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This was precisely the answers I'd been searching for. Amazing blog. Incredibly inspirational! Your posts are so helpful and detailed. The links you feature are also very useful too. Thanks a lot
Ask the Mamas: Changing Tables
Each week we will ask our mamas a question from our readers that pertains to babies, toddlers or parenting. Make sure to check back each Tuesday to see their responses!
Do you have a question you'd like to ask the mamas? If so, send us an email with your question to email@example.com.
MSW reader Leah asks:
"How long and how often did you use your changing table?"
- I have a suspicion that I'm one of the few who is still using their changing table daily with their toddler! Little Man is 18 months old and we still use his changing table for every diaper change. It is easy for us because his nursery is on the main floor of the house, so it's not a big deal to take a few steps to get there. ~Mary Ellen M.
- Anna is 12 months old and we still use it every day. In the beginning, when we co-slept, all of her overnight changes were just done on my bed. I have found it easier since I cloth diaper to have everything in a central location —my changing table. So, even if I am not actually using the changing table to change her diapers all of the time, I always use it to store all of my cloth diapers and supplies. ~Jessica S.
- I was sure we'd use it for every changing; I was wrong. We had a shelf that we put a changing pad on and we used it for the first few weeks for every changing. Then it just made more sense to do it on the couch since we were on the main floor. Let's be honest, going upstairs for every change was getting old. After that it was only middle of the night changings and by the time she was around four months, we changed her on her chaise in the middle of the night. So I guess collectively, it was used for four months. Not long, so I probably won't even use one for baby number two. ~Sarah H.
- I wish we got ours sooner! We were building a house when Ty was born, so we didn't put one up in our little condo. It took a while but we FINALLY moved into the new house on his first birthday and Holy Man! That changing table could have saved us a lot of sore knees, since we always just changed him on the floor. We didn't realize how much we were missing out. Now we use it all the time (at 14 months) and don't plan on stopping anytime soon. ~Heidi C.
- We used the diaper changer that was on the Pack 'n Play until he outgrew it. Other than that we used our changing table almost exclusively and still do at 23 months. ~Amanda P.
- L is just about 15 months old and we still use his changing table every day. If we are downstairs or on the main floor we will usually just change his diaper on the floor. But the changing table has been helpful for getting dressed in the morning, getting ready for bath time and getting into PJs after bath time. It has been well-utilized in our home! ~Corey P.
- We still use ours every time we change him (he's five months old). I know some people say they change the baby in the middle of the living room or wherever they are, but that would require me to have all his diapers and wipes handy. I could see where that might be the case if our house wasn't so small though! It's easy to jump up and take him to his room to change! ~Kate D.
- Lilah is 16 months and we still use it often. Her room is on the second floor so I use our coffee table often on the first floor now, but when we lived at our other house (a ranch style house) we used it for every diaper and clothes change. My brother-in-law handmade our changing table and I absolutely love it still! ~Miriam R.
- We didn't have the space for a separate changing table, so we just put a changing pad on top of our son's dresser. We used it each and every time we changed his diaper if we were home until he was walking at ten months old. We lived in a small, single-story house, so it was no biggie to just walk into his bedroom to change his diaper. By the time he was walking, he kept wanting to get up and run away naked, so I started changing his diapers on the floor and using the changing table less and less. I know my mother-in-law continued to use it longer than I did to save her back and her knees. By the time he was 19 or 20 months old, we were no longer using it. ~Alex T.
- My daughter is 18 months old, and we've used our changing table since day one. I think the only time we'll stop using it is when she's potty-trained and out of diapers. We'll more than likely move it into the new baby's room once he/she is born, but it's nice and convenient not having to bend over or kneel down to change her, and all of the needed supplies are kept right there ! ~Sam A.
- R is 11 months old and I have never changed her on anything else at home but our changing table. That is how much I love it, I guess. Haha. My reasoning is everything is right there and it is a good height for me so I am not leaning over or hurting my knees. I will use it as long as she fits and I will probably cry the day her little body won't fit anymore. ~Jaimie S.
- My daughter is five and a half months old and we have used it for just about every change so far. It's so much easier to have everything in one place… diapers, cream, wipes, clothes, etc. Even though I sometimes have to climb two flights of stairs with her to get to her room, it just makes the most sense for us to keep it all there. I have no doubt that we will be using it for a very long time. ~Kathy S.
- We live in a two-story townhome. As a newborn/infant, we changed his diaper on the changing pad (on his dresser) whenever we were upstairs and occasionally would go up there to use it if it was a yucky diaper. If we were downstairs, we just changed him on the couch, floor or Pack 'n Play. We continued to use the changing pad until he was around 18 months. After that we used a bed or still anywhere downstairs. ~Cari H.
- We use a repurposed shelf from IKEA as our changing station. We have two and each are 36″ x 36″. We have them side by side to create a six foot long space. We added a changing pad to the top of one and the other has the wipes, creams, etc. on top along with a lamp. Below, we keep bins stocked with diapers, burp cloths, blankets, etc. We used this for our daughter from birth until she was 20 months. After that, she preferred to be changed on the floor. She's potty training now and only uses a diaper for nap and bedtime and we usually change her standing up, or sometimes laying on the floor. The changing station in the nursery is now used for our son. We have a two-story home and his room is upstairs. So we use a Pack 'n Play with an integrated changer on it downstairs. We use this maybe four to five times a day, and the rest of his diaper changes are done in his room on the changing station. We typically do ten to 12 changes a day, so maybe half and half between the downstairs play yard/changer and the other upstairs on his changing station. ~Lori W.
- Allie is 14 months and we only used ours regularly when she was a newborn. Our changing table is upstairs and we spend most of our time downstairs. I keep all of our diapering supplies downstairs as well. But our changing table is also a dresser, so it wasn't a total waste of money. ~Bonnie N.
- James is 11 months old and we still use ours when home. It is so much easier. He seems to know that the changing pad is serious bum change time. If I try to change him on the couch or floor he turns into a slippery worm. ~Danica S.
The advice given here is solely based on our individual experiences and in no way is it going to be perfect for every mama, every baby, and every situation. None of us are medical doctors. If you have a question regarding a medical topic we can give our opinions, but please consult with your doctor. We are not liable or responsible for the results of following any specific advice in any given situation.


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Thousands tune in to proposal on SEPTA 'Love Letters' tour
Thursday, November 11th, 2010
A SEPTA train ride last month through West Philadelphia was the stage for an unforgettable marriage proposal. Now, nearly ten thousand people have seen the magical moment online.
Todd Barkhouse and Megan McNamara, who live in Nova Scotia, have been dating for a long time. They were planning to visit family in France, and Barkhouse wanted to move the relationship to the next level.
"I was thinking maybe I should propose when I'm in France – that's a typical thing to do," said Barkhouse. "I was worried that was trite, a little cliched."
He bought plane tickets with a long layover in Philadelphia so they could take the "Love Letters" tour. That's a special ride on the Market-Frankford line along a series of murals created by the Mural Arts Program. The Mural Arts Program liked the idea so much they lined up the Penn Light Opera Company to serenade McNamara on the train.
"First, I was impressed that everyone was singing. I wanted to get it on tape," McNamara recalled. "Then everything started to connect that they were singing to me. I turned to Todd and thought, 'You don't seem surprised by all this!' "
The online video shows McNamara tearing up.
The couple plan to wed in the summer of 2012.

subset: commoncrawl


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The Troubled Asset Relief Program inspector general said that the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve should stop using the London interbank offered rate as a measure for offering interest rates in U.S. bailout programs, Bloomberg Businessweek reported Sept. 25.
Libor has been considered suspect ever since Barclays admitted that it submitted false rates in June, thus calling into question its overall reliability. Libor has been the benchmark interest rate for more than $500 trillion in securities.
Regulators in both the United Kingdom and the U.S. fined Barclays $471 million for its submission of false rates, Bloomberg Businessweek reported.
TARP IG Christy Romero told Bloomberg Businessweek that U.S. programs could not use a rate "in which there's no confidence or assurance that it's reliable" and also noted that Libor has been subject to manipulation. She said Treasury's Public-Private Investment Program and the Fed's Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility needed to use alternate interest rates.
The Treasury launched PPIP in 2009 in an effort to revive the mortgage-backed securities market, and it estimated that U.S. taxpayers will get a $3 billion profit from the program.
TALF, which the Fed started in March 2009, is a bailout program that loaned funds to highly rated asset-backed securities and commercial mortgage-backed securities, Bloomberg Businessweek reported.
TARP was a Bush administration program launched in 2008 in the midst of the financial crisis and was continued under the Obama administration. It helped bail out Citigroup and Bank of America, as well as automakers General Motors and Chrysler Group.


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Questions & Answers : Search Results
Similar questions from the community
How much power does the unit use? (Use rather than control)
I'm interested in using these as timers but am interested in the constant power consumption of each - has anyone measured how much they consume by themselves?
- Asked by Mark E from Hornsby Heights
- Jan 15, 2013
- Flag as inappropriate
No answers yet
Is the scheduling controlled by the app or the micro controller in the device it self.
I would like to use it to control aquarium lights. So if the scheduling is controlled by the app on my phone there could be a problem.
- Asked by Charlie B from Raleigh
- Sep 29, 2012
- Flag as inappropriate
Can it control a ceiling light or must it be a light that plugs in?
- Asked by Jennifer T from New York
- Dec 29, 2012
- Flag as inappropriate
Is this a UK three pin unit or the US style two pin as pictured?
