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Articles tagged with: Racism

Racism and the Myth of a “Victim Mentality”
Friday, 12 Mar, 2010 – 6:00 | No Comment
Racism and the Myth of a “Victim Mentality”

Tim Wise: It’s a common argument, made by those who would rather ignore or finesse the problem of racism in America. If you can’t argue the facts, never fear, just suggest that certain facts are too dangerous to be spoken. The possibility that persons of color might adopt a victim mentality once they learn the extent of racism, means we simply have to move on, and tell those who are, as a matter of fact, often the victims of injustice not to dwell on their experiences too much, lest their commitment to self-help be vitiated.

What Is Rankism and Why Do We “Do” It?
Friday, 19 Feb, 2010 – 6:00 | No Comment
What Is Rankism and Why Do We “Do” It?

Robert Fuller: you conclude that rankism is human nature — that we’re like the apes, and they do it, so we have no choice — and dismiss the possibility of overcoming it, consider this list of specific kinds of “put downs” that, not long ago, were deemed cool, but have become a sure way to embarrass yourself.

The New Jim Crow
Wednesday, 17 Feb, 2010 – 6:00 | 5 Comments
The New Jim Crow

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.

Friday Feedback: Martin Luther King Stood Up for What Is Right
Friday, 29 Jan, 2010 – 5:00 | 2 Comments
Friday Feedback: Martin Luther King Stood Up for What Is Right

I don’t care if you believe that whites are better than blacks, or if your religion teaches that the Bible says gays are immoral, you don’t have the right to oppress other citizens. You don’t have the right to deny the benefits of civil marriage to the children of gay citizens. Not in this country. That’s what makes Martin Luther King’s work so powerful – he stood up for what was ethically right, and his demands were in alignment with the Constitution of our great nation: Equal rights for all!

Massachusetts?!! Ask the Model Minority
Thursday, 21 Jan, 2010 – 6:00 | 2 Comments
Massachusetts?!! Ask the Model Minority

John Delloro: With a rise in right-wing populism, I am worried. Our history tells us that immigration will become the key hot button issue these next coming elections and, in the past, hate crimes against AAPIs and Latina/os have consistently risen with increasing anti-immigrant sentiment, especially during low economic periods.

Friday Feedback: Call for Jobs Programs
Saturday, 12 Dec, 2009 – 5:38 | No Comment
Friday Feedback: Call for Jobs Programs

I can’t say I was “disappointed” in the jobs summit, because I didn’t expect it to be more than window dressing, but every day I wake up with the hope that President Obama will read one of the articles by people like Paul Krugman or Bob Herbert in the NY Times and a light will finally click on in that sharp brain of his.

­How Nobodies Can Be Somebodies: FAQs for the Dignity Movement against Rankism
Wednesday, 7 Oct, 2009 – 11:07 | No Comment
­How Nobodies Can Be Somebodies: FAQs for the Dignity Movement against Rankism

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.

Second Chance for Michael Vick and Other Ex-Felons
Thursday, 3 Sep, 2009 – 15:09 | 3 Comments
Second Chance for Michael Vick and Other Ex-Felons

But there are thousands, no, millions, of everyday people who have served their time and paid their debt to society, yet they can’t get a minimum wage job flipping burgers. They need a second chance just to survive.

A Teachable Moment: Police Authority and Racism
Saturday, 1 Aug, 2009 – 10:16 | 4 Comments
A Teachable Moment: Police Authority and Racism

President Obama was right the first time when he said the police acted stupidly, because they should know better. It’s unfortunate that the president found it necessary to step back and retract the remark because until we can see this kind of action with some objectivity, we will never learn enough to actually be objective in such matters.

Are We Always Going to Be Preoccupied with Racism?
Saturday, 25 Jul, 2009 – 11:00 | No Comment
Are We Always Going to Be Preoccupied with Racism?

Yet, the long view shows that since this racial system had a beginning, and important changes have taken place, one can venture that it will also have an end. The election of Barack Obama is an encouraging sign.

Living While Black in Cambridge
Wednesday, 22 Jul, 2009 – 14:17 | 4 Comments
Living While Black in Cambridge

None of us African-American residents of Cambridge are surprised or shocked by the humiliation and harassment Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., 58, of Harvard University encountered at the hands of Cambridge police.

