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 Jorge RivasScenes from ‘March of America’ Immigration Rally [VIDEO]Rep. Yvette Clark (D-N.Y.), Rep. Michael Honda (D-Calif.) and AFL- CIO Vice President Arlene Holt-Baker speak at March for America rally. Continue reading "Scenes from ‘March of America’ Immigration Rally [VIDEO]" Posted at 5:56 PM, Mar 21, 2010 in Immigration | Permalink | View Comments  Jorge RivasPresident Obama Promises to Do “Everything in His Power” for Immigration Reform in 2010
Though overshadowed by the historic debate on health care taking place nearby, local FOX news affiliate WTTG is reporting 500,000 people attended today’s immigration rally in the National Mall. Speaking by video to the crowd, President Barack Obama said he would do “everything in my power” to get a bipartisan deal within the year. “You know as well as I do that this won’t be easy, and it won’t happen overnight,” Obama added. “But if we work together across ethnic, state and party lines, we can build a future worthy of our history as a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws.” Posted at 4:57 PM, Mar 21, 2010 in Immigration | Obama | Permalink | View Comments Michelle ChenPay as They Go: The Cruel Calculus of Deportation
The number of deportations—including people forcibly removed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as well as so-called “voluntary” departures in which people are pushed to leave on their own—clocked in at 387,790 last fiscal year. So Obama’s first year in the White House saw a five percent increase in removals over the previous year. This escalating pattern of enforcement has split apart an estimated 1.6 million family members since the late 1990s, according to Human Rights Watch. And yet 10.8 million undocumented immigrants remain this country. Though unauthorized immigration seems to have waned during the recession, the number still represents an increase of about 300,000 since 2005. So in the absence of real reform, what’s left to do? How about finishing the job? According to a study by the Center for American Progress, if the government were to attempt a program of total deportation of the undocumented population, the price tag should give pause to every right-wing anti-immigrant crusader in Congress, and maybe plant the tiniest seed of doubt in their minds about the cost of their hateful rhetoric. Continue reading "Pay as They Go: The Cruel Calculus of Deportation " Posted at 1:02 AM, Mar 21, 2010 in Immigration | Labor | Politics | Permalink | View Comments Daisy HernandezIs Race Behind Tiger Woods’ Sex Addiction? Ask David Mura.
One of the golfer’s many white mistresses, Joslyn James, has published text messages he supposedly sent her. Not surprisingly, Tiger managed to cover a wide range of topics through his cell phone including golden showers, anal sex, parenting, and what kind of sandwich to have for dinner. James published the messages on Thursday on her uncreatively — though, I suppose, appropriately named — website, SextingJoslynJames.com. The news came a day after Obama told Fox News that he hoped Tiger was back on track with his family, and that he admired the man’s game… golf, of course. Tiger’s probably trying to focus right now on getting ready for the Masters in a few weeks, but since his wife’s not talking to him and he’s apparently put down his drug of choice (white women), this might be a good time for him to consider picking up a memoir by another man of color who’s been there, done that. Continue reading "Is Race Behind Tiger Woods’ Sex Addiction? Ask David Mura." Posted at 12:28 PM, Mar 20, 2010 in Books | Permalink | View Comments Jamilah KingNational Council of La Raza Opposes Healthcare Bill As Is
Update, 3/21/10: Late Friday night NCLR announced that they had officially changed their position and are now supporting the healthcare bill. The group cited “significant improvements.” Yesterday, the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) took a bold step by opposing the long-awaited healthcare bill currently being considered by Congress. Their main gripe? The bill didn’t do enough to ensure healthcare for even documented immigrants, and failed to include language that extended healthcare to residents of Puerto Rico. “We did not support the Senate passed legislation as of yesterday [emphasis added],” Jennifer Ng’andu, Deputy Director of the Health Policy Project, told ColorLines today when reached by phone. It’s unclear if anything about the bill or La Raza’s position will change, but yesterday the group made a far stronger statement to the Huffington Post, saying that calls for the “greater good” came