Maybe Asian people would have an easier time participating in democracy if their names weren’t so darn tricky. That was the suggestion of one Texas legislator at a hearing on a proposed voter identification law.

Though supporters argue that the legislation—which would follow similar measures in Georgia and Florida—would enhance “confidence” in the voting system, and opponents say it would chase after a nonexistent problem by disenfranchising certain poor and marginalized groups, including immigrants (who, incidentally, might be more inclined to vote Democrat).

State Rep. Betty Brown, Republican of Terrell, was miffed when a representative of the Organization of Chinese Americans warned that some voters of Asian descent would have trouble complying with the regulations because their official name translated from their native language would differ from the name used on common identification forms, such as a driver’s license. Brown commented,

No related posts.

In-state Tuition Urged for Undocumented New Jersey Immigrants
A state Senate advisory panel recommended in-state tuition for immigrant students, drivers’ licenses for immigrants and a commission dedicated to immigrant issues. Governor Jon S. Corzine said he would push state lawmakers to support the commission, making New Jersey one of few states with a commission dedicated to immigrant affairs. NewsDay

Some Californians Prefer Unaffordable Housing
A small group of 19 Mountain View residents are upset with a city proposal that would create an affordable housing project next to a newly developed condominium complex. One resident complained the city is “building a ghetto” that would decrease property values. Mountain View Voice

Students Push UC to Expand Terms of Racial Identification
A group of Middle Eastern students at UCLA are organizing to create a checkbox on the UC application for Arab identified students saying it would better represent diversity at the UC and improve research studies. Los Angeles Times

U.S. Supreme Court Upholds San Francisco Healthcare Program
The court rejected a request made by the Golden Gate Restaurant Association that would have relieved employers from contributing to the city’s healthcare program that covers 37,000 workers who would be uninsured without the program. CBS 5

Related posts:

1. Teacher Layoffs Cut Down On Diversity, and Other News (links to four news stories) Project Labor Agreements May Overlook Women, People of Color President...
2. Obama’s Unclear Line on Immigration Is Obama's appeal to a broader coalition compromising the rights...
3. The Economic Crisis Hits Binational Couples Hard Being in a same sex binational couple has always been...

By Judith Browne-Dianis, Co-Director Advancement Project

For several months, the media has been pushing the fairy tale that the United States moved beyond racism with the election of President Obama. As untrue as that is, there are people who started acting on their post-racial fantasies years ago, eight years in fact, as the Bush Administration used that excuse to essentially stop enforcing the civil rights laws we already have. President Obama and his administration have the opportunity to take dramatic steps towards dismantling institutional racism and inequality by simply enforcing the laws that are already on the books. Rather than blindness or silence, taking this action requires us to live in reality so that we can change that reality.

On November 5th, 2008, we woke up in a nation where people of color are nearly twice as likely as Whites to live near toxic waste dumps. We woke up in a nation where healthcare inequities mean that a Black child is more than twice as likely as a White child to die before age one. We woke up in a nation where Black and Latino students are more than 20 percent less likely to graduate from school than their White classmates and more than twice as likely to be arrested when they are at school. All of these disparities exist with government support or permission.

Despite these glaring inequalities, for the past eight years the federal government did nothing, living in the comfort of the post-racial fairytale. Thus, our government largely pursued a “hear no evil, see no evil” approach to structural racism and injustice. The Supreme Court has refused to “hear” the evil of discrimination through decades of narrowing discrimination protections and taking away citizens’ rights to bring their complaints to the ears of the courts. In complicity with the Court, the Bush Administration willfully refused to “see” the discrimination around the country. Although the executive branch has broad power to intervene against structural racism and injustice, it turned a blind eye and stood idly as though nothing were wrong.

Related posts:

1. Balancing Race and Gender: LDF Women Pioneers African-American women made the Civil Rights Movement possible...
2. March 21: International Day for Elimination of Racism       The global economic crisis cannot be...
3. Honoring human rights icon Carlotta Walls LaNier By D. Carene Bull Some might wonder what I, a...

 Mr. Franklin passed away on Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Related posts:

1. VIDEO: Every Human Has Rights [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yb8f_tudDI[/youtube] ...
2. VIDEO: Campaign to Ban Torture [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULehfGx2LbQ[/youtube] ...
3. VIDEO: A Measure of Our Humanity [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCCChz7X5Z4[/youtube] ...

