links for 2011-05-02

"Part of the problem is the Homeland Security Department assigned the job of interviewing and screening unaccompanied children to Customs and Border Patrol officers, who lack child welfare expertise and are not getting needed training, the advocates said A form used for questioning children about whether they want to go home does not make clear that the children will be detained in a shelter for children, rather than a jail or immigration detention facility, advocates said."

"The proposed amendment would eliminate language that calls for separate schools for black and white students and poll taxes, the latter generally viewed as instituted to keep black residents from voting.

"'Even though federal laws nullify these old wordings, it remains a black eye on the state,' said Cam Ward, another Republican senator."

"Congdon was quoted as saying affirmative action programs have contributed to a decline in higher education, that people of northern Maine were lacking in parenting skills and that it was time for them to 'get off the reservation' if they wanted to succeed. He also said Maine's potato farmers were wasting their spuds by selling them for french fries rather than vodka.

"He told the Sun Journal of Lewiston that when he spoke about affirmative action during a private meeting at a community college, 'I thought I was talking to people who were sufficiently intelligent enough to understand my real meaning. I was mistaken.'"

"In recent years, there have also been accusations from the braiding community that governments were unfairly targeting the African art. In 2006, a Philadelphia law requiring hair braiders to get special licenses spurred debate over the plight of immigrant braiders, many of whom came to America with little money and often don't speak English, a skill they would likely need to get through certification."

"Along with other incidents of force used against minorities, Williams' killing prompted the Justice Department to announce last month that it would launch a formal civil rights investigation of the police department, to determine whether Seattle police have a 'pattern or practice' of violating civil rights or discriminatory policing, and if so, what they should do to improve."

"Yet the most damaging episode in the saga of Trump's fractured relationship with the black community came in 1973, when his family's real-estate company, Trump Management Corporation, was sued by the Justice Department for alleged racial discrimination. At the time, Trump was the company's president. Just last month, at Trump's Comedy Central roast, Snoop Dogg referenced the case by joking about Trump's potential 2012 run for the White House: 'Why not? It wouldn't be the first time he pushed a black family out of their home.'"

"Given the strength and duration of the birther conspiracy theory, it’s not surprising that the study found that White participants tended to view Obama as both less “American” and less competent than Blacks judged him to be. Whites who rated Obama as less American and less able also scored higher in prejudice that those who didn’t.

"Our tendency to deny that we have prejudices (self-deception) makes it all the more difficult to overcome the other cognitive biases that prevent us from understanding the world around us and the motivations that cause our fellows to do what they do."