at the expense of the “most vulnerable communities:” Although the Senate-passed version of the health care reform bill offers new access to health insurance to many Latinos, it bars access to health care for legal immigrants, establishes a burdensome verification system that will erect barriers to enrollment for eligible children and their families, and leaves millions of others without access to affordable coverage. While Democratic lawmakers have been pushing especially hard this week to garner enough support for their bill, NCLR’s opposition could complicate the White House’s effort to hold the votes of members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Continue reading "National Council of La Raza Opposes Healthcare Bill As Is" Posted at 4:35 PM, Mar 19, 2010 in Health | Immigration | Permalink | View Comments Jorge RivasBlacks and Latinos Using Twitter to Sound Off, Organize [SXSW VIDEO]While the digital divide is very real and affects low income and folks of color in negative ways, that doesn’t mean these groups aren’t engaging in internet trends like Twitter. In a presentation earlier this week at SXSW Baratunde Thurston, Web & Politics editor at The Onion, co-founder of Jack & Jill Politics, pointed out that if you consider mobile use by “Black folk,” the impact of the digital divide on Blacks and Latinos in the U.S. actually dissipates. Thurston cited research from the Pew Internet and Life Project that studied wireless internet use by African Americans and Latinos. When tethered and wireless access are considered together, the gaps in online engagement between whites and blacks largely dissipates. Nearly as many African Americans have cell phone or online access as whites, with a gap of only 4 percentage points. We’ve seen successful peer-to-peer mobile campaigns that included the participation of Blacks and Latinos like the text based Haiti fundraising efforts and 2006’s immigration marches that were largely organized through radio and text messages. What does this mean? Until everyone has equal access to broadband, if you want to run any kind of campaign that includes Blacks and Latinos you have to include a mobile strategy. Posted at 4:02 PM, Mar 19, 2010 in Media Analysis | Permalink | View Comments Seth Freed WesslerImmigration Bill Arrives, Here’s What We Know Right Now
This morning, Senators Schumer and Graham outlined their immigration proposal in a Washington Post op-ed titled “The Right Way to Mend Immigration”. It’s the plan Obama said “should be the basis for moving forward.” So what’s in this proposal? To start, before we get into the details, Schumer and Graham use the word ‘illegal’ 11 times in their op-ed. Calling people ‘illegal’ over and over again is not a great way to message around a bill meant to “mend” anything. In terms of content, they begin by proposing more “enforcement” on the border and in the interior. This will mean more resources funneled into high-tech border “security” that will push those trying to get here into more dangerous terrain and result in more deaths on the border. Then, they’d move to expand “domestic enforcement to better apprehend and deport those commit crimes.” But, as a result of policies already in place to target “criminals” we deported close to 390,000 last year. Most of those rounded up by these enforcement tactics actually had no criminal record at all. More enforcement is bound to drive these numbers up further, tearing more families apart. Continue reading "Immigration Bill Arrives, Here’s What We Know Right Now" Posted at 3:30 PM, Mar 19, 2010 in Permalink | View Comments Jamilah KingMalcolm X Assassin Granted Parole After 40 Years
Thomas Hagan, the last of three man convicted of shooting and killing Malcolm X during a speech in 1965, was recently granted parole after his 17th try: Mr. Hagan, who turned 69 in jail on Tuesday, was a militant member of the Nation of Islam on Feb. 21, 1965, when Malcolm X was shot while giving a speech at the Audubon, in Washington Heights. Mr. Hagan, then known as Talmadge X. Hayer, was captured by the crowd and shot at and beaten before being rescued by the police. Hagan, who’s been on work release since 1988, has for the better part of 20 years split his time between visiting his family in Brooklyn and spending half the week locked up at Lincoln Correctional Facility in Manhattan, which overlooks Malcolm X boulevard. The New York Post ran a feature a couple years ago describing him as a man who shuns publicity and regrets his actions. “I’ve been incarcerated for 40 years, and I’ve had a good record all around,” Hagan said two years ago, after being denied parole for the thirteenth time. “I don’t see any reason for holding me.” Posted at 3:06 PM, Mar 19, 2010 in Permalink | View Comments Michelle ChenSchool Grounds as Battlefield: Political Lessons at an Arabic-themed School
