Sunday, January 31, 2010

CIVIL RIGHTS

Civil Rights Timeline
Milestones in the modern civil rights movement

by Borgna Brunner and Elissa Haney

1948 1954 1960 1967 1968 1971 1988 1991 2005 2008 2009

1948 July 26
Truman signs Executive Order 9981, which states, "It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin."
1954 May 17
The Supreme Court rules on the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans., unanimously agreeing that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional. The ruling paves the way for large-scale desegregation. The decision overturns the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling that sanctioned "separate but equal" segregation of the races, ruling that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." It is a victory for NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall, who will later return to the Supreme Court as the nation's first black justice.
Top
1955 Aug.
Fourteen-year-old Chicagoan Emmett Till is visiting family in Mississippi when he is kidnapped, brutally beaten, shot, and dumped in the Tallahatchie River for allegedly whistling at a white woman. Two white men, J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant, are arrested for the murder and acquitted by an all-white jury. They later boast about committing the murder in a Look magazine interview. The case becomes a cause célèbre of the civil rights movement.
Dec. 1
(Montgomery, Ala.) NAACP member Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat at the front of the "colored section" of a bus to a white passenger, defying a southern custom of the time. In response to her arrest the Montgomery black community launches a bus boycott, which will last for more than a year, until the buses are desegregated Dec. 21, 1956. As newly elected president of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., is instrumental in leading the boycott.
Top
1957 Jan.–Feb.
Martin Luther King, Charles K. Steele, and Fred L. Shuttlesworth establish the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, of which King is made the first president. The SCLC becomes a major force in organizing the civil rights movement and bases its principles on nonviolence and civil disobedience. According to King, it is essential that the civil rights movement not sink to the level of the racists and hatemongers who oppose them: "We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline," he urges.
Sept. (Little Rock, Ark.) Formerly all-white Central High School learns that integration is easier said than done. Nine black students are blocked from entering the school on the orders of Governor Orval Faubus. President Eisenhower sends federal troops and the National Guard to intervene on behalf of the students, who become known as the "Little Rock Nine."
1960 Feb. 1
(Greensboro, N.C.) Four black students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College begin a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter. Although they are refused service, they are allowed to stay at the counter. The event triggers many similar nonviolent protests throughout the South. Six months later the original four protesters are served lunch at the same Woolworth's counter. Student sit-ins would be effective throughout the Deep South in integrating parks, swimming pools, theaters, libraries, and other public facilities.
April
(Raleigh, N.C.) The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is founded at Shaw University, providing young blacks with a place in the civil rights movement. The SNCC later grows into a more radical organization, especially under the leadership of Stokely Carmichael (1966–1967).
Top
1961 May 4
Over the spring and summer, student volunteers begin taking bus trips through the South to test out new laws that prohibit segregation in interstate travel facilities, which includes bus and railway stations. Several of the groups of "freedom riders," as they are called, are attacked by angry mobs along the way. The program, sponsored by The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), involves more than 1,000 volunteers, black and white.
1962 Oct. 1
James Meredith becomes the first black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi. Violence and riots surrounding the incident cause President Kennedy to send 5,000 federal troops.
1963 April 16
Martin Luther King is arrested and jailed during anti-segregation protests in Birmingham, Ala.; he writes his seminal "Letter from Birmingham Jail," arguing that individuals have the moral duty to disobey unjust laws.
May
During civil rights protests in Birmingham, Ala., Commissioner of Public Safety Eugene "Bull" Connor uses fire hoses and police dogs on black demonstrators. These images of brutality, which are televised and published widely, are instrumental in gaining sympathy for the civil rights movement around the world.
June 12
(Jackson, Miss.) Mississippi's NAACP field secretary, 37-year-old Medgar Evers, is murdered outside his home. Byron De La Beckwith is tried twice in 1964, both trials resulting in hung juries. Thirty years later he is convicted for murdering Evers.
Aug. 28
(Washington, D.C.) About 200,000 people join the March on Washington. Congregating at the Lincoln Memorial, participants listen as Martin Luther King delivers his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.
Sept. 15