Last week, President Obama announced his intention to address immigration reform in the next few months in a meeting with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. The statement came as a relief to many, especially with recent reports of human rights abuses within the U.S. detention system. But, as most of the President’s statements seem crafted to appeal to warring political constituencies, his actual intentions are still elusive.

Jorge Rivas of RaceWire, for one, wasn’t wholly won over by the President’s speech during a town hall meeting in California, and noted that Obama got “a little nasty.” Stressing ethnocentric arguments such as “You will learn English” while pointedly avoiding any comment on the suffering tied to the detention process makes for a poor juxtaposition:

You’ve got to..say to the undocumented workers, you have to say, look, you’ve broken the law; you didn’t come here the way you were supposed to. So this is not going to be a free ride. It’s not going to be some instant amnesty.

What’s going to happen is you are going to pay a significant fine. You are going to learn English. You are going to — you are going to go to the back of the line so that you don’t get ahead of somebody who was in Mexico City applying legally.

—March 18, President Barack Obama, Orange County, California

Perhaps his strategy is to soften opposition to migrant rights, but lines about language fuel the anti-immigration culture war. Do all immigrants have a problem with English? Or is he talking specifically about the demographic that Sheriff Joe Arpaio targets? If so, why?

President Obama is no Joe Arpaio. But, in this climate, anti-immigrant sentiment does not need to be fed. Our President is a smart and oratorically gifted man. In light of the current economic crisis, he could speak about how the current immigration crisis is tied directly to our trade practices.

Obama also spoke about joining militarily with Mexican President Calderón in efforts to stamp out the violence flaring up since his attacks against the deeply entrenched Cartel families. Democracy Now! has a roundtable discussion on the implications of further militarizing the border.

But the implications aren’t fully drawn out for the American public. In the modern world, borders do not separate families, nor commerce, nor soldiers, nor bank accounts and their owners. We need to begin addressing cross-border issues. For example, if NAFTA is supposed to help Mexico’s economy, why are Mexican farmers on tractors in the streets protesting the policy, as Michelle Chen reports. NAFTA has allowed Mexico’s corn crop to be so devalued that Mexico—the land where the plant was born roughly 5,000 years ago—now imports corn. Streams of campesinos have migrated north…where we lock them up.

Just as the economic crisis is very real to the people losing jobs, the Immigrations Customs and Enforcement (ICE) raids are very real for a large faction of America. New America Media reports on the President’s second town hall meeting in California, where immigration reform activists showed up to “remind him we’re still here,” according to Nativo Lopez, state and national president of the Mexican-American Political Association. The President did not address immigration issues at this event, however.

President Obama speaks of beefing up security on our border, but avoids the growing immigrant detention industry and the problems that accompany it. At the same time, Mexico is flooding the country and its border cities with troops. But what does all the enforcement get us?

Mother Jones covers the resurrection and subsequent destruction of one town’s economy due to ICE raids in A Year Without A Mexican:

The 389 arrests [in Postville, IA] eliminated more than one-third of the meatpacker’s workforce and nearly one-fifth of the town’s population. It also prompted an exodus of hundreds more Hispanic residents who were either afraid of being targeted or simply opted to escape the town’s inevitable tailspin. Postville’s businesses began to suffer almost immediately.

The article paints a grim picture of a warm, thriving community that is decimated. Postville is now a strange, “open-air prison,” with various residents wearing visible electronic shackles. Rowdy citizens have been bused in to fill the place of the deported workers.

The Nation highlights a documentary on detention called “The Least of These.” The video explores the T. Don Hutto Residential Facility, “a for-profit prison”, where Latin American families live in a converted prison environment. They don’t get enough sun, they don’t get enough exercse, and the children draw crayon pictures of the American flag, with tiny, fragile letters spelling out Please help us. How long should they wait?

In Up Against The Wall, RaceWire reports on the growing indications that the Obama Administration may not break with Bush policies regarding immigration. In fact, it may increase enforcement measures while siphoning money away from worker protections in the U.S.

And all this “just days after huddling with Latino members of Congress on immigration issues.” If Obama isn’t careful, he will give the Republican party a foothold to regain trust with Latino voters. I suspect that in any approach to Immigration, compromise is inevitable. But, if the Latino community feels used or betrayed by unkept promises, it could be disastrous for Democrats.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration. Visit Immigration.NewsLadder.net for a complete list of articles on immigration, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy and health issues, check out Economy.NewsLadder.net and Healthcare.NewsLadder.net. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of 50 leading independent media outlets, and was created by NewsLadder. 

