Is the Era of White Privilege Nearing an End in the US? | Truthout

Is the Era of White Privilege Nearing an End in the US? | Truthout

Tim Wise

Call to Action: National Student Debt Week of Action Feburary 27th-March 2nd | The Activist

Call to Action: National Student Debt Week of Action Feburary 27th-March 2nd | The Activist
Dr. Cornel West invites you to be a part of the Week of Action.  http://vimeo.com/37209329

Cesar Chavez Youth Leadership Conference - Roseville

Roseville, CA – Close to 1,000 elementary, middle and high school students will converge on the Cesar E. Chavez Youth Leadership Conference and Education Fair on Saturday, March 24, 2012 in Roseville, CA.  For over a decade, this event has provided guidance to youth seeking to pursue higher education and grant information.

This unique educational forum allows 6th to 12 grade students and their parents an opportunity to learn how to pursue secondary educational and grant opportunities.  College recruiters will be available to answer student questions.  There will also be information designed to empower families to become stronger advocates for their children's education.

The conference is open to people of all ages.  It is scheduled from 8:00 am to 3:30 pm at the Robert C. Cooley Middle School campus located at 9300 Prairie Woods Way in Roseville, CA 95747.  Approximately 700 students and 200 parents attended the 2010 conference.  The event is sponsored by The Hispanic Empowerment Association of Roseville (HEAR), the Latino Leadership Council and the Cooley Latino Student Club.

Education and opportunity for Mexican Americans

Arizona-The End of the Stairway

The Abandonment of the Barrio

By  Rodolfo F. Acuña

Throughout the history of Mexican Americans, education has been considered the stairway to the middle-class. Education meant security and basics such as health insurance. This heaven meant better jobs and a small house or two for old age.

As with the European immigrant, the stairway was built in stages. Those with limited education could often get union jobs. After a generation or two in factories, Mexican Americans accumulated sufficient capital to keep their children in school, and a few sent them to college.

To build the stairway, workers and their families fought for compulsory education,  they petitioned school boards, and led walkouts protesting de jure and de facto school segregation.

Mutalistas,  el Congreso Mexicanista, Alianza Hispano-Americano, La Liga Protectora Latina, League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), led campaigns for better schools. George I. Sánchez was a giant in advocating for this stairway.

However, it was not the 1960s that Chicano youth forced major breakthroughs. The Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) walkouts, the East LA School Walkouts, and small walkouts throughout the southwest and elsewhere had similar themes -- better education, more college prep classes, more Mexican American teachers, and the teaching of Mexican American Studies.

Retirement Prospects Poor for Blacks and Latinos

CONTACT: Rebecca Graham, 510‐642-9187, rebecca.graham@berkeley.edu

Berkeley — As Black History Month draws to a close, a new University of California, Berkeley, report finds that Black and Latino seniors face even tougher times in retirement than American seniors as a whole.

“Recent household surveys show that retirees of color, especially Blacks and Latinos, rely more heavily on Social Security and have less access to other types of retirement income than their white counterparts,” said researcher Nari Rhee of UC Berkeley’s Center for Labor Research and Education.

Rhee’s report, “Black and Latino Retirement (In)Security,” is based on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Population Survey and U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey.

The report’s main findings include:

Elder poverty rates are twice as high among Blacks and Latinos compared to the U.S. population as a whole: 19.4 percent of Black seniors and 19.0 percent of Latino seniors have incomes below the federal poverty line, compared to 9.4 percent for the senior population overall (see right).

Less than a third of employed Latinos and less than half of Black workers are covered by an employer sponsored retirement plan, a critical resource in ensuring adequate retirement income.  As a result, they are disproportionately reliant on the limited income provided by Social Security.

Among retirees age 60 and older, people of color are disproportionately likely to be low income: for 2007-2009, 31.6 percent of Blacks and 46.5 percent of Latinos were in the bottom 25 percent income group. The “other” race group, which includes Asian/Pacific Islander and Native American populations, is also more likely to be low-income (38 percent) (see right, lower).

