I saw this today and thought about not going there, but this case is still at the forefront in my mind, and upon seeing it I was reminded of this post by Samhita at Feministing, in which she writes:

The charges were dropped. Does this mean that they are innocent? None of us actually know what happened that night. Sorry, unless you were there, you don't know what happened. Now for the rest of you that have such a die hard belief in the criminal justice system and evidence, well quite frankly I pity you. This is a system that arrests a disproportionate number of people of color, subjecting them to unfair trials, inadequate representation and longer sentences (in a prison system that resembles slavery) SORRY, I don't trust the courts. When you're a woman of color who's a sexworker, up against white kids with money that can afford *good* lawyers, the outcome is not looking so good.

They were not found to be innocent, the charges were dropped from lack of evidence. [emphasis mine] Moreover, innocent until proven guilty only applies to certain people. Ideally, it would apply to everyone but *a lot* of people are guilty at arrest, just for being who they are and where they are. We are not operating in a vacuum, but within a long history of corruption and injustice in the supposed justice system.

And then I saw this (and please don't bother accusing me of saying these men are guilty; I have not said that and even if I were I'm free to think so):

DUKE KID'S BONU$

PLUM WALL ST. JOB

By TODD VENEZIA

DAVID EVANS
100G+ at Morgan Stanley.

April 19, 2007 -- Crime may not pay, but innocence has brought one of the falsely accused Duke lacrosse players a Wall Street windfall.

Exonerated team captain David Evans has been given a plum job as an analyst at New York financial giant Morgan Stanley, the company confirmed yesterday.

The firm would not say what the salary would be, but the Wall Street Journal reported it will be "well into the six-figure range" as they called the job "one of the most prestigious on Wall Street."

"He will begin in the summer analyst program," company spokesman Mark Lake told The Post.

The high-powered hiring comes after Evans, 24, lost out on a job offer from JPMorgan Chase when he was accused last year of raping a stripper at a lacrosse team party. Last week, he and teammates Reade Seligmann of New Jersey and Collin Finnerty of Long Island were cleared.

The loss of the job was a bitter blow to Evans.

"This woman has destroyed everything I worked for in my life," Evans told CBS's "60 Minutes." "She's put it on hold."

His lawyer recently said on Larry King that he worried Evans would have trouble getting a co-op or condo in Manhattan because his name would always be associated with the case.

However, nailing down a job in one of Wall Street's most prestigious training programs could pave the way for a lucrative career in the financial world.

After a year in which the trio became a lightning rod for racial and class turmoil, the North Carolina attorney general declared them innocent and all the charges were dropped.

Mike Nifong, the local DA who pursued the case, could face disbarment for his actions.

The Journal reported that Evans got support at Morgan Stanley from CEO John Mack, a 1968 graduate of Duke and a trustee of the North Carolina university.

Meanwhile, a poll conducted by The Business Journal showed the players' reputations have not suffered too badly after year of being dragged through the mud.

Two-thirds of people told the publication that they never believed the charges against the players - and always thought they would be exonerated.

todd.venezia@nypost.com

african-american representational art for under $100?

My nephew's birthday is May 8, and I'm looking for some art for him. Something I can afford. He's very interested in having representational images of African Americans--he's half-Iranian and their home is filled with Persian art and artifacts, but no African American ones, and he'd like to rectify it, at least his space. I never buy art, so I'm not sure where to look in this price range.

If anyone has any ideas, please E-mail me. If it's your own art, even better!

okay, i'ma have to say that old girl and her friends are overreacting about the couch--which she apparently opted to keep

Offensive couch label traced to China

TORONTO -- Doris Moore was shocked when her new couch was
delivered to her home with a label that used a racial slur to
describe the dark brown shade of the upholstery.

* Read the full article at:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1101AP_Canada_Couch_Racial_Slur.html

Offensive couch label traced to China
By CHARMAINE NORONHA
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

TORONTO -- Doris Moore was shocked when her new couch was delivered to her home with a label that used a racial slur to describe the dark brown shade of the upholstery.

The situation was even more alarming for Moore because it was her 7-year-old daughter who pointed out "n----- brown" on the tag.

"My daughter saw the label and she knew the color brown, but didn't know what the other word meant. She asked, 'Mommy, what color is that?' I was stunned. I didn't know what to say. I never thought that's how she'd learn of that word," Moore said.

The mother complained to the furniture store, which blamed the supplier, who pointed to a computer problem as the source of the derogatory label

Kingsoft Corp., a Chinese software company, acknowledged its translation program was at fault and said it was a regrettable error.

