subprime loans plague local Latinos who received the most subprime loans of any local ethnic group.
November 09, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(signal of Santa Clarita, Ca. ) A city-commissioned report shows Hispanics have received the most subprime loans of any local ethnic group and criticizes Santa Clarita officials for a lack of fair housing outreach. The city says the findings are exaggerated, but it aims to fix the problems. The finding that Latinos were being hit especially hard by subprime lending — and the lack of information being offered to city residents about the issue — was brought to the city’s attention in a 2004 fair housing report.
However, the city’s 2009 Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice showed the problem not only continued, but grew more severe since the last report — particularly among Hispanics. More...
Violence: Seven-year-old Louisiana Girl Killed by Stray Bullet While Sleeping.
November 09, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(wwl) A seven-year-old girl was killed when a stray bullet pierced the apartment walls and struck the girl in the neck, while she slept, according to police.
The Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office is investigating an early morning shooting Sunday in River Ridge, which left the girl dead in her own home. It happened at an apartment complex along Jefferson Highway, near South Upland Avenue.
"This child was lying in the living room on an air mattress, with a cousin, and it wasn't until the child began crying, that alerted the mother and the other child," said Col. John Fortunato of the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office. More...
October Unemployment Figures: Unemployment for Black Americans rose to 15.7 and for Latinos 13.1 percent . Healthcare Industry Increases Hiring.
November 08, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(bls. gov) (BBN Editors) In the month of October unemployment for Black Americans rose to 15. 7 and for Latinos 13. 1 percent
The nation’s unemployment rate overall rose to 10. 2 percent last month, the highest since 1983. More...
Several states hit hard by the housing collapse are exploring consumer fraud lawsuits against major mortgage lenders.
November 03, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) Newly empowered by the Supreme Court, the attorneys general of several states hit hard by the housing collapse are exploring consumer fraud suits against major mortgage lenders. A foreclosed home in Miami Gardens, Fla. Attorneys general around the country may decide to sue banks over lending practices that have resulted in a wave of foreclosures.
Frustrated by the banks’ inability or unwillingness to stop an avalanche of foreclosures, the states are considering lawsuits over the creation and marketing of millions of bad loans as well as the dismal pace of mortgage modifications.
Such cases would have been impossible until recently, because federal regulators had exclusive oversight of national banks. More...
5 Myths About Our Land of Opportunity
November 01, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(wapo) Americans have always believed that their country is unique in providing the opportunity to get ahead. Just combine hard work with a bit of talent and you'll climb the ladder -- or so we've told ourselves for generations. But rising unemployment and financial turmoil are puncturing that self-image. The reality of this "land of opportunity" is considerably more complex than the myths would suggest: (view source for the five myths). . More...
Fellow Inmates Ease Pain of Dying in Jail. American prisons are home to a growing geriatric population, with one-third of all inmates expected to be over 50 by next year.
October 27, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) Allen Jacobs lived hard for his 50 years, and when his liver finally shut down he faced the kind of death he did not want. On a recent afternoon Mr. Jacobs lay in a hospital bed staring blankly at the ceiling, his eyes sunk in his skull, his skin lusterless. A volunteer hospice worker, Wensley Roberts, ran a wet sponge over Mr. Jacobs’s dry lips, encouraging him to drink. More...
9 Signs of America in Decline
October 26, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(usnews) The sky isn't falling, exactly. America isn't on a fast track to irrelevance. Even in a state of total neglect, we could probably shamble along as a disheveled superpower for a few more decades.
But all empires end, and the warning signs of American decline seem to be blinking more consistently. In the latest annual "prosperity index" published by the Legatum Institute, a London-based research firm, the United States ranks as the ninth most prosperous country in the world. More...
Latinos Face Cancer Scourge. A web of structural factors, including lack of health insurance, contribute to the wave of diagnoses.
October 23, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(colorlines) With the Latino population set to triple by 2050, the already alarming number of cancer diagnoses in the Latino community could rise just as sharply, or even more drastically, according to a new compilation of research.
“I see this as a train wreck that’s really waiting to happen,” said Lydia Buki, a licensed psychologist and associate professor of community health at the University of Illinois. In a chapter in the recently published Handbook of U. S. Latino Psychology, Buki projects an impending explosion in cancer diagnoses in the Latino population and argues that not enough is being done to combat the coming crisis. More...
Underweight Girl Denied Insurance Coverage. Parents Say 2-Year-Old Girl Perfectly Healthy
October 20, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(Denver 7) Aislin Bates weighed 6 pounds, 6 ounces at birth. She now tips the scale at 22 pounds.
"She's perfectly healthy, yet she has become a statistic," said Aislin's mother, Rachel Bates. "There's no reason for her to be a statistic as a non-insured person. "
When Aislin's father, Rob, worked for another company, Aislin was covered under the company’s group health insurance plan. More...
Foreclosures Force Ex-Homeowners to Turn to Shelters. Only three years ago, foreclosure was rarely a factor in how people became homeless.
October 19, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) Growing numbers of Americans who have lost houses to foreclosure are landing in homeless shelters, according to social service groups and a recent report by a coalition of housing advocates.
Only three years ago, foreclosure was rarely a factor in how people became homeless. But among the homeless people that social service agencies have helped over the last year, an average of 10 percent lost homes to foreclosure, according to “Foreclosure to Homelessness 2009,” a survey produced by the National Coalition for the Homeless and six other advocacy groups.
In the Midwest, foreclosure played a role for 15 percent of newly homeless people, according to the survey, reflecting soaring rates of unemployment — Ohio’s reached 10. 8 percent in August — and aggressive lending to people with damaged credit. More...
HBCU, Hampton Univ., Crowns First Non-Black Queen to Represent School. Three Black Students Are Her Court.
October 17, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(wapo) Nikole Churchill, a tall, thin woman with long, dark hair, was named homecoming queen at historically black Hampton University last week. The next day, she appeared with her court at the football game against Howard University, another historically black school.
All this would be unremarkable except that Churchill is the first homecoming queen at Hampton who is not black. That apparently did not sit well with a handful of people at the game, who heckled the senior nursing major.
This bit of unpleasantness, along with similar comments online, might have passed unnoticed except for what Churchill did next. More...
Protection Or Peril? Gun Possession Of Questionable Value In An Assault, Study Finds
October 12, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(sciencedaily) In a first-of its-kind study, epidemiologists at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine found that, on average, guns did not protect those who possessed them from being shot in an assault. The study estimated that people with a gun were 4. 5 times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not possessing a gun.
The study was released online this month in the American Journal of Public Health, in advance of print publication in November 2009.
“This study helps resolve the long-standing debate about whether guns are protective or perilous,” notes study author Charles C. More...
In Housing Crisis Report, Civil Rights Commission Fails To Investigate Civil Rights Violations
October 12, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(hupo) Who's to blame for the housing crisis? Some conservative Republicans say it was minorities and the poor -- and the liberal government programs that encouraged them to become homeowners.
Among them are members of the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights, a federal agency that was stocked with Republicans during the Bush administration.
The storied eight-member commission, now dominated by four Republicans and two so-called "independents," recently issued a report on housing that the two Democrats found so tendentious that they filed tough dissents. More...
Elizabeth Warren: The Middle Class is Under Great Assault.
October 12, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(wapo) Elizabeth Warren, Chairman of the Congressional Oversight Committee that is tasked with scrutinizing how the Treasury Department has spent $700 billion to shore up our failing financial institutions: The Middle Class is Under Great Assault. . . . . More...
Swine flu's bigger impact on Blacks and Hispanics not being addressed. Half of H1N1 children's deaths between April and August were among African-Americans and Hispanics.
October 07, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(nydn/gonzalez) During all their swine flu briefings the past few months, city and federal health officials have been virtually silent about the outsize impact the pandemic appears to be having on blacks and Hispanics.
The Centers for Disease Control alluded to the problem in a small Sept. 4 report, but only in a passing mention.
That report, an analysis of the first H1N1-related deaths among U. S. More...
U.S. Foreclosure Filings Top 300,000 for Sixth Straight Month
October 06, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(bloomberg) Foreclosure filings in the U. S. exceeded 300,000 for the sixth straight month as job losses that boosted the unemployment rate to a 26-year high left many homeowners unable to keep up with their mortgage payments.
A total of 358,471 properties received a default or auction notice or were seized last month, according to data provider RealtyTrac Inc. That’s up 18 percent from a year earlier, and down 0. More...
Brennan Justice Center Report: "the nation's massive foreclosure crisis is also, at its heart, a legal crisis."
October 06, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(hupo) As bad as America's foreclosure crisis is -- and it's very bad, with over 300,000 homes receiving a foreclosure filing every month -- it's being made even more devastating by the lack of legal assistance available to beleaguered homeowners.
According to a new study by the Brennan Center for Justice, set to be released tomorrow, "the nation's massive foreclosure crisis is also, at its heart, a legal crisis" -- with the vast majority of homeowners facing foreclosure doing so without legal counsel.
For example, in New York's Nassau County, in foreclosures involving subprime or non-traditional mortgages (which disproportionately are targeted at minorities), 92 percent of the homeowners did not have a lawyer.
Having legal help can be the difference between people keeping their homes and being evicted. A lawyer can stop foreclosure proceedings or put enough pressure on lenders to get them to rework the terms of the loan. More...
Uninsured And Sick, Student Begged For His Life
October 05, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(hupo) Freddie Effinger started feeling what he called a "bizarre pain" in his upper thigh during the summer of 2007, just before his third year at the University of Alabama law school. After a scan, his doctors told him it was probably some sort of mass, nothing serious, and that they would remove it surgically in September.
Effinger, then 23, didn't have insurance. His parents' policy dropped him after college, and he had figured he could coast through three years of law school and land a job with benefits before suffering any catastrophic illness or injury. ("Superman Complex," he calls it. More...
What is “Dead Peasant” Insurance? Learn more...
October 04, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(deadpeasants. biz) Dead Peasant Insurance is sometimes used as a shorthand reference for life insurance policies that insure a company’s rank-and-file employees and name the company as the beneficiary. This means that the company receives the life insurance benefits when the covered employees die. This insurance may also be called “janitor insurance,”…. . More...
US Supreme Court to examine gun rights AND whether minors can be sentenced to life in prison without parole for crimes other than murder.
October 04, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(ap) Hot-button issues including gun rights and counter-terrorism will be on the docket when the US Supreme Court, including newest member Sonia Sotomayor, begins a new term on Monday.
The nation's highest court, whose decisions deeply affect US policy, will also go to work amid growing speculation over the possible departure of a judge.
The nine justices have agreed to examine 55 cases this term. They will soon decide whether to add to that roster an appeal brought by Guantanamo Bay detainees who have been cleared for release and are seeking resettlement in the United States.
Another sensitive case likely to be taken up by the court is President Barack Obama's request to block the release of photos showing detainee abuse at the hands of US personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite a court order demanding the images be made public. More...
California Scrambles to Prepare for Inmate Release
October 04, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(wsj) California state and local officials, already reeling from budget cuts and public-safety layoffs, are struggling with a federal order to release about 40,000 inmates to reduce prison overcrowding and bracing for the impact on their communities.
State officials have said they will appeal the decision, but as a contingency are cobbling together proposals to comply with the order. At the same time, cash-strapped local governments in places such as Los Angeles and Fresno are grappling with how to monitor and support thousands of released inmates at a time of scaled-down police forces and underfunded social-services programs. "This is just awful [since] the court's decision is coming at a time when local public-safety has been slashed drastically," said state Assemblyman Kurt Hagman, a Republican who is a member of the Assembly's Public Safety Committee. He dubbed the order "ludicrous. More...
Too broke to bury their dead. Money to bury Detroit's poor has dried up, forcing struggling families to abandon their loved ones in the morgue freezer.
October 02, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(cm) At 1300 E. Warren St. , you can smell the plight of Detroit.
Inside the Wayne County morgue in midtown Detroit, 67 bodies are piled up, unclaimed, in the freezing temperatures. Neither the families nor the county can afford to bury the corpses. More...
Obama sending AG to Chicago to discuss fatal beating Derrion Albert. Witnesses Aren't Talking To Police.
October 01, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(ctribune) President Obama is taking up the case of Derrion Albert, the 16-year-old Fenger High School honor student whose fatal beating was captured on camcorder video, by dispatching two Cabinet secretaries to Chicago.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan, the former Chicago Public Schools CEO, and Attorney General Eric Holder, will visit Wednesday. Duncan already was to be in the city that day for a speech.
Albert was beaten to death with what prosecutors say was a railroad tie and the slaying was captured on a cell-phone video camera. Cook County prosecutors have charged four teenagers in the beating of the sophomore honor roll student. More...
9 Year Old Boy Shot Dead While Sleeping. Home Invasion Left Two Others Shot.
September 30, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(wnem) A man critically injured during a triple shooting on Sunday has become the second person to die from the attack, Saginaw police said Monday.
Barnell Amos, 35, had been hospitalized in critical condition after a shooting at his home in the 500 block of South 23rd Street near Burt.
Amos was one of three people shot just after 4:30 a. m. His passing marks the city’s ninth homicide for 2009. More...
As Subprime Lending Crisis Unfolded, Watchdog Fed Didn't Bother Barking
September 27, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(wapo) The visits had a ritual quality. Three times a year, a coalition of Chicago community groups met with the Federal Reserve and other banking regulators to warn about the growing prevalence of abusive mortgage lending.
They began to present research in 1999 showing that large banking companies including Wells Fargo and Citigroup had created subprime businesses wholly focused on making loans at high interest rates, largely in the black and Hispanic neighborhoods to the south and west of downtown Chicago.
The groups pleaded for regulators to act.
The evidence eventually led Illinois to file suit against Wells Fargo in July for discrimination and other abuses. More...
Meet the man who changed Glenn Beck's life. Cleon Skousen was a right-wing crank whom even conservatives despised. Then Beck discovered him.
September 17, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(salon) Willard Cleon Skousen was born in 1913 to American parents in a small Mormon frontier town in Alberta, Canada. When he was 10 his family moved to California, where he remained until he shipped off to England and Ireland for Mormon missionary work. In 1935, after graduating from a California junior college, the 23-year-old Skousen moved to Washington, where he worked briefly for a New Deal farm agency. He then began a 15-year career with the FBI, also earning a law degree from George Washington University in 1940. His posts at the FBI were largely administrative and clerical in nature, first in Washington and later in Kansas. More...
Glen Wright, Another Young, Black, College Student Murdered. He wasn't the gang's intended victim. It was a "mistake".
September 16, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(nydn) A Manhattan college student helping his grandmother with weekend chores was stabbed to death by thugs who thought he was someone else, relatives and police said Monday.
Glen Wright - a lanky 21-year-old who also cared for his disabled younger brother - died yesterday after he was jumped from behind Saturday at a lower East Side housing project.
"He wasn't just stolen from us," said his sister, Blondie Rodriguez. "He was stolen from this entire community because he was going to do something magnificent that helped us all," she said.
Cops were exploring the possibility that an 11-year-old girl - asked by the killer to point out his intended target - mistakenly fingered Wright. More...
A Black Woman Kicked, Punched by White Man in front of Cracker Barrel. Man Could Be Charged with Hate Crime.
September 16, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(wsb) The man accused of attacking a woman and beating her in front of her 7-year-old daughter outside a Cracker Barrel restaurant could face more charges, according to the Clayton County District Attorney.
Tashawnea Hill was kicked and punched by a white man Sept. 9 as he screamed racial slurs outside a Cracker Barrel on Southlake Plaza Drive in Morrow, police said. Troy D. West, 47, became enraged when Hill told him to be careful after he nearly hit her 7-year-old daughter while opening the restaurant's door, police said. More...
(M. Dowd) Boy, Oh, Boy: Some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it.
September 13, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(nyt/m. dowd) The normally nonchalant Barack Obama looked nonplussed, as Nancy Pelosi glowered behind.
Surrounded by middle-aged white guys — a sepia snapshot of the days when such pols ran Washington like their own men’s club — Joe Wilson yelled “You lie!” at a president who didn’t.
But, fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!
The outburst was unexpected from a milquetoast Republican backbencher from South Carolina who had attracted little media attention. Now it has made him an overnight right-wing hero, inspiring “You lie!” bumper stickers and T-shirts. More...
'The Recession’s Racial Divide.' Blacks are the ones who are taking the brunt of the recession, with disproportionately high levels of foreclosures and unemployment..
September 13, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) WHAT do you get when you combine the worst economic downturn since the Depression with the first black president? A surge of white racial resentment, loosely disguised as a populist revolt. An article on the Fox News Web site has put forth the theory that health reform is a stealth version of reparations for slavery: whites will foot the bill and, by some undisclosed mechanism, blacks will get all the care. President Obama, in such fantasies, is a dictator and, in one image circulated among the anti-tax, anti-health reform “tea parties,” he is depicted as a befeathered African witch doctor with little tusks coming out of his nostrils. When you’re going down, as the white middle class has been doing for several years now, it’s all too easy to imagine that it’s because someone else is climbing up over your back. Despite the sense of white grievance, though, blacks are the ones who are taking the brunt of the recession, with disproportionately high levels of foreclosures and unemployment. More...
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s contact information.
September 09, 2009 by editor (View Source)
BBN has received a number of emails from our members and supporters who are upset about Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC) shouting “You Lie” at the President during his address to Joint Sessions of Congress on Healthcare (September 9, 2009). The Speaker of the House is Nancy Pelosi. You can send Speaker Pelosi a message expressing your sentiment. . . More...
Obama Loses White Support, Sustains Black Approval
September 09, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(npr) As President Obama addresses the nation before Congress to push his plan for health care reform, a new poll suggests one group may be less likely to buy into his message: white voters.
The president's approval ratings are sliding overall, but particularly among whites, according to a recent report by the Pew Center for People & the Press. The survey measured voter satisfaction with Obama between April and August 2009.
In April, 53 percent of white voters approved of "the way Barack Obama is handling his job as president," as opposed to 42 percent in August — reflecting an 11-percentage-point decline.
By comparison, 95 percent of black voters approved in April, with just 3 percentage points fewer — 92 percent — approving of his current performance. More...
Text: letter from Senator Edward M. Kennedy referenced by the President in his Sept. 9, 2009 address to a Joint Session of Congress on Healthcare.
September 09, 2009 by editor (View Source)
View source for the text of the letter from Senator Edward M. Kennedy referenced by the President in his address to a Joint Session of Congress on Healthcare, delivered on September 9, 2009. . . . More...
Text: REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT TO A JOINT SESSION OF CONGRESS ON HEALTH CARE delivered on Sept. 9, 2009
September 09, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(whitehouse) View source for the full text of President Barack Obama's address to a Joint Session of Congress on Healthcare delivered on September 9, 2009. . . . . More...
The Psychology of the Right-Wing's Anti-Government 'Death-Panel' Delusions
September 07, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(alternet) Calling people brainwashed, racist or stupid feels good but doesn't really explain the heart of their irrational fear and hatred of government.
A lot of heavyweight thinkers have offered explanations of the irrationality of modern political behavior -- you know, behavior like Medicare recipients at town halls screaming about the evils of government-run health care, or otherwise-reasonable people likening President Barack Obama's plan to Nazi eugenics.
George Lakoff theorizes that conservatives interpret reality through metaphors and meta-narratives modeled after authoritarian family structures.
Drew Westen argues that they interpret facts according to emotional investments in conclusions they already hold, bypassing cortical centers of reason altogether.
These and other analyses are powerful and helpful. More...
Text of the Prepared Remarks President Barack Obama Will Deliver at a Back to School Event on September 8th.
September 07, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(whitehouse) The White House released these prepared remarks that President Barack Obama will deliver to students at a back to school event on September 8th, 2009 in Arlington, Virginia. It is not uncommon for U. S. Presidents to speak before school aged children. Ronald Reagan, the Bush Presidents addressed school aged children. More...
Spelman College student, Jasmine Lynn, of Kansas City, Mo. shot and killed on Clark Atlanta campus as she was walking.
September 03, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(ajc) A Spelman College student was shot and killed early Thursday on the campus of nearby Clark Atlanta University. The shooting happened about 12:30AM in the 200 block of James P. Brawley Drive, according to the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s office.
The victim, Jasmine Lynn, of Kansas City, Mo. , was “walking southbound on James P. More...
"Innocent, but Executed." New Report shows Cameron Todd Willingham Was Innocent. He was put to death in 2004.
