RACIAL MELTDOWN:
Leaders' Silence is Killing Blacks
By Kerman Maddox,
LA Times - March 21, 2007
Why are Latinos committing violent crimes targeted against African Americans in Los Angeles?
If these hate crimes were being committed by the KKK against Latinos or African Americans, both communities would come together and condemn the violence as racist. Why not now?
According to The Los Angeles Times, police statistics show that from 1994 to 2005, there were nearly five times as many homicides, assaults and other violent crimes committed by Latinos against African Americans in Harbor Gateway as by African Americans against Latinos.
One example of how out of control race relations have been in Harbor Gateway is the case of the 19-year-old African American man with no known gang affiliation who was killed by a Latino member of the 204th Street gang because the gang member was upset that an African American had defeated a Latino in a boxing match.
Three Los Angeles members of a Latino gang known as the Avenues were convicted and sentenced to life in prison in November for hate crime violations, including killing African Americans in an effort to run them out of predominantly Latino neighborhoods.
When are more Latino political leaders going to speak out against these hate crimes? If any type of political coalition exists, now's the time to make something happen.
I will say publicly what many people are whispering privately in barbershops, soul food restaurants and church parking lots in South Los Angeles. If relations don't improve soon between Blacks and Latinos in Southern California, we are headed for a major racial conflict.
KERMAN MADDOX is a political consultant and board member of the African American Summit on Violence Prevention, www.aasvp.org
BLACKS & LATINOS: WE AIN'T GETTIN' ALONG
Kerman's right - something is bubbling just under the surface folks. All jokes aside- this is a serious national crisis. Read here -- and here
In Schools, It's The Principal Of The Thing. click here
LET'S NOT FALL FOR THIS WAR OF THE COLOREDS
For more than 20 years, Black and Brown population numbers have been steadily rising while the numbers for white folks have stayed stagnant. For the insecure money-hungry power elite who don’t look like us nor like the notion of us outnumbering them, this can be scary.
This is why Katrina, border insecurity and deep-seeded poverty are allowed to happen in the richest, country in the world.
Having said that, we can't keep blaming white people. Been there, done that!
What we can do is come together, organize and take control. The energy we're putting into fighting each other should go into getting to the polls on Election Day in numbers that matter, demanding better schools, and creating our own economic opportunities.
Need an example of what we're talking about - click here
HEY YOU ILLEGALS: LA CUCHA GOTCHA
NEWARK — Craig Carton and Ray Rossi, hosts of an afternoon radio show called "The Jersey Guys", think teasing Asians with sing-song Chinese accents is hilarious. Mental illness - hysterical.
Recently the outrageous pair kicked off “Operation Rat a Rat/La Cucha Gotcha,” a listener-participation game set to mariachi music that encourages people to turn in friends, neighbors and “anyone suspicious” to immigration authorities.
With 15 percent of New Jersey's population identified as being Hispanic, reaction to the show in the garden state has not exactly been positive... with Latinos that is.
At a news conference Thursday, Hispanic elected officials and others were pissed, calling the campaign a “publicity stunt” that could incite violence against Hispanics.
Anyone expecting an apology or an immediate end to Rat a Rat, however, will be sorely disappointed. The cockroach campaign, at least for now, is not slated to end until May 5th, aka Cinco de Mayo.
Tequila!