Diversity Headlines

By all accounts, Israeli and American military officials are clear about one thing: Iran does not possess military weapons, is not likely to have weapons in the near future, and does not constitute an immediate danger to Israel. The most... William O. Beeman http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103

 WASHINGTON, D.C.--The $25 billion home mortgage settlement announced this week will be especially important for ethnic families, said Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan, in a call-in press briefing Friday.Acknowledging that the mortgage crisis has affected... Khalil Abdullah http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=69

Editor's Note: In the lead-up the Mexican presidential elections in July, the major parties seem to be going after the youth vote -- one PAN candidate stars in his own video game, while PRI is trying to project a youthful... Kent Paterson http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103

38 points against the Lakers! 7 assists, and he outscored Kobe. That's the latest -- but hey, we can say we knew him When.

read more

NY Knicks guard Jeremy Lin has captured the national spotlight for leading his team to victory in its last two games. But, for many Chinese Americans, Lin is an inspiration for reasons other than his basketball prowess, reports Chinese media.... New America Media http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103

James Dewitt Yancey, known in rap circles as Jay Dee or J Dilla, passed away at the age of 32 six years ago. His mother, Maureen (Ma Dukes) Yancey, and friends today are hosting Dilla Day Detroit, a celebration recognizing the Detroit hip-hop pioneer's musical legacy.

His mother Ma Dukes says Dilla was about love in many formats. She started a foundation in his name to help give musically gifted youth in Detroit the skills to make it within the music industry. You can show Ma Dukes and the J Dilla Foundation some love today by making a contribution.

Below is a story from our archives that was written by Jamilah King and published last year on the fifth anniversary of Dilla passing. "J Dilla's Love for Beats, Rhymes, and Life" is published in its entirety below:

Today marks five years since hip hop producer Jay Dee, aka J Dilla, lost his battle with Lupus and a rare blood disease in a Los Angeles hospital room. Born James Yancey in Detroit, the pioneering beat maker reached the national radar with his critically acclaimed group Slum Village. Over the course of several years and three albums, Dilla helped cement Detroit's resurgence to the top of a new era of late 90's, soul-inspired hip-hop. That trendsetting spirit led him to work on albums with A Tribe Called Quest, Erykah Badu, Busta Rhymes, and The Pharcyde. He was also a founding member of the prudction collaborative known as The Soulquarians, which included the aforementioned Badu and Common, along with Roots drummer Questlove and singer D'Angelo, among others. Everyone from Kanye West to Dave Chappele have since paid tribute to Dilla, as he's become one of the most influential artist's of the hip hop generation. You can see a glimpse of that legacy in the three-part documentary we've dug up.

His mother Maureen has since started the J Dilla Foundation, which helps fund inner city music programs in schools with progressive, arts-centered curricula. "Dilla was about love in many formats," Maureen remembered about her son. "One of the things he wanted me to do with his legacy was to use it to help others... kids who were musically gifted but had little hope due to poverty." Mrs. Yancey has also worked tirelessly before and since her son's death to raise awareness of Lupus, a rare and incurable disease that's three times more common in black women than whites.

But as the documentary above shows, Dilla's true legacy was in the epic task of providing the soundtrack for a generation.

So here's to that legacy, his work, and all those who continued to be inspired by it. 

We're ending the day as often as possible by celebrating love. We welcome your ideas for posts. Send suggestions to submissions@colorlines.com, and be sure to put Celebrate Love in the subject line. You can send links to videos, graphics, photos, quotes, whatever. Or just chime in to the comments below and we'll find you. Be sure to let us know you've got the rights to share any media you send.

To see other Love posts visit our Celebrate Love page.

Watch Actresses Viola Davis & Octavia Spencer on PBS. See more from Tavis Smiley.

Oscar-nominated actresses Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer had a passionate discussion with Tavis Smiley on Thursday.

The interview was more of a heated debate but it offered insight in to the minds of both actresses and how they feel about the criticism 'The Help' has received.

It's a must see interview.

"That very mindset that you have and that a lot of African-Americans have is absolutely destroying the black artist. The black artist cannot live in a place--in a revisionist place--a black artist can only tell the truth about humanity and humanity is messy, people are messy," Davis told Smiley.

"We as African-American artists are more concerned with image and message and not execution, which is why every time you see your images they've been wanted down to the point where they where they are not realistic at all, it's like all of our humanity has been washed out," Davis went on to say.

