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Apartheid is dead, Nelson Mandela is free, and now South Africa houses luxury resorts where they host people of all races including Atlanta’s Housewives (You can call them “Real,” we will not). The only color that seems to matter is green. But, just when we thought that was true, an interracial poster pops up and South Africans begin to show their true colors.
According to the Washington Post, the student division of the Democratic Alliance put the poster together depicting a relationship between a black woman and a white man–who appear to be nude– gazing lovingly in one another’s eyes. Tempers flared amongst politicians and the media is on fire with what has become a controversial poster.
One went as far as to call it an “abomination.” It appears South Africa hasn’t grown up as much as some thought it had. The Provincial Secretary for the Congress of South African Trade Unions, Zet Luzipo said:
“The poster says, ‘Join the DA to have an affair with a white person It entrenches the white supremacy that we fought against during the liberation struggle. We will not be excited with having an affair with a white person; we will not be enticed by that.”
That’s just one of the negative depictions of the campaign. There are positive supporters as well. One took to their Facebook page saying:
Love the DA! This campaign image is exactly what South Africa needs, now all the irrelevant racist “boers” can F off to their tiny irrelevant parties and the rest of us can stand together as one post-apartheid nation where race, religion or sexual preference doesn’t mean anything, we’re all human! Go DA! You have my vote.
Maybe South Africa will join the rest of the world and grow up. The poster just shows two people that are happy with one another.
In an unexpected turn of events in history the Supreme Court ruled in the favor of a 2007 tribal decision to kick Black folks out of the Cherokee tribe, reports Reuters. The nation’s second-largest Indian tribe formally booted from membership thousands of descendants of black slaves who were brought to Oklahoma more than 170 years ago by Native American owners. The Cherokee nation voted after the Civil War to admit the slave descendants to the tribe. But on Monday, the Cherokee nation Supreme Court ruled that a 2007 tribal decision to kick the so-called “Freedmen” out of the tribe was proper. The controversy stems from a footnote in the brutal history of U.S. treatment of Native Americans. When many Indians were forced to move to what later became Oklahoma from the eastern U.S. in 1838, some who had owned plantations in the South brought along their slaves. Some 4,000 Indians died during the forced march, which became known as the “Trail of Tears.”“And our ancestors carried the baggage,” said Marilyn Vann, the Freedman leader who is a plaintiff in the legal battle.
Officially, there are about 2,800 Freedmen, but another 3,500 have tribal membership applications pending, and there could be as many as 25,000 eligible to enter the tribe, according to Vann. The tribal court decision was announced one day before absentee ballots were to be mailed in the election of the Cherokee Principal Chief.“This is racism and apartheid in the 21st Century,” said Vann, an engineer who lives in Oklahoma City.
Spokesmen for the tribe did not respond when asked to comment. The move to exclude the Freedmen has rankled some African American members of Congress, which has jurisdiction over all Native American tribes in the country. A lawsuit challenging the Freedman’s removal from the tribe has been pending in federal court in Washington, for about six years. As a sovereign nation, Cherokee Nation officials maintain that the tribe has the right to amend its constitutional membership requirements. Removal from the membership rolls means the Freedmen will no longer be eligible for free health care and other benefits such as education concessions.
The analysis by the Pew Research Center, released on Tuesday, found that from 2005 to 2009, inflation-adjusted median wealth fell 66 percent among Hispanic households and 53 percent among black households, compared with a 16 percent decline among white households.
Those declines increased the wealth gap between white and minority households to the largest since the census began collecting such data in 1984. The ratio of wealth for whites to blacks, for instance, is now roughly 20 to 1, compared to 12 to 1 in the first survey 25 years ago and 7 to 1 in 1995, when a booming economy lifted many low-income Americans into the middle class.
The wealth ratio for whites to Hispanics was 18 to 1 in 2009, also up from 7 to 1 in 1995, the Pew analysis found.
The declines from the recession left the median black household with $5,677 in wealth (assets minus debts, where assets include items like a car, a home, savings, retirement funds, etc.) and the typical Hispanic household with $6,325. White households, by comparison, had $113,149, the study found.
Sliced another way, the data from the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), showed that 35 percent of black households and 31 percent of Hispanic households had zero or negative net worth in 2009. The comparable rate for white households was 15 percent.
- The SIPP income questionnaire is considered to provide the most comprehensive snapshot of household wealth by race and ethnicity.
The Pew analysis said the housing crisis was largely to blame for the widening gulf. The median level of home equity held by Hispanic homeowners declined by half from 2005 to 2009, from $99,983 to $49,145 it found. By comparison, white homeowners saw their median equity decline from $115,364 in 2005 to $95,000 in 2009. Black homeowners’ median equity fell from $76,910 to $59,000 over the same period.
The study said the sharper decline among Hispanics happened because a large share of Hispanics live in California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona, which were among the states hardest hit by the housing crisis.
