Colorlines Magazine articles from September 2005

Colorlines Magazine archives from September 2005

Aging and changing.
September 22, 2005... These days, I'm going to as many funerals as weddings, anticipating a future in which the former will outpace the latter. The cliche that aging is inevitable seems tragically false. Whether we're able to live long enough to make it to old age,...

Race, sexuality and the church.(Letter to the Editor)
September 22, 2005... I thoroughly enjoyed your issue on Race and Religion. It was engaging, enlightening, and at times disturbing. I could comment on all of the wonderful articles, but the struggle within the Episcopal Church is the most personal for me. I am a...

Learning from conflicts in the church.(Letter to the Editor)
September 22, 2005... I just finished reading "For the Soul of the Church," from your Spring 2005 issue on religion and race, at 3 a.m. It's a powerful, insightful article, and I learned much from it about the complicated race, class, colonialism/imperialism,...

Between black and right.(Letter to the Editor)
September 22, 2005... I would like to thank Makani Themba-Nixon for a revealing personal and historical perspective on some of the forces that create the tie between the African-American community and the Christian Right. As a professional African-American male,...

On board for workers' rights worldwide.(Letter to the Editor)
September 22, 2005... Thank you for the Rave in the Spring 2005 edition referencing the U.S. tour of the New Trade Union Initiative on issues of outsourcing organized by Jobs with Justice. To answer the question, "Will labor unions here ever develop such a...

Does Bush even know that blacks can vote?(Voting Rights Act of 1965)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2005... During a meeting between the Congressional Black Caucus and President Bush, Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. asked if they could count on his support to extend the Voting Rights Act of 1965--a centerpiece of civil rights legislation--when it...

Keystone kops in the Bronx.(Black resident arrested in a case of mistaken identity)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2005... When a Chinese deliveryman disappeared while making a delivery at a Bronx housing project, police arrested a Black resident who they said had a red stain on his shirt. The deliveryman, an undocumented worker, was later found in a broken...

Slavery, as it's told.(Cary Christian School gives student book on slavery)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2005... The Cary Christian School in North Carolina gave students a booklet titled "Southern Slavery, As It Was" that describes slavery as "a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence." Who wrote that section? Thomas Jefferson? ...

Sometimes the apple falls really far from the tree.(father's legacy does not allow Thurgood Marshall Jr.'s joining of notorious Corrections Corporation of America's board)
September 22, 2005... His father was a civil rights hero who, as an attorney, won the Brown v. Board case that ended racial segregation in public schools. Someone should tell his son, Thurgood Marshall Jr., that he could better respect his father's legacy by not...

Principal allies herself with Haitian dictators.(treats erring Haitian students pathetically)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2005... After a fight broke out in a New York middle school, assistant principal Nancy Miller made 13 Haitian students sit on the lunchroom floor and eat their food with their fingers. The white administrator reportedly told the kids: "In Haiti, they...

Holding the line in Arizona.(Governor Janet Napolitano vetoes two bills)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2005... Governor Janet Napolitano shot down a bill that would have created a state-run prison in Mexico to house about 4,000 Arizona inmates who are Mexican citizens. The Democratic governor also vetoed a bill that would have made English the state's...

Payback time.(Rosebell Munyua given compensation for deportation)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2005... The U.S. government was forced to admit its mistake in deporting Rosebell Munyua when she arrived from Kenya in 2001 as a political exile. She was allowed to enter the country six months later and granted political asylum in 2002. Now, in an...

Don't mess with Texas.(READING BETWEEN THE HEADLINES)(school vouchers rejected)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2005... Activists in Texas successfully lobbied the state legislature to reject school vouchers, that would have stripped the public school system of funding. Who knew Texas would be a progressive example for blue states? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Clarence Thomas need not apply.(READING BETWEEN THE HEADLINES)(South Africa appoints Pius Langa )(Brief Article)
September 22, 2005... South Africa appointed the first Black chief justice of its court system. Pius Langa, who once worked in a garment factory, earned his reputation for defending anti-apartheid activists as a lawyer. While there is still a long way to go--more...