“Black workers face systemic challenges that lead to high rates of unemployment and a concentration in low-wage jobs,” said Steven Pitts, a labor policy specialist at the center, and author of a monthly Black worker report. “This report shows that these manifestations of structural racism faced by Black workers lead to economic outcomes today that impact retirement long into the future.”

Rhee said, “It is critical to improve both job access and job quality—in terms of wages and benefits, including pension benefits—to improve retirement prospects for current workers,” a reminder that the job crisis we face today may have long-term repercussions.  

The report can be found online.

Why Not Enjoy Yourself ?

Let the Younger People Take Over

You Have Paid Your Dues

By  Rodolfo F. Acuña

Chicana/o Studies at Cal State Northridge will be taking close to sixty Latinos and Asians students to Tucson later this month. It will be our third trip as a group within a year. Friends keep saying, “That is a big responsibility; you have paid your dues; why don’t you slow down and enjoy life?”  In other words, take it easy, and let the young people clean up our mess.

Some make ridiculous statements such as that you must enjoy the pressure. What is probably meant to be a compliment is an insult. Only someone who is nuts enjoys constant stress and sleepless nights.

Frankly, I would be delighted if others would step up. No one enjoys constantly working as if there were no more tomorrows.  No one enjoys sandwiching in writing and teaching, and never having enough time to edit and reflect – the tension of being constantly on stage gets to you.

I often wish that I would have become a monk. But, as a member of a community – a husband, father, grandfather, and teacher – I have no choice but to fight.  The bottom line is that I care about the kind of world we leave behind.

Join with the Japanese American Community

Join with Japanese American communities throughout the country who annually commemorate the date, February 19, 1942. This date marks when, during World War II, an executive order was signed which led to the imprisonment of over 120,000 Japanese Americans without due process and with no regard for their constitutional rights. The community now uses this date to encourage active participation in defending the basic civil liberties of all Americans. February 19, 2012 will mark the 70th year anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066.

The California premiere of the new documentary film "Prisoners and Patriots" - Saturday, Feb. 18th @ 1 PM

California Secretary of State's Auditorium at 11th & O St.  Sacramento.

Protect Columbian activist

Urgent Action to Protect Peace Community Legal Representative in Colombia
Earlier this month, on February 4, 2012, the legal representative for the Colombian Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, Jesus Emilio Tuberquia, was the victim of an assassination attempt. At 12:15pm near the public market, two paramilitaries on motorcycle shot at him without saying a word. Fortunately, he took off running and he was able to escape with his life. The incident happened only 100 meters from a police checkpoint, by which the attackers passed without being detained.

Please write to the following addresses protesting this incident and demanding the investigation of why the paramilitaries continue assassinating under impunity in Urabá where no authority attempts to control them.

Click here to send a message to Colonel Leonardo Alberto Mejia, the commander of the Urabá police and to Maria Paulina Riveros, the Head of Human Rights in the Colombian Department of the Interior.


We remember peace community leader Luis Eduardo Guerra and thousands of others who have been killed in Colombia as a result of militarization and SOA violence.

World Financial Crisis

El Consejo de la Internacional Socialista celebró un encuentro en San José, Costa Rica, los días 23 y 24 de enero, contando con su partido miembro en ese país, el Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN) como anfitrión, y con la presencia de líderes y delegados de partidos socialdemócratas, laboristas y socialistas de diversas regiones del mundo (lista de participantes). La reunión, que tuvo como temas principales la actual crisis financiera mundial y el cambio climático, ambas materias hoy en el centro de las preocupaciones del movimiento socialdemócrata, contó con la participación de S.E. Laura Chinchilla, Presidenta de la República de Costa Rica en la sesión inaugural. El Consejo discutió asimismo el fortalecimiento de la Internacional, con miras al XXIV Congreso de la organización que se celebrará este año. 