- Asked by Edward C
- Oct 7, 2012
- Flag as inappropriate
is there a way to control central a/c & heater?
my roommate likes to leave the heate/air conditioning on when she leaves, anyway that it can control that and if can, will it let me know if its on or off?
- Asked by Jessica A from Warrensburg
- Nov 3, 2012
- Flag as inappropriate
What is the maximum wattage that the 220v UK version can control.
I am interested in knowing whether it can safely control a 3000w heater.
- Asked by George B
- Oct 21, 2012
- Flag as inappropriate
Can I connect this to 2 iPhones at the same time? Mine and Wife for example?
I want my wife and I to both be able to control the lights with our separate iPhones.
- Asked by Martin F from Plano
- Jan 26, 2013
- Flag as inappropriate
In case of a power outage will the WeMo keep the last state it was in. I.E if it was on will it stay on after the power outage is over.
I want to use it to be a remote reset for my IT gear when I am away from home.
- Asked by Charlie B from Raleigh
- Sep 29, 2012
- Flag as inappropriate
Can a Belkin WEMO device be controlled from an IMac? (Running10.8.2) Peter in the UK
- Asked by Peter R
- Dec 18, 2012
- Flag as inappropriate
No answers yet


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The Latest on the Yowie
Posted by: Nick Redfern on June 18th, 2012
Australia's Northern Star newspaper highlights the Yowie-based research of Rex Gilroy in an article that begins: "SNARLING, 3m 'hairy men' could be sneaking around in bushland near you right now. Yowie researchers are on their way to the Northern Rivers, citing new evidence that these mysterious creatures are living around Lismore and Casino. Known as the 'Bigfoot of the Bush' or the giant 'hairy man', yowie believers say the beings are a primitive, ape-like race dating back at least two million years."
And, here's the complete article on the closest thing Australia has to Bigfoot.


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Palazzo UguccioniPiazza Della Signoria 7, 50100 Florence (Show map)
Very good
Score from 45 reviews
I loved the location which was good for sightseeing.
Comfortable and well appointed. Very central location but still quite.
This was an apartment right in the centre of Florence and over looked the Piazza Signoria , Brilliant Position . Very large apartment . Would definitely Recommend it.
The location of the apartment was great and the interior was decorated nicely and very typical to the tuscan style. The key selling point of the place itself is definitely the location!!
san francisco
Fantastic central location
Location is pretty good, close to all attractions, and staff is very helpful.
A great location, a beautiful appartment. Very friendly owner.
Wonderful appartment with a washing machine; quiet location; easy to get around
Amazing location in the Piazza della Signoria Nicely decorated Lovely extra touches, such as the room fragrance
Great location at the heard Of the city
Palazzo Uguccioni features elegant, self-catering accommodations right in Piazza della Signoria, just 295 ft from the Uffizi Gallery. The building dates back to the 16th century, with a façade by Mariotto di Zanobi Folfi. With parquet floors and antique wood furniture, each apartment has a living/dining area with satellite TV and a sofa. Free wired internet is available in all apartments. The Cathedral is a quarter mile from Palazzo Uguccioni. Firenze Santa Maria Novella Train Station can be reached by foot in 15 minutes. Apartments: 6 The most recent booking for this property was made on Dec 10 at 2:10 PM from Sweden.
InternetFree! Wi-Fi is available in all areas and is free of charge. ParkingPrivate parking is available at a location nearby (reservation is needed) and costs EUR 32 per day. ServicesBaggage Storage, Laundry, Ironing Service GeneralNon-smoking Rooms, Family Rooms, Soundproof Rooms, Heating, All Spaces Non-Smoking (Public and Private), Air Conditioning Languages spokenItalian, English Check-in3:30 PM - 7:00 PM Check-out9:00 AM - 11:00 AM Cancellation/
Total Score Apartments:8.4
Based on 45 reviews Guest reviews are written by our customers after their stay at Palazzo Uguccioni. |
Score breakdown
Score Filter |
I loved the location which was good for sightseeing.
I felt that there was no where to sit apart from the dining room. It was a bit small if the weather was bad and a small sofa instead of a four poster which have been better
Comfortable and well appointed. Very central location but still quite.
Bathroom/toilet is adequate but rather small.
The decor, the staff and the location. The hotel is a renovated "Palazzo" of the Piccolomini family. Everything is brought up to date while maintaining the character of this family estate. There is a bus to the historical center of Siena, a pedestrians- only town center, and the highway to Rome or Florence is nearby also. The staff is knowledgeable and eager to please, good recommendations for places to visit and where to eat. Wonderful!
This was an apartment right in the centre of Florence and over looked the Piazza Signoria , Brilliant Position . Very large apartment . Would definitely Recommend it.
The location of the apartment was great and the interior was decorated nicely and very typical to the tuscan style. The key selling point of the place itself is definitely the location!!
1. The booking process is los in translation. We were able to make a last minute booking through booking.com however the apartment itself does not accommodate for that and we were dealt with very very rudely by the apartment manager. After 30 minutes of pleading and begging she agreed to get someone there to open the door for us so we'd have a place to sleep. It is in no way our fault that the site allowed us to book for the same evening. If this is an iddue for the managers of the apartment they should clarify and/or make it unable to book last minute. 2. I called management back again a day later to discuss an additional stay and checkout, please keep in mind i am a very kind and soft spoken person. Not only was I yelled at and told to "DO AS I AM TOLD" merely after asking if we'd be able to leave our bags somewhere after checkout. But i was also HUNG UP ON. This is UNACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOR. There is NO WAY i would ever book here again, nor would i recommend to my many friends who travel to firenze - and hope for the owner's sake (as he was a very nice gentleman) that they find new management to run their apartment.
Fantastic central location
Location is pretty good, close to all attractions, and staff is very helpful.
There are no comments available for this review
A great location, a beautiful appartment. Very friendly owner.
You have to use the elevator, three persons at a time, no chance to use stairs.
Wonderful appartment with a washing machine; quiet location; easy to get around
Confusing directions where to meet our Florence appartment contact person
Amazing location in the Piazza della Signoria Nicely decorated Lovely extra touches, such as the room fragrance
Great location at the heard Of the city
No Reception meant that we had no one to ask for directions, information, etc
We really loved the feeling of home of this place. The location was more than convenient and the house was fully equipped. Great!
There are no comments available for this review
There are no comments available for this review
Freundlicher Empfang. Sehr gute Lage, fast alle wichtigen Sehenswürdigkeiten in der Nähe. Das Studio ist sehr eng aber gemütlich, sauber und ruhig.
Zum App. in letzten Stock muss man zu Fuß bewältigen. Steile und hohe Stufen, nicht geeignet für ältere od. behinderte Personen. Im Badezimmer funktioniert der Fön und in Zimmer der Fernseher auch nicht.
Tutto perfetto: posizione a dir poco eccezionale, appartamentino in ottime condizioni (anche il divano letto è comodo), silenzioso e tranquillo. Sicuramente consigliato per visitare al meglio il centro di Firenze.
La posizione dell'appartamento è perfetta per visitare in pieno relax la città. La sistemazione è comoda e rilassante.
L emplacement, la deco, conception très pratique.
Le lieu super idéal pour visiter tout à pied le fait d avoir une kitchenette proximité de la supérette l amabilité de la correspondante sur place la terrasse avec vue sur le clocher Mieux vaut prendre le parking prive car c est très difficile de circuler en voiture dans Florence centre
Le mauvais couchage du canapé le fait que les toilettes soient dans la salle de bain
Beliggenheten, praktisk, sjarmerede, imøtekommende personale.
Ingen ting
1. Ubicación. 2. Equipamiento y limpieza. 3. Posibilidad de lavar y secar la ropa pues tienen lavadora y secadora en común. 4. Indicaciones sobre supermercados y otros temas de interés para los turistas. 5. Lo recomendaría sin dudas SÓLO SI se anunciarán con veracidad, como apartamentos sin servicio de recepción y todos los demás elementos que he mencionado como negativos.
1. Se anuncia como hotel, cuando no lo es. Se trata de un apartamento en alquiler por días. 2. No tiene, por tanto, ni recepción ni personal permanente. 3. Sólo se puede ingresar entre las 3:00 y las 7:00 pm y ello haciendo una previa cita con la persona de contacto. 4. Te piden que les proveas de la fotocopia de tu pasaporte (cuando la obligación ante la policía recae en la entidad que recibe. Además, ¿de dónde saca un turista una fotocopia de su pasaporte?). 5. No existe la posibilidad de dejar las malestar en custodia si es que se quiere dejar la ciudad más tarde de la hora de salida del apartamento (11:00 am).
Su ubicacion, esta perfectamente ubicado para los turistas que desean pasar ratos agradables en la ciudad de florencia...
Su espacio fisico es reducido...
大きなベッドと使いやすいダイニング。 チェックアウト後に荷物を置いてきたいという要望にも快く応対してもらえました。 シニューレ広場にあるので、フィレンツェのどこに行くにもとても便利でした。 大満足です!
El departamento estaba bien. Muy buena ubicación y buen estado.
Alquilamos una unidad para 6 personas (Fantasía) El nivel superior no tenía aire acondicionado y las fotos en internet muestran las zonas comunes que en realidad no se pueden usar.
The guest reviews express the personal opinions of Booking.com customers who filled out a questionnaire after their stay at the hotel. These opinions do not necessarily represent the views of Booking.com.