Related posts:

1. Obama Administration Absent on Immigration by Nezua, TMC MediaWire Blogger President Obama is shaking up...
2. Obama Can’t Play Centrist on Immigration Crisis THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION seems quite capable of centrist positioning on...
3. President Obama Reaffirms Commitment to Immigration Reform PRESIDENT OBAMA declares at a town hall meeting that it...

Carlotta Walls LaNier

When I entered the room, a few eyes followed me. I noted that the room was full, with about 40 African-American students and a handful of other races. Waiting for the lecture to start, I wondered: what does an iconic historical figure look like in real life? The image that kept playing in my mind was the vivid black-and-white footage of the Little Rock Nine escorted by armed U.S. Army soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division up the steps of the high school amongst an angry crowd.

To be honest, that whole incident seemed so far away and long ago that it hadn’t occurred to me that the members were still alive and living amongst us as everyday people. Carlotta Walls LaNier has been living in my home state of Colorado since she moved here to attend college decades ago. When I received the email from the BLSA (I’d signed up for their distribution list) saying that Ms. LaNier would be speaking, such issues as integration and segregation seemed so far removed from my life and the present. But I recognized the amazing opportunity to learn from someone that lived through segregation in the South, the youngest girl of the Little Rock Nine, and I didn’t want to miss it.

Ms. LaNier stood in front of us, a roomful of bright-eyed, optimistic law students, a 67-year-old woman with a robust spirit. As she spoke in her smooth, steadfast voice, I could see her mixture of strength and humility. Shoveling forkfuls of the soul food into my poor, hungry law-student mouth, I listened intently to her message of education, progress, hope and resilience.

At 14 years old, Ms. LaNier had walked into the middle of the integration battle. She endured harassment from her classmates, teachers and town members until she graduated. Of the nine students integrating Little Rock Central High School, she was the only one able to participate in the official graduation ceremony proceedings.

As a child deciding to integrate the school, she simply wanted access to the best education that she could receive. Labeling herself “an old relic of history,” Ms. LaNier told us she is “ready to pass the torch to a new generation to push ahead.” She shared with us that, as a woman and mother, she tried to teach her own children to have confidence, to set goals, and to see things through to the end.

She told us that she had not expected to see an African-American president in office during her lifetime. She was, however, “amazed” by the mobilization of the youth in Denver and in the nation as we voted Barack Obama into office. She also said she hoped that by the end of the year, we would stop calling him our first African-American president and simply call him President of the United States.

Listening to Ms. LaNier, I realized that integration wasn’t as remote as I had thought. I saw that it had directly impacted me. In Keyes v. Denver School District No. 1, the U.S. Supreme Court found de facto segregation, which was considered insufficient grounds for judicial intervention, but the court asked Denver to start citywide busing to encourage racial balance.

In the very late 1970s, the school system bussed my older sisters into an inner-city elementary school, which they attended in the name of integration until the program was phased out. Later, my sisters were the only two white girls in elementary school class.  My parents always made the effort to surround us with people from a variety of backgrounds, and busing wasn’t against their ideas of inclusion.

I firmly believe that tolerance and education begin in the home, around the dinner table. My parents escaped the city when I was young because they wanted more land in the countryside. This dramatic change left my sisters feeling like outsiders, surrounded by white people for the first time since they were bussed. My sisters ardently took over supplementing my education with books and movies about Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.

In elementary school, I knew of black people only through the books I read and the movies or television shows I watched. In high school, the civil rights movement seemed to be just a paragraph in my history textbook. However, my true racial education and experience with integration did not come from the classroom, but on the basketball courts on which I played in junior high and high school.

I came of age playing with people of all racial and cultural backgrounds through my high school team and in the AAU competitive leagues. Integration came from teammates and teamwork. For the most part, I was unaware of cultural differences because we were so focused on our common goals. Hearing Ms. LaNier’s story brought the remoteness of the past into the present.

Then, one of the black law students in the audience thanked Ms. LaNier for everything she had gone through because black students today wouldn’t be where they were without the Little Rock Nine. I wanted to thank Ms. LaNier personally, too, but I felt uncomfortable raising my hand. I didn’t know how my classmates would react because they might not think it was my place to speak about how her actions have touched my life. I wanted to express my gratitude, because I cannot imagine my life without my friends, whom I consider family.

