The following originally aired on KCBS

By: Asha Richardson

 Every day I check my Gmail and tell my Macbook Pro how much I love it. But when I graduate from college next year, I’m not sure how much these companies will love me, and by love me I mean hire me.

This year as a part of Youth Radio’s App Lab, I visited the headquarters of one of the world’s biggest tech giants four times and was never introduced to a single black engineer or executive.

Silicon Valley often identifies as a place where people advance based on their ideas and achievements, but what gets glossed over is that it’s only a meritocracy if you’re in the club.

It seems like membership requires attending a well funded high school, doing well on the SATs, and earning top grades…preferably from an Ivy League College. Race, privilege, and class continue to affect Americans’ opportunities.

Hopefully, more tech companies will recognize the value, and profitability, of ideas and input from a variety of demographics. As an emerging entrepreneur, I don’t want my ideas to be funded because I’m a black woman. I want them to succeed on their merits. But for that to happen, I need to be in the room.

The following originally aired on KCBS.

By: Meisha Sanders

Not everyone likes to date outside their race, but race doesn’t matter to me.

When I asked my dad what he would do if I dated outside my race he told me, “I don’t rock like that.” That made me question who I should or shouldn’t bring home. He doesn’t want someone else’s family to be judgmental towards me.

But race isn’t a factor to me when I date. When I meet someone I just look at their personality traits. If a guy has a sense of humor and lets me have space, we could have a great relationship.

My aunt and uncle are not the same race but they click. I always see them talking and making each other laugh. Sometimes when my aunt and uncle walk down the street they get funny looks but they don’t care about anybody else’s opinion.

I agree with my aunt and uncle that race doesn’t matter. I only wish my dad felt the same way.

The Remix Your Life Project: Changing the way we see ourselves, our community and each other.

From humble beginnings as a once a week Gender Specific Support Group, the Remix Your Life Project (RYL) has blossomed into a three day a week project engaging the young people of Youth Radio in the “remixing” of societal issues with regard to race, gender and class through critical analysis/discussion, cathartic poetry and song writing, and the recording, mixing and mastering of their own media content.

How do you identify yourself? People identify themselves as all types of different races but they don’t know anything about them. Do they actually get involved with the culture and traditions? I think people think its cool to just identify themselves as all these different races because they think being what they are is too plain. Maybe if they focus on what they are they could actually learn something about themselves. I think if someone actually do say that they are a particular race they should associate with customs and background. I mean what's the point of claiming something if you don’t know anything about. So okay, you are 12% Japanese…do you at least know how to cook something related from the Japanese culture? I just think it would be a lot more fun to actually get involved with the culture instead of just claiming it. Read more...

On September 18, 2010 the Coalition for Immigration, Race and Social Justice held the Back 2 School Summit at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, NM. Read more...

People are expanding their horizon when it comes to marriage. In fact, 14.6% of new marriages in the United States in 2008 were between spouses of different race or ethnicities. Seems like interracial marriages are “in”.

One in five black men who wed married a non-black woman in 2008. The rate of black men marrying non-black women has increased from 15.7 percent in 2000 to 22 percent in 2008. But black women also getting in on the interracial marriage action. Nine percent of them marry outside their race.

The new study was released Friday by the Pew Research Center. The study also points out that 40% of Asian women newlyweds married outside their race in 2008. Rates of intermarriages among newlyweds in the U.S. almost doubled between 1980 and 2008. Different groups experienced different trends and immigration plays a huge factor.

“These seemingly contradictory trends were both driven by the heavy, ongoing Hispanic and Asian immigration wave of the past four decades. For whites and blacks, these immigrants (and, increasingly, their U.S.-born children who are now of marrying age) have enlarged the pool of potential spouses for out-marriage. But for Hispanics and Asians, the ongoing immigration wave has also enlarged the pool of potential partners for in-group marriage.”

Intermarriage is becoming more accepted in families. The study says more than six-in-ten say “it would be fine” if a family member marries outside their race. In the current married population, intermarriage is correlated with age.

