The Joint Action Plan to Promote Racial Equality in Brazil and the U.S. (JAPER) Will Distribute Rosetta Stone Scholarships to Scholars, Researchers and Activists Working on Racial Equality and Brazil

JAPER, a bilateral agreement between the United States and Brazil, will distribute 300 language training scholarships to scholars, researchers and activists in the U.S.. The scholarships will facilitate Portuguese learning in the U.S.. They will be managed by Rosetta Stone, a world leader in online language courses and they will cover a one-year period.

Civil society participants in JAPER are preferred, along with individuals and organizations that work in the area of racial justice and have an articulable interest in comparative or collaborative work with counterparts in Brazil.

From ColorLines.com

by Akiba Solomon, Stokely Baksh

Friday, June 17 2011, 11:40 AM ES

On June 17, 1971, President Richard Nixon declared drug abuse “public enemy number one in the United States.” To eradicate this enemy, he called for “a new, all-out offensive.” But 40 years of get-tough policies haven’t ended substance abuse. Instead, as “The New Jim Crow” author Michelle Alexander recently told a crowd of 1,000 at Harlem’s Riverside Church, “The enemy in this war has been racially defined. The drug war, not by accident, has been waged almost exclusively in poor communities of color.”

At the estimated cost of $1 trillion, the War on Drugs has triggered the mass incarceration, mostly of black and brown people through harsh penalties for non-violent drug violations like simple possession. It hasencouraged racial profiling in the name of enforcement. In addition, people with drug convictions (and their families) have been evicted from public housing, deemed ineligible for food stamps and college financial aid, and denied employment. This failed war has destroyed mothers, fathers, children, grandparents—whole communities. 

One thing it hasn’t done: End the use and sale of drugs.