On Thursday Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley said he was sending the state legislature back to work on scaling back the harsh provisions in HB 658, an anti-immigration bill lawmakers passed the previous today. This afternoon, Bentley reversed his decision, and signed HB 658 into law.

"I still have concerns about the school provision in the original law," Governor Bentley said in a statement. "That provision is currently enjoined by a federal court, so it is not currently in effect, and we can re-address this issue if the need arises."

Bentley said he also disagreed with a provision that immigrant rights activists have coined the "scarlet letter provision," which calls for the state to create an online publicly searchable database of every undocumented immigrant who appears in Alabama state court for any reason. HB 658 was intended to be an attempt to address the fallout of HB 56, the anti-immigrant law modeled after Arizona' SB 1070, which allows police officers to question and detain anyone who they merely suspect may be undocumented. Yet the revision bill keeps unchanged many of the harshest provisions of the original.

Ultimately, Bentley said he signed the bill because after another hectic day of back and forth on the bill, it was clear the legislature "did not have the appetite for addressing further revisions at this time."

"The bottom line is there are too many positive aspects of House Bill 658 for it to go unsigned. I don't want to lose the progress we have made," Governor Bentley said.

Alabama's HB 56 was already the harshest state immigration law in the nation. But in the waning hours of the state's 2012 legislative session and above the din of protestors' interruptions the state passed a revision to HB 56 on Wednesday which took new steps toward making life for the state's immigrants even more difficult. HB 658, the revision bill, is now on its way to Gov. Robert Bentley's desk.

HB 658 preserved many of the most heinous provisions of HB 56, including provisions modeled on Arizona's SB 1070 which are held up right now in a Supreme Court challenge. Despite months of attempts and near daily rewrites to the bill in an effort to refine the language of HB 56, the new law left intact provisions that compel law enforcement officers to question anyone who appears to be undocumented. The state also left intact the provision that bars undocumented students from any public institution of higher education in Alabama, and mandates that K-12 schools gather data about the immigration statuses of students and their parents. A provision which requires private employers to adopt E-Verify, a worker verification database that's ostensibly designed to crack down on bosses who hire undocumented workers, was unchanged.

On Wednesday, lawmakers also passed a bracing new provision which calls for the state to create a public, searchable database which includes the name and personal information of any undocumented immigrant who appears in Alabama state court for any reason. Immigrant rights advocates have taken to calling it the "scarlet letter" provision because it would unfairly brand immigrants.

In other instances, provisions like one that makes it illegal for undocumented immigrants to rent property, were modified, but only in ways that serve to strengthen the rest of the law as a whole.

"Our worst fears were confirmed today," said Luis Robledo, an organizer with the Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama, who spoke with Colorlines just after the Senate vote. "It's just a monster. [Lawmakers] doubled down and made it worse for the community."

The scarlet letter provision in particular encapsulates the driving ethos of the rest of HB 56, say experts. "I can't figure out a legitimate public interest that it serves," said Justin Cox, a staff attorney with the ACLU's Immigrant Rights Project who was in the statehouse observing proceedings on Wednesday. "I don't understand what they hope to achieve with it other than making people so uncomfortable in their homes than they have to move." That impulse has a name: lawmakers and immigration restrictionists call it "enforcement through attrition," whereby a state makes conditions so harsh and unlivable for immigrants that they leave the state on their own, or as some refer to it, "self-deport."

"I really believe this came from the determination of some members of the leadership of the legislature to make HB 56 even more discriminatory and even more cruel," said Olivia Turner, the executive director of the ACLU of Alabama.

According to many watchers, it wasn't supposed to happen this way. Prior to the legislative session and facing national outrage and fallout over HB 56 last year, Gov. Bentley and even other Republican politicians acknowledged that HB 56's "unintended consequences" needed to be addressed. HB 56 reminded other Republican lawmakers too much of Alabama's sordid civil rights history, they said. But when it came down to the wire, Sen. Scott Beason, who authored the original HB 56, was able to command enough support to back his plan.

The days leading up to Wednesday's vote were a flurry of activity and backroom deals, say advocates. The version of the update that the Senate voted on yesterday had only been sent out the previous day, Turner said. "They are just shoehorning this bills in, and there's been no due deliberation or even time for a proper reading and comprehension of these bills."

Indeed, just before the Senate moved to a cloture vote on Wednesday, Senate Democrats asked that the bill be read out once in full. It passed, 20-7. The House concurred hours later.

Police arrested protestors from a group called Alabama's Conscience who blocked the hallways leading to Senate and House chambers in an attempt to delay the vote. After the Senate vote, protestors sang and chanted in the hallways, their hymns and shouts filling the building for hours.

"Legislators are not listening to their own constituents," said Victor Palafox, an immigrant rights activist. "They've been ignoring every person coming through this statehouse showing their opposition to the law."

"If they're not going to listen to prayer, to chants, to rallies, then they're going to listen to us as we break and defy an unjust law."

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Gov. Bentley had vetoed the bill; he has not done so and so far not taken any action on it.

Donna Summer, the Queen of Disco and five-time Grammy winner died Thursday at the age of 63. She left behind a trove of songs and performances. Her distinctive voice and disco beats made her a legendary pop culture and musical force.

Here now, a collection of Summer's live performances of staff favorites. These are the songs whose 8-tracks, records, CDs and mp3s we Colorlines.com staffers remember turning up so we could dance with our families and friends. Thanks, Donna Summer, for giving us the soundtrack to our many nights cutting up the rug in the club or on the living room floor.

After years of discussion, the Department of Justice announced new federal rules to address high rates of sexual assault on rape in prison. The regulations apply to inmates in federal, state and local prisons and jails, and primarily concern prevention tactics, better reporting tactics and getting prisons to change their institutional culture.

They're also binding rules; prisons that violate them stand to lose five percent of their federal funding, the New York Times reports. The regulations are the first of their kind, and come after Congress passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act back in 2003.

"In popular culture prison rape is often the subject of jokes; in public discourse, it has been at times dismissed by some as an inevitable -- or even deserved -- consequence of criminality," the Department of Justice's summary of the rules, released Thursday, read. "But sexual abuse is never a laughing matter, nor is it punishment for a crime. Rather, it is a crime, and it is no more tolerable when its victims have committed crimes of their own."

Sexual assault in prisons remains an all too common and frequently ignored issue; nearly one in ten inmates reports having been the victim of rape of sexual assault in prison according to a new Bureau of Justice Statistics report (PDF), and the rates are higher for LGBT respondents. Nearly 40 percent of gay males report being targeted with sexual assault by fellow inmates.

The California Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to consider whether an undocumented Mexican immigrant who attended law school and passed the State Bar can practice law

The Silicon Valley's Mercury with more details:

In their weekly closed-door conference, the justices unanimously decided to consider the case of Sergio Garcia, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who graduated from Chico State University, a Florida law school and passed the State Bar exam in July 2009 but has been stalled in his bid to secure his California law license.

A State Bar committee concluded that Garcia should be admitted to practice law in California, but the issue is up to the state Supreme Court. The justices indicated they must explore a host of legal issues to resolve the question. They asked for legal arguments from a range of groups, including California Attorney General Kamala Harris and the U.S. government.

Garcia was born in Mexico and brought to the United States by his parents when he was 17 months old, according to the Daily Journal, a legal newspaper.

"This is a guy who has been waiting 18 years for a green card, got through undergrad and law school and paid his own way, the kind of person we want as a citizen and as a lawyer," Jerome Fishkin, Garcia's attorney in the admissions case, told the SF Chronicle on Thursday.

The Supreme Court in Florida and New York are also reviewing similar cases.

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Well, if you're white.

Though he's taken his share of criticism for wearing his iconic hoodie in the lead up to Facebook's monumental IPO, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg didn't hesitate to once again break out his favorite clothing item to announce his company's foray onto Wall Street.

