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FORT LAUDERDALE, FL — U.S. Representatives Alcee L. Hastings (D-Miramar) and Robert Wexler (D-Boca Raton) issued the following statement in response to the decision made by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to resume deportation flights to Haiti.
“Upon hearing from several groups in South Florida today that deportations would be starting again, our staff confirmed with ICE officials that, in fact, deportations to Haiti have already begun. We find this decision to be short-sighted and inhumane.
“Over the course of the past year, Haiti has been ravaged by a devastating food crisis and four back-to-back natural disasters.
Months later, Haiti’s economic and physical infrastructure remains practically obliterated. Haiti is certainly no stranger to crisis and despair.
Even more, many deported Haitians simply have no communities to return to. It is disappointing that the Bush Administration would even consider sending people back to this incredibly fragile nation. “Instead of pursuing this course of action, the United States should extend a helping hand to Haiti, as it has done for other nations in similar situations, by granting Haitians Temporary Protected Status. Haiti has long met the qualifications for TPS, and it is now more urgent than ever that the United States provides them with this much needed, long overdue, temporary assistance.”
By Greg Braxton
Long before he set out for the White House, Barack Obama sought to adjust the colors on America’s TV sets.
Four years ago, fresh off his star-making keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, Obama challenged the television industry to live up to its responsibility as the country’s “most powerful media” and accurately reflect the United States’ population. “TV ought to reflect the reality of America’s diversity and should do so with pride and dignity, not with stereotypes,” he told the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
But as Obama prepares to move into the White House in January, he and his family will be hard- pressed to find black people like themselves represented on any of the major networks: ABC, NBC, CBS or Fox.
In fact, not only will they have great difficulty locating any black family in a leading role on the networks, but they also will see it’s nearly impossible to find a scripted comedy or drama that features a young person of color in a central role.
Although the networks’ prime-time slates are packed with more than a dozen comedies and dramas revolving around family life or involve characters who are related (“Brothers & Sisters” and “Two and a Half Men,” for example), almost all of them have predominantly white casts. A black family has not anchored a network series since “The Bernie Mac Show” left Fox in 2006.
By Todd Johnson
Moving into a new neighborhood doesn’t always come down to what the houses look like or how much they will cost. For hundreds of white respondents in a recent study, race matters too.
Randomly selected white adults from the Chicago and Detroit metropolitan areas were shown videos of identical neighborhoods and asked to evaluate items such as the cost of housing and the quality of area schools.
While the neighborhoods in the videos were identical, the residents were not. Some respondents saw neighborhoods with black residents, others saw the same neighborhoods with white residents or a mixture of both.
According to the research released in November, whites who saw white residents in the video rated the neighborhood more favorably than whites who saw black residents in the same neighborhood.
The study was co-authored by Maria Krysan, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Reynolds Farley, a research professor emeritus at the University of Michigan.
By David Edwards and Muriel Kane
The Bush administration is reportedly planning as one of its final actions to announce a “right of conscience” rule that could further limit access to abortion, particularly for poor and rural women, and might even impact a much broader range of medical procedures.
“We should call this the ‘Amish bus-driver rule,’” fumed MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. “If you’re Amish and your values and your beliefs will not allow you to operate an automobile, then surely that’s your inalienable right — but consequently, you will not be hired to drive a bus.”
The rule would apply to over 500,000 facilities nationwide and would allow all healthcare workers — not just doctors and pharmacists but potentially even janitors — to refuse to participate in any procedure they find morally objectionable.
Maddow turned for comment to Princeton professor and reproductive rights activist Melissa Harris-Lacewell, asking, “Do you see this as a major setback for reproductive rights?”
“Absolutely,” Harris-Lacewell agreed, although she emphasized that “this right to conscience is not just about reproductive rights” because it could potentially affect everyone.
by Tequila Minsky
Vodou culture in photographs, sacred flags and presentation opens Dec. 6 to March 6.
Damballah et Aida Wedo
It is five hours by road, two hours by donkey, and a 45-minute walk to reach the southern Haiti isolated mountain Catholic Church in Anse-a-Veau. There, for four days, photographer Tony Savino, documented the private and sacred Vodou ceremonies to St. Yves, said to be a water spirit, amidst some 400 believers.
Savino made more than 45 trips to Haiti between 1987 and 1997 and has been to many religious ceremonies. In May 2008, he returned after a ten-year hiatus to go to Fete St. Yves. He notes that even along the walk up the mountain, practitioners would stop at crosses and pray to the Vodou spiritsÐthere were signs of Gede and St. Bridget.
