Biloxi Journal - A School Closing That Some See as Fiscal Responsibility, Others Racism - NYTimes.com

Biloxi Journal - A School Closing That Some See as Fiscal Responsibility, Others Racism - NYTimes.com: BILOXI, Miss. — It still looks like a happy, thriving school: child-size chairs in the cafeteria, yellow buses in the parking lot, a marquee sign that declares “Tomorrow’s Leaders Begin Here.”

But unless things change before next month, this city is going to close its top-ranked school, Nichols Elementary, to save about $400,000 a year — less than 1 percent of the school district’s $50 million budget. Worse than that, say residents of the poor and largely black east side of Biloxi, the neighborhood is losing one of its chief sources of pride and cohesion.

The question of whether closing the school is an act of fiscal prudence or discrimination has become an explosive subject in Biloxi, reopening age-old racial divides. Nearly 90 percent of the school’s students are black or Asian, while the four School Board members who voted in April for the closing are white.

“I simply cannot get my arms around it,” said William Stallworth, the only black member of the City Council, who is lobbying the board to reverse its decision before classes begin on Aug. 11. “What kind of city closes its best school?”

Stafford County woman confronts issues of race, autism after son's arrest

Stafford County woman confronts issues of race, autism after son's arrest: ...Alexander acknowledges that no one can know exactly what happened between her son and the officer. But at the core of her fight, and the reason strangers are listening, are two issues she said authorities should consider: Her son has Asperger's, which makes it difficult for him to read social situations, and the incident started because of someone's assumptions upon seeing a black man sitting outside a library. In a news release after the incident, authorities said no weapon was found, and further investigation revealed that the original caller had never seen a gun.

'If you see a black man sitting outside a library and then you initially assume that he has a gun, that's a problem,' Bell said. If Latson had been white, he said, 'there would not have been a call.'

On Alexander's Web site -- http://avoiceforneli.com -- strangers have left comments arguing, for example, that Latson is 'a victim of SWB, sitting while black.'

Book Review: Black Women, United and Hell-Bent on Doing God’s Work

Book Review: Black Women, United and Hell-Bent on Doing God’s Work: Dr. Dorothy Height’s longevity and 40-year tenure as head of the National Council of Negro Women made her perhaps the best-known Black female activist in America, respected by Whites and revered by Blacks. When she died in April at age 98, The Washington Post referred to her as “a founding matriarch of the American civil rights movement whose crusade for racial justice and gender equality spanned more than six decades.”

In a sense, however, she was just the latest in a long line of Black church ladies who turned their zeal for God into the justification and engine for the campaigns against racial and gender injustice, as well as for social progress for African-Americans.

Dr. Bettye Collier-Thomas, a professor of history at Temple University and a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, has labored in this voluminous work to write such women into history where they belong.

California officer conviction on lesser charge touches off protests - USATODAY.com

California officer conviction on lesser charge touches off protests - USATODAY.com: LOS ANGELES (AP) — A white former transit officer was convicted of involuntary manslaughter Thursday in the videotaped shooting death of an unarmed black man on an Oakland train platform, a verdict that touched off violent protests in Oakland that damaged businesses and led to at least 50 arrests.

Prosecutors had wanted Johannes Mehserle convicted of murdering 22-year-old Oscar Grant, who was shot once in the back as he lay face-down.

The jury's conviction on the lesser charge raised concerns of a repeat of the days of rioting that followed the shooting on New Year's Day in 2009. The incident is among the most racially polarizing cases in California since four Los Angeles officers were acquitted in 1992 in the beating of Rodney King.

Near Oakland City Hall, a crowd moaned and cursed Thursday when they heard the verdict, decrying what they called a lack of justice.

