Italy's government encourages racism

It seems that European xenophobia is not limited to people from predominately-Muslim countries...

Sixty-eight per cent of Italians, fuelled by often inflammatory attacks by the new rightwing government, want to see all of the country's 150,000 Gypsies, many of them Italian citizens, expelled, according to an opinion poll.

The survey, published as mobs in Naples burned down Gypsy camps this week, revealed that the majority also wanted all Gypsy camps in Italy to be demolished .

About 70,000 Gypsies in Italy hold Italian passports, including about 30,000 descended from 15th-century Gypsy settlers in the country. The remainder have arrived since, many fleeing the Balkans during the 1990s.
...
In a second poll, 81% of Italian respondents said they found all Gypsies, Romanian or not, "barely likeable or not likeable at all", a greater number than the 64% who said they felt the same way about non-Gypsy Romanians.

Many Gypsies are as entitled legally to live in Italy as 'ethnic' Italians, making this extreme xenophobia and racism all the more alarming. The government has made immigration rules harsher as it takes a swing to the right.

Italy will only get worse under its reelected, corrupt media-mogul leader Silvio Berlusconi.

A new tale of injustice and racial outrage in the American South

NYT:

They called it the White Tree. Not because of the color of its leaves or tint of its bark, but because of the kind of people who typically sat beneath its shade here at Jena High School.

And when a black student tried to defy that tradition by sitting under the tree last September, it set off a series of events that have turned this town of 3,000 in central Louisiana’s timber country into a flashpoint over the issue of racial bias in the criminal justice system.

This is a fascinating -- and disturbing -- case of soured race relations in the United States, and how far the country still has to go to see that events like the one that took place in Jena. More importantly, one can see the bias of much of the local and national mainstream media -- mainly TV and radio -- in action. Often consumed by celebrity gossip, and usually turning a blind eye to important or non-sensationalist stories, many stations have been covering stories like that of the Jena 6 from a slanted angle.

Fear sells -- whether it's an Arab terrorist or a black criminal. Another recent racially-related story is a story that has not received very much coverage. An African American woman was tortured and raped by six men in West Virgina (allegedly). Why is it that when several black teens beat up a white student, it Channel X Local News goes nuts, but when a clear hate-crime is committed it barely breaks into the national news mainstream?

The other extreme of a race connected crime is the assumption of guilt of people accused of a crime against a black person, and the perceived injustice. Case and point: the Duke lacrosse player case, in which political correctness and the assumption of guilt by the public and news media (the same thing happened in the over-covered Jon Benet Ramsey case with people assuming the automatic guilt of John Mark Karr) ended up leading to false accusations and perhaps a sort of racism of its own.

The 'Jena 6' case shows more flaws in the American criminal justice system, and society in general, especially in the South. However, it is good to know that there are appeals courts out there that expose these flaws, and people willing to take action in defense of these boys. For now, the protests continue, raising the level of awareness of this racially-divisive incident (I only learned about it yesterday).

It's a fairly confusing chain of events; NPR has a good wrapup of the Jena story, starting with the 'White Tree' and ending with the current legal action being taken.

Slavery and more

Today is the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. See here (official UN site) for more details.


"No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms." Article 4, Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

It's been about 200 years since the abolition of slavery in Britain and the British Empire, and an odd altruistic sort of crusade against slavery by the British. It's also around two centuries since US President Thomas Jefferson signed an act banning the slave trade, though slavery continued for years to come.

Of course, slavery and similar practices are still around today.

technorati tags: slavery, history, holidays, UN, british, jefferson, human+rights, racism

