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'Shoot Black NAACP Members'? Horror in the Nation's Whitest State

Kendrick Sawyer is a white man who thinks Maine, his home state, "should be a 'white' state." He owns a .45-caliber handgun and threatened to shoot "any and all black persons" attending local NAACP meetings, reports The New York Times. Sawyer's on-the-record comments shocked local NAACP leaders, who in response cancelled the organization's annual Kwanzaa celebration. Law-enforcement officers confiscated Sawyer's gun and Maine's attorney-general's office filed a civil complaint. His comments, however, highlight Maine's problem with race. The state is the whitest in the nation, less than 1 percent black. Most complaints about racism come from Lewiston where at least 3,000 Somalis settled. In July 2006, a white man rolled the head of a pig into a store where Somalis were worshiping, and last month a white man threw sand in the face of a Somali student running a cross-country meet.

(See also: How Does Your State Measure Up on Immigration?)

What's the Big Change at Essence?

Susan Taylor, the woman who fashioned Essence into a "must-read" for black women, is planning to leave the magazine she has run for 37 years. Taylor, 61, joined Essence in 1970, the year it was first published, as a freelance fashion and beauty editor after founding her own company, Nequai Cosmetics, reports The New York Times. In 1981, Taylor became editor in chief and held the position until 2000, when she was promoted to publications director. Time Inc., which owns Essence, did not make an announcement about Taylor's resignation. Taylor, who is vacationing in South Africa, wrote in an automated out-of-office e-mail, "When I come back to the states in mid-January, I will be leaving Essence to do what at this juncture in my life has become a larger work for me--building the National Cares Mentoring Movement, which I founded as Essence Cares and today is my deepest passion."

(See also: When All Girls Own Their Power: Leading Educator Launches Global Initiative)

Ending Affirmative Action: What's Ward Connerly Up to Now?

Ward Connerly is at it again. The California businessman who successfully ran campaigns to end affirmative action in public education, employment and contracting in California, Washington and Michigan is now targeting five other states. He's campaigning in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma to get enough voters to sign petitions to place initiatives on their November ballots that would end affirmative-action programs in those states, reports USA Today. In some of those states, the dominant minority is Latino, therefore colliding immigration issues with affirmative-action issues. In Nebraska, towns with large food-processing companies that employ Latino immigrants have been targeted by federal immigration raids. Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt is pushing for tougher immigration laws and enforcement. And Arizona, Colorado and Oklahoma have passed the nation's toughest laws against undocumented immigration. How does your state measure up on immigration?

Among their provisions, they penalize employers of undocumented workers. Both issues are about race, said Michael Kanner, a political-science professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, to USA Today. "Affirmative action, by its nature, is associated with minorities. In Colorado, for example, the dominant minorities are Hispanic, so it is inevitable that the two will be tied together."

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