PORTLAND – As America re-elected President Obama, it sent a comforting and positive message about our society, a message of progress in racial healing. A majority of voters were willing to give the first African American President of the United States a second term, a second chance to complete his mission of bringing change to this country.
What’s most striking is that this seems like a normal course of action. President George W. Bush was sharply criticized, but he won two terms. President Bill Clinton faced impeachment, but stayed in the White House for two complete terms. It is this concept of normalcy that interests me: is this nation reaching a maturing stage where people of color can be treated just as everyone else?
To be sure, more progress must be made. Even the election results tell us that, as one party relied on votes almost exclusively from whites, the other, the majority, was a multi-racial collage that looked much more like America. How can America take the next step, ensuring a level playing field and equal opportunities for everyone regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or sexual preference?
I’ve always believed that our cultural indulgences, such as the entertainment we seek, play a critical role in shaping our faith, perceptions and values. The evolution and transformation of our souls is impacted by environment, including the television and movies and art we watch as well as the museums we visit, the music we listen to and books we read.
The horrifying, little-known story of how hundreds of thousands of blacks worked in brutal bondage
right up until World War II.
By Douglas A. Blackmon
A cry for help: Having exhausted all other options, a desperate young woman named Carrie Kinsey wrote this letter directly to President Theodore Roosevelt asking him to help her brother, who had been taken to a forced labor camp nearby. “Let me have him,” she writes. “He have not don nothing for them to hase him in chanes.”
On July 31, 1903, a letter addressed to President Theodore Roosevelt arrived at the White House. It had been mailed from the town of Bainbridge, Georgia, the prosperous seat of a cotton county perched on the Florida state line.
The sender was a barely literate African American woman named Carrie Kinsey. With little punctuation and few capital letters, she penned the bare facts of the abduction of her fourteen-year-old brother, James Robinson, who a year earlier had been sold into involuntary servitude.
Kinsey had already asked for help from the powerful white people in her world. She knew where her brother had been taken—a vast plantation not far away called Kinderlou. There, hundreds of black men and boys were held in chains and forced to labor in the fields or in one of several factories owned by the McRee family, one of the wealthiest and most powerful in Georgia. No white official in this corner of the state would take an interest in the abduction and enslavement of a black teenager.
WASHINGTON—Tracey and Abby Sparrow, one a teacher and the other a nonprofit’s vice president, both white, recently took to the pages of Phi Delta Kappan, a magazine for educators, to explain what stands between black males and academic success. The writers’ methodology is questionable. They selected 10 black young men and boys as their storytelling devices. The end product is powerful, with bursts of compelling, almost tabloidesque narrative, accompanied by riveting photographic portraits. But the probable impact is devastating.
WASHINGTON—More than 5,000 children of immigrants are languishing in state foster care nationwide because their parents were living in the United States illegally and were detained or deported by federal immigration authorities.
These children can spend years in foster homes, and some are put up for adoption after termination of their parents’ custody rights. With neither state nor federal officials addressing the problem, thousands more are poised to enter the child welfare system every year.
CHICAGO—Some people see a bee and want to swat it. Brenda Palms-Barber sees a bee and thinks about products it helps to produce and jobs it creates.
Palms-Barber is executive director of the North Lawndale Employment Network (NLEN) in Chicago. The nonprofit organization partners with about 100 agencies to help low-income people, primarily former offenders, find and keep jobs.
In 2004, she launched Sweet Beginnings, a company that makes honey locally and sells natural, honey-based beauty products in local stores and businesses. Assisted by grants from organizations such as the Illinois Department of Corrections and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Sweet Beginnings is creating jobs for the unemployed.
Former Somali General Was Held Liable for War Crimes
By Bashe Yousuf
America’s Wire Writers Group
COMMENTARY
WASHINGTON-Will victims of distant genocides and crimes against humanity be allowed to continue using U. S. courts to seek justice against their persecutors, as well as the individuals and corporations that helped facilitate human rights violations across the globe?
In a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, Shell Oil is sending a shocking message: victims of mass atrocities should have no standing in our nation’s courts.
The case, Kiobel v. Shell, concerns a group of Nigerian refugees living in the United States who sued Shell for helping Nigeria’s former dictator torture and kill environmentalists. Rather than simply deny the allegations, Shell is trying to deny the plaintiffs—and all victims of foreign human rights crimes—the right to seek justice in U.S. courts. Our courts, Shell argues, are powerless to hear claims that a foreign government slaughtered its own people in its own territory—even when the defendants who committed or financed these crimes find refuge in this country.
For victims of human rights abuses, the stakes couldn’t be higher. For decades, U.S. courts have given survivors what repressive regimes back home denied them: a chance to confront their abusers, seek truth, and obtain a measure of justice. I know because I am one of these survivors.