Legalizing marijuana is civil rights issue, California NAACP says - CNN.com

Legalizing marijuana is civil rights issue, California NAACP says - CNN.com: ...Police departments in California have made more than 60,000 marijuana possession arrests in 2008, three times more than in 1990, according to a recent study released by the Drug Policy Alliancean organization that says it promotes policies to end the war on drugs. Although blacks and Latinos make up less than 44 percent of the state's population, together both ethnic groups constitute up to 56 percent of arrests that are made for marijuana possession in California, according to the study. Furthermore, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has found that African-Americans use marijuana at lower rates than white Americans across the country.

The study said arrests in California are 'racially-biased' and have led to a 'system-wide phenomenon, occurring in every county and nearly every police department in California, and elsewhere.'

Post Tech - Pew: Blacks, Hispanics among biggest users of wireless Web

Post Tech - Pew: Blacks, Hispanics among biggest users of wireless Web: African Americans and Hispanics continue to be among the most avid users of the Internet over their cellphones, according to a report released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center.

And low-income groups are among the fastest adopters of the mobile Web, showing an opportunity that wireless technology could play in helping to bridge a digital divide that has brought the Web disproportionately to wealthier communities over the past two decades.

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 64 percent of African Americans surveyed last May said they access the Internet over their laptop or mobile phone, an increase from 57 percent who said they did in 2009.

New Mexico Librarian Enlivens the Research Experience Among Native Students

New Mexico Librarian Enlivens the Research Experience Among Native Students: Growing up, Paulita Aguilar developed a love for books and a reliance on librarians that she now grooms among American Indian and other college students who lacked the resources she had available.

Aguilar is curator of the University of New Mexico’s Indigenous Nations Library Program (INLP), mandated to increase information literacy and research skills among tribal students, who make up 6 percent of the flagship campus in Albuquerque.

Before college, many of them only knew modest, single-room libraries that sometimes did not employ a staff librarian. Consequently, UNM’s four libraries, which are cavernous enough to house more than 1 million volumes, can seem overwhelming, especially to freshmen.

Justice Dept. sues, seeks injunction on Ariz. immigration law

Justice Dept. sues, seeks injunction on Ariz. immigration law: The Justice Department filed suit Tuesday against Arizona, charging that the state's new immigration law is unconstitutional and requesting a preliminary injunction to stop the legislation from taking effect.

The lawsuit says the law illegally intrudes on federal prerogatives, invoking as its main argument the legal doctrine of "preemption," which is based on the Constitution's supremacy clause and says that federal law trumps state statutes. The Justice Department argues that enforcing immigration laws is a federal responsibility.

But the filing also asserts that the Arizona law would harm people's civil rights, leading to police harassment of U.S. citizens and foreigners. President Obama has warned that the law could violate citizens' civil rights, and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has expressed concern that it could drive a wedge between police and immigrant communities.

Language Help for New York Immigrants Falls Short - NYTimes.com

Language Help for New York Immigrants Falls Short - NYTimes.com: In the world’s most diverse city, it was hailed as a milestone: Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg signed an executive order in July 2008 requiring every New York City agency that dealt with the public to provide interpreters, translated documents and other language help to people who spoke little or no English.

The order was supposed to help immigrant New Yorkers use services and navigate a daunting city bureaucracy. And in keeping with Mr. Bloomberg’s passion for applying good business practices to city government, the policy was meant to prevent the waste of time and money caused by miscommunication and misunderstanding.

Mr. Bloomberg pledged at the time to “make our city more accessible, while helping us become the most inclusive municipal government in the nation.”

But two years later, the mayor’s promise has fallen short. Many government workers fail to offer interpreters, even if people ask for them, and signs and forms in multiple languages are often nowhere to be found, according to interviews with people who have sought services and a lawsuit filed against one of the city’s largest agencies where the problems seem particularly acute.

Grambling’s President Orders Review of School Spending

Grambling’s President Orders Review of School Spending: Grambling State University's (GSU) new president has hired the former president of Virginia's largest historically Black university to review “every dime” of GSU's budget.

Dr. Frank Pogue said Dr. Marie McDemmond and two members of her staff also will check the qualifications of Grambling's accounting staff.

Last week, a state audit found that, during the fiscal year ending June 30, 2009, the university bought stock with money supposed to be used for buildings and grounds and lost $1 million on the deal.


