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The neural basis for prejudice
How does the brain differentiate those who are similar to us from those who are different? Does it analyze differences in skin color, language, religion, height, eye color, foot size? Does it discriminate cat versus dog lovers, Pepsi versus Coke drinkers, Shiite versus Sunni, Crips versus Bloods?
Whites Just Don't Understand the Black Experience
White Americans seem to fully appreciate the costs associated with the kinds of disparities that African Americans actually face in the United States," Mazzocco says. "Our data suggest that such resistance is not because white Americans are mean and uncaring, morally bankrupt or ethically flawed," adds Dr. Mahzarin R. Banaji, a professor of social ethics at Harvard University. "White Americans suffer from a glaring ignorance about what it means to live as a black American."
Why I Collect Racist Objects
In 1990 I joined the sociology faculty at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan. It was my second teaching position and my third "real" job. At that time, my collection of racist artifacts numbered more than 1,000. I kept the collection in my home, bringing out pieces when I gave public addresses, mainly to high school students. I discovered that many young people, blacks and whites, were not only ignorant about historical expressions of racism, but they believed that I was exaggerating when I described the awfulness of Jim Crow. Their ignorance disappointed me. I showed them segregation signs, Ku Klux Klan robes, and everyday objects that portrayed blacks with ragged clothes, unkempt hair, bulging eyes, and clown-like lips -- running toward fried chicken and watermelons and running away from alligators. I talked to the students about the connection between Jim Crow laws and racist material objects. I was too heavy-handed, too driven to make them understand; I was, that is, learning to use the objects as teaching tools -- while, simultaneously, dealing with my anger.
Racism, Complicity, and Rhetorics of War
I am a peace activist (Rhetoricians for Peace) finishing my doctorate in rhetoric from Michigan State University and currently am an international scholar at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven). Greetings, Sisters and Brothers, from many tribes and nations. I am descended from the First Americans, a scholar trained in rhetoric, an activist, and a writer. I express gratitude to my teachers, elders, and Creator for giving me words to share, and to you for listening. I was requested to give a scholarly address on rhetorics of war.
Prisoners of Hope
A specter of despair haunts late 20th-century America. The quality of our lives and the integrity of our souls are in jeopardy. Wealth inequality and class polarization are escalating – with ugly consequences for the most vulnerable among us. Over 30 years after the cowardly murder of Martin Luther King, Jr., black America sits on the brink of collective disaster. We need a moral prophetic minority of all colors who muster the courage to question the powers that be.
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday
Third Monday in January— The birthday of the civil rights leader who was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1964 for his nonviolent efforts to secure justice for black Americans is celebrated with special programs and memorial services. In 1983, legislation was passed making Martin Luther King’s birthday a legal national holiday. Since 1986 the holiday has been observed on the third Monday in January.
Is Race for Real?
We all know that people look different. Anyone can tell a Czech from a Chinese. But are these differences racial? What does race mean?
The job the white left won't accept
Everywhere you turn these days, members of the white left may be found curled into the fetal position, weeping, wailing and gnashing their teeth about the Bush victory. Many Africans born and living in the U.S. are equally frustrated, but because we go through life without the protection of white privilege, this is just one more in a long series of disappointments that we have encountered, and we are not paralyzed by it all.
Protect the Vote
More than 80 percent of the population of Detroit is black. This is very well understood by John Pappageorge, who is white and a Republican state legislator in Michigan. "If we do not suppress the Detroit vote," said Mr. Pappageorge, "we're going to have a tough time in this election." Oops! Republicans aren't supposed to actually say they want to suppress black votes. That's so retro. It's so Jim Crow. It is important to keep the following phone number handy: 1-866-OUR VOTE That's a hot line set up by the Election Protection Coalition, a group that was formed to identify and stamp out attempts to disenfranchise voters, especially in predominantly black and Latino precincts around the country.
World Commemorates End of Slavery
Events are being held worldwide to mark the abolition of the slave trade and to highlight the fact that millions still live as slaves in all but name. A UN official said the full extent of slavery had still to be recognised.
The Crisis of the Black Man
Many experts are warning that black men are in the midst of a social crisis that Americans seem eager to ignore.
Sharpton, Obama and the Promise of America
When it comes to the racial divide in this country and de-facto white supremacy, the primary cause is not the moral behavior of blacks, or the types of music we listen to, it's institutionalized racism.
Disparities found in health care for blacks
Many black people in the United States get their primary health care in a separate and apparently inferior system, according to a study published today -- a situation similar to the segregated neighborhood schools prevalent in some parts of the country.
An Emerging Catastrophe
Drive through some of the black neighborhoods in cities and towns across America and you will see the evidence of an emerging catastrophe - levels of male joblessness that mock the very idea of stable, viable communities.
