As many news organizations are reporting, including CNN.com, George Takei -- Mr. Sulu in the original Star Trek TV series on the late 1960s and a beloved icon of Asian American entertainment, has just publicly announced that he is gay:

Takei told The Associated Press on Thursday that his new onstage role as psychologist Martin Dysart in “Equus,” helped inspire him to publicly discuss his sexuality. Takei described the character as a “very contained but turbulently frustrated man.”

“The world has changed from when I was a young teen feeling ashamed for being gay,” he said. “The issue of gay marriage is now a political issue. That would have been unthinkable when I was young.” The 68-year-old actor said he and his partner, Brad Altman, have been together for 18 years.

Takei, a Japanese-American who lived in a U.S. internment camp from age 4 to 8, said he grew up feeling ashamed of his ethnicity and sexuality. He likened prejudice against gays to racial segregation.

I commend George for his courage in going public with his identity as a gay man. I had a very opinion of him before and this “news” hasn’t done anything to change that. If anything, I have even more admiration for him now that he has found the courage to come out of the closet and proudly proclaim his identity and solidarity with the Asian American GLBT community.

You’re still an inspiration to many of us, George.

The NBC affiliate in Philadelphia reports that several Chinese-owned small businesses around the city have recently received racist hate letters that threaten physical violence against them. The letters indicate that they were sent by the White supremacist group Aryan Nation:

Disturbing hate letters and threats have left some Asian market owners rattled, prompting an investigation by Philadelphia police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The letters threatened the rape of Asian women and the bombing of Asian businesses. “The author of this letter indicates that they are from the Aryan Nation and that these people are basically being targeted because of their ethnicity,” said Philadelphia Police Inspector Bill Colarulo.

[Community activist Ken] Wong said that the disturbing letters were also sent with graphic pictures. “There are photographs of Asian bodies, so it’s pretty shocking,” Wong said. . . . Conmmunity activists in Philadelphia said that since the police have taken possession of the three letters, three or four other business owners said they had received similar letters.

It is truly sad to see that there are still elements of American society that not only detest racial/ethnic diversity in the U.S. but apparently are willing to use intimidation, violence, and potentially murder to express their intolerance. It just goes to show that racism is still alive and well in the U.S.

If you would like to sign an online petition urging city and state government officials to take all measures necessary to address this blatant episode of racism, go to http://www.petitiononline.com/phillyhc/.

Discussions of plagiarism in academics usually centers on students being dishonest and cheating in their work and exams. However, as The Daily Pennsylvanian reports, an expanding controversy in the Sociology department at the University of Pennsylvania highlights a lesser-known form -- alleged plagiarism between professors (and in this case, between colleagues in the same department):

Penn Sociology professor Elijah Anderson released a statement accusing one of his colleagues of under-citing his work in her new book. For the first time, Anderson publicly said Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Choose Motherhood Over Marriage -- co-authored by Kathryn Edin, another Penn sociologist -- “owes a strong and almost entirely unacknowledged debt to” his previous books.

The controversy erupted last week when Sociology professor emeritus Harold Bershady sent an e-mail to the Penn Sociology department. In the Sept. 29 memo, Bershady said that Edin and her co-author Maria Kefalas -- a St. Joseph’s University professor already accused of plagiarizing material in one of her previous books -- had stolen ideas from Anderson and neglected to acknowledge it.

I am somewhat familiar with Elijah Anderson’s work but not familiar with the work of Edin or Kefelas, nor have I read the book in question. I was also briefly introduced to Professor Anderson when I delivered the welcoming message as a graduate student to an audience for a presentation that he gave at SUNY Albany back in 1996.

Therefore, while I do not know him well personally, I am probably a little biased in favor of Professor Anderson as I also consider him, as the article points out, to be one our discipline’s pioneering African American scholars and an inspiration to scholars of color around the country.

However, at this point, I will not take a position on this particular controversy, only to point out that we as scholars are not immune to the rigorous expectations of honesty and professionalism to which we supposedly hold our students. In other words, if we talk the talk, we have to also walk the walk.

The National Basketball Association recently announced a new set of rules about what types of clothing its players are required to wear at all official functions and activities -- rather than casual, hip-hop styles, players are now required to wear “business casual” ensembles that include suits or slacks and jacket, and no bling-bling. As CNNSI.com reports, many players object to these new rules and some have even called them racist:

The NBA has announced that a dress code will go into effect at the start of the season. Players will be required to wear business-casual attire when involved in team or league business. They can’t wear visible chains, pendants or medallions over their clothes.

[Indiana Pacer guard Stephen] Jackson, who is black, said the NBA’s new rule about jewelry targets young black males because chains are associated with hip-hop culture, and he said the league is afraid of becoming “too hip-hop.” . . . [Golden State Warriors guard Jason] Richardson added that nicer clothing wasn’t necessarily the best way to determine the character of the players.

“You still wear a suit, you still could be a crook,” Richardson said in Oakland, Calif. “You see all what happened with Enron and Martha Stewart. Just because you dress a certain way doesn’t mean you’re that way. Hey, a guy could come in with baggy jeans, a do-rag and have a Ph.D., and a person who comes in with a suit could be a three-time felon. So, it’s not what you wear, it’s how you present yourself.”

I’m not a big basketball fan, so on that front, I really don’t care one way or the other about it. But from a sociological point of view, I find this episode an interesting clash of race and class. On the one hand, NBA officials apparently want to promote a “cleaner” or “more mature” image by requiring players to wear suits.

