Race & Ethnicity
Working twice as hard to get half as far: Race-based employment gap in Minnesota
Thu, 09/02/2010 - 14:47 — Dave Culver- The Twin Cities metro area has the biggest disparity in black-white unemployment rates of any major metropolitan area in the country.
- What is going on here?
- Racism in Minnesota (and Beyond)
Mary Turck, TC Daily Planet | MN
The Twin Cities metro area has the biggest disparity in black-white unemployment rates of any major metropolitan area in the country. What is going on here?
That's the question addressed by Dr. Algernon Austin, author of the Economic Policy Issues brief that presented the research on national disparities in unemployment by race. He spoke at a "leadership session" organized by the Alliance for Metropolitan Stability at in St. Paul on September 1.
Austin sliced, diced and dissected the numbers from a dozen studies, and came up with three reasons for the disparity.
Related:
Racism in Minnesota (and Beyond), Jeff Nygaard, Nygaard Notes
DEA Seeks Ebonics Translators to Decipher Black Peoples' Phone Conversations
Tue, 08/24/2010 - 16:01 — Dave CulverDon't get the wrong idea: this has nothing to do with the drug war being racist; they just need expert testimony to help win drug cases.
Scott Morgan, StoptheDrugWar.org
Submitted by Evergreene Digest Contributing Editor Ken Mitchell
Ever since NAACP endorsed marijuana legalization in California, there's been a raging debate over whether the drug war targets black communities. Looks like the DEA just settled it.
Atlanta — Federal agents are seeking to hire Ebonics translators to help interpret wiretapped conversations involving targets of undercover drug investigations.
The Drug Enforcement Administration recently sent memos asking companies that provide translation services to help it find nine translators in the Southeast who are fluent in Ebonics, Special Agent Michael Sanders said Monday. [AP]
But don't get the wrong idea. This has nothing to do with the drug war being racist. They just need expert testimony to help win drug cases:
"You can maybe get a general idea of what they're saying, but you have to understand that this has to hold up in court," he said. "You need someone to say, 'I know what they mean when they say 'ballin' or 'pinching pennies.'"
What would Martin Luther King Say? Mosques and the New Jim Crow in America
Tue, 08/24/2010 - 11:58 — Dave Culver
- Muslim Americans are Americans. There can be no government Establishment of Judeo-Christian traditions, and no prohibition on how and where Muslim Americans worship. We are seeing attempts to foment a new Jim Crow, centered on mosques, which involves all the same fear-mongering, segregation, and special pleading for the majority that characterized the old (Jim Crow).
- The Community Center at Park 51
Submitted by Evergreene Digest Contributing Editor Thomas Sklarski
The demonstration held on Sunday (Aug 22) against the Park 51 Muslim community center in lower Manhattan was an attempt by the right wing to strike at first amendment freedoms, but at the same time, it was simply a revival of urban policies of discrimination that were routine in the last century.
That the demonstration had racist overtones is clear from this video of the event at YouTube, which caught the crowd’s harassment of and near attack on an African-American carpenter the rightwingers perceived as a Park 51 supporter. He is caught on audio pointing out that the mob actually did not have the slightest idea what he thought about anything.
Glenn Beck's 'Restoring Honor' Rally Denounced By Civil Rights Leaders
Tue, 08/17/2010 - 11:32 — Dave Culver
- Glenn Beck's 'Restoring Honor' Rally To Face Countermarches From Civil Rights Activists, Al Sharpton
- Guns, Divisive Rhetoric to "Honor" Lincoln and King?
DeNeen Brown, Washington Post | DC
Submitted by Evergreene Digest Contributing Editor Joanne Thielen
Social activists and civil rights leaders, among them the Rev. Al Sharpton, are planning marches and demonstrations -- including the unveiling of a nearly four-story-tall original sculpture on the Mall -- on Aug. 28 to coincide with a rally organized by Fox News personality Glenn Beck.