July 8, 2010
I Forgot to Laugh: Joel Stein's My Own Private India
By David Eubanks
"I'm writing about your article during July about the abuse of Indian People. Well, I'm here to state the other side. I hate them, if you had to live near them you would also. We are an organization called dot busters. We have been around for 2 years. We will go to any extreme to get Indians to move out of Jersey City. If I'm walking down the street and I see a Hindu and the setting is right, I will hit him or her. We plan some of our most extreme attacks such as breaking windows, breaking car windows, and crashing family parties. We use the phone books and look up the name Patel. Have you seen how many of them there are? Do you even live in Jersey City? Do you walk down Central Avenue and experience what its like to be near them: we have and we just don't want it anymore. You said that they will have to start protecting themselves because the police cannot always be there. They will never do anything. They are a weak race physically and mentally. We are going to continue our way. We will never be stopped."
This quote was published in a newspaper by the Dot Busters, a New Jersey street gang, whose objective was to drive South Asian Indians out of New Jersey. The Dot Busters were responsible for numerous violent attacks including the brutal beating and murder of Navroze Mody in August of 1987; a month after this Dot Busters' letter was written.
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July 8, 2010
Equal Access vs. Religious Freedom
By David Eubanks
A chapter of the Christian League Society at the University of California’s Hastings College of Law was denied campus recognition after the Supreme Court ruled its policies were discriminatory. The Christian group, which allows anyone to attend its meetings, restricts voting and executive positions to those that sign a statement of faith devoting their lives to Jesus Christ. The statement includes the belief that ‘Christians should not engage in sexual conduct outside of marriage between a man and a woman.
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June 23, 2010
Graduation by the Numbers
By David Eubanks
An article in the June 11, 2010 issue of the Washington Examiner reported that D.C suburban high schools exhibit some of the highest graduation rates in comparison to the nation’s top 50 largest school districts. The statistics are based on an analysis by Education Week magazine that used the most recent data from 2007. The results were published in “Diplomas Count 2010: Graduation by the Numbers”. According to the report, Montgomery County has the highest national graduation rate among the 50 districts, with 83.1 percent of students graduating in 2007. Fairfax County comes in at a close second with a graduation rate of 82.5 percent. However, just adjacent to Montgomery County, Prince George’s County schools report a graduation rate of 59.3 percent; almost 10 percent below the national average. Baltimore was among the bottom five districts with a graduation rate of 43.4 percent.
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June 16, 2010
A Shared Fate: The Impact of Arizona’s New Immigration Law
By David Eubanks
On July 30, 2010 you leave work a few minutes early in an attempt to beat traffic. Anxious to get home, you leave your company shirt on; complete with paint stains from a hard days effort. Incredibly thirsty, you reluctantly decide to stop at a convenience store before you begin the 30 minute commute home. Back in the car, satisfied and finally on your way home, you notice the police lights flashing in your rearview mirror. As you pull over you wonder what you did wrong. Unbeknownst to you, as you walked out of the convenience store, a police officer identified you as a potential “illegal immigrant” living in the United States. Perhaps it was your tarnished work cloths, your brown skin, or maybe the clunker of a car that you happen to be driving; nevertheless, this is an example of the racial profiling that could occur as a result of Arizona’s new immigration law.
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June 3, 2010
Fishing in Oil: New Orleans’ Fishermen Struggle to Maintain Business
By David Eubanks
Oil spill containment efforts continue to fail more than a month after the BP Transocean Deepwater Horizon oil rig sank into the Gulf of Mexico. Oil has already contaminated marine life bordering Louisiana and is beginning to threaten the coastline along Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. As the spill spreads it poses an obvious threat to the environment and as it worsens the economic impact on the local communities, specifically minority communities, becomes an increasing concern.
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