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RECENT STORIES

• Victory! Mississippi Governor Says He'll Veto License Plate Honoring KKK Founder
  by Carl Chancellor · February 22, 2011 · HUMAN RIGHTS
  Over the weekend we reported about Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour's refusal to denounce a proposal to honor Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, a co-founder of the Ku Klux Klan infamous for leading his rebels in a massacre of black Union soldiers, with an official Mississippi license plate.
  After more than a week of side stepping the issue and telling the state NAACP and others that he would not denounce the notion of recognizing the racist confederate general, the governor, who has presidential aspirations, seems to have felt the political heat and yesterday stated for the first-time that he would veto any measure that seeks to honor General Forrest.
  Yes!
  
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• Tell Gov. Barbour Honoring Founder of KKK is Bad Idea
  by Carl Chancellor · February 21, 2011 · HUMAN RIGHTS
  Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest was a traitor, a racist, and some say, a murderer--basically the trifecta of despicability.
  Yet, despite this man's heinous history and outrageous character flaws,  Mississippi is seriously considering issuing an official state license plate in his honor.
  Hell, while they're at it, Mississippi officials might as well crank out  state license tags honoring Osama bin Laden or Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.
  The plates, including the one for Forrest, could be marketed as the state's homage to terrorists.
  
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• Birmingham Schools Mace Students, Bull Connor Would Be Proud
  by Carl Chancellor · February 16, 2011 · HUMAN RIGHTS
  In the early 1960s America was shocked by images of Birmingham, Alabama's notorious and bigoted Police Commissioner Theophilus Eugene 'Bull' Connor turning water hoses and dogs on school students to keep them in line. While Birmingham and the rest of the nation has progressed mightily in the ensuing 50 years, Birmingham school students are still under assault by that city's police.
  We've reported recently on a lawsuit filed in December by the Southern Poverty Law Center against the Birmingham Board of Education, School Superintendent Craig Witherspoon, Birmingham Police Chief A.C. Roper and other officials asking that the federal court step in and put a stop to the use of "chemical weapons" - pepper spray - on students as a means of basic school discipline.
  When I contacted the school district in early January about the lawsuit, school officials had no response. But just days ago the school board's lawyer told local press that it is the board's position that it "has no federal constitutional duty to protect students' safety from the actions of third parties." By third parties, the lawyer means the police officers who patrol school hallways as school resource officers.
  No duty to protect students' safety?
  
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• The Hawkeye State Swoops Down to Snatch Back Voting Rights From Ex-Felons
  by Carl Chancellor · January 23, 2011 · HUMAN RIGHTS
  It seems that Iowa's newly elected Republican Governor, Terry Branstad, couldn't wait to disenfranchise an entire class of Iowa voters.
  Just hours after being sworn into office earlier this month, Branstad wasted no time in turning back the legislative clock and issuing an Executive Order that snatched away hard-won voting rights from ex-felons.
  So much for Iowa living up to its state motto: "Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain." Clearly, in the Hawkeye State the terms "our" and "we" don't encompass the formerly incarcerated.
  Branstad's Executive Order 70 rescinds a 2005 law that removed the requirement that individuals convicted of a felony or aggravated misdemeanor apply to the governor's office to have their right to vote restored once they completed their sentences, probation and parole.
  Prior to former Gov. Tom Vilksack signing an order restoring voting rights to some 80,000 ex-felons on July 4, 2005 - a day Vilsack called "a celebration of democracy" - an ex-felon had to petition for a restoration of his or her voting rights. It was a time consuming process that required intervention from the governor's office, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, and the parole board. Routinely, many of those petition requests were denied with a disproportionate number of the denials being rendered against minorities.
  Now it's back to the "good old" days in Iowa.
  
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• Put Down The Clippers and Step Away From The Shave Cream, Now!
  by Carl Chancellor · January 12, 2011 · HUMAN RIGHTS
  The epicenter of crime in the black community, at least according to the Orange County Florida Sheriff's Department, is the neighborhood barbershop.
  I guess anytime there is a group of more than two or three black men gathered in one place, brandishing weapons - in this case, hair clippers and scissors - and with a commonality of purpose - getting a little taken off the top - it all adds up to criminal activity.
  Last year, more than a dozen Orange County deputies, all heavily armed,  stormed nine neighborhood barbershops in Pine Hills, Florida, an unincorporated area just outside of Orlando,  in a series of raids aimed at uncovering criminal activity. To their credit the deputies did make a total of 37 arrests, although 34 of those arrested were charged with heinous crime of "barbering without a license," which in the state of Florida, and probably everywhere else for that matter, is a misdemeanor.
  To make matters even worse, the raids were conducted without warrants. Why bother with going before a judge to show probable cause that a crime is being committed? The heck with the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures! Instead just do like the Orange County Sheriff's department and tag along with inspectors from the Florida Department of Professional Regulation who have the authority to enter barbershops and hair salons to check for licensing violations.
  Those arrested during the raids were taken out in handcuffs and transported to the county jail.
  
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• NYC Cabbies Label Blacks and Latinos: Persona Non Grata
  by Carl Chancellor · December 17, 2010 · HUMAN RIGHTS
  If you're black or Latino and you're planning on traveling in New York City, I suggest you fill your pockets with lots of subway and bus tokens because you're going to find hailing a cab next to impossible.
  The fact that it is frustratingly hard to get a NYC cab to stop for you if you are a person of color comes as no surprise. But this already next-to-impossible task just got that much more difficult thanks to Fernando Mateo, head of the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers.
  Mateo has taken to every microphone he can find to urge NYC hacks to "racial profile" a potential fare before deciding to pick-up a passenger: "You know, sometimes it is good we are racially profiled, because the God's honest truth is that 99 percent of the people that are robbing, stealing, killing these drivers are blacks and Hispanics," said Mateo, who himself is of Hispanic and African-American heritage.
  Mateo, a New York gadfly who seems to insert himself regularly in controversial situations, made his statement shortly after the shooting of a Queen's taxi driver. Soon after making his comments, Mateo (also the president of Hispanics Across America which like his Taxi Federation has a disconnected phone number) was quickly rebuked by civic leaders and city officials, including NYC's Taxi and Limousine commissioner David Yassky: "Choosing which passengers to serve on the basis of race is illegal, downright wrong and simply unacceptable," said Yassky.
  
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• Connecticut Skating Rink Rolls Over Muslim Women's Rights
  by Carl Chancellor · December 02, 2010 · HUMAN RIGHTS
  The owners of a Connecticut roller skating rink aren't apologizing for equating the traditional headscarf worn by many Muslim women to a Do-rag.
  Apparently the owners of Ron-A-Roll skating rink in Vernon, CT don't understand the difference between a stupid fashion choice (Do-rag) and an outward expression of one's religious beliefs (hijab)... Or maybe they do, which is an altogether different and much more serious problem.
  A little more than a week ago two Muslim women were informed by the manager of the Ron-A-Roll roller skating rink that they would be barred from skating if they insisted on wearing their hijabs. When the women tried explain to the manager that the hijab was part of their religious observance the manager still refused to accommodate them.
  Ron-A-Roll's manager insisted that he was simply following the rink's dress code policy, which in addition to prohibiting muscle shirts and overly baggy or sagging pants, also bans an assortment of head wear including hats, caps, wave caps and Do-rags. According to news accounts, the rink manager said if the women wouldn't remove their headscarves they would have to wear helmets, ostensibly because of safety concerns.
  
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• If You're Black in Philly, Every Day is a TSA Day
  by Carl Chancellor · November 29, 2010 · HUMAN RIGHTS
  Why all the furor and consternation about the government sanctioned group grope playing out in our nation's airports this Thanksgiving season?
  Okay, I'll admit the prospect of having a blue uniformed minion of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) feeling me up - the so-called "enhanced pat-down" - isn't something I find appealing.  Still, it isn't an indignity that any of us has to put up with day in and day out.
  If you are an African-American like me, however, and you happen to live in Philadelphia or in an ever growing list of US cities, having to possibly endure the humiliation of being singled-out, pulled aside and frisked is a daily concern.
  Of course the uniformed authority behind these invasive and dehumanizing body pat-down security screens isn't the TSA but local police. Worse yet, this type of civil rights violating affront is not confined to just the airport, where at least the reasoning behind the searches (to guard against terrorists) is clear and where everyone is subjected to basically the same treatment. No, the security screening measures I'm speaking of are being conducted on the streets of cities like Philadelphia.
  Further, unlike the understandably disgruntled  folks who believe the airport invasion of privacy is an outrage, black folks in Philly don't have the option of opting out. If you're black or Latino and walking down a Philadelphia street, you're fair game.
  
