From the paper:
The Duchy of Brabant was a historical region in the Low Countries between the 12th and 18th century and consisted of a present-day Dutch province and three contemporary Belgian provinces together with the Brussels-Capital Region. The total area is 14.425km2 with approximately 150 km between the two most remote places in Brabant. The main reason for selecting this region was the ability to obtain reliable genealogical data of the patrilineal line for each of the numerous donors living together on a small geographical scale.
The authors typed 37 Y-STRs, and 103 Y-SNPs. They write:
All individuals were correctly assigned to the main haplogroups using the Whit Atheys’ Haplogroup Predictor. In total, eight main haplogroups were observed with almost 85% of the samples belonging to haplogroup R(63%) and I(21%)(Table 1). On the lowest observed level of the phylogenetic tree 32subhaplogroups were found in the dataset, whereby nearly 70% of all samples belonged to only four subhaplogroups: R1b1b2a1(R-U106), R1b1b2a2* (R-P312*), R1b1b2a2g(R-U152) andI1*(I-M253*)

They found star-patterns in all their subhaplogroups, but uncovered some structure in their J2a* (J-M410*) chromosomes. Youngest expansion ages "were observed for E1b1b1a2(E-V13) and I1*(I-M253*), respectively 4182–5855 and 4531–6344 years ago."

Also:
a strong downward trend in the frequency of haplogroup R was observed from North to South (Table 1; Fig. S5). The difference in the frequency of R haplogroups was circa 10% between the most northern and southern part, mainly due to the downward frequency of R1b1b2a1(R-U106).The European-wide distribution of R-U106 suggests to me that it was a Germanic lineage.

Also:
Moreover, it was even possible to detect further substructuring within subha-
plogroup J2a*(J-M410*)based on the network analysis of all single-allele Y-STR haplotypes. Nevertheless, it was remarkable that the network analyses could not differentiate all observed subhaplogroups within R1b1b2(R-M269) and I2b(I-M223). This might be due to the relatively young age of these specific subhaplogroups making it impossible to differentiate these groups based on the Y-STRs.
The extraordinary success of these subhaplogroups is one of the most interesting questions: natural selection, or demographic dominance of a recently formed population group storming Western Europe by force of numbers? Ancient Y-DNA urgently needed...

The occurrence of haplogroup Q1 in 2.6% at Kempen, and 1.59% at Mechelen is an oddity of the findings that might merit further study.

In short this might be called a "model study" of Y-chromosome variation, due to the large number of individuals (477) and markers tested.


Forensic Sci Int Genet. 2010 Oct 29. [Epub ahead of print]

Micro-geographic distribution of Y-chromosomal variation in the central-western European region Brabant.

Larmuseau MH, Vanderheyden N, Jacobs M, Coomans M, Larno L, Decorte R.

Abstract
One of the future issues in the forensic application of the haploid Y-chromosome (Y-chr) is surveying the distribution of the Y-chr variation on a micro-geographical scale. Studies on such a scale require observing Y-chr variation on a high resolution, high sampling efforts and reliable genealogical data of all DNA-donors. In the current study we optimised this framework by surveying the micro-geographical distribution of the Y-chr variation in the central-western European region named Brabant. The Duchy of Brabant was a historical region in the Low Countries containing three contemporary Belgian provinces and one Dutch province (Noord-Brabant). 477 males from five a priori defined regions within Brabant were selected based on their genealogical ancestry (known pedigree at least before 1800). The Y-haplotypes were determined based on 37 Y-STR loci and the finest possible level of substructuring was defined according to the latest published Y-chr phylogenetic tree. In total, eight Y-haplogroups and 32 different subhaplogroups were observed, whereby 70% of all participants belonged to only four subhaplogroups: R1b1b2a1 (R-U106), R1b1b2a2* (R-P312*), R1b1b2a2g (R-U152) and I1* (I-M253*). Significant micro-geographical differentiation within Brabant was detected between the Dutch (Noord-Brabant) vs. the Flemish regions based on the differences in (sub)haplogroup frequencies but not based on Y-STR variation within the main subhaplogroups. A clear gradient was found with higher frequencies of R1b1b2 (R-M269) chromosomes in the northern vs. southern regions, mainly related to a trend in the frequency of R1b1b2a1 (R-U106).

Link

If you do not subscribe to the Dodecad feed, you might want to know about the submission opportunity that is under way for about a day more. Check to see if your group is included in the latest call.

• Father Sues District Over Reading About Slavery | Washington Post "The father of a black student has sued a Detroit-area school district claiming that his daughter was racially harassed by a fifth-grade teacher's reading aloud from a book about slavery. The suit claims Jala Petree's teacher at Margaret Black Elementary School in Sterling Heights read excerpts from Julius Lester's 'From Slave Ship to Freedom Road' that contain racial epithets and racist characterizations, The Macomb Daily reported." (tags: via:InfodivaMLIS415 detroit education history africanamerican lawsuit racism)
• In Banning Sharia Law, Oklahoma Voters May Have Voted Against Native American Rights, Too | Think Progress "Oklahoma has the second largest population of Native Americans in the U.S and law experts like Oklahoma University law professor Taiawagi Helton point out that language in the law banning courts from looking at 'legal precepts of other nations or cultures' could pose a problem if applied to tribal legal cases, as the tribes are considered sovereign nations. In fact, the Oklahoma Indian Affairs Commission released an official memo on October 20 explaining how the 'lack of specific tribal law language' could 'damage the sovereignty of all Oklahoma tribes' and 'starkly reminds [the Commission] that some Oklahoma lawmakers forgot that our nation and state were built on the principles, blood, and back of other nations and cultures, namely, ou[r] tribes…'" (tags: via:msstroppy oklahoma sharialaw firstnations racism islamophobia)
• Racism Suit Stirs Questions By Event Organizer | Philadelphia Daily News "Cited in the suit are text messages allegedly between the bar's general manager, Walt Wyrsta, and the Wednesday-night manager, Kathryn Killian, including one from Wyrsta that read, 'We don't want black people we are a white bar!'

  "Bolden's attorney, Laura Mattiacci, declined to say how the texts were obtained. In a written statement, Bolden, 29, who is still employed at McFadden's and who also works as a lawyer with Community Legal Services, said a "'culture of exclusion' exists at bars, including 'dress codes, marketing or policies by the security staff.'

  "'The one constant is that it is often subtle, behind the scenes and typically, not written down. And therein lies the problem: How do you challenge a system, since it seems one cannot even prove it exists,' Bolden wrote. 'Well, now I can. I feel a sense of moral obligation to take a stand.'"

  (tags: via:msstroppy philadelphia institutionalracism bars)
• Race Row Over Cop Picture | IOL "A row has broken out over a 'fake' photograph of three black women police officers apparently asleep in the Mitchells Plain charge office – and the man believed to have taken the picture could face charges of crimen injuria and defamation.

  "The Police and Prison Civil Rights Union (Popcru) claims the officers – a constable and two trainees – were told by an inspector to pose for the picture last week.

  “'After he finished taking the picture, he laughed and told the three he would expose them in the media,' said Popcru provincial chairman Francisco Fields."

  (tags: via:msstroppy south africa images police)
• "The Squaw's Appeal" In Belle Magazine | Newspaper Rock "I can't read her Facebook page, but someone tells me she wrote: 'I'll admit it, I am a shameless self promoting squaw. Thank you mother earth for putting my face on the cover and the excellent article and additional pictures inside.'

  "So she's a 'squaw,' a shameless self-promoter, and a racist. Got it.

  "Can you imagine painting her face black, putting on a kerchief, and calling herself the 'Big Mammy"? Because that's exactly equivalent to Horne's actions.

  "Meanwhile, Roop offers the usual non-apology 'apology.' Mock concern for the person's feelings. The magical power of intent as an excuse. No admission of actual wrongdoing. No promise to print a retraction or chastise the people involved. Just a vague 'we'll discuss it' pledge."

  (tags: via:robschmidt firstnations stereotypes)

By Guest Contributor Eccentric Yoruba, cross-posted from Beyond Victoriana

Dandyism and the Black Man

A dandy is a man who places extreme importance on physical appearance and refined language. It is very possible that dandies have existed for as long as time itself. According to Charles Baudelaire, 19th century French poet and dandy himself, a dandy can also be described as someone who elevates aesthetics to a religion.

In the late 18th and early 19th century Britain, being a dandy was not only about looking good but also about men from the middle class being self-made and striving to emulate an aristocratic lifestyle.  The Scarlet Pimpernel is one of literature’s greatest dandies; famous historical dandies include Oscar Wilde and Lord Byron.

These days the practice of dandyism also includes a nostalgic longing for ideals such as that of the perfect gentleman. The dandy almost always required an audience and was admired for his style and impeccable manners by the general public.

The special relationship between black men and dandyism arose with slavery in Europe particularly during England’s Enlightenment period. In early 18th century, masters who wanted their slaves to reflect their social stature imposed dandified costumes on black servants, effectively turning them into ‘luxury slaves’. As black slaves gained more liberty, they took control of the image by customising their dandy uniforms and thereby creating a unique style. They transformed from black men in dandy clothing to dandies who were black.

This style also served to differentiate black dandies from other dandies, most notably, the Macaroni dandies whose fabulous style of dress was thought of as obscene.

One of the pioneers of black dandies in England was Julius Soubise, a fencing master, poet and actor who was once owned by the Duchess of Queensbury. Julius Soubise would appear at London’s high society venues wearing “red-heeled diamond-buckled shoes and buttock-skimming breeches”.

This type of style evolved and hopped continents from London to Harlem, which during its famous Jazz Age adopted the zoot suit. The zoot suit marked the evolution of black dandyism in the 1930s. The “zoot” from the zoot suit came from the term in jazz culture that described anything performed in an extravagant fashion. Jazz musicians such as Duke Ellington, Louis Jordan and Cab Calloway sported zoot suits and the suit itself became central to any dandy’s wardrobe.

Though today the most famous black dandies are Americans like Andre 3000, black dandyism can also be found in other parts of the world. In particular, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, there currently exists a subculture of elegant gentlemen who spend their last dime on looking good and live under strict moral codes.

Those of us who grew up listening to and watching music videos from the DRC are quite used to seeing the expensive-looking and multi-coloured suits worn by Congolese musicians such as Koffi Olomide. Yet most of us did not know about the entire subculture that revolves around looking exquisite. May I present La Société des Ambianceurs et Persons Élégants or in English: the Society for the Advancement of People of Elegance.

As that is a mouthful so it is just SAPE. “Sape” comes from a French slang that means “dressing with class” and the term Sapeur is an African word that refers to someone that is dressed with great elegance. The Sapeurs as the name suggests are elegant and stylish men from Congo who roam the streets of Brazzaville and Bacongo in Western suits and usually with cigars, and the occasional pipe, between their lips. These are men who are so obsessed with looking good and designer clothes that they sometimes place more importance on clothes than anything else.

A look at the history of the SAPE

The first Grand Sapeur was G.A. Matsoua, who in 1922 was the first Congolese to return from Paris dressed entirely in French clothes. While it is not entirely clear where exactly the SAPE movement started from, it appears to have been heavily promoted by Papa Wemba, a pioneer soukous (African rumba) musician who in the 1970s began upholding the Sapeur culture as a set of moral codes with heavy emphasis on high standards of personal cleanliness, hygiene and smart dress among Congolese youths regardless of societal differences.