"I know this is a very bad word," Huang Luoyi, a product manager for the Beijing-based company's translation software, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

He explained that when the Chinese characters for "dark brown" are typed into an older version of its Chinese-English translation software, the offensive N-word description comes up.

"We got the definition from a Chinese-English dictionary. We've been using the dictionary for 10 years. Maybe the dictionary was updated, but we probably didn't follow suit," he said.

Moore, who is black, said Kingsoft's acknowledgment of a mistake doesn't make her feel better.

"They should know what they are typing, even if it is a software error," she said. "In order for something to come into the country, don't they read it first? Doesn't the manufacturer? The supplier?"

Romesh Vanaik, owner of Vanaik Furniture where Moore bought the sofa, said it has been a best seller. He said he checked his stock but found no other couch with the offensive label.

He added that he had not known the meaning of the N-word.

"It's amazing. I've been here since 1972 and I never knew the meaning of this word," said Vanaik, a native of India.

His supplier, Paul Kumar of Cosmos Furniture in Toronto, denied responsibility and refused to give the name of the couch's Chinese manufacturer.

"It's not my fault. It's not the manufacturers' fault," he said, adding that Kingsoft was to blame.

Huang said Kingsoft has worked to correct the translation error. In the 2007 version, typing "dark brown" in Chinese does not produce the racial slur in English. But if the offensive term is typed in English, the Chinese translation is "dark brown," he said.

Moore is consulting with a lawyer and wants compensation. Last week, she filed a report with the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

Commission spokeswoman Afroze Edwards said the case is in the initial stages and could take six months to two years to resolve.

Moore, 30, has three young children, and said the issue has taken a toll on her family.

"Something more has to be done. We don't just need a personal apology, but someone needs to own up to where these labels were made, and someone needs to apologize to all people of color," Moore said. "I had friends over from St. Lucia yesterday and they wouldn't sit on the couch."

---

Associated Press Writers Rob Gillies in Toronto and Audra Ang in Beijing contributed to this report.

a new artist and art space about which i did not know

April 3, 2007 to April 28, 2007
AIR Gallery*, New York


Seeing the Light: JoAnne McFarland




*A.I.R. Gallery, the first not-for-profit women’s artist-run gallery in the United States.

on point

(spotted at she real cool. I tell anyone I can about Simmons' documentary No!, which is one of the best films I've ever seen.)

From: AfroLez Productions
Sent: Sun 4/15/2007 3:34 PM
To:
Subject: But Some of Us Are Brave---In Support of the April 28,
2007 National Day of Truthtelling in Durham, North Carolina


But Some of Us Are Brave---In Support of the April 28, 2007
National Day of Truthtelling in Durham, North Carolina
By Aishah Shahidah Simmons

While there are many folks who are rejoicing that Imus was fired, I fear that we may have won a battle but could have *temporarily* lost this relentless racist/sexist war against Black women in the United States. While most eyes were focused on the outcome of Imus' fate, the accused members of the Duke Lacrosse team were exonerated. Very, very tragically, many of the same Black (overwhelmingly male) voices who were demanding the firing of Imus, haven't said a peep about the recent dropping of charges against the accused members of the Duke Lacrosse team.
Additionally, in the ongoing mainstream media discussions about Imus calling the predominantly Black women's basketball team at Rutgers University "nappy headed-ho's," there hasn't been any mainstream media correlation/analysis/commentary/discussion about the fact that:

1. Some of the (White) Duke Lacrosse team members called the two (Black) women "niggers" and "bitches";
2. One of the (White) Duke Lacrosse members threatened to rape them with a broomstick;
3. Another (White) Duke Lacrosse team member spoke of hiring strippers in an e-mail sent the same night that threatened to kill "the bitches" and cut off their skin while he ejaculated in his "Duke-issued spandex;" and
4. Another (White) Duke Lacrosse team member shouted to the (Black woman) victim as she left the team's big house, "Hey bitch, thank your grandpa for my nice cotton shirt."

Instead there were subtle and not-so subtle racist implications that hip-hop is the cause of Imus' racist/sexist comments; and that the Black woman stripper/whore (not daughter, not mother, not college student, not sex worker) lied on/set up the innocent White Duke Lacrosse team members (who hired her and her colleague to perform for them).

So, in this very direct way the corporate owned media message to the American public is that Black people, especially Black women, are the perpetrators of violence against White men (and I would argue Black men too).