Other studies have noted that blacks and Hispanics lost so much more home equity because they were far more likely to be sold a high-cost, sub-prime loan, regardless of their credithistories. Those mortgages now have the highest foreclosure rates.
The Grio: How minority families can help bridge the wealth gap
It also noted that because whites are more heavily invested in the recovering stock market than blacks or Hispanics, the former had recovered a higher percentage of the wealth lost to the recession.
National Urban League President and CEO Marc Morial called the report a “wake-up call” that minority communities need more investment in long-term job creation.
“A paramount issue for this nation for the 21st century is to ensure the narrowing and closing of the racial wealth gap,” Morial told the Associated Press on Tuesday, a day before the National Urban League opens its annual convention in Boston. “It has deep social implications. It has deep political implications.”
In Washington, the wealth gap has been a major point of friction in talks about raising the debt ceiling and putting the nation on sounder fiscal footing. President Barack Obama and Democrats have sought a variety of ways to increase revenue, all aimed at those in the upper income bracket.
The president has proposed closing loopholes in the tax code, such as breaks for owners of private jets and for oil companies as well as higher income tax rates on wealthier individuals and families. Republicans have made resistance to any tax increases a focal point in the debate, arguing that raising taxes in a recession is an impediment to creating jobs. Neither plan currently under consideration contains any tax increases.
Bishop Eddie Long has returned to the pulpit after settling with the four young men who accused him of sexual misconduct. Bishop Long faced accusations from the young men who claimed they were given cars, trips, jewelry and cash in exchange for sex. Long denied the allegations, but he settled with the men to the tune of $15 million. Since the allegations, Long’s church, New Birth Missionary Baptist of Atlanta, has lost membership. Bernice King, the youngest daughter of Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King, has announced she is leaving New Birth. Long released a statement that King would be leaving to continue to the work of her parents. Because Bishop Long was considered a spiritual mentor to King, speculation is being fueled that her disappointment in him and this settlement is the real cause of her leaving. It was Bishop Long who officiated over Coretta Scott King’s funeral in 2006.
The 2011 Billboard Music Awards are Sunday, May 22nd. Beyonce will be honored with the Millennium Award for her career achievements.
Singer Lauryn Hill is currently on tour, and she has been hinting that she has a big secret. What’s the secret? Hill is expecting her sixth child.
Rapper/Actor T.I. is expected to be released from prison in late September.
It’s been almost a year since the death of Gary Coleman, and he has yet to be buried. Legal issues between Coleman’s ex-wife Shannon Price and his parents are keeping him from being buried. The former child star died last year at the age of 42 after a fall in his home.
It was an amazing movie weekend for Jumping The Broom. To date, the movie has taken in almost $16 million. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, go see it. It’s excellent. Laz Alonso, Paula Patton, Loretta Devine, Angela Bassett, Mike Epps, Romeo Miller, Tasha Smith and Meagan Goode star.
TMZ is reporting that Wendy Williams was sued by a concert promoter who claims she was paid $25,000 to appear at an Atlantic City resort, but her conduct at the event “was best described as … ungrateful.”
According to the lawsuit, Williams was scheduled to make a two-hour appearance at The Pool at Harrah’s Resort. The suit claims Williams hardly mingled with guests and left after only an hour — after complaining how she and her husband wanted to leave.
The talk show host and “Dancing With the Stars” contestant was supposed to take the mic on stage, but instead retreated to a cabana, the lawsuit states.
The suit also claims Williams “disappointed her fans who came out expecting her to host the party,” and alleges she demanded four bottles of Ace of Spades champagne and two bottles of white wine at her cabana.
The lawsuit states Williams and her husband said they wanted to be left alone while they drank.
Former NFL tight end Shannon Sharpe is taking a leave of absence from his NFL analyst gig at CBS amid allegations of sexual assault against him.
“I have decided to step aside from the NFL Today show until this matter is resolved,” Sharpe said in a statement released today.
Atlanta’s Fulton County Superior Court granted a temporary restraining order against Sharpe following a petition filed by Michele Bundy, who claims the ex-athlete threatened her life and forced her into sex.
A protection hearing is scheduled for Monday, Sept 20.
Robert Byrd, the longest-serving senator in U.S. history, died Monday at 92. While he was most famous as a master of the Senate’s obscure rules, Byrd wore many hats during his lifetime, including that of Exalted Cyclops in the Ku Klux Klan. What are the job responsibilities of an Exalted Cyclops?
He presides over the Council of the Centaurs and writes quarterly reports to the Grand Giant. In the Klan hierarchy, each local chapter, or Klavern, is led by an Exalted Cyclops. This member is typically elected by his fellow Klansmen and serves a one-year term. According to the original 1867 Prescript of the Ku Klux Klan, the Exalted Cyclops reports to a Grand Giant, or provincial leader; a Grand Dragon, or state director; and the Grand Wizard, or national chair. Below the Cyclops on the org chart were the Grand Magi, the Grand Monk, the Grand Exchequer, the Grand Turk, and, finally, the rank-and-file members known as Ghouls or Knights. (Many of these titles have changed over time, and most of the sub-Cyclops ranks have been eliminated.) The Exalted Cyclops’ responsibilities include presiding over Klavern meetings, initiating new members, and appointing Councils of Centaurs—that’s Klan-speak for a jury—to try and punish wayward Ghouls.