The purchase was made six months before Pogue arrived on campus as interim president.

Scholarship and Activism Help Cultivate Community Farming Movement

Scholarship and Activism Help Cultivate Community Farming Movement: Just weeks after the three crop-yielding hoop greenhouses went up on the backside of one of Northeast Baltimore’s battered, but still striving, Black high schools, vandals struck.

“A troubled kid. Somebody who probably doesn’t know what was going on in here,” says John Ciekot, executive director of Civic Works, the nonprofit human services and youth development organization that erected the year-round, tunnel-shaped greenhouses eight months ago.

After postulating a reason for the destruction at the site of what’s officially known as Real Food Farm, Ciekot makes what he believes is the more essential point. His six-person paid staff and the neighborhood and high school volunteers who are the sweat and sinews behind the greenhouses kicked right back in.

Achievement Gap Mystery Partly Solved - It's Murder - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

Achievement Gap Mystery Partly Solved - It's Murder - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher: A startling new study has profound implications for school improvement efforts. From Reuters:

A murder in the neighborhood can significantly knock down a child's score on an IQ test, even if the child did not directly witness the killing or know the victim, U.S. researchers reported Monday.

The findings have implications both for crime control efforts and for the heavy reliance on standardized tests, said New York University sociology professor Patrick Sharkey, who conducted the study.

They can also explain about half the achievement gap between blacks and whites on such tests, he reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Willemstad Journal - A Language Thrives in Its Caribbean Home - NYTimes.com

Willemstad Journal - A Language Thrives in Its Caribbean Home - NYTimes.com: WILLEMSTAD, Curacao — Thousands of languages spoken by small numbers of people, including many of the Creole languages born in the last centuries of human history, are facing extinction. But a little-known language spoken on a handful of islands near the coast of Venezuela may be an exception.

Papiamentu, a Creole language influenced over the centuries by African slaves, Sephardic merchants and Dutch colonists, is now spoken by only about 250,000 people on the islands of Curaçao, Bonaire and Aruba. But compared with many of the world’s other Creoles, the hybrid languages that emerge in colonial settings, it shows rare signs of vibrancy and official acceptance.

Most of Curaçao’s newspapers publish in Papiamentu. Music stores do brisk business in CDs recorded in Papiamentu by musicians like the protest singer Oswin Chin Behilia or the jazz vocalist Izaline Calister.

“Mi pais ta un isla hopi dushi, kaminda mi lombrishi pa semper ta derá,” goes a passage in Ms. Calister’s hit song “Mi Pais.” (That roughly translates as “My island is a lovely place, where my umbilical cord forever lies.”)

Op-Ed Columnist - Fourth of July 1776, 1964, 2010 - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist - Fourth of July 1776, 1964, 2010 - NYTimes.com: ALL men may be created equal, but slavery, America’s original sin of inequality, was left unaddressed in the Declaration of Independence signed 234 years ago today. Of all the countless attempts to dispel that shadow over the nation’s birth, few were more ambitious than the hard-fought bill Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law just in time for another Fourth of July, 46 summers ago.


With the holiday weekend approaching, Johnson summoned the television networks for the signing ceremony on Thursday evening, July 2. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, first proposed more than a year earlier by John F. Kennedy, banished the Jim Crow laws that denied black Americans access to voting booths, public schools and public accommodations. Johnson told the nation we could “eliminate the last vestiges of injustice in our beloved country” with the help of a newly formed “Community Relations Service” and its “advisory committee of distinguished Americans.” Talk about an age of innocence!

U.N. creates new body on women, gender equality | Reuters

U.N. creates new body on women, gender equality | Reuters: After years of difficult negotiations, the U.N. General Assembly voted on Friday to set up a body that will seek to improve the situation of women and girls around the world.

The new body will be known officially as the U.N. Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, although officials say it will be referred to as U.N. Women (www.unwomen.org). It will consolidate four separate U.N. divisions now dealing with women's and gender issues.

