Prometheus 6

Can't have Black folks looking more unified than white folks.

Professor Ogletree says he “finds puzzling the idea that a president who happens to be black has to focus on black issues,” and Dr. Height agrees. Having counseled every president since Franklin D. Roosevelt on matters of race, Dr. Height made a plea in a recent interview for Mr. Obama to be left alone.

“We have never sat down and said to the 43 other presidents: ‘How does it feel to be a Caucasian, how do you feel as a white president? Tell me what that means to you,’ ” Dr. Height said. “I am not one to think that he should do more for his people than for other people. I want him to be free to be himself.”

Blacks Question Obama’s Approach to Race
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON — There was no big speech or fancy ceremony when President Obama observed the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday last month. Instead, for his first King holiday as president, Mr. Obama quietly installed a rare signed copy of the Emancipation Proclamation in the Oval Office and invited a small group of African-American elders and young people to come see it.

The private gathering — “an intimate discussion,” in the words of Dorothy Height, a 97-year-old grande dame of the civil rights movement — was typical of Mr. Obama, who has steered clear of putting race front and center in his administration. But that low-key approach is frustrating some black leaders and scholars, who are starting to challenge Mr. Obama’s language and policies.

On Capitol Hill, members of the Congressional Black Caucus are expressing irritation that Mr. Obama has failed to create programs tailored specifically to African-Americans, who are suffering disproportionately in the recession. In December, some of them threatened to oppose new financial rules for banks until the White House promised to address the needs of minority groups.

“I don’t think we expected anything to change overnight because we had an African-American in the White House, but the fact still remains that we’ve got a constituency that is suffering,” said Representative Elijah E. Cummings, Democrat of Maryland. “I think he could do more, and he will do more.”

Pay Up

Claimants are still looking for their money, more than a decade after the federal Department of Agriculture reached a landmark settlement for having cheated generations of black farmers through “indifference and blatant discrimination.” The 1999 agreement on what is known as the Pigford class-action lawsuit was hailed as the biggest civil rights settlement in American history. The judge estimated a swift $2 billion payout — or $60,000 each — for victimized black farmers.

It has not worked out that way, as the White House’s new budget confirms with a request for $1.15 billion to pay still-pending claims from black farmers. The same amount was requested last year but did not survive the self-interested knives and elbows of the Congressional budget scrum.

On a new media monetization list I lurk on, a member who had referred...constantly...to music company executives as "retarded" was apparently taken to task for an insensitivity he just didn't see. He asked if "retarded" is a slur now, which led to a livelier thread than anyone expected.

Of course, the topic of political correctness came up and another guy brought up my favorite variant of the topic.

I'm sort of a comedian all the time. Whatever I say, I try to make it funny. "Retarded" isn't so funny most of the time, but "gay" certainly is! So is nigger, jew, fat, white, Mexican and many others. It's not really fair that the only people who get away with "nigger" are black people and sometimes stand-up comedians. I think Michael Richards went a bit out of the comedic routine and so it appeared hostile... and it probably was a bit hostile. And it was newsworthy, there wasn't any Heidi Montag story to run, etc.

I think that the sad thing is, that these are just words and people can't get over them. And I think that points to a basic human flaw... one of many.

A Black Immigrant’s Experience with Coming to Terms with Race Relations in America
Posted By The Editors | February 2nd, 2010
By Nicole Y. Dennis

I’ve come to believe that many black immigrants coming to the United States don’t really factor the existence of racism into their plan of achieving the American Dream. I think many immigrants overlook it, often seeking success with a tunnel vision. I speak from experience. That’s what I did.

There were times during my first years in America when I was a target of racism. But I never realized it until years later when I would mention the experiences to African-American friends and they would gasp, “No they didn’t!” In those moments I realized that I had been naïve about race relations in this country.

I don't think he's sure either. Must be frustrating than a mug...