August 30, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(barry scheck/hupo) In his final hours on death row, Cameron Todd Willingham and his attorneys tried frantically to show the governor of Texas a new scientific report proving his innocence. The evidence was apparently ignored, and Willingham was executed on February 17, 2004.
During his trial, he refused prosecutors' offer to give him life in prison instead of the death penalty. He told them he was innocent, and he wouldn't agree to any deals. As he was strapped down in the execution chamber, just before the lethal injection began, he proclaimed his innocence one last time. More...
Pa. Judge sentenced mom who claimed two Black men carjacked and kidnapped her and child to nine to 24 months in prison. (Woman was actually at Disney World).
August 28, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(philly) The judge heard Bonnie Sweeten's words of contrition. He watched her tears flow.
But when she finished, Bucks County Court Judge Jeffrey L. Finley had news for the suburban mother of three whose faked kidnapping had drawn national coverage in May.
"I'm not buying it," he said. More...
Ten Things Ted Kennedy Did For Latinos
August 26, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(guanabee) Nicknamed the Liberal Lion of the Senate, Edward Mooore Kennedy, worked passionately for over forty years on issues that affect Latinos and other ethnic minorities every day. Let’s take a look back at his amazing career. . . . More...
The ranks of poor and uninsured Americans are likely increasing - with more than 38.8 million believed to be in poverty.
August 19, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(mh/ap) The ranks of poor and uninsured Americans are likely increasing - with more than 38. 8 million believed to be in poverty.
Rebecca Blank, the Commerce Department's undersecretary of economic affairs, spoke to The Associated Press in advance of next month's closely watched release of 2008 census data. Noting the figures are not yet final, Blank said the numbers likely will show a "statistically significant" increase in the poverty rate, to at least 12. 7 percent. More...
Growing unemployment is overtaking subprime mortgages as the main driver of foreclosures.
August 19, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(wapo) The country's growing unemployment is overtaking subprime mortgages as the main driver of foreclosures, according to bankers and economists, threatening to send even higher the number of borrowers who will lose their homes and making the foreclosure crisis far more complicated to unwind. Economists estimate that 1. 8 million borrowers will lose their homes this year, up from 1. 4 million last year, according to Moody's Economy. com. More...
A Seventh Generation Decendant of American Slave Traders: Slavery needs more than an apology
August 19, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(cnn)
The Senate voted to apologize for slavery on June 18. The House apologized last summer. The first family -- descendants of Africans, of enslaved Africans and of slave-holders -- visited a slave fort in Ghana.
These were historic occasions, and they occasioned the kind of hue and cry that always accompany the subject of slavery and whether we still need to reckon with it.
I believe we do need more reckoning, and a little more love and a little more logic would help that process. More...
Power To the People..."Advertisers deserting Fox News' Glenn Beck". Several pull the plug on hate speech host.
August 15, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(BBN) Thanks to an online campaign advertisers have pulled the plug on sponsoring Fox News' Glenn Beck who called President Obama a "racist". According to a press release, "ColorOfChange. org called on its 600,000-plus members to sign a petition urging companies who advertise on Glenn Beck to cut off their advertising support of his work. Since then, more than 125,000 members have responded to the call by signing a petition directed at advertisers. " Great online campaign with an even better outcome. More...
Grand jury clears NYPD officer Andrew Dunton in shooting of fellow officer Omar Edwards.
August 13, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(nydn) A Manhattan grand jury cleared a white police officer in the mistaken-identity shooting of a off-duty black cop on a Harlem street, prosecutors said Thursday.
The decision not to indict followed testimony from 20 police, medical and civilian witnesses in the May 28 shooting of Officer Omar Edwards, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said.
The panel was considering charges against Officer Andrew Dunton, who fired the fatal shots on 125th St.
Edwards, a 25-year-old newlywed, was chasing a man who had broken into his car. Edwards had his weapon drawn, and witnesses said he failed to respond when Dunton - who stepped out of a passing unmarked police car - identified himself as a cop. More...
Women at Risk: We have become accustomed to living in a society saturated with misogyny that the barbaric treatment of women and girls has come to be more or less expected.
August 12, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(Bob Herbert/nyt) Back in the fall of 2006, a fiend invaded an Amish schoolhouse in rural Pennsylvania, separated the girls from the boys, and then shot 10 of the girls, killing five.
I wrote, at the time, that there would have been thunderous outrage if someone had separated potential victims by race or religion and then shot, say, only the blacks, or only the whites, or only the Jews. But if you shoot only the girls or only the women — not so much of an uproar.
According to police accounts, Sodini walked into a dance-aerobics class of about 30 women who were being led by a pregnant instructor. He turned out the lights and opened fire. More...
Cenk Uygur: Man with a Gun Near Obama Rally -- Hell No!
August 11, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(demun) There is a man with a gun near an Obama rally. Here is the video. They're just letting him sit there and wait for Obama. This is insane!
Did you see his sign? "It Is Time to Water the Tree of Liberty. " That is from this Jefferson quote:
"And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. More...
Proud Puerto Ricans Cheer Sonia Sotomayor's Swearing-In.
August 09, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(Miami Herald) SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Puerto Ricans cheered Sonia Sotomayor's swearing-in Saturday as the first Hispanic on the U. S. Supreme Court, calling her rise to the nation's highest court a huge source of pride in the U. S. territory. More...
“Innocence Is No Defense.” Harvard set up a committee to respond to concerns of Black faculty members and students who were uneasy-upset about the treatment of Blacks by the campus police.
August 05, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) Last August the president of Harvard University, Drew Gilpin Faust, set up a committee to respond to the concerns of black faculty members and students who were uneasy, in some cases upset, about the treatment of blacks by the campus police.
The arrest of Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. did not occur in a vacuum. While his encounter was not with the Harvard University Police Department (he was arrested by a member of the Cambridge force), it was the latest in a series of troubling incidents that have left law-abiding members of the Harvard community feeling as though they were unfairly targeted and humiliated because of their race.
The incident that ultimately led Ms. More...
Latino Grandfather, Pregnant Woman Tasered at Baptism — But Don’t Call the Cops Racist
August 05, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(racewire) A Latino family in Manassas, Virginia, is celebrating the baptism of their two young boys, at a party held in their grandfather’s backyard. The police arrive in response to a noise complaint, and ask to see the grandfather’s ID. The family’s account says that he provided it, but the police report say that he refused; both accounts agree that the grandfather was then Tasered three times in rapid succession, on his own property, and then charged with ‘public intoxication. ’ The pregnant mother of the two boys ran to help him as he lay on the ground — and was also Tasered, then charged with assaulting a police officer.
I’ll say it again — all parties agree that county police officers arrived at a children’s baptism party being held at a private residence, then Tasered a 55-year-old Bible study teacher three times and Tasered a pregnant woman once, in front of a yard full of kids, including her kids, and family members. More...
President Barack Obama is target of more than 30 death threats a day and is protected by over-stretched, under-funded Secret Service.
August 04, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(telegraph) Since Mr Obama took office, the rate of threats against the president has increased 400 per cent from the 3,000 a year or so under President George W. Bush, according to Ronald Kessler, author of In the President's Secret Service.
Some threats to Mr Obama, whose Secret Service codename is Renegade, have been publicised, including an alleged plot by white supremacists in Tennessee late last year to rob a gun store, shoot 88 black people, decapitate another 14 and then assassinate the first black president in American history. Most however, are kept under wraps because the Secret Service fears that revealing details of them would only increase the number of copycat attempts. Although most threats are not credible, each one has to be investigated meticulously. More...
More Than 200 Shot In Chicago In July. At Least 42 Killed And 183 Wounded In Spree Of Violence.
August 02, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(cbs chicago) The air wasn't sweltering and simmering in the unusually cool July of 2009, but a bloodbath still engulfed the streets of Chicago, CBS station WBBM-TV reports.
As of July 30, at least 42 people had been shot and killed, and 183 more had been shot and wounded since July 1. Among the injured were a 9-year-old girl, an 8-year-old boy, a UPS driver who was on a break after making a delivery, and two Chicago police officers serving a drug warrant. hicago Police News Affairs Director Roderick Drew and Chicago Fraternal Order of Police President Mark Donahue were not immediately available to comment on the violence.
The South and West sides bore the brunt of the violence. More...
Police: Boston Cop Used Racial Slur In Gates E-Mail. The officer called Prof. Gates "Jungle Monkey".
July 30, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(bostonchannel) A Boston police officer was placed on administrative leave after he allegedly used a racial slur when referring to Henry Louis Gates Jr. In a mass e-mail, Officer Justin Barrett, 36, called Gates a "jungle monkey," according to a law enforcement source.
Gates, a black Harvard scholar, was arrested at his home earlier this month on a disorderly conduct charge after he tried to budge open the door of his Cambridge home.
Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis found out about the e-mail on Tuesday and immediately stripped Barrett of his gun and badge, officials said. The e-mail was first sent anonymously to the Boston Globe and then to local members of the National Guard, where he is a member. More...
Official Police Report written by Officer James Crowley, the arresting officer of Professor Henry Louis Gates inside his home on July 16, 2009.
July 29, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(smokinggun) ere are the police reports detailing the confrontation last week between Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Cambridge cops, who were condemned last night by President Barack Obama for acting "stupidly" in arresting the African-American scholar. Cops responded to Gates's house after neighbor Lucia Whalen reported spotting "two black males with backpacks" trying to gain entry to the home (Gates, returning home from a trip overseas, and his driver were contending with a stuck front door). The Cambridge Police Department reports, authored by Sergeant James Crowley and Officer James Figueroa, quote an incensed Gates yelling, "This is what happens to black men in America!," and, when asked by Crowley to speak with him outside the residence, Gates replied, "ya, I'll speak with your mama outside. " A disorderly conduct rap was filed against Gates, but quickly dropped by prosecutors. More...
Study: Middle-class Blacks are far more likely than whites to live in high-poverty neighborhoods, which has a negative effect on even the better-off children raised there.
July 28, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(wapo) Researchers have found that being raised in poor neighborhoods plays a major role in explaining why African American children from middle-income families are far more likely than white children to slip down the income ladder as adults.
The Pew Charitable Trusts Economic Mobility Project caused a stir two years ago by reporting that nearly half of African American children born to middle-class parents in the 1950s and '60s had fallen to a lower economic status as adults, a rate of downward mobility far higher than that for whites.
This week, Pew will release findings of a study that helps explain that economic fragility, pointing to the fact that middle-class blacks are far more likely than whites to live in high-poverty neighborhoods, which has a negative effect on even the better-off children raised there. The impact of neighborhoods is greater than other factors in children's backgrounds, Pew concludes.
Even as African Americans have made gains in wealth and income, the report found, black children and white children are often raised in starkly different environments. More...
In the name of revitalization, across U.S., public housing torn down. But where do the displaced go?
July 27, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(msnbc/AP) The nation's bulldozer attack on crime and poverty will soon make Atlanta — home of the first public housing development — the first major city to eliminate all of its large housing projects.
Cities from Boston to Los Angeles are following its lead. For more than 15 years, housing officials across the country have been razing the projects where some 1. 2 million families live and replacing them with a mix of higher-rent and subsidized apartments and homes.
Alexandria, La. More...
Gates 911 call: Witness not sure she sees crime. Tapes raise new questions about how-why situation escalated.
July 27, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(ap) The 911 caller who reported two men possibly breaking into the home of black Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. did not describe their race, acknowledged they might just be having a hard time with the door and said she saw two suitcases on the porch.
Cambridge police on Monday released the 911 recording and radio transmissions from the scene in an effort to show they had nothing to hide, but the tapes raised new questions about how and why the situation escalated.
Gates' July 16 arrest on a disorderly conduct charge sparked a national debate about whether the professor was a victim of racial profiling. Gates, returning from a trip to China, and his driver had forced their way through the front door because it was jammed, and the charge was later dropped. More...
Scholar’s arrest is a signpost on road to equality. Case signals there’s ‘nothing post-racial’ about U.S., colleague of Gates says.
July 22, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(j. washington/msnbc) It took less than a day for the arrest of Henry Louis Gates to become racial lore. When one of America's most prominent black intellectuals winds up in handcuffs, it's not just another episode of profiling — it's a signpost on the nation's bumpy road to equality.
The news was parsed and Tweeted, rued and debated. This was, after all Henry "Skip" Gates: Summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Yale. More...
Tyler Perry treats Philly kids who were kicked out of swim club to Disney World
July 21, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(ap/philly) Tyler Perry is paying for 65 children from a Philadelphia day camp to go to Walt Disney World after reading about allegations that a suburban swim club had shunned them because of racism.
The black and Hispanic children who attend the day camp run by Creative Steps Inc. cheered Monday when they learned about the actor's gift.
Creative Steps director Alethea Wright says she's thrilled about the offer, especially because Perry "comes from humble beginnings" like the children in her camp.
The Valley Club in Huntingdon Valley has maintained that refunding the camp's swimming fee was not about race but rather a safety issue, in part because many children couldn't swim. More...
Prominent African American Scholar, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Accuses Cambridge Police of Racism After Arrest While Trying To Enter His Locked Home.
July 20, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(abc) Black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. is accusing a Massachusetts police department of racism after being arrested while trying to get into his locked home near Harvard University.
Police say they were called to the home Thursday afternoon after a woman reported seeing a man try to pry open the front door. They say that they ordered the man to identify himself and that Gates refused. According to a police report, Gates then called the officer a racist and said, "This is what happens to black men in America. More...
GOP Grilling of Sotomayor: No Hit with Hispanic Voters
July 16, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(time) In the middle of an exchange on gun control, Sotomayor tried to illustrate the reach of New York gun laws by joking about running home to get a gun in self-defense. "If I go home, get a gun, come back and shoot you, that may not be legal under New York law because you would have alternative ways to defend . . . " "You'll have lots of 'splainin' to do," Coburn interrupted, invoking a phrase familiar to fans of the 1950s sitcom I Love Lucy, on which Lucy's long-suffering husband Ricky Ricardo (Cuban-American Desi Arnaz in real life) would often utter the refrain in exasperation at his zany wife's antics. More...
Obama Selects Dr. Regina Benjamin for Surgeon General Post. Dr. Benjamin's A Daughter of the South.
July 13, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(ap) President Barack Obama turned to the Deep South for the next surgeon general, choosing a rural Alabama family physician who made headlines with fierce determination to rebuild her nonprofit medical clinic in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Dr. Regina Benjamin is known along Alabama's impoverished Gulf Coast as a country doctor who makes house calls and doesn't turn away patients who can't pay — even as she's had to find the money to rebuild a clinic repeatedly destroyed by hurricanes and once even fire.
"For all the tremendous obstacles that she has overcome, Regina Benjamin also represents what's best about health care in America, doctors and nurses who give and care and sacrifice for the sake of their patients," Obama said Monday in introducing his choice for a job known as America's doctor.
He said Benjamin will bring insight as his administration struggles to revamp the health care system:
Saying she "has seen in a very personal way what is broken about our health care system," Obama said Benjamin will bring important insight as his administration tries to revamp that system. More...
Why This Recession Is Hitting Men Harder. Black men 20 and older: 16.8% unemployment.
July 02, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(wsj) he current recession is hitting workers in just about every industry, but men are taking a much bigger hit than women.
The 2. 5 percentage-point gap between men's unemployment rate of 10. 5% in May and women's 8% rate is the highest it's ever been since records were kept in 1948.
"The gap between female and male unemployment has never been as large as it is now," said Sophia Koropeckyj, an economist with Moody's Economy. More...
Recovery Act Neglects Black and Latino Unemployment
July 02, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(womenstake) A report released recently by the Women of Color Policy Network at the New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service has found that the Obama Administration’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act would have to create 1. 7 million additional new jobs for Blacks and Latinos to effectively close the racial unemployment gap.
Currently, the nationwide unemployment rate stands at 8. 9 percent. More...
Health Care Reform Markup Guide. Eleven Health Reform Myths.
June 29, 2009 by editor (View Source)
A BBN supporter sent this in. It's a good comprehensive analysis about Healthcare reform. We encourage you to read it. . . More...
Sotomayor Firefighter Ruling Reversed by High Court
June 29, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(bbergA divided U. S. Supreme Court, reversing a decision by Sonia Sotomayor and two other judges, said a Connecticut city violated white firefighters’ rights by canceling planned promotions because no blacks qualified.
The justices, voting 5-4, said New Haven improperly used race as a basis for throwing out the results of a pair of tests administered to candidates for lieutenant and captain positions.
The reverse-discrimination case has become a focal point in the debate over Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court by President Barack Obama. More...
Arrest of Gang Intervention Leader Alex Sanchez Raises Questions, Concerns in Community
June 25, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(ofAmerican/Lovato) Today’s FBI arrest of Alex Sanchez, one of the most respected gang intervention leaders in the country, has raised major concerns in Los Angeles and around the country. As his wife and children watched, Sanchez, who leads Homies Unidos, a violence prevention and gang intervention organization with offices in Los Angeles and El Salvador, was arrested and taken away by FBI agents this morning at his home in Bellflower. The federal charges- being a “shotcaller (someone who manages narcotics operations) for Mara Salvatrucha (MS) and conspiring to kill Walter Lacinos, an MS member shot and killed in El Salvador in 2006- have raised fears and great concerns among the many who’ve known and worked with Sanchez over the years, including myself.
First and foremost among the concerns in the community are concerns for Alex’s immediate safety. As a former gang member who works to help others leave gang life, Alex faces great danger in whatever LA County facility he’s held in-even if he’s put under Protective Custody (PC). More...
US Senate votes formal apology for slavery. Measure does NOT fuel push for US government to pay reparations.
June 21, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(afp) The US Senate approved a fiercely worded resolution Thursday formally apologizing for the "fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery" of African-Americans.
The unanimous voice vote came five months after Barack Obama became the first black US president, and ahead of the June 19 "Juneteenth" celebration of the emancipation of African-Americans at the end of the US Civil War in 1865.
House of Representatives approval, which could come as early as next week, would make it the first time the entire US Congress has formally apologized on behalf of the American people for one of the grimmest wrongs in US history.
The bill, which does not require Obama's signature, states that the US Congress "acknowledges the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow laws" that enshrined racial segregation at the state and local level in the United States well into the 1960s.
And the Congress "apologizes to African-Americans on behalf of the people of the United States, for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow laws. More...
History of Juneteenth. Slaves In Texas Weren't Told They Were Free for Two Years.
June 17, 2009 by editor (View Source)
Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the United States. Dating back to 1865, it was on June 19th that the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. Note that this was two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation - which had become official January 1, 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation had little impact on the Texans due to the minimal number of Union troops to enforce the new Executive order. However, with the surrender of General Lee in April of 1865, and the arrival of General Granger’s regiment, the forces were finally strong enough to influence and overcome the resistance. More...
Reparations to be discussed during Juneteenth celebration in Dallas
June 17, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(dmn) Celebrators will observe Juneteenth throughout Dallas and Texas on Friday while the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America also pays homage to the holiday during its 20th annual National Conference in Dallas.
N'COBRA members will meet Thursday through Sunday in Mount Tabor Baptist Church's Family Life Center at 3700 Simpson Stuart Road.
Congressman John Conyers, D-Mich. , a longtime reparations advocate, will be among dozens of proponents who will address the issue.
The colloquial expression "Juneteenth" represents June 19, 1865, when enslaved black people in Texas learned – two years late – that President Abraham Lincoln had ended slavery throughout the nation. More...
Racist e-mail aimed at Obama raises hackles in Tennessee
June 17, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(cnn) The chairman of Tennessee's Democratic Party wants a Republican legislative aide fired for sending out a "reprehensible" e-mail depicting President Obama as two cartoonish white eyes peering from a black background.
Obama's image is in the last square of a collage containing portraits of the previous 43 U. S. presidents. The e-mail, which was sent to other GOP staff members, was posted on the Internet Monday. More...
Hate Groups Effectively Use Web as a Recruiting Tool
June 15, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(abc) He is one of the most researched people in the world. Yet the third result from a simple Google search for the name Martin Luther King Jr. is a hate-group-sponsored Web site called MartinLutherKing. org. The site is testament to how effectively hate groups have harnessed the power of the digital age to recruit new members, many of them young and vulnerable to such overtures, through Facebook, YouTube and other social networking sites, according to the Simon Wiesenthal Center. More...
UPDATE: News Corp Forms Diversity Council After Chimpanzee Cartoon
June 15, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(AP) News Corp. has agreed to form an external diversity council after meeting with civil rights groups about a New York Post cartoon that critics said likened President Barack Obama to a dead chimpanzee.
