A heterogeneous population representing multiple ethnic backgrounds and cultures, Hispanics are difficult to pigeonhole politically but have historically trended Democratic. But growing evidence suggests the potential for that to change, creating an opening for Republicans and a dilemma for Democrats.

“Republicans don’t need a large number of Hispanics. All they need to do is get a few points in each of these states and shave off that margin, and Democrats have a problem,” said Joe Velasquez of the American Latino Alliance PAC.

Velasquez’s group formed in mid-January and is putting together a muscular fundraising and campaign structure, bringing on the polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner and Hispanic media guru James Aldrete. The super-PAC plans to support President Obama’s reelection and Democratic Senate candidates in seven states: Virginia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Arizona, Florida, Nevada and New Mexico.

“We’re a very, very, very partisan Democratic operation,” Velasquez said. “We’re going to be heavy with the president.”

• The Resurrection of the Welfare Queen (Clutch Magazine)

If that sounds familiar, it’s because it is. The monster beneath this rhetoric is the Welfare Queen, the fabled boogeywoman of the 1976 Reagan presidential campaign.

“She has eighty names, thirty addresses, twelve Social Security cards and is collecting veterans’ benefits on four nonexisting deceased husbands,” Reagan told enraptured crowds at stump speeches. “Her tax-free income alone is over $150,000.”

As the narrative developed, she was, of course, black. She was promiscuous and she was lazy. She was also a lie.

When reporters investigated this story, they found only one case that even remotely supported Reagan’s claim. The woman’s name was Linda Taylor, from the south side of Chicago. She had defrauded the state of only $8,000 and had only four aliases.

But facts be damned.

• Arizona withholds school funding over ethnic studies class (Los Angeles Times)

The withholding of state funds will also be applied retroactively between August 2011 and January 2012. That money — about $5 million — will be taken out of the district’s February allotment, said Ryan Ducharme, an Arizona Department of Education spokesman.

Should the district not bring the program into compliance, the district stands to lose about $14.4 million over the fiscal year, Ducharme said.

The district’s governing board can also appeal the decision in Superior Court. The board will discuss the matter in its next meeting on Tuesday, a district spokeswoman said.

• Foreclosure Crisis Erases Hard-Won Wealth, Dreams Even In Center Of Black Affluence (Black Voices)

Outside the cul-de-sac’s seven brandy-colored brick neocolonials, party conversation quickly turned to typical middle-class concerns, from the quality of area schools to guidelines for the local homeowners association. By the time the Otigbas cleaned up and helped the hired DJ pack his equipment, several of their new neighbors had made something else clear. Most planned to spend the coming decades living in Balk Hill.

“I found that refreshing,” said Otigba, 43. “When we moved here, I told my wife, ‘This is it. I’m never moving again.’ We were planting our roots.”

That was then. Today, the Otigbas and five of their six immediate neighbors are underwater on their mortgages, that is, they owe more than their homes are worth. The lawyer’s house sits vacant after a failed short sale. The engineer fears the house he shares with his family will become unaffordable when their mortgage resets in about a year. And having attempted once unsuccessfully to cut a new deal with their bank, the Otigbas are waiting to hear the results of a second effort. For months they’ve lived in fear that an official foreclosure notice will arrive with an order to vacate.

“I am like a tree that is on the verge of being uprooted by water,” Otigba said, then sighed. “When that happens, think of all the other parts of the ecosystem that are upset, the streambeds that overflow, the problems that follow. That’s what it is like here.”

• Speaking with Palestinian-American Republican Who Confronted GOP at Debate (Religion Dispatches)

“Upon entering,” Hassan told us, CNN let him know he’d have the chance to ask his “very important question in front of the entire world.” With a nervous quiver in his voice, Hassan went for it (video below):

How would a Republican administration help bring peace to Palestine and Israel when most candidates barely recognize the existence of Palestine or its people? As a Palestinian-American Republican, I’m here to tell you we do exist.

Awkward silence. The jarring discomfort between a discourse of intolerance on this very subject, and the presence of the object of such intolerance could only resolve itself in a tepid, sporadic, nearly embarrassed applause.

• At Plano Children’s Theatre, They’ve Shampooed All the Black Kids out of “Hairspray” (Dallas Observer)

At intermission, I spoke to Darrell Rodenbaugh, president of PCT’s board of directors. My question was “Why do you have white kids playing black characters?”

“Well, should we deny these kids the opportunity to do a fun show?” he said. “We’d paid for the rights to the show six months in advance. We couldn’t cancel it.”

Didn’t any black kids audition? No, said Rodenbaugh, it’s hard to recruit black kids to PCT because there aren’t that many in Plano. (African-Americans make up less than 8 percent of the Plano, Texas, population of 259,841, according to the most recent census numbers.)

So why do a show with black characters in it if you know going in that you won’t have any black kids to play them? Rodenbaugh had several answers about how much the kids wanted to do Hairspray, how they weren’t going to bow to “political correctness” and how “the parents expect this.”

In a passionate, sermon-like speech about building unity, King said she didn’t care if people were Hindu, Buddhist, Islamist, were from the North side or the South side, were black or white, were “heterosexual or homosexual, or gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender” — that all people were needed to create unity.

LGBT people who attended the rally said they were shocked that King – who has a long anti-gay past — actually acknowledged the community in a public speech, but said they were also glad because it shows people can evolve.

• What the deaths of two soldiers say about anti-Asian bullying (CNN)

There was nothing voluntary about the punishment Chen and Lew experienced, and it was designed to alienate them from their peers, not create a path to solidarity. In Chen’s case at least, the program of isolation included being repeated called racial slurs like “gook,” “chink” and “dragon lady” by his tormentors (all of whom were white).

The more appropriate term for what Chen and Lew faced is targeted bullying — and it’s something that’s hardly limited to the military.

In fact, recent research suggests that young Asian Americans are facing a bullying epidemic. Last year, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education released a joint study showing that over half of Asian American teens said they’d been the subject of targeted abuse at school, versus around a third of blacks, Hispanics and whites.

• The 99%: Why the Real Housewives of Atlanta Aren’t “Our Kind of People”(Bitch Magazine)

The picture gets even fuzzier when you consider race and class. Most viewers understand that the housewives in Orange County and New York City are not the “real upper class,” because we know there’s a different kind of white upper class that we see represented elsewhere. The black upper class, though, is harder to find. Even the fictional representations of black affluence that were on air in the 1980s and ’90s have become less visible. Some of the most widely known and longest-running television shows featuring mostly black casts have told stories of affluence: the upwardly mobile entrepreneur on “The Jeffersons,” the doctor and lawyer parents on “The Cosby Show,” the mostly privileged college students on “A Different World,” the street-smart kid transplanted to a wealthy neighborhood on “Fresh Price of Bel Air.” These shows didn’t ignore broader discussions of race and racism: The Jeffersons addressed the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow that had profound implications for the characters’ poor beginnings; A Different World dealt with race, class, and gender relations head on, discussing fraught subjects like date rape, the ERA, HIV/AIDS, and the Clarence Thomas hearings. These shows set the bar high, not just in terms of diversity, but in regards to social commentary and humor generally. Still, by virtue of their affluence, most of the characters represented a narrow facet of the black American experience.

Today’s “Real Housewives,” by virtue of their excessive wealth rather than mere upper-middle class stability, represent an even narrower demographic. When one of the few shows that overtly portrays black wealth (“Basketball Wives” is another) is mostly a montage of “catfights” and shopping sprees, it is problematic. Without counterpoints, misrepresentations like these feed the narrative that black people “don’t deserve” or “can’t handle” money.

• TV’s eerie new race-less world (Salon)

The complexity of race in America can even be addressed in two lines from the second season of “Treme.” Harley, a white street musician in a post-Katrina New Orleans, is robbed at gunpoint by a black teenager. As the teen flees, Harley says, “You’re making a bad choice, son.” The boy stops, turns around, replies, “I ain’t your … son” — and shoots Harley in the face. In under a minute we’re confronted with the history of white American paternalism and its many consequences.

