Facebook Shows Users Different Things Based on Their Ethnicity

Ethnic Affinity is what Facebook is using in order to assign Facebook users into different groups based on their location, language, and interests. The four groups consist of non-multicultural, African-American, Asian-American or U.S. Hispanic people. People believe that this is racial profiling and discrimination because it is not like an advertisement which targets certain people.

An example of how Facebook is grouping people is when the movie Straight Out of Compton came out and they showed different trailers to different people.

"One trailer focused more on the rise of Dr. Dre  and Ice Cube (now a major movie star), without mentioning N.W.A. This trailer was shown to the non-multicultural group, AKA mostly white people, because they were assumed not to know much about the '80s group. Another trailer focused on N.W.A. itself and was shown to the African-American affinity group because that group was assumed to know more about N.W.A. A third, shorter trailer that included quotes in Spanish was targeted toward the U.S. Hispanic group," said Noelle Devoe, author of the article.

Universal marketing chief Doug Neil and Jim Underwood, Facebook's head of entertainment, discussed the partnership at an SXSW panel in Austin and described how using race-specific marketing really helped the movies success.

One Twitter user by the name David Carrol said "In advertising they call it targeting. Everywhere else we call it discrimination. No, Facebook. “Ethnic affinity” is also just discrimination in any other context"

Facebook did take action to respond back. One Facebook representative said "We cannot and do not say to advertisers that they are ethnically black. Facebook does not have a way for people to self-identify by race or ethnicity on the platform."

Source: http://www.seventeen.com/life/tech-social-media/news/a39179/facebook-shows-users-with-different-ethnicities-different-things-on-their-timeline/ 

Facebook source: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/03/facebook-explains-that-it-is-totally-not-doing-racial-profiling/ 

Chicago Police Dept. Plagued by Systemic Racism, Task Force Finds

Chicago police recently released a report called the Police Accountability Task Force which outlined some really shocking facts that demonstrated how racism may be a big issue in their community.

"The report reinforces complaints made for decades by African-American residents who have said they were unfairly singled out by officers without justification on a regular basis, then ignored when they raised complaints," wrote the New York Times.

The report found that In a city where whites, blacks, and Hispanics each make up about one-third of the population, 74 percent of the 404 people shot by the Chicago police between 2008 and 2015 were black, the report said. Black people were the subjects in 72 percent of the thousands of investigative street stops that did not lead to arrests during the summer of 2014. Three out of every four people on whom Chicago police officers tried to use Taser guns between 2012 and 2015 were black. And black drivers made up 46 percent of police traffic stops in 2013.

Chicago police statistics show that murders are up by 62 percent this year compared with a year ago and shootings have also increased by 78 percent.

The report also says "The task force heard over and over again from a range of voices, particularly from African-Americans, that some C.P.D. officers are racist, have no respect for the lives and experiences of people of color and approach every encounter with people of color as if the person, regardless of age, gender or circumstance, is a criminal.”

In my opinion, I think its crazy to see these statistics because we hear about racism a lot but when you see the facts it's shocking to see how big of an issue this is.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/14/us/chicago-police-dept-plagued-by-systemic-racism-task-force-finds.html?_r=0

Report: https://chicagopatf.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/PATF_Final_Report_4_13_16-1.pdf

Teenage Immigrants Are Being Denied Asylum Because They Have No Right to an Attorney

An 18 year old teenager by the name of Manuel Portillo was seeking asylum by the U.S. but since he didn't have an attorney to back his case up, he didn't attend his court case.

The Article I read says "Between 2014 and 2015, 49 percent of minors in immigration court had no legal aid, according to data compiled by the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Out of 84,174 juvenile cases filed in that period, a whopping 41,457 of those cases were unrepresented."

Manuel Portillo was afraid that he might get deported since he didn't have anyone to represent him pro bono. He had originally fled Salvador from gang violence when he was only 16 and came to the U.S.. One night on January he got stopped by a police officer and had to show up to court for not having a drivers license. At the court the judge told him he would have to go into the hands of immigration officers.

When he heard he wasn't going to get an attorney for his Asylum case He'd heard rumors that immigration officers would deport him if he showed up in court, so out of fear, he simply didn't go.

"We are talking about children running for their lives in many instances," one of the co-sponsors of the bill, Rep. Luis Guitierrez, said in a press release about the bill. "We need to make sure they have access to a lawyer, translator, and a fair chance to navigate the American legal system so that they can get justice if they qualify for asylum and are fighting deportation."

Source: http://www.vice.com/read/teenage-immigrants-are-being-denied-asylum-because-they-have-no-right-to-an-attorney 

An open letter to the 45th president

Vikram Mansharamani wrote an open letter to the future president of this country, highlighting five important issues that must be brought to his or her's attention once as a president. Vikram is a lecturer in the Program on Ethics, Politics & Economics at Yale University and a senior fellow at the Mossavar - Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School. 

In his letter, he talks about how restricting immigration would hurt American growth. 