No word yet from Geraldo Rivera. But warning to steer clear of hoodies only applies to men of color.

Kelley Williams-Bolar is giving a speech in the dark. The Ohio mom is rattling off the standard remarks she's delivered in public appearances since being catapulted onto the national stage last year. It's an unseasonably warm day and the lights in the room are off, her face lit only by the glow of the computer screen in her father's home. The address on the door outside is the one she used on her now-famous falsified documents--the ones that landed her in jail for nine days for illegally enrolling her daughters in a neighboring public school district.

"First, I talk about how I received my indictments, and then I give the laundry list of stipulations for my probation," says Williams-Bolar, who is halfway through her two-year sentence. The 42-year-old single mother, with an otherwise spotless criminal record, is not allowed to drink, must submit to drug tests and reports monthly to a probation officer. She had to perform 80 hours of community service and pay $800 in restitution, as well as the cost of Summit County's prosecution against her.

"I had to do a DNA test and swab my cheek like I was a bank robber," Williams-Bolar says. She reaches for the letter outlining the terms of her probation. "I start with this everywhere I go, because I don't ever want this to happen to another parent."

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As she moves into the rest of her speech, her voice, already warm and friendly, slows into a smooth, practiced delivery. Her remarks are broad but forceful. She calls for an end to educational inequality and the policies that landed her in jail. She wants more choices for parents whose kids are stuck in under-performing or unsafe schools. In February, she announced the formation of the Ohio Parents Union, part of a growing national network dedicated to giving parents exactly that kind of power. In the past year, Kelley Williams-Bolar has morphed from a desperate mom to an impassioned activist at the center of one of the nation's most talked about shifts in education reform: the rapidly expanding role of parents in shaping dramatic overhauls of public schools.

Parents are no longer running just the bake sales and attending PTA meetings. All over the country, parents are joining--or being organized by--a movement that aims to spur more competition between schools and, ostensibly, better academic results for kids. Williams-Bolar, radicalized by her brush with the law, has joined the fray.

But as a mother, public school staffer, and now an activist, Williams-Bolar's ordeal is also a bracing case study of a system that treats high-quality education as a commodity to be earned and parceled out, instead of the public good it's commonly thought to be. In an era when more and more struggling school districts are turning to the private sector to solve their problems, the question everyone is grappling with now is basic: Can free market principles save public schools?

Tale of Two School Districts

Before her name became a fixture in the local newspaper, and before some activists declared her the "Rosa Parks of education," Kelley Williams-Bolar was a regular parent trying to look out for her daughters.

"I was just a mom," Williams-Bolar insists.

She works as a classroom aide for students with special needs in Akron Public Schools, and has been employed by the district on and off in some capacity since 1992. "From Asperger's to Downs to autism, we deal with it all," she says. She says that helping students with disabilities comes easy to her in part because her mom did similar work, and it seems true. She still spots students past and present in her neighborhood and tracks their progress. In the parking lot of an Applebee's, she stops a former student and they exchange warm hellos. "He's done well for himself, he's in college now," she says. She talks about their educational challenges and the progress that they worked to overcome. She rattles off their siblings' names. It's work she plainly enjoys.

Williams-Bolar did this work part-time for years, because she was married and in school herself part-time. But after getting divorced and moving into a home with the help of Akron's public housing authority, she had to begin looking for full-time work to support her daughters. That changed things in her life; suddenly, she wasn't around as often to mind her daughters, Kayla, then 13, and Jada, then 9.

It wasn't until someone broke into their home in 2006 that Williams-Bolar started considering other school options. No one was home when it happened, but it left her rattled. "I worried about their safety. I've got two girls and they're growing up. I couldn't have them walking home alone from school," Williams-Bolar said, careful not to indict Akron Public Schools, her employer. "I had taken care of my father, and he has taken care of me. I knew that he would be home to look after the girls."

Williams-Bolar insists she was motivated primarily by these safety concerns when she took her kids out of Akron schools, not by the district's poor academic performance. But the difference between its record and that of the Copley-Fairlawn School District, where her father's house is located, is stark.

For the 2010-2011 year, Akron Public Schools met state-prescribed performance goals on just five of 26 categories of performance--such as high school graduation rates and standardized testing scores for reading and math--while Copley-Fairlawn School District met all 26 of its state benchmarks. That same academic year, Akron Public Schools failed to meet its yearly goals for test score improvement, which are set by the federal No Child Left Behind law. It was the seventh consecutive year that the district failed.

In the fall of 2006, Williams-Bolar enrolled Kayla and Jada in Copley-Fairlawn, using her father's address. The district's enrollment forms are extensive. It does not have open enrollment; to go to school there a student must either reside within its borders or pay a $9,000 annual tuition. Williams-Bolar, who last year made $28,000, couldn't afford that kind of fee. So she listed her father's address on the forms. When it came time to renew her driver's license, she put down her father's address as her primary one. Eventually, she also listed her father's address with her credit union and with her employer. Her daughters were enrolled in the district for two school years, from 2006 through 2008.

By the time Williams-Bolar was indicted for this act, and later sentenced to 10 days in jail, her mug shot had been splashed across TV stations and newspapers for months. Her name would stay in the media for many weeks more as the nation erupted in shock over her case.

Williams-Bolar became a lightning rod for education reformers of all stripes. Petitions were set up by online organizing groups like Moms Rising and Color of Change, and together with one organized by a Massachusetts woman named Caitlin Lord garnered 180,000 signatures calling for Gov. John Kasich to pardon Williams-Bolar. The Taiwanese tabloid news animation group Next Media Animation even documented her story in one of their popular videos--something that Williams-Bolar is bemused by to this day. After being released from jail, she flew out to Los Angeles for a brutal taping of the Dr. Phil Show.

Williams-Bolar recounts all of this while sitting on the front stoop of her home more than a year later. Her life as a parent, and now an activist, is a far cry from the loud headlines her prosecution attracted. As she talks, she's interrupted by a neighbor who's amusing his toddler son by rolling his pickup truck in reverse, then neutral, then reverse, then neutral and back again. Together, they roll up and down the driveway, to the boy's unending delight. Williams-Bolar and the father chat a bit, and the child's silly, drooling grin is too precious to turn away from.

These days, say "Kelley Williams-Bolar" in Ohio and she represents a whole lot more than this affable neighbor. Most folks know who she is and at least a bit about her case, more if they have strong opinions about what she did for her daughters. Since being released from jail, she's tried to keep to herself. She says that her political activism has made her unpopular on her job, at Buchtel High School. Still, she moves with ease throughout her community. She is at home in Akron, but fighting to move past the memories of her case.

Williams-Bolar's attempt to ease her family from Akron to Copley came at precisely the wrong time. Copley-Fairlawn had been waging an aggressive war against parents who committed this kind of school residency fraud. The state consistently rates the district as "excellent," which is the second-highest evaluation among six possible ratings. That makes it a popular magnet for parents all over the county. To its administrators and many of its parents, people like Williams-Bolar are thieves, literally stealing their "excellent" schools.

Copley-Fairlawn deployed a range of tactics to root out illegal enrollments. Among other things, the district hired private investigators to track parents, which is a common move for school districts taking a hard line on enrollment. In San Francisco, administrators did a similar thing, and forced offending parents to pay the cost of the investigation. In Washington D.C., City Council Chairman Kwame Brown introduced a bill last year that would set up a hotline for parents to report commuters who drive in from out of state and drop their kids off at D.C. schools.

School residency fraud is common, but criminal prosecutions are rare. Still, when they happen, they tend to happen to people like Williams-Bolar. Last year Tanya McDowell, a Connecticut parent who also happened to be a poor black mom, was convicted of larceny for literally stealing her son's education when she enrolled him in a neighboring school district. "I just want to know: When does it become a crime to seek a better education for your child?" McDowell asked at the time, the Norwalk Patch reported.

