From BlackAmericaWeb

More than two-thirds of the people serving life without parole in state and federal prisons are minorities, and three-fourths of the juveniles locked away for life are minorities, most of them black, according to a study released Wednesday by The Sentencing Project based in Washington, D.C.

The numbers reflect startling disparities in America’s justice and prison systems, the report’s authors said. They hope extensive research presented in “No Exit: The Expanding Use of Life Sentences in America” will help lead to change.

“We know that because there is a disparate representation of blacks in the prison population, they are also disproportionately represented among those receiving life sentences and life sentences without the possibility of parole,” said Ashley Nellis, one of the authors of “No Exit.”

Blacks comprise 12 percent of the general population in America, but represent 28 percent of total arrests and 38 percent of persons convicted of a felony in a state court and in state prison, the report stated.

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From UK Times

L’Oréal, the French cosmetics giant, was found guilty today of racial discrimination after the highest court in France heard that executives had sought an all-white team of sales staff to promote its shampoos.

La Cour de Cassation was told that Garnier, L’Oréal’s beauty products division, tried to keep black, Asian and Arab women from selling its Fructis shampoo in French supermarkets.

Adecco, the temporary recruitment agency whose Districom division hired the hostesses, was also found guilty of racial discrimination.

L’Oréal expressed “disappointment” over the judgment, which ends three years of legal wrangling over the discrimination claims.

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A recent report from the New York Times reveals a dark side about former President, Richard Nixon’s view on abortion especially concerning biracial children.

Nixon worried that greater access to abortions would foster “permissiveness,” and said that “it breaks the family.” But he also saw a need for abortion in some cases, such as interracial pregnancies.

“There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white,” he told an aide, before adding: “Or a rape.”

This means that Nixon would’ve believed it was necessary for Obama’s mother to have an abortion because he was the product of a black and a white.

According to the latest Gallop poll, the GOP is 90% white, and 2% Black. The Democratic Party, on the other hand is 65% white 11% hispanic and 19% Black.

Read The Gallop Poll

Many people have speculated about Egyptian Queen, Cleopatra’s background. She was famously portrayed by white actress, Elizabeth Taylor and is often pictured as a Greek or European woman. However, scientists have managed to recreate what her face would’ve looked like and she looks more like an African-American woman.

Read the Full Story in The UK Daily Mail Here

A perplexing new chapter is unfolding in Barack Obama‘s racial saga: Many people insist that “the first black president” is actually not black.

Debate over whether to call this son of a white Kansan and a black Kenyan biracial, African-American, mixed-race, half-and-half, multiracial — or, in Obama’s own words, a “mutt” — has reached a crescendo since Obama’s election shattered assumptions about race.

Obama has said, “I identify as African-American — that’s how I’m treated and that’s how I’m viewed. I’m proud of it.” In other words, the world gave Obama no choice but to be black, and he was happy to oblige.

But the world has changed since the young Obama found his place in it.

Intermarriage and the decline of racism are dissolving ancient definitions. The candidate Obama, in achieving what many thought impossible, was treated differently from previous black generations. And many white and mixed-race people now view President-elect Obama as something other than black.

So what now for racial categories born of a time when those from far-off lands were property rather than people, or enemy instead of family?

“They’re falling apart,” said Marty Favor, a Dartmouth professor of African and African-American studies and author of the book “Authentic Blackness.”

“In 1903, W.E.B. DuBois said the question of the 20th century is the question of the color line, which is a simplistic black-white thing,” said Favor, who is biracial. “This is the moment in the 21st century when we’re stepping across that.”

Rebecca Walker, a 38-year-old writer with light brown skin who is of Russian, African, Irish, Scottish and Native American descent, said she used to identify herself as “human,” which upset people of all backgrounds. So she went back to multiracial or biracial, “but only because there has yet to be a way of breaking through the need to racially identify and be identified by the culture at large.”

