Mulligan’s selling shirts with ‘Curious George’ picture
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 05/13/08
Marietta tavern owner Mike Norman says the T-shirts he’s peddling, featuring cartoon chimp Curious George peeling a banana, with “Obama in ‘08″ scrolled underneath, are “cute.” But to a coalition of critics, the shirts are an insulting exploitation of racial stereotypes from generations past.
“It’s time to put an end to this,” said Rich Pellegrino, a Mableton resident and director of the Cobb-Cherokee Immigrant Alliance. He was among about 15 people who protested outside Mulligan’s Bar and Grill Tuesday afternoon against the sale of the “racist and highly offensive” shirts.
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“There’s no place for these views, not in this day and age,” he said.
Word of the controversy drew native Mariettan Pam Lindley, 47, to show up in support of the protesters.
“I don’t want people to think this is what Marietta is all about,” she added, pointing at tavern.
Two protesters, who stationed themselves near the tavern entrance, approached Norman and asked him to stop the T-shirt sales. He told them he won’t and asked them to leave his property, though the confrontation did not escalate.
Just down the street from Marietta’s famous Big Chicken, Mulligan’s has carved a provocative niche in an increasingly multicultural area, thanks to its owner’s ultra-conservative political views. If you live in Marietta, it’s impossible not to know what’s on Norman’s mind, as he posts his views on signs in front of Mulligan’s.
Among his recent musings: “I wish Hillary had married OJ,” “No habla espanol — and never will” and the standard “I.N.S. Agents eat free.”
“I’m saying out loud what everyone in this town whispers,” Norman said in an interview before Tuesday’s protest.
Whatever residents think of the signs, organized opposition to his blunt commentaries — ongoing for 16 years — had been nonexistent. No longer, says Pellegrino, who, though familiar with Norman’s politics, said he was still surprised by the stark imagery of the Obama T-shirts.
“There’s a lot of people hurt by this,” he said.
Norman said those offended are “hunting for a reason to be mad” and insisted he is “not a racist.”
Norman said he sees nothing wrong with depicting Obama as Curious George. “Look at him . . . the hairline, the ears, he looks just like Curious George,” Norman said. He said he did not design the shirts himself but bought them through a Web site.
He said he views it as just coincidence that the character on the T-shirt is a monkey. Norman also said proceeds raised from sales will be donated to the Muscular Dystrophy Association.
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Nation of Islam and the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials were among the organizations represented at Tuesday’s rally.
“Mulligan’s is promoting and selling racially offensive T-shirts, and Marietta and Cobb County residents and taxpayers abhor and cannot condone, any longer, this type of divisive and incendiary behavior in our community,” said Jerry Gonzalez, executive director of GALEO.
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Republican Nominee John McCain will speak at the annual conference of the National Council of La Raza (The Race), the extreme Hispanic lobby group that advocates a militant “reconquista” of the Southwestern United States.
Citing the engagement with the group as “part of his commitment to talking with all Americans.”, McCain will attend the convention in San Diego July 14, according to a press release which also announced the launch of his own Spanish website.
McCain, favored by La Raza due to his previous calls for a total amnesty on illegal immigrants in the U.S. and sustained opposition to efforts to strengthen controls at the U.S.-Mexican border, will repeat the appearance he made at the 2004 National Council of La Raza in Phoenix, Arizona where he made a keynote address.
McCain has a long and fruitful relationship with the group. In 1999 La Raza honored the Senator at its tenth annual Capital Awards for “staunch support of the Hispanic community”.
La Raza describes itself as the largest Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States, but it caters to the radical Chicano movement that says California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and parts of Colorado and Texas belong to Aztlan, the mythical birthplace of the Aztecs.
We have previously covered the Nightmare Racism and Open Call for Revolution from La Raza as well as the Aztlan reconquista movement and MEChA, who call their American based radio stations “the Invasion”. Such groups have no desire to respect US culture and wish for nothing more than the US to be broken up.
They call for the implementation of The Plan of San Diego, a plot hatched in 1915 in Northern Mexico and throughout the Southwest that called for the genocide of all white males over 16.