School districts have answered by repeating a similar line: their coffers are only so deep, and because so much of public school funding comes from local property taxes, educating out-of-district students is an unfair burden for actual residents.

In 2008, Copley-Fairlawn stepped up its campaign by announcing a $100 bounty to anyone who turned in another family. Williams-Bolar remembers receiving a postcard in the mail announcing the reward to families throughout the district. "I guess it's not just me, then," Williams-Bolar recalls feeling. Plus, she was already deeply immersed in a process to make her daughters' enrollment legal.

But by the time the postcard arrived, the district had been investigating Williams-Bolar for some time. A private investigator assigned to tail her kept watch outside her Akron home for months, documenting her family's nights spent away from their father's Copley address.

A Marketplace of Reforms

This past March Williams-Bolar packed her probation letter and headed off to speak at a Connecticut school reform rally. It was to be her most high-profile event as a newly minted education reform activist. The event was aimed at parents advocating Gov. Daniel Malloy's reform agenda, which is rooted in a school choice model that deregulates public education, and it had drawn education reform celebrities. Michelle Rhee, the former Washington, D.C., schools chancellor who found national fame by carrying the mantle of aggressive school reform, was there. Gwen Samuel, founder of the Connecticut Parents Union, helped organize it.

Williams-Bolar remembers the rally only in hazy, nervous moments. "I had to talk to myself onstage. I said, 'Look. You're here for a reason. Get yourself over to the mic and say what you came to say.' " The Hartford Courant reported that around 75 people were in the crowd that day. "People told me afterward that I brought people to tears, and I was like, 'Did I?' I don't even remember seeing anyone in the crowd."

But not everyone has been moved to tears by the controversial Parent Union movement to which Willams-Bolar has lent her story and energy. She says one of her first and most surprising realizations as a new activist has been just how polarized the school reform debate is. "You think everything is for a common cause, but it's not. I was naïve about the conversation," she says.

The day the announcement of her new Ohio Parents' Union hit the local news was a hard one, she says. "The very next day at work, staff didn't talk to me," she recalled. "After the Parent Union was announced it didn't take a lot to realize some of them were opposing it."

The suite of school reform policies that dominate the mainstream discourse today, from school choice schemes and charter school expansion to teacher evaluation overhauls and the weakening of collective bargaining agreements, are fundamentally grounded in principles of market-based competition. Schools are products, teachers are laborers and students and parents are consumers.

In the case of vouchers, if parents are unhappy with the quality of the education at a school, they can pick up capital via their taxpayer dollars and move to an approved private school. In Ohio, that amounts to $4,250 annually for students from kindergarten to the eighth grade, and $5,000 per year for high school students who take part in the state's EdChoice program. Ohio's voucher system caps participation in the program at 60,000 students, but voucher advocates in the state point out that the program is at capacity. Parents are demanding still more options for their children.

Akron Public Schools received a "continuous improvement" designation in the Ohio state evaluations--the third from worst of six possible designations. As a result, it has been losing both students and the state money that comes with them to the voucher program. Just under 700 of the district's 23,000 students took part in the voucher program this year, and the district is set to forfeit $2.7 million in state aid this year alone--money that instead has gone to private schools."*

Some schools in the district are waging an aggressive marketing campaign to hold onto, or win back, families in the neighborhood. In the beginning of the year, Akron Public Schools sent out a 12-page brochure to parents who had removed their children to advertise the district's offerings, including open enrollment, which makes the district open to even students who don't live within its borders, and vocational programs and stable schools. Sending out the mailer, the Akron Beacon Journal reported, cost $6,000.

Williams-Bolar says she saw the symptoms of all this in staff meetings in Buchtel Public Schools, where administrators worried about the hemorrhaging of students encouraged staffers to think of the school as a business and to treat parents and students with outstanding customer service.

"I never thought of it that way," Williams-Bolar says, remembering sitting in a staff meeting perplexed at the idea. The thing is, Kelley Williams-Bolar, who went to ridiculous lengths to be an informed and aggressive education consumer, could well be the poster child for the problems with the paradigm.

The worry of many is that voucher programs and school choice schemes amount to the privatization of public schools. Public tax dollars are being siphoned away from institutions that have historically been considered a public good, and not a commodity. And, critics argue, even the most comprehensive research on vouchers and school choice schemes show that they don't lead to any meaningful gains in test scores.

Yet to parents fed up with the slow-moving bureaucracy of public schools, school choice schemes have an important narrative appeal. That fact is not lost on choice advocates, who have seized on parents as the new vanguard for pushing school choice, voucher and overhaul plans. The meme of parental empowerment has become a rallying cry, and wedge; who could be opposed to parental empowerment? But the role that some reformers imagine parents filling is narrowly defined, as are the intended reforms.

Privatization and competition in and of itself is not a problem, argues Jeffrey Henig, a professor of political science and education at Columbia University. Outsourcing work that is "harnessed to public objectives" can often help public entities meet people's social needs, Henig says, and doesn't always come at the expense of the public good. But systemic privatization can lead to the long-term weakening of democracy when private entities operate without full transparency and outside of the full visibility of the public.

"Part of the problem is the simple notion of informed consumers as distinct from informed citizens," Henig said. "Both the government and private actors can impinge upon your sense of being able to control your life--most people need to be able to act in both realms, both as consumers and as citizens who act to exercise their rights within democratic institutions, to either create better schools or to more closely regulate private providers."

Williams-Bolar readily acknowledges that much of this hostile, increasingly arcane debate is new to her. "It's a bad issue. I wouldn't know how to even begin to solve it," she said one afternoon over iced tea. "But I do know we've got to stop blaming and get the ball rolling."

She knows as well that notions of democracy can be abstract ideas to parents who are fed up with their district schools. After pulling her daughters out of Copley schools, during her prosecution, Williams-Bolar enrolled her older daughter Kayla in a public high school and her younger daughter Jada in a private middle school, with the help of Ohio's EdChoice program. She's happy with the private school, and doesn't like the idea that any entity would limit her options.

"Akron Public Schools wants to keep us all here so we can suffer while they get it right," she said. "My daughters don't have a second chance at their education."

Winners and Losers

On Oct. 26, 2007, Williams-Bolar was called into a residency hearing with Copley-Fairlawn district staffers, who presented her with their evidence that she'd been stealing her daughters' public education. They offered her a set of options, each of which included significant costs. The one that seemed most feasible was for Williams-Bolar's father, Edward, to claim a Grandparent Power of Attorney, which is a legal designation that would name him as the girls' guardian for the purposes of their education. A week after the hearing, Williams-Bolar filed for the change in Ohio Juvenile Court. Soon thereafter, she started receiving invoices from Copley-Fairlawn, billing the family $850 a month each for Kayla and Jada. The family refused to pay these bills.

The Grandparent Power of Attorney was eventually denied in June of 2008, because Williams-Bolar's ex-husband didn't sign off on the agreement, according to her lawyer. Life can be messy that way. The district also opposed the filing. Still, she was confident she'd attempted to handle the situation in a legal manner. The official denial came just weeks before the school year ended, and she didn't enroll her daughters back in Copley-Fairlawn schools the following year.

Nonetheless, in October 2009, Williams-Bolar and her father were indicted for falsifying records.

"Kelley's point was she thought she was trying to get the Grandparent Power of Attorney," says her attorney David Singleton. "She didn't think she should pay tuition, which she couldn't afford anyway. She's not a wealthy person, which is beside the point."

Between 2005 and 2011, Copley-Fairlawn schools discovered 48 cases of school residency fraud; Williams-Bolar's was the only case that ever ended up in court. "Every family except Ms. Williams-Bolar agreed to either pay the non-resident tuition rate, move into the district or remove their children from the school," Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh said in a statement to Colorlines.com.

"Ms. Williams-Bolar repeatedly refused to cooperate for many months, thus her case was turned over to my office for prosecution," Walsh continued, underlining that falsifying information on government documents amounts to a felony offense. Walsh said she was compelled by the evidence. "Ms. Williams-Bolar refused the options presented to her that would have prevented felony charges."