This moral code, however, also had a political motive. Papa Wemba initially introduced the culture as a challenge to the strict dress codes that were imposed by the government at that time who effectively outlawed Western styles of dress. In 1974 after the DRC had recently come out of colonisation and had gained its independence from France, the government lead by Mobutu Sese Seko banned all European and Western styles of imported clothing in favour of a return to traditional African clothing. Papa Wemba challenged these strict dress codes by insisting that it should be a pleasure rather than a crime to wear clothes from Paris and by setting an example for impressionable young men by dressing outlandishly. At this time, the culture also was heavily associated with music, since Papa Wemba supported young talented musicians such as Koffi Olomide.

Sapeurs held European haute couture as a religion which was practised in absolute serious. There were special Sapeur dances held and even manifestos and codes to govern the lives of Sapeurs. Some of these codes include 10 ways of walking in order to show off clothes to the best degree, and the strict three colour code where the maximum number of colours that can be worn should be three.

At the height of his success, Papa Wemba had established a “village” comprising his family home and the surrounding streets in which the strict Sapeur code was enforced. Youths and musicians visited this village to acquire cool points while Papa Wemba reigned as “chief”. All other sorts of positions exist among the Sapeurs such as “high priest of cloth” and “chancellor of designer labels” positions which are based on personal flamboyance and the size of expensive wardrobes.

In typical dandy fashion, the Sapeurs consider themselves artists and are respected and admired in their communities. Sapeurs are typically invited to events such as weddings to add a touch of elegance to special occasions. Yet quite uncharacteristic is the Sapeur’s code of conduct, being a Sapeur is not only about dressing and looking amazing, it is also about impeccable manners. It is about style, it is about gestures that differentiate one Sapeur from others.

For example, the cigar which is the ultimate symbol for the Sapeur is considered to give added value to the outfit. While some Sapeurs never smoke their cigars, those who do are required to ask their neighbours if it is okay for them to light their cigars even though they may not be in a non-smoking area.

The dark side to this movement is the lengths some Sapeurs go and have gone through to get their expensive designer clothes. Some have resorted to illegal means to obtain their suits while others have spent time in jail. The infamous Papa Wemba also spent jail time for bringing people into Europe illegally to buy clothes by having them pose as his band members.

While reading about Sapeurs elsewhere online, a lot of emphasis seems to be placed on the fact that most of the men who are part of this subculture come from very impoverished communities. There is lot of talk on just how far these men go in order to buy an expensive suit and how the SAPE is a form of escapism for “poor downtrodden African youths”. The discrepancy between the elegance and style that make a Sapeur and the poor conditions of living are shown as a clash of worlds.

This sort of thinking rubs me the wrong way. I personally believe the Sapeurs are awesome and this is not limited to the steampunk vibe I got from looking at images of Sapeurs. However, whether you believe the Sapeurs are nothing but extremely materialistic young men or you accept that they are artists who strive to crave their identity through fashion, I think we can all agree that they do so while looking great.

For more information, click on any of the linked images above. Also, check out this great photo essay, The Congolese Sape by Hector Mediavilla.

By Arturo R. García

Thanks to the group of readers who tipped us off to this: apparently Maclean’s Magazine is saying Canada’s a nice place to visit for people from China – just as long as they don’t stick around and have kids who attend college there.

Wednesday, the magazine released an article originally titled“‘Too Asian,’” with the sub-headline, Some frosh don’t want to study at an ‘Asian’ university. The article opens by introducing us to a group of white students put off from even considering going to the University of Toronto in part because of its’ reputation for being “too Asian.” Of course, this is followed up by the explanation that the sentiment is “not about racism”:

Many white students simply believe that competing with Asians— both Asian Canadians and international students— requires a sacrifice of time and freedom they’re not willing to make. They complain that they can’t compete for spots in the best schools and can’t party as much as they’d like (too bad for them, most will say).

As one reader noted via e-mail, these fears are nothing new: In 1979, the CTV network aired a news piece called “Campus Giveaway,” that misrepresented Chinese Canadian students as foreigners, and inflated enrollment statistics. The story led to protests against both the network and W5, the program on which the story aired. The controversy was cited as the impetus for the formation of the Chinese Canadian National Council.

After being taken off the magazine’s website, a edited version of the story resurfaced Thursday: some paragraphs in the story were re-arranged; the headline had been changed to”‘Too Asian?’” – note the question mark – and the sub-headline was changed to a more sedate-sounding, Worries that efforts in the U.S. to limit enrollment of Asian students in top universities may migrate to Canada. The CCNC will reportedly meet today with Maclean’s management and Stephanie Findlay and Nicholas Koller, who wrote the article.

hello all

after much contemplation I’ve decided to close this blog soon. this is due mainly to my health concern. if anyone is interested in inheriting the domain name pls let me know. it’s been a pleasure blogging on civ and I thank all readers for your support. best wishes

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Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2010 Dec 12;365(1559):3913-22.

Your place or mine? A phylogenetic comparative analysis of marital residence in Indo-European and Austronesian societies.

Fortunato L, Jordan F.

Abstract

Accurate reconstruction of prehistoric social organization is important if we are to put together satisfactory multidisciplinary scenarios about, for example, the dispersal of human groups. Such considerations apply in the case of Indo-European and Austronesian, two large-scale language families that are thought to represent Neolithic expansions. Ancestral kinship patterns have mostly been inferred through reconstruction of kin terminologies in ancestral proto-languages using the linguistic comparative method, and through geographical or distributional arguments based on the comparative patterns of kin terms and ethnographic kinship 'facts'. While these approaches are detailed and valuable, the processes through which conclusions have been drawn from the data fail to provide explicit criteria for systematic testing of alternative hypotheses. Here, we use language trees derived using phylogenetic tree-building techniques on Indo-European and Austronesian vocabulary data. With these trees, ethnographic data and Bayesian phylogenetic comparative methods, we statistically reconstruct past marital residence and infer rates of cultural change between different residence forms, showing Proto-Indo-European to be virilocal and Proto-Malayo-Polynesian uxorilocal. The instability of uxorilocality and the rare loss of virilocality once gained emerge as common features of both families.

Link

• WTF Files: Tech Racism Jokes Are Getting Old | Digital Society "Last year when a store employee with tongue planted firmly in cheek made a humorous YouTube video about HP Webcams being “racist”, HP the company had no choice but to respond in a serious tone and many tech publications did the same. The problem is that the intent of the original video wasn’t clear and company lawyers understandably get cautious whenever they hear words like “racism” thrown around in the same sentence as their products. Even it was most likely a joke, companies can’t afford to be associated with racism. Now we have the same kind of nonsensical allegations of “racism” being tossed at Microsoft’s XBox360 Kinect product.

  "As serious an accusation of racism is, it’s not something one should joke about without at least making it obvious that it’s a joke. We should reserve our scorn for real racism where it exists and not waste time on non-issues."

  (tags: via:msstroppy technology racism wtf)
• WTF Files: George W. Bush Tells Oprah How Racism Hurt His Feelings | Jezebel (VIDEO) "Yesterday, the former President appeared on Oprah to discuss his memoir Decision Points. He went into detail about he could've done a better job in handling the Hurricane Katrina disaster, and how it "irritated" him to be called a racist." (tags: via:msstroppy georgewbush oprah racism katrina wtf)
• Activists' Children Allowed To Return Home After Break-in | CTV Calgary "A Calgary anti-racism activist was told by the province that his children can return home after the family's home was invaded by what he calls white supremacists.

  "Devine says his home was targeted as retaliation for posting anti-racist pamphlets near the home of a known neo-Nazi.

  "But Jason Devine says he felt he was revictimized when Alberta Children and Youth Services got involved two days after the attack because he says the department likened them to gang members or drug dealers.

  ""They said just as gang members and drug dealers put their kids in dangerous situations because they have drugs, our activism, no matter how worthy it is, is putting our children at risk,' Devine says."

  (tags: via:msstroppy canada anti-racism violence)
• To Be Gay Is Not 'Un-Indian' | Guardian (UK) "But even though law and culture are not the same thing, they are not mutually incompatible. In fact, the law is shaped by wider social and cultural beliefs but also helps to shape them. Rights advocates must take this into account in making the case for gay equality. They must consider conflicting cultural perspectives and, where appropriate, show that these cannot justify discrimination against sexual minorities." (tags: via:carleandria india LGBTQ)
• Anti-racism Campaign Fights 'White Privilege' | Toronto Sun "Controversy is brewing over a city-sponsored anti-racism campaign that calls on Caucasians to recognize their 'white privilege'.

  "At least one Edmonton city councillor says the campaign makes a point, while a Conservative politician is saying the wording is all wrong.

  "'A white person looking for an apartment to rent does not face similar challenges that an aboriginal person does,' said councillor Amarjeet Sohi, explaining what is meant by the phrase white privilege.

  "But Ryan Hastman, the federal Conservative candidate for the Edmonton-Strathcona, said he's concerned because the campaign's focus on white people is too narrow.

  "The campaign is focused on identifying and resolving institutional barriers faced by aboriginal people and other racial groups in Edmonton, according to a City of Edmonton release."

  (tags: via:carleandria canada anti-racism whiteprivilege institutionalracism)
• Canadian First Nations People Compromised by Environmental Racism | The Sarnia Observer "Aamjiwnaang members Ron Plain and Ada Lockridge launched litigation claiming that the chronic exposures to pollution, and the Ministry's failure to assess the cumulative effects on their health, constitutes a violation of their constitutional rights to life, liberty and security of the person (section 7) and equality (section 15). Specifically, the applicants challenge the Ministry's granting of a pollution permit to Suncor that allows it to increase its refinery operations and thus its release of air pollutants, without any assessment of the cumulative impacts on the health of affected residents. Despite prevalent rhetoric that "lifestyle factors" are to blame for health impacts, which include, but are not limited to, high rates of cancer, respiratory illness, cardiovascular disease, neurological and developmental disabilities, in addition to a declining birth ratio, it is undeniable that the location of this reserve matters." (tags: via:tobanblack canadafirstnations environmentalracism)
• Anti-Gay White Supremacists Sponsor Mississippi Schools | Change.org "Ever heard of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC)? They're not quite as famous as, say, the Ku Klux Klan, but let's just say that the two groups probably play in the same softball league. Founded in the mid-1980s as a second coming of what used to be called White Citizens Councils, the CCC spreads what they consider a biblical belief that people of different races, different sexual orientations, and different religions should be segregated.

  "Oh, and the CCC also raises boatloads of cash for two schools in Mississippi, Calhoun Academy and Carroll Academy, that are accredited through the Mississippi Association of Independent Schools. "

  (tags: via:carleandria mississippi whitesupremacy education homophobia)

by Latoya Peterson

Totaling up the bills, I felt my eyes roll back into my head from shock. How could a cashless blog be so freaking expensive?

But hey, no one said expansion would be cheap. After the crew checked out the plan, we had to figure out how to make things happen. Carmen and I were both more inclined toward self-funding projects, so the original business plan I developed didn’t have a fundraising component. However, commenter @Buchanda urged me to reconsider sometime last May, noting people were inclined to help, and providing the initial idea for the drive.

“What if everyone gave $2,” BuChanda asked, “then how much would you have?”

Good question.

I looked at our traffic and the blog numbers, and filed the idea away for later. Soon, we found out about the Online Media Legal Network, and filled out their application. Then they requested a budget for the year. End total, before all the “oh this would be nice” extras? About $13,000.

