race card

Last year authorities arrested expectant mother Miriam Mendiola-Martinez, an undocumented immigrant, and charged her with using someone else’s identity to work. After the incarcerated Mendiola-Martinez delivered a baby boy Dec. 21 via C-section at Maricopa Medical Center in Arizona, she was shackled for two days to her hospital bed and not allowed to nurse her baby, New America Media (NAM) reports. Moreover, when guards escorted her out of the hospital in shackles, no one told her the whereabouts of her son.

Just 14 years ago, the Rev. Jesse Jackson called for a boycott of the Academy Awards due to the dearth of African American entertainers nominated for Oscars. In the new millennium, however, the Academy Awards have consistently nominated blacks for Oscars. Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, Jen Hudson and Forest Whitaker have all nabbed Academy Awards in recent years. And Sophie Okonedo, Will Smith and Don Cheadle are among the blacks to receive nominations in the 2000s.