ikenbot:

anarcho-queer:

NYPD Data Proves White People Are More Likely To Possess Drugs Or A Weapon Than Racial Minorities When Stopped, Yet 84% of Stop & Frisk Victims Are Black/Latino

During the just-concluded trial on the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk program, the city argued that officers’ disproportionate targeting of black and Latino New Yorkers was not due to racial profiling but because each stopped individual was doing something suspicious at the time. The data, however, tells a different story: weapons and drugs were more often found on white New Yorkers during stops than on minorities, according to the Public Advocate’s analysis of the NYPD’s 2012 statistics.

White New Yorkers make up a small minority of stop-and-frisks, which were 84 percent black and Latino residents. Despite this much higher number of minorities deemed suspicious by police, the likelihood that stopping an African American would find a weapon was half the likelihood of finding one on a white person.

• The likelihood a stop of an African American New Yorker yielded a weapon was half that of white New Yorkers stopped. The NYPD uncovered a weapon in one out every 49 stops of white New Yorkers. By contrast, it took the Department 71 stops of Latinos and 93 stops of African Americans to find a weapon.

• The likelihood a stop of an African American New Yorker yielded contraband was one-third less than that of white New Yorkers stopped. The NYPD uncovered contraband in one out every 43 stops of white New Yorkers. By contrast, it took the Department 57 stops of Latinos and 61 stops of African Americans to find contraband.

It’s unlikely that the appropriate lesson to take from these findings is that stops of white people should increase because they are more likely to carry weapons and drugs. Rather, they suggest that police are excessively targeting minorities. Officers may be netting more successful stops of white New Yorkers because they are only likely to stop a white person when they actually suspect that person of committing a crime. Considering one officer’s testimony that superiors explicitly directed him to target young black men, minorities are judged by a much more flexible definition of “reasonable suspicion.”

In general, stop-and-frisk has proven to be remarkably ineffective; nearly 89 percent of all stops result in no charges. The city has also had to settle a surging number of civil rights lawsuits against police to the tune of $22 million in one year.

In positive news, actress Eva Longoria recently graduated with a Master’s degree in Chicano Studies from Cal State Northridge.

from the LATimes:

She titled her thesis “Success STEMS From Diversity: The Value of Latinas in STEM Careers.” “STEM” is an acronym for science, technology, engineering and math. The petite actress also has a bachelor’s of science degree in kinesiology from Texas A&M University, according to IMDB.

Longoria celebrated the happy occasion with none other than her parents, friends and family.

“In my cap and gown with mom and dad! I look like Harry Potter!” she wrote, posting another pic. And friends in the Twitterverse and online were quick to send her congrats.

Great job!
In case anyone is interested, here are a few extra resources on STEM and diversity:

• Latinas in Stem (twitter link)
• Fact sheet on Latinas in STEM (published in Dec 2008)
• The Center for STEM Diversity at Tufts University

Out of everything we’ve posted and reblogged here, it’s crazy to see how it was the doll test video that blew up.

A lot of the commentary has been wonderful to read, but admittedly it is quite disheartening to see some of the other ill informed commentary. So here is some background info (links embedded) on the origins of the doll test:

• It was originally performed with black children in the 1940’s by Kenneth and Mamie Clark
• “They showed the dolls to black children between the ages of three and seven and asked them questions to determine racial perception and preference. Almost all of the children readily identified the race of the dolls. However, when asked which they preferred, the majority selected the white doll and attributed positive characteristics to it. The Clarks also gave the children outline drawings of a boy and girl and asked them to color the figures the same color as themselves. Many of the children with dark complexions colored the figures with a white or yellow crayon. The Clarks concluded that “prejudice, discrimination, and segregation” caused black children to develop a sense of inferiority and self-hatred.”
• The results of the study were used in the landmark Brown v. Board of education case
• The test has been repeated numerous times since the 1940’s with similar results
• The test has been performed with Asian children too! Any guesses which doll 14 out of the 20 kids picked?

Hopefully this sheds a little more light so that we don’t feel compelled to reblog each ill informed commentary and continue to clog dashboards.

