Colorlines Magazine articles from March 2005

Colorlines Magazine archives from March 2005

Fundamentals of faith.(Editorial)
March 22, 2005... Faith doesn't come easily to me. I don't understand it, I have a hard time talking about it and I am puzzled by and sometimes envious of those for whom it comes more naturally. I'm somewhat at a loss about how to connect the relevance of faith...

No more America.(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
March 22, 2005... Let me urge my favorite magazine to stop calling the United States "America," as has happened in several issues and most strikingly in the Fall 2004 issue with the cover story "Between Two Americas." [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Calling...

Protecting domestic violence shelters.(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
March 22, 2005... I was pleased to see ColorLines focus on the racist and reactionary neighbors of the Asian women's shelter in New York ("Locals Turn on Asian Women's Shelter," Winter 2004-05). I both know the agency and live in the neighborhood, and think that...

Overlooking Asian sexploitation.(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
March 22, 2005... I had the opportunity to read your article "Playing with Race" (Winter 2004-05). Thank you for writing such an interesting article, one that I found myself thinking about quite a bit. It was certainly a topic that I was not very aware of, nor...

Blown away by race play.(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
March 22, 2005... Just gotta say, the new Colorlines issue (on sex, race and gender) blew me away when it arrived yesterday. I spent the evening reading it cover to cover. But as a gay guy who has participated in what you all dub "playing with race," I was...

Spell check for racists.(RANT)
March 22, 2005... Spell Check for Racists. Tensions have been high since a Hmong American was charged with murdering six white deer hunters in northern Wisconsin. Stores in Wisconsin and Minnesota, both home to Hmong communities, have been selling bumper...

Price drop on the black market.(RANT)(adoption)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2005... Price Drop on the Black Market. The going rate for adopting a white baby is as high as $40,000, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Adoption fees for black newborns are $10,000--one quarter of the price for white...

Million dollar blocks.(RANT)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2005... Million Dollar Blocks. Researchers have found that New York inmates whose combined incarcerations will total more than $1 million hail from a few New York blocks. It turns out there are 35 million-dollar blocks in Brooklyn alone. The state...

Block the vote.(RANT)(public housing residents)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2005... Block the Vote. As soon as Bush gave his acceptance speech on Nov. 3, Republican Sen. Richard Shelby from Alabama began writing a provision that would bar voter registration in public housing projects. Of the three million people living in...

Bad blood.(RANT)(South African's HIV infection rates)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2005... Bad Blood. In 2001, South African President Thabo Mbeki donated blood to encourage others to do the same, but now it's been revealed that his blood was rejected--because he is black. With soaring HIV infection rates, blood donated by black...

Even Stevie Wonder can see it.(RAVE)
March 22, 2005... Even Stevie Wonder Can See It. Responding to Eminem's video that lampoons Michael Jackson, legendary singer Stevie Wonder slammed the white rapper for exploiting Jackson's tough times, saying Eminem "has succeeded on the backs of people of...

Selling out is bad for your health.(RAVE)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2005... Selling Out Is Bad for Your Health. A health study from the University of Texas found that African-American children whose parents don't believe that racism is a problem are more likely to suffer from anxiety or depression. Researchers said...

Outsourcing global solidarity.(RAVE)
March 22, 2005... Outsourcing Global Solidarity. Sparked by the anxiety over job offshoring, a delegation of trade union leaders from India toured nine U.S. cities to remind Americans that corporations are mainly sending crappy jobs to India. They want the...

Chinese American inmates.(RAVE)(David Wong)(Eddy Zheng)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2005... Chinese American Inmates. In New York, murder charges against David Wong were dropped after years of protests. Wong, a Chinese immigrant, was serving time for a robbery when he was framed and convicted of killing another inmate. In California,...

Pinochet today, Kissinger tomorrow.(RAVE)(Augusto Pinochet)(Henry Kissinger)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2005... Pinochet Today, Kissinger Tomorrow. OK, that's wishful thinking, but kudos to Chilean judge Juan Guzman Tapia, who decided that if former dictator General Pinochet could chat with Miami reporters, he could answer questions about some of the...

Living in the battle zone.(in focus)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2005... One day a group of armed men came to the house. There were a lot of them with very big guns. They said they owned everything now and we had to leave. I asked if I could get my things. One of them screamed, "You little whore, you want us to kill...

Between black and right: religiosity and the roots of black conservatism.(to the point)
March 22, 2005... After you climb the rickety steps of my grandparents' Roxbury duplex, past the red, rusty porch swing, you are greeted with an old doormat emblazoned with the U.S. flag, a grimacing eagle, and the words, THESE COLORS DON'T RUN. ...

He fought the law ... and he won: David Soares' election as District Attorney marks a turning tide against New York's Rockefeller Drug Laws.(q & a)(Interview)
March 22, 2005... On Nov. 2, 2004, voters in Albany County, New York elected David Soares their new District Attorney. A 35-year-old Cape Verdean immigrant, Soares unseated incumbent District Attorney Paul Clyne in the Democratic Party primary on Sept. 14; then,...

Watching the war on terror.(RoundUps)
March 22, 2005... A Homeland Security Office Near You Between 1990 and 2000, the Latino population in Hoover, Alabama grew by about 550 percent. That turns out to be a total of around 2,000 brown folks. What's a Birmingham suburb to do? That's right. Get...

For the soul of the church.
March 22, 2005... When the missionaries came to Africa, they had the Bible and we had The land. They taught us to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened them, we had the Bible in our hand, and they had the land. --Jomo Kenyatta, Kenyan independence leader...