Based on the overwhelming deafening silence from mainstream Black (predominantly male) 'leaders' and organizations about the documented racist/sexist comments made by the White Duke Lacrosse team members, it's clear to me that no one will speak for us-- Black women--but ourselves. It doesn't matter if you're a rape survivor, a child sexual abuse survivor, a domestic violence survivor, a stripper, a prostitute, a lesbian, a bisexual woman, a heterosexual woman, a single mother (especially with several children from different fathers), on welfare, a high school drop out, college educated, working in corporate America, working at a minimum wage job with no health insurance, or working in the film/music/television entertainment industry. Yes, I placed what some people would view as very different/distinct categories of Black women in the same category because I firmly believe that if any of the aforementioned Black women are at the wrong place at the wrong time (which could be at any time), we, Black women, will be left to heal our very public wounds alone.

I was the young Black woman who in 1989, at 19 years old six weeks shy of my 20th birthday, said "Yes", while on a study abroad program...I was the Black woman who broke the rules of the university where I attended by agreeing to sneak out, after hours, to meet the man who would become my rapist... I was the Black woman who after breaking the university enforced rules started to have second thoughts but was afraid to articulate them and was afraid to turn around because my friends were covering for me... I was the Black woman who paid for the hotel room where I was raped...I was the Black woman who said to my soon-to-become rapist, "I don't want to do this. Please stop." I didn't "violently" fight back. I didn't scream or yell to the top of my lungs" because I was afraid. I didn't want to make a "scene." I blamed myself for saying, "Yes"...for breaking the rules...for paying for the hotel room.

I am one of countless women, regardless of race/ethnicity/national origin, age, sexual orientation, class, religion who experientially learned that the (often unchallenged) punishment for women who use poor judgment with men is rape and other forms of sexual violence. And the reward for those same men who perpetrate the sexual violence that we (victim/survivors) experience is the opportunity to perpetrate again and in turn say "WOMEN LIE."

"For all who ARE survivors of sexual violence...For all who choose to BELIEVE survivors of sexual violence...For all who KNOW WE CAN end rape culture..." come to Durham, North Carolina on Saturday, April 28, 2007. Join the numerous individuals and organizations from across the United States who will come to Durham, North Carolina on Saturday, April 28, 2007 to participate in "Creating A World Without Sexual Violence - A National Day of Truthtelling."

This mobilizing event is organized by a coalition of organizations including North Carolina Coalition Against Sexual Assault, Ubuntu, Men Against Rape Culture, SpiritHouse, Raleigh Fight Imperialism Stand Together, Southerners on New Ground, Independent Voices, Black Workers for Justice, and Freedom Road Socialist Organization/OSCL).

For more information on the National Day of Truthtelling, visit:
http://truthtelling.communityserver.com/
http://iambecauseweare.wordpress.com/
www.myspace.com/ubuntunc

Aishah Shahidah Simmons is a Black feminist lesbian documentary filmmaker, writer, and activist based in Philadelphia. An incest and rape survivor, she spent eleven years, seven of which were full time to produce/write/direct NO! (The Rape Documentary), a feature length documentary which looks at the universal reality of rape and other forms of sexual violence through the first-person testimonies, activism, scholarship, cultural work, and spirituality of African-Americans.
www.NOtheRapeDocumentary.org
<http://www.notherapedocumentary.org/>
www.myspace.com/afrolez

--
Eleven years in the making, NO! is an award-winning feature length documentary, which unveils the reality of rape, other forms of sexual violence, and healing in African-American communitites.

"If the Black community in the Americas and in the world would heal itself, it must complete the work [NO!] begins."
Alice Walker, Pulitzer Prize Winning Author, The Color Purple

"This DVD helps raise awareness about sexual assault and violence. Especially useful for counselors working with high-school and college students facing similar pressures and situations."
Booklist

www.myspace.com/afrolez
www.NOtheRapeDocumentary.org

photographs? really?

Spotted this interesting tidbit at sfgirlbybay:

I read an article last night that researchers at the United Kingdom's Open University examined how much people's mood rose after eating chocolate, sipping a cocktail, watching TV, listening to music, or looking at photographs. The music and chocolate left most people's moods unchanged, alcohol and TV gave a slight lift of 1%. The big mood lifter? Looking at photographs, which made people feel 11% better.

(Deirdre would kill me for posting this picture, so let's not tell her!)

asshole update

They didn't hit him hard enough. It's appalling to me that 3 are already serving time and the 4 others could end up in prison for 3-25 years. I'd still be beating him.

Here's links to the original story; here's the update (spotted at Feministing). I have to agree with the commenters at Feministing that "seething sapphic septet " is a pretty fantastic turn-of-phrase in a piece that's clearly pro-asshole.

As I said before, remember Sakia Gunn.

Disappointing update on vote for Kiri Davis!

According to Afrobella this morning:

“CG!’s film contest CosmoGIRL! and Take Action Hollywood announce our Film Contest finalists.

