How do You feel About Dating Outside of Your Race?

Number of interracial couples in U.S. reaches all-time high

By the CNN Wire Staff

updated 2:53 PM EDT, Wed April 25, 2012

(CNN) -- The number of interracial couples in the United States has reached an all-time high, with one in every 10 American opposite-sex married couples saying they're of mixed races, according to the most recent Census data released Wednesday.
In 2000, that figure was about 7%.
The rate of interracial partnerships also is much higher among the unmarried, the 2010 Census showed.
About 18% of opposite-sex unmarried couples and 21% of same-sex unmarried partners identify themselves as interracial.
The term interracial, as it pertains to the study, is defined as members of a couple identifying as of different races or ethnicities.
Neither black nor white: Three multiracial generations, one family
Analysts suggest the new figures could reflect U.S. population shifts, broader social acceptance of such unions and a more widespread willingness among those polled to be classified as mixed race.
"Identifying as an interracial couple shifts over time," census spokeswoman Rose Kreider said.
Among interracial opposite-sex married couples, non-Hispanics and Hispanics are by far the most frequent combination, making up about 45% of such partnerships, Kreider said.
The second most represented group are those in which at least one person identifies as multiracial, while the third are marriages between whites and Asians.
Marriages between blacks and whites are the fourth most frequent group among married opposite-sex interracial couples.

White Neighborhood Watch Captian Kills Black Teenager

Students want watch leader who shot Trayvon Martin arrested

ORLANDO, Florida (AP) — The case of a white neighborhood watch captain who shot an unarmed black teen last month has prompted student protests in Florida on Monday, and is garnering national attention as civil rights leaders, politicians and even the White Houseweigh in.

But authorities may be hamstrung by a state law that allows people to defend themselves with deadly force.

• BLOG: Report: Shooter in racially charged death often called cops

Students held rallies on the campus of Florida A&M University in Tallahassee and outside the courthouse in nearby Sanford, where prosecutors are reviewing the case to determine if charges should be filed. The students demanded the arrest of 28-year-old George Zimmerman, who authorities say shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin last month during a confrontation in a nearby gated community.

Gun control advocates say it is emblematic of permissive gun laws in Florida, which was among the first states to allow residents to carry concealed weapons.

Florida was the first state to pass a "Stand Your Ground" law, which has been dubbed a "Shoot First" law by gun control advocates. About half of all U.S. states have similar laws, said Brian Malte, legislative director of the Brady Campaign, which describes itself as the nation's largest organization dedicated to the prevention of gun violence.

The Florida shooting happened when Zimmerman spotted Martin as he was patrolling his neighborhood on a rainy evening last month and called police to report a suspicious person. Against the advice of the dispatcher, Zimmerman then followed Martin, who was walking home from a convenience store with a bag of Skittles in his pocket.

Zimmerman's father has said his son is Hispanic and is not racist. Zimmerman has claimed self-defense.

"I don't think a man who exited his vehicle after the 911 dispatcher told him to stay inside the car can claim self-defense," Carl McPhail, a 28-year-old Barry University law school student, said at the rally in Sanford.

The 70 protesters at the Sanford rally chanted "What if it was your son?" and held posters saying, "This is not a race issue." Many carried Skittles.

Martin's parents and other advocates have said the shooter would have been arrested had he been black.

"You would think that Sanford is still in the 1800s claiming that this man can call self-defense for shooting an unarmed boy," said restaurant owner Linda Tillman, who also was at the Sanford rally.

Florida congresswoman Corrine Brown has asked that the U.S. Department of Justice to review the case, and White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday during a briefing that officials there were aware of what happened.

"Our thoughts and prayers go out to Trayvon Martin's family," Carney said. "But obviously we're not going to wade into a local law enforcement matter."

But prosecutors may not be able to charge Zimmerman because of changes made to state law in 2005. Under the old law, people could use deadly force in self-defense only if they had tried to run away or otherwise avoid the danger. The changes removed that duty to retreat and gave Floridians, as the law is written, the right "to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force," if they felt threatened. The changes also meant people could not be prosecuted in such instances.

Prosecutors can have a hard time making a case if there is no one else around to contradict a person who claims self-defense, said David Hill, a criminal defense attorney in Orlando. Thus far, Sanford police have said there is no evidence to contradict Zimmerman's claims.