(Birmingham, Ala.) Four young girls (Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Addie Mae Collins) attending Sunday school are killed when a bomb explodes at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, a popular location for civil rights meetings. Riots erupt in Birmingham, leading to the deaths of two more black youths.
Top
1964 Jan. 23
The 24th Amendment abolishes the poll tax, which originally had been instituted in 11 southern states after Reconstruction to make it difficult for poor blacks to vote.
Summer
The Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), a network of civil rights groups that includes CORE and SNCC, launches a massive effort to register black voters during what becomes known as the Freedom Summer. It also sends delegates to the Democratic National Convention to protest—and attempt to unseat—the official all-white Mississippi contingent.
July 2
President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination of all kinds based on race, color, religion, or national origin. The law also provides the federal government with the powers to enforce desegregation.
Aug. 4
(Neshoba Country, Miss.) The bodies of three civil-rights workers—two white, one black—are found in an earthen dam, six weeks into a federal investigation backed by President Johnson. James E. Chaney, 21; Andrew Goodman, 21; and Michael Schwerner, 24, had been working to register black voters in Mississippi, and, on June 21, had gone to investigate the burning of a black church. They were arrested by the police on speeding charges, incarcerated for several hours, and then released after dark into the hands of the Ku Klux Klan, who murdered them.
1965 Feb. 21
(Harlem, N.Y.) Malcolm X, black nationalist and founder of the Organization of Afro-American Unity, is shot to death. It is believed the assailants are members of the Black Muslim faith, which Malcolm had recently abandoned in favor of orthodox Islam.
March 7
(Selma, Ala.) Blacks begin a march to Montgomery in support of voting rights but are stopped at the Pettus Bridge by a police blockade. Fifty marchers are hospitalized after police use tear gas, whips, and clubs against them. The incident is dubbed "Bloody Sunday" by the media. The march is considered the catalyst for pushing through the voting rights act five months later.
Aug. 10
Congress passes the Voting Rights Act of 1965, making it easier for Southern blacks to register to vote. Literacy tests, poll taxes, and other such requirements that were used to restrict black voting are made illegal.
Aug. 11–17, 1965
(Watts, Calif.) Race riots erupt in a black section of Los Angeles.
Sept. 24, 1965
Asserting that civil rights laws alone are not enough to remedy discrimination, President Johnson issues Executive Order 11246, which enforces affirmative action for the first time. It requires government contractors to "take affirmative action" toward prospective minority employees in all aspects of hiring and employment.
Top
1966
Oct.
(Oakland, Calif.) The militant Black Panthers are founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale.
1967 April 19
Stokely Carmichael, a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), coins the phrase "black power" in a speech in Seattle. He defines it as an assertion of black pride and "the coming together of black people to fight for their liberation by any means necessary." The term's radicalism alarms many who believe the civil rights movement's effectiveness and moral authority crucially depend on nonviolent civil disobedience.
June 12
In Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court rules that prohibiting interracial marriage is unconstitutional. Sixteen states that still banned interracial marriage at the time are forced to revise their laws.
July
Major race riots take place in Newark (July 12–16) and Detroit (July 23–30).
1968 April 4
(Memphis, Tenn.) Martin Luther King, at age 39, is shot as he stands on the balcony outside his hotel room. Escaped convict and committed racist James Earl Ray is convicted of the crime.
April 11
President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968, prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing.
1971 April 20
The Supreme Court, in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, upholds busing as a legitimate means for achieving integration of public schools. Although largely unwelcome (and sometimes violently opposed) in local school districts, court-ordered busing plans in cities such as Charlotte, Boston, and Denver continue until the late 1990s.
Top
1988 March 22
Overriding President Reagan's veto, Congress passes the Civil Rights Restoration Act, which expands the reach of non-discrimination laws within private institutions receiving federal funds.
1991 Nov. 22
After two years of debates, vetoes, and threatened vetoes, President Bush reverses himself and signs the Civil Rights Act of 1991, strengthening existing civil rights laws and providing for damages in cases of intentional employment discrimination.
Top
1992 April 29
(Los Angeles, Calif.) The first race riots in decades erupt in south-central Los Angeles after a jury acquits four white police officers for the videotaped beating of African American Rodney King.
2003 June 23
In the most important affirmative action decision since the 1978 Bakke case, the Supreme Court (5–4) upholds the University of Michigan Law School's policy, ruling that race can be one of many factors considered by colleges when selecting their students because it furthers "a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body."