Sotomayor IS a Wise Latina, and Our Court Needs Her
Sunday, 19 Jul, 2009 – 10:57 | 3 Comments
Sotomayor IS a Wise Latina, and Our Court Needs Her

Exposure to a wide range of life experiences and education are the keys to progress. Judge Sotomayor has had both the benefits of that exposure and the formal as well as practical education necessary to make her a wise Latina justice of the Supreme Court.

Reflections on Racism
Friday, 3 Jul, 2009 – 7:15 | No Comment
Reflections on Racism

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 …

Good Hair v Nappy Hair
Saturday, 13 Jun, 2009 – 10:10 | 26 Comments
Good Hair v Nappy Hair

Good Hair
Like most blacks in America, I was raised in an environment where hair like mine, kinky hair, was called “bad hair.”  Straight hair or kink-less hair was “good hair.” I grew up receiving messages …

Glenn Beck Spins the Holocaust Museum Shooting
Thursday, 11 Jun, 2009 – 21:51 | One Comment
Glenn Beck Spins the Holocaust Museum Shooting

Wednesday afternoon, Glenn Beck and two of his guests argued that Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party were “left wing”; that “political correctness” led the committed white supramacist, James Von Brunn, to shoot a security …

The American InJustice System
Monday, 8 Jun, 2009 – 12:56 | No Comment
The American InJustice System

Per capita, the United States incarcerates more of its citizens than any industrialized nation in the world. Over 2.3 million Americans are living behind bars or under conditions where the state oversees their conduct.
Crime …

Plea Bargains in the Criminal McJustice System
Saturday, 6 Jun, 2009 – 6:00 | No Comment
Plea Bargains in the Criminal McJustice System

In Philadelphia, it is time for a new district attorney. The current D.A. Lynne Abraham is retiring, and none too soon – after 18 years in the position, she has been called “America’s deadliest D.A.” …

Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s Nomination: Obama Gives the Nation Another Teaching Moment
Tuesday, 2 Jun, 2009 – 11:40 | No Comment
Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s Nomination: Obama Gives the Nation Another Teaching Moment

President Barack Obama has done a symbolically extraordinary thing by nominating for the first time in U.S. history a person of Latino descent to the Supreme Court. The president has stayed true to the theme …

Award-Winning “Journalism” Targets Obama’s Head
Monday, 25 May, 2009 – 18:05 | One Comment
Award-Winning “Journalism” Targets Obama’s Head

Meet one of the “winners” from the Association for Alternative Newsweeklies 2009 awards. The above inflammatory PW cover art is for the AAN award-winning article Hater Nation, an article on an anonymous letter received by …

Who Mourns the Confederate Slave?
Saturday, 9 May, 2009 – 20:02 | 2 Comments
Who Mourns the Confederate Slave?

Klansman and Nazi David Duke was arrested in Prague, Czech Republic, the last week of April 2009: it is a crime to deny the Holocaust. In Germany and Austria, it is a crime to …

Inside Joe Arpaio: Arizona Deputy Calls Him a Disgrace to the Department
Monday, 4 May, 2009 – 8:10 | 9 Comments
Inside Joe Arpaio: Arizona Deputy Calls Him a Disgrace to the Department

“It ain’t right,” the man with the soft, desert cowboy drawl says slowly into the phone. “These folks are human beings and he treats ‘em like swine. Well, actually, Joe treats everyone who ain’t white …

The New William H. Parker Center Controversy: Revisionist History Cannnot Override Long Racial Legacy
Saturday, 25 Apr, 2009 – 14:06 | One Comment
The New William H. Parker Center Controversy: Revisionist History Cannnot Override Long Racial Legacy

The City of Los Angeles is about to unveil its brand new “state-of-the-art,” world-class headquarters for what it considers its world-class law enforcement agency. Just know there’s one too many “world-class” attributes in that last …

The Legacy of Torture: Story of the San Francisco Eight
Friday, 24 Apr, 2009 – 13:35 | One Comment
The Legacy of Torture: Story of the San Francisco Eight

ACLU Pasadena Public Forum
“Will we face the torture chambers in our cities as well as on Guantanamo?”
Tuesday, May 12, 7 p.m.
Neigbhorhood Church
301 North Orange Grove Boulevard
Pasadena, California
Hear two of the SF8 tell their story of …

Lobbyist Money + Right-Wing Extremists = Tea Party
Friday, 24 Apr, 2009 – 9:47 | No Comment
Lobbyist Money + Right-Wing Extremists = Tea Party