"If there is nobody around and you pull a gun, you just say, 'Hey, I reasonably believed I was under imminent attack. Hey, sorry. Too bad. But you can't prosecute me,'" Hill said.

Black History Moment: The Dred Scott Decision of 1857

The Dred Scott Decision

Period: 1850s

On March 6, 1857, in a small room in the Capitol basement, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the territories.
In 1846, a Missouri slave, Dred Scott, sued for his freedom. Scott argued that while he had been the slave of an army surgeon, he had lived for four years in Illinois, a free state, and Wisconsin, a free territory, and that his residence on free soil had erased his slave status. In 1850 a Missouri court gave Scott his freedom, but two years later, the Missouri Supreme Court reversed this decision and returned Scott to slavery. Scott then appealed to the federal courts.
For five years, the case proceeded through the federal courts. For more than a year, the Court withheld its decision. Many thought that the Court delayed its ruling to ensure a Democratic victory in the 1856 elections. Then, in March 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney announced the Court's decision. By a 7-2 margin, the Court ruled that Dred Scott had no right to sue in federal court, that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, and that Congress had no right to exclude slavery from the territories.
All nine justices rendered separate opinions, but Chief Justice Taney delivered the opinion that expressed the position of the Court's majority. His opinion represented a judicial defense of the most extreme proslavery position.
The chief justice made two sweeping rulings. The first was that Dred Scott had no right to sue in federal court because neither slaves nor free blacks were citizens of the United States. At the time the Constitution was adopted, the chief justice wrote, blacks had been "regarded as beings of an inferior order" with "no rights which the white man was bound to respect."
Second, Taney declared that Congress had no right to exclude slavery from the federal territories since any law excluding slavery property from the territories was a violation of the Fifth Amendment prohibition against the seizure of property without due process of law. For the first time since Marbury v. Madison in 1803, the Court declared an act of Congress unconstitutional.
Newspaper headlines summarized the Court's rulings:

SLAVERY ALONE NATIONAL--THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE UNCONSTITUTIONAL--NEGROES CANNOT BE CITIZENS--THE TRIUMPH OF SLAVERY COMPLETE.

In a single decision, the Court sought to resolve all the major constitutional questions raised by slavery. It declared that the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights were not intended to apply to black Americans. It stated that the Republican Party platform--barring slavery from the western territories--was unconstitutional. And it ruled that Stephen Douglas's doctrine of "popular sovereignty"--which stated that territorial governments had the power to prohibit slavery--was also unconstitutional.
Republicans reacted with scorn. The decision, said the New York Tribune, carried as much moral weight as "the judgment of a majority of those congregated in any Washington barroom." Many Republicans--including an Illinois politician named Abraham Lincoln--regarded the decision as part of a slave power conspiracy to legalize slavery throughout the United States.
The Dred Scott decision was a major political miscalculation. In its ruling, the Supreme Court sought to solve the slavery controversy once and for all. Instead the Court intensified sectional strife, undercut possible compromise solutions to the divisive issue of the expansion of slavery, and weakened the moral authority of the judiciary.


http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm?HHID=334

Was Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra's Super Bowl Ad Racist?

Senate Candidate Pete Hoekstra’s Racist Super Bowl Ad

Pete Hoekstra, Senate candidate and tweeting disaster Twitter Pete, aired a campaign ad during the Super Bowl targeted at his happily married opponent, Debbie Stabenow. The ad features a Chinese woman biking through a backdrop of rice fields and uh, recognizable music, thanking "Debbie Spenditnow" for giving all the money to "us."

The woman, wearing a straw hat (because, you know, Chinapeople and their little hats), rides up on her bicycle and delivers the following in broken English :

Thank you, Michigan Senator Debbie Spenditnow. Debbie spend so much American money. You borrow more and more from us. Your economy get very weak. Ours get very good. We take your jobs. Thank you, Debbie Spenditnow.

Hoekestra continues on to say that you, the good Super Bowl-watching people of Michigan, should refrain from voting Debbie Spenditnow and instead vote for Pete "Spend It Not." Oh, perfect. Yep, no problems here. Nothing to see but a pretty ad that is in no way offensive to a group and/or groups of people whatsoever. The video is also available at Hoekstra's website,along with the image of Stabenow's face printed on a fan, Chinese characters, dragons, yen, and a pot of tea preceded by the words, "Debbie's pouring American dollars into the Chinese economy."