The company will form a "diversity community council" in New York City that will meet with senior company executives twice a year, NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous said Wednesday. It also will include a statement of commitment to diversity in its annual report.
News Corp. More...
Obama effect in D.C. shooting? Criminologist: social, cultural and economic changes taking place in the US may be triggering recent violent outbursts from extremists.
June 10, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(msnbc) Criminologist Jack Levin of Northeastern University suggests that social, cultural and economic changes taking place in the United States may be triggering recent violent outbursts from fringe extremists. . . . . More...
Racial Disparities in Illness Highlighted. Study Finds Alarmingly High Rates Among Black Women.
June 10, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(Darryl Fears/wapo) Black women in the District suffer from obesity, diabetes, heart disease and generally poor health in alarmingly high numbers, and white women do not.
That is the finding of a study released early today by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The study said there is a large disparity in the incidence of certain chronic diseases between black and white women.
Kaiser's study was based on data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the federal Current Population Survey from 2004 to 2006. The study reflected health statistics in the states and the District. More...
SHOOTING AT HOLOCAUST MUSEUM: A Suspect's Long History of Hate, and Signs of Strain
June 10, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(wapo) James W. von Brunn was growing despondent. John de Nugent, a white separatist and acquaintance, noticed the change when they last spoke two weeks ago.
"He said his Social Security had been cut and that he was barely making it," de Nugent said. "He felt it was the direct result of someone in Washington looking at his Web site. More...
SHOOTING AT HOLOCAUST MUSEUM: a Monument to Peace, A Day of Deadly Violence
June 10, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(wapo) At 12:40 p. m. yesterday a man stepped through the doors of the U. S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. More...
Errol Louis: You never read this headline: 'Black cop shoots white cop'
June 05, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(Errol Louis/NYDN) Many will assume that the killing of Officer Omar Edwards was the result of a tragic but honest mistake, an accident with no malice or racial bias at work. That would be a reasonable conclusion - and a dead wrong one.
There is nothing reasonable about the fact we never see black or Latino cops accidentally gunning down white undercover officers, but the reverse has been true in several high-profile cases.
It's true that Edwards may have violated Patrol Guide procedures by wheeling around with a weapon in his hand instead of instantly freezing and dropping his gun when ordered to do so.
The officers who killed Edwards may have violated policy, too. More...
For Black Unit on D-Day, ‘It Was Our Turn.’ “Blacks wanted to participate in WWII, but the position of the military was wartime is not a time for social experimentation.”
June 05, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) William G. Dabney and George A. Davison hardly expected to be spending that ferocious June day in 1944 hunkered down on Omaha Beach, desperately seeking cover as they struggled to keep aloft the tethered silver balloons intended to confound German pilots trying to strafe exposed Allied invaders.
Mr. Davison and Mr. More...
Ex-Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo Charged With Fraud. Mozilo Became Poster Child for Everything that Was Wrong With the Housing Market.
June 04, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(abc) The Securities & Exchange Commission announced today it will charge former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo and two others with civil fraud and insider trading, making Mozilo the most high-profile individual to face federal charges in the wake of the financial crisis.
Countrywide, once the nation's largest home mortgage lender, was blamed by many for its role in the subprime mortgage meltdown that kicked off the ongoing financial crisis. The company collapsed last year and was acquired by Bank of America.
Mozilo, who co-founded the company, became synonymous with predatory lending as many Americans fell into foreclosures after they took out risky loans through Countrywide and other lenders that they were unable to afford.
Mozilo is accused of selling his Countrywide stock based on insider information for nearly $140 million in profits. More...
Pennsylvania Newspaper Ad Calls for Obama Assassination
May 30, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(ap) A northwestern Pennsylvania newspaper is apologizing for running a classified advertisement calling for the assassination of President Barack Obama.
Warren Times Observer Publisher John Elchert says the ad appeared Thursday. It read, "May Obama follow in the steps of Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy!" The four presidents were all assassinated.
Elchert tells The Associated Press that the newspaper's advertising staff didn't make the historical connection.
He says the newspaper turned information over to police and that the Secret Service is investigating the person who placed the ad. More...
Black cop killed by white officer: Horror in East Harlem, NYC. Shooter idenified as Officer Andrew Dutton, on force 4-plus years.
May 29, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(nydn) An off-duty rookie cop chasing a suspected car thief in East Harlem with his gun drawn was shot and killed Thursday night when an officer mistook him for a criminal.
"Police! Stop! Drop it!" cops from the 25th Precinct shouted at Omar Edwards, 25.
As he started to turn toward him - the gun still in his hand - an officer opened fire, sources said.
The officer involved in the shooting is white, Edwards is black and had no visible NYPD identification on him, sources said. It was unclear if Edwards identified himself. More...
For the Record: Puerto Ricans Are NOT Immigrants. They Are U.S. Citizens. Punto!
May 26, 2009 by editor (View Source)
We know most people know this truth: Puerto Ricans are NOT immigrants; they are US Citizens. But it seems some reporters and editors in the mainstream press who are reporting on President Obama’s nominee choice Judge Sonia Sotomayor are unclear about this truth. CNN correspondent Candy Crowley in a Anderson 360 report tonight said, “Her (Sotomayor) parents were Puerto Rican immigrants. ”
For the record, Puerto Ricans are citizens of the United States of America and have been since 1917.
Punto!
. More...
"From intern to chief executive: black woman rises to the top." Ursula Burns Named First Black Woman to Head Xerox Corporation.
May 25, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(independent. uk) When Ursula Burns found herself on the compound of the Xerox Corporation as a young engineering intern 29 years ago, she had already travelled a long way: far from the tenement building on Delancey Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan that was her home, and far from the embrace of her single mother, Olga.
But that was only the start of the journey. Ms Burns, now 50, has been named as the next chief executive officer of the copier giant, becoming the first African-American woman to lead a company in the top 150 of the Fortune 500. It is also the first time that the top job at such a large company has passed from one woman to another. More...
Survey delves into high birth rate for young Latinas
May 25, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(cnn) According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, 53 percent of Latinas get pregnant in their teens, about twice the national average.
After a period of decline, the birth rate for U. S. teenagers 15 to 19 years rose in 2007 by about 1 percent, to 42. 5 births per 1,000, according to preliminary data in a March 2009 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics. More...
Black Women Contract HIV/AIDS Mostly Through Heterosexual Activity
May 25, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(seattlemedium) C. Virginia Fields, president of the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS, was giving a speech in Rocky Mount, N. C. last week before a group of social service providers when she made a surprising revelation about the AIDS epidemic.
“One of the things I talked about were the numbers for heterosexual Black women,” Fields recounted. More...
Study: Hispanic Voters Say Immigration Is # 1 Issue
May 25, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(Albor Ruiz/nydn) They have enough problems already, but a poll released Monday is sure to give anti-immigration extremists and Republican leaders plenty more to fret about. Conducted by Bendixen & Associates, a Miami-based consulting firm, and sponsored by America's Voice, a pro-immigration reform group, the poll confirmed for the umpteenth time that immigration is a defining issue for the 12 to 13 million Hispanics who are eligible to vote in the U. S. "The anti-immigrant movement's divisive tone and demagogic rhetoric keeps politicizing Hispanics and bringing them together in support of a new immigration policy," Sergio Bendixen, president of Bendixen and Associates, concluded about the survey results. To make matters even more worrisome for the flagbearers of nativism and intolerance, the survey found that the number of Hispanics who exercise their right to vote has dramatically increased since the 2006 midterm elections. More...
(see photo essay) “Scouts Train to Fight Terrorists, and More.” Some Scouts in training are Latino Teens Who Enjoy the Thrill of the Hunt.
May 25, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) An affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America is training young people to confront terrorism and border security. The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence — an intense ratcheting up of one of the group’s longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police officers and firefighters.
“This is about being a true-blooded American guy and girl,” said A. J. Lowenthal, a sheriff’s deputy here in Imperial County, whose life clock, he says, is set around the Explorers events he helps run. More...
Masters of Disaster: Harvard, Wharton, Stanford, MIT deserve large part of blame for creating and sustaining the business culture that caused the meltdown.
May 25, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(abc) Business schools like those at Harvard, Wharton, Stanford and MIT deserve a large part of the blame for creating and sustaining the business culture that caused the meltdown, because they have been promoting an utterly dysfunctional form of management practice for decades. . . . . More...
Dr. Alvin Poussaint Says Economic Tension "Severely Impacts". Children Feel Weight Of Recession.
May 25, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(cbs) Dr. Alvin Poussaint of the Harvard Medical School told Bob Schieffer on CBS’ "Face the Nation" Sunday that children are being disproportionately affected by the recession.
"Children need to feel safe, secure and protected. And the economic downturn makes them feel the opposite, and they can see it in their own families or in the families of their friends," Poussaint said.
He added that children "go to school. More...
3.5 million U.S. children under 5 are at risk of hunger, with Louisiana having highest child hunger rate
May 25, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(nola) An estimated 3. 5 million children under the age of 5 are at risk of hunger in the United States, according to a look at government numbers by an anti-hunger group. That's more than 17 percent of children who could suffer cognitive and developmental damage if they are not properly fed.
The study also shows that in 11 states, more than 20 percent of children under 5 are at risk of going hungry. Louisiana has the highest rate, with just under a quarter of children at risk, followed by North Carolina, Ohio, Kentucky, Texas, New Mexico, Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Idaho and Arkansas. More...
‘What Color Is That Baby?’ The press is still very color conscious in the way it goes about covering murder.
May 12, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) The press is still very color conscious in the way it goes about covering murder. Editors may not be asking, “What color is that victim?” But, on some level, they’re still thinking it.
Which is why we’ve heard so little about an awful story out of Chicago. Some three dozen public school students have been murdered since the school year began, most of them shot to death. These children and teenagers have been killed in a wide variety of settings and situations — while riding a city bus, playing in parks, sitting in the back seats of cars, in gang disputes, in robberies, in the crossfire of sidewalk shootouts. More...
Orthodox Jewish Community Struggles With Abuse Allegations. Asm. Dov Hikind: "If you're a pedophile, just go to one of the orthodox communities. You're probably safest there."
May 06, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(abcnews) When Joel Engelman was 8 years old, he says, he was called from his Hebrew class to the principal's office at his Brooklyn yeshiva, a Jewish religious school. His parents had recently told Rabbi Avrohom Reichman that their son had been abused by an older boy at the school, he says.
When Engelman arrived at the principal's office, he says, Reichman told him to close the door. He told the boy to sit on his lap and began swiveling his chair back and forth, Engelman says. Reichman then touched him, moving from his shoulders down, Engelman claims. More...
(Photo Essay) Behind the Scenes: 100 Photos of President Obama's First 100 Days
April 28, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(Time) Behind the Scenes: 100 Photos of President Obama's First 100 Days in office. . . . . More...
(Video) Honoring a True American Hero: Statue of Sojourner Truth Unveiled in Nation's Capitol.
April 28, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(medillreports) Sojourner Truth was a slave who not only escaped to freedom, but also fought for women’s rights before the Civil War. Now there’s a statue of her in the Nation’s Capitol.
Prominent black leaders such as civil rights champion Dorothy Height and actress Cecily Tyson gathered for the unveiling at the new Capitol Visitor Center.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, First Lady Michelle Obama and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi were among speakers for the event.
“Sojourner Truth she not only made progress, she made history. More...
(BBN ??) If you're a Black family, would you adopt a White Child?: "What adopting a white girl taught a black family about race in the Obama era."
April 26, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(newsweek) The number of white families adopting outside their race is growing and is now in the thousands, while cases of a black family adopting a nonblack child—remain frozen at near zero.
Decades after the racial integration of offices, buses and water fountains, persistent double standards mean that African-American parents are still largely viewed with unease as caretakers of any children other than their own—or those they are paid to look after. As Yale historian Matthew Frye Jacobson has asked: "Why is it that in the United States, a white woman can have black children but a black woman cannot have white children?"
. . . More...
ASU says "We Blew It," in not awarding President Obama honorary degree. Alumni rescind donations.
April 15, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(hupo) The Arizona State University community is expressing anger and embarrassment in response to ASU's decision not to award President Barack Obama an honorary degree when he gives the commencement speech there next month. An ASU spokesperson now confesses, "we blew it," and concedes that the university likely would have conferred the honorary degree, but once it became a controversy, ASU administrators were too worried about appearing insincere. Many alumnae say that they would be withholding donations to ASU.
. . More...
Obama to tackle immigration reform this year, including search for path to legalize status of millions of illegal immigrants.
April 09, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(reuters) U. S. President Barack Obama plans to start addressing the thorny issue of immigration reform this year, including the search for a path to legalize the status of millions of illegal immigrants, The New York Times reported on Wednesday, quoting a presidential aide.
Obama will speak publicly about the matter in May and bring together working groups including Democratic and Republican lawmakers over the summer to begin discussing possible legislation for as early as the fall, administration officials told the Times.
Obama will present his drive as "policy reform that controls immigration and makes it an orderly system," the Times quoted Cecilia Munoz, deputy assistant to the president and director of intergovernmental affairs in the White House, as saying. More...
The End of Excess: Is This Crisis Good for America?
April 05, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(time) We saw what was happening for years, for decades, but we ignored it or shrugged it off, preferring to imagine that we weren't really headed over the falls. The U. S. auto industry has been in deep trouble for more than a quarter-century. The median household income has been steadily declining this century . More...
Research Links Poor Kids' Stress, Brain Impairment. They often have health problems and tend to struggle in school.
April 05, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(wapo) Children raised in poverty suffer many ill effects: They often have health problems and tend to struggle in school, which can create a cycle of poverty across generations.
Now, research is providing what could be crucial clues to explain how childhood poverty translates into dimmer chances of success: Chronic stress from growing up poor appears to have a direct impact on the brain, leaving children with impairment in at least one key area -- working memory.
"There's been lots of evidence that low-income families are under tremendous amounts of stress, and we know that stress has many implications," said Gary W. Evans, a professor of human ecology at Cornell University in Ithaca, N. Y. More...
Per Demographics, March Unemployment Rate: Blacks-African Americans 13.3, Latinos/Hispanics 11.4, Whites 7.9
April 05, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(nyt and Bureau of Labor Statistics) With 663,000 more jobs disappearing from the American economy last month, swelling the total number of jobs surrendered to the recession beyond five million, the government’s response to the downturn is being put to a strenuous test.
When drafting plans in January to spend roughly $800 billion to stimulate the deteriorating economy, the Obama administration operated on the assumption that the unemployment rate would reach 8. 9 percent by the end of the year — without the extra federal spending. Three months into the year, the unemployment rate has already soared to 8. 5 percent, from 7. More...
Cesar E. Chavez National Holiday Coalition. Help ensure all Americans learn about Cesar’s life and work.
April 05, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(UFW) The United Farm Workers and the Cesar E. Chavez Foundation are proud to support the grassroots efforts of the Cesar E. Chavez National Holiday Coalition.
Cesar was in Sen. Robert F. More...
W. E. B. Du Bois: Online Resources
April 05, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(Library of Congress) The digital collections of the Library of Congress contain a wide variety of material associated with W. E. B. Du Bois, including manuscripts, photographs, and books. This guide compiles links to digital materials related to W. More...
President Obama to Top CEOs at Meeting Last Week: "My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”
April 03, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(politico) The bankers struggled to make themselves clear to the president of the United States.
Arrayed around a long mahogany table in the White House state dining room last week, the CEOs of the most powerful financial institutions in the world offered several explanations for paying high salaries to their employees — and, by extension, to themselves.
“These are complicated companies,” one CEO said. Offered another: “We’re competing for talent on an international market. ”
But President Barack Obama wasn’t in a mood to hear them out. More...
Newspapers last bastion against political corruption. ‘The Wire’ creator, David Simon, expresses fears for newspapers' future, accuses media owners of contempt.
March 28, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(guardian) Fictional corrupt politicians are a mainstay of The Wire, David Simon's celebrated television series about life on the Baltimore streets. But the show's creator says he fears a real-life explosion of rampant corruption in American political life if the newspaper industry, in which he worked for more than a decade, is allowed to collapse.
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, the award-winning writer and producer launches a tirade against newspaper owners who, he says, showed "contempt for their product" and are now reaping the whirlwind. But he rejects the idea that newspapers should seek ways to embrace the new world of free information, arguing that they must urgently start charging money for content distributed online.
"Oh, to be a state or local official in America over the next 10 to 15 years, before somebody figures out the business model," says Simon, a former crime reporter for the Baltimore Sun. More...
The Wealth Gap Gets Wider. It’s Not just a gap. It's a deepening canyon.
March 27, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(wapo) Every three years, the Federal Reserve, in its Survey of Consumer Finances, takes a look at how U. S. households are doing and reports on our assets and liabilities. The euphoria of our gambling spree is over. In the harsh glare of morning, the hangover is tough. More...
John Hope Franklin, scholar and pioneer of African-American studies who wrote the seminal text on the black experience in U.S., died Wednesday. He was 94.
March 25, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(wapo) John Hope Franklin, a towering scholar and pioneer of African-American studies who wrote the seminal text on the black experience in the U. S. and worked on the landmark Supreme Court case that outlawed public school segregation, died Wednesday. He was 94.
David Jarmul, a spokesman at Duke University, where Franklin taught for a decade and was professor emeritus of history, said he died of congestive heart failure at the school's hospital in Durham. More...
Effort Underway to Remove "Plantations" from Rhode Island's Official Name
March 25, 2009 by nfigueroa (View Source)
Effort Underway to Remove "Plantations" from Rhode Island's Official NameEffort Underway to Remove "Plantations" from Rhode Island's Official NameThe State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations is the smallest state in the union, it is also carries with it a dubious distinction. The Narragansett territory originally named by Roger Williams as Providence Plantations was a beautiful and serene area that was rich in vegetation and native culture. Fast forward just a few decades and this grand territory transformed into the largest slave importing destination during the transatlantic slave trade. African slaves were shipped to Rhode Island to be sold and distributed across the country. Such a tarnished history banished from sight by historians, now a new effort underway attempts to bring Rhode Islanders closer together by looking at its past. More...
Full Reporting: Dallas H.S. School Administrators Forced Students To Fight Each Other in A Cage.
March 20, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(dallas morning news) Cage fights at the school between 2003 and 2005 have just come to light, months after the district completed an investigation. Documents obtained by The Dallas Morning News show that troubled students were sent to duke it out – with bare fists and no head protection – in a steel utility cage in an athletic locker room.
Donald Moten, who was principal at South Oak Cliff High at the time, and other employees who orchestrated the fights, or allowed them to go on, did not face any criminal charges because of the statute of limitations, district officials said. And several still were working at South Oak Cliff High or other DISD campuses at the beginning of this school year.
Moten, who has since resigned from the district, has denied any knowledge of cage fighting at the school. More...
Study: Young blacks more prone to heart failure than whites. Deadly illness strikes 1 in every 100 blacks under the age of 50.
March 19, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(baltsun) Young African-Americans are 20 times as likely as whites to develop heart failure, according to a new study released Wednesday. The deadly illness strikes 1 in every 100 blacks under the age of 50.
"We usually thought of heart failure as a disease of older people, but that's based on studies by mostly white participants," said Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, an assistant professor at the University of California, San Francisco and the study's lead author. "The rates we're seeing of blacks in their 30s and 40s are similar to the rates you will see of whites in their 60s and 70s. More...
‘What We Don’t Know Will Hurt Us.’ In states like Nevada, Florida and Arizona: “huge neighborhoods that will become ghettos.”
March 13, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) AND so on the 29th day of his presidency, Barack Obama signed the stimulus bill. But the earth did not move. The Dow Jones fell almost 300 points. G. M. More...
America's Top 15 Emptiest Cities. These Once Boom Cities Are Now Quickly Turning Into Recession Ghost Towns.
March 13, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(abcnews) For decades, Las Vegas, ripe with new construction and economic development, burgeoned into a shimmering urban carnival. Detroit, once the fulcrum of American industry, sagged and rusted under its own weight.
These days, it's the worst of times for both.
Las Vegas edged Detroit for the title of America's most abandoned city. Atlanta came in third, followed by Greensboro, N. More...
*UPDATE* Barnes and Noble Store Window Features Obama Alongside Monkey Book
March 04, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(blackpowerpol)
*****UPDATE*****
Barnes & Noble would like to publicly apologize for what happened in our Coral Gables, Florida store. We believe that a customer played a cruel joke and placed an inappropriate title in the front window of our store, where we were featuring books written by or about President Obama. We want to assure our customers that the book placed by someone other than our booksellers was never intended to be included in our display and was removed as soon as we became aware of the situation. We are looking into it and are taking the steps necessary so that it does not happen again. From time to time customers will move titles from one area of the store to another. More...