Relais Piazza SignoriaSet on the corner of Piazza Signoria and just a few steps from the Uffizi Gallery, Relais Piazza Signoria is housed in a historic building and offers apartments with free Wi-Fi.Most recent booking for this hotel was today at 06:10 from $234 |
Think FlorenceThink Florence offers apartments with great locations on both sides of the River Arno in Florence.Most recent booking for this hotel was today at 04:43 from $92 |
Hotel RomaHotel Roma is housed in an 18th-century building with views of Florence's Santa Maria Novella Church, a 2 minute walk from the main train station. The staff offer personalized assistance.Most recent booking for this hotel was today at 07:21 from $154 |


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Or Contact Us Directly Phone: 978-525-2019 FAX: 978-525-3534 email@example.com
"Oh my god, it was WONDERFUL. we all had a great time, unforgettable. Kevin is a STAR facilitator. We had a blast!"
- Sheila Schimmel The Green Company
Colonel Corn and his second in command Major Disaster request the pleasure of your company at the Officers' Mess for an evening of historical hilarity. Enjoy your Minute Man menu while you experience a little American history, a little American music and a whole lot of American humor. The American Revolution was never this much fun! But don't laugh until you see the whites of the comedians eyes. Huzzah!
The Minute Man Dinner is a comedic dinner theater with music and lots of audience participation.
If you would like to learn more about this or any of our other programs please don't hesitate to contact us.
About Us | Team Building Events | Entertainment | Request a Proposal | Careers | Contact Us | Home | Beta Program | Testimonials | Complete List Of Programs | Newsletter | © 2005 The Ant & The Grasshopper, Inc. All rights reserved. branding & web marketing by Quantumlight


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Discover the meaning of your name.
Please confirm that the link referenced below is the one that is broken or needs to be updated. If confirmed, please complete the remaining boxes in the form below, then click on the button to send the update to us.
Title of the LinkBoats of the Royal Naval Museum
URL (address) for the Linkhttp://www.royalnavalmuseum.org/collections_boats.htm


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Long Island home sales stayed strong last month, according to preliminary numbers from the Multiple Listing Service of Long Island. In fact, the number of homes contracted for sale in Nassau and Suffolk counties jumped 41 percent from a year ago and represents the best October sales numbers in three years.
There were more than 2,130 home-sale contracts signed last month, compared with 1,517 in October 2008 and 1,681 in October 2007.
The higher number of contracts could be attributed to buyers wanting to take advantage of the federal first-time homebuyer tax credit that was scheduled to expire at the end of November. Congress has now extended the credit, which gives up to $8,000 in tax breaks for those eligible, until June 2010. The extension includes a new incentive of up to $6,500 for repeat homebuyers who have been in their homes for at least five years.


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All-inclusive grills can cook any type of food in the wilderness
If you have ever attempted to use a regular grill to cook breakfast food, you know that the spaces between the metal ridges make it impossible to serve traditional staples like scrambled eggs and pancakes. Pots and pans are awkward to handle in a campfire or on top of a grill, and can be frustrating for any experienced outdoorsman. However, Coleman came up with an
all-in-one grill
that makes cooking any type of fare a walk in the park.
The small,
-fueled contraption has a stove grate, grill grate, skillet/griddle and stock pot/slow cooker for literally any recipe a camper can imagine. Disposable propane cylinders provide even heat and the adjustable knobs can limit gas flow for lower temperatures. The included carrying case makes this device extremely portable, and it can be easily set up in minutes.
"I've used this to cook breakfast, burgers and dogs as well as corn on the cob," wrote a reviewer on CampingWorld.com. "I found it to be a good all in one grill. I used the slow cooker too with great success. I like the small compact size with the carrying case with all the different grill tops for various cooking projects."


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« Volvo reports selling out first batch of V60 Plug-in Hybrids | Main | Dow Kokam to supply Li-ion batteries for NEOMA EV »
Hyundai to begin production of ix35 Fuel Cell vehicle in December; targeting 1,000 units by 2015
27 September 2012
ix35 Fuel Cell. Click to enlarge. |
In December 2012, Hyundai will begin production of the ix35 Fuel Cell crossover vehicle at its Ulsan manufacturing facility in Korea, with a target of building up to 1,000 vehicles by 2015. Hyundai called the ix35 Fuel Cell its "halo vehicle" in the Blue Drive sub-brand, the badge worn by Hyundai's cleanest vehicles, including Sonata Hybrid, i20 Blue Drive and BlueOn, Hyundai's battery-powered i10.
Hyundai has already signed contracts with cities in Denmark and Sweden to lease the ix35 Fuel Cell to municipal fleets. Beyond 2015, Hyundai plans limited mass production of the ix35 Fuel Cell, with a goal of 10,000 units; Hyundai will also introduce the vehicle in Korea and California.
ix35 fuel cell powertrain layout. Click to enlarge. |
The fuel economy and range of the ix35 Fuel Cell have improved by 10% over the previous-generation model. In a presentation on Hyundai's fuel cell technology at the US Department of Energy (DOE) Merit Review in May 2012, John Juriga, Director of Powertrain Hyundai / Kia America Technical Center, said that the fuel cell system in the ix35 achieves a power density of more than 640 W/L (DOE target is 650 W/L). Size reduction of the system has been achieved through modularization.
Exploded view of the ix35 fuel cell stack. Click to enlarge. |
The fuel cell stack—which uses a low-cost bipolar plate and gasket material—itself has a power density of 1.65 kW/L. Operating voltage is 50~450V, and maximum cold-start ability is -30 °C (-22 °F).
Unlike other fuel cell vehicles that use compressed air to supply oxygen to the fuel cell stack, Hyundai's ix35 Fuel Cell uses ambient air. This reduces parasitic loss in the oxygen supply, raising fuel efficiency and reducing power consumption by 50%. For passengers, the elimination of an air compressor reduces noise inside the cabin.
The ix35 Fuel Cell Specifications | |
Length; width; height | 4,410 mm; 1,820 mm; 1,655 mm |
Fuel consumption | 0.96 kgH2/100 km |
Fuel cell output power | 100 kW |
Battery | 24 kW |
Fuel storage | 700 bar, 5.6 kg |
Top speed | 160 km/h (100 mph) |
Range | 588 km |
Acceleration | 0 to 100 km/h in 12.5 seconds |
In addition to the fuel cell stack, the ix35 Fuel Cell uses the same lithium-polymer battery found in the Hyundai Sonata Hybrid. A kinetic energy regeneration system charges the battery when the driver applies the brakes or drives downhill.
Under the hood. Click to enlarge. |
The ix35 Fuel Cell is equipped with stop/start technology, which shuts down the fuel cell stack and relies on battery power only when the vehicle is idling, minimizing energy loss in city driving.
Hyundai's ix35 Fuel Cell offers drivability and performance similar to that of the gasoline-powered ix35. The ix35 Fuel Cell can be filled with hydrogen in only a few minutes. It accelerates from zero to 62 mph in 12.5 seconds, has a top speed of 160 km/h (100 mph) and can travel 588 km (365 miles) without refueling.
Hyundai chose its popular ix35 as the first vehicle for its fuel cell technology. The ix35 is Hyundai's second-best-selling car in Europe, behind only i30, and was one of the first to display Hyundai's Fluidic Sculpture design identity.
Hyundai said it was encouraged by the actions of several governments, especially in Europe, that have created detailed roadmaps for building a hydrogen infrastructure and are providing necessary funds. Hydrogen fueling stations exist in several European nations and additional ones are being built and planned. Expansion of fueling stations is also anticipated in Korea and California, and Hyundai will supply its ix35 Fuel Cell to public and private fleets there, as well.
Hyundai's ix35 Fuel Cell is currently participating in the European Hydrogen Road Tour, organized by the European demonstration programme, H2moves. The Road Tour is a multi-city, pan-European display of hydrogen fuel cell vehicle technology, which has stopped in Paris during the motor show.
The ix35 Fuel Cell is the result of 14 years and significant financial investment in research and development by hundreds of engineers at Hyundai's fuel cell R&D center in Mabuk, Korea. The car has logged more than 2 million miles of road tests in real-world conditions in Europe, Korea and the US.
Hyundai's fuel cell program is based at its Eco-Technology Research Institute in Mabuk, Korea, about 45 minutes south of Seoul. The program was launched in 1998 with a roadmap targeting series production of fuel cell vehicles by the end of 2012 and consumer sales by 2015.
The mission of the Mabuk research centre is to create commercially viable, zero-emissions vehicles. The ix35 Fuel Cell achieves that goal, providing a clear choice for public and private fleets.
—Dr. Tae Won Lim, Managing Director of fuel cell R&D
Hyundai Motor Group's Development of the Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle; John Juriga, Director of Powertrain Hyundai / Kia America Technical Center. DOE Merit Review 2012
September 27, 2012 in Fuel Cells, Hydrogen | Permalink | Comments (63) | TrackBack (0)
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These fuelcell cars and suvs are unbeatable, im glad hyunday is starting limited commercialisation. It's gonna be a huge success. The range is very good at 365 miles and it's easy to monitor how much hydrogen is left into the tank contrary to batteries where you never know really what is the state of charge. As soon as there is a hydrogen infrastructure been build then we gonna have big trucking too that will use hydrogen contrary to batteries that can barrelly apply to small cars only and are rejected by consumers. One way or the other someone gonna fing how to do hydrogen in quantities at low cost and onsite. In 2022 approx, i will be on the market for a used vehicle and i hope to buy a first hydrogen car and i will forget are limp previous ice cars were with vibrations, low power and big weight and cost, pollution, hiccups on acceleration, bothersome transmissions, etc. The world will change overnight as soon as hydrogen fuelcell technology will be put on the market.