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• Jimmy Mack Tells it Like it Is: Rent Is Too Damn High
  by Carl Chancellor · October 29, 2010 · ECONOMIC JUSTICE
  If I lived in New York, I know who would get my vote for governor. That's right, I'd put a big fat check mark next to the name of Jimmy McMillan.
  Admittedly, given his appearance it is easy to dismiss this Vietnam veteran and his political aspirations as being crazy, far-out and as outlandish as his ultra-stylized facial hair and omnipresent black gloves, but there is no denying that Jimmy McMillan is 100 percent dead on the mark when it comes to the main (and basically the only) plank of his political platform: Rent Is Too Damn High.
  Jimmy stole the show — the New York gubernatorial debate held Oct. 18 that featured the seven candidates vying for the state's top elected office, including front runners Republican Carl Paladino and Democrat Andrew Cuomo. Staring out from an explosion of white hair, Jimmy looked straight into the cameras and told it like it is, (say it with me) — "Rent Is Too Damn High."
  For those who would choose to disregard Jimmy McMillan and write him off as a sideshow act and chalk-up his candidacy as Looney Tunes venture, I would refer them to an old saw that proclaims, "Even a broken clock is right twice a day." Yes, Brother Jimmy might be a little cracked, but like my grandmother used to say when she wanted to underscore the absolute correctness of a statement — "He ain't never lied."
  The state of New York, however, isn't alone when it comes to its failure to provide rental units people can afford. A new study (pdf) just released by the Census Bureau found that a majority of U.S. renters, nearly 52 percent, lived in unaffordable housing in 2009. According to housing experts, for housing to be considered affordable a family should pay no more than 30 percent of its annual income toward rent.
  However, the reality is that more than 18.5 million renters spent more that 30 percent of their income on rent and utilities last year. That's up from 17.4 million in 2008. The trend is expected to continues its upward trajectory as rents continue to rise and incomes decline.
  
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• He's Juan and There Are Millions More
  by Carl Chancellor · October 25, 2010 · HUMAN RIGHTS
  As is usually the case when it comes to talking about racism, folks have the tendency to quickly change the subject, and I find that infuriating.
  There has certainly been more than enough talk about the bigoted, anti-Muslim remarks made by Juan Williams, words which lead to the veteran newsman getting swiftly canned by National Public Radio (NPR) and just as quickly, generously rewarded by Fox News.
  Unfortunately the talk hasn't been about what Williams said, but about what happened to him for saying what he said.
  Somehow the subject quickly shifted from being about Williams'  racist statement, to a discussion about whether or not Williams was a victim.
  Before I go any further I want to establish the following fact: When a person says that "when I get on a plane and see people dressed in Muslim garb, and they identify themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried, I get nervous" — that person is admitting to prejudice.
  Juan Williams is prejudiced against individuals he considers, based solely on their appearance, to be Muslims.
  Still need more proof?
  Any time someone prefaces a stupid statement by declaring that they aren't  something: Like — "I'm not a racists, but..."; or "I'm not sexist, but..."; or in Juan Williams case, "I'm not a bigot, but..." —you can take it to the bank that they are exactly what they claim not to be.
  
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• Fight Against Poverty Going in the Wrong Direction, Says Crusading Priest
  by Carl Chancellor · October 12, 2010 · ECONOMIC JUSTICE
  The truth that you can't ignore when you bike across America, as Father Matthew Ruhl has just done, is this: poverty impacts every community.
  "There is no place in the country devoid of poverty," says Father Matt, who was one of 12 cyclists to complete a 100-day, 5,052-mile ride last month from Cape Flattery, Washington to Key West, Florida. The pastor of St. Francis Xavier Church in Kansas City, Missouri says he undertook his nationwide pedaling spree to raise awareness about poverty and poverty-related issues.
  We previously wrote about Father Matt when the Jesuit priest was in the midst of his epic bike ride, which he completed on Sept. 5. I gave him a couple of weeks to recover before speaking to him recently by phone.
  "[Fighting poverty] is my personal calling. As a Catholic priest I have an obligation to uphold the standards of the Gospel," says Ruhl. He says it is his sacred duty, and the duty of all Christians, to "love our neighbors" and do all we can to bring them "out of poverty" and need.
  It was clear during our conversation that Ruhl is upset that "people aren't paying enough attention to the issue of poverty" even though it is a constant that surrounds us. He says Americans are too easily "diverted" and are failing to "open their eyes" to focus on an issue that is steadily growing.
  "When we started planning for this ride [last year] the poverty rate stood at around 38 million. When we embarked on the ride [on Memorial Day] it was about 40 million. When we finished there were 43.6 million people living in poverty ... We are definitely going the wrong way," he observed, referring to the once solidly middle- and working-class families who have fallen into poverty thanks to the stubbornly enduring Great Recession.
  
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• Stop Kicking Black Students to the Curb
  by Carl Chancellor · September 19, 2010 · HUMAN RIGHTS
  Why are we still throwing black kids out of school like there’s no tomorrow?
  A recent study conducted by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) of more than 9,000 middle schools found that African-American boys are three times more likely to be suspended than their white male classmates, while African-American girls are suspended at four times the rate of white girls.
  Further, the study -- Suspended Education: Urban Middle School Crisis -- revealed that in 175 middle schools an unbelievable one-third -- that's right, 1 in 3 -- of black male students were suspended at least once during a school year.
  The study noted that there is "no evidence that racial disparities in school discipline are the results of higher rates of disruption among black students."
  It's obvious that there is significant racial bias going into school suspension decisions.
  Of course the disproportionate suspension rate among African-American students is nothing new. There is a long documented history of disparate punishment of black students in our schools.  However this latest study points to a dramatic rise in the suspension of black children. According to the study, the gap between suspension rates for blacks and whites has tripled, from about three percentage points in 1970 to over 10 percentage points today.
  Being physically removed from school carries with it many risks for both students and society.  When students are suspended from school and are at home unsupervised, they are more likely to become involved in harmful "high risk behaviors." It should come as no surprise that left to their own devices, kids are more prone to use drugs and alcohol, engage in sexual intercourse and get caught up  in an array of potentially self-destructive behaviors, including criminal activity. Critics blame suspensions for pushing students into what they term the "school-to-prison pipeline."
  The SPLC  suspension study specifically focused on middle schools because of the demonstrated link between middle school success and future success in and outside of school. The study suggests that "suspension at the middle school level may have long-term repercussions," which I take to mean, middle school is where a student's trajectory is set for good or bad.
  Unfortunately, suspension rates aren't often addressed in discussions about improving our schools and the education of our children. That's a glaring oversight.
  Why are suspension rates for black students skyrocketing?
  One reason is the move by nearly all school districts to a "zero tolerance" discipline policy in the wake of the Columbine school shootings. Often the most minor of  infractions can lead to a suspension -- more than 3.3 million annually, which are disproportionally meted out to black students. Unruly acts like using profanity, being disruptive in class, talking back,  pushing and shoving -- behavior  that used to warrant a trip to the principal's office or detention, now result in automatic suspension.  It's ironic that the tragedy at Columbine, a predominantly all-white school, has had such a negative impact on African-American kids.
  Another major factor to consider, as highlighted by the SPLC study, is that on average 20 percent of the teachers represent nearly 80 percent of a school's suspension rate.
  What is going on with this handful of teachers? That's obviously the question school administrators should be asking. It needs to be determined if these teachers are unduly stressed by large class sizes; have trouble relating to African-American students; or are dealing with some personal demons that's causing them to possible act out inappropriately toward their students.  Clearly, when a small population of teachers is generating such a large number of suspensions, the fault isn't exclusively with the student.
  It's time for schools to scrap outdated and unproven "zero tolerance policies" that have shown no evidence of making schools safer. It's time for school administrators to follow in the steps of school districts like Baltimore, which have revamped the discipline code and instituted peer mediation, in-school monitoring and intervention programs that have seen suspension rates drop by 39 percent.
  The plain fact is, kids can’t learn if they aren’t in school. If the main goal of schools is to educate kids, punishing them by excluding them from school is counterproductive.
  Photo credit: Steelight
  
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• Partying Like Its 1859
  by Carl Chancellor · September 18, 2010 · HUMAN RIGHTS
  Way down south in the land of cotton it's clear that  "old times there ain't forgotten," particularly if you're  State  Sen. Glenn McConnell,  leader of the South Carolina GOP.
  A  picture of McConnell in a Confederate general's uniform with two blacks in historically accurate antebellum attire, taken at a party hosted by the South Carolina Federation of Republican Women,  has ignited rumblings across the blogosphere louder than the cannon barrage on Fort Sumpter that sparked the Civil War.
  According to Fitsnews, which first broke the story and shared the "gotcha" photos, neither McConnell nor the GOP ladies feel remorse or embarrassment over the incident.  As a matter of fact the GOP women who put on the "Southern Experience" shindig proudly said the event allowed party goers to "get a taste" of the beauty, heritage and culture of South Carolina.
  