“Parenthood’s” silence about its black characters’ blackness reflects our genuine desire for things to be different, but also our willingness to ignore the reality of the experiences of people of color in an eagerness to move ahead to post-racialism. This underlines two things: Things have changed, in that there’s a collective desire for equality. But the main problem remains: It is still a white playing field, with white main characters who want to enjoy a world without racism. They’re the ones who have decided to move on.

• Anti-Latino Politics in AZ Spurs New Political Leadership (NewsTaco)

The beginning of the story is Arpaio’s anti-immigrant policies, according to Rubén Gallego, Arizona State Rep. District 16. He told NewsTaco that organization began around the sheriff’s bad policies, and galvanized with SB 1070, spurring widespread grassroots organization that culminated in not only protests, but political and voter registration campaigns. In the face of inactive Latino politicians, Gallego and others like him “cut their teeth” in elections, Democratic ones, since he noted that SB 1070 was the breaking point where Latinos realize that Republicans were not squarely on their side.

“That law is what people will remember for years. For the first time in a long time within a have our voting numbers to be able to match our ability to fund raises the community, as well as to be able to run campaigns, in order to win coalitions to win races,” Gallego told NewsTaco. “The genie is out of the bottle now, the question is how is everyone else going to react to the new reality of the Latino community that wants to be politically involved?”

It’s time for a true celebration of Martin Luther King Day. This week, Americans everywhere will remember the selfless and historic contributions made by one of the most important figures of the 21st century. Rebuild the Dream members are hosting MLK Day Movement Meet-ups to celebrate Dr. King and link the Civil Rights Movement with today’s struggle for an economy that works for all. We will come together to reflect on the struggles of our past, and unite to secure our future.

This is a chance to touch base with people who are passionate about fighting for Dr. King’s dream. Neighbors and friends will gather in schools, libraries, community centers, and living rooms to watch a short video and open up a discussion on how we can strengthen our movement in 2012.

MLK day is a chance to look back and look ahead — let’s reflect on one of the most important movements of our past as a springboard for the ongoing fight for justice. There is a lot left to fight for, and every day people are continuing Dr. King’s struggle. With a powerful movement sweeping the country, we must gather together and ask: What would Dr. King and other civil rights leaders do today? How can we continue their legacy in 2012 and beyond?

• Reflection for MLK Day: N.J. is failing African Americans (The New Jersey Star-Ledger)

Any honest assessment of New Jersey would show that we have much to do. The recession has exacerbated economic disparities between ethnic groups and genders. As of December, one in six black men were unemployed and looking for work. Among white men, one in 13 were in the same position. And according to the latest data, 27.4 percent of African-Americans live in poverty.

Unfortunately, our state’s current policies are failing the African-American community. Tax cuts and incentives for big business have failed to bring the jobs we need. Meanwhile, devastating budget cuts have burdened struggling families. Over the past two years, New Jersey has taken money out of the pockets of the working poor by cutting the Earned Income Tax Credit, slashed property tax rebates for homeowners and tenants, raised bus and train fares and made the dream of a college education more expensive and less attainable. Cuts to municipal aid have led to crime spikes in urban centers such as Newark, Camden and Trenton, and it took the state Supreme Court to guarantee the constitutional rights of students in New Jersey’s cities to a thorough and efficient education.

Meanwhile, cuts to the public sector have had a disproportionate impact on the African-American community. The labor movement has been the pathway to the middle class for people of color and minorities throughout the 20th century, and minorities continue to be the fastest growing part of today’s labor force. With the decline in industrial employment, more than one-fifth of African-Americans now work in a public sector that is facing widespread layoffs and the loss of basic collective bargaining rights for pensions and health benefits.

• Martin Luther King in the Era of Occupy(Religion Dispatches)

King’s insights could very well be “mic checked” at any Occupy rally across our nation. They are even more important in this 2012 election, where the Republican candidates, in their desperation to be on top, have not hesitated to play the Willie Horton race card—whether it is Newt Gingrich’s ridiculous racist statement that President Obama is the Food Stamp President, or Rick Santorum’s declaration that he doesn’t “want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money; I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money.”

The fact of the matter is, not so much has changed since 1967. African Americans under the first African American President have watched the bottom fall out of the black middle class. What will the 2012 election change about this situation?

Perhaps it is time for the churches to begin to “Mic Check” MLK’s words on poverty, in addressing all of our branches of government in order to bring about Kings’s Beloved Community.

• OWS Prepares to Occupy Martin Luther King Jr. Day (Daily Finance)

[Monday,] OWS plans a march from New York’s African Burial Ground to the city’s Federal Reserve Bank, which is located mere blocks from Wall Street. The event, called “Occupy the Federal Reserve,” will be one of thirteen linked protests taking place in every city that has a Federal Reserve Bank, as well as Los Angeles (which doesn’t have a Federal Reserve Bank, but is pretty important anyway).

Asked why OWS has taken aim at the Fed, Holder argues that the institution has become a key driver of economic injustice in America: “The Federal Reserve undermines our democracy. It’s filled with bankers who are pushing for a deflated currency that will help inflate their pockets.”

But ultimately, she notes, Sunday and Monday’s protests will focus on honoring Dr. King’s legacy of social engagement — and making sure that it continues: “We’re hoping to help inspire a new generation of activists and visionaries.”

• Inequality in 2012 by the Numbers (Center for American Progress)

• 46.2 million: The number of Americans in poverty in 2010.
• 76.7 million: Number of people in families who were living below $44,000 for a family of four (two times the federal poverty line).
• 27.4: Percentage of African Americans in poverty.
• 26.6: Percentage of Hispanics in poverty.
• 9.9: Percentage of non-Hispanic whites in poverty.
• 45.3: Percentage of young adults facing poverty, when they are considered independently of their parents.
• 5.9 million: Number of young adults living with their parents. Those who aren’t saw a 9 percent decrease in their income.
• 39.1: Percentage of African American children less than 18 years old in poverty.
• 12.4: Percentage of white children less than 18 years old in poverty.

To start fixing this problem, it’s important that we grow the country’s number of low-skill jobs, so that those in poverty can begin to find a way out. We also need to maintain a solid safety net for those who can’t work, such as the elderly and the disabled.

A recent study by the Yale University Child Study Center shows that Black children — especially boys — no matter their family income, receive less attention, harsher punishment and lower marks in school than their White counterparts from kindergarten all the way through college. A subsequent article published in “The Washington Post” reported that Black children in the Washington, D.C. area are suspended or expelled two to five times more often than White children. It’s a national trend that needs to be addressed.

• Survey Finds Rising Perception of Class Tension (The New York Times)

The demographics were surprising, experts said. While blacks were still more likely than whites to see serious conflicts between rich and poor, the share of whites who held that view increased by 22 percentage points, more than triple the increase among blacks. The share of blacks and Hispanics who held the view grew by single digits.

What is more, people at the upper middle of the income ladder were most likely to see conflict. Seventy-one percent of those who earned from $40,000 to $75,000 said there were strong conflicts between rich and poor, up from 47 percent in 2009. The lowest income bracket, less than $20,000, changed the least.

The grinding economic downturn may be contributing to the heightened perception of conflict between rich and poor, said Christopher Jencks, a professor of social policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

“Rich and poor aren’t terribly distinct from secure and unemployed,” he said.

• Natural Hair Song By Tiririca Deemed Racist, Sony Music Ordered To Pay $1.2 Million (The Huffington Post)

Sony Music has been ordered to pay $1.2 million (equivalent to about $656,000 in American dollars) in retroactive compensation back to 1997 for the release of the song “Veja os Cabelos Dela (Look at Her Hair)” by the Brazilian singer, comedian and politician Francisco Everardo Oliveira Silva whose stage name is Tiririca.

The lyrics not only liken a black woman’s hair to “a scouring pad for pots and pans,” but also calls her a “stinking beast.” Oy!

The lawsuit was brought forth by 10 non-governmental organizations that fight against racism. Humberto Adami, the defense attorney of the NGOs, argued that black women were offended, exposed to ridicule and felt violated due to the lyrical content of the song.

“This decision is a direct message to show how the issue of racial inequality should be treated. It is a moment to celebrate. The compensation won’t even go to the authors of the lawsuit. The money will go to the Diffused Rights Fund of the Ministry of Justice,”commented Adami.