That is around half the energy density of the Toyota fuel cell stack.
Not using compressed air sounds good though.
"As soon as there is a hydrogen infrastructure been build then we gonna have big trucking too that will use hydrogen contrary to batteries that can barrelly apply to small cars only and are rejected by consumers."
This is the point. There will never be a hydrogen infrastructure and the car companies and the oil companies know it. So what offering hydrogen fueled vehicles gives them is the appearance of caring about us and the environment while still having almost insurmountable hurdles available as an easy excuse for the lack of progress and change. Precisely opposite to EVs and PHEVs which already have the infrastructure and truely threaten change away from oil. And, just like drugs and the drug war, alot of people make money off oil and so we will never stop using what is profitable to the masters.
Preach it, Brother Kenny!
So here are the facts on the supposedly unsuperable obstacles to hydrogen roll out:
Initial deployment:
'H2Station® CAR-100 provides 70MPa SAE J2601 compliant fast-fill of hydrogen for passenger vehicles with a capacity of up to 100kg/day. All equipment is integrated into a compact station module allowing for easy transport and installation in only two days. This significantly reduces both the investment cost and time from contract to start of operation, which is important when deploying station networks. As fuel sales in a network grows and reach a level feasible for larger stations the CAR-100 can easily be relocated to outskirts of the network.'
Note that these can be deployed on a rolling basis, so that as hydrogen becomes established in an early adopter area they can move on elsewhere.
100kg/day would be enough to service a couple of hundred vehicles at 30/miles/day.
That sounds an easier roll out to me than a fast charger infrastructure.
The hydrogen for that level of use would be brought in by tanker.
No need to upgrade transmission systems or transformers for a high speed electric charging station.
'The aim is to bring down the cost to that of a natural gas filling station, around 300,000 euros, or $387,500, from around 1 million euros today, said Ulrich Buenger, a coordinator at the European Hydrogen Road Tour 2012, which is funded by industry and the European Commission.'
Those cost statements are not just figures plucked from the air, but a result of analysis of the components needed to build them.
Europe already has a perfectly adequate infrastructure to deliver LNG for vehicles, and whilst the cost of a hydrogen roll out may for the time being be somewhat higher, vast amounts can be saved on oil import bills, for instance by the use of hydrogen from agricultural and municipal waste.
Many areas may very well end up with three (3) energy sources for road-rail vehicles:
1. Existing gasoline and diesel for ICEVs and diesel-electric locomotives for the next 20+ year transition period.
2. Quick charging stations (fixed wired and wireless) for Electrified (PHEVs and BEVs) cars and light trucks, specially in urban and neighboring areas.
3. Hydrogen stations for FC equipped heavy highway vehicles and adjacent locomotive combined filling stations.
#3 Why it shall be hydrohen instead CNG main fuel for heavy city and highway trucks?
Even after allowing for conversion losses it is quite a bit more efficient to use hydrogen in fuel cells rather than natural gas in a combustion engine.
For City trucks and buses you can also combine it really easily with batteries in hybrids, and still have a totally zero emission vehicle at point of use.
No doubt for the next ten or fifteen years plenty of natural gas trucks will be hitting the road though.
Bear in mind however that in most countries natural gas sells for several times the US price.
The low price of US NG is also probably around half of the sustainable price to cover costs, so the economics of NG in the US are much better than elsewhere and likely more favourable than is sustainable.
Here is the pdf with full info on the Hyundai. It also gives their road map.
It is perfectly clear from this that progress has been as projected, and is not some sort of never never thing as the advocates of batteries as a one size fits all nostrum repeatedly and inaccurately say.
Hydrogen does not travel well. The energy/volume of hydrogen is about 1/3 of methane, with similar viscosity; pipeline pumping losses would be very high. Liquid hydrogen has a density of about 0.07, so 1 kg of LH2 consumes a volume of about 14 liters. A US gallon is 3.79 liters, so it would take volume equivalent to about 5 gasoline tankers (even assuming no insulation) to carry the same energy with LH2. That's a lot more tankers on the road, and a lot more energy needed to move them.
It's fun to speculate about hydrogen made from biomass, but there's nowhere near enough biomass to do the job.
The energy loss with HVDC is about 3%/1000 km, far lower than any gaseous fuel pushed through pipelines. Transformers and other gear are good for many decades. I suspect it makes more sense to move electricity 1000 miles and then electrolyze water than it does to pump hydrogen. Of course, if you've moved electricity all that way you might as well use it as-is and skip the conversion losses (and all the capital equipment).
Power surge demands with high-power chargers are easily managed with things like flywheels. There just isn't any major handicap for electricity except the gap between the wire and the vehicle in motion on the road.
The efficiency of fuel cells is far greater than petrol engines, so you need to transport a lot less fuel.
We manage perfectly well to pump natural gas, although of course that is rather less corrosive, so the strictures against using pipelines for transport of gaseous fuels hardly seems absolute.
Germany for one also plans to provide a lot of it's hydrogen locally, rather than centrally, so reducing pumping needs.
I have recently found out that more than half of German vehicle miles are for longer journeys, with the differences between that usage pattern and that of the US presumably due to their excellent public transport covering a lot of commuting.
In that case present battery cars would not help much for more than half of the miles travelled, so particularly with electricity at 30 cents/kwh it is hardly surprising that they are keener on fuel cells than battery cars.
'It's fun to speculate about hydrogen made from biomass, but there's nowhere near enough biomass to do the job.'
Please give the figures on which you base this definitive and statement.
Others argue:
'"If you take just 20% of the agricultural and forest residue available in Europe, which can sustainably be taken away from the fields, you can make half of Europe's gasoline demands,"'
Personally I don't know, but you clearly have access to figures which give you confidence to make an absolute statement, so please show on what that confidence is based.
If GM said this 'folks' could assume it was another taxpayer grant stunt, sorta like we're years beyond the statute of limitations living in the Bush Hydrogen Initiative years.
Is that p@#$k mentoring the latest Republican candidate and voter 'chad' registrations?
Anyway, with Hyundai, who knows..
Hyundai might want to reform NG to H2 like Tesla did with Superchargers.
Darius...CNG for heavy trucks-buses and locomotives is interesting in USA, specially during the current extremely low cost NG/SG glut. NG price is about 6 to 9 times higher in EU and Asia, making it less advantageous and that high price would go up again if NG was used to power trucks-buses-locomotives etc.
On the under hand, electricity can be produced at very low cost and can be distributed most everywhere with very low lost. The major problem to solve is the high price and current low capacity (140-180 Wh/Kg) e-storage units, specially for long haul heavy vehicles.
Long haul electric trucks and buses would need tonnes of high price batteries to do the 1000+ Km stretch they normally do. PHEV technology with ICE (gasoline, diesel CNG) genset and/or improved FC genset would be better suited, for those vehicles, at the present time?
"That sounds an easier roll out to me than a fast charger infrastructure."
Might be. If we were starting from zero with both hydrogen and electricity. But since the electricity infrastructure is at least 90% in place and since we are already installing a large number of fast chargers hydrogen would be starting too deep in the hole to catch up.
Who is going to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in a hydrogen infrastructure when we can drive cheaper per mile on electricty?
Add in the enormous cost of paying for the hydrogen infrastructure and hydrogen as a fuel loses big time.
'Who is going to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in a hydrogen infrastructure when we can drive cheaper per mile on electricty?'
You run into hundreds of billions putting a charger in each garage, let alone alongside the road for the 50% of vehicles with no garage.
The other answer to your question at the moment is of course anyone who wants to travel more than 60 miles or so at highway speed without stopping for a recharge and can't afford a Tesla.
The efficiency of fuel cells is far greater than petrol enginesNot even twice as efficient, compared to the 5x increased fuel volume. Fuel cells powered by RE starting from electricity have lower total efficiency than batteries; it's only if you start from e.g. natural gas or coal that hydrogen fuel cells are better, and you pay high capital costs to get it.
We manage perfectly well to pump natural gasWe do, but we also pay in losses. The losses for puming hydrogen would be ~2.5x as great per unit energy. (I tried to find data for the losses in pipeline transport of NG but what turned up was obviously not an η parameter.)
Germany for one also plans to provide a lot of it's hydrogen locallyGenerated from what, though?
Please give the figures on which you base this definitive and statement.For the USA, I'm using The Billion-Ton Vision, mostly. Figuring an achievable 800 million tons * 18 GJ/ton = 14.4e18 J; converted to H2 at 50%, 7.2e18J or 2e12 kWh/y. After compression and conversion in the FC (net efficiency, 50%?), 1e12 kWh/y or 114 GW delivered. My estimate of power demand by vehicles from some years back was 180 GW. Maybe you can tweak some of these numbers up, but it's still a very close thing with little margin for error (or drought).
Long haul electric trucks and buses would need tonnes of high price batteries to do the 1000+ Km stretch they normally do.Why should we continue with the silly and wasteful wheel-on-pavement scheme, when such heavy vehicles do most of the damage to pavement? Build a "lane" of rail, either with overhead electric power or switched ground-mounted third rail. Steel wheel on steel rail eliminates most of the rolling resistance, and the rails provide guidance. Link vehicles nose-to-tail (physically or virtually) and you have a train which requires no human intervention except for the lead and in emergencies. You can put your drivers on their 1000 km haul at 100 kph at 8 PM, and they can sleep until their arrival at the destination at 6 AM. Change out loads and they'd be home in time for dinner.