We have determined that the online voting has been corrupted as a result of one or more instances of tampering with the voting process by users. As a result, none of the online votes will be counted, and we will submit all three of the semi-finalists to our panel of experts for final judging and selection of a winner. The winner will be featured in the August 2007 issue of CosmoGIRL!”

Check out her post for more info, including a link to an interview with Kiri Davis.


I'm moving this post up so that folks keep voting for her--as of today, 12 April, Kiri is in the lead!! Voting ends Friday the 13th at noon.

(spotted at Afrobella)

I tried to upload the film from YouTube, but the link wasn't created for whatever reason, and I don't know what the deadline for this is, so vote! You can apparently vote daily.
http://www.cosmogirl.com/entertainment/film-contest-vote

Well. What of the timing of the dismissal of charges in the Duke rape case against the backdrop of Don Imus' insult of the Rutgers women basketball players, and the quote that I caught in the elevator that the accuser “may actually believe the many different stories that she has been telling?” The blogosphere has been jumping with everyone weighing in on the racism, sexism, misogyny, fault of Hip-Hop, blah blah blah, ad nauseum--I was right there with it. Hell, I live for a mainstream story about black women's representation--it's what I do! But I swear, it's ironic that when there's something that actually interests me and is relevant in the blogosphere is when I like it the least--too many opinions through which to sift, and hours-of-your-life-passed-later you realize nobody's saying much of anything even if they are drawing some rather significant circles and we're never all even going to agree to disagree. Why don't black women ever generate this much heated interest with regard to anything other than their "questionable" sexuality?

It made me sad to imagine being one of those players who were made to sit on a dais at their press conference yesterday--clearly engineered to say, "look, these aren't nappy-headed hos." I didn't get to actually hear what was said--at the gym is my only access to television, and the closed-captioning wasn't even on yesterday morning--but I couldn't help but be creeped out by this visual attempt to disavow them of both nappiness and sexuality, as though it would be understood that these things are intrinsically something that nice girls don't embody, and there's the proof. What if their hair had been wildly nappy, all over their heads, instead of neatly straightened and braided? What if they had come with some short, tight outfits with too much makeup and long nails and whatever else we stereotypically associate with sexualized women. Would that have made a difference? Should it have?

Some will say "nappy" is okay, but only when used in a different context. But with regard to women's sexuality, when are we going to stop reinforcing the very insults we're attempting to abolish? Especially now that we're all supposed to shake our heads at the new Tawana Brawley and believe that she was just delusional...another black woman with a questionable grasp on her own sexuality...I don't buy it.

This is hilarious.

(I borrowed it from here).

Lorraine O'Grady's 1980-81 performance, Mlle Bourgeoise Noire, has been put online for the first time. The synopsis—including backstory and poems, plus the 13 images of "Mlle Bourgeoise Noire Goes to the New Museum"—is the latest headline of "WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution." The permanent link is: http://www.moca.org/wack/?p=230

MOCA has also posted O'Grady's March 22 Gallery Talk remarks on "white middle-class feminism" and the "spatial vs chronological timelines of global feminism" at: http://www.moca.org/wack/?p=203

An installation view of Mlle Bourgeoise Noire's costume is at:
http://www.moca.org/wack/?page_id=104#

The King is Dead: Photographs by Barron Claiborne

Opening Reception will be on Friday, April 13th, from 6 to 8pm.

Gallery is located at 11 West 27th Street (between Madison and 5th Avenue).

Remy Toledo Art Projects in collaboration with The Prince George Ballroom gallery is pleased to present "The King is Dead: Photographs by Barron Claiborne". The show will exhibit from April 13th to May 4th.

"The King is Dead" embraces female identity and their representation, and especially encounters the origins of African American cultural identity. Barron Claiborne has brought to life characters that seem to be outside real place and time.

The exhibition is composed of multiple series all portraying women characterized as saints, assassins and other various fictional identities. The figures within each photograph are set in front of an elaborate background and are themselves staged and subject to the artists´ handling of identity and empowerment.

In the ¨Sacred Series¨ the artist reflects on the formal composition and spirituality of ancient Christian Icons from Namibia and Carthage. The models are portrayed as sacred female figures as they are costumed with insignia and set within a haloed background emulating the representation of ancient goddesses. Individuality and strength emanates from their eyes, challenging the viewer's gaze from that of submission and subjection to empowerment and self-possession. The models become religious icons through staged props while simultaneously expressing their selfhood and individuality.

In the ¨Assassins Series¨, figures are disposed of purity and goodness and are portrayed as dangerous and violent through the use of weapons and costumes. Again the models here are subject to the artist's staging but maintain their individuality through facial gestures and their gaze.

