EBONY: Speaking of color, it doesn’t seem to limit you. And it almost appears seamless. Is that true? Or have there been bumps along the way because you’re a woman of color?

Zoe Saldana: Nothing in life is just one layer. It’s one-layered (but) it’s multifaceted, and there are various factors that take place into making a decision or something happening. So the one thing I will say is, what has not changed is what I feel and think of myself and how I interact with the world, how I handle myself. I feel like I’m very confident. I’m going to have my moments of weakness, but I like who I am and I don’t want to be anybody else. I don’t want anybody to tell me to change when I don’t want to change.

So that’s just who I am. And when I approach something—whether I’m fighting for a role or I’m being offered a role—I’m not thinking whether or not anybody is doing me a favor or if I’m doing somebody else a favor. I’m just thinking, as an artist and as a woman, “is this something that best represents the craft that I want to be known for?” Or is this an accurate representation of what a woman is supposed to be?

And do I like this story? Do I like this director? Do I think the studio is going to manage and sell it properly. That’s where my head is at. I’m not thinking, “Oh, I’m a woman of color, are they gonna want me?” I don’t give too much energy to that, because my time is very valuable, and something that exists to others is not going to exist in my world. That’s how I think I get by, by not giving it any validation by wasting more time investing into thinking about it.

EBONY: That’s profound.

Zoe Saldana: Yeah. Morgan Freeman said it. And I was just told this when I was doing an interview: He’s not going to talk about racism. I’m not going to talk about it. Yeah, it’s an elephant. We all see it, we all know it, but I’m not going to carry it in my heart, because I want to be a person that embodies change. Not embodies war or battles or bitterness; I want to keep moving on.

Saldana is probably referring to Freeman's 2006 interview with CBS' "60 Minutes" reporter Mike Wallace.  The two were discussing black history month, when Wallace asked Freeman: "How are you going to get rid of racism?"

"Stop talking about it. I'm going to stop calling you a white man," Freeman said to Wallace. "And I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a black man. I know you as Mike Wallace. You know me as Morgan Freeman. You wouldn't say, 'Well, I know this white guy named Mike Wallace.' You know what I'm sayin'?"

Here is the full context of Morgan Freeman's interview:

Morgan Freeman 2006 Interview on Black History Month, racism

Recently, Saldana has been revealing more about herself during her press tour.  She has spoken about why she couldn't pose for every magazine, a revealing magazine photo spread,  the controversy around her playing Nina Simone, and that she is "open to being with a woman." 

(CNN) - Here's something to consider as Congress debates overhauling America's immigration system: For the first time since at least 1850, immigrants will be the primary driver of U.S. population.

Births have been the leading cause of population growth since the U.S. Census Bureau began collecting data in 1850. That may change within the next 14 years.

The population growth shifts could happen as early as 2027 or as late as 2038, depending, of course, on the numbers of international arrivals over the next few years.

Not that immigration levels are at their highest, cautioned Thomas Mesenbourg, the Census Bureau's senior adviser. The rates were much higher during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

But Americans are having fewer babies.

"This projected milestone reflects the mix of our nation's declining fertility rates, the aging of the baby boomer population and continued immigration," Mesenbourg said.

The Census Bureau issued three projections of population growth shifts based on different immigration levels. A high immigration projection showed that the nation's non-white population would jump from 37% in 2012 to 58.8% in 2060. Hispanics would make up 29.9% of the population, compared with 17% in 2012, and Asians would climb from 5.1% to 9%.

Non-Latino whites are projected to no longer be a majority by 2046, even if immigration levels stay the same.

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By Alex Castellanos, CNN Contributor

(CNN) - The images still inspire. Children sitting on their parents' shoulders amid a sea of American flags, fluttering on a cool Chicago night. A young black woman running to get as close as possible to the stage.

On November 4, 2008, Grant Park absorbed the world's focus: Barack Obama was elected president of the United States.

His victory speech stopped the Earth from spinning, if only for an evening, and drew the world's attention to an America where anything was again possible. Obama's victory energized a pulsing crowd of a hundred-thousand, their dream deferred no longer. Journalist Lois Wille called it "a great big huge happy evening" that would perhaps "wipe the memory" of a more divided America away.

Still, the podium was wrapped in bulletproof glass. Chicago charged all its 13,500 police officers with protecting America's great hope. It sent firefighters home wearing their uniforms so they would be ready to respond. We were not sure the promise and possibility of that moment was shared by every American. Yet that clear night, we celebrated the peaceful transition of power and the dawn of a different day.