The benefits I have received from integration are liberating for me. They have opened up worlds through the voices of my friends, worlds that I would otherwise not have known. I think about the people I love that I wouldn’t be able to have by my side in a restaurant or a classroom.

I recognize the need for us to encourage more young black people to pursue higher professional education, such as law school. When I entered law school in Denver, I was shocked that there was only one black male in my entire entering class, although my school has a healthy population of Arabic, Asian, Indian, Native American and Latino students.

Carlotta Walls LaNier left us with a message that more must be done to further legal justice. She encouraged us young law students to look to Thurgood Marshall as a role model, because lawyers are the foot soldiers and watchdogs of the law to ensure that human rights are being upheld and further progressed. When she said this, she hesitated, looking at the law students sitting before her. I wondered, was she directing this message solely towards the members of the Black Law School Association? Or was it meant for everyone? It is a universal message, and part of my American identity. Which leaves me to wonder: what is my role in the future in regards to encouraging not just more diversity, but participating in each others’ lives beyond mandated quotas?

What is my place in all of this?

I am not speaking from a place of naiveté or white guilt, but as a young, aspiring white woman attorney with a genuine commitment to strengthening my nation and living my life with integrity. I think about when I finish law school and pass the Colorado Bar exam. I will have the privilege of taking the Colorado Attorney Oath of Admission before becoming sworn-in and admitted to the practice of law. In that Oath, I will have to solemnly sear that:

I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Colorado;

I will maintain the respect due to Court and judicial officers;

I will employ only such means as are consistent with truth and honor;

I will treat all persons whom I encounter through my practice of law with fairness, courtesy, respect and honesty;

I will use my knowledge of the law for the betterment of society and the improvement of the legal system;

I will never reject, from any consideration personal to myself, the cause of the defenseless or oppressed;

I will at all times faithfully and diligently adhere to the Colorado Rules of Professional Conduct.

These are words that I will be guided by throughout my life. Hopefully, all my peers will take these words to heart, too. As aspiring attorneys, we have a responsibility to our families, communities and peers to take a moment to think about how far we have progressed as a nation, and what we hope our individual roles will be in the future.

Because I did not raise my hand to address Ms. LaNier directly, now I am taking the time to thank her. In Women’s History Month, I pay tribute to you, Ms. Carlotta Walls LaNier, as a strong, black, trailblazing woman, mother, and historical icon.

Thank you, Ms. Carlotta Walls LaNier, for walking up those stairs that fateful day and seeing it through until graduation. Your courage in the past and encouragement in the present has had a profound impact on me. I am deeply grateful that I joined my fellow law students in hearing your story and for the inspiration and example that you have provided for us all.

D. Carene Bull is a law student at the University of Denver, Sturm College of Law.

Related posts:

1. December 10th is Human Rights Day Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal...
2. VIDEO: Every Human Has Rights [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yb8f_tudDI[/youtube] ...
3. TAKE ACTION: Uphold Human Rights in the Gulf Coast August 29th, 2008 marks the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina....

For centuries in this United States of America, Lady Justice has decorated our courtrooms with her presence. In one hand she carries the balanced scales which symbolize the equal distribution of justice that will be served, and in her other hand she holds a sword indicating that she has the power to inflict punishment. For me, what always stood out was the fact that she wore a blindfold. In grade school, I was taught that when it came to this goddess icon and the law, our judicial branch would ensure that justice would be distributed objectively without any bias due to an individual’s race, appearance or class.

Former NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Director-Counsel and President Theodore M. Shaw greets Kemba Smith upon her 2000 release from the Federal Women’s Prison in Danbury, Conn. where she was released, thanks to the work of her family and LDF, after serving 6.5 years of a mandatory 24.5 year sentence as a first-time non-violent drug offender.

While incarcerated, it was hard for me to fathom how keeping me imprisoned until Jan. 5, 2016, at a cost of over $25,000 a year, would make America safer. The longer I was there,the more I realized this wasn’t about keeping America safer. It was about harsh, draconian punishment. One of the hardest things I ever had to endure in my life was giving birth to my son and watching him grow up from behind a prison wall. I often wondered If I would ever be a real mother to him versus just mothering him during our prison visits.