The trouble, however, is that it’s apparently hard for many people to tell the difference between cynical posturing and serious economic argument. And that is having tragic consequences.

For the fact is that thanks to deficit hysteria, Washington now has its priorities all wrong: all the talk is about how to shave a few billion dollars off government spending, while there’s hardly any willingness to tackle mass unemployment. Policy is headed in the wrong direction — and millions of Americans will pay the price.

Fiscal Scare Tactics
By PAUL KRUGMAN

These days it’s hard to pick up a newspaper or turn on a news program without encountering stern warnings about the federal budget deficit. The deficit threatens economic recovery, we’re told; it puts American economic stability at risk; it will undermine our influence in the world. These claims generally aren’t stated as opinions, as views held by some analysts but disputed by others. Instead, they’re reported as if they were facts, plain and simple.

Yet they aren’t facts. Many economists take a much calmer view of budget deficits than anything you’ll see on TV. Nor do investors seem unduly concerned: U.S. government bonds continue to find ready buyers, even at historically low interest rates. The long-run budget outlook is problematic, but short-term deficits aren’t — and even the long-term outlook is much less frightening than the public is being led to believe.

So why the sudden ubiquity of deficit scare stories? It isn’t being driven by any actual news. It has been obvious for at least a year that the U.S. government would face an extended period of large deficits, and projections of those deficits haven’t changed much since last summer. Yet the drumbeat of dire fiscal warnings has grown vastly louder.

To me — and I’m not alone in this — the sudden outbreak of deficit hysteria brings back memories of the groupthink that took hold during the run-up to the Iraq war. Now, as then, dubious allegations, not backed by hard evidence, are being reported as if they have been established beyond a shadow of a doubt. Now, as then, much of the political and media establishments have bought into the notion that we must take drastic action quickly, even though there hasn’t been any new information to justify this sudden urgency. Now, as then, those who challenge the prevailing narrative, no matter how strong their case and no matter how solid their background, are being marginalized.

And fear-mongering on the deficit may end up doing as much harm as the fear-mongering on weapons of mass destruction.

Furthermore, it strikes me that anyone who thinks Precious is "realistic" has deeply racist assumptions about Black folk.

Just sayin'...

This use of movies and books to cast collective shame upon an entire community doesn’t happen with works about white dysfunctional families. It wasn’t done, for instance, with “Requiem for a Dream,” starring the great Ellen Burstyn, about a white family dealing with drug addiction, or with “The Kiss,” a memoir about incest — in that case, a relationship between a white father and his adult daughter.

Fade to White
By ISHMAEL REED

Oakland, Calif.

JUDGING from the mail I’ve received, the conversations I’ve had and all that I’ve read, the responses to “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” fall largely along racial lines.

Among black men and women, there is widespread revulsion and anger over the Oscar-nominated film about an illiterate, obese black teenager who has two children by her father. The author Jill Nelson wrote: “I don’t eat at the table of self-hatred, inferiority or victimization. I haven’t bought into notions of rampant black pathology or embraced the overwrought, dishonest and black-people-hating pseudo-analysis too often passing as post-racial cold hard truths.” One black radio broadcaster said that he felt under psychological assault for two hours. So did I.

The blacks who are enraged by “Precious” have probably figured out that this film wasn’t meant for them. It was the enthusiastic response from white audiences and critics that culminated in the film being nominated for six Oscars by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, an outfit whose 43 governors are all white and whose membership in terms of diversity is about 40 years behind Mississippi. In fact, the director, Lee Daniels, said that the honor would bring even more “middle-class white Americans” to his film.

Is the enthusiasm of such white audiences and awards committees based on their being comfortable with the stereotypes shown? Barbara Bush, the former first lady, not only hosted a screening of “Precious” but also wrote about it in Newsweek, saying: “There are kids like Precious everywhere. Each day we walk by them: young boys and girls whose home lives are dark secrets.” Oprah Winfrey, whose endorsement assisted the movie’s distribution and its acceptance among her white fanbase, said, “None of us who sees the movie can now walk through the world and allow the Preciouses of the world to be invisible.”

