In Spokane, Washington the FBI offered a reward Tuesday for information about a potentially lethal bomb found in a backpack along the downtown route of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade.

The discovery before Monday's parade for the slain civil rights leader raised the possibility of a racial motive in a region that has been home to the white supremacist Aryan Nations. Read the full story.

Last year in 2009, 21 Oxbridge colleges did not offer admission to a single black student.

The worst offender is Oxford college, Merton, which has admitted no black students n the last five years and just one in the last decade. Cambridge accepted six, according to the Daily Mail.

The racial disparity at the schools extends to Cambridge's faculty as well. There are no black people among the more than 1,500 academic and lab staff employed by the university.

It should be easy to understand why many people believe that the more things change for blacks in America, the more things stay the same. It will be a good day in America when blacks do not fare the worst or toward the bottom in categories such as education, housing, health care, incarceration, income, and employment.

The statistics on black males below are staggering. On another note, black women who are more reluctant to date and marry outside of their race than women of other races do not have to look any further than the data posted below to understand one of the main reasons why there is a shortage of brothers.

1. In 1990 the United States had the highest prison population in the world. In July 2003, the prison population surpassed 2 Million. More than 10,000 inmates in adult institutions are under the age of 18.

2. According to the Justice Department: (i) 10.4% of African American males between 25-29 are incarcerated; (ii) 2.4% of Hispanics; and (iii) 1.2% of White males.

3. In 1980, 143,000 African American males were in prison while 463,000 were in college. By 2000, 791,600 African American males were in prison while 603,032 were in college according to a new study from the Justice Policy Institute. .

3a. Before the prison boom, black men in college outnumbered black men behind bars by a ratio of 3 to 1. After twenty years of harsh criminal justice policies which basically started in the 1980's under a U.S. President (1981 - 1989) and with the popularity of crack cocaine in the 1980's, this ratio has become approximately 1 to 1in favor of black men behind bars when compared to black men in college and universities.

4. According to the Department of Education 46.8% of White 10th graders go to school where there are security guards; 71.2% for African Americans

5. According to the Department of Education 3.3% of White 10th graders pass thru metal detectors to go to school; 21.3% for African Americans

6. According to the Department of Education 1.7% of White 10th graders attend class where windows are barred; 9.3% for African Americans

7. 63% of youth suicides occur in fatherless homes

8. 85% of children with behavioral disorders are in fatherless homes

9. 80% of all rapists are from fatherless homes

10. 71% of high school drop outs are from fatherless homes

11. 75% of children in chemical abuse centers are from fatherless homes

12. 85% of youth in prison come from fatherless homes

13. For every 100 females, between the ages of 20-24 who commit suicide, there are 624 males

14. For every 100 females, between the ages of 18-21 in a correctional facility, there are 1,488 males

15. A black man is the President of the United States.

An elementary school in Arizona called Miller Valley Elementary School hired artists to work on a school mural. The mural project caused a lot of racial controversy as well as a racial debate.

The “Go on Green” mural covers two walls outside Miller Valley Elementary School, and it aims to advertise a campaign for environmentally friendly transportation. It features portraits of four children, and a Hispanic boy as the predominant figure.

The Arizona Republic reports that faces in the mural were drawn from photographs of children enrolled at Miller Valley, a K-5 school with 380 students and the highest ethnic mix of any school in Prescott.

Here is a quote from the Councilman Steve Blair who was not happy with the original theme of the mural.

"I am not a racist individual, but I will tell you depicting a black guy in the middle of that mural, based upon who's President of the United States today and based upon the history of this community, when I grew up we had four black families -who I have been very good friends with for years - to depict the biggest picture on that building as a black person, I would have to ask the question, Why?"

According to R.E. Wall, Director of Prescott's Downtown Mural Project, as the mural was being worked on for two months, there were people driving by in their cars hurling racial slurs for blacks and Latinos even when there were young African American and Latino students of the school painting on the mural with the artists.