Defense Sec. Robert Gates lifts ban on media coverage of the flag-draped caskets of dead soldiers returning from war, reversing a policy in place since the 1991 Gulf War.
March 02, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(navytimes) Defense Secretary Robert Gates has lifted the ban on media coverage of the flag-draped caskets of war dead being returned to Dover Air Force Base, Del. , reversing a policy in place since the 1991 Gulf War.
Coverage will now be decided on a case-by-case basis, with the families of the service members making the call on whether the return of their loved ones can be filmed or reported upon.
“After receiving input from a number of sources, including all the military services, and organizations representing military families, I have decided that the decision regarding media coverage of the dignified transfer process at Dover should be made by those most directly affected: on an individual basis by the families of the fallen,” Gates said at a Feb. 26 Pentagon news conference. More...
Eric J. Foss, Pepsi Bottling Co., Chairman & CEO: Building diversity in a tough economy is even more important.
February 26, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) MANY major companies made strides in building globally diverse boards and senior managements when the economy was growing. But will those efforts take a backseat in a recession? Eric J. Foss, chairman and chief executive of the Pepsi Bottling Group, argues that building diversity in a tough economy is even more important. His company has created one of the most diverse boards, in terms of gender and ethnicity, of any company in the Fortune 500.
The board of Pepsi Bottling, which is based in Somers, N. More...
Senior Black Couple Sets Record with 84-year Marriage
February 23, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(livesteez. com) A Craven County couple are in the Guinness Book of World Records. The two did nothing outlandish such as sky-diving upside down or having the most tattoos. No, Herbert and Zelmyra Fisher of the Brownsville community have been married for more than 84 years. That is a feat in itself. More...
Musician John Legend Takes Bold Step In Protest of New York Post: “I'm personally boycotting your paper and won't do any interviews with any of your reporters.” Will Other Entertainers Follow His Le
February 23, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(JohnLegend. com) Dear New York Post: I'm trying to understand what possible motivation you may have had for publishing that vile cartoon depicting the shooting of the chimpanzee that went crazy. I guess you thought it would be funny to suggest that whomever was responsible for writing the Economic Recovery legislation must have the intelligence and judgment of a deranged, violent chimpanzee, and should be shot to protect the larger community. Really? Did it occur to you that this suggestion would imply a connection between President Barack Obama and the deranged chimpanzee? Did it occur to you that our President has been receiving death threats since early in his candidacy? Did it occur to you that blacks have historically been compared to various apes as a way of racist insult and mockery? Did you intend to invoke these painful themes when you printed the cartoon?
I believe in freedom of speech, and you have every right to print what you want. But freedom of speech still comes with responsibilities and consequences. More...
"Economy Hits Hard on Black Campuses". Spelman, Morehouse, Morris Brown, Clark-AUC, Stillman, TSU in Trouble or Cutting Back.
February 21, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) On Tuesday, Morris Brown College, one of a cluster of historically black institutions here, narrowly averted having its water shut off for the second time this school year by paying $150,000 toward an outstanding bill of more than $200,000.
But the college is not yet in the clear financially: It is down to 151 students and is $30 million in debt.
Morris Brown’s problems stem largely from financial mismanagement that led in 2003 to a loss of accreditation for the college, which once had 2,600 students. But its ability to right itself has been hampered by an economy that has had disproportionately severe effects on historically black colleges and universities.
Clark Atlanta University, citing an “enrollment emergency,” laid off 70 faculty and 30 staff members this month and canceled physical education classes. More...
The descendants of the Apache Geronimo, a warrior chieftain, filed a lawsuit against Yale University demanding the return of their ancestor’s skull.
February 18, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(yalenews) The descendants of the Apache Geronimo, a warrior chieftain whose remains are rumored to be held inside Yale’s oldest secret society, filed a lawsuit Tuesday demanding the return of their ancestor’s skull.
Twenty members of the legendary warrior’s family are suing senior federal government officials, the University and the society Skull and Bones in the U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia to seek the return of Geronimo’s remains as well as punitive damages.
“I believe strongly from my heart that his spirit was never released,” Geronimo’s great-grandson Harlyn Geronimo said in the press conference on Tuesday. More...
A handful of GOP governors are considering turning down some money from the federal stimulus package.
February 18, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(yahoonews) A handful of Republican governors are considering turning down some money from the federal stimulus package, a move opponents say puts conservative ideology ahead of the needs of constituents struggling with record foreclosures and soaring unemployment.
Though none has outright rejected the money available for education, health care and infrastructure, the governors of Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alaska, South Carolina and Idaho have all questioned whether the $787 billion bill signed into law this week will even help the economy.
"My concern is there's going to be commitments attached to it that are a mile long," said Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who considered rejecting some of the money but decided Wednesday to accept it. "We need the freedom to pick and choose. More...
Wikipedia, Google Show Obama Racial Slur.
February 17, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(msnbc) Web surfers who used Google. com to search for information on President Barack Obama on Tuesday afternoon were presented with a racial slur. The slur originated from Obama's Wikipedia entry, after a user had removed all content in Obama's entry and replaced it with three repeated words: a derogatory term for African-Americans.
Wikipedia. com's revision history records show that slur was only live for two minutes, with the Obama page edited to include the slur at 4:44 a. More...
Desiree Cooper: Inaugural benediction a misstep. It was if Obama invited doddering uncle (Rev. Joseph Lowery)
February 16, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(freep) When the Rev. Joseph Lowery ended his inauguration benediction with an old-school adage, I shrank in horror. It was as if President Barack Obama had invited a doddering uncle to a family wedding and, knowing better, let him do the toast.
Here's what Lowery asked of the good Lord on that historic day: "Help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back; when brown can stick around; when yellow will be mellow; when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. "
In the aftermath, the mainstream media painted those words as quirky and humorous. More...
NAACP at 100 now seeks equal rights for all: "Organization should no longer concentrate solely on equality between black and white people, but on human rights."
February 16, 2009 by editor (View Source)
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded on Feb. 12, 1909, by 60 people, both black and white, gathered in a New York apartment to discuss recent race riots and how to fight discrimination. They signed a proclamation known as "The Call," and the NAACP, initially known as the National Negro Committee, was born.
In its first three decades, the NAACP's primary mission was to end the lynching of African Americans. The group held protests, persuaded President Woodrow Wilson to make a public statement against lynching, and in 1922 published a full-page ad in major newspapers that said 3,224 people had been lynched between 1889 and 1918 for offenses such as offensive language and refusal to give up land. More...
The President has a Potty Mouth. Barack Obama is "tired of your motherfucking shit"
February 13, 2009 by editor (View Source)
If you’ve ever read President Obama’s Dreams From My Father, good for you. I couldn’t get past the foreword.
I wish I had. Because today I discovered that there’s a fairly juicy little subplot in the book, involving one of Obama’s high school friends.
Ray, a fellow classmate of Obama’s, was also bi-racial, and also trying to define himself. More...
Obama Marriage Inspires Fascination, Imitation.
February 13, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(ap) She's a busy mother of two and a full-time executive at a film distribution company, but sometimes Susan Margolin can't help it: She Googles Barack and Michelle Obama, not to check on his latest policy initiatives, but to see what they're doing as a couple.
"They went to the Kennedy Center with the girls the other night," she reported recently. "Isn't that cool? And I love how they always make time for date night. They seem to have a real romance going. "
Just in time for Valentine's Day, it's the season of the PDA in the White House — and we're not talking about President Obama's prized BlackBerry. More...
America's Most Miserable Cities. See if your city is on the list.
February 10, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(forbes) Misery was up around the country in 2008. Market meltdowns, bank blowups and bailouts and cratering home prices often overshadowed the incredibly positive stories of 2008 like the Beijing Summer Games and the historic election of Barack Obama. The highly watched Misery Index spiked as the unemployment rate plus the inflation rate surged to 9. 6 in 2008, up from 7. 5 the previous year. More...
New Treasury plan aims to trigger $2 trillion to markets
February 10, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(usat) Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner unveiled a sweeping plan Tuesday to shore up the nation's troubled financial system.
It is designed to deliver as much as $2 trillion to troubled financial markets by having the government partner with the private sector to buy troubled assets from lenders, make more bank capital injections and expand a Federal Reserve lending program.
"Right now critical parts of our financial system are damaged," Geithner said at a Treasury Department press conference, warning that the nation faces the most serious economic crisis since the Great Depression. "Instead of catalyzing recovery, the financial system is working against recovery, and that's the dangerous dynamic we need to change. "
The plan is just one part of overall efforts by the Obama administration, including a roughly $800 billion financial stimulus bill passed by the Senate Tuesday, to tackle the loss of millions of jobs, falling home and asset prices and a historic contraction in credit markets. More...
While Unemployment Is Hitting All Demographic Groups, Blacks and Latinos Hit Hardest. Black Men Hit Especially Hard.
February 09, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(opednews) The January employment report showed the economy losing 598,000 jobs in the month. In addition, there were sharp upward revisions to the job loss figures for the prior two months. The data now show the economy losing 1,772,000 jobs over the last three months, an average of 591,000 jobs per month. All of this job loss came in the private sector, as employment in the government sector was unchanged over this period.
The data in the household survey indicates an even more dire situation. More...
Judges tentatively order Calif. inmates released. Special panel says there is no other way to improve poor prison conditions.
February 09, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(msnbc) A special panel of federal judges tentatively ruled Monday that California must release tens of thousands of inmates to relieve overcrowding.
The judges said no other solution will improve conditions so poor that inmates die regularly of suicides or lack of proper care.
The panel said it wanted the state to present a plan to trim the population in two to three years.
“There are simply too many prisoners for the existing capacity,” they wrote. “Evidence offered at trial was overwhelmingly to the effect that overcrowding is the primary cause of the unconstitutional conditions that have been found to exist in the California prisons. More...
Rockefeller Laws: An End in Sight. The law has been especially disastrous for black and Latino offenders.
February 09, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) The New York Legislature finally seems poised to overturn the infamous Rockefeller drug laws. The impending change comes too late for the tens of thousands of low-level, nonviolent drug offenders who wasted away in prison because of mandatory sentencing policies when they should have been given treatment and leniency. But after years of building support for reform, legislative leaders now have it within their power to make wholesale changes in this profoundly destructive law.
The Rockefeller laws tied the hands of judges by requiring lengthy prison terms even for first-time offenders. Essentially, the law allowed prosecutors to decide who went to jail and for how long. More...
Sting of a foundering economy: Morehouse cuts part-time teaching staff. Clark Atlanta cuts 70 jobs, drops PE classes.
February 08, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(ajc) On the heels of its announcement last week that it was restructuring its curriculum and letting 70 faculty members go, Clark Atlanta University on Sunday said all physical education classes had been canceled for the semester.
The cancellations were announced in a letter to students from the university’s academic affairs office.
The letter also stated that class schedule changes in the School of Arts and Sciences “will be made available to you shortly,” but that class schedules in the schools of Education, Business and Social Work would remain unchanged.
Clark Atlanta isn’t the only higher educational insitution feeling the sting of a foundering economy.
On Sunday, Morehouse College officials confirmed that 25 adjunct professors, about one-third of the part-time instructors employed there, did not have their contracts renewed for the spring semester. More...
Suspect Peanuts Sent to Schools with Free-Lunch Program for Poor Children. Firm accused of having 'no conscience' for selling tainted products to USDA.
February 07, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(msnbc/wapo) Peanut Corporation of America sold 32 truckloads of roasted peanuts and peanut butter to the federal government for a free-lunch program for poor children even as the company's internal tests showed that its products were contaminated with salmonella bacteria.
Yesterday, the U. S. Department of Agriculture abruptly suspended its contract with the company, which is at the center of an outbreak of salmonella illness that has killed eight people, sickened 575 and triggered one of the largest food recalls in U. S. More...
Target of Immigrant Raids Shifted Under Bush. Federal Agents went after “the easiest targets, not the most dangerous fugitives.”
February 04, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) The raids on homes around the country were billed as carefully planned hunts for dangerous immigrant fugitives, and given catchy names like Operation Return to Sender.
And they garnered bigger increases in money and staff from Congress than any other program run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, even as complaints grew that teams of armed agents were entering homes indiscriminately.
But in fact, beginning in 2006, the program was no longer what was being advertised. Federal immigration officials had repeatedly told Congress that among more than half a million immigrants with outstanding deportation orders, they would concentrate on rounding up the most threatening — criminals and terrorism suspects.
Instead, newly available documents show, the agency changed the rules, and the program increasingly went after easier targets. More...
'The End of White America?' If the end of white America is a cultural and demographic inevitability, what will the new mainstream look like?
February 04, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(TheAtlantic) The Election of Barack Obama is just the most startling manifestation of a larger trend: the gradual erosion of “whiteness” as the touchstone of what it means to be American. If the end of white America is a cultural and demographic inevitability, what will the new mainstream look like—and how will white Americans fit into it? What will it mean to be white when whiteness is no longer the norm? And will a post-white America be less racially divided—or more so?
. . . . More...
"It's Not Going to Be OK." The economic crisis could plunge the U.S. into a long period of social instability.
February 04, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(alternet) The daily bleeding of thousands of jobs will soon turn our economic crisis into a political crisis. The street protests, strikes and riots that have rattled France, Turkey, Greece, Ukraine, Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria and Iceland will descend on us. It is only a matter of time. And not much time. When things start to go sour, when Barack Obama is exposed as a mortal waving a sword at a tidal wave, the United States could plunge into a long period of precarious social instability. More...
Audacity of Whiteness: It's profoundly dishonest, morally wrong that media coverage of Obama and his presidency is framed by an almost exclusively white press corp.
February 04, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(Jill Nelson) Why is it okay for George Will to have President Obama to dinner with conservative journalists with not a black face in the room? How many journalists attended parties in Washington during the inauguration where there were no journalists of color present? Isn't it disturbing to the journalistic establishment that the vast majority of journalists, commentators, talking heads, pundits, and experts discussing the new president and his administration are white? In 2009 can anyone seriously argue that aren't more than a handful of black, Latino, Asian, or Native Americans who fit these categories? Is this time for change we can believe in, or is it still time for black to get back?
It's profoundly dishonest and morally wrong that media coverage of Barack Obama and his presidency is framed by an almost exclusively white press corp. Not just the White House press corps, whose unbearable whiteness Sam Fulwood III wrote eloquently about on theRoot. com in December, 2008. Turn on the television. Most of the reporters -- the ones with shows of their own, steady jobs and influence - are white. More...
NAACP head outlines plan, new 'human rights' focus. New leader to hold President Obama accountable for his promises about civil rights.
February 04, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(ap)The NAACP's new leader intends to hold President Barack Obama accountable for his promises about civil rights regardless of Obama's status as the first black occupant of the White House.
"The president being black gives us no advantage," NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous said Tuesday in an interview with The Associated Press, adding that Obama's background as a community organizer and civil rights lawyer may make him more receptive to the NAACP's agenda.
Jealous said he expects "the traditional relationship" that presidents have had with the NAACP: "We will be the people at the end of the day who help make him do what he knows he should do. We will help create the room for (Obama) to fulfill, I think, his own aspirations for his presidency. "
"If he aspires to be the next Abraham Lincoln, I aspire to be his Frederick Douglass," Jealous said, referring to the slave-turned-abolitionist who pressed a cautious Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. More...
(BBN Pick) The Ugly Truth: The American Economy is Not Coming Back. “Our national economy will never “bounce back” to where it was in 2007.”
February 03, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(counterpunch) President Barack Obama and his economic team are being careful to couch all their talk about economic stimulus programs and bank bailout programs in warnings that the economic downturn is serious and that it will take considerable time to bounce back.
Obviously the Obama administration recognizes that it needs to keep the finger of blame for the current economic collapse squarely pointed at the Bush administration, which is certainly fair in large part (though the Clinton deregulation of the banking industry played a major part in the financial crisis and its enthusiastic promotion of globalization began the massive shift of jobs overseas that has left the nation’s productive capacity hollowed out). But it also seems to recognize that it cannot tell the bitter truth, which is that our national economy will never “bounce back” to where it was in 2007.
America, and individual Americans, have been living profligately for years in an unreal economy, propped up by easy credit which inflated the value of real estate to incredible levels, and which led people to spend way beyond their means. Ordinary middle-class working people have been encouraged to buy obscenely oversized homes at 5% down, or even no down payment. More...
Latino groups to Napolitano: Stop immigration raids. Raids “have destroyed families and spread terror.”
February 03, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(newsjournal) A coalition of Latino groups sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano this week urging her to stop workplace immigration raids.
The coalition — which includes the League of United Latin American Citizens and the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Funds — said the raids were a “relentless attack” on the Latino community.
“The fear of raids in and around schools, neighborhoods and workplaces among immigrants — unauthorized and authorized — keeps our children and families from attending schools, obtaining needed services for which they are eligible and pay taxes and even contacting local police when they or their loved ones are in danger,” the letter said.
It also said that the raids “have destroyed families and spread terror. ”
The Bush administration conducted a string of large immigration raids at workplaces over the past few years. More...
Hispanic Families Disproportionately Impacted by DTV Transition
January 31, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(NMI) A Nielsen study in December about how prepared the American public is for the digital television transition on Feb. 17th showed that Albuquerque was the least prepared of any media market in the country, with 13 percent of households not yet ready. This means their TVs are going to “go dark” on that date.
Another thing the Nielsen study showed was that Hispanic households are disproportionately unprepared, or in the words of Nielsen: “completely unready. ”
In December 2008, 11. More...
Grandma: Octuplets mom obsessed with having kids. Conceived all 14 of her children through in vitro fertilization.
January 31, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(ap/ajc) The woman who gave birth to octuplets this week conceived all 14 of her children through in vitro fertilization, is not married and has been obsessed with having children since she was a teenager, her mother said.
Angela Suleman told The Associated Press she was not supportive when her daughter, Nadya Suleman, decided to have more embryos implanted last year.
"It can't go on any longer," she said in a phone interview Friday. "She's got six children and no husband. I was brought up the traditional way. More...
Tragic: California Father Who Killed His Five Children and Wife in Murder-Suicide Was In Deep Debt.
January 28, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(ap) Awash in debt, behind on his mortgage and recently fired from his job at a hospital, Ervin Lupoe was planning on leaving California. The 40-year-old father of five pulled his children out of school, packed his SUV with snow chains and winter clothing for him and his family and appeared ready for the trip to his brother-in-law's home in Garden City, Kan.
It's not yet known if he was planning on leaving for good in a bid to flee his mounting money problems or if the trip would have only been temporary.
Whatever his intention, Lupoe never got to Kansas.
Instead, police say, he shot his five children and wife to death before turning the gun on himself. More...
93-Year-Old Bay City, Michigan Man Froze To Death Inside His Home. City Put Limits on Victims Electricity for $1,100 Unpaid Bill. Coroner: Death was "slow and painful".
January 26, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(baycity) A pathologist said a 93-year-old Bay City man froze to death inside his home - his body found days after city workers said they limited electricity flowing to the house.
Marvin E. Schur suffered "a slow, painful death" inside his home at 1600 S. Chilson St. on Bay City's southwest side, said Dr. More...
Opinion on President Obama's Inauguration Speech: No Time For Poetry.
January 25, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(Frank Rich/NYT) PRESIDENT Obama did not offer his patented poetry in his Inaugural Address. He did not add to his cache of quotations in Bartlett’s. He did not recreate J. F. K. More...
(Worth posting again) Black Man Given Nation's Worst Job.
January 24, 2009 by editor (View Source)
This article was originally published on theonion. com on November 5th, 2008. . . . More...
Michelle Obama Says Sasha And Malia Dolls "Inappropriate."
January 24, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(chicagobiz) First lady Michelle Obama is not pleased about the marketing of a pair of dolls that bear the same names as her daughters.
“We believe it is inappropriate to use young private citizens for marketing purposes,” Ms. Obama’s spokeswoman said.
Ty Inc. released its “Sweet Sasha” and “Marvelous Malia” dolls this month. More...
Obama retakes oath of office after flub by U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts.
January 21, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(msnbc) After the flub heard around the world, President Barack Obama has taken the oath of office. Again. Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the oath to Obama on Wednesday night at the White House — a rare do-over.
The surprise moment came in response to Tuesday's much-noticed stumble, when Roberts got the words of the oath a little off, which prompted Obama to do so, too.