“Of course Obama is black. And he’s not black, too,” Walker said. “He’s white, and he’s not white, too. Obama is whatever people project onto him … he’s a lot of things, and neither of them necessarily exclude the other.”

But U.S. Rep. G. K. Butterfield, a black man who by all appearances is white, feels differently.

Butterfield, 61, grew up in a prominent black family in Wilson, N.C. Both of his parents had white forebears, “and those genes came together to produce me.” He grew up on the black side of town, led civil rights marches as a young man, and to this day goes out of his way to inform people that he is certainly not white.

Butterfield has made his choice; he says let Obama do the same.

“Obama has chosen the heritage he feels comfortable with,” he said. “His physical appearance is black. I don’t know how he could have chosen to be any other race. Let’s just say he decided to be white — people would have laughed at him.”

“You are a product of your experience. I’m a U.S. congressman, and I feel some degree of discomfort when I’m in an all-white group. We don’t have the same view of the world, our experiences have been different.”

The entire issue balances precariously on the “one-drop” rule, which sprang from the slaveowner habit of dropping by the slave quarters and producing brown babies. One drop of black blood meant that person, and his or her descendants, could never be a full citizen.

Today, the spectrum of skin tones among African-Americans — even those with two black parents — is evidence of widespread white ancestry. Also, since blacks were often light enough to pass for white, unknown numbers of white Americans today have blacks hidden in their family trees.

One book, “Black People and their Place in World History,” by Dr. Leroy Vaughn, even claims that five past presidents — Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge — had black ancestors, which would make Obama the sixth of his kind.

Mix in a few centuries’ worth of Central, South and Native Americans, plus Asians, and untold millions of today’s U.S. citizens need a DNA test to decipher their true colors. The melting pot is working.

Yet the world has never been confronted with such powerful evidence as Obama. So as soon as he was elected, the seeds of confusion began putting down roots.

“Let’s not forget that he is not only the first African-American president, but the first biracial candidate. He was raised by a single white mother,” a Fox News commentator said seven minutes after Obama was declared the winner.

“We do not have our first black president,” the author Christopher Hitchens said on the BBC program “Newsnight.” “He is not black. He is as black as he is white.”

A Doonesbury comic strip that ran the day after the election showed several soldiers celebrating.

“He’s half-white, you know,” says a white soldier.

“You must be so proud,” responds another.

Pride is the center of racial identity, and some white people seem insulted by a perception that Obama is rejecting his white mother (even though her family was a centerpiece of his campaign image-making) or baffled by the notion that someone would choose to be black instead of half-white.

“He can’t be African-American. With race, white claims 50 percent of him and black 50 percent of him. Half a loaf is better than no loaf at all,” Ron Wilson of Plantation, Fla., wrote in a letter to the Sun-Sentinel newspaper.

Attempts to whiten Obama leave a bitter taste for many African-Americans, who feel that at their moment of triumph, the rules are being changed to steal what once was deemed worthless — blackness itself.

“For some people it’s honestly confusion,” said Favor, the Dartmouth professor. “For others it’s a ploy to sort of reclaim the presidency for whiteness, as though Obama’s blackness is somehow mitigated by being biracial.”

Then there are the questions remaining from Obama’s entry into national politics, when some blacks were leery of this Hawaiian-born newcomer who did not share their history.

Linda Bob, a black schoolteacher from Eustis, Fla., said that calling Obama black when he was raised in a white family and none of his ancestors experienced slavery could cause some to ignore or forget the history of racial injustice.

“It just seems unfair to totally label him African-American without acknowledging that he was born to a white mother,” she said. “It makes you feel like he doesn’t have a class, a group.”

There is at least one group eagerly waiting for Obama to embrace them. “To me, as to increasing numbers of mixed-race people, Barack Obama is not our first black president. He is our first biracial, bicultural president … a bridge between races, a living symbol of tolerance, a signal that strict racial categories must go,” Marie Arana wrote in the Washington Post.

