Steve Hochstadt: I will keep talking about race because my students cannot understand American history without knowing the role played by racism.
Creeping Fascism and the American Politics of Madness
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David Love: Burning the Holy Qur’an, bombing and burning mosques, banning houses of worship on private property, widespread denial of the president’s citizenship, efforts to nullify the Fourteenth Amendment, states scrambling to enact punitive, unjust laws to target Latinos—these are the ingredients of which fascism is made.
Living in a ‘Post-Racist’ Society
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Tina Dupuy: Pandering to our darkest fears about “the others” coming to our side of the island to kill us is, also, officially no longer racist.
The Hidden Story Behind the Sherrod Case: USDA Racism
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Pete Daniel: The rush to dismiss Shirley Sherrod based on an edited video contrasts remarkably with the tens of thousands of cases of USDA bureaucrats denying African American farmers loans, jobs, acreage, information, and courtesy who were neither dismissed or reprimanded.
Shirley Sherrod and Race Realities In America: We All Need a History Lesson
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Anthony Samad: America so badly needs a history lesson on race right now. Not necessarily to indict, but to enlight. Then maybe we wouldn’t as susceptible to episodes like Breitbart’s and other race baiters trying to gain Rush Limbaugh-Glenn Beck type notoriety.
The Unbearable Whiteness of Being
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Mark Naison: When my working-class white friends and fellow coaches attacked affirmative action—which they did vociferously and often—it was about preferential treatment that they saw blacks and Latinos getting on the job, especially in the civil service.
Rand Paul Could Use a Lesson from My Father on Discrimination
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Lawrence Wittner: In one way, Rand Paul is quite right. Anti-discrimination laws do turn the tables on businessmen, who find that they can no longer mistreat employees and customers on the basis of race, religion, national origins, or gender. And isn’t that ban on discriminatory behavior a good idea?
The Usual Suspects: Arizona and the Black/Latino Divide
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Sikivu Hutchinson: Homegrown black support for or ambivalence about the Arizona law is symptomatic of a deep vein of frustration, anger, cultural resentment and xenophobia. Study after study indicates that African Americans are the most residentially segregated, suffer the greatest discrimination in job application and employment, and are amongst the biggest recipients of predatory mortgage loans.
The New Jim Crow
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Michelle Alexander: The clock has been turned back on racial progress in America, though scarcely anyone seems to notice. All eyes are fixed on people like Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey who have defied the odds and achieved great power, wealth and fame.
LA Progressive: 25 October to 1 November 2009 — Articles
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Why We Support Marcy Winograd. First, haven’t we all had our fill of tepid Democrats? Blue Dogs, Red State moderates, careerists, call them what you will; we don’t need any more Democrats in Congress who pose as up-from-the-grassroots voices for the common man, only to climb right in bed with the vested interests the moment [...]
Discrimination: Now You See It, Now You Don’t
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I don’t know if you have to experience discrimination first hand in order to be able to see it, but I do know that I learned a lot standing on that corner with my uncle in a wheelchair 20 years ago. For that reason, I have hope that maybe the Civil Rights Division under the Obama administration will do what it has often failed to do in the past – provide a line of defense for this country’s most vulnerable people.
How Nobodies Can Be Somebodies: FAQs for the Dignity Movement against Rankism
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When discrimination and injustice are race-based, we call it racism; when they’re gender-based, we call it sexism. By analogy, rank-based abuse and exploitation are rankism. We won’t be able to confront rankism until we overcome our fear of seeming uppity by using the word in public.
Blacks and Latinos Hit Harder in Hard Times
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Unemployment is and always has been much higher in Black and Latino communities. But the gap has widened during this recession. In fact, Black unemployment is nearly double that of Whites, while Latinos are unemployed at a rate one-third higher than their White counterparts.
Rankism: The Elephant in Professor Gates’s House
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The Gates Affair reminds us of our sorry history of racial profiling and gives new impetus to ending it. It also suggests that we’re more likely to eradicate profiling if we show our guardians the same dignity that we seek for ourselves.
Reflections on Racism
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Barack Obama feels able to counsel others – most recently Armenians and Turks – to work through their pasts “in a way that is honest, open and constructive.” Otherwise, he cautions, unresolved history “can be a heavy weight.” And yet Obama decided to leave his own country’s past unresolved by boycotting this week’s international conference [...]
Peaceful Revolution: What Are Moms Rising Against?
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One of the lessons of identity politics is that success requires knowing not just what you’re for, but also what you’re against. Blacks are for racial justice and against racism. Women are for gender equity and against sexism. Moms are for ending discrimination against mothers (fair pay, flexible work, paid sick days, maternity and paternity [...]