At Fete St. Yves, which is particularly isolated, something really surprising struck him, “This is the first time I’ve seen an accordion used in a Vodou ceremony, recounting, “they played polka music. Drums were there but not central; it was the accordion that was central.”
Profoundly moved by the generosity of the Haitian population that allowed him to photograph such personal and spiritual moments, Savino commented,
Governor Palin displays the same blind spot to suffering that goes into providing for Westerner’s pampered consumerism. In the same vein, most Americans are not aware that Christopher Columbus never set foot on American soil. He spent most of his time in this hemisphere in the Caribbean participating in the genocide of the Tainos. Likewise, most Americans celebrate Thanksgiving in complete oblivion to the suffering, murder, rape and mutilation that was the hallmark of the Pilgrims “landing” on Plymouth Rock.
By Robert Reich
Robert Reich is the nation’s 22nd Secretary of Labor and a professor at the University of California at Berkeley. His latest book is “Supercapitalism.” This is his personal journal.
Telling automakers to make more fuel-efficient cars as a condition of being bailed out is like telling Citigroup or any other big bank to issue more affordable loans to Main Street as a condition of being bailed out. It won’t happen. Conditions like these make the public feel better about using their tax dollars to bail out private firms, but they’re useless. Automakers, like the big banks, will do the minimum required, and you can bet their lawyers and lobbyists will find ever more clever ways of avoiding even that minimum. Without lots of buyers who want fuel-efficient cars, automakers won’t produce them, period. (Without credit-worthy borrows able and willing to pay the costs of bank loans, they won’t be issued, either.)
You might think that the recent memories of $5-a-gallon gas would transform nearly everyone into prospective buyers of hybrids that get more than 30 miles a gallon. Think again. Consumer memories are dreadfully short. With gas prices settling down to half that sum, buyers (to the extent they still exist in this recession) are moving back to SUVs and pickup trucks, which automakers are all too happy to provide given the larger profits that come with gas-guzzlers. We’re witnessing a repeat of what occurred immediately after the oil crises of the 1970s. As soon as cheap gas was readily available, consumers who had said they wanted fuel efficiency went back to their old ways — and so did the Big Three.
By Jeff Mason and Tom Doggett
CHICAGO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President-elect Barack Obama is not planning to implement a windfall profit tax on oil companies because prices have dropped below $80 a barrel, an aide said on Tuesday.
“President-elect Obama announced the policy during the campaign because oil prices were above $80 per barrel,” an aide on Obama’s transition team said. “They are currently below that now and expected to stay below that.”
Oil prices have fallen from a record $147 a barrel in July to under $50 this week.
Obama, who signaled early in his campaign for the White House that he would take an active approach to oil markets as president, had planned to use the revenue from a windfall profits tax to fund a tax rebate for low- and middle-income families struggling with high energy prices.
But the aide said Obama’s presidential campaign had already taken the price drop into account six weeks ago. When Obama laid out his economic plan for the middle class in mid-October, revenue from a windfall profit tax was not included because of the price change, he said.
Caribbean nations are feeling the sting of the U.S. recession but so far are weathering the storm, according to officials gathered in Miami for a regional conference.
BY JOSEPH A. MANN, JR. AND JACQUELINE CHARLES
The U.S. financial meltdown is starting to affect Caribbean nations, but the effects so far appear to be manageable, government and business officials attending a regional conference in Miami said Tuesday.
Still, much of the discussion at the Miami Conference on the Caribbean and Central America centered on ways to confront the global financial crisis that has started to ripple through the region.
Caribbean nations that rely heavily on tourism are already seeing sharp declines in bookings, while exporters in Central America are facing less demand for their products, said Anton Edmunds, executive director and chief executive of Caribbean-Central American Action, a private sector group that organized the annual conference, which is now in its 32nd year and attracted more than 370 participants.
BY NADEGE CHARLES
Esperance Joseph wins the 4th annual Miss Notre Dame D'Haiti title at the Joseph Caleb Center in Miami. EMILY HARRIS / FOR THE MIAMI HERALD
Esperance Joseph was on stage at the Joseph Caleb Center, along with three other contestants competing for the title of Miss Notre Dame D’Haiti.
She was composed — until the emcee announced her as the winner.
”I’m very emotional right now,” said Esperance, 17, who burst into tears as she accepted the sparkly silver tiara.
Esperance, a senior at North Miami High, won the fourth annual pageant, which emphasizes community service and involvement in the Notre Dame D’Haiti Catholic Church in Little Haiti.
As Esperance accepted her crown from the former Miss Notre Dame, audience members chanted her nickname, “Espee! Espee!”