Racial issues intensify Illinois gubernatorial primary
By Lois Romano
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 2, 2010; A03

CHIGAGO -- Here at Manny's legendary deli, where expansive pols have for decades stormed across the linoleum floor appealing for votes from the well-fed, Dan Hynes does not suit up as much of a dragon slayer.

Slight and pale, and a bland campaigner by Chicago standards, the Democratic state comptroller can't seem to entice folks to look up from their bulky corned beef sandwiches. But outside the restaurant, in a nasty, personal and racially tense race, Hynes has managed to come within a hair of knocking off Gov. Pat Quinn in Tuesday's Illinois Democratic primary.

In the final days of the contest, the men, both of whom are white, have taken the fight to the African American community, sputtering charges and countercharges of race-baiting as they brawl over the words of a revered dead black mayor, and whether Hynes for years ignored criminal activity in a historically black cemetery....

Multiculturalism and Diversity
A Social Psychological Perspective
Bernice Lott

This is an undergraduate level textbook. As such it does a good job introducing the concepts of multiculturalism and diversity as studied by academia to those who need such an introduction...a large enough group that one could become disheartened considering it. It's a fairly short book, 127 pages plus 36 pages of references, but a fairly dense book as well. Being a book of psychology it gives the sociological ground it covers a slightly different flavor than I am accustomed to, and I had to search out the reason for that difference because it's not in the data Prof. Lott presents.

I just got this corporate newsletter thing with a bit of information on dealing with Census folk I feel is worth sharing without looking up the original source.

Census 2010 Tips for US Employees from the Better Business Bureau

The first phase of the 2010 US Census is under way as workers have begun verifying the addresses of households across the country. Eventually, more than 140,000 U.S. Census workers will count every person in the United States and will gather information about every person living at each address including name, age, gender, race, and other relevant data.

The big question is - how do you tell the difference between a U.S. Census worker and a con artist? The Better Business Bureau offers the following advice:

• If a U.S. Census worker knocks on your door, they will have a badge, a handheld device, a Census Bureau canvas bag, and a confidentiality notice. Ask to see their identification and their badge before answering their questions. However, you should never invite anyone you don't know into your home.
• Census workers are currently only knocking on doors to verify address information.
• Do not give your Social Security number, credit card or banking information to anyone, even if they claim they need it for the U.S. Census.

Remember, no matter what they ask, you really only need to tell them how many people live at your address.

Got that?

I think Apple chose iPad because they have a subliminal thing working with Corporate America...iPod, iPhone, iPad, all iP--or intellectual property. ESPECIALLY with the iPad.

With a name like iPad, can Apple's new device possibly have wings?
By Monica Hesse
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 28, 2010; C02

After months of speculation over what Apple would call its latest sacred touch-screen device (iSlate? iTablet?), the company revealed Tuesday that it had opted to go with iPad.

Boyfriends everywhere promptly refuse to purchase it unless they could simultaneously buy some really manly products, like shaving cream and batteries.

Are You There God? It's Me, Steve Jobs.

Business Insider declared the name "terrible," with one columnist writing that he'd heard rumors of the name "but dismissed it immediately," thinking that Apple would have the foresight to predict a landslide of menstruation mockery. (Did they not see "MADtv's" iPad parody in 2007?)

[P6: We interrupt this blog post to show you MadTV's iPad parody from 2007]

Meanwhile, the blogosphere found the name debate totally absorbing -- "How will it stand up to other tablets if I pour a test tube full of blue water on it?" one Lemondrop blogger wondered -- and a heavy flow of iPad-related Twitter traffic led "iTampon" to become a top trending topic.