“13% of all currently married adults ages 25 or younger have married out. That share declines in a linear fashion as the age of the married adult rises. Among married adults ages 75 and older, just 3% have married out. This pattern arises because of two main factors: (1) the majority of marriages occur among younger adults and (2) intermarriage rates have been rising steadily over the last 40 years.”

via Pew Research Center and the New York Times

By: Deranda Butler

We love to address ourselves as a "black community," yet we are quite divided within it.

Far too many times I have heard people tell my friend Sara, she's “pretty for a dark skinned girl.” Or how about the many times during black history month when I get the heart-cutting remarks about how light-skinned people had nothing to worry about during segregation and that I would have been a well-protected house slave, simply because I am a light-skinned. How crazy is that -– being judged so strongly by people of my own race!

No matter how dark or light we are, all African-Americans check the same boxes on standardized tests and job applications: “African-American” or “Black non -Hispanic”. There is no box that acknowledges light-skinned and dark-skinned people. And until black people learn to put our own physical differences aside, people like Sara and myself will always be prejudged based on the shades of our complexion.

Previously:

• 'Post-Race America' or Recovering Racist?
• Unbe-weave-ably Good Documentary
• Having an Ethnic Name Can Cost You A Job

As heard on WABE, Atlanta.

By Deranda Butler

Far too many times have I heard people tell my friend Sara she's “pretty for a dark skinned girl.” Or how about the many times during black history month when I get the heart cutting remarks about how light skinned people had nothing to worry about during segregation and that I would have been a well-protected house slave, simply because I am a light skinned. How crazy is that – being judged so strongly by people of my own race!

We love to address ourselves as a "black community," yet we are quite divided within it. After all the boycotts, bloodshed, tears, sit-ins and marches for equality, here we are, judging each other based on what shade of black we are.

No matter how dark or light we are, all African Americans check the same boxes on standardized tests and job applications that say, “African American” or “Black non -Hispanic”. There is no box that acknowledges light skinned and dark skinned people so why do we do it? Dr. King was right when he said people should not be judged by color but by the content of their character. And until black people learn to put our own physical differences aside, people like Sara and myself will always be prejudged based on the shades of our complexion

One year into his presidency, how has Barack Obama affected the way Americans think about race?

Asha Richardson, 18 from Oakland, CA

(download mp3)

Ella Ross, 16 from Piedmont, CA

(download mp3)

 Betty Tran, 17 from El Cerrito, CA

(download mp3)

Sam Fuller, 15 from Albany, CA

(download mp3)

Erin Bailie, 16 from Atlanta, GA

(download mp3)

"I'm Bi-racial.  My father is black, and my mother is light skinneded." -King Anyi 

At a young age, several women in my family use to tell me... "You better not bring home no white girl!"  That was before I even started dating.  Their comments had the opposite effect on me.  I have dated several white women.  I've also dated black, Latina, Asian, and mixed race women.  I can say I don't have a racial preference.  But I can say that some of my relatives wouldn't be too pleased with my dating history.  And I find that puzzling, considering that these same relatives are light skinned.  They are the children of interracial dating.

Recently in Louisiana, a licensed justice of the peace refused to grant an interracial couple a marriage license because he didn't feel races should be "mixing."  In fact, Justice Keith Bardwell told the press, "There is a problem with both [racial] groups accepting a child from such a marriage."  The justice's actions, comments and beliefs are so audacious in this day and age.  I mistook the story for a joke when I first heard it.  How such ignorance can survive in today's current social climate is not a surprise to me.  What is shocking is how such ignorance can still exist so openly in such a public sector of society.  You would think that even if someone did harbor such prejudicial feelings that they would keep a lid on it.  Think about the countless moments of negative press and condemnation against executioners of such rhetoric that have cost them and their organizations countless millions.  Bardwell's public stance not only encourages such ignorance, it undermines our progress as a society.  More importantly it undermines the people of Louisiana by making them vulnerable to legal action and misrepresenting the citizens of the Creole State. Creole is a term used to refer to the descendants of Louisiana's early French settlers, African-Americans, and Native Americans who have been mixing in the state since before 1803, when Louisiana was purchased from France.  In fact, I am a descendant of Louisiana Creoles.