A conversation with co-host Salim Muwakkil from Chicago and NH community activists Nury Marquez and Rev. Bertha Perkins about the experience of People of Color in New Hampshire — a state that’s 97% white — and the alliances that are built among Communities of Color amidst the troubling influence of U.S. politics by political events like the Iowa Caucuses and the NH primary – events held in overwhelming white states. Race issues in the this year’s presidential election are pre-empted by a misleading focus on immigration using so-called drug war programs like Operation Street Sweep that allows local police to question (mostly Latino) residents about alleged suspicious behavior after which INS agents arrive and use their prevue to question immigration status. This and similar incidents as when African American motorists are stopped for "Driving While Black" feed a kind of xenophobia as those who are different or act different from the majority are rejected for that difference. And, in the only state in the U.S. that doesn’t honor Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday as a holiday, Arnie Alpert discusses the more subtle degrees of racism in political rhetoric as some Republican and conservative leaders in NH characterize Dr. King as important to the civil rights movement, "a folk hero for underprivileged minorities," a person opposed to the Vietnam War and thus not worthy of honor, but in any case a person who may be important to "other people" but not to "the people of NH."
Segment Subjects (keywords for the segment): racism; politics of race in the U.S.; Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday
Other mentions: immigration ; Operation Street Sweep; English-only law; Pat Buchanan; Association for Advancement of White People; African Americans in New Hampshire; Hispanics/Latinos in New Hampshire; Bob Dole; Gov. Steven Merrill
GUESTS:
Nury Marquez–Executive Director of the Alliance for Progress of Hispanic Americans (ALPHA);
–Rev Bertha Perkins–Pastor at the New Fellowship Baptist Church and Executive Board Member of the Southern NH Outreach for Black Unity;
–Arnie Alpert–New Hampshire Coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee.