The Copley-Fairlawn School District insists that its hands were tied as well. In an interview with Colorlines, Superintendent Brian Poe said the district went to great lengths to resolve the issue without legal action, but was forced to hand over evidence to Walsh's office.

Pinning down exactly who controlled the levers in Williams-Bolar's case is difficult, as everyone seemed interested in making her a household name. After the presiding judge Patricia Cosgrove handed down her sentence, she said she hoped Williams-Bolar's case would serve as an example to others. "I felt some punishment or deterrent was needed for other individuals who might think to defraud the various school districts," Cosgrove told ABC.

Cosgrove spoke an uneasy truth: prosecuting Kelley Williams-Bolar seemed like an easy way to warn off others. But not every family is as vulnerable as moms like Williams-Bolar and Tanya McDowell.

Take the case of Mark Ebner, a Columbus, Ohio, parent who illegally enrolled his children in a neighboring suburban school district. Williams-Bolar's attorney, Singleton, considers the case illustrative. The Ebner family's primary residence was a $1 million property just outside the suburban district's borders. When Ebner found out that private investigators were tailing him, the Columbus Dispatch reported, he arranged for a house swap with relatives inside the district--and then sued the district for spying on him. The same year that Williams-Bolar and her daughters were swallowed up by her court case, the Ebners were handily defeating the rules.

The point, Singleton said, is that school residency fraud--far from being limited to poor black parents--is an activity that parents of all classes engage in. But those with the financial means and social capital to finagle their way out of sticky situations escape the punishments and public shaming Williams-Bolar faced. Like in any marketplace, the more capital you have, the better you'll fare.

Williams-Bolar doesn't deny that she falsified the documents, and accepts full responsibility for what she did, but is also still confounded by the whole thing.

"They always treated [my family's homes] as his house or my house, his house or my house," Williams-Bolar said. "This is a family house. I help my father pay the bills, I help mow the lawn, I cook and clean for him. The girls have their own room here, I have my own room here."

In the economy of public education, though, it's less about squishy ideas of families and homes and more about concrete goods like houses and addresses.

"We have a community that has made it clear to us that they want to provide an education for students who live within our district boundaries," insists Superintendent Poe. He says that he was particularly disappointed in the way the case was handled by the media. "It was being portrayed as if we didn't care for the children. But we always sit down with families and are very open. We just want families to be forthright."

'I Turn No One Down'

Which is why advocates of parental power and choice all over the country are so compelled by Williams-Bolar's story. "There are hundreds, if not thousands of Kelley Williams-Bolars in Alabama," says Marcus Lundy, who works on workforce development and education reform issues in the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce. "The intent is to try to get her to Birmingham to tell her story because her story is the story of many people who live in one area but are limited by their zip code into poor and underperforming schools."

Lundy wants Williams-Bolar to help advocate for HB 541, a hotly contested bill which would have authorized the creation of 20 charter schools in the state. It passed the Senate, but failed in the House in the waning days of the legislative session.

"If people take inventory of some of the maneuvering that parents have had to do historically to take advantage of the better school systems they would figure that there is no need to hide, to cheat, to lie, to stretch the truth when all they'd have to do is take advantage of parental choice or one educational option of what charter schools would allow," Lundy says. "And everything would be above the board."

Williams-Bolar is ready to lend her time to campaigns like Lundy's--and to any and everything that just may get the "ball rolling," as she put it. "I don't say no to anything," she says. "I turn no one down."

But her activism is something she has to juggle along with other basic struggles to keep her family afloat. Last week, Williams-Bolar's father, who Summit County also prosecuted, passed away in prison from complications related to a stroke he suffered in January. Williams spent much of his jail time hospitalized, and had just a month left in his yearlong prison sentence for unrelated fraud charges that arose during the fight with Copley schools.

In September of last year following an international outcry amplified by multiple groups' online organizing campaigns, Gov. John Kasich, who is a proponent of school choice and voucher schemes, went against the recommendations of the Summit County prosecutors and the Ohio parole board and reduced her convictions from felonies to misdemeanors.

In her father's living room, she keeps her pardon certificate in the center of the mantle. "I consider these my freedom papers," Williams-Bolar said. Prior to his passing away, she planned to move back in with him at his Copley Township home so she could be there to take care of him during his transition. Now with his passing, her plans are up in the air.

She still sees her future as an uncertain, but hopeful swath of new possibility. This month the family will celebrate Kayla's high school graduation. Jada, Williams-Bolar's younger daughter, is headed to a private high school next year and will qualify for tuition help from Ohio's voucher program. Williams-Bolar spent months preparing an application to the exclusive Catholic all-girls' school in Akron, and when the acceptance letter arrived she was decidedly happier than her daughter, who wanted to go to a co-ed high school. The tony girls school is tucked away on a verdant campus, and is a top-performing school. 

"I told her even one year here will help set you up for good things to come down the line," Williams-Bolar said. "I told her, 'You'll see.' "

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*A previous version of this story incorrectly included charter school transfers in the EdChoice voucher program. Also, the story has been updated to note that Copley-Fairlawn schools opposed Williams-Bolar's filing to give her father Grandparent Power of Attorney.

By a 5-1 vote on Thursday, the Oregon State Board of Education voted to ban schools from using American Indian mascots, The Oregonian reported. Schools may keep their "Warriors" or "Chiefs" team names, but must replace logos that reference American Indians or American Indian culture.

At least 15 of Oregon's schools will need to update their logos, or risk losing state funding. The vote came after six years of efforts to pass such a policy, and makes it one of the strictest in the country.

"I'm overwhelmed, but I'm holding back on my emotions -- I have a meeting to finish," the board's Chairwoman Brenda Frank, a member of the Klamath Tribes, told the Oregonian. "It's been a long time coming."

Compelling evidence moved the Board of Education to decide the use of Native American logos had to go. The Oregonian reports:

Some board members seemed to sympathize with the communities' concerns, but ultimately found research that Native American-themed mascots could be detrimental to the health and safety of students more compelling.

"There's a collective right that exists here," said board Vice Chairman Artemio Paz. These sorts of mascots produce "racism and unnecessary bullying. We do not allow that to exist for any of our populations."

Another member, Samuel Henry, said he'd read at least 25 studies on the topic while he deliberated. "I could not find any research that substantiated the use of those mascots."

"I understand pride for a team name," he added, but these names are not appropriate.

French director Michelle Gondry premiered his new film "The We and the I" at Cannes Film Festival on Thursday. The film is said to explore the group dynamics of a dozen or so black and Latino teens from the Bronx as they make their way through town on a bus. But if you're familiar with Gondry's work, you know that there is probably a lot more to the story.

Depending on who you ask Gondry is famous for his music videos or his Oscar winning film "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." He's directed a whopping seven music video for the Icelandic artist Bjork and others like the electronic music duo Daft Punk. In 2006, Gondry also directed the documentary "Dave Chappelle's Block Party" which followed comedian Dave Chappelle as he attempted to hold a large, free concert in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn.

Gondry, who now lives in Brooklyn, said after a Cannes press screening that he was inspired to make the film after watching a group of high school students take the Number 80 bus in Paris.

Indiewire's Simon Abrams was present at the film premiere and offers a bit more insight on the film that currently has no release date:

The We and the I's plot largely concerns the roundabout way various disparate high school cliques interact with each other. For example, Michael and Theresa (Michael Brodie and Theresa L. Rivera, two stand-out amateur performers), a pair of estranged ex-lovers, serve as the film's emotional anchors. But Michael's group of bullies also teases the hot girl and her dorky best friend, who in turn razz the arty nerd, whose nose is buried in his sketchpad, who also was picked on earlier by Michael and his friends. The film's plot is an amorphous series of testosterone and estrogen-fueled encounters spurred on by maniacally catty urges that are, thankfully, not all redeemed at the film's eleventh hour.