The tea parties that recently took place around the country were billed as a grassroots, bottom-up groundswell against taxes, big government and bailouts. Fox News, apparently promoting itself as the official teabag network, hopes …

US to Boycott UN Racism Forum
Monday, 20 Apr, 2009 – 13:41 | One Comment
US to Boycott UN Racism Forum

A global conference devoted to addressing racism is having trouble attracting an audience. The event, slated to take place in South Africa next week, boasts Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a plenary speaker — and …

Michelle, Malia, and Sasha Cannot Be the Only Black Women Whose Lives Matter to Us in 2009
Sunday, 19 Apr, 2009 – 14:41 | 5 Comments
Michelle, Malia, and Sasha Cannot Be the Only Black Women Whose Lives Matter to Us in 2009

So I went to the scene of the crime yesterday afternoon that left a teenage girl dead and a 30-year-old paraplegic arrested for murder.
If I’d driven by too fast, I’d have missed the small makeshift …

A Message From Amnesty International – Troy Anthony Davis
Sunday, 19 Apr, 2009 – 1:55 | 2 Comments
A Message From Amnesty International – Troy Anthony Davis

Troy Davis faces execution for the murder of Police Officer Mark MacPhail in Georgia, despite a strong claim of innocence. 7 out of 9 witnesses have recanted or contradicted …

African Americans and the Economic Crisis
Thursday, 16 Apr, 2009 – 10:08 | 2 Comments
African Americans and the Economic Crisis

Joe Biden was quite out front about it. On the same day the newspapers were trumpeting the news that President Obama had felt a “glimmer of hope” in the economic situation, the Vice-President was telling …

Just Old Men Talking
Sunday, 12 Apr, 2009 – 15:50 | No Comment
Just Old Men Talking

I don’t remember exactly when I began to think this way, but looking back, it must have been at some point during my early elementary school years that I began to believe the “American History” …

Michelle Obama: The True Image of an African American Woman
Sunday, 5 Apr, 2009 – 6:16 | 4 Comments
Michelle Obama: The True Image of an African American Woman

For many years, African Americans were perceived as being ignorant creatures incapable of thinking and successfully holding leadership positions and roles. However, African Americans are constantly defying this perception and reaching heights beyond any individual’s …

This Week in the LA Progressive: March 29 to April 4
Saturday, 4 Apr, 2009 – 23:08 | No Comment
This Week in the LA Progressive: March 29 to April 4

Equal Access, Equal Justice
Rejecting Post-Raciality: An Ode to the Life of John Hope Franklin. Franklin proved that within our story is America’s story and America “Negro problem” was a refusal to acknowledge the equality of …

This Week in The LA Progressive: March 22 to March 28
Sunday, 29 Mar, 2009 – 1:04 | No Comment
This Week in The LA Progressive: March 22 to March 28

Avoiding the Greater Depression
New York, City of the Poor. This city that never sleeps, and others, will experience economic and social death without a vibrant middle class and viable opportunities to earn a living. –David …

Black, Male, Released from Prison, and Unemployed: A Recipe for Social Estrangement
Friday, 27 Mar, 2009 – 11:16 | 10 Comments
Black, Male, Released from Prison, and Unemployed: A Recipe for Social Estrangement

Young men who are re-entering society from prison can’t find work. Recent studies on prisoner re-entry suggest that, in California, nearly 400 prisoners, A DAY, are being released into the community, with 70% to 90% of them being unemployed because only 20% of the state’s employers are willing to hire persons with convictions (no matter how long ago).

Returning to the Rule of Law: Bogus Republican Complaints about AIG Bailout
Friday, 27 Mar, 2009 – 6:20 | No Comment
Returning to the Rule of Law: Bogus Republican Complaints about AIG Bailout

Last week, Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) weighed in to express his outrage at the lack of government control which led to the AIG bailout scandal. This isn’t the first time that Sessions has expressed …

Between the Lines: The Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Who Made the Hard Sell of Trust
Friday, 13 Mar, 2009 – 11:35 | No Comment
<i>Between the Lines:</i> The Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Who Made the Hard Sell of Trust

The passing of Los Angeles Deputy Chief of Police, Kenny Garner, has left a stunned community pondering the question, “Who do we call now, when we want answers from LAPD?” Kenny Garner was a friend …

The Return of the Mulatto: The Green-Eyed Monster
Tuesday, 10 Mar, 2009 – 13:00 | 3 Comments
The Return of the Mulatto: The Green-Eyed Monster

