By Curtis Johnson, NAACP Communications Department
On June 18 and 19th, I had the privilege of attending the 3rd Annual Blogging While Brown Conference as an NAACP representative. Blogging While Brown was created in 2008 as a response to the low level of diversity in some of the largest and most popular blogging conferences. The purpose of Blogging While Brown is to give Bloggers of Color an opportunity to connect in person, discuss issues affecting Bloggers of Color, and learn about the latest technology that will assist them with their work.
I feel compelled to open this tale with the caveat that I was somewhat skittish about attending Blogging While Brown due to the skepticism by some in the Black blogger community toward the NAACP. Much of the criticism stemmed from the NAACP’s perceived lack of tech savvy and an overall absence of blogger engagement. While I work at the NAACP and am aware of our history (or lack thereof) with the Black blogosphere, I also am aware of the strides we have made with the recognition of technology as both an asset in organizing and communication, and the significance of the Black blogosphere in helping us advance that mission. (more…)
(CNN) — On Wednesday the saga of death row inmate Troy Anthony Davis will begin its last chapter. In an extremely rare ruling last summer, the United States Supreme Court ordered a federal judge in Georgia to grant Troy an evidentiary hearing to prove his innocence.
The ruling is unusual in that the Supreme Court has not granted this writ of habeas corpus in more than 50 years. Their decision is a strong indication that they are concerned about the constitutionality of executing the innocent — as am I.
Although much work still must be done in our justice system to ensure the innocent do not pay the price of the guilty, the granting of this evidentiary hearing is a major step for Troy Davis and for many other likely innocent prisoners sitting on death row; Troy Davis will have an opportunity to tell his side of the story and new evidence will be considered in this nearly 20-year-old case. (more…)
By Yasmin Salina Rana of the NAACP Alabama Youth and College Division
BET host Big Tigger held his 9th Annual Celebrity Weekend this past weekend in Washington, D.C. Tigger’s weekend focus on raising awareness of HIV and AIDs in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.
Some of the participants included recording artists Lyfe Jennings, Teyana Taylor and Tank, NBA stars Kenyon Martin and Vince Carter, comedian Red Grant, Hollywood actress Denyce Lawton and NFL player Shawne Merriman, just to name a few.
It’s always been an honor to participate in the weekend alongside Big Tigger. The 3 day star-studded weekend raises money to support The Street Corner Foundation, working to eliminate the spread of HIV/AIDS among young adults, minorities and women. (more…)
Before and during Memorial Day Weekend 2010, the NAACP conducted its sixth annual Operation Bike Week Justice. Each year, dedicated NAACP staff and volunteers monitor the businesses and the police to ensure that all tourists in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina are treated equally and fairly.
There are two spring motorcycle festivals in Myrtle Beach. The first, Harley Week, is a predominately white event, occurring two weeks before Memorial Day Weekend. The second, Black Bike Week, is a predominately African American event occurring during Memorial Day Weekend.
Participants have complained that during Black Bike Week many Myrtle Beach businesses would close or subject African Americans to Jim Crow type treatment. Such degrading treatment included refusing to allow African Americans to stay in a hotel, closing certain hotel facilities, barring African Americans males from using public restrooms, forcing African Americans to eat substandard food outside and charging African Americans higher prices for food. Those same businesses remained open and offered full services during Harley Week. As a result of NAACP’s hard work and litigation, many businesses no longer engage in such discriminatory practices. However, this year, the NAACP continued to receive complaints regarding businesses closing during Black Bike Week. (more…)
Last week, federal officials announced a decrease in our nation’s jail population for the first time since 1982. This comes at a time when overall crime is down despite this being the worst economic recession in decades. Although the announced decrease in jail population is a promising bit of news, reactions should be measured.
The US is 5 percent of the world’s population and has 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. Over the last 30 years, the US criminal justice system experienced the second largest increase in government investment, second only to health care. Last year, as state budget shortfalls loomed, 31 states cut education budgets while increasing money for incarceration.
Unless we support ongoing efforts to downscale prisons and jails, our country will literally go broke and funds for other public sector ventures will dry up. (more…)
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is the greatest environmental disaster our nation has ever faced–virtually no one is willing to debate that at this point. From the fishermen and business owners whose livelihoods have been negatively affected by the spill to the president himself, the American people are interested in holding British Petroleum (BP) and other contractors accountable for the myriad alleged violations that resulted in the spill. Since April 20th, affected families have sought remedy to this crisis through litigation, documentation, and protests–all with the hope of recovery.
This reaction to such a catastrophe is not new, however. In the wake of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, demonstrators protested the spill, and have continued to elevate the long-term effects of its legacy. This unrest, coupled with the civil and criminal probes (similar to the one “Attorney General Eric Holder”:http://www.thegrio.com/politics/feds-open-criminal-probe-of-gulf-oil-spill.php announced on Tuesday from New Orleans), resulted in Exxon paying more than $1 billion in penalties and compensatory damages, which included $125 million in criminal penalties, the largest sum fined to date. With OSHA statistics reporting BP as responsible for more than 760 “egregious, willful” safety violations in the last 5 years -compared to eight by Sunoco and Conoco-Phillips, two by Citgo, and one by Exxon–the degree of BP’s negligence is clear. (more…)
While Congress was pushing through the nation’s toughest financial regulatory reform bill in decades last week, nine men were charged with nearly 100 counts of scamming more than $2 million from up-front fees charged to families across the nation.
Though the watchdog component of the new bill, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, will have an ability to develop and enforce new rules governing mortgage lending, it may end up doing little to protect consumers from mortgage-related scams, particularly those aimed at foreclosure rescue. (more…)
By Jacqui Patterson, Director of the NAACP Climate Justice Initiative
The BP Oil Drilling Disaster is yet another example of the string of adverse impacts, particularly on communities of color, of US over reliance on fossil fuels (coal, oil, etc.) We’ve seen several acute incidents resulting in deaths in these last few weeks due to dangerous coal and oil processing. We’ve also seen, through our Clearing the Air Road Tour, the death of a thousand cuts communities of color and low income communities are experiencing by living in communities that are constantly polluted by our disproportionate exposure to toxic coal fired power plants, which are linked to respiratory illnesses such as asthma as well as lung cancer.
The Oil Drilling Disaster is imperiling livelihoods, health, and the animal habitats of coastal communities. Spewing minimally 5,000 barrels (over 200, 000 gallons) of oil into the Gulf of Mexico daily, the oil spill is threatening communities in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida. As a sentinel for human and civil rights the NAACP is gravely concerned with reports from our branches in the affected areas of health impacts they are witnessing and experiencing from noxious fumes, fisherman who know longer have a source of income, houseboat residents who are finding their marshes filling with oil and are worried about displacement, etc.
Besides dealing with the immediate issue before us of the BP Oil Crisis, as we’ve indicated in our draft statement, we as a nation need to take a long hard look at how our energy choices are disproportionately imperiling the lives of communities of color while more broadly negatively impacting the wellbeing of the planet.
By Curtis Johnson, NAACP Communications Department