Standing their ground.(READING BETWEEN THE HEADLINES)(day labor restrictions)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2005... Over 50 cities nationwide have ordinances restricting day laborers from seeking work on sidewalks and street corners. In May, immigrant rights advocates won a suit filed by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund to block the laws...

Lasting impressions.(in focus)(Minh Ta)(Brief Article)(Interview)
September 22, 2005... The reason I chose to enter [the Gay Asian Pacific Alliance Beauty Pageant] was to showcase myself and what it means for me to be a transgender person. I'm not really transgender, but in my head I know what type of female I would like to...

Labor needs a radical vision.(to the point)
September 22, 2005... For almost a year, a debate has been growing within the U.S. labor movement over its direction, structure, politics and vision. Previous attempts have been made to discuss the problems of labor in the post-McCarthy period, notably when the...

The grandchildren generation is coming: Winona LaDuke talks with Nick Tilsen about stepping up as a young Lakota leader.(q & a)(Interview)
September 22, 2005... Nick Tilsen comes from a long line of activists. His maternal great-grandmother was Meridel LeSeur, the renowned writer, poet and political activist from Minnesota. His paternal grandfather is Ken Tilsen, a civil and political rights lawyer who...

Watching the war on terror: the U.S. Army is shelling out more dollars to multicultural advertising.(RoundUps)
September 22, 2005... Then They Came for the Muslim Girls In March, the FBI detained two Muslim 16-year-olds who, they claimed, "plan to be suicide bombers." Citing evidence not produced publicly, the FBI insisted that the two teenagers posed "an imminent...

Dismantling social security: race becomes a red herring as conservatives tackle the most popular government program left.
September 22, 2005... In January, Bush made a special pitch: privatizing is good for the Black man. Black men die earlier than whites, Bush said, so they collect less in Social Security benefits. It turns out that it is Black babies who die at higher rates than...

Don't forget about US! Young people in the Social Security fight.
September 22, 2005... The push to privatize Social Security is the right wing's single most important gift to the future of progressive politics. But our so-called representatives in the halls of power are throwing this gift away. They are so busy playing defense...

Building new roads to liberation: a growing critique of Chicana/o Studies and the Chicano movement is leading to some genuine breakthroughs and new ideas about how to learn from the past and build on it.
September 22, 2005... As movement activists and intellectuals seek new strategies for transforming U.S. society, people of color have been facing a special set of challenges. The challenges take us back to the '60s and forward to new approaches, together with the...

The value of care: homecare workers went from being an invisible workforce to one of the most vibrant sectors in the labor movement, defending public benefits for the poor elderly and disabled.
September 22, 2005... Organizing homecare workers has breathed new life into the U.S. labor movement and provided a new political voice for thousands of the poor elderly and disabled in our communities. They didn't gain this voice overnight. In 15 years, homecare...

Gay, gray and black: a Brooklyn organization helps elderly lesbians and gays find each other and stay out of the closet in the golden years.
September 22, 2005... I grew up in Brooklyn. When I was in high school in the 1950s, I always knew I was a lesbian. I can't tell you when I first knew; I've always known. In high school, I met other lesbians. When we talked about being gay around other people, we...

Exile is death: Herman Ferguson fled the U.S. in 1970 and lived in exile for 19 years. But he wanted to end his days active in the movements of his home.
September 22, 2005... Herman Ferguson, who is 84 years old and a former political fugitive, could be living easy in Guyana today. He could be spending his retirement years in the South American nation that granted him asylum back on July 2,1970, when he left the...

No retirement home here: more Black women are raising their grandchildren--even as they struggle to find housing.
September 22, 2005... Edward Hodge isn't allowed to play outside, nor is he eager to. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The last time Edward, then nine, ventured out--by poking his head out of a broken window screen--he nearly fell into the dumpster right below. But...

Growing up Haitian, growing up black: being black and immigrant means that I cannot separate those two identities. Trying to explain these connections to my family, however, was difficult.
September 22, 2005... I was standing in my grandmother's kitchen trying to explain why I wanted to move across the country for a Ph.D. program in Cultural Studies, when I realized there was no word in Haitian Creole for doctoral degree--at least not one that I knew....