It was also the opportunity of a lifetime for Debbie Almontaser, a Yemeni-American New Yorker, longtime educator and activist, who was chosen to head the new school. But that dream was soon extinguished by those who believe the city has no business engaging Arab culture through the classroom. Before the school even opened its doors,a right-wing cabal launched a smear campaign against Almontaser and the city’s Arab and Muslim communities (see Seth Wessler’s previous coverage). In the end, the school survived, but Almontaser was ousted in a storm of anti-Muslim screeds from the conservative media and blogosphere. But last week, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission vindicated Almontaser, ruling that the New York City
Department of Education’s treatment of Almontaser was discriminatory
“on account of her race, religion and national origin.” Continue reading "School Grounds as Battlefield: Political Lessons at an Arabic-themed School" Posted at 2:41 PM, Mar 19, 2010 in Civil Rights | Education | Youth | Permalink | View Comments Julianne HingFriday Twitter Break: Reading Rainbow Is Back, And Immigration Reform Bill Is HereAfter a brief hiatus, your favorite Friday Twitter Break is back with a roundup of the best of the race talk on the Twittersphere. There’s plenty going down as we speak, and lots happening in D.C. this weekend. Folks in D.C. are gearing up for what promises to be a massive turnout for the March for America for immigration reform, which also happens to fall on the seventh anniversary of the war. If that weren’t enough, we are also fighting through the final moments of healthcare and student aid reform. All that and more, including reactions to New York KGIA principal Debbie Almontaser’s ousting, white boy soul singer Robin Thicke’s “conversion” to Blackness (I kid you not), and the Wall Street Journal’s profile of Rev. Al Sharpton. Enjoy! Be sure to follow ColorLines at @racialjustice!
Posted at 1:44 PM, Mar 19, 2010 in Politics | Pop Culture | Permalink | View Comments Seth Freed WesslerThe Morning Browse: Immigration Reform Rollout; ‘Zero-Tolerance’ Racism; Cutting Kids off Health InsuranceA North Carolina lawsuit takes on “zero-tolerance” school discipline policies on the grounds that they deny Black students the right to an education. Nationwide, Black students are suspended at three times the rate of whites, contributing to the “school to prison pipeline.” Arizona became the first state to drop the Children’s Health Insurance Program and will soon rollback Medicaid for adults without kids. It’s the latest in a line of state cuts to programs for low-income people. Senators Schumer and Graham outlined their immigration bill yesterday. It’s filled with promises of more enforcement and a temporary worker program. In the final days of the healthcare push, Republicans and some Democrats are again using abortion to challenge the whole bill. Tavis Smiley will host a nationally televised forum on Saturday to discuss Obama’s track record on race. The forum follows recent statements by the Congressional Black Caucus that the recent jobs bill fails to deal with high rates of Black and brown unemployment. Posted at 10:29 AM, Mar 19, 2010 in Permalink | View Comments Julianne HingOne in Four Black Men in Kentucky Can’t Vote, But DRA Could Change That
That could change though, if the Democracy Restoration Act passes. The bill would restore the right to vote in federal elections to four million people around the country who’ve served their time, been released and now live—and likely pay taxes—in our communities. On Tuesday, the House Subcommittee on Committee, Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties convened a hearing to listen to testimony on the bill. If passed, DRA would join the larger state-based movement in the last ten years to restore folks with prior convictions the right to vote. Since 1997, twenty states have made adjustments to laws to allow at least some portion of the formerly incarcerated the right to vote in state elections. Kentucky’s actually got a state version of DRA in committee right now, awaiting passage by its Senate before it goes to a public vote. Ex-felon voter disenfranchisement is a voter suppression tactic left over from the Jim Crow-era, a classic example of discriminatory laws that don’t mention race but have a disproportionate impact on people of color. Literacy tests, anyone? Poll taxes? We don’t stand for that these days, yet voter disenfranchisement of people with felony convictions still stands on the books. Continue reading "One in Four Black Men in Kentucky Can’t Vote, But DRA Could Change That" Posted at 4:30 PM, Mar 18, 2010 in Civil Rights | Criminal Justice | Permalink | View Comments Kai WrightCriminal Flaws in Obama’s Immigration Reform Vision