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• Don't Get It Twisted, Glenn Beck Is No MLK
  by Carl Chancellor · September 03, 2010 · HUMAN RIGHTS
  I still haven't quite figured out what to make of Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally, which is why it has taken me so long to post my thoughts about the event.
  Initially, my plan was to immediately vent my outrage over Beckfest, since I was sure I would have plenty of easy and very nasty targets to pillory.
  However, from the television snippets of the rally I watched on the day of the event and the news reports I read subsequently,  Beckstock wasn't the over the top,  in your face,  race-baiting,  Obama-hating,  don't tread on me, right-wing political orgy I and many others had expected.
  Still, I'm at a loss to accurately describe the Beck rally, or explain exactly what it was attempting to accomplish.  The nearest I can come is to call it a Holy Ghost tent revival meeting on steroids, spreading a "take our country back" gospel bankrolled by the ultra-right wing, billionaire Koch brothers.
  While I don't know exactly what Beck's mass gathering was, I do know what it wasn't, which is to say -- it fell far short of being the second coming of the 1963 March on Washington as touted by Beck and others.
  Sure Beck, he of the uber-ego and the nutty socialism, communism, Kenyan revenge theories,  would have you believe his rally in Washington at the end of August mirrored in intent and purpose that  iconic march of 47 years earlier. He even went so far as to suggest that he and his supporters were  taking up where Martin Luther King Jr. left off and were  laying claim to the mantle of the civil rights movement.  But I'm here to tell you people: Don't drink the Kool-Aid.
  Glenn Beck has a dream alright and it has nothing to do with brotherhood, equality or compassion for your fellow man.
  
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• Poverty Makes Motherhood a Depressing Experience
  by Carl Chancellor · August 31, 2010 · ECONOMIC JUSTICE
  Putting a new and sobering twist on baby mama drama, a recently-released study indicates that more than half of poor babies have mothers who are suffering from depression.
  While that's disturbing news for babies, since having a depressed mom can interfere with parenting and negatively impact a child's development, it's not necessarily surprising.
  It doesn't take a Ph.D to understand that child-rearing is tough under any circumstances and therefore raising a kid, particularly a totally dependent infant, on an extremely limited income has to be stressful. When you are a mother living in poverty and have no idea how you are going to feed, clothe and shelter yourself, let alone your baby, the stress you're under can quickly slip over into serious depression.
  Still, I doesn't hurt to quantify anecdotal observations.
  According to the study, conducted by the Urban Institute, 55 percent of infants living at or below the poverty level are being raised by moms showing signs of mild to severe depression. "A mom who is too sad to get up in the morning won't be able to take care of all of her child's practical needs," said the Institute's Olivia Golden in the Washington Post.
  In addition, the study, which followed 14,000 infants and their mothers, finds that at least one in nine infants born in poverty are being raised by mothers suffering from symptoms of severe depression.
  Golden and her research team note that a severely depressed mother who is "not able to take joy in her child" is unlikely to talk to or play with her child. That sort of mother and infant interaction is key to a baby's successful development.
  
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• Run for Your Life — It's the Terror Babies
  by Carl Chancellor · August 17, 2010 · HUMAN RIGHTS
  Don’t let those chubby cheeks or that toothless angelic grin fool you. While you're naively cooing goo goo ga ga, that cuddly, cherubic infant before you could be plotting America’s demise.
  After all, do you really know what that baby is hiding in his or her Pamper?
  Hey, I’m just saying. I mean, we already had the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber. So why not a diaper of mass destruction?
  I see that you’re still skeptical. That's because your thinking is stuck in the past. You see, we’re not talking about  the babies you and I grew up with — the angelic Gerber Baby, or the wholesome Ivory Snow Baby. No, what we are dealing with today, in 2000 freaking 10 — is an entirely new breed of baby, a sinister and nefarious type of newborn beyond comprehension.  I’m talking about a crawling assassin, a demon in diapers, a pacifier-sucking saboteur.  I’m talking about..."anchor babies" (shrieks, screams, scary music).
  Don’t take my word for it. Some of the most influential, but not necessarily rational, voices in the country, folks like U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) and his fellow Texas Republican, State Rep. Debbie Riddle, are sounding the "anchor baby" alarm as well.
  Here's the gist of  their argument, what I like to refer to as the Binnie (Laden) Babies Conspiracy. According to Gohmert, at this very moment, pregnant (Muslim) women are traveling to the U.S. on tourist visas for the sole purpose of giving birth on American soil. The Congressman claims these foreign mothers are using the Constitution — specifically, the 14th Amendment, which makes all persons born in this country U.S. citizens — to build a diabolical plot.
  Gohmert, who is a member of the Tea Party Caucus in Congress,  says these visiting Muslim moms, with newly minted American babies in tow, are returning to their homes in the Middle East where these "anchor babies" are being instructed in radical Islam. After training these babies for 20 years or more to become terrorists, they'll return to the U.S. to carry out acts of violence and dastardly deeds against America and Americans. Simple, right?
  
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• Affordable Housing Nears Extinction in D.C.
  by Carl Chancellor · August 10, 2010 · ECONOMIC JUSTICE
  The makeshift shelter — a hurriedly constructed A-frame of 2x4s covered by a heavy plastic tarp — is a far cry from the glistening glass and brick eight-story apartment and retail complex that was supposed to be sitting on this Washington D.C. corner. Ron Harris couldn't be happier.
  "They weren't giving us what was promised," says Harris of the proposed apartment complex that was to be an answer to the city's affordable housing problem. In July, Harris, a community activist  joined with a dozen others to occupy a rock-strewn patch of dirt at the corner of 7th and Rhode Island Avenue N.W. known as Parcel 42. Harris and a handful of other protesters, who are now living in a tent city erected on the parcel, are determined to compel the city to make good on its commitment to build affordable housing in the Shaw neighborhood of Washington, D.C. (End Homelessness blogger Eric Sheptock is one of the tent city's founders. Also be sure to check out his posts from inside the tent city.)
  As angry clouds threatening a downpour periodically spit heavy drops of rain that thud loudly on the tarp above our heads, Harris tells me that ground was to have been broken last year on a 100-unit subsidized apartment complex that would offer housing for families making between $25,000 and $50,000 a year. However, since the Parcel 42 plan was first announced in 2007, the scope and direction of the project has gone through a number of changes, none of them acceptable to Harris or to community groups like ONE DC (Organizing Neighborhood Equity), Take Back the Land or the People's Property Campaign of Empower DC.
  Sitting at a conference table of sorts, which is an old wooden door with brass knob still place, turned up on four cinder blocks, Harris says the project has been significantly scaled back. Instead of providing 100 units of housing, the new plan is for 94 units, but most egregious is that there will no longer be tiered rents for households making 20 percent and 30 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI).
  "Now, the developers only want people making at least 50 percent of the AMI, which is around $53,000 a year. That's not low-income to me," Harris says.
  
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• Why We Should Eliminate the R-Word
  by Carl Chancellor · July 28, 2010 · HUMAN RIGHTS
  Carl Chancellor, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has been writing about social justice issues for decades, is a columnist for Change.org.
  It was a Steve Urkel moment of monumental proportions for the President, his administration, the USDA and the NAACP.
  I'm speaking, of course, of the ham-fisted apologies offered to Shirley Sherrod — the recently fired USDA director — by the aforementioned after they each took turns throwing her under the bus.
  In giving their separate expressions of regret, they each should have been accompanied by a video clip of nerdy, suspender-wearing Urkel uttering his trademark line — "Did I do that?"
  The answer, sadly, is: "Yes, they did."
  Why was the administration so willing to rush headlong to condemn and punish Sherrod before  knowing the entire story? Why was there an unquestioning willingness to believe the worst about Sherrod, particularly given the background of those accusing her of being racist? Knowing the unethical history of right-wing blogger Andrew Breitbart and the unabashed political agenda of Fox News, you'd think even a half-rational person would pause to consider the source.
  But as we already know, that didn't happen, and in the process, a good woman was nearly destroyed.
  That's because once the word "racist" gets tossed around, reasonably intelligent people lose their minds and go off half-cocked. Calling someone a racist is akin to lobbing a live grenade into a crowded room — it sends everyone in the vicinity scurrying in a panic toward the nearest exit in a frantic attempt to distance themselves from such an accusation, and damn anyone who gets in the way.
  