This is a good country, full of good and great people, dedicated to an extraordinary American promise, our commitment to equal opportunity for everyone. That evening, even the most hardened partisan hearts could feel it. Our country had taken a step forward in racial relations, a big step, something that spoke of what our nation might yet become. A good nation had become an even better one, where the scars of some old wounds had healed and the pain of intense divisions, though not forgotten, had receded farther into memory.

Now the world is stopped no longer. How did we get from that America to this?

New York (CNN) - Columbia University is seeking to alter the 1920 charter of one of its graduate school fellowships which is still limited "to persons of the Caucasian race," though the fellowship has not been granted in years.

The Lydia C. Roberts Graduate Fellowship is, at least on paper, available to white students "of either sex, born in the state of Iowa," according to a Columbia University charter from 1920.

The university filed an affidavit in Manhattan Supreme Court last week to support a petition from JPMorgan Chase, the fellowship's designated trustee, to change the whites-only provision, according to Robert Hornsby, assistant vice president for media relations at Columbia.

Other restrictions for the fellowship stipulate that a recipient may not concentrate their studies in "law, medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, or theology." Recipients must also agree to return to Iowa for two years after completing their studies at Columbia.

The fellowship was established in 1920 by Lydia C. Roberts, an Iowa native, with a $500,000 donation to the university upon her death. However, the school stopped awarding the fellowship in 1997 for several reasons

by James Walston, special to CNN

(CNN) - Recently, Cécile Kyenge, Italy’s first black cabinet minister, was insulted by the xenophobic Northern League within hours of her appointment.

On Sunday, Roma soccer fans shouted racist insults at Milan’s Mario Balotelli, who is black, and also one of Italy's  national squad’s top strikers.

One of Italy’s old self-images was italiani brava gente – Italians are decent folk. But that ingrained idea is being challenged by recent events and history.

In 1938, Italy  passed the Racial Laws which discriminated against Italian Jews.

After the second World War, Italians looked at Mississippi and Alabama or Watts later, and then Brixton in London and complimented themselves on not being racist “like the Anglo-Saxons."

While there were no race riots or lynchings in Italy, there were also few nonwhites. A surname, an accent, a slightly lighter or darker complexion proclaimed a person’s origin, but all were Italians. The only nonwhites were diplomats, actors or priests in Rome and the occasional businessman in Milan: all privileged people.

In the 1980s, Italy changed from being a country of emigration to having immigrants; a trickle at first, mostly from Eastern Europe.

In the 1990s the trickle became a flow, from neighboring countries like Albania and Romania in Europe, from Morocco in North Africa.

By 2000, the overall numbers were increasing, but tolerance appeared high. Carlton Myers, a basketball champion with an Anglo-Caribbean father and Italian mother, was the Italian flagbearer at the Sydney Olympics.

There seemed to be very little racial tension, at worst an insulting insensitivity –like the Turin daily La Stampa referring to Japanese cars as “yellow” – they didn’t mean cabs.

But over the past decade or so, the number of immigrants has risen dramatically, from just over a million to just under 5 million. And the Italian-born children of immigrants cannot become citizens until they are 18, even though their first language is Italian (or more often Neapolitan or Bergamo or Bologna dialects).

During an expanding economy, the influx was not as bad as it appears now. Since 2008, the economy has been in recession and the number of jobs has decreased for all, especially the young. At the same time, many immigrants have integrated, set up businesses, become citizens and come to expect equal treatment.

These two factors are threatening for those Italians who feel insecure either in their jobs or their social position. And there are those who, like the Northern League politicians, want to exploit that fear.

To them, a woman such as Cécile Kyenge would be acceptable if she was a docile house servant rather than the successful eye surgeon and now a cabinet minister: that is threatening.

Even in America, with decades of efforts to overcome racism, there were many who still found the idea of a black president very disturbing. They could not use overtly racist language so used substitute words like “socialist."

In Italy, the former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi referred to Obama as “suntanned” and complained that Milan now looks like an “African” city. His language gives a license to others to use similar language to describe nonwhites.

But the changes in the United States and the rest of Europe over the past 40 or 50 years mean that the license is not unconditional.

There is a part of Italy which is indeed brava gente, but there is still a long way to go before a black cabinet minister or black soccer player is considered truly “Italian."

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of James Walston.