Apertura

Al iniciar las sesiones de esta primera reunión del Consejo en Costa Rica, el Secretario General de la IS Luis Ayala saludó los numerosos logros del PLN durante sus diferentes periodos en gobierno, que han hecho de este país, dijo, un buen ejemplo del éxito de las políticas socialdemócratas. Los socialdemócratas, enfatizó, se encontraban globalmente hoy en la vanguardia, ofreciendo un liderazgo progresista y proponiendo soluciones a las crisis financiera y climática, y esta reunión del Consejo era una muy buena oportunidad para definir juntos las actuales prioridades y los objetivos para hacerles frente desde nuestra propia visión y compromiso. Agradeció al PLN por acoger la reunión e invitó a su presidente a dirigirse al Consejo.

Idiotas, and Jan Brewer

Enduring Fools.

By Rodolfo F. Acuña

Growing up, we used a plethora of words to dismiss fools. Fom two different worlds, my father was from Jalisco so his sayings were always blander my mother’s Sonorense expressions, which always seemed franker and more to the point.  If you were ugly, they called you el feo.  It was the cow culture that reveled in a no bull sh.. mentality. When I messed up badly, I was the pinche güero or the pinche buey, which depending on how it was said was generally a put down.

Words such as cabrón or chingado were rarely used unless in anger and mostly directed at someone outside the family.  Even to this day they are words that are not taken lightly in Mexico, especially if used in the context of chinga tu madre.

(It was unlike today when an 85 year old lady will flip you off on the freeway.)  

When you thought someone was stupid and just did not want anything to with them, it was estúpido,imbécil, baboso or pendejo. They had a shock value.  My family was more passive and would just give you the señal de la cruz  -- why call them names if they don’t exist for you.

In the past several years I have found myself giving most Tucson racists the sign of the cross – they are brain-dead.  

Under normal circumstances, I would have given people like Arizona Attorney Tom Horne, Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal and the great majority of the board members of the Tucson Unified Schools the señal de la cruz.  However, this was impossible because they do so much damage to an entire community. Reaching back into my consciousness I came up with the perfect descriptive word, idiota, a word that always had a poetic sound. Pinche güero was nice next to idiota!

Winnemum Wintu Tribe slams plan to raise Shasta Dam

by Dan Bacher 

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation on February 6 issued a controversial draft report claiming that a $1.07 billion plan to raise Shasta Dam by 18-1/2 feet is "feasible" and "economically justified," a contention that the Winnemem Wintu Tribe strongly challenged. 

The dam raise would increase Lake Shasta's storage about 14 percent, supposedly benefitting municipal and agribusiness water users throughout California, according to the "Shasta Lake Water Resources Investigation" draft feasibility report. 

Raising the dam would also "increase the survival" of chinook salmon, steelhead and other anadromous fish populations in the Sacramento River by increasing the cold water pool in Lake Shasta, the report claimed.

"Based on analyses to date, all comprehensive plans to enlarge Shasta Dam and Reservoir appear to be technically and environmentally feasible for implementation by the Federal Government," according to the report. "Based on analyses to date, all 18.5 foot dam raise alternatives appear to be economically justified for implementation by the Federal Government. The 6.5 foot dam raise alternative is marginally justified." 

Censorship in Tucson. Rodolfo F. Acuña.

Giving Hypocrisy a Bad Name

By

Rodolfo F. Acuña

                                               

For the past six years or so I have heard constant threats from Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne (Canada) and Superintendent of Schools John Huppenthal (Indiana) that they were going to ban, destroy and wipe out Mexican American Studies, as well as Occupied America. Now after disregarding a $177,000 report that refutes their charges that the program and the book are racist and un-American, the nativists carry out their threats.  They destroy MAS and snatch the books from on looking students. Their stupidity exposed them, so they now say it wasn’t so.

The problem is that witnesses saw Tucson Unified School District Superintendent John Pedicone’s (Illinois) swaggering thugs “remove” the books from MAS classes as students looked on.

Their cowardly behavior reached new lows when blogger Jeff Biggers wrote that the books had been “banned.” They protested that they were not “banned” but only “removed.”

Let me see if I understand: If the books would have been put on a prohibited list of readings they would have been banned, or better still censored. But, because they were already there and ripped from the sight of students, they were removed.

