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New documents obtained by the ACLU show that the FBI has for years been using Census data to “map” ethnic and religious groups suspected of being likely to commit certain types of crimes.
Much is still not known about the apparent large-scale effort in racial profiling, partly because the documents the ACLU obtained through public records requests are heavily redacted.
Read the whole story at www.alternet.org
Also see Mapping the FBI - Seeking Records of FBI Discrimination at the ACLU website.
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Much food for thought in this article on American political philosopher John Rawls' theory of "justice as fairness" by Steven Maizie at The Stone blog at New York Times...
This idea is built on the premise that in a just society, citizens should be understood as free and equal participants in a system of social cooperation. Some individuals may be more motivated and harder working, and thus can legitimately expect greater rewards for their efforts. But everyone deserves the same bundle of individual rights and liberties, and everyone is entitled to “fair equality of opportunity,” including access to a decent education and a genuine chance of success in pursuing one’s life plans.
Read more via opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com
See more about John Rawls' work at Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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The corporatocracy demands that psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and other mental health professionals assist people’s adjustment to the status quo, regardless of how dehumanizing the status quo has become. Prior to the 1980s, mental health professionals such as Erich Fromm (1900–1980) were concerned by this “adjustment to what?” problem. However, in recent years there has been decreasing awareness among mental health professionals about their guard role, even though today some of the best financial packages offered to us are from the growing U.S. prison system and U.S. military.
via www.alternet.org
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Maria Hinojosa's documentary -- Lost in Detention -- airs Tuesday, October 18th on the PBS series, Frontline. From the press release:
Hinojosa tracks the enforcement sweep from the neighborhoods of Illinois to the expansive Willacy Detention Center in south Texas. Immigration detention has become both a vital tool and a lightning rod for the administration’s immigration strategy.
Using a network of 250 detention facilities across the country, ICE is able to ensure that undocumented immigrants will not slip back into the population in a game of “catch and release,” says Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. “That’s unacceptable if you’re going to have an immigration system that is taken seriously—seriously by the public or seriously by the illegal immigrants themselves.”
During a yearlong investigation, FRONTLINE uncovered a troubling picture of abuse inside immigration detention facilities, including more than a dozen allegations of sexual abuse at Willacy, as well as alleged cases of beatings, racism and management cover-ups. Dr. Twana Cooks-Allen, former mental health coordinator at Willacy, told Hinojosa that the detainees she saw inside were not the border-crossers who she expected. “They were people who had been established, who had children here, who had businesses, who had attended school.”
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I am really looking forward to watching this documentary. I've checked out the trailer and several other video clips, and I've read an introductory issue of The 99. This project has great heart resonance for me. As I mentioned in a previous blog, I have no doubt that The 99 came from the heart of Naif Al-Mutawa, the Kuwaiti psychologist who created it.
The story is grounded in principles that may be identified with specific religious teachings, but these principles also are universal ones, and ones that are especially useful today. The heroes are 99 young people from around the world, each of whom has a access to a specific superpower, but they must work together to bring the full potential of those powers to bear on problems they face. If they are to succeed, they must cooperate rather than compete.
This is a truth that is so fundamental to continuation of life that it is even embedded in nature itself: when natural systems come under stress and can no longer sustain themselves, species evolve toward cooperation with one another. There is no aspect of life on Earth right now in which this challenge isn't pretty much in our face.
If we look, listen and feel our way into the chaos of modern life, we may get a glimpse of what is trying to be born from the suffering: a new life for all based on unconditional love and cooperative, co-creative, conscious evolution.
I hope people will use heartful projects like The 99 to stimulate discussions on how we can evolve humanity in a way that allows for a planetary going-on-being.
Daniel DiazAn image from “Wham! Bam! Islam!” to be shown on PBS's “Independent Lens” series beginning Thursday.
via www.nytimes.com
Related links:
Naif Al-Mutawa fights to bring THE 99 and its message to wide U.S. audience (Washington Post)
Wham! Bam! Islam! trailer on YouTube
Wham! Bam! Islam! Where Mississippi meets the Middle East (YouTube video)
The continuing saga of THE 99 (my recent blog post with TED Talk video of Naif Al-Mutawa)
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There's been a lot made of the ideological diversity in Zuccotti Park. And ideas can certainly have meaning across racial, ethnic and sometimes even class lines. The best ones often do. But, the near absence of racial and ethnic diversity in the park is also worth noting. Blacks and Latinos together make up about 40 percent of the nation's unemployed but only 29 percent of the total population. And, there is plenty of evidence that while the years leading up the recession weren't really very good to anyone -- income inequality expanded and most workers' wages stagnated -- black and Latino families are facing such a crisis of unemployment, increased poverty and depreciated or altogether lost assets that the country will feel this recession's impact for decades to come, Harvard University labor sociologist William Julius Wilson told me last week. Without an economic fix that includes and specifically targets people of color we may soon find ourselves living in an America that we do not recognize, he said.
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