Prometheus 6 - Race and Identity

You know what else?

Fri, 18 Mar 2005 13:23:26 -0500

Pay attention

Wed, 16 Mar 2005 22:15:19 -0500

Quote of note:

Reynolds said the Social Security study has nothing to do with partisan politics. "I want to see if the current [Social Security] system has a disparate impact on racial minorities," he said. "I don't know where the truth is, and that's the whole point of the exercise."

Member of Civil Rights Panel Quits, Says It Should Be Closed
Conservative Cites Partisan Agendas
By Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 16, 2005; Page A02

The longest-serving member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights abruptly resigned yesterday, saying that the agency spends money irresponsibly in pursuit of partisan agendas -- liberal and conservative -- and should be shut down.

It shouldn't be decided by YOUR punk ass either

Tue, 15 Mar 2005 09:22:32 -0500

Quote of note:

A bedrock social issue such as marriage "should be decided by the American voters, not by the court," said Tom Del Beccaro, chairman of the Republican Party of Contra Costa and president of California's county Republican chairs. "A decision about such an important societal institution shouldn't be in the hands of one, two or even nine judges."

It should be decided by the voters individually. If it's not your business you should have no say.

Now, let some opponent of people choosing for themselves who they bond with explain to me how they are affected when someone they don't know gets married.

Anyway...

THE OPPOSITION: 'Activist court' ruled predictably, but fight far from over
- [email protected]">Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Same-sex marriage opponents shrugged off Monday's San Francisco court ruling that would give gay and lesbian couples the right to marry, chalking it up to judicial activism, citing the Bible for support and saying they're sure to prevail if California voters are given a choice on the issue.

Many, in fact, are preparing their next move in that direction.

"Judicial tyranny is alive and well and reigning in San Francisco," said the Rev. Louis Sheldon, chairman of the Anaheim-based Traditional Values Coalition and a longtime mover behind anti-gay issues nationally and in the state.

I was looking for that

Mon, 14 Mar 2005 20:56:42 -0500

Nancy White at Full Circle live-blogged the Blogging while Black session at SXSW.

The key word in the decision is "rational"

Mon, 14 Mar 2005 15:37:34 -0500

Judge Says Calif. Can't Ban Gay Marriage
By LISA LEFF
Associated Press Writer
12:15 PM PST, March 14, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO A judge ruled Monday that California can no longer justify limiting marriage to a man and a woman, a legal milestone that if upheld on appeal would pave the way for the nation's most populous state to follow Massachusetts in allowing same-sex couples to wed.

In an opinion that had been awaited because of San Francisco's historical role as a gay rights battleground, San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer said that withholding marriage licenses from gays and lesbians is unconstitutional.

"It appears that no rational purpose exists for limiting marriage in this state to opposite-sex partners," Kramer wrote.

You know what?

Mon, 14 Mar 2005 13:41:25 -0500

Jonah Goldberg is a (circumcised) dick.

Oh, yeah

Sun, 13 Mar 2005 09:57:08 -0500

Stanley Crouch recaps Republican efforts to skim enough Black votes to trouble Democrats, defines what he means by the term "civil rights establishment" and in general adds nothing new.

It's in the L.A. Times' editorial section and most likely syndicated to a newspaper near you.

Should have handled it right the last time

Sun, 13 Mar 2005 09:35:56 -0500

Who is it that's actually scared?

The Tension This Time
Fear Is the Fuel That Drives People to the Streets
By Jervey Tervalon
Jervey Tervalon is a novelist and the editor of a book about Los Angeles' 1992 riots, "The Geography of Rage" (RGB Books), and "The Cocaine Chronicles" (Akashic Books).
March 13, 2005

Police shoot dead an unarmed 13-year-old, and those of us who lived through the riot/uprising that set the city ablaze 13 years ago wonder if Los Angeles isn't again about to explode.

Me? I don't think we are back to that flash point of rage that poet Langston Hughes once pondered. Yet.

But the conditions that helped some rioters justify throwing flaming bottles through store windows, engaging in gunfights with grocers and beating a trucker with bricks haven't changed much.

Social critics have written hundreds of thousands of words in an effort to explain those conditions and confront the complexity of causes that ignited that blazing moment. Still, the city remains largely perplexed about what went wrong then and what is going wrong now.

I think the driving force was fear, and I know that fear still haunts parts of this city.

Images on my screen

Sun, 13 Mar 2005 09:14:04 -0500

This has been sitting on my monitor without a title or category for quite a while.

He's Comfortable in His Skin -- Now It's Our Turn
By Sandy Banks
Sandy Banks is a Times editorial writer.
March 13, 2005

Barack Obama's fans, legions and growing, imagine a day when this new rock star of politics strides into the Oval Office.

The junior senator from Illinois insists that he has no immediate designs on the White House. But even if Obama, 43, runs as an octogenarian — and even though he has been diplomatically dismantling racial and political boundaries since he became, in 1990, the first black president of the Harvard Law Review — his candidacy would make this country squirm and shudder and maybe even come unglued.