Despite the specific duties laid out in the Klan’s founding documents, there’s no way of knowing exactly what Byrd did as Exalted Cyclops. Klaverns have clashed with the central office throughout the Klan’s history, and there’s plenty of evidence that many chapters operated on a much less formal basis than the Prescript and subsequent manuals suggest. The meeting agenda for a typical Klavern in the 1940s, when Byrd was an Exalted Cyclops, would have included a discussion of black or Jewish outrages against native-born white Protestants. Byrd denied that his members ever discussed violence or even so much as held a parade, and there is no evidence to contradict his claims.
There wasn’t much money in it for Byrd, either, since the Klan operated as a pyramid scheme. Each member paid $10 at initiation (that’s about $115 in current dollars), plus annual fees of $6.80. The national, state, and provincial headquarters each got about a 20 percent slice of the action. The Kleagle, or recruiter, also took a cut. The remainder was used to pay out a nominal salary for the Exalted Cyclops, but it wasn’t enough to live on. (Local Klan leaders had other, more regular jobs.) During the 1920s, when national membership topped 4 million, holding high KKK office could be lucrative—the Grand Dragon of Indiana, for example, earned more than $200,000 in 1924. By the time Byrd came along, however, membership had plunged. He managed to rope in only around 150 members, so his Klavern could not have been making much more than a few hundred dollars annually, with most of that revenue paying for recruitment activities and meeting space.
These titles, while odd to the modern ear, were in line with fraternal organizations of the time. Members of the Masons, the forefathers of the fraternal-order movement, aspire to be Worshipful Masters or Senior Wardens. The Lamb’s Club, which first appeared in the U.S. in 1874, is headed by a Shepherd and a Boy. When the Shriners formed in 1870, their leaders were styled the Potentate and the Chief Rabban.
Today’s Exalted Cyclops is responsible for rehabbing the chapter’s image, as the Klan tries to rebrand itself as a community service organization, civil rights advocate for whites, and semilibertarian political action group. (They do advocate placing all HIV-positive Americans in state-owned hospitals.) Several Klaverns now participate in the Adopt-a-Highway program. The group has also adopted the slogan “America’s Oldest Civil Rights Organization.”
thx, brian palmer
While the unemployment rate for white men dropped for the fifth straight month in March to 8.9%, it hit 19% for black men. That’s a sizeable 1.2 percentage point jump in a single month. During this same time, unemployment for black women also grew from 12.1% to 12.4%, even as the jobless rate for white women held fast at 7.3%.
Lately, we’ve been reporting on similarities of race relations in this country today as opposed to that of old. But, now there are reports that interracial marriage between African Americans and whites are on the rise. Other minority groups aren’t seeing a significant difference in their rate of marriage to whites.
USA Today reports that the study, published in the October edition of the Journal of Marriage and Family, found that in 2008, that of all black marriages, 10.7% were, in the past year, married to whites. The measure they use to show a significant increase is that in 1980, there were only 3% of said marriages.
But, Roderick Harrison, a demographer at Howard University and the Joint Center for Political and Economical Studies pointed out that we are still the least “assimilated.” The numbers show that Asians in 2008, married whites at the rate of 34% and Hispanics to non-Hispanics at 28%.
But none of this so-called benchmark of integration has done anything to remedy the lack of opportunities for black America. As the director of the Cornell Population Center and the study’s co-author, Daniel Lichter, put it, “This doesn’t imply that we’ve moved into a post-racial society.” The number of black and white marriages still remain very low.
The lead author on the interracial marriage study, Zhenchao Qian, a sociology professor at Ohio State University, suggests that the more opportunities African Americans experience by way of “higher levels of education” and in the workplace, the more interaction they have with whites on those levels, thus suggesting that African Americans have made more economical and social progress since 1980.
But as Harrison stated in the report, it still suggests ”that the divide in this country remains between blacks and everybody else.” There has not been a major exodus into opportunity for African Americans. The majority of interracial marriages between blacks and whites, by Qian’s admission, in at least the last 10 years, can probably be found between the more wealthy of the two groups.
The insinuated element of the report is that integration shows more progress, but we’re still watching the first African American President be told on the Congressional floor during his speech that he lied, we watched Troy Davis be put to death based on speculation, and our children still lag behind in educational resources.
The interracial marriage shouldn’t be weighed against opportunity and/or integration, but the report’s significance in those areas is insinuated. We are happy for those who can find happiness with anyone. That’s the hot commodity of the day. Who cares who you’re married to as long as you’re happy.