Are Birthers Even Aware of Their Racism? | What if Gates Wasn't a Harvard Prof? | Force-Feeding at Gitmo

Rights & Liberties Newsletter July 29th, 2009 More from Rights & Liberties »

Federal Judge Slams U.S. Govt for Ongoing Detention of Alleged Child Soldier at Gitmo By Willam Fisher, IPS News Calling the case "an outrage," U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle urged the lawyers to "let him out. Send him back to Afghanistan." Read more »   The "birthers" continued to be big news this week, along with the continuing fallout from the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Luis Gates, Jr. While they may seem to be tiresome tabloid fodder by now, both stories have much to teach us when it comes to the state of race relations in this country, as you can see here, here, and here. Meanwhile, however, other stories of critical importance have fallen off the national radar. For example, as I write this, the Obama administration is trying its best to keep a young man named Mohamed Jawad locked up at Guantanamo, despite the fact that he was only a child when he was detained in Afghanistan, as well as the fact that his "confession" -- to throwing a grenade at U.S. troops -- was tortured out of him. Last week, a U.S. federal judge declared the case against him "an outrage," and urged lawyers for the Department of Justice to "let him out. Send him back to Afghanistan." Read more about this important case here. And thanks for reading. Liliana Segura Editor, Rights & Liberties Special Coverage     ACLU: Obama Administration Must Abandon Force-Feeding at Gitmo By Nahal Zamani, Blog of Rights The harsh force-feeding of hunger strikers is a form of cruelty and mistreatment that continues to this day at Guantanamo. Read more »   Racism Is the Prime Cause for Debunked Obama Birth Certificate Conspiracy Theory By Liliana Segura, AlterNet The "birther" conspiracy has been utterly debunked, yet more GOP establishment figures have embraced the transparently racist cause. Read more »   Obama Comes Out Swinging at Cynical GOP on Health Care, Addresses Race Issues in Prof. Gates Arrest By Adele M. Stan, AlterNet At Wednesday's press conference, Obama said the "stars are aligned" for health reform and tackled the racial injustice typified by prof's arrest. Read more »   What if Henry Louis Gates Were Not an Acclaimed Professor? By Raj Jayadev, New America Media Tomorrow's White House happy hour is an uncommon ending to a common occurrence -- a man of color citing racial profiling after an arrest. Read more »   Skip Gates: The Ivy League Is Not Real Life By Anonymous, This Week in Blackness Would we -- or Gates -- care if this story had happened to a plumber? Probably not. Read more »   Cruel and Unusual: Why Are We Doling Out Harsh Justice to Returning War Vets? By Penny Coleman, AlterNet Veterans are more likely to get longer sentences than non-veterans for the same crime. How can we treat returning soldiers so badly? Read more »   Immigration and Obama: Change We Can Believe in or More of the Same? By Roberto Lovato, AlterNet Rights groups say that the Obama administration's continuing the racial profiling begun by his predecessor. Read more »   PEEK and Video: The hottest buzz and videos on the web     Right-Wing Attack Dogs Stoke Fears of a Black President By Joshua Holland, AlterNet Race-baiting by those who accuse others of race-baiting ... bizarre. Read more »   Another Racist, Crazy Conservative Attack on Obama: Health Reform as Reparations By Tana Ganeva, AlterNet And you thought the birther nonsense was unbelievable. Read more »   Join MoveOn's Fight to Stop "Birthers" By Byard Duncan, AlterNet Sign the petition condemning CNN's resident conspiracy theorist, Lou Dobbs. Read more »

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