By Christiane Amanpour, CNN

(CNN) - Dear Girls of the World,

There are more than 7 billion people in the world. Half of them are women and girls.

Just imagine the whole world rising, as it will, when all women and girls are empowered.

It has to start with education. All the number crunchers have it right on this one: education = empowerment, from here in the United States to Uruguay and Ulan Bator.

The United Nations, the World Bank and any organization you can think of say that an educated girl is a girl who can get a job, become a breadwinner and raise herself, her family, her village, her community and eventually her whole country. All the stories and statistics show that a healthy society is one whose women are healthy and productive.

Look at what women and girls are achieving for Rwanda, 19 years after the genocide there. The country leads the way in Africa in every way: education, health, the economy, the environment and in elected politics, powered by the force of its women. It is an amazing story. In contrast, the Arab world, which is so rich in natural resources such as oil and gas, is way behind in all development indicators, because half their populations, their women, are denied basic rights. It's why the Arab Spring must liberate and fully empower women, for the good of those countries.

(CNNMoney) - White, non-Hispanic kids will no longer make up the majority of America's youth in just five to six years, according to Census Bureau projections released Wednesday.

Those projections, which include four different scenarios for population growth, estimate that today's minority ethnic groups will soon account for at least half of the under-18 population, either in 2018 or 2019.

"This is going to start from the bottom of the age distribution and move its way up," said William Frey, demographer and senior fellow for the Brooking Institution. "All of these projections show we're moving to greater diversity in the United States."

Already, more than half of American babies being born belong to racial and ethnic groups traditionally thought of as "minorities" - which means it could soon be time to toss that word out completely.

By the time those kids grow up to become adults - sometime between 2036 and 2042 - everyone in the working-age population (ages 18 to 64) will be a member of a group that comes up short of the 50% line.

Demographers call it a "minority-majority." No one single racial or ethnic group will make up more than half of the population.

]]> http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/15/white-kids-will-no-longer-be-a-majority-in-just-a-few-years/feed/ 36 2013-05-15T15:47:34+00:00 inamericadocs http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/15/our-outrageous-dream-bringing-diversity-to-science/ http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/15/our-outrageous-dream-bringing-diversity-to-science/#comments Wed, 15 May 2013 13:38:53 +0000 In America Editor http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/?p=23593 ]]> Editor's note: Freeman Hrabowski has been president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County for 20 years. He was named one of the world's 100 most influential people in 2012 by TIME. He spoke at TED2013 in February. TED is a nonprofit dedicated to "Ideas worth spreading," which it makes available through talks posted on its website.

(CNN) - Fifty years ago this month, I chanced to hear the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. I was a mild-mannered kid with a speech impediment and a love of math. That day, I was focused on solving math problems, not issues of justice and equal rights. But King broke through to me when he said this: If the children of Birmingham march, Americans will see that what they are asking for is a better education. They will see that even the very young know the difference between right and wrong.

I chose to march, and found myself among hundreds of children jailed for five terrifying days. Mind you, I was not a brave child. But even at 12 years old, I believed and hoped that my participation could make a difference.

Twenty-five years later, I had made my way to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. My colleagues and I had an outrageous dream: Perhaps a young research university - just 20 years old - could alter the course of minority performance in higher education, particularly in the sciences. Baltimore philanthropists Robert and Jane Meyerhoff shared our vision.

And now people ask: What magic have we hit upon that has enabled us to become a national model for educating students of all races in a wide range of disciplines? How did we - as a predominantly white university with a strong liberal arts curriculum - become one of the top producers of minority scientists in the country?

Rather than magic, there are a number of educational principles at work. And what my colleagues and I have found is that they all grow out of one key truth: The world does not always have to be as it is today.

(CNN) - Known for his outspoken, unapologetic support of migrants in Mexico, the Rev. Alejandro Solalinde is bringing his message to the United States.

The priest is part of a caravan of migrants and their supporters traveling from Los Angeles to Washington to push for immigration reform.

In Mexico, Solalinde has criticized the government, and even the Catholic Church, saying that both can be more compassionate to migrants. His views are shaped by the years he has spent leading a migrant shelter in Oaxaca that offers support to Central Americans who embark on the dangerous route north by clinging to trains.

A number of threats last year led to his leaving his post, located in Ixtepec, in the southern state of Oaxaca, but he has since returned.

"I don't know how to live with fear," Solalinde told CNN.

Immigration issues must be tackled both at the source and the destination of the migrants, he said.