Past Views Articles
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| For much of the 20th century, the proportion of whites shrank in most U.S. cities. In recent years the decline has slowed considerably -- and in some significant cases has reversed. Between 2000 and 2006, eight of the 50 largest cities, including Boston, Seattle and San Francisco, saw the proportion of whites increase, according to Census figures. The previous decade, only three cities saw increases. The changing racial mix is stirring up quarrels over class and culture. Beloved institutions in traditionally black communities--minority-owned restaurants, book stores are losing the customers who supported them for decades. |
| While blacks account for one in eight people in the United States, half of all Americans infected with HIV are black, the report found. "We are 30 percent of the new cases among gay men, 40 percent of the new cases among men in general, 60 percent of the cases among women and 70 percent of the new cases among youth," Black AIDS Institute CEO Phill Wilson told reporters in a telephone briefing. "Yet ... the U.S. response to AIDS in black America stands in sharp contrast to the international response to the epidemic overseas," |
| US actor Danny Glover, who plans an epic next year on Haitian independence hero Toussaint-Louverture, said he slaved to raise funds for the movie because financiers complained there were no white heroes. "Producers said 'It's a nice project, a great project... where are the white heroes?'" "Toussaint," Glover's first project as film director, is about Francois Dominique Toussaint Louverture (1743-1803), a former slave and one of the fathers of Haiti's independence from France in 1804, making it the first black nation to throw off imperial rule and become a republic. |
| In a new sign of increasing inequality in the U.S., the richest 1% of Americans in 2006 garnered the highest share of the nation's adjusted gross income for two decades, and possibly the highest since 1929, according to Internal Revenue Service data. Meanwhile, the average tax rate of the wealthiest 1% fell to its lowest level in at least 18 years. The group's share of the tax burden has risen, though not as quickly as its share of income. |
| Instead of "stick 'em up," it will be more like "pull 'em up" now that fashion police in New Jersey have started a crackdown on baggy pants. It's happening in Paterson, where city officials want to put the kibosh on this form of fashion. "We're tired of seeing your behind," Davis said. "We don't want to see your back side. We don't need to see your underwear. We don't need to see your drawers. Wear your pants." |
| The Rev. Jesse Jackson's offhand insult of Barack Obama last week has exposed a heated debate over whether Obama's groundbreaking presidential campaign - and his repeated challenge to the black community to straighten out its own affairs - is displacing and alienating some in Jackson's generation of black leadership, which held the government accountable for the plight of African-Americans. |
| When Obama started his "Impossible Dream," the number of unemployed stood at 6.9 million and the jobless rate was 4.5 percent. Since then, a trio of crises - housing, credit and financial - have rocked the economy. That's caused economic growth to slow to a crawl and businesses and consumers to tighten their belts. The country's economic problems are a top concern for candidates vying to win the White House; but they, and most of the country, are mute on more Black youth getting jobs. Overall teenage unemployment increased to 18.7 percent, while Black teens' unemployment remains over six times the national rate - 32.3 percent. |
| U.S. foreclosure filings rose 53 percent in June from a year earlier and bank repossessions almost tripled as deteriorating property values and higher payments on adjustable mortgages forced more people to give up their homes. More than 252,000 properties, or one in every 501 U.S. households, were in some stage of foreclosure, RealtyTrac Inc., an Irvine, California-based seller of default data, said today in a statement. Nevada, California and Arizona had the highest foreclosure rates. |
| In part because of the nature of the crime. Sex crimes may be viewed as less important in a community defined by race and the issues surrounding it. Sexism isn't discussed much in the black community, but it's hard not to think about it here. It remains to be seen what impact national figures such as Michelle Obama, who could become the first-ever African-American First Lady--will have on the self-esteem of African-American women, in a culture in which music videos and lyrics that constantly show women only as sex objects help diminish that self-esteem. |
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