EthnicMajority

(New York Magazine) There was a slight uptick in models of color at this past New York Fashion Week, according to Loop21.com's Keli Goff, who tabulates runway diversity every season. Of the 200 New York designers who showed, over 90 percent had at least one black model, and 80 percent featured at least one Asian model. (Last fall's comparative figures were 83 percent and 87 percent, respectively.) This season's average got an additional nudge in the right direction with an increase in "ethnically ambiguous non-white models," according to Goff. [Loop21.com]

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(Newser) In eight metropolitan areas including Washington, DC, New York, San Diego, Las Vegas, and Memphis, minorities now make up the majority of the population, according to census data. Over the past decade, non-Hispanic whites have become the minority in 22 of the 100 largest urban areas in the US, the Washington Post reports. In 42 of those 100 regions, the raw number of white people fell, but the percentage of whites fell in every single metro area. A big reason? The white population is aging, while the Hispanic and Asian populations fueling the growth are relatively young.

The shift happened shockingly fast, even to many officials. “What’s happened is pivotal,” says one demographer, noting that these regions will be the testing ground for how to “help minorities assimilate and become part of the labor force.” Another report notes the “literally mind-boggling” situation in Northern Virginia’s schools, where the student population grew by 119,000 over the past 15 years—white students accounted for just shy of 1,000 of those. The demographic shift is even starting to transform traditionally Republican areas to more Democratic ones, one expert notes.

(CBS) A scraped knee and torn leather jacket are the worst reminders of Jerrell Horton’s run in with an out-of-control cabbie early Sunday morning.

As he was trying to get home to Brooklyn after a night out with friends at a Soho club, Horton said he was shunned by a cab driver, who dragged him nearly a block before he could free himself.

“I open the door he’s like ‘where are you going,’ I said ‘Brooklyn’…he takes off. The door slams, my jacket gets caught,” Horton told CBS 2′s Rob Morrison.

It all happened so quickly that he was unable to get a license plate or medallion number.

“I lost my wallet, lost my prescription glasses. It’s just ridiculous,” Horton said.

The Rider Bill of Rights clearly states that cabs are required to take passengers to any destination they request in the city. Horton said it simply isn’t the case for many African Americans, who are routinely passed by altogether.

Horton said he walked 25 minutes before a cab would finally stop to pick him up. He said it was even worse earlier that evening, when he said he was forced to do something he called “embarrassing.”

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(New York Times) Businesses owned by women and members of minorities still struggle to secure city contracts, despite nearly five years of legal mandates and targeted goals set by the city, says a new City Council report [pdf - see also below].

City agencies handed out more than $5.3 billion in contracts between July and December 2009, but only $87 million, or 1.6 percent, went to businesses owned by women and minority candidates, the report says. Fifteen agencies met none of their contracting goals for this period. The number of contracts secured by such businesses continues to be less than half the mandated number.

The report’s findings, which were based on data published [pdf] by the Department of Small Business Services in April, present the latest challenge to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s ability to promote racial and gender diversity within his administration, and his efforts to empower minority-run businesses throughout the city.

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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 Daily News) “Discrimination is alive and well in America today,” Cuomo (above) said at a press conference Tuesday announcing lawsuits against landlords in Brooklyn and upstate Schenectady County.

(Full disclosure: My wife, Juanita Scarlett, works for the attorney general.)

“In life and society, you will never solve a problem you’re unwilling to admit,” Cuomo said. “We don’t want to admit that we discriminate.”

That’s putting it mildly. Few areas of city life are as shrouded in denial and hypocrisy as the welter of public and private mechanisms that keep New York divided.

Landlords, real estate agents and management companies still steer applicants into white, black or Latino enclaves – all in violation of the law.

Single women and young parents are often told that a building doesn’t want to rent to families with children. That’s illegal, too, under federal, state and local housing laws.

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(AP) A panel convened after two officer-on-officer shootings said police departments must confront both overt and unconscious racial bias among officers to reduce the risk of one officer harming another during “friendly fire.”

Gov. David Paterson formed the panel last year after the January 2008 death of Mount Vernon officer Christopher Ridley and the May 2009 death of New York City officer Omar Edwards. Both were black and killed by other police officers who were unaware they were cops.

The task force examined police-on-police confrontations around the country, finding 26 killings during the past three decades. The panel also found numerous other officer-on-officer confrontations that did not lead to a fatality.

The review of the confrontations found that “inherent or unconscious racial bias plays a role in shoot/don’t-shoot decisions made by officers of all races and ethnicities,” the report said.

Ten of the officers killed were off duty, including Edwards and Ridley. And nine of the those were minorities. The last white off-duty officer to be killed by an on-duty colleague died in 1982, the task force found. The report didn’t find any obvious racial or ethnic pattern among officers who were killed while on-duty.

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