You run into hundreds of billions putting a charger in each garage, let alone alongside the road for the 50% of vehicles with no garage.I don't see it. The "charger" for a J1772 connection is something I could build with an off-the-shelf microcontroller board, wall-wart power supply and a high-power relay (or solid-state equivalent) for maybe $100, quantity 1. For the first generation of PHEVs which come with their own J1772 adapter cables (taking 120 VAC 10 A from the wall), I suspect that they'd come in around $20/unit in quantity.
The annual expenditure on motor fuels in the USA is on the order of $500 billion, so even "hundreds of billions" is quite reasonable if it's spread over as little as a decade. But it won't cost that much; 100 million chargers at an average of $300 apiece (most just cheap home units) is only $30 billion.
>>>"Who is going to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in a hydrogen infrastructure when we can drive cheaper per mile on electricty?"
The actual cost for sufficient H2-filling stations to cover the entire continental USA by 2015 will be only around 300-500 Millions USD. NOT hundreds of billions. It is an investment that will pay off within a few years, so a lot of people would want to invest in that. Remember how the CD music came to replace the vinyl records? If well marketed, H2-FCV's will gradually replace current-technology vehicles. They will set off a new cool-and-hip trend in consumerism, similar to fashion and fad, this time automotive fashion, just like the minivans took over the station wagons, then the SUV's took over the minivans. After 2015, if you wanna be trendy, hip, cool, and show off that you're "loaded", you will wanna have a supercool H2-FCV parked in your VIP parking space at work, or in your driveway. I know that Kit P is shaking his head, but, sorry, that's how automotive history has always been and how it's gonna be! Owning a car is not just about transportation. It's about a personal statement to the world about who you are...(eg. "look at my super-duper red Corvette...Sure, I can get to work on a Chevette or Citation or a Nova, and I don't need a large-block 400CID 500hp V-8 2-seater to get me to places, but it sure turns heads and get me dates.." :)
And most people surely never wanna buy a car that reflects that they are a penny pincher...No one wants to look cheap in front of their friends, peers, or neighbors...Surely, early adopters with the cash to splurge do not care much about "driving cheaper per mile on electricity?" They wanna show that they're livin' large!
One more important thing I will need to bring up, Bob, is that H2 filling stations can recoup their investments easily because all H2-FCV will need refills at the stations. The situation for e-fast-charge stations is vastly different, because people will charge at home for the most part, and only use e fast charging on occasions...If you wanna have enough e fast charging stations around to satisfy people's only occasional fast charging needs...Good Luck recouping investments on e fast charging stations.
Car companies can turn $1 of NG into $10 of H2. Cars double their cost including fuel over 10 years. Get the car sale profit up front and the fuel profits over a decade.
Thanks for the detailed response, EP.
I really meant it when I said that I have not been able to get a good handle on the amount of energy available from biomass, as it seems that there are a huge number of possible pathways.
To respond to a couple of your points:
Germany for one also plans to provide a lot of it's hydrogen locally
Generated from what, though?
Please give the figures on which you base this definitive and statement.
For the USA, I'm using The Billion-Ton Vision, mostly. Figuring an achievable 800 million tons * 18 GJ/ton = 14.4e18 J; converted to H2 at 50%, 7.2e18J or 2e12 kWh/y. After compression and conversion in the FC (net efficiency, 50%?), 1e12 kWh/y or 114 GW delivered. My estimate of power demand by vehicles from some years back was 180 GW. Maybe you can tweak some of these numbers up, but it's still a very close thing with little margin for error (or drought).
Germany plans to use get hydrogen from just about everything, including, in my view at that latitude ludicrously, solar.
Here is what they are planning for wind though:
A lot of it is biomass though.
The link you give does not consider algae, which is a large, but to my mind dubious, resource.
Using the figures you give, we can actually hit around 70% for conversion and compression now, which is of course a major uplift on the numbers you suggest.
Miles travelled are also falling year on year, not rising.
The main thing though is that we don't need to provide 100% of transport needs, nor anything like it, from biomass for it to be a very useful resource.
It is perfectly reasonable, it seems, to think that we might get a third of our hydrogen from biomass sources.
most people surely never wanna buy a car that reflects that they are a penny pincher.This accounts for the unpopularity of the Prius, right? (joke!)
The alleged superiority of the H2-FCV is its high range per day and quick refilling, but this doesn't help if the nearest H2 station is 20 miles away, let alone 50. The safety issues with gas at 700 bar (or more, on the storage/dispensing side) argue for a station cost on the same order as a natural gas station, at $350,000 to 3x that*. You need these things almost everywhere, so figure at least one per 20-mile square on a rough rectangle 4000 miles by 1500 miles, or 15,000 of them. Cost: $5-15 billion. Until the network has achieved full penetration there are places your H2-FCV can only visit on in-and-out trips, or not at all. So much for its "advantage" over electric.
What's the cachet in running out on the way to the one H2 station in town and needing a tow?
No one wants to look cheap in front of their friends, peers, or neighbors.So instead you buy a PHEV, which everyone knows costs more. You get exclusive use of the reserved parking spaces with the free chargers (another early-adopter perk) and possibly at work also. On the road, your car has a distinctive badge and the hinged cover for the charging port to set it apart. You are greener than just about anyone, and truly Sticking It To Big Oil; the H2-FCV people are buying their gas from XOM-branded pumps. You might visit a filling station 4 times a year, unlike the H2 people who have to work new and cranky high-pressure dispensing systems (which may require an attendant, meaning extra cost and limited hours).
* I see ads for truck stops selling upwards of 100-150,000 gallons per month. Selling even 50,000 gallons of diesel equivalent of LNG per month at 50¢/gallon premium over cost for amortization, a $350,000 LNG installation would be paid off in about 14 months. The Henry Hub price of NG is about 1/10 the retail price of ULSD; the gross margin for early adopters appears to be well upwards of $1 per gallon-equivalent, maybe over $2. There's a much better case to be made for LNG than H2.
'The alleged superiority of the H2-FCV is its high range per day and quick refilling'
Nothing alleged about it.
You should have said that 'the fact is that....'
I don't quite know what figures you are trying to analyse, the costs of a full deployment or start up costs.
Clearly any initial deployments won't try to cover the wilds of Montana and so on.
We already know what initial deployment costs will be.
California is spending around $68 million dollars, which will give enough to be going on with.
Obviously further roll out would depend on how that goes.
For some reason you also seem to exclude the possibility of PHEV fuel cell cars, and have passed over the notion that in places like Germany half of all vehicle miles are long distance, so batteries/PHEVs would not help much.
BEVs have, to date and excluding ultra expensive Tesla's, had limited success.
PHEV's are likely to be the way to go for the next ten years as a mass solution.
Replacing the gasoline content of the PHEV with hydrogen, even if from natural gas exclusively, would result in massive savings of CO2 emissions, and save many of the millions of deaths a year from air pollution.
In fact, some proportion at least of the hydrogen would come from non-fossil fuel sources.
I like batteries, and if we can develop a lithium air battery or whatever, that is fine.
Until then I would wish to use the best combination of technologies we can manage, and hydrogen fuel cells can provide capabilities simply beyond the scope of what any battery we have within reach of our technology.
The link you give does not consider algae, which is a large, but to my mind dubious, resource.Blue-sky, certainly. You don't bet on such things; I'm pro-nuclear power, but I don't even think of proposing thermochemical hydrogen for FCVs as it's far too speculative. Hot-water hydrolysis of biomass to sugars is another matter.
Using the figures you give, we can actually hit around 70% for conversion and compression nowStill well short. There are also competing and perhaps more important uses for that feedstock.
Miles travelled are also falling year on year, not rising.If your energy projections are based on an ever-deepening economic recession, you're not going to get much political support!
we might get a third of our hydrogen from biomass sources.Begging the question, what provides the other 2/3?
One reason I am pro-nuclear is that 2/3 of motor fuel can be replaced by electricity in current-generation PHEVs (if nuclear, domestic and zero-emission) and the other 1/3 can be replaced by liquid fuels generated from waste. Domestic garbage and waste biomass can be hydrolyzed to small molecules, then gasified in supercritical water to yield ready-made synthesis gas. Syngas makes methanol very easily, which is a good motor fuel. All this takes is heat, which fission generates cleanly and in abundance.
Using either thorium or fast breeders, fission can supply our full energy needs on the time scale of industrial society. Processed waste and other biomass can supply the remaining demand for fuels and chemicals without risk of depletion. That's a full solution, and weather barely affects it. It's one of the best routes, and also one of the lowest-risk.
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Sheriffs, police chiefs, state's attorneys send letter to Governor, legislative leaders noting public safety concerns
CHICAGO — (February 9, 2012) Nearly 150 police chiefs, state's attorneys, sheriffs, leaders of police officer organizations and crime survivors signed a letter this week to Governor Pat Quinn and the leaders of the General Assembly urging them to protect funding for children's programs in the 2013 state budget.
"Investing in kids pays off. Communities have less crime, kids get better outcomes in life, and taxpayers save money. There are some programs that are simply too valuable to cut any more than they already have been," said Channahon Police Chief Joe Pena.


