For the first time in 22 years, the New Orleans city council has a white majority.

The political change reflects the transformation of the city in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Previously New Orleans, a predominantly black city, had an overwhelmingly black city council.

But many people who evacuated the city relocated elsewhere and many of the victims of Katrina were African-American, two factors that have had an impact on the political and racial makeup of the city after the hurricane.

John Nichols of the Nation writes there is a new political landscape in New Orleans:

“…The pattern of white contenders defeating and replacing African-American candidates in New Orleans is unmistakable. In contest after contest, whites politicians defeated their African-American competitors…There is no mystery about what has happened. For the first time in decades, it appears that whites may be casting more ballots in New Orleans than African Americans. Officially, the voter rolls still show a black majority. But the rolls have not yet been purged of the names of Katrina’s victims. The names that will eventually be removed are, for the most part, expected to be those of African Americans.

These patterns have dramatically altered the electoral politics of a city that had been in the forefront of African-American political strength and advancement since the 1960s. The change was rapid and radical, but it is only now coming into something akin to full perspective. An initial mayoral race following the storm saw a significant amount of absentee voting, but Saturday’s run-off voting was more reflective of the new political reality of New Orleans.”

The New York Times has an interesting op-ed in its opinion section today.

With the resurgence of nooses around the country, the newspaper has a graphic that maps the U.S. states where nooses have been found in the last two years.

The majority of them were found on the East Coast. The most recent noose sightings? Orangeburg, NY; Orangeburg, SC and Cicero, IL.

After 20 years, U.S. lawmakers have changed federal sentencing for crack cocaine offenses.

A new law went into effect on Nov 1 that would shorten the mandatory sentences for people charged with possession of crack cocaine. The law would apply only to new offenses. Officials are deciding whether to apply the new guidelines to people already in prison on crack cocaine charges.

Before the revisions, U.S. law mandated a minimum five-year prison term for people caught with five grams of crack cocaine. People caught with powder cocaine would have to be in possession of a far larger quantity of the drug—500 grams—to get the same minimum five-year sentence.

This huge disparity, or the 100-1 ratio as it has been called, has drawn criticism from many people who say the law exemplifies racial injustice in the criminal justice system. Over 80 percent of people convicted for crack cocaine offenses are black, for powder cocaine defenses, the majority of offenders are white.

Relevant Links:

The Sentencing Project information on crack sentencing reform

Associated Press article on whether new guidelines will apply to people already in prison

Kansas City Star editorial on whether new guidelines will be effective

Conversations about race in America usually center on the relationship between blacks and whites, but what often isn’t discussed is racial tension among minority groups.

In a Sunday op-ed piece in the LA Times, Earl Ofari Hutchinson writes racial tension between blacks and Latinos is America’s worst-kept secret in race relations.

Recently, there’s been an increase in violence between Latino gang members and blacks in South Los Angeles.

Hutchinson writes that this is just one source of the tension between Latinos and blacks in Los Angeles and elsewhere across the country.

“Animosity between Latinos and blacks is the worst-kept secret in race relations in America. For years, Latino leaders have pointed the finger of blame at blacks when Latinos are robbed, beaten and even murdered. Blacks, in turn, have blamed Latinos for taking jobs, for colonizing neighborhoods, for gang violence. These days, the tension between the races is noticeable not only in prison life and in gang warfare (where it’s been a staple of life for decades) but in politics, in schools, in housing, in the immigration debate. Conflicts today are just as likely — in some cases, more likely — to be between blacks and Latinos as between blacks and whites.”

Tensions between the two groups seemed to be heightened in the wake of debates about illegal immigration. Some blacks feel that cheap labor from LAtin America poses a threat to low-skilled African-American workers.

The Pew Center conducted a poll this year which showed that a higher percentage of blacks said either they or a family member had lost a job because of an immigrant.

Though it hasn’t been proven empirically, some studies have shown a correlation between a surge in immigration and unemployment rates for American-born workers.

A 2004 study by a Harvard professor showed that between 1980-2000 a rise in immigration coincided with a 4.5 percent decline in employment for blacks and a 5 percent decline in employment for Latinos. One caveat: it wasn’t clear whether these people would have been employed even if there wasn’t an influx of immigrants.

According to a recent article in E-Marketer, blacks are using the Web more than they have in previous years.

In 2006, African-Americans comprised about 11% of Internet users, compared to 74% for whites, 10 % for Hispanics and about 6% for Asians.