Vaccine reduces medical care gap
A vaccine that prevents pneumonia, meningitis and ear infections is reducing those invasive conditions among black children and closing a long-existing health care gap, public health experts report in a study to be released today.
A
Double Standard for Heroes?
Jessica Lynch and Shoshanna Johnson underwent nearly identical ordeals
in Iraq. But only the white soldier's face made the cover of Time
magazine.
Archer
to direct U.S. law group
The American Bar Association will name Dennis Archer its first black
president since its founding more than 125 years ago.
The
Importance of the Voting Rights Act
I hope you will join me in recognizing the anniversary of the historic
Voting Rights Act of 1965. Signed into law on August 6th 1965, the
Voting Rights Act was enacted to ensure the rights of African Americans.
In the time since its passage, it has been used to extend voting
rights in several areas.
Martin
Luther King: A Latin American Perspective
The author considers the long-term, international effects, of King's
legacy.
Rally
Commemorates 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington
Several thousand people rallied in the U.S. capital Saturday to
observe the 40th anniversary of the March on Washington - a key
moment in the American civil rights struggle highlighted by Martin
Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.
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Blacks
oppose water privatization, from Detroit to South Africa
Two years ago, 300 people died from the worst outbreak of cholera
in modern South African history. Bowing to pressure from behemoth
international corporations that want to provide water to the world
for profit, time-locks had been placed on public water pumps and
the citizens of Ngwelezane, a rural township, were forced to use
the polluted water of a nearby lake from which they contracted the
cholera. Two hundred thousand more people were impacted by the crisis.
This past year in Detroit, Mich., a city that is 83 percent Black,
the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department shut off water service
to 40,000 households in the middle of the winter.
Neocon
Convergences
A funny thing happened while following the money trail
of the neoconservatives who have hijacked U.S. foreign policy. The
path led to a network of financial and intellectual resources that
also is dedicated to racism.
Race:
The Power of an Illusion
Coming to PBS: A sweeping, groundbreaking documentary that illustrates
how racism has been used institutionally, socially and politically
to create an affirmative action for whites.
Black
people 27 times more likely to be stopped
Afro-Caribbean people are more than 27 times more likely than white
people to be stopped and searched under a special police power designed
to tackle ravers and football hooligans, according to research
Whites
Swim In Racial Preference
In criticizing affirmative action at the University of Michigan,
Bush made clear the inability of yet another white person to grasp
the magnitude of white privilege.
Black
History Month Shall Set You Free
In one of the Magic Johnson-owned Starbucks I frequent, I glanced
at the specials chalkboard and noticed someone had rendered a smiling
effigy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Beneath him read the tagline:
"Share the Dream...over a Toffee Nut Latte!" This served
to remind me that Black History Month is upon us. And why I have
come to despise it.
Bush
Desecrates the Memory of Dr. King
George W. Bush praised Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Monday on his
federally observed birthday, citing his famous “I Have a Dream”
speech. But Bush has done everything to turn Dr. King’s dream
into a nightmare. On King’s actual birthday last Thursday,
Bush announced that his Justice Department would file a brief in
opposition to the University of Michigan affirmative action cases
to be argued before the United States Supreme Court.
In
Commemoration of Martin Luther King, Jr.
The following link has the full text of Martin Luther King's anti-war
speech delivered at a meeting of the Clergy and Laity Concerned
on April 4, 1967 at Riverside Church in New York City. One of the
least well known of Dr. King's speeches, it is especially relevant
today as the United States continues its war against Iraq, as it
provides increasingly larger amounts of military aid to Colombia
and Israel and as it still positions itself on the side of corporate
interests and against the interests of workers, the unemployed,
the poor and the indigenous peoples of the world. LISTEN>>>
Target:
Martin Luther King
Beyond the black community, Martin Luther King Day is a rote commemoration.
There are speeches to report and civic lessons to be taught, but
that's where the impact of this occasion ends. King is what you
might call an empty icon. His beliefs have been stripped of their
materiality, so that he stands for an abstract ideal of brotherhood—not
the sort of thing to inspire the show-me young. Yet, in an era when
money talks and the military walks, King's politics are more important
than his persona.
Fade
to White
The only African American Republican in Congress is headed home.
Can the party of Lincoln -- and Trent Lott -- afford the loss of
J.C. Watts?
Civil
Rights Groups Renew Drive for Agenda in Congress
Civil
rights groups are mobilizing to push an ambitious agenda on a broad
array of issues -- from racial profiling to school spending -- that
have been given new prominence since Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) plunged
the Republican leadership in Congress into a controversy over race.
Wishful
Thinking not Enough to rid Country of Racism
Just watching Pat Buchanan a few minutes on a rerun of ''Donahue''
last Monday was enough to keep me off Iraq and on affirmative action
at least one more week. The victims were angry white men; the culprit
was affirmative action. It took Buchanan about two minutes to shift
the focus and start blaming the influx of immigrants for America's
race problem.
