Marriott International, Inc. joins Washington, D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and the Hispanic Hotel Owners Association (HHOA) today to break ground on the first Hispanic- owned Marriott hotel in the District of Columbia. The soon-to-be 218-room Courtyard by Marriott, set to open in 2009, will be located in the new NoMA (North of Massachusetts Avenue) Business Improvement District and majority- owned by Robert Finvarb, Esq., of the Finvarb Group. Local business owners Craig Welburn of Welburn Hospitality, Dave Wilmot, Esq. of Harmon, Wilmot, Brown & Bagwell, LLP and local businessmen Thomas Hopkins and Dr. Barron Harvey; will also have partial ownership in the hotel.

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Each year since we started the Diversity Scorecard, we’ve seen small but consistent increases in the proportion of minority lawyers at large firms. In 2001, only about one partner in 30 was a lawyer of color. Now it’s about one partner in 20.

That’s definitely progress. But it’s slow progress, and it raises the obvious question: How long will it take before large law firms — particularly their partnerships — mirror the general U.S. population, where almost one of every three citizens is a person of color? The likely answer: Decades.

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Washington —- When Pizza Patron, a Dallas-based restaurant chain, decided to accept Mexican pesos, it created a promotional campaign featuring the Mexican flag and the slogan “Bienvenido Paisano,” or “Welcome Countryman.”

It also created an outcry.

Hosts of conservative talk radio shows and opponents of illegal immigration seized on the story, creating a buzz and major backlash.

The restaurant received hundreds of e-mails and calls a day accusing it of abetting illegal immigration and being anti-American. There were even death threats, said Andrew Gamm, the company’s director of brand development.

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“Herman Malone, who was the largest black contractor in US West’s vendor corps, selling as much as $10 million a year in product toUS West, began to experience the same things that other black contractors across the West and Midwest later reported. His contractto supply plastic conduit toU S West construction sites was in trouble.” - from Lynched by Corporate AmericaRecognizing racism is the first step toward correcting it, yet recent studies of racist conduct find that racism in America has changed - whether in the workplace, the marketplace, the classroom or the streets. It’s less recognizable, more subtle, and it rarely is stated openly.

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