The ad is insensitive, racist, xenophobic, and fundamentally incorrect in every way. It is offensive for so many reasons, but perhaps it is just the sheer dumbness of it that offends me the most. Pete Spend It Not? Get your head in the game, Pete. What does that even mean? It means that you should think about who you pay to helm your ad campaigns before you can even begin to discuss others' spending. Also, we're pretty sure you are racist now. Why not go the easy route and attack Stabenow's creepy husband?

I hope Ricky Gervais comes to Pete Hoekstra's house, knocks on his door, thrusts him from the cover of his Midwestern comfort zone and forces him to experience the horrors of strange and foreign lands at the cost of his own dignity and humiliation.

http://gawker.com/5882674/senate-candidate-pete-hoekstras-racist-super-bowl-ad

Does the Media Use the N-word to Loosely???

Originally published January 13, 2012

Gawker Blogger Fired after Kanye West N-Word Article

by AFRO Staff

A writer for a popular Internet website was fired after using the N-word in an article about rapper Kanye West. 

According to TheWrap.com, Seth Abramovitch of the gossip website Gawker.com was ousted from the publication after posting about Kanye West’s Twitter rant in early January. 

West took to the social network to voice his plans about DONDA, a new design company he wants to open in the future. West said the planned corporation will “galvanize amazing thinkers” and borrows its name from his late mother, Dr. Donda West. 

Abramovitch later poked fun at the rapper’s plans and created a DONDA acronym that used the n-word. 

“DONDA will be your everything. Just you wait and see,” Abramovitch wrote. “And what is DONDA? It’s an acronym for Dis Original N---a Dresses Aight.”

After the post drew wide criticism, Abramovitch later added an apology to the original article. 

“DONDA is actually the name of Kanye’s deceased mother, not the acronym above, which was meant to be the kind of thing Kanye would make up in a late-night creative writing fit, but has offended many people,” he wrote. “So sorry to everyone who was offended and for the confusion. Sorries all around!” 

Following the incident, Gawker’s new editor, A.J. Daulerio, fired Abramovitch because he said he believed Abramovitch's apology didn’t sound sincere. 

“I thought it was a half-*bleep*ed apology,” Daulerio told TheWrap. “I basically do not want people working for the site who do not care. I had a conversation with Seth and he told me he really didn’t care.”

Abramovitch objected to Daulerio’s claim. He said that in retrospect, he believed the article was a dumb joke that used an offensive term. 

Following numerous news reports on the incident, Daulerio wrote on Gawker that Abramovitch’s firing was not just a result of his post but a “series of events” that had occurred in the past. 

“To mitigate some of the damage done to his professional reputation as a result of my ill-timed public dismissal of him, I’d like to reiterate here that there were other factors before and after this DONDA mess which led to it,” he wrote. “I thought it was a *bleep* joke and some of the attempts to defuse the backlash were *bleep*ier, but that shouldn’t in any way tarnish his excellent body of work, which I’ve always admired.”

Should Maryland Abolition Death Penalty???

Originally published January 11, 2012

NAACP Makes Maryland Focus on Death Penalty Abolition

by Alexis Taylor
Special to the AFRO

Joining key Maryland legislators with civil rights and community activists one day before the Maryland General Assembly reconvenes, national leaders of the NAACP met January 10 to position Maryland as the next state in the nation to do away with capital punishment.

“We know that when you seek the death penalty instead of life without the possibility of parole you literally spend hundreds of thousands of dollars more that could have been spent on getting more killers off the street,” said Benjamin Jealous, National President and CEO of the NAACP.

To date, 16 states have struck the death penalty from the books, with Illinois becoming the latest to adopt the legislation. Reinstated in 1978, the death penalty has continued to cause much controversy in that those who are most likely to die at the hands of this state are Black men. Studies from 2003 completed by the University of Maryland show that even though nearly 75 percent of all murder victims in the state are Black, “blacks who kill whites are 2.5 times more likely to be sentenced to death than whites who kill whites, and 3.5 times more likely than blacks who kill blacks.”

The Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment acknowledged a number of liabilities within the state’s system of capital punishment in 2008, which led to the Maryland death penalty reforms of 2009, “Racial bias continues to infect the Maryland death penalty system,” said Gerald Stansbury, president of the NAACP Maryland State Conference.