(h/t Shadow & Act)

Michigan Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra has taken down the controversial Chinese-themed DebbieSpentitnow.com website and plans to no longer air the similar themed commercial that made national headlines after it premiered during the Superbowl.

Lisa Chan, the 21-year old model and actress that starred in the commercial, is probably really happy to hear that. Angryasianman.com reported Thursday Chan is the woman who stars in Hoekstra's controversial campaign.

"She's 21, from the Bay Area, graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in sociology, founded a nonprofit organization for at-risk youth, and recently competed as the reigning Miss Napa Valley in the 2012 Miss California USA pageant," reports Angryasianman.com Chan started a non-profit when she was 17 and by the looks of the organization's "about page" Chan sounds like a politicized U.C. Berkeley sociology major:

In 2010, after being a Sociology major for two years at the University of California, Berkeley, Lisa was captivated by the social inequalities in our world and quickly became inspired to carry the mission of The Bay Area Strive onto a national and eventually global level with a more digital focus and catering to teachers as well as students, leading to the birth of The Strive.

Today, The Strive continues to fight educational inequality with a larger sociological perspective in mind. Just think, why does more crime occur in places where there is less educational funding? Why is it that certain races have higher high school graduation rates than others? Environmental racism causes certain races to be concentrated in areas of designated income brackets, which in turn determine the quality of public education available in those areas. This is not fair especially since the quality of education extends past graduation rates. Believe it or not, a student's quality of education at a young age also determines

Sounds like she was really making all the right decisions up until she got Hoekstra casting call.

*This story has been update since the original time it was published.

Hasan Minhaj on Jeremy Lin: "Y'know how in 2008 when Barack Obama won the election and they panned over to the crowd there were like older black women crying thinking 'I'd never see this day,' THATS WHAT EVERY ASIAN PERSON IN AMERICA IS DOING."

Trader Joe's and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) announced Thursday that they have signed an agreement that formalizes the ways in which Trader Joe's will work with the CIW and Florida tomato growers to support the CIW's Fair Food Program.

Below is the letter Trader Joe's posted on their website for customers about the program:

The Fair Food Program is a groundbreaking approach to social responsibility in the US produce industry that combines the Fair Food Code of Conduct - a set of labor standards developed in a unique collaboration among farmworkers, tomato growers, and the food industry leaders who purchase Florida tomatoes - with a small price premium to help improve harvesters' wages. The goal of the Fair Food Program is to promote the development of a sustainable Florida tomato industry that advances both the human rights of farmworkers and the long-term interests of Florida tomato growers.

"We are truly happy today to welcome Trader Joe's aboard the Fair Food Program," said Gerardo Reyes of the CIW. "Trader Joe's is cherished by its customers for a number of reasons, but high on that list is the company's commitment to ethical purchasing practices. With this agreement, Trader Joe's reaffirms that commitment and sends a strong -- and timely -- message of support to the Florida growers who are choosing to do the right thing, investing in improved labor standards, despite the challenges of a difficult marketplace and tough economic times."

In "Bad Girls", M.I.A. performs controversy for the sake of controversy and cashes in on the Arab Spring.

read more

Large numbers of community college students are struggling to pass the college-level math classes they need to complete a degree or transfer to a four-year institution, with long-term implications for their futures. Success in these more advanced courses represents... Dan Fost http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103

Victor Cruz was a guest on the 'Late Night with Jimmy Fallon' show on Wednesday so I'm slightly late sharing this video but where else are you going to see the Giants' wide receiver dancing to The Roots playing salsa!

Cruz also confirmed to Fallon that the salsa dancing after every touchdown started out as a challenge from a coach.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan announced today that the federal government and 49 state attorneys general have reached a landmark $25 billion agreement with the nation's five largest mortgage servicers to address mortgage loan servicing and foreclosure abuses.

"This agreement - the largest joint federal-state settlement ever obtained - is the result of unprecedented coordination among enforcement agencies throughout the government," said Attorney General Holder said in a statement. "It holds mortgage servicers accountable for abusive practices and requires them to commit more than $20 billion towards financial relief for consumers. As a result, struggling homeowners throughout the country will benefit from reduced principals and refinancing of their loans."

The five banks included in the settlement are Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Ally Financial. NPR's Yuki Noguchi explains the deal and where the bulk of the money would go:

It's a deal that will extract some penalties from the banks -- about $25 billion -- if all states sign on. In exchange, the banks will get what's known as a "release," sort of like an immunity, from lawsuits regarding how they handled some home loans.

