EthnicMajority

(New York Times) During a screening of a movie about the Tuskegee Airmen on Saturday, it finally occurred to me why the absence of white cornerbacks in the N.F.L. — or the presence of so many black ones — presents a compelling snapshot of the American condition.

Often, in reaction to an article about the lack of black quarterbacks or the lack of black coaches and executives, critics point out indignantly that there are no white cornerbacks, either. The disappearance of the white cornerback has more to do with shrunken aspirations, a lack of confidence and a reluctance to compete.

Cornerback at the N.F.L. level is the most challenging position in sports. It demands extraordinary speed and quickness. Like fighter pilots, cornerbacks must possess an unusual blend of physical strength and emotional toughness, the ability to think and act quickly under pressure.

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(Colorlines.com) Loop21.com, an African American news and lifestyle site, devoted lots of energy and real estate to HIV/AIDS last week. In the run-up and on World AIDS Day, the site ran a three-part series about the disease’s effect on ball culture (“Underground Gay Dance Culture Keeps ‘Voguing’ Legacy Alive”); covered Obama’s remarks at a ONE Campaign event (“President Obama Talks ‘The Beginning of the End of AIDS’”); and debunked down-low mythology in a statistics-laden piece about HIV risk among young black men who have sex with men (“Young Gay Black Men Are Most at Risk for HIV Transmission”).

But two pieces, which appeared side by side on World AIDS Day, crystallized the challenges of talking about sex, responsibility and HIV, 30 years and millions of words into the epidemic.

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(Washington Post) A study released Monday of the 70 Football Bowl Subdivision schools that will participate in the upcoming college football bowl season showed continued academic progress, but that the gap between white and African-American players continues to persist.

The report by the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport notes an overall Graduation Success Rate improvement from 67 percent to 68 percent for students on the 70 bowl teams.

A total of 97 percent of schools had at least a 50 percent GSR for football teams, up 6 percent from 2010.

Also, for the second straight year 99 percent of schools received a score higher than the target 925 on the NCAA’s four-year Academic Progress Rate. Teams with a four-year APR of 925 or below face penalties including loss of scholarships.

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(Los Angeles Times) Tiger JK's life has been defined by his sense of never quite belonging. He came of age in 1980s and '90s Los Angeles listening to the traditional Korean folk ballads his grandmother played around the apartment, while outside he was drawn in by the city's bustling hip-hop culture. As one of the few Korean American kids at Beverly Hills High, Tiger (who lived on the outskirts of Beverly Hills) never quite felt a kinship with the 90210 lifestyle. And when it came to being taken seriously as an Asian rapper? He wasn't.

"It was rare to see an Asian dude rapping then, so I got a pass — when I was mediocre, they said I was a lot better than they'd thought," said the artist, who now lives in Uijeongbu, South Korea, near Seoul. "But when I got good, they couldn't admit it."

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(Huffington Post) The nation's first free broadcast network targeting African-American audiences arrived in the nation's fourth-largest media market on Thursday.

Atlanta-based Bounce TV is an over-the-air free channel supported by sponsors and is geared toward black viewers ages 25 to 54. Unlike cable channels, Bounce TV is one of a growing number of networks carried on the broadcast digital signals of local television stations.

Bounce TV executives – among them Martin Luther King III and former Atlanta mayor and U.N. ambassador Andrew Young – said the new network's targeted demographic is vastly underserved and hungers for positive programming that speaks to them.

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(Chicago Tribune) A federal lawsuit filed Monday in Chicago accused Comcast Corp. of discriminating against the African-American employees of its South Side facility and its own customers by requiring workers to install defective or bug-infested equipment into residents' homes.

Eleven current and former workers in Comcast Corp.'s South Side facility are seeking class action status claiming that since at least 2005, the media company "has engaged in an ongoing pattern of race discrimination against African American employees" at its South Side location, according to the complaint, filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.  

The group includes 10 current employees and one former worker who was fired in 2009. The plaintiffs on average, have worked for Comcast for 15 years, the lawsuit says.

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(Bleacher Report) Denver Broncos head coach John Fox recently stated about his quarterback Tim Tebow, "If we were trying to run a regular offense, he'd be screwed."

Nice vote of confidence, huh?

Let’s face it folks: Even though the Denver Broncos are 3-1 with Tebow as the starting quarterback, it is all but apparent he is not equipped at this point to be a starting quarterback in the NFL.

Period.

Against my Kansas City Chiefs, Tebow completed just 2-of-8 passes for the entire game: Yes, one was for a touchdown, but even a broken clock is right twice a day.  

The Broncos ran the ball a staggering 55 times against the Chiefs defense.  Despite Tebow's inept play the team still managed to win.  Tebow is getting a bulk of the credit but the Broncos defense and running game is putting them in a position to win for the most part, not Tebow’s play.

Despite being a two-time National Champion and a Heisman Trophy winner as a Florida Gator, some felt Tebow’s success would not translate into NFL stardom.  I was one of the doubters.  But for some odd reason Josh McDaniels grabbed Tebow in the first round last year and now Fox is stuck with him.

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(Marketing Charts) More than 3 in 5 African American, Hispanic, and Asian American women in the US have a smartphone in their household, compared to just one-third of Caucasian women, according to [download page] a November 2011 report from Nielsen. Data from “Women of Tomorrow” indicates that levels of adoption among other technologies are much more similar: roughly 95% of women across all ethnicities are connected to the Internet and TV, slightly edging cell phone penetration rates. TV has the highest level of penetration for Asian American (98%), African American (96%), and Caucasian (96%) women, while the internet takes primacy among Hispanic women (97%).

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(Huffington Post) Blacks will have more money to spend on goods and services, according to a recent report.

The State of the African-American Consumer Report found that black buying power is projected to reach $1.1 trillion by 2015, The Louisiana Weekly reports.

The study, which focuses on black spending, media habits and consumer trends, reported an increase in the amount of blacks attending college or earning a degree to 44 percent for men and 53 percent for women. It also found an increase in the number of African American households earning $75,000 or higher by almost 64 percent.

"By sharing, for example, that African Americans over-index in several key areas, including television viewing and mobile phone usage," said Susan Whiting, vice chair of information and analytics company Nielsen. "We've provided a better picture of where the African American community can leverage that buying power to help their communities."

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(Huffington Post) Slowly, the entertainment industry is taking notice that Latinos are a demographic force to be taken seriously.

In baby steps, tiny foot-dragging steps, Hollywood seems to be moving away from the days when the principal roles available to Latinos were either those of the sultry femme fatale or the dark-haired, language-mangling villain.

For Salma Hayek and Antonio Banderas, their star power has delivered them to the point where their heavily-accented voices alone are being relied on to carry a film.

Case in point: "Puss in Boots," the sixth collaboration by the Mexican and Spanish heartthrobs, premiers in the United States Friday. It is their first animated film together.

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