Beneath the masks, hats, veils, crosses, guns, halos, dresses, and patterns, it is ultimately the female figure that emerges over the masquerade. It is their identity who brings Claiborne's characters to life. The artist consciously exposes this duality of fictionalizing and revealing through intimate close ups of those who have performed for us as "Saints" or "Assassins".

Barron Claiborne has been shooting photographs for more than 25 years. A self-taught photographer raised in Boston, he moved to New York in 1990, where he has developed his career within fashion and fine art photography. His works have been published in Newsweek, C-Photo Magazine, The New York Times Magazine and The Rolling Stone among others. His works are included in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Texas and the Polaroid Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

25% of all sales go to support Common Ground programs.

Hours of operation are Monday thru Friday from 11 am to 6pm.

info@remytoledoartprojects.com www.remytoledo.com

About Remy Toledo Art Projects

Remy Toledo is a space for contemporary art projects. Instead of a traditional single location gallery space, New York becomes an exhibition ground for the gallery's experimental work, encouraging its visitors to constantly explore, discover, and experience the city itself as a gallery. For more information please visit our website www.remytoledo.com

interesting

"People act different behind a camera, even if it's not real."

http://www.slate.com/id/2162192?nav=ais

sigh

Say what you want about him, but good looking out, Al Sharpton. This morning I'm in the gym, as usual, pedaling away on the stationary bike when I saw the tail end of this Imus story. In disbelief and yet, of course, not. Another regular patron comes out of the office with the remote for the TV, asks the woman behind me if she wants to keep the local channel or wants CNN, asks the guy behind me, but somehow doesn't see me AND I'M DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF HIM. Plus as many times as I've seen his ridiculous old-hippie self I know he's seen me. But he never asked me a damn thing, changed the channel, then went on about his business. Man, it's just pervasive. White folks and their pathology...don't get me started...Deirdre was fit to fight him, bless her. I had to pull her up out of there.



Apology doesn't stem calls to oust Imus
By LARRY McSHANE, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 27 minutes ago

NEW YORK - Unimpressed by his on-air apology or corporate promises of
a tighter leash, angry critics of nationally syndicated radio host Don
Imus called Saturday for his dismissal over his racially charged
comments about the mostly black Rutgers women's basketball team.

"I accept his apology, just as I want his bosses to accept his
resignation," said the Rev. Al Sharpton. He promised to picket

Imus' New York radio home, WFAN-AM, unless the veteran of nearly 40
years of anything-goes broadcasting is gone within a week.

Sharpton was not alone in his anger over Imus' description of the
Rutgers' women as "nappy headed hos" during a Wednesday morning
segment of his show, which airs for millions of listeners on more than
70 stations and the MSNBC television network.

On Friday, after Imus delivered an on-air apology, both WFAN and MSNBC
condemned his remarks. WFAN issued a statement promising to "monitor
the program's content" but Imus, a member of the National Broadcasters
Hall of Fame, was not publicly disciplined.

The National Association of Black Journalists, the editor-in-chief of
Essence magazine and a New York sports columnist joined the chorus
against Imus.

"What he has said has deeply hurt too many people — black and white,
male and female," said NABJ President Bryan Monroe. "His so-called
apology comes two days after the fact, and it is too little, too
late."

Angela Burt Murray, of Essence magazine, called on Imus' bosses to
take a harder stance over his "unacceptable" remarks. "It needs to be
made clear that this type of behavior is offensive and will not be
tolerated without severe consequences," Murray said.

Columnist Filip Bondy of the Daily News, in a column headlined "Imus
spews hate, should be fired," said the radio star "should be axed for
one of the most despicable comments ever uttered on the air."

The Rutgers team, which includes eight black women, lost the
NCAA women's championship game Tuesday, and Imus was discussing the
game with producer Bernard McGuirk.

"That's some rough girls from Rutgers," Imus said. "Man, they got tattoos ..."

"Some hardcore hos," said McGuirk.

"That's some nappy headed hos there, I'm going to tell you that," Imus said.

Karen Mateo, a spokeswoman for WFAN's parent company CBS Radio, said
Saturday there was no additional comment on the Imus situation.

Imus' success has often been a a result of his on-air barbs.

"That Imus is in trouble for being politically incorrect is certainly
not new," said Tom Taylor, editor of the trade publication Inside
Radio. "He's lived his life in and out of trouble ... This is
something CBS will be watching very carefully."

Recent controversies involving Imus focused on a member of his morning
team, Sid Rosenberg, who was fired two years ago after a particularly
vile crack about cancer-stricken singer Kylie Minogue. Before
that, a racially tinged comment by Rosenberg about Venus and Serena
Williams stirred another controversy.