Initially, the school's administrators bowed to pressure and the decision was made to whiten faces in the mural.

UPDATE: Good news - Jeff Lane, the Principal of Miller Valley Elementary School, and Kevin Kapp, the school Superintendent showed up at a protest to apologize for initally giving in to the crazy racists. They have decided that the mural's finished look will reflect its original theme.

It is also being reported that Councilman Steve Blair has been fired from his KYCA AM radio show which he used as a platform to speak out against the mural.

The Huffington Post reported that in a stunning whistleblower lawsuit, the world's largest pharmaceutical company is being sued over the dangerous practice of illegally promoting a kidney transplant drug for unapproved uses -- and targeting African-Americans, even though they are at high risk of complications.

Pfizer Rapamune is a giant in the pharmaceutical industry; however, they should know that these kind of off label practices will probably cost them a lot of money in the end.

The Obama administration has been very aggressive going after companies involved in the off label promotion of drugs. There have already been a series of federal indictments and settlements related to these matters.

The Brandeis's Institute on Assets and Social Policy reviewed data from the years 1984 to 2007. The results while not surprising are disturbing if you are African American in America and thought that as a group, the wealth gap was closing.

Their report mentions that one quarter of African American families do not have any financial assets to protect themselves from financial ruin. The average white family now has accumulated $95,000 more in total wealth than the average African-American family.

The Brandeis institute's report also has reported why the wealth gap has grown 375% in the last 23 years.

*Public Policies - tax cuts on investment income, inheritances, redistribution of wealth and opportunities

*Tax Deductions - home mortgages, retirement accounts, and college savings - These tax deductions tend to benefit wealthier families.

*Discrimination - housing, credit, and labor markets - For example, African Americans and Hispanics were at least twice as likely to receive high cost home mortgages as whites with similar incomes. These reckless high cost loans unnecessarily impeded wealth building in minority communities and triggered the foreclosure crisis that is wiping out the largest source of wealth for minorities.

Once again, the government was involved in making it difficult for African Americans to be successful in this country.

CNN has an interesting post regarding the Pigford Case which established a longstanding pattern of discrimination at the U.S. Agriculture Department against African-American farmers who had applied for farm loans and support from federal programs.

The farmers settled the case with the government, but Congress has not come up with the money to pay the African Americans for experiencing racial discrimination.

To read more about this story, go to CNN.com.

One could think that this was 1960 instead of 2010 based on what is happening in some school districts across the country. In Tylertown, MS a federal judge has ordered the Walthall school district to change its attendance policies because they amount to racial segregation.

The Obama Administration's Justice Department has been aggressively going after school districts that they believe are seriously violating court orders from decades ago that have ruled against segregating school.

Prosecutors have said that the district was sending about 300 white students out of the district to an identifiable white school called Salem every year. At the elementary level, students are being clustered in classrooms that basically result in all black or all white classrooms in Tylertown.

The two high schools are actually very average schools based on test scores reported on the site Great School.com.

The Act scores which are a national college admission and placement examination are basically identical in Math, Science, English, and Reading. Both schools have a composite score of 17 with the state average being 19 and the national average being 21. The test is scored from 1(lowest score) up to 36 (highest score).

Based on the school test scores, there does not seem to be any educational benefit of attending one school over another school.

According to an article in the Washington Post, some white parents have justified the transfer to the mostly white out of district school by stating that kids would be more comfortable at Salem.

According to the federal judge, allowing the white kids to attend the mostly white Salem through the transfers created racially identifiable schools which is against the law.

Police in Northern Edgewater, New Jersey said that a 14-year-old girl grabbed a Whole Foods supermarket microphone and announced, "All blacks leave the store."

The same thing happened in Southern New Jersey at a Walmart store recently.

Edgewater police are investigating this incident as a possible copycat situation. According to police, the announcement was made over Whole Foods public-address system Saturday afternoon.

The girl, whose name was not released because of her age, is charged with bias intimidation and harassment.