(See also: Affirmative Action Timeline.)
Top
2005 June 21
The ringleader of the Mississippi civil rights murders (see Aug. 4, 1964), Edgar Ray Killen, is convicted of manslaughter on the 41st anniversary of the crimes.
October 24
Rosa Parks dies at age 92.
2006 January 30
Coretta Scott King dies of a stroke at age 78.
2007 February
Emmett Till's 1955 murder case, reopened by the Department of Justice in 2004, is officially closed. The two confessed murderers, J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant, were dead of cancer by 1994, and prosecutors lacked sufficient evidence to pursue further convictions.
May 10
James Bonard Fowler, a former state trooper, is indicted for the murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson 40 years after Jackson's death. The 1965 killing lead to a series of historic civil rights protests in Selma, Ala.
2008 January
Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) introduces the Civil Rights Act of 2008. Some of the proposed provisions include ensuring that federal funds are not used to subsidize discrimination, holding employers accountable for age discrimination, and improving accountability for other violations of civil rights and workers' rights.
Top
2009 January
In the Supreme Court case Ricci v. DeStefano, a lawsuit brought against the city of New Haven, 18 plaintiffs�17 white people and one Hispanic�argued that results of the 2003 lieutenant and captain exams were thrown out when it was determined that few minority firefighters qualified for advancement. The city claimed they threw out the results because they feared liability under a disparate-impact statute for issuing tests that discriminated against minority firefighters. The plaintiffs claimed that they were victims of reverse discrimination under the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Supreme Court ruled (5�4) in favor of the firefighters, saying New Haven's "action in discarding the tests was a violation of Title VII."

•Black History Month Features
•"I Have a Dream" Speech
•Letter from Birmingham Jail
•Notable Speeches and Letters by African Americans
•Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
•Martin Luther King, Jr.

•Civil Rights Leaders

•Quiz: Civil Rights Heroes (for Kids) New!
•Black History Month

•African American History Timeline
•Civil Rights Cases Reopened

•Civil Rights

Saturday, January 30, 2010

KU KLUX KLAN

The First Ku Klux Klan
The original Ku Klux Klan was organized by ex-Confederate elements to oppose the Reconstruction policies of the radical Republican Congress and to maintain “white supremacy.” After the Civil War, when local government in the South was weak or nonexistent and there were fears of black outrages and even of an insurrection, informal vigilante organizations or armed patrols were formed in almost all communities. These were linked together in societies, such as the Men of Justice, the Pale Faces, the Constitutional Union Guards, the White Brotherhood, and the Order of the White Rose. The Ku Klux Klan was the best known of these, and in time it absorbed many of the smaller organizations.
It was organized at Pulaski, Tenn., in May, 1866. Its strange disguises, its silent parades, its midnight rides, its mysterious language and commands, were found to be most effective in playing upon fears and superstitions. The riders muffled their horses' feet and covered the horses with white robes. They themselves, dressed in flowing white sheets, their faces covered with white masks, and with skulls at their saddle horns, posed as spirits of the Confederate dead returned from the battlefields. Although the Klan was often able to achieve its aims by terror alone, whippings and lynchings were also used, not only against blacks but also against the so-called carpetbaggers and scalawags.
A general organization of the local Klans was effected in Apr., 1867, at Nashville, Tenn. Gen. N. B. Forrest, the famous Confederate cavalry leader, was made Grand Wizard of the Empire and was assisted by ten Genii. Each state constituted a Realm under a Grand Dragon with eight Hydras as a staff; several counties formed a Dominion controlled by a Grand Titan and six Furies; a county was a Province ruled by a Grand Giant and four Night Hawks; the local Den was governed by a Grand Cyclops with two Night Hawks as aides. The individual members were called Ghouls.
Control over local Dens was not as complete as this organization would seem to indicate, and reckless and even lawless local leaders sometimes committed acts that the leaders could not countenance. General Forrest, in Jan., 1869, seemingly under some apprehension as to the use of its power, ordered the disbandment of the Klan and resigned as Grand Wizard. Local organizations continued, some of them for many years.
The Klan was particularly effective in systematically keeping black men away from the polls, so that the ex-Confederates gained political control in many states. Congress in 1870 and 1871 passed legislation to combat the Klan (see force bill). The Klan was especially strong in the mountain and Piedmont areas. In the Lower South the Knights of the White Camelia were dominant. That order, founded (1867) in Louisiana, is reputed to have had even more members than the Ku Klux Klan, but its membership was more conservative and its actions less spectacular. It had a similar divisional organization, with headquarters in New Orleans.
Sections in this article:
Introduction
The First Ku Klux Klan
The Second Ku Klux Klan
The Klan after World War II
Bibliography

