Free Republic

Went to make application for a gun I ordered and the form has two new identifiers: 1. Ethnicity (Hispanic or Non-Hispanic) and 2. Race These are in sections 10a and 10b on the form.

Many question if those in positions of power during Boston bombing massacre knew more than they admit and put people at risk in order to try to control public opinion. Richard DesLauriers, FBI agent in charge in Boston seemed to be pleading with the public to do whatever they could to help them catch the terrorists responsible for the attack in Boston. He said: “Somebody out there knows these individuals as friends, neighbors, co-workers or family members of the suspects,” he said. “Though it may be difficult, the nation is counting on those with infOrmation to come forward and provide...

This morning I had a conversation with an acquaintance from work. Having immigrated here from Costa Rica in the 70's while still in his teens, "Rosario" is the head custodian. While talking politics, he shared some comments on politics and current issues that were contradictory with themselves-- at least to me.Rosario is the consummate  independent. He is  extremely opinionated; he's just never hitched his wagon to any political party and looks at each politician and issue in isolation. (For this reason I describe him as an "independent" rather than "moderate" because, as I see it, a moderate is someone who's too uninformed,...

Almost 100 years after the great Swedish migration to North America, dialect researchers from Gothenburg are heading across the Atlantic in hopes of learning more about the evolution of the Swedish language, The Local’s Karen Holst explains. Wild myths that solve the mysterious birth of language and its dispersal often include floods, catastrophes or punishment by the gods. In Hindu stories it was a tree being humbled, in North American Indian folklore it was a great flood, in east Africa it was starvation-induced madness, in the Amazon it was stolen hummingbird eggs and in aboriginal Australia it was a goddess’...

It seems not a day goes by without Florida Senator Marco Rubio being mentioned as the favorite choice for vice president among Republicans in Washington. Even talk radio’s Rush Limbaugh weighed in when he said Senator Rubio should run for president in 2012. It is true that Senator Rubio has certain political assets, including his ability to “attract” Latino voters due to his Cuban heritage. He also is conservative, smart, and a good speaker. And he hails from a state that is considered the mother of all battleground states for 2012. What’s not to like if you are a Republican...

"...Combining scientific, anthropological and historical evidence, the exhibit argues the fundamental concept of race and racial differences has no biological basis but is a man-made distinction with immeasurable social consequences over the centuries. Developed by the American Anthropological Association and Science Museum of Minnesota, "Race" invites visitors to examine race and racism through exhibits, interactive stations and artifacts..."

For the sake of "diversity" we allowed the concept of "ethnicity" to enter our cultures. While we have always valued differences here in the US--for example in Holland, Michigan, the Dutch are so old fashioned that people from The Netherlands often travel here during the Tulip Festival to see the old traditions long forgotten in Holland--there is a difference between celebrating such things, and trading it up for racism, which we have done. Thirty years ago, the author Ayn Rand saw this form of racism coming and described it: "'Ethnicity' is an anti-concept, used as a disguise for the word...

Chris Matthews on Friday actually asked a GOP Congressman if Republicans oppose President Obama because of his race. On the 5PM installment of MSNBC's "Hardball," Matthews brought on Rep. Bob Inglis, the Congressman from South Carolina who easily lost his primary fight in June to Tea Party candidate Trey Gowdy and has been badmouthing his Party ever since. Early in the conversation, Matthews asked, "What is it that`s gotten into your Party`s water supply, the Republican Party`s water supply, that makes them strangely hostile to the president, not just against his policies, but personally? Is it race?" Fixated on racial...

For two centuries, the melting pot was America's defining symbol and crowning achievement. It allowed millions of integrating immigrants to formulate and maintain this nation's social contract. But new concepts of separateness, new feelings about diversity, and new definitions of ethnicity have all but destroyed the melting pot and the social contract. To be politically correct today, how should one categorize the following naturalized or native-born Americans, all of whom I know or have known? A Kenyan-born white woman whose parents were born in South Africa and whose grandparents were born in the Netherlands. A black man who was born...