INS
Roundups Put Nation's Growing Ethnic Media In Bind
Arrests in California and other states of hundreds of men and boys
from Middle Eastern countries have put editors of U.S.-based ethnic
media -- a growing source of news for millions of U.S. residents
-- on edge, and in a quandary.
Detroit's
Mayor Under Fire
Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's name surfaced this week when the federal
government began investigating whether Wayne County workers worked
on campaigns on county time using county equipment. The subpoena
is for more than one big name in Michigan; it also includes Wayne
County Executive Ed Macnamara and Governor-Elect Jennifer Granholm.
Arrogant
Dementia
Strange things can happen to the brain. In nursing homes where there
are seniors suffering from dementia, black nurses often get hit
verbally and physically. There are white elderly men and women who
can no longer keep their racism under wraps. It’s there –
ingrained and inculcated by years of steady cultural propaganda.
Judicial
Selection After Trent Lott
It seems clearer than ever that the White House and the Senate should
conduct a more rigorous review of judicial nominees' records on
race.
Stand
Up for Affirmative Action
When a landmark case reaches the Supreme Court next year, the Bush
administration should show its support for carefully drawn affirmative
action programs.
Founder
of TV Network Becomes First Black Owner in Major Sports
The National Basketball Association yesterday awarded its next expansion
franchise to Robert L. Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment
Television, making him the first African-American to become the
principal owner of a major professional sports team.
Exposing
bigoted trash for what it is
This column is about hate, bigotry and general all-around scum—it
is about that sicko organization that calls itself the National
Alliance.
Personal
Truths and Legal Fictions
Justice Clarence Thomas's emotional outburst during an oral argument
last week was both stunning and illuminating. More astonishing,
however, was to hear the most conservative jurist on the court —
let loose with a personal accounting of what a burning cross means
to a black man in America.
Black
Republicans Speak of Their Outrage at Lott
For decades, black Republicans have often balanced precariously
along the fault lines of race and party loyalty
Supreme
Court to Decide Race-Based Admissions
Justices will consider whether affirmative action can be used to
boost college minority admissions.
New
Black Panthers: ‘Bush Like a Modern Adolph Hitler’
The chairman of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense Tuesday
compared President Bush to one of the most notorious dictators in
world history, and blamed Bush both for the 9/11 terrorist attacks
on the U.S. and for encouraging the so-called “Beltway Sniper”
currently terrorizing the Washington, D.C., area.
Colorless
All in all, this is a pretty depressing election. Democratic candidates
are saying as little as possible about the central issue of the
day: Iraq. Republican candidates are pretending they never supported
the partial privatization of Social Security, a GOP article of faith
until the stock market went south.
Can
the GOP Convince Blacks Not to Vote?
And while Talent and Missouri Republicans have been trying to persuade
black voters that they are not such bad fellows, they've made a
ferocious effort to persuade them that the Democrats are.
Bush's
Band-Aid Approach
A prestigious, congressionally mandated report has found that minority
Americans receive glaringly inferior medical care. The Bush response:
Take a Loved One to the Doctor Day!
Ex-Detroit
Mayor Archer to Lead American Bar
(Special to the NNPA)—Dennis Archer, former two-term mayor
of Detroit and a former Michigan Supreme Court justice, is the new
president-elect of the American Bar Association.
The election puts Archer in line to be the first African-American
president of the 408,000-member, largely White group
The
reason there's no White Expo
Last year in Chicago, 44 Italian-American women competed in the
Miss Italia USA Pageant in Chicago. The black community did not
erupt in protest.
Are
African Women With Poor Nigeria's Amina?
Sadly, there is only a loud silence from women rights groups in
Africa, including Uganda - which has some of the most vocal feminists
and self-proclaimed women rights activists.
US
Black Demonstrators Demand Slavery Reparations
A few thousand black demonstrators rallied on the Mall in Washington
on Saturday to demand that the U.S. government pay blacks reparations
for slavery and decades of discrimination.
NATAF
Scholarship Deadline
Friday, August 16, 2002
The 2002 North American AIDS Treatment Action Forum (NATAF) will
be held in New Orleans, LA on December 8-11, 2002. The 2001 forum
brought more than 600 treatment professionals from the United States,
Canada, Mexico and Eastern Europe together to enhance their skills
and knowledge and to develop inclusive strategies to ensure the
continuity and success of the treatment advocacy movement.
Benin
development is a model for the world
Gaye Adegbalola takes us on a photographic tour of the "Door
of No Return" in Ouidah--the historic point of departure of
most slaves sold from West Africa. Also visiting the largest marketplace
in Africa, purchased beautiful fabric and had outfits made. She
and Suzanne were received by the King of Abomey and danced with
his drummers and singers.
