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. "Diversity Blog Sundays" is a model made for progressive sites to follow. Together, we can link our way to equality.
APA For Progress reflects on the event that many credit with starting the pan-Asian American Civil Rights Movement, and what is happening today to further that budding cause in, "National Townhall on Hate Crimes":
In June 1982, Chinese American Vincent Chin was killed in Detroit by two white autoworkers, one of whom had been recently been laid off. This hate crime, motivated by anti-Japanese sentiments, served as a rallying cry for the Asian American community and is often considered the beginning of a pan-Asian American movement.
Twenty five years later, Asian Pacific Americans for Progress and local partners around the country look back in time and assess where we are now. With recent high-profile attacks on Asian Americans in New York, Michigan and Wisconsin, APAP is organizing a series of events throughout the nation around the anniversary of Vincent's murder...
[Pleas Visit the link for a list of all the remaining events]
Black Voice News covers the explosive demand for African-American focused charter schools in "A Case For Segregation":
As many of the nation's 3,500 charter schools struggle with funding shortfalls, tougher regulations and growing opposition, charter schools that cater to African-American and underserved children are flourishing amid lengthy waiting lists with numbers in the thousands...
While charter school advocates and critics trade barbs over whether charter schools perform better than public schools, education experts are increasingly struggling with the issue of racial segregation.
Public schools have struggled with the issue for the past 50 years. Today charter schools are largely more segregated than public schools, says Orfield. He said data collected from charter schools in several key states detail segregation is worse for African-American than Latino students...
Booman Tribune covers the retirement of ethically challenged representative Rick Renzi, and hopes for a female, native american replacement in "AZ-01: Native American Candidate:
It turns out that the Native American population may be a crucial swing vote.
Renzi was able to win the district in part because of his significant inroads among American Indians, who historically favor Democrats. Rigorous in-person campaigning helped Renzi win more than half the Indian vote in 2006, Davis said, an anomaly for a Republican. Davis added that other GOP candidates are unlikely to replicate Renzi’s record-breaking results, but with steady campaigning on the reservation should be able to win 30 percent of the Indian vote.
Maybe. But what if the Democratic nominee is Mary Kim Titla of Native Youth Magazine?
Here's a little from Ms. Titla's bio:
Mary Kim Titla was born and raised on the San Carlos Apache Reservation in southeastern Arizona...
In 1987 she became the first Native American TV reporter in Arizona when KVOA TV in Tucson hired her. She worked at KVOA for 6 years. KPNX TV hired her in 1993. She worked there until resigning in late 2005 to publish Native Youth Magazine online. Mary Kim has earned numerous awards for her TV news reporting and for the e-zine she created. She was recently inducted into the Walter Cronkite Hall of Fame at Arizona State University...
I'd like to see Titla fill out her issues page a little more before I get really enthusiastic. I am a firm believer that the more women we have in Washington the better our policies will be. And the more minority representation we have, the more balanced our policies will be. And I like to back winners. Could Titla be a winner?
Immigration Prof brings to us a heart warming story of working class Americans banding together for fair treatment on the workplace in "Immigrants Seek to Unionize In Big Apple":
...Immigrant unionization efforts, which belie the stereotype that immigrants are a wholly pliant workforce, have been seen in cities and industries acrosd the country in recent years, with the Janitors for Justice movement in Los Angeles perhaps the most well known.
According to the Post, the deliverymen of the Saigon Grill labored for years at the bottom of Manhattan's food chain. Biking swiftly down the avenues in biting cold and searing heat, they schlepped up high-rises and walk-ups with bags of food. "Then they surprised their bosses by serving up something unexpected: a revolt. The 30 men -- all immigrants, including undocumented workers frustrated with the poor conditions and low wages that are often a fact of life in America's underground economy -- banded together in an effort to unionize."
PageOneQ Linked to a very interesting article by the Internation Herald Tribune titled, "Gay, lesbian, groups protest NY reggae concert because of anti-gay music":
A reggae festival in New York which was created to promote peace among cultures is being denounced by gay and lesbian groups for allowing performers with a history of anti-gay lyrics...