E-Marketer claims blacks will make up about 12% of Web users in 2011 or an estimated 25 million users.

One interesting observation is that the price of computers and Internet access have decreased, but this hasn’t increased Web usage by African-Americans.

The Pew Research Center’s 2007 Internet and American Life Project also shows who’s online and who’s not. Just 62% of African-Americans use the Internet, lower than any other ethnic group.

In a column in the New York Times Sunday, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. said the only way to deal with the increasing wealth gap in the black community, and between blacks and whites, is for African-Americans to obtain the modern-day equivalent of forty acres and a mule.

After the end of slavery, black slaves were promised forty acres of land and a mule, which they never received. Gates said the legacy of non-ownership in the black community needs to be reversed and that property ownership is the key to dealing with black poverty. He mentioned the recent Pew Research Study that showed blacks are more divided along class lines than ever before.

Gates examined the family trees of 20 successful African-Americans (Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg and others) and discovered that many of their ancestors owned property before 1920, an accomplishment that allowed their descendents to achieve middle-class status.

He said this same strategy needs to be used to resolve the class divide in the black community:

“If the correlation between land ownership and success of African-Americans argues that the chasm between classes in the black community is partly the result of social forces set in motion by the dismal failure of 40 acres and a mule, then we must act decisively. If we do not, ours will be remembered as the generation that presided over a permanent class divide, a slow but inevitable process that began with the failure to give property to the people who had once been defined as property.”

Many African-Americans are fed up with recent events involving the Jena 6 case and the hanging of nooses all across the country.

On Friday, more than 100 busloads of people from different states gathered in Washington to demand stronger hate crime laws.

Protestors argued there are two sets of laws in America, one for blacks and one for whites.

 Al Sharpton, a well-known civil rights leader, told onlookers that racial injustice is still prevalent in America and the reappearance nooses symbolizes this injustice.

“When you hang up a noose, that’s no joke to us. Our granddaddies swung on those nooses,” he said.

A Louisiana politician is sparking outrage from the NAACP and others after she referred to a black supporter as ”Buckwheat,” a character from the Little Rascals who embodied negative stereotypes about blacks.

Carla Blanchard Dartez, a Louisiana Democrat who serves in the state legislature, ended a phone conversation with a black campaign supporter by telling the woman, “Talk to you later, Buckwheat.”

Buckwheat, a character from the Little Rascals, symbolizes the stereotypical pop culture representation of blacks in the early 1900’s. The Buckwheat character in the Little Rascals often spoke incorrect English and ate fried chicken and watermelon.

Hazel Boykins, the woman whom Dartez referred to as “Buckwheat,” told the Associated Press she thought the comment was a racial slur.

“I know the meaning of it,” she said. ”It’s just like the N-word.”

Dartez initially received an endorsement from the NAACP. The group has withdrawn its support and decided to endorse the Republican candidate.

Dartez issued a statement apologizing for her remarks.

A study by the Pew Research Center released Tuesday showed that blacks are more pessimistic about racial progress than they were 20 years ago.

Just 20 percent of blacks said things are better for blacks now than they were five years ago. That figure is the lowest it has been in the last 20 years. In 1983, 20 percent of blacks surveyed were also pessimistic about racial progress.

The survey also found blacks no longer view themselves as a single race. There is more cultural and economic diversity within the black community, but respondents said class issues between poor and middle income blacks is the source of the chasm within the community.

Key Findings

• 53% surveyed said blacks can still be thought of as a single race. 37% said otherwise.
• 30% of blacks said discrimination is the reason most African-Americans don’t get ahead.
• 53 % said each individual is responsible for the outcome of their own fate.
• 76% of blacks said Barack Obama is a good influence on the black community
• 87 % said Oprah was also a good influence
• Just 17% thought rapper 50 Cent was a good influence.

Read the full report here.

Since its inception in 1975, the National Organization of Concerned Black Men has been dealing with issues of concern to black youth. Leroy Hughes, director of operations for Concerned Black Men, talked to me about the issues that should concern all black men in America.

Download  Leroy Hughes Interview

 Transcript of Interview

1.       What are the issues Concerned Black Men is currently working on and what issues should be of concern to black men in this country?

