Coming up on THE COLOR INITIATIVE ON PRI'S THE WORLD

                
                     Eugenics Singapore Style

Eugenics was the so-called science of improving a population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics. In the 20th century it lead to millions of forced sterilizations worldwide and was linked to Nazi atrocities. In modern times China enacted a form of eugenic policy to control population and to restrict marriages between persons with certain disabilities and diseases. Singapore also briefly experimented with eugenics. The program, introduced in 1984, sought increased fertility for university-educated women and provided major subsidies for the voluntary sterilization of poor and uneducated parents. The official program has long been abandoned, but “social Darwinism” or what many historians regard as the ideological underpinning of eugenics is the dominant view still promulgated by Singapore’s founder and long standing mentor, Lee Kuan Yew, in his quest to create the perfect society. 



Critics of Singapore’s social engineering argue that the resulting policies are invariably skin color-coded and hierarchical since the “poor and uneducated” are disproportionately tan skinned Malays and charcoal-colored Tamils, rather than the politically-dominant Chinese ethnic majority. How does this view measure up objectively to Singapore’s quest to create a racially balanced society?

THE COLOR INITIATIVE on The World (PRI, BBC and WGBH) http://www.theworld.org/2009/07/24/color-initiative/

SUMMER OF 2011 ON THE COLOR INITIATIVE

A GLOBAL VIEW OF THE COLOR BLACK
(photo by Nancy Thomas)

In an upcoming series on PRI's The World, we'll look at the global perception of black skin color. We speak with a cognitive psychologist who has studied initial reactions to skin phenotypes, political scientists, a refugee from Darfur, historians, Chinese students, a development specialist from Yemen, African expats, Latin American activists and others.

There have been many attempts to understand blackness. Among the most classic explorations was Frantz Fanon’s "Black Skin, White Masks". (see video clip) Fanon observed that the most common view of black skin –which exists in hues from tan to charcoal and shades of gray –was a denial of recognition. Other perceptions at the time of the Algerian Revolution, and still in force today, are heavily weighted down in stereo-types.

So we ask these questions: Can anything or anyone change the universal or global perception of blackness? Is it even necessary in a world where perceptions of race and racism are changing, albeit slowly?   Does the fact that race is a social construct in any way mitigate anti-black skin prejudice? And does the ascendency of prominent individuals of African descent (Obama, Mandela, Rice, Powell) connote "post-racial" progress, or merely obfuscates what some regard as an immutable negative frame of reference to black skin color? 

WGBH SPECIAL SERIES

RECOGNIZING BRUCE

An estimated 15,482 homeless people eke out an often-solitary existence on town and city streets across Massachusetts. About 20 percent of them are veterans. One of them is a former army soldier named Bruce Stuart.

Three years ago,I stopped into a cafe in Cambridge and struck up a conversation with a man sitting alone on a bench. It was Bruce, and he was making drawings of the world around him -- or at least the world as he saw it. That conversation led to more like it, and to the revelation of a complex human story.

Part One: A Man Without A Home
Jan. 19, 2010

Part Two: Enduring Street Life Through Art
Jan. 20, 2011

Part Three: A Home For Bruce And His Art

COLOR INITIATIVE 16, 17, 18 19:

December 28-31, 2010 on THE COLOR INITIATIVE on PRI's The World (PRI, BBC and WGBH)







NOMADIC MIGRATION AND SKIN COLOR

Malta is the smallest of the twenty-seven EU nations, and in the view of many Maltese, it is under siege. With other routes to continental Europe closed off, thousands of African immigrants in recent years have steered closer to Malta in their torturous and risky journey north from Libya on the waves of the Mediterranean. But most of the approximately 8,000 asylum seekers that have reached Malta in recent years are "accidental tourists”. Few ever intentionally land on the island nation of 400,000. Rather, it is leaky boats and lack of sea-know-how that LANDS them there. Once in Malta, some are detained for nearly two years, essentially living between where they come from and where they'd like to go. And many of them believe—rightly or wrongly—that their skin color plays a role in their ultimate fate. In the following multi-part series, I interview desperate asylum seekers, a detention camp warden, the new US Ambassador to Malta, fishermen who saved lives at sea and another who said he was instructed not to stop, courageous Maltese naval men, Somali women and children, Malta's Justice Minister, social workers, a Jesuit priest-advocate whose car was firebombed and Maltese who feel they're being overrun by refugees (given the size of their island nation).  We also travel to Geneva to speak with a representative of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and to Italy to speak with residents of Pozzallo and Taormina, Sicily, in this exploratory series.