Most of the money -- $20 billion -- would go toward writing down principal payments for homeowners who were not foreclosed upon, but who are struggling now. There could be a million such homeowners eligible. The way it would work is that the banks would have targets they have to meet, in terms of what kinds of loans they would have to modify. But the banks would still have a lot of discretion in who gets what.

And there's another $5 billion in cash, part of which would go to the states to help fund homeowner assistance programs. Some of the rest would go to homeowners who may have been wrongfully foreclosed upon. For them, it's up to $2,000 each, which is not much if you lost your home.

But some advocates say today's settlement is a tiny drop in a big bucket.

"It does not do justice for the millions of homeowners who lost their homes or hold the banks fully accountable for their crimes. For homeowners who were defrauded and lost their homes, $2,000 is too little, too late. It is a paltry down payment toward full relief for homeowners," read a statement from The New Bottom Line, a coalition of housing advocates.

"Despite its flaws, the settlement announced today is stronger than it would have otherwise been because of grassroots groups and the courageous stance of Attorneys General from California, New York, Nevada, Delaware, and Massachusetts, who fought hard to bring more relief to homeowners and make sure that any settlement does not allow the banks to avoid accountability for fraudulent activity not yet investigated. Due to their work and the work of many allies, momentum is building toward broad-scale relief for homeowners," The New Bottom Line's statement went on to say.

The advocates the New Bottom Line say what happens next is critical. What happens next is critical. "This is the President's chance to show he is a champion for the 99%."

"The Obama Administration needs to make sure that its task force goes the distance and delivers at least $336 billion in principal reduction on underwater mortgages and $50 billion in restitution for affected homeowners,"

Two teachers have been charged with multiple counts of lewd conduct against several students at Miramonte Elementary--a school in South Los Angeles who's student body is made up of 98% Latinos and 2% black students. Lawyers say at least three alleged victims have not been interviewed by law enforcement because their parents fear deportation.

Mark Berndt was charged last week with 23 counts of lewd conduct against children; another teacher, Martin Springer, was charged this week with three counts of lewd conduct. Berndt is alleged to have taken photographs of blindfolded children being spoon-fed his semen, according to the LA Sheriff's newsroom.

The investigation began over a year ago when over 40 photographs depicting children in a school classroom, with their eyes blindfolded and mouths covered with tape, were turned in to law enforcement by a film processor. Parents are furious because they only learned about the investigation last week.

Miramonte Elementary School is located in an unincorporated area of South Los Angeles within the Florence-Firestone area which according to the school is a "predominantly Hispanic" community. It's unclear how many students at the school have undocumented parents but 56% of the students are English language learners, about 1% are considered "migrant" students and the school has a "Migrant Education Program" and an "Emergency Immigrant Education Program," leading many to believe, including the Sheriff, that there may be many parents who fear coming forward because they are undocumented.

"Unlike the Los Angeles Police Department, which has a policy on the books intended to protect undocumented victims and witnesses, the department has two different immigration enforcement partnerships with the federal government," explains Leslie Berestein Rojas at KPCC's "Multi-American."

Because Miramonte is an unincorporated the jurisdiction falls on Los Angeles County Sheriff which has a Secure Communities and 287(g) contract with the federal government. 

"Critics of immigration enforcement programs like Secure Communities often say that when the lines between local law enforcement and immigration enforcement are blurred, community members stop being able to trust the police and fear coming forward to serve as witnesses or to report crime," said Colorlines.com's immigration reporter Julianne Hing. "The risk of deportation is just too high. What we're seeing now is illustrative of exactly that critique."

"Many of the parents with information about the case are afraid there may be negative consequences (deportation). Unfortunately, their fear is not unfounded, we have seen how people have been arrested and deported for selling ice cream on the streets," Angelica Salas, executive director of the Human Rights Coalition of Los Angeles (CHIRLA) told La Opinion.

"Multi-American" reports on the Sheriff's response:

Sgt. Dan Scott said this afternoon that the department is trying to put together a formal message, but that for now, the word to Miramonte families is not to worry about being turned in to immigration authorities for speaking up. 

"They have Sheriff Lee Baca's word that there will not be prosecution or even inquiries into anybody's legal status in this country," Scott said. "We are seeking victims, witnesses, or anybody that has information about this case to please come forward to the Sheriff's Special Victims Unit, which is our normal process. We will not ask their legal status. The Sheriff specifically wants that message out: We will not be inquiring as to their legal status."

