EthnicMajority

(Guardian) The demand for large numbers of Spanish translators in America’s war on drugs will come as no surprise given the route cocaine takes to the US.

But an attempt to recruit people who speak what some controversially regard as a homegrown United States language has put the Drug Enforcement Administration in the unique position of seeking translators to understand what African Americans are saying to each other.

The administration is hiring nine speakers of Ebonics – a term that appeared in the mid-1970s to describe US black vernacular English – to translate wiretaps and video surveillance tapes to a standard that will allow government agents to “follow the money” and that will stand up in court.

Ebonics is described by some linguists as English incorporating the grammar of African languages, but as it also includes many words invented on the streets, it is dismissed by others as mere slang.

Nonetheless, the administration is confused enough to ask firms providing translation services to provide the nine Ebonics translators to cover an area from Washington DC to New Orleans and Miami and even the Caribbean.

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(The Hill) African-Americans and Hispanics talk and text on mobile phones significantly more than their white counterparts, according to the Nielsen Company.

The results correlate with an earlier Pew survey that found minorities are more likely to use their smartphones to access the Web than whites. The latest data shows minorities are generally more likely to use mobile devices to communicate, meaning any proposals targeting wireless communications may disproportionately affect black and Hispanic Americans.

African-Americans talk on their cell phones an average of 1,300 minutes per month, more than twice the 647 minutes averaged by whites. Hispanics were next, at 826 minutes per month, followed by Asians and Pacific Islanders at 692 minutes per month. Blacks and Hispanics were also the most like to send and receive text messages, averaging 780 and 767 per month respectively.

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(NY Times) New Yorkers may now know more about the dangers of being a pedestrian than residents of any other city, thanks to the ambitious traffic study released last week by the Bloomberg administration.

The report, a hefty 50 pages, undercut some of the century-old assumptions about travel in the city, suggesting among other conclusions that yellow taxis, buses and trucks were involved in far fewer pedestrian accidents than private automobiles, and that jaywalkers accounted for fewer collisions at intersections than those law-abiding New Yorkers who wait for the “walk” sign.

Street safety advocates in San Francisco are already calling on that city to replicate the study (would the dangers of hills and crooked streets get their own chapters?), and New York’s transportation officials are planning to re-engineer intersections and reduce neighborhood speed limits in response to the data.

In the meantime, the report has plenty of statistical nuggets about New York’s streets that have yet to be discussed. Herewith, a brief rundown. As a reminder, the study examined more than 7,000 crashes that occurred in the five boroughs between 2002 and 2006 and involved the death or severe injury of a pedestrian.

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(NY Times) While broadband adoption for Americans finally slowed over all last year after double-digit growth each of the previous five years, with two-thirds now connected, usage among African-Americans jumped 22 percent this year over 2009, according to a Pew report.

In every major category, from job opportunities to acquiring health information, more African-American and Hispanic adults regard lack of broadband access as “a major disadvantage” than whites do. Nearly half of African-Americans believe expanding broadband access should be a top government priority, compared with just under two-fifths of whites.

The average broadband user pays $41.18 monthly for service. About one in five adults never use the Internet, with roughly half of nonusers citing its irrelevance to their lives. Three in five say they would need assistance to go online.

“Although the rise in home broadband usage among African-Americans seems surprising in light of the current recession,” said Aaron Smith, senior research specialist at Pew, the fact that a greater percentage of African-Americans say lack of broadband access is a disadvantage. particularly for obtaining career information, “speaks to a recognition within the African-American community that digital connectivity is essential, even — and perhaps especially — during hard economic times.” TEDDY WAYNE

(Huffington Post) While Wall Street financiers reap healthy profits off the backs of a bailout that U. S. taxpayers paid for and while leading U. S. businesses that could hire, incredibly, refuse to hire for reasons that make no sense to me and millions of out of work Americans, I, for one, have had enough.

I’m tired of Wall Street benefiting while Main Street USA–and far too many of those Americans who suffer in silence on our nation’s side streets–wait in frustration for a good faith show of support from those who’ve benefited from the American taxpayers.