• How Did 15-Year-Old Jakadrien Turner, a U.S. Citizen, Get Deported? (Colorlines)

Because immigration violations are technically a civil issue, immigrants in detention have no right to an attorney even though the consequences—deportation—can be much worse than for those facing criminal proceedings. Multiple reports in recent years have found that the bulk of immigrant detainees navigate the labyrinthine immigration system on their own, or are isolated in far-flung detention centers out of reach to legal aid services which are concentrated in urban areas.

Young people become uniquely vulnerable in these situations.

“A lot of children are scared and their age and developmental experience doesn’t allow them to understand what is expected of them or the legal remedies that they might otherwise be eligible for,” Garcia said. “Often minors do not know what they are agreeing to or how to present their cases.”

In many cases, there is no requirement that detainees see a judge, which only compounds the problem.

“These two massive deficiencies, that you have no lawyer to help advocate for you and no guarantee you can see a judge, mean that very low level ICE agents are in many cases the first and last arbiter of your citizenship claim,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, deputy legal director at the ACLU of Southern California. Too often, he said, immigration agents don’t believe or bother checking people’s stories, even when they might make valid claims of citizenship.

One or both of these checks would certainly have helped someone verify Turner’s actual identity before she got deported, Arulanantham said.

• The Help: An Oral History with Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, and Co. (The Daily Beast)

Viola: I felt like that scene represented something that you don’t see in cinema—the everyday fear that people had. Oftentimes, when you see the Civil Rights era onscreen, people are being whipped and killed, but it’s the everyday—you’re going home, you’re tired and on the bus, and all of a sudden something happens that could be life-threatening. Then, as soon as it’s over, you’re back to your life again. It’s the everyday fear you have to live with. It woke Minny and Aibileen up to the fact that they were risking their lives writing this book.

Tate Taylor: What I really, really loved about the Medgar Evers storyline and backdrop was that he was in their neighborhood. While they were doing this clandestine project, this Civil Rights leader who’s their neighbor gets murdered, and their characters are wondering, “What’s going to happen to us?”

Kathryn Stockett: It was very important for me—and for Tate—to not make this into a Civil Rights piece, but they were being infiltrated and hunted down for their color. So when that bus driver agrees to drive the white people to their destination but tells the black people to get the fuck off, he’s reminding people of the rules. I think it also makes the audience very protective of Aibileen when she’s running through the dark like that. It hurts watching it!

We have already shared our initial reactions to the joke, which was delivered by the character of Angel, portrayed by Puerto Rican actor Amaury Nolasco. Like we said last night, we are giving the show the benefit of the doubt, since we think that what might have been a sarcastic joke in written form became a lame and offensive joke when it was recorded.

Nonetheless, a grassroots movement out of New York City was immediately formed through social media and a small group of protesters stood in front of ABC’s offices in New York City, demanding that ABC apologize. According to Julio Pabón, one of the campaign’s organizers, the local New York affiliate WABC-TV has already apologized, but nothing has come out from the national network.

“We want apology from the network, who are the ones responsible for the airing of the show,” Pabón said. “We have not heard from them yet.”

• Dallas teen missing since 2010 was mistakenly deported  (WFAA-TV)

News 8 has learned ICE took the girl’s fingerprints, but somehow didn’t confirm her identity and deported her to Colombia, where the Colombian government gave her a work card and released her.

“She talked about how they had her working in this big house cleaning all day, and how tired she was,” Turner said.

Through her granddaughter’s Facebook messages, Turner says she tracked Jakadrian down.

U.S. Federal authorities got an address. U.S. Embassy officials in Colombia asked police to pick her up.

But that was a month ago, and the Colombian government now has her in a detention facility and won’t release her, despite her family’s request.

• How can midwifery truly be made accessible to communities of color? (Radical Doula)

What is clear from the research about this issue is that women of color are less likely to receive midwifery care, and that disparity is larger than the population numbers would suggest. I think this dynamic is complicated by global sociopolitical historical factors. For example I experienced resistance from Latina immigrant women to midwifery care because of the stigma toward parteras (midwives) in their home countries. In many places in Latin America, midwives and home birth are seen as the option used by women who can’t afford to go to hospital for birth–basically an option only for those who have no other option.

That creates class and race stigma on home birth and midwifery care.

This stigma is no accident. Global socioeconomic policy in Latin America (and I assume elsewhere as well) has long promoted hospital-based childbirth as a marker of development, and encouraged this move with foreign aid dollars and other development initiatives. The medical students I observed in Ecuador were clear that their obstetrical training and guidance came from US practice. So does the push toward hospital-based birth and away from traditional midwifery care.

• White Liberals and the Politics of Racism in the Obama Era (Racism Review)

Not surprisingly, Twitter exploded and lots of people called out Greenwald for making a “rape joke.” Greenwald has over 68,000 followers on Twitter so when he says something there, it’s to a rather large audience (at least potentially). But, rather than apologizing for the comment, Greenwald doubled down, saying that the reference to rape was not a metaphor and in fact Obama supporters would defend the president in the face of “ANY evil: assassinations, child-killings: EVEN rape violent crime like rape.”

In U.S. culture, the image of a black man raping a “pure” woman like a nun (read: virginal) is an incendiary reference that conjures up the legacy of lynching and the myth of the black male rapist that was used to justify that violence. Using the “nun rape smear” to make a point about political supporters of Obama has a lot of people outraged, and rightly so, perhaps chief among them are survivors of actual rape (not the political-point-making-rhetorical-rape). Greenwald got pretty defensive when he thought one of his Twitter followers was accusing him of racism (he wasn’t) and he continues to even acknowledge that the remark might have been offensive.

• 20 Years of Black Lesbian Cinema (The Root)

An unprecedented black LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) success at the Sundance Festival in January, the film was immediately picked up by Focus Features for distribution and has since received two nominations for the Spirit Awards, which recognize independent film. In November, Rees was awarded breakthrough director of the year at the Gotham Awards.

Clearly, the movie’s positive critical reception owes much to the brilliant dramatic performances of newcomers Oduye and Pernell Walker, veterans Charles Parnell and Kim Wayans, Bradford Young’s beautiful cinematography and Rees’ subtle yet sophisticated depiction of Alike and her middle-class African-American family’s coming to terms with her lesbian identity.

But Pariah is also indebted to a cadre of often overlooked but no less important documentaries and coming-out films released during the height of black lesbian filmmaking from 1991 to 1996.

Giving plastic toys a trip to the hair salon sounds like a huge undertaking. But maybe that’s the kind of thing it takes to combat the pervasive and problematic messages about beauty with which black women are inundated, beginning in childhood. And it’s as good as any other idea we’ve heard to combat this generations-old issue.

• A Girls High School Basketball Team Got Suspended for A Racist Chant (Sports Grid)

It’s common in sports for a team to have some kind of collective ritual to pump themselves up before a game. Often, this will take the form of a chant, like it did with the girls basketball team at Kenmore East High School, located in the Buffalo, N.Y. suburb of Tonawonda. Taken alone, doesn’t sound so bad. But when you find out that the chant was, “One, two, three, [N-word]!” – that, obviously, is a problem.

A big problem. So big, in fact, that it led to the suspension of the entire team – practice for the rest of the week was canceled, and the team’s Saturday game was postponed. Apparently the controversy started when the only African-American player on the team, Tyra Batts, confronted her teammates about it.

• National Pride Brings Happiness, but What You’re Proud of Matters (Science Daily)

The authors analyzed the responses to four key questions by 40,677 individuals from 31 countries, drawn from the 2008 wave of the cross-national European Values Study. One question assessed “subjective well being,” indicated by general satisfaction with life. Another measured national pride. The other two neatly indicated ethnic and civic national boundaries — asking respondents to rate the importance of respect for laws and institutions, and of ancestry, to being a true . . . fill in the blank . . . German, Swede, Spaniard. The researchers controlled for such factors as gender, work status, urban or rural residence, and the country’s per capita GDP.