In December 2000, after 6.5 years of efforts by my parents and legal counsel from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF)-calling powerful people, writing letters, signing petitions, and organizing my community-a miracle happened. I was released from prison. President Bill Clinton decided that an injustice had occurred and he granted me executive clemency, balancing the scales for Lady Justice, at least in my case.

When looking back, I realize that in comparison to others I have known, I realize how fortunate I was to have been released after 6 years. I realized how the gift of freedom not only changed my life, but also my family’s lives. I know that my son couldn’t imagine being in the ninth grade with his mother still incarcerated. My freedom has allowed me to experience true love and an understanding of what a healthy relationship is. My freedom will allow my mother to watch me walk down the church aisle and then afford me the opportunity to dance with my father at my wedding reception in July.

Since my release, I have often felt like a sole survivor, continuing to be the voice for those still in the struggle-for the thousands of other women and men, many of them parents like me, caught in this web of excessive, inappropriate sentences that ruin lives without reducing crime. I have spoken on panels for many criminal justice organizations and congressional forums still discussing the same old issue of the War on Drugs. Most panels consist of researchers, scholars, attorneys, and judges, with me representing “the ex-offender” affected by these laws. I do this with focused determination and ambition although at times I feel like the Lone Rider in the room because no one can truly understand the urgency for change except me and those still walking through their valleys.

Kemba Smith

For two decades, harsh mandatory minimum drug sentencing laws have fueled the federal prison population. On the state level, New York’s “Rockefeller Drug Laws,” enacted in 1973, have long been regarded as among the nations harshest and have been compared to federal drug sentencing. Elaine Bartlett, who served a 16-year sentence, and Anthony Papa, who served a 12-year sentence, are survivors like myself of senseless drug laws and have been advocating for reform since their release.

For far too long, minorities have been overly penalized for the same or similar crimes committed by their white counterparts. Numerous studies conclude that draconian drug laws disproportionately affect minorities and generally entangle first-time offenders who have no history of violence. Although drug usage, sales and trafficking are serious issues in our society, the vast majority of cases burdening our courts consist of defendants charged with simple possession and other lower-level offenses.

After more than 35 years, on March 4, the New York State General Assembly approved legislation that would repeal the Rockefeller Drug Laws and eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for first time non-violent drug offenders. As a result, this would allow judges discretion in many lower level felony drug possession crimes encouraging treatment over incarceration. Hopefully, the New York State Senate will approve this legislation to include retroactive sentencing. Re-establishing the moral force that should underlie the criminal justice system is what Lady Justice represents, continuing the progressive shift to a sensible drug policy in this country.

Kenba Smith is an advocate, public speaker and author who came to national prominence when she went from a sheltered, advantaged childhood to unknowingly becoming involved with a prominent crack cocaine dealer. Though she never actually handled any drugs, Smith was charged with trafficking 255 kilograms of crack cocaine in 1995. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund took Smith’s case pro bono in 1996.

Related posts:

1. VIDEO: Jeremy Irons talks about the death penalty [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVMho2cP1NE[/youtube] ...
2. Feingold moves for federal death penalty ban The Federal Death Penalty Abolition Act of 2009 would put...
3. Former NAACP LDF President and Director-Counsel receives NY State Bar Association Award By Lee A. Daniels The honors cascade upon Elaine R....

The successful candidacy of Barack Obama, an African American of mixed ancestry, has provoked an explosion of interest in and comment about Americans who are first-generation children born to parents of different racial or ethnic groups. This is especially so when those children have one parent who is white and one who is black.

Overwhelmingly to this point, the discussion in the media has depended on observations and assertions that are largely first-person or anecdotal. Such is not the case with Marion Kilson, who is white, and Florence Ladd, who is African American, both esteemed scholars and mothers of biracial children.

Their book, Is That Your Child? Mothers Talk About Rearing Biracial Children (Lexington Books), published last month, took the question mothers of biracial children are often asked as the foundation for a searching exploration. TheDefendersOnline asked them to discuss what they learned.  — The Editors

Our new book, Is That Your Child?: Mothers Talk About Rearing Biracial Children, is based on interviews with black and white mothers of biracial children. The book opens with our interview with each other, charts the challenges and rewards of rearing biracial children, and profiles black and white mothers with distinctive biracial parenting experiences. It concludes with suggestions for positive parenting strategies, which are relevant to all varieties of biracial combinations.