NEW ORLEANS—The New York Times Magazine recently ran a story on my home, the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, a place one of the most powerful newspapers in the world insensitively dubbed a “Jungleland.” Contrary to the article, residents of this community are not reconciled to life in the wilderness and we don’t live in an untamed mess of overgrowth or in a forgotten wasteland. We are not resigned to anything; we are fighting to revive our community.
While the article cites the city government’s futile attempts to improve the neighborhood, it barely mentions the overall lack of government support before and after Hurricane Katrina and the hard work by committed citizens to improve the community. Yes, many parts of the Lower Ninth are overgrown and neglected, but what the article missed is that many are not. Moreover, the untold story is how city, state and federal government abandoned this community.
The Times probably had good intentions — document the bad situation so our community can get help. But while writing about broken people, vacant lots and weeds may be sexy journalism, the community needs the outside world to understand how implicit and unconscious bias caused by a history of racism pummeled us.
LOS ANGELES—Rodney Glen King’s apparent accidental death at age 47 has prompted a flood of media punditry about the legacy of a life rife with misfortune.It was young Glen, as he was called, who had discovered his father’s body in the family bathtub. Rodney Sr. reportedly drank himself to death when Rodney Jr. was in high school.
Following his father’s penchant for alcohol, the younger King made a fateful wrong turn at age 25—drinking and driving, and leading Los Angeles police officers on a high-speed chase that thrust him into an ill-fitting celebrity he never wanted or wore very well.
King’s brutal videotaped beating seen around the world years before the advent of YouTube changed the course of his life. It also triggered events that altered how law enforcement and government officials handle complaints of excessive force and police brutality.The initial impact ofthe beating in March 1991 was to shine light on a dark realm of routine police misconduct in Los Angeles and other cities.
WASHINGTON—A gap in law enforcement on Native American lands creates an environment in which Native women suffer a higher rate of violence than any demographic in the United States, according to data collected by the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Census Bureau and advocacy organizations.
The Justice Department has found that Native women are victims of violent crime at 3-1/2 times the national average, with advocates saying the actual figure is much higher because many victims mistrust authorities and don’t report such crime.The department says 70 percent of sexual assaults are never reported.
Children of Color Disadvantaged
By Structural Bias in America
ALL GOD'S CHILDREN
By Dr. Gail C. Christopher
America’s Wire
Commentary
WASHINGTON—In an often expressed dream for a better America, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called upon Americans to honor “all God’s children” and their rights to equality and justice. His powerful voice and leadership would be welcomed in the turbulent world around us.
Forty-three-years after the March on Washington, Dr. King’s dream of equality for all remains unrealized – the impact of racism persists and children of color still live with the consequences of the racial divide embedded in American society. Our leaders face mounting fiscal challenges, yet we urge the nation not to abandon children in need. As the struggling economy brings fear and despair to families and communities, America must marshal its resources to assure that our children have opportunities to thrive.
There is an intersection between Dr. King’s dream and efforts by government, non-profit advocates and communities working to improve the quality of life for vulnerable children.
WASHINGTON—The U.S. Department of Education is seeking to improve the quality of education for minority and poor public school students by aggressively launching civil rights investigations aimed at preventing district administrators from providing more services and resources to predominantly white schools.
Faced with public schools more segregated today than in the 1970s, the department is using the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to improve the quality of education for students from minority and low-income backgrounds. The department has outpaced the Bush administration in initiating civil rights probes.
WASHINGTON—Health disparities are creating economic burdens for families, communities and the nation’s health care system. Across the country, infant mortality and chronic diseases continue to affect people of color at rates far higher than those for whites.
In recent years, the focus has increased on the impact of disparities on minority communities, with public officials, community activists, civic leaders and health care experts proposing ways to improve access to medical care and raise awareness of positive benefits of preventive care. But health experts say the economic toll of health disparities and substantial costs associated with lost productivity are being overlooked.
WASHINGTON—A recent report by the Manhattan Institute about the extent to which segregation may have declined in the last century has triggered a heated debate, with many social justice advocates rejecting its finding that segregation has virtually ended in U.S. cities.
The controversial study, “The End of the Segregated Century: Racial Separation in America’s Neighborhoods, 1890-2010,” has exposed sharp division among these advocates, scholars and researchers over whether the country has reached a major racial milestone or the study merely uses its data to mask disparities still plaguing people of color, especially African-Americans.
WASHINGTON—A generation gap in several states between older whites and younger Latinos and African-Americans has race relations experts concerned that age differences in the population are influencing spending and public policy in areas such as education, transportation, immigration and infrastructure.