True colors: the Christian Right and people of color.
March 22, 2005... The Christian Right, it is commonly accepted, was a major force in the presidential elections of 2004, turning out in large numbers to send George W. Bush to the White House for a second term. After the post-election haze, a more complex...

Shades of gray: a conservative Cuban rabbi takes on race issues that could have powerful implications for Jews and Latinos.(Rigoberto Emmanuel Vinas)
March 22, 2005... His knitted skullcap tells the world he is a religious Jew. His name, Rigoberto Emmanuel Vinas, tells the world he is Latino. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] For as long as he can remember, Rabbi Vinas has answered a battery of questions about...

Sattion dollars: how Hindu nationalist organizations fund ethnic violence in India with money raised in the U.S.
March 22, 2005... at first glance, it seemed like a typical rubber-chicken political dinner. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Giant Indian and U.S. flags draped downwards and covered much of the center wall in the ballroom at the Royal Albert Palace in New Jersey...

Ambassadors of Islam: after Sept. 11, a young generation of Arab Muslim women finds liberation in religious observance.
March 22, 2005... For fitness instructor Mona Safiedine, teaching aerobics has recently become something she's had to work out with God. Last year, after deciding to wear the hijab, or Islamic head scarf, and follow her faith more closely, she knew her routine...

To hell and back: reclaiming spirituality, faith, even god.(Interview)
March 22, 2005... The media spin these days would have us believe that the left is godless and the right is godly (hence their election wins last year). But history has a different opinion: hell, there were more than a few prayers said during the Civil Rights...

Dharma and diversity: the changing face of U.S. Buddhism has raised issues of race and privilege within a spiritual practice that includes new immigrants, communities of color and the trendy elite.
March 22, 2005... Sitting in my half-lotus position in a Zen center in Northern California, I find myself among a hundred people, but one of the few people of color in the room. Where have all the people of color gone? I wonder. How did a religion predominantly...

Doctors, deities and ancestral spirits: immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean rely on traditional healing. Is the medical world prepared to care for them?
March 22, 2005... Alfredo Alonso sat on the edge of the rumpled bed tucked in one corner of his Northern Manhattan apartment. He was facing the altar and wearing ceremonial garb: white cotton fabric swaddling his head, colorful beads around his neck. His silky...

Benton Harbor: after the fire; A small riot in the Midwesth caught national attention two years ago. Help and photo-ops arrived but that hasn't stopped the decline in the Rust Belt.(feature)
March 22, 2005... The story was everywhere: riot in a black Midwestern town. It was mid-June 2003, and televisions nationwide showed houses and cars on fire, angry crowds throwing bricks and dozens of heavily armed police officers looking overwhelmed. Reporters...

Continuous Journey: Ali Kazimi's new documentary tells the story of South Asians who challenged Canada's racist immigration laws in 1914.(culture)(Interview)
March 22, 2005... The sidewalk outside the Bloor Street Theater in Toronto is packed with brown folks. The white Starbucks-sippers who normally fill this artsy neighborhood do double takes as older men in neatly pressed suits, young women in Mango Tribe T-shirts...

Civil Rights in Peril: The Targeting of Arabs and Muslims.(Book Review)
March 22, 2005... Civil Rights in Peril: The Targeting of Arabs and Muslims By Elaine C. Hagopian, ed. Pluto Press, 320 pages These three books examine the racialization of Arabs and Muslims since 9/11. Racialization is the process of...

Thinking Past Terror: Islamism and Critical Theory on the Left.(Book Review)
March 22, 2005... Thinking Past Terror: Islamism and Critical Theory on the Left By Susan Buck-Morss W.W. Norton & Company, 160 pages Susan Buck-Morss reminds us that an engaged public must take on Islamism as a discourse, or a way of...

Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence.(Book Review)
March 22, 2005... Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence By Judith Butler Verso Books, 160 pages Like Buck-Morss, Judith Butler wants to create a different kind of space in which "suffering, unexpected loss, and reactive...

Afrika Bambaataa.
March 22, 2005... Afrika Bambaataa Dark Matter Moving at the Speed of Light (Tommy Boy) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The legendary hip-hop pioneer traveled around the world to record his most recent treatise on the state of the art. From Baltimore house...

De La Soul.
March 22, 2005... De La Soul Grind Date (Sanctuary Records) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Hip-hop has rarely been kind to the veteran, but this venerable Long Island trio's latest has maintained their edge with age. Fusing throwback rhymes and grown-man...

DJ Nuts.
March 22, 2005... DJ Nuts Cultura Copia (Mochilla) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Similar to the host of stateside mix-tapes dedicated to hard funk and soul break-beats, this excellent mix highlights the sounds and flavors of DJ Nuts' native Brazil....

Liz Fields.
March 22, 2005... Liz Fields By Day By Night (ABB) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Fields re-imagines what we have come to know as "Philly Soul." With her carefree spirit and an eclectic sound assimilating elements of hip-hop, electronic music and jazz,...

John Legend.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2005... John Legend Get Lifted (Sony) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Though Legend is best known as producer Kanye West's high-profile protege and hook specialist, the singer/keyboardist is more of a throwback in the tradition of Donny Hathaway...

M.I.A.
March 22, 2005... M.I.A. Arular (XL Recordings) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Sri Lankan-born, London-raised Maya Arulpragasam was one of 2004's breakthrough stars, thanks largely to the frenetic, grimy dancehall-isms of her debut single, "Galang."...

Finding my religion.(American Islamic convert narrates happenings with him)
March 22, 2005... About 20 years ago, I was walking along Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. I had just gotten married and moved to New York City from Buffalo. Three African-American women were walking toward me wearing beautiful ong robes and hijab. I could see how...