On the other side of the link is a bit of commentary wrapped around a fragment of an interview...basically a puff piece. And I think what slowed me down (beyond the mere lack of coffee, I mean) was trying to connect the title to the content. Determining who is meant by "our" is key in determining what the content is.

Then again, they haven't given a damn for very long

Sun, 13 Mar 2005 07:06:01 -0500

Skin-Deep: What Polls of Minorities Miss
It's no surprise that racial and ethnic tensions endure.
By David Bositis
David Bositis is senior political analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington-based research organization specializing in African American issues.
March 13, 2005

The media's knowledge of African Americans, Asians and Latinos is woefully lacking. Opinion polls break out minority-group results from general populations, but the meaningfulness of the findings is moot at best. Lacking reliable data on the variable and textured hopes, needs and fears of minority communities, the media instead turn to personal anecdotes and self-appointed spokespeople to gauge community sentiments. That can be terribly misleading and risky when reporting on crime, police misconduct and elections. It's no surprise that racial and ethnic tensions and misunderstanding endure in cities such as Los Angeles.

Just wondering...

Sat, 12 Mar 2005 13:52:03 -0500

Quote of note:

Despite the sad and shocking details of the incident, the repeated delays and appeals in this case have revolved around a single question: Why was the only person charged with capital murder an African-American? Of the 14 people indicted (12 Hispanics and two African-Americans), 12 were eligible for the death penalty. Prosecutors say Williams was singled out because he was the only one who had control of the tractor-trailer. In other words, he was the only one who could have saved the immigrants' lives by opening the doors or turning on the refrigeration unit.

But after US District Judge Vanessa Gilmore asked for a letter from then-Attorney General John Ashcroft explaining why the government sought the death penalty "on the only black guy," the prosecution refused to explain its rationale.

The government never releases documents containing the charges, even though the issue of racial discrimination is routinely raised. "It is one of the most closely guarded secrets you can imagine," says Rick Kammen, an Indianapolis lawyer who has handled 17 federal death-penalty cases. "The government's position has been, 'Six men and a wild monkey will not tear this material from us.' "

A smuggling trial that raises racial issues, too
Of 14 indicted in immigrant deaths, why does only Tyrone Williams face capital punishment?
By Kris Axtman | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Must be nice to be rich enough to tell the truth

Sat, 12 Mar 2005 13:45:02 -0500

From an interview with Will Smith, sort of via Foreign Dispatches (who says rather aptly "Keep all of this in mind the next time you read some silly poll saying some huge number of whites wouldn't mind seeing one of "them" with their daughters; they can't even stand seeing "them" with someone else's...")

Where there's a Will

...Ironically what remains more of a cinematic taboo, even in these supposedly enlightened days, is the idea of a black actor kissing a white actress. The compromise appears to be, and the one that Hitch has settled for - if only to protect itself at the box office - is for the woman to come from another ethnic background.

Eva Mendes, who plays the gossip columnist Hitch falls for, is Cuban American.

"There's sort of an accepted myth that if you have two black actors, a male and a female, in the lead of a romantic comedy, that people around the world don't want to see it," admits Will.

"We spend $50 something million making this movie and the studio would think that was tough on their investment. "So the idea of a black actor and a white actress comes up - that'll work around the world, but it's a problem in the US."

Glad I asked

Sat, 12 Mar 2005 14:35:32 -0500

Type White at BlogTyme responded to my confusion. Her point isn't a sociological one, but a marketing one.

Delicately is perhaps not the best word to use to describe what I mean but I still stand by what I said. It think niche award blogs are a great way to show exposure so when you do walk up to someone at a conference they aren't surprised. Let me give you an example of what I went through. I used to have a popular gaming site. I suppose my race and gender didn't come across on my site, just as it probably didn't here until recently. I attended a conference where I arranged, in advance, to meet with some people (and interview them), which were all men because there weren't many women gamers then. Overall the race thing went really well except for one man. He blatantly told me he didn't realize I was female AND black. I would have a hard time achieving anything as a female but being a black female, forget it. He refused to do the interview and to be frank, he pissed me off because he was the person I wanted to interview. He was a high profile developer and as he pointed out, I was lucky to land the interview in the first place. This put me in an awkward position because I announced that I was interviewing him.

Of course there IS a sociological issue in there...the one that made me wonder why "offend[ing] the majority" was something I should be sensitive to.

At Cobb

Thu, 10 Mar 2005 23:06:30 -0500

Start here. Then go there. You'll understand why he still has my respect.

Two serious questions

Wed, 9 Mar 2005 14:22:44 -0500

If South Carolina has yet to "get" over the Civil War after almost a century and a half, what makes you think Black people can "get over" slavery and Jim Crow in 30-odd years?
If the Republican Party is "The Party of Lincoln," what does Lindsey Graham have to get over?