Like other researchers, they found that more national pride correlated with greater personal well-being. But the civic nationalists were on the whole happier, and even the proudest ethnic nationalists’ well-being barely surpassed that of people with the lowest level of civic pride.

• Racism at nightclubs increasing: commission (The World Today)

EXTRACT FROM LETTER TO THE AGE NEWSPAPER (voiceover): On a recent Thursday night a large group of medical students went to an organised event at a well known nightclub in Toorak to celebrate finishing our first year exams. At the door, I, a Caucasian female was allowed entry whereas my close friend of Sri Lankan heritage was denied entry and given various excuses.

A girl of Indian background was also denied entry. I later found out a group of Botswana medical students, new to Australia, were also turned down because they were not dressed well enough.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: The acting commissioner of Victoria’s Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission Karen Toohey, says reports of racism outnumber formal complaints.

KAREN TOOHEY: A couple of comments including things like – we’ve had Aboriginal people in here before and they’ve caused trouble, we don’t like African people coming into our venues – so quite specific comments that are being reported to us which clearly say that the refusal of entry is on the grounds of colour or race.

• At Some N.F.L. Positions, Stereotypes Create Prototypes (New York Times)

There are no African-American punters or kickers in the N.F.L. While white athletes shy away from cornerback because, in their minds, it requires too much athleticism, many African-American players eschew punting and kicking because it is not athletic enough.

Claude Mathis, the coach at DeSoto (Tex.) High School, said he had to beg his best player to kick and punt. “Kids make fun of you when you’re a punter,” he said. “When you’re an athlete. you don’t want to be labeled as punter or kicker; kids will make fun of you.”

But they didn’t make fun of Bryson Echols: he is an all-American cornerback and “an athlete” at DeSoto, headed to the University of Texas.

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• Government tested AIDS drugs on foster kids (MSNBC)

The practice ensured that foster children — mostly poor or minority — received care from world-class researchers at government expense, slowing their rate of death and extending their lives. But it also exposed a vulnerable population to the risks of medical research and drugs that were known to

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• Government tested AIDS drugs on foster kids (MSNBC)

The practice ensured that foster children — mostly poor or minority — received care from world-class researchers at government expense, slowing their rate of death and extending their lives. But it also exposed a vulnerable population to the risks of medical research and drugs that were known to have serious side effects in adults and for which the safety for children was unknown.

• A Fresh Movement Against the NYPD’s Culture of Misconduct (The Awl)

So all this came together when, on October 22nd, a group affiliated with OWS set out specifically to protest the NYPD’s “stop-and-frisk” policy by way of nonviolent direct action. Around 150 people gathered in the center of Harlem for the first of its events. Things proceeded with a familiar Occupy feel—a General Assembly-type gathering, hand motions and “mic checks” all included. John Hector, a 25-year-old Navy veteran, addressed the group, telling of when he was subjected to “stop-and-frisk” after returning from Iraq.

“He decided he was going to be funny,” Hector said of the officer who had stopped him one night, “and asked us if we knew how to do the ‘chicken noodle soup.’ He asked us to dance for him. He said that was the only way we were going to be let go. It was humiliating, embarrassing, and I hate being represented like that in front of my community.”

Hector later marched with students, clergy, and criminal justice professors to Harlem’s 51st police precinct building, passing the iconic Apollo theater en route. “Bring back the Fourth Amendment,” one marcher’s sign simply read. Hector, who had no previous criminal record, was arrested when he and 35 others attempted to block the precinct building’s front entrance.

• N.Y.C. Police Maligned Paradegoers on Facebook (New York Times)

The subject was officers’ loathing of being assigned to the West Indian American Day Parade in Brooklyn, an annual multiday event that unfolds over the Labor Day weekend and that has been marred by episodes of violence, including deaths of paradegoers. Those who posted comments appeared to follow Facebook’s policy requiring the use of real names, and some identified themselves as officers.

Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s deputy commissioner for public information, said he learned of the Facebook group from a reporter and would refer the issue to the department’s Internal Affairs Bureau.

The comments in the online group, which grew over a few days to some 1,200 members, were at times so offensive in referring to West Indian and African-American neighborhoods that some participants warned others to beware how their words might be taken in a public setting open to Internal Affairs “rats.”

But some of the people who posted comments seemed emboldened by Facebook’s freewheeling atmosphere. “Let them kill each other,” wrote one of the Facebook members who posted comments under a name that matched that of a police officer.

• Why I Want to Talk about Race, And Why You Should, Too (The Huffington Post)

Contrary to the naive (and destructive) idea that we should live in a “colorblind” society where simply avoiding race as a topic makes it go away, talking about race, identifying its continuing impact on individuals and our society at large, allows us to move toward addressing continuing inequalities and validating a diverse set of experiences.

And let me again be clear, I do not mean that only people of color should talk about race. In fact, I agree with Steve Locke that people of color face the unfair burden of being expected to talk about race, even when they don’t want to or don’t, frankly, know much about it in an intellectual sense. I have seen this in my classroom when white students fall silent on issues of race and look to their black and brown classmates to address complex racial issues single-handedly. It’s as if my white students think that despite their peers sharing their age and educational level, the extra melanin in their skin has imbued them with the wisdom of Martin Luther King, the tenacity of Cesear Chavez, and the patience of Ghandi. I promise you, it has not. Similarly, like Locke, I have experienced the sting of being told I’m being “too sensitive” or “unobjective” about race many times, because of, yep, my race. Which is exactly why I want everyone to talk about race.

• Black Student Byron Thomas Defends His Confederate Flag (WSTP.com)

It is very important that I be allowed to exercise my freedom of free speech. I’m one of the nicest people, but today, you can’t say anything without people getting offended or hurt by what you are saying. I felt very offended when I was asked to take down that flag because [the housing department] said it violated the racist code. It’s a freedom thing to me.

The generation before us told us that the flag is racist. It’s not going anywhere. No one is going to burn all of the flags. If me or someone else can show my generation that it means something different maybe it won’t divide us. I haven’t experienced racism myself but it still exists. Maybe if we start now with this flag, racism can continue to get smaller.

• Van Jones: On the American Dream, OWS, Hip-Hop Activism, and More (Urban Cusp)

When I was younger, I was on the left side of Pluto when it came to a lot of these questions. Now, I’m in my mid-40s. I’m a father, a homeowner and my views on these issues have evolved more back to where my father was. My dad always taught us that America is two things and not one thing. In its founding reality it was ugly and unequal – even Thomas Jefferson admitted that. The country was not equal at its birth, but America is more than just our founding reality. America is also our founding dream. And the founding dream is a value quality. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

So what is America? America is this place where an imperfect people have been struggling now for 200+ years to drag that ugly founding reality closer to the beauty of that founding dream. And that’s who we are; that’s all America is. America is that place. Only 5% of the world’s population but 95% of the world’s dreams half the time. Here we are. Nobody should deny the pain of what America has failed to do and what America has in fact done… but we’re not going to let the pain have the last word. We are a unique experiment on earth. There’s nothing that’s wrong with America that can’t be fixed by what’s right about America and what’s right about America is people like us [freedom fighters]. We’re America too. In the tug of war between our founding reality and founding dream, our side has been winning.

]]> http://www.racialicious.com/2011/12/09/friday-links-roundup-12-9-11/feed/ 3 http://www.racialicious.com/2011/12/02/friday-links-roundup-12-2-11/ http://www.racialicious.com/2011/12/02/friday-links-roundup-12-2-11/#comments Fri, 02 Dec 2011 15:00:15 +0000 Arturo http://www.racialicious.com/?p=19185
• New Book Says Tyler Perry’s Success Tied To “Secret Backroom Deals, Illicit Cash, Backstabbing”

(Shadow And Act)

Melvin Childs is a former radio executive (now promoter/producer) with several claims against Tyler Perry, including: his chance meeting with Tyler Perry, long before most of had heard of the man, that changed both of their lives forever; that they

…

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• New Book Says Tyler Perry’s Success Tied To “Secret Backroom Deals, Illicit Cash, Backstabbing”

(Shadow And Act)

Melvin Childs is a former radio executive (now promoter/producer) with several claims against Tyler Perry, including: his chance meeting with Tyler Perry, long before most of had heard of the man, that changed both of their lives forever; that they were friends before Tyler betrayed him; that he discovered Tyler Perry; that there’s a different side of Tyler Perry than the image he publicly projects; that Tyler severed their relationship with no explanation and used his (Childs’) original marketing blueprint to help create the framework for the future Tyler Perry Hollywood brand, despite the fact that he was a mentor, producer, and friend to Tyler Perry; that he (Childs) revolutionized the marketing format for black theater with Tyler Perry’s first play; that he (Childs) made huge sacrifices with his family for Tyler Perry’s sake; and of course the aforementioned secret backroom deals, illicit cash, backstabbing, and double-dealing.