Have a great weekend!

beardenvy:

le-kif-kif:

nedahoyin:

siddharthasmama:

sourcedumal:

racemash:

The classic doll color test performed with a white child, complete with the parent’s excuses reactions

The little girl even says she picked the white figures as the good child because it “looks like me” and the dark girl as bad because “she’s dark”. When Soledad O’Brien asks the girl’s mother about it, we’re met with quite a few colorblind based excuses and “well, we just don’t talk about race”.

“We don’t talk about race!!”

And your kid is saying racist shit regardless.

That should fucking tell you something, lady.

But of course, it won’t. I bet you cash money she won’t change a thing, continuing to use that color blind bullshit.

This is why the whole idea of not discussing race with white children is bullshit. No, it won’t “taint” them. When you don’t talk about it, they still form opinions — racist ones — because they don’t know any better, so to speak. Then one day they grow up into adults that are, guess what, still racist. As Black folks, we pretty much all had “the talk” as kids/young people; our existence in this society dictates that we do, because racism is a part of our lives at an incredibly young age. Colorblind ideology has been proven to be toxic as blatant racism. And little white kids can be just as racist as their parents.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOP..!!

we dont talk about race with kids but a small child ran up to my professor’s wife and said she had a terrorist baby.

we dont talk about race with kids but white children were encouraged to go to lynchings to see white supremacy. because (trigger warning: graphic details) jesse washington, whose charred body is floating around on tumblr posts, had his teeth yanked out by white children so they could sell them as lynching souvenirs.

we dont talk about race with kids but kids clearly PICK UP ON RACE. many POC parents dont explicitly discuss race but clearly, white ppl, kids pick up on it!!

Oh right I forgot only white kids can be racist. Yeah fuck that bull shit. I grew up in south Dallas. Do you have any idea what it is like to be the only white kid in your neighborhood? The only white kid in your class? One of the only white kids in the whole school? I was constantly picked on. Because I got good grades all the kids ganged up on me and told the teacher I was cheating. No one would talk to me. No one would play with me on the play ground. I’m so fucking tired of people talking about white privilege. Yes some white people are ignorant. Some choose to preten that people of other ethnicity’s don’t exist. Oh and guess what mother fuckers race is a social construct meaning we fucking created it. There is no such thang as race. Basically my point is give the same test to black kids and you will have the same fucking results. Bigotry is bigotry no matter the color of the person.

Ok, but who ran the mostly black schools you went to? Who decided the curriculum and what you study?

While being bullied and excluded sucks, you had and to this day continues to have more access to various resources than your POC peers. As a white adult you don’t have to worry about red lining, medical misdiagnosis, police profiling, limited employment opportunities, and a whole range of other structural roadblocks that plague black and non black PoC alike

On top of that, one of the mods here was raised in south Dallas as well!

They had an anecdote once where they pointed out that they had a couple white classmates were also bullied and teased by Latin@ students in addition to the black students, but they noticed those white classmates only complained about mistreatment at the hands of the black students. This is purely anecdotal, but I’m sure you two would have plenty to discuss.

fylatinamericanhistory:

nbclatino:

The U.S. military may have recently lifted the ban on women in combat, but Loreta Velazquez, a wealthy Cuban planter’s daughter who immigrated to New Orleans in 1849, secretly fought in the U.S. Civil War 150 years ago — first as a soldier in the Confederate Army, and later as a Union Army spy.

Read More

I wrote a post about this woman last year! PBS will be airing a documentary on her life today (May 24).

the-contemplative-vegan:

racemash:

2ndadolescence:

le-kif-kif:

nedahoyin:

siddharthasmama:

sourcedumal:

racemash:

The classic doll color test performed with a white child, complete with the parent’s excuses reactions

The little girl even says she picked the white figures as the good child because it “looks like me” and the dark girl as bad because “she’s dark”. When Soledad O’Brien asks the girl’s mother about it, we’re met with quite a few colorblind based excuses and “well, we just don’t talk about race”.

“We don’t talk about race!!”

