Colorlines Magazine articles from June 2005

Colorlines Magazine archives from June 2005

Health and culture at risk.(note from the guest editor)
June 22, 2005... You can hardly open a newspaper or turn on the radio without learning about conflicts over environmental policies--oil drilling in Alaska, limits on diesel emissions, global warming. What most of these stories miss, however, is how...

You thought the Rodney King Jury was crazy?(READING BETWEEN THE HEADLINES)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2005... A jury awarded $1.6 million to Jeremy Morse, the former cop from Inglewood, California, who was videotaped slamming Black teenager Donovan Jackson onto a car and punching him in July 2002. Morse's firing was considered "wrongful termination" by...

Drop it like it's hot 97.(READING BETWEEN THE HEADLINES)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2005... New York City's hip-hop radio station, Hot 97, produced and aired a parody song making fun of the 300,000 tsunami victims. Sung to the tune of "We Are the World," the song included tasteless lines like "There were Africans drowning, little...

Currency exchange.(READING BETWEEN THE HEADLINES)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2005... A New York appeals court ruled that when undocumented immigrants sue employers for unpaid wages, they can't base their claims on U.S. wage rates. They can only sue for the wages they would have earned in their home countries. Now, if only the...

Social security in the black.(READING BETWEEN THE HEADLINES)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2005... To express his concern that "African Americans die sooner than other males," President Bush is proposing to ease the pain of a shorter lifespan--not by improving healthcare access, but by gambling away Social Security on the stock market. While...

Do you speak Hispanic?(READING BETWEEN THE HEADLINES)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2005... Tennessee Judge Barry Tatum has been requiring Latina mothers to learn English and use birth control as a condition for regaining custody of their children. Despite the controversial requirements, he has the support of many residents, including...

Behind the kitchen door.(READING BETWEEN THE HEADLINES)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2005... A new study proves what we suspected about restaurants. Because of racist labor practices, brown immigrants are confined to kitchen work, where low wages and health hazards are rampant. The study was spearheaded by the Restaurant Opportunities...

The big payback.(READING BETWEEN THE HEADLINES)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2005... Mexico is finally getting around to paying back the money owed to thousands of its people who took part in the Bracero Program, a temporary worker agreement the country had with the United States between 1942 and 1967. While these migrants...

Not a day too soon.(READING BETWEEN THE HEADLINES)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2005... Ward Connerly, who led the charge against affirmative action in California, ended his term as the most controversial regent of the University of California. His tenure spawned thousands of student activists who will undo his damage over the...

Black Jack was a Fightin' man.(READING BETWEEN THE HEADLINES)(Movie Review)
June 22, 2005... Unforgivable Blackness, an excellent documentary about Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight boxing champion, aired nationally on PBS in January. His win in 1908 set off race riots 39 years before Jackie Robinson broke the color line in...

Always the Bridesmaid.(READING BETWEEN THE HEADLINES)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2005... Obscured by Jamie Foxx's Oscar win was legendary actor Morgan Freeman, who had never won an Academy Award. After 40 years in the business, Freeman finally took home his long-overdue statue for Best Supporting Actor. Next, he should get...

Guatemalan journey.(in focus)(Joel Morales)(Brief Article)(Interview)
June 22, 2005... I was working with friends trying to organize the right to education. My struggle was based in non-violence. But by opening my mouth, I was considered a communist. To be called a communist you were going to die. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...

Something fishy: contaminated waters threaten a lifeline for low-income people of color.(to the point)
June 22, 2005... Hanging on a wall in my office at the Ma'at Youth Academy is a picture of my father in his early thirties proudly holding a huge striped bass caught on the Richmond shoreline in Butler's Bay. Next to that hangs a photo of my husband beaming...

The reluctant activist: she wanted a happily ever after. Immigration officials had other plans.(q & a)(Donita Ganzon)(Interview)
June 22, 2005... Before Donita Ganzon filed her lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security last November, she made sure her family knew a few things. The first was that they might be thrust into the spotlight. The second was that this attention might...

Watching the war on terror.(RoundUps)
June 22, 2005... Gonzales: What Racial Bias? The media buzz over Alberto Gonzales' confirmation as Attorney General mostly focused on the lovely pairing of his racial identity and political orientation. Criticism focused on his Abu Ghraib torture memos and...

Water woes: private companies raise the rates on those who can least afford it.(California American Water Co.)
June 22, 2005... Rebecca Trujillo first learned that a multinational corporation had bought her local water system when she got a bill. Like other residents in Chualar, a community of farm workers in Salinas Valley, California, Trujillo was used to paying a...

Down these green streets: as farmers' markets grow, more people of color are getting a healthier bite of life.
June 22, 2005... On any given Saturday morning between the months of July and November, the members of the Lower East Side Girls' Club won't be found sleeping in or talking on the phone like their peers. Instead they are up early selling baby lettuces, sweet...

The Arctic dilemma: a perfect storm of environmental changes is transforming Native Alaskan food gathering and culture.
June 22, 2005... When crude oil flowed from the punctured Exxon Valdez supertanker in 1989, residents of the Native Alaskan villages in the spill's path halted their harvests of local foods like salmon, herring, shellfish and seals. It was supposed to have been...