The founder of La Raza and professor at University of Texas, Arlington, Jose Angel Gutierrez, is on record as saying “We have got to eliminate the gringo, and what I mean by that is if the worst comes to the worst, we have got to kill him.”
In Reality La Raza is a minority movement, yet its reach has become infinitely more widespread due to millions it has received in federal grants and the power it has been afforded by bedhopping establishment politicians such as Hillary Clinton.
Bill Clinton and Karl Rove have previously rubbed shoulders with the group also.
In 2006 by Rep. Charles Norwood, R-Ga., outlined just how embedded with Washington Power brokers the group had become. In a piece entitled The Truth About ‘La Raza Norwoodcondemned the group as a radical “pro-illegal immigration lobbying organization that supports racist groups calling for the secession of the western United States as a Hispanic-only homeland.”
La Raza was one of the key groups behind last year’s so called “amnesty bill“, a piece of legislation drafted in total secrecy which very nearly passed. As the Washington Post reported, Latino national interest groups including La Raza now have virtual veto power in the immigration debate.
Make no mistake, the reconquista movement has big corporate funding. In almost every case we have researched, rich white men are behind the neo-Aztec movement. In one case a businessman in California bought almost 700 signs telling the public that Los Angeles is now Mexico (see picture).
Some Hispanic-American coalition groups such as You Don’t Speak For Me have attempted to counter the racist propaganda of the reconquista groups and soundly reject the media myth that the vast majority of Hispanics support such beliefs.
Alex Jones’ mini documentary Battle For The Republic exposes how the elite are using illegal immigration and pushing amnesty as a means of pulverizing the American middle class and ensuring that U.S. citizens, black, white and hispanic alike, are forced to sacrifice their freedom and sovereignty as America is sunk into a third world cesspool.
To see the possible next president openly embracing a group like La Raza should send chills down the spine of any American who values civil rights and equality, whatever their race.
Of course, if you disagree with McCain’s courtship of “The Race”, you can always vote for Obama.
KINGSTON - Racism at Rockwood Middle and High schools has been ongoing for years, several parents charged Monday.
Although aware that black students are frequently subjected to racist incidents, principals and educators do nothing, the parents alleged.
More than 20 people gathered Monday evening at a former all-black school in Kingston - now headquarters of the Roane County chapter of the NAACP - to listen to what chapter President Joseph Eskridge called “horror stories.”
White high school students repeatedly told their 15-year-old son they were going to “hang him and burn his body,” Tyrone and Seressa Thomas wrote in a letter to Rockwood High School Principal Alan Reed.
The letter was copied to school board members, Roane County officials and Gov. Phil Bredesen, Thomas said.
She said only Bredesen responded to the letter, mailed last winter.
“My son is a good child,” Thomas wrote. “He has been bullied and pushed to the point where he has to defend himself because the school continues ignoring and tolerating racism.”
Racism, to his knowledge, isn’t a pervasive problem in Roane County schools, school board Chairman Earl Nall said Monday night.
“I’ve been on the board for 10 years, and I’ve not heard any pattern of racism in any of our schools,” Nall said. “It is extremely rare that we ever hear the word racism come up.”
Prejudicial treatment of blacks in the two Rockwood schools goes back years, Mary Brown said during the NAACP meeting.
She said she removed a son from ninth grade in Rockwood in 1992 because of racist remarks, “and it’s worse now.”
The few black students now at the high school are routinely subjected to racist remarks, she said. That has prompted some blacks to transfer to other Roane County high schools, Brown said.
Nall said schools Director Dr. Toni McGriff would normally look into allegations similar to those contained in Seressa Thomas’ letter.
He said he doesn’t recall McGriff formally commenting to the board regarding the accusations.
McGriff and Reed did not return phone calls seeking comment Monday.
Bob Fowler, News Sentinel Anderson County editor, may be reached at 865-481-3625.
By SUZANNE GAMBOA, Associated Press Writer Mon May 5, 10:03 PM ET
WASHINGTON - President Bush wished a gathering of dinner guests a “Feliz Cinco de Maya” Monday in his final White House celebration of the Mexican holiday — slightly erring in his Spanish, but serving up a reminder of how he snared Hispanic votes in the last presidential election.
