It's time for action. There is so much discussion on the major blogs about diversity and the blogosphere. The question often asked is how can we make the most popular progressive blogs more diversified. One component of the answer is simply to diversify the content. "Racial Minority Blog Sundaes" is a model made for progressive sites to follow. Together, we can link our way to equality.
AsiansVote.com speaks out against news-magazine Asian Week for publishing a piece titled "Why I Hate Blacks". Pressure has since persuaded Asian Week to issue an apology. The San Francisco Chronicle has a rundown on the controversy:
Prominent Asian Americans immediately condemned Eng's current column.
"The hate is based on ignorance and is very similar to the rationales that the KKK uses against African Americans," said Henry Der, director for 22 years of Chinese for Affirmative Action and the former state administrator for Emeryville's schools.
"What gives me the greatest concern was AsianWeek's judgment in printing such a piece out of context," Der said. "It is so trite and hateful, it doesn't speak well for the publication."
Blogger VivirLatino covers the latest immigration injustice in his bulletin "Fake ICE agent who held family captive pleads guilty":
A Sacramento man pretending to be an immigration agent charged for illegally holding an immigrant family captive in a hotel overnight has pleaded guilty...
Jeremy Christian Brickner, 30, entered guilty pleas last week before U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco to impersonating a federal agent and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Brickner admitted that Eugene Kesselman hired him to arrest Kesselman's estranged wife and her 10-year-old daughter on the basis that an immigration judge had issued an order for their deportation.
Blogger Feministing covers a much neglected story in their post "Violence Against Transwomen of Color":
Two incredibly awful stories recently about young Latina transwomen and their run-ins with the U.S. criminal "justice" system:
Victoria Arellano/Arrelano (the spelling of her name varies from story to story), a trans woman with AIDS who died in a California immigration facility for men in July after being denied medication and otherwise improperly treated, was one of three immigrants to die in federal custody in a month, according to the Washington Post.
And from Amnesty International:
My name is Mariah Lopez. I am a young, transgender person of color. I also am an activist who does street-based outreach in the West Village, where I also socialize.
Let me tell you how the police often respond to this.
With verbal abuse.
Sexual harassment.
Unwarranted arrests.
Withholding food, water and medication in detention.
Humiliating and inappropriate strip searches.
Physical assaults.
This is what I have endured at the hands of police and corrections officers - and not just once. What occurs is a systemic abuse of power, one that is seemingly inflicted on whim. For my friends and me, it seems that something as inconsequential as an officer's mood can dictate whether we spend time in jail.
RaceWire Blog brought to attention a new ad campaign by The Sentencing Project against racist drug enforcement:
Th Sentencing Project has partnered with the ACLU, Open Society Institute, and the Drug Policy Alliance in a campaign to reduce the federal mandatory sentencing for low-level crack cocaine offenses. Glaringly affecting communities of color, the disparity between the mandatory sentencing for crack cocaine and powder cocaine are at the center of this push for reform.
The tagline, "It’s not fair. It’s not working," underscores the failed War on Drugs. Not only does the law disproportionately affect people of color; there has been no significant change to the ways the drugs are affecting our communities apart from further destruction of families by putting people in prison.
This may be a month old, but the story deserves more attention. Blogger WhistlingElk covers the story of "Senate Republican Steering Committee Fight Indian Bills":
Hmm It seems that four Republican senators from different parts of the country have got together and single-handedly decided that Indian people are not only no longer sovereign, but are sub-human and do not deserve basic human services like health care, public safety and substance abuse services.
It is really surprising to me that four white males would see Indians as dogs, I mean white males have always been a friend to the Indian...
Blow after blow, the U.S. Senate Republican Steering Committee continues to block all legislation that benefits Indian people. The Senate Republican Steering Committee is a small group of Senators who have been working together to put secret "holds" on all legislation benefiting Indian tribes and Indian people...
Angry Asian Man posts about a recently settled anti-discrimination case in NYC":
This news is a couple of weeks old, but it's worth noting... Noted New York chef Daniel Boulud recently settled a discrimination lawsuit brought by Latino and Asian workers who claimed he promoted white French workers ahead of nonwhite workers at one of his Manhattan restaurants.
The lawsuit was brought by low-paid Latino and Bangladeshi bus boys and runners who claimed they were denied opportunities to advance to higher-paid positions, passed over in favor of newly hired white employees with less experience, and subjected to harassment and racial insults if they complained. That's racist! The settlement called for Boulud's restaurant to pay $80,000 in damages to eight workers, adopt a policy to ensure that race and national origin are not factors in promotions, and train managers about employment law. And there you go.
The F Word Blog covers the story of human rights leader Rigoberta Menchu being kicked out of a Cancun hotel for an LWI offense (Living While Indigenous):
Racism against indigenous peoples - alive and well
We all know that to be a woman is hard, to be a woman on minority ethnic descent harder. Spare a thought for Rigoberta Menchú, Nobel Peace Prize winner, UNESCO ambassador, Guatamalan Presidential Candidate, women’s and indigenous people’s rights activist and trade unionist. Despite her international renown Menchú was evicted from a hotel in Cancun recently. What had she done wrong? Tried to enter wearing traditional Mayan dress.
A flashback link from Atlanta Progressive News written during this year's U.S. Social Forum. The article is titled "Native Americans and Immigrants Share Common Struggles":
One group has lived here for millennia, while the other has just arrived. But Native Americans and immigrants have much in common, particularly the alienation and oppression they experience in U.S. society, activists and community leaders said on day three of the U.S. Social Forum (USSF) Friday...
"Indigenous rights are the foundation of human rights in this country and we have to come to terms with that," said Julie Fishel of the Western Shoshone Defence Project at a Plenary Session on "Indigenous Voices: From the Heart of Mother Earth."
Queer African-American blogger Keith Boykin blasts a
recent ad campaign by Intel:
There stood a white man with his arms folded in the middle of an office with six black men kneeling around him with their heads down. The unmistakable message was that the black men were not just employees but servants to their white master. As I walked out the door in shock, the first thought that came to my mind was slavery. The second thought was revulsion. How could a major company approve such an ad in the first place?
Blogger Latina Lista
Latina Lista covers a recent post by Janet Murguía, President of the National Council of La Raza:
...We are seeing as many as 1,000 proposed state laws — and thousands more at the city or county level — aimed against people "suspected" of being here illegally. The result is that public libraries, parks, and even our workplaces no longer feel as safe and welcoming for Latinos as they once did.
We’re clearly living in a time of great struggle; but moments of great struggle are always where significant progress is made. We must now step up and seize the day to help renew America. We must do what matters most — we must live democracy on a daily basis, visible and engaged...
That's it for this week folk! The Linking our way to Equality Campaign is signing off for now