Now, as much as I loved seeing Brandon’s comment…

I don’t think I’ve ever felt better about making an online contribution.

Keep up the great work. While I don’t know exactly how my contribution will be used, I know that it’s money well spent.

…most folks are probably wondering what we need the money for and how we are spending it all.

Expenses (Estimated)

Site Redesign

* Wordpress upgrade and redesign of front page, graphics, logo, addition of back end donation system – $7,000
* Mobile App Development – $1,000

Incorporation Expenses

* General Business license in DC – $324.50
* Trademarking – $375
* Miscellaneous expenses – $300*

General Operating Expenses

* Hosting – $400 (yearly)
* Tech Support – $500 (yearly)
* Domain Renewals – $100 (yearly – 7 total domains)

Needed Equipment

* Business Phone, iPhone 4G, minimal talk plan, podcast coordinated apps- $300.00
o $50 per month plan x 12 = $600
* Podcasting Pro Kit- $315
* Adobe Creative Suite – $1899

Total

$13, 113.50

Now, some of these are wide and outside estimates. For example, I don’t expect the website to be more than $5,000 – finding a new backend and skin is fairly cheap, the expense comes from the accessibility upgrades, like making sure we work in multiple and specific browsers, and trying to marry all the multimedia upgrades with keeping a clean interface, which is more design than tech. But the app will probably run higher than $1,000, even with friends volunteering – since we don’t want a simple RSS app, it’s going to take a little doing.

Incorporation expenses are a bit hazy. OMLN has two different lawyers working with us. The quote I received for the trademarking is $350, which is a handy thing to do for your blog or business to keep things easy. Twanna talked about going through this at SXSW 2008, in her panel “How To Protect Your Brand Without Being a Jerk:”

You’ve already created content and a brand. Now, a copycat is making money pushing a product ridiculously similar to yours. Congratulations! Imitation is flattery. So, why are you pissed off? You’re upset because it’s unfair and, possibly, infringes on your rights. Learn how to protect your creative projects without going overboard…or broke!
Questions
Answered

1. I attended SXSWi 08, and I learned about creating a brand. What’s the next step? How do I protect it?
2. What is intellectual property law?
3. Help! Someone’s stealing content from my site. What should I do?
4. I’m a digital filmmaker. How does piracy relate to all of this stuff?
5. When should I file a trademark to protect my online content?
6. What’s the difference between a trademark, patent and copyright?
7. I know about Creative Commons, but I don’t get how it works. Can you explain it?
8. Where are the legal resources in my region (or country) that provide assistance with these matters?
9. You saw “Coming to America,” right? Someone isn’t copying me, but they’re the McDowell’s to my McDonald’s. Is that even legal?
10. Why does this stuff matter to my film / blog / website / music site?

Panelists Oren Bitan (Morrison & Foerster), Twanna A Hines, moderator (funkybrownchick.com), Corynne McSherry (EFF), Elena M. Paul, Esq (Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts)

‘

Interestingly, I later met Funky Black Chick (now fungkeblakchik) at a happy hour, and heard her side of the story.

Lesson I took? Check it, protect it. The last thing we want is this kind of drama.

Business license is a little weird. Other awesome lawyer is researching the process for L3C’s, which is a specific kind of LLC devoted to social justice ends, where profit is a secondary motive. However, it’s a sub-classification, only a few states have it, and the Federal Government/IRS have not yet made a ruling on it. After reading Matt Doeringer’s paper for Duke University, “Reevaluating the L3C: Mistaken Assumptions and Potential Solutions,” we will probably stick to LLC status. (Why not a non profit? Will explain that a little later.) So then it’s those expenses and the DC website is very clear about one charge but unclear about others.

After we have a business license, I can actually move this money. All of your awesome donations have been hanging in the Paypal account (less paypal fees, which dropped the total to about $1600), and so after opening a business account I can move those assets over and stop paying Racialicious bills out of my freelancer account. Mixing this money is going to be a huge pain if it keeps up for much longer, plus it delays the equipment purchases we need to make.

Tech expenses are self-explanatory, though after watching what Afrobella is going through, I feel like I should probably quadruple that and keep it in reserve for a just in case moment. After all, if it happened to Afrobella, and it happened to SOHH.com, it could happen to us.

The equipment needs are on the outside of the estimate. Then there are wants, which are a different beast.

Of the needs, the business phone serves a couple of purposes. Initially, I was going to go with a Google Voice number that routes to my cell. But then I took a few courses on technology and journalism, and realized that the apps available for the iPhone have made it possible to hold a mobile podcast studio, video editor, image creator, and teleprompter, all in one device. We don’t get a lot of phone calls (though that may change), so it would function in some ways as a portable studio.

The podcasting equipment I have is passable, as is Arturo’s – but I talked to Carmen and some other folks in radio, and they strongly encouraged a few equipment upgrades, so here we are. And since Art is on the West Coast and I am on the East Coast, we need a set of two, hence the inflated price.

Adobe Creative Suite…let’s just say I’m amazed that I have found a need for it. My friends in real life would crack up, knowing how artistically challenged I am. However, the last few years have definitely shown the value of knowing one’s way around InDesign, Flash, Photoshop, and Illustrator, and would allow us to increase our content offerings. Also, if we learn it, we don’t have to outsource it. And while I’ve found some excellent open-source software and paid here and there for programs to make my life easier (Comic Life, Keynote/iLife, and Vimeo/Flickr premium to name the most useful), looking at our vision, it’s becoming a necessity.

There are also some wants. They are not immediate needs, but it would be nice to have:

• An extra flip cam.  When I got an HD one issued to me for the Public Media Corps, I mailed Arturo my other one, which he used to record video at Comic Con.
• A Canon 5D.  It’s a powerhouse of a little machine, and would go a long way toward the video/photo projects I have planned. I missed out on a project where I wanted to photograph the changing face of U street, but the experience of using a point and shoot just didn’t (for me) compare to holding an SLR and having that type of control over the image.

But those aren’t on the master list.  I’ll put this list up as a graphic a little later – your generosity has allowed us to cover all our legal fees and start work a little early on the new sites.  Hopefully, we make our goal of the 10,000 pledges of support.  If not, things will move more slowly.  But the possibilities are fresh and endless, and we have a huge boost in making it over the hurdles.

By Guest Contributor Eric Arnold, cross-posted from Colorlines

I am hip-hop!—KRS-One

I am Oscar Grant!—anonymous graffiti

As the Oscar Grant saga has played out over the past 22 months, the Bay Area hip-hop community—a multi-ethnic, multi-generational coalition of musicians, visual artists, activists, students and ‘hood kids—has stood at the forefront of the movement to hold police accountable for his death. Within a day of the New Year’s morning 2009 shooting, Oakland rapper Mistah F.A.B. and singer Jennifer Johns recorded a tribute song, which addressed not only the shooting, but the larger issue of violent deaths of young black men at the hands of police.

Over the past months, F.A.B. and Johns’ initial response has grown in the hip-hop world to encompass rallies, benefit concerts, panel discussions and lectures, spoken word ciphers, blog and vlog posts, even bike rides in honor of Grant’s memory. When former transit cop Johannes Mehserle’s trial was moved from Alameda County to Los Angeles, youth activists and organizers in L.A. picketed daily in front of the courthouse. It’s not a stretch to say that Grant has become the Lil’ Bobby Hutton of his generation—a young black man, killed by a police bullet, who has become representative of a larger struggle for self-determination.

“People have kept Oscar Grant on the public’s mind,” says Boots Riley of the Coup.

So, why? What has made Oscar Grant so resonate within the hip-hop community?

For one, as Riley says, “There’s no sidestepping the egregiousness of the act. It was a brutal murder.” But Grant’s youthfulness also can’t be ignored. Just 22 when he was killed, Grant was part of the hip-hop demographic. When other youth looked at pictures of him, they saw themselves, their siblings and their friends reflected in his toothy grin, black hoodie and watch cap.

Police accountability has long been a theme in hip-hop. For decades, rappers have decried racial profiling, brutality and corruption by law enforcement officers. Yet those efforts have been undermined on a national level by rightwing coalitions whose targeting of gangsta rap has also caught activist emcees in their crosshairs. By focusing on violent, sexually explicit lyrical content, hip-hop’s critics have muddled rap’s accountability message—while major labels, commercial radio and cable TV have shied away from promoting political themes in rap. As Mistah F.A.B. says of his Grant tribute (“My Life”), “The major corporations who have the ability, they’re not gonna play a song like that. That’s the last thing they want to do, is rally the troops.”

But while hip-hop’s engagement around police accountability may not have coalesced into a national movement, it has taken hold in the Bay Area’s activist-infused environment, where social justice and hip-hop have long overlapped.

The Bay’s unique combination of street-level organizing and numerous independent hip-hop groups that are unafraid to express themselves politically has come together around Oscar Grant. According to Riley, “The organizing hasn’t really stopped.” He adds: “I don’t accept this idea that people are apathetic.”

The legacy of Black Power is well-evident in Oakland, where ex-Black Panthers have become parents, in many cases, of hip-hop generationers. Add the Bay’s history of radical labor and student protest movements, and you have an explanation of why its hip-hop community has maintained a grassroots awareness and political consciousness not always present in major urban areas.

The Panther influence has clearly rubbed off on rappers like F.A.B., who says he recorded the Grant tribute out of respect and concern for the community. “Instead of going out and ignoring [the issue],” he says, “I felt I needed to bring awareness to it outside of Oakland, Calif., and outside of the Bay Area.”

F.A.B. adds that while he’s known for his street anthems and party songs, “There are many people who don’t know that I do conscious songs, uplifting songs, community awareness songs.” His tribute to Grant, he says, “got great reviews from family members and close friends of his.” And he certainly helped bring national attention to the cause by wearing an Oscar Grant t-shirt during an appearance on BET.

But F.A.B. wasn’t just riding the Grant bandwagon to boost his own fame. He solidified his grassroots status by appearing at a rally held at the site of Grant’s death—the Fruitvale BART station—a week after the incident, when the community was still in uproar and before Mehserle had been charged with a crime.

Other local musicians, including Zion-I and Kev Choice, volunteered their services to perform at subsequent justice rallies held in downtown Oakland, where many of the crowd donned Oscar Grant masks. I am Oscar Grant.

When ranks of police assembled in the Oakland streets, a young, dreadlocked African-American man bravely confronted a phalanx of officers dressed in full riot gear. Laying down in front of the officers with his hands behind his back, symbolically recreating Grant’s last action before his death, the gesture made for a powerful image, one widely circulated by mainstream media outlets. It was a scene reminiscent of the student who faced the tanks at Tiananmen Square—with a hip-hop twist.

In the weeks and months that followed, F.A.B. was joined by many other Bay Area rappers who also referenced Grant in song, from socially-conscious artists like Choice, Ise Lyfe, Native Guns, D Labrie, and The Burnerz to turf-identified rappers not usually associated with cries for justice, like AP.9 and Beeda Weeda. Instead of telling us to dance, sell drugs, get stupid, or wear clothes we can’t possibly afford, the emcees who tackled the Grant topic were  reporters for GNN—Ghetto News Network—giving listeners a street-level perspective sorely lacking in much of the mainstream press coverage.

