Eyes on the Prize, Critical Race, and Not burning Klan robes and more

Just a couple of things that have come across my radar recently.

1) Eyes on the Prize the amazing documentary on the Civil Rights Movement has been unable to come to DVD and be aired due to copyright issues. The solution, massive bootlegging, I mean person2person sharing of the movie! Wanna share the gift of Eyes on the Prize, download it and organize a screening in solidarity on Feb 8th!

2) The U of M Law School's Journal of Race and Law is organizing a symposium on Critical Race Theory. The panelists and topics look like they are going to be off the hook. If you don't know about CRT, click here. The only catch is that you have to register and the registration deadline has already passed. But I figure there is not harm in publicizing and trying to get people in.

3) Looks like they decided it wouldn't be a good idea to burn the Klan robe in Howell.

4)Miss Jones & Company are out! Check the statement on the front of Hot 97 webpage. Now who says social activism no longer works?

Klan robes and Morning Shows

Okay, so Howell, Michigan is buying a Klan robe and plans to burn it. The robe was displayed in the window of an auction house, oh I'm sure that wasn't intimidating, and was going to be auctioned on MLK's bday. A Howell Diversity Council is collecting money to buy it and burn it. So my question is, what is worse, some old school racist paying big money to put in their closet or good minded folks paying big money to burn it? I'm not really sure, this story is just really weird.

Well, once again radio morning shows are in trouble, as if Star and Buc had not already been ignorant enough, Miss Jones of Hot 97 got into the act recently by airing the Tsunami Song. Hot 97 issued an apology for the song and made everyone who was involved give up a week's salary, but a number of groups are calling for Jones and company's removal. One of the most interesting things about this whole controversy was Ms. Jones' on air conversation with Ms. Info about the song and Ms. Info's refusal to participate and her voicing her opposition as an APA community member.

Gotta go do work.

Affrimative Action battle is officially back on

Today the Detroit Free Press reported that the Michigan Civil Rights Intiative (MCRI) submitted more than the necessary 317,000 signatures to make Affirmative Action a ballot issue in November 2006. The first drive for the ballot intiative was stopped by legal and financial troubles, both of these troubles seem to out of the way now.

Also, the Daily today covers the lawsuit that would force U of M to refund the application fee of all rejected non-underrepresented minority applicats between 1995 and 2003. The basic premise is that students rejected under the system ruled against in the LSA case were not discriminated against. Both sides claim they will be on the winning side of the case. To me it seems most logical that U of M will settle with CIR for some sum of money and be done with it.