NAACP

Gov. Bill Richardson  signed legislation to officially ban bias-based profiling in New Mexico. Advocates and organizations who supported the legislation were in attendance at a public signing at the governor’s office in Santa Fe.  Activist members of the Otero County, New Mexico NAACP lobbied for passage in Santa Fe  and testified in committee hearings.

HB 428, the Prohibition of Profiling Practices Act, sponsored by Rep. Nathan Cote, D-Las Cruces, passed the Senate floor by 32-10 in the final hour of the legislative session. The bill previously passed the House floor 62-0 after an hour of impassioned debate from members. (more…)

Eric Holder and the Whitewashing of Racism
Counterpunch
By TIM WISE

It was all too predictable that Attorney General Eric Holder would be attacked for his recent remarks about race in America. To suggest that the nation is still haunted by the specter of racism is unacceptable it seems, especially since, with the election of President Obama, we have ostensibly entered the “post-racial” era.

But in truth, the nation’s chief law enforcement officer deserves criticism more for what he didn’t say than for what he did. (more…)

“Surely, Mr. Obama’s acceptance speech was one of the greatest moments in American political history.”
~Chris Jones

Beware The Simplifiers
by Bill Moyers

Published on Sunday, May 4, 2008 by PBS.org

I once asked a reporter back from Vietnam, “Who’s telling the truth over there?” “Everyone, he said. “Everyone sees what’s happening through the lens of their own experience.” That’s how people see Jeremiah Wright. In my conversation with him on this broadcast a week ago and in his dramatic public appearances since, he revealed himself to be far more complex than the sound bites that propelled him onto the public stage. Over 2000 of you have written me about him, and your opinions vary widely. Some sting: “Jeremiah Wright is nothing more than a race-hustling, American hating radical,” one viewer wrote. A “nut case,” said another. Others were far more were sympathetic to him.

Many of you have asked for some rational explanation for Wright’s transition from reasonable conversation to shocking anger at the National Press Club. A psychologist might pull back some of the layers and see this complicated man more clearly, but I’m not a psychologist. Many black preachers I’ve known – scholarly, smart, and gentle in person – uncorked fire and brimstone in the pulpit. Of course I’ve known many white preachers like that, too. (more…)