STEALTH AIRCRAFT

Stealth Aircraft

American aircraft designers began discussing applying stealth technology to airplanes in the 1940s. But it was not until the 1950s that they actually began designs that took into account an airplane's radar signature. The U-2 spyplane, which was started in late 1954 by Lockheed Aircraft under a contract with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), was intended to be stealthy largely by flying at a very high altitude. Its designers expected that Soviet air defense radar would not be capable of detecting aircraft that high, although U.S. radar certainly could. The designers were wrong about Soviet radar, however, and the first U-2s to fly over Soviet territory were immediately detected. This prompted U.S. radar and aircraft experts to evaluate a number of ways to reduce the radar signature of the airplane. Because the U-2's shape was already established, they focused on adding things to the airplane that would absorb or scatter the radar energy that reached the plane. These included a fine wire mesh that was molded over the plane and covered with a paint that contained iron, and wires strung from the nose to the tail. However, none of these efforts reduced the airplane's radar signature very much, some of them significantly reduced its performance, and all were abandoned.

In 1958, the CIA began studying a replacement for the U-2 that could fly at speeds above Mach 3. This aircraft, soon named OXCART (possibly an inside joke because it implied a vehicle that moved very slowly), was intended to fly very fast and very high. It would also have a small radar signature, meaning that it would appear as a very small object on a radar screen. Its designers hoped that its small size and high speed, so that it would move a great distance between each pass of the radar beam, would cause radar operators to think the radar blip was only "noise" in the radar signal. The single-pilot OXCART, which was also designated the A-12 and built by Lockheed, had a number of radar-reducing features. It was coated with special materials that absorbed radar energy. Designers also developed parts of its structure to "trap" radar energy and prevent it from traveling back to its source. In addition, they added a chemical to the aircraft's special fuel to reduce its radar signature. Overall, the OXCART had a relatively small radar signature, but it was still visible on radar. The Air Force soon developed the two-seat Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird based on the OXCART design, and the Lockheed D-21 TAGBOARD reconnaissance drone. Both aircraft incorporated stealthy features.

During this time—the late 1950s and early 1960s—aircraft designers and defense planners in the United States were extremely aware of the importance of an aircraft's radar signature to its survivability. North American Aviation's Mach 3 B-70 Valkyrie bomber was canceled in 1961 because, among its other many problems, it had an enormous radar signature and could be spotted on radar a great distance away. The U.S. Army and CIA developed what could be considered a stealthy helicopter during the Vietnam War. There, they were primarily interested in reducing the amount of noise that the helicopter generated, and they named the helicopter The Quiet One. Reducing the heat an aircraft generates is also important, and most battlefield helicopters include systems like mufflers to reduce the heat coming from the engine exhaust. Stealthy characteristics were incorporated into some small planes, but they were not heavily applied to aircraft during the 1960s. This was primarily because significantly reducing radar reflections was very difficult to model mathematically.

The Arab-Israeli war of 1973 startled many U.S. Air Force leaders because a large number of Israeli aircraft were shot down by Russian-built surface-to-air missiles in a very short period of time. The experience in Vietnam had earlier also prompted Defense Department leaders to seek new aircraft that were not so susceptible to attack from surface-to-air missiles. They realized that any conflict with the Soviet Union could result in a large portion of the U.S. Air Force being shot down in the early days of the war. This prompted them to begin looking for ways to avoid this.