WASHINGTON—Educators are expressing alarm that the performance gap between minority and white high school students continues to expand across the United States, with minority teenagers performing at academic levels equal to or lower than those of 30 years ago.
NEW YORK, NY— When Fania Washington had an opportunity to leave Winston & Strawn LLP in 2004 to work for MTV Networks, she didn’t hesitate. Washington had tired of handling cases that trickled down from the international law firm’s partners, and she sought more formidable challenges.
WASHINGTON—Recent public opinion polls show that more whites than African-Americans believe that the United States has entered a “post-racial” era in which racial bias doesn’t exist.
LOS ANGELES—African-Americans once were clustered so heavily in urban areas that the terms “black” and “inner city” came to be used almost synonymously. According to the 2010 U.S. Census results, that time is history.
Lack of adequate housing on Native American tribal lands has become so critical that tribes have been acquiring mobile homes from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The shelters, meant to be utilized during disasters, are being converted into living quarters for Native American families.
WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama has seen better days. But it would be a mistake to conclude that he can’t win re-election, despite his dismal poll numbers.
At the moment, the president is quickly discovering that for every foreign and domestic policy issue, there can be a political consequence. In the Middle East, he seeks to craft a policy fair to both sides, but that leads to attacks at home that he has abandoned Israel. He tries to act responsibly and reduce the federal budget deficit, but that looks like “selling out” to many who are in his Democratic base and still reeling from the recession.
WASHINGTON, DC—Since the housing market collapsed, mortgage lending to African-Americans and Hispanics has plunged precipitously—by more than 60 percent, according to a new study of loan information that banks submit to the federal government.
Conservative Republicans and commentators have frequently blamed the housing crisis on the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which encourages banks to make loans in the low- and moderate-income areas where they operate.
The U.S. Department of Justice won a recent conviction in a Pennsylvania courtroom that sent a powerful message to Latinos nationwide—the government will not tolerate hate crimes against immigrants, even if they are not U.S. citizens.
The federal government could easily have taken a hands-off approach after a state court jury acquitted Brandon Piekarsky and Derrick Donchak last year of serious charges in the July 2008 beating death of Eduardo Luis Ramírez Zavala in Shenandoah, about 80 miles northwest of Philadelphia.
Helps Whites, Blacks Talk
Openly About Painful Legacy
By Marjorie Valbrun
America’s Wire
WASHINGTON—Katrina Browne and her critically acclaimed documentary, “Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North,” are helping Americans talk more openly and honestly about race and race relations. The film is a well-researched account of her New England ancestors’ status as the largest slave-trading family in U.S. history. It is also a moving story about racial healing and redemption, the very issues she wants to help Americans embrace.
CLEVELAND—Escalated hospital closures in urban communities are raising concern about whether minorities can receive quality health care, especially trauma treatment, when emergency care facilities are miles from their neighborhoods.
WASHINGTON—When the landmark welfare reform law was enacted in 1996, the political rallying cry was “ending welfare as we know it.” Today, a move is underway to rescind some of the law’s punitive measures, such as provisions that permit states to deny welfare benefits and food stamps to people convicted of felony drug crimes.
Nearly a decade after the No Child Left Behind law was enacted, studies have shown little progress in reducing the number of teachers of low-income students who are inexperienced or teaching classes outside their subject areas.
LOS ANGELES—Krystal Murphy received her first cellphone at age 13 and she used it solely to keep her parents in the loop about her activities. Four years later, her use of the phone has changed dramatically. Now 17, she relies on it to text friends, surf the Internet and send messages on Twitter.
“I’m on my cell all day, every day, as soon as I wake up and until I go to bed,” says the African-American teen from South Los Angeles.
WASHINGTON—High rates of obesity, high blood pressure and inadequate prenatal care cause death from childbirth more often for African-Americans in the United States than for whites and other ethnic groups. Worsening this trend are the increasing numbers of cesarean sections nationally. These procedures can result in deadly complications for women dangerously overweight or suffering from hypertension or other ailments.
Nationally, blacks have a four-times greater risk of pregnancy-related death than whites—a rate of 36.1 per 100,000 live births compared with 9.6 for whites and 8.5 for Hispanics, according to a 2008 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A Stanford University geneticist, Carlos D. Bustamante, is leading an effort to include more Hispanics and African-Americans in genetic research critical to determining root causes of many diseases. He has been critical of such research that has often focused largely on white populations.
WASHINGTON-Halfway through his term, President Obama is moving to wrest control of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights from Republican appointees, but questions are being raised about its future and its ability to create a better America for victims of discrimination.
