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POPSThe Bigot in your Brain Why might black faces, in particular, provoke vigilance? Northwestern University psychologist Jennifer A. Richeson speculates that American cultural stereotypes linking young black men with crime, violence and danger are so robust that our brains may automatically give preferential attention to blacks as a category, just as they do for threatening animals such as snakes. In a recent unpublished study Richeson and her colleagues found that white college students’ visual attention was drawn more quickly to photographs of black versus white men, even though the images were flashed so quickly that participants did not consciously notice them. This heightened vigilance did not appear, however, when the men in the pictures were looking away from the camera. (Averted eye gaze, a signal of submission in humans and other animals, extinguishes explicit perceptions of threat.)
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POPSAmerica's "BRUTAL Approach to Punishment. "
Inextricably linked to the long history of racial inequality, with blacks put away in numbers vastly disproportionate to their overall population. The states with the highest ratio of prisoners per population are all former slave states with long traditions of jailhouse brutality, chain gangs and other barbaric practices: Louisiana (816 prisoners per 100,000 people), Texas (694) and Mississippi (669). In many states, blacks are up to 15 times as likely as whites to find themselves behind bars. In Florida, one in three adult black men has a criminal record. Some trends are more recent - tied, in particular, to the mania for tough-on-crime legislation that has swept state after state in the past 25 years. The national prison population up 400% since 1980, the increase fuelled in particular by the "war on drugs" and incarceration of petty drug offenders. Exacerbated a host of problems from overcrowding to prison rape to the formation of ultra-violent prison gangs, many racial
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POPSNew Debate on 'Curing' Gays I think this represents a big changed in relatively little time. It wasn't so long ago that gays were reviled as "fags" or "queers" and homosexuality was considered and treated as a psychological disorder. No religious conservative--Catholic, Protestant, Jew, or Muslim--would stand up in the pulpit today and declare that blacks are inferior human beings. And it's only a matter of time before they stop calling gays and lesbians inferior also. For the very same reason: it contradicts God's love for all creation.
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POPS'Worse than apartheid' Nablus is closed off by six checkpoints. Until 2005, one of them was open. "The checkpoints are supposedly for security purposes, but anyone who wants to perpetrate an attack can pay NIS 10 for a taxi and travel by bypass roads, or walk through the hills. The real purpose is to make life hard for the inhabitants. The civilian population suffers," says Said Abu Hijla, a lecturer at Al-Najah University in the city. In the bus I get acquainted with my two neighbours: Andrew Feinstein, a son of Holocaust survivors who is married to a Muslim woman from Bangladesh and served six years as an MP for the ANC ; and Nathan Gefen, who has a male Muslim partner and was a member of the right-wing Betar movement in his youth. Gefen is active on the Committee against AIDS in his AIDS-ravaged country.
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POPSSlavery By Another Name I saw Douglas Blackmon, Wall Street Journal reporter and author of "Slavery by Another Name", on the Tavis Smiley Show tonight. I had never before heard about neo-slavery. According to Blackmon, the South was culpable; the North was complicit. Modern companies, including US Steel, profited. The system didn't come to an end until the 1940s, "partly due to fears of enemy propaganda about American racial abuse at the beginning of World War II." 13th Amendment be damned, this sale of "convicts" to private enterprises to pay of "debts" was perfectly legal until 1951.
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POPSBuilding a cob (mud) house Blacks in Africa have been building mud huts for thousands of years. Nowadays the poorest among them would rather live in cardboard and tin shacks than mud huts. The government insists on using bricks and mortar to build homes for the poor, but the cob method is more affordable and aesthetically appealing.
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POPSBlacks To The Military: "Hell No, We Won't Go!" Most African-Americans do not support the war in Iraq. Even when young black people want to join, the ask their families before signing on the dotted line. Their families are convincing them that they have other options. My own first-born is old enough to join and his step-father is in the Army and has been to Iraq 2x. We are both encouraging him to stay out of the military.
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POPSSilent Racism and White Privilege "Her book contends that “silent racism” fosters routine actions not recognized by an individual as racist, but upholds the status quo. Trepagnier says that some whites become detached from the race issue while others are so concerned with it that they become apprehensive about it, avoiding even the mention of the topic. In both cases, this passive stance silently provides the racist actions of others an endorsement, or worse, encouragement. Trepagnier claims that even individuals who feel enlightened in race relations often miss the point. In one of her studies, 25 white women who considered themselves progressive voiced their opinions to Trepagnier in eight group sessions from Santa Barbara, California. In the discussions, the women who were most race-aware said that they could identify racist actions they had performed as recently as a week ago. Among the least race-aware was a woman who responded, “Racism has nothing to do with me."
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POPSA Forbidden Zone Where Blacks Risk Death If They Enter 1/2/2006 Earl Ofari Hutchinson The Huffington Post This is not a bad case of racial paranoia run amok. Blacks have been taunted, harassed, beaten and shot at in this community. But the tragic murder of a 14-year-old black girl and the wounding of two other young blacks in the forbidden zone sparked anguish, rage, and finally drew some local media attention. The murder drew gasps of disbelieve that in America in 2007 in a big, Northern cosmopolitan city, with a Latino mayor, and that routinely back pats itself for its ethnic diversity, there is an entire area that blacks are banned from on pain of injury or death at the hands of other non-whites. And city officials seem powerless to do anything about it.
