links for 2011-04-27

"Africans experienced racism daily, said Dr Ahmed, a refugee from Eritrea who arrived in Australia in 1987. ''Australia has a black history with black people, and Africans coming with a black skin, they are just copping that sort of Aboriginal black treatment.

"'We should have been ambassadors of change and acceptance for blackness. The system still has a problem accepting that blackness.' Australia has a history of failure on blackness, he argued, 'and that's what's halting Africans in their settlement'".

"Plecker, registrar of the Virginia Bureau of Vital Statistics from 1912-1946, was instrumental in crafting that state’s law. He argued that there were no full-blooded Indians left in the state by the early 20th century; therefore, all who claimed Indian heritage were part something else, and he decided the best thing to do would be to lump them in with blacks, since, by his mandate as registrar, a person could claim only one of two racial backgrounds in Virginia: Caucasian or 'Negro.' People claiming to be Indians, Plecker said, were r­eally blacks trying to move their families into a position where they could 'pass,' or claim to be Caucasian."

"Is the "Age of America" drawing to a close? According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), its demise as the leading economic power is five years away and the next president of the United States will preside over an economy that plays second fiddle to China's."

"I think that a loose relationship with the scientific method surely helps conspiracies spread, but Birtherism draws on passions that depart substantially from greenhouse gasses. It is a putatively non-racial, vaguely constitutional way to challenge the legitimacy of the first black president and appeal to racists without sounding officially racist. Sure, there may be plenty of GOP tenets running counter to reality nowadays, yet none evoke the suppressed fury of the Birthers. They won't go away. They are an audience-in-waiting for any amplified race-baiter, from Lou Dobbs to unserious presidential candidates. Indeed, Politifact, the fact-checking site for politics, says its article about the issue, (with a link to the certification of live birth!), is the most read item that it has ever published."

"The most powerful form of racial animus in politics today is often called 'racial resentment,' as reflected in anger about blacks’ demands, criticism of blacks’ work ethics, and believing that racial discrimination has largely disappeared. Such racial resentments had stronger effects on candidate choice than in any other recent presidential election. Moreover, everything associated with Obama became racialized."