War on drugs or war on Blacks?

By FinalCall.com News

Blacks have been arrested nationwide on drug charges at higher rates than whites for nearly three decades, even though they engage in drug offenses at comparable rates, Human Rights Watch said in a recent report, “Decades of Disparity: Drug Arrests and Race in the United States.”

Using data obtained from the FBI, the report reveals the extent and persistence of racial disparities in U.S. drug-law enforcement. The data also show that most drug arrests are for nothing more serious than possession, said researchers. Read more...

Related article

• Obama Changes The Drug War From Jail to Rehab

Iraqi Shoe-Thrower Gets Three Years

By Anthony Shadid

A court convicted an Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at President George W. Bush of assaulting a foreign leader and sentenced him to three years in prison Thursday, unleashing bedlam in the courthouse that echoed the emotions the case had inspired across Iraq and the Middle East. Read more….

NAACP sues mortgage lenders, alleging racism

The NAACP filed lawsuits Friday against two of the nation's largest mortgage lenders -- HSBC and Wells Fargo -- alleging "systematic, institutionalized racism" in their subprime lending.

NAACP CEO Benjamin Jealous says, "We are not seeking damages; we just want them to fix the problem."

"We have targeted these banks because we have gone through what we can get our hands on, and it seems like there's a real problem here," NAACP CEO Benjamin Jealous told CNN. Read more...

Clinton: US Gaza Aid Tied to Recognition of Israel

Some $900 million pledged by the United States to the Palestinians will be withdrawn if the expected Palestinian Authority coalition government between Fatah and Hamas does not recognize Israel's right to exist, Western and Israeli diplomats said Wednesday.

During her visit to the region last week Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas against forming a coalition with Hamas that will not meet the expectations of the Quartet.

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Obama Pulls U.S. Out of UN Conference on Racism, But Congressional Black Caucus Should Attend Anyway

by Cynthia McKinney

When Eric Holder, the new U.S. Attorney General called the nation to account for its historic reluctance to honestly talk about race and racism, its manifestations and consequences, he could have been talking about his boss the president. By withdrawing from the UN Conference on Racism he is leading backwards, in the direction of Clinton and Bush rather than forward into the 21st century. The fact that the President of Change wan't bring himself -- or us --- to an honest discussion about race says a lot for his willingness to lead on the subject. Read more...

Remembering Ida B. Wells

by Sikivu Hutchinson

Women’s History Month cannot be allowed to pass without recognition of Ida B. Wells, an indefatigable opponent of American lynch law, pioneering Black journalist, and one of the founding mothers of the modern civil rights movement. Wells was “perhaps the only nursing mother to travel nationwide to give political addresses.” Her progressive credentials shine through the generations since her death in 1931. “As an early critic of
western gunboat diplomacy she would have seen a clear connection between the U.S. government’s interventionist policies and its imperial relationship with over-incarcerated black communities.” Read more...

Poll: Rise In Americans With No Religion

15 Percent Do Not Identify With A Faith; Catholics Remain Largest Religious Group

A wide-ranging study on American religious life found that the percentage of Christians in the nation has declined and more people say they have no religion at all.


Fifteen percent of respondents said they had no religion, an increase from 14.2 percent in 2001 and 8.2 percent in 1990, according to the American Religious Identification Survey.


The study found that the numbers of Americans with no religion rose in every state. Read more...


Technorati Tags: Religion, Faithless, God, Allah, Christianity, Islam, Judaism,

OBAMA BOWS TO PRESSURE: Drops U.S. from Major Anti-Racism Conference (Durban Review II)

Even with a Black man as president, the U.S. government appeared ready last week to bow to Jewish pressure and boycott a major international conference designed to combat racism.

The conference, informally known as the Durban Review, is scheduled for April with the aim of evaluating progress toward the goals of the 2001 “World Summit against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.” Read more...

• German gov't slammed for not following US lead to stay away - Jerusalem Post

• European group to EU: Snub Durban II - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

• World Jewish leaders urge boycott of Durban - Ynetnews

• UN rights chief urges states to attend anti-racism conference - Xinhua

• Livni lauds US boycott of UN racism conference - Ha'aretz

Van Jones Joins White House CEQ as Green Jobs ‘Adviser’

By Keith Johnson

The green jobs promoter will join the White House Council on Environmental Quality, his current outfit said today, as a “special adviser for green jobs.”

According to Green For All, the Oakland-based green jobs advocacy group Mr. Jones founded, his duties will include: “helping to shape and implement job-generating climate policy; working to ensure equal protection and equal opportunity in the administration’s climate and energy proposals; and publicly advocating the administration’s environmental and energy agenda.” Read more...

Intel Pick Withdraws Nomination, Blasts Israel Lobby

The Obama administration’s pick to become the nation’s top intelligence analyst has withdrawn his nomination after an intense lobbying campaign by backers of Israeli government policies. Former US Ambassador Charles “Chas” Freeman had come under Republican-led opposition over his comments criticizing Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land. Read more...

Related article

• Freeman hits 'Israel lobby' on way out

Freeman left no doubt about where he places blame in a written statement after his withdrawal.

"The libels on me and their easily traceable email trails show conclusively that there is a powerful lobby determined to prevent any view other than its own from being aired, still less to factor in American understanding of trends and events in the Middle East," he wrote.

DN! FREEMAN: 'ISREAL SUBVERTS US GOV.'

Blacks, Hispanics Have Steeper End-Of-Life Costs

By LINDSEY TANNER

Striking new research shows dying blacks and Hispanics have much steeper treatment costs than whites, sobering evidence that racial health-care differences continue right up until death.


It's not that minorities are being charged more than whites. It's that they tend to get more costly, intensive treatments including feeding tubes and other invasive medical procedures near death. That's in sharp contrast with what often happens throughout their lives, when minorities are less likely than whites to get aggressive medical care. Read more...

Building (the Black) community

By Ashahed M. Muhammad

The Honorable Minister Farrakhan defined community as “a group of people living in the same locality, having common interests, and under the same government, sharing responsibilities of participation and fellowship.” According to that definition, and with the presence of a common attitude, collectively combining our financial resources, we could in fact, create our own communities in fulfillment of the scriptural reference in Judges 14 where busy bees were found making honey, in the carcass of a dead lion. Read more...

Report: 1 in 50 U.S. children face homelessness

One in 50 children is homeless in the United States every year, according to a report released Tuesday.

The report, by the National Center on Family Homelessness, analyzed data from 2005-06 and found that more than 1.5 million children were without a home. Read more...

Story Highlights

• Study says 42 percent of homeless children are younger than 6
  
• States that fared poorly were Texas, Georgia, Arkansas, New Mexico and Louisiana

Court Refuses to Expand Minority Voting Rights

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that electoral districts must have a majority of African-Americans or other minorities to be protected by a provision of the Voting Rights Act. The 5-4 decision, with the court's conservatives in the majority, could make it harder for southern Democrats to draw friendly boundaries after the 2010 Census.

The court declined to expand protections of the landmark civil rights law to take in electoral districts where the minority population is less than 50 percent of the total, but strong enough to effectively determine the outcome of elections.

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