Nomadic Migration Part I: From Somalia to Denver, the long way
Around the world, people are on the move in search of better lives. That is particularly true in Africa, where a wave of migrants is trying to reach Europe. Despite the dangers, they keep trying – and most do not succeed. Those who do are often on the move for years before they find a place to call home. In the first in a series of reports on nomadic migration to Europe and the United States, Phillip Martin tells the story of one man’s difficult journey to the US. Download MP3
 
Nomadic Migration Part II: From Libya to detention in Malta
Malta sits between Africa and Europe.Because of its location, wave after wave of illegal immigrants traveling by boat have come ashore on a regular basis.Though migration waves have slowed down dramatically in recent months from a high of nearly 3000 in 2009, the tiny island nation of 400,000 citizens, receives more asylum seekers –for its size—than any other EU country.In an effort to discourage illegal immigration, Malta has one of the toughest detention policies in Europe, and some say it goes too far.
This is part two of Phillip Martin’s special report on nomadic migration and skin color. Download MP3

Nomadic Migration Part III: The challenges faced by Africans living in Malta
Since 2002, thousands of Africans have journeyed through deserts and risked their lives to reach the shores of the Mediterranean and north to Europe. Some have been rescued at sea by the Maltese navy and transported to Malta, which lies between Africa and continental Europe. When their requests for asylum elsewhere are denied, they become stuck – often indefinitely – in the EU’s smallest nation-state. In part 3 of his series on nomadic migration and skin color, Phillip Martin reports. Download MP3

Nomadic Migration Part IV: Leaving Malta:
Since 2002, nearly 10,000 African migrants – trying to get to mainland Europe – have landed on the tiny island nation of Malta. Many were rescued from leaky boats by the Maltese navy. Once there, they can be detained in prisons for up to 18 months and then languish for years in Malta without jobs and, and in some cases, without a decent place to live. But some manage to move on – and find new homes in Europe and in the U.S. This is Phillip Martin’s final report in our special series on nomadic migration and skin color. Download MP3

The Color Initiative is funded by the Ford Foundation

Blue Hill Avenue: If A Street Could Speak

The murders in late September 2010 of a toddler, his mother and two adult men were described by police as the worst shooting rampage in Boston since 2005.  These homicides, as well as other murders in recent months, have largely taken place in urban neighborhoods abutting Blue Hill Avenue, the street that connects Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan and suburban Milton. Violence has given this street a tragic notoriety, but it's also a place with a deep history, and a present filled with complexity and alive with growth.  You can listen to my four-part series here:

  

Rough Waters: SPECIAL SERIES ON THE NEW ENGLAND FISHING CRISIS

The Ongoing Fight Over Regulating New England Fisheries

BOSTON -- Environmentalists and marine scientists have long argued that the stock of common food fish such as cod and flounder are in danger of being harvested to the point of extinction. In the 1970s, the federal government began a regulatory system to restrict commercial fishing off the nation’s coasts in an attempt to save and replenish these endangered fish stocks. This regulatory scheme evolved into an oversight program known as Days at Sea. Anglers who were used to catching fish 300 days out of the calendar year were suddenly reduced to half or less of that number, and the effects on fishing communities were disastrous.  Phillip Martin begins our series:

MY LATEST ESSAYS ON HUFFINGTON POST.COM

Child Sex Trafficking and The Politics of Pimping 

Hiroshima: The Big Payback or A Lesson Forward?

Nail Salons and Human Trafficking

 

THE JUNGLE BOYS OF THE PHILIPPINES

THE JUNGLE BOYS

The Jungle Boys is a makeshift band of percussionists from across the Philippines. Their rehearsal space is the beach. Reporter Phillip Martin brings us this audio postcard.

http://media.theworld.org/audio/08102010.mp3Down Load Mp3 Audio

WGBH Investigates: Sexual and Human Trafficking in Southern New England

My four part investigative series that was part of a WGBH Radio team effort:  

Part One: Sexual and Human Trafficking

Phillip Martin begins his investigation of human trafficking in Boston and beyond.

Part Two: Sexual and Human Trafficking

Phillip Martin talks to state agencies and police in Massacusetts and Rhode Island about their ongoing investigations.