    

Ladd and Kilson

The parenting experiences of our cohort of black and white middle-class mothers span nearly five decades. In exploring the perspectives and stories of rearing biracial children, we clustered the mothers into five groups according to their children’s ages and the extent to which race is salient in their parenting. We have found that black and white women whose children are grown and have left home for the world of work and the creation of their own families confronted somewhat different parenting issues than women whose children are young and still at home. For white mothers, high awareness of racial issues has been acquired through observation, empathy, and personal encounters. Family histories and lifelong racial vigilance heightened the awareness of most, but not all, black mothers. Our fifth category is comprised of mothers, black and white, who appear to avoid race as a significant consideration in nurturing their children toward adulthood.

In recalling their parenting experiences, the racially-aware black mothers of children who are grown and have left home emphasize major societal issues and remember significant incidents rather than daily challenges. They talk of their efforts to encourage black identities in their children and their regrets for belatedly hearing their children’s untold stories. Some spoke of being welcomed by their in-laws, others of having received lifelong rejection from them. They anticipate that their grandchildren will inhabit a more multicultural world than the one in which their children grew up.

Racially-aware white women with older children have had more eclectic experiences with race than their black counterparts. Some of them bore biracial children in the 1960s, some in the mid-1980s, and most in the 1970s. Some are no longer married to the fathers of their children. Some have had work that has taken them and their families across the United States and abroad; others have lived in isolated rural communities as well as inner cities; others have spent their adult lives in affluent suburban communities. The diversity of their children’s ages, of their residential experience, and of their work histories mirrors the eclectic nature of their biracial parenting experience

Most of the racially-aware white women with older children encountered strong opposition to their interracial marriages from their natal families and many perceive that some African Americans resented their marriages to black men. They, like other mothers of biracial children, recount experiencing painful challenges to their maternal relationship to their children from strangers. These mothers emphasize their endeavors to ensure their children’s development as self-assured cosmopolitan biracial people.

Black mothers who are actively parenting children include both stay-at-home moms and professional working mothers, both suburban and urban dwellers, and both mothers of teenagers and mothers of preschoolers. While their personal life stories are quite different and their perspectives on race also vary, all these women share the perception that race matters in their lives and in the lives of their children.

These black mothers make conscious choices to build positive racial identities in their children when they consider where to live, how to select appropriate schools for their children and opt for activities that enhance their children’s self-worth.  In conversations with their children, they describe people with reference to relevant racial and ethnic attributes. They attempt to create an environment in which their children feel free to express their experiences and feelings. In short, they consider the issues that all thoughtful parents consider but with particular attention to their racial salience.

Racially-aware black women with young children at home experience the challenges and rewards of rearing biracial children in their daily lives. They confront the challenges that white blindness, racial stereotypes, and racial discrimination create for them as black women and as parents of biracial children. They also experience the rewards of assisting their children to develop as self-confident biracial Americans in a society that increasingly acknowledges their existence.

The white mothers with whom we talked who are actively parenting children include mothers of primary school students and mothers of high school and college students. They include single mothers and mothers living with their husbands and children. All have given considerable thought to fostering their children’s identities as persons of color, though they acknowledge their naiveté about black cultural and social issues. They readily acknowledge that people whom they encounter are “always trying to figure out the mystery of biracial children.”

These racially-aware white mothers with young children at home confront many of the same challenges as their black counterparts and also some distinctive ones. They, too, have the challenge of fostering positive biracial identities and confronting strained relations across the color line. They have the additional challenge of coping with their own cultural naiveté about race in the United States. Having grown up as privileged white people in the United States, they have learned about and experienced aspects of racial realities as adults. Since they acknowledge their experiential naiveté about racial matters, they tend to defer to their spouses in interpreting and strategically responding to racial issues as they parent their children.

While most of the women with whom we talked consider that nurturing racial identity and promoting self-acceptance in their children are critical aspects of their mothering, several women avoid reference to race in preparing their children for adulthood. They are loving parents who care deeply about their children’s development, but as mothers they do not focus on racial matters.

Some of these woman are African American, often light-skinned, and some are European Americans. While they may be aware of racial issues, as mothers they are reactive rather than proactive with respect to race in the lives of their children.  Neither they nor their children stress racial identity. Insulated by their socioeconomic status from some racial concerns, these mothers are nevertheless aware of the potential importance of race matters in the lives of their children.