Worse off than in the 60's ? Mexican Americans in schools

 Who Gives a Damn?

By   Rodolfo F. Acuña

Teresa Wiltz in America’s Wire writes that despite claims of increased educational opportunities for minorities that the performance of black and Latino teenagers remains the same or lower than 30 years ago.  In fact, the math and reading performance of black and Latino high school seniors equal that of 13-year-old white students – so much for the post racial society.

Educators and liberal politicos point the finger at low expectations, inequality of resources, less qualified teachers, the income inequality, teacher bias, and inexperienced teachers. They throw in the tracking of black and brown students into remedial class while whites are put into university bound classes.

Further, minority students are more likely to be given "A’s" for work that would receive a "C" in a rich school giving the illusion that they are being educated.  Society would not tolerate this record in a football team at any level, or for that matter if we had fewer weapons of mass destruction than 30 years ago. 

However, in my view, the major reason for the lack of progress of Mexican American and other minorities is society’s historical amnesia or more aptly its Alzheimer disorder that erases the memory of previous efforts or commitments to bridge the gap between black, brown and white – rich and poor.  

The truth be told, educators pay less attention today to Mexican Americans than it did 50 years ago. In the sixties educators and reporters at least talked about it.  The late Los Angeles Times’ columnist Ruben Salazar attacked the dropout problem and the failure of the schools to devise a relevant curriculum, as well as the failure to recruit and train effective Mexican American teachers.

Immigrants and Labor

MARCHING AWAY FROM THE COLD WAR
By David Bacon
Chapter 11 in "Wisconsin Uprising - Labor Fights Back"
Monthly Review Press, 2012

http://monthlyreview.org/press/books/pb2808/


One sign carried in almost every May Day march of the last few years in the United States says it all: "We are Workers, not Criminals!" Often it was held in the calloused hands of men and women who looked as though they'd just come from work in a factory, cleaning an office building, or picking grapes.

The sign stated an obvious truth. Millions of people have come to the United States to work, not to break its laws. Some have come with visas, and others without them. But they are all contributors to the society they've found here.

In the largest U.S. May Day event this year, marchers were joined by the public workers who protested in the state capitol in Madison, Wisconsin, who have become symbols of the fight for labor rights in the U.S.  Their message was the same: we all work, we all contribute to our communities and we all have the right to a job, a union and a decent life.

Mexican American students matter

Associate Editor Pia Lopez of the Sacramento Bee  wrote an interesting essay, “Can we find common ground on schools?”  on the ideas of Diane Ravitch in the Bee this morning- except for one paragraph where Lopez is substantially wrong.   She says,  “ In the 1980’s she (Ravitch) helped write a history curriculum framework for California that still today is considered among the best in the country.”

Lets see.  She must mean the California History Social Science Framework of 1987 – still in use today- that almost completely ignores Mexican American History.

From my essay , “Why California Students Do not know Chicano/ Mexican American History.  “

“The 1987 Framework still in use today  expanded African American, Native American, and women’s history coverage but remains totally inadequate in the coverage of Latinos and Asians. The only significant change between the 1985 and the 2005 adopted Framework was the addition of a new cover, a cover letter, and additions of photos such as of Cesar Chavez . Latinos currently make up 48.1 percent of California’s student population and Asians make up 8.1 %. 

The dominant neo conservative view  of history argues that textbooks and a common history should provide the glue that unites our society. Historical themes and interpretations are selected in books to create unity in a diverse and divided society, a unity from the point of view of the dominant class.  This viewpoint assigns to schools the task of creating a common culture. In reality, television and military service may do more to create a common culture than do schools and books.

Group Delivers Hundreds Of Tacos To Connecticut Mayor Who Insulted Latinos With ‘Tacos’ Comment

Group Delivers Hundreds Of Tacos To Connecticut Mayor Who Insulted Latinos With ‘Tacos’ Comment: pLatinos in East Haven, Connecticut delivered hundreds of tacos to the town’s mayor Thursday, just two days after he made a flippant, derogatory comment about them while discussing alleged police discrimination and violence in his community. In the wake of those allegations, Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr. was asked what he would do to reach out [...]/p

Don't Get Angry - Get Even

When Do You Start Counting?  Rodolfo F. Acuña 

When the great Muhammad Ali was asked how many sit ups he did, he responded,  “I don’t count my sit-ups, I only start counting when it starts hurting, that is when I start counting, because then it really counts, that’s what makes you a champion.”

