Category: Uncategorized

The election year antics are beginning to spin like an extra-rinse cycle. Houston Indymedia mentions a sweep last week (Jan. 19) in League City: "police officers and immigration agents swept through two day laborer sites and took more than sixty immigrants into custody."

In a series of articles criticizing Texas government for switching its
statistical source for civil rights reporting in employment, the Texas
Civil Rights Review complained that the Bureau of Labor Statistics
provides poor numbers for civil rights purposes because of the way it
disperses Hispanic populations by race categories. For that
reason we complained that Texas government made a bad choice by taking
up BLS statistics instead of more relevant numbers generated by the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

Well, we could have done a better job of citing the problem with BLS
statistics had we quoted the BLS itself. In a May 2002 report
on "The role of foreign-born workers in the U. S. economy", author
Abraham T. Mosisa explains why he will not adopt the usual BLS model in
his statistical analysis of Hispanic employment:

In this article, contrary to the customary BLS practice of counting
Hispanics (an ethnic group) as part of the race category to which they
belong, Hispanics are not included in the estimates for whites, blacks,
and Asians, but, instead, are shown separately. This was done
because currently Hispanics constitute a large proportion of the
foreign born, and they have distinctive characteristics, which will be
outlined further throughout this article. Hence, if they were included
in the estimates for the major race group, clear-cut comparisons of employment characteristics among the groups would be difficult to make.

Thank you Mr. Mosisa. In civil rights work, clear cut comparisons are crucial.–gm

An AFSC Press Release (posted below) about Minutemen being shunned by the Austin
City Council has attracted some site traffic from White Nationalists
and right-wingers on campus. Not only have they swarmed the AFSC press
release, but they have voted it down, too. Meanwhile the income
tax poll, which
usually verges on yes by a slim margin has tipped to no. No
income taxes for education. At least the White Nationalist crowd
votes consistently. Robust public education probably would not be good
for the Nazi movement. Probably explains something about attitude
in the lege, too.

Anyway, welcome Nazi readers. Hang out, linger over the archives. And don’t miss
the clip on race history printed in the Washington Post. We’re
all brothers and sisters of Africa, ultimately. And Aztlan is
what you might call the family reunion (yes, you read it here first!).

On Nov. 7, East Austin activist group PODER (People Organized in the
Defense of Earth and her Resources) filed a complaint with the USA Dept.
of Justice, asking for a Civil Rights investigation of the Austin Police,
because of a pattern of excessive force against peoples of color,
including 13 killings of unarmed subjects in seven years’ time.

See the 11-page complaint here or at Downloads under PODER.–gm