While the heated immigration debate has caused some strain between the United States and Mexico, Bush was more conciliatory Monday. He said Cinco de Mayo is a chance to prove the two countries are “connected by more than geography.” He referred correctly to the day, Cinco de Mayo, in other parts of his brief speech.
“We share an interest in making sure our people are prosperous and safe,” Bush said of Mexico. “In America, we deeply value the culture and contributions of Mexican Americans. The United States is a richer place, a more vibrant place because people who claim Mexican heritage are now called United States citizens. … We consider ourselves fortunate that Mexico is a friend and a neighbor.”
Brightly colored “papel picado” — intricately cut tissue paper — fluttered furiously in the spring breeze as the guests sat in the Rose Garden. The tables were covered with red tablecloths and decorated with centerpieces of tiny green flowers shaped into cacti.
The horns and guitars of Mariachi Campanas de America, a San Antonio-based band, resonated in the colonnade of the White House as the band’s gold-trimmed black costumes and sombreros served as a backdrop for Bush’s speech. The band later backed Spanish singer Shaila Durcal, who sang three songs for the crowd, including the Mexican classic “Volver, Volver.”
Bush has held Cinco de Mayo celebrations since arriving at the White House in 2001, in part as a symbol of the priority he gave the U.S. relationship with Mexico and his effort to curry favor with the Hispanic community.
But as he departs, the Republican Party is anxious about losing Hispanic votes in the November elections. Some Hispanics feel anti-immigrant sentiment has become anti-Hispanic as well.
In Phoenix on Monday, Republican John McCain acknowledged the focus on illegal immigration during the GOP primary had hurt his party’s image among Hispanics.
Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Cinco de Mayo was a reminder that “the American dream is still out of reach for too many Latinos.” Rival Hillary Clinton criticized Bush’s policies of “neglect and broken promises” toward Mexico and said the holiday was a chance to recognize mutual goals shared with Mexican Americans.
About 200 people attended the White House dinner. Among them were Mexican American Antonio Garza, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico; Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, a Cuban American; and Columba Bush, a Mexican American who is the wife of Bush’s brother Jeb.
By LAWRENCE LATANE III AND MICHAEL PAUL WILLIAMS
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITERS
Mildred Jeter Loving, a Caroline County woman who demolished the last legal bulwark of racial segregation in America, has died.
Mrs. Loving was 68, and her cause to live in Virginia as a black woman with her white husband, Richard Loving, led to a landmark civil-rights case in 1967 that abolished anti-miscegenation laws nationwide.
Despite the influence of her lawsuit, “she was a very humble woman,” said her daughter, Peggy Fortune, who also lives in Caroline.
Mrs. Loving died Friday at her home in Milford after falling ill with pneumonia, according to Bernie Cohen, the Spotsylvania County attorney who took her case in 1963.
Cohen described her as an unpretentious woman who was not expansive about her place in history. “Her view was simple: ‘It’s a good case, and I’m glad it helped so many people.’”
Legal scholars observed the 40th anniversary of Mrs. Loving’s lawsuit last June. In the case, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Virginia’s law against interracial marriage as unconstitutional, along with the laws of 15 other states that still had such statutes on their books.
The court had ruled in previous landmark civil rights decisions that segregated public school systems and laws prohibiting voting based on race were unconstitutional.
“Throughout American history, laws against miscegenation were the first to appear and the last to go,” said Kim Forde-Mazrui, who directs the Center for the Study of Race and Law at the University of Virginia.
At one time, as many as 41 states had laws banning interracial marriage, said Phyl Newbeck, the author of “Virginia Hasn’t Always Been for Lovers: Interracial Marriage Bans and the Case of Richard and Mildred Loving.”
“The ironic thing is Mildred never wanted to be a civil rights activist or pioneer,” Newbeck said. “She simply wanted to be married to Richard.”
She and Richard Loving, who died in a 1975 car crash caused by a drunken driver, grew up in Caroline, where their childhood friendship blossomed into romance. They went to Washington to marry in 1958.
“They both were very rural people,” Newbeck said. “They’d grown up in Caroline County. And here they were living in Washington, D.C., and they were very unhappy. It wasn’t really defiance. They just wanted to go home.”
