Democrats and Republicans battle over tough, new election laws in Florida, and the outcome of the 2012 presidential election may hang in the balance. “Voters in America: Who Counts,” 7/15 8pm ET, CNN.
By the CNN Wire Staff
(CNN) – Barbara Graves, who helped her husband launch Black Enterprise magazine in 1970, died Friday after a three-year battle with gall bladder cancer, the company said.
Graves, 75, died at Howard University Hospital in Washington, D.C.
Graves was an elementary school teacher before helping her husband, Earl G. Graves Sr., launch the magazine. She "held every major position, including editorial director, circulation director and chief financial officer."
The businesswoman also was co-founder of the Black Enterprise Women of Power Summit, which describes itself as "a professional leadership conference designed especially for executive women of color," and is a known as a major networking event.
By Sarah Springer, CNN
(CNN) - Olivia Pope is smart, runs a successful business and is the center of attention when she enters a room.
She’s the kind of woman who magazines say every woman can be, and the type that others love to hate.
There’s just one thing: She is also black.
After a successful first season, viewers know that Pope, the lead character on ABC’s “Scandal,” is African-American.
But they might not realize the significance of her race. FULL POST
Editor's note: Sherrilyn A. Ifill is a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law and the chairwoman of the U.S. Programs Board of the Open Society Foundations. She is the author of "On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-first Century."
By Sherrilyn A. Ifill, Special to CNN
(CNN) – The United States has a dignity problem. The concept of dignity is recognized by law in countries all over the world. It is a cornerstone of both international humanitarian law, which governs the treatment of prisoners of war, and international human rights law.
But it has little power in American jurisprudence. A robust recognition and protection of dignity is precisely what we need, particularly if we are to understand how racism has broken its tether and become enshrined again in state laws and policies across the United States.
Take racial profiling - the single most explicit manifestation of racial prejudice in the United States today. Nearly 700,000 individuals a year are subject to the brutal indignity of the New York Police Department's stop-and-frisk policy. The vast majority are young African-American and Latino men. In a New York Times op-ed in December, 23-year-old Nicholas Peart heart-rendingly described his initiation into the world of stop-and-frisk beginning at age 14. This rite of passage for innocent young black men requires submitting without complaint or question to being harassed and targeted by the police. Even showing an "attitude" can escalate encounters into an arrest or even death.
Stop-and-frisk policing is only one aspect of the national indignity of racial profiling. Police surveillance of law-abiding Muslims (here again the New York police play a central role) and the pulling over of motorists for "driving while black" are two others. Rather than recognize how these practices strike at our bedrock constitutional rights to due process, equal protection and freedom from unreasonable searches, the Supreme Court recently doubled down on racial profiling. It decided that the discretion of police may be complemented by the discretion of jail officials to strip-search the 14 million Americans who are arrested each year.
Editor's note: Pedro Noguera is a professor at New York University and director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education. He is editor of "Unfinished Business: Closing the Achievement Gap in Our Nation's Schools" and author of "The Trouble With Black Boys ... And Other Reflections on Race, Equity and the Future of Public Education."
By Pedro Noguera, Special to CNN
(CNN) - For the past 25 years I have been working as an educator, researcher and policy advocate.
I am also the parent of four children who have attended public schools.
In each of these roles I have tried to improve public education and advance the educational rights of children, particularly those who have historically been poorly served.
Given my background, I was pleasantly surprised by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's recent assertion that education was "the civil rights issue of our time".
Romney is only the most recent politician to connect changes in education to civil rights. Similar remarks have been made by President Obama as well.
Typically, the politicians who make such declarations link it to a call for reform.
Romney has chosen to connect his declaration to the issue of choice and vouchers.
The question is: Why does Romney believe that simply by promoting school choice the problems that plague public education in America will go away?
Perhaps Romney is not aware that choice and voucher systems have actually been around for a while, and in the cities that have adopted these policies, the challenges confronting American education have not gone away. FULL POST
Editor’s note: Susan Bodnar is a clinical psychologist who works with people from diverse backgrounds and teaches at Columbia University’s Teachers College and at The Stephen Mitchell Center for Relational Studies. She lives in Manhattan with her husband, two children and all of their pets.
By Susan Bodnar, Special to CNN
(CNN) - When I learned of the news that a young black male, Trayvon Martin, had been shot and killed, it knocked the tears out of me.
Could this have happened to my child? One of his friends?
Martin was like many of our adolescent children – a little bit confused about his identity, and perhaps acted out as most teenagers do.
But we should stop viewing the release of recent evidence, and news about George Zimmerman as a spectacle.
Instead let’s discuss how a white Hispanic man came to view an unarmed black teenager as dangerous, and explore racism’s lingering vestiges after the death of Trayvon Martin.