And your kid is saying racist shit regardless.

That should fucking tell you something, lady.

But of course, it won’t. I bet you cash money she won’t change a thing, continuing to use that color blind bullshit.

This is why the whole idea of not discussing race with white children is bullshit. No, it won’t “taint” them. When you don’t talk about it, they still form opinions — racist ones — because they don’t know any better, so to speak. Then one day they grow up into adults that are, guess what, still racist. As Black folks, we pretty much all had “the talk” as kids/young people; our existence in this society dictates that we do, because racism is a part of our lives at an incredibly young age. Colorblind ideology has been proven to be toxic as blatant racism. And little white kids can be just as racist as their parents.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOP..!!

we dont talk about race with kids but a small child ran up to my professor’s wife and said she had a terrorist baby.

we dont talk about race with kids but white children were encouraged to go to lynchings to see white supremacy. because (trigger warning: graphic details) jesse washington, whose charred body is floating around on tumblr posts, had his teeth yanked out by white children so they could sell them as lynching souvenirs.

we dont talk about race with kids but kids clearly PICK UP ON RACE. many POC parents dont explicitly discuss race but clearly, white ppl, kids pick up on it!!

The video above is no longer available, but judging from the image this should be the same footage.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opULrjQv0Kg

Just a quick note: The original video is actually still up and working just fine, but because it’s CNN there may be international restrictions or some sort of Adblock detection bc I’ve seen only a few other people say it’s not working for them.

Either way I’m glad you were able to find it!

Actually this has little to do with racism. What you are listening to is evolutionary psychology at work here, and something like this was repeated on 9 month olds and 14 month olds. In general, and without parental prompting, small children prefers those who are similar to them and dislike those who are disimilar to them. Also they prefer those who help those who are similar to them and dislike those who are helpful to those who are disimilar to them.

This makes sense in terms of evolution. Children wanted to be able to identify those who were similar to them since it most likely signaled someone who would protect them from harm.

Now what does this test mean? What this test really is measuring here, if it is measuring racism at all, is a child’s implicit racism. IMPLICIt. This is what they exude naturally and they are not trying to be racist. Even adults who think they aren’t racist have levels of implicit racism that can be brought forward with the correct stimuli.

So instead of viewing it as the parent’s fault for not explicitly teaching the child that racism is wrong, you can also look at it as either evolutionary forces at work OR implicit racism. She could, for all you know, love playing with the little black girl at her school but only made this choice since she had to thus measuring implicit racism.  

Ok but if what your apologist commentary saying is true, then why do black children consistently choose dolls who are white and dissimilar to them?

2ndadolescence:

le-kif-kif:

nedahoyin:

siddharthasmama:

sourcedumal:

racemash:

The classic doll color test performed with a white child, complete with the parent’s excuses reactions

The little girl even says she picked the white figures as the good child because it “looks like me” and the dark girl as bad because “she’s dark”. When Soledad O’Brien asks the girl’s mother about it, we’re met with quite a few colorblind based excuses and “well, we just don’t talk about race”.

“We don’t talk about race!!”

And your kid is saying racist shit regardless.

That should fucking tell you something, lady.

But of course, it won’t. I bet you cash money she won’t change a thing, continuing to use that color blind bullshit.

This is why the whole idea of not discussing race with white children is bullshit. No, it won’t “taint” them. When you don’t talk about it, they still form opinions — racist ones — because they don’t know any better, so to speak. Then one day they grow up into adults that are, guess what, still racist. As Black folks, we pretty much all had “the talk” as kids/young people; our existence in this society dictates that we do, because racism is a part of our lives at an incredibly young age. Colorblind ideology has been proven to be toxic as blatant racism. And little white kids can be just as racist as their parents.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOP..!!

we dont talk about race with kids but a small child ran up to my professor’s wife and said she had a terrorist baby.

we dont talk about race with kids but white children were encouraged to go to lynchings to see white supremacy. because (trigger warning: graphic details) jesse washington, whose charred body is floating around on tumblr posts, had his teeth yanked out by white children so they could sell them as lynching souvenirs.

we dont talk about race with kids but kids clearly PICK UP ON RACE. many POC parents dont explicitly discuss race but clearly, white ppl, kids pick up on it!!