The NABJ cited two other incidents in which Imus himself insulted two
black journalists. Imus has called PBS' Gwen Ifill a "cleaning lady"
and described William Rhoden of The New York Times as "a quota hire,"
the group said.

Sharpton said he was writing to the Federal Communications Commission
about Imus' remarks.

"This is not some unemployed comic like Michael Richards,"
Sharpton said, referring to the "Seinfeld" actor who used the N-word
and referred to lynching in a rant last year. "This is an established
figure, allowed to use the airwaves for sexist and racist remarks."

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Media Contact:
Camille Bridges
PABW President
(617) 872-6090
cbridges@princeton.edu

Scholars examine U.S. prison system during "Locked Up and Locked Out" colloquium at Princeton A series of panels titled "Locked Up and Locked Out" will examine the state of the American prison system on Tuesday and Wednesday, April 10-11, at McCosh Hall on the Princeton University campus. The 2007 Princeton Prison Colloquium will feature Princeton faculty, including Professor of Religion Cornel West, government officials and leading thinkers on the subject of crime and punishment.

Various Princeton University student groups have joined to organize the colloquium, which is free and open to the public without registration.

"The aim of this event is to promote an in-depth dialogue around the issue of incarceration and to thoroughly explore the choices we make about our prison system," said Camille Bridges, a sophomore at Princeton and President of the Princeton Association of Black Women, one of the organizing groups. "The U.S. currently has 2 million people behind bars. The panels will explore some important and often unexpressed questions about how these prisoners pay their debt to society."

The colloquium will begin at 4 p.m. on April 10 with a panel on prisoners and civil liberties. Speakers will include Devon Brown, Director of the Washington, D.C. Department of Corrections, Lydell B. Sherrer, Administrator of Northern State Prison, and Kenneth Green, Director of the Office of Employee Relations at the New Jersey Department of Corrections. A second panel titled "The Problem of Prison Reentry" will follow at 6 p.m. and will feature Devah Pager, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Princeton, Douglas E. Thompkins, Assistant Professor of Sociology at CUNY, and Sam Williams, Program Director of the prisoner reentry program United Souls.

Panels will continue at 4 p.m. on April 11 with a "Conversation on Immigration Detention" between Patricia Fernández-Kelly, a senior lecturer in Princeton's Department of Sociology, Sharon Nyantekyi, a former immigration detainee and now an immigrants’ rights activist, and William Westerman, a lecturer in the Princeton Writing Program. A concluding panel at 7 p.m. will examine the impact of incarceration on greater society. The discussion will feature West; John Borneman, Princeton Professor of Anthropology; John Darley, Princeton Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs; and Celeste Fitzgerald, Program Director of New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

All panels will be held in McCosh 50. A reception will follow the April 10th panel in Frist Campus Center, Room 307, and on April 11th another reception will be held in Rocky Common Room.

The colloquium is being sponsored by the following Princeton University organizations: Princeton Association of Black Women, the Community-Based Learning Initiative, the Princeton NAACP College Chapter, the University Center for Human Values, the Black Men's Awareness Group, the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, the Undergraduate Student Government, John D. Rockefeller III College, and the Carl A. Fields Center.

For more information on the colloquium, please contact the event coordinator, Camille Bridges, at cbridges@princeton.edu.

Members of the news media who plan to attend the panel(s) must contact Bridges no later than noon Monday, April 9, at cbridges@princeton.edu or (617) 872-6090.

Happy...

(thanks, Stephanie!)

I don't buy this

Humans Can Detect Race, Sex in a Person's Silhouette

Friday, March 30, 2007

By Corey Binns

• E-MAIL STORY
• PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION

Nicolas Davidenko and the Journal of Vision, copyright ARVO

Silhouetted face profiles are made by reducing photographs to two-tone black and white, tightly cropped images.

Adult minds are so keen at spotting race, gender and age that we can correctly guess those features from nothing more than a black-and-white silhouette, new experiments show.

"It's surprising how much information the silhouette provides," said Stanford University cognitive psychologist Nicolas Davidenko, who led the study. "We rarely have to identify a person in a silhouette, yet in the experiment, people can do that without difficulty."

The way that our brains process faces, he said, seems so flexible that our minds can even assign people to social and biological categories drawing only on views that occur less commonly in our daily lives — including black-and-white profiles.

Davidenko found that people correctly identified the gender of the person in silhouettes 70 percent of the time. Meanwhile, people guessed the correct age — to within 10 years — 68 percent of the time. The study details are published in the March 21 issue of the Journal of Vision.

Hair's effect

Men were more easily identified than women and people overestimated the age of the silhouettes by an average of 8 years.