He’s a bridge between eras as well. The multiracial category “wasn’t there when I was growing up,” said John McWhorter, a 43-year-old fellow at the Manhattan Institute’s Center for Race and Ethnicity, who is black. “In the ’70s and the ’80s, if somebody had one white parent and one black parent, the idea was they were black and had better get used to it and develop this black identity. That’s now changing.”

Latinos, whom the census identifies as an ethnic group and not a race, were not counted separately by the government until the 1970s. After the 1990 census, many people complained that the four racial categories — white, black, Asian, and American Indian/Alaska native — did not fit them. The government then allowed people to check more than one box. (It also added a fifth category, for Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders.)

Six million people, or 2 percent of the population, now say they belong to more than one race, according to the most recent census figures. Another 19 million people, or 6 percent of the population, identify themselves as “some other race” than the five available choices.

The White House Office of Management and Budget, which oversees the census, specifically decided not to add a “multiracial” category, deeming it not a race in and of itself.

“We are in a transitional period” regarding these labels, McWhorter said. “I think that in only 20 years, the notion that there are white people and there are black people and anyone in between has some explaining to do and an identity to come up with, that will all seem very old-fashioned.”

The debate over Obama’s identity is just the latest step in a journey he unflinchingly chronicled in his memoir, “Dreams from My Father.”

As a teenager, grappling with the social separation of his white classmates, “I had no idea who my own self was,” Obama wrote.

In college in the 1970s, like millions of other dark-skinned Americans searching for self respect in a discriminatory nation, Obama found refuge in blackness. Classmates who sidestepped the label “black” in favor of “multiracial” chafed at Obama’s newfound pride: “They avoided black people,” he wrote. “It wasn’t a matter of conscious choice, necessarily, just a matter of gravitational pull, the way integration always worked, a one-way street. The minority assimilated into the dominant culture, not the other way around.”

Fast-forward 30 years, to the early stages of Obama’s presidential campaign. Minorities are on track to outnumber whites, to redefine the dominant American culture. And the black political establishment, firmly rooted in the civil rights movement, questioned whether the outsider Obama was “black enough.”

Then came the primary and general elections, when white voters were essential for victory. “Now I’m too black,” Obama joked in July before an audience of minority journalists. “There is this sense of going back and forth depending on the time of day in terms of making assessments about my candidacy.”

Today, it seems no single definition does justice to Obama — or to a nation where the revelation that Obama’s eighth cousin is Dick Cheney, the white vice president from Wyoming, caused barely a ripple in the campaign.

In his memoir, Obama says he was deeply affected by reading that Malcolm X, the black nationalist-turned-humanist, once wished his white blood could be expunged.

“Traveling down the road to self-respect my own white blood would never recede into mere abstraction,” Obama wrote. “I was left to wonder what else I would be severing if I left my mother and my grandparents at some uncharted border.”

From Kevin Drum at Mother Jones:

Blacks are often stereotyped as having lower status than whites. That won’t surprise anyone. But does it work in the other direction too?

Apparently so. The LA Times reports today on a study suggesting that people are more likely to be identified as black if their status changes for the worse.

Click here for the full report.

Being of mixed race when one parent is black and the other is white can be complicated to categorize. Because of the old “one-drop” rule, most Euro-African biracials have been categorized as Black. I agree with this generalization somewhat but it does not tell the whole story. I believe that being biracial is a category within being black or African-American. Historically, biracials have been given the same legal treatment as blacks.

Biracials have always been part of the struggle for African-American freedom. Through the struggle against slavery, the Civil Rights movement, and the global struggle for African rights.

That said, here’s a list of several Euro-African Americans who have contributed to the struggle for freedom, rights, and acceptance of African-Americans.

It’s expected nearly 75 million Americans will identify with more than one
race by 2050. It’s a powerful new force that cannot be ignored.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is canceling nearly all his campaign events Thursday and Friday to visit his suddenly gravely ill 85-year-old grandmother in Hawaii, a spokesman said.