These words resonate in Tucson where Latina/o students are fighting for an education by sitting-in in the office of Tucson Unified School District Superintendent of Schools John Pedicone, walking out of classes, demonstrating, and taking to the streets. 

Students are dispelling the myth that Mexican Americans do not care about education; they have started counting because it hurts. They know the difference between being warehoused, sitting through classes where teachers go through the motions. They know when the subject matter is relevant; and the teachers believe in what they are teaching.

At my own campus at California State University Northridge students are mobilizing.  Up until now, a small minority protested the rising cost of tuition, which now tops $5,550 a year, promising to climb another 30 percent next year.

Global Capitalist Crisis and the Second Great Depression

Armando Navarro
RIVERSIDE, Calif. - Ethnic studies professor Armando Navarro will present a brief lecture and sign copies of his new book, "Global Capitalist Crisis and the Second Great Depression" (Lexington Books), on Jan. 25 at 6:30 p.m. in HUB 302 at UC Riverside.

Sociology professor Jose Calderon of Pitzer College will present his observations of the book and its timeliness. The event is free and open to the public. Parking costs $5. Event sponsors are Chicano Student Programs, the Department of Ethnic Studies, MEChA, African Student Programs, Asian Pacific Student Programs, and Native American Student Programs.

In "Global Capitalist Crisis," Navarro, a political scientist who teaches in the UCR Department of Ethnic Studies and has authored five other books, analyzes the political and economic decisions that led to the on-going global economic crisis that he contends put the nation's survival at risk. He argues that the country is in the midst of a deepening depression, which he calls the Second Great Depression. He calls capitalism a failed economic/political system controlled by "capital" that is in dire need of systemic change, and he provides several ominous forecasts that he believes will impact the country greatly in this decade, particularly in 2012 and 2013.

"In the history of modern capitalism, with the exception of the Great Depression, the world has never been economically in such calamitous turmoil," Navarro writes. "Not since that period have the economies of the world, especially that of the United States, been so egregiously impacted and threatened."

Debating Tucson School District's Book Ban After Suspension of Mexican American Studies Program

Debating Tucson School District's Book Ban After Suspension of Mexican American Studies Program

Democracy Now.

Tucson eliminates Mexican American History

Arizona School District Wipes Latino American History Off the Map

- Common Dreams staff

A catastrophe in slow motion has played out in Arizona schools over the last several years as anti-immigrant sentiment crept into state legislation guiding how and what kind of Mexican American and indigenous history could be taught in classrooms across the southwestern border state.  What may have seemed absurd until recently is now a reality as boxes of banned books will now be gathered up and locked away.

UPDATED on 1/18/12: Jeff Biggers updates his previous reporting after the Tuscon Unified School District responded to various reports of books being banned in Arizona schools:

In a clarification of last Friday’s announcement of a list of Mexican American Studies books to “be cleared from all classrooms” in order to comply with a state ban on ethnic studies, the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) declared Tuesday that it ”has not banned any books as has been widely and incorrectly reported.”

But, Biggers continues, opponents were not satisfied with TUSD's explanation:

The TUSD statement “lacks accuracy and represents a thinly veiled attempt to cover up with distortions what is happening,” said Richard Martinez, the lead attorney on behalf of teachers and students challenging the ban in federal court.  “Pandora’s box has been opened and the ugly face of the bigoted right wing has been exposed for what it is: an attempt to keep Latinos, poor, dumb and abused.”

Whether the removal of the books from all classrooms should be considered an outright ban or a possibly temporary prohibition brought little comfort to supporters of Tucson’s Mexican American Studies program, who sponsored an emotional community forum last Saturday with students and teachers who had witnessed the forced removal of the books from their classrooms.