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Race issues are as American as apple pie. Here's the latest.
- Today is the 20th anniversary of a rookie police officer shooting a Salvadorean-American man in Washington, D.C. Police say that the victim lunged at the officer with a knife. Witnesses disputed this account, with some saying he was shot while handcuffed. The shooting set off days of riots and looting in the area, vividly displayed in the video above. The National Museum of American History is holding a diverse panel on the riots and their causes this Sunday, May 8.
- Ezra Klein noted a recent political science paper titled, "Do Politicians Racially Discriminate against Constituents?" [PDF] The answer: uh huh.
- "Geronimo" was the moniker given to an Apache warrior who fought to resist Mexican and U.S. encroachment into Apache lands in the mid-1800s. It's also the code name Navy SEALs used to identify Osama bin Laden. A hearing this afternoon before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee promises to feature debate over the code name. "To equate Geronimo or any other Native American figure with Osama bin Laden, a mass murderer and cowardly terrorist, is painful and offensive to our Tribe and to all Native Americans," Jeff Houser, chairman of Geronimo's Fort Still Apache Tribe, wrote in a letter to President Barack Obama.