Yes, this is a real book folks; I’m not making this shit up.

• Kentucky church bans interracial couples

(The Raw Story)

A small church in Pike County, Kentucky has voted to ban interracial couples from most church activities ‘to promote greater unity among the church body.’

Melvin Thompson, former pastor of Gulnare Freewill Baptist church, proposed the ban after Stella Harville brought her fiance, Ticha Chikuni, to services in June. Harville, who goes by the name Suzie, played the piano while Chikuni sang.

Before stepping down as pastor in August, Thompson told Harville that her fiance could not sing at the church again. Harville is white and Chikuni, a native of Zimbabwe, is black.

• Employees sue Comcast, alleging race discrimination against them, customers

(Chicago Tribune)

The group includes 10 current employees and one former worker who was fired in 2009, according to the lawsuit. The plaintiffs, on average, have worked for Comcast for 15 years.

The employees — technicians, who are responsible for installing and repairing cable equipment in customers’ homes and for diagnosing and repairing large-scale cable outages — described the South Side facility as a ‘hostile’ work environment where they were called derogatory names including ‘ghetto techs” or “lazy techs.’

The plaintiffs also claim that the South Side operation, located at 721 E. 112th St., was infested with roaches and rats, and until it was renovated in 2009, had a leaky roof and was not temperature controlled.

• Told to Diversify, Dock Union Offers a Nearly All-White Retort

(New York Times)

The figure of the longshoreman has cut an enduring image of hard-working New York for decades. But troubled by a work force that remains predominantly white, the commission, a bistate agency that oversees the dockworkers, pressed the New York Shipping Association in May to produce a diverse pool of candidates for temporary jobs. The shippers deferred to the International Longshoremen’s Association, the union that has maintained an iron grip on the ports for decades, and the union came up with 37 candidates.

All but four were white men. None were Hispanic. Only one was black, and, according to the commissioners, he did not really want a job. The other three were white women.

• Dear OWS: Welcome to Our World

(The Root)

By Thursday, as I returned to New York City, I continued to see tweets and blogs about the brutality of the NYPD. Although I absolutely agreed with the sentiments, I had a nagging feeling in my stomach. I couldn’t let it go. My inner militant Negro (whom I keep sedated with brunch and Modern Warfare 3) wanted to write in all caps:

“OH, SO THE WHITE MAN GETS HIT AND NOW IT’S AN ISSUE! THE BLACK MAN HAS BEEN BEATEN FOR YEARS! WE DIDN’T LAND ON PLYMOUTH ROCK, PLYMOUTH ROCK LANDED ON US!!”

I knew that wouldn’t do anything besides exacerbate the situation, but I wanted to comment on it and reasonably say, “Um … so there’s this … ” I didn’t want to take away from the issue of the abuse that the occupiers were receiving, but I wanted to acknowledge the irony of the collective outrage over an issue that’s become so commonplace within my community that small children are taught never to disobey a police officer, to quietly go along with whatever is happening in order not to be on the receiving end of abuse.

Thanks to the mighty Jessica Yee for pointing us toward that vid. While it’s always good to have a chance to catch up with the people in our lives, it’s important to remember that “Thanks-taking,” as Jessica once called it, is problematic for many reasons. But however you’re spending the weekend – celebrating or not – be safe, and we’ll have new content this coming Monday.

Oh, and while we’re here, thanks to our contributors, our co-conspirators and our readers, for sticking with us. In the meantime, a few links for you.

Documentary Shows Language Saved From Extinction

MARTIN: But, you know, isn’t this part of everyone’s history now, though? This is part of the foundational story of this country. I guess what I’m really curious about is, Troy Currence, I read that the Wampanoag classes are only open to Wampanoag. Is that still true? And why is that? I mean, one does not have to be Jewish to study Hebrew.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

CURRENCE: Right now, it is. It’s based on household, so you could be Wampanoag and you could have someone who’s not Wampanoag living in your household and it is open to the household. The idea behind that is we’re trying to get as many native speakers who are Wampanoag or are in a Wampanoag household speaking that language because some people don’t want to feel embarrassed, like, well, hey, this person knows my language and I don’t.

So I think, once we get a better grasp of that as Wampanoag people, then who knows what the future holds?

MARTIN: Well, I mean, really, I’m pressing the question because now – couldn’t one argue that that’s kind of racist?

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

5 Ways to Face Race at the Thanksgiving Table—and Not Choke

When the rabid right-winger just can’t resist his racist rant, roll with it. You don’t have to take the bait. Talk on your own terms—when, how, and with whom you want. Not everything and everyone is worth your time.

For every close-minded racist, there are 10-times more people who’d rather be on the side of racial justice. They may not have a clue about what to do, but may be quite willing to entertain your constructive and productive suggestions. They’re the ones worth your time and energy.

That doesn’t mean letting racist remarks slide. You can call those out clearly and quickly. When your resident Tea Partier pours it on thick, take a deep breath. Don’t take it personally or defensively or you’ll only be an accomplice in this set-up for disaster. After another deep breath, make a thoughtful choice about how you can spend your energy initiating the kinds of conversations you want to have.

Turkish Women’s Magazine Searches for Intersection of Islam and Fashion

But don’t tag it as an Islamic Vogue. Âlâ Art Director Esra Sezis asserts that that the notion of Islamic fashion contradicts the Islamic idea of women modestly covering their bodies. “[The magazine] is only meant to be a helping guide for conservative women — where can they shop, what clothes can they combine,’” Sezis said in an August 20 interview with the Turkish daily Sabah. “[I]n short, there cannot be Islamic fashion; just details.”

In online social media forums, critics nonetheless claim that the glossy, high-end monthly tries to “westernize the idea of modest Islamic dress,” and tries to turn veiled women into the prototype of Vogue-reading, spend-thrift fashion victims; concepts contrary to Islamic ideals. The magazine features photos of both professional models and ordinary readers in Islamic garments.

“To try and squeeze modest Islamic dress into fashion patterns is as absurd as trying to squeeze Islam into a Western lifestyle”, writes journalist Aysegül Genç in the monthly Genç Magazine. “If this magazine, already contributing to ongoing degeneration, would like to minimalize the damage it will cause, it has to think as much about how to be a beautiful veiled girl as it has to find answers to the question of how to be a veiled girl with a personality.”

There is way too much awesome in this piece about K-pop stars from Ree at Seoulbeats:

2NE1 has always been somewhat the ‘black sheep’ of the girl group family. Where Wonder Girls are like the independent, chic, college-going older sister, SNSD is the preppy popular freshman cheerleader sister who gets all the guys, and 2NE1 is the rebellious middle sister who knees the guys in the balls if they ever decide to screw with her. And 4Minute would be that neglected problem-child youngest sister who goes out with fifty guys a month and gets scolded by the parents everyday– when really, all they actually want is affection and love.

If K-Pop was ‘Ten Things I Hate About You‘, SNSD would be Bianca, and 2NE1 would be Kat. You know, Kat– the one who has the tough girl exterior and rams into other people’s cars. But you know what, most people tended to like Kat better, because Kat was cool, Kat was different. And I could only imagine how disgruntled the audience would be if the movie ended with Kat doing a 180 and kissing puppies and moving into a fluorescent pink house. Just to make Patrick fall in love with her or something. Well, this is exactly what’s happening to 2NE1. Japan is Patrick. And I am the disgruntled audience.

