Colorlines Magazine articles from May 2009

Colorlines Magazine archives from May 2009

Remember affordable housing.(EDITOR'S LETTER)
May 1, 2009... SOMETHING HAS TO HAPPEN before bad mortgage loans take down an economy. You have to convince people that they want homeownership instead of affordable housing. And before that, you have to sell them on the notions of personal responsibility and...

Bailout plan hits the poor: banks are using TARP funds to make predatory loans.
May 1, 2009... WHEN CONGRESS HASTILY created and passed the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) last fall to bail out the financial sector, the program didn't offer any consumer protection against the type of predatory lending practices that led to the...

Last-minute lawmaking: the Bush administration bashed immigrants until the end.(NEWS)
May 1, 2009... IN ITS LAST DAYS IN OFFICE, the Bush administration pushed through a round of anti-immigration policies that will affect deportation hearings, FBI records and worker visas. One of those changes was made by former Attorney General Michael B....

School zones up prison rates.(NEWS)
May 1, 2009... TO STOP DRUG DEALERS from reaching children, state legislatures across the country passed laws over the years requiring mandatory prison time for people convicted of selling drugs near schools. In Massachusetts, for example, a person arrested...

HPV vaccine mandate.(NEWS)
May 1, 2009... A FEDERAL MANDATE that was passed last year requires an HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccine for immigrant women between the ages of 11 and 26 seeking U.S. citizenship. The virus causes most cases of cervical cancer and genital warts, but,...

Fed jobs fail Asian Americans.(RANTS & RAVES)
May 1, 2009... A new report from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reveals that Asian Americans face a level of discrimination on the job at federal agencies that's much higher than what's being reported. Close to 32 percent of Asian and Pacific...

Tennessee senator to foster kids: no homes for you.(RANTS & RAVES)
May 1, 2009... Senator Paul Stanley introduced a bill in the Tennessee State Assembly to ban unmarried couples from adopting foster kids. The subtext of the bill's language is that gays and lesbians, who are not allowed to marry in Tennessee, are unfit...

Racial profiling caught on camera.(RANTS & RAVES)
May 1, 2009... When ICE descended on a 7-Eleven in Baltimore and rounded up 24 Latino men but let everyone else go about their business of buying Slurpees and hot dogs, the advocacy group CASA de Maryland obtained 7-Eleven's surveillance footage (above)....

No, you can't attack immigrants.(RANTS & RAVES)
May 1, 2009... An Arizona federal jury has ordered vigilante rancher Roger Barnett (pictured here) to pay $73,352 in damages to a group of migrants he held at gunpoint and assaulted on public lands in Douglas, Arizona in 2004. During the standoff, Barnett...

Colleges offer to pay.(RANTS & RAVES)
May 1, 2009... The University of California Board of Regents approved a plan earlier this year to pay the tuition of students whose families make less than $60,000. Under the policy, called the Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan, 48,000 students would be eligible...

No homes. No jobs. Not even beds at shelters. Here's how families are fighting to stay together.(COVER)
May 1, 2009... LAST FALL, YOLANDA JAMES and her three children were lost in their own city. After foreclosure had forced them from their South Los Angeles apartment, they ran into closed doors at every turn. Aid agencies offered referrals to other offices,...

A new hope for black farmers? The Obama administration may redirect subsidies from white-owned agribusiness to small farms.
May 1, 2009... SPEAKING LAST NOVEMBER about his plans to address the economic crisis, then president-elect Barack Obama called out subsidy payments to "millionaire farmers" as a waste the federal budget could do without. He was reacting, in part, to a new...

Muslim Women on Race & Class.
May 1, 2009... News about Muslim women in America is usually saddled with the same woeful tales--abusive husbands, gruesome honor killings and the occasional controversy over headscarves. The tales are poignant, political and sad. Which is why American Muslim...

Race Records.
May 1, 2009... A BAND CALLED PAIN Broken Dreams (BiRich Music/Hiero Imperium) FOLLOWING A LONG, FRUSTRATING STINT on hip-hop superstar Jay-Z's Roc-A-Fella label as half of the talented R&B duo Christion, vocalist Allen Richardson turned his...