None of the reviews mention race or the race dynamics of the film and the director is a white male showing an intimate portrait of black and Latino teens in New York City, so there may be more to explore on that end. But as a fan of Gondry's work I'll venture to say he'll probably stay away from stereotypes and instead take the teens on that bus on some bizarre sci-fi journey.

GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney just released his first Spanish general election ad called "Día Uno," which is the exact replica of his English ad except for the Spanish voice and copy on the screen.

That's exactly what Latino marketing experts have been saying not to do for decades: don't just translate, relate!

For the first time ever the majority of babies in the U.S. were born to parents of color. The findings were released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Thursday -- less than 24 hours after Alabama state lawmakers passed a revision to the nation's harshest state immigration law, which was aimed at cracking down on the state's growing immigrant population.

The tipping point came on July 1, 2010 when 50.4 percent of the nation's population younger than the age of one was of color. Of the births that took place between July 2010 and 2011, about 26 percent were Latino, followed by 15 percent black, and 4 percent Asian.

Latinos continue to be the nation's fastest growing group with their population increasing by 3.1 percent since 2010. Latinos made up 16.7 percent of the nation's population in 2011, with Los Angeles having the highest percentage of Latinos of any county.

These are exactly the kinds of large demographic trends that are reshaping the country," said Julianne Hing, Colorlines.com's immigration reporter.

"Anti-immigrant laws like H.B. 56 passed in Alabama yesterday are an example of how powerful the fears about the growing population of Latinos and people of color in the country can be," Hing went to say.

Below are other key findings from the U.S. Census Report that illustrate population shifts are only going in one way right now: 

(Note the findings below are printed as published by the Census, the term "Hispanic" is used in place of Latino due to Census classifications.)

Hispanics

• Nationally, the most populous minority group remains Hispanics, who numbered 52 million in 2011; they also were the fastest growing, with their population increasing by 3.1 percent since 2010. This boosted the Hispanic share of the nation's total population to 16.7 percent in 2011, up from 16.3 percent in 2010.
  
  
• California had the largest Hispanic population of any state on July 1, 2011 (14.4 million), as well as the largest numeric increase within the Hispanic population since April 1, 2010 (346,000). New Mexico had the highest percentage of Hispanics at 46.7 percent.
  
  
• Los Angeles had the largest Hispanic population of any county (4.8 million) in 2011 and the largest numeric increase since 2010 (73,000). Starr County -- on the Mexican border in Texas -- had the highest share of Hispanics (95.6 percent).
  

Blacks

• African-Americans were the second largest minority group in the United States, at 43.9 million in 2011 (up 1.6 percent from 2010).
  
  
• New York had the largest black or African-American population of any state or state equivalent as of July 1, 2011 (3.7 million); Texas had the largest numeric increase since 2010 (84,000). The District of Columbia had the highest percentage of blacks (52.2 percent), followed by Mississippi (38.0 percent).
  
  
• Cook, Ill. (Chicago) had the largest black or African-American population of any county in 2011 (1.3 million), and Fulton, Ga. (Atlanta) had the largest numeric increase since 2010 (13,000). Holmes, Miss., was the county with the highest percentage of blacks or African-Americans in the nation (82.9 percent).
  

Asians

• Asians, who numbered 18.2 million nationally in 2011, were the second fastest-growing minority group, growing by 3.0 percent since 2010.
  
  
• California had both the largest Asian population of any state (5.8 million) in July 2011 and the largest numeric increase of Asians since April 1, 2010 (131,000). Hawaii is our nation's only majority-Asian state, with people of this group comprising 57.1 percent of the total population.
  
  
• Los Angeles had the largest Asian population of any county (1.6 million) in 2011, and also the largest numeric increase (16,000) since 2010. At 61.2 percent, Honolulu had the highest percentage of Asians in the nation.
  

American Indians and Alaska Natives (AIAN)

• The nation's American Indian and Alaska Native population was an estimated 6.3 million in 2011, up 2.1 percent from 2010.
  
  
• California had the largest American Indian and Alaska Native population of any state in 2011 (1,050,000), and also the largest numeric increase since 2010 (23,000). Alaska had the highest percentage of AIAN (19.6 percent).
  
  
• Los Angeles had the largest AIAN population of any county in 2011 (231,000), and also the largest numeric increase (9,000) since 2010. Shannon County, S.D. -- on the Nebraska border and located entirely within the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation -- had the highest percentage of AIAN (93.6 percent).

Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders (NHPI)

• The nation's Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander population was 1.4 million in 2011 and grew by 2.9 percent since 2010.
  
  
• Hawaii had the largest population of Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders of any state (359,000) in 2011. California had the largest numeric increase since 2010 (9,000). Hawaii had the highest percentage of NHPI (26.1 percent).
  
  
• Honolulu had the largest population of NHPI of any county (235,000) in 2011. Los Angeles County had the largest numeric increase since 2010 (2,700). Hawaii County had the highest percentage of NHPI (34.0 percent).

At a news conference Wednesday to push for the unrestricted reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Wis. shared her personal experience with abuse in an effort to get both chambers of Congress to reconcile the House bill with the Senate-Passed version.

In the video clip above, Moore shares an emotional testimony of being raped and sent a direct message to her colleagues:

As a woman of color I am particularly aggrieved that this bill ignores the special circumstances of women who are minorities, women who are in the shadows.

Stop playing games with the lives of women. They don't want to hear us talking about a war on women, but I mean this is a direct assault on womens lives. Three women a day die because of victimization. And I would implore my colleagues to stop playing games.

A few weeks ago, the Senate approved the reauthorization of the VAWA with a 68 to 31 vote--31 opponents were Republican men. The "games" that Moore refers to are the obstacles the bill faces getting through the Republican-led House.

Colorlines.com gender matters blogger Akiba Solomon notes that the opposition to VAWA doesn't just affect women:

Republicans take umbrage when they're accused of waging a war on women. That pearl clutching seems awfully hollow given that the Republican-backed House version of VAWA seeks to roll back common-sense extensions of the Senate version of VAWA including more U-Visas for immigrant women who are victims of domestic violence, the elimination of red tape that contributes to one in three Native American women being raped in their lifetimes, and protections and shelter for LGBT folks in abusive relationships. If anything, I would expand the "war on women" language to be more inclusive. Let's just start calling it a "war on people."

(h/t Buzzfeed)

Travyon Martin had traces of a chemical found in marijuana in his blood and urine, a medical examiner found, CNN reported.

He also had been suspended three times, the first for graffiti, the second for truancy and the last time for being caught with "drug residue" at school. It was after this last suspension that Martin's father had brought him to Sanford, four hours away from his home.

Martin was shot within 36 inches, a medical examiner found. Yet a newly released medical report also showed the extent of Zimmerman's injuries that night, which include a broken nose and cuts at the back of his head. Ultimately though, Martin's death was "avoidable" if Zimmerman had not left his car and approached the teen, an investigator determined. A local prosecutor wanted to arrest Zimmerman and charge him with manslaughter but was overruled.

The information was released with a bevy of documents which give a more complete picture of what happened the night that George Zimmerman killed the Florida teen.

Expect the drug findings to be seized upon in the coming days as a way to sully the teen's name. As Colorlines.com's Editorial Director Kai Wright wrote back in March:

Sadly, it's necessary to point out that there isn't an imaginable scenario in which an armed man can shoot an unarmed child to death and it be okay. But set that obvious fact to the side. ... We were dangerous, so chattel slavery was necessary, and a nation's wealth was born. We are still dangerous, so a police state is necessary in black neighborhoods all over this country, and the wealth of a prison-industrial complex flourishes. This is what Trayvon Martin's murder is about. It's not about his high school suspension. It's not about his hoodie. It's not even about Florida's Kill at Will law, at least not at root. It's about the enduring, dark fantasies to which America still clings, in order to justify a society in which more black men are locked up or on parole today than were enslaved in 1850--to pick just one of many indicators of the scale at which black men are battered. But we're menaces; we've got it coming.