Shortly after returning to their home in Central Point, they were awakened in the night by a Caroline sheriff’s deputy who arrested them for violating the state’s ban on interracial marriage. The Lovings pleaded guilty to cohabiting as man and wife and received a one-year suspended sentence provided they leave Virginia and not return for 25 years.
They moved to Washington, and with the help of American Civil Liberties Union lawyers –whom they contacted at the suggestion of then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy — they challenged the Virginia ban so they could return home.
Kent Willis, executive director of the ACLU of Virginia, said Mrs. Loving served as a reminder “of what individuals with courage and strength can accomplish, not just for themselves, but for all of us.”
Legal scholars say that by the time the Lovings went to court, public support for segregation was waning.
The Supreme Court had sidestepped the same questions the Lovings’ lawsuit presented by declining to hear an appeal from an Asian-American and a white person in Virginia who challenged the state’s ban against integrated marriages in 1955. A dozen years later, the court was ready to issue a decision.
“Her courage corrected a monstrous wrong, and it helped Virginia turn its back on a segregated past,” Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said.
In addition to her daughter, Mrs. Loving’s survivors include a son, Sidney Jeter of Tappahannock; two brothers, Lewis Jeter of Clinton, Md., and Douglas Jeter of Milford; and eight grandchildren. Funeral arrangements are pending.
Mrs. Loving, who lost her right eye in the crash that killed her husband, suffered from advanced arthritis and recently became gravely ill with pneumonia, said Cohen, now 74 and retired from his law practice. He visited her shortly before her death at home.
“It was the house that Richard built with his own two hands when they were married.”
Contact Lawrence Latané III at (804) 333-3461 or llatane@timesdispatch.com.
Contact Michael Paul Williams at (804) 649-6815 or mwilliams@timesdispatch.com.
Posted on March 4, 2008 by John
by John Ubele
ALLNAT PRODUCTIONS LLC and the Nationalist Coalition have teamed up to launch a new scholarship program aimed at helping students of White European ancestry.
“This is long-overdue, and between ALLNAT and the Nationalist Coalition, we now have the resources available to carry it out,” said Michael Medeiros, a member of ALLNAT.
Very few organizations in the United States offer scholarships specifically to White students. However there are hundreds of foundations and businesses which offer scholarships only to non-White students.
“We hope that customers of ALLNAT and members and supporters of the Nationalist Coalition will continue their patronage in order to allow us to not only make this an annual scholarship, but also eventually allow us to give out greater amounts,” Medeiros added.
There have been other organizations in the past that gave scholarships like the one being offered by Medeiros’ company and the Nationalist Coalition. Two organizations that had mixed success with the programs were the National Alliance and Stormfront.org.
For more information about the scholarship program download the .pdf at:
www.allnatproductions.com/files/wcs.pdf
April 2, 2008
St. Paul, Minn. — Principle investigator Rhonda Jones-Webb is quick to point out that her team’s findings do not prove that the availability of higher malt liquor causes higher homicide rates in African American communities. Actual alcohol consumption would need to be monitored before investigators could draw that conclusion, she says.
Her findings suggest there could be an indirect link to violent crime.
“It may be that the availability influences consumption of these products which in turn influences homicide rates,” she says.
Other studies have linked consumption of malt beverages with heavier drinking and aggressive behavior.
While her study did not track consumption rates, Jones-Webb says, her team did drive to every liquor retailer in the neighborhoods it studied to count the number of malt beverages on store shelves and observe how they were being marketed.
“For example we found greater numbers of 40 oz. bottles of malt liquor and more malt liquor ads on the store fronts.”
Malt liquor is often packaged in 40 oz. bottles that are sold cold directly from a retailer’s cooler. That makes immediate consumption much easier, Jones-Webb says. Typically the lager beer contains 6 to 8-and-a-half percent alcohol by volume, compared to 4 to 5-percent for standard beer. And it’s cheap. The U of M study found that the average price of a 40 oz.bottle is $1.87 in the neighborhoods it studied. That’s significantly less than a gallon of milk.
Those prices were often plastered prominently across liquor store fronts - a practice she says should trouble the black community, Jones-Webb says.
“So it begs the question why is this so? Why are these products being sold and promoted in certain neighborhoods and not in others?”
