Roland Martin talks with Civic Engagement and Governance Institute Acting Director Michael Wenger about his new book, My Black Family, My White Privilege.

This interview can be heard on Black America Web.

On the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, a new book offers a deeply personal and unique look at racism from an unlikely vantage point. In My Black Family, My White Privilege: A White Man's Journey Through the Nation's Racial Minefield, author Michael R. Wenger presents a unique perspective as a Jewish man from New York City who marries an African American woman from the segregated South.

This retrospective work chronicles his 11-year marriage and the evolution of his black family, as well as his work in promoting racial justice, during an historic time of tumult and civil unrest spurred by persistent and widespread racial bias and injustice across the United States.

Mr. Wenger, now a Senior Fellow at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Sociology at The George Washington University, previously served as Deputy Director for Outreach and Program Development for President Clinton's Initiative on Race.

"I have had the privilege of glimpsing a world that is beyond the grasp of most white people, and this book is an attempt to help all of us become more aware of both the pain that well-meaning white Americans inflict on people of color, often without knowing it, and the benefits that await those with the courage to embark on a similar journey," Mr. Wenger said, adding that race continues to divide the nation.

Read more at CNBC.

t's the Obama speech on race you probably haven't heard.

In June 2007, then-Sen. Barack Obama told a mostly black audience of ministers that the country's leaders "don't care about" New Orleans residents, suggesting the city was neglected in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina because of institutional racism, according to an unedited video reported on by The Daily Caller.

In the address, delivered during the upswing of the Democratic presidential primary season, candidate Obama specifically criticizes in outspoken terms the decision not to waive a federal law known as the Stafford Act that requires communities hit by disasters to match 10 percent of federal aid.

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...at the time of Obama's speech, there were still concerns about federal response to the disaster under the Stafford Act, which governs relief efforts. The Federal Emergency Management Agency was unwilling to waive the law’s 10 percent local match provision for aid, like it did after the Sept. 11 attacks and other hurricanes.

“One reason cited for FEMA’s reluctance to waive the 10 percent match in New Orleans is concern about corruption,” the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies said in a 2008 report on the relief efforts.

That report also noted that then-Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco was pushing in early 2007 for a federal law eliminating the 10 percent match. The House passed the bill, but it stalled in the Senate and President Bush had threatened to veto it.

Read more at FOX News.

Enveloped by red, white, and blue, thousands of black and brown faces will stand out this week at the Democratic National Convention, mirroring an increasingly diverse America and contrasting with scenes from the Republican convention that just ended.

Led by a president with a black father and a white mother, Democrats will tout diversity and sell themselves as inclusionary, sensitive to the most marginalized, and hip to the nation's changing demographics. Of their delegates, one study found, 26 percent are black.

The same study found that 2.1 percent of this year's GOP delegates are black. Republican activists see themselves as defenders of hard work and merit without regard to creed or color - their presidential nominee, after all, is a Mormon - and they recoil at Democrats' use of an affirmative-action system to pick some delegates based on race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation.

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"Having a party system based on race is not that different from the party systems in the Middle East based on religion," said analyst David A. Bositis, who compiled racial data on the delegates for the nonpartisan Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington.

A "chasm" now exists between Republicans and African Americans, Bositis said. Part of it is a response to the rise of the tea party, he said, which is perceived as hostile to blacks. He said only two of the 165 national GOP committee people are black.

Although Obama helped bring additional blacks into the Democratic column, Bositis said a bigger draw is some of the party's policies. He said that Obama's health-care reform law, for example, helps minorities more than whites because they are more likely to be uninsured.

Read more at Philly.com.

From the convention stage here, the Republican Party has tried to highlight its diversity, giving prime speaking slots to Latinos and blacks who have emphasized their party’s economic appeal to all Americans.

But they have delivered those speeches to a convention hall filled overwhelmingly with white faces, an awkward contrast that has been made more uncomfortable this week by a series of racial headaches that have intruded on the party’s efforts to project a new level of inclusiveness.