Be
Like June
If June Jordan has been invisible to the mainstream in her death,
it was not simply because she was black, but because she was a black
woman, activist and intellectual.
Jackson
raps Bush, Ashcroft
The Rev. Jesse Jackson called President Bush and Attorney General
John Ashcroft "the most threatening combination in our lifetime.
Ashcroft
Aggressively Pursues Death Penalty
Since taking office early last year, Ashcroft has reversed the recommendations
of federal prosecutors 12 times, ordering them to seek the death
penalty in cases where they had recommended against doing so, according
to statistics compiled by the federal capital defense bar. Since
Ashcroft became attorney general, the Justice Department has been
three times more likely to seek death for black defendants accused
of killing whites...
Freethinkers
risk racial putdowns
For years, black U.S. residents who dare to have different viewpoints
than the masses of our race have been called ''Uncle Toms'' or,
to use a newer term imposed on freethinkers, ''insufficiently black.''
That's a tool used, often with great success, in the black community
to try to jerk wayward people back into line.
We've
Had Enough Witch Hunts
Nothing succeeds like failure. Suddenly, everyone wants to grant
the FBI and other intelligence agencies even more power despite
the fact that they failed so spectacularly to utilize the expansive
powers they had to head off terrorism before Sept. 11.
On
The Porousness Of Racial Identity
Even after centuries of mixing and melting, Americans still cling
to the idea that race means either black or white, even as mixed-race
Americans fill the gray areas in-between.
U.S.
Exports Misery to Africa
The White House and Congress are trumpeting their determination
to bring economic opportunity to the people of Africa. But first,
a few million sub-Saharan farmers will have to suffer.
Hip-Hop
and Blacks' Cultural Crisis
Just because our attention is focused on world crises that threaten
global conflagration doesn't mean that domestic crises have disappeared.
Writer Bakari Kitwana argues that the African-American community
is beset by an array of interrelated crises that are so destructive,
they threaten the very future of African-American life.
A
Guide to Ethnic and Religious Strife Through All Human History
Why the _______s Hate the _______s
A
Poet In The Sun
One hundred years after his birth and 35 years after his death,
Langston Hughes, the 'Poet Laureate of the Negro Race,' remains
a preeminent literary figure.
Bush's
Band-Aid Approach
A prestigious, congressionally mandated report has found that minority
Americans receive glaringly inferior medical care. The Bush response:
Take a Loved One to the Doctor Day!
Gay
blacks tackle unresolved issues
All of us have the capacity to look at problems two ways: We can
point them out in painstaking detail, interrupting ourselves only
to groan about how nobody is bothering to fix them. Or we can creatively
dive in, tapping our blessed gifts of faith and creativity to try
to come up with solutions that we can then put into action.
New discussion
groups at Africa Online
To meet diverse demands we have introduced new topics in the discussion
forums including:
Death
and denial
Breaking the silence on black suicide In March, a study published
in Psychiatric Services, a journal of the American Psychiatric Association,
warned that more young Blacks are killing themselves with guns.
At
MSU, plans for pomp create friction
Many black students who will graduate from Michigan State University
next month are excited about MSU's first Black Celebratory, an optional
ceremony that will honor them for earning a degree. But the event
has not left everyone feeling festive.
Suit
seeks billions in slave reparations
Attorneys for a former law student, who discovered evidence linking
U.S. corporations to the slave trade, filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday
that could seek billions of dollars in reparations for the descendants
of slaves in America.
Race
for the Oscars
By dwelling on skin color, the Academy Awards do blacks a disservice.
Judge
Decides Katherine Harris Will Face Lawsuit
The NAACP and four other groups filed suit against Harris (pictured),
a former state election chief, and the county elections supervisor.
The suit charges that black voters were disenfranchised during the
2000 presidential election.
Unconsciously
racist? Me? My bleeding heart breaks
By reason of my skin color, according to the concept, I received
a lifetime pass from a litany of indignities suffered by people
of color. White privilege has affected my behavior and sense of
being in addition to the social and economic advantages it conveys.
My bleeding-heart instinct is to nod in agreement, but I find myself
oddly irritated.
Jobs
Crisis for Black Teens in America
Does skin color still matter? For the 30% of black teens that don't
have a job right now, maybe it does. Seth Sandronsky speaks out
about black teen unemployment and what Washington is not doing about
it.
Shuffling
The Race Card At Harvard
Here's one for the books. A privileged black professor at a prestigious
Ivy League university spends much of his time writing pop-intellectual
books, cutting Rap CDs, and globetrotting around the country bagging
stratospheric speaking fees to pontificate on the state of Black
America.
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