The video above is no longer available, but judging from the image this should be the same footage.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opULrjQv0Kg

Just a quick note: The original video is actually still up and working just fine, but because it’s CNN there may be international restrictions or some sort of Adblock detection bc I’ve seen only a few other people say it’s not working for them.

Either way I’m glad you were able to find it!

big-gadje-world:

I’m assuming that they’re Google translating words for “Gypsy” because the URL they wanted was taken.

If you are not Rromani or you’re not Rromani from certain parts Continental Europe, then don’t use that word.Don’t use ANY variation of that word.

IT’S WORSE THAN “GYPSY” YOU FUCK WITS.

MOST RROMANI WON’T FUCKING TOUCH THAT WORD WITH A 10 FOOT POLE, IT’S THAT OFFENSIVE.

IT LITERALLY MEANS SLAVE. 

baapi-makwa:

Daniel Nightbird is an Ojibwe teen living on the Leech Lake reservation who’s taking care of his young sister alone. Down to his last dollar, when he’s suddenly evicted it sets in motion a desperate search for a safe place on the Rez, which is harder to come by than even he imagined. 

more info on the film here

18mr:

May is Mental Health Month and the statistics from the Office of Minority Health should be a concern for the AAPI community.  For example: the percent of Asian American students grades 9-12 who attempted suicide is almost 2x that of non-Hispanic whites (CDC: 2009).

Including myself, four members* of APIDC (Asians and Pacific Islanders with Disabilities of California), a non-profit advocacy group, conducted an online survey earlier this year of AAPIs with mental illness for a presentation at a national health disparities conference looking at the intersections of race, ethnicity and disability.

We knew there are a lot of mental health issues among AAPI communities, and wanted to get a firmer grasp of what’s going on with actual people living with mental illness; and their own sense of what’s missing and needed.  The survey included a number of topics such as: usage of mental healthcare services, barriers to care based on mental illness or disability, attitudes toward mental illness from one’s AAPI community and recommendations for the mental health field on how to serve AAPIs better.

My training is in qualitative methods, which basically means I love to talk to people and learn first-hand what they experience.  In my opinion, talking to people is the first step in any process — whether it’s in a new relationship, to design a program, or create a new policy.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was hopeful for some recommendations that would be useful for healthcare providers and AAPI community advocates.

Key Findings: Even with only twenty participants, I was struck by how often cultural attitudes were cited as major barriers to respondents’ ability and desire to seek help (over 50%). Many participants also said negative cultural attitudes within their AAPI community toward mental illness had an impact on their sense of self and social relationships.  Those attitudes also contributed to delayed care.

Quotes from Survey Participants: While we can’t say our findings are true for all AAPIs with mental illness, I believe the following quotes from our participants illustrate some common challenges and struggles many AAPIs can relate to, for example cultural attitudes held by family and their community:

…for me it has been negative. My family would say that I do not love them or is being a good daughter…They turn it around on my internal worth and how I’m affecting them. I am isolated from the rest of my community because I do not feel as though I fit in. It’s a vicious cycle.

My parents don’t really have vocabulary in Vietnamese to apply to mental illness. Either you’re crazy or you’re not. If you’re ‘depressed’ in English, the closest equivalent my parents have is ‘not being grown-up and dealing with life’ in Vietnamese. 

 In turn, these attitudes impact many participants’ ability and desire to seek help:

I kept it hidden for so long that finally I had reached my ultimate bottom by trying to commit suicide.  I had struggled with my depression and suicidal ideation for so long by myself that I didn’t know what else to do to manage it…           

I kept it a secret for years. When I told them, I was already getting help and doing much better, yet still my mom treated me like I was making it up or exaggerating the difficulties…Years later, she…still treats me like I am weak and more fragile. It hurts that she doesn’t see my strength or courage in seeking help.     