LH: We primarily focus on youth related issues as well as issues affecting men. That involves a focus on male reproductive health, mentoring, tutoring. We concentrate on abstinence projects, teen pregnancy prevention, AIDS prevention, adult literacy and fatherhood initiatives. We work with young men to improve their parenting skills, job readiness. We try to develop best practice programs to strengthen the community and we try to create best practice programs that target youth in our community so that they can become productive citizens to society and develop the skill sets to become the foundation for their community now and in the future. We try to promote and develop programs for parents so that they can employ skills to help those very same kids to be the best that they can be and to try to encourage and maintain the family unit.

2.       What are some of the issues, locally and nationally, that are particular to black youth?

We are extremely concerned about the achievement gap, especially among young boys; the fact that African-American boys are really lagging behind their peers. We are concerned about truancy; we are concerned about high school dropouts. One of our primary goals is to increase the academic performance of youth and try to develop programs that’ll keep them in school. Right now we are heading up a project called “The Boys of Color: 2025 Initiative.” As part of our young males of color achievement initiative, we try to identify best practice programs across the country that assist young boys and try to close the achievement gap and keep them in school. [We] try to figure out how we can infuse those best practices into local school systems and get dollars from foundations and maybe the federal government to help support programs to deal with this achievement gap issue. We all know about the dilemma affecting African-American youth, boys in particular.

3.       Do you think the government is doing enough to address these things?

We can appreciate some of the initiatives the government is trying to promote to boost the achievement gap, but more really needs to be done. We’re talking about more funds to support afterschool projects, mentoring and tutoring projects. We encourage and try to work with other community-based organizations to create awareness for the need for the federal government to intervene. In concert with the federal government, it’s the responsibility of every community-based organization to develop programs and plans locally to address whatever dilemmas their communities are going through. Each community really needs to identify on what is the pressing issue of the day that they should focus on, and then form partnerships to deal with that. Then community-based organizations are in the best position to deal with the federal government and make their demands.

4.       With the Jena 6 and Genarlow Wilson cases, is your organization talking more about criminal justice issues or are the young people you mentor more concerned about those issues?

We’ve been focusing on those issues for quite some time, since our inception in 1975. What we’re trying to do more so than ever before is really focus on the issue of parent education. We really feel that if parents are educated about their rights and responsibility as citizens– and what they can do and what they are empowered to do–they really could have been in a better position to deal with this issue before it got to this point. We really believe that education is the key. Educating kids and parents about their rights is really the key and best solution for dealing with racism and hate crimes. If we can apply that type of approach, then we’re really in the best possible to position to change policy.

5.       The organization was started in 1975 to fill the void in positive male black role models. Do you think that void still exists to the extent it did in 1975?

It still exists. We all know about the significant number of African-American youth who are either incarcerated or did not complete high school. We know that our work is not done. In fact, we have a great deal more to do. We would like to think that we have made an impact because the organization has grown. We started in Philadelphia with about five police officers. Now we have 31 chapters across the country. But even since the organization has grown, the issues still persist. Even though we’re in the 21^st century, too many of our young men are in jail; too many of them are dropping out of high school; too many of them are engaged in truancy. That tells us that we are still in a state of emergency and there’s still much work to be done. Yes, to that extent the void stills exists. We’ve still got work to do and as long as there’s work to be done the organization will be here to try to meet that need.

6.       Do you think another organized civil rights movement is necessary? Do you think it needs to be a massive effort?

It needs to only be a massive effort in the sense the each person has the responsibility to do their part. Back in the day, in the 1960’s because the country was galvanized because of so many issues that great leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King carried on their shoulders. Today, we have made gains as a race. More of us, more so than ever before in history, are empowered to do things individually whereby collectively we can make a difference. We all have an individual responsibility to take on the role of leadership. The one obstacle we have within our race is that we’re still looking for that one person, when really it should be each individual doing their part.

It’s important, given our stature economically, intellectually, that we can do it. By doing that, you almost engage in another civil rights effort.

7.       Nooses have been reappearing all over the country, something that was common during the civil rights movement and before then. How do you as a concerned black man explain the reappearance of nooses in 2007 to your children and the kids you mentor?

When I speak to my own children, I have to remind them that we as human beings, even though we have great qualities, we also have idiosyncrasies.  They’re still a lot of people who don’t understand, or perhaps don’t want to understand, the difference we have as individuals as opposed to embracing diversity. Because we’ll always have those types of individuals who have a problem with embracing diversity and celebrating differences, you have to be prepared to deal with that.