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• GOP Attacks Thurgood Marshall: Can't A Brotha Catch A Break?
  by Carl Chancellor · July 06, 2010 · HUMAN RIGHTS
  Okay, I guess I’m a slow learner, but I finally get it: the GOP ain’t feeling black folk — nor brown, gay, or unemployed people for that matter.
  However, for the purposes of this post, let’s limit the conversation to Congressional Republicans’ obvious disregard (bordering on callousness) for people of the African-American persuasion — an attitude that was on full display during Elena Kagan’s confirmation hearings.
  The target of the GOP’s ire this time (drum roll) — the esteemed Supreme Court Justice and legal giant Thurgood Marshall, who is just the sort of easy target they would attack, since he’s been dead for 20 years and isn’t around to defend himself.
  Clearly, the goal was to tarnish Kagan’s image, a la Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers, by playing up her connection — "guilt by association" — with the late Justice. I have to give to Kagan — she didn’t mumble when she  proclaimed that she was proud to have clerked for Marshall in the late 1980s, and considered him one of her "legal heroes."
  I also have to give it to the Republicans, because I never saw this one coming.
  According to several media accounts, GOP senators invoked the name of Marshall 35 times during the first day of Kagan's hearings. Every chance they had, they painted Marshall as an "activist jurist." Fumed about him being a raving "liberal." And accused him of dissing the Founding Fathers — you know, the guys who took time out from walking on water and multiplying loaves of bread and fish to found the country and pen the Constitution.
  
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• For Poor Students, Role Models Are Key to College Success
  by Carl Chancellor · June 29, 2010 · ECONOMIC JUSTICE
  Seeing is believing. That old bromide it at the heart of a plan by a University of Mississippi professor to lift folks out of poverty through college education.
  Eric Weber, an assistant professor of public policy at Ole Miss, says students coming from impoverished backgrounds can succeed in college if they see examples of people from similar circumstances who have done well, or are doing well in college.
  The problem, says Weber, who is working on a film that focuses on how poverty impedes educational achievement, is that too many poor students are being discouraged from attending college.
  It is Weber's contention that students in his state of Mississippi are not attending college in larger numbers in part because they are being told by friends, relatives, and in some cases school officials, that they are not college material.
  
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• Fight Against Poverty Going in the Wrong Direction, Says Crusading Priest
  by Carl Chancellor · October 12, 2010 · ECONOMIC JUSTICE
  The truth that you can't ignore when you bike across America, as Father Matthew Ruhl has just done, is this: poverty impacts every community.
  "There is no place in the country devoid of poverty," says Father Matt, who was one of 12 cyclists to complete a 100-day, 5,052-mile ride last month from Cape Flattery, Washington to Key West, Florida. The pastor of St. Francis Xavier Church in Kansas City, Missouri says he undertook his nationwide pedaling spree to raise awareness about poverty and poverty-related issues.
  We previously wrote about Father Matt when the Jesuit priest was in the midst of his epic bike ride, which he completed on Sept. 5. I gave him a couple of weeks to recover before speaking to him recently by phone.
  "[Fighting poverty] is my personal calling. As a Catholic priest I have an obligation to uphold the standards of the Gospel," says Ruhl. He says it is his sacred duty, and the duty of all Christians, to "love our neighbors" and do all we can to bring them "out of poverty" and need.
  It was clear during our conversation that Ruhl is upset that "people aren't paying enough attention to the issue of poverty" even though it is a constant that surrounds us. He says Americans are too easily "diverted" and are failing to "open their eyes" to focus on an issue that is steadily growing.
  "When we started planning for this ride [last year] the poverty rate stood at around 38 million. When we embarked on the ride [on Memorial Day] it was about 40 million. When we finished there were 43.6 million people living in poverty ... We are definitely going the wrong way," he observed, referring to the once solidly middle- and working-class families who have fallen into poverty thanks to the stubbornly enduring Great Recession.
  
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• Stop Kicking Black Students to the Curb
  by Carl Chancellor · September 19, 2010 · HUMAN RIGHTS
  Why are we still throwing black kids out of school like there’s no tomorrow?
  A recent study conducted by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) of more than 9,000 middle schools found that African-American boys are three times more likely to be suspended than their white male classmates, while African-American girls are suspended at four times the rate of white girls.
  Further, the study -- Suspended Education: Urban Middle School Crisis -- revealed that in 175 middle schools an unbelievable one-third -- that's right, 1 in 3 -- of black male students were suspended at least once during a school year.
  The study noted that there is "no evidence that racial disparities in school discipline are the results of higher rates of disruption among black students."
  It's obvious that there is significant racial bias going into school suspension decisions.
  Of course the disproportionate suspension rate among African-American students is nothing new. There is a long documented history of disparate punishment of black students in our schools.  However this latest study points to a dramatic rise in the suspension of black children. According to the study, the gap between suspension rates for blacks and whites has tripled, from about three percentage points in 1970 to over 10 percentage points today.
  Being physically removed from school carries with it many risks for both students and society.  When students are suspended from school and are at home unsupervised, they are more likely to become involved in harmful "high risk behaviors." It should come as no surprise that left to their own devices, kids are more prone to use drugs and alcohol, engage in sexual intercourse and get caught up  in an array of potentially self-destructive behaviors, including criminal activity. Critics blame suspensions for pushing students into what they term the "school-to-prison pipeline."
  The SPLC  suspension study specifically focused on middle schools because of the demonstrated link between middle school success and future success in and outside of school. The study suggests that "suspension at the middle school level may have long-term repercussions," which I take to mean, middle school is where a student's trajectory is set for good or bad.
  Unfortunately, suspension rates aren't often addressed in discussions about improving our schools and the education of our children. That's a glaring oversight.
  Why are suspension rates for black students skyrocketing?
  One reason is the move by nearly all school districts to a "zero tolerance" discipline policy in the wake of the Columbine school shootings. Often the most minor of  infractions can lead to a suspension -- more than 3.3 million annually, which are disproportionally meted out to black students. Unruly acts like using profanity, being disruptive in class, talking back,  pushing and shoving -- behavior  that used to warrant a trip to the principal's office or detention, now result in automatic suspension.  It's ironic that the tragedy at Columbine, a predominantly all-white school, has had such a negative impact on African-American kids.
  Another major factor to consider, as highlighted by the SPLC study, is that on average 20 percent of the teachers represent nearly 80 percent of a school's suspension rate.
  What is going on with this handful of teachers? That's obviously the question school administrators should be asking. It needs to be determined if these teachers are unduly stressed by large class sizes; have trouble relating to African-American students; or are dealing with some personal demons that's causing them to possible act out inappropriately toward their students.  Clearly, when a small population of teachers is generating such a large number of suspensions, the fault isn't exclusively with the student.
  It's time for schools to scrap outdated and unproven "zero tolerance policies" that have shown no evidence of making schools safer. It's time for school administrators to follow in the steps of school districts like Baltimore, which have revamped the discipline code and instituted peer mediation, in-school monitoring and intervention programs that have seen suspension rates drop by 39 percent.
  The plain fact is, kids can’t learn if they aren’t in school. If the main goal of schools is to educate kids, punishing them by excluding them from school is counterproductive.
  Photo credit: Steelight
  
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• Partying Like Its 1859
  by Carl Chancellor · September 18, 2010 · HUMAN RIGHTS
  Way down south in the land of cotton it's clear that  "old times there ain't forgotten," particularly if you're  State  Sen. Glenn McConnell,  leader of the South Carolina GOP.
  A  picture of McConnell in a Confederate general's uniform with two blacks in historically accurate antebellum attire, taken at a party hosted by the South Carolina Federation of Republican Women,  has ignited rumblings across the blogosphere louder than the cannon barrage on Fort Sumpter that sparked the Civil War.
  According to Fitsnews, which first broke the story and shared the "gotcha" photos, neither McConnell nor the GOP ladies feel remorse or embarrassment over the incident.  As a matter of fact the GOP women who put on the "Southern Experience" shindig proudly said the event allowed party goers to "get a taste" of the beauty, heritage and culture of South Carolina.
  
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• Don't Get It Twisted, Glenn Beck Is No MLK
  by Carl Chancellor · September 03, 2010 · HUMAN RIGHTS
  I still haven't quite figured out what to make of Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally, which is why it has taken me so long to post my thoughts about the event.
  Initially, my plan was to immediately vent my outrage over Beckfest, since I was sure I would have plenty of easy and very nasty targets to pillory.
  However, from the television snippets of the rally I watched on the day of the event and the news reports I read subsequently,  Beckstock wasn't the over the top,  in your face,  race-baiting,  Obama-hating,  don't tread on me, right-wing political orgy I and many others had expected.
  Still, I'm at a loss to accurately describe the Beck rally, or explain exactly what it was attempting to accomplish.  The nearest I can come is to call it a Holy Ghost tent revival meeting on steroids, spreading a "take our country back" gospel bankrolled by the ultra-right wing, billionaire Koch brothers.
  While I don't know exactly what Beck's mass gathering was, I do know what it wasn't, which is to say -- it fell far short of being the second coming of the 1963 March on Washington as touted by Beck and others.
  Sure Beck, he of the uber-ego and the nutty socialism, communism, Kenyan revenge theories,  would have you believe his rally in Washington at the end of August mirrored in intent and purpose that  iconic march of 47 years earlier. He even went so far as to suggest that he and his supporters were  taking up where Martin Luther King Jr. left off and were  laying claim to the mantle of the civil rights movement.  But I'm here to tell you people: Don't drink the Kool-Aid.
  Glenn Beck has a dream alright and it has nothing to do with brotherhood, equality or compassion for your fellow man.
  