In other K-pop news, The Grand Narrative posts an interesting musing on Korean pin-up girls. The GN also posts a link to Soompi, which discusses the controversy over an adaptation of one of my all time favorite manga series, Kimi Wa Petto. The Korean Men’s Association believes the premise (where a woman essentially adopts a stray ballet dancer as her pet – but treats him like a dog, literally) is demeaning to men. Which to me is fascinating – the whole series is an exploration of gender roles, societal expectations, with some compelling commentary on what “the perfect man” actually means. No idea what they actually did with the film, but if it follows the Japanese versions , they may want to see it before knocking the set-up.

Coates says it all on Cain:

Herman Cain has spent the past year peddling a thin tax policy, fumbling the names of foreign countries, and extolling his love of cornbread. Now, today, he stands accused of crudely fondling a white woman. Surely this is someone’s portrait of blackness, but not anyone who would feel at home in Harlem.

Via Sojo’s Trumpet, here’s a really cool project on Mapping Global Stereotypes by Yanko Tsvetkov. (Peep the country in Africa renamed “Madonnaland.”)

Is it unconstitutional to sentence minors to life without parole? SCOTUS debates these cases:

In the Alabama case, Evan James Miller was convicted of killing a neighbor in a trailer park, the Country Life Trailer Court near the small town of Speake in the rural, north-central part of the state. In July 2003, Miller and another youth had been drinking with Miller’s 52-year-0ld neighbor, Cole Cannon, when a fight broke out. Miller was later convicted of beating Cannon so severely that he could not get up from the floor, and died of inhaling smoke after Miller had set fire to the trailer, apparently to cover up evidence of the crime.

In the Arkansas case, Kuntrell Jackson, who had grown up in crime-ridden housing projects in Blytheville, decided in November 1999, along with two other boys, to rob a local video store. The two boys, older than Kuntrell, went into the Movie Magic store, and one of those two allegedly shot and killed the clerk, Laurie Troup, after she had refused a demand for money. Kuntrell had entered the store after the other two boys, and claimed that his only role was to be a lookout; after the shooting, the three fled without taking any money.

Is Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter an exploration of death – or an examination of Western ideals? Omar Shaukat holds court at KABOBFest.

Here’s a thought provoking vid checking out the connection between racism and deaths on the US-Mexico border.(Via Latino Like Me)

Raquel Z. Rivera posts a working paper on “Perreo & Power: Explicit Sexuality in Reggaeton Dance”.

What do Latinos want?Mayonesa! .

Wondering who is Occupying Everything? Check out the first personal narratives from folks in San Jose. Occupy Wall Street tries to figure out what to do with the growing sexual assault problems. Betsy Leondar-Wright at Classism Exposed makes a compelling argument for Occupy to target specific actions for societal change. And progressive ideals are put to the test as a growing number of homeless people find companionship, safety, and food within the Occupy Movements.

Al Jazeera launches Africa Investigates. In their words:

In a world first, this hard-hitting project gives some of Africa’s best journalists the opportunity to pursue high-level investigative targets across the continent – using their unique perspective and local knowledge to put corruption, exploitation and abuse under the spotlight.

All too often in the past, African reporters have not been able to pursue wrongdoing because it involves powerful figures who wield undue influence over local media – financial, corporate or political – or because it is simply too dangerous. Investigative journalism is a perilous profession in many African nations, where intimidation, beatings, imprisonment and death threats can be an occupational hazard. As a result they have often had to sit idly by while Africa’s story has been told by Western correspondents, “parachuted in” for the purpose, who reinforce stereotypical views about African peoples and their supposed inability to face up to and solve their own problems.

Now, determined to tell their own story, Africa Investigates reporters will correct that impression.

Bianca Laureno at VivrLatino reports on The Afro-Latin@s Now! Conference Plenary:

The first question that was posed to the panelist were “why is there this interest in Black Latin@s at this time?” Responses included an increased interest in Blackness, the diaspora. Torres-Saillant shared that when he was growing up Blackness was something one had to apologize for in the Dominican Republic. Rosario Jackson shared that with the browning of the US being more local yet there is still a crisis which she believes may lead to more creative opportunity. Laurent-Perrault mentioned the term “coyuntura” and how there is an increase in energy within particular communities that is leading to this attention. Bonilla-Silva shared that we are living in a “new racial order” which is how the US is moving towards a more Latin Americanist perspective on race, which he believes is NOT a good thing. He states we, in the US, are living in a “multi-racial white supremacist regime” and that there is a three point racial consciousness for Black Latin@s which includes: being racially Black, being ethnically Latino and being US citizens as well.

A Belgian judicial adviser thinks that TinTin in the Congo is not racist, based on the plot, not the images.

Aymar explains Why Americans Will Ruin British Teen Shows.

The Root featured a stellar piece by Kellee Terrell on being Black and Transgender, documenting high rates of poverty, legally sanctioned employment discrimination, elevated rates of homelessness and harassment, and a prevelance of sexual and physical assualt. The report also noted high rates of attempted suicide, which are disturbing, but not suprising given our climate of hatred.

Reader C points us toward this Atlanta-Journal Constitution article on the whiteness of Occupy Atlanta, and how the movement there reflects racial tension in the larger movement. Related is this great piece from Kung Li at Colorlines on Atlanta’s history with social justice movements.

Speaking of OWS, we have this great piece from Kevin Alvarez on Why Occupy Wall Street should matter to POC; Mike at Rortybomb parses the data and stories being shown on the We Are the 99% Tumblr; and reports on how Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Baltimore are dealing with reports of sexual assaults in the encampments.

Clutch Mag has a fascinating four part series on coping with infidelity. For readers who liked Love, Anonymously, that link is for you. There’s even an interesting racial twist.

Hyphen posts a lovely deepthink on how to talk about North Korea, particularly with all the competing narratives at play, from Sylvie Kim.

There’s a fascinating conversation in the comments at Jezebel about Sarah Silverman’s new special “Live from Niggerhead: Stripping the Paint Off Good Ol’ Fashioned Racism” and the sticky racial politics of comedy.

Some good news on the Hollywood development front. Queen Latifah’s Flavor Unit is backing a feature film called Percentage, a drug drama; Shonda Rhimes sells a ton of new shows; Lee Daniels is doing a series with Showtime based on the Ball subculture in NYC, with the last milestone exploration being Paris is Burning.

Tigerbeatdown had three stand out pieces. Two from Flavia, one exploring how multinational corporations are turning anti-immigrant sentiments into cash and her declaration that her feminism “will be intersectional or it will be bullshit.” Sady provides an interesting musing on class.

NPR looks at the change in attitudes around interracial marriage.

Interesting considering our previous convos on terms and appropriation: Johnny Depp likens being photographed to being raped. Great analysis at the Awl. (Aside: I used to do string work for a tabloid – while I wouldn’t say it’s like being raped, but it is definitely an assault – I was on the side behind the photogs and it was still really painful to watch happen. And that was at a sanctioned press event. I can’t imagine what this is like day in and day out. I don’t think that is similar to rape. However, I do know that I better not hear a single objection to Depp’s analogy from so-called feminists who argued in favor of the Slutwalk sign. Because yes, it’s the same idea – that you have the right to appropriate an experience that has not applied to you because you think it makes your point stronger.)

Yep, I’m stepping out of my Sexual Correspondent role for a hot minute.  My other job at the R is to help in compiling the Links Round-up you see here almost every day. 

I just want to give a big bouquet of gratitude to everyone who contributes to and comments on them. I want to give a special shout-out to Carleandria, who not only gives us quality links on the daily at delicious but also provides great international links.  Also special thanks to Rob Schmidt, InfodivaMLIS415, molecularshyness, Restructure!, ananser, Jasmine, and Just Checking, who also pass along fantastic links to us.  If you want to contribute links and story ideas, click here.

I also want to give love the R crew, who share the duties, especially to Latoya and Thea, who taught me everything I know about linking.   

Photo credit: Be Exquisite

As law students and future lawyers, they were in positions of power that most of us are not, nor ever will be. How could they lend their skills to this movement in a different way? How could they contribute to a broad, holistic agenda without reinforcing the inequities around race, gender, class, sexual orientation, ability, etc?

