Zozobra burns tonight in Santa Fe.

Sunport kills prairie dogs on orders from the feds.

City Council stiffens DWCell-phoning rule.

You probably saw, but Google sped up searches.

Ex-Gov. Gary Johnson contemplates a run at the big White House.

Many black voters who cast a ballot in 2008 won't be back in November, poll says.

Rio Grande teachers high-five after the old principal splits. Students still don't have class schedules.

Ladies love flamboyant dancing.

The president rails against tax cuts for the rich ...

… then asks a Florida minister not to burn the Quran. He says the act would create a "recruitment bonanza" for al Qaida.

London Catholic church offers gay mass.

Castro criticizes communism in Cuba.

Middle-class, American, high school football star matures into a high-ranking kingpin for a Mexican drug cartel. (Growing up, he even had a wooden swing set.)

Rodney King is marrying a juror from his case.

Vitamin B slows Alzheimer's, says study.

She reads Playboy to the blind.

Why do albums come out on Tuesdays?

• Gary J (nozlkoff) [ Thu Sep 9 2010 9:49 AM ]
  

 

I didn’t really, either. But ... wow. (Lots of N-word in there. May not be SFW.) She’s tried to make nice after the fact and backpedalled. Even her apology is ugly.

So far, she hasn’t been fired. She should absolutely be fired.

The slur—repeated 9, 10 times?—was only part of the fountain of sewage in this radio show. She said the black caller was overly sensitive and shouldn’t have married a white man if she didn’t have a sense of humor. Dr. Laura added that she’d hoped once we had a black president, people would stop whining about race. Also, “don’t NAACP me”?!?

But back to the N-word: It’s not OK to use racial slurs unless the speaker is part of the culture in question and reclaiming that word. The end. I know many people have disappointing opinions to the contrary. In this unmelting melting pot, we should all probably try not to be jerks. Avoiding the N-word and other slurs seems simple enough, but apparently that’s been a real problem for right-wing shock jocks.

• "Stupid Cracker-Ass Bitch" (PC Police) [ Fri Aug 13 2010 2:34 PM ]
  
• "PC Police" (black) [ Fri Aug 13 2010 3:40 PM ]
  
• It's simple (Pattriot) [ Sat Aug 14 2010 5:59 PM ]
  

There was footage of the BART police officer shooting and killing an unarmed black man. Oscar Grant died on New Year's Day in 2009.

Today the verdict was read. Officer Johannes Mehserle was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter.

As word spread, people fled the city. The shooting itself ignited days of rioting.

“Let’s talk about race, bay-bee. Let’s talk about you and me.”

Sometimes we on the ol’ Alibi blog (not to mention maybe any blog anywhere) don’t handle discussions pertaining to race (or sexuality, or gender) very well. The answer to this isn’t to stop talking about these things, but rather, to think about appropriate way to enter into and sustain such a conversation.

Jezebel has listed 10 rules for commenting on topics regarding race. I think the most important is number one: it’s not about you personally. Learn to think and respond beyond the realm of your own experience. Certain groups should also really ruminate on the “no whiners” rule.

Somehow, I know that posting something about creating civil discussions will prompt uncivil remarks, so if you need to, have at it. Or maybe you could refine these “rules” for our own piece of webdom.

• Huh. (Madmammajamma) [ Mon Apr 26 2010 10:40 PM ]
  
• Also (Madmammajamma) [ Mon Apr 26 2010 10:44 PM ]
  
• Salt n' Pepa ≠ TLC (FoxMcCloud) [ Tue Apr 27 2010 9:29 AM ]
  

Liz Henry / CC BY-SA 2.0

 

So 4/20 has been proclaimed by Gov. Bill Richardson to be a day on which we ponder “gender, ethnic and racial pay equity.” He signed an executive order at the end of 2009 demanding state agencies report on salary gaps and correct them.

