Hilda Solis's California education

Here's a clip related to the previous post about Labor Secretary Hilda Solis's March 20 speech at the California Faculty Association's Equity Conference. She talks about the financial support she received back in the day:

(Video by ProfGeo)

Labor Secretary speaks at CFA Equity Conference

As I have commented elsewhere, affirmative action isn't dead in California, it's just manifested differently since Proposition 209 passed. Any entity (like our very large public university systems) desiring federal dollars will comply with federal affirmative action requirements, but some will be more public about it than others.

The above is to set the context for the fact that U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis spoke yesterday to an arm of the California Faculty Association (Cal State's faculty union). The assembled Council for Affirmative Action welcomed her with open arms at our 2010 Equity Conference. (Full disclosure: I'm not a member of the council, just one of many faculty members who attended.)

If you think she just swung by because she had Saturday morning free, I have a bridge to sell you. My take is, she wanted to come anyway, but I bet the March 4 Day of Action with its thousands of participants got some people's attention. Solis was the right person to send, as she is a graduate of the Cal State system, she's from a low-income background, and benefited from a Pell Grant, an Equal Opportunity Program, and more. And she wouldn't be where she is if certain doors had remained closed.

I'll update this with some video I shot after I check it.

I'm not at SxSW, but don't blame Texas

I've been sort of tuned in to South by Southwest since David Byrne spoke there in 2007 giving both elegy AND eulogy for the medium known as the CD.

This year, several people of my cyber-acquaintance have or had presences at SxSW 2010.

Bob Davis of Soul-Patrol.com (and Soul-Patrol.net) will have a panel March 19:

http://my.sxsw.com/events/event/593

Rich Vazquez of Lights. Camera. Help. had a panel March 13:

http://my.sxsw.com/events/eid/6087

And Baratunde Thurston of Jack and Jill Politics (OK, a very tenuous cyber-acquaintance as I just comment over at his JJP turf) had a slide show, "How to Be Black (Online)," that you can see at a couple of places, including

http://www.baratunde.com/blog/2010/3/14/my-slides-for-howtobeblack-online-at-sxsw-interactive.html

I highly recommend checking out the slide show...

Why I hate the Confederacy, Part IV: Dumbing down U.S. history

Efforts by Hispanic board members to include more Latino figures as role models for the state’s large Hispanic population were consistently defeated, prompting one member, Mary Helen Berlanga, to storm out of a meeting late Thursday night, saying, “They can just pretend this is a white America and Hispanics don’t exist.”

“They are going overboard, they are not experts, they are not historians,” she said. “They are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world.”

I guess this is the famous line in the sand. Between this and the refusal of Texas to get on board with 48 other states supporting the Common Core framework for K-12 learning, I fear for my several Texas relatives who are in the public schools. The Civil War is never over, is it?

March 12, 2010

Texas Approves Curriculum Revised by Conservatives

By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.

AUSTIN, Tex. — After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday voted to approve a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.

More disgusting details from a March 10 New York Times story: "References to Ralph Nader and Ross Perot are proposed to be removed, while Stonewall Jackson, the Confederate general, is to be listed as a role model for effective leadership, and the ideas in Jefferson Davis’s inaugural address are to be laid side by side with Abraham Lincoln’s speeches."

Every now and then someone tries this one

Trent Franks (R-AZ, which may mean he deserves razzing) may or may not be a distant relation of former congressman Gary Franks (R-CT) who seems to have disappeared after being proudly black and against affirmative action during the 1990s. We'll need Skip Gates to check that out in his next PBS special.

What we know for sure about ol' Trent Franks (and what is it about people named Trent in Congress making racist remarks, anyway?) is this: He famously said a few months ago that President Obama is an "enemy of humanity." Oddly, that remark wasn't considered treasonous or worthy of FBI investigation (that we know of). But he is newly famous for injudiciously suggesting that black people were victims of a greater scourge than slavery.

That's been discussed at length elsewhere, and by some the remark is being dismissed as just a lame attempt at getting brownie points (ironically enough) from the pro-life crowd. I am concerned, though, that there is a never-ending nostalgia among, er, certain folks for the good old days when, uh, certain other folks knew their place, and they'll grasp at any straw (any straw...! You cannot be serious!) to keep the memory of those days alive. Every time you want to go all post-racial and do a national group hug, somebody serves up a gentle reminder as Franks did.

Of all the commentary, I like Keith Knight's editorial cartoon best (so far). He's in my faves section in the left menu, but here's his Trent Franks rejoinder. Sample above, full cartoon at the link.

The end of Black History Month but we go on

Today is the last day of Black History Month. Van Jones is back, better than ever. Desiree Rogers is gone, but she'll be back too.

The IRS clock is about to strike midnight, if you want to apply Haiti earthquake relief donations to 2009. Your contribution must be made "before March 1" which in plain English means do it by Feb. 28. (I made mine a few days ago.) From the February 2010 Partners in Health e-bulletin:

"Taxpayers can count charitable contributions made for relief efforts in Haiti on either their 2009 or 2010 tax returns.

"Under new legislation, donations that are "cash contributions made for the relief of victims in areas affected by the earthquake in Haiti" can be deducted in 2009 as long as they are made after January 11, 2010 and before March 1, 2010."

http://www.pih.org

[cross-posted]

Under-the-radar racism in Oakland

To be fair, this was not under the radar for Oakland residents, just for me-- being several hours away, and darn careful when I go to the Bay Area anymore, down to obeying parking regulations. People who know me well are aware that I sometimes extrapolate from seemingly very small matters (butterfly flaps its wings) and wonder if they are indicators of larger effects (gale force winds halfway around the world).

The butterfly in this case is the selective enforcement, by socioeconomic neighborhood, of parking regulations in Oakland. Some of us may not be surprised at the practice of enforcing the law strictly in some zip codes, while treating offenses more lightly in others. (We could use drug law disparities as a prime example. There's nothing less impressive than sanctimonious pot-smoking suburbanites telling urban folk not to use drugs.) In this case... well, let the pullquote speak for itself:

Parking enforcement officers who shed light on the practice in The Chronicle on Thursday alleged that the policy of not ticketing cars in the two Oakland hills neighborhoods led to fines being leveled disproportionately against poor, black and Latino people in the flatlands.

What gets me is that someone-- say, a city administrator-- (a) thought it was a good idea, and (b) thought they could get away with it based on spurious comments at an Oakland city council meeting.

Oooh! ® ...Okay, here's the lead-in:

Oakland ends unequal ticketing, officials say

Matthai Kuruvila, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, February 26, 2010

Oakland officials said Thursday they have stopped the unequal practice of issuing tickets for certain violations in some neighborhoods while issuing courtesy notices in others.

City Administrator Dan Lindheim said that people who were cited for the violations in question during a four-month period from July 24 to Nov. 12 - when the city says the practice ended - may be able to get their tickets voided on a case-by-case basis.

The announcements came in response to an article in The Chronicle on Thursday, which exposed an internal city memorandum that directed parking officers to issue tickets to cars parked in the wrong direction or on sidewalks anywhere in the city except for two wealthy neighborhoods - Montclair and Broadway Terrace. Cars in those neighborhoods were not tagged but instead received courtesy notices when they violated either of two parking laws.