Category: Race,

Beyond Romantic Advertisements: Ancestry.com, Genealogy, and White Supremacy

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Media and Culture,, Race,Leave a comment

In the past year, Ancestry changed its search engine to detach the history of slavery from basic genealogical inquiries. When searching for an individual’s name, Ancestry.com stopped including results from the 1850 or 1860 United States Census Slave Schedules.

…Before this change occurred, Ancestry.com subscribers would often have to face the uncomfortable fact that their family kept others enslaved. …Attempting that research today would hide this distressing (though important) aspect of [a] family’s history.

The search engine functions to hide both slave ownership and enslaved people from the eyes of contemporary genealogists. 

…Even if a casual observer did suspect a family history of slave ownership and had the inclination to then search the slave schedules themselves, they found the schedules no longer searchable by name on Ancestry.com. 

…While Americans who are descended from enslavers are now less likely to discover the full truth of their family histories, this change also presented similar difficulties for professional historians. The 1860 Slave Schedule represents the gold standard among Civil War historians wanting to establish whether someone owned another human being. 

…These recent issue with the census slave schedules do not appear to be a conspiracy to hide slave ownership, but instead the byproduct of trying to please a small group of customers without thinking through the societal ramifications of those choices. …The tech world is overwhelmingly populated with white men. Diversity isn’t just about doing the right thing morally—although perhaps that should be enough. It is also about making certain that products function well and don’t accidentally reinforce racial disparities by privileging one group’s search for the past over that of another.

…Bad historical knowledge can lead modern inequities to appear as solely the fault of the impoverished and not the product of centuries of discrimination. In this twisted world view, affirmative action can be understood as reverse discrimination because historically created inequality does not appear to even exist. Denying the existence of institutional racism, produced by a long history of oppression, serves to maintain inequality today. The danger of hiding slavery’s extent, horrors, and legacy is that it leads Americans to fundamentally misunderstand why racism remains such a problem. And you can’t solve a problem if you do not understand its roots.

Beyond Romantic Advertisements: Ancestry.com, Genealogy, and White Supremacy – AAIHS

sigh…

Trump’s pick for ICE director: I can tell which migrant children will become gang members by looking into their eyes

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Domestic Affairs,, Race,, The Americas,Leave a comment

“I’ve been to detention facilities where I’ve walked up to these individuals that are so-called minors, 17 or under,” Morgan said on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” in January. “I’ve looked at them and I’ve looked at their eyes, Tucker — and I’ve said that is a soon-to-be MS-13 gang member. It’s unequivocal.”

…The view that unaccompanied minors are more likely to become criminals is unsupported by statistical evidence. Studies have shown immigrants — legal and undocumented — are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans.

Trump’s pick for ICE director: I can tell which migrant children will become gang members by looking into their eyes – POLITICO

For the love of Krrrr-eyest….

Americans Who Were Detained After Speaking Spanish In Montana Sue U.S. Border Agency

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Media and Culture,, Race,Leave a comment

Hernandez said hello to O’Neal in the checkout line — and that he replied by saying she had a strong accent.

He then asked the pair where they had been born — leading Suda to ask, “Are you serious?”

“Dead serious,” O’Neal responded, according to the suit.

Suda told the agent she had been born in El Paso, Texas; Hernandez said she was born in El Centro, Calif. But that didn’t satisfy O’Neal, who “demanded that the two provide him with identification and refused to let them pay for their groceries” until they complied, the suit states.

…When one of the women asked whether they were being detained “because of our profiles,” O’Neal replied, “No, it has nothing to do with that. It’s the fact that it has to do with you guys speaking Spanish in the store, in a state where it’s predominantly English-speaking, OK?”

,,,”So it is illegal to speak Spanish in Montana?” Suda asked O’Neal.

“Well, ma’am it’s not illegal, it’s just very unheard of up here,” the agent said.

…”The United States has no official language,” the suit states. The lawsuit asks a federal district court to order the CBP not to stop or detain anyone “on the basis of race, accent and/or speaking Spanish,” unless those characteristics are tied to a specific and reliable suspect description. They also want the court to declare that someone’s race or language isn’t enough on its own to create suspicion to justify a seizure or detention. 

Americans Who Were Detained After Speaking Spanish In Montana Sue U.S. Border Agency : NPR

hmmm

Police shooting near Yale exposes complex racial divide

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Local Interest,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Race,, Schools,Leave a comment

The images from the police bodycam video of two officers firing at an unarmed black couple in their car have reverberated throughout New Haven.

…In January, New Haven officials approved the creation of a Civilian Review Board to monitor and independently investigate alleged police misconduct — an effort more than 20 years in the making.

…The redlining of neighborhoods — in which federal agencies in the 1930s allowed for discriminatory lending practices that disenfranchised black home buyers — created the segregation and racially divisive attitudes prevalent in New Haven and its majority white suburbs.

…New Haven, where about one in four residents live in poverty, and the portion of Hamden that borders the city represent a microcosm of the housing policies and income inequality that persist today throughout the United States.

…”Yale and these other Ivy League schools are in a land grab race, competing for endowment funds and land. They want to buy up properties to build expensive apartments, luxury living with the gyms and coffee houses and yoga studios. They’re arguing that they’re scaling up neighborhoods and gentrifying, but the reality is it’s only for those who can afford it.”

…The shooting near Yale’s campus has also brought up questions about how the university’s police force operates and why an officer fired a weapon in an off-campus encounter.

…The Black Students for Disarmament at Yale said it favors the school’s officers being unarmed and restricted in where they can patrol off campus. 

…A white student called campus police on a black Yale graduate student who had been napping in a common room.

…Upon releasing Eaton’s bodycam footage …State Police Commissioner James Rovella could not detail why the officers opened fire after commanding the driver to open the car door. Witherspoon could be seen on Eaton’s bodycam getting out of his car at that moment.

Eaton only turned on the bodycam after the shooting, and Pollock failed to turn his on at all.

Witherspoon, who was [not armed, was] not charged [with any crimes.]

Police shooting near Yale exposes complex racial divide

sigh….

Motel 6 will pay $12 million to Washington State after several locations gave their guest lists to ICE

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Privacy,, Race,Leave a comment

Between 2015 and 2017, seven Motel 6 locations in the state shared approximately 80,000 guests’ personal information with ICE without requiring a warrant.

…The guest lists contained private information of all guests at the hotel, violating their expectation of privacy.

The hotel chain’s disclosures “resulted in ICE’s targeted investigation of many guests with Latino-sounding names,” the statement said. 

Motel 6 will pay $12 million after several locations gave their guest lists to ICE – CNN

hmmmm