 All the comments weren’t so bleak.  In fact, some participants talked about how culturally competent mental health providers with an understanding of AAPI cultures helped them with their treatment: 

My counselor is also Asian American and she focuses on the cultural nuances of Asian American identity on mental health in our community. I feel like she’s been invaluably helpful and helps me understand how much of our history ties into personal relationships with our family members.

My therapist is sensitive to cultural issues. She understands that I cannot just ignore and let go of my family as my culture focus on family cohesion and cultural dynamics. She helps me find the balance on how to deal with family.

Looking Forward: From this small survey, we learned that AAPIs with mental illness face unique issues that need to be understood and better served by mental health providers, the mental health system, AAPI advocacy groups, community-based mental health organizations, plus all AAPI communities and families.

While there are barriers and challenges facing AAPIs with mental illness, several participants had positive experiences with providers who are trained to understand AAPI cultures or who are also AAPIs. My colleagues and I proposed the following recommendations based on our findings:

• Recruit and retain a diverse, bilingual mental health workforce
• Invest in mental health infrastructure for community outreach to AAPI communities
• Increase spending on educational and accommodation materials in AAPI languages
• Increase research on the needs of AAPIs with mental illness

What else do you think AAPIs can and should do to raise awareness about mental illness in our communities and beyond?

18MR Guest Blogger ALICE WONG, disabled /Asian-American/news junkie/ night owl/advocate/researcher, can be found on Twitter @SFdirewolf

Interested in writing a guest blog? Get in touch!

blackgirlandmentalhealth:

The 54 minute documentary about bipolar disorder, manic depression, schizophrenia and family and communual stigmas surrounding mental illness.

 

Knives in My Throat was released in 4 webisodes as a public service.  The film follows a year in the life ofTaqiyya Haden, a talented, but suicidal NYC hip hop poet and her battle with manic depression.

 

Taqiyya’s problems are compounded by her personal demons, namely her abusive Italian mother (with her own troubles) who raised the talented and intelligent biracial girl by often referring to her as “nigger,” and substance abuse. In addition, Taqiyya grew up in the New York foster care system.

writeswrongs:

Black Man to Lose Scholarship For Refusing Racist Assignment

Timothy McNair is a graduate student of opera at Northwestern University’s famed Bienen School of Music. McNair is at the school on a full scholarship, but the 25-year-old is standing up to his school after his professor, Donald Nally, gave him an assignment to perform a song created by a racist American poet named Walt Whitman. McNair asked his instructor if he could be assigned to perform the work of other artists but Nally denied him the opportunity and told him if he didn’t turn in all of his completed work by Friday, May 17th he’d receive a failing grade. McNair refused.

“Certainly I do not deserve to fail this class.  I have a 3.7 GPA.  I’m an officer on three committees of this university.  So what is deserving for me?  Is to be able to perform two pieces and have the third piece removed because of the insensitivity,” McNair told Chicago’s WGN news station. Although the piece McNair is instructed to perform does not contain any blatant racism, McNair believes it is still offensive that he was asked to complete the works of a devout racist. “We know (he) was historically racist.  He’s called African Americans ‘baboons’ and was for oppressing voting rights,” McNair said of Whitman.

There are far too many instances when African-Americans at predominantly White institutions are expected to compromise their integrity to fit into the mold of the institution. Just last month students, community leaders, and alumni of Temple University challenged Dean Teresa Soufas for decisions she made regarding the school’s prestigious African-American studies program. Protestors believed she was attempting to diminish its profound reputation. Black Blue Dog readers called and emailed Soufas and voiced their concerns. Less than a week later, she finally made the decision to listen to the concerns of the protestors and complied. This week we must contact Richard Ashley, the chair of Bienen School of Music, and let him know about Nally’s insensitivity towards Black history. McNair should not be forced to lose his scholarship for respecting Black history.

Let Ashley know that Nally may not see the value in Black history, but we stand in solidarity with McNair in asking that he receives a replacement assignment that does not insult his integrity as an African-American man.

Tell Richard Ashley that Timothy McNair deserves another assignment. He can be reached at 847-491-5720 or

via email at r-ashley@northwestern.edu