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He just doesn't want to

"It's no surprise that local politicians aren't rushing to the head of the gay pride parade. … Elected officials here who support the cause run a high risk of becoming former elected officials." --Editorial in the Anchorage Daily News regarding the Alaskan city's first gay parade in ten years, scheduled for June 23.

"I think I'm Exhibit 1 why you're not seeing any elected officials … doing it." --Jim Barnett, who lost his Anchorage assembly seat in 1993 after supporting an ordinance to protect city workers from job discrimination based on sexual orientation.

"I just don't want to." --State Senator Loren Leman, a Republican representing Anchorage, on why he won't attend the gay pride parade.

Source: Anchorage Daily News; The Associated Press

'If you're Hispanic, be Hispanic'

This year, Chicago has to draw up new boundaries for its city council districts, known as wards. Given the Hispanic community's surging numbers over the last decade, it's commonly acknowledged that this year's redistricting will result in more wards with Hispanic majorities. (Right now, twenty-three wards have majorities of white voters; twenty have African American majorities; and seven are predominantly Hispanic.)

But Alderman Dorothy Tillman, who is black, is fighting any redistricting that would carve out wards for Hispanics. Although the federal Voting Rights Act permits legislative districts to be created around a single minority community, Tillman says the federal legislation was never intended to protect "language" minority groups like Hispanics.

"The Voting Rights bill was not about language," Tillman said at a city council committee meeting earlier this month. "We were discriminated against because we were black. The Civil Rights bill was based off race, not language."

"Hispanics can be white. I can't," Tillman also said, referring to the Census Bureau's treatment of Hispanics on the question of race. "How can they be all races and still get a ward? They should be told, 'If you're Hispanic, be Hispanic.' Don't be all those other things."

Source: Chicago Tribune; Chicago Sun-Times

It's okay, I know what I'm talking about

The attorney for Steve Kaplan, a man accused of running Atlanta's Gold Club as a brothel and engaging in fraud, said the U.S. government had anti-Semitic motives in targeting Kaplan.

"In 1996, the government's motives became clear," Steven Sadow said in his opening statement at Kaplan's trial, which started last month. "Steve Kaplan is a New York Jew. In some ways he epitomizes the stereotype of the New York Jew. He is a little aggressive. His language isn't the cleanest in the world. He's a hard worker. He's outspoken. He says what he's thinks, and he's enormously successfully."

"I'm a Jew, so I can say this," Sadow added.

Source: New York Daily News.

White collar? What white collar?

Working-class roots in many Scots are, well, deeply rooted--regardless of actual economic class. So says The Scotman's recent "State of the Nation" survey. Among Scots, 71 percent call themselves working class (C2Ds, according to Britain’s social class definitions), while 18 percent say they're middle class (ABC1s). Nevertheless,  government studies show that only 41 percent of Scots actually fit the criteria for ABC1 professionals.

Source: Sunday Times (London)

Counting the cost

Q: How much does a thirty-year-old woman without children earn, compared to a man of the same age and education?

A: Click here for the answer.

Q: How much does a thirty-year-old mother earn, compared to a man of the same age and education?

A: Click here for the answer.

Source: The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World Is Still the Least Valued, by Ann Crittenden (Metropolitan, 2001)

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written by Keith Rushing | Interact | June 11, 2001

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