EthnicMajority

(Los Angeles Times) One of two suspects charged with murder and hate crimes on allegations of shooting five black Tulsa residents, three fatally, insists in a newly released jail video that he’s not racist, as does his mother.

Jacob England, 19, appears in the video wearing a black-and-white-striped jail uniform, standing in a stark room, his hair shaved on the sides into what looks like a Mohawk. He talks about growing up in North Tulsa, home to a large African American community, saying he had friends of various races.

"I always got along with everybody," England says in the video, which his lawyer told The Times was recorded at Tulsa Jail by his defense team Friday morning. "It didn't matter what color he was."

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(Huffington Post) Wells Fargo & Co., the nation's largest mortgage lender, is facing the second of at least two federal probes into how it treats minority borrowers and the properties it owns in minority neighborhoods. Department of Housing and Urban Development officials confirmed this week that the agency will investigate allegations lodged against the bank Tuesday by the National Fair Housing Alliance. The alliance complaint accused Wells Fargo of working to maintain and market bank-owned foreclosed properties in predominantly white communities far more aggressively than it does in mostly black and Latino neighborhoods.

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(Washington Post) Nearly a half-century after African-Americans were admitted to predominantly white Texas A&M University, a black student has finally reached the pinnacle of one of its signature organizations.

Marquis Alexander next school year will become commander of A&M’s Corps of Cadets, a high-profile post that involves establishing the cadets’ dress codes for their military-style uniforms and setting their daily schedule, including physical training that can begin before dawn.

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(Atlantic Wire) Sure, it's an informal survey, but a New York Times reporter's finding that eight black college students he spoke to have been stopped by police a collective 92 times is still a disturbing reminder of how the NYPD wields its stop-and-frisk tactics too heavily against the city's minorities. In The Times article on New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly's aboutface on the efficacy of stop-and-frisk, Michael Powell talked to group of eight black men currently attending the Borough of Manhattan Community College. "Cumulatively, they said they had been stopped 92 times."

That 11.5 friskings per-person, on average, is shocking, although it's anecdotal evidence, but it's the stories of these these kids being frisked for seemingly doing nothing other than driving or riding the subway while black that are alarming.

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(Huffington Post) Three years since a Wells Fargo Bank loan officer shared the details of how she and her colleagues targeted and directed prospective African American homebuyers into taking out expensive high-interest subprime mortgages to The New York Times, racial discrimination in the housing market is still an issue.

According to a new investigative report by the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA), a coalition of fair housing non-profit organizations, six major banks are engaging in discriminatory practices in the maintenance and marketing of foreclosed Real Estate Owned (REO) properties in predominantly Latino and African American neighborhoods.

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(Washington Post) The latest Marion Barrycontroversy burned bright Thursday, but it’s now mostly burnt out.

In case you missed it: Barry (D-Ward 8) made comments late Tuesday at his primary night victory party suggesting that the Asian-American owners of businesses in his ward run “dirty shops” that “ought to go.” After the comments were reported late Wednesday, the rebuke was swift, and by Thursday evening, Barry hadtendered an apology of sorts.

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(Business Insider) After the dust settles over the recession, it's becoming increasingly clear that African Americans will have the most lost ground to cover–especially in retirement planning. 

A new report by Aon Hewitt and Ariel Investments shows just how much damage deteriorating finances and a weak job market has done to their nest eggs.

(Daily Online) A Burger King commercial featuring Mary J. Blige singing about fried chicken has been pulled after it was branded racist.

In the ad – which premiered this week – the Grammy winner sings soulfully about chicken snack wraps, leading some in the African American community branding it as stereotypical. 

But the fast-food chain is blaming music licensing issues for the decision and not criticism of the ad.

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(CNN) – Racial profiling "should be a hate crime investigated by the FBI," filmmaker Tyler Perry wrote in a Facebook posting Sunday in which he described his own tense encounter with police.

"It was so hostile," Perry, who is African-American, wrote. "I was so confused. It was happening so fast that I could easily see how this situation could get out of hand very quickly. I didn't feel safe at all."

Perry, one of America's most successful film and television producers, said "although we have made significant strides with racial profiling in this country, the world needs to know that we are still being racially profiled."

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(NPR) Over the weekend, The Orlando Sentinel reported that two experts it consulted believe the voice heard calling for help in the background during a 911 call to police is not that of George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer who says he acted in self defense when he shot and killed Trayvon Martin on Feb. 26 in Sanford, Fla.

And one of those experts, Tom Owen of Owen Forensic Services — who is chair emeritus at the American Board of Record Evidence — has told MSNBC that he believes the tests indicating it isn't Zimmerman's voice would stand up in court.

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