Colorlines Magazine articles from January 2007

Colorlines Magazine archives from January 2007

What it takes.(Editorial)
January 1, 2007... SOMEONE ASKED ME RECENTLY to come up with one word that described how I was feeling about the state of the country and what might happen next. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] I thought about it for a long moment, stumped. And then a word that...

Katrina coverage in Canada.(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2007... I have recently discovered your magazine on Canadian news racks. For the most part, I am impressed by the critical inquiry of the journalists' articles. In the Spring 2006 issue, with its many articles on Katrina, I felt there could have been...

Uplifting news.(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2007... I wasn't going to re-subscribe but I enjoyed the Peoples Temple (July/Aug.) and Superheroes (Sept./Oct.) articles so much that I did. It's nice to hear about what's uplifting in the world, too. Heather Boudreau Portland, Oregon

In focus: standing their ground.(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... WHEN: Friday, June 16, 2006, Noon WHERE: Mexico City An indigenous woman protests the government's violent crackdown on her community's teachers. Teachers from the state of Oaxaca went on strike last May, taking over Oaxaca's...

Lose in court? Take it to the ballot box. Michigan opponents of affirmative action were defeated in the judicial system but called on Ward Connerly to help them win voters.(NEWS)
January 1, 2007... IN NOVEMBER, MICHIGAN VOTERS approved Proposal 2, barring state entities, including colleges, from considering race as a factor in school admissions and job contracts. Some people, however, might have thought they were voting in favor of...

The smaller footprint: in New Orleans, higher rents destroyed public housing.(GULF COAST UPDATE)
January 1, 2007... NEW ORLEANS' BROAD STREET used to be a major Black commercial district. Since the city's flooding, Broad Street's barber shops, clothing stores and restaurants have been replaced by a mile of shuttered stores and abandoned homes, while nearby...

Build your own private prison.(READING BETWEEN THE HEADLINES)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... A computer game called Prison Tycoon allows players to pretend they're the warden of a private prison-players build the prison, hire staff, create activities for inmates, break up fights and handle gang problems. The game's website explains:...

Air vigilantes.(READING BETWEEN THE HEADLINES)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... British vacationers in Spain refused to board their plane home last August until the crew kicked off two South Asian men who were on their flight. Several passengers heard the men speaking a language other than English and incorrectly assumed...

Security clearance before jogging.(READING BETWEEN THE HEADLINES)
January 1, 2007... Since Sept. 11, banks around the world have used the U.S. government's list of "terrorist names" to freeze assets or block wire transfers. In the United Arab Emirates, cab drivers can no longer use Western Union to send $120 back home to...

You see racist prison gangs; They see a customer base.(READING BETWEEN THE HEADLINES)(RBC Records)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... With racial tensions in many prisons perpetually at a boiling point, tiny record label RBC Records sees an opportunity to make a buck. The label is targeting the latest album from the white supremacist rap group Woodpile directly at prison...

Trashing Black communities.(READING BETWEEN THE HEADLINES)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... Each year, trash from 48 states is sent to Emelle, a small Alabama town where 90 percent of the residents are Black. But Emelle isn't alone. Across the country, chemical plants and landfills are placed where Black families live and work. In...

Once racial targets, nannies now sue.(READING BETWEEN THE HEADLINES)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... In a class action lawsuit, 30 Latina childcare providers in Mattawa, Washington, are suing state and city officials for violating their rights in a sweep of arrests in 2003. "The women claim they were targeted based on their race," said lawyer...

Sanctuary city.(READING BETWEEN THE HEADLINES)(Nick Inzunza)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... The mayor of National City, California, announced plans last fall to label this small town of 50,000 people between San Diego and the U.S.-Mexico border a "sanctuary city." Mayor Nick Inzunza made the announcement to reassert that city funds...

Doing the math on healthcare.(READING BETWEEN THE HEADLINES)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... A small number of hospital systems have finally figured out that it's cheaper to provide preventive care to people who don't have health insurance than wait for a medical emergency to happen. While it's a Band-aid solution, the news is welcomed...

Policymakers go to the border.(READING BETWEEN THE HEADLINES)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... The University of North Carolina has come up with a creative, albeit temporary, solution to the growing number of politicians who enact racist local policies: take them across the border. The Latino Initiative program whisks politicians,...

Kevin Powell: the writer talks about his new book on Katrina, spirituality and politics--and why he'll run for office in 2008.(Interview)
January 1, 2007... In Someday We'll All Be Free, you write about 9/11 and Katrina as tragedies that reveal a larger tragedy: failed democracy in America. Why is it important for you to make this connection? When you look at what happened with September 11th,...

The new civilian terrorists: anti-Arab racism shapes the U.S. discussion of the Middle East.(TO THE POINT)
January 1, 2007... WHEN A HIZBULLAH SQUADRON entered northern Israel in July 2006 and abducted two soldiers, killing eight others, U.S. print and visual media reflexively described the move as an act of terrorism and deemed Hizbullah a "terrorist organization" (a...

The Innovators: people moving big ideas in 2007.
January 1, 2007... AS WE BEGIN 2007, ColorLines starts the year profiling a list of trendsetters and tastemakers we call The Innovators. Leaders in politics, art, music and even style, our lineup is filled with the people behind the big ideas you'll see move in...