…white people should struggle a little more than they often do with names that they find unfamiliar — it’s really not that difficult. Using a person’s actual, correctly pronounced name acknowledges his or her individual humanity.

Through [Danticat's] works, she has amassed a wide range of fans with her simple prose and themes of isolation, human struggle, cultural survival — all set against the complex backdrop of Haiti’s complex history and immigrant life.

Aboriginal leaders in Manitoba are horrified that some of the reserves hardest hit by swine flu in the spring have received dozens of body bags from Health Canada. The body bags — which were sent to the remote northern reserves of Wasagamack and God’s River First Nation — came in a shipment of hand sanitizers and face masks.

Grand Chief David Harper, who represents northern First Nations, says body bags send the wrong message and no one can understand why Ottawa would do such a thing. “It really makes me wonder if health officials know something we don’t,” he said.

Shahrukh Khan, quite possibly the most famous man in India (and even the world) was in the U.S. to promote a movie about the profiling of Muslims and brown folk, called “My Name is Khan.”

And then he was profiled in the airport. And detained. Because his name came up in the airport’s computer alert system. Because his name was Khan.

I’ve got no problem talking to my kids about sex. Race is a different story. Like so many (white) parents, I thought not talking about it was the best way to make race a nonissue…

• Duluth Shop Stops Selling Offensive T-Shirts

A Duluth shop owner says he’s sorry for selling t-shirts some call racist…The clothing racks at “I Love Duluth” no longer contain these shirts, called racist by many in the Native American community…”Anger.  Anger and disbelief,” says Donna Blue Bird, who complained to owner Simon Shaked about the shirts after seeing them Wednesday.  She says they were blatant racism to a woman who’s dealt with prejudice her entire life.

• Der Indianer

The first thing John Blackbird learned when he was growing up on the Canadian prairies was that his people were no good. Raised primarily by a white family, Blackbird heard from friends and classmates that Natives were lazy and unemployable…Today in Germany, Blackbird is a star, a celebrity even. He’s seen as a descendant of the wild and free people of the plains—an embodiment of environmental respect…Blackbird’s fame springs from a remarkable cultural phenomenon: some 40,000 German “hobbyists” who spend their weekends trying to live exactly as Indians of the North American plains did over two centuries ago.

The OhioDaily blog reports on a “rogue” dispatcher from the North Canton Police who recently sent out a racist e-mail from her work account. Dispatcher Anita Malachowski forwarded this message:

“New “Air Force One” Tail Number and yes, please forgive me, I’m really sorry, I really, really tried not to laugh, but …………………..!”

Attached to the e-mail was an Photoshopped image of Air Force one with NI66ER written on the plane’s tail.

From CNN.com:

An African-American man has pleaded guilty after being accused of impersonating a white supremacist in a fictitious Facebook account to make death threats against an African-American university student. [...]

Hart admitted creating the fictitious account in November, pretending to be a white supremacist outraged by the election of Barack Obama as the nation’s first African-American president, the statement said.

He then transmitted a death threat via Facebook to an African-American student at Nicholls State University in Louisiana, saying he wanted to kill African-Americans because of Obama’s election, according to the statement.

A court document provided by the U.S. attorney’s office said Hart told an FBI interviewer that he intended the threat to be a prank “to get a reaction.”

From the LA Times:

I’d heard of Klan quilts, though they’re surprisingly uncommon — particularly considering that the wives and daughters of “Kluxers” during the early 20th century often got together to socialize and support the cause.

The Michigan State University Museum, I knew, had accepted the gift of a Klan quilt several years ago. According to the donor, his grandfather had won it at a raffle held at a KKK meeting. The white fabric in the blue and white quilt, he said, was recycled Klan sheets, and attendees at the meeting where it was raffled had paid 10 cents each to have their names stitched on the fabric.

I was eager to see what promised to be a fascinating — if disturbing — historical artifact, so one afternoon this spring I met the teacher, Linda Brant, at her school, and we laid out a red, white and blue quilt on a large table. The quilt’s 18 primary blocks each carried a fiery-red cross surrounded by white and blue squares in what quilters call a nine-patch pattern. Each small blue and white square of fabric had meticulous white stitches that formed an “X,” bringing to mind the Confederate flag. The quilt could easily have been seen as simply having a Christian theme. But the story Linda told — along with the bright red crosses often used in Klan imagery — suggested otherwise.

Quilters have longed used their skills in the service of political, social and religious affiliations. Quilts have celebrated sororities and garden clubs; they’ve memorialized AIDS victims and honored subjects of the Tuskegee Experiment. And there was this quilt, celebrating the chilling Klan practice of burning crosses at outdoor meetings or near the homes of those the group wanted to intimidate.

Over the last few decades, I have conducted research on and taught about the role the KKK played in American history. I have seen and handled Klan ephemera before, and it can be unsettling. But seeing this quilt unfolded by the hands of woman who rallied support for Hurricane Katrina victims and who was a staunch supporter of Barack Obama’s candidacy did not unduly disturb me. My thoughts focused on how useful the quilt would be in teaching about the contrasts and connections between early 20th century and early 21st century racial mores. Later, when I took it to a black photographer to document it, we both found it troubling. But that first time, hearing Brant’s candid recollection of her family’s past, my emotions took a back seat to my academic interest.

(Thanks to reader Anna for all the tips!)

• Canadians must not turn blind eye to racism

“The confrontation on Friday between Jay Phillips and three young men in Courtenay should have all of us re-evaluating the belief many Canadians have that racism is not an issue in Canada…we should look at this [country's] long history of racism, starting with the aboriginals who were here long before the first Spanish explorers sailed these waters…

This country has developed an entire federal ministry to deal with First Nations people, now called Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. Billions have been spent over the years to treat one race of Canadians different from another. What could be more racist than that?”

• Marginalized Students Targeted for Corporal Punishment

“So it’s curious, then, that so many kids subjected to the harshest forms of discipline are dealing with problems they have no control over. And often, children targeted for violent punishment are burdened by another disadvantage: being of a certain color.”

• Texas Board of Education Aims to Leave Out Human Rights Leaders from Curriculum

“Barton and Phillips recommended that César Chavez (labor organizer and civil rights leader) and Thurgood Marshall (the nation’s first black US Supreme Court justice who, as a young attorney, successfully argued the public school desegregation case of Brown v. Board of Education) be removed from textbooks because they aren’t worthy role models for students.”

• Noah’s Arc Actor Says “Gay Racism Is Worse Now than in ’80s”

“Spearman, best known for his role as Chance on the Logo series Noah’s Arc, observes that when he came out in 1980, he was welcomed as ‘the kids of the 1960s and early ’70s — those that had created the gay movement — were still on the dance floors of America elbow to elbow with the people who’d marched in Vietnam protests and Black Power parades, and had been active participants in the original civil rights movement.’

“Spearman laments that this feeling of acceptance has evaporated with the existence of separate black gay pride and Latin gay pride festivals, which he claims ‘exist because a great many men and women feel unwelcome in mainstream gay communities.’” (Spearman’s original essay here.)

• Muslimah Media Watch Makes USA Today Religion Writer Rethink “Burqa Tourism”

“Muslimah Media Watch, a sharply written critique site, takes apart a new instant-anthropologist fad: People, particularly journalists, who put on a burqua robe or a niqab headcover or hijab scarf and imagine they know, in a day or a week, what life is like for Muslim women.

“Unfortunately, they keep on the preconceptions that “veil” their minds, according to a Watch writer in an essay dismantling the patronizing and stereotyping of ‘dress like a Muslim’ escapades.”

Karynthia – We Have Feelings Too, or The Cost OF Being A POC in Race Discussions

Because clearly if we’re calm enough and nice enough in the face of offensive behavior then everything will get better right? After all that’s usually what’s implied someone trots out MLK Jr. as an example of how POC should behave in the face of racism. I heartily suggest the next person to feel that urge spend some quality time reading Letter From a Birmingham Jail and recognize that nonviolent protests didn’t include smiling sweetly and eating shit.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Now this might shock and/or offend some people, but I have to say that today is not a day when I give a fuck. Because when POC have teaching moments? It costs us. Sometimes a little. Sometimes a lot. It’s a sacrifice that we choose to make in an effort to improve things.