Their influence eventually extended across cyberspace—over 2,400 YouTube videos were tagged with “Oscar Grant” and everyone from Pittsburgh rapper Jasiri X to the Vancouver website GetGrounded to the Helsinki music blog Multitunes weighed in on the issue. As the legal process played out, constant hip-hop updates reacting to new developments in the case—from the shooting to the verdict to the sentencing—kept the community engaged.

Grant’s memory was also kept alive by the efforts of numerous graffiti artists; the motto “I Am Oscar Grant!” began appearing all over Oakland, along with aerosol renditions of Grant’s now-iconic face. One of the more notable visual representations of the Grant movement was a huge mural painted on plywood sheets—ironically erected to deter possible rioters—at the Youth Radio offices at the corner of 19th Street and Broadway. The mural’s creators, known collectively as Trust Your Struggle, are a multiethnic group of artists, activists and graphic designers who had painted another mural in New York after they heard the news of the shooting.

Another example of hip-hop activism around Oscar Grant has been the numerous community-engaging events thrown by West Oakland non-profit Bikes 4 Life. In July, B4L’s annual “Peace Ride” led a 300-strong contingent of cyclists to the Fruitvale BART station for a candlelight vigil.

“We see ourselves as agents for change,” explains B4L founder Tony Coleman. “Everything that we do, since we hip-hop, it just has that flava. And we use that to our benefit, because we’re able to reach those other folks that are also a part of that hip-hop culture.”

What differentiates Oscar Grant from Bobby Hutton, Sean Bell, Amadou Diallo, Michael Stewart, Aiyana Stanley-Jones and the many others who have died at the hands of police is the fact that his death was captured on video and posted on the Internet for the world to see. This, too, speaks to Grant’s relevance to the hip-hop generation.

Since its inception, one of hip-hop culture’s underlying themes has been repurposing technology as a tool for community empowerment. In an age of cell-phone cameras, social media and viral Internet memes, technology in the hands of the people has the potential to impact both the legal system and mainstream media perspectives—as the Grant case has shown.

The emergence of eyewitness videos depicting the events leading up to the shooting, as well as the actual incident, not only fueled public outrage, but changed the tone of media reportage around the case. Had Karina Vargas and the other BART passengers who documented the events that fateful New Year’s Day acceded to police demands to hand over the footage, it’s not only possible, but probable that Mehserle never would have been brought to trial.

During the trial, defense attorney Michael Rains’ tactics were fairly typical of such cases. Grant, he seemed to argue, was a petty thug whose disobedience caused his own death. But the most powerful testimony of all remains in the public mind. Over and over again, civilian videos have contradicted police testimony. Grant’s uncle Bobby Johnson has said the picture taken with Grant’s own cell phone, showing Mehserle with his Taser drawn minutes before he un-hosltered his handgun, is what ultimately brought some measure of justice for his nephew.

Mehserle’s conviction, even for the minimum charge of involuntary manslaughter, will be remembered as a win for the police accountability movement. But it’s also a win for the hip-hop community. The fact that hip-hop has continued to organize around Oscar Grant for almost two years restores faith in the culture’s ability to promote social change, if not systemic reform.

By Guest Contributor Aymar Jean Christian, cross-posted from Televisual

Note: To see Part 1, which featured a breakdown of several of the box-office performances of several leading black actresses, go here.

III. The State Of The Black Leading Lady

It’s hard to be a woman in Hollywood. It’s hard to be black in Hollywood. So, obviously, it stands to reason it’s hard to be a black woman. It can be boring to hear — “black women have it tough, huh, what else is new?” — but it’s true!

One good place to start is New York‘s new “Star Market,” which is a great resource for people wanting to know more about how stars are made and unmade by the throngs of publicists, casting directors, producers and studio execs in Hollywood. One theme from the feature rings clear: it’s much tougher for women. The 2000s haven’t been bad to black actors and actresses: stars like Will Smith and Queen Latifah rose in power; 22 actors and actresses were nominated for and 7 won Academy Awards — in the previous 70 years, only 36 had been nominated and 6 had won. But the overall picture for black women is less rosy than for their male counterparts: most black-led independent and mainstream films are centered on men.

It’s hard to assign blame. Surely, the industry’s partially at fault: too few black/women directors, screenwriters, people above/below the line. But the industry also responds to what America wants, and year after year, movies led by white/men top the box office. Every once in awhile, something shakes the conventional wisdom — Sex and the City, or films by Sandra Bullock , Tyler Perry and Will Smith — but the conventional wisdom more or less remains because Hollywood is congenitally cautious. Once again, who’s to blame? Most films fail, and job security is hard to come by, so how much can we blame industry workers for not taking risks? I don’t know. Let’s talk about it.

Nevertheless, a small group of black women have been given a chance and few have proven themselves marketable; many of them — six on this list — have Oscar wins and nominations. None of them can touch $4 billion Will Smith, but a number can pull in audiences. We’ve come a very long way, but we have a long way to go!

IV. How I Went About It

How do you measure star power? There are many ways to do it. For the black actress, so often overlooked, the issue of measuring value is particularly acute. I wanted to come up with a way that honored the diversity of roles these actors played that still highlighted the imbalances in the industry. Hence the focus on “leading” roles, and the downplaying of other factors — like salary, box office gross and average production and marketing budget (which are the real industry standards).

Most black actresses do not get to play leading roles, even fewer get leading roles in blockbuster films. For this reason, I thought it was important to count equally roles in independent, art-house and blockbuster films — so a leading role in a Tyler Perry film counts as much as a leading role in a Michael Mann film. Even still, most of the women on the list, nine out of fifteen, spent most of their time not in a leading role. Even some of those with scores over 50% have to be qualified: Beyoncé Knowles, Jennifer Hudson and Mariah Carey do not work that often, nor is acting their primary profession.

I started counting what films each actor had been in, relying on IMDB Pro. I also tracked the budget and gross of each film using BoxOfficeMojo and IMDB Pro — and of course information on either wasn’t always available.

I categorized the actor’s role in each film based on five “types:” Leading Lady, Best Friend, Mother/Family, Love Interest and Professional.

Leading Lady – Integral to or featured in the marketing of the film. The character has a back-story or is integral to the plot.
Best Friend – A character who is a friend, confidant, or villain who is there only to serve emotional fulfillment on main character.
Mother/Family – Mother or family. Includes “mammy” and “strong ghetto mother” types: a maternal figure or a guide of some sort, there to emotional/psychologically fulfill leads.
Love Interest – A character who is there as love interest to fulfill romantic, sexual needs primarily of the lead or other major character.
Professional - A character who is valuable primarily for their expertise or profession, intended to further the plot and journey of the protagonist.

Basically a “leading lady” could be any one of those types, or a character without any specific type, but the crucial aspect was the actor’s role in the film’s marketing, prominence in an ensemble cast, or being the integral attraction in the film.  This is not to diminish the importance of supporting roles, which are some of the best parts, but if we’re invested in creating stars, the fact is that stars lead. So I gave Mo’Nique a “leading lady” for Precious, because her performance basically sold the film, IMHO. Queen Latifah’s role in Valentine’s Day too counted as leading lady, because she was a big star in a big cast. But Halle Berry didn’t get an LL for X-Men (I’d say the franchise, plus Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart and Anna Paquin really sold the films). In the end, all this is subjective, so feel free to disagree and change my mind!

I should say that the original list was much, much longer. I started by generating a list of actors in film and television who have worked or been buzzed about for about throughout the 1990s and 2000s. That list got to about 40 actors. Too long! So then I decided to focus on film, where there’s more money and a higher profile, and to limit it to the 2000s, for the sake of my sanity. That led me to the 15 actors above. Missing from this list are whole bunch of actresses who either a) did most of their work in 1990s; b) mostly do television; c) are, sadly, too old to really deliver films anymore; d) don’t work consistently. Some of them, however, could still be huge, or are huge in their own right, but I’m only one person!

The actresses I did not look at for time and other constraints: Anika Noni Rose; Jill Scott; Jada Pinkett-Smith; Paula Patton; Alicia Keys; Janet Jackson; Angela Bassett; Vivica A Fox; Tia and Tamera Mowry; Kimberly Elise; Raven-Symoné; Lisa Bonet; Regina King; Janet Jackson; Robin Givens; Whitney Houston; Aisha Tyler; Lynn Whitfield; Ruby Dee; Vanessa Williams; Alfre Woodard; Phylicia Rashad; Sherri Shepherd; Audra McDonald; Loretta Devine; Gabourey Sidibe.

(Last Update Nov 10)
I first became aware of this research in an ISBA4 abstract, and now it seems that a full article has been published in PLoS Biology.

Today, a fascinating new paper has appeared which completes the picture by studying for the first time both mtDNA and Y-chromosomes from a Central European Linearbandkeramik site, Derenburg Meerenstieg II in Germany.

From the paper:We successfully typed 17 individuals for mtDNA, which together with a previous study [19] provided data for 22 individuals from the Derenburg graveyard (71% of all samples collected for genetic analysis; Tables 1 and S1), and significantly extended the genetic dataset of the LBK (n = 42), to our knowledge the largest Neolithic database available.
Table 1 has a summary of the new data.
Two individuals belonged to Y-chromosome paragroup F*(xG,H,I,J,K), and one to haplogroup G2a3.
From the paper:The multiplexed single base extension (SBE) approach with its shortened flanking regions around targeted SNPs significantly increases the chance of successful Y-chromosomal amplifications, which have remained problematic for aDNA studies, as have nuclear loci in general, because of the much lower cellular copy number compared to mitochondrial loci. The multiplexed SBE approach promises to open the way to studying the paternal history of past populations, which is of paramount importance in determining how the social organization of prehistoric societies impacted the population dynamics of the past.The mtDNA data is more plentiful, and the authors write:Out of 25 different haplotypes present in 42 LBK samples, 11 are found at high frequency in nearly all present-day populations under study, a further ten have limited geographic distribution, and the remaining four haplotypes are unique to Neolithic LBK populations (Table S4).
This suggests to me that there has not been massive extinction (due to selection or any other factor) of the Neolithic gene pool, as only four unique haplotypes to LBK individuals were found. Moreover, even these could potentially still exist, although they might not have been sampled yet.

From the paper:
The 11 widespread haplotypes are mainly basal (i.e., constituting a basal node within the corresponding hg) for Western Eurasian mitochondrial hgs H, HV, V, K, T, and W. While these haplotypes are relatively uninformative for identifying genetic affiliations to extant populations, this finding is consistent within an ancient population (5,500–4,900 cal B.C., i.e., prior to recent population expansions), in which basal haplotypes might be expected to be more frequent than derived haplotypes (e.g., end tips of branches within hgs).