Robert Gibbs told reporters aboard Obama’s plane that Madelyn Payne Dunham, who helped raise Obama, was released from the hospital late last week. But he said her health had deteriorated “to the point where her situation is very serious.”

Events originally planned for Madison, Wis., and Des Moines, Iowa, on Thursday will be replaced by one in Indianapolis before he makes the long flight to Hawaii. On Friday, Obama’s wife, Michelle, will sub for Obama at rallies in Akron and Columbus, in Ohio, said campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki. Obama was expected to resume campaigning on Saturday, at an undecided location in the West, she said.

“Sen. Obama’s grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has always been one of the most important people in his life, along with his mother and his grandfather,” Gibbs said. “Recently his grandmother has become ill and in the last few weeks her health has deteriorated to the point where her situation is very serious. It is for that reason that Sen. Obama has decided to change his schedule on Thursday and Friday so that he can see her and spend some time with her.”

Citing the family’s desire for privacy, Gibbs would not discuss the nature of Dunham’s illness. It seemed likely that she was close to death, as Gibbs said that “everyone understands the decision that Sen. Obama is making.” Dunham turns 86 on Sunday.

It could be a momentous one in his bid for the White House against Republican John McCain, with Election Day just two weeks away on Nov. 4.

In a campaign ad this year, Obama described his Dunham as the daughter of a Midwest oil company clerk who “taught me values straight from the Kansas heartland” — things like “accountability and self-reliance. Love of country. Working hard without making excuses. Treating your neighbor as you’d like to be treated.”

She’s also the “white grandmother” he referred to in a speech on race.

Obama recognized Dunham when he accepted the Democratic presidential nomination at the party’s convention in Denver.

“She’s the one who taught me about hard work. She’s the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured everything she had into me. And although she can no longer travel, I know that she’s watching tonight, and that tonight is her night as well,” he said.

Since the nation’s birth, Americans have discussed race and avoided it, organized neighborhoods and political movements around it, and used it to divide and hurt people even as relations have improved dramatically since the days of slavery, Reconstruction and legal segregation.

Now, in what could be a historic year for a black presidential candidate, a new Associated Press-Yahoo! News poll, conducted with Stanford University, shows just how wide a gap remains between whites and blacks.

It shows that a substantial portion of white Americans still harbor negative feelings toward blacks. It shows that blacks and whites disagree tremendously on how much racial prejudice exists, whose fault it is and how much influence blacks have in politics.

One result is that Barack Obama’s path to the presidency is steeper than it would be if he were white.

Until now, social scientists have not closely examined racial sentiments on a nationwide scale at a moment when race is central to choosing the next president. The poll, which featured a large sample of Americans — more than 2,200 — and sophisticated survey techniques rarely used in media surveys, reflected the complexity, change and occasional contradictions of race relations.

More whites apply positive attributes to blacks than negative ones, and blacks are even more generous in their descriptions of whites. Racial prejudice is lower among college-educated whites living outside the South. And many whites who think most blacks are somewhat lazy, violent or boastful are willing or even eager to vote for Obama over Republican John McCain, who is white.

The poll, however, shows that blacks and whites see racial discrimination in starkly different terms. When asked “how much discrimination against blacks” exists, 10 percent of whites said “a lot” and 45 percent said “some.”

Among blacks, 57 percent said “a lot” and all but a fraction of the rest said “some.”

Asked how much of America’s existing racial tension is created by blacks, more than one-third of white respondents said “most” or “all,” and 9 percent said “not much.” Only 3 percent of blacks said “most” or “all,” while half said “not much at all.”

Nearly three-fourths of blacks said white people have too much influence in American politics. Only 12 percent of whites agreed. Almost three times as many blacks as whites said blacks have too little influence.

Far more blacks than whites say government officials “usually pay less attention to a request or complaint from a black person than a white person.”

