WEEK IN REVIEW, MAY 7th 2007

In a shocking study (snark, snark) racial -profiling- prejudice is shown in traffic stops.

The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics released a report Sunday showing that white, African American and Hispanic drivers are equally likely to be pulled over by police for alleged traffic offenses. In 2005, the year covered by the study, black drivers were actually less likely -- by a tiny margin -- to be stopped by police than were drivers in other groups. You might be tempted to conclude that the constitutional imperative of equal protection had finally been extended to America's streets and highways.

But you would be wrong. The study reports that African American and Hispanic drivers who are stopped by police are more than twice as likely as whites to be searched. Specifically, police searched only 3.6 percent of white drivers pulled over in traffic stops, while they searched 9.5 percent of African Americans who obeyed the flashing lights and 8.8 percent of Hispanics.

POLITICS

It has been refreshing to see that racially polarized voting is starting to die in much of America. In MA Whites voted for a Black Gov, in Maryland Blacks voted for a White Senator, because in both cases voters voted on the cadidated merrits. Which brings us to Philly.
So close to the mayoral primary, voters have yet to align by race. That's rare in Philadelphia.

In most Philadelphia mayoral elections, the returns can be read in black and white. This year, more voters are coloring outside the lines.

The race for the Democratic nomination remains a toss-up with just 16 days left - in part, polls say, because white millionaire Tom Knox is drawing a healthy share of black support and former City Councilman Michael Nutter, who is African American, is drawing a healthy share of whites.

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Black professionals investing in Obama. For black professionals, Mr. Obama's campaign is especially appealing because in him they see one of their own.

Sen. Barack Obama will encounter plenty of people who call him "brotha" when he meets local supporters and campaign donors today in Dallas.

The Illinois Democrat has a broad base of support for his presidential bid, with campaign cash coming in from Wall Street to Hollywood. But nowhere has his candidacy been more anticipated than with black voters who have longed for a national presidential contender since the historic presidential campaigns of civil rights leader Jesse Jackson in 1984 and 1988.

And for black professionals, Mr. Obama's campaign is especially appealing because in him they see one of their own. Their great hope is that his celebrity image and crossover appeal will propel him to the White House, a hope they say Mr. Obama embodies like no black politician before him.

He's got a story that a lot of African-American professionals have," said Michael Davis, 41, of Dallas, the managing director of a large financial institution. "He played by the rules. He worked hard. He's done well, and we can identify with that.

"He personifies our collective possibility. In that regard, he's somebody we feel is a lot more accessible than most candidates we've seen in the past."

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The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) plan to create a task force to study immigration issues and provide information about the impact of immigration reform on the black and Hispanic communities.

The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) plan to create a task force to study immigration issues and provide information about the impact of immigration reform on the black and Hispanic communities.

The CBC last week invited Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), chairman of the CHC’s immigration task force, to speak about immigration reform at the group’s weekly meeting; the small task force will include three yet-to-be-named members from each caucus.

“Having a more in-depth conversation is a good idea,” Gutierrez said.

The task force is designed to help the two groups coordinate efforts to pass an immigration reform bill while opponents of immigration reform attempt to stir up anti-immigration sentiment among black Americans.

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If there is still doubt on many people why Clinton can compete with Obama for Black votes stories like this help answer it Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has failed to raise money for the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) even though it has been a year since he was asked to, and his main rival for the Democratic presidential nomination has done so, CBC members say.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has failed to raise money for the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) even though it has been a year since he was asked to, and his main rival for the Democratic presidential nomination has done so, CBC members say.

CBC leaders asked Obama to hold a fundraiser for the caucus’s political action committee (PAC) a year ago but they have slim hopes that he will come through for them.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), Obama’s chief rival for the nomination, held a fundraiser for the PAC in March last year at the home of Dan Leeds, a Washington venture capitalist.

Clinton’s husband has also agreed to use his fundraising clout to help the CBC. At the end of June, former President Bill Clinton will chair a charity golf and tennis tournament organized by the spouses of Black Caucus members. The event will raise money for college scholarships.
Another one-time Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. Evan Bayh (Ind.), also responded to the caucus’s request to raise money for its PAC; he hosted a Capitol Hill event in February 2006.

Stay posted
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CULTURE
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The N-word civil war continues as. Movement spreads against ‘n-word’. Slur ignites passions in churches, campuses and beyond. But at the same time Vibe: What's the Real Reason for the Sudden Attack on Hip Hop?

In the context of these questions, we can also ask why the attacks on hip hop - and why now? That some people hoped to enact political retribution for the so-called victory of Don Imus's firing, goes without saying. But I'd like to suggest that, more significantly, the current critique of hip hop is aimed at undermining the culture's potential to politicize the generations of constituents that might claim hip hop as their social movement. After high profile voter registration campaigns in 2004 that were fronted by Russell Simmons, Sean Combs and others, much was made of the lack of impact that hip hop generation voters had on the outcome of the 2004 Presidential election. The hip hop generation, in fact, embraced the franchise in unprecedented numbers, but those numbers were obscured by the unprecedented turnout of religious fundamentalists who were galvanized by issues like same-sex marriage and threats of anti-American terrorism. With no candidate on the Right likely to galvanize religious fundamentalists, the hip hop nation - which has continued to organize since 2004 - represents a legitimate political bloc. With this political bloc comes demands for social justice, particularly within the realms of the prison industrial complex, the labor force, US foreign policy, law enforcement, the electoral process, mainstream corporate media, the economy, public education and a range of other concerns.