With public interest in the trial and execution of Troy Davis dying down, death penalty abolitionists are working endlessly to keep support for the effort alive. Certainly not the first man put to death under questionable circumstances, Davis was executed in Georgia last year even after seven witnesses recanted their testimonies that placed a gun in his hand moments before a young police officer was shot and killed.

Kirk Noble Bloodsworth knows all too well the fatal consequences of eye witness misidentification, which accounts for nearly 75 percent of all wrongful convictions according to The Innocence Project, a national organization working to exonerate innocent prisoners.

“It was the most horrible feeling you could ever imagine when that paper that they slip kind of floats under your door. It is the warrant for your execution. It means you will be killed by lethal gas,” said Bloodsworth, “I was lucky, after almost nine years in prison, I was released. Ten years after that, the real killer was caught,” said Bloodsworth.

An honorably discharged Marine and commercial fisherman, Bloodsworth was wrongly convicted in 1985 of the rape and murder of 9-year-old Dawn Hamilton. Bloodsworth was the first man not only in Maryland, but in America, to be exonerated from death row by DNA testing in 1993. Though paid $300,000-roughly $92 a day- by the State of Maryland for income he would have made while sitting in prison Bloodsworth can never get back the 3,247 days of life he spent trapped in a penitentiary nightmare.

“We spend an average of $700,000 to keep someone in jail for the rest of their lives but up to $2.5 million to execute them,” said Hilary Shelton, senior vice president of advocacy and director of the NAACP’s Washington Bureau. “Legislators are seeing that being smart on crime means putting the resources on the front end to prevent the crime from happening in the first place rather than the back end,” said Shelton.

With state budgets across the nation being stretched paper thin, there are children who need better education, firehouses without enough funding to keep communities safe, and recreation facing new management or closure because the cities can’t afford to effectively run them. Surely there are better things to do with the millions of dollars it takes to end one life by lethal injection.

3rd Grade Math Homework References Slavery? What would you do?

Jan 7, 2012 6:07pm

‘If Fred Got Two Beatings

 Per Day…’ Homework Asks

Third graders in in Gwinnett County, Ga., were given math homework Wednesday that asked questions about slavery and beatings.

Christopher Braxton told ABC News affiliate WSB-TV in Atlanta that he couldn’t believe the assignment his 8-year-old son brought home from of Beaver Ridge Elementary school in Norcross.

“It kind of blew me away,” Braxton said. “Do you see what I see? Do you really see what I see? He’s not answering this question.”

The question read, “Each tree had 56 oranges. If eight slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?”

Another math problem read, “If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in one week?”

Another question asked how many baskets of cotton Frederick filled.

“I was furious at that point,” Braxton said.

“This outrages me because it just lets me know that there’s still racists,” said Stephanie Jones, whose child is a student at the school.

“Something like that shouldn’t be imbedded into a kid of the third, fourth, fifth, any grade,” parent Terrance Barnett told WSB-TV. “I’m having to explain to my 8-year-old why slavery or slaves or beatings are in a math problem. That hurts.”

“In this one, the teachers were trying to do a cross-curricular activity,” Gwinnett County school district spokeswoman Sloan Roach said.

Roach said the teachers were attempting to incorporate social studies into math problems.

“We understand that there are concerns about these questions, and we agree that these questions were not appropriate,”
she said.

ABC News affiliate WSB-TV contributed to this report.

Should Gun Training Exclude Muslims and Obama Voters?

Ad for gun training bars Muslims and Obama voters

A radio ad for a handgun training class that bars Muslims and Obama voters has sparked an investigation in Texas.

"We will attempt to teach you all the necessary information you need to obtain your [Concealed Handgun License]," the ad says. Then towards the end, it adds: "If you are a socialist liberal and/or voted for the current campaigner in chief, please do not take this class. You have already proven that you cannot make a knowledgeable and prudent decision under the law."

And then: "If you are a non-Christian Arab or Muslim, I will not teach you the class with no shame; I am Crockett Keller, thank you, and God bless America."

The ad ran for six days on KHLB, Mason's local station. It's also been heard tens of thousands of times on Youtube.

Keller, 65, has said in media interviews that he just regards the message is just common sense. "The fact is, if you are a devout Muslim, then you cannot be a true American," he told local news station KVUE, while fielding calls congratulating him for his stance. "Why should I arm these people to kill me? That's suicide."

"I call it exercising my right to choose who I instruct in how to use a dangerous weapon," he added.