"Are there NO women in the Marketing or Biz Dev department of Mac?" wrote one user, speculating that "iPad" would pass muster only with a man. No women were present on Apple's panel at the San Francisco announcement.

When he said he forgot Obama was Black, I knew he'd need some defending and I'm actually gonna do it. First, let's hear his own defense.

Chris Matthews is the whitest guy I actually follow in the media. Not just visually, but due to his upbringing I'm pretty sure he is extraordinarily white psychologically too. And I know this because when he discusses race he gets all confessional about that. I don't know who watched MSNBC's thing that he and Tom Joyner hosted because I forgot about it (coincidence?) but stumbled on it while flipping channels and it turned out to be interesting enough to watch one clip at a time, though not enough to sit through all at once.

I'm skipping the segment with Prof. Harris-Lacewell because even she can't get me to watch more McWhorter...

Anyway, Chris is soooo white, and he's trying soooo hard that due to lack of exposure and experience a guy like him is gonna trip on his tongue once in a while when discussing race. He's going to have those HR moments (Harry Reid or Human Resources, take your pick). When he said "I forgot he was black" (I'm sure he uses the lower case) I was all, "D'OH!" But he doesn't back up off it, and doesn't have to because it's not an evil point he's trying to make.

"The system that conveys art has changed," says Kinshasha Holman Conwill, deputy director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture. A globalized art world now provides a whole new set of international venues for black artists to make it big in, she explains. Compared with the situation today, there was barely a world stage for Catlett or Bearden to tread.

Yet more has changed than that. When Catlett and Bearden were admired in the larger art world, they were often being judged as makers of "black art" -- a category apart, like ceramics or stained glass. Now, race is no longer "a premise for judging or dismissing," Conwill says. Instead, it is "part of the package" that lets black artists take their place among artists of all colors. Ligon and company aren't making it big despite their skin color, or in a separate field that's all and only about being black. They are using race as a potent force that moves them from the sidelines to the thick of things.

Race issue a two-edged sword for black contemporary artists
By Blake Gopnik
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 24, 2010; E01

They are called "knowledge cards" -- a glossy picture on the front of each, some factoids to explain it on the back -- and museums sell them in packs of 48, on all kinds of basic subjects: nature, the American presidency, the great buildings of Washington. The shop at the Smithsonian American Art Museum has added a new basic subject to the roster: It now sells a pack that features great works by black artists. The classic names are there: Henry Ossawa Tanner, Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett. There are also a few more recent figures: Sam Gilliam and Alma Thomas, both abstractionists from Washington, as well as the New York expressionist Frederick Brown. The cards "celebrate the loves and passions of a people," according to their packaging, and tacitly assert that art by African Americans has become a new field of cue-card-worthy knowledge.

The pack may need to grow. So far, it leaves out an entire younger generation of black artists that may be the most important yet: Glenn Ligon, Kara Walker, Stan Douglas, Steve McQueen, Isaac Julian, Yinka Shonibare and Lorna Simpson are just a few of the figures who have become major players in contemporary art over the past decade or two. These artists make regular appearances in the world's most important museums, and at such career-making events as the Venice Biennale and the twice-a-decade Documenta survey in Germany, showing complex art that often mirrors the complexities of race. What still needs sorting out is whether the kind of art they make will ever be the kind that people want to buy a pack of cards about. Can huge success in the world of contemporary art lead to Bearden-style recognition in the world outside it?

"We've moved from the margin to the center," says Leslie King-Hammond, founding director of the new Center for Race and Culture at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. Last fall, her center sponsored an entire conference on the "Transformations" these new artists represent. King-Hammond compares their arrival on the scene to a transporter moment from "Star Trek." "You say to yourself, 'How did that happen?' They are certainly making a critical impact."

Shades of Prejudice
By SHANKAR VEDANTAM

Cambridge, Mass.