These biases, said Davidenko, might be due to the lack of hair on the silhouettes, which were cropped to show only a facial profile. This could make them seem bald in some cases, a trait common to males and generally older people.

He has also found people are 85 percent accurate in identifying a person's race from a black-and-white image.

Brows, chins and noses

When studying face recognition, researchers often focus on features including the eyes, nose and mouth. But this new study suggests that certain aspects of the shape of the face appear to be key elements used to recognize a face.

For example, the width of a brow, length of chin and protrusion of a nose makes a face appear more masculine.

Davidenko has measured the contours of silhouettes in a collection of 400 face profiles to analyze, for example, which aspects tend to go with male faces and which are female.

"I hope other researchers will use this mathematically controlled method," he told LiveScience. "It provides an easy to use tool that makes research more quantitative."

Copyright © 2006 Imaginova Corp. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

new titles to check out

Pimpin' Ain't Easy: Selling Black Entertainment Television Author(s) - Beretta E Smith-Shomade (I loved her previous book, Shaded Lives: African-American Women and Television, and used it when I taught. The price below is for the hardcover of this new book but it's also in paper.)

List Price: £60.00 ISBN: 9780415976787 ISBN-10: 0415976782 Publisher: Routledge Publication Date: 01/09/2007 Pages: 256 Trim Size: 6 x 9 Available for Pre-order Binding(s): Hardback | Paperback

About the Title Launched in 1980, cable network Black Entertainment Television (BET) has helped make blackness visible and profitable at levels never seen prior in the TV industry. In 2001, BET was sold by founder Robert L. Johnson, a former cable lobbyist, to media giant Viacom for 2.33 billion dollars. This book explores the legacy of BET: what the network has provided to the larger US television economy, and, more specifically, to its target African American demographic. The book examines whether the company has fulfilled its stated goals and implied obligation to African American communities. Has it changed the way African Americans see themselves and the way others see them? Does the financial success of the network--secured in large part via the proliferation of images deemed offensive and problematic by many black communities--come at the expense of its African American audience? This book fills a major gap in black television scholarship and should find a sizeable audience in both media studies and African American studies.

Word from the Mother: Language and African Americans Author(s) - Geneva Smitherman
	List Price: £13.99 ISBN: 9780415358767 ISBN-10: 0415358760 Publisher: Routledge Publication Date: 09/02/2006 Pages: 192 Available Binding(s): Hardback | Paperback
About the Title Written by the hugely respected linguist, Geneva Smitherman, this book presents a definitive statement on African American English. Enriched by her evocative and inimitable prose style, the study presents an overview of past debates on the speech of African Americans, as well as providing a vision for the future. Featuring cartoons which demonstrate the relationship between language and race, as well as common perceptions of African American Language, she explores its contribution to mainstream American English and includes a summary of expressions as a suggested linguistic core of AAL. As global manifestations of Black Language increase, she argues that, through education, we must broaden our conception of AAL and its speakers, and further examine the implications of gender, age and class on AAL. Perhaps most of all we must appreciate the ‘artistic and linguistic genius’ of AAL, presented in this book through rap and Hip Hop lyrics and the explorations of rhyme and rhetoric in the Black speech community. Word from the Mother is an essential read for students of African American English, language, culture and sociolinguistics, as well as the general reader interested in the worldwide ‘crossover’ of black popular culture.

I'm sorry; how is a woman who allegedly has sex with an 11-year old not a danger to the community? Whose community?

Sex scandal stirs racial tensions in southern town

POSTED: 7:24 p.m. EDT, March 28, 2007

CLINTON, South Carolina (AP) -- The arrest of two women teachers on charges of having sex with their male students has brought cries of lingering racism in one of South Carolina's most conservative counties and evoked some of the South's oldest and deepest-seated racial taboos.

Both women are white. The boys -- six in all -- are black.

Some of the blacks who make up more than a quarter of Laurens County's 70,000 residents are upset over the handling of the two cases, particularly the release of the teachers on bail.

They say the cases reflect the way crimes by whites against blacks in the segregated South were treated less seriously than other offenses, and blacks who leveled accusations against whites were less likely to be believed.

"If this had been black teachers, they would not be out of jail right now," said Corinnie Young, a 49-year-old bookstore employee who is black.

Some blacks shudder to think what would have happened if the teachers were black men and the students were white girls.

"I can assure you if it were an African American male who committed such an offense against a white female, history shows us that the charges, the punishment and the sentencing would be totally different," said state NAACP president Lonnie Randolph. "The system ain't blind when the perpetrator is an African American male or female or when the victim is a white female."