But on the other hand, the players have a point that one big reason for the sport’s popularity is its appeal to the young hip-hop crowd, and that ultimately, appearances are the the best indicator of a person’s integrity as a human being. Then there’s the racial component -- the vast majority of NBA players are Black while the majority of NBA league officials who made this rule are White.

Every issue, even sports, has a sociological aspect to it . . .

Newsday reports that graduate students leaders at Yale University charge that the school routinely discriminates against Chinese students and subjects them to unfair requirements and harsher standards of performance:

“Year after year, Chinese graduate students in engineering face expulsion and are called upon to defend their academic standing,” Cong Huang, president of the Association of Chinese Students and Scholars at Yale, wrote in a letter to Yale administrators. “We have no hard data, but know for sure that every year someone fights a very trying and high-stakes battle.

“There are no different standards for different groups of students,” he said. . . . Xuemei Han, who works and studies in the ecology and evolutionary biology department, said administrators told her they were stripping her of funding and she must leave the university at the end of the year because she is not in good academic standing. Han said she passed all her exams and requirements.

Han also said a professor told her it would be too much work to advise a Chinese student because of language difficulties. “I believe I’m doing good work,” said Han, whose case is at the center of the complaint. “My department has tried very hard to push me out. It’s extremely unfair and unreasonable.”

At this point, we should understand that these are just allegations. However, if they are true, it would not be the first time that foreign students (particularly from Asian countries) were treated with disdain, as if they were disposable in the eyes of some faculty members.

Apparently, there is still an ingrained belief among professors and university officials that foreign Asian students are more exploitable than your garden-variety American student because they are less likely to fight back against their unequal treatment, in line with the stereotype of Asians being quiet and passive.

Is this what’s happening at Yale? We’ll have to wait and see.

As virtually all news organizations such as CBS News are reporting, Rosa Parks passed away Monday night at the age of 92. I’m sure you know that Rosa Parks became an iconic figure of the Civil Rights Movement when she refused to give up her seat to a White man in Montgomery, Alabama on December 1, 1955.

Her courage, bravery, and determination to stand up for herself and her community eventually led to the monumental Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-1956 and was one of the first major acts of defiance and public disobedience of the Civil Rights Movement. As Jesse Jackson eloquently commented:

We are saddened by the passing of Rosa Parks. We rejoice in her legacy, which will never die. In many ways, history is marked as before, and after, Rosa Parks. She sat down in order that we all might stand up, and the walls of segregation came down. Paradoxically, her imprisonment opened the doors to our long journey to freedom. These three giants, Rosa Parks, Dr. King and Mandela - without bombs, bullets or wealth - have shown the awesome power of right over might in history’s long journey toward peace and freedom.

Ms. Parks was one of the first people I considered to be a role model and true pioneer of strength and social justice. She is not only a personal inspiration to me but I think the entire Asian American population owes her (and others of course) a debt of gratitude and reverence. She showed that the actions of one person can have far-ranging consequences for an entire country.

Not only that, but she also showed that a woman can be just as courageous and determined to fight for the dignity of herself and her community just as much as men. In a time when women were routinely considered subordinate and inferior to men, Ms. Parks fought and contributed to two separate wars -- one for racial/ethnic justice and equality and one for gender equality.

She is truly one of the most remarkable figures of American history -- a humble but incredibly powerful inspiration to millions of people today, and into the future. Thank you Ms. Parks, and may you rest in peace.

By now, I’m sure you’ve noticed that the last several months have seen some quite extreme weather. First there was Hurricane Katrina, then Hurricane Rita. Then we had torrential rain in the northeast, the worst in a generation. Now we have Hurricane Wilma that has just tied the record for most storms in the Atlantic hurricane season ever.

And these are just in the U.S. Let us not forget about the South Asian tsunami last year, a recent hurricane and flooding in Central America, and of course, the recent devastating earthquake in Kashmir/Pakistan. In the wake of all of these natural disasters, the question more people are asking is, are they the result (or at least influenced by) human actions such as greenhouse gases and global warming?

I’m not a climatologist, but something tells me that the answer is yes, part of these weather patterns (at least in regard to the hurricanes) may be affected by global warming. I don’t think that it’s just a strange coincidence that in the last few years, we’ve seen a disproportionate number of hurricanes and other forms of severe weather, in addition of course, to documented instances in which parts of the Arctic and Antarctica are melting due to global warming.

Alas, what comes around has apparently started to go around -- have humans manipulated the environment so much that we are now witnessing nature’s “backlash?”

The Christian Science Monitor (which is an independent, non-religious journalism organization despite its name) has a very interesting article that describes the results of a multi-year survey of college freshmen nationwide on how religious they are. The results generally show that based on their measures, Asian American students are the least religious of all the major racial groups:

Some of the biggest differences in the study emerge in the following categories:

“Religious commitment” (following religious teachings in everyday life and gaining strength by trusting in a higher power): Forty-seven percent of African-Americans scored high on this scale, compared with 25 percent of whites, 23 percent of Latinos, and 22 percent of Asian Americans.

“Spiritual quest” (interest in finding answers to the mysteries of life and developing a meaningful philosophy of life): African-Americans scored the highest on this (36 percent), with other groups ranging from 23 to 34 percent.

Most interesting. My slightly educated guess is that Asian American students tend to be more focused on academic performance, rather than religious or spiritual activities. This is not to say that it is either good or bad, but the results are quite interesting.