According to the New Mexico Commission on the Status of Women, the state is ranked dead last in the nation for impoverished women with 20 percent of the New Mexico’s female population living in poverty. The commission also broke down average pay by race. The numbers are illuminating:

White

Women $29,500

Men $42,000

African American

Women $24,300

Men $32,400

Asian American

Women $33,100

Men $39,800

Native American

Women $23,200

Men $26,500

Other/Two or More Races

Women $27,600

Men $33,100

Hispanic

Women $22,100

Men $27,600

• I'm sorry, everyone (DarcyBennet) [ Tue Apr 20 2010 2:46 PM ]
  
• I Blame Whitey (black) [ Tue Apr 20 2010 4:17 PM ]
  
• Darcy (marisa) [ Tue Apr 20 2010 4:28 PM ]
  

 

I stumbled across this excellent opinion piece called “Keep Your Hands Off the Hair” today on NPR. It’s by Allison Keyes, guest host of Tell Me More. She talks about doing her hair in an Afro puff and having people walk up and touch it without asking. She says it’s a race issue and a personal space issue.

It reminded me of this essay by local Virginia Lovliere Hampton that we ran back in 2007. Fantastic writing. It blew my mind a little, three years ago. Hair-touching is such an awkward blindspot, an assumption, an insidious way racism asserts itself.

Keyes dug up many more blogs talking about the same thing: Strangers feeling up black people’s hair without asking permission. Frankly, I think it’s weird to even ask someone you don’t know if you can touch their hair.

Captain Obvious and Miss Manners agree: Don’t be creepy.

• My friend Allison used to get this all the time (DarcyBennet) [ Tue Mar 23 2010 2:11 PM ]
  
• Back in the day (FoxMcCloud) [ Tue Mar 23 2010 2:21 PM ]
  
• It's not a "race" thing (ChiKung) [ Tue Mar 23 2010 2:39 PM ]
  

Gustavo Arellano

This woman didn’t leave her name or number, but she’s angry about a portion of this week’s feature in which “Ask a Mexican” columnist Gustavo Arellano asks a New Mexican. Her voicemail is awesome. The delivery is fantastic, full of venom but with that particular lilt you only get around here.

"Marisa. I like your paper usually. I'm kinda pissed today. Who is this Joseph Baca that's trying to say that Hispanos in New Mexico are not formerly Europeans many of them? What is he? Is he a MEXICAN? And these Hispanos were also being hanged in the mid 1800s—even if their skin wasn't brown but pink. So why don't you correct that misnomer, his blurb: "Are there still people who call themselves Hispanos or is that some Chicano myth?" Well, it's a Chicano myth, apparently. But it's not a Hispano myth. Get it straight, lady. How long have you lived in this state? And where the hell is Joseph Baca from?"

(To answer, I’ve lived here all my life except for a couple of single-digit years I don’t remember.)

She called back and added:

"Thank you for Jerry Ortiz y Pino's encapsulation of the special session at the Legislature. It was full of information and understanding. It helped a lot. Thank you."

No no, ma’am. Thank YOU.

• Chicano v. Hispano (MiguelJose76) [ Thu Apr 22 2010 3:26 PM ]
  
• chicano vs hispano (cidvicious) [ Wed Jan 12 2011 9:49 PM ]
  
• Sticks 'n Stones (BrokenArrow) [ Fri Jan 14 2011 10:28 AM ]
  

SANTA FE—The big news today is the Hispanic Education Act. Rep. Rick Miera's HB 150 is meant to address the Hispanic achievement gap in New Mexico. It was debated extensively. It costs no money, creates an office, a council and a liaison to discuss issues facing Hispanic students, which make up 56 percent of the student population in the state. Rep Benjamin Rodefer said since there is a minority-majority, isn't the Public Education Department already the Office of Hispanic Education?

Rep. Antonio "Moe" Maestas said there isn't a force field around the state that prevents institutional racism from entering. ""We have an anglo-saxon tradition in this state. The words I'm speaking come from England," he said.

The Legislative Education Study Committee reports that 71.3 percent of caucasian students graduate and 56.2 percent of Hispanic students graduate. There's a slew of other statistics in that report that shake out that way.

A similar measure in the Senate immediately began being discussed after the House bill passed 44-25.

The Senate also debated earlier an amendment from Sen. Rod Adair to SB 137 that would give driver's licenses only to U.S. citizens. During that conversation, Sen. Eric Griego said Adair connected Mexicans to al Qaeda and that it was "blatant racism."

Follow along on our live-blog as the race conversations continue.

• legislative session 2010
• roundhouse
• education
• race
• politics

• How (FoxMcCloud) [ Thu Feb 11 2010 9:45 AM ]
  
• I obviously wasn't paying attention:( (pleiades) [ Thu Feb 11 2010 9:52 AM ]
  
• You got me (FoxMcCloud) [ Thu Feb 11 2010 10:01 AM ]