In the 1970s, a U.S. mathematician working for Lockheed Aircraft used a mathematical model developed by Russian scientist Pyotr Ufimtsev to develop a computer program called Echo 1. Echo made it possible to predict the radar signature an aircraft made with flat panels, called facets. In 1975, Lockheed Skunk Works engineers determined that an airplane with faceted surfaces could have a remarkably low radar signature because the surfaces would radiate 99.9 percent of the radar energy away from the receiver. They built a model called "the Hopeless Diamond" because it looked like a squat diamond and looked too hopeless to ever fly. This work marked a substantial change from the past, because for the first time, designers realized that it might be possible to make an aircraft that was virtually invisible to radar.

In early 1977, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) gave Lockheed a contract to build and test two subscale models (about 60 percent of the size of an operational airplane) of a stealthy aircraft. The contract was known as Have Blue and was highly classified. Lockheed's plane looked like a squat pyramid with wings and two tails angled inward. When designers placed it on a tall pole outdoors and pointed a radar at it, it was virtually invisible. But they still wondered if it would fly. One Lockheed document stated that the "airframe exhibits just about every mode of unstable behavior possible for an aircraft—the only thing it doesn't do is tip back on its tail when it is parked."

Have Blue was not inherently stable in flight and would tumble out of control. But fortunately, computers also rendered this fact irrelevant, because aircraft designers for several years had been designing planes, like the F-16 fighter, that were kept stable by computers that constantly adjusted their flight controls in the same way that a person riding a bike is constantly making minute corrections to remain balanced. This same solution was applied to the Have Blue airplane. Lockheed engineers soon developed the Have Blue into a larger bomber aircraft given the designation F-117. Despite being designated a "fighter," the plane was always intended only to drop bombs, not fight other aircraft.

For the first time, every aspect of the F-117 was designed around stealth. For the plane's designers, reducing the radar signature was similar to the way that airplane designers of the 1920s had reduced drag: they identified the biggest causes of the problem and then eliminated them one by one. The cockpit, which is essentially a cavity that reflects radar in much the same way that an animal's eyes reflect light from a flashlight at night, was sharply angled and coated with a reflective material that deflected the radar energy in different directions. The airplane had no radar and its sensors and antennas could be retracted into the fuselage. The bombs, a major source of radar reflection on most airplanes, were stored internally in a bomb bay so that they reflected no radar energy. The inlets for the jet engines were covered with fine screens to prevent radar energy from reaching the face of the engine turbines. The exhaust was channeled through long narrow ducts lined with heat-absorbing material so that it was cooler by the time it exited the plane and therefore did not show up as well on heat detectors.

Five F-117 development aircraft were built and tested between 1981 and 1982. The first F-117 squadron was declared operational in 1983. Lockheed built a total of 59 F-117s for the Air Force. The F-117 was a highly secret aircraft during most of the 1980s. It was finally unveiled in 1989 and became famous in 1991 when it was used in heavily defended skies over Iraq during the Persian Gulf War. In 1999, an F-117 was shot down by a Russian-built missile over Yugoslavia, demonstrating that stealth was not invincible.

Although the F-117 is the most famous stealth aircraft, it was not the only one. Other stealth aircraft were designed and built during the 1980s. A weird and ugly-looking plane designated the Tacit Blue was built by Northrop and flown several times during the 1980s. It looked like an upside down bathtub with wings. Its purpose was to evaluate the possibility of flying behind enemy lines, but the plane proved difficult to fly and its mission soon proved unnecessary. The sole prototype was kept secret for years until it was finally placed in a museum. In the late 1980s, the U.S. Navy sought to develop an attack bomber designated the A-12 Avenger II (not to be confused with the A-12 OXCART), but it was never completed before it was canceled. Several drone aircraft, such as Lockheed's failed DarkStar, and Teledyne Ryan's semi-stealthy GlobalHawk, were also developed. During the 1990s the Army began development of the Sikorsky/Boeing RAH-66 Commanche helicopter, which incorporated technologies to reduce its radar and heat signature. The most successful stealth aircraft next to the F-117 is the B-2 Spirit bomber, first started in the late 1970s and not finished until the 1990s.