"As a result of stepped up immigration enforcement programs like Secure Communities, undocumented immigrants, even those who have absolutely no criminal record, regularly get deported. It's also further complicated because Sheriff Baca actually defended his county's use of the immigration enforcement program Secure Communities just last year in an L.A. Times op-ed," Hing explained.

On press conference Thursday lawyer Greg Owen announced he's filed civil lawsuits on behalf of three students that the L.A. County sheriff's investigators have yet to interview because the parents are undocumented and fear deportation, KPCC's Adolfo Guzman-Lopez reported.

One of the alleged victims' father sat next to Owen at the conference wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and sunglasses to disguise his identity. 

The father said he had a framed photo of his daughter in his living room given to him by Berndt that showed her holding a cookie between her lips with a white substance. The Sheriff's office is now reporting those cookies were laced with semen.

He says he hasn't been able to sleep and has gone to the emergency room twice after bouts of anxiety and an accelerated heart rate since he found out about the alleged acts against his daughter.

The district has responded by closing the school for two days and replacing every single teacher, administrator and support staff member out of Miramonte Elementary. And it all couldn't of come at a worse time because the California standardized exams are coming up in two weeks.

Jose Antonio Vargas, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Filipino-American journalist who revealed he was undocumented in a NY Times Op-Ed last year, says best actor Oscar nominee Demian Bichir's character in the film "A Better Life," represents the help of today and "speaks for millions of undocumented immigrants" living in the U.S.

"Playing a Mexican gardener caring for his American-born teenage son, Bichir illuminates a largely invisible, if not downright untouchable, character in contemporary American life: an undocumented immigrant," Vargas wrote in an essay for Entertainment Weekly.

An excerpt from "Oscar nominee Demian Bichir speaks for millions of undocumented immigrants like me:"

There are moments in A Better Life of such heartbreaking truth -- the conversations between father and son, the fear, anguish, and shame on Bichir's face as he encounters a cop on the street -- that the film transcends language and race. Here's a film from a mainstream Hollywood director (Chris Weitz) tackling a controversial issue our officials in Washington don't know quite how to address. In its quietly affecting way, it's a groundbreaking piece of cinema.

Indeed, it's rare to watch an undocumented immigrant portrayed with such complexity. It's rarer still to experience a film about an undocumented immigrant told from the immigrant's perspective. In an awards season that has lauded The Help, about black maids and the white families they serve in 1960s Mississippi, Bichir represents the help -- gardeners, farmhands, and other undocumented workers -- at the mercy of present-day laws in Georgia and Alabama. But A Better Life is not a political movie in the same way that illegal immigration is not a political issue. It's a nuanced human story.
I've seen Bichir before, as Fidel Castro in Steven Soderbergh's Che and as a drug-running mayor in Showtime's Weeds. To call his performance in A Better Life a "transformation," as critics have done, does not do him justice. His performance gives dignity and voice to the 11 million undocumented human beings--gardeners and babysitters, would-be engineers, doctors, and writers -- whom he inevitably represents. He is doing something more than acting. At a time when undocumented people are referred to as "illegals" -- when common sense and empathy escape many of our politicians -- his performance is an act of salvation

Hours after the Academy announced Bichir's best actor nomination he released a statement dedicating his nomination to the nation's 11 million undocumented immigrants.

In the best actor category, Bichir is up against George Clooney in "The Descendants", Jean Dujardin in "The Artist", Gary Oldman in "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" and Brad Pitt in "Moneyball".

The U.S. Department of Education announced it will open an investigation into Harvard and Princeton's admissions practices after receiving a discrimination complaint from a South Asian student who was at the top of his high school class but was denied by those schools, Bloomberg reported.

The Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights received the complaint in August of 2011 and is merging their inquiry with a similar 2006 complaint made by Jian Li, an Asian-American student who was denied acceptance to Harvard, but later enrolled at Yale. The claim is that deserving Asian-American students are being passed over because of their race.

The inquiry is no indication that the claims have merit, the Department of Education has said.

For some, the new complaints smack of the snobby whining of highly privileged Asian-American students who feel entitled to acceptance to their first-choice school. But for many of the same people, the new complaints revive memories of a scandal in the 1980s and 1990s involving UC Berkeley, Stanford and other Ivy League universities which actually were discriminating against Asian-American students, forcing them to score higher than their peers in order to be admitted to these highly selective schools. It ignited anger among many; stories about higher education admissions are fundamentally about fairness and schools' publicly stated commitments to diverse and well-integrated schools.