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• Poverty Makes Motherhood a Depressing Experience
  by Carl Chancellor · August 31, 2010 · ECONOMIC JUSTICE
  Putting a new and sobering twist on baby mama drama, a recently-released study indicates that more than half of poor babies have mothers who are suffering from depression.
  While that's disturbing news for babies, since having a depressed mom can interfere with parenting and negatively impact a child's development, it's not necessarily surprising.
  It doesn't take a Ph.D to understand that child-rearing is tough under any circumstances and therefore raising a kid, particularly a totally dependent infant, on an extremely limited income has to be stressful. When you are a mother living in poverty and have no idea how you are going to feed, clothe and shelter yourself, let alone your baby, the stress you're under can quickly slip over into serious depression.
  Still, I doesn't hurt to quantify anecdotal observations.
  According to the study, conducted by the Urban Institute, 55 percent of infants living at or below the poverty level are being raised by moms showing signs of mild to severe depression. "A mom who is too sad to get up in the morning won't be able to take care of all of her child's practical needs," said the Institute's Olivia Golden in the Washington Post.
  In addition, the study, which followed 14,000 infants and their mothers, finds that at least one in nine infants born in poverty are being raised by mothers suffering from symptoms of severe depression.
  Golden and her research team note that a severely depressed mother who is "not able to take joy in her child" is unlikely to talk to or play with her child. That sort of mother and infant interaction is key to a baby's successful development.
  
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• Run for Your Life — It's the Terror Babies
  by Carl Chancellor · August 17, 2010 · HUMAN RIGHTS
  Don’t let those chubby cheeks or that toothless angelic grin fool you. While you're naively cooing goo goo ga ga, that cuddly, cherubic infant before you could be plotting America’s demise.
  After all, do you really know what that baby is hiding in his or her Pamper?
  Hey, I’m just saying. I mean, we already had the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber. So why not a diaper of mass destruction?
  I see that you’re still skeptical. That's because your thinking is stuck in the past. You see, we’re not talking about  the babies you and I grew up with — the angelic Gerber Baby, or the wholesome Ivory Snow Baby. No, what we are dealing with today, in 2000 freaking 10 — is an entirely new breed of baby, a sinister and nefarious type of newborn beyond comprehension.  I’m talking about a crawling assassin, a demon in diapers, a pacifier-sucking saboteur.  I’m talking about..."anchor babies" (shrieks, screams, scary music).
  Don’t take my word for it. Some of the most influential, but not necessarily rational, voices in the country, folks like U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) and his fellow Texas Republican, State Rep. Debbie Riddle, are sounding the "anchor baby" alarm as well.
  Here's the gist of  their argument, what I like to refer to as the Binnie (Laden) Babies Conspiracy. According to Gohmert, at this very moment, pregnant (Muslim) women are traveling to the U.S. on tourist visas for the sole purpose of giving birth on American soil. The Congressman claims these foreign mothers are using the Constitution — specifically, the 14th Amendment, which makes all persons born in this country U.S. citizens — to build a diabolical plot.
  Gohmert, who is a member of the Tea Party Caucus in Congress,  says these visiting Muslim moms, with newly minted American babies in tow, are returning to their homes in the Middle East where these "anchor babies" are being instructed in radical Islam. After training these babies for 20 years or more to become terrorists, they'll return to the U.S. to carry out acts of violence and dastardly deeds against America and Americans. Simple, right?
  
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• Affordable Housing Nears Extinction in D.C.
  by Carl Chancellor · August 10, 2010 · ECONOMIC JUSTICE
  The makeshift shelter — a hurriedly constructed A-frame of 2x4s covered by a heavy plastic tarp — is a far cry from the glistening glass and brick eight-story apartment and retail complex that was supposed to be sitting on this Washington D.C. corner. Ron Harris couldn't be happier.
  "They weren't giving us what was promised," says Harris of the proposed apartment complex that was to be an answer to the city's affordable housing problem. In July, Harris, a community activist  joined with a dozen others to occupy a rock-strewn patch of dirt at the corner of 7th and Rhode Island Avenue N.W. known as Parcel 42. Harris and a handful of other protesters, who are now living in a tent city erected on the parcel, are determined to compel the city to make good on its commitment to build affordable housing in the Shaw neighborhood of Washington, D.C. (End Homelessness blogger Eric Sheptock is one of the tent city's founders. Also be sure to check out his posts from inside the tent city.)
  As angry clouds threatening a downpour periodically spit heavy drops of rain that thud loudly on the tarp above our heads, Harris tells me that ground was to have been broken last year on a 100-unit subsidized apartment complex that would offer housing for families making between $25,000 and $50,000 a year. However, since the Parcel 42 plan was first announced in 2007, the scope and direction of the project has gone through a number of changes, none of them acceptable to Harris or to community groups like ONE DC (Organizing Neighborhood Equity), Take Back the Land or the People's Property Campaign of Empower DC.
  Sitting at a conference table of sorts, which is an old wooden door with brass knob still place, turned up on four cinder blocks, Harris says the project has been significantly scaled back. Instead of providing 100 units of housing, the new plan is for 94 units, but most egregious is that there will no longer be tiered rents for households making 20 percent and 30 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI).
  "Now, the developers only want people making at least 50 percent of the AMI, which is around $53,000 a year. That's not low-income to me," Harris says.
  
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• Why We Should Eliminate the R-Word
  by Carl Chancellor · July 28, 2010 · HUMAN RIGHTS
  Carl Chancellor, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has been writing about social justice issues for decades, is a columnist for Change.org.
  It was a Steve Urkel moment of monumental proportions for the President, his administration, the USDA and the NAACP.
  I'm speaking, of course, of the ham-fisted apologies offered to Shirley Sherrod — the recently fired USDA director — by the aforementioned after they each took turns throwing her under the bus.
  In giving their separate expressions of regret, they each should have been accompanied by a video clip of nerdy, suspender-wearing Urkel uttering his trademark line — "Did I do that?"
  The answer, sadly, is: "Yes, they did."
  Why was the administration so willing to rush headlong to condemn and punish Sherrod before  knowing the entire story? Why was there an unquestioning willingness to believe the worst about Sherrod, particularly given the background of those accusing her of being racist? Knowing the unethical history of right-wing blogger Andrew Breitbart and the unabashed political agenda of Fox News, you'd think even a half-rational person would pause to consider the source.
  But as we already know, that didn't happen, and in the process, a good woman was nearly destroyed.
  That's because once the word "racist" gets tossed around, reasonably intelligent people lose their minds and go off half-cocked. Calling someone a racist is akin to lobbing a live grenade into a crowded room — it sends everyone in the vicinity scurrying in a panic toward the nearest exit in a frantic attempt to distance themselves from such an accusation, and damn anyone who gets in the way.
  
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• GOP Attacks Thurgood Marshall: Can't A Brotha Catch A Break?
  by Carl Chancellor · July 06, 2010 · HUMAN RIGHTS
  Okay, I guess I’m a slow learner, but I finally get it: the GOP ain’t feeling black folk — nor brown, gay, or unemployed people for that matter.
  However, for the purposes of this post, let’s limit the conversation to Congressional Republicans’ obvious disregard (bordering on callousness) for people of the African-American persuasion — an attitude that was on full display during Elena Kagan’s confirmation hearings.
  The target of the GOP’s ire this time (drum roll) — the esteemed Supreme Court Justice and legal giant Thurgood Marshall, who is just the sort of easy target they would attack, since he’s been dead for 20 years and isn’t around to defend himself.
  Clearly, the goal was to tarnish Kagan’s image, a la Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers, by playing up her connection — "guilt by association" — with the late Justice. I have to give to Kagan — she didn’t mumble when she  proclaimed that she was proud to have clerked for Marshall in the late 1980s, and considered him one of her "legal heroes."
  I also have to give it to the Republicans, because I never saw this one coming.
  According to several media accounts, GOP senators invoked the name of Marshall 35 times during the first day of Kagan's hearings. Every chance they had, they painted Marshall as an "activist jurist." Fumed about him being a raving "liberal." And accused him of dissing the Founding Fathers — you know, the guys who took time out from walking on water and multiplying loaves of bread and fish to found the country and pen the Constitution.
  
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• For Poor Students, Role Models Are Key to College Success
  by Carl Chancellor · June 29, 2010 · ECONOMIC JUSTICE
  Seeing is believing. That old bromide it at the heart of a plan by a University of Mississippi professor to lift folks out of poverty through college education.
  Eric Weber, an assistant professor of public policy at Ole Miss, says students coming from impoverished backgrounds can succeed in college if they see examples of people from similar circumstances who have done well, or are doing well in college.
  The problem, says Weber, who is working on a film that focuses on how poverty impedes educational achievement, is that too many poor students are being discouraged from attending college.
  It is Weber's contention that students in his state of Mississippi are not attending college in larger numbers in part because they are being told by friends, relatives, and in some cases school officials, that they are not college material.
  
