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Steve Gilliard, 1964-2007
It is with tremendous sadness that we must convey the news that Steve Gilliard, editor and publisher of The News Blog, passed away June 2, 2007. He was 42.
To those who have come to trust The News Blog and its insightful, brash and unapologetic editorial tone, we have Steve to thank from the bottom of our hearts. Steve helped lead many discussions that mattered to all of us, and he tackled subjects and interest categories where others feared to tread.
Please keep Steve's friends and family in your thoughts and prayers.
Steve meant so much to us.
We will miss him terribly.
SteveAudio: " That old black magic has me under its spell"
Labels: food, immigration, racism
Yummy. Not so much.
Thanks to SteveAudio for this great cross-post and over-eating deterrent - THANKS STEVE!
Tyson Foods was sued by a group of employees for racial discrimination, and the lawsuit was taken seriously by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that they joined in the suit. I wrote about this previously here and here.
Seems like the whole thing was, ah, settled back in November:BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) today announced a major litigation settlement with Tyson Foods for $871,000 on behalf of black workers who alleged that they were racially harassed and retaliated against at a chicken processing plant in Ashland, Alabama. The three-year consent decree entered today by U.S. District Court Judge Karen O. Bowdre also includes significant injunctive relief that will foster a discrimination-free workplace at Tyson Foods in Ashland.
The decree resolves two race discrimination and retaliation lawsuits against the poultry giant under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act: one filed by the EEOC in August 2005, and another filed by a group of 13 former and present African-American employees. The cases, resolved during the discovery stage, had been consolidated by Judge Bowdre in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama (In Re Tyson Foods Litigation, Consolidated Case No. CV-05-BE-1704-E).
Collectively, the litigation charged Tyson Foods with maintaining a racially hostile work environment at the Ashland facility – including a racially segregated bathroom facility, racial slurs, and intimidation – and retaliating against employees who complained about the unlawful conduct. As part of its suit, the EEOC said that a Tyson employee established a locked, segregated bathroom facility, which on occasion had signs posted. Keys to the facility were allegedly distributed by that employee to white employees only.
Well, indeed.
Is it any wonder then that some folks don't exactly believe that progress has been made against racism? Tyson had to settle, not because of angry black folk, but because the EEOC lawyers had them dead to rights. That this goes on, today, in this country, is just wrong.
And we have enlightened lawmakers to show the way:The day after lawmakers honored the teachings of Martin Luther King Jr., a member of the House of Delegates stirred furious and tearful debate in Richmond with inflammatory comments about African-Americans and Jews. Del. Frank Hargrove, R-Hanover, triggered controversy while talking about an impending House resolution that would formally apologize for the state's role in the slave trade. He said African-Americans should "get over it" because no one alive today was involved in slavery.
"Are we going to force Jews to apologize for killing Christ?" Hargrove asked.
First, I'm pretty sure there was a guy named Pontius Pilate involved. Second, you're an idiot.
Racism and eliminationist rhetoric seem to be at an all time high, from Right-wing pundits (Beck, Malkin et al) to seemingly rational talking heads.
David Neiwert has more:Immigrants: All colors and kinds of immigrants have historically been the subject of violent and bigoted campaigns, targeted by so-called Nativists who demand that their arrivals cease. These range from the Know Nothings whose main efforts focused on keeping out Irish and other Catholic immigrants, to the anti-German agitation that peaked in the 1870-1920 period, followed by the anti-Asian campaigns that flourished between 1880 and 1924. The latter were notable for the appearance, for the first time, of an effort not merely to prevent their arrival but to actively deport those already here, accompanied by the requisite eliminationist action, including violent massacres and concentration camps. The same impulse lives on today in the agitation against Latino immigration, which has proved to be a major bridge for extremists to expand their reach into the mainstream of American discourse.
The eliminationist impulse gained fresh life in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, especially as the flames of fearfulness it produced were actually fanned rather than calmed by the American right, including the Bush administration itself. Professional fearmongers leapt onto the national stage to denounce fresh threats to national security, particularly seizing on the immigration debate, which was inflamed by claims that the insecure borders over which undocumented workers were flowing presented a prime opportunity (though the reality regarding those borders was largely obscured in the racial agitation that accompanied it).
The fearmongering occurred at all levels, from Pat Buchanan proclaiming that white American culture was about to be overrun by Latinos and other nonwhites, to Lou Dobbs parroting white-supremacist nonsense on CNN, to the entire bandwidth of nativists -- including the usual suspects: VDare, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, Michelle Malkin, Juan Mann, Glenn Beck -- demanding the immediate arrest and deportation of all 12 million illegal immigrants in America.
And even in the 21st Century, we still have this:What the investigation unearthed was a story that no one in Linden wanted to believe: Billy Ray, who is mentally disabled, had been taken to a party, ridiculed, called racial slurs, knocked unconscious, and then dumped by the side of the road. Even the strangers who had come to his aid were not Good Samaritans but two of the perpetrators. Had the town's white residents condemned what had happened to Billy Ray, the incident might have faded into memory; the crime pivoted on a single punch. Instead, they closed ranks, and juries in both criminal trials that followed declined to give the defendants more than a slap on the wrist.
So good for the EEOC in helping shame Tyson Foods. They had it coming.