The two pursuits can seem to be at odds with each other and the implicit message, advocates explain, is often that more deserving Asian-American students are being pushed out in favor of less-deserving black and Latino students. Anxieties about the discrimination of Asian Americans in higher education admissions are often used to mask an anti-affirmative action argument. Experts say the two issues need to be put in separate boxes.

"Negative action is what was the basis of the cases 20 years ago and that's what's being alleged in these current cases," said Khin Mai Aung, director of the educational equity program at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Negative action, which Aung explained as being based on "a feeling," should not be confused with affirmative action, "which is a legal way that folks from underrepresented communities, which can be defined in a lot of ways, are given beneficial consideration" in a process that is holistic and by no means automatic.

If it turns out that Asian-American students are being held to a higher standard, that would have nothing to do with affirmative action policies designed to increase the diversity of an incoming class, Aung said.

Both Harvard and Princeton deny that they discriminate against Asian Americans in their admissions processes.

"Harvard College does not discriminate against Asian-American applicants," Harvard spokesperson Jim Neal said. "Our review of every applicant's file is highly individualized and holistic, as we give serious consideration to all of the information we receive and all of the ways in which the candidate might contribute to our vibrant educational environment and community."

While university spokespeople maintain that they review every applicant's profile on an individual and holistic basis, the truth is that admissions officers are trying to put together a well-rounded incoming class. There is undoubtedly an ideally diverse student population universities attempt to foster, based on a student's race, gender, class, their parents' alumni status, geographic distribution, involvement in sports or music. Private schools are allowed to keep their admissions rubrics and acceptance data private. The danger, advocates say, is that concerns about diversity may be a convenient way of hiding discrimination against Asian-Americans.

"The arguments [schools] are setting forth for what appears to be disparate treatment of APIs aren't all that different from when I was working on this in the 1980s," said Grace Tsuang Yuan, the author of a 1989 law review article providing a rare, behind-the-scenes look at the admissions processes of elite universities.

Yuan documented disparate acceptance rates for Asian-American students and white students. Asian-Americans, despite applying to Harvard, Stanford, Brown and UC Berkeley at increasing rates, were being admitted at lower rates than white students. Officials told Yuan that Asian-Americans were wonderful test-takers but tended to be one-dimensional candidates with an otherwise "flat profile."

"I always wanted to ask, 'What do you mean 'flat'? Are you referring to the shape of my nose?'"

Yuan found that even when it came to non-academic criteria, like students' intended majors and their extracurricular activities and highly subjective "personal ratings," Asian-American students were given lower ratings than their white counterparts. Internal reviews at Brown University found that Asian-American applicants were given lower personal rating scores, due to the "cultural biases and stereotypes which prevail in the admissions office."

Now, 23 years later and with identical complaints of discrimination surfacing but data a tightly held secret, Yuan says it's time for Ivy Leagues and other elite schools to open their books.

"I am a strong proponent for the idea that institutions should look at the whole profile of the candidate," Yuan said. "But I am opposed to the notion that diversity should be used to mask the biases of an admissions officer."

Aung said, "The key thing is if," and she repeatedly stressed the if, "Asians are being required to score higher than white students, and I do specifically mean white kids because that's the crux of the discrimination, then that amounts to affirmative action for white kids."

At this point, arguments about possible discrimination are pure speculation.

"This is one complaint by one individual," said Dana Takagi, a professor of ethnic studies at University of California at Santa Cruz. "That, that gives me pause."

"We should always be concerned and watchful about places where there might be unconscious or conscious forms of bias, but I don't know that this is one of those places," Takagi said.

Asian-American education experts urge caution, and also, say that these sorts of highly emotional stories can be distracting.

"These kids who end up at these elite institutions or are suing really come from the top 1 percent of Asian Americans," Oiyan Poon, a former admissions officer and education researcher at UCLA said. "It's not the majority experience."

Indeed, more than 40 percent of Asian Americans who are enrolled in any institution of higher education are enrolled in community colleges. Nevertheless, stories about Asian-Americans muscling their way to the top of the U.S. education system continue to have great narrative appeal that, Poon says, speaks to the country's desire to imagine that we live in an era where race doesn't matter anymore.

"People really love colorblind rhetoric and Asian-Americans present a counter-narrative against other people of color's traditional civil rights claims of discrimination," Poon said.