“You can’t write that about the president of the NAACP.”
“Write what?” I said.
“That,” Melissa told me, pointing at my notebook’s …

Lani Guinier Speaks
Friday, 6 Mar, 2009 – 7:34 | No Comment
Lani Guinier Speaks

Famed legal scholar, civil rights attorney and author, Lani Guinier, spoke at Tavis Smiley’s State of the Black Union 2009. The first black woman tenured professor at Harvard Law School, Ms Guinier has authored …

Who’s Leading the Republican Party? Rush Limbaugh and the Resurrection of “Massive Resistance”
Friday, 6 Mar, 2009 – 6:50 | One Comment
Who’s Leading the Republican Party? Rush Limbaugh and the Resurrection of “Massive Resistance”

The Republican Party put all its business in the streets as talk radio rhetorician, Rush Limbaugh, went on the offensive (even more than he’s been on the offensive since Obama has taken office) at the …

R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Tuesday, 3 Mar, 2009 – 5:02 | No Comment
R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Recently, Rupert Murdoch, chairman of the New York Post, personally apologized for a recent cartoon by Sean Delonas, nicknamed by some “the Picasso of Prejudice”. The cartoon, which depicted a chimpanzee being shot by the …

Between the Lines: New York Post “Chimp” Cartoon — Incendiary Satire Has a Dangerous Past
Friday, 27 Feb, 2009 – 12:33 | 3 Comments
<i>Between the Lines:</i> New York Post “Chimp” Cartoon — Incendiary Satire Has a Dangerous Past

The New York Post issued a “sideways” explanation (I really wouldn’t call it an apology) on a provocative and highly incendiary political cartoon it ran on February 18th. Combining two news events of the day, …

Color-Blind, Power-Oblivious: Eric Holder and the Whitewashing of Racism
Friday, 27 Feb, 2009 – 6:03 | No Comment
Color-Blind, Power-Oblivious: Eric Holder and the Whitewashing of Racism

It was all too predictable that Attorney General Eric Holder would be attacked for his recent remarks about race in America. To suggest that the nation is still haunted by the specter of racism is …

The NAACP’s 100th Anniversary: What’s the Future Hold for the Granddaddy of Civil Rights Groups?
Saturday, 14 Feb, 2009 – 9:18 | No Comment
The NAACP’s 100th Anniversary: What’s the Future Hold for the Granddaddy of Civil Rights Groups?

This week, the most venerable of civil rights organizations, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, more commonly known as the NAACP, turns 100 years old. Founded on Abraham Lincoln’s 100th birthday (February …

Jackie Robinson’s Mandate – Black History Month in Pasadena
Saturday, 14 Feb, 2009 – 5:39 | 2 Comments
Jackie Robinson’s Mandate – Black History Month in Pasadena

A life can be a work of art, but like art, there are  standards to meet before it can be classified as
“art”. A life that is a “work of art” has to do something pretty …

Republicans Now Led by a Black Man
Friday, 30 Jan, 2009 – 13:11 | One Comment
Republicans Now Led by a Black Man

Michael Steele has been selected to lead the Republican Party. He is the first African-American to chair the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the second African-American to chair either of the two major party’s National …

Response to ACLU Racial Profiling Study: Los Angeles Police Department Never Met a Reform Report It Agrees With
Saturday, 17 Jan, 2009 – 7:25 | 2 Comments
Response to ACLU Racial Profiling Study: Los Angeles Police Department Never Met a Reform Report It Agrees With

The nation’s most abusive, and aggrieved law enforcement agency, the Los Angeles Police Department, is still “doin’ what it do” as it presented its response this week to a racial profiling study released to its …

The World Needs Dr. King Now More Than Ever
Friday, 16 Jan, 2009 – 12:39 | No Comment
The World Needs Dr. King Now More Than Ever

On this 80th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as I look at the state of human rights in the world I ask myself, “What would Dr. King do?”
Look at the …

Bigotry Still Rules
Monday, 5 Jan, 2009 – 23:00 | 3 Comments
Bigotry Still Rules

In the summer of 2006 I attended the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard. One of the guest presenters was 95-year-old Johnnie Carr, the woman who …

Goodbye, “Uncle Larry,” Hello (Again) “Uncle Clarence:” Are Black Conservatives Still Relevant?
Friday, 19 Dec, 2008 – 13:00 | One Comment
Goodbye, “Uncle Larry,” Hello (Again) “Uncle Clarence:” Are Black Conservatives Still Relevant?