Greening the liquor store: a national network of organizations is trying to bring healthier food choices to the ubiquitous liquor stores in poor neighborhoods. But converting is hard to do.
June 22, 2005... At first glance, School Market looks like your typical corner store. It sells beer; it's located near the free-way; the neighborhood is multiracial and troubled by drug dealing; and the nearest supermarket is half a mile away. Like most corner...

Got tradition? American Indians use native foods to fight diabetes and revive Indian culture.(Cover Story)
June 22, 2005... As a child, Terrol Dew Johnson expected to lose a leg one day. It was what happened to the elders. They got "bad sugar." They became sleepy, their circulation slowed and inevitably they underwent amputations. It had happened to his grandmother,...

Inside the whirlwind: in the wake of the tsunami, progressive Sri Lankans question the politics of aid.(feature)
June 22, 2005... The men and women of Sri Lanka's Eastern coast still walk the beaches. They say "it's like walking in a graveyard." But the 5% of the population that survived the tsunami continue walking there, says Suevndrini Lena, a doctor who helped found a...

A losing battle: meth hits reservations.(feature)(methamphetamine)
June 22, 2005... At 15, Neela Bear was a high school freshman on the Lame Deer Reservation in Montana who ran track and was diligently moving toward the honor society. But she was also looking for comfort. Her father had been gravely ill and nearly died,...

Good for the 'hood? Wal-Mart is touting not just lower prices but racial equity in its push for expansion into poor, urban communities.(feature)
June 22, 2005... At the corner of Grand and Kilpatrick Avenues in Chicago, the Reverend Joseph Kyles addressed a rally last May. "Tomorrow morning," he said, "we need you to pray for the City Council to vote for Wal-Mart in this community." That Rev. Kyles...

Forty acres, and a business district: plans for an African Town in Detroit fell apart over charges of racial division and immigrant-blaming.(feature)
June 22, 2005... The story of African Town is one of infant mortality. It was meant to be a black Detroit business enclave, but it died before it had a chance to live. And, like the death of any black child in a place like Detroit, the causes of African Town's...

International Cleveland: the nation's poorest city adds a new twist to the historic perception that immigrants displace native workers.(feature)
June 22, 2005... Cleveland is a city in despair. Its businesses are leaving; buildings are falling apart; public schools are ever losing money. Along with abundant talk and complaints, there are in fact a few action plans on the table. One idea is to create...

Our little secrets: a Pakistani artist explores the shame and pride of her community's bathroom practices.(culture)(Sa'dia Rehman)(Interview)
June 22, 2005... We were in the kitchen, my mother and I, when she turned to me and said, "Did you know Amreekans keep medicine in the bathroom?" I waited, not quite sure where she was going with this. She looked at me as if I was slow and then continued,...

The industry of trauma: can films about tragedy politicize audiences?(culture)(Critical Essay)
June 22, 2005... Shortly after 9/11, a transnational network of feminists issued a statement about the trauma of the event on the American psyche. They argued that there was a "culture industry of 'trauma'" which ascribed a certain meaning to the devastation...

Return to Bhangra: from dance clubs to gym clubs, young South Asian women reclaim a dance never meant for them.(culture)
June 22, 2005... Growing up in the mostly white suburb of Walnut Creek, California, Sonia Dass never imagined that she could become a bhangra dance performer. "I was very shy growing up," she says. "I could never have pictured myself on stage dancing in front...

Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return and Embroideries.(Book Review)
June 22, 2005... Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return and Embroideries By Marjane Satrapi (Pantheon Books, 2004 and 2005) Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return is the follow-up to Marjane Satrapi's international best-seller Persepolis, which detailed her...

Okada Taxi.(Brief Article)(Sound Recording Review)
June 22, 2005... Okada Taxi Wise Retrogression (Dusty Groove) The solo project of composer and producer Takashi Okada, this imaginative disc is the latest in a string of brilliant discs from Japan fixated on the jazzy possibilities of broken-beat...

Jason Moran.(Brief Article)(Sound Recording Review)
June 22, 2005... Jason Moran Same Mother (Blue Note) New York pianist Jason Moran may claim jazz as his home turf, but his albums always range about in unpredictable ways--a previous album featured a chilling adaptation of "Planet Rock" for the...

One.Be.Lo.(Brief Article)(Sound Recording Review)
June 22, 2005... One.Be.Lo S.O.N.O.G.R.A.M. (Fat Beats) With independent hip-hop congealing into a directionless mass of purist sound-alikes, it's always refreshing to hear something like this debut from One.Be.Lo, formerly one-half of Binary...

Richard Pryor.(Brief Article)(Sound Recording Review)
June 22, 2005... Richard Pryor Evolution Revolution (Warner) This collection examines the masterful comedian's early years, 1966-1974. Most of these tracks have been feature elsewhere, but taken together, they provide a fascinating look at how...

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings.(Brief Article)(Sound Recording Review)
June 22, 2005... Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings Naturally (Daptone) Powered by their stirring cover of Woody Guthries' "This Land is Your Land," these New York funk revivalists come strong on their sophomore disc. The Dap-Kings' vintage, circa...

The freedom within.(transformations)
June 22, 2005... Just when 1 thought I'd escaped my likely fate, I went to prison. I had been visiting a friend in Crystal City, Virginia. I left her hotel around 9:30 in the evening and called a cab back to D.C. As we drove down Jefferson Davis Highway, a...