With the news that, for the first time in U.S. history, the majority of American babies are not white, it should put to rest use of the term "minorities" as a reference to America's black, Latino, Asian and Native American residents.

Nearly 30 years ago, I learned to think of myself as a person of color, and that shift changed my view of myself and my relationship to the people around me.

It is time for the entire nation, and our media in particular, to make the same move.

I am an Indian immigrant, and became a citizen in 1987.

My family came to the States in 1972 when I was five, just seven years after Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which removed bans on Asian immigration.

My father was a metallurgical engineer and we lived in predominantly white factory towns in New York and Pennsylvania.

All I ever wanted was to be fully American. But everything around me, from the population to the television, taught me that being American meant being white.

READ THE FULL ESSAY AT CNN'S "IN AMERICA" BLOG.

Yesterday, Democrats in Congress unveiled the Voter Empowerment Act of 2012, legislation aimed at strengthening election procedures for voters. On the same day, Mississippi Republican Gov. Phil Bryant signed into law a bill mandating voters show photo ID before hitting the polls, a law that was passed by ballot referendum by 62 percent of voters. 

While Mississippi Democrats were invited to join the governor's signing ceremony, none joined. Similarly, no Republicans were present for the congressional Democrats' introduction of their voter bill. Both pieces of legislation will face challenges coming online. The intersection between what Democrats are attempting in Congress and what Republicans are attempting at the state level--in Mississippi and beyond--around voting shows a tragic collision from which democracy, citizens of color, and many without wealth and resources will be the casualties.

Speaking about the Voter Empowerment bill he co-sponsored, Democrat Whip Steny Hoyer said, "Just six months from a presidential election and amid an unprecedented drive to impose new restrictions on who can vote in states across the country, Democrats will fight for the right to vote and for the integrity of our electoral system. This bill is a major step towards greater accountability and broader access."

Using similar language, Mississippi Gov. Bryant said the voter ID law, "makes it easy to obtain a photo ID and put it in the hands of all voters. Our hope is to increase participation in the voting process. ... We try and believe that it is our job to encourage this process but also bring about integrity."

Both make claims to protect the electoral system's integrity and improve access to it, but they can't both be right while supporting laws that oppose each other. The Voter Empowerment Act doesn't actually address voter ID issues, which is currently being addressed through litigation, but it would add protections against problems involving voter registration, poll-watching guidelines, and ex-felon rights restoration.

Mandating voters to show photo ID is just one more obstacle, yet none of these barriers have been recognized as such by the people pushing through new voting laws. Standing with Gov. Bryant as he signed the photo voter ID law was Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, who doesn't acknowledge the challenges the law will present for voters because he's focused on the challenge to the law will likely draw from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Ole Miss?

Before the law can go into effect, it has to pass muster with DOJ. DOJ has powers under the Voting Rights Act to investigate new election laws in any of its covered jurisdictions, including Mississippi. All too aware of this, Hosemann has already started instigating a fight with DOJ, fearful the voter ID law he fought so hard for might get blocked per Texas and South Carolina.

Those two states have not proven that their voter ID laws weren't passed with discriminatory intent, or that they won't have discriminatory impacts. But Hosemann thinks Mississippi doesn't need to defend itself on racial grounds, despite the archival blood of numerous civil rights activists lynched and slain for helping black people vote.

"This is not my father's Mississippi," Ryan Nave at Jackson Free Press reported Hosemann saying earlier this month. It's not. Today's Mississippi nominated an African American to run for governor on the Democratic ticket, which is historic; it also produced the white kids who ran James Craig Anderson over with their truck, killing him when not calling him "nigger."

For the voter ID bill, Hosemann is willing to run past his own attorney general and DOJ to take the law straight to a federal court for approval. A "sunshine" bill passed earlier this year allows state officials to use outside law firms if they don't want to deal with Attorney General Jim Hood, who's a Democrat and who pissed Mississippi Republicans off when he refused to sue to block President Obama's healthcare reform law. Almost $500,000 was budgeted by the state strictly for litigation around the law.

Before DOJ even had the chance to look at the voter ID bill, Hosemann publicly accused the department of prejudice. The state secretary's proof: a Facebook update found from a DOJ staffer who wrote "disgusting and shameful" in reference to Mississippi. Except the Facebook post wasn't about Mississippi government or about voter ID laws. It was written in response to the University of Southern Mississippi students who shouted "where's your green card?" at a Puerto Rican basketball player during March Madness. Stephanie Gyamfi, the DOJ staffer in question, wasn't reviewing the Mississippi voter ID law, as DOJ's voting division chief T. Christian Herren Jr. has tried to explain.

Hosemann's source for the Facebook fail was J. Christian Adams, editor of the conservative blog pjmedia.com who recently told white Tea Partiers at the "True the Vote" conference that they were the "true heirs of the civil rights movement," not opponents like the NAACP and DOJ. Adams believes DOJ has a racist agenda against white Americans. Standing with Hosemann as he made the faux-Facebook claim was Anita Moncrief, a black woman who is popular with conservatives for her barbs at DOJ and her allegations that Obama was put in office to unfold a "socialist wishlist" devised by ACORN, her former employer.

If that doesn't show a lack of integrity, it certainly shows a lack of good faith in the federal government, which intervened to allow many people who look like Moncrief to vote at all. This is the team in Gov. Bryant's shadow as he works to "increase voter participation."

Congress Joins the Debate

Back to the Voter Empowerment Act. Its primary impact would be to automate voter registration through the federal government and through online services, as well as to institute Election Day registration to make it easier on voters, a quarter of whom are not registered. These options are all opposed by people like Adams and his True the Vote colleagues Hans von Spakovsky of Heritage Foundation--who wrote a letter to a Mississippi newspaper defending the voter ID law by citing the debunked Facebook DOJ-bias claim--and John Fund, who in his book "Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy" recognized Hosemann for linking voter fraud to poverty.

The congressional bill would also prohibit intimidation of voters at the polls and "voter caging," the process of sending out mail to see what comes back as "undeliverable" and then using that info to create lists for purging voter rolls. Both tactic are encouraged by True the Vote activists.

States with same day registration [SDR] and Election Day registration [EDR] have had greater voter turnout than states without, which has been true for decades. Voter ID laws haven't existed long enough to make any empirical conclusion about their impacts on turnout. The 2008 presidential election was the first and only one when they were employed, but turnout was up everywhere because of the historical candidacy of Obama.

I'm willing to bet that allowing people to vote freely and fairly, without being badgered about their address or having the correct ID would do more to help rather than hurt turnout. So which is the better path to election "integrity" and "access," the people who want to steamroll over state attorney generals and the federal government to place unnecessary obstacles in front of voters, or the folks who want to make it easier for folks to get registered? The answer lies in the path with the least number of people tread over.

Read more about the Voter Empowerment Act from Ari Berman at The Nation here.

Nerd culture -- sci-fi and fantasy novels, movies, comic books, video games, conventions, and so on -- has a complicated relationship with social justice. In some ways, speculative fiction is an ideal tool for social criticism, both through harsh analogy and through subtler representation. (Think Lt. Uhura on Star Trek.) And in other ways, that sky's-the-limit potential for sociological juxtaposition is hamstrung by the same straight-white-male status quo that appears everywhere else. (Think Lt. Uhura's glorified receptionist job on Star Trek.)

So it's no surprise that for the past few days, a quickie blog post by sci-fi author John Scalzi, "Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is," has been blowing up the nerdier parts of the Internet. Scalzi, a straight white dude who lives in Ohio with his wife, daughter, and shelf full of book awards, proposes a deep-running video game metaphor to sugar the concept of "privilege," a term that regularly inspires recoil and horror in the people it describes. Says Scalzi to his fellow straight white men:

[...] it's certainly possible someone playing at a higher difficulty setting is progressing more quickly than you are, because they had more points initially given to them by the computer and/or their highest stats are wealth, intelligence and constitution and/or simply because they play the game better than you do. It doesn't change the fact you are still playing on the lowest difficulty setting.