A degree of security: is the government recruiting community college students for the war on terror?(feature)
September 22, 2005... Young, poor people of color who signed up with the U.S. military to get college money ended up fighting in Iraq. Meanwhile, their peers back home who take the community college route to higher education may also end up fighting the "war on...

Being the Boss: Richard M. Daley runs a seemingly unstoppable political machine that's figured out how to win big support among Chicago's Black and Latino majority. But what has he done for them?(feature)
September 22, 2005... In 1993, Madeline Haithcock was appointed alderman of Chicago's 2nd Ward, a mostly Black area that included up-and-coming neighborhoods on the south end of the Loop. The position was open because Bobby Rush, a former Black Panther and longtime...

Left in Uruguay: will the ballot box be the Global South's new resistance to the North?(feature)
September 22, 2005... The neighborhood of Lavalleja in Uruguay has hope. Although there is no indoor plumbing or sewage system, thousands of families have claimed land and built homes from scavenged materials. Among them is Norma Morroni, whose son was murdered by...

Scapegoats in the war on terror: the significance of the post-September 11 period takes on deeper meaning when considered against the backdrop of immigration and race politics within the last two decades.(feature)
September 22, 2005... While researching this book, I visited Hudson County Jail in New Jersey several times. My host on these visits was an inmate named Mark Joseph, a 30-year-old Haitian-American man who had shuttled through jail and detention prisons for 11 years....

Diamonds in the rough: the search for socially responsible, multicultural children's literature.(culture)
September 22, 2005... Way back in the day when the pickings were slimmer than slim, maybe, just maybe, enjoying a book like The Five Chinese Brothers (first published in 1938) was alright. But today, and yesterday (and even the day before that!), any book that...

Who will be our leaders? Jeff Chang looks at how hip-hop tried to deliver leadership for a post-civil rights world.(culture)
September 22, 2005... PERHAPS THE MOST VEXING QUESTION of the post-civil rights generation raised on Sesame Street and "Roots," King's "I Have a Dream" speech and The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and living within the coils of an unsleeping, omnipresent, icon-hungry...

Living Islam Out Loud.(American Muslim Women Speak)(Book Review)
September 22, 2005... Living Islam Out Loud American Muslim Women Speak Edited by Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur Beacon Press, 224 pages This slim, intimate anthology of essays and poetry sets out to capture voices of "the first true generation of American...

Zap Mama.(Ancestry in Progress)(Sound Recording Review)
September 22, 2005... Zap Mama Ancestry In Progress (V2/BMG) The highly anticipated follow-up to 2000's A Ma Zone finds frontwoman Marie Daulne using a pastiche of sound effects as metaphor for personal and familial histories. Ancestry's spread of Daulne's...

Deadlee.(Assault with a Deadlee Weapon)(Sound Recording Review)
September 22, 2005... Deadlee Assault With A Deadlee Weapon (A.C.R.O.N.Y.M.) After a three-year touring and recording break following his critically acclaimed debut 7 Deadlee Sins, the underground legend returns with a thicker, crispier mix of punk-tinged...

Common.(Be)(Sound Recording Review)
September 22, 2005... Common Be (G.O.O.D./MCA) Though viewed by many as a retreat from the wild experimentation that marked the 2003 boundary-stretching Electric Circus, Common's sixth album has effectively synthesized the disparate influences into a...

Various Artists.(The Souttrotta Series, vol. 1: The Blue State)(Sound Recording Review)
September 22, 2005... Various Artists The Souttrotta Series Vol. I: The Blue State (Trust Life Releases) In a desert of neo-soul cliches, The Blue State effectively mixes politics, partying and real life without degenerating into vapidity or sloganeering....

I became the defendant.(transformations)
September 22, 2005... In April 2002, I was walking down the stairs of my house. I heard my husband, Ralph, saying, "I don't see any badges, and I don't see any warrant either." Ralph has had troubles with the law as a political activist, so I said, "Ralph, take it...