Editor's note: Shamena Anwar is an assistant professor of economics and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University; Patrick Bayer is a professor of economics at Duke University; and Randi Hjalmarsson is an associate professor in economics at Queen Mary, University of London.
By Shamena Anwar, Patrick Bayer and Randi Hjalmarsson, Special to CNN
(CNN) - The Sixth Amendment right to a trial by an impartial jury is the bedrock of our criminal justice system. Yet the promise of impartiality is called into question when defendants face juries that include few, if any, members of their race.
The small percentage of black people in the U.S. population, less than 13%, and in some cases, their systematic exclusion from juries, means that black defendants routinely face all-white juries in many states and counties.
Concerns about jury representation go hand-in-hand with the sense that the racial makeup of juries might make a big difference for conviction rates in criminal trials. Surprisingly, we know very little about this.
Washington (CNN) - The uproar last week over a proposed campaign ad highlighting President Barack Obama's former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, lit up political circles before organizers finally backed off the idea.
And Mitt Romney came under fire from evangelicals before his speech to Liberty University in Virginia earlier this month because some at the traditional Christian school still believe Mormonism is a cult.
Two very different candidates joined by similar, yet hollow, attacks on their faith illustrate the intense mix of identity politics simmering just beneath the surface of the presidential race.
When it comes to faith and race, there are some who want to paint both candidates as outside the mainstream, not members of the traditional American club. They want to paint them as "others."
Both Obama, the nation's first black president, and Romney, a Mormon, have found that their shared status as members of minority groups and political pioneers, in many ways, has also changed the rules of this presidential campaign cycle, said Nancy Wadsworth, co-editor of the anthology "Faith and Race in American Political Life."
Editor's note: LZ Granderson, who writes a weekly column for CNN.com, was named journalist of the year by the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and a 2011 Online Journalism Award finalist for commentary. He is a senior writer and columnist for ESPN the Magazine and ESPN.com. Follow him on Twitter: @locs_n_laughs
By LZ Granderson, CNN Contributor
(CNN) - It feels as if I've been living a double life all of these years, and I do not want to deceive you, or myself, any longer. The burden has become too heavy, the struggle to deny my true self, too great.
In order to be free I have tell you something. I am black.
I know; I should have told you sooner. But I was afraid. After all, I've already shared with you that I am gay and well, we all know a person can't be both.
At least that's how it feels the conversation is usually framed: There's a black community and a gay community, and the two conflict and do not mix. Since President Obama voiced support for marriage equality and now the board of the NAACP has followed suit, the narrative is that the black community is trying to make room at the table for gay people.
Allow me to correct this storyline: No one is making room for gay people, gay people have always been at the table, at the forefront.
What Obama, Jay-Z, Julian Bond, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and others have done over the past week is simply acknowledge life is not an "either/or" proposition but rather an emphatic "and." Boxes are for shoes, not people. So while compartmentalizing folks makes it easier to herd people into target groups and voting blocs, it's a gross misrepresentation of the reality of humanity.
I am gay. And I am black.
Editor’s Note: Shonda Rhimes, the creator, screenwriter and executive producer of "Grey’s Anatomy", "Private Practice" and "Scandal", spoke to CNN about identity, and diversity in television. This interview has been edited for space and clarity.
By Sarah Springer, CNN
Shonda Rhimes on the diversity on her shows:
I think it’s fascinating to me that we still live in a world in which people truly believe that because someone is a different color than them, that they couldn’t relate to them or have a similar experience. That’s the most bizarre thing to me.
As a black girl on television, 90% of the women on television are not the same color as you. You’re relating to the experience of people who are not the same color as you. So why wouldn’t that work in then reverse for white people? I find it fascinating that we think that the world doesn’t work that way.
For me, “Grey’s” was about me making a statement. I was making a television show that I wanted to watch and part of that was putting people of all colors in it so that you saw people like you on television.
So people suggesting that just because you’re a certain color that you couldn’t write something or be relatable to different characters is sort of horrifying to me at this point.
It’s 2012: why are we still having this conversation?
(CNN) – The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People on Saturday announced its backing of same-sex marriage, more than a week after President Barack Obama also expressed support for the issue.
"The mission of the NAACP has always been to ensure political, social and economic equality of all people," Roslyn M. Brock, chairman of the NAACP's board of directors, said in a statement.
What defines you? Maybe it’s the shade of your skin, the place you grew up, the accent in your words, the make up of your family, the gender you were born with, the intimate relationships you chose to have or your generation? As the American identity changes we will be there to report it. In America is a venue for creative and timely sharing of news that explores who we are. Reach us at inamerica@cnn.com.
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