One in five whites have felt admiration for blacks “very” or “extremely” often. Seventy percent of blacks have felt the same about whites.

The poll may surprise those who thought Obama’s appeal to young voters proves Americans in their 20s and 30s are clearly less racially biased than their parents. The survey found no meaningful differences among age groups in whites’ perceptions of blacks, although older whites appear more likely to discuss their views.

Some findings fall into the glass half-empty or half-full category. One-fourth of white Democrats ascribed at least two negative attributes to blacks. But two-thirds of those Democrats said they will vote for Obama.

That finding alone could nourish a debate about how much harm is done by racial prejudices that seem to have modest influence on how people behave.

Kelly Edmondson, 34, of Cincinnati, is a white Democrat enthusiastic about backing Obama. The country needs a new direction, she said, and “I feel like he can reach a lot of people.”

She cares for her two sets of young twins during the day and teaches college at night; most of her students are black. In the survey, Edmondson said positive words such as “hardworking” and “intelligent” describe most blacks “very well.” She said a few negative traits, such as “lazy” and “irresponsible,” apply “somewhat well” to most blacks.

In a telephone interview, Edmondson said those attributes apply equally to all races. She fretted that some of her fellow Ohioans might be less candid, privately planning to vote for McCain when they publicly say they are “on the fence.”

“I worry about that,” she said.

Polls consistently show Obama running about even with McCain, or leading by a notably smaller margin than the one Democrats enjoy over Republicans in most generic surveys about which party is best suited to govern.

The AP-Yahoo News poll suggests that racial prejudice could cost Obama up to 6 percentage points this fall. That’s a big hurdle in a nation whose last two presidential elections were decided by much smaller margins.

Charles Crozier, 73, of Marietta, Ga., said he is a “quasi-independent” Democrat who is undecided on the presidential contest. He likes McCain on energy issues, including his call for more nuclear energy. But he prefers Obama’s stands on economic issues.

Crozier, who is white, said race is not a factor in his thinking. He said he’s not sure “how much of an issue it is for (other) people” in his community. It frustrates him to hear people incorrectly state that Obama (who is Christian) is a Muslim because they read it on the Internet.

“I’m old enough to know a lie repeated often enough becomes the truth,” Crozier said. “You can’t change their minds.”

Racial progress in America is undeniable on many fronts. But millions of white and black Americans still barely interact at all, bringing the very term “race relations” into question.

“There’s still a lot of estrangement out there” between the races, said David Bositis, who writes about racial matters at the Washington-based Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. “There’s still an enormous amount of segregation.”

Even with sophisticated polls, it’s hard to measure the progress, or lack of progress, in race relations.

“The prior forms of racism, with hindsight, were relatively easy to deal with,” said Kenneth O’Reilly, who has written books on racial politics and now teaches history at Milwaukee Area Technical College. He cited slavery, lynchings and legal and de facto segregation.

Now, he said, racial prejudices and grievances are more subtle. “If you ask 100 people what is the main color line problem today,” he said, “you get 100 answers.”

The AP-Yahoo News poll of 2,227 adults was conducted Aug. 27-Sept. 5, and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points. It was designed to plumb people’s racial attitudes, and particularly how those attitudes affect voting.

The survey used the unique methodology of Knowledge Networks, of Menlo Park, Calif., including questions about how well words like “friendly” or “violent” describe blacks; having respondents type sensitive answers into computers, which tends to make them more honest; and using brief flashes of faces of people of different races to detect that people may not be aware they have.

Stanford University political scientist Paul Sniderman said that in today’s society, racial prejudice “is a deep challenge, and it’s one that Americans in general, and for that matter, political scientists, just haven’t been ready to acknowledge fully.”

For minority candidates such as Obama, he said, “there’s a penalty for prejudice, and it’s not trivial.” If the presidential contest remains close, he said, racial prejudice “might be enough to tip the election.”