Affirmative Action Law for Universities in Brazil

Activists from Educafro chained themselves to the ministry in Brasilia

Dilma Rousseff, president of Brazil, signed the law that will guarantee 50% of all places in public universities to students from public schools, thus making access to the best universities easier for students with a poverty background. The law also states that university students with African or indigenous roots should get preferential access to public universities.

Notting Hill Carnival 2012

The streets of West London come alive every August Bank Holiday weekend as London celebrates Europe's biggest street festival – the Notting Hill Carnival. This year the Carnival Bands will start at 9am on Sunday 26th August (Children's Day) and at the same time on Monday 27th of August.

What it's like to be an African American in Amsterdam

In an interesting story on BET Black American Dana Saxon talks about the city she now loves and about the Dutch attitude towards race and Black Pete.

“Although Saxon says she will forever have love for Amsterdam, her idyllic dream life abroad has not come without some hiccups. Issues of race, she says, have consumed much of her time in the country, and although she is a self-proclaimed “race-obsessed” person, the Dutch don’t seem to make it any easier for Dana to let down her guard.”

Nigerian Student Jailed After Self-Defence Against Racist Attack

According to African Outlook, Olaolu Sunkanmi Femi (aka) Olasunkanmi, a Nigerian student living in Ukraine, got arrested for allegedly defending himself against six teenagers who attacked him. He is facing life imprisonment.

African Outlook states that he defended himself against his assailants with a broken bottle in front of his apartment block on November 5, 2011 in Luhanski, Ukraine.
Witnesses told African Outlook that one of his friends was physically attacked in front of his apartment by four Ukrainian young men and two women while hurling racist slurs on them.

Book: Black France / France Noire: The History and Politics of Blackness

In Black France / France Noire, scholars, activists, and novelists from France and the United States address the untenable paradox at the heart of French society. France's constitutional and legal discourses do not recognize race as a meaningful category. Yet the lived realities of race and racism are ever-present in the nation's supposedly race-blind society.

The vaunted universalist principles of the French Republic are far from realized. Any claim of color-blindness is belied by experiences of anti-black racism, which render blackness a real and consequential historical, social, and political formation. Contributors to this collection of essays demonstrate that blackness in France is less an identity than a response to and rejection of anti-black racism. Black France / France Noire is a distinctive and important contribution to the increasingly public debates on diversity, race, racialization, and multicultural intolerance in French society and beyond.

London Olympics 2012: Let the Games begin!

Check out this great video of the countdown of the London Olympics. Four-time gold medallist Michael Johnson takes us through 26-minutes of London's road to staging the greatest sporting show on the planet. Including exclusive interviews with Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps, David Beckham, Jessica Ennis, Vivian Cheruiyot, Danny Boyle, Seb Coe and others.

DON'T MENTION SKIN COLOUR (from Intelligent Life)

While visiting a friend I came across this article from The Economist's bi-monthly issue of Intelligent Life (May/June).

I wanted to share this article with all of you and therefore post it here, although already some months old still relevant.

Find the original article by Patrick Barkley here.

It's been the most exciting English Premiership season for years, but the game has been marred by two racial incidents. Patrick Barclay shows how football can move on...

Dutch desiger Marga Weimans debuted at the Amsterdam fashion week with mobile technology

During the opening night of Amsterdam Fashion Week, Dutch Fashion Designer
Marga Weimans, who is of Surinamese descent, added as first designer mobile technology to her work. The last dress from the couture show consisted of 300 mobile phones, who were called by the public, making the dress come to life.

London Olympics: Selective breeding by slave owners created superior black American and Caribbean sprinters?

Photo:Yohan Blake

In an interview with the Daily Mail, Olympic legend Michael Johnson says a ‘superior athletic gene’ in the descendants of West African slaves means black American and Caribbean sprinters will command the sport at the London Games.

Video: Harry Belafonte: "Faced with Oppression, I Had to Act" + Film in UK

Film of singer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte "Sing Your Song" is in UK cinemas now.

To promote the film he was interviewed by Sarfraz Manzoor of the Guardian. In the interview he talks about his life and work in music, cinema and fighting for social equality - as chronicled in a new memoir.

Save Timbuktu!

30 June 2012: UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova expressed her distress and dismay over the destruction of three sacred tombs that are part of a World Heritage site in Timbuktu, Mali. Ms Bokova called on the belligerents to cease the destruction immediately.

In 2008 Europe's minorities saw Obama's election as example. Any progress in 2012?

In 2008 Europe debated over whether is was possible that a Black person could also be a President, or a Prime minister in a European country. But the deep economic crisis, the turmoil in the Arab world and the London riots seem to have overshadowed the debate. In the video (2008) the possibility of a Black Obama is discussed.

Carnaval Tropical de Paris 2012 - Saterday 7 July

Photo by anw.fr

Every July, Paris Tropical Carnival winds its way through the city streets. The event, which comes just after World Music Day, brings the vibrancy and passion of the Caribbean to the French capital on July 7th.