From the paper:
The next ten LBK haplotypes were unequally spread among present-day populations and for this reason potentially contain information about geographical affinities. We found nine modern-day population pools in which the percentage of these haplotypes is significantly higher than in other population pools (p>0.01, two-tailed z test; Figure 1; Table S4): (a) North and Central English, (b) Croatians and Slovenians, (c) Czechs and Slovaks, (d) Hungarians and Romanians, (e) Turkish, Kurds, and Armenians, (f) Iraqis, Syrians, Palestinians, and Cypriotes, (g) Caucasus (Ossetians and Georgians), (h) Southern Russians, and (i) Iranians. Three of these pools (b–d) originate near the proposed geographic center of the earliest LBK in Central Europe and presumably represent a genetic legacy from the Neolithic. However, the other matching population pools are from Near East regions (except [a] and [h]), which is consistent with this area representing the origin of the European Neolithic, an idea that is further supported by Iranians sharing the highest number of informative haplotypes with the LBK (7.2%; Table S4). The remaining pool (a) from North and Central England shares an elevated frequency of mtDNA T2 haplotypes with the LBK, but otherwise appears inconsistent with the proposed origin of the Neolithic in the Near East. It has been shown that certain alleles (here hgs) can accumulate in frequency while surfing on the wave of expansion, eventually resulting in higher frequencies relative to the proposed origin [29],[30]. Several of the other population pools also show a low but nonsignificant level of matches, which may relate to pre-Neolithic distributions or subsequent demographic movements (Figure 1).As I have noted before, frequency is an uncertain guide to where a lineage has originated, as Neolithic founders may have left more descendants in freshly colonized regions than in their homelands. Nonetheless, with the exception of the English, the "high match" populations are all within the broad trajectory of Neolithic populations from the Fertile Crescent to Central Europe.
With respect to the Y-chromosomal evidence:The Y chromosome hgs obtained from the three Derenburg early Neolithic individuals are generally concordant with the mtDNA data (Table 1). Interestingly, we do not find the most common Y chromosome hgs in modern Europe (e.g., R1b, R1a, I, and E1b1), which parallels the low frequency of the very common modern European mtDNA hg H (now at 20%–50% across Western Eurasia) in the Neolithic samples. Also, while both Neolithic Y chromosome hgs G2a3 and F* are rather rare in modern-day Europe, they have slightly higher frequencies in populations of the Near East, and the highest frequency of hg G2a is seen in the Caucasus today [15]. The few published ancient Y chromosome results from Central Europe come from late Neolithic sites and were exclusively hg R1a [31]. While speculative, we suggest this supports the idea that R1a may have spread with late Neolithic cultures from the east [31].Hopefully more Y-chromosome results from different Neolithic sites will turn up more derived haplogroups. Haplogroup G has been implicated as a Neolithic lineage as early as Semino et al. (2010), but clearly this is just the beginning of the reconstruction of Neolithic Y-DNA gene pools, and hopefully Y-DNA can be extracted from Mesolithic samples of similar age.

PCA (on the left) shows the outlier status of the Neolithic samples with respect to extant populations. Either natural selection, or later demographic events have led to a quite different gene pool today than what existed in central Europe thousands of years ago.

From the paper:
To better understand which particular hgs made the Neolithic populations appear either Near Eastern or (West) European, we compared average hg frequencies of the total LBK (LBK42) and Derenburg (DEB22) datasets to two geographically pooled meta-population sets from Europe and the Near East (Tables 2 and S6; 41 and 14 populations, respectively). PC correlates and component loadings (Figure 2) showed a pattern similar to average hg frequencies (Table 2) in both large meta-population sets, with the LBK dataset grouping with Europeans because of a lack of mitochondrial African hgs (L and M1) and preHV, and elevated frequencies of hg V. In contrast, low frequencies of hg H and higher frequencies for HV, J, and U3 promoted Near Eastern resemblances. Removal of individuals with shared haplotypes within the Derenburg dataset (yielding dataset LBK34) did not noticeably decrease the elevated frequencies of J and especially HV in the Neolithic data.

Most importantly, PC correlates of the second component showed that elevated or high frequencies of hgs T, N1a, K, and W were unique to LBK populations, making them appear different from both Europe and Near East. The considerable within-hg diversity of all four of these hgs (especially T and N1a; Table 1) suggests that this observation is unlikely to be an artifact of random genetic drift leading to elevated frequencies in small, isolated populations.The pooled European and Near Eastern meta-populations are necessarily overgeneralizations, and there are likely to be subsets of Near Eastern populations that are more similar to the Neolithic population. Interestingly, both the PCA and the MDS plots identified Georgians, Ossetians, and Armenians as candidate populations (Figures 2 and S1).

The authors also mapped genetic distances between all 42 Neolithic mtDNA samples (left) and only the Derenburg site (right), with "greener" signifying smaller distance. They write:In agreement with the PCA and MDS analyses, populations from the area bounding modern-day Turkey, Armenia, Iraq, and Iran demonstrated a clear genetic similarity with the LBK population (Figure 3A). This relationship was even stronger in a second map generated with just the Neolithic Derenburg individuals (Figure 3B). Interestingly, the map of the combined LBK data also suggested a possible geographic route for the dispersal of Neolithic lineages into Central Europe: genetic distances gradually increase from eastern Anatolia westward across the Balkans, and then northwards into Central Europe. The area with lower genetic distances follows the course of the rivers Danube and Dniester, and this natural corridor has been widely accepted as the most likely inland route towards the Carpathian basin as well as the fertile Loess plains further northwest.
How ancient DNA is rewriting theories based on modern populations:aDNA data offers a powerful new means to test evolutionary models and assumptions. The European lineage with the oldest coalescent age, U5, has indeed been found to prevail in the indigenous hunter–gatherers [12],[35]. However, mtDNA hgs J2a1a and T1, which because of their younger coalescence ages have been suggested to be Neolithic immigrant lineages [8],[12], are so far absent from the samples of early farmers in Central Europe. Similarly, older coalescence ages were used to support hgs K, T2, H, and V as “postglacial/Mesolithic lineages,” and yet these have been revealed to be common only in Neolithic samples. The recent use of whole mitochondrial genomes and the refinement of mutation rate estimates have resulted in a general reduction in coalescence ages [8], which would lead to an improved fit with the aDNA data.The authors speak about demic diffusion being the best match for their data:Therefore at a large scale, a demic diffusion model of genetic input from the Near East into Central Europe is the best match for our observations. It is notable that recent anthropological research has come to similar conclusions [40],[41]. On a regional scale, “leap-frog” or “individual pioneer” colonization models, where early farmers initially target the economically favorable Loess plains in Central Europe [33],[42], would explain both the relative speed of the LBK expansion and the clear genetic Near Eastern connections still seen in these pioneer settlements, although the resolving power of the genetic data is currently unable to test the subtleties of these models.Demic diffusion, at least as it was proposed initially, implies interaction between expanding farmers and local foragers, with gene pools becoming increasingly "forager" the further one goes from the source of the Neolithic. But, this is not really what we observe in the data, and there is no real evidence of forager DNA in Central European Neolithic (1/42 U5a). Whatever the terminology, it appears that genetics is adding extra firepower to the diffusionist camp of archaeological debates, and contradicting the suppositions of the acculturationists.
UPDATE I (Nov 10):
What is most disappointing about the study is that apparently the SNPs defining the Y-clade IJ were not typed in the samples. So, the two F* samples are certainly not I or J, but they could very well already be IJ. Haplogroup IJ largely tracks the path of the farmers from the Near East to the Balkans and Central Europe, and hopefully a re-examination of the Derenburg remains can be made to include the IJ-defining markers.
It is also fascinating that the presence of 33.3% haplogroup G2 in the German Neolithic is matched by a presence of 33.3% haplogroup G2 in 7th c. Bavarian knights, and maybe even the latest French royalty. The Y-DNA landscape of Europe is still largely empty in space and time, and it will be exciting to see it filled out over the next years.
Certainly, the new Haak et al. study has achieved what Haak et al. (2005), and pretty much every ancient DNA study since has achieved: to surprise us.
UPDATE II (November 10):
It is extremely important to note that the authors have not disproved that the F* Y-chromosomes belonged to derived clades (e.g., haplogroup I or haplogroup J) of the phylogeny. For example, haplogroup I is defined by 7 polymorphisms according to ISOGG.
Today only chromosomes that possess all 7 of them seem to be extant, but these polymorphisms occurred in an unknown order in the line of descent leading to modern I men.
The authors typed only M170, one of these 7 polymorphisms, but it could very well be the case that the F* samples were derived for one or more of the remaining 6 ones, and were thus either ancestors or "cousins" of extant European haplogroup-I bearing men.
It is imperative for internal tree markers to be tested in the F* bearing chromosomes to determine their status.
PLoS Biol 8(11): e1000536. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000536

Ancient DNA from European Early Neolithic Farmers Reveals Their Near Eastern Affinities

Wolfgang Haak et al.

In Europe, the Neolithic transition (8,000–4,000 B.C.) from hunting and gathering to agricultural communities was one of the most important demographic events since the initial peopling of Europe by anatomically modern humans in the Upper Paleolithic (40,000 B.C.). However, the nature and speed of this transition is a matter of continuing scientific debate in archaeology, anthropology, and human population genetics. To date, inferences about the genetic make up of past populations have mostly been drawn from studies of modern-day Eurasian populations, but increasingly ancient DNA studies offer a direct view of the genetic past. We genetically characterized a population of the earliest farming culture in Central Europe, the Linear Pottery Culture (LBK; 5,500–4,900 calibrated B.C.) and used comprehensive phylogeographic and population genetic analyses to locate its origins within the broader Eurasian region, and to trace potential dispersal routes into Europe. We cloned and sequenced the mitochondrial hypervariable segment I and designed two powerful SNP multiplex PCR systems to generate new mitochondrial and Y-chromosomal data from 21 individuals from a complete LBK graveyard at Derenburg Meerenstieg II in Germany. These results considerably extend the available genetic dataset for the LBK (n = 42) and permit the first detailed genetic analysis of the earliest Neolithic culture in Central Europe (5,500–4,900 calibrated B.C.). We characterized the Neolithic mitochondrial DNA sequence diversity and geographical affinities of the early farmers using a large database of extant Western Eurasian populations (n = 23,394) and a wide range of population genetic analyses including shared haplotype analyses, principal component analyses, multidimensional scaling, geographic mapping of genetic distances, and Bayesian Serial Simcoal analyses. The results reveal that the LBK population shared an affinity with the modern-day Near East and Anatolia, supporting a major genetic input from this area during the advent of farming in Europe. However, the LBK population also showed unique genetic features including a clearly distinct distribution of mitochondrial haplogroup frequencies, confirming that major demographic events continued to take place in Europe after the early Neolithic.

Link

• Proficiency of Black Students Is Found to Be Far Lower Than Expected – NYTimes.com "The report shows that black boys on average fall behind from their earliest years. Black mothers have a higher infant mortality rate and black children are twice as likely as whites to live in a home where no parent has a job. In high school, African-American boys drop out at nearly twice the rate of white boys, and their SAT scores are on average 104 points lower. In college, black men represented just 5 percent of students in 2008.

  The analysis of results on the national tests found that math scores in 2009 for black boys were not much different than those for black girls in Grades 4 and 8, but black boys lagged behind Hispanics of both sexes, and they fell behind white boys by at least 30 points, a gap sometimes interpreted as three academic grades."

  (tags: via:bossip achievementgap race school eduation)

By Guest Contributor Aymar Jean Christian, cross-posted from Televisual

The “black actress” stepped into the spotlight last year, as Nia Long called out Beyoncé Knowles and other singers for taking roles; Tyler Perry released yet another film starring newcomer Taraji P. Henson; and Precious gave its stars, especially Mo’Nique, a chance to shine.

The November 5 release of Perry’s For Colored Girls puts the issue of black women in cinema back into the national conversation — even if it fails to redeem Tyler Perry. So I decided to posit an answer to the question: where are all the black leading ladies? Below: 1) why this question?, 2) a list, 3) the state of the black leading lady, and 4) how I came up with the current crop.