The 16-year-old boy in the Walmart case faces the same charges as the this young girl after police said he twice ordered all blacks to leave the store.

Bob Johnson who sold the Charlotte Bobcats to Michael Jordan and also is an ex-founder and owner of BET called the city of Charlotte anti-black to business.

Surprisingly, Bob is an African American billionaire, and he is dealing with perceived race related issues in America.

Charlotte is a very, how would I call it, close-knit, arrogant, sometimes incestuous town," Johnson, told the Urban Leadership Institute after receiving an award from the organization. "It's close-knit, and if you come to this town, and you look like you're one of those people that might break some glass ... it's going to be tough for them to relate to.

"The thing that concerns me is that I'm just surprised that the city doesn't do more for African-American small businesses. And I don't really understand that." -
Read the story

According to the AP, Wal-Mart officials are reviewing security tapes after an announcement was made for "all black people" to leave a Washington Township, southern New Jersey store.

Shortly before 7 p.m. Sunday, a male voice came over the public-address system at the Route 42 store in Washington Township and calmly announced: "Attention Wal-Mart customers: All black people leave the store now."

Management later apologized.

Washington Township police and the Gloucester County Prosecutor's Office are investigating the incident as a possible bias crime.

Wal-Mart spokeswoman Ashley Hardie says the incident was "unacceptable." The retailer is looking to prevent it from happening in the future.

Some UC San Diego students are angry about a ghetto-themed “Compton Cookout”. Some of the angered students even took part in a day of protest.

A party invitation posted on Facebook told students to wear large T-shirts, rapper-style urban clothing by makers such as FUBU, and gold chains, according to a copy posted on the Web site for San Diego TV station 10News. Women were urged to go as "ghetto chicks." The post said such items as watermelon and cheap beer would be served.

They are also angry because of a segment on a student-run television station that used racial epithets to defend the off-campus party.

At this time, the University has frozen funding to the campus television channel until it has been determined that new rules make sure that student fees do not support hate speech.

The L.A. Times reported that members of the Pi Kappa Alpha were identified as among the organizers, but the fraternity’s president has distanced himself from the event, saying his club did not sponsor it.

The campus plans to hold a teach-in about the issue next week but it is voluntary and some people feel that the only people that will show up are those individuals that are already sensitive and aware of these issues.

There are more African Americans under correctional control today -- in prison or jail, on probation or parole -- than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.

The New Jim Crow is a book written by Michelle Alexander. She goes to great lengths to answer a recurring question. She writes how this question has surfaced in mainstream and ethnic media for more than a decade. The phrasing of the question differs depending on who's asking the question and why, but the question tends to boil down to this: Where have all the black men gone? They're missing in churches, missing from their families, missing from college campuses, and absent from work. Black women can't find a man to marry. Black children don't know where to find their fathers. Where are those guys?

There are always many variables when trying to determine what is going on with American African men in America today. Michele Alexander puts forth her theories that make a solid attempt to answer the recurring question - Where Have all the black men gone?

Michelle believes that too many black men have been targeted unevenly and unequally when compared to white men during the so-called War on Drugs.

She writes, that people of color are rounded up -- frequently at young ages -- for relatively minor drug offenses, branded felons, and then relegated to a permanent second-class status in which they may be denied the right to vote, automatically excluded from juries, and subjected to legal discrimination in employment, housing, access to education, and public benefits. Those who are lucky enough to get a job upon release from prison find that up to 100 percent of their wages may be garnished to pay fees, fines, and court costs as well as the costs of their imprisonment and accumulated child support.

Michele also reports that in 2005, for example, 4 out 5 drug arrests were for possession and only 1 out of 5 were for sales. Most people in state prison for drug offenses have no history of violence or significant selling activity. Nearly 80 percent of the increase in drug arrests in the 1990s -- the period of the most dramatic expansion of the drug war -- was for marijuana possession, a drug less harmful than alcohol or tobacco. In some states, though, African Americans have comprised 80 to 90 percent of all drug convictions.