Don't worry, the White House says: Obama has still been president since noon on Inauguration Day. More...
Supreme Court to examine whether a central component of landmark civil rights legislation enacted to protect minority voters is still needed in a nation that has elected an African American president.
January 11, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(wapo) The Supreme Court agreed yesterday to examine whether a central component of landmark civil rights legislation enacted to protect minority voters is still needed in a nation that has elected an African American president.
The court will decide the constitutionality of a provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that seeks to protect minority voting rights by requiring a broad set of states and jurisdictions where discrimination was once routine to receive federal approval before altering any of their voting procedures.
The Supreme Court has upheld the requirement in the past, saying the intrusion on state sovereignty is warranted to protect voting rights and"It has the potential to be the most important election-law case this court has heard," said Richard L. Hasen, an elections expert at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, adding that it raises the possibility that "the remedy that was once constitutional is now unconstitutional. "
The case comes to a court, led by Chief Justice John G. More...
First Movers. How exactly will Obama get all his stuff into the White House?
January 11, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(slate) After Barack Obama is sworn in on Jan. 20, he and his family will move into the White House. But how exactly will the president-elect get all his belongings into his new home? Will he hire movers?
Yes. The president-elect is responsible for arranging transportation for his furniture, clothes, and personal effects from Chicago to a White House storage facility in Maryland (where they also keep antiques, Easter decorations, paintings, etc. ). More...
French Newspaper Le Monde Publishes Never-Before-Seen 1996 Interview With Obamas About Their Marriage. Barack Obama: "If You Look Deep Into Her Eyes, There's a Certain Vulnerability".
January 11, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(abc) The French newspaper Le Monde on Saturday took the Obama team by surprise by publishing an interview with Barack and Michelle Obama from 1996 in which the two spoke at length about their marriage, only four years after they were wed, and two years before their oldest daughter Malia was born.
Many themes will not surprise those who know or follow the Obamas.
Sitting down to talk about their future the same year Obama eventually ended up running for state senate (and winning), his wife Michelle in the interview expresses reservations about whether a life in politics is what they want.
And while her husband is less uncertain of his calling, he wonders aloud about his ability to maintain a balance between private and public life. He also sounds out some notes about restoring civility in discourse to public life and the notion that we're all in this together, themes that have stayed with him throughout his career up through this week. More...
Errol Louis: Stop the Bloodshed. Violence Among Young Black Males Demands Action Now.
January 07, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(nydn) A disturbing report documenting a rising tide of youth violence nationwide has so far drawn a yawn and a shrug of indifference from politicians and the press, an apathy that guarantees the body count will continue to rise. America can do better than that. We have to.
The new study by Northeastern University sociologist James Alan Fox is called "The Recent Surge in Homicides Involving Young Black Males and Guns: Time to Reinvest in Prevention and Crime Control. " The title says it all. More...
Mississippi now has highest teen birth rate. The three states have large proportions of black and Hispanic teenagers.
January 07, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(msnbc) Mississippi now has the nation’s highest teen birth rate, displacing Texas and New Mexico for that lamentable title, a new federal report says.
Mississippi’s rate was more than 60 percent higher than the national average in 2006, according to new state statistics released Wednesday by the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The teen birth rate for that year in Texas and New Mexico was more than 50 percent higher. More...
Boy Scouts of America Plans Campaigns to Lure Hispanics. Strong Family Connections a Challenge for the Organization.
January 04, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) As it prepares to turn 100, the Boy Scouts of America is facing a huge test: drawing Hispanics into its declining, mostly white ranks.
“We either are going to figure out how to make scouting the most exciting, dynamic organization for Hispanic kids, or we’re going to be out of business,” said Rick Cronk, a former national president of the Boy Scouts and chairman of the World Scout Committee.
The group remains the largest youth organization in the United States, with 2. 8 million children, nearly all of them boys. But that is about half of its peak membership, which was reached in 1972. More...
Study: Murders Among Black Youths on the Rise. The number of young black men and teenagers who either killed or were killed in shootings has risen at an alarming rate since 2000.
January 04, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(ap) The number of young black men and teenagers who either killed or were killed in shootings has risen at an alarming rate since 2000, a new study shows.
The study, to be released Monday (by criminologists at Northeastern University in Boston, comes as FBI data is showing that murders have leveled off nationwide.
Not so for black teens, the youngest of whom saw dramatic increases in shooting deaths, the Northeastern report concluded.
Last year, for example, 426 black males between the ages of 14 and 17 were killed in gun crimes, the study shows. That marked a 40 percent increase from 2000. More...
Angry White Man: The bigoted past of Ron Paul.
January 04, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(NR) New Republic published this article a year ago. If you know of or supported Ron Paul’s candidacy or ideology the article paints a portrait of Paul that some of his supporters may not be aware of. . . . More...
Child 'slavery' now being imported to U.S. One child's story speaks for the thousands locked in silent servitude.
January 03, 2009 by editor (View Source)
(msnbc) Late at night, the neighbors saw a little girl at the kitchen sink of the house next door.
They watched through their window as the child rinsed plates under the open faucet. She wasn't much taller than the counter and the soapy water swallowed her slender arms. To put the dishes away, she climbed on a chair.
But she was not the daughter of the couple next door doing chores. More...
ShopRite Says No to Adolph Hitler Cake; Wal-Mart Says Yes. In the past family has made request for cake with 'JoyceLynn Aryan Nation'
December 17, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(ap) A supermarket is defending itself for refusing to a write out 3-year-old Adolf Hitler Campbell's name on his birthday cake. Deborah Campbell, 25, of nearby Hunterdon County, N. J. , said she phoned in her order last week to the Greenwich ShopRite. When she told the bakery department she wanted her son's name spelled out, she was told to talk to a supervisor, who denied the request. More...
Chrysler to close all 30 plants for one month
December 17, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(ap) Chrysler LLC said Wednesday that it is closing all 30 of its manufacturing plants for a month starting Friday as it seeks to counter the most severe downturn in U. S. auto sales in more than two decades. By extending the traditional two-week holiday shutdown period, the struggling Auburn Hills, Mich. -based automaker can adjust production to slowing demand and conserve cash. More...
Racial Gap In Colon Cancer Deaths Grows. Report: Death Rates 50 Percent Higher For Blacks Than Whites; Health Care Access Blamed.
December 15, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(cbs) The racial gap in colon cancer death rates is widening, a new report says, and experts partly blame blacks' lower screening rates and poor access to quality care.
Colon and rectal cancer death rates are now nearly 50 percent higher in blacks than in whites, according to American Cancer Society research being released Monday.
The gap has been growing since the mid-1970s, when colon cancer death rates for the two racial groups were nearly equal.
"We have seen this enormous progress in whites. We could be seeing the same progress in blacks, if we could overcome disparities in access to health care," said Elizabeth Ward, who oversees surveillance and health policy at the cancer society. More...
Power to the People! Republic Windows to end sit-in at factory. Each factory worker will get about $6,000 in pay, benefits after banks OK loans.
December 11, 2008 by editor
(cst) Chanting, "Yes we did," workers emerged from the shuttered Republic Windows & Doors factory late Wednesday to announce their approval of a $1. 75 million agreement that ended a six-day sit-in that garnered national attention.
Several hundred laid-off workers -- all union members -- voted unanimously for a package that includes eight weeks' salary, two months' paid health care and all accrued vacation pay. That adds up to an average of nearly $6,000 for each worker.
When the factory abruptly closed last week, the workers were laid off and told there would be no severance or vacation pay. More...
Health risks stack up for students near industrial plants. The potential problems widespread, insidious, largely unaddressed.
December 09, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(usat) The growl of air-monitoring equipment has replaced the chatter of children at Meredith Hitchens Elementary School in this Cincinnati suburb along the Ohio River.
School district officials pulled all students from Hitchens three years ago, after air samples outside the building showed high levels of chemicals coming from the plastics plant across the street. The levels were so dangerous that the Ohio EPA concluded the risk of getting cancer there was 50 times higher than what the state considers acceptable.
The air outside 435 other schools — from Maine to California — appears to be even worse, and the threats to the health of students at those locations may be even greater.
Using the government's most up-to-date model for tracking toxic chemicals, USA TODAY spent eight months examining the impact of industrial pollution on the air outside schools across the nation. More...
(NY) Teacher Ties Up Students In Slavery Lesson. White Teacher Binds Hands, Feet Of Two Black Girls.
December 07, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(CBS/AP) A white social studies teacher attempted to enliven a seventh-grade discussion of slavery by binding the hands and feet of two black girls, prompting outrage from one girl's mother and the local chapter of the NAACP.
After the mother complained to Haverstraw Middle School, the superintendent said he was having "conversations with our staff on how to deliver effective lessons. "
"If a student was upset, then it was a bad idea," said Superintendent Brian Monahan of the North Rockland School District in New York City's northern suburbs.
The teacher apologized to the mother who complained and her 13-year-old daughter during a meeting Thursday that also included a representative of the local NAACP. But the mother, Christine Shand of Haverstraw, N. More...
Gay Marriage and a Moral Minority. An analysis of why blacks voted in favor of Proposition 8.
November 30, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) An analysis of why blacks voted in favor of Proposition 8, and of how their vote possibly could be swayed next time around.
. . . . More...
What Michelle Means to Us. How she'll change the world's image of African-American women—and the way we see ourselves.
November 26, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(newsweek/A. Samuels) Michelle Obama's influence could go far beyond the superficial. When her husband raises his hand to take the oath of office, Michelle will become the world's most visible African-American woman. The new First Lady will have the chance to knock down ugly stereotypes about black women and educate the world about American black culture more generally. But perhaps more important—even apart from what her husband can do—Michelle has the power to change the way African-Americans see ourselves, our lives and our possibilities. More...
10 Things You Didn’t Know About Eric Holder. Holder is reportedly being vetted to be President-elect Obama's Attorney General.
November 19, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(usnwr) 1). Eric Holder's father emigrated from Barbados when he was about 12, ending up in Queens, N. Y. , where Eric Jr. was born and raised. More...
Huckabee: Gays Haven't Crossed 'Civil Rights' Violence Threshold Like Blacks Have.
November 19, 2008 by editor (View Source)
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee was on The View Tuesday talking about same-sex marriage and declaring that gay rights are not civil rights because gays have not had violence inflicted upon them like Blacks have.
HuckabeeSaid: "People who are homosexuals should have every right in terms of their civil rights, to be employed, to do anything they want. But that's not really the issue. I know you talked about it and I think you got into it a little bit early on. But when we're talking about a redefinition of an institution, that's different than individual civil rights. More...
Disgraced NY Gov., Eliot 'Mess' Spitzer, dispenses advice to Pres.-Elect Barack Obama in op-ed. Spitzer resigned in ‘08 after getting caught in prostitution ring as a ‘John.’
November 16, 2008 by editor (View Source)
BBN Editors: Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was forced to resign as Governor in scandal and disgrace in 2008. Federal investigators stung him in a prostitution ring. Federal documents listed him as "Client #9" (each John or ‘Client’ was given a number). Just last week U. S. More...
Obama election spurs race threats, crimes. From California to Maine, 'hundreds' of incidents reveal racism in America .
November 16, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(msnbc) Cross burnings. Schoolchildren chanting "Assassinate Obama. " Black figures hung from nooses. Racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars.
Incidents around the country referring to President-elect Barack Obama are dampening the postelection glow of racial progress and harmony, highlighting the stubborn racism that remains in America. More...
Obama and the Myth of the Black Messiah
November 16, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(time) Since Barack Obama's victory celebration in Grant Park, the chattering class has been atwitter wondering what, exactly, his election will mean for African Americans. On Meet the Press, Tom Brokaw asked about the "impact . . . on the black community and in those neighborhoods where there are dysfunctional families. More...
Working Poor and Young Hit Hard in Downturn. “Low-income people are the big losers when the economy turns down.”
November 11, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) Labor experts say the hardships of the gathering recession are sweeping down to hurt the working poor and younger job seekers most of all.
From the fall of 2007 to this October, the share of 16- to 19-year-olds working fell by 8 percent, the largest decline of any age group, and the outlook for youths and low-skilled workers in coming months is bleak, economists say, with the industries most apt to employ them, like home-building and retail sales, taking steep dives.
On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 240,000 jobs disappeared in October alone, bringing the unemployment rate to 6. 5 percent. But construction, for example, had the highest unemployment rate of any industry: 10. More...
8,000 blacks die due to blood pressure gap. Surprising study is first to calculate lives lost due to racial disparities in BP.
November 11, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(msnbc) The lives of nearly 8,000 black Americans could be saved each year if doctors could figure out a way to bring their average blood pressure down to the average level of whites, a surprising new study found.
The gap between the races in controlling blood pressure is well-known, but the resulting number of lives lost startled some scientists.
“We expected it to be big, but it was even larger than we anticipated,” said the lead author, Dr. Kevin Fiscella of the University of Rochester School of Medicine & Dentistry.
The study, released Monday in the Annals of Family Medicine, is being called the first to calculate the lives lost due to racial disparities in blood pressure control. More...
The Obama Campaign has posted Election Night photos of The First Family on flickr.com. It’s worth a look.
November 07, 2008 by editor (View Source)
The Obama Campaign has posted Election Night photos of The First Family on flickr. com. It's worth a look. (View source) . . More...
Hispanic Activists Cite an Uptick in Threats of Violence. Increased number of threats against Hispanic rights groups is part of a growth in attempts to intimidate Latino people.
November 06, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(wapo/Darryl Fears) Andrea Bazán said she has thick skin and is not easily frightened by death threats. But when the Hispanic activist arrived home one day to find her voice mail packed with profanity, and when she noticed a man watching her house in Durham, N. C. , from a white commercial van with no license plates, her heart started to pound.
On a recent Monday night, she said, an unidentified man pounded on the front door of her house, frightening her. More...
AP Projection: Obama wins in North Carolina. State hasn't voted for Democratic President in 40 Years.
November 06, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(ap) President-elect Obama has won North Carolina, a symbolic triumph in a state that hadn't voted for a Democrat in more than a generation.
The Associated Press declared Obama the winner Thursday after canvassing counties in North Carolina to determine the number of outstanding provisional ballots.
That survey found that there are not enough remaining ballots for Republican John McCain to close a 13,693-vote deficit.
North Carolina's 15 electoral votes brings Obama's total to 364 - nearly 100 more than necessary to win the White House. Missouri is the only state that remains too close to call. More...
Blacks, Hispanics Fuel Obama's Florida Victory. Once a reliable Republican voting bloc, Hispanics have shifted more toward Democrats in recent years.
November 05, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(miami herald) Buoyed by massive black support and the crucial votes of Hispanics, Democrat Barack Obama captured Florida by winning on the issues and striking deep into Republican strongholds.
Obama's Florida victory over John McCain came with dominance in South Florida -- particularly in Miami-Dade and Broward counties -- the important Interstate 4 corridor in Central Florida and farther north in Gainesville and Tallahassee.
It was a stinging defeat for Republicans who control the Legislature and governor's mansion and, until just two months ago, were openly questioning whether the Democrat would campaign full force in the nation's biggest swing state.
But hard financial times, McCain's gaffe in Jacksonville, where he said the ''fundamentals of the economy are strong,'' and Obama's juggernaut of a campaign inalterably changed the race.
Obama captured a lopsided share of Florida votes from young people and first-time voters, won comfortably among independents, and managed to best McCain among Hispanic voters by double digits statewide, according to Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International exit poll of voters. More...
Black Power Brokers Ready to Rise In Tandem With New President
November 05, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(wsj) For more than a decade, Mr. Obama has cultivated ties with a growing circle of black power brokers who are poised -- and eager -- to wield greater national influence. Some of these insiders stand to gain new status in an Obama administration, and many more in law firms, big corporations and on Wall Street. They believe that their proximity to the president-elect will burnish their reputations, much in the way that white elites always have leveraged connections in business and politics.
Being known as a top fund-raiser or adviser to Mr. More...
(See Photos) Citizens Around the World Hail the Obama Victory.
November 05, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(usat) From Beijing's streets to France's Elysee Palace, common citizens and leaders of the world greeted Barack Obama's election largely as a sign of hope that America would mend torn international relations and lead the way out of global economic turmoil.
"I am so happy Obama won," said Mao Xiaoqing, 21, an economics student in Beijing. "I think he will take some creative actions about the economic crisis. It's the main problem for America and the rest of the world. "
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Obama's election "has raised enormous hope in France, in Europe and beyond. More...
Barack Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Payne Dunham, dies of cancer 2 days before election. The candidate was able to visit with her before her death.
November 04, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(ap) Barack Obama's grandmother, whose personality and bearing shaped much of the life of the Democratic presidential contender, has died, Obama announced Monday, 1 day before the election. Madelyn Payne Dunham was 86. Obama announced the news from the campaign trail in Charlotte, N. C. The joint statement with his sister Maya Soetoro-Ng said Dunham died peacefully late Sunday night after a battle with cancer. More...
Update: Jennifer Hudson identifies body of nephew
October 27, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(Chicago Sun-Times) Holding on to each other, overcome by emotion, Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Hudson and six relatives viewed a closed-circuit TV screen at the morgue this afternoon and identified a small boy as Hudson’s 7-year-old nephew Julian King.
The identification came from Hudson. “She said, ‘Yes, that is him,’ according to Sean Howard, a spokesman for the Cook County medical examiner’s office. “Jennifer Hudson was incredbly strong for her family, she was leader in that group and kept her composure.
“She felt like the Lord and saviour Jesus Christ was going to get her through that,” Howard added. More...
Feds disrupt skinhead plot to assassinate Obama
October 27, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(yahoo) Two white supremacists allegedly plotted to go on a national killing spree, shooting and decapitating black people and ultimately targeting Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, federal authorities said Monday.
In all, the two men whom officials describe as neo-Nazi skinheads planned to kill 88 people — 14 by beheading, according to documents unsealed in U. S. District Court in Jackson, Tenn. The numbers 88 and 14 are symbolic in the white supremacist community. More...
Update: Jennifer Hudson Family Tragedy.
October 26, 2008 by editor (View Source)
BBN is following the story of Jennifer Hudson's mother and brother getting killed by gunshots in their home last week. Ms. Hudson’s 7-year-old nephew is still missing. The FBI is now involved in the search. Ms. More...
(BBN Recommends) Obama Will Be One of The Greatest and Most Loved American Presidents
October 26, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(Frank Schaeffer/HuffPost) Great presidents are made great by horrible circumstances combined with character, temperament and intelligence. Like firemen, cops, doctors or soldiers, presidents need a crisis to shine.
Obama is one of the most intelligent presidential aspirants to ever step forward in American history. The likes of his intellectual capabilities have not been surpassed in public life since the Founding Fathers put pen to paper. His personal character is also solid gold. More...
Another Dragging Death in Texas Raises Tensions. Black activists and the victim's mother are calling last month's killing of 24-year-old a racist attack.
October 26, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(ap) In a gruesome case with powerful echoes of the dragging death of James Byrd a decade ago, a black man was killed underneath a pickup truck in East Texas and two white men have been charged with murder.
Black activists and the victim's mother are calling last month's killing of 24-year-old Brandon McClelland a racist attack. But prosecutors cast strong doubt on that Friday.
McClelland died after going with two white friends on a late-night beer run across the state line to Oklahoma, investigators said. Authorities said he was run over and dragged as far as 70 feet beneath the truck. More...
106 Year Old Atlanta Woman Votes for Barack Obama in Early Voting.
October 20, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(cnn) Ann Nixon Cooper, 106 years old, has seen presidents come and go in her lifetime and has outlived most of them. On a sunny fall morning, she left her weathered but well-kept Tudor home in Atlanta, Georgia, to vote early -- this time for Barack Obama.
The African-American centenarian remembers a time not long ago when she was barred from voting because of her race. Now she hopes to see the day that Obama is elected as the nation's first black president.
"I ain't got time to die," Cooper said with a smile. More...
A Somali Influx Unsettles Latino Meatpackers.
October 19, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) Like many workers at the meatpacking plant here, Raul A. Garcia, a Mexican-American, has watched with some discomfort as hundreds of Somali immigrants have moved to town in the past couple of years, many of them to fill jobs once held by Latino workers taken away in immigration raids.
Mr. Garcia has been particularly troubled by the Somalis’ demand that they be allowed special breaks for prayers that are obligatory for devout Muslims. The breaks, he said, would inconvenience everyone else. More...