<p>Some ethnic organizations are complaining that the shorter 2010 Census questionnaire requires more effort for blacks and whites to fully declare their heritage.</p> <p>In previous population counts, they could check boxes for their ethnicity — such as Polish, Italian or Caribbean African.</p> <p>Not so this time.</p>

Human geneticists have reached a private crisis of conscience, and it will become public knowledge in 2010. The crisis has depressing health implications and alarming political ones. In a nutshell: the new genetics will reveal much less than hoped about how to cure disease, and much more than feared about human evolution and inequality, including genetic differences between classes, ethnicities and races. About five years ago, genetics researchers became excited about new methods for “genome-wide association studies” (GWAS). We already knew from twin, family and adoption studies that all human traits are heritable: genetic differences explain much of the variation...

NEW YORK - As soon as Mebrahtom Keflezighi , better known as Meb, won the New York City Marathon on Sunday, an uncommon sports dispute erupted online, fraught with racial and nationalistic components: Should Keflezighi’s triumph count as an American victory? He was widely celebrated as the first American to win the New York race since 1982. Having immigrated to the United States at age 12, he is an American citizen and a product of American distance running programs at the youth, college and professional levels. But, some said, because he was born in Eritrea, he is not really an...

The media love disaster. One can hardly sit through a half hour of cable news without hearing dire prophecies of “climate change” and other ecotastrophes. And over the past year, television pundits have warned incessantly that without massive Wall Street bailouts and compulsory Swine Flu vaccinations, the sky just might fall. This all comes on the heels of years of talk of terrorist attacks and the potential for the African AIDs epidemic to infect the middle class. Not all of this is hysteria, of course, and without question the United States faces real economic and security challenges. But the most...

The announcer introduces me to the audiences of thousands, “Singer/songwriter of the national America Tea Party Anthem, Mr. Lloyd Marcus!” I enthusiastically enter the stage, “Hello my fellow patriots! I am not an African American ... I am Lloyd Marcus ... AMERICAN!” The mostly white crowds go wild with applause and cheers of approval. I feel their relief and gratitude of a black man who loves his country and is not hostile or resentful toward them. I am traveling across America on the Tea Party Express Tour. We began August 28th in Sacramento, CA. Our 34 city tour will end...

The United States Department of Education requires all state and local education institutions to collect data on ethnicity and race for students and staff. This information is used for state and federal accountability reporting as well as for reporting to the Office of Civil Rights and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. School district staff and parents or guardians of students enrolling in school are requested to provide this information. If you decline to provide this information, please be aware that the USDE requires school districts to use observer identification as a last resort for collecting the data for federal reporting. Please...

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” — Judge Sonia Sotomayor, in her Judge Mario G. Olmos Law and Cultural Diversity Lecture at the University of California (Berkeley) School of Law in 2001 The above assertion and the rest of a remarkable speech to a Hispanic group by Sotomayor — widely touted as a possible Obama nominee to the Supreme Court — has drawn very little attention in the mainstream media since...

Many Americans seem to entertain the illusion that Iranians are Arabs. This may be due to the fact that many people in both communities practise Islam, which I'll mention below. Another coincidence that may have contributed to this confusion is the apparent similarity of the names Iran and Iraq. It is true that the Persian language and the Arabic share the same alphabet, namely the Arabic alphabet, which was imposed upon the Iranians centuries ago. But originally Persian had its own alphabet. Anyway, in Arabic script the names of the countries are entirely different, 'Iraq' beginning with the letter 'ain'...

Never have things been better for one half of humankind, and never have things been worse for the other.An old joke divides the world into two kinds of people:those who divide the world into two kinds of people, and those who don't. The decisive divide in today's world lies between nations that have a future, and nations that don't. Contrary to the prevailing pragmatism,which demands that we take every society on its own terms,an objective criteria has emerged that does not easily fade in the wash, namely the desire to live. Samuel Huntington, who died last December 27, did the...

Fairfax May Junk Study on Behavior Staff Report Shows Racial, Ethnic Gaps Among Students Fairfax County School Board members said they are likely to abandon a staff report that showed racial and ethnic gaps in some measures of student behavior, including in the demonstration of "sound moral character and ethical judgment." The board had delayed an April vote to approve the report after concerns were raised that findings were based on subjective measures, such as elementary report card data, and that they would fuel negative stereotypes. Board member Phillip A. Niedzielski-Eichner (Providence) said yesterday that he plans to propose at...

Summary: Americans generally belittle the role of ethnic nationalism in politics. But in fact, it corresponds to some enduring propensities of the human spirit, it is galvanized by modernization, and in one form or another, it will drive global politics for generations to come. Once ethnic nationalism has captured the imagination of groups in a multiethnic society, ethnic disaggregation or partition is often the least bad answer.