The mass incarceration of people of color through the War on Drugs is a big part of the reason that a black child born today is less likely to be raised by both parents than a black child born during slavery. The absence of black fathers from families across America is not simply a function of laziness, immaturity, or too much time watching Sports Center. Hundreds of thousands of black men have disappeared into prisons and jails, locked away for drug crimes that are largely ignored when committed by whites.

She also believes that this system isn't about crime control; it about racial control. Yes, even in the age of Obama she writes.

Everyone knows that if you do the crime, you should be ready to do the time. One has to ask the question of why in America are we not using one standard to penalize crimes. Why should one group receives minor or no consequences for their crimes while another group receives major consequences for the same crime? Many answers can be found in a book written by an African American judge in New York who tabloid critics called Turn Em Loose Bruce. Judge Bruce Wright wrote the book Black Robes, White Justice. Why our justice system does not work for blacks.

A response Super Bowl ad illustrates why people of color need to be a part of the decision making process.

A young, white superstar college football quarterback Tim Tebow has been tapped to appear in a Super Bowl ad with his mother Pam.

The ad is about saying no to abortion and promoting life. Tim's mother Pam while on a missionary trip with her husband contracted amoebic dysentery and the medicines used for her recovery threatened her unborn fetus.

Doctors advised her to abort the fetus and Pam ignored their advice and gave birth to Tim Tebow. This is the gist of the ad.

Due to religious beliefs, there are many Americans that are against abortions. There is another group of people in this country that do not believe in abortions for a completely different reason.

These are the white Americans that are concerned that they are slowly but surely losing their majority status in America. Since more white women have abortions than any other ethnic or racial group, stopping abortions and promoting life has become a strategy to reverse the declining white population trends.

Abortion rights advocates were surprised that a major broadcast network would allow a political advocacy ad since they have been avoided for years. A counter ad promoting a women's right to choose is now in the works.

This is where it becomes interesting. Ex-Vikings player Sean James and Olympic gold medalist Al Joyner were hired to star in the response ad to Tim Tebow's ad.

It makes all the sense in the world to use athletes in the response ad. However, the decision to use two black men in an ad promoting a women's right to choose versus a white guy promoting life is unbalanced and just stupid at best.

Abortion is an explosive issue in this country. It makes sense to show racial and ethnic balance whenever possible when dealing with such an emotional issue; therefore, it would have have been better to have at least one white athlete in the ad promoting a women's right to choose.

This is needed because too many Americans will see these ads as nothing more than whites promoting life and blacks promoting abortions.

John Coombs, the president of the Vulcan Society, won a racial bias suit against the New York City Fire Department. The Vulcan Society, Inc. is a national organization which aims to recruit and support African-American firefighters.

A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that New York City intentionally discriminated against black applicants to the Fire Department by continuing to use an exam that it had been told put them at a disadvantage.

“From 1999 to 2007, the New York City Fire Department used written examinations with discriminatory effects and little relationship to the job of a firefighter… [that] unfairly excluded hundreds of qualified people of color from the opportunity to serve as New York City firefighters,” said Judge Garaufis in the Memorandum and Order. “Today, the court holds that New York City’s reliance on these examinations constitutes employment discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

Is this surprising to anyone? The federal, states, and local governments in this country are a major employer of the American people. At the same time, many of these various government branches employ a much lower percentage of African American and Latino employees than the the percentage of residents living in their city or state.

For example, black and Latino firefighters comprised only 3 percent and 7 percentof the New york Fire Department as of 2007, respectively. Meanwhile, New York City's black and Latino population was more than 50 percent during the same year.

This matters because it is all about jobs in America. Jobs is the true civil rights issue. This is the perfect example of the kind of job in America that does not require much education and allows a person to enjoy the American Dream - house with backyard and white picket fence, good health insurance and retirement benefits, a good salary to pay for a family's monthly lifestyle, money to assist a child with paying for college, vacations to new places annually, etc.