"We need to open our doors to the highly skilled. Too many brilliant non-citizens who want to contribute to our economy (including graduates of our world-leading universities) are not able to do so. Last year, 233,000 people applied for H-1B visas, a program for skilled foreigners capped at 85,000. With the U.S. unemployment rate hovering near 5 percent, now is an opportune time to raise the quota. Economists have found that these individuals create jobs for native-born Americans and that artificially restricting their entry hurts American growth."

He then moves on to discuss how silicon valley has a lot of immigrants who helped start companies that are worth a lot. 

"Silicon Valley, where immigrants founded over half of the much-discussed private companies now worth over $1 billion."

Forbes said "Just looking at the top 10 companies based in Silicon Valley by NASDAQ market cap, many (40%) are run by someone who is a woman, an immigrant, or non-white. By individual demographics, 20% are women and 30% are foreign-born."

Vikram goes on in his letter then to talk about the economy, climate change, resource security and more. 

To learn more I've linked the source as well as the Forbes site with graphs about immigration.

Letter: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/an-open-letter-to-the-45th-president/

Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregoryferenstein/2015/08/14/ceos-of-silicon-valleys-top-firms-are-often-non-white-immigrants-or-women-in-1-graph/#331a21f5324c 

Angela Davis: America Needs a New Political Party

Political activist Angela Davis says she is not impressed with America’s presidential candidates. Davis, who’s work surrounds issues of gender, race, class and prison, believes America needs a new party, “a party that is grounded in labor, a party that can speak to all of the issues around racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia—what is happening in the world. We don’t yet have that party." 

When asked about Donald Trump she said she condemns Donald Trump and his failure to denounce the endorsement of David Duke, former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, and notes that, “the Ku Klux Klan, of course, evokes the racist, terrorist, violent history associated with the era following slavery up to the present. It doesn’t seem to me to be a question whether one would disavow the Ku Klux Klan.”

On Hillary Clinton she said "It seems to me that if she’s interested in the votes of not only African Americans and people of color, but of all people who are progressive and attempting to speak out against the racism of over incarceration, she would simply say, ‘I was wrong then,’ that ‘superpredator’ is a racially coded term. It’s so interesting that she is—she tends to rely on a kind of universalism that prevents her from acknowledging the extent to which racism is so much a force and an influence in this country.”

In my opinion, I kind of agree with her because I feel like this election is kind of a joke in a way. At first I was thinking about voting for Hilary Clinton but after analyzing her history of the previous years I just feel like she's saying things only to get votes but won't do if she were to win. With Trump I feel like he is just a joke and the other republican candidates I feel like I can't trust them. The only person so far who I think might be a good candidate is Bernie Sanders. 

Source: http://www.essence.com/2016/03/30/angela-davis-america-needs-new-political-party 

AG advocates legal representation for children facing deportation

Attorney General Bob Fergusson who works for the state of Washington, spoke out on a recent article regarding children and deportations. He said that children shouldn't be forced to represent themselves in deportation hearings. 

The article says that the class-action lawsuit was filed on July 9, 2014 on behalf of thousands of children, challenging the federal government's willingness to carry out deportation hearings against them without legal representation. For the most part, these children are fleeing to escape violence and crime back in their home countries. A majority of the children are coming from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.

In 2004, One teenager was murdered only 17 days after being deported. At least 83 deportees from the U.S. have been reported murdered upon their return to Central America since January 2014. Many children flee their country for a reason because they want to avoid the violence that happens. However if they return back to the country then they are more likely to get killed because then people would have known that they did to escape. 

It's really sad that children are deported when all they want is a better future. I feel like ICE should focus on criminals and not children who want to get an education. 

Source: http://www.atg.wa.gov/news/news-releases/ag-advocates-legal-representation-children-facing-deportation

Students protest in support of the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State

Recently SFSU said it can’t keep funding the college of Ethnic Studies because of the consistent deficit of about $200,000 annually, given tight budgets across California public institutions. If they were to continue funding it then they would have to cut all funding to the college’s César E. Chávez Institute for research, community-based work, work-study for students, core graduate classes, classes taught by faculty members on sabbatical, suspending new hires for several years, even those to replace faculty members who have retired or gone elsewhere.

“When you say you can’t afford to offer those classes, then the eventual effect will be that you don’t have a viable major," said Dorothy Randall Tsuruta, chair of the Department of Africana Studies. 

“San Francisco State is still recovering from systemwide budget cuts and consistent underfunding of the California State University by the state, However, our five values of equity, community, resilience, courage and life of the mind will see us through the decisions that will enable the College of Ethnic Studies to continue to thrive and serve our students for decades to come." said Les Wong, president of San Francisco State

In my opinion, I think that the college should continue to have this program even if it takes funds from other programs because it has been here for a long time "The country’s first and only such freestanding college" and I think it has really affected many students. Just this Wednesday there was a protest again on the campus to support the College in hopes that it keeps getting funded. 

Source: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/03/03/iconic-ethnic-studies-college-san-francisco-state-says-it-cant-pay-its-bills