Advocates are gearing up for this weekend’s march on Washington for immigration reform, and the White House has done its best to get out ahead of the movement in recent weeks. It remains unlikely that Democrats will work reform into the 2010 agenda. But in an essay over at ColorLines today, Seth Wessler asks a deeper question: Whenever Democrats get moving on reform, what will they actually achieve? Seth writes: The Obama administration’s reform goal is to achieve what Bush only purported to do: Focus enforcement on dangerous criminals and terrorists. “As an investigative agency, ICE prioritizes our immigration enforcement efforts to target those who threaten the security of the American people,” says Obama’s ICE chief, John Morton. The political tradeoff seems clear: A tough-enforcement perspective can give Democrats the space to create paths to citizenship. … Read Seth’s essay here. And we’ll be covering the march over the weekend and next week. Posted at 4:08 PM, Mar 18, 2010 in ColorLines Features | Immigration | Permalink | View Comments Kai WrightSouth Carolina’s AIDS Crisis Shows Health System’s Worn PatchesSouth Carolina is once again making really bad news on HIV/AIDS: People living with HIV are rallying against a budget plan that will end funding for a program that helps low-income people living with HIV/AIDS buy meds. More than 2,000 people would lose their insurance and potentially have to end treatment. It’s an unfortunately timely reminder of how poorly our current national health care system works. South Carolina has been among a batch of largely southern states that have struggled chronically to maintain their AIDS Drug Assistance Programs, which are jointly funded by the feds and state governments. The programs patch up a huge hole in the health care safety net, by offering coverage to thousands of working Americans who don’t qualify for Medicaid but can’t afford the hefty price tag of HIV drugs. Like Medicaid, however, ADAPs have long created budget problems - particularly in southern states, where the epidemic has grown most quickly. South Carolina’s program has stood out as a problem. In 2005, four people died while lingering on a waiting list for entering the program. But South Carolina isn’t alone. Throughout the Bush era, several states developed ADAP waiting lists, and as of March 5, 662 people were on waiting lists in 10 states. Check out the blog of Housing Works, a New York City-based AIDS group, for a solid round up of the budget pressures nationally. Advocates are petitioning President Obama to make an emergency allocation of $126 million to keep ADAPs around the country afloat this year. But the bigger picture, of course, is health care reform. ADAPs are a disturbingly fitting example of our problem: The programs exist only because our larger system has so utterly failed, leaving tens of thousands of people neither covered by Medicaid nor able to participate in the private market. ADAPs were a patch, but even the patches to our health care system have worn through. Posted at 3:45 PM, Mar 18, 2010 in Health | Permalink | View Comments Channing KennedyLt. Dan Choi Arrested at White House, Protesting Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
AMERICABlog’s Joe Sudbay reports that as of 1:53PM, both Lt. Choi and Capt. Pietrangelo have been arrested and taken away. Check out ColorLines’ September 2009 featured interview with Lt. Choi following his discharge from the military, in which he discusses his life as a gay man of color in the military, and as the public face of the DADT repeal movement. From the interview: He decided on Arabic, and when he graduated from West Point in 2003, Choi was one of a handful of classmates who had completed this course of study. In national proficiency tests Choi earned the top score. Being gay, Choi believes, gave him the edge in learning a language. “Knowing that you are different … gives you this empathy for people that are different from you. And, regardless of what race you are, it allows you to have compassion. And those things are so important to learning a language.” photo credit: Pam Spaulding, Pam’s House Blend Posted at 2:56 PM, Mar 18, 2010 in LGBT | Permalink | View Comments Julianne Hing45 Detroit Schools to Close: Where Have All The Students Gone?