While there has long been criticism of hip hop culture from the standpoint of social conservatives, pro-hip hop feminists, religious groups, anti-homophobia activists and hip hop heads themselves, what marks this moment as different are the attempts to force mainstream black political leadership and Democratic Presidential candidates to repudiate hip hop culture (reminiscent of the pressures placed on Reverend Jesse Jackson to distance himself from Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan in 1984). Emblematic of these pressures is a recent Chicago Tribune editorial, which asked, "Will Obama scold David Geffen, the entertainment mogul who is one of his most prominent contributors and who owns Snoop Dogg's record label? Will Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton admonish rap impresario Timbaland, who recently threw a benefit for her at his Miami home that raised $800,000?" Asking figures like Reverend Al Sharpton, Senators Clinton and Obama, and Russell Simmons to publicly distance themselves from hip hop is a transparent attempt drive a wedge between them and a constituency that has both the energy and the creativity to galvanize a youth-based electorate in the 2008 election season.

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Has America lost another generation of black boys?

In response to this growing crisis Mr. Jackson founded the Black Star Project, a dynamic educational reform organization, whose primary objective is eliminating the racial academic achievement gap by involving parents and communities in the education of children. Founded in Chicago's Southside in 1996, the Black Star model is taking root and even being duplicated in other cities.

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Jackson has convinced some well known corporations, foundations and community organizations to become participating partners in the Black Star project. Some of the prominent names are: Toyota Motor Sales USA, ComEd, Schott Foundation for Public Education, OfficeMax, Ariel Capital Management, Quaker/PepsiCo Beverages & Food, and many others listed on the Black Star website.

Toyota contributed $240,000 to help finance and launch the Toyota Black Star Parent University, a new three-year program that will help Chicago parents obtain skills and resources needed to build stronger families.

Classes financed by the Toyota Black Star Program will be held in neighborhoods throughout the city. Local parenting experts serve as "professors" and teach courses that range from educating children about resolving conflict to developing financial literacy. This initiative, if successful in Chicago, will be offered to other cities.

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African-Americans, Koreans try to heal deep wounds

The 350 marchers who made the recent 1.4-mile trek down Wilshire Boulevard from Koreatown to MacArthur Park made up in symbolism what they lacked in numbers.

Actor Danny Glover and civil-rights attorney Connie Rice marched alongside Korean merchants and churchgoers, Los Angeles Police Department officers and activists from Homies Unidos.

African-Americans, Koreans, whites and Latinos sought to underscore an ethnic unity they hope marks a dramatic change since the 1992 riots that destroyed 2,000 Korean businesses and exposed wide rifts between Koreans and other minority groups.

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RIP Mary Carter Smith, 88

Mary Carter Smith, a storyteller, folklorist and entertainer who became nationally known as she helped popularize traditional African stories, dress and songs to American audiences and school pupils, has died. She was 88.

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Obama Reaches Out With Tough Love, Candidate Says Criticism of Black America Reflects Its Private Concerns

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is delivering pointed critiques of the African American community as he campaigns for its votes, lamenting that many of his generation are "disenfranchising" themselves because they don't vote, taking rappers to task for their language, and decrying "anti-intellectualism" in the black community, including black children telling peers who get good grades that they are "acting white."

As he travels around the country in his effort to become the nation's first black president, Obama has engaged in an intense competition for black voters -- a crucial Democratic Party constituency that accounts for as much as half the electorate in some key primary states such as South Carolina. But the first-term senator, who has sought to present himself as an agent of change eager to challenge political convention, has taken the unusual route of publicly criticizing his own community.

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MONEY
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Widowhood's Economic Consequences Harshest on Minority Women. Black women who became widowed suffered a loss that was five times greater and Hispanic women a loss that was four times greater than non-Hispanic white women.

Minority widows are at a particularly high risk of poverty in late life, according to a report published in the latest issue of The Gerontologist (Vol. 47, No. 2). While the data reveal a substantial financial widowhood penalty among all ethnic groups, minority women often have lower incomes and fewer assets to begin with.

Authors Jacqueline Angel, Maren Jiménez, and Ronald Angel of the University of Texas at Austin sought to discover the economic consequences of losing a spouse as women approach retirement. They drew from a sample of over 4,500 hundred women between ages 51 and older. The study looked specifically at Black, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic White women.

The findings show that although non-Hispanic white women had more initial wealth than their Black or Hispanic counterparts, widowhood resulted in a greater relative loss in total assets for the minorities. Black women who became widowed suffered a loss that was five times greater and Hispanic women a loss that was four times greater than non-Hispanic white women.

