EthnicMajority

(NPR) Asian-Americans have the highest income and education levels of any racial group in the country. So it might be surprising that they have a higher poverty rate than non-Hispanic whites. Michel Martin discusses the issue with Algernon Austin of the Economic Policy Institute and Rosalind Chou, co-author of The Myth of the Model Minority.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Now, we have another perspective on poverty in a place you might not expect to find it or, rather, among a group of people. May is Asian-American Heritage Month and, over the course of the month, you might have heard it said that Asian-Americans enjoy the highest income and level of educational attainment of any racial group in this country.

So it might surprise you to know that Asian-Americans also experience a higher rate of poverty than non-Hispanic whites. According to a National Academy of Science's analysis of census data, Asian-Americans have a 12.3 percent poverty rate. That compares to 9.8 percent for non-Hispanic whites.

We wanted to talk more about this, so we've called Algernon Austin. He is the director of the Race, Ethnicity and the Economy Program at the Economic Policy Institute. That's here in Washington, D.C. He's written about the issue for the institute.

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(Christian Science Monitor) Latino high school graduates are enrolling in college at an all-time high and, for the first time, at a rate comparable to that of their white peers.

A record 69 percent of Latino students enrolled in college after their 2012 high school graduation, according to a new report by the Pew Hispanic Center. Overall, 66 percent of all 2012 high school graduates immediately enrolled in college, but Latinos did so at higher rates than whites (67 percent) and blacks (63 percent), according to preliminary data.

Latinos are the fastest-growing minority population in the US, but the increased rate of Latino students enrolling in college is more than just a demographic trend, says Pew senior research associate Richard Fry. It’s a sign that the education gap is narrowing,

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(Game Politics) First Lady Michelle Obama recently gave a commencement address at Bowie State University encouraging more young African Americans to continue their education. She does so by throwing culture like videogames, television, and music under the bus.

"Be an example of excellence to the next generation," she said Friday at commencement ceremonies held at the nearby University of Maryland. "Today, more than 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, more than 50 years after the end of 'separate but equal,' when it comes to getting an education, too many of our young people just can’t be bothered."

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(Mail Online) The all-white makeup of the 33 women chosen to be ambassadors of this year's Indianapolis 500 Festival has sparked a vitriolic debate over diversity within the racing culture.

Columnist Erika D. Smith highlighted the homogeneity of the Indy 500 'princesses' - a group that is selected from hundreds of applicants every year – in a piece for the Indianapolis Star, in which she suggests that their lack of diversity stems from an broader minority deficit among racing fans.

'As a non-native Hoosier, I couldn’t begin to hazard a guess as to why minorities seem to avoid the Indianapolis Motor Speedway like the plague,' Smith writes. 'Whatever the reason, though, it’s likely at the core of why all 33 of this year’s 500 Festival princesses are white. And it’s the reason that they are almost all white every year.'

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(Contact Music) The On the Floor hitmaker became a minority shareholder in the English-language NuvoTvchannel last year (12), and now she's been promoted to take charge of programming and marketing as the company prepares to be re-launched in July (13).

She tells Billboard.com, "A network that reflects the modern Latino experience, but in English, must have the quality that everybody has."

Lopez will feature on-camera in two upcoming shows for NuvoTv - a special 90-minute Tvbiography and a new behind-the-scenes series, titled Gotta Dance, focusing on the dancers who recently accompanied the superstar on her world tour.

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(Ebony) Earlier this week, many of us were surprised to learn that Angelina Jolie made the brave choice to have a double mastectomy and then chose to share her story with the entire world via The New York Times. Her announcement ignited a flurry of conversations that have crossed racial and gender lines. Social media network communities were engaged in a dialogue and people were sharing experiences, knowledge, and words of support. The buzz helped many realize that it is a big deal for a 37 year old, high profile celebrity disclose why she made the difficult choice of removing not only one but two of her breasts. This exchange is important for all, but especially for the African-American community.

African-American women are two times more likely to die from breast cancer even though we are diagnosed less than White women.  African-American women are also more likely to get aggressive, fast growing, hard-to-treat breast cancers known as triple-negative cancers. This is different than the BRCA-related cancer that Jolie sought to avoid. However, despite the more aggressive cancers seen in African-American women, recent studies have shown that for all types of breast cancer, aggressive or not, survival rates among African-American women are lower.

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(Washington Post) When two Swedish economists set out to examine whether economic freedom made people any more or less racist, they knew how they would gauge economic freedom, but they needed to find a way to measure a country’s level of racial tolerance. So they turned to something called the World Values Survey, which has been measuring global attitudes and opinions for decades.

Among the dozens of questions that World Values asks, the Swedish economists found one that, they believe, could be a pretty good indicator of tolerance for other races. The survey asked respondents in more than 80 different countries to identify kinds of people they would not want as neighbors. Some respondents, picking from a list, chose “people of a different race.” The more frequently that people in a given country say they don’t want neighbors from other races, the economists reasoned, the less racially tolerant you could call that society. (The study concluded that economic freedom had no correlation with racial tolerance, but it does appear to correlate with tolerance toward homosexuals.)

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(Mediaite) When HuffPost Live’s Jacob Soboroff hadGeorge Lopez on his show this week, he asked the comedian to give his reaction to a particularly disturbing recent clip of Rep. Louie Gohmertsuggesting that terrorist are being trained to “act Hispanic” in order to infiltrate the United States. Lopez had one, simple response: “You are fucking crazy, dude.”

Gohmert made his comments last month of C-Span’s Washington Journal. “We know Al Qaeda has camps with the drug cartels on the Mexican border,” the congressman from Texas said, and “we know that people are now being trained to come in and act like Hispanic, when they are radical Islamists.”

A distraught Lopez sighed and said, “Louie Gohmert, you’re fucking crazy, dude. You’re crazy, man.” To explain what Gohmert may have been thinking, Lopez said the idea that “acting Latino” would make it easier for a terrorist to enter the country is “ridiculous.”

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(Huffington Post) In an area known as one of the safest communities in the country, a hit list of African American students who would be "the first to die" was spray-painted in a high school bathroom.

The racist graffiti was at Agoura High School in Agoura Hills, Calif., a predominantly white community about 35 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. The hit list is believed to have been painted during school hours Wednesday, KTLA reports in the video above.

Before that, graffiti reading "Go back 2 Africa" was found and removed off of the school walls on Sunday.

The hate crime made some parents wonder if it was safe for students to go to school, even though extra patrols will be there all week. “Does (my son) have to watch his back when he’s coming to school?” a parent asked CBS.

“(The suspects) win if our kids don’t come to school … they think they’re scared, they’re afraid," another parent said to the station.

In the video above, KTLA interviews parents whose children were on the hit list — many of whom went to campus immediately after hearing about the graffiti on Wednesday.

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(Business Insider) Teen clothing brand Wet Seal has reached a $7.5 million settlement over allegations that it horrendously discriminated against employees of color, because they didn't have the "white," "blue eye," "thin and blond" look the brand wanted, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Three former managers filed the lawsuit last year, accusing the nationwide retail chain of actively firing and denying raises and promotions to black workers. One plaintiff, former manager Kai Hawkins, said that her boss threatened to fire her unless she hired more white employees. Another, Nicole Codgell, claimed that she was fired the day after the company's senior vice president for store operations toured several outlets and sent an email to lower managers, "African American dominate — huge issue." 

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