But the state of Texas may disagree. The Department of Public Safety said in a statement that certified instructors of handgun training are required to comply with all applicable state and federal laws, and added: "Conduct by an instructor that denied service to individuals on the basis of race, ethnicity or religion would place that instructor's certification by the Department at risk of suspension or revocation." The department has said it has begun an investigation.

It seems unlikely that Keller will back down, though. "I'm not going to do it," he told the local news. "I will give up my license to teach before I will teach them," he said, referring to Obama voters and Muslims.

Why are More Black Men In Prison Today than Enslaved in 1850?

There Are More Black Men In Prison Today Than Were Enslaved in 1850

Written by Oretha Winston on October 10, 2011 9:30 am

It’s a heartbreaking, but often understated, reality that America’s criminal justice system imprisons black folks at astonishingly high rates. The U.S. Bureau of Justice estimated that as of 2008, there were over 846,000 black men in prison, making up 40.2 percent of all inmates in the system. But in a recent talk, noted author Michelle Alexander put those numbers in grave historical perspective.

“Courageous” Calls Men Of Honor To Stand Up In New Movie

“More African American men are in prison or jail, on probation or parole than were enslaved in 1850, before the Civil War began,” Alexander, an Ohio State law professor, recently told listeners at the Pasadena Branch of the American Civil Liberties Union. Alexander’s seminal book, “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” argues that prisons have become the latest form of economic and social disenfranchisement for young folks of color, particularly black men. In it, she grapples with a central question: If crime rates have fluctuated over the years and are now at historical lows, then why have rates of incarcerated men of color skyrocketed over the past 30 years? The answer to that question doesn’t require a lot of digging. “Most of that increase is due to the War on Drugs, a war waged almost exclusively in poor communities of color,” she said. LA Progressive reported that even though studies have proven that whites use and sell illegal drugs at rates equal to or higher than black, four of five black youth in some inner-city communities can expect to be incarcerated in their lifetimes.

Now, what? what do you think?

NY Times Promotes Lies About African Americans And Technology

Written by Navarrow Wright on October 10, 2011 5:52 pm

I was in the middle of my Sunday ritual of reading the tech sections of various publications when I came across a story on the New York Times website that discussed the level of effectiveness of classroom software as a means to improve leaning opportunities for youth across the company. I agree that this topic needs to be discussed but it needs to be discussed from a viewpoint that takes the children’s needs into effect instead of just looking at the issue based on dollars and cents and a skewed perspective on percentages. If you read this article, you would believe that these software programs offer moderate improvement at best, and are not cost efficient in most cases. The point that this article does not discuss is that these programs are looking to fill the gap of the lack of skill reinforcement that is not available in most public schools, and how most of those schools are mostly comprised of people of color. Articles like this that just lay out data points in a casual way do more to continue people’s misconceptions about how technology can improve and supplement learning to the benefit of students, especially students in areas with low resources. What was even more disturbing than the myopic approach the writer used to communicate issues, were the images that were used. When I was first presented with the article this was the image I was presented with:

Now the first question I ask is what does this image convey to you? Some of you would say confusion, lack of understanding or an overall inability to utilize and understand the technology. Now imagine what the image would convey to some teenage African Americans who are on the fence about whether to take the leap to become computer literate. The image is a grave contrast to the image I found that they used on an earlier story.

What’s even more interesting is the story that image was used for painted a more dire picture that the article I found. Its title was ”In Classroom of Future, Stagnant Scores,” but imagery of these children ( not people of color) is upbeat and full of promise. Why the difference? We could spend months trying to get an explanation but regardless of that reason the result is no less damaging.What the writers of these pieces may or may not realize is that even though these  programs may not have ideal results, they are doing some things that are core to solving some key issues that contribute to the digital divide.

These programs help students develop a real comfort level with using computers and the internet. By using the software the kids develop  an understanding the repetitive learning is key to skill development.  This will also give the students the urge to want to have computer and internet access at home, which is key to adoption.

What most people don’t realize is that the biggest roadblock in closing the digital divide is not cost but digital literacy. Many African Americans and Hispanics see digital literacy as an impossible goal for them mainly because they don’t see the value in it for them. Stories and images like these only help to continue to discourage people against making the effort to adopt technology. We need more examples of minorities utilizing and succeeding with technology to change the perception that technology is not “for us”  Let me know what you think of how the two images were used below in the comments .