Conservative Republicans and commentators have frequently blamed the housing crisis on the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which encourages banks to make loans in the low- and moderate-income areas where they operate. But a study to be released this week and a bipartisan commission, conclude that the federal law had little impact on the crisis.
Political redistricting based on last year’s U.S. census has triggered a campaign by activists to persuade state legislatures to change the standard practice of counting prisoners where they are incarcerated rather than where they last lived.
Kamala Harris’s recent election as California attorney general may not interest many people outside the state, but her efforts to address judicial policies and practices that have a harmful effect on communities of color are sure to have an impact beyond the state’s borders.
As San Francisco district attorney, Harris has been among a current crop of black DAs who are transforming the way crime is addressed, people are prosecuted and punishment is meted out. Her innovative approaches for being “Smart on Crime,” instead of simply “tough on crime” are popular in many quarters but derided by some conservatives.
CHICAGO—When record numbers of young African Americans turned out to vote for Barack Obama nearly two years ago, political pundits predicted the start of an important and positive trend. Socially marginalized young blacks buoyed by the election of the nation’s first black president would supposedly begin to see themselves as newly politically empowered and engaged. They would become as invested in, and optimistic about, their future as their young white counterparts.
States across the country are passing laws intended to make ex-offenders more likely to find jobs and, as a result, less prone to commit crime again. Behind the legislative trend is an unusual combination of budget-conscious officials seeking to trim prison populations and activists opposing “structural discrimination” against applicants with criminal records.
While most Americans are unaware of the nation’s health disparities, those who are may well think that racial and ethnic minorities become sicker and die more often because they lack medical insurance, tend to be poorer or have unhealthy lifestyles. Or, as a few sophisticates may know, because minorities receive unequal treatment from the medical system, regardless of economic status and insurance coverage.
When the U.S. Census Bureau recently released its annual report on the economic status of American households, few people were surprised that black and Hispanic households showed the highest increase in poverty rates. The two groups were hit harder by the economic recession and had higher rates of unemployment than white and Asian households, so news that poverty rates for them surpassed 25 percent in 2009, though troubling, was not entirely unexpected.
Tim WiseFrom his earliest experiences in a classroom, Tim Wise was primed to be a different kind of white guy. He attended a preschool in the South where almost everyone was black. The very idea of integrated schools was still being contested in courts when his mother made that unconventional choice, an unmistakable expression of her commitment to the ideals of the civil rights movement.
Since 2005, Shirley J. Wilcher has directed the American Association for Affirmative Action, a professional organization that is based in Washington, D.C., and has 1,000 members. During the Clinton administration, she ran the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, a Labor Department agency that enforces a legal mandate that government contractors practice affirmative action.
Walk the campuses of many black colleges, and you are bound to notice young female students strolling and talking, clusters of women having lunch together, classrooms filled mostly with women. It’s impossible to miss the dearth of male students and not worry about that.
The news media in the United States have been a guardian of the public’s interest. Our nation’s history is filled with episodes during which enterprising reporting, often by the bravest of journalists, has altered the course of public policy for America, and at times, changed our society.
PORTLAND – As America re-elected President Obama, it sent a comforting and positive message about our society, a message of progress in racial healing. A majority of voters were willing to give the first African American President of the United States a second term, a second chance to complete his mission of bringing change to this country.
CHICAGO—Some people see a bee and want to swat it. Brenda Palms-Barber sees a bee and thinks about products it helps to produce and jobs it creates.
LOS ANGELES—Rodney Glen King’s apparent accidental death at age 47 has prompted a flood of media punditry about the legacy of a life rife with misfortune.It was young Glen, as he was called, who had discovered his father’s body in the family bathtub. Rodney Sr. reportedly drank himself to death when Rodney Jr. was in high school.
WASHINGTON—A gap in law enforcement on Native American lands creates an environment in which Native women suffer a higher rate of violence than any demographic in the United States, according to data collected by the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Census Bureau and advocacy organizations.
Forty-three-years after the March on Washington, Dr. King’s dream of equality for all remains unrealized – the impact of racism persists and children of color still live with the consequences of the racial divide embedded in American society. Our leaders face mounting fiscal challenges, yet we urge the nation not to abandon children in need. As the struggling economy brings fear and despair to families and communities, America must marshal its resources to assure that our children have opportunities to thrive.
WASHINGTON—A recent report by the Manhattan Institute about the extent to which segregation may have declined in the last century has triggered a heated debate, with many social justice advocates rejecting its finding that segregation has virtually ended in U.S. cities.
The U.S. Department of Justice won a recent conviction in a Pennsylvania courtroom that sent a powerful message to Latinos nationwide—the government will not tolerate hate crimes against immigrants, even if they are not U.S. citizens.