Common Parenting Themes

Irrespective of whether a woman considers that cultivating racial awareness is significant in parenting, her children are racially ambiguous in the world outside the home where her relationship to them is likely to be challenged at one time or another. Most but not all mothers with whom we talked believe that it is important to prepare their children proactively for the vicissitudes that they may encounter around race as they mature.

These women stress the importance of providing children with multicultural experiences and relationships. Although many mentioned the importance of living in a multicultural and multiracial neighborhood where families like theirs and people of color are more common, few do. Almost without exception, the mothers with whom we talked perceive that American society is becoming more racially diverse and that future biracial generations will find social acceptance more readily than earlier ones.

White women, whether mothers of young or adult children, discussed the opposition of their natal families to their interracial marriages more often than black women. Usually, but not always, white families eventually accepted the biracial family. Yet both black women with Jewish spouses and white Jewish women more frequently experienced protracted and unrelenting familial rejection than other women. Moreover, both black and white women of older children mentioned strained social relationships from both sides of the color line.

Mothers of older children recalled that as young parents, there was a dearth of information about biracial identity and issues available to new parents and fewer institutional supports for families like theirs than there are today. Citing the increased number of interracial marriages and biracial children, the women with whom we talked are optimistic about the social acceptance of children like theirs in the twenty-first century United States-perhaps accelerated by the President Obama’s diverse extended family.

Marion Kilson is a former dean of the Graduate School at Salem State College. She has written several books and many articles on African and African-American topics, including Claiming Place: Biracial Young Adults of the Post-Civil Rights Era. Florence Ladd is a former dean of Wellesley College and director of the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College. She is the author of a novel, Sarah’s Psalm, and her essays and poems have appeared widely.

Related posts:

1. Honoring human rights icon Carlotta Walls LaNier By D. Carene Bull Some might wonder what I, a...
2. March 21: International Day for Elimination of Racism       The global economic crisis cannot be...
3. Writing the Next Chapter on Race The fairy tale of a post-racial America...

The global economic crisis cannot be successfully resolved if the solution leaves out workers who are discriminated against because of their race or ethnic origin. As unemployment rises around the world, so, too, are the incidents of racial, ethnic and gender discrimination in the workplace, according to the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). Today, on the International Day for the Elimination of Racism,  the ITUC is mobilizing its members—some 170 million workers in 157 countries—to bring attention to the need to eradicate racism in the workplace.

In today’s global economy, the ITUC says, millions of men and women are currently deprived of jobs, denied promotions or are poorly paid, harassed and intimidated because of their race or ethnic origin.

The global union movement is calling on the world’s leaders, who will meet in coming weeks at a United Nations conference on racism, to make a “solid commitment” to eliminating all forms of discrimination. The ITUC statement makes it clear governments must play a role in eliminating discrimination.

Discrimination based on color, ethnic origin, culture or religion is an insidious and changing phenomenon, difficult to quantify and to combat. Nonetheless, a show of real political will by all those concerned could lead to a world free of discrimination.

Governments must work to create decent work, jobs that pay good wages, and provide health care and retirement security and safe working environments, says ITUC General Secretary Guy Ryder:

Decent work is one of the keys to tackling the global economic and financial crisis. Racism and discrimination are incompatible with the notion of decent work.

Last year, the ITUC adopted an action plan to fight discrimination in the workplace as well as in the union movement. The plan includes integrating the fight against racism into trade union policies and raising awareness among trade union leaders to ensure equal treatment and equal rights among all workers within their own ranks. It also calls for recruiting and organizing migrant workers and workers from discriminated groups. Click here to read the entire action plan.

The International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is observed annually on March 21. On that day in 1960, police opened fire and killed 69 people at a peaceful demonstration in Sharpeville, South Africa, against the apartheid “pass laws.”

In proclaiming the day in 1966, the U.N. General Assembly called on the international community to redouble its efforts to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination.

Related posts:

1. Legal Scholars: Employee Free Choice Consistent with International Standards Opponents see bill as a "violation" of International Labor Organization...
2. March 23rd, 2009 LDF News and Media Today: A sampling of Race, Justice,...
3. TAKE ACTION – March 30: National call-in day to ban cluster bombs Call your Representative and Senators and ask them to co-sponsor...