Shadowyroses – Unacceptable Responses When Racism is Pointed Out

If you tell me to shut up because I can’t change anything, you, from your position as a white male, are telling me, a member of an already disenfranchised group, that my opinion means nothing to you, that you don’t care if my stories are heard, and that you don’t have to care about this issue because it doesn’t affect you. But it does affect me! If you are a white person, don’t tell me to shut up when I say that casting policies are racist. Don’t defend Hollywood. Don’t start making personal attacks at me because I’ve pointed out that you have the privilege of not caring, that you will always have people who look like you on tv, that I do not.

Imperial Artist – Creating Space and the Power Dynamics That Involves

Worse still are the cases where an outsider is allowed in and instead of listening and observing or even badgering people with questions instead decides to dictate the rules of the space to the people who’ve created it. This would be another reason that many people who will cry that they only want to come in and observe are given an even wider berth than those who bother everyone with rude questions. If someone from the majority wants admittance into a minority space I have to ask why that is? Are they genuinely, but rather naively interested or do they have an entire set of cultural norms and values that they’ve already decided upon for that space? Have they decided on some predetermined mode of behaviour for a group not their own? Are they trying to enter that group space to prove their point? And will they react with scorn and outrage if we don’t conform to their decided norms? Granted, everybody has assumptions and presumptions formed by their own knowledge and experience but if your presumptions are solely informed upon by your majority status they’re fairly likely to be wrong and you have no right to be angry when this becomes proven fact. You made a guess about a minority group of which you have no part, that’s akin to trying to guess what terms like ‘@echo off’ mean without any knowledge of where they even come from.

Of course this still doesn’t cover the argument that having a minority space is exclusionary in its entirety because the major argument, the one that’s always being thrown around focuses on exclusion not difficulties in integrating. The argument usually runs to the tune of ‘why can you have your minority space and not be called racist when if I created a white only space you’d accuse me of racism?’ That sentence alone betrays the flaws in this argument. A minority group are is the term implies: a minority in opposed to the majority. The majority sets the hegemonic norm. This is the default setting and in the vast majority of Western societies that default norm is white, male, heterosexual, cisgendered. You could also throw a ‘middle class’ in there but that unlike the other terms tends not to mean the same thing between countries. So if white, male, heterosexual, cisgendered is the default norm around which society builds itself then it makes sense that said society gears its operations towards the most utility for that norm. And what that results in is making it more difficult for everybody else, not even out of malice but because they don’t fit the norm that society is catering to. So yes, in those Western societies it is easier to be white because white is the default norm that society caters to. Everything around you caters to and celebrates that norm and overlooks anything else. It’s passive exclusion which makes minority spaces all the more necessary so that those of us who don’t fit that norm have a space where we don’t have to fight against that constantly, a space where we can celebrate our default norm, where we don’t have to make excuses or justify our continued existence in that wider society because we don’t fit that default.

Spontaneous ∂erivation – A Funny Thing Happened to Me at the Grocery Store the Other Day

I was chillin’ in an Asian gift store, because I wanted some wall hangings. Said store also happened to sell cosmetics, kitchen items, a gazillion Hello Kitty horrors, health and beauty items… really a very nice store, if heavy on the Sanrio kitsch.

A nice white lady came up to me, maybe in her 20s to 40s, I’m not one to judge, and said, “Oh! I have to ask you a question. Do you know the name of this kind of skin cream that all the pretty young Asian women are using?”

Now that was… awkward, although she didn’t seem to notice. Why should she?

“… No?”

She looked vastly disappointed. “Oh, I thought you’d know.”

As if there was some kind of telepathy between young Asian women.

Wouldn’t it be weird if I came up to a random white teenager and said, “Oh! Do you know the name of this lipstick that all the hot white chicks are using?” But it’s not weird if that lady asks me, because as we all know, Asians are all alike.

Adrienne Maree Brown – Ignore the Haters, Sierra Club!!: Open Letter to Allison Chin

It’s pretty devastating stuff…lots of folks who think people of color aren’t (and won’t) do their part for the sustainability of the planet, who have no real understanding of how interconnected all people are, who can’t understand how decades long economic crisis in our communities makes it difficult to prioritize natural habitats over the home habitat, who seem perfectly comfortable with a majority-white environmental movement in a minority-white world, or who just seem really miffed about being called white.

I don’t have much to say to all of those folks, cause I will admit, the Sierra Club is not where I do my work.

But, perhaps, I can speak to you Allison, as a woman of color leader in a traditionally white environmental organization, in an overwhelmingly white environmental movement. From my own experience I offer this: Please ignore the hateful comments, and the divestment of hateful people from your organization.

Rawles – now that we’ve got that clear, and you know that i’m not here…

Now, in general, I don’t like the idea that because a female character has a love interest that is all she is and/or that she is automatically reduced by it. It’s not that I don’t want female characters to have as wide a range of roles in the story as male ones because I absolutely do. It’s that, inkeeping with that, I don’t feel the need to restrict or limit female characters any more than they already are. Saying that a female character can’t be a strong character if she’s in a romance is just as shitty as various alternatives. In my aforementioned posts, I expressed this. I also made sidebar references to the idea that race was another issue particular to this situation that should be considered, but didn’t expand on it. Perhaps because I just wasn’t in the mood to explain or perhaps because I felt it should be self-evident or perhaps because I was just in a hurry.

However, the Just A Girlfriend nugget and the assertion that she is made less by her romantic involvement with Spock continues unabated, so I figured I’d give full voice to what I hadn’t before.

Simply put: Nyota Uhura is not a white girl.

While women of color are not necessarily embroiled in an entirely different feminist struggle than white women, they sure as fuck are not in the same place. [...]

Uhura being single in TOS was not empowering.

She was single because the male leads were all white and as a black woman she was less of a person than them, she was less of a person than a white woman, and the fact that this serendipitously ended up meaning that she didn’t have to spend all of her time mooning pathetically after dismissive men does not make that any more acceptable.

She got to sit in the back and rarely do anything and have her sexuality ignored not because they respected her so much as a colleague and a person, but because she was not a full, real human being and when you’re not a full, real human being the idea that actual people would ever desire you or romance you or love you is ridiculous. You are invisible.

I could go further with this and elaborate on what Nichelle Nichols was put through by the network, the infamous plea from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for her to stay on the show despite mistreatment, or even her recent acknowledgment that they actually wanted to do Spock/Uhura in TOS but it was made impossible by the times. But that’s too much for this post and really the central point is the same as pretty much all discussions about race.

Namely, please consider the point of view from which you are approaching your analysis because experiences vary wildly and one size does not fit all.

(Image Credit: Voxunion.com)

Call for Art Submissions: “RESISTING COLONIALISM & REBUILDING PATHWAYS TO HOPE”

Seeking: Submissions of artwork by youth reflecting: resistance to oppression, violence and all kinds of discrimination; the process of healing, and the building of hope…

What do I have to do? Submit your artwork for the exhibit. Then, on September 21st, participating artists will have an opportunity to talk about their work at the launching of this art exhibit in Toronto. The exhibit will be followed by a screening of the documentary “Highway of Hope,” a documentary filmed and directed by Indigenous feminist activist (and Racialicious Special Correspondent) Jessica Yee about the numerous disappearances and murders of Aboriginal women along Highway 16 in British Columbia.

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Reader Shawna sends in a link to the Racebending LJ which shows some new cast shots from the Avatar movie. Gen describes the costumes as going for “the white native look.” I’m inclined to agree:

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Digital_Femme points us toward this disturbing ad campaign from Diesel:

I’m with Brigitte, from Make Fetch Happen, when she says:

I honestly don’t know what to think of these. The phrase that keeps coming to my mind is “Girl, you need to call your people to come and get you!”

Don’t get me wrong, [model Ariel Meredith] is beautiful and has a great figure for lingerie but personally speaking, I’ve never fantasized about at clothing optional party where I’m the only chick present in the shot and a white guy who looks like European Jesus rubs lotion on my belly. Call me old-fashioned. There are more photos at the Diesel site featuring two white female models in their skivvies but their booties are unmolested.