EthnicMajority

(New York Daily News) A Florida man says he was the victim of a racially motivated attack Monday, when he was punched by a black teenager for listening to rap music.

David McKnight, 22, was playing the song “Wasted” by Gucci Mane when, he says, he was confronted by 14-year-old Joshua Lamb, WFTV.com reports.

“The argument involved the black male suspect saying, ‘You shouldn’t be listening to rap music because you’re white,’ ” said Palm Bay police spokeswoman Yvonne Martinez.

When McKnight, who is Caucasian, refused to turn off the music, Lamb and a group of friends assaulted him.

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(CNN) A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Thursday indicates that 66 percent of Hispanics say they’ve been a victim of discrimination because of their race or ethnic background. Almost as many African-Americans said the same thing, but only 31 percent of white respondents who said they’ve been the victim of racial discrimination.

Overall, 57 percent of people questioned in the poll say that racial discrimination against blacks is a serious problem, with that figure rising to eight in ten among black respondents. The poll indicates that 62 percent of the public says that racial discrimination against Hispanics is a serious problem, and among Hispanics, that rises to 78 percent.

Looking to the future, the poll suggests that Hispanics are more optimistic than African-Americans when it come to ending racial tensions.

“While most black respondents say that there will never be a solution to racial problems between blacks and whites, a majority of Hispanics say that a solution to their problems with whites will eventually be found,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

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(Daily Press) Former U.S. Department of Agriculture employee Shirley Sherrod said Thursday that a lack of diversity in the Obama administration might have led to her hasty dismissal after a doctored video of one of her speeches made her a target of conservative bloggers.

Sherrod said no African-Americans were involved in the direct discussions prior to her being forced to drive to the side of a Georgia highway and submit her resignation.

“There was no black person in his inner circle who could even talk about this, to say, ‘hey, you ought to look into this.’”

She said that the lack of the diversity ran from her bosses at U.S.D.A. all the way to the White House and that no person of color was among the dozen people who discussed her fate.

Instead, Sherrod said her dismissal came after a series of phone calls from U.S.D.A. deputy Under Secretary for Rural Development, Cheryl Cook, who eventually told her that the White House wanted her resignation.

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(The Hill) Shirley Sherrod’s firing at the Agriculture Department (USDA) has put the national spotlight on the agency’s troubled civil rights history.

And it reminded several black farmers’ advocates that the USDA has had to address charges of racism in the past.

Anger toward USDA by black farmers is not new. Thousands of civil rights complaints have been filed against the department after many black farmers were denied loans and other federal assistance over the years.

But Sherrod’s swift firing, based on edited video of a speech she gave — something Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has since apologized for — has reignited those feelings.

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(NY Daily News) Arizona’s controversial anti-illegal immigration law is here to stay, at least in some form, a federal judge said Thursday in Phoenix.

U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton, who is presiding over the federal government’s lawsuit against Arizona over the legislation, said she has no intention of blocking the entire law, though she did not deliver a ruling on the closely watched case.

Bolton did, however, say parts of the 14 sections the law could be removed, the Arizona Republic reported.

Arizona’s law, Senate Bill 1070, gives police the ability to question a suspect’s immigration status if there is “reasonable suspicion” that the person is in the U.S. illegally.

The state’s governor, Jan Brewer, signed the law in April and it is scheduled to take effect July 29.

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(Fox News) The Arizona Latino Republican Association will become the first Hispanic organization in the country to actively oppose the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against the state of Arizona’s new immigration law.

Larry Klayman, founder of Freedom Watch, Inc., said he will be joined by ALRA Chairman Jesse Hernandez and members of the Phoenix Law Enforcement
Association at an announcement Thursday morning in Phoenix.

ALRA will become the first group of Latino Americans to “put a foot forward legally” in support of S.B. 1070 by filing a motion to intervene against the Justice Department’s lawsuit challenging Arizona’s immigration policy, Klayman said.

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(LA Times) Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to name 3rd District Court of Appeal Justice Tani Gorre Cantil-Sakauye as the next chief justice, making her the first Asian American to lead the state’s judiciary and giving the California Supreme Court a female majority for the first time in its history.

Cantil-Sakauye, 50, a Sacramento native who rose through the trial courts, served as deputy legislative secretary and deputy legal affairs secretary under former Gov. George Deukmejian. He plucked her from the Sacramento district attorney’s office and later appointed her to the Sacramento Municipal Court.

Former Gov. Pete Wilson elevated Cantil-Sakauye to the Sacramento County Superior Court, and Schwarzenegger named her to the Court of Appeal in Sacramento.

A graduate of the UC Davis School of Law, Cantil-Sakauye was a surprise nominee who is relatively unknown outside judicial circles. She has served two years on the state Judicial Council, the policy-making arm of the courts, and if approved by voters in November, will be responsible for the state’s entire court system.

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(NESN.com) Jeremy Lin is ready to make a name for himself on basketball’s biggest stage. That’s what he’s done at every other level, so why should the NBA be any different?

Lin will get a shot with the Golden State Warriors.

His journey from being unrecruited out of high school to going undrafted to making the Association with his self-proclaimed favorite team would be a great story, regardless. Add the fact that Lin is an Asian who graduated from Harvard, and it becomes something a little bigger.

His last name, Lin, tells us that he is of Asian descent. His first name, more importantly, tells us that he is not just Asian, but Asian-American. Asians in the NBA, though few in number, are nothing new. We all know about Houston Rockets center Yao Ming. There’s also Yi Jianlian, the sixth pick in the 2007 NBA draft, now with the Washington Wizards. And Sun Yue was drafted in ‘07 by the Lakers. However, what these players all have in common is that they are from China. They were born in China, played in China and then came to the NBA.

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(AP) Hispanics are eager to blend into American society while still maintaining their cultural identity, a paradox that reflects the complex beliefs of the nation’s fastest-growing minority. And most don’t expect the United States to elect a Latino president in the next 20 years.

Those are some of the findings from an Associated Press-Univision poll of more than 1,500 Latinos. In addition, the survey suggests Hispanics worry more than most Americans about losing jobs and paying bills. They place a high importance on education and expect their children to go to college.

The poll, also sponsored by The Nielsen Company and Stanford University, found Hispanics torn between hopes for tomorrow and daily doses of financial stress.

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(Atlanta Journal Constitution) Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said today he is reconsidering his department’s decision to fire a Georgia official in wake of new details about her controversial speech to the NAACP.

Vilsack said in a statement early Wednesday morning that he will “conduct a thorough review and consider additional facts” about his decision to ask Shirley Sherrod to resign. Washington’s apparent reversal came hours after a video of Sherrod’s full speech was released, and the director of rural development in Georgia was defended by the white couple at the center of the controversy.

The full, uncut video of a federal agricultural official’s NAACP speech purporting racial scheming, told a different story than the barely-three-minute snippet that cost Sherrod her job.

Despite admitting in the edited version of the taping that she once withheld help to the couple on the basis of race, Sherrod was defended Tuesday by the wife of a white Georgia farmer.

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