A new window on the world: they prepared dinners. They washed dishes. On Sept. 11, they lost their friends and their jobs. Now, this group of immigrant workers have organized and started a worker-owned restaurant.(FEATURE)
January 1, 2007... LAST SEPT. 11, a small group gathered at Colors restaurant in New York City. A Peters world map dominated the south wall, showing Africa in all its hugeness. Chairs were lined up in the dining room, facing east toward an altar holding white...

Fighting words: for millions of U.S. residents still learning English, language access is sometimes a matter of life and death--and increasingly, a fight for civil rights.(FEATURE)
January 1, 2007... ON A COLD NEW YORK CITY NIGHT years ago, Josefa Marin rushed her daughter to the hospital. The baby girl had fallen out of a defective high chair. A recent immigrant from Mexico, Marin was still learning and could not yet understand English....

Rebel survivors: the Vietnamese of New Orleans East won a grassroots victory nobody expected.(FEATURE)
January 1, 2007... "IT'S EITHER GOING TO BE A COMMUNITY CELEBRATION or a protest with people getting arrested," says 22-year-old Minh Nguyen without a hint of irony in his voice. It's a rainy August night in New Orleans East, and Nguyen is speaking to a room of...

Loud and clear: students of color fight to save Chicago's deaf education program.(FEATURE)
January 1, 2007... WHEN ANGELA VASQUEZ AND OTHER STUDENTS in the deaf education program at Whitney Young Magnet High School in Chicago heard that four of the 10 teachers in their program were being laid off because of budget cuts, they were angry, frustrated and...

Racial reconciliation: across the South, communities are creating truth and reconciliation commissions to address a past of deadly violence.(FEATURE)
January 1, 2007... ON JUNE 12, 2004, 500 PEOPLE gathered in downtown Greensboro, North Carolina, to witness the swearing in of the seven members of the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The Greensboro TRC is the first TRC created in the United...

A singer of many talentos.(SPOTLIGHT: LA BRUJA)
January 1, 2007... Put aside what you've been taught and relearn--that is what La Bruja (Caridad de La Luz) wants from her audiences. Brujalicious, her debut CD under her own label, De La Luz Records, combines her talents as a poet, singer, actor and activist....

Classical music: Black and Latino musicians hope to change the image of the art form.(CULTURE)
January 1, 2007... PLAYWRIGHT LORRAINE HANSBERRY coined the phrase 'young, gifted, and Black'... and hit a nerve. Nina Simone and Aretha Franklin are among the many who have borrowed the phrase to spotlight the predicament of being an artist of color, to "have a...

All the women are white, all the Blacks are men, and many of us have been raped: one filmmaker confronts sexual violence against Black women.(PROFILE)
January 1, 2007... WHEN AISHAH SHAHIDAH SIMMONS was in South Africa celebrating the end of legalized apartheid with the rest of the country, one nagging fact kept her from completely surrendering to the festive moment. "South Africa has one of the highest rape...

The full force of Black pain: a review of five books about Katrina.(After the Storm: Black Intellectuals Explore the Meaning of Hurricane Katrina)(The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast)(Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster)(Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City)(Katrina's Legacy: White Racism and Black Reconstruction in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)(Book review)
January 1, 2007... A BIG STORM, the perfect storm, and the surge of water that it produced flooded a city that lives with the inevitability of such a disaster. In 1722, the Great Hurricane wiped out the newly founded city. Dogged persistence brought it back to...

The Line Between Us: Teaching about the Border and Mexican Immigration.(Brief article)(Book review)
January 1, 2007... THE LINE BETWEEN US: TEACHING ABOUT THE BORDER AND MEXICAN IMMIGRATION By Bill Bigelow Rethinking Schools, 2006 Rethinking Schools' newest curriculum publication seeks to give a human face to terms like "border," "immigrant,"...

Teaching about Asian Pacific Americans.
January 1, 2007... TEACHING ABOUT ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICANS By Edith Wen-Chu Omatsu and Glenn Chen Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006 This collection contains a wealth of lesson plans and activities that can be used in classrooms or workshops....

Latin America After Neoliberalism: Turning the Tide in the 21st Century?(Brief article)(Book review)
January 1, 2007... LATIN AMERICA AFTER NEOLIBERALISM: TURNING THE TIDE IN THE 21ST CENTURY? Edited by Eric Hershberg and Fred Rosen The New Press, 2006 In the past decade, as the United States swung politically to the right, Latin America has run in...

Toshi Reagon.(Sound recording review)
January 1, 2007... TOSHI REAGON TOSHI (Razor & Tie) Be Your Water (Self-released/available through Goldenrod Music) Have You Heard (Righteous Babe) FOLK-ROCK VETERAN AND ACTIVIST Toshi Reagon has had a career that's spanned...

When the child welfare system works.(TRANSFORMATIONS)
January 1, 2007... I'VE ALWAYS KNOWN THAT I AM QUEER. I see being queer as a fact of my existence, like how I'm female and Black. There were always girls that I liked; I knew they liked me too. It wasn't until my early teens that I realized most people regarded...