Some Surveys Indicate Tighter Presidential Race. Differences in Predicting Outcome Result From How Pollsters Gauge Voter Turnout and Weight Party Affiliation.
October 19, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(wsjonline) A spate of widely publicized newspaper and network polls over the past week have shown Barack Obama opening a big lead over John McCain. But other surveys tell a somewhat different story, suggesting the presidential race is still close, and the Republican has even gained ground in recent days.
The reason for the divergence: Pollsters are facing new challenges this year, trying to gauge whether the electorate is changing, and how much.
Surveys giving Sen. Obama a large and growing lead tend to assume that a growing proportion of voters are Democrats, and a shrinking percentage Republicans. More...
(MUST SEE-READ) Bill Moyers Interview with Mark Crispin Miller About Concerns Over Voter Suppression this Election Day.
October 19, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(DemocraticUndergroung and PBS)
As election day approaches and both Democracts and Republicans warn that the other side may be planning to tamper with the results, voters may be wondering if their vote will be counted properly.
Mark Crispin Miller joins Bill Moyers on the JOURNAL to discuss challenges legitimate would-be voters face at the polls — from voter purges to electronic voting — and reforms the U. S. should make to ensure everyone's right to vote is protected and every vote is counted.
Included are tips and strategies for making every vote count. More...
National Review Writer: Obama Likely Would Have Been Aborted, Had It Been Legal
October 17, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(huffpost) Ed Whelan baselessly speculates in the National Review that Barack Obama's deceased mother "very possibly" would have aborted her son had Roe v. Wade been law at the time:
Nearly 48 years ago, a young woman, not yet 18, became pregnant in her freshman year of college. Living in a time and place in which abortion was generally illegal, she proceeded to marry the father of her child and gave birth to a son. Perhaps she would have done so irrespective of the abortion laws at the time, even if, say, she lived in a legal culture that celebrated abortion as a fundamental right. Very possibly not. More...
Ithica, New York Planning America's First Podcar City
October 15, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(cbs) The thought of a driverless, computer-guided car transporting people where they want to go on demand is a futuristic notion to some.
To Jacob Roberts, podcars - or PRTs, for personal rapid transit - represent an important component in the here-and-now of transportation.
"It's time we design cities for the human, not for the automobile," said Roberts, president of Connect Ithaca, a group of planning and building professionals, activists and students committed to making this upstate New York college town the first podcar community in the United States.
"In the podcar . . More...
75,000 Voter Registration Cards Found in Trash Bin in Atlanta
October 15, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(AP) The Georgia Secretary of State's office has begun an investigation into who threw more than 75,000 Fulton County voter registration cards into a trash bin.
The cards contained a voter's full name, address and Social Security number. The office says a random sampling showed many of the cards were for active voters.
In a statement, Secretary of State Karen Handel said the finding 'represents a significant and serious breach of the personal information of Fulton County voters and an outrageous violation of the trust and integrity of Fulton County 's elections. '
After getting a call from a resident, officials with Handel's office found more than 30 boxes of voter registration application cards, precinct cards and other documents Monday in a construction trash bin at Atlanta Technical College in southwest Atlanta. More...
Who You Callin’ a Maverick? Applying "Maverick" to Mr. McCain is a bit of a stretch — and to one Texas family in particular it is even a bit offensive.
October 06, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) There’s that word again: maverick. In Thursday’s vice-presidential debate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, the Republican candidate, used it to describe herself and her running mate, Senator John McCain, no fewer than six times, at one point calling him “the consummate maverick. ”
But to those who know the history of the word, applying it to Mr. McCain is a bit of a stretch — and to one Texas family in particular it is even a bit offensive. More...
Job Losses Pushing U.S. Economy Into `Significant' Recession
October 04, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(bloomberg) The U. S. may be heading for its worst recession in at least a quarter century as the credit crisis forces employers across the country to cut workers and ratchet back spending.
Labor Department figures showed yesterday that payrolls fell by 159,000 in September, the biggest reduction in five years. While the unemployment rate held at 6. More...
Breakdown of the final bailout bill, Section-by-section dissection of the 'Emergency Economic Stabilization Act'
September 28, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(msnbc) Section-by-section breakdown of the "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008," otherwise known as the $700 billion Wall Street bailout bill.
The 106-page bill established sweeping powers for Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, and his successor, in carrying out what the bill calls the "Troubled Asset Relief Program," whose acronym is TARP. (BBN recommends reading this)
. . . More...
Obama Effigy Hung From Ore. Campus Tree. Students at George Fox University Still Reeling From Racially Charged Incident
September 28, 2008 by editor (View Source)
This story was first brought to our attention by Osiris Education Collaborative in New York who posted the story on their site, oecollaborative. com. The story was reported by ABCNews. com which wrote: Administrators at an Oregon college are trying to get to the bottom of who hung a cardboard effigy of Barack Obama from a campus tree Tuesday. The incident at George Fox University appeared to be in protest of a scholarship program geared toward minorities. More...
A Glossary of Terms Behind the Headlines. The credit crisis that has led to calls for a bailout of the nation's financial system also has introduced some unfamiliar terms to the general public.
September 28, 2008 by editor (View Source)
BBN highly recommends that you view the story to get acquainted with the terminology being tossed around news programs as though most Americans understand what all these complicated words and economic systems mean. It's worth your while to review the list. . . . More...
Did Sarah Palin Really Say She Wouldn't Hire Blacks?
September 27, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(alternet) Sarah Palin admittedly hasn't had much of a track record when it comes to acknowledging -- let alone promoting -- diversity during her short tenure as Alaska governor. She's on record with a terse utterance on hate crimes legislation and on cultural diversity. But Palin's skimpy track record and paucity of words on diversity is relatively tame compared to the far more damaging accusation that's making the rounds.
On April 29, 14 black leaders in Alaska, including prominent ministers, NAACP officials, and community activists, met with Palin to voice their complaint over minority hiring and job opportunities. During the meeting she allegedly said that she didn't have to hire any blacks. More...
(Photo Essay) Aryan Outfitters. Meet the Ku Klux Klan's seamstress of hate couture.
September 27, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(MotherJones) Coming from five generations of Ku Klux Klan members, 58-year-old "Ms. Ruth" sews hoods and robes for Klan members seven days a week, blessing each one when it's done. A red satin outfit for an Exalted Cyclops, the head of a local chapter, costs about $140. She uses the earnings to help care for her 40-year-old quadriplegic daughter, "Lilbit," who was injured in a car accident 10 years ago.
The photo essay about Ms. More...
Debate highlights Mississippi's racial evolution. State's murderous past, large percentage of black residents, drive relations
September 25, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(ap/msnbc) On a small-town Saturday night, a half-block from the town square where a deteriorating Confederate statue stands guard, state Sen. Eric Powell walks into a restaurant for dinner.
Powell orders fried pickles. Bubba Carpenter, a Republican state representative, ambles over with his 5-year-old son, Noah. The two freshmen legislators make small talk about a Civil War reenactment and plans to attend Friday's scheduled debate between Barack Obama and John McCain at the University of Mississippi. More...
Banking Expert: Bailout Not Necessary, Industry Can Take Losses
September 25, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(naked capitalism) One of the premises of the bailout bill is that the banking industry must have government help to get back on its feet.
A banking industry expert, Bert Ely, who has a stellar track record in predicting crises and calling false alarms says that the banking industry can handle this mess internally and does not need subsidies. (View Source to hear and read the interview)
. . . More...
FBI Opens Probe of Finance Giants. Fannie, Freddie, Lehman, AIG Under Investigation.
September 23, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(wapo) The FBI is investigating whether fraud played a role in the troubles at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers and American International Group, bringing to 26 the number of bureau investigations of institutions tied to the mortgage debacle, according to two sources familiar with the developments. At the same time, the Securities and Exchange Commission has opened more than 50 investigations into disclosure and valuation of housing-related investments at banks, insurers and credit rating agencies, Chairman Christopher Cox told the Senate Banking Committee yesterday.
The wide-ranging probes are operating at different stages of development and no charges are imminent, according to sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the issue.
A half-dozen current and former government lawyers cautioned that mortgage-related cases present significant challenges for investigators because of their complexity, which they said surpassed even the five-year-long probe into wrongdoing at Enron.
"The reason is they involve securities . More...
Where's the federal bailout for us little guys?
September 19, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(nydn) Construction worker George Joshua of East Flatbush was amazed - not in a good way - when government officials gave the financial services giant AIG an $85 billion bailout.
"Here they negotiated with the bank [Tuesday] and by [Wednesday] morning the bank gets help," he said, shaking his head.
Joshua, a carpenter's helper who emigrated from St. Vincent 29 years ago, watched the drama unfold on late-night TV.
He doesn't sleep much these days, staying up late worrying about arranging a desperately needed bailout of his own to avoid losing the two-story house he bought in 1991 and where he lives with his wife, three kids and a grandchild. More...
Tim Wise: This is Your Nation on White Privilege ...
September 16, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(Tim Wise) For those who still can’t grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.
White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because “every family has challenges,” even as black and Latino families with similar “challenges” are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.
White privilege is when you can call yourself a “fuckin’ redneck,” like Bristol Palin’s boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll “kick their fuckin' ass,” and talk about how you like to “shoot shit” for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.
White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.
White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don’t all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U. More...
Republican-Conservatives gathering at "Values Voter Summit" sells 'Obama Waffles' with racial stereotype.
September 15, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(yhonews) Activists at a conservative political forum snapped up boxes of waffle mix depicting Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama as a racial stereotype on its front and wearing Arab-like headdress on its top flap. Values Voter Summit organizers cut off sales of Obama Waffles boxes on Saturday, saying they had not realized the boxes displayed "offensive material. " The summit and the exhibit hall where the boxes were sold had been open since Thursday afternoon.
The box was meant as political satire, said Mark Whitlock and Bob DeMoss, two writers from Franklin, Tenn. , who created the mix. More...
(BBN Recommends) The Big 'What If'. The hopes of black America ride on his (Barack's) shoulders. But the outcome's way up in the air.
September 15, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(By Randall Kennedy/wapo) I am a black man born in 1954, the year of Brown v. Board of Education. Fleeing the abuses of Jim Crow, my parents moved from South Carolina to Washington, D. C. , later that decade. More...
Activist networks have sprung up to prepare illegal immigrants for possible federal activity in their communities.
September 14, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(lat) Reeling from work-site raids that have jailed thousands of illegal workers, immigration organizations are quietly assembling informal networks to gather advance information about federal enforcement operations and to help locals and laborers prepare.
Students, union officials, waiters and others are volunteering to call in tips about Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents checking into hotels or renting facilities, about the sudden appearance of out-of-town cars and about a surge in action at the local courthouse.
"Is ICE going to tell us when they're coming? What they're doing? No," said Socorro Leos, a community organizer for Mississippi Immigrants' Rights Alliance. "You have to be working with the grass roots, on the ground, training them to be alert, to be very, very conscious, to open their eyes and senses. "
The spontaneous development of these intelligence networks stems from the scale of recent ICE raids: hundreds of agents and vehicles plus a major infrastructure. More...
Reputed Klansman's conviction overturned in 1964 deaths
September 10, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(cnn) A federal appeals court overturned the kidnapping conviction of a reputed Klansman in connection with the 1964 deaths of two black teenagers in Mississippi.
James Ford Seale, a former sheriff's deputy, was convicted in June 2007 of kidnapping and conspiracy to commit kidnapping in the disappearances of Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee, both 19.
On Tuesday, a three-judge panel from the Fifth Circuit Court Appeals sided with Seale's claim that he should have never been tried in connection with the teens' deaths because a five-year statute of limitations on kidnapping-related offenses had expired.
"The more than 40-year delay clearly exceeded the limitations period," Judge Harold DeVoss wrote in the panel's ruling. "While we are mindful of the seriousness of the crimes at issue, we cannot abdicate our duty to faithfully apply a valid limitations period. More...
The Harkness Report: THE NASTY POLITICS OF RACIAL RESENTMENT
September 10, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(harknessreport blog) Where to begin? I usually do not write these articles in the first person, but I must make an exception under such extenuating circumstances.
This past week, we witnessed a truly surreal, bizarro spectacle at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. Suddenly, the laws of physics were reversed – up became down, left became right, east became west, the earth became flat, and the sun revolved around that flat earth. This virtually all-white gathering, in tone and tenor, put me in mind of nothing so much as a White Citizens Council rally. More...
"Sex For Oil Scandal At Interior Department." U.S. Gov. officials engaged in illicit sex with employees of energy companies they were dealing with.
September 10, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(cbs) Government officials handling billions of dollars in oil royalties engaged in illicit sex with employees of energy companies they were dealing with and received numerous gifts from them, federal investigators said Wednesday.
The alleged transgressions involve 13 Interior Department employees in Denver and Washington. Their alleged improprieties include rigging contracts, working part-time as private oil consultants, and having sexual relationships with - and accepting golf and ski trips and dinners from - oil company employees, according to three reports released Wednesday by the Interior Department's inspector general.
The investigations reveal a "culture of substance abuse and promiscuity" by a small group of individuals "wholly lacking in acceptance of or adherence to government ethical standards," wrote Inspector General Earl E. Devaney. More...
"In an Evolving Harlem, Newcomers Try to Fit In." What is occurring in Harlem is part of a wider trend across the nation reshaping poorer black enclaves.
September 07, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) In the past few years, the “Village of Harlem,” as older residents still call it, has become a 21st-century laboratory for integration. Class and money and race are at the center of the changes in the neighborhood. Lured by stately century-old brownstones and relatively modest rents, new faces are moving in and making older residents feel that they are being pushed out. There have been protests, and anger directed as much at the idea of the newcomers as at them personally.
Through it all, the voices of those newcomers have often gone unheard, at least publicly. More...
Presidential Candidate Barack Obama Picks Senator Joseph "Joe" Robinette Biden of Delware as His Running Mate.
August 23, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(delawareonline) Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. 's best game is foreign affairs, an arena he cherishes.
Ask about the former Soviet Union, Bosnia, Middle East or almost any part of the globe, and he knows the history and the players. He's visited Iraq more than seven times.
Not bad for a kid from Pennsylvania who broke into politics as a councilman from New Castle County. More...
Church and Big Business: "Powerful Harlem Church Is Also a Powerful Harlem Developer."
August 20, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(nyt)Since its founding 200 years ago as a breakaway congregation, Abyssinian Baptist Church has built itself into one of the city’s most powerful institutions, by virtue of its activist pastors, who have included Adam Clayton Powell Jr. , and its congregation, which has long been among the city’s largest.
The nonprofit development corporation, formed in 1989 with a single employee and a $50,000 grant, has grown into an organization that owns or has developed some $500 million worth of property in Harlem, expanded to 125 employees and played a critical behind-the-scenes role in the transformation of the neighborhood.
As the church’s development arm has grown in size and influence, however, it has become a target of critics who say it has ushered in a wave of gentrification that has displaced longtime residents and has been a neglectful landlord of some of its apartment buildings, which have amassed hundreds of unresolved violations. But the Rev. More...
White Americans no longer a majority by 2042. By 2050 Latinos will account for 30 percent; Blacks will make up 15 percent; Asians projected to increase to 9 percent of U.S. population.
August 14, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(ap) White people will no longer make up a majority of Americans by 2042, according to new government projections. That's eight years sooner than previous estimates, made in 2004.
The nation has been growing more diverse for decades, but the process has sped up through immigration and higher birth rates among minority residents, especially Hispanics.
It is also growing older.
"The white population is older and very much centered around the aging baby boomers who are well past their high fertility years," said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. More...
AIDS epidemic in U.S. 'worse than previously known'. HIV cases understated by 40 percent per year.
August 03, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(ct) The AIDS epidemic in the U. S. is far worse than previously reported, the government said Saturday in releasing new findings.
About 56,300 people are now thought to be infected with HIV annually—a startling 40 percent jump from the government's previous estimate of 40,000.
The new figures represent improved assessments, not evidence that infection rates are going up, officials said. More...
Obama opposes slave reparations. He aruges instead: government should combat legacy of slavery by improving schools, health care.
August 03, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(ap) Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama opposes offering reparations to the descendants of slaves, putting him at odds with some black groups and leaders.
The man with a serious chance to become the nation's first black president argues that government should instead combat the legacy of slavery by improving schools, health care and the economy for all.
"I have said in the past — and I'll repeat again — that the best reparations we can provide are good schools in the inner city and jobs for people who are unemployed," the Illinois Democrat said recently.
Some two dozen members of Congress are co-sponsors of legislation to create a commission that would study reparations — that is, payments and programs to make up for the damage done by slavery.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People supports the legislation, too. More...
"House Issues An Apology For Slavery and Jim Crow." What's Next? Reparations?
July 30, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(wapo) The House yesterday apologized to black Americans, more than 140 years after slavery was abolished, for the "fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow" segregation.
The resolution, which passed on a voice vote late in the day, was sponsored by Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn. ), a white Jew who represents a majority-black district in Memphis. Cohen tried unsuccessfully to join the Congressional Black Caucus this year. More...
Gaylynn Burroughs: Too Poor To Parent. Child-Welfare System Is Largely Classist and Racist.
July 27, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(Gaylynn Burroughs) A child accidentally falls off his top bunk. His mother worries. The child says his knee hurts, and it looks like a bruise is forming on his arm. His mother wants a doctor to see the child, but hesitates for a moment about taking her son to the hospital emergency room.
She is afraid that her child's treating physician will not believe her when she says that her child was hurt in an accident. More...
"Bench of Memory at Slavery’s Gateway." Toni Morrison: “It’s never too late to honor the dead.”
July 27, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) Toni Morrison has said that her acclaimed novel “Beloved,” which features the ghost of a baby killed by her enslaved black mother, came out of the need for a literature to commemorate slaves and their history. “There is no suitable memorial, or plaque, or wreath or wall, or park or skyscraper lobby,” Ms. Morrison said in a 1989 magazine interview. “There’s no 300-foot tower, there’s no small bench by the road. ”
This weekend, on Sullivan’s Island, off the South Carolina coast, Ms. More...
Facing foreclosure, Mass. woman commits suicide.
July 24, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(nydn) A woman faxed a letter to her mortgage company telling them she would be dead by the time they foreclosed on her house.
She then used her husband's high-powered rifle to kill herself in the home.
Carlene Balderrama, 53, also left a note Tuesday telling her husband and 24-year-old son they should take any life insurance money from her death and use it to pay for the house, police said.
Police found her body at 3:30 p. m. More...
AIDS Among Latinos on Rise. Hispanics in U.S. Face Unique Obstacles to Diagnosis, Treatment.
July 23, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(wapo) AIDS rates in the nation's Latino community are increasing and, with little notice, have reached what experts are calling a simmering public health crisis.
Though Hispanics make up about 14 percent of the U. S. population, they represented 22 percent of new HIV and AIDS diagnoses tallied by federal officials in 2006.
So far, the toll of AIDS in the nation's largest and fastest-growing minority population has mostly been overshadowed by the epidemic among African Americans and gay white men. More...
After 60 years, black military officers rare. Just 10 blacks have attained 4-star rank; low interest in combat jobs cited.
July 23, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(AP/msnbc) Sixty years after President Truman desegregated the military, senior black officers are still rare, particularly among the highest ranks.
Blacks make up about 17 percent of the total force, yet just 9 percent of all officers. That fraction falls to less than 6 percent for general officers with one to four stars, according to data obtained and analyzed by The Associated Press.
The rarity of blacks in the top ranks is apparent in one startling statistic: Only one of the 38 four-star generals or admirals serving as of May was black. And just 10 black men have ever gained four-star rank — five in the Army, four in the Air Force and one in the Navy, according to the Pentagon. More...
(NYC not Deep South, U.S.) "Obama 'is my slave' shirt sparks lawsuit threat." Israeli-born shirt designer Doron Braunshtein: “I can’t stand Obama. He reminds me of Adolf Hitler.”
July 17, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(nyc-metro) When a 25-year-old Manhattan graduate student who was assaulted Tuesday night got dressed that morning, she probably didn’t anticipate that her T-shirt would provoke four teens into shoving her, pulling out her earphones and spitting in her face.
Then again, with a shirt sporting the slogan, “Obama is my slave,” it may have been wise to consider the possibility.
Now she’s suing the $69 shirt’s designer, Apollo Braun, for “all he’s got,” the designer claims.
But the Israeli-born Braun — born Doron Braunshtein — says what allegedly happened to his now-disgruntled customer isn’t his fault — and that his outrageous design reflects not his views but those of “ordinary WASPs. ”
“For a lot of people, when they see Obama, they see a slave. More...