LAST week, the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, found himself in trouble for once suggesting that Barack Obama had a political edge over other African-American candidates because he was “light-skinned” and had “no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” Mr. Reid was not expressing sadness but a gleeful opportunism that Americans were still judging one another by the color of their skin, rather than — as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose legacy we commemorated on Monday, dreamed — by the content of their character.

I don't know why folks are still saying Reid "found himself in trouble" when the worst anyone worth listening to ever said was, "Even though he was right, he shouldn't have said it." In fact, Mr. Vedantam goes into great detail about the rightness of Reid...after badly mischaracterizing his statement as gleeful opportunism.

Okay, I do know why they're saying it. It's because the statement, true though it is, runs counter to Maistream America's self-image. So you get pundits saying stupid things like, "Yes we suffer from colorism, but I don't think personally think Reid was right," which strangely enough reminds me of Ferraro's "It's not racism, it's racial resentment" as though there were a difference between the two.

Blacks in Retreat
By BOB HERBERT

Jobs and freedom. In America, you can’t have one without the other. Democrats are in deep trouble right now — just a year after their giddy celebration of Barack Obama’s ascendance to the presidency — because so many millions of Americans are out of work, unable to find the gainful employment that would unlock the door to a stable future for themselves and their families.

The president and his party may be obsessed with health care, but unemployed and underemployed Americans want a job. Why this has been so hard for the Democrats to realize, I can’t say.

As the nation continues to wallow in the trough of widespread unemployment, black Americans are bearing a disproportionate burden of the joblessness. The election of a black president may have been important to African-Americans for myriad reasons, but it hasn’t done much for their bottom line, which continues to deteriorate.

For example, without a dramatic new intervention by the federal government, the poverty rate for African-American children could eventually approach a heart-stopping 50 percent, according to analysts at the Economic Policy Institute. Already more than a third of black children are living in poverty.

From the "God DAMN, I wish I had said that!" department.

David Ikard at Nation of Cowards

Quiet as its kept, there is a razor thin line between subverting the status quo and reinforcing it. Spike Lee captures this reality quite well in his controversial film, "Bamboozled," as does Aaron McGrudger in his wickedly acid parody of Martin Luther King's legacy in his "Boondocks" cartoon series. Gettin' paid at the direct expense of upholding the status quo, reinforcing racial stereotypes, or, worse, exploiting black communities, is not sexy or glamorous. To the contrary, it renders blacks complicit in destroying their communities.

So, alas, the time has come for us to start "hatin'" on the playa as well as on the game. Though we may ultimately be powerless to change the racial calculus that informs the dynamics that Williams outlines above, most of us can choose the terms upon which we participate in this racial theater. One thing's for sure, we can't cash the check of racial accommodation and expect for our racial realities to change. If you believe otherwise, I have a flashy purple zoot suit and a outsized necklace clock I can sell you cheap.

For the record, that's Mark Anthony Neal's blogroll.

Bloggingheads: In Defense of 'Negro'

John McWhorter, left, of the Manhattan Institute and Glenn Loury of Brown University discuss the Harry Reid controversy.

No, I did not, and will not, watch it.

The short version of why I assert so confidently that the meaning of "negro" is in transition: call a Black person colored.

Strike that suggestion. Seriously. Unless you're talking to a really old head, or are one.

And that "old head" reference is key. I mean, it's not like Black folk rename the race biannually or anything.

All of those names – Aframerican, Coloured-American, Colored Person, Negro American, Afro-American, and so on – are honorable because they were chosen by black Americans at a particular historical moment for the sake of honor and strength. Even a cursory understanding of black Americans’ history makes this clear.

Hate to tell you, but even the use of nigger as a pronoun instead of an insult started that way. It was my generation in our youth that kicked that off, inspired by the brilliant humor of Richard Pryor.

Nowadays I overhear conversations where the most common word used is "datnigga" (pl. "demniggas"). But I digress. Come to think of it, the whole damn discussion is a digression at this point.

Side effect of white supremacy, donchaknow.