I. Where is the Black Julia Roberts? One Route to an Answer

Easier asked than answered! The question is really more provocation than anything. At a certain point, comparison between races is irrelevant: is Will Smith the “white” anyone? He’s Will Smith! The question, however, does open up an interesting discussion. Julia Roberts, like Meryl Streep, can do a lot: from Duplicity and Eat Pray Love to, now, August: Osage County. Roberts can choose her roles and she almost always plays the lead. What black actress could do the same, now or in the near future? The real issue leads us to ask: of the potential black leading ladies today, who is on top, who isn’t panning out, and why?

The list is ranked by the percentage of an actor’s total roles where she gets to play a leading lady. The point is to gauge the industry’s confidence in an actress’ bankability. I also added the box office grosses based on the actor’s “leading lady” films (IMDB Pro, Box Office Mojo); but this list isn’t organized by B.O. Other lists add up an actor’s total grosses over all her films, but this is misleading: you can have an incidental role for a film that made lots of money. So I added up all of an actor’s roles from 2000-2010, from low-budget to big-budget films. A “lead” role was defined as a major character integral to or featured in the marketing of the film; the character has a back-story or is key to the plot. More on method at the bottom.

There’s always folly in trying to quantify and list something. But I like lists not because they tell “the truth” — I wouldn’t put too much stock in the particular order below. Lists prompt discussion and reflection. What do these actors say about America? About Hollywood? About black women? So: let’s get to it!

II. Our Black Leading Ladies?

Beyoncé Knowles

Percentage of films led: 83. Box Office Pull: $215 million invested; $565 million grossed

Beyoncé Knowles tops this list mainly because of selectivity. The mega pop star doesn’t need to work in film, she chooses to. It seems Nia Long had a point about musicians taking film roles. Almost all her roles, except for the Pink Panther, I would characterize as leading, mainly because she often out-stars her co-stars. Would Cadillac Records have made even its measly $8 million without her? Jennifer Hudson was the breakout star of Dreamgirls, and the source musical might’ve sold tickets to the over-40 set, but Knowles put young people in seats. After the success of Obsessed, Knowles solidified her place as a movie star, and, hey, her acting is getting better — if reviews of Cadillac Records are to be believed.

Sanaa Lathan

Percentage of films led: 75 . $88 million invested; $275 million grossed.

Sanaa Lathan made it up here for choosing prominent roles in small films. She’s headlined a number of prominent black films — Love & Basketball, Something New, Brown Sugar and The Family that Preys — and took a role like Wonderful World opposite Matthew Broderick, which nobody saw. Alien vs. Predator provides the bulk of her total grosses at $170 million. Lathan still has potential to be a big star, but she’ll need a good role in a well-written film. I’m concerned her villain role in Family that Preys might’ve marked her as the “bitch” to black audiences. She’ll need something solid to raise her profile again.

Halle Berry

Percentage of films led: 73 . $388 million invested; $928 million grossed

Halle Berry could’ve had a perfect score, but I decided not to give her X-Men I, II and II, which is controversial I know. I did, however, give her Die Another Day; despite being a “Bond” movie, she was one of the more prominent Bond girls and was displayed in the film’s marketing (everyone remembers the bikini!). Catwoman was the industry’s $100 million vote of confidence in Berry’s star power, one that didn’t pan out. Berry has yet to fully recover from the bomb, but she has a host of projects planned for this and next year, including the much-anticipated film adaptation of Cloud Atlas and a bevy of films of different genres including thrillers, actioners, and comedies. Berry had come dangerously close the Megan Fox and Jennifer Aniston traps: known more for getting photographed and doing promotional campaigns than for doing films. But as she ages, she’s going to need to prove her chops once again if she wants to “Meryl Streep” into the latter part of her career. UPDATE: And it appears as though she’s already started! Berry is promoting her performance as a woman afflicted with multiple-personality disorder (including a racist one!) in Frankie and Alice to the Academy! With the film apparently receiving warm critical attention, could this be Berry’s return to Oscar gold and leading lady stardom?

Mariah Carey

Percentage of films led: 60 . $33 million invested, $5 million grossed.

I only included Mariah Carey because her role in Precious, which was either quite good or just passable depending on whom you asked. She wasn’t a lead, really, but she did act well enough to start some chatter about her future in film — remember she was originally supposed to be in For Colored Girls. Carey’s Glitter really gives her all of her grosses, which says something. Her other lead roles are in films no one has ever heard of: WiseGirls and Tennessee anyone? She might be too old to beat out Beyoncé, but if she ever wanted to stop singing, she could make a go for it acting, given the right roles and a good story.

Queen Latifah

Percentage of films led: 53 . $218 million invested; $678 million grossed

I was surprised Queen Latifah wasn’t at the top of the list, but it’s only because she works, often and consistently. I counted nine lead roles, from movies like Last Holiday and Just Wright that are clearly selling her and her alone, to ensembles like Mad Money and co-starring roles like Bringing Down the House. Other than that, Latifah plays a lot of maternal, best friend type roles — like an artist/activist in Hairspray and a prison officer in her Oscar-nominated turn in Chicago. They’re good roles, and she does them well, but I wouldn’t call them leading roles. Other than that, she occasionally plays the perfect professional, in films like What Happens in Vegas (therapist) and Stranger than Fiction (writer’s assistant). Unfortunately for Latifah, Just Wright did not do well in theaters, and was her biggest attempt yet to “Julia Roberts” herself into an adorable, romantic lead, instead of just the woman you like to have fun with (the ultimate BBF). Still, perhaps more than any black actress out there, Latifah sells her movies; she plays an integral role in the marketing of almost any film she’s in, meaning she really earned that nearly $700 million total.

Jennifer Hudson

Percentage of films led: 50 . $81 million invested; $194 million grossed.

I’m really bullish on Jennifer Hudson. So far, I think she’s still resting on her Dreamgirls laurels, but who wouldn’t? It’s by definition a career-making role. Other than The Secret Life of Bees, she’s been fairly quiet, for obvious personal and professional reasons. Nonetheless, she’s signed on to play Winnie Mandela, wife of Nelson Mandela, in a forthcoming biopic Winnie, which sounds like the perfect substantial, buzzworthy role for her. She’s also lost weight, which unfortunately does matter in Hollywood (in my opinion she was lovely before), and she’s getting photographed so people still care about her. Her acting appears to be improving, and if she can channel it into a blowout performance in Winnie, she could be a Diana/Whitney/Beyoncé-style dynamo: singing and acting all the way to the bank.

Thandie Newton

Percentage of films led: 38 . $131 million invested; $671 million grossed.

Is it just me, or is Thandie Newton really still famous for Mission Impossible? I don’t know. Anyway, I gave it to her, since it put her name on the map and was a big part of the film — that’s a judgment call I’m willing to take back. Anyway, her other lead roles are small. In bigger films, she tends to also play the love interest or just a nice girl: Norbit, Riddick, Pursuit of Happyness (ok, sort of), 2012 (sort of). She was pretty good, surprisingly so, as Condoleeza Rice in W, so she can act. For Colored Girls puts her back in the mix after Crash, and she has a couple more movies coming out.

Gabrielle Union

Percentage of films led: 35. $43 million invested; $66 million

Gabrielle Union is nothing if not productive! Union has averaged two films a year over the past ten years, almost all of them targeted squarely at the black community. She has done a few art-house films — like Neo Ned with Jeremy Renner — but nobody saw them. Despite counting over 20 films, I couldn’t find many big grossers in the bunch. Union’s limited film market has effectively taken her off the list when it comes to big Hollywood roles currently nabbed by Halle Berry, Kerry Washington and the other “pretty” women. While Union has held prominent place in a number of marketing campaigns, she might not be able to shift her persona beyond the average, sometimes likable/sometimes bitchy black girl, always a love interest (girlfriend, mother, “fun buddy”). It’s done her quite well on television, but the film industry isn’t giving her much to work with.

Kerry Washington

Percentage of films led: 33 . $36 million invested; $49.2 million grossed

Kerry Washington is probably, in my mind, the natural heir to Halle Berry: beautiful, sophisticated, with some acting chops. Her big roles have too been in small films, and she has yet to get “that role” that defines who she is and what she can do. Last King of Scotland and Ray let people know she was a serious actress, not just a pretty face. And she offers nice support in big films like Fantastic Four and Mr. and Mrs. Smith: she doesn’t hurt but doesn’t sell tickets either. While she hasn’t been given a chance to shine, there’s no evidence she lacks the potential, and perhaps For Colored Girls will give her the appropriate launching pad. Meanwhile, I saw her on Broadway in Race, and while she didn’t blow me away, she met expectations, which is hard in live theater.

Sophie Okonedo

Percentage of films led: 30. $28.5 million invested; $73 million grossed

With a rare Oscar nomination under her belt, Sophie Okonedo has the privilege of artistic credibility. What she doesn’t have is any track record of marketability. Nonetheless, she’s clearly talented and able to do bigger projects. Her starring role in the recent film Skin was a wise move, giving her a major role with a lot emotional work. Critics loved it, but nobody saw it. Still, she’s versatile: able to play mother, girlfriend, warm and even action star  (though Æon Flux was a critical and commercial flop). The jury’s still out on Okonedo: she definitely belongs in films, but time will tell if she’ll stay an indie darling or if she’ll branch out big into Hollywood — if she chooses to.

Zoe Saldana

Percentage of films led: 27 . $84 million invested; $136 million grossed.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Zoe Saldana’s career so far is how often she’s cast among men — lots of men. As a lead, she’s held her own in actioners like Takers and The Losers and comedies like Death at a Funeral and Guess Who. Unfortunately, in her biggest films, she’s been playing smaller, “love interest” roles: Uhuru in the latest Star Trek and a blue person in Avatar. Saldana ranks lower because she, like Queen Latifah, works quite frequently, with over 20 films in the last decade. Like a Taraji P. Henson, she’s newly on the rise. Unlike a Sanaa Lathan, though, she tends not to get cast to lead black films, instead playing a broad range of secondary characters in independent films, from the “best friend,” “girlfriend,” or tough professional. Nonetheless, Saldana has some serious buzz around her, marking as one of the few women in Hollywood who can play it tough like Angelia Jolie (the others: Natalie Portman, Kate Beckinsale, Mila Jovovich; with potentially others like Rooney Mara coming up). Acting in sci-fi films was a smart move, as the fanboys tend to be loyal: ask Angelina “Tomb Raider” Jolie or Sigourney “Alien” Weaver. She looks nice in those Calvin Klein commercials, but can she keep her male fan base while bringing in the women she’ll need to carry her through bigger roles?

Nia Long

Percentage of films led: 27 . $55 million invested; $190 million grossed.

I got some scoffs for including Nia Long on this list. Part of my criteria was to look at who has led films in the last ten years, and Long’s heyday was clearly in the 1990s. Nevertheless, she still works, and was recently on the cover of Ebony looking rather fabulous, I’d say — she’s kept her fans in the community. Can Long come back in a big way? Never say never. My guess is she needs a strong role to prove her acting chops as a mature actress, coupled with a rom-com, which is where people seem to want to see her. She’s got one of each coming up.

Mo’Nique

Percentage of films led: 25 . $13 million invested; $70 million grossed.