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• Who's Behind South Carolina's Bizarre Candidate for U.S. Senate?
  by Carl Chancellor · June 28, 2010 · HUMAN RIGHTS
  In a state known for its "eccentric" brand of politicians — from Strom Thurmond to Gov. Mark "Where’s Waldo" Sanford and Rep. Joe "You Lie" Wilson — Alvin Greene would fit right in.
  But if he's going to add his name to the Palmetto State’s roster of illustrious elected officials, Mr. Greene — the unlikely Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate — first has to beat the Republican incumbent Sen. Jim DeMint.
  Conventional wisdom would tell you that Greene, a bizarre, unknown candidate with limited financial resources and an abundance of personal problems (including a pending felony charge) has no chance of defeating Senator DeMint. But then again, with a little luck, who really knows? Certainly, stranger things have happened.
  As a matter of fact, a few strange (and suspicious) things have already taken place. For example, Greene — who is unemployed — was somehow able to come up with the $10,500 filing fee to run in the Democratic primary. And if that weren't enough, Greene won his primary election against a well-known and deep-pocketed opponent (garnering 60% of the vote) without even campaigning. I mean the man didn't have to make one stump speech, do one interview, or kiss even one baby. What's going on here?
  Some (mostly South Carolina Democratic Party leaders) claim that some shady deals were cut to push Greene's weak candidacy, and perhaps even political shenanigans involved. It's even been suggested that Greene is actually a Republican plant.  I don't know about that, but what's clear to me is that anything is politically possible in South Carolina.
  
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• New Jersey Students Suing to Stop School Cuts
  by Carl Chancellor · June 22, 2010 · ECONOMIC JUSTICE
  The prospect of massive classroom overcrowding, limited text books and deep program cuts — basically being short-changed on their educations — poor New Jersey public school children have asked the state Supreme Court to block more than a billion dollar in school cuts proposed by Gov. Chris Christie.
  The 300,000 poor students, represented by the Education Law Center, filed a motion earlier this month asking the Court to enforce New Jersey's funding formula, the School Funding Reform Act of 2008 (pdf). The funding formula set baseline per-pupil spending levels needed to ensure "the thorough and efficient" public education guaranteed to all students by the state's constitution. In addition, the SFRA required additional funding along with all-day prekindergarten for New Jersey's low-income students.
  Gov. Christie's $1.8 billion cuts in state aid to schools, a reduction of 13.6 percent, will drop the funding levels for the 2010-2011 school year below what is required by the SFRA. In filing its motion, the ELC, which advocates for access to an equal and adequate education for all public school children, noted that the aid cut has already forced school districts statewide to layoff-teachers and support staff and eliminate vital programs and services, including tutoring, programs for at-risk students and health services.
  Further, according to the ELC — the substantial cuts are occurring at the same time that the performance of New Jersey students ranks among the nation's best, and the Garden State has gained national prominence for gains among low-income and minority students.
  Maybe someone should place a dunce cap atop of Gov. Christie's curly head and sit him off in a corner until he learns that you don't pull the plug on success.
  Photo credit: San Jose Library
  
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• What 6-Year-Olds and Rand Paul Need to Learn
  by Carl Chancellor · June 16, 2010 · HUMAN RIGHTS
  "Is this real?" asked a little boy who couldn’t comprehend what he had just seen and heard. It seems the boy couldn’t accept the notion that four young men — well-dressed college students — would be denied service at a restaurant, simply because their skin was black.
  It was exactly the kind of honest, straight-forward question that a 6-year-old would ask.
  "The little boy thought it was a story I had made up. He just refused to believe that such a thing could happen," said Xavier Carnegie, who for the last 18 months has been reenacting the Greensboro lunch counter sit-in of 1960 at the Smithsonian National American History Museum.
  But to answer the 6-year-old's question: It wasn’t that long ago that blacks in this country were subject to Jim Crow laws, which sanctioned legal discrimination and segregation. Laws that made it perfectly legal for a waitress at a Woolworth’s lunch counter to flat-out refuse to serve four black men. And yes, it was very real.
  
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• Taking the Country Back, Way Back, Is Just Crazy
  by Carl Chancellor · June 01, 2010 · HUMAN RIGHTS
  I think I’m finally regaining my bearings after a disorienting and seriously disturbing month of May, during which I wondered if I had somehow become trapped in an H.G. Wells-like time experiment. It was as if I had some how become stuck in an episode of Quantum Leap; did a reverse Rip Van Winkle; or for my baby-boomer readers — took a spin in Mr. Peabody’s WABAC (wayback) machine.
  It all started when Rand Paul, the GOP nominee to be the next U.S. Senator from Kentucky, suggested that he would consider repealing the 1964 Civil Rights Act, based on his belief that government should not force private businesses to abide by civil rights law.
  Although he's since repeatedly claimed otherwise, Paul obviously longs for the return of segregated lunch counters, white and colored entrance signs, back-of-the-bus seating arrangements, restrictive covenants — your basic Jim Crow redux.
  Just as I was grappling with the craziness of Paul and the real meaning behind his GOP primary victory speech — "We have come to take our government back" — I was rocked again.
  This time I was mindlessly sipping a cup of hot tea and channel surfing, trying to calm my nerves after a particularly restless night, when I thought I heard a news story about a bunch of high school kids in Georgia who were parading through the hallways of their 90% white school dressed in Ku Klux Klan garb. I was so shocked by what I was hearing that I lost hold of my tea mug. I'm sure I must have scalded myself, but if I did, I didn't notice since at that point I was lost in a frantic attempt to reassure myself that I was still living in 2010.
  
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• Working Poor, Two Words That Should Never Be Linked
  by Carl Chancellor · June 01, 2010 · ECONOMIC JUSTICE
  I have an assignment for any New York City councilmember still wavering on supporting a new bill mandating a "living wage" be paid to employees working on city-subsidized projects: read the book Both Hands Tied: Welfare Reform and the Race to the Bottom of the Low-Wage Labor Market by co-authors Jane L. Collins and Victoria Mayer.
  The book, which examines the lives of 33 Milwaukee and Racine, Wisconsin women and their families trying to survive on minimum wage jobs, shares the harsh realities of employment in the low-wage labor market. While the book focuses on the impact of welfare reform (or, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, which made cash assistance both temporary and contingent on work outside the home) it nonetheless underscores a  basic truth: when workers do not earn enough to make ends meet, taxpayers pick up the tab.
  Collins, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told me recently that the only group that benefits from low-wage jobs is corporations. Certainly the women she followed in her book for more than a year in 2004 were no better off once they began working. Despite working 40 hours a week, none of them were able to successfully break the cycle of poverty.
  "There are tens of thousands (in Wisconsin) working 40 hours a week but are unable to afford secure housing, child care or medical insurance," Collins said. She said many of the women she followed for her book just couldn't "hold on to housing" when faced with meeting the cost of caring for children and paying rent. "Many families went through several episodes of eviction and homelessness."
  Nationally, as a result of welfare reform millions of poor single mothers found work, almost always in low-wage, no-benefit jobs that still left them below the poverty line, in some cases taking home less than $9,500 a year. Almost without fail these women had to turn the state for additional aid.
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• Big Banks Enter the PayDay Lending Sweepstakes
  by Carl Chancellor · May 17, 2010 · ECONOMIC JUSTICE
  When you are poor it seems you can never catch a break.
  Just when it appears that progress is finally being made in curbing the most outrageous practices of payday lenders an even bigger shark is circling in the water — nationally-chartered banks.
  Big national banks like Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank and Fifth Third Bank have begun offering their own versions of the small-amount, short-term payday-type loans carrying the same astronomical interest rates and fees that keep borrowers (typically poor and minority) trapped in a cycle of debt.
  It's up to federal lawmakers to carefully regulate this growing trend. It is imperative that the new Wall Street reform set guidelines to protect consumers, including establishing a Consumer Financial Protection Agency that will operate independently of the banks and lenders it governs.
  Fifteen states plus the District of Columbia have passed laws that cap the annual interest rate of payday lenders, which in many states amounts to upwards of 400 percent annually. However, these states have little control over how nationally chartered banks do business within their borders. The national banks, seeing the profits to be made from payday-type loans, can't wait to sink their teeth into the millions of mainly poor borrowers who rely on small, short-term loans of $500 or less to make ends meet.
  