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Air Force Advances Three to NCBA Championship Finals
April 3, 2009 COLLEGE PARK, Md. - The Air Force boxing team advanced three contenders to the finals of the National Collegiate Boxing Association (NCBA), after a tough hard-fought round of semifinal action on Friday, April 4, in College Park, Md. Seniors Jesse Horton and Boyce Loomis earned victories in the semifinal round, while sophomore Matt DeMars had a bye for the second straight night. Horton advanced to the national title bout for the third straight year, after defeating Kentucky's Tyler Sexton by decision in the 119-pound semifinal. Loomis earned a decision over The Citadel's Sam Greenwood the semifinal bracket of the 185-pound division to claim his first appearance in the finals. Four other Falcons competed during the national semifinals. Senior Harvey White dropped a decision to Penn State's Jake Winowich in the 125-pound bout, while classmate Nathan Liptak suffered his first loss of the season (6-1) at the hands of Kentucky's Jamyle Cannon. Freshman Mike McLain's impressive debut season came to a close with a 175-pound decisional loss to Sam Greenwood of The Citadel and junior Cory Tintzman was decisioned by Army's Cedric Fraser in the heavyweight contest. After two days of competition, Air Force sits in third with 16 points. The Falcons are in a battle with Navy (25 points) for second-place. Army leads the 23-team field with 33 points. Action concludes at the NCBA Championships tomorrow (April 4) night at Maryland's Richie Coliseum. RESULTS FROM NCBA SEMIFINALS


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Cape Girardeau man facing drug trafficking charges | Crime
PERRY COUNTY, MO (KFVS) - A Cape Girardeau man was arrested Friday, August 31 on several drug and traffic related offenses.
Jeffrey B. Cronenbold, 50, from Cape Girardeau was charged with a Class A felony trafficking in drugs.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol, Perry County Sheriff's Office and SEMO Drug Task Force arrested Cronenbold after they say they found him in possession of a misdemeanor amount of marijuana and a smoking pipe used for smoking it. They say he also had 5.8 ounces of Methamphetamine.
"Cronenbold was stopped and charged with a minor traffic violation," said Perry County Sheriff Gary J. Schaaf, "but things just got worse for him after that."
Schaaf said the meth they found on Cronenbold had an approximate street value of $16,000.
Cronenbold is being held at the Perry County Jail on $100,000 cash only bond.
Copyright 2012 KFVS. All rights reserved.


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Archive for July, 2010
Racist-Right Radio Commentary Perpetuates Old White-Racist Frame
Posted by: | Comments
A recent article by Casey Gane-McCalla at Nation's NewsOne blog provides a list of the racist comments and commentaries of Rush Limbaugh. Because he is a major propagandistic shaper of the opinions of many Americans, most especially white (and disproportionately white male) Americans, these racist opinions are powerful in perpetuating the four centuries old white-racist framing of this society (with is racist stereotypes, ideologies, images, narratives, emotions, inclinations to oppress materially), as well as the systemic racism of which that framing is only part:
"Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?"
"Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it."
"The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies."
This idea of black criminality is very old, and here Limbaugh is parroting the modern version of the white racial framing of African Americans as criminal, which I have shown thorough actually dates back to at least the 1600s. Elite whites say this type of thing century after century so that what is a racist and highly stereotyped and BS imagery comes to be accepted by many people "truth."
[To an African American female caller to his program]: "Take that bone out of your nose and call me back."
This imagery of African Americans as savage and uncivilized also dates back to the 1500s and 1600s, and was originally (and ironically) created by slaveholding, and highly savage, Europeans.
A bit later these were added to the NewsOne list:
Limbaugh Says Steinbrenner Was A "Cracker Who Made African-Americans Millionaires"
Limbaugh: Obama & Oprah Are Only Successful Because They're Black
Limbaugh Calls Gov. Paterson A "Massa"
There are also many negative comments full of highly stereotyped white-racial framing of African Americans aimed at President Obama:
'Limbaugh has called Obama a 'halfrican American' has said that Obama was not Black but Arab because Kenya is an Arab region, even though Arabs are less than one percent of Kenya. . . . . Despite the fact Obama graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law school, Limbaugh has called him an 'affirmative action candidate.' Limbaugh even has repeatedly played a song on his radio show 'Barack the Magic Negro' using an antiquated Jim Crow era term…'
These and many other racist comments from Limbaugh regularly suggest and reinforce old racist images of African Americans, or variations on four centuries old racist stuff. White-racist commentaries are amazingly un-original and parrot-like. Conformity to past racist imaging is essential to contemporary racist thinking.
Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky argue that much U.S. opinion is shaped by the organized propaganda that comes out of the capitalistic mass media of the United States. This mainstream media propaganda model shows
how propaganda, including systemic biases, function in mass media. The model seeks to explain how populations are propagandized and how consent for various economic, social and political policies are "manufactured" in the public mind.
Radical-right talk show host like Limbaugh, with their millions of listeners, play a central role in this propagandizing and keeping the United States are foundationally and fundamentally racist society.
Large-scale and organized action to create alternative media networks of equal power are essential if this huge propaganda process is ever to be effectively countered.
The End of White Privilege
Posted by: | CommentsSen. Jim Webb (D-Virginia) has called for an end to end to affirmative action programs because, he contends, white privilege is a "myth."
Here's what Sen. Webb said in a recent (7/22/10) Wall Street Journal piece:
In 1974, a National Opinion Research Center (NORC) study of white ethnic groups showed that white Baptists nationwide averaged only 10.7 years of education, a level almost identical to blacks' average of 10.6 years, and well below that of most other white groups. A recent NORC Social Survey of white adults born after World War II showed that in the years 1980-2000, only 18.4% of white Baptists and 21.8% of Irish Protestants—the principal ethnic group that settled the South—had obtained college degrees, compared to a national average of 30.1%, a Jewish average of 73.3%, and an average among those of Chinese and Indian descent of 61.9%.
Policy makers ignored such disparities within America's white cultures when, in advancing minority diversity programs, they treated whites as a fungible monolith. Also lost on these policy makers were the differences in economic and educational attainment among nonwhite cultures. Thus nonwhite groups received special consideration in a wide variety of areas including business startups, academic admissions, job promotions and lucrative government contracts.
Where should we go from here? Beyond our continuing obligation to assist those African-Americans still in need, government-directed diversity programs should end.
Nondiscrimination laws should be applied equally among all citizens, including those who happen to be white.
Webb is right to note that white Americans are not a monolith and that there are poor whites among the racial category "white." However, just because Webb has discovered poor white ethnics does not mean that white privilege is a myth. There are so many examples of white privilege that it barely merits listing them all again, but just in case you've never read Peggy McIntosh's "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack," review it now.
One of the key points that Webb misses (and there are many) is that even in a system in which all poor people are oppressed, some poor people who happen to have black or brown skin are even more oppressed. As Matt Yglesias points out:
Someone accused of killing a white person in North Carolina is nearly three times as likely to get the death penalty than someone accused of killing a black person, according to a study released Thursday by two researchers who looked at death sentences over a 28-year period.
People are generally aware of the fact that the criminal justice system sanctions African-American suspects and perpetrators disproportionately harshly. Less noted, but in some ways even more pernicious, is the way it affords lesser protection to African-American victims and potential victims. Randall Kennedy's Race, Crime, and the Law explicates this neglected issue in an excellent way.
So, while I will be the first to applaud the end of white privilege, we're not there yet, Sen. Webb – not by a long shot.
Civil Rights Review: Do you know these courageous women?
Posted by: | CommentsI continue to be impressed and inspired by Shirley Sherrod who, in the face of adversity, is taking us all to school, and doing it with tremendous grace. Today, she appeared at the National Association of Black Journalists convention and said that we all need to know more about civil rights history. (You can see the plenary with Sherrod here.)
There's a good bit of scholarship on the civil rights movement which documents the ways that women have been written out of civil rights history. So, in honor of Ms. Sherrod and to remind people about women's influence in civil rights history and the struggle for racial justice, I've assembled a short list of women who might be called civil rights heroes. Do you know these courageous women?
- Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a journalist and anti-lynching activist and suffragist who led the way in the struggle for racial justice at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century. Many people believe that the foundations of the civil rights struggle were laid down in the fight against lynching. (Factoid for sociology geeks: Troy Duster is a descendant of Wells-Barnett.) You can read more about Wells-Barnett here.
- Claudette Colvin is a African American woman from Alabama sometimes referred to as "The First Rosa Parks." In 1955, at the age of 15, she refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white person, in violation of local law. Her arrest preceded Parks' (on December 1, 1955) by nine months. You can read more about Colvin here.
- Ella Baker was perhaps the consummate organizer within the civil rights movement. She began her organizing career in the 1940s with the NAACP. In the 1950s, she helped Dr. King organize his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). And, in the early 1980s, when she wanted to assist the new student activists she organized a meeting at Shaw University for the student leaders of the sit-ins. From that meeting, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was born. In many ways, SNCC was the forerunner of the Black Power and Black Panther movements. You may have heard SNCC mentioned in recent days as Ms. Sherrod's husband was a member of this organization. You can read more about Ella Baker here.
- Mamie Till-Mobley was the mother of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American boy who looked at a white woman (some say whistled at her) and for that was lynched in 1955. Mrs. Till-Mobley made the heroic decision to have an open-casket funeral. At the time of her death, Jesse Jackson remarked about this decision: "She was a very articulate teacher who saw the pain of her son and did a profound, strategic thing.When they pulled his water-soaked body from the river, most people would have kept the casket closed. She kept it open." The press took pictures of Till with a bullet in the skull, an eye gouged out and his head partially crushed. His body had been found floating in the Tallahatchie River, identifiable only by the ring Till wore that belonged to his late father. These photos were widely published and attributed with helping to galvanize the civil rights movement. You can read more about Mamie Till-Mobley here.