The issue of anti-gay lyrics in reggae and other Jamaican music surfaced years ago when Banton released "Batty Rider" and "Boom Bye Bye," which glorify the shooting of gay men. The Beenie Man song "Han Up Deh" calls for a lesbian to be hanged, while T.O.K's song "Chi Chi Man" suggests the burning of gay men.
Latina Lista has a wonderful guest post from a latina youth titled, "An Undocumented Student Asks, 'Why?':
I am 21 years old and I was born in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico, but Tucson, Arizona is my home.
My family and I came to the United States seventeen years ago. They brought me here when I was a child. I have always considered it a privilege to live in a nation that is greatly blessed by God.
Every day, I am so thankful to live here — even though many people say I don’t belong here because this land is theirs.
I say nobody owns this land, this earth. Wherever we may go, it does not matter if it is in China or Colombia, we are still on the same land, same planet, and same creation...
This year in 2007, a new law has gone into effect that makes it impossible for me and millions of others like me to go farther with our education.
Proposition 300 makes undocumented students pay double or triple the tuition.
Can you imagine how much it will cost a semester?
It is impossible for me to raise enough money and pay such a high amount for one simple class. So far, I have taken two classes.
I used to feel sad all the time and had feelings of hopelessness whenever I thought about not being able to afford to go to school or how people talked about us, but then I said: "Lord let your will be done, my future is in your hands."
I know I’ll just have to wait and see what will happen with the elections of 2008. It is one election I will be looking forward to seeing who wins.
Pam's House Blend reflects on the gruesome inspiration for change in "The LGBT Hate Crimes Project: Ukea Davis & Stephanie Thomas":
I was in the middle of researching and writing up the murders of Ukea Davis and Stephanie Thomas when I realize I would have to take the hate crimes project I started on Wikipedia beyond Wikipedia. As with Erica Keel and Nireah Johnson, I'd be hard pressed to defend whether they met the standard of "notability" on Wikipedia; basically that it'd be an uphill battle to convince some people that the lives and deaths of Davis and Thomas were and are worth noticing.
It certainly wasn't recent. And beyond a few hundred people who gathered for a vigil at scene of the murder a few days later, and another vigil a year later, their deaths didn't spark massive protests. It's been five years since they were shot to death, with subautomatic weapons, shot at least 10 times each, in the head and the chest, in a neighborhood where Thomas' mother said everyone knew they were transgender, where both had faced harassment for being transgender.
They died on the same Washington, D.C., street corner where Tyra Hunter had lain dying of injuries from an automobile accident, when emergency responders laughed and withdrew emergency treatment when they discovered Hunter was transgender. The same fire engine company that responded to Hunter's accident responded to Davis' and Thomas' murders, and according to witnesses at the scene, the women's bodies were dragged from the car. Thomas was dropped face down on the street, and a firefighter later turned her body over with his foot as blood poured from her wounds. You might say they were afforded as much dignity in death as they were in life...
Feministing confronts aspects of sexism and racism in the drug wars in the post titled "Is weed smoking a feminist act?":
Reading more into the article, I did have to agree that media depictions of drug use are in general inaccurate and definitely sexist. The war on drugs is extremely racist and gendered with little conversation about how drugs affect the lives of young women, while being absurdly focused on the incarceration of young men. Furthermore, the usual drug user is depicted as male.
But on a much less serious note, maybe women don't like to look lazy. . .
Perhaps the obstacle to female toking is a fear of looking lazy. Getting stoned is, in effect, a great way to relax. Men are allowed to be lazy—being stoned is part of their farting, pajama-wearing, video-game-playing pantheon of acceptable male relaxation techniques. Since Jeff Spicoli made his debut in 1982's Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and continuing into the entire oeuvre of director Judd Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up), stonerdom is an accepted part of modern maleness. Their sloth is even kind of adorable.
But modern women are not allowed to be lazy, adorable stoners. Women have to go to college (which they're now doing at higher rates than men), and then get their careers going quickly, before their biological clocks run out. Then they have to have kids and take them to all of their activities. There is no time for women to be slovenly and relax—and if women do relax, it has to be at a gym...
For me, it is hard to talk about drug culture in the US without looking at the racial politics of the drug war and how for some "toking" is a fun activity that some people don't go to jail for, while others do. Understanding that, is pot culture sexist? And is smoking weed a feminist act?
That's it for now folks. Good week and see you next Racial Minority Blog Sunday!