Discrimination | VivirLatino

Posts Tagged ‘discrimination’

The immigration debate and black America

2:36 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Immigration| race · Comments Off

6 Apr 2006

Cultural%20Resources.jpg Here we go again: more divisive rhetoric from the media, pitting black America against immigrants. The headline of the article referenced is not an accurate reflection of what is contained in the piece; the article actually has a lot more blacks standing up for immigrants than the opposite. This builds off of Mala’s post from this morning, and is probably the tenth time we’ve talked about the black vs. Latino issue on VivirLatino.

As Congress tussles with immigration reform, many African-Americans worry that more undocumented workers would make it tougher to earn a good living — and to close stubborn economic gaps between blacks and whites.

Newcomers make black progress harder — they’re “taking us back, us black people,” said Wesley Crawford, who works at Source of Knowledge, a bookstore and gift shop in Newark. “It’s a misconception that they’re taking jobs we don’t want. If you give people a good job, they will work.”

The NAACP president disagrees:

“People are yielding to the temptation to pit black against brown,” he said. “This has existed for years, but it’s deceptive.”

Deceptive and counter-productive. In this game of the strong and the weak, the “us” and the “them”, the only thing that this does is make them stronger and us weaker.

Via / Newsday

I want the other minority: workplace discrimination

1:04 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Labor| race| society · 1 Comment

24 Jan 2006

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting piece today about a supposed trend in the working world — blacks are being passed over for positions as employers show favoritism towards Latino candidates:

This kind of case marks a shift from years past, when blacks were likely to seek legal action against employers who showed preferential treatment toward whites. The cases highlight mounting tension between Hispanics and blacks as they compete for resources and job opportunities.

Recently, the federal agency announced it also secured a $180,000 settlement from Zenith National Insurance Corp., a national workers-compensation specialist, to be divided among 10 blacks who applied for a mailroom job at its headquarters in Woodland Hills, Calif. The job was offered to a Latino man with no mailroom experience, according to the EEOC.

Higher Car Insurance Rates for Latinos

4:07 pm By Maegan La Mala · business · Comments Off

21 Dec 2005

According to a new study if you live in a Latino or African American neighborhood expect to pay more for car insurance. No matter how you put it minorities always have it bad, whether it’s getting pulled over by the police for “driving while being brown” or in this case having to pay more to drive.

After dissecting the price among the state’s three largest insurers in more than 500 ZIP codes, Consumers Union found car insurance in black neighborhoods costs 37.5 percent to 83.5 percent more than in communities dominated by non-Hispanic whites.
That means the biggest auto insurers would charge a good driver an additional $537 to $974 per year for moving from a mostly white to black neighborhood, according to Consumers Union, the nonprofit group that publishes Consumer Reports magazine.

Good drivers living in Hispanic neighborhoods aren’t hit quite as hard. Consumers Union concluded the pricing increase in California’s Hispanic communities ranged from $103 to $214 annually, or 7.9 percent to 18.4 percent.

Via / The Tribune

Racism at University of Colorado

11:27 am By Maegan La Mala · Education| society · Comments Off

12 Dec 2005

A University of Colorado football player has been suspended for sending a racist email to a Latino member of the cross country team at the same school.

This incident comes a month after the University of Colorado Student Union (UCSU) Tri-Executive Mebraht Gebre-Michael received a racially motivated e-mail on Nov. 15 threatening her life.

“The athletic department is under the same microscope that the University of Colorado education system is, so there’s no reason why these issues shouldn’t be brought to the public.”

I think it’s time for the University of Colorado to take responsibility for the actions of one of their programs. The university recently fired their football coach who presided over a major scandal where football recruits were taken to “sex parties.” There were also numerous rape charges against the football program. One would think that this latest incident would suffice for the school to take appropriate action and show the country that this type of behavior is unacceptable.

Via / Colorado Daily

Latino officers to get paid

1:23 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Cities| Justice| New York City · Comments Off

22 Nov 2005

The 576 Latino and black police officers of the NYPD whose claims were accepted in a landmark racial discrimination case have won, and between them will split the sum of $17 million:

Officers – 576 of them – will get awards ranging from $3,500 to $400,000 from the suit, which the city settled just over a year ago. The victims charged that the Police Department created a hostile work environment for black and Latino cops, especially when it came to disciplinary matters.

“Cops have their own disciplinary system. The penalty for black and Latino cops were disproportionately higher,” said Diane Paolicelli, an attorney with the firm that represented many of the plaintiffs.

Paolicelli said some cops lost pay, others were given bad assignments or even fired in the retaliatory climate.

She said awards, which varied based on the duration and scale of discrimination plaintiffs allegedly endured, will be sent out over the next month.

Yes, folks, racism exists even in fundamentally racist organizations like the police, and even in the “most liberal city in the nation”.

Via / NY Daily News

Voice Discrimination?

10:05 am By Maegan La Mala · California| language · Comments Off

21 Nov 2005

Although discrimination nowadays for the most part is not as blatant as in the past it is still a social ill that occurs. Unfortunately, latinos may still face hurdles when it comes to finding housing simply due to the sound of their voice. According to an audit by a housing rights group, Fair Housing of Marin:

“rental seekers with an identifiable Latino voice will face discrimination or disparate treatment in Napa County 70 percent of the time.”