[M]any others seek to lighten their entire face or large swatches of their body, a practice common in developing countries as disparate as Senegal, India and the Philippines, where it is promoted as a way to elevate one’s social standing. A small percentage of men in such countries also use the creams.

In November, some fans of Sammy Sosa, the former Chicago Cubs slugger, were surprised when photographs from the Latin Grammy Awards ceremony showed his face as uniformly lighter. Online critics accused him of wanting to be white. Mr. Sosa, a Dominican-born American citizen, told a reporter from ESPNDeportes.com that he had used a cream nightly to “soften” his skin and that it had bleached it, too. “I’m not a racist,” he said in the interview. “I live my life happily.”

Creams Offering Lighter Skin May Bring Risks
By CATHERINE SAINT LOUIS

For years, Allison Ross rubbed in skin-lightening creams with names like Hyprogel and Fair & White. She said she wanted to even out and brighten the tone of her face, neck and hands. Mrs. Ross, 45, who lives in Brooklyn, also said that she used the lightening creams “to be more accepted in society.”

After months of twice-a-day applications, her skin was not only fairer, it had become so thin that a touch would bruise her face. Her capillaries became visible, and she developed stubborn acne. A doctor told her that all three were side effects of prescription-strength steroids in some of the creams, which she had bought over the counter in beauty supply stores.

“I never read the labels,” Mrs. Ross said. Instead, she took her cues from friends, many of them, like her, from the West Indies. “Once somebody told me Fair & White was the one they were using, I’d go to the Korean store and ask for it,” she said.

The judge noted that while the city’s other uniformed services “have made rapid progress integrating black members into their ranks, the Fire Department has stagnated and at times retrogressed.”

Judge Garaufis stopped short of finding that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the former fire commissioner, Nicholas Scoppetta, had also intentionally discriminated against black applicants. But the judge wrote that he found strong evidence to suggest that they were made aware numerous times that the Fire Department’s entrance exams were discriminatory, yet failed to take sufficient remedial action.

Judge Cites Discrimination in N.Y. Fire Dept.
By AL BAKER

A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that New York City intentionally discriminated against black applicants to the Fire Department by continuing to use an exam that it had been told put them at a disadvantage.

It was not a “one-time mistake or the product of benign neglect,” wrote the judge, Nicholas G. Garaufis of Federal District Court in Brooklyn. “It was a part of a pattern, practice and policy of intentional discrimination against black applicants that has deep historical antecedents and uniquely disabling effects.” A remedy will be decided on later.

In his decision, the judge highlighted how “black and other minority firefighters have been severely underrepresented,” characterizing that as a “persistent stain on the Fire Department’s record.”

City officials said that they intended to appeal the decision, but could not do so until the judge had determined what damages the city might face.

Legal experts, as well as lawyers for the plaintiffs and city officials, said the decision was the first in recent memory in which a court had found that the city had intentionally discriminated against a large group of people — racial minorities or women, for instance — in the workplace.

“I can’t recall there ever being a finding of intentional racial discrimination in a pattern-and-practice case against the city,” said Elise C. Boddie, a professor of constitutional law at New York Law School who formerly litigated employment discrimination cases. “I would say this is pretty big.”

Justice Dept. Fights Bias in Lending
By CHARLIE SAVAGE

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is beginning a major campaign against banks and mortgage brokers suspected of discriminating against minority applicants in lending, opening a new front in the Obama administration’s response to the foreclosure crisis.

Tom Perez, the assistant attorney general for the department’s Civil Rights Division, is expected to announce Thursday in New York that the administration is creating a new unit that will focus exclusively on unfair lending practices.

“We are looking at any and every practice in the industry,” Mr. Perez said in a recent interview.

As part of an expansion of the Civil Rights Division approved by Congress last year, the Justice Department is hiring at least five lawyers and an economist for the new unit, while about half a dozen current staff members will transfer into it.