Savage Blames Immigrant ‘Gang-Bangers’ For ‘Destroying California’
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Yesterday, Media Matters highlighted statements made by “shock-jock” radio host Michael Savage on his Friday show in which he lashed out at immigrant “gang-bangers” for “destroying California.” Savage, whose inflammatory rhetoric recently got him banned from entering the U.K., vowed that only God himself will shut him up: SAVAGE: The illegals [immigrants] have destroyed the [...]
Immigration Report Highlights Bush Administration’s ‘Flagrant Disregard For Rule of Law’
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Two years after the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) swept up and detained thousands of workers from six meatpacking plants across the country during one of the nation’s largest immigration raids, a new report released by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) today details how ICE officials terrorized UFCW members under the [...]
Department of Homeland Security Suspends “Widow Penalty”
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This week, the Obama administration took another step toward restoring fairness and humaneness to the immigration system. On Tuesday, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that she would grant a two-year reprieve to immigrants who were married to U.S. citizens but did not complete the permanent residency process because their American spouses [...]
Beck Decries ‘Empathy’ For ‘Anchor Baby Thing’
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While railing about the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to temporarily halt the deportation of widows and widowers of U.S. citizens, Fox News’ Glenn Beck yesterday slammed “anchor babies,” the U.S.- born children of immigrants, and called for the overturn of the 14th Amendment which grants natural-born citizenship: BECK: You know the anchor baby thing [...]
Local Police Report Makes the Case for Federal Enforcement of Immigration Laws
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This week the Police Foundation issued a long awaited report, The Role of Local Police: Striking a Balance Between Immigration Enforcement and Civil Liberties. The Police Foundation found that because Congress has failed to move forward with comprehensive immigration reform, states and localities have spent more time and resources curbing immigration themselves at the high [...]
Obama’s Controversial Two-Step Moves in Direction of Immigration Reform
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After boosting border enforcement, the Obama Administration recently announced that it will also increase funding for a troublesome program started by George W. Bush. The controversial program gives Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) unregulated access to the immigration information of every person in local prisons across the United States. Although Obama may be sending mixed [...]
Obama Budget Not a Replacement for Comprehensive Immigration Reform
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The Obama Administration appears increasingly poised to move forward on comprehensive immigration reform, as promised. Last Thursday, the White House announced budgetary initiatives that signal a change in priorities and pave the way for immigration reform. At the same time, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, testified before the Senate yesterday about her plans to [...]
Sheriff Joe Arpaio to Recruit and Arm Citizens, Neo-Nazis Have His Back
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Rather than cleaning up his police department and addressing allegations of racial profiling and discrimination, Arpaio has decided to recruit and arm more Maricopa citizens in the absence of state funds. Back in April, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in Arizona voted to postpone the acceptance of $1.6 million from the state to help [...]
Another Reason to Skip Wal-Mart
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The CEO of Wal-Mart, just like Mormons, can exercise his right to free speech and expression however he sees fit. I too have that right — and will exercise it by refusing to give the company that pays him my business and by saying so. Why? Well, I have many reasons for not shopping there, [...]
Anti-Immigrant Hysterics’ Swine Flu Blame-Game Generates Blowback
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Jay Severin, a radical right-wing talk show radio host from Boston, has been indefinitely kicked off the air after making some brazen comments, including calling Mexicans “primitives” and “women with mustaches and VD” who “leech” off the U.S.. More specifically, Boston’s WTKK-FM decided to suspend Jay Severin after the following comments sparked deep concern among [...]
Reflections on May Day
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Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez of Democracy Now! sat down with Alex Sanchez of Homies Unidos and Janis Rosheuvel of Families for Freedom to discuss the nation’s immigration policy, its overall treatment of undocumented immigrants and the impact of the May Day protests in Los Angeles. Alex Sanchez believes the May Day movement has not [...]
When Queer Communities of Color Are Not Needed to Win Marriage Rights
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With Iowa being the fourth state to approve marriage equality, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer Americans’ optimism is high, believing many more states will follow suit. “We’re hoping this momentum is contagious,” Daniel Richards of Rhode Island told me. And should Rhode Island soon approve of same-sex marriage, it would be the fourth New [...]
Low-Income Latinos and Immigrants Reported “Under Siege” in the South
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This week, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) released a new report entitled “Under Siege: Life for Low-Income Latinos in the South.” SLPC report adds to the mounting evidence pointing to the harmful impact that the absence of a functioning immigration system is having on Latinos and immigrant communities. SPLC investigators interviewed and surveyed 500 [...]
Equality Advances? Attack the Gays!
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Be warned: Those new National Organization for Marriage anti-GLBT “actor auditions” videos posted are gone. NOM noticed that its evil ruse had been exposed and demanded that YouTube take them down. Even a clip of a recent MSNBC Rachel Maddow clip that included the audition tapes is gone. NOM’s reason: copyright infringment. YouTube has to [...]
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