Enrollment in the Detroit public school system has been on a steady downward trajectory for the last ten years. Part of it has to do with Detroit as a city under assault, as a city whose depressed economy and unemployment woes are merely an amplified version of trends throughout the rest of the country. Part of it has to do with the fact that manufacturing jobs in the city dried up so badly that Detroit was topped only by New Orleans in 2007 in the rankings of U.S. cities’ population loss. In the 2002-2003 school year, DPS’s pre-kindergarten through 12th grade student population was 164,500, but estimates for Detroit’s public school enrollment this year stand as low as 84,000 students. Experts project that in five years’ time, the number of students in Detroit Public Schools will be 56,000 students. But Detroit also has a robust charter school industry with a student enrollment of 54,000 kids. That’s right, Detroit’s charter school enrollment is set to outpace its public school enrollment. That alone is so mindbending that it eclipses the fact that when the charter school population and public school population of Detroit is combined, Detroit’s pre-K through 12 student population has actually increased in recent years. Continue reading "45 Detroit Schools to Close: Where Have All The Students Gone?" Posted at 4:49 PM, Mar 17, 2010 in Permalink | View Comments Jamilah KingWhat the Broadband Debate Says About Race
Continue reading "What the Broadband Debate Says About Race" Posted at 4:42 PM, Mar 17, 2010 in Civil Rights | Urban Issues | Permalink | View Comments Juell StewartMichelle’s Got Data on Her Side: Food Deserts are Vast
The report culls research from more than 100 previous studies to bring together the best data available on food access. The findings won’t shock anyone living in one of America’s many food deserts, but they prove Obama’s childhood obesity campaign can’t stop with telling parents to feed their kids better:
Mississippi, it turns out, has the highest obesity rate in the nation. But it’s not just Mississippi. Nationwide, geographic barriers to fresh fruits and vegetables bring dire health consequences, as residents of communities without grocery stores are more likely to suffer from obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease—all health conditions that disproportionately affect African Americans in particular. Michelle Obama has framed her Let’s Move! childhood obesity campaign, unveiled last month, in a way that all Americans can rally behind—not just those who are affected by the problem. That’s good. But yesterday she spoke for the first time directly to food manufacturers about their corporate responsibilities. “We need you not just to tweak around the edges, but to entirely rethink the products that you’re offering, the information that you provide about these products and how you market those products to our children,” she said in a speech to the Grocery Manufacturers Association. Continue reading "Michelle’s Got Data on Her Side: Food Deserts are Vast " Posted at 9:18 AM, Mar 17, 2010 in Food | Health | Obama | Youth | Permalink | View Comments Channing KennedyCNN, Fearing a ‘Dobbs Gap,’ Hires RedState’s Erick Erickson
FAIR.org has a roundup of Erickson’s greatest hits that’s a wonder to behold — from saying that Obama won the Nobel Prize due to affirmative action, to telling “ugly feminazis” to “get back in the kitchen,” to equating homosexuality with pedophilia, to commemorating Supreme Court Justice David Souter’s retirement by calling him a “goat-fucking child molester,” this guy’s got something for everyone and then some! But their list neglects to mention Erickson’s habit of encouraging his readers to mail ‘clever’ gifts to selected legislators, a tactic that blurs the line between dumb and gross.
Between this and Black in America, conservatives finally have a common issue with people of color — they’re both really, really badly represented on CNN. Posted at 8:54 AM, Mar 17, 2010 in Media Analysis | Permalink | View Comments Kai WrightThe Morning Browse: Big Stuff in Today’s NewsThe Obama administration has halted work on the multibillion-dollar “virtual fence” - a Bush-era project in which Boeing would help “secure” America’s southern border with electronic surveillance. The White House acknowledged our jobless recovery yesterday. The president’s economic team told Congress unemployment will remain around 10 percent this year, Bloomberg reports. The number of people in state prison is down for the first time since 1972, according to a Pew Center on the States study, which cited sentencing diversion programs for the downward trend. Haiti’s government and international donors offer a preliminary number on what it’s going to cost to rebuild: At least $11.5 billion. NYT points out how state legislatures are bringing federal nullification back in vogue. No word on how Utah and Alabama could bridge geography to form a new Confederacy. WSJ has fun saying Al Sharpton and Barack Obama in the same lede. The paper digs into the much-ballyhooed Sharpton-Tavis Smiley debate over whether Obama should have a Black agenda, and profiles Sharpton as an Obama surrogate in Black communities. Senators tell Roll Call they’re spoiling for the soon-to-come fight to replace Justice John Paul Stevens, who’s expected to announce his retirement any day now. New America Media talks to one of the four students walking the Trail of Dreams from Miami to D.C. to ask for immigration reform. Posted at 6:39 AM, Mar 17, 2010 in Courts | Economy | Haiti | Immigration | Prisons | Race and Recession | Permalink | View Comments |
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