Mr. Perez plans to formally announce the new unit at the “Wall Street Project” conference organized by the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. He characterized the effort as a major turnaround, and criticized the previous administration as failing to scrutinize lending practices amid the subprime mortgage boom.

While past lending discrimination cases primarily focused on “redlining” — a bank’s refusal to lend to qualified borrowers in minority areas — the new push will instead center on a more recent phenomenon critics have called “reverse redlining.”

In reverse redlining, a mortgage brokerage or bank systematically singles out minority neighborhoods for loans with inferior terms like high up-front fees, high interest rates and lax underwriting practices. Because the original lender would typically resell such a loan after collecting its fees, it did not care about the risk of foreclosure.

I'm probably going to disappoint someone with this, but I am pleased enough with the way the Justice Department is working out under Eric Holder's leadership that I'm prepared to forgive the guy that appointed him a lot.

Just not for that damn health insurance mandate.

Justice rebuffs Panthers subpoena
Jerry Seper

The Justice Department refused Tuesday to turn over most of the information and documents sought by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights explaining why a civil complaint was dismissed against members of the New Black Panther Party who disrupted a Philadelphia polling place in the November 2008 elections.

In a 38-page response, the department objected — except for a few court records, letters and procedural documents — to "each and every" question and document request submitted by the commission, saying the subpoenas violated existing executive orders, privacy and privilege concerns, and were burdensome, vague and ambiguous.

The lengthy response, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times, also said the requested information and documents were protected by the attorney-client privilege or were not subject to disclosure because they included attorney or law enforcement work products.

The department also refused to release any information about an investigation of the New Black Panther Party case by its office of professional responsibility, saying the ongoing review was privileged information or was covered by the Privacy Act.

In an accompanying letter to the commission, Joseph H. Hunt, director of the Justice Department's Federal Programs Branch, which oversees litigation matters, said the department is "constrained by the need to protect against disclosures that would harm its deliberative processes or that otherwise would undermine its ability to carry out its mission."

Mr. Hunt added that the department "continues to evaluate whether it can provide further response consistent with the need to protect privileged information and may supplement this response at a later date." He did not elaborate.

Racial Divide Tested in New Orleans Vote
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON

NEW ORLEANS — Less than a month before the primary, the race for mayor here is a struggle over who will bring the soaring murder rate down, who will attract badly needed new businesses and who will guide the city in its still dauntingly long road to recovery. But it is also about something else.

“It’s always about race,” said Lambert C. Boissiere Jr., a former state senator and currently the city constable. “I don’t know why we dance around it.”

The balance of power between blacks and whites in New Orleans has been an issue for decades, a back-and-forth that has only intensified since Hurricane Katrina, now that every election is a referendum on the future of the city. But a recent decision by a black candidate to drop out of the 2010 mayor’s race has made the possibility of a white man in the city’s most powerful office startlingly real.

Federal Court Strikes Down Washington State’s Felon Disfranchisement Law in Landmark Voting Rights Case
Posted By The Editors | January 6th, 2010
By The Editors

In a precedent-setting decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals today struck down the state of Washington’s law barring felons from voting. It ruled that the law violates the federal Voting Rights Act because of widespread racism, racial discrimination and bias in the state’s criminal justice system.

The Court declared that there was “compelling” evidence – which Washington state officials did not contest — that “in the total population of potential ‘felons’…minorities are more likely than whites to be searched, arrested, detained, and ultimately prosecuted.”

It went on to say that “If those decision points are infected with racial bias, resulting in some people becoming felons not just because they have committed a crime, but because of their race, then that felon status cannot, under section 2 of the VRA, disqualify felons from voting.”

Word via email is they are "out of the woods for now." I am not clear what that means because a debt like that doesn't just disappear. So if you're in San Francisco or Oakland and in the market for books by and/or about Black folks (and Black History Month is coming) check out Marcus Books.