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The demographers agreed: at some point in 2014, Latinos would pass whites as the largest ethnic group in California. Determining when exactly that milestone would occur was more of a tricky question. Counting people isn't like counting movie ticket receipts. The official confirmation had to wait until new population figures were released by the Census Bureau this summer. The new tally, released in late June, shows that as of July 1, 2014, about 14.99 million Latinos live in California, edging out the 14.92 million whites in the state.

In recent days, despite substantial business and financial losses, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump has doubled down on his anti-Mexican rhetoric. Along with repeating his claims about rapists and criminals, Trump added the argument that “tremendous infectious disease is pouring across the border,” among other extreme assertions. While many of Trump’s fellow GOP presidential hopefuls have worked to distance themselves from his xenophobia, Senator Ted Cruz has supported Trump. And prominent right-wing media leaders have likewise expressed their agreement, from Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity to Ann Coulter, whose most recent book, Adios America!, is an extended, xenophobic diatribe against...

Since Ferguson, I have been thinking about how I view those in my community, both black and white. I have found that I feel differently about different groups of people and it is not based on race. I spend a great deal of time just listening to people and have heard over the past few months that black people do not get the respect they deserve. I have heard this from both blacks and progressive whites. It has, in large part become an integral part of our society. Is there a reason for this and just how deeply ingrained is...

Spreading a message of racial war, former New Black Panther Party Chairman Malik Zulu Shabazz told a group of about 200 black people in Charleston that it’s time to “complete the mission” and kill white “slave masters” and their families. “Let this cracker hear you!” he shouted to the crowd at a Save the Black Church rally Tuesday. Shabazz ridiculed the families of the victims of the Charleston AME Church shootings that killed nine black people for forgiving alleged killer Dylann Roof. “You are not the ones that we saw on the television screen,” he told the crowd. “Sitting in...

The mass murder of parishioners at the historic Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal church in Charleston, South Carolina law week, by a young white supremacist intensified the already profound national conversation about racism and violence that has been building since the killing of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin in 2012. There are more topics in play around Charleston than any single post (even an over long one like this) can address. So a couple of brief points before an extended discussion of one question, already taken up here on Prawfsblawg by Rick Hill (but I come out a bit different) on whether...

---snip--- It is perfectly emblematic of the empty, hashtagging political era that the primary role of government after a mass murder would be as a semiotic interpreter for the nation. As governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton celebrated his state’s Confederate heritage with a special star in his state’s flag. Now his wife is running for president as an ardent foe of Confederate remembrance. The GOP consensus of 20 years ago was that the display of the Confederate battle flag was up to the ones displaying it. Now they are falling over each other to denounce its public display. None of...

On June 17, a truly evil and racist high school dropout, Dylann Roof, shot and killed nine black Christians in one of Charleston, South Carolina's oldest and most well-known black churches, Emanuel AME Church. Among the murdered was the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, ordained when he was 18. There are not enough words to condemn this despicable act. As a Messianic Jew – I refer to myself as a Jewish Christian – I can try to relate a little from the history of pogroms and violence that Jews have experienced throughout the years. We cringe to hear of such tragedies. Instantly,...

In so many ways, the story of Dylann Roof, the shooting suspect who allegedly killed nine people in an historic South Carolina black church, is a parallel to the story of America itself. Who, at this point, can feign surprise at this latest massacre when it sits at the nexus of so much that is familiar and perfectly in line with the U.S. that we know? We are a country where mass shootings are weekly news, where gun violence is a fact of daily life, where there is a legacy of terror against black people and communities, where white racists...

Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley suggested Sunday that Congress had fallen under the sway of "white racism" and the political force of the National Rifle Assn. in refusing to respond with new laws to a cascade of shooting incidents in recent years.. Speaking before the nation’s mayors, gathered in San Francisco, O’Malley pointed to gun restrictions passed when he was governor of Maryland to ban assault weapons, enforce background checks and tighten permitting procedures -- efforts that have been blocked at the national level by Republicans, and some Democrats, in Congress. "One of the sad triumphs of white racism is...

From immigration and the “Latino registration machine” to the GOP’s apparent inability to recognize the racial aspects of the Charleston church shooting, Real Time host Bill Maher had a field day with his panelists on Friday night’s show. Yet it’s the “Overtime” segment’s extra nuggets that made for some of the most WTF-worthy viewing, especially for this reaction from MSNBC’s Joy Reid: Of all the possible conversation topics, what could have triggered such a reaction from Reid? Oh nothing, really — just guest Ann Coulter‘s funny-but-serious answer to Maher’s question about “which Republican candidate has the best chance of winning...