I wonder what the rate is across the state of California? Perhaps this is one of the reasons why many cities are essentially segregated.

Via / Napa Valley Register

No Spanish at work at all

8:05 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Bilingualism| Politics| business · Comments Off

10 Nov 2005

The subject of company bans on the use of Spanish among employees has been getting a lot of pickup in the press lately. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, Sephora (a favorite store of mine) was one of the first in a wave of businesses accused of imposing “English Only” rules:

Hispanic employees at a Sephora store in New York say their ability to speak Spanish was crucial when they were selling lipstick and eye shadow to well-heeled Chilean and Argentine tourists. But they say that if they uttered any Spanish to each other, even in the lunch room, they were reprimanded by managers.

Are employees filing more claims these days, or are employers becoming increasingly less tolerant of employees speaking their language in the workplace? Are we moving forward with regard to standing up for our rights or are this country’s workplaces beginning to mimic the conservative climate of the nation itself?

Shame on Sephora. And shame on any other business that tries to marginalize its employees because of the language they speak.

Via / Post-Gazette.com and Hispanic Tips

Say it ain’t so: Omar Sharif a racist?

6:13 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Celebrities · Comments Off

28 Oct 2005

I fell in love with Omar Sharif in the sickeningly romantic 60s epic “Doctor Zhivago”. I really, really hope what I am reading is just a rumor:

A Latino American named Juan Anderson has filed a lawsuit against internationally well-known Egyptian actor Omar El Sharif accusing him of being a racist.

Juan claimed that a verbal fight had broken out between him and Omar outside a restaurant in Los Angeles, when the actor tried to bribe him with 20 Euros in order to park his Porsche in front of the restaurant.

Anderson added that during the fight, Omar had called him a “Stupid Mexican” several times and had ordered his driver to drive the car towards Anderson who was trying to stall the actor until the police arrived.

On his part, Omar’s lawyer denied that the actor made such remarks and considered the entire lawsuit as silly, adding that there were many witnesses who can prove that Omar did not commit any racial crime.

How can anyone with such sweet little doe eyes be filled with hate? More importantly, why do actors risk these types of rumors getting out, knowing that a large part of their fan base will feel isolated? He was in L.A., for christ’s sake. Well, if Omar is a racist I’ll be disappointed, but I’m sure he’s just one of many. Ironically, the first one that comes to mind is Brigitte Bardot, whose disgusting comments were directed toward Omar’s own people.

In the words of the immortal Karen Carpenter “can’t we stop hurting each other?” Think about THAT over the weekend. Peace.

Via / Al Bawaba

Update: The “Mexican” (who is Guatemalan) is suing him.

The Legacy of Edward Roybal

4:37 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Activism| Politics · Comments Off

26 Oct 2005

I read a blog post today where someone was talking about how happy they were that there were no “real” Latino leaders, so that no one has to deal with the political baggage that goes with them duking it out in the press. Maybe there are no leaders anymore, and if there were, one of them left us on Monday:

Edward R. Roybal, who spent his political career, including three decades in Congress, fighting for minorities, the poor and the elderly, has died. He was 89.

When elected to the House of Representatives in 1962, Roybal was the first Hispanic from California to serve in Congress since 1879. Roybal, who also served more than a decade on the Los Angeles City Council, died Monday night of respiratory failure complicated by pneumonia at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, according to a spokeswoman for his daughter, Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, D-Calif.

Leaving behind a legacy is not an easy thing. A lot of people leave this world having left a legacy of success or ambition, yet devoid of meaning. In the case of Roybal, his legacy was of a struggle and a triumph in civil rights for Latinos. Roybal was someone who lived discrimination and out of his hatred for it was born a fight against it.

“A champion for civil rights and social justice like him does not come around every day,” Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said in a statement. “He wanted nothing less than what all Americans strive for — a good job, safe neighborhoods, quality schools and a place to call home.”

A simple legacy, yet a heroic one.

Via / The LA Times

WAMU says no to driving cards as I.D.

12:00 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Immigration| Marketing| Money · 2 Comments

18 Oct 2005

If a report read on a local Utah television station’s web site is to be believed, it seems that bank Washington Mutual is not accepting government-issued “driving privilage cards” as identification for immigrants interested in banking at their establishment:

Latinos that have driving privilege cards are finding that Washington Mutual Bank location won’t recognize their cards as a legitimate form of identification.

Community Activist Tony Yapias says he’s heard about the problem in Ogden and Salt Lake City branches. “I think it’s unfortunate for Washington Mutual Bank to not accept it.”

I think it’s unfortunate, too. WAMU is one of the banks that I do my banking at, and I have been a rabid consumer evangelist for them for years, talking them up to my friends on their excellent customer service, low fees and all-around no-hassle way of doing business.

On a less personal level, we are talking about a business that spends hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising campaigns targeting not only the Latino market, but the monolingual Spanish-speaking market (read: immigrants), and that is competing in that arena with every other major bank in the U.S.

Bad move, I say. People need to feel safe when dealing with their money, not judged. Not accepting a card that has been accepted by the government as a legitimate form of identification seems to me to be not only as bad business, but bad community ambassadorship. A standard rule of business: don’t piss off a community to whom you are spending millions to market, and don’t burn the bridges you’ve worked so hard to build.

Via / Hispanic Tips and KSL.com

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