The court found that the city closed the door on over a thousand qualified candidates of color,” said CCR attorney Darius Charney". Imagine a thousand more black and Latino men possibly married with good career jobs and supporting their families and by extension the communities in which they live. Imagine hundreds of guys simply leading productive lives in their community and adding value to America as citizens in particular.

Unfortunately, this kind of employment discrimination is more common than Americans want to believe even though it is illegal in this country. In 2005, it was reported that Baltimore hired its first all-white class of firefighter recruits in 50years. 100 percent of the recruits were white in a city where whites were only about 30 percent of the population and blacks made up more than 60 percent during 2005. In Montgomery County Maryland, the class of white recruits was 89 percentwhile their population in the county is only 60 percent.

One day, someone with deep pockets and a lot of power (President Obama possibly) will fund a study to determine the number of Latinos and African Americans that are actually employed in public local, state, and federal government jobs compared to their overall numbers in a particular city and state.

In the first week of the New Year (January, 2010), Vanguard Group announced it will pay $300,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission accusing the Malvern, Pa., mutual fund company of racial bias in its hiring practices.

The EEOC alleged in a federal complaint filed in September that Vanguard decided not to hire Barbara Alexander as a financial planning manager because she was black even after she was told during the hiring process, including at roughly 13 interviews, that she was qualified for the job. Alexander has worked in the industry for 14 years.

Vanguard instead offered the job to two less qualified white men, and one accepted, according to the EEOC.

Approximately one year ago, Vanguard settled another racial discrimination lawsuit for $500,000 with the EEOC. This was a lawsuit that charged that the company retaliated against Raymond Ross, of Maple Glen, Pa. by subjecting him to a series of adverse employment actions culminating in his termination. Read Story

Why must Brothers be portrayed as resembling apes or someone dark and possibly violent? Vanity Fair will follow up Vogue's highly criticized portrayal of Lebron James with a dark, semi-thugged out Tiger Woods. Just imagine Tiger with the tattoos and you can immediately see him in a very different image than the one Tiger and Nike have crafted over the years. By the way, The Lebron and Tiger photographs were taken by the same photographer - Annie Leibovitz.

Many people say that the criticism has been overblown with Lebron, and they will probably say the same thing to the Tiger Woods photo critics as well. People do not realize that Lebron was the first black man to appear on a Vogue cover in their 116 history. The question one raises is why does the first or historically rare opportunity have to be portrayed in a way that by American standards are negative.

If these athletes were aware of the American history and the negative connotations with such apelike, violent, and predator portrayals, one would hope that the athletes would not agree to these images of Brothers.

The N.Y. Post had a cartoon in it's February '09 paper showing the police shooting a primate. The Post says that "They were just making fun of a story of an ape that was shot in cartoon is a clear parody of a current news event, to wit the shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut. It broadly mocks Washington's efforts to revive the economy".

The ape in the cartoon was related to the author of the Stimulus bill in Washington, DC, but the ape in Connecticut that the cartoon is based on has no relationship to politics in Washington. The author of the stimulus bill is Washington, DC is seen by many Americans as President Obama.

This is why there was an outcry from many places in the country when many people saw the cartoon.

In August of 2009, a black man was replaced with a white man in a Microsoft online advertisement intended for use in Poland. An Asian man in the ad apparently made the cut, and appeared in both the Polish and stateside versions of the ad.

But the ad's creator(s) missed one small detail. The Asian guy miraculously survived, but only a small portion of the black guy remains. They forgot to Photoshop out his hand.

Engadget reports that the ad has been taken down.

In the UK, the Couples Retreat movie poster was changed to reflect an all white marketing poster.

The studio said it regretted causing offense and has abandoned plans to use the revised poster in other countries... A Universal spokesman said the revised advert aimed 'to simplify the poster to actors who are most recognisable in international markets'.