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HEALTH
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Beware the bearers of false gift. This story is behind the subscription only part of the WSJ, but lobyist are targeting minority lawmakers to prevent chnages to Medicare part D.
Insurers Fight to Defend Lucrative Medicare Business.The minority advisory committee that AHIP is unveiling today includes about three dozen prominent black, Latino and Asian-American leaders in 16 states.
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Christianity, not vanity, at root of black women's diet program

The idea of strolling the beach in a bikini isn't what motivates Sandra Mosby to bake her chicken rather than frying it, or to lightly season her collard greens rather than dropping in a fatty ham hock.

For Mosby and a growing number of black women, developing healthy habits and losing weight is less about satisfying her vanity and more about strengthening her Christianity.

Several recent studies throughout the U.S. have concluded that the all-about-you mentality of many mainstream diet programs doesn't resonate with black women whose focus lies in strengthening their families, communities and churches.

Now, there's a new approach: Rather than pushing black women to adapt to those programs, researchers are developing new programs that emphasize improving health as a pathway to better serving God.

"A lot of the existing weight-loss programs are designed and developed for typical middle-class white women," said Judith Fifield, a professor in the University of Connecticut's medical school at the UConn Health Center.

"A lot of the traditional weight-loss messages are, 'It's all about you,' whereas a lot of African-American women are so committed to caring for their families and serving the church that they aren't used to putting themselves first," she said.

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INTERNATIONAL
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Sunday Times (London): The Queen is being urged to apologise for the slaughter of American Indians and the introduction of slavery when she visits Virginia to mark the 400th anniversary of the first English settlement in the New World.

THE Queen is being urged to apologise for the slaughter of American Indians and the introduction of slavery when she visits Virginia this week as guest of honour to mark the 400th anniversary of the first English settlement in the New World at Jamestown.

She will be landing in the middle of a row over political correctness after officials in Virginia banned the use of the word “celebration” for the anniversary. It is being called a “commemoration” out of respect for the suffering of native Americans, who were attacked after the colonists arrived in 1607.

Africans begin to appear in the English settlement’s records as indentured servants in 1619 and were later codified in Virginia’s statutes as slaves. Virginia passed a resolution earlier this year expressing “profound regret” for the enslavement of millions of Africans.

“Leaders and heads of state have a responsibility to set the tone and it would be a welcome move for the Queen to express regret,” said Virginia state representative Donald McEachin, a descendant of slaves, who sponsored the resolution.

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Book review on Blacks in France

Can one be Black and French? Such a question doesn’t even deserve to be asked, if one looks at the composition of
the French national soccer team, that is made up largely of Afro-Caribbeans or Afro-Africans. The truth is that, the French national soccer squad is not the appropriate benchmark to evaluate the acceptance of Blacks and other minorities in a country, which has arrogated to herself, the title of custodian of world freedom and the respect of human rights. It is because such above mentioned question and many more do come up regularly that, two iconoclastic authors, who are amongst the undisputable best French specialists on French-speaking Africa, have decides to team up to produce a book not in their area of predilection, but about a section of France’s citizens.

The title of the book which is the fruit of their collective effort is: Noir et Francais or Black and French in English. The names of the co-authors of the book are: Geraldine Faes and Stephen Smith. And the 445 page book is the outgrowth of a meticulous research within the Black French community, encouraged by an apparent malaise within. The authors while aiming to make their book appear as an instructive manual, they also seem to have the humbled, but not so easy ambition to make other components of the racially divided France to understand the Black community and its problems. Toward that end, they have also taken the precautions to present the Black community in its diversity. They tell us that, while Blacks are as diverse as any other human race, in France, there two main groups of Blacks: black-afro-Caribbeans and black-afro-Africans.

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Zimbabwean authorities have arrested, abducted and tortured hundreds of political activists in a campaign that has grown worse since the vicious beating of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in March, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday

In a report based on dozens of interviews in Zimbabwe, the New York-based rights group said the international outcry over the assault on Tsvangirai did nothing to curb President Robert Mugabe's brutality. The crackdown has reached deep into opposition ranks and affected many people who have no apparent role in politics, the report said. Journalists and human rights lawyers have also been targeted.

May good reserve a special place in Hell for this man.
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Odds and Ends

Ok, I work in R&D so I understand how research papers work. I also have read (much of) the study so I know most of their methodology is sound. I also understand that the researchers were showing that even in a "minority dominated environment" prejudice still exist. All that being said, I still think it was a tad silly for the NYT to post this on their front page.
Study of N.B.A. Sees Racial Bias in Calling Fouls

An academic study of the National Basketball Association, whose playoffs continue tonight, suggests that a racial bias found in other parts of American society has existed on the basketball court as well.

A coming paper by a University of Pennsylvania professor and a Cornell University graduate student says that, during the 13 seasons from 1991 through 2004, white referees called fouls at a greater rate against black players than against white players.