South Carolina has a long history of hate crimes against African Americans, says Efia Nwangaza of the Malcom X Grassroots Movement.TRANSCRIPT SHARMINI PERIES, EXEC. PRODUCER, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Sharmini Peries coming to you from Baltimore. A gunman walked into an historic African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina and killed nine people. Before the shooting, the gunman told the victims, "You rape our women, you are taking over our country, and you have to go." Charleston police officials have called this a hate crime. The Washington Post deemed this massacre the deadliest attack on a place...

A shooting at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, on Wednesday has shaken the country, leaving many reflecting on the state of race relations in the United States. Nine people, including Rev. Clementa Pinckney, the church's pastor and a South Carolina state senator, were shot to death by accused gunman Dylann Storm Roof at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Authorities have called the shooting a hate crime. But how does one explain such a crime from a scientific perspective? What could lead someone to commit a racially motivated hate crime? What is racism -- and how can we...

Fight to Right the Wrong Dear Congressman Rush: I am one of your constituents of the 1st Congressional District. I was your neighbor in Bronzeville. I remember well your days with Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Black Panthers. You were a firebrand and I mean that in a very positive way. It is said that age mellows us. You may well be an example. You decided on politics, working within the system. Now I, and many of your constituents, am asking you to work within that system to right a terrible wrong. Historically slavery lasted from 1619 to...

White people have been reaping the rewards of appropriating black culture for years. At least Rachel Dolezal was doing it to educate others.There’s been a lot of outrage directed at Rachel Dolezal, the civil rights activist recently outed for “passing” as a black woman. But some of us are scratching our heads trying to figure out why Dolezal’s particular case has evoked such anger when she’s simply doing what has been standard in American culture for years: hijacking aspects of black culture, and black beauty in particular, reaping the rewards while black women with the same attributes rarely do. According...

Whenever the world gets too crazy for me, I head down to the soul food restaurant and seek out my mentor, the great ghetto philosopher, Cleophus Leroy Brown. Cleo graciously waived me toward a seat at his usual corner booth. “What’s on your mind, College Boy?” “Everything,” I blurted out. “”I’m on social media and practically every day someone posts another instance of black folks either being killed or brutally beaten by police just for being doing something, if it isn’t anything more than breathing , while black. Everybody jumped up and down- and rightfully so, I might add, about...

For someone who claims to fight against racism... Yes, you read that title correctly. Unfortunately, some of you were born white. Guilty. All that money you’re making? If you’re white, you didn’t earn that. Somebody else made that happen. So here’s what you should do: Take that extra savings you have, or money you were saving for a family trip to Disney World, and give it away. Not to starving children or to the Red Cross, though. You’re supposed to find a black person, any black person, and deposit that money directly into their bank account. Solely because they are...

Every week brings a new narrative about how Hillary Clinton, the breakaway favorite in the 2016 presidential race, is blowing it. This weekend we learned from the New York Times that she’s thoughtlessly abandoning her husband’s 23-year-old political strategy, which relied on luring white working class and southern voters back to the Democrats, in favor of Barack Obama’s “far narrower path to the presidency.” The headline frames the magnitude of her blunder: “Hillary Clinton traces friendly path, troubling party.” So even Democrats are troubled by the Clinton campaign’s calculus? That’s bad. Well, no. A few red state Democrats are troubled....

Regardless of what Democrats and the media say, White Privilege is hogwash. The word privilege means “a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.” Privilege is, therefore, not based on accomplishment but rather something given by another person of entity. The most glaring example of Black Privilege is that which is enjoyed by Barack Obama. He is at best an incompetent fool but more properly an enemy of America who Black Privilege status keeps him from being described this way. In almost every walk of life from schools to workplaces...

Up to 200 South Philadelphia residents organized a large protest this week to take a stand against what they describe as “racial attacks” from four black women towards white residents. Residents claim that these four women have been “terrorizing” the neighborhood. Speakers said things like “white lives matter” and held up signs saying things like “We know who you are!” and “White women’s lives matter.” And they’re not just upset at these women, they’re outraged that the police haven’t taken any serious action against them. 911 calls were placed, but there were reportedly zero reports taken. Anonymous individuals told WPVI...

Racism is a difficult discussion to have, especially when people do not have an understanding of what racism is, how it works and who it is perpetuated by. Here are nine truths that we need to accept about racism if we want to have honest conversations. Can Black People Be Racist? “There is an element of whites who are nothing but cold, animalistic racists. That element is the one that controls or has strong influence in the power structure. It uses the press skillfully to feed statistics to the public to make it appear that the rate of crime in...