You can lose playing on the lowest difficulty setting. The lowest difficulty setting is still the easiest setting to win on. The player who plays on the "Gay Minority Female" setting? Hardcore.

Within a day, the post garnered 800 comments before Scalzi closed the thread, along with thousands of Facebook and Twitter shares; it's also inspired any number of constructive, solutions-oriented conversations (and some otherwise). The post's direct outreach to straight while male nerds would be poignant at any time -- but to put things in perspective, the other big video game/social justice story this week has been a major comics-and-news site's belligerent unflagging support of a game about tentacle rape.

While it remains to be seen if the "easy setting" analogy will appear alongside the Invisible Knapsack in Social Justice 101 curriculums, Scalzi's position as a straight white guy has enabled him to reach people who'd never take that class in the first place. A former newspaper reporter, Scalzi answered my request for an interview almost immediately, and we talked by phone as he ran to a hotel.

What motivated you to write this piece? Was it just part of your daily blogging initiative, or did you have some secret agenda?

It's really one of those things that just sort of happened. I was reading an article on Cracked.com, "The 8 Stupidest Defenses Against Accusations of Sexism," and it mentioned that "being a straight male is tremendous fun and sexuality's lowest difficulty setting," that it's not particularly difficult and nobody gives you any crap for it. And I thought, that's actually a pretty astute way of saying that, because it spoke to an entire generation of people who play video games. The only problem was that it was a bit too limiting. You could expand it beyond sexuality; being a man is a low difficulty setting, being straight is a low difficulty setting, and in our culture, being white is a low difficulty setting. Put those three together, and you have a really, really low difficulty setting for getting through life. Now, that setting doesn't mean that life isn't difficult. It means that all things being equal, you've got a better chance of getting things done.

I've participated in discussions on privilege before, and when you say "privilege" in front of straight white men who've never used the word before, they don't really get the concept. So, "lowest difficulty setting" seemed to be a good metaphor for it.

Absolutely! And evidenced by the number of people it's pissed off, it seems pretty legitimately effective.

[laughs] Well, like I've told people, the post got 800 comments and 100,000 pageviews. So we're only seeing less than one out of a hundred people responding on the article. So for every person on there feigning outrage, there's a hundred just reading it as food for thought. Not everyone's going to come away from it convinced of the argument, and that's fine. But what's going on in a comment thread isn't indicative of what's happening when people read the article.

Though you've talked about class before on your blog, you left it out of this post. That made sense to me - you can't talk about race and gender without implicitly pulling in money. But the argument that "class trumps race" is a common one in the argument against "privilege." Why did you decide to let it pass here?

You're asking about why I addressed wealth as a 'stat,' rather than as a fundamental difficulty setting? Well, money is in many ways a great equalizer, and class and wealth need to be discussed. But when we talk about fundamental attributes that you're born with - race, gender, and sexuality - a lot of money can overcome some of that, but at the end of the day, those three things still have to be dealt with. I don't want to discount class and wealth, especially as someone who grew up poor and who's gone full circle. But sometimes, when people talk about wealth, they're doing it to obscure the fact that America still does have a problem with race, gender, and sexuality. They're trying to shift the conversation to something they feel more comfortable with, as opposed to confronting the facts.

This video game metaphor speaks to a pretty specific subculture. As a science fiction author, do you think there's something in nerd culture that fundamentally impacts how nerds perceive oppression? For example, some straight white male nerds feel that they've experienced oppression because they got picked on as kids for liking Dungeons & Dragons, and this narrative ends up insulating them and keeping them from seeking out a deeper understanding, or from legitimizing others' experiences. At the same time, science fiction itself has a wonderful utility as a social justice tool; I always go back to Dr. King asking Nichelle Nichols not to leave her role as Lt. Uhura on Star Trek, because of the role model she was for young black women.

Well, nerds, geeks, dorks, all those people - my tribe, if you will - there's a potential for understanding there, because they've had the experience of being an outsider. The flipside of that is this idea that all oppression is equal oppression. So there's a fine line to tread here, to tell people "you can understand some of this but there's some of it that you're not going to get, that you haven't felt." The door's open to understanding, but there's more to it than just that.

The reaction you see in the comment threads is a part of that - "well, I didn't have it easy, I was pushed around too, I've had bad things happen in my life, and I don't know what you're talking about with other people getting a higher difficulty setting." And the response to that has to be subtle. The metaphor of "difficulty settings" is very facile, but for someone who has a lot of real issues they face every day, they can certainly feel like this doesn't relate to what's going on in their lives. Moving that to a broader cultural frame is a difficult conversation. There's a chance for empathy, and a chance for pushback, and a lot of that depends on the individual. Which is true if you're talking about nerds or other folks.

How does social justice appear in your own writing?

That's an interesting question; I don't know if it does in any sense other than that in the universes I create, I make an effort for them not to be just White People In Space - to show the representation in the future that I see in the world right now. I hesitate to say that that leads to social justice, other than not adding to the problem, you know what I'm saying?

I can't say that I've consciously made the decision to talk about issues of social justice in my writing. But my writing reflects who I am, and my belief is that the world of the future is going to mirror and extend upon the world of the present. There are going to be things that are controversial now that will be taken for granted in the future. I wrote a short story, "An Election," where a character is having a conversation with his husband about running for city council. The story doesn't make a big deal out of the fact that this is a man married to a man - nobody in this world is going to think about it directly. Does that equate to social justice? No, because it's background rather than foreground. In the sense of not denying that it's there, though; maybe that is something.

But isn't that one of the primary powers of science fiction as a genre -- the power of speculative representation?

Well, by imagining how things will be, you can get people used to that possibility. It's also the case that you just default to using the world people already know and are comfortable with and not try to rock the boat, because you're trying to sell stuff now and you don't want to freak people out. It's a matter of what you decide to do as a writer. Science fiction isn't any different from other genres in that it comes down to who the writer as as an individual; they can be a force for good or a force for change or a force for the status quo. There's no particular right or wrong way to do it, but the choices they make do make a difference.

This interview has been condensed and edited.

The "Manhood" poster series was created by artist, and San Francisco native, Deborah Enrile Lao as a way to inspire young Asian American boys and men. The series consists of screen printed posters of five iconic Asian American men--Richard Aoki, George Takei, Jeremy Lin, Bruce Lee and DJ Qbert. In Lao's artist statement, she writes:

This piece challenges the unkind, one dimensional portrait of Asian American men in mainstream Western media. By exuding strength, creativity, leadership and masculinity, these five icons buck characterizations of Asian American men as meek nerds who never get the girl (or guy). Bold paper colors and a minimal illustration style reclaims the one dimensional space into one that portrays these men as "superheroes" that young boys and men can aspire to be like.

I chatted with her on the phone to talk about her poster series and the inspiration behind them.

What inspired you to create these posters?

I had just finished an advanced screenprinting class which pushed me to explore and experiment with my personal ideas. I have a young brother--he was an inspiration behind creating the posters. I wondered about how the younger generation of Asian American boys would feel when they grow up, who do they have to look up to? So I came up with the "superhero" concept using primary colors and simple faceless outlines. I want people to be able to see themselves in these icons. The posters represent the ideals behind the people more than just the people themselves. And it started with Bruce Lee.

Why Bruce Lee?

A documentary about him was coming out when I was starting this project. When I was thinking of Asian American male sexuality and virility, Bruce Lee was the first person who came to mind. He was the first cross-over actor who appealed to both black and white audiences, and had international fans. 

Asian Americans are always the ones being made fun of, the butt of jokes in mainstream media, and Bruce Lee defies that stereotype. He was well-respected and no one messed with Bruce Lee. 