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POPSRepublican Ad Calls Black Women "Ho's" According to the source, the same group was responsible for similar ads in the past that were so derogatory, even the Republican National Committee called them "racist": America's Pac is the brainchild of a Kansas-based Republican consultant, Richard Nadler. He said Sunday that he is no longer affiliated with the group. "Mr. Nadler is the genius. We basically follow his game plan," the group's new chief, Thomas Donelson of Marion, Iowa, said. In 2000, Mr. Nadler came under fire for a school choice-related ad in which parents said their son's violence ridden public school "was a bit more diversity than he could handle." Mr. Bush's campaign denounced the ad as "inappropriate," and the Republican National Committee called it "racist or race-baiting in intent."
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POPSOldies Remember: One Man's Sacrifice of Fame. I know I'd never have had the 'balls'. If he had known how badly America would treat him subsequently, I doubt if he would done it so blatantly either. What sacrifice! Yes, with time America forgave. Just like it forgave THE elite sportsman of the 20th century, ALI. He too had to suffer first for his colour. Must they first become the heroes of the World before being heroes in America? "Back home he were subject to abuse and he and his families received death threats. Smith continued in athletics, going on to play American football with the Cincinnati Bengals, before becoming an assistant professor of Physical Education at Oberlin College. In 1995 he went on to help coach the US team at the World Indoor Championships at Barcelona. In 1999 he was awarded a Sportsman of the Millennium award. He is now a public speaker. ... Wikipedia
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POPSRon Paul rants against Left Lots of you love Paul, but this is a little far-out for my taste. I lean left on some issues because I hold "my faith in God before" my "faith in the state." Our nation's "Christian heritage" may be a white male Protestant exaggeration. Ask blacks or native Americans or Mexican- or Asian- Americans, or women, or starving old folks before Social Security (or even Catholics, for that matter) if they'd like to go back to 17th/18th/19th-century "Christian" America. I'll take the walk over the talk any day. By the way, Christmas as we know it is a Victorian invention along the lines of Dickens' A Christmas Carol . I doubt that the Founders would find it "Christian." Paul seems a bit in the dark, here.
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POPSWhen Journalist LIE, Innocence Dies! Rarely since the WW2 has a people been so vilified as the Palestinians. Rarely has a people been so frequently excused and placated as the Israelis. Israeli embassies are now buttonholing editors around the world, saying that it's not fair to call Israel's PM "hard-line". And the reporters are falling into line. ... R Fisk I think he should know.
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POPSFamily ties lead to happiness- what makes today's youth happy
STRESSES, FEARS: Young people in this survey had a 10 percent higher stress rate than adults did in a 2006 AP-Ipsos poll. For ages 13 to 17, school is the greatest source of stress. For those in the 18-24 range, it's jobs and financial matters. Only 29 percent feel very safe traveling, and 25 percent very safe from terror attacks. Still, those interviewed said the fear of terror interfered very little with their lives. DRUGS AND ALCOHOL: Alcohol users are slightly less happy than those who don't drink. The differences are more remarkable among 13-17 year olds; just 40 percent of those who drank in the last seven days reported being happy with life, versus 68 percent of those who didn't. And 49 percent of illegal drug users reported being happy with life, compared with 66 percent of those who didn't use drugs. RACIAL DIVIDE: While 72 percent of whites say they're happy with life in general, just 56 percent of blacks and 51 percent of Hispanics say that. And 66 percent of
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POPSSatire Lives Just a taste. Bound to stir up fundies that haven't mastered satire.
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POPSPolitical Correctness - From where does it come?
"just as in classical economic Marxism certain groups ( workers and peasants) are good, and other groups ( the bourgeoisie and capital owners) are evil. In the cultural Marxism of Political Correctness certain groups are good – feminist women, (only feminist women, non-feminist women are deemed not to exist) blacks, Hispanics, homosexuals. These groups are determined to be "victims," and therefore automatically good regardless of what any of them do. Similarly, white males are determined automatically to be evil, thereby becoming the equivalent of the bourgeoisie in economic Marxism." For the classical Marxist, it’s Marxist economics. For the cultural Marxist, it’s deconstruction. Deconstruction essentially takes any text, removes all meaning from it and re-inserts any meaning desired. America today is in the throws of the direst transformation in its history. We are becoming an ideological state, a country with an official state ideology enforced by the power of the state.
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POPSEthnic disparities in treating pain in U.S. Emergency Rooms More: In the study, opioid narcotics were prescribed in 31 percent of the pain-related visits involving whites, 28 percent for Asians, 24 percent for Hispanics and 23 percent for blacks. Minorities were slightly more likely than whites to get aspirin, ibuprofen and similar drugs for pain. In more than 2,000 visits for kidney stones, whites got narcotics 72 percent of the time, Hispanics 68 percent, Asians 67 percent and blacks 56 percent. The data came from a well-regarded government survey that collects information on emergency room visits for four weeks each year from 500 U.S. hospitals. The new study was funded by federal grants.
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POPSU.S. more ready for Black prez than Female one (New Poll) More: That's up slightly (from 58%) for whites but down among blacks from 67% since December, 2006. Interestingly, men and women remain in agreement on this issue, too. In 2006, 60% of both genders said yes and this time it's 65% female and 64% male. Food for thought, or maybe some debate questions in a few hours. Me: Personally I think it's a tragedy that anyone is considered unqualified on the basis of race or gender. Just clipping the poll results for info.
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