To riff off one of our President’s favorite talking points, for those leaders who are serious about putting America’s economic interests in “drive,” I believe the keys to our nation’s economic engine should be put in the hands of small business owners–especially the growing legion of innovative African American, women- and minority-owned business owners that have a proven track record of reinvesting their talent, their financial investments and their jobs in local communities.

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(Radio Survivor) Radio One, the nation’s biggest African American oriented radio network, has endorsed the proposed Comcast/NBC Universal merger, now being evaluated by the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice.

Its CEO Alfred Liggins III praised Comcast for helping Radio One develop its TV One cable channel.

“The result is that today, as one of the nation’s two major African-American-oriented channels (and the only one owned by African-Americans), our network now reaches more than 50 million homes via cable and satellite and has an audience with enormous race, gender and generational diversity.

In addition to supporting TV One, Comcast has a history of giving diverse voices a megaphone. The company assisted in launching African-American-owned channels like Hip Hop on Demand, the Africa Channel and Crossings and boasts an unrivaled package of 50 Spanish language channels and 150 titles available on-demand. The newly formed company plans to build on this track record in a number of exciting ways.”

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(USA Today) While some research suggests that the incidence of childhood obesity may be leveling off, a new study finds that for certain racial groups the rates may actually be getting higher.

The study, to be published in the September issue of Pediatrics, finds that black, Hispanic and American Indian girls have two to three times higher odds of having a high body-mass index (BMI) compared to white girls.

What’s more, although rates of obesity peaked for Hispanic girls in 2005, they have kept on rising for American Indian and black girls.

“What was encouraging was that we saw some decline in obesity, (but) we saw an increase in the racial disparities. So, whatever policies we’re putting in place probably aren’t having the effect we want for all groups,” said study author Dr. Kristine Madsen, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco.

“Unfortunately, today’s policies may be increasing the disparities in childhood obesity, and we need to target the communities that get left behind,” she said.

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(NY Times) Mario G. Obledo, who slept on the floor with 12 siblings as the child of illegal immigrants and went on to become the founder and leader of major Hispanic-American organizations, a top state official in California and an acid critic of stereotypical treatment of Mexicans, died Wednesday in Sacramento. He was 78.

The cause was a heart attack, his wife, Keda Alcala-Obledo, said.

Mr. Obledo’s overarching accomplishment was to help usher Hispanics toward the center of the American political discussion, declaring they would no longer “take a back seat to anyone.” Known just as Mario, in the manner of his ally Jesse Jackson, he helped forge alliances with other minorities and build political power by registering hundreds of thousands of Hispanics to vote.

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(TBD) After four months, the University of Maryland has selected a new president. His name is Wallace Loh, and he comes from the University of Iowa. A native of Shanghai, Loh is the first Asian American president to lead the University of Maryland.

UMD’s first Asian American president leaves the University of Iowa and brings a touching story of immigration from Shanghai with him.
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“I’m committed to advancing this university to its next level of excellence,” stated Loh.

In a packed auditorium, students, faculty and alumni, including House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, welcomed the new school leader.

Hoyer said, “The University of Maryland is a great institution but it can, and I believe under your leadership and clearly the selection committee believed that, will be greater.”

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(City Town Info) A recent study by the Schott Foundation for Public Education reported that Newark, New Jersey leads the nation in the percent of African American male students graduating from high school, followed by Maryland, California and Pennsylvania. The report revealed “alarming data” from other states and districts that points to a “national education and economic crisis”, said the Schott Foundation in a press release.

The report provided state-by-state data and illustrated which districts and states were failing to provide African American students, and all students, with quality education. According to the biennial report, the graduation rate for African American males in the 2007-08 school year was only 47 percent. The states with the highest disparity between African American and Caucasian male graduation rates were New York, Nebraska, Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana. In its press release, the Schott Foundation singled out the district of New York City. The district has the nation’s highest enrollment of African American students, but only 28 percent of Black male students earn Regents diplomas on time. “Taken together, the numbers in the Schott Foundation for Public Education’s report form a nightmarish picture,” said Geoffrey Canada, president and CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone as well as author of the report’s foreword.

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