If there’s one thing it seems Mo’Nique does not care about it’s Hollywood, famously refusing to shill for the Oscar she recently won. She seems happy to host her BET show in Atlanta, which, along with Tyler Perry’s 34th Street, seems to be the place for black people in film looking to shun the industry. Who can blame her? She’s been doing this a long time, with little hope of being Halle Berry. Now she gets to talk to all her friends, support entertainers who don’t get support, and keep it positive (have you seen her show? It’s all about community support). But her performance in Precious was a revelation, one of the best of decade in my opinion, so I hope a good script comes her way and gives her another chance to shine. Right now, her career’s been limited to mostly black comedies where she plays comic relief.

Taraji P. Henson

Percentage of films led: 18 . $18 million invested; $61 million grossed.

Taraji P. Henson is a rising star, and I was surprised she wasn’t higher on the list. But her low position is mainly because her star has only recently risen. Before I Can Do Bad All By Myself and Not Easily Broken — and yes, her turn as mammy in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button — she spent most of her time playing side roles, as the “best black wife ever” in The Family that Preys, more “down” girls in Hustle and Flow and Talk to Me, and a tough lesbian Smokin’ Aces. While she’s proven very marketable to black audiences, mainstream cinema still isn’t giving her much to do: her turn as a police officer in Date Night seemed to epitomize that. Yet, post-Oscar, she’s getting cast in serious films (Once Fallen) with serious actors (Tom Hanks, Larry Crowne) and has another starring role in a film (From the Rough). Her future for now is bright.

Viola Davis

Percentage of films led: 10. $47 million invested; $30 million grossed

I was surprised Viola Davis was so low on this list! Another Oscar nominee, Davis has serious buzz around her too, but as yet she hasn’t really been given much to do, save The Architect, which critics merely liked. Instead, Davis seems to play an awful lot of professional, serious women, characters without much of a back-story but who are good at their jobs: see Madea Goes to Jail (social worker), Knight and Day (Intelligence official), Syriana (CIA boss), etc. They’re respectable roles, just not very memorable. She’s got BBF locked down — see Nights in Rodanthe and Eat Pray Love — also maids and mothers — Doubt, Far From Heaven and Get Rich or Die Tryin’. But Davis can act. She needs a movie!

Note: Sections III and IV will run Thursday

By Guest Contributor Damon Young, cross-posted from Very Smart Brothas

Like most other “Americans with pronounced but peripheral connections to the African continent-Americans” (just plain ole “African-American” just isn’t descriptive enough for me anymore) with a Borders Rewards card and dust-ridden Obama t-shirt, my life seems to be filled with three certain inevitiabilities: Death, Taxes, and Angst-Ridden Discussions about Tyler Perry. And, while certain people have proven that you can actually live without paying taxes and certain scientific advances have made it so that immortality isn’t such a far-fetched concept anymore, Angst-Ridden Discussions about Tyler Perry have proven to be unavoidable to the point of comedy.

From The Huffington Post and weekly 40 cent hot wing night with the crew to Facebook and my favorite porn message board, I can’t go anywhere anymore without running into Angst-Ridden Discussions about Tyler Perry. It’s ubiquitous, ecumenical, pandemic, panoramic, and every another PSAT word that’s just a pretentiously educated way of saying “everywhere”. Yesterday, just when I thought I had foiled Angst-Ridden Discussions about Tyler Perry and finally managed to escape it, I tripped over Angst-Ridden Discussions about Tyler Perry on the way to the bathroom. After I got out of the shower, I went into my kitchen and saw Angst-Ridden Discussions about Tyler Perry drinking my orange juice straight from the carton. And, right when I was about to drive to the store to buy some more juice, I noticed that Angst-Ridden Discussions about Tyler Perry had not only taken the $20 in my wallet, but had the nerve to leave an “I.O.U.” note. (Triflin bastard!)

It feels like I’m at Camp Crystal Lake and Angst-Ridden Discussions about Tyler Perry is Jason Voorhees lurking around the campsite with a machete. There’s no cabin I can hide in, no bed I can hide underneath, no voluptuous teenage camp counselor I can hide, um, a part of me inside of without Angst-Ridden Discussions about Tyler Perry finding and disemboweling me. If Earth’s civilization was wiped out by nuclear war tomorrow, by Friday the roaches probably will have already organized a roundtable to discuss whether “Tyler Perry’s Meet The Browns” was just a modern-day minstrel show or a subconscious and subliminal indictment of pre-holocaust urban cockroach culture.

At this point, the only question worth asking is “Why?”. Why do we devote so much of our time and energy to Angst-Ridden Discussions about Tyler Perry, and why have we given Angst-Ridden Discussions about Tyler Perry such prominence? Shit, on Friday, why did I spend at least 45 minutes of valuable talk time in a 60 minute car ride with my parents and my girlfriend discussing a movie—For Colored Girls, Perry’s film adaptation of Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf“—none of us had seen or even plan on seeing, especially since there are much more pressing and “important” issues when could have talked about?

The answer is simple. Tyler Perry, wait, the discussion of all things Tyler Perry unites us in our relentless need to distinguish ourselves from each other, to, to quote my Aunt Jackie, “tell on ourselves”. The ubiquitousness (there’s that word again) of Perry and Perry’s art and the myriad visceral feelings the mere thought of it induces has made Angst-Ridden Discussions about Tyler Perry a personality profile, a multi-layered Myers-Briggs for colored people who were a bit too vain to ever seriously consider suicide but instead chose to use Angst-Ridden Discussions about Tyler Perry as a means to let everyone know exactly who they are.

“I’m the smartest person in the room” movie snobs (like my parents and I) discuss the utter unwatchability of all things Tyler Perry while ignoring the blatant irony in discussing the unwatchability of something you’ve obviously watched. “I’m the realist, most down to earth person you’d ever meet” Non-snob moviegoers discuss the fact that each of his movies are entertaining in their own way, something you can’t say about most cinema (but something you could also say about most crackheads). Anti-Tyler Perry Pro-Blacks (read: liberals) discuss how he’s appealing to the lowest common denominator and wasting his considerable influence and opportunity, while Pro-Tyler Perry Pro-Blacks (read: moderates and conservatives) discuss how he’s employing hundreds of black people while touching on issues unique to our community and providing (somewhat) wholesome family entertainment.

Conspiracy theorists discuss how Tyler Perry has been thrust to the forefront of black culture by the powers-that-be, ensuring the ongoing demasculinization of black males. Comedians discuss Tyler Perry because he’s an easy comedy buffet. (Seriously. If you fashion yourself to be a funny person and you can’t come up with at least one “laugh aloud” worthy comment or joke somehow related to Tyler Perry, it might be time to take up another hobby. Try crocheting) The “Real Issues Fun Police”—people whose sole goal in life seems to be to try to make people feel bad for discussing For Colored Girls when there’s widespread cholera in Haiti—discuss how our obsession with Tyler Perry is a damning indictment on American culture. Bloggers and other arbiters of pop culture discuss Tyler Perry, because, well, everyone else is doing it, and their, well, our identity is partially defined by staying relevant.

I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on Angst-Ridden Discussions About Tyler Perry. Its heart seems to be in the right place, and I can’t be too mad at something that manages to bring us and our collective need to be heard all together. But, I think I speak for most when I say that Angst-Ridden Discussions About Tyler Perry is beginning to wear out its welcome, and, until it makes good on that orange juice I.O.U., Angst-Ridden Discussions About Tyler Perry needs to stay the hell out of my kitchen.

Roewer et al. had previously discovered structure in European Y-chromosomes with Y-STRs. The new study, five years later, uses a huge database of population samples. While Y-SNPs defining haplogroups are safer due to the avoidance of homoplasy, which can be a problem with a few Y-STR markers, I believe that most major haplogroups can be distinguished even with few Y-STRs, so the paper's results are valid.
From the paper:In a total of 33,010 males we identified 4176 different haplotypes, 2192 were unique, and 56 corresponded to 42% of the Y chromosomesInteresting that such a small fraction of haplotypes corresponds to almost half the Y chromosomes. 7 Y-STRs are generally not sufficient to define monophyletic lineages (as the Cohen Modal Haplotype folks well know by now). It would be interesting to see what this fraction is expected to be under an assumption of reproductive equality, to assess the strength of social selection that I've speculated may be behind the mega-haplogroups we observe in the world today.
Here is a synthetic map of Europe showing distribution of different clusters:

(a) Spatial distribution of the most frequent Y-STR haplotype clusters inEurope and neighboring regions.(b) Spatial distribution of the Y-STR haplotype clusters accounting forthe second frequency in western Europe.
Now, take a look at a map of predicted language distribution by Finnish scholar Kalevi Wiik for 5,500 BC:
The correspondence is not perfect, but it's pretty close to merit study. The little differences can be ascribed to 7,500 years of history; for example, in 5,500BC there were probably no Germanic speakers in Scandinavia.
Also of interest:Two clusters were assigned to large areas of the Balkan Peninsula: 1) Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Romania,Western and Eastern Hungary, and Central Ukraine: cluster 18;(2) continental Greece, Bulgaria, and Macedonia: cluster2. Cluster13 was assigned to Albania and to the western area of the Balkans 10 and cluster 11 to the Caucasus.
Forensic Science International: Genetics doi:10.1016/j.fsigen.2010.09.010

Geostatistical inference of main Y-STR-haplotype groups in Europe

Amalia Diaz-Lacava et al.

We examined the multifarious genetic heterogeneity of Europe and neighboring regions from a geographical perspective. We created composite maps outlining the estimated geographical distribution of major groups of genetically similar individuals on the basis of forensic Y-chromosomal markers. We analyzed Y-chromosomal haplotypes composed of 7 highly polymorphic STR loci, genotyped for 33,010 samples, collected at 249 sites in Europe, Western Asia and North Africa, deposited in the YHRD database (www.yhrd.org). The data set comprised 4176 different haplotypes, which we grouped into 20 clusters. For each cluster, the frequency per site was calculated. All geostatistical analysis was performed with the geographic information system GRASS-GIS. We interpolated frequency values across the study area separately for each cluster. Juxtaposing all 20 interpolated surfaces, we point-wisely screened for the highest cluster frequencies and stored it in parallel with the respective cluster label. We combined these two types of data in a composite map. We repeated this procedure for the second highest frequencies in Europe. Major groups were assigned to Northern, Western and Eastern Europe. North Africa built a separate region, Southeastern Europe, Turkey and Near East were divided into several regions. The spatial distribution of the groups accounting for the second highest frequencies in Europe overlapped with the territories of the largest countries. The genetic structure presented in the composite maps fits major historical geopolitical regions and is in agreement with previous studies of genetic frequencies, validating our approach. Our genetic geostatistical approach provides, on the basis of two composite maps, detailed evidence of the geographical distribution and relative frequencies of the most predominant groups of the extant male European population, examined on the basis of forensic Y-STR haplotypes. The existence of considerable genetic differences among geographic subgroups in Europe has important consequences for the statistical inference in forensic Y-STR haplotype analyses.

Link

• Mexican Transgender Asylum Seeker Allowed to Stay in U.S. | The Denver Post "Last week, an immigration judge granted Reyes a form of asylum that allows her to stay in the U.S. based on the persecution she suffered as a transgender woman in Mexico.

  "The Board of Immigration Appeals withheld her removal from the U.S. after determining the Mexican government would not protect her from abuse if she was deported.

  "U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services does not keep statistics on the numbers of transgender immigrants granted asylum. But Large said the relief Reyes got is rare for a Mexican national because some immigration judges think there is tolerance for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in Mexico.