Part Three: Sexual and Human Trafficking

Phillip Martin looks at the most most heinous dimension of human trafficking:The kidnapping of children for commercial sexual exploitation

Part Four: Sexual and Human Trafficking

Phillip Martin looks worldwide and close to home for lessons that might help in better understanding the dimensions of the problem.

REPORTING ON PRIVATE ARMIES IN MINDANAO

Vigilantes, Private Armies and Death Squads



On Monday, May 10th, voters across the Philippines will head to the polls to elect a new President and hundreds of local and provisional officials. But many poll watchers are concerned about the potential for violence. In recent weeks, 12 local political leaders have been gunned down, allegedly by members of politically connected “private armies”. Efforts to rein in private militias became a matter of urgency following a pre-election massacre last November on the island of Mindanao. I report from General Santos City.

COVERING COUP ATTEMPT IN TURKEY

Authorities in Turkey continue to investigate what they say was a serious attempt to overthrow the country’s ruling party, which leans heavily toward Islam. Forty-nine military leaders are accused of trying to overthrow the government, and on Wednesday seven senior officers were formally charged and imprisoned. The alleged coup attempt, if proven true, would represent the most recent effort to bring down the national government by force in Turkey. It also reflects deepening anxiety over what some Turkish citizens fear is creeping Islamization in a country with a strong secular tradition. I report from Istanbul for The World.

COLOR INITIATIVE 15 ON PRI's The WORLD: China, Globalization and Race

November 16, 2009

President Obama arrived in Shanghai Sunday in the midst of a raging debate over perceived racism in China. The controversy centers on lingering public reaction to the appearance of a bi-racial contestant on a nationally televised talent program three months ago. Twenty year old Lou Jing is the daughter of a Chinese mother and an African American father. Scores of hostile comments flooded the internet following her TV debut. And some are now questioning how the world’s fastest growing economy negotiates issues of race in its quest to become a global power.   My report. 

Chinese people are not used to seeing a Chinese mother have a black daughter or black son. It’s beyond our experience. But the response from the internet is quite beyond my imagination. - Sociologist, Guoli Dong, of Shanghai University.

The aspiration of many in Asia towards whiteness is a reflection of the idea of white supremacy and a reflection of the idea that the North Atlantic Powers were the quote— winners— unquote, and therefore they need to be imitated.  - Historian, Gerald Horne, University of Houston

The Color Initiative is funded by the Ford Foundation

COLOR INITIATIVE 14 ON PRI'S THE WORLD: SKIN the Movie

SKIN 
Download MP3

"SKIN" is a film about the life of Sandra Laing, a black child born in 1950s South Africa to proud white Afrikaners, who are blithely unaware of their black ancestry. "Skin" is as much about the senselessness and contradictions of racial determinism as it is about Laing, who in South African terms, was initially viewed as "colored." Her legal transition from colored to whiteness to blackness became one of the test cases of the apartheid regime in its quest to create an authoritarian racialist society. The movie, starring Sophie Okonedo in the title role, along with Sam Neill, Alice Krige and Tony Kgoroge, takes us chronologically (and painfully) through more than 35 years of apartheid. No movie can truly capture the systematic violence visited upon millions of people for generations, but SKIN gives us a glimpse of psychological debilitation, especially of children, and is guaranteed to re-open our eyes to a chapter in recent history that many would soon forget.  My report on the film can be downloaded here:  Download MP3

FRIDAY, October 30th, 2009 on THE COLOR INITIATIVE on The World (PRI, BBC and WGBH)

http://www.theworld.org/2009/07/24/color-initiative/
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The Color Initiative is funded by the Ford Foundation

Hotel Housekeepers Protest Mass Firing In Boston

September 18, 2009


Housekeeper Lucine Williams (left) who was fired from her job at the Boston Hyatt hotel as part of a cost-cutting move

Listen to the Story

By Phillip Martin
Published September 18, 2009 6:00 AM

A demonstration on Thursday evening, September 17th, in front of Boston's downtown Hyatt Regency Hotel followed publication of an article in the Boston Globe about the firing of 100 low-paid housekeepers at three area Hyatts last month who were replaced by even lower paid contractors.

Africa's albinos seek their place in the sun

GLOBAL POST.COM

Lack of pigmentation causes many to be killed to make potions for the superstitious.