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day for those both in and outside of the United States. Martin Luther King (1929-1968) was one of the greatest Americans ever — one of the most influential people to modern human society — and his eternal legacy lives on. King played a great role in the civil rights movement which finally led to real freedom for African Americans, even though black Americans had been emancipated nearly a century before the civil rights movement kicked into full swing in the mid-20th century. King was a Nobel Peace Prize-winning civil rights advocate trying to change society for the better through means of nonviolence. He rekindled the flame of rights for minorities in the United States and all over the world. His "I have a dream" speech (video) inspired a nation and a civilization to look at the mess of racial injustices. Yet, even today, Hispanics and blacks and Arabs are being segregated against — even unnoticeably — in the United States' continued racist struggles (poverty, racial terrorist and crime stereotypes only enforced by parts of the US media, social injustices and disliking someone just because they are different from you all play a role, along with economics and the misunderstanding among some white Americans about immigration); Arabs are restricted in Israel because they happen to look like the people launching rockets at Haifa and blowing themselves up in Israeli-occupied areas of Palestine; this does not really have to do with skin color, but still: the anti-semitism all-too-common throughout the world; the label of Middle Easterners as barbaric and Africans as poor, helpless, and self-destructive by a largely wealthy but ignorant and uneducated western public only relying on false stereotypes; just had to add this one to the mix: Michael Crichton likening global warming to eugenics (take it however you like); South Africa still getting over the days of white-only rule; ... it is not hard to find examples of racism and prejudice around the world, even in young children, as well as many other uncontrollable factors of human beings. Obviously homosexuality is also something looked down upon. A person being gay and expressing or even letting on their sexual preference is only a latent version, adapted for the modern day, of a person being black in the days of widespread lynching. But at least sexual preferences and religion can remain superficially latent; the color of your skin cannot.

In conclusion, have a good Martin Luther King, Jr. day. It will be a good day for historical reflection, however painful that may be. Every year it is always an interesting experience as the nation remembers the injustices prevalent in our society in the past — and even the injustices continuing today. He had a dream, a dream that has yet to become a reality, but we're getting closer and should not loose sight of the goal of human equality, tolerance for others, freedom for all! We are clearly still at a point in history when how one looks is a major factor in how one is perceived, especially when that relates to the color of one’s skin. Dr. King, your dream isn't true yet, I, for one, hope for us to get it as close to a reality as possible.


Articles on MLK:

Wikipedia:

Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was a famous leader of the American civil rights movement, a political activist, and a Baptist minister. In 1964, King became the youngest man to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (for his work as a peacemaker, promoting nonviolence and equal treatment for different races). On April 4, 1968, Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. In 1977, he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Jimmy Carter. In 1986, Martin Luther King Day was established as a United States holiday. In 2004, King was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. He was known as a great public speaker.[1] Dr. King often called for personal responsibility in fostering world peace.[2] King's most influential and well-known public address is the "I Have A Dream" speech, delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C..

TIME 100:

It is a testament to the greatness of Martin Luther King Jr. that nearly every major city in the U.S. has a street or school named after him. It is a measure of how sorely his achievements are misunderstood that most of them are located in black neighborhoods.

Three decades after King was gunned down on a motel balcony in Memphis, Tenn., he is still regarded mainly as the black leader of a movement for black equality. That assessment, while accurate, is far too restrictive. For all King did to free blacks from the yoke of segregation, whites may owe him the greatest debt, for liberating them from the burden of America's centuries-old hypocrisy about race. It is only because of King and the movement that he led that the U.S. can claim to be the leader of the "free world" without inviting smirks of disdain and disbelief. Had he and the blacks and whites who marched beside him failed, vast regions of the U.S. would have remained morally indistinguishable from South Africa under apartheid, with terrible consequences for America's standing among nations. How could America have convincingly inveighed against the Iron Curtain while an equally oppressive Cotton Curtain remained draped across the South?

Encyclopaedia Britannica:

Martin Luther King, Jr.

born January 15, 1929, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.
died April 4, 1968, Memphis, Tennessee

original name Michael Luther King, Jr. Baptist minister and social activist who led the civil rights movement in the United States from the mid-1950s until his death by assassination in 1968. His leadership was fundamental to that movement's success in ending the legal segregation of African Americans in the South and other parts of the United States. King rose to national prominence through the organization of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, promoting nonviolent tactics such as the massive March on Washington (1963) to achieve civil rights. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1964.

Nobel Prize for Peace


I will not be able to post tomorrow, sorry. Check back mid-week for updates to the blog!

technorati tags: MLK, martin+luther+king+day, martin+luther+king+jr, civil+rights, society, racism, profile, united+states, african+americans, history