Poll Finds Obama’s Run Isn’t Closing Divide on Race
July 16, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) Americans are sharply divided by race heading into the first election in which an African-American will be a major-party presidential nominee, with blacks and whites holding vastly different views of Senator Barack Obama, the state of race relations and how black Americans are treated by society, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.
The results of the poll, conducted against the backdrop of a campaign in which race has been a constant if not always overt issue, suggested that Mr. Obama’s candidacy, while generating high levels of enthusiasm among black voters, is not seen by them as evidence of significant improvement in race relations.
After years of growing political polarization, much of the divide in American politics is partisan. But Americans’ perceptions of the fall presidential election between Mr. More...
(Latina Lista) Latino bloggers wait for presidential candidates' response to special survey on issues pertinent to Latino electorate.
July 15, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(LatinaLista. com) Depending on the source, recent headlines have touted Obama and McCain of either "pandering" for the Latino vote or "courting" it.
Given that both men have been or will be appearing at national Latino or Latino-participant events (NALEO, LULAC, NCLR, UNITY 08), it's obvious they both want to be seen as supporting Latino causes.
But do they really? Do they dare to make their true stands on the issues known before November 4, 2008?
Each claims that he has but while speeches touch on issues of interest to Latinos, in true political style, the issues are acknowledged but not explored. Talk with no substance. More...
Black community in Ohio denied water for decades,jury says. Residents were denied public water service for decades out of racial discrimination.
July 14, 2008 by editor (View Source)
Residents of a mostly black neighborhood in rural Ohio were awarded nearly $11 million Thursday by a federal jury that found local authorities denied them public water service for decades out of racial discrimination. Each of the 67 plaintiffs was awarded $15,000 to $300,000, depending on how long they had lived in the Coal Run neighborhood, about 5 miles east of Zanesville in Muskingum County in east-central Ohio.
The money covers both monetary losses and the residents' pain and suffering between 1956, when water lines were first laid in the area, and 2003, when Coal Run got public water.
The lawsuit was filed in 2003 after the Ohio Civil Rights Commission concluded the residents were victims of discrimination. The city, county and East Muskingum Water Authority all denied it and noted that many residents in the lightly populated county don't have public water. More...
(UPDATE) NY City Medical Examiner: Ms. Esmin Green died of blood clots caused by inactivity after sitting in NYC Hospital for more than 24 hours unattended. Family, friends and well-wishers prepare f
July 13, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(jamaicaobserver) ESMIN Green, the Jamaican woman who died on the floor of Kings County Hospital in New York, will be buried today after a service at the Duxes Seventh-day Adventist Church in St Catherine at mid-day.
Her body was flown to Jamaica last Tuesday after a memorial service held in Brooklyn, New York.
Sebert Dennis, Green's stepfather, told the Sunday Observer that the family had a prayer meeting at his house in Duxes on Friday night. He said they were also expecting a large gathering of mourners today, and that a tent had been erected outside the church to accommodate the overflow. He also noted that time had been allotted in the programme for tributes. More...
Immigration comes to fore for McCain, Obama. Both candidates have walked a tightrope on immigration reform.
July 09, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(dmn) After months of treading softly on immigration, Barack Obama put the issue center stage Tuesday when he accused John McCain of setting aside years of support for a guest-worker program to appease conservatives and further his presidential ambition.
The attack, delivered to a major Hispanic group, served the dual purpose of broadening Mr. Obama's appeal to a critical segment of the electorate, while chipping away at his rival's image as a maverick and reformer.
"He used to buck his party on immigration . . More...
(Nutrition) The Challenge of Summertime Nutrition. Why is childhood nutrition tougher in the summertime than during the rest of the year?
July 06, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) As my 9-year-old daughter began summer day camp last week, we talked about swimming rules, sunscreen and . . . cheese fries.
It was at summer camp a few years ago that she first experienced the culinary joy of cheese fries, which can pack 800 or more calories in a serving. More...
To Poor To Parent. Child-welfare system is largely classist and racist.
July 06, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(Gaylynn Burroughs/huffpo) A child accidentally falls off his top bunk. His mother worries. The child says his knee hurts, and it looks like a bruise is forming on his arm. His mother wants a doctor to see the child, but hesitates for a moment about taking her son to the hospital emergency room.
She is afraid that her child's treating physician will not believe her when she says that her child was hurt in an accident. More...
Could you pass the latest citizenship test? Take the test.
July 02, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(msnbc) In October 2008 a new version of the U. S. citizenship test will be taken by all applicants. Could you pass it? The questions are usually selected from a list of 100 samples that prospective citizens can look at ahead of the interview. Some are easy, some are not. More...
Supreme Court Lifts 32 Year Ban on Handguns in DC. Until today, DC had one of the strictest gun laws in the nation.
June 26, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(BBN Editors) For a history of DC's gun law, click on View Source - it's worth a read. . . . (Washington Post) The Supreme Court, splitting along ideological lines, today declared that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to own guns for self-defense, striking down the District of Columbia's ban on handgun ownership as unconstitutional. More...
Opposition to Menthol Cigarettes Grows. Joseph A. Califano Jr.,: "Legislation clearly was putting black children in the back of the bus.”
June 07, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) Seven former federal health secretaries joined on Wednesday to protest menthol’s special treatment in a tobacco bill pending in Congress.
The seven, from Democratic and Republican administrations, faxed a letter to members of the Senate and House of Representatives demanding that menthol-flavored cigarettes be banned just like various other cigarette flavorings the legislation would outlaw.
One of the former secretaries, Joseph A. Califano Jr. , said the legislation was “clearly putting black children in the back of the bus. More...
Latinos hit by high rate of on-job deaths. South Carolina had the highest death rate in the nation, and North Carolina was fifth.
June 07, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(citizentimes) Hispanic workers die at higher rates than other laborers, with one in three of these deaths occurring in the construction industry, a government study reported Thursday.
South Carolina had the highest death rate in the nation, and North Carolina was fifth.
Hispanics tend to hold more high-risk jobs than those in other racial groups, but language and literacy barriers and poor training and supervision may also be factors, researchers said. The leading causes of death in recent years have been falls and highway-related accidents.
“Many of the Hispanic workers in construction are undocumented, and many of those who are recently arrived do face a language barrier,” said Rakesh Kochhar, associated director for research at the Pew Hispanic Center. More...
Unemployment rate jumps to 5.5 percent in May. Biggest monthly rise since 1986.
June 06, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(ap) The government reports the nation's unemployment rate jumped to 5. 5 percent in May — the biggest monthly rise since 1986 — as nervous employers cut 49,000 jobs last month. It was a dramatic sign of a deeply troubled economy.
The Labor Department's new report released Friday showed employment conditions worsening, reflecting the damage from housing, credit and financial crisis.
. More...
Senator Barack Obama Claims Historic Presidential Nomination. He Becomes First Black Candidate To Head Major-Party Ticket.
June 04, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(wapo) With a split decision in the final two primaries and a flurry of superdelegate endorsements, Sen. Barack Obama sealed the Democratic presidential nomination last night after a grueling and history-making campaign against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton that will make him the first African American to head a major-party ticket.
Before a chanting and cheering audience in St. Paul, Minn. More...
Errol Louis: Cops must get the brutal 'boyfriend' who beat Hip Hop-Rap Artist Queen Pen.
June 03, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(nydn) Hip-hop fans know Brooklyn rapper Queen Pen as a sassy, streetwise girl from the 'hood who made good, winning a Grammy for best R&B song back in 1997 for her role on a dance hit called "No Diggity. "
But today, Pen is one of thousands of women in New York City in desperate need of help in getting away from an abusive ex-partner - one who needs to be in handcuffs soon.
Kendall Wicker, the man whose photo accompanies this column, is Pen's ex-boyfriend and the father of two of her five children.
NYPD detectives have been looking for Wicker since early this year, when he allegedly beat Pen so badly that she needed reconstructive surgery.
Pen says her life is in danger. More...
Did Editor's Scolding Wife Spike Newsweek Obama Cover? (SEE PHOTO)
May 29, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(gawker) In this week's cover story about Barack Obama, Newsweek distills the conventional political wisdom into a bitter tonic of condescending campaign advice. The Democratic presidential candidate is praised for having "wisely taken to often wearing and American-flag lapel" and advised "it would help to be seen venerating your white mother and grandparents as well as your black father" and that "whites resent being accused of racism for remarks they regard as innocent," in case the black politician hadn't learned that yet. To illustrate this cynical lesson in realpolitik, the magazine had originally planned to run the suitably stark cover above and on the left, according to the person who supplied us with a copy. But that cover was "killed" late Friday night, we are told, and replaced with the bright and sunny front at right — a bizarre choice given the gritty lead article and stark collection of supporting pieces on racial division. More outlandish still is the purported reason for the cover switch:
After working on the attached cover all week and making multiple modifications, the cover was killed late Friday night. More...
Native Americans Taking Back Land That Was Once Theirs.
May 29, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(newsweek) To get back to the garden that existed before Europeans ravaged their lands, Native Americans are cultivating with an unnatural resource—casino riches. Across the country, Native American tribes are snapping up property with the cash that's flowing in from slot machines, blackjack tables and roulette wheels. Last year, tribal gaming revenue hit $27 billion. Since Native Americans won the right to build casinos on their reservations in 1988, the lucrative business has caught fire. Of the 562 federally recognized tribes, about 220 have gaming operations. More...
Study: 1994 Adoption Law Finds Little Benefit to Black Children. The law has not achieved the goals of giving black children an equal chance of being adopted and recruiting more black adoptive parent
May 29, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(wapo) A 1994 federal law that paved the way for more white adults to adopt black children has left many parents ill-equipped for the situation and has not achieved the goals of giving black children an equal chance of being adopted and recruiting more black adoptive parents, a study concludes.
The study, being released today, found that the Multiethnic Placement Act (MEPA) did succeed in increasing the rate of black adoptions, but only by a small margin, and that black children still disproportionately end up in temporary foster homes.
Because the law forbids discussion of race during the adoption process, it prevents social workers from preparing white parents for the challenge of raising black children in a largely white environment, said the report, titled "Finding Families for African American Children: The Role of Race and Law in Adoption From Foster Care. " It cited studies showing that dark-complexioned children in white homes tend to struggle with identity issues related to skin color, self-esteem and discrimination that their new parents are often not equipped to handle.
"To say that we need to be colorblind is an arguable notion," said Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B. More...
The First Grandchild of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was born on Sunday, May 25th. The Baby is Named After Her Late Aunt, Yolanda.
May 27, 2008 by editor (View Source)
The first grandchild of the late civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. was born on Sunday, May 25th, in Atlanta, Georgia. A spokesman said that new mom Arndrea Waters King and new baby Yolanda Renee King are both healthy. Although no birth details have been released, Yolanda was named after her aunt -- Martin Luther King Jr. 's eldest daughter, Yolanda -- who died in May 2007. More...
300 Immigrants Arrested in Iowa Immigration Raid at largest U.S. Kosher Meat Plant.
May 26, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(usat) Federal immigration agents today raided the nation's largest kosher slaughterhouse and meat-packing plant and arrested more than 300 people in northeastern Iowa. Most are accused of identity theft and of being in the country illegally.
The Des Moines Register (a Gannett newspaper) reports that according to search warrants unsealed today, federal authorities had received information about alleged immigration violations for the past two years at Agriprocessors Inc. in Postsville. One source, a former plant supervisor, told agents the plant hired foreign nationals from Mexico, Guatemala and Eastern Europe. More...
Zelma Henderson dies at 88. She was the last surviving plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education, which led to the end of segregation in public schools.
May 26, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(ap) The last surviving plaintiff in Topeka’s Brown v. Board of Education case that led to the landmark ruling that outlawed school desegregation has died at 88.
Zelma Henderson died Tuesday in Topeka, six weeks after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
In 1950 she signed onto litigation on behalf of her children challenging Topeka’s segregated schools. In all, 13 black parents, including the Rev. More...
NAACP Names New President. Benjamin Todd Jealous, 35, to Lead Oldest Civil Rights Organization
May 17, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(wapo) The NAACP selected Benjamin Todd Jealous as its president yesterday, tapping a young, Oxford University-educated activist to lead the nation's oldest civil rights group.
Jealous, 35, was chosen by the group's 64-member board after a year-long search and was introduced at the group's national headquarters in Baltimore. He is expected to start his new job Sept. 1.
In selecting Jealous, the NAACP broke with its tradition of picking politicians and ministers to lead, as it did three years ago with its selection of telecommunications executive Bruce Gordon. More...
BBN Recommends...Juan Crow: The Deep South's New Second-Class Citizens. Latinos' subordinate status in Georgia strongly resembles that of African-Americans who lived under Jim Crow.
May 16, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(R. Navato/theNationa/alternet) Justeen Mancha's dream of becoming a psychologist was born of the tropical heat and exploitation that have shaped farmworker life around Reidsville, Georgia, for centuries. The wiry, freckle-faced 17-year-old high school junior has toiled in drought-dry onion fields to help her mother, Maria Christina Martinez. But early one September morning in 2006, Mancha's dream was abruptly deferred.
From the living room of the battered trailer she and her mother call home, Mancha described what happened when she came out of the shower that morning. More...
Bad Parenting? 49 year old mother indicted for creating MySpace hoax, which may have caused 14 year old’s suicide.
May 16, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(theage) A Los Angeles federal grand jury has indicted a woman for her alleged role in a MySpace online hoax played on a 13-year-old girl who later committed suicide.
Lori Drew of St Louis, Missouri was indicted on Thursday on one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorisation to obtain information to inflict emotional distress.
Each of the four counts carries a maximum possible penalty of five years in prison.
Drew allegedly helped create a fake MySpace account to contact neighbour Megan Meier who thought she was chatting with a 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans.
At the time of the incident, the Drews and the Meiers lived four doors apart in Waterford Crystal Drive, in the town of Dardenne Prairie. More...
BBN Recommends..."Obama Is an Appalachia Problem, Not a Whites Problem"
May 15, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(nns) According to exit polls, Hillary Clinton won 67 percent of the white vote in West Virginia, America's third whitest state. Yet in early March, Barack Obama won 60 percent of the white vote in Vermont, the nation's second-whitest state. What gives?
America is learning a lot about race this year, most recently that not all white voters are alike. There are enormous regional differences in how whites vote, differences with deep historical roots.
Clinton's romp in West Virginia, and in all likelihood another in neighboring Kentucky next week, do not prove that Obama has a problem with white voters generally or that whites have turned on him in recent weeks. More...
Curious George publisher may sue over T-shirt. Cobb Cty (GA) bar selling shirts combining book character's picture, Obama's name
May 14, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(ajc) The publishing company that owns the Curious George image says it is considering legal action to stop the sale of a T-shirt depicting Barack Obama as the monkey from children's books.
The T-shirts are being peddled by Marietta bar owner Mike Norman at his Mulligan's Bar and Grill in Cobb County. They show a picture of Curious Georgie peeling a banana, with the words "Obama '08" underneath.
Rick Blake, a spokesman for publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which owns Curious George, said Wednesday that the company didn't authorize the use of the character's image, but hasn't been in touch with anybody selling or manufacturing the shirts.
"We find it offensive and obviously utterly out of keeping with the value Curious George represents," Blake said. More...
7-year-old takes grandma's car for joyride. Young Boy: "It's fun to do bad things....I wanted to do hood rat things."
May 11, 2008 by editor (View Source)
A 7 year old Florida boy took his grandmother's car keys and went for a 'joy' ride with his friend who 'smokes cigarettes. ' What more can we say. Watch the video for yourself. . . More...
An unusual blend of cultures: Mexican and black. Immigrants from Costa Chica share an ancient ethnic heritage and culture that few outsiders know about.
May 11, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(lat) Every Sunday, on a chewed-up soccer field in Pasadena, Mexican immigrants play a game they learned barefoot in the dusty pueblos along a remote stretch of the Pacific coast.
The Costa Chica team -- named for the picturesque coastline south of Acapulco -- has cut a winning path through the heart of an immigrant-dominated league in Pasadena, capturing three championships in two years.
Its players are agile and swift. And they've quickly earned the respect and admiration of opponents who at first didn't know what to make of their talented adversaries.
"Are you really Mexican?" they are sometimes asked. More...
Quiet Virginia Wife Ended Interracial Marriage Ban in State. The Loving v. Virginia decision overturned long-standing legal and social prohibitions against miscegenation in the United States.
May 07, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(wapo) Mildred Jeter Loving, 68, a black woman whose refusal to accept Virginia's ban on interracial marriage led to a U. S. Supreme Court decision in 1967 that struck down similar laws across the country, died of pneumonia Friday at her home in Milford, Va.
The Loving v. Virginia decision overturned long-standing legal and social prohibitions against miscegenation in the United States. More...
“Immigrants Feel Less Welcome in Frederick (MD).” Concepcion Ramirez: "People are scared of the police now," 20, who came to Frederick from Mexico in 2003.
May 07, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(wapo) In just over a decade, Frederick County has been transformed from a bucolic, timeless community of dairy farms and strawberry festivals to a fast-paced mosaic of high-tech firms and housing developments, Pilates classes and exotic eateries, mega-stores and McDonald's.
The changes have also brought thousands of Hispanics, some legal immigrants and others not, who have migrated up Interstate 270 to meet the demand for construction and service jobs. Until now, the county has handled the influx with outreach classes in schools and community policing programs. Chic Hispanic restaurants flourish in downtown Frederick, and working-class Latinos have remained relatively invisible.
Suddenly, however, their presence is igniting a controversy that some fear could escalate into the kind of war over illegal immigration that has torn apart Prince William County. More...
In Our Nation’s Capital: "D.C. Slayings, Nerves Spike. Patterns and Suspects in Month of Violent Crimes Still Hazy."
May 07, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(wapo) One homicide victim was a plumber who got into an argument while shooting dice. A woman was beaten to death with a blunt object. Another victim, awaiting trial for credit card fraud, was shot to death while sitting in his sport-utility vehicle.
April was a deadly month in the District, with 18 homicides, nine of them in Northeast Washington neighborhoods west of the Anacostia River. On one Saturday, four people were fatally shot within four hours. More...
Sean Bell family, backers 'organize'. Various pro-Bell groups also are going online to organize a national boycott of stores and gas stations from May 19-23.
May 01, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(nydn) Sean Bell's family held a raucous meeting on Tuesday night in a Manhattan union hall with hundreds of supporters to organize a massive show of civil disobedience aimed at shutting the city down. "There will be several actions within the next 10 days," said the Rev. Al Sharpton. "These policemen should know they have not, I repeat not, closed this case. " Bell's dad said any protests will be peaceful. More...
Katie Couric/CBS Under Fire for Bad Reporting on Immigration. aired a one-sided and inaccurate report about illegal immigrant women who give birth to their children in the United States.
April 30, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(politico) As if Katie Couric didn’t already have enough problems.
Weighed down by record-low ratings at the anchor desk of “CBS Evening News,” and by reports suggesting she will leave that post two years before her multimillion-dollar contract expires, Couric now has civil rights groups — mostly Hispanic — on her back.
And for good reason.
The CBS newscast that carries her name recently aired a one-sided and inaccurate report about illegal immigrant women who give birth to their children in the United States. The news story challenged the broader constitutional law of birthright citizenship and stated — without providing the correct context — that the births cost U. More...
Supreme Court upholds Indiana's voter ID law. GOP have pushed for laws to combat 'voter fraud.' Democrats argued they are attempts to discourage elderly and poor people from casting ballots.
April 28, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(chitrib) The Supreme Court cleared the way today for state election officials to require voters to show a government-issued photo identification before casting a ballot.
The 6-3 decision upheld Indiana's Republican-sponsored voter ID law, the nation's strictest, against complaints from Democrats that it will deter thousands of poor, disabled and elderly persons from voting.
At least 20 states require voters to show some form of identification at the polling place, but courts have been split over whether these requirements are constitutional.
Nearly all of these state laws have been sponsored by Republicans who say there is a need to combat "voter fraud. " Democrats have opposed them just as strongly, arguing they are thinly veiled efforts to discourage some people from voting. More...
It's official: Hurricane Katrina chased out a huge chunk of N.O. voters, remaking the region's electoral landscape
April 27, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(nola) The political landscape has shifted, especially in New Orleans.
Though voter rolls have remained virtually untouched since the flood, the comparison of voter turnout in the 2003 and 2007 gubernatorial contests shows that about 100,000 fewer people cast ballots last year in New Orleans and seven surrounding parishes than in the 2003 race.