- posted by SteveAudio
FDL's Pachacutec: "Cui Bono?"
Labels: immigration, race
California is Second State to Release Research Finding Economic Benefits to Undocumented Immigrant Labor
The U.S. Census reports that between July 1, 2003 and July 1, 2004, California led all states in an increase of Hispanics. Overall, the state added 715,000 Latinos. In Los Angeles County alone, there was an increase of 76,400 Latinos - which proved to be the highest among all counties.
In fact, California is one of four states that is home to 2 of every 3 foreign-born persons born in Latin America.
To say that a lot of immigrants call California home is an understatement. To say that the vast majority of these immigrants are undocumented is stating the obvious.
So, if California is home to all these undocumented immigrants, this state's economic infrastructure should be in shambles if we are to believe the "doomsday preachers" of undocumented migrants.
But just like the Texas State Comptroller uncovered in their Special Report the advantages of immigrant labor for the state, so too has California.
The Public Policy Institute of California recently released a report, in their California Counts series, titled How Immigrants Affect California Employment and Wages and they uncovered some of the same facts that Texas did.
The report looked at the effects of the arrival of immigrants between 1960 and 2004. Specifically, the author looked at the impact on employment, population and wages of U.S. California natives.
Among the study’s principal findings:
1) There is no evidence that the influx of immigrants over the past four decades has worsened the employment opportunities of natives with similar education and experience.
2) There is no association between the influx of immigrants and the out-migration of natives within the same education and age group.
3) Immigration induced a 4 percent real wage increase for the average native worker between 1990 and 2004.
4) Recent immigrants did lower the wages of previous immigrants.
The author of the report states in his conclusions that native and foreign-born workers perform complementary rather than competing tasks in production. He goes on to say that the increase in the number of immigrants increases the demand for tasks performed by native workers and raises their wages.
Since California leads the nation with the number of immigrant laborers, these findings should be taken into consideration by Congress as some members continue to purposely cloud the issue of immigration reform with half-truths and ignorance.
The findings speak for themselves.
Unfortunately, it's only a matter of time before the facts will be twisted and discredited.
There has to come a time when the question is asked: What is the motivation of people who continue such a course of action when two separate states have come to the same conclusions in their own independent reports?
Understand this: every bit of immigrant bashing has its origin in race, not economics. Lou Dobbs and his ilk don’t think that they’re racist, but they are.
Who benefits most from immigrant labor?
The business owners who get to use undocumented labor to drive down workplace health and safety protections for the whole labor market benefit. Other workers know their working conditions and economic security are shitty, but blaming the immigrants is the wrong target.
The right wing tries to pretend this is about economics but for them it’s all about the “racial purity” of America. Sometimes they dress this up in national security arguments about porous borders, but it’s all a feint. This is about race for them, pure and simple
Some Democrats are stupid enough to want to feel the pain of the working wingnut for votes, or to avoid looking at the employer side of the equation because they’re bought off by the corporate lobbyists to do so. The wingnuts don’t care about the economics of this stuff, no matter what they say. The answer to the problem of undocumented workers is to end to new American indentured servanthood system we’ve created by denying whole populations standing, protection and citizenship. Then all American workers will benefit.
If Steve were here, maybe he could teach us a whole lot more about the history of how this stuff works, but I’m not as smart as he is. Still, I can smell bullshit when it’s piling up.
If you don’t read the site I pulled this post from, Latina Lista, on Latino issues in the United States, I recommend you add her to your blogroll.
- posted by Pachacutec
So, what will Hillary say?
Labels: campaign, Clinton, immigration, racism
Scapegoating Immigrants in 2008
by Matt Stoller [Edit User], Tue Feb 06, 2007 at 06:44:02 PM EST
Racism is a real problem in this country. I know a lot of people want to think that we've moved beyond race, but what does it say when Hillary Clinton's campaign Chair, Terry McAuliffe, has the following exchange on NPR about immigration.
So is Hillary going to accept his racist bullshit, ensuring a tidal wave of support for other candidates from Hispanics, or does she force him to apologize?CALLER: I'm one of those Republicans who helped change the political arrangement by sitting on the sidelines, and if you want to get 10 percent of the Republicans, right now, to vote for Hillary Clinton -- and I would be one of them, and I've been a Republican for 40 years -- you do the following things. You eliminate your support for NAFTA, that was Bill Clinton. Eliminate your support for amnesty and wide-open borders -- Bill Clinton, I've heard him say it many times, and I believe I've heard Hillary say it also -- and you start getting self-deportation of the 20 million illegal aliens here that are taking the jobs, the wages, and the working conditions, and destroying them for working Americans, which I always thought Democrats supported.
TERRY MCAULIFFE: I couldn't agree more. We've got to shut these borders down. These people shouldn't be coming in this country. We need to enforce our border protections. We have to do something for the people who have been here for years and have paid taxes -- you know, we're for the people who have been in this country and paying taxes and raising their family. But for the people who have not been here, who have been here illegally and have taken advantage of the situation, we need to have a plan to get them back to the countries they came from, and more important, which is the first thing John talks about, we have gotta shut these borders down. I couldn't agree more.
... I don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican, we all agree you've gotta shut the borders down. People who are coming into this nation taking our jobs.