Prosecutor defends home detention

Jerry Peace, the county prosecutor and a white man, said that the teachers are wearing electronic tracking devices and that their release on bail -- $125,000 for one, $110,000 for the other -- was based not on race, but on the danger to the community and the likelihood that the defendants might flee.

In any case, it would be unusual for someone accused of such a crime to be held without bail. Deborah Ahrens, a visiting professor of criminal law at the University of South Carolina, said of the bail amounts for the two teachers: "For the clients that I've represented in the past that were up for similar offenses, that sounds about right."

Signs of racial tension, old and new, are not hard to find in Laurens County. The school where one of the teachers worked used to be blacks-only.

In the town of Laurens, where one of the teachers taught, an old movie theater has been converted into a Ku Klux Klan museum and paraphernalia store called The Redneck Shop. There, visitors can buy Confederate flags and bumper stickers, such as one that depicts three Klansmen and reads "The Original Boys in the Hood."

Textile mills were once the chief source of jobs in the working-class area about 60 miles northwest of the state capital of Columbia, but the industry went into decline in the 1990s. The main employers now include a maker of plastic coolers and Presbyterian College in Clinton. As of 2003, nearly 15 percent of county residents lived below the poverty line.

Mom complains of sex with 11-year-old

And as in many communities, most neighborhoods in the county are either black or white. People of different races find themselves side by side in one of two places: work or school.

Wendie Schweikert, a 37-year-old married woman who had been teaching elementary school in Laurens for more than a decade, was arrested last year after the mother of an 11-year-old boy accused her of having sex with the boy at school at least twice.

Authorities said they found evidence bearing his DNA in her classroom. She is also accused of having sex with him in her car near a miniature golf course and arcade in Greenville, about 40 miles away.

Allenna Ward, a 24-year-old minister's daughter in her second year of teaching, was fired February 28 after she was charged with having sex with at least five boys.

Some of the alleged victims, 14 and 15 years old, were students at the middle school in Clinton where Ward taught. Police say Ward, who is married, had sex with the boys at the school, at a motel, in a park and behind a restaurant.

Attempts to contact the women in person and by telephone were unsuccessful, and their lawyers did not return repeated calls.

Black and white residents alike said they are shocked by the accusations. Many echoed the sentiments of Peggy Hawkins, a 50-year-old white resident. "Boys are boys and she done wrong," Hawkins said of one of the teachers.

Some see racism at work

The Rev. David Kennedy, a local black activist, is among those who see racism at work. He said the white teachers accused of preying on black students figured "they can do what they want to do with them and they know the consequences won't be great."

He suggested that blacks in town are too afraid to speak out: "There's a long history of intimidation and it's a sin. It's unholy in Laurens County to speak out."

Parents whose children go to E.B Morse Elementary School, where Schweikert taught, say they have trouble reconciling the accusations with the woman they knew.

"She was very involved," said Shea Mills, whose son attended the school. "I remember she would make kids pick paper up in the halls."

Bell Street Middle School Principal Maureen Tiller said Ward did well during an evaluation of her skills, and "personality-wise she seemed to be fine."

Nicole Sullivan, whose daughter went to Schweikert's school, said that when the case broke, students brought home notes saying the teacher had resigned. The notes did not explain why.

"I don't want to say it was a racial thing, but if it were a white victim and a black teacher, I think things would have been handled differently," said Sullivan, who is black.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

she's free!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://freeshaquandacotton.blogspot.com/

interesting

White woman 'harassed by anti-black racism'

By Matthew Moore and PA

Last Updated: 2:03am GMT 03/03/2007

A white woman who claims she was racially harassed by "jokes" insulting black people has won the right to take her case to an employment tribunal. Pat Gravell, 45, says that her former employer Bexley Council did nothing to stamp out the racist emails and text messages. Although she is white and British, she says that she was harassed by the remarks because she found them distressing and offensive. The former homeless prevention officer from Bexleyheath, Kent, says she hopes to force employers to tackle casual racism in the workplace. Last September a tribunal struck out her claim, saying it had no reasonable prospect of success, but today she won the right for a full hearing. The fact that she is white was not a "killer blow", and her claim should be judged on its merits, according to Judge Peter Clark at the Employment Appeal Tribunal in London. He added that her unusual case was "perhaps a bit of a trailblazer". Ms Gravell, who was made redundant in January after five years in the job, says that her colleagues sent her texts referring to black people as monkeys, and making offensive references to the mixed-race marriage of comedians Dawn French and Lenny Henry. She also received jokes mocking those who died in the New Orleans flood and the cockle-picking disaster in Morecambe Bay, she claims. Bexley Council denies creating an environment in which racism could flourish, and intends to launch a Court of Appeal challenge to today's ruling.

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