By Phillip Martin — Special to GlobalPost
Published: August 7, 2009 07:03 ETUpdated: August 8, 2009 13:24 ET

COLOR INITIATIVE 12 & 13: People with Albinism and Their Place in the Sun

Albinism worldwide

By Clark Boyd ⋅ July 28, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

"Albinos" in much of sub-Saharan Africa are in danger. People with albinism lack the pigment melanin in their eyes, skin, and hair. It’s a genetic defect, but in much of Africa, it’s also reason for extreme, and deadly, prejudice. Phillip Martin has been reporting for our program on race and color around the world. This is the first of two stories Martin prepared on the growing threat to albinos. As one interviewee told him:

I can tell you that throughout the whole area of Africa, beliefs exist that people with albinism are cursed, that the mother had sex with the white man, that she had sex with a European ghost, that these people are evil, that they’re possessed, that they’re substandard, that the disease is contagious. There’s a host of myths that prevail for hundreds of years for people with albinism in large parts of Africa.

Listen to Part 1:
Download MP3
To see more photos from Tanzania, click here.

In part two of Phillip Martin’s series on albinism worldwide, he surveys global efforts to show albinos in a more favorable light. Martin interviews Rick Guidotti, a fashion photographer who, in 1999, photographed a young albino woman named Christine (at left) for a Life Magazine photo essay entitled “Redifining Beauty.” Guidotti remembers:

“She walked into my studio with her head down, shoulders hunched, eyes down as well, one word answers, no eye contact. This kid had zero self esteem because of being teased her entire life because of her albinism. So I thought, well I’m going to photograph her in respect to the way I would photograph anyone, Cindy or Claudia. So the lights went on, the music the fan. I grabbed a mirror, and was like, ‘Christine look.’ This kid looked in the mirror, and for the first time, saw a beautiful girl.”

Listen to Part 2:
Download MP3

To see more of Rick Guidotti’s pictures, click here, or visit Rick’s website, Positive Exposure.

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The Color Initiative is funded by the Ford Foundation, with additional resources provided by the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities and the Funding Exchange (Paul Robeson Fund).

COLOR INITIATIVE REPORTS 10 and 11: THE INCREDIBLE WHITENESS OF BEING IN ASIA

THE COLOR INITIATIVE: A TWO-PART REPORT ON SKIN WHITENING IN ASIA: On PRI's The World

**Honored with the 2010 Asian American Journalism Award for RadioMarch 11th, 2009  PART ONE

Skin whitening is a growing industry in China, Japan, and India. For many Asians whitening is part of a long tradition, but these days it's also the result of the powerful influence of white western culture.
http://www.theworld.org/node/25036

March 12th, 2009   PART TWO

However not everyone in Asia wants whiter skins, Phillip Martin tells how many middle class Asians are now moving away from creating white complexions and going for a Western-style tan. http://www.theworld.org/node/25061 THE COLOR INITIATIVE on PRI's The WORLD (the BBC, WGBH and PRI) -- March 11 and 12.

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The Color Initiative is funded by the Ford Foundation

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ON NPR's TELL ME MORE    --PRESIDENT  OBAMA, RACE and DIVERSITY in CHINA

President Obama was in China in November of 2009 where he addressed a range of issues, chief among them, trade. But President Obama's visit was also sparking questions about another issue in the region: race and diversity. NPR's Anthony Kuhn and Public Radio International's Phillip Martin, who have reported on minority issues in Asia, discussed the plight of ethnic minorities in the region and the significance of President Obama's visit.

Listen to the Interview on NPR's Tell Me More

Are You Worthy? It's Time to Question Meritocracy

Rick Santelli's rant on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade has been repeated ad nauseum on You Tube and cable TV, and the effect lingers. His self-righteous outburst directed at down-on- their-luck foreclosed home buyers amounts to what the late sociologist William Ryan termed "blaming the victim" or more specifically ''justifying inequality by finding defects in the victims of inequality.''
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/phillip-martin/are-you-worthy-its-time-t_b_172277.html

Comments on the Huffington Post site
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CAPTURING HISTORY: Inauguration Day 2009

COLOR INITIATIVE REPORT 9: AFRICANS & AFRICAN AMERICANS

THE COLOR INITIATIVE  -  December 2nd, 2008:

I report for The World (BBC/PRI/WGBH) on how the election of Barack Obama might help bring together two groups that haven't always had a good relationship: African Americans and African immigrants. 

Listen To Report