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• South Carolina Lawmakers Try to Steal Your Vote
  by Carl Chancellor · May 16, 2010 · HUMAN RIGHTS
  South Carolina is the latest among a growing number of states pushing to make voting a privilege, rather than a right.
  In May, lawmakers in the South Carolina House passed legislation requiring its citizens to show a government-issued photo identification card in order to vote at the polls.
  The Republican-backed measure creates an unnecessary and unreasonable barrier for voters, particularly minority, poor and elderly voters who are less likely to possess photo ID.
  If the South Carolina Senate approves the measure, which is all but a foregone conclusion, folks showing up at the polls in the Palmetto State will have to quickly produce a valid driver’s license, current passport, or state-issued photo ID card to show poll workers in order to cast a ballot.
  South Carolina lawmakers passed the bill, even though a recent report by the state’s Elections Commission indicated that upwards of 180,000 of South Carolina’s registered voters don’t have a driver’s license or a state-issued photo ID. That means somewhere in the neighborhood of 8% of the state’s registered voters — many of them black and poor — will be disenfranchised.
  I wonder if the law isn’t a cynical move by certain lawmakers (what the heck, I might as well call it like it is — Republican lawmakers) to suppress the vote of blacks and minorities?
  
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• Black Frat Says No to Arizona
  by Carl Chancellor · May 12, 2010 · HUMAN RIGHTS
  Thank you Arizona, for underscoring the fact that there is no black-versus-brown divide when it comes to immigration reform. We aren't falling for that tired old divide-and-conquer ploy of pitting African-Americans against their Latino brothers and sisters.
  Case in point: The brothers of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc., America's oldest historically black Greek-lettered organization, has decided to move their national convention from Phoenix, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada. All to protest the recent passage of Arizona's anti-immigrant bill — SB1070.
  Herman "Skip" Mason, Jr., the fraternity's national general president, said the Alpha board of directors voted unanimously to move its 104th Anniversary/90th General Convention in July from Phoenix to denounce the "egregious immigration act" signed by the Arizona governor.
  "It was the full opinion of the board that we could not host a meeting in a state that has sanctioned a law which we believe will lead to racial profiling and discrimination, and a law that could put the civil rights and very dignity of our members at risk during their stay in Phoenix, Arizona," said Mason.
  A host of civil rights leaders have applauded Alpha Phi Alpha's move, including Rev. Al Sharpton and Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, who are pushing for a tourism boycott of Arizona.
  With Alpha Phi Alpha pulling its convention, which was expected to draw an estimated 10,000 participants, Phoenix-area businesses will see losses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. But it's not just Phoenix that will take a financial hit, Alpha Phi Alpha is facing more than $300,000 in penalties the result of breaking contracts with Phoenix hotels and caterers.
  Still, Mason said the fraternity had to take a moral stand.
  
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• The Pledge of Allegiance Feels Right Again
  by Carl Chancellor · May 03, 2010 · HUMAN RIGHTS
  I pledged allegiance to the flag the other day — something that until fairly recently, I had not realized I had stopped doing.
  I  can’t tell you exactly when I stopped saying the Pledge, and more to the point, stopped believing in the words. However, I do know that by the time John Carlos and Tommie Smith took their iconic stance on the Olympic medal podium in Mexico City in 1968, I had already gone mute whenever that other ubiquitous show of public patriotism, the National Anthem, was played.
  Of course, those were the passions of 15-year-old youngster who had felt the sting of Jim Crow in the South, had tasted the bitterness of de facto segregation in the North, and was angry. And as I grew older and began to witness real progress in race relations in my country and in my personal interactions, this attitude mellowed.
  For the last 35 years or more I never gave much thought to standing respectfully for the recitation of the Pledge before the opening of a government meeting, or getting to my feet and removing my hat when the National Anthem was played before the start of a ball game. My actions were automatic, done on an almost subconscious level. But my lips stayed motionless.
  So it came as a complete surprise when a little more than 18 months ago, during a city council meeting, I became aware of the fact that I was standing with my right hand laid over my heart and the words —  "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America..." — coming from my mouth.
  What’s more, for the first time since I was in elementary school, I believed the words I was reciting: "with liberty and justice for all."
  
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• School Budget Cuts Ensure Poor Kids Will Remain Poor
  by Carl Chancellor · April 28, 2010 · ECONOMIC JUSTICE
  The odds of escaping generational poverty just got a lot steeper for millions of poor children attending our nation's public schools.
  The New York Times recently reported that school districts across the country, faced with deep funding cuts, are being forced to consider drastic cost-cutting measures, including laying-off teachers and increasing class sizes. These cuts are sure to have onerous consequences for carrying out the mission of education, particularly for schools in poor urban and rural districts already struggling to teach children.
  Unfortunately, school districts from New Jersey to California have no alternatives, thanks to a recession that has decimated their usual sources of revenue — state money and local property taxes. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan called the situation a potential "education catastrophe."
  According to the Times, the 2010-2011 school term is "shaping up as one of the most austere in the last half century." Districts, sparing no portion of their budgets from the chopping block, are looking to layoff teachers, close schools, eliminate programs, enlarge classes, reduce the purchases of supplies and equipment, including textbooks, and shorten the school day, week or year, all in the name of saving a buck.
  In the past, school districts have looked to tighten budgets by making cuts to areas not considered to directly impact student achievement. However, with districts facing staggering monetary shortfalls — lowering thermostats, turning off lights, doing away with extracurricular programs, limiting bus transportation — just won't do the trick. This round of cuts for many districts is down to the bone.
  
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• "The Poor Just Aren't News"
  by Carl Chancellor · April 03, 2010 · ECONOMIC JUSTICE
  Last Monday the photographic and multimedia exhibit "Fighting for the Forgotten" opened at the East 91st Street Christian Church in Indianapolis, featuring the work of 16 well-known photojournalists sharing their images of what it means to be poor in America. The exhibit is being sponsored jointly by AmericanPoverty.org, the East 91st Christian Church and the Indianapolis Star. It began touring the United States last fall in multiple exhibits sponsored by Catholic Charities USA. The organizers hope that by pushing the hidden adversity of Americans into greater view, the fight against poverty will become a national priority once again.
  Change.org spoke with Steve Liss, one of the exhibit's featured photojournalists and director of AmericanPoverty.org. Liss is an award-winning photographer who worked with Time magazine for 23 years before beginning a teaching career at Northwestern University. His recent book, No Place for Children: Voices from Juvenile Detention, won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award in 2006. We talked to him about the new exhibit and the thinking behind it. These photos, and many more, are in the exhibit. To see more, go to AmericanPoverty.org.
  
  Change.org: What was the impetus behind the photo exhibit?
  Liss: We started this because we feel very little attention is being paid to those suffering from poverty in this country. Poverty is all but ignored by the mainstream media. It doesn't exist in terms of newspaper and television coverage. The poor just aren't news.
  I know this because I've tried to push those stories but corporate media is to worried about offending their advertisers. Mainstream media wants nothing to do with images of poverty in America.
  So a group of photojournalists from across the country who are committed to issues of domestic reform and social justice felt that we had an obligation to focus on this largely invisible problem of poverty and on this largely invisible segment of American society.
  Our mission is to put a face on poverty and to start dispelling the destructive myths and stereotypes about poor people. We are attempting to raise awareness about poverty in the United States and encourage action on behalf of the poor.
  
  
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• New Jersey Balances Budget on Backs of the Poor
  by Carl Chancellor · March 23, 2010 · ECONOMIC JUSTICE
  Carl Chancellor, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has been writing about social justice issues for decades, is a columnist for Change.org.
  According to the "This Month in New Jersey History" section of the official website of the Garden State, March is the month in which silent film star and New Jersey native Pearl White was born. For those who don't know, Ms. White starred in the wildly popular series of cliffhangers, The Perils of Pauline, that kept silent moviegoers on the edges of their seats nearly 100 years ago.
  But the dangers faced by the celluloid heroine Pauline -- tied to railroad tracks with a steaming locomotive bearing down on her; set adrift in a canoe threatened by the raging fury of white water rapids; or pursued over a frozen landscape by a pack of hungry, snarling wolves -- pale in comparison to the real life perils facing New Jersey's poor thanks to the budget cuts proposed earlier this month by Republican Gov. Chris Christie.
  Obviously, taking his cue from Snidely Whiplash, Gov. Christie, in order to close a nearly $11 billion gap in the New Jersey budget, has outlined massive spending cuts that disproportionally impact the state's poor and working class. As one Democratic state representative put it: the Governor's budget "is way too hard on the poor."
  Gov. Christie was most certainly twisting the ends of a handlebar mustache and sneering when he decided to spend $820 million less on public schools; eliminate cash welfare for the able-bodied;  double some drug co-payments for the elderly and disabled enrolled in New Jersey's prescription drug plan; cut state-financed school breakfasts and rental assistance programs for the poor; and, trim the state's earned-income tax credit to 20 percent of the federal benefit (the first time a state has reduced its earned-income tax credit, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities).The reduction to the earned-income tax credit results in a tax increase for the working poor.
  Even prior to unveiling his budget, Gov. Christie had already drastically tightened the eligibility requirements for the state's subsidized health insurance program aimed at helping uninsured adults with children. Previously, parents in a family of four could earn up to $77,000 and still qualify for a health insurance subsidy. Now, that same family can make no more than $29,000 a year -- 133 percent of the poverty level -- to qualify for insurance.
  