The announcement that syndicated talk radio host, Larry Elder, was leaving his daily radio “squawk show” shouldn’t go without notice. Elder is a major remnant of the “colorblind” conservative movement that allowed race and race-based …

Did Obama Make the South Irrelevant?
Tuesday, 18 Nov, 2008 – 14:00 | One Comment
Did Obama Make the South Irrelevant?

The polls had hardly closed, it seemed, before the punditry of print and blogosphere were positively a-twitter at the possibility that Barack Obama’s near-landslide victory is both substance and symbol of the happy reality that …

Why We Cried
Thursday, 13 Nov, 2008 – 6:00 | 3 Comments
Why We Cried

by H. Scott Prosterman –

It made me feel a lot better to see that picture of Jesse Jackson crying on Election Night; not just “welling up” like Donovon McNabb admitted to, but really crying. That’s …

“That One:” President-Elect Barack Obama and the Fulfillment of Unreasonable Expectations
Tuesday, 11 Nov, 2008 – 12:00 | One Comment
“That One:” President-Elect Barack Obama and the Fulfillment of Unreasonable Expectations

The day we all thought we’d never see became a reality this week as the nation took a major step toward racial reconciliation in entrusting the country’s national government to a black man.
President-elect Barack Obama, …

Locked and Loaded
Monday, 10 Nov, 2008 – 6:00 | No Comment
Locked and Loaded

“Tool up.”
“They’re buying racks and racks of ammunition. There were spots where there was none left.”
“You better have a security plan in place.”
These were not words uttered in a frontier dialect from the lips of …

Who Woulda Thought?
Sunday, 9 Nov, 2008 – 15:00 | One Comment
Who Woulda Thought?

by Carl Bloice –

Just a small group of brothers sitting around at my place watching the Oakland Raiders lose again. During a commercial break, the subject of the next week’s election came up. “Seriously, would …

When They Drove Old Dixie Down
Thursday, 6 Nov, 2008 – 18:00 | 2 Comments
When They Drove Old Dixie Down

They should have played “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” when Barak Obama was elected president of the United States.
It’s a song about a defining moment in the Civil War that saw the old …

The Lesser Schlep
Thursday, 30 Oct, 2008 – 10:00 | One Comment
The Lesser Schlep

I want a girl like Sarah Silverman. She’s as pretty as Sarah Palin, much funnier, a lot smarter and she’s a nice . . . girl. Plus, she’s got what it takes to …

What Congressman John Lewis Was Really Saying: White Folk Getting Ready to Act Up, Y’all!
Sunday, 19 Oct, 2008 – 12:00 | 4 Comments
What Congressman John Lewis Was Really Saying: White Folk Getting Ready to Act Up, Y’all!

Much ado has been made over Georgia Congressman John Lewis’ statement about the nasty turn the Presidential campaign took at Republican rallies. From Palin saying Obama was “pallin’ around with domestic terrorists, to Republican rally …

Lipsticked Pit Bulls: Orange Jumpsuit Better Idea
Thursday, 9 Oct, 2008 – 13:00 | 4 Comments
Lipsticked Pit Bulls: Orange Jumpsuit Better Idea

When the circus act of Sarah Palin and Cindy McCain whipped up crowds into a seething frenzy, where was the US Secret Service? That is the group designated to protect all four candidates (and the …

Race: The Elephant in the Room
Thursday, 25 Sep, 2008 – 7:00 | 3 Comments
Race: The Elephant in the Room

A recent study of voter fears shows that a large percentage of white, Democratic voters won’t vote for Barack Obama because his is black. The study reprises patterns that have driven race relations in business …

(Proto)Typical White Denial: Reflections on Racism and Uncomfortable Realities
Tuesday, 23 Sep, 2008 – 11:00 | 4 Comments
(Proto)Typical White Denial: Reflections on Racism and Uncomfortable Realities

Not long ago, after I had written an article in which I discussed white denial–the tendency for most white folks to reject the notion that racism is still a significant obstacle for people of color …

Uniting a Divided Nation
Sunday, 17 Aug, 2008 – 1:00 | 21 Comments
Uniting a Divided Nation

Not too long ago, Dick and I joined our local Unitarian Universalist Church, Neighborhood Church in Pasadena.
Shortly after we started attending, the church contacted us about a potluck dinner they were having for the congregation’s …

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