The tensions come amid a debate within the GOP on how best to lure new voters. The nation’s shifting demographics have caused some Republican leaders to worry not only about the party’s future but about winning in November, particularly in key swing states such as Virginia and Nevada.

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...despite a speaker lineup in Tampa that includes Artur Davis, a black former Democratic congressman; former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice; and Utah congressional candidate Mia Love, who would be the party’s first black congresswoman if she won in November, just 2 percent of convention delegates are black.

That’s according to an analysis by David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. Bositis also said that only two members of the 165-member RNC are black and that none of the leaders of the committees responsible for drafting the GOP platform and adopting the convention rules are black.

“This Republican Party base is white, aging and dying off,” he said.

Read more at The Washington Post.

With the shooting death of Trayvon Martin and other recent instances of racial injustices, scholars, public officials, civic leaders, community activists and other Americans are discussing the role of race in the United States. Throughout history, several national organizations have worked to achieve social change across the country and provide leadership in challenging times. At this panel, they will discuss today's racial climate and offer ideas for accelerating racial healing and creating an equitable democracy.

Who:  Moderator: Melissa Harris-Perry, Host of "Melissa Harris-Perry," MSNBC

Panelists:

•     Judith Browne-Dianis, Co-Director, Advancement Project
•     Ralph Everett, President and Chief Executive Officer, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, Inc.
•     Benjamin Jealous, President and Chief Executive Officer, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
•     Jacqueline Johnson Pata, Executive Director, National Congress of American Indians
•     Kathleen Ko, President and Chief Executive Officer, Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum
•     Marc Morial, President and Chief Executive Officer, National Urban League, Inc.
•     Janet Murguia, President and Chief Executive Officer, National Council of La Raza
•     Rinku Sen, President and Executive Director, Applied Research Center
•     Philip Tegeler, President and Executive Director, Poverty and Race Research Action Council

Read more at PR Newswire.

Black-white marriages are on the rise, a sign that those racial barriers are slowly eroding, but they still lag far behind the rate of mixed-race marriages between whites and other minorities.

"It does suggest that the social distance between the two groups has narrowed," says Zhenchao Qian, a sociology professor at Ohio State University and lead author of a new study on interracial marriages. "The racial boundary is blurred, but it is still there."

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"Blacks are still the least assimilated," says Roderick Harrison, a demographer at Howard University and the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington. "It does suggest that the divide in this country remains between blacks and everybody else."

Read more at USA Today.

The most successful blacks and Hispanics are more likely to have poor neighbors than are whites, according to a new analysis of Census data.

The average affluent black and Hispanic household — defined in the study as earning more than $75,000 a year — lives in a poorer neighborhood than the average lower-income non-Hispanic white household that makes less than $40,000 a year.

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Affluent blacks are more exposed to poverty than the average non-Hispanic white in all but two of the top 50 metro areas with the most black households: Las Vegas and Riverside, Calif.

"Newer growth is less segregated," says Roderick Harrison, sociologist at Howard University and at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank. "People are coming into neighborhoods that have not become characterized as black or white or Hispanic. They're moving in on a more equal footing."

Read more at USA Today, or Hispanic Business.

This article was previously available at livingstondaily.com.

In a sweeping work that traces the idea of race for more than three centuries, Audrey Smedley shows that “race” is a cultural invention that has been used variously and opportunistically since the eighteenth century. Race, in its origin, was not a product of science but of a folk ideology reflecting a new form of social stratification and a rationalization for inequality among the peoples of North America. New coauthor Brian Smedley joins Audrey Smedley in updating this renowned and groundbreaking book.

Beverly Reaves says she was shopping for a home the first time she felt racially profiled. The ordeal of facing police with guns drawn left her shaken and distrustful of police. Researchers are looking at how police patrol black and minority communities and say in a recent study that there is a stronger focus on black communities especially when it comes to drug enforcement.