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• Tell the Obama Administration to End Prison Rapes
  by Carl Chancellor · March 22, 2010 · CRIMINAL JUSTICE
  Carl Chancellor, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has been writing about social justice issues for decades, is a columnist for Change.org.
  What’s another 60,500 or so brutal sexual assaults in the larger scheme of things?
  I’m pretty sure that’s not U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s point of view. However, if he decides to put off implementing proposed national standards to decrease sexual abuse behind bars for another year he will be in effect saying just that.
  Each year, more than 60,500 sexual assaults occur in our state and federal prison. Roughly 4.5% of the more than 2 million men, women and children behind bars are victims of rape and sexual assault. Our nation’s correctional facilities are failing miserably at protecting the prison population confined within their walls, particularly when you consider that more inmates report sexual abuse at the hands of prison staff than from fellow inmates, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
  Last year (60,500 sexual assaults ago),  the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission created by Congress back in 2003 ( 423,500 sexual assaults ago) issued a series of proposed national standards to reduce the frequency of sexual assaults involving prisoners. Holder has until June 23 to review those recommendations and make modifications before making the commission’s standards nationally binding. But at this point, due to pushback mainly from corrections officials, it doesn’t appear Holder will meet that deadline, and he'll in all likelihood seek an extension to June 2011 (60,500 sexual assaults from now).
  The NPREC standards -- formulated following  years of  research, including input from corrections officials, experts and prison rape survivors -- are getting held up over concerns about costs. Correction officials, citing budgetary constraints, are pressuring Holder and the Justice Department to weaken the standards: in essence, to implement something less than the zero-tolerance policy for prison rape recommended by the commission.
  
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• Why "Precious" Didn't Win Best Picture
  by Carl Chancellor · March 08, 2010 · ECONOMIC JUSTICE
  Carl Chancellor, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has been writing about social justice issues for decades, is a columnist for Change.org.
  There are probably more than a few people who are upset that the movie Precious failed to walk away with an Oscar for Best Picture. I'm not one of those people.
  I knew Precious didn't have a chance because it was nominated in the wrong category. It should have gotten an Academy Award nod as a documentary film. That's because the gritty drama set in an urban ghetto, which captures the dysfunctional lives of an abusive mother who terrorizes her 16-year-old daughter, herself a mother and pregnant with a second child, is all too real.
  I understand that Precious, based on the novel Push by Sapphire, is a fictional work, but the harsh world the book and the movie depict is the stark reality that far too many children in America awake to everyday. To be precise, the number is 13 million children.
  That's the number of children who live in poverty in this country. And like the titular character Precious, they face the toxic impacts of living a life unduly stressed by poverty. Many of those damaging impacts were touched on in the movie, including domestic violence, sexual abuse, obesity, homelessness, crime, underachieving schools, HIV/AIDs (somebody needs to cue up the orchestra here because I could go on like an Oscar winner's acceptance speech). However, I will highlight just one of the issues raised by the movie -- teen pregnancy.
  
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• What the Mob Can Learn from Payday Lenders
  by Carl Chancellor · March 01, 2010 · ECONOMIC JUSTICE
  Carl Chancellor, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has been writing about social justice issues for decades, is a columnist for Change.org.
  Frankly, I would have more respect for payday lenders if they would simply pull a gun on their customers and shout: "This is a stickup!" At least they would be honest about their intentions.
  What else would you call charging someone 400 percent to upwards of 900 percent interest but robbery?
  The mob offers better rates and easier terms than payday lenders.
  With products also known as "payday advance" or "cash advance," payday lenders strip billions of dollars from poor and minority communities every year by offering dubious loans that are designed to keep people who are already hurting financially and having difficulty making ends meet trapped in a cycle of debt.
  Of the estimated 19 million Americans who used payday loans last year, at least 12 million are trapped in a cycle of 400 percent interest loans (the numbers look deceptively smaller when listed over, say, a two-week period). According to the Center for Responsible Lending, U.S. borrowers who rely upon high-interest payday lending for quick cash are caught in a "debt trap" that costs them $3.4 billion each year.
  That $3.4 billion is coming out of the pockets of people who can least afford it. Of the 23,000 payday lending centers doing business across America, most are concentrated in poor and minority communities. In 29 states there are more payday loan storefronts than McDonald's restaurants.
  A typical payday borrower is a female African-American or Latina. Payday loa
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• What if the E*Trade Babies Were Born Poor?
  by Carl Chancellor · February 23, 2010 · ECONOMIC JUSTICE
  Carl Chancellor, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has been writing about social justice issues for decades, is a columnist for Change.org.
  Okay, I admit it, I just love those "Talking Baby" television ads that the online broker E*Trade traditionally debuts during the Super Bowl.
  Now tell me, who can resist those adorable and precocious little tots, belted in their high chairs and using adult voices to explain to you and me the ins and outs of selling and buying stocks online?
  And, by using shots of these toddlers hanging out in country club locker rooms and making high dollar stock transactions using their cell phones, the ads make clear -- not only are they damn cute, these babies are financially successful too.
  Yep, those pint-sized, Pamper-wearing pitchmen hooked me again this year.
  Well, at least for a short while. Then I got to wondering, what if instead of being the offspring of well-off parents these babies had been born into poverty just like one in every six American children?
  
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• Not One Witness to Cleveland Homeless Murders
  by Carl Chancellor · February 15, 2010 · ECONOMIC JUSTICE
  Carl Chancellor, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has been writing about social justice issues for decades, is a columnist for Change.org.
  In my hometown of Cleveland, where a 10-story tall LeBron James proclaims We Are All Witnesses, tell me how is it that no one witnessed 11 homeless women go inside a house on the city's east side and never come out alive?
  Anthony Sowell, 50, sits in jail charged with the murders of those 11 women, all of them poor, all of them living on the streets. Their murders only came to light a few months ago, even though for years Sowell had allegedly been beating, raping and strangling homeless women in his well-kept Imperial Avenue home, which sits in the middle of one of Cleveland's working class neighborhoods.
  That's what makes this story even more disturbing -- all this murder and mayhem occurring in the midst of people going about their everyday lives and no one witnessing a thing.
  So much for LeBron's claim.
  In no way am I linking the NBA, Nike, nor especially basketball superstar LeBron James to the deaths of these 11 homeless women. I'm just trying to underscore the fact that as a society we are all too engrossed in the hoopla and marketing that surrounds entertainment. The sad fact is that we're all guilty of being too easily distracted from what's truly important. Sometimes we need to tune out the mind-numbing distractions of the celebrity world and open our eyes to the reality around us.
  
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• Why Are 40 Million People Still Poor In America?
  by Carl Chancellor · February 09, 2010 · ECONOMIC JUSTICE
  Carl Chancellor, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has been writing about social justice issues for decades, is a columnist for Change.org.
  February is the perfect month to begin my regular column here on Poverty in America.
  Why February?
  Because it's Black History Month, the 28 days (when we're lucky, 29) set aside to recognize the many contributions of African-Americans to this nation of ours, although the month-long celebration tends to spotlight the Civil Rights Movement and the epic fight to end American apartheid. And that's alright, since focusing on the civil rights struggle and on the very embodiment of the movement,  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., fluoresces the last great battle of his life -- ending poverty.
  "Why are there forty million poor people in America?" he asked in his Southern Christian Leadership Conference presidential address of August 1967.
  Shamefully, more than four decades later, Dr. King could ask the very same question.
  According to Half in Ten, which is working to cut the poverty rate by 50 percent by 2020, nearly 40 million people, more than 13 percent of our fellow Americans, live in poverty. That number includes 13.3 million children. Another one in every three Americans struggles to make ends meet at twice the federal poverty level. Last year, 12.6 million households could not always afford enough food.
  By the late 1960s, Dr. King was pivoting from the fight to end racial discrimination to the audacious goal of eradicating poverty in the United States. He recognized that just ending Jim Crow wouldn't usher in equality and understood that genuine equality was inextricably linked to economic security for all.
  Dr. King also realized that poverty knows no racial boundaries -- it's not a black, white, red or brown problem, but an American problem.
  
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Carl Chancellor

Akron, OH

Carl is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has a passion for social justice issues. For more than 20 years he was a reporter and columnist for the Knight-Ridder news service and its flagship paper, the Akron Beacon Journal. At the moment he is a freelance writer in the Washington, D.C.-area with the bulk of his writing focused on the health care and financial reform debates on Capitol Hill. He is always working on works of fiction and had a collection of short stories published in 2000.