Losses weren't borne equally by racial and party-affiliated groups, according to the analysis by University of New Orleans political scientist Ed Chervenak. For instance, a disproportionate loss among black voters across the region helped drive up white voters' share of the electorate, from two-thirds in 2003 to nearly three-quarterslast year.
Democrats also lost ground, with their participation sliding from 58 percent of the electorate in 2003 to 51 percent in 2007, the report shows. More...
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus denounced House Democratic leaders Wednesday as "spineless" and no better than Republicans for failing to take on comprehensive immigration reform.
April 24, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(ap/breibart) The Congressional Hispanic Caucus denounced House Democratic leaders Wednesday as "spineless" and no better than Republicans for failing to take on comprehensive immigration reform.
Leaders of the all-Democratic caucus, which numbers two dozen, criticized their party leadership at a news conference for scheduling hearings on enforcement legislation and specific visa issues instead.
Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona called the Democratic caucus "spineless," while Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Illinois said Democrats were proving themselves "no better than the Republican majority we replaced. More...
Black College Student Attacked by Jewish Gang in Crown Heights (BK). Grand Jury Probing Incident. Cops: Hasidic community taking page from rappers' “No Snitch” Code.
April 24, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(nydn) The Brooklyn district attorney will seat an investigative grand jury to probe the beating of an unarmed black man by two Jewish men in Crown Heights, the Daily News has learned.
The victim - a 20-year-old college student and the son of a cop - has met with prosecutor Charles Hynes about the April14 attack in a neighborhood with a long history of racial tension.
"He's an excellent young man, and I met with him personally to assure him that I would do everything in my power to bring to justice those who humiliated him," Hynes said Wednesday.
Daily News columnist Errol Louis revealed details of the troubling attack in Wednesday's editions, citing fears of unrest if arrests are not made soon.
Police sources say their investigation has been slowed by the refusal of neighborhood Hasidic residents to cooperate with authorities. More...
Ta-Nehisi Coates, ‘This Is How We Lost to the White Man’. The audacity of Bill Cosby’s Black conservatism.
April 20, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(atlantic) Has Dr. Huxtable, the head of one of America’s most beloved television households, seen the truth: that the dream of integration should never supplant the pursuit of self-respect; that blacks should worry more about judging themselves and less about whether whites are judging them on the content of their character? Or has he lost his mind? (BBN recommends reading the entire article. View Source). . . More...
U.S. Rep. Geoff Davis on Obama: "I'm going to tell you something, That boy's finger does not need to be on the button."
April 14, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(politico) U. S. Rep. Geoff Davis, a Hebron Republican, compared Obama and his message for change similar to a "snake oil salesman" [at a Northern Kentucky Lincoln Day dinner].
He said in his remarks at the GOP dinner that he also recently participated in a "highly classified, national security simulation" with Obama. More...
Florida apologizes for role in slavery.
April 06, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(reposted on 4. 6. 08 from tampabay. com) More than 140 years after a former Florida governor described Africans as "a wild barbarian to be tamed and civilized," the Legislature on Wednesday apologized for the state's role in sanctioning slavery.
The House and Senate approved a resolution expressing "profound regret for the involuntary servitude of Africans, and calling for reconciliation among all Floridians. More...
Study: About 1 in 50 infants in the U.S. are victims of nonfatal child neglect or abuse.
April 03, 2008 by editor (View Source)
About 1 in 50 infants in the U. S. are victims of nonfatal child neglect or abuse, according to the first national study of the problem in that age group.
The study focused on children younger than 1, and found nearly a third were one week old or younger when the abuse or neglect occurred.
Most of these cases involved neglect, and may in part reflect families without health insurance that are not getting adequate care for their children, said David Finkelhor, who is familiar with the data but was not involved in the study. More...
Civil Rights Icon Johnnie Carr, 97, Dies. Johnnie Carr to Young People: "Look back, but march forward."
February 24, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(ap) Johnnie Carr, who joined childhood friend Rosa Parks in the historic Montgomery bus boycott and kept a busy schedule of civil rights activism up to her final days, has died. She was 97.
Carr died Friday night, said Baptist Health hospital spokeswoman Melody Ragland. She had been hospitalized after a stroke Feb. 11. More...
Commentary: "NAACP's Bond late to the game on Dem delegate battle." Will Someone Please Help the NAACP?
February 18, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(cnn) NAACP Chairman Julian Bond's decision to weigh in on the Democratic Party's conundrum when it comes to seating delegates from Michigan and Florida has created a firestorm of discussion on blogs and talk shows, and frankly, I'm still unclear as to what his intent was.
Sure, he and others have the freedom to weigh in on the issue. But why be a Julian-come-lately now, when the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization said nothing when the initial Democratic National Committee rules were made?
The DNC was clear: only four states, Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, will vote before February 5. The first two didn't like the competition, but after hearing criticism that ethnic and geographic voices were not playing a part in determining the nominee, the party moved up Nevada because of the Latino population and it's a Western state, and South Carolina because of its black population and it's a Southern state.
DNC officials dropped the hammer and said if anyone else moved up, they would be severely punished. More...
Katrina victims urged to leave toxic trailers. U.S. health officials warn of risky levels of formaldehyde fumes
February 14, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(msnbc) U. S. health officials are urging that Gulf Coast hurricane victims be moved out of their government-issued trailers as quickly as possible after tests found toxic levels of formaldehyde fumes.
Fumes from 519 trailer and mobile homes in Louisiana and Mississippi were — on average — about five times what people are exposed to in most modern homes, according to the U. S. More...
Controversial Halloween party photos released. Partygoer used skin darkening makeup. Homeland Security Official Judged Contest.
February 07, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(cnn) The federal government has released to CNN more than 100 photographs of a Halloween party that temporarily threatened to derail the nomination of a top Department of Homeland Security official.
The images included several digital photos that the official had ordered erased because they were deemed to be inappropriate and offensive.
At the party, Julie Myers, then-acting chief of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), part of the Department of Homeland Security, gave an award for "most original costume" to an employee wearing prison stripes, a wig with dreadlocks and face-darkening makeup.
Immediately after posing for a photo with the winner, Myers later told Congress she recognized that she made an error in judgment and ordered the photos deleted from the camera.
Myers said she did not know the employee was wearing skin makeup, but ordered the photos destroyed because she did not think that "recognizing an escaped prisoner in any way was beneficial to the agency's goal of treating everyone in our custody with dignity and respect. More...
Drives in 5 states target affirmative action -- Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma on Hit List.
January 31, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(lat) Intent on dismantling affirmative action, activists in five states have launched a coordinated drive to cut off tax dollars for programs that offer preferential treatment based on race or gender.
The campaign aims to put affirmative action bans on the November ballot in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma. The effort is being organized by California consultant Ward Connerly, who has successfully promoted similar measures in California, Michigan and Washington.
Supporters of affirmative action say the initiatives will be hard to block, given that Connerly has a proven ability to raise funds and persuade voters, even in more liberal states.
"They've targeted states where there's a white majority electorate and a vocal, if small, extreme anti-immigrant right wing," said Shanta Driver, who runs By Any Means Necessary, a coalition that defends affirmative action. More...
UPDATE: An Arrest in the Stepha Henry Case; Student Missing Since May ‘07
January 19, 2008 by Editor (View Source)
(BBN) Stepha Henry, a young aspiring attorney from New York, has been missing since May of 2007 while on vacation in Florida. Mainstream media did not grant her the same ‘missing’ wall-to-wall coverage it gives to others. That kind of immersion coverage helps to put pressure on a case and often helps to determine if the victim is dead or alive. This was not the consideration afforded Stepha Henry whose mother and family has suffered not knowing where her daughter is, or what happened to her.
A suspect has been arrested, but Stepha’s body has not been recovered. More...
Mean Spirited Va. Bill Targets Workers Who Speak No English
January 17, 2008 by editor (View Source)
(wapo) A Republican state senator from Fairfax County has introduced a proposal that would allow a boss to fire employees who don't speak English in the workplace, which would make them ineligible for unemployment benefits.
Sen. Ken Cuccinelli II said the law is needed because a growing number of employers in Northern Virginia are frustrated that some immigrants never learn English, although they said they would when they were hired.
"The point here isn't to be mean; the point is to allow circumstances to give employers their own ability to hire and fire people who may not speak English," Cuccinelli said.
Some Democrats and immigration rights activists said they were outraged at Cuccinelli, saying the bill demeans the 1 in 10 Virginians who were born outside the United States. More...
"Bodies Of 4 Girls Found in SE (DC) House." Why didn't school officials do anything when the kids didn't show up?
January 09, 2008 by editor (View Source)
BBN: What happened in this Southeast DC house? How could this happen? Why didn’t school officials sound the alarm when the kids didn’t show up for school? (WAPO). . . U. S. More...
POLL: Tension Among Blacks, Latinos, Asians, But Optimism Reigns
December 22, 2007 by editor (View Source)
(newamericamedia) The nation’s first multilingual poll of Black, Hispanic and Asian Americans has uncovered serious tensions among these ethnic groups, including mistrust and significant stereotyping, but a majority of each group also said they should put aside differences and work together to better their communities.
“This extraordinary poll reveals some unflattering realities that exist in America today,” said Sandy Close, Executive Editor and Director of NAM, the nation’s first and largest collaboration of ethnic news media. “The sponsors of the poll strongly believe the best way to move forward is by identifying the problems and initiating a dialogue that can bring ethnic groups closer together in their fight for equality and against discrimination. ”
Broadly, the poll of 1,105 African-American, Asian-American and Hispanic adults found that the predominantly immigrant populations - Hispanics and Asians - expressed far greater optimism about their lives in America, concluding that hard work is rewarded in this society. By contrast, more than 60% of the African Americans polled do not believe the American Dream works for them. More...
Commentary: Black men must reclaim our children. Nearly 70 percent of black kids are born to unmarried parents.
December 11, 2007 by editor (View Source)
(roland martin/cnn) As the mug shots of the alleged killers of NFL star Sean Taylor were shown on television, I kept wondering when we were going to see their parents step forward. I saw a couple of mothers, but their dads were missing in action.
Dads matter, and it's ridiculous for us to act as if all it takes is a loving mom.
We can spend all day talking about the ills afflicting urban America -- and there are plenty that are institutional -- but the decaying value of life in inner cities clearly can be traced to the exodus of fathers from the lives of so many young men. Excuses often are tossed about as to why black men leave their children (and their children's moms) to fend for themselves. More...
Rev. John H. Cross Jr., Pastor of Birmingham, Alabama 1963 Church Bombing that Killed Four Black Girls Dies.
November 18, 2007 by editor (View Source)
(ap/npr) The Rev. John H. Cross Jr. , who dug through the rubble of his Alabama church looking for survivors of a bombing, then presided over a funeral for some of the youngest victims of civil rights-era violence, has died. He was 82. More...
Study: Blacks See Growing Values Gap Between Poor and Middle Class. Optimism About Black Progress Declines.
November 14, 2007 by editor (View Source)
(Pew Study) African Americans see a widening gulf between the values of middle class and poor blacks, and nearly four-in-ten say that because of the diversity within their community, blacks can no longer be thought of as a single race, a new Pew Center survey has found. The survey also finds blacks less upbeat about the state of black progress now than at any time since 1983. Looking backward, just one-in-five blacks say things are better for blacks now than they were five years ago. Looking ahead, fewer than half of all blacks (44%) say they think life for blacks will get better in the future, down from the 57% who said so in a 1986 survey.
Whites have a different perspective. More...
“Bush Justice Dept. voting rights section taken over by ideologues interested in denying ballot to minorities, poor people and groups likely to vote Democratic.”
November 06, 2007 by editor (View Source)
(nyt) "In Defense of Voting Rights". . . A House Judiciary subcommittee was the site of a sad spectacle the other day: John Tanner, who heads the Justice Department’s voting section, trying to explain offensive, bigoted comments he made about minority voters. It was a shameful moment that crystallized the need for immediate steps to fight for the rights that Mr. More...
(BBN Recommends) An epidemic's unseen cause. Women trade sex for drugs, with AIDS the result.
November 04, 2007 by editor (View Source)
(baltimore sun) While just a teenager in the 1970s, she danced on The Block, where she snorted cocaine and heroin and sold sex in back rooms. Later, with her addictions firmly rooted, she set out on her own, offering her body on the streets of West Baltimore as a deadly virus was spreading.
The years have worn away at Sharon Williams, whose deeply lined face, reddened eyes and pained expressions tell of poor health, nights in abandoned buildings and customers like the man who kicked her down a flight of stairs, breaking two ribs and puncturing a lung.
Yet she remained a prostitute to support herself and her habits. Not even the discovery 12 years ago that she had been infected with HIV changed that. More...
Cautionary Tale: One Black Man Down, Two Left Standing. Merrill Lynch CEO Stanley O’Neal Resigns Today.
October 30, 2007 by editor (View Source)
Whether you follow the goings on of Wall Street or you don’t, know this: There are but three Black CEO’s spread out either in a Wall Street firm or head of a multi-national conglomerate – Stanley O’Neal of Merrill Lynch, Kenneth Chenault of American Express and Dick Parsons of Time Warner, Inc.
Today, Stanley O’Neal resigned after a “tumultuous” quarter that under his leadership included death blow decision making which led to a ‘write down’ (corporate speak that means very bad) last quarter. That poor decision making by all measures is a real no-no on Wall Street and in Corporate America. For most, though, O’Neal’s business failure would be viewed as an unacceptable error in judgment with stern consequences (corporate speak: termination, with a sweet severance package). But for Black folks it is an all out fatal blow to a career with greater consequences. More...
Louis Farrakhan: U.S. Political Climate Threatening to African-American Men. Black Men Headed for Extinction.
October 25, 2007 by editor (View Source)
(upi) Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan offered a stern warning in Atlanta that the U. S. political climate is threatening to African-American men.
Farrakhan said Tuesday at a ceremony marking the 12th annual Holy Day of Atonement and the 12th anniversary of the Million Man March at the Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center that he believes black men may be headed for extinction, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Wednesday.
"Politics and the racial environment is threatening the human family," Farrakhan said. More...
(VIDEO) Bill Cosby and Dr. Alvin Pouissant on "Meet the Press" Discuss Issues Facing Blacks in America.
October 14, 2007 by editor (View Source)
(mtp) Entertainer Bill Cosby and Harvard Medical School Psychiatry Professor Dr. Alvin Poussaint tackle the controversial and complicated issues facing black communities across the nation and discuss their new book, "Come On, People: On the Path from Victims to Victors. " . . . More...
New York: African Burial Ground National Monument Opens Friday, October 5th.
October 02, 2007 by editor (View Source)
(gothamist) A memorial to thousands of people buried in downtown Manhattan will open to the public Friday at 1 p. m. , and there will be a candlelight procession at 8 p. m. from Battery Park to the monument at Duane and Elk Sts. More...
Errol Louis: Bill O'Reilly Deserves Applause.
September 30, 2007 by editor (View Source)
(nydn) UPDATE: Prosecutors Can’t Find Evidence from Wayne Williams Case. Williams is Serving Life for Atlanta’s Missing and Murdered Black Children.
The dustup over Fox commentator Bill O'Reilly's remarks about black culture was much ado about nothing - and a reminder of the clanging hypocrisies and shameful silences that pass for public discussion of race relations in America.
I've met O'Reilly only a couple of times and have no idea what makes him tick. But the comments, especially when heard in context, were obviously O'Reilly's awkward way of trying to enlighten a segment of his audience - and for that he should be commended, not condemned. More...
Latino Pride: Trailblazing Newsman Ruben Salazar Honored with Postal Stamp.
September 28, 2007 by editor (View Source)
(lat) In honor of trailblazing newsman Ruben Salazar's relentless efforts to chronicle the complexity of race relations in Los Angeles, the U. S. Postal Service in 2008 will issue a commemorative stamp of the former Los Angeles Times reporter and columnist.
"He was a groundbreaker for Latinos in this country, but his work spoke to all Americans," Postmaster Gen. John E. More...
The Body of Nailah Franklin has been identified. She Was Missing Since Sept. 19.
September 28, 2007 by editor (View Source)
(AP/suntimes) A badly decomposed body found behind several vacant businesses in Calumet City this week is that of an Eli Lilly Co. sales representative reported missing nine days ago, authorities said Friday.
Dental records were used to identify the body of Nailah Franklin, 28, who was reported missing Sept. 19 after she didn't show up for a work meeting, Chicago police spokeswoman Monique Bond said. The cause of death was inconclusive, Bond said. More...
"NPR Rebuffs White House On Bush Talk on Race Relations." NPR Successfully Goaded by White House Press Office.
September 26, 2007 by editor (View Source)
Juan Williams is a commentator-journalist for NPR and Fox News Network. He's viewed as a conservative Black voice. This past weekend the White House Press Office offered up President George Bush to do an interview on NPR about race relations, but they wanted to pick the interviewer and it was none other than Juan Williams. NPR on the other hand wanted to decide who did the interview. It is their network after all and they decide who to assign to interviews – not the White House. More...
The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to decide whether voter identification laws unfairly deter poor and minority Americans from voting.
September 26, 2007 by editor (View Source)
(usat)The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to hear a challenge to Indiana's voter identification law, setting up a confrontation between officials who claim such laws prevent voter fraud and challengers who say ID requirements unfairly block some people from voting.
The case is to be argued in early 2008, and a decision is likely by June, in time for the presidential election in November.
The Indiana law requires voters to show a government photo ID, such as a driver's license or passport. In January, a panel of the U. S. More...
2 students shot at Delaware State University. Campus on lock down.
September 21, 2007 by editor (View Source)
DOVER, Del. (AP) - Two students were shot and wounded, one seriously, at Delaware State University early Friday, and the campus was locked down as police searched for a gunman, officials said.
Classes were canceled for the day and students were being kept inside.
"They've been directed to stay in their dorms," university spokesman Carlos Holmes said. "We don't know where the shooter's at. More...
Protest Set For Jena 6. Thousands from across the country expected at rally.
September 19, 2007 by editor (View Source)
(cbs) The streets around this tiny town's courthouse began filling with protesters and reporters Wednesday, a day ahead of a planned march in support of six black teenagers jailed in the December beating of a white classmate.
Thursday's march was expected to draw thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of people, dwarfing Jena's population of about 3,500. Black participants said they hoped to rekindle the spirit of the civil rights movement.
"This is the first time I've done anything like this, on this magnitude at least," said Nathaniel Ford, 47, a computer technician who traveled from Richmond, Va.
Ford said he remembers his parents' stories of Dr. More...
6 White (male and female) Goons in West Virgina Raped, Tortured and Held Captive A Young Black Woman for a Week.
September 11, 2007 by editor (View Source)
View source for the full article and a photo of the six Goons. (AP) Authorities said Tuesday they are considering hate crime charges in the case of a woman who was tortured while being held captive for at least a week, and they are investigating the possibility that she was lured by a man she met on the Internet. The victim was repeatedly called a racial slur while her captors sexually abused, beat and stabbed her, her mother said.
Six people, all white, including a mother and son and a mother and daughter, were arrested in connection with the alleged abduction of the 20-year-old black woman.
"I don't understand a human being doing another human being the way they did my daughter," Carmen Williams said Tuesday from her daughter's room at Charleston Area Medical Center General Hospital. More...
2007 Hispanic Heritage Month - Septembr 15th through October 15th
September 10, 2007 by editor (View Source)
(nclr) Each year, from September 15 to October 15, the United States celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month to recognize the economic, cultural, and social contributions of the more than 44. 3 million Latinos residing in the U. S. The dates of Hispanic Heritage Month were selected to include the Independence Day celebrations of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, and Chile, and to incorporate October 12 – Día de la Raza – a holiday celebrated throughout Latin America to observe the colonization, exploration, and multicultural heritage of the Americas.
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Grace and Dignity: Effi Barry, DC's former first lady and ex-wife of Marion Barry Dies of Leukemia
September 07, 2007 by editor (View Source)
On Thursday, September 6th former first lady of Washington, DC and ex-wife of former Mayor Marion Barry died of Leukemia. She was 63 years old. Washingtonians and those who followed the Barry years remember Effi as a woman who under intense pressure for her husband's scandalous years as mayor she remained graceful and dignified.
(WAPO) On June 25, Effi Barry, battling leukemia and facing the fact that the search for a bone marrow match had failed, sat for a series of interviews about her life. The city's former first lady and ex-wife of Marion Barry described herself as a person of faith. More...
