links for 2010-03-19
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"With "Stand Against Racism," the organization joins 68 other YWCAs across the country to raise awareness that racism still exists. It was created after a report from the Southern Poverty Law Center showed a 54 percent increase in hate groups operating in the country.
The report listed "immigration fears, a failing economy and the successful campaign of President Obama" as factors that fueled the increase."
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"The Main Library exhibit “Occupation! Economic Justice as a Civil Right in San Francisco, 1963-64” retraces a struggle for economic justice that was specific to the city by the Bay, where thousands of African-Americans had moved to during World War II to work on the shipyards. When the war effort wound down, they were the first to be fired. Only direct actions—sit-ins, sleep-ins, and shop-ins—were able to shake the status quo: they led to more than 260 employment agreements for minority workers. There’s only a few days left to discover this important yet underrepresented piece of SF history: the display ends on March 27."
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"Cuban security forces and pro-government civilians violently broke up another protest march Wednesday by Ladies in White — female relatives of political prisoners — and dragged them away in buses.
Ladies in White members in Havana said they were punched, pinched, scratched and had their hair pulled by the security agents and civilians, who also made rude gestures and swore at them."
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"Three members of a family in Richmond Hill, Queens, have been indicted on charges that they stole $1.75 million from 19 fellow West Indian immigrants by falsely promising to help them obtain green cards and bargain deals on federally seized property in New York City and Florida, the Queens district attorney announced on Thursday. "
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"Mr. Sheng, a photographer, had finished the first phase of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” a series of portraits of gay men and lesbians serving in the military, all of them in uniform and with their faces obscured in some way — by a hand, a door frame or by darkness. Some subjects turn their backs to the camera. In one image an airman who takes the pseudonym Jess sits on a hotel bed leaning forward. One elbow rests on his knee, his hand cupping his face to shield it from the camera. The portrait is pervaded by a sense of loneliness and isolation."
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"The zero-sum argument that pits black Americans against undocumented workers is a false premise.
At the heart of this specious challenge to fairness for all U.S. workers is the idea that blacks resent undocumented Latino immigrants for taking away jobs that would rightfully belong to them. Restrictionist opponents to immigration reform seize on this line of attack and exploit it to drive a wedge between the two racial and ethnic communities.
It's not working."

Please note, this is part three of a multi-part series on the 
I’m mixed. Chinese mother, white father. I don’t particularly look like either of them (nor do I look definitively “Chinese” or “white”). Ethnically-ambiguous mixed kid. In a country (U.S.) that likes to think of “race” as an either/or thing (and usually just “black” and “white”). Hmmm.Now there are a lot of ways I could have handled this growing up. Being the smart-ass that I am, I chose to make a game of it. I now know that it is a game that many other mixed folks have played, as well (probably since the dawn of racial categorization), but here I’d like to introduce it to those who have yet to play: The “What are You?” Game.





Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of