- Fannie Lou Hamer was the daughter of Mississippi sharecroppers, who became one of the most dynamic speakers of the civil rights movement. She is widely known for the phrase "I am sick and tired of being sick and tired." Hamer became active in the movement when members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference came to Mississippi. She worked on voter registration drives in the South. She was among several workers stopped by officials in Winona, Miss., on June 9, 1963. She and other workers were jailed and beaten. SNCC lawyers bailed her and the others out and filed suit against the Winona police. All the whites who were charged were found not guilty. She continued to work on grass-roots anti-poverty, civil rights, and women's rights projects into the 1970s.
- Daisy Bates was a mentor to the Little Rock Nine, the African-American school children who integrated Central High School in Little Rock in 1957. She and the Little Rock Nine gained national and international recognition for their courage and persistence during the desegregation of Central High when Governor Orval Faubus ordered members of the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the entry of black students. She and her husband, Lucious Christopher (L. C.) Bates, published the Arkansas State Press, a newspaper dealing primarily with civil rights and other issues in the black community. You can read more about Daisy Bates here.
- Violet Liuzzo was a civil rights activist from Michigan and mother of five who left her home to become involved in the civil rights movement. She was inspired to act after seeing protesters assaulted by police in Selma, Alabama and reportedly told her husband, "this is everyone's struggle." While driving protesters in Alabama, was murdered by Ku Klux Klan members. You can read more about Violet Liuzzo here.
- Angela Y. Davis was an early pioneer in seeing the connections between the struggle for racial justice, gender equality and the prison-industrial complex. Her book, Women, Race & Class in many ways launched what we think of today as "intersectionality" studies. Davis is probably most widely known for the fact that in 1970, she became the third woman to appear on the FBI's Most Wanted List when she was charged with conspiracy, kidnapping, and homicide. She evaded police for two months and was eventually arrested. She was tried and acquitted of all charges eighteen months after her capture. Her trial became a focus of the Black Power movement as people wore buttons with her iconic afro with the words "Free Angela" around it. Years later, she would write "Afro Images: Politics, Fashion and Nostalgia," (Critical Inquiry, 21(1):37-45), in which she would bemoan the fact that people remember her as simply "the afro" and critique the fact that "a politics of liberation could be reduced to a politics of fashion." You can read more about Angela Y. Davis here.
- Beulah Mae Donald's son, Michael, was lynched by two members of the Ku Klux Klan in 1981 in Mobile, Alabama. Upset about the verdict in a trial of an African American man for the murder of a white cop, KKK members Henry Hays and James Knowles spotted Michael Donald walking home from getting his sister a pack of cigarettes. They kidnapped him, drove out to a secluded area in the woods, attacked him and beat him with a tree limb. They wrapped a rope around his neck, and pulled on it to strangle him, before slitting his throat and hanging him from a tree across the street from Hays' house. Local police first stated that Donald had been killed as part of a drug deal gone wrong, despite his mother's insistence that he had not been involved in drugs. Beulah Mae Donald then contacted civil rights leaders and the Southern Poverty Law Center. Eventually, the SPLC won a civil victory against the KKK. In 1987, Ms. Donald won a judgment in the amount of $7 million dollars against the KKK and as a result, the group was forced to turn over its headquarters to her. The verdict marked the end of the United Klans, the same group that had beaten the Freedom Riders in 1961, murdered civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo in 1965, and bombed Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963. You can read more about Beulah Mae Donald's successful case against the KKK here.
These are just a few of the people who've struggled to bring about racial justice. Did you know all the names?
Without Struggle, No Progress
Posted by: | CommentsPeople often ask me if I believe in "progress." By that, they usually mean, do I think there's been "progress" in the way this country deals with racism. I usually answer by saying, "I believe in struggle," paraphrasing Frederick Douglass' famous quote: "If there is no struggle, there can be no progress." There was some good news in the struggle toward racial justice today. Here's a brief recap:
- The House passed legislation reducing the two-decades-old sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine offenses. The Senate passed an identical bill in March and the legislation is now heading to President Obama, who supports the reform effort (h/t Drug Policy Alliance via Julie Netherland). This is good news in the struggle for racial inequality because sentencing for powder cocaine, disproportionately used by whites, has traditionally had much lighter sentences than for crack cocaine, more often used by African Americans. These unjust sentencing laws were enacted in the 1980s, under President Ronald Reagan.
(Image from here.)
- A federal judge blocked the most controversial parts of Arizona's immigration enforcement law from going into effect. Judge Susan Bolton took aim at the parts Arizona's draconian immigration law that have generated the most controversy, and issued a preliminary injunction against sections that called for police officers to check a person's immigration status while enforcing other laws and that required immigrants to carry their papers at all times. This is good news in the struggle for racial equality because it means that Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants living in Arizona may be able to live their lives without being harassed.
These changes are good news and evidence that struggle can create progress, but make no mistake – these are small changes. And, these small changes that took large numbers of people, several agencies and non-profit organizations, and legislators to create.
There still remains a lot of work to be done around drug policy and around immigration reform. Drug laws are perhaps the centerpiece in the racial caste system of that is the U.S. criminal justice system. Arizona's Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio says that he will arrest any one protesting the immigration law there.
If and when big change comes in these arenas, it will be because people worked and struggled to make change, not because there is some inevitable, progressive trend toward racial equality.
Mexican Immigrants Target of Racist Hate Crimes on Staten Island (Updated)
Posted by: | CommentsIn recent weeks there have been a series of attacks against Mexican immigrants on Staten Island, a borough of New York City. The police are currently investigating another possible hate crime that occurred around 5:00 p.m. on Friday night. News reports say that a 31-year-old Mexican man was walking home from playing soccer at a local park when he was attacked by five men yelling anti-Mexican slurs.
There is something of a history of hate crimes against Mexican immigrants on Staten Island. In 2008, a man living in the Port Richmond area of Staten Island took out his racism-fueled anger by driving his truck into store fronts he believed were owned by Mexican immigrants.
This kind of violence directed toward a particular group can be attributed, at least in part, to the anti-Mexican and anti-immigrant rhetoric that is becoming more pervasive in the current political climate. Evidence of this hostile climate is as close as the nearest Google search. Type in the keyword "Mexicans" and get the suggested "Related search: I hate Mexicans." Also, note the racist images that generated just on the search for "Mexicans." This sort of rhetoric is not only created by those on the (supposed) lunatic fringe of society, but by some mainstream news media talking heads as well. This kind of hostile environment – in speech, in images – eventually leads to action that affects real human beings.
There are ways to stand up against this sort of violence and intolerance. The folks at Change.org have launched a website based on anti-racist actions, called Not in Our Town. The site is dedicated to empowering people to fight back against hate and intolerance in their communities. When attacks like these occur, revealing a dangerous atmosphere of hate, it's up to everyone to denounce that hate and violence and work toward building a community that is safe for everybody.
UPDATED 8/5/10: Another person has been attacked on Staten Island. A young man, Christian Vazquez, 18 who volunteers at with an anti-violence organization, was kicked and punched to the ground by assailants allegedly yelling anti-Mexican slurs. The attack was the 11th bias incident in the Port Richmond area since April. Some New Yorkers continue to stand up and speak out against this anti-immigrant, anti-Latino violence, as in the recent "Night Out Against Crime" event.
Rethinking Racism
Posted by: | CommentsThe Andrew Breitbart and Fox News smear of former USDA Shirley Sherrod, and the NAACP and White House's complicity in her defamation and firing, still has lots of people thinking and talking about race and racism. Unfortunately, the focus has been on individual racism. This is a proposition we've got to rethink.
Racism, as we've discussed here and elsewhere, is systemic. If you'd like to know what systemic racism at the USDA looks like, it looks like this. Black farmers have been systematically discriminated against by the USDA for decades. They were due assistance – given to white farmers, but not to black farmers – and were denied this because of their race. Black farmers went to court to get redress for this, won the case, but still cannot get the money that is owed them. There was another set back for black farmers this week, as the Senate stripped $1.2 billion for the claims from an emergency spending bill, along with $3.4 billion in long-overdue funding for a settlement with American Indians who say they were swindled out of royalties by the federal government.
Rather than focus on this systemic nature of racism, the Breitbart smear and the fall out afterward have people focused on the endless and pointless question about who is/is not a racist. This is a distraction from the larger and more intractable forms of racism that really plague the U.S. Rinku Sen has a brilliant post at TruthOut which makes this case. She writes:
What the right wants us to forget is that race relations are rooted in systems, and that not all racism is individual, intentional and overt. Individual bias plays a role, to be sure, but it's the institutional rules, written and unwritten, that enable such racism, not the other way around. You can't "heal" a system; you have to rebuild it.
This is where the left often loses its way on race. I was surprised, for instance, to read the following in Joan Walsh's Salon.com column on Wednesday: "People are spending a lot of energy to get folks like the Spooners and Sherrod to think they should be enemies, when the real issue is class." Walsh, who has a solid history of responsible reporting on race issues, goes on to say that's what the left should remember from this debacle, because the right wants us to forget it.
I take the opposite lesson: The intersection of race and class is a complicated thing, deserving of more attention, not less. Treating class as the "real issue" means treating race only as a function of it, which amounts to colorblindness for leftists. It's a highly limited answer to working-class white resentment of working-class black people. Progressives' over-reliance on the "same boat" argument doesn't help keep multiracial alliances together. Rather, it stumps us when we need to explain exactly how racism works, not just in the economy, but also in education, prison, health and, yes, agriculture. Liberal silence on race is what allows Breitbart to distort the definition of racism, to strip it of all discussions of power, history, policy or collective responsibility such that the notion of reverse racism has enough merit to be taken seriously in the first place.
