Twin Cities Dilla Day 2015 MORE ON PAGE 10
Insight News February 16 - February 22, 2015
Vol. 42 No. 7 • The Journal For Community News, Business & The Arts • insightnews.com
Who will protect the children? The invisibility of the American Indian/Native American struggle Justspeak
By Irma McClaurin, PhD Culture and Education Editor
Every parent of color hopes that their children will grow up without exposure to the brutality of racism and other forms of social injustice. That is the promise we hold when we give birth to them and first grasp their tiny hands and look into their eyes as parents. Few parents of color, however, are so lucky and can chronicle example upon example of
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RECOGNITION, JUSTICE AND DEVELOPMENT
UN declares International Decade for People of African Descent Commentary
By Carmen Robles Associate Editor Afrodescendientes
This year’s Black History Month kicks off McFarlane Media’s embrace of the United Nation’s International Decade for People of African Descent. January 1, 2015-December 30, 2024, decade dedicated to the people of African descent globally. My Puerto Rican heritage brings me front and center in this exciting worldwide celebration. According to the 2010 Census,
75.8% of Puerto Ricans identify as white, 12.4% identify as black, 0.5% as Amerindian, 0.2% as Asian, and 11.1% as “mixed or other.” Though estimates vary, most sources estimate that about 46% of Puerto Ricans have significant African ancestry. Around the same time the University of Puerto Rico
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L-R: Dr. Marta Moreno Vega, Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, and Roberto Clemente
In new film, Yale students of color seek revolution in Cuba By Carla Murphy Reprinted from COLORLINES Students of color at elite universities are fed up with oncampus racism and lately they’re taking their defiance beyond the ivory tower. Before this month’s “I, Too, Am Harvard” went viral there was last fall’s #BBUM or “Being Black At Michigan” and now there’s, “I, too, am Oxford.” They all belong to a rich tradition of student activism around race and inequality. Yale University is entering the mix with the release of a new documentary film, “Black and Cuba.” Shot in 2002 when the United States was muscling up for war in Iraq, nine graduate students, mainly of color, left their isolationamong-privilege in New Haven for Cuba. They went looking for revolution. Did they find it? Colorlines talked with filmmaker Robin J. Hayes, now a professor at The New School in New York City and founder of civic participation nonprofit, Progressive Pupil. There’s been a lot of highly
Robin J. Hayes publicized campus activity lately. What do you think about “I, Too, Am Harvard” and “Being Black at Michigan?” They’re continuing a long struggle for unconditional acceptance and inclusion on the part of students of color in higher education. That’s part of why I framed “Black and Cuba” as a multi-generational story that
Insight 2 Health Building endurance
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asks, “How are we truly going to move forward from what social movements accomplished in the late 1960s and early ’70s?” Back then we broke the hard color line. But how we move forward from there hasn’t yet been fully resolved. I think we’re seeing a generation of students with higher expectations. Higher than the previous generation’s?
Yes. I think the expectations among students, now, are higher and, in a way, so are the institutions.’ And I’m speaking now only for a fraction of us who’ve been able to access institutions like Harvard or Yale. Those institutions, our families and communities all expect us to seize these opportunities and go for it. We’re told there’s no limit if we’re
willing to work hard and put in the effort. But what we often encounter is concrete hostility and observable marginalization, actions and statements that are degrading and dehumanizing. We’re seeing that conflict rise to the surface with acts like, “I, Too, Am Harvard.” It’s also really interesting to see that conflict in an international context with, “I, too, am Oxford.”
So you see micro-aggressions, for example, towards someone from Pakistan who’s being told, “Wow, You speak really good English.” This is the reality of what we’re faced with, after being told, “Work hard!” and “Anything is possible!” “Black and Cuba” shows what we, as students in one historical context, have done to address those contradictions. What were you looking for in Cuba? Did you find it? I’ll speak for myself. I was looking for hope that change driven by the needs of everyday people was really possible. Those are people who are working to live, people who do not have a surplus of wealth. Can their needs and desires be the engine of change? And did you find that in Cuba? I did. But not just in the “Cuba is the ideal” example. Cuba is a place with a lot of contradictions like everywhere. It’s made important gains, no doubt about that. But they also are still struggling with certain things—like, freedom of speech
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Business
Lifestyle
Community
The “Carnegie Hall or Bust” fundraiser
Healing for the Black family
J.D. Steele residency at Zachary Lane
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