  "Same-sex marriage is allowed in Mexico City, and many gay tourists flock to beach resorts throughout the country, leading to the misconception that the country is welcoming, said Large, who argues that pockets of intolerance abound in rural Mexico."

  (tags: via:tgworldnews mexico transwomen transmisogyny asylum)
• On Her First Visit to a National Park, Oprah Can't Find Other Black People | Change.org "Oprah isn't exactly the outdoorsy type, which is kind of the point. Her visit occurred earlier this month, and she and her friend Gayle first stocked up at REI on 'sleeping bags, lawn chairs, water bottles and fanny packs too,' according to one eyewitness account. Her show will feature activities such as fly-fishing and mule riding. During her trip, she commented that she felt closer to God.

  "Johnson says the exposure of Oprah's show to an audience of 30 million will be like 'an earthquake' that sends out seismic waves of culture change across the black community. His ultimate visitor to champion the parks cause to the black community, however, would be rap superstar Snoop Dogg.

  "'All Snoop Dogg has to do is go camping in Yosemite and it would change the world,' Johnson told the San Francisco Chronicle a year ago. 'If Oprah Winfrey went on a road trip to the national parks, it would do more than I have done in my whole career.'"

  (tags: via:arturo oprah conservation environment africanamericans black)
• How Segregation Plagues Bloomberg's New York: Black, White and Wrong All Over | NY Daily News "Segregation haunts questions of public safety, education, housing and fairness in the workplace. It is how New York sorts out its children, sending them on a path toward success or disaster.

  "And the poison spreads from there. Racially segregated zones make it 'natural' for cops and prosecutors to make decisions about law enforcement (including stop-and-frisk procedures and low-level drug busts of sellers rather than buyers) that inevitably track with race."

  (tags: via:djolder newyorkcity housing segregation gentrification)
• MA Town Makes Peace with Du Bois, a Native Son | Yahoo! News "For decades since Du Bois' death in Ghana in 1963, the civil rights activist and scholar has drawn praise for his writings but scorn from residents upset that he joined the Communist Party, became a citizen of Ghana and often criticized the U.S. over race relations.

  "FBI agents and riot police guarded a park dedication to him more than 40 years ago. Efforts to name a school after him were blocked. Some residents saw him the father figure of black radicalism, and they remained conflicted over his legacy and his relationship with the largely white town he often romanticized in writings."
  But now, as Great Barrington readies to celebrate its 250th birthday, supporters say Du Bois is finally getting his due.

  (tags: via:InfodivaMLIS415 massachusetts history africanamerican black webdubois)

By Guest Contributor Renina Jarmon, originally published at New Model Minority

In March, Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote a blog post titled, “The Debatable Legacy of For Colored Girls.” He writes,

“I haven’t read it in years, but even as a younger person I remember thinking it was somewhat over the top and heavy-handed. Hence when I heard that Perry was involved my thoughts were more along the lines of “Of course” or “Perfect.” I could be off on this and I’d like to hear some discussion around this.”

Nearly four years ago, I shouted out Ta-Nehisi Coates after reading an article of his in O magazine on his process of being a Black dad. I stated explicitly that publishers needed to give him a book deal. He responded to me a year later, and arranged to send me a galley of Beautiful Struggle, which I then reviewed on this blog. So i say this knowing that we have some limited history and I want to acknowledge that.

I have found Ta-Nehisi’s Black gender politics to be lacking on his blog and in some ways the questioning of whether or not For Colored Girls is classic symbolizes some of what troubles me about his Black gender politics.

When reading this post Moya asked me two questions. The first was, “Why does it matter to Ta-Nehisi Coates whether For Colored Girls is a classic?” The second is “Is he saying that because it is not a classic that it doesn’t matter if Tyler Perry butchers it?

This is not to say that For Colored Girls should not be questioned. Work around Black gender relations should be given a critical eye.

The issue for me is his reliance on his memory as a basis for questioning whether or not it is a classic.

What does it mean that a Black man, at a popular White publication openly questions whether or not a work by Black feminist artist is a classic, having not read the work since his was younger?

Ta-Nehisi is a reader. Last summer he read and blogged so much about the civil war that he had me revisiting the founding fathers narratives on slavery and democracy. Blog post here, “The Coming Coming Jobless Society.”

In fact, he is currently re-reading Malcolm’s autobiography. Why not re-read For Colored Girls, then ask whether or not it’s a classic?

To read something is to deem it important, significant and worthy of your time.

In the book Black Feminist Politics from Kennedy to Clinton, Duchess Harris explains the significance of For Colored Girls. I picked up this book on Tuesday because I suspected that Dr. Harris would analyze the cultural moment out of which For Colored Girls emerged. I include three of her quotes below. She writes,

The work of Michelle Wallace and Ntozake Shange shook Black academe and the predominantly male establishment, creating necessary controversy that advanced the Black feminist movement. Without the debates the works engendered, Black feminist writings would not be as developed as they are today. Wallace and Shanges works were also necessary since they were articulations not only about Black women, but by Black women, offering a narrative that diverged considerably from the limiting sterotypes of the Monyihan report, as well as those books such as Soul on Ice by former Black power leader Eldridge Cleaver.

She also says,

Yet, the fact that Shange asserted women’s rights to have their own narratives and, moreover, the right to tell those narratives, opened the door to a new type of creative cultural production that expanded opportunities for Black women to explore, discuss, and understand the issues that affected their lives, as well as present these issues before a broader more diverse audience.

She goes on to say,

Shange also resisted the notion that she glamorized Black women at the expense of Black men, and insisted that her treatment of Black women was neither glamorizing or uplifting but rather a reflection of how she viewed reality. Black men and some Black women were not accustomed to seeing Black women stand up for a Black autonomous feminism that questioned racism within White feminist movements but also went against sexism within Black society. Such a stance is central to Wallace’s and Shange’s writing, since they did not attack all Black men- only the ones who abuse and oppress women and those who let other men so without educating them to act otherwise.

In the essay, “Neither Fish Nor Fowl: The Crisis of African American Gender Relations” Michelle Wallace said that a significant aspect of the Black feminist work is to,

“get black scholars and intellectuals of Orlando Patterson’s superb caliber to think seriously and write publicly about Black gender relations.”

In many ways Wallace’s sentiments towards Patterson captures my sentiment’s toward Ta-Nehisi.

Given Ta-Nehisi’s ability to dig in deep on a topic, AND the audience and platform that he has, he could conceivably impact the tone and content of Black gender discourse in profound ways.

Some great books on Black gender politics (relationships between Black men and women) are When and Where I Enter by Paula Giddings, Black Macho and the Myth of the Super Woman by Michelle Wallace and Black Feminist Theory from Margin to Center by bell hooks.

• Do you think that For Colored Girls is a classic? Why or Why not?
• Would you need to learn more in order to say so?
• What is politically at stake when we discuss text we haven’t recently read?

From the paper:
In a subsequent search of a public database, EMPOP http://www.empop.org webcite, containing data on 4,475 individuals, the 16184C→T mutation was found to be present in three individuals of West Eurasian origin, giving a frequency of 0.0007%. In a personal database comprising about 37,000 control region records (Dr M. Pala, personal communication), the HSV1 sequence with the single mutation 16184C→T was also present in three samples (one from Crete and two from Italy), giving a mutation frequency for 16184C→T of 0.00008%. All three samples belonged to the mtDNA haplogroup H.
On the left, the locks of Napoleon's hair. I am told that full mtDNA sequencing and Y-STR results are in the pipeline.

Investigative Genetics 2010, 1:7 doi:10.1186/2041-2223-1-7

A rare variant of the mtDNA HVS1 sequence in the hairs of Napoléon's family

Gérard Lucotte

This paper describes the finding of a rare variant in the sequence of the hypervariable segment (HVS1) of mitochondrial (mtDNA) extracted from two preserved hairs, authenticated as belonging to the French Emperor Napoléon I (Napoléon Bonaparte). This rare variant is a mutation that changes the base C to T at position 16,184 (16184C→T), and it constitutes the only mutation found in this HVS1 sequence. This mutation is rare, because it was not found in a reference database (P less than 0.05). In a personal database (M. Pala) comprising 37,000 different sequences, the 16184C→T mutation was found in only three samples, thus in this database the mutation frequency was 0.00008%. This mutation 16184C→T was also the only variant found subsequently in the HVS1 sequences of mtDNAs extracted from Napoléon's mother (Letizia) and from his youngest sister (Caroline), confirming that this mutation is maternally inherited. This 16184C→T variant could be used for genetic verification to authenticate any doubtful material and determine whether it should indeed be attributed to Napoléon.

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By Arturo R. García

Yesterday a reader e-mailed us with a tip (emphasis mine):

Recently I’ve begun to notice in the PC Gaming scene this really irritating meme going around that basically consists of people calling themselves part of the PC Master Race and acting like that they’re nearly untouchable to anyone who even thinks to play on a console [XBox 360, Playstation 3, etc.]. Now, the attitude itself that PC Gaming is superior has actually been around for quite a long time and I’ve always considered it nothing more than part of the sophomoric fanboy loyalty that’s extremely rampant in computer gaming in general that I’ve long outgrown. For the record, I do think that PC Gaming is much better if you’re going independent or something since you’ll have much more creative control and won’t have to go through the trouble of worrying about what publishers want, but that’s only if you care enough about making games to begin with, but that’s kinda besides the point.

The term seems to have started as a one-off  joke from a game review by Zero Punctuation (video contains NSFW language), which contains the image posted above. The somewhat snarky tone of the review suggests it was meant to take the piss out of both sides of the PC/console gaming debate. Still, does anybody need a reminder of why “running with it” is problematic? Okay, just in case.

While its’ use since then may not be “widespread” – for what it’s worth, no gamers I know had heard of it when I asked – it’s still beyond tone-deaf, even if board postings like Look, you’re either part of the PC master race or a console unwashed pig or As a PC Master Race gamer, I feel insulted seeing that dirty console peasant crap are thrown around “in jest.”

To say nothing of the “PC Master Race” user group that popped up on one gaming site, with both a creepy tagline – “We Will Survive all. We are The Master Race. The PC Master Race. Forget consoles” – and the handy disclaimer (caps not mine), “IN NO WAY DO WE SUPPORT THE NAZI PARTY OR ANY OF THEIR IDEOLOGIES. OR ANY OTHER HATE GROUPS” while its’ avatar features a fraking Swastika colored like the Microsoft logo.

As Latoya would say, I just can’t. Luckily, the reader can:

I really can’t imagine anyone who’s not unaware of the issues gaming really needs to work using this phrase at all, jokingly or otherwise. I’m just thinking that if someone who was oppressed in some way and had very little knowledge of PC gaming were to come by a forum where this was used, they’d be turned off pretty quickly. While I’m not turned off completely because of it, I’m getting the feeling someone like me wouldn’t exactly be welcomed with my own ideas.

I’m just really frustrated–I personally think that PoC can use this medium as a way to express themselves in a totally new and exciting, and the technological advances made over the past decade has been drastic, but sadly the the same cannot be said of recognizing and fixing the social issues that happen in the games themselves and in the fandom. This is just another obstacle that’s getting in the way, even if it doesn’t seem like that at first glance. I’d like to get into gaming myself one day, not to try to make the best graphics, but to help create believable characters of color who are kinda lacking. I think that the PC platform can be very useful especially for PoCs to create the games that they want. At this time, that seems nothing more than a dream though.