Sen is spot on here when she notes that the progressive left's inability to speak cogently on race is what opens up a space for right-wingers like Breitbart. She also makes an excellent point about the overlap between race and class. Perhaps this will serve as a wakeup call for those on the left to get smarter about race and racism so that they aren't "snookered" by the likes of Breitbart again.
Children March against Anti-Immigrant Federal Action
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On July 28th, 2010 hundreds of children will march in front of the White House in Washington D.C., in Los Angeles in front of the Federal Building, and in Mexico City at the US Embassy. They march to deliver a letter to President Obama and to protest the tragic situation of children being taken from their undocumented parents following deportation.
The children who are separated from their parents often end up in the foster care system. Once in this system, it becomes almost impossible for the parents to get them back because of language difficulties, legal status, resources, and understanding how to negotiate the complex system.
In an effort to provide a better life, these parents lose the most important and precious thing in the world to them and all because they wanted to a life free from destitution and poverty. We've come a long way from Emma Lazarus' "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…" written in 1883.
Knowing that this is the immigration policy that the U.S. is enforcing, there are those who may not comprehend how parents could take such a high risk to lose their children by working here without the proper documentation.
Well, imagine you live in a community that has suffered tremendous financial hardships, particularly since the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which has obliterated the local corn market because it couldn't compete against the government subsidized corn imports from the U.S. Your main source of income is gone. Your children wear clothes made out of old flour sacks, they don't have shoes on their feet, they don't go to school, and they rarely eat meat. You've started giving your six-year old coffee to fill him up. They cry from hunger and when they get sick there is nothing you can do. The only answer seems to be to work in the U.S. Your options are to either leave your young children behind knowing full well that by the time you return they will not even remember who you are, or you to take them with you. You don't fully understanding that if you get deported, the cost is that you might lose them forever.
If we put ourselves in this position, not many of us could sit back and watch our children suffer hunger and destitution without doing something, anything to ease their suffering and improve their lives. This is why so many parents risk everything, leave everything, and come to work in the US.
When did separating very young children from their parents because of deportation policies become American values? Most people cannot imagine the destructive long-term consequences these policies are having on immigrant families—for years. It should take far more severe than trying to earn a living even while working without the proper documentation to justify the government separating parents from their young children. The act of dividing families, particularly families of color, reveals a dark side of America—one we have seen before with black slave children removed from parents and sold off like if they weren't even humans and with Indian children who were removed from their homes and placed in boarding schools to teach them how to be white people. Americans justified these atrocious acts in the past and we are doing it again. Will people of color, especially the poor and the most vulnerable, ever be seen and treated as human beings in this country by most people? If they were surely these policies would not be sustainable.
Something must be done that both (1) keeps the children with their parents, and (2) ensures the children's rights as U.S. citizens in the future should they be deported with their parents. Immigration laws must be changed in ways outlined by Michele Wucker, a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute at the New School in New York City, who states, "The population of immigrants who are in this country without legal papers did not grow to more than 10 million people without America's full participation in the legal charade."
Until the Obama administration or the Congress have the guts to fix our immigration system, the most compassionate means of enforcement need to be found. And it cannot and should not involve the kinds of family tragedies that take children away from their parents.
Double Cross in LaCrosse: More Discrimination against the Original Americans
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The Creator's Game, that is what lacrosse is called by the Iroquois and Huron peoples who began playing it around a thousand years ago. The game was played in lieu of war, for healing, and to train Iroquois youth in survival skills. Perhaps most importantly, it is played to honor the health and joy the Creator has made possible for the people. Today, according to Sports Illustrated it is the fastest growing sport in the United States at all levels of competition. Its current name, given to it by French explorers who watched the nations play, is lacrosse.
The world championships in the sport were held in Britain this week with 30 nations competing. The Iroquois team, though ranked 4th in the world, was not there to compete since the governments of the United States and Great Britain denied them travel visas. It seems that their identification and passports from the sovereign nation of the Iroquois Confederacy were not sufficient proof that they would not engage in terrorist activities. The U.S. Secretary of State's office held the requests up for 12 days, relenting with less than 48 hours left to depart. A onetime waiver granted to a nation that is constitutionally recognized as sovereign? After the U.S. relented, the British denied the visas on their end. The Iroquois teams have been traveling to tournaments on sovereign Iroquois visas for more than 25 years.
In 2007 the United Nations passed the long awaited Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which Britain voted for and the U.S. Secretary of State has issued a year-long series of forums to consider finally supporting. This resolution purported to recognize the rights of indigenous peoples to their existence as sovereign entities with rights to their identity as peoples. Yet in an international sporting event, the indigenous peoples who invented the game are denied the right to participate because their identity is in question. The U.S. and Britain suggested that the players simply get U.S. or Canadian passports. In order to play the game they originated, they were asked to give up their identity as Iroquois. This was a price too large for the players. It was regarded as a simple request by the State Department. Simply deny who you are and we will let you play. That has been the message from the U.S. government since its inception, to all people of color.
In a previous blog post on this site, I discussed the skepticism in Indian Country about promises from the government which never seem to yield actual results. The Secretary of State studies indigenous rights and denies passports. The Administration promises swift settlement of Cobell and it still languishes awaiting payment at a bargain rate. Leonard Peltier was denied parole last summer. The current administration has issued many press releases promising a new era in relations with Native Americans. So far, it is business as usual: make promises, get support from Native peoples, stall on delivering promises, change the rules that govern the promises and finally ignore the promises.
And, the original players of the Creator's Game are playing it at home in Indian Country, where it has been played for a thousand years.
Shirley Sherrod: On the Vilification of Black Women (Updated)
Posted by: | CommentsThe intense political firestorm around Shirley Sherrod, the former USDA worker, has once again put racism at the center of many of the mainstream news shows. Few have done a better job in talking about this than political commentator and Princeton University professor of political science, Melissa Harris Lacewell. Appearing on MSNBC's Countdown, she notes that the Sherrod case highlights the way that black women have been vilified in American politics (5:00):
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In this short clip, Harris Lacewell points out that the vilification of black women has been a feature of both the left and the right, both Republicans and Democrats (Bill Clinton, Sister Soulja, anyone?) in this country. My favorite part of her comments come toward the end when she likens the attacks on Sherrod to that film of a few years ago, "Crash." Here's the transcript of this part of her interview:
It reminds me very much of the Academy-award-winning of 2004, "Crash." I heard this story breaking, and I thought, this sounds like that film to me. If you remember that film, the first act of really horrifying racism occurs when the white police officer puts his hand up an African American woman's dress, a sexual assault on her. But – in a scene right after that – we see a black woman bureaucrat refusing government services to this police officer's aging father. The idea in that film, that the movie made …and we embraced it as a country and felt good about awarding the Oscar … is that the police officer and the low-level bureaucrat are the same, all prejudice is equal, this is the thing the NAACP is moved to do, it's to explain that it is structural racism matters, not just momentary lapses of prejudice. Even if that tape had been true, it would not have been the equivalency of Jim Crow, to slavery, to institutional racism.
While many of the mainstream news outlets will blame this on Fox News, or a conservative blogger, or the White House's "race to judgment," the fact is that the vilification of Shirley Sherrod is indicative of a larger pattern of systemic racism in the U.S., and the particular way that black women get vilified in this culture.
UPDATED: For further context on the real racism happening at the USDA, check this link about the systematic pattern of racism at the agency, whose own Commission on Small Farms admitted in 1998 that "the history of discrimination at the U.S. Department of Agriculture … is well-documented" — not against white farmers, but African-American, Native American and other minorities who were pushed off their land by decades of racially-biased laws and practices.
Arizona Native Americans Oppose New Nativist Law
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I'll bet Arizona's mostly white nativists, including right-wing Republicans, did not see this one coming. Native American groups in Arizona have made it clear they will not enforce the new Arizona anti-immigrants law. An Arizona Capitol Times report by Evan Wyloge states:
Native American tribes are charging that the law was written without considering their unique circumstance and that it will violate their sovereignty and their members' civil rights. Despite a request by Gov. Jan Brewer's office to comply with the new law, Native American tribes will continue to oppose it and seek ways to avoid its implementation, said John Lewis, executive director of the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, which represents 20 tribes in the state. [and a fifth of the lands]
One reason is that the new law will
lead to disproportionate stops and detentions for tribal members, violate their sovereignty and negatively impact the tribal economy.
Police officers, especially white officers, are likely to target Native Americans, because they often look Latino. I wonder why that is? Could it be because a majority of Mexicans and Mexican Americans have substantial Native American (indigenous) ancestry?
And that raises another point. Aren't most European Americans in Arizona and elsewhere the descendants of undocumented immigrants who came into a country without the permission (and often against the opposition) of the existing indigenous inhabitants? (We had no general exclusionary immigration laws until 1920-1924, so requiring immigration documents for all is fairly new in this country's history.)
Hmmm. Does that also mean that a majority of current Mexican immigrants have deeper historical and ancestral roots in North America, and in what used to be northern Mexico (e.g., Arizona), than European Americans?
Navajo Nation Councilmember Delegate Kee Allen Begay Jr. has commented on the implications of the law:
"What if we had a law that said whenever a white person is traveling through the Navajo Reservation, we have reasonable suspicion that they're carrying drugs? Where would the outcry on that be? ….We were here before anyone else, before any white people, and now we're going to be questioned about being here legally?"
What if, indeed!