The B-2 bomber, which is much larger than the F-117, actually has an even smaller radar cross-section. Unlike the F-117, it is not angular. This was due to increasing computer power, which allowed designers to develop aircraft with smooth, rounded surfaces that achieved the same results as the flat, angled surfaces of the F-117. The F-22 Raptor interceptor, which first flew in the early 1990s, and the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), also share these characteristics. The French Rafale and European Eurofighter/Typhoon also have stealth features.
--Dwayne A. Day

UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS

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Kennedy assassination linked to UFOs and CIA
Wednesday, June 10, 2009 at Wednesday, June 10, 2009 Posted by UFOsToday
On November 12, 1963, President John Kennedy issued two Presidential memoranda instructing NASA and the CIA to begin cooperating with the USSR on joint space missions including a lunar landing. On the same day, a conversation occurred between Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev on the importance of sharing information concerning UFOs as they moved forward with joint space missions. Leaked documents concerning the alleged conversation and the role of the CIA in controlling UFO information directly implicate the CIA in Kennedy’s assassination ten days later.In addition to the two Presidential memoranda cited earlier in this investigative series, another leaked document shows the extent to which Kennedy was prepared to cooperate with the Soviet Union in declassifying UFO files. The aim was to avoid the risk of a mistaken military confrontation over UFOs. The document is allegedly a Top Secret NSA intercept of a “Hot Line” conversation between President Kennedy and Soviet Premiere Nikita Khrushchev dated November 12, 1963. Kennedy and Khrushchev discussed the importance of their respective UFO working groups to deal with the UFO problem to avoid the risk of future conflict. Kennedy told Khrushchev: “I have begun an initiative with our NASA to exchange information with your Academy of Sciences in which I hope will foster mutual concern over this problem and hopefully find some resolution.” Kennedy was certainly referring here to the National Security Action Memorandum released on the same day, November 12 1963. Kennedy also said, “I have also instructed our CIA to provide me with full disclosure on the phantom aspects and classified programs in which I can better assess the [UFO] situation.” While the NSA intercept has not been conclusively determined to be authentic (it has been ranked medium-to-high level of authenticity), it is consistent with the November 12 National Security Action Memorandum 271 titled: “Cooperation with the USSR on Outer Space Matters."The risk of mistaken identification of UFOs leading to an accidental nuclear war was also allegedly considered by NATO at the same time. According to Robert Dean, a retired Command Sergeant Major who worked at NATO headquarters from 1963-1967, in 1964 NATO issued a Cosmic Top Secret document dealing with the threat posed by UFOs being confused with a nuclear first strike by the Soviet Union. Titled simply “The Assessment,” Dean said that it was feared that mistaken UFO sightings could start an accidental nuclear war. Dean’s statement validates the content of the alleged Hotline transcript and gives support to its authenticity.

Racially Mixed People

Bill of Rights for Racially Mixed PeopleBy Maria P.P. Root

I HAVE THE RIGHT...
-Not to justify my existence in this world. -Not to keep the races separate within me. -Not to be responsible for people's discomfort with my physical ambiguity. -Not to justify my ethnic legitimacy.
I HAVE THE RIGHT...
-To identify myself differently than strangers expect me to identify.-To identify myself differently from how my parents identify me.-To identify myself differently from my brothers and sisters.-To identify myself differently in different situations.
I HAVE THE RIGHT...
-To create a vocabulary to communicate about being multiracial.-To change my identity over my lifetime -- and more than once.-To have loyalties and identification with more than one group of people.-To freely choose whom I befriend and love

Maria P. P. Root, PhD, is author of"The Multiracial Experience: Racial Borders as the New Frontier"

RACIALLY MIXED CHILDREN

A New American Tribe - racially mixed people abound in modern society - Brief Article
Commonweal, Sept 12, 1997 by Peter Feuerherd
123Next ..Intermarriage & the racial divide

President Bill Clinton has urged Americans to talk with their families and friends about race relations. I took him up on that offer one recent summer afternoon at a pizza restaurant in Queens, New York.

"We outnumber them," I told my wife and two children as I looked around the place. My voice suggested surprise. I think it was the first time it's happened in a public place. "We," in our case, means interracial families. "Them" is everyone else. I looked around that restaurant and saw a couple with a cute interracial baby, a European man gazing into the eyes of a beautiful woman who appeared to be from India, and other couples composed of mixed hues and shades.