And the others?

I had a hard time thinking of men outside of Bruce Lee. So the purpose of the project was to think of men who had made an impact and remember them. I wanted to create positive portrats of Asian American men. Jeremy Lin seems to be "it" at the moment. He is really living his dream, yet humble, honest and seems really rooted. It's inspirational to see an Asian American male figure so accepted and revered who is just being himself. To me, he represents the idea of being yourself, living out your dream, and being respected. 

After Jeremy Lin, I did George Takei then Richard Aoki and lastly DJ Qbert. 

Why DJ Qbert?

I felt like the series needed a fifth person to make it more substantial. Hip-hop has been inclusive within the movement. When the Invisibl Skratch  Piklz came out, they were the first Asians in hip-hop. It didn't matter what race they were, what mattered was that they could really scratch. And the fact that Qbert is Filipino resonated with me since I'm Chinese-Filipino.

Now you see Asian American hip-hop groups like Far East Movement on MTV, and all these Asian American boys crews winning dance competitions. I feel DJ Qbert lead the way for Asians in hip-hop.

Do you think you will do more with this series? Possibly something with API women icons?

That's a possibility. I would like to have more representation of Pacific Islanders and  Southeast Asians. But I want the ideas to come organically, naturally, and use people who really resonate with me. I've been thinking of extending this to Asian American women such as Patsy Mink. While working on this, names of iconic API women kept coming up.

**************

(Below are the five posters in the series.)

Richard Aoki

George Takei

Jeremy Lin

Bruce Lee

DJ Qbert

A federal judge on Wednesday granted class-action status to a lawsuit challenging the New York Police Department's (NYPD) stop-and-frisk practices as unconstitutional and racially discriminatory. The ruling allows all persons unlawfully stopped and frisked since January 2005 to be plaintiffs in the lawsuit that could change the police department's policies.

In 2011, stop-and-frisk data released to the City Council by the (NYPD) revealed a record 684,330 stops and nine out of ten persons stopped were not arrested, nor did they receive summonses. Eighty-seven percent of those stopped in 2011 were Black or Latino.

U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin in Manhattan said in a written ruling that there was "overwhelming evidence" that the centralized stop-and-frisk program has led to thousands of unlawful stops. [PDF]

"The Court has rightly recognized that illegal stops-and-frisks are not limited to a few rogue police officers but are the product of a program designed at the highest level of the police department and affect hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of New Yorkers," Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) senior staff attorney Darius Charney said in a statement.

"As a result of today's ruling, all those for whom this practice is a daily reality will now have an opportunity to challenge it as a violation of their fundamental constitutional rights and to ask the Court to order real changes in NYPD stop-and-frisk policy," Charney went on to say.

The plaintiffs are represented by the CCR and the law firms of Beldock, Levine, and Hoffman and Covington & Burling, LLP. The 2003 lawsuit, Daniels, et al. v. City of New York, et al., brought on by CCR led to the NYPD collecting data on stop-and-frisk stops.

On Thursday--a day after the lawsuit was granted class-action status--NYPD Commisioner Raymond W. Kelly announced the department has plans to implement its own measures to curtail the number of "illegitimate" stops.

UPDATE 5/16/2012 1:16pm EST: Conservative Examiner writer Granville Ampong has published a new story on his column stating "Pacquiao never said nor recited, nor invoked and nor did he ever refer to such context." Ampong says he included the reference to simply remind readers of his column "how God made it clear in the Old Testament time that such practice of same-sex marriage is detestable and strictly forbidden."

The same week that President Obama and rapper Jay-Z came out for gay marriage, boxer Manny Pacquiao referenced scriptures that say a man who lies down with another man "must be put to death."

In a recent interview with the National Conservative Examiner the beloved boxer cited Leviticus 20:13 when asked what he thought of President Obama's support for same-sex marriage (Pacquiao referenced Bible verse, the writer of the story expanded with the scripture):

If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

Pacquiao went on to say:

God only expects man and woman to be together and to be legally married, only if they so are in love with each other. It should not be of the same sex so as to adulterate the altar of matrimony, like in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah of Old.

Up until recently Pacquiao was seen as a charming man who lived his life with integrity and was respectful in and out of the boxing ring. That admirable lifestyle got him endorsement deals with the likes of Nike, Hewlett Packard and Hennessy Cognac.

Now, after his recent anti-gay comments, gay-rights advocates are questioning why anybody would want to endorse him.

"I do think that American sponsors are going to have to look very carefully about whether they can continue to pour money into his apparently rather empty soul," Rick Jacobs, founder and chair of the Courage Campaign told the LA Weekly. "Not only does he live in L.A., he makes a lot of money thanks the United States and sponsors here in particular."

Pacquiao holds a record eight world titles in as many weight divisions and is often referred to as the pride of the Philippines. The 34-year old boxer is seen as a humane human being who gives back to his country--he serves in his native country's House of Representatives, he often cites God as the source of his ongoing success and wears a rosary around his neck before and after fights.

In the 11th round of a 2010 fight against boxer Antonio Margaritom, Pacquiao signaled to the referee and asked him to stop the fight because his opponent was having trouble keeping up.

Up until recently there was no doubt on anyone's mind that Pacquiao was a likeable guy.

"I often don't get political but when human beings (especially elected officials like Mr. Pacquiao) wish death to another human being because of their sexual orientation - I will get vocal," Ryan Palao, who is widely recognized by his drag queen persona Ongina, told Colorlines.com.

"I'm not a fan of boxing but many are and this man is looked up to by children and adults in the Philippines and all over the world and being Filipino - I am extremely disappointed with him. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions - but to quote the bible suggesting death to a man who lies with another man is extreme and sends the wrong message," Palao went on to say.

A message that Palao says Nike should revisit.

"Nike - who endorses this man - a company that supports the LGBT community - should drop his endorsement," Palao went on to say, echoing the words of Courage Campaign's founder.

Colorlines reached Nike and Hewlett-Packard for a statement but there was no response by publication time.

Last Thursday the New York Times published a story about a young woman who was found dead after her apartment building was engulfed in flames but instead of focusing on the fire investigation the writers focused on the victims gender and her alleged sex life.

"She was 25 and curvaceous, and she often drew admiring glances in the gritty Brooklyn neighborhood where she was known to invite men for visits to her apartment, her neighbors and the authorities said," read the first line of the story written by Al Baker and Nate Schweber. The story went on identify the victim as someone "called Lorena," as opposed to saying she was "named Lorena" or that she simply was Lorena.

The 25-year old who was found dead was a transgender woman and LGBTQ advocates say the sexualized coverage of the incidents is "exploitative."

Aaron McQuade, GLAAD's Director of News and Field Media questioned how the Times would have covered the story if the word "transgender" was out of the equation. In a blog post on Glaad.org McQuade went on to say his organization had reached out to the NY Times to ensure this didn't happen again.

GLAAD published a statement from NY Times Metro Editor Carolyn Ryan that offered a lukewarm apology:

"We typically try to capture the personal stories of those whose lives are lost in a fire, and we sought to do so in this case. We certainly did not mean any disrespect to the victim or those who knew her. But, in retrospect, we should have shown more care in our choice of words."

McQuade says the Times' statement reveals a lack of understanding of how serious this problem is.

"Unfortunately, the problem with the Times' article on the death of Lorena Escalera, a transgender woman of color, is bigger than their "choice of words" or with their attempt to "capture" her story. It's their failure to recognize trans women as women," McQuade said in a follow up story Tuesday.

"At a time when anti-trans sentiment is high and sexualization of trans people still means they are denied basic civil rights, this is not good enough," writes Steve Williams, Care2 Causes Blogger, who started a petition that calls on the NYT to publish an apology.

Williams' petition demands "the NYT to print an apology acknowledging why the story was so deeply offensive, and to highlight the prejudice and discrimination trans people face in all spheres of life."