"It goes back to [anti-affirmative action advocates'] rhetoric that discrimination and racism don't exist because they can say, 'Look at these Asians. The only kind of racism that exists is reverse racism.'"

There was no shortage of support for New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin (17) at last night's game against the Washington Wizards... and by that I mean, there was no shortage of amazing signs. 

Below are the good, the funny and the bad signs seen at last night's game.

Let the Linsanity begin!

Fans of Jeremy Lin #17 of the New York Knicks hold up signs during the end of the Knicks and Washington Wizards game at Verizon Center on February 8, 2012 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images)

(Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images)

Fans hold up signs in support of Jeremy Lin #17 of the New York Knicks pregame against the Washington Wizards during the game at the Verizon Center on February 8, 2012 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Ned Dishman/NBAE via Getty Images)

Not sure what this sign reads but that's a huge Taiwan flag there 

TV still from Monday's game between Knicksand the Utah Jazz in New York.

For more analysis on the Linsanity read Jamilah King's "The Subtle Bigotry That Made Jeremy Lin the NBA's Most Surprising Star."

Poet, essayist, and novelist Alice Walker was born February 9, 1944, in Eatonton, Georgia, the eighth and last child of sharecroppers Willie Lee and Minnie Lou Grant Walker.

She turns 68 today.

She is best known for the novel The Color Purple (1982) for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. But few people know that she regularly publishes notes and poems on her blog!

Visit Walker's blog, watch her nerd out and talk Google gadgets in the video above and read the latest poem she's posted on her blog "When I join you" below.

When I join you
in the effort for peace
I give myself over.
There
and not there.
Marching
with you
alongside
the many who have died
it is as if we are marching
across the Universe
and just ahead of us
if only in another galaxy
there is a door.

We're ending the day as often as possible by celebrating love. We welcome your ideas for posts. Send suggestions to submissions@colorlines.com, and be sure to put Celebrate Love in the subject line. You can send links to videos, graphics, photos, quotes, whatever. Or just chime in to the comments below and we'll find you. Be sure to let us know you've got the rights to share any media you send.

To see other Love posts visit our Celebrate Love page.

When the Labor Department released the January unemployment rate last week, there was finally some good news to celebrate--and some news that seemed almost too good to be true. Black unemployment saw its steepest drop since the recession began, dipping more than two points. Apparently, that happy improvement was largely driven by black men being hired in larger numbers than anyone can remember.

So what, exactly, is happening here? Nobody saw it coming, and there's no immediate explanation. I talked to Algernon Austin, director of the Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy program at the Economic Policy Institute, to get some insight.

Colorlines: So, the interesting thing about January's unemployment rate was that the unemployment rate for black men dropped 3 percent--from 15.7 percent to 12.7 percent--even though workforce participation stayed about the same. That's not something we've seen before, is it?

Algernon Austin: Such a large drop in the unemployment rate is quite surprising. Certainly, we haven't seen a drop that large any time recently. There was a slight decline in workforce participation, but even looking at that, we're talking about a very large decline for blacks, and particularly black men, which is quite unusual.

What are the fields--or are there any--where it's more likely that black men were hired?

It's a real mystery to figure out what might be going on here. The public sector dropped jobs, so that's not likely to be it. Restaurants and bars--that's not likely. Retail, maybe some retail; maybe some health care. Maybe temporary health services, construction. But really, I don't know. Even in a sector that's losing jobs...If 10 people lose a job in a sector, and five people gain, there are five new jobs. One sector that has been fairly strong for black men has been transportation.

How long does it take analysts to figure out what happened?

The thing is that, because this is such a large drop, people are kind of expecting that we'll see an increase next month or the month after. I think we're all a little skeptical that this is real until we see that it sort of persists for maybe two months. And yeah, I don't know that anyone has any plans to try to tease out what's going on.

Month to month, the numbers fluctuate, especially among small groups. Until we see a trend for several months, we're thinking this could just be some statistical noise and not something that's really real.

An increase in unemployment isn't always a bad thing if workforce participation is also increasing, right?

Actually, we'd expect that to happen. Assuming that the economy sort of starts to recover, it would not be surprising for the unemployment [rate] to increase. Right now the economy as a whole is missing millions of workers. People who should be unemployed, but aren't being counted as unemployed because they're not looking for work. An increase in unemployment in the coming months could be a good thing--meaning that people are feeling more optimistic about finding a job.