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My pale visage, my wife's darker visage, and those of our two teen-age children, which fall somewhere in between, were just another part of the scene. We have become part of a quiet revolution that is no longer so quiet. Two decades ago when my wife and I married, the worried looks of some were apparent. "What about the children?" was a regular question we faced, forcing us to contemplate the specter of producing offspring who would never fit comfortably anywhere.

Now American society has produced a revolution with huge consequences about our age-old bugaboo of race relations. While the media are full of tales of bigotry and bickering, of Minister Farrakhan preaching race separatism, of radio talk-show hosts competing for the booby prize of who can be the most ethnically insensitive, of crosses burning and swastikas displayed on the lawns and houses of suburban neighborhoods, there is something else happening. Those of different races have proceeded to fall in love and produce what has become a new American tribe.
It's become almost chic. Interracial celebrities such as Tiger Woods, Halle Berry, and Mariah Carey are lionized for their talents and, important in this superficial culture, physical beauty. The meaning of Tiger Woods's ascendancy in golf has been well-documented, particularly his coining of the word "Cablinasian" to describe his Caucasian, African-American, Native American, and Asian heritage. But he's not the only sign in popular culture. New York Yankees' rookie-of-the-year shortstop Derek Jeter--who grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and is the son of a black man and white woman--is written about in glowing terms as a symbol that the 1996 world champs have shed their stuffy, nearly-all white image and have been truly embraced by all of their city's ethnic mosaic.

PROSTITUTION

Prostitution and Racism Articles

Aboriginal Women's Statement on Legal Prostitution, Canada

December 6, 2007

As Aboriginal women on occupied Coast Salish Territory, we, the Aboriginal Women's Action Network (AWAN) implore you to pay attention to the voices of Aboriginal women and women's groups who are speaking out in the interest of our sisters, our daughters, our friends and all women whose voices have not been heard in the recent media discussion on prostitution and legalized brothels for the 2010 Olympics.

Continue reading "Aboriginal Women's Statement on Legal Prostitution, Canada"

Reclaiming Their Lives and Breaking Free:
An Afrocentric Approach to Recovery From Prostitution


Valandra 2007

Little research has examined the specific healing needs of prostituted African American women. In this qualitative research study, eight African American women who were receiving culturally specific services at an Afrocentric agency participated in a focus group and in-depth semistructured interviews.

Continue reading "Reclaiming Their Lives and Breaking Free:
An Afrocentric Approach to Recovery From Prostitution"

Prostitution in Vancouver: Violence and the Colonization of First Nations Women


Melissa Farley, Jacqueline Lynne, Ann J. Cotton 2005

Researchers interviewed 100 women prostituting in Vancouver, Canada. They found an extremely high prevalence of lifetime violence and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) along with a high percentage of histories of childhood sexual assault. . Findings are discussed in terms of the legacy of colonialism, the intrinsically traumatizing nature of prostitution and prostitution’s violations of basic human rights.

Continue reading "Prostitution in Vancouver: Violence and the Colonization of First Nations Women"

Prostitution and Trafficking of Women and Children from Mexico to the United States


Marisa B. Ugarte, Laura Zarate, and Melissa Farley 2003

In this article, researchers describe the historical background of sex trafficking from Mexico to the United States. Researchers summarize two case examples that illustrate the complexity of providing physical and emotional safety, as well as immigration protection to victims of trafficking into prostitution. Researchers emphasize the importance of understanding the varied cultural contexts in which sexual exploitation, rape, prostitution and trafficking occur.

Continue reading "Prostitution and Trafficking of Women and Children from Mexico to the United States"

Colonialism and the Sexual Exploitation of Canada's First Nations Women


Jackie Lynne 1998

First Nations or Aboriginal women in Canadian prostitution are harmed today because of the legacies of colonialism. This article goes into some of the historical roots of this issue.

Continue reading "Colonialism and the Sexual Exploitation of Canada's First Nations Women"


Prostitution: Where Raciscm and Sexism Intersect


Vednita Nelson 1993
A discussion about how racism channels African American women into prostitution, and once they are in prostitution - even there, they are discriminated against. Racism always affects women in prostitution, just as racism affects Women of Color everyplace else in society.