'U.N. Women will significantly boost U.N. efforts to promote gender equality, expand opportunity, and tackle discrimination around the globe,' U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement.

Training video for Arizona law takes heat - USATODAY.com

Training video for Arizona law takes heat - USATODAY.com: In a training video released to Arizona law enforcement officers Thursday, state officials repeatedly discourage racial profiling when enforcing the state's new immigration law — but some Hispanic civil rights groups say some of the instructions constitute a recipe for racial profiling.

In the video, factors such as 'dress,' 'traveling in tandem' and 'significant difficulty communicating in English' are given as clues that a person may be an illegal immigrant.

'This list has obviously been drawn to legitimize racial profiling,' said Foster Maer, senior litigator for LatinoJustice. 'I don't believe the police will approach white people and ask them for their papers because of the way they're dressed.'

College Inc. - U-Texas reconsiders dorm named for Klan leader

College Inc. - U-Texas reconsiders dorm named for Klan leader: According to this recent Wall Street Journal report, the University of Texas is reconsidering the wisdom of naming a dormitory near its law school after a late law professor who was a leader in the Ku Klux Klan.

William Stewart Simkins was a longtime UT law professor. According to the Journal, he and his brother 'helped form the Ku Klux Klan in Florida after the Civil War.'

The dorm opened 55 years ago under Simkins's name, and the university apparently overlooked his past.

The Daily Texan student newspaper opines:

'William Stewart Simkins was, by all accounts, a deplorable human being. Some people may say he was only playing into the sentiment of the time period in which he lived. Regardless, any person that participates, much less organizes, a group that advocates for the murder of individuals on the basis of race is horrible, no matter what era he or she lived in.'

A public forum on the potential name change was held on campus Monday. An advisory committee will forward a recommendation; any name change would require action by university regents.

No Child Left Behind Renewal Sparks Push for Equity Funding

No Child Left Behind Renewal Sparks Push for Equity Funding: By most accounts, No Child Left Behind is widely considered a failure by lawmakers and educators alike. Its stated goal is “to ensure that all children have a fair, equal and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education” and reach” proficiency on state academic achievement standards and assessments.

Instead, legislators and advocates complain, it is an unfunded mandate that forces educators to focus on teaching a rote set of facts for standardized testing rather than intellectually stimulating and developing young minds so they are prepared to compete in a global society. While it offers many ways to identify failure, it fails to support improved student achievement or increase teacher capacity.

Affirmative Action Advocates Consider Recession’s Impact on Diversity

Affirmative Action Advocates Consider Recession’s Impact on Diversity: Diversity isn’t recession proof, and higher education and corporate officials agreed that institutions of all types must be proactive to prevent the faltering economy from overly impacting one or more underrepresented groups.

That was a theme of discussion during the American Association for Affirmative Action (AAAA) annual meeting in Raleigh, N.C., on Wednesday. The main question: how can organizations maintain diversity when the bottom line forces downsizing?

Displaced Black Landowners Fight to Reclaim Georgia Land - NYTimes.com

Displaced Black Landowners Fight to Reclaim Georgia Land - NYTimes.com: When the managers from the federal Fish and Wildlife Service talk about this 2,800-acre preserve of moss-draped cypress, palmetto and marsh, they speak of endangered wood stork rookeries and disappearing marsh habitat, dike maintenance and interpretive kiosks.

But when the members of the Harris Neck Land Trust talk about it, they speak of injustice, racism and a place they used to call home.

In 1942, Harris Neck, a thriving community of black landowners who hunted, farmed and gathered oysters, was taken by the federal government to build an airstrip. Now, the elders — who remember barefoot childhoods spent climbing trees and waking to watch the Canada geese depart in formation — want to know why they cannot have it back.

The Harris Neck Land Trust, formed by the former residents, their descendants and a handful of white families who owned land but did not live on Harris Neck, is asking Congress to return the land. The Fish and Wildlife Service maintains that the land is a crucial part of the national refuge system.