The study authors make some good points, according to Jim Farrell, Executive Director of the Minnesota Licensed Beverage Association. There are legitimate concerns about the way malt beverages are marketed to African Americans, he says.
“When I see a rap video with Snoop Dog and Dr. Dre and they’re opening up a refrigerator and it shows the cold 40’s, I mean, I understand that and I understand when people say that that will have an impact possibly on behavior.”
But linking malt beverages to homicide rates seems a stretch, Farrell says.
“I don’t know if we should make the leap that says that if you market a specific type of alcohol it may be a factor in leading to homicide.”
Many other factors could be at play from gang violence to the availability of guns, he says.
Jones-Webb acknowledges the limitations in her study. She hopes to address some of them in future research. Her findings are published the Journal of Substance Use and Misuse.
Mother, Daughter Charged with Attacking Atlanta Teacher
23 Apr
Posted by Tennessee as Education, Ethnic Crime
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/22/08
Police arrested a high school student and her mother on battery and other charges after the girl’s teacher was brutally attacked.
Atlanta police charged Georgia Thornton and her daughter Sequita with attacking Felecia Williams, a teacher at Southside High School, on Feb. 28.
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Fulton County Sheriff’s Office |
| Georgia Thornton |
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public schools, criminal trespass and theft by taking in connection with the attack, according to the police report.
Sequita, 17, was charged with battery on a teacher and disrupting public schools, according to the report. Atlanta school officials also permanently expelled the girl and ordered her to pay $500 toward the teacher’s medical expenses, said Joe Manguno, spokesman for Atlanta Public Schools.
Williams said Tuesday she had met with Thornton previously to discuss Sequita’s grades and sporadic attendance. Williams asked a school police officer to observe a meeting a couple of weeks before the incident because she was afraid for her safety, she said.
On the day of the attack, Williams said the pair walked into her classroom during first period and began arguing about a book. Williams asked them to leave, but the mother pushed past her and grabbed a book off her desk, the teacher said.
When Williams, 40, tried to get the book back, the mother pulled the teacher’s hair and threw her to the ground, the police report said. Then the mother and daughter stomped on the teacher, according to the report.
“She was swinging me by my hair, and my shoes flew off my feet,” Williams said. “Then I was on the ground, and they were both pounding on me. I was terrified. So were my students.”
Georgia Thornton disputed the facts in the police report Tuesday and said Williams hit her daughter on the day of the incident. Thornton said she had been meeting with Williams because the teacher wouldn’t give her daughter the correct grade.
“That teacher, she had it in for my daughter,” Thornton said. “I raised my daughter not to disrespect adults, so I took care of this situation. Yes, I hit her. I do what I have to do to protect my child at all costs.”
The attack against Williams is among several violent acts against metro area teachers this year.
In January, Gwinnett school police charged a seventh-grade girl with simple battery after school officials say the girl beat a teacher so violently she broke the woman’s glasses.
A note circulating in the Tri-Cities area in south Fulton describes attacks against six teachers at Paul West Middle in East Point over the past two years. No one signed the letter and school leaders say they don’t know who wrote it.
Susan Hale, spokeswoman for Fulton schools, said a couple of the incidents described were initiated by teachers who grabbed students’ arms to pull them in or out of classrooms. Another attack occurred when a teacher walked into a special education classroom to help a co-worker and was smacked with a chair thrown by a student with emotional and behavioral disorders, Hale said.
There’s increased hostility against teachers as some students become more brazen, said Mark Perez, the Fulton County representative for the Georgia Association of Educators.
“We expect there to be a system in place to protect them from this violence,” Perez said. “We are seeing people leave the profession because of this.”
Teachers who have been attacked say it is difficult to return to work.
Williams has not returned to work since the attack and doesn’t expect to go back this school year. She said she has severe neck and back pain. She suffers from panic attacks and is consulting a doctor.
She’s been teaching for 15 years. This is her first year at Southside High where she’s teaching a new class, video broadcasting.
“I love teaching and see myself going back to work,” Williams said. “But it won’t be at Southside.”
Williams said school officials didn’t do enough to prevent or break up the attack.
The school district declined to provide additional information about the incident because of the possibility of a lawsuit, Manguno said.