obeygiant.com

To appear in this week's copy of Ebony.

It was only a matter of time before L.A. street artist (turned international graphic-design star and Obama portraiteer) Shepard Fairey took on Trayvon.

We're actually surprised it didn't happen sooner. Though there remains the sporadic rally cry for the young black Florida teen's murderer to be brought to justice, including a star-studded protest in L.A. last month, the news event is largely in the tail curve of its Internet popularity. Perhaps that's why Ebony Magazine tries to revive the cause in this week's issue:

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Rage mode.

L.A.'s huge Filipino community might have a new enemy in Hollywood:

Basic Instinct actress Sharon Stone, who's no stranger to litigation from the help, is being sued by Erlinda T. Elemen, her three children's former live-in nanny, for allegedly criticizing her Filipino heritage. Also, for allegedly getting rid of the nanny because she accepted the overtime pay that Stone offered her...

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A real piece of work.

Updated at the bottom with the ad pulled completely.

Ashton Kutcher is a true moralist who has made no secret of his distaste for sex traffickers, adult classified advertising, and men who employ prostitutes (U.S. Secret Service agents be damned). He even launched an ad campaign called "Real Men Don't Buy Girls."

Then he allegedly cheated on his wife, Demi Moore, with a 22-year-old woman who said Kutcher insisted on ditching the condom.

Yep. Now That '70s Preacher is giving us a lesson in race relations:

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eBay

The city burned down and all I got was this overpriced T-shirt.

Can't get enough of the L.A. Riots' (completely oversaturated) 20th birthday coverage?

This hot-ticket eBay T-shirt might be just thing. "I Survived the L.A. Riots," it reads across the front, with a map of the city's hardest-hit burn spots on back. Also, awesome factoids, like "Vandals set more than 523 blazes" and "6,000 National Guards, Marines and Federal Troops descend on L.A."

All this disaster nostalgia can be yours for just...

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Trayvon's rally will be set in the dazzling West Angeles Church.

When black Florida teen Trayvon Martin was shot dead by apparently crazed neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman earlier this year, his parents -- Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton -- took on the sudden responsibility, like it or not, of becoming justice fighters against the greater evil of racism in America. Their every reaction became a headline, their grief a symbol of national hurt.

But you couldn't have picked a more graceful pair. Here they are on Capitol Hill, just weeks after the senseless shooting:

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studiorevolt

A White House contest asking people to create the best video about the Asian American experience might have been rigged.

An entry about Cambodian deportees appeared to have received the most views, now more than 18,000, but a half-dozen other video makers were invited to the White House. Though "My Asian Americana" made a list of 11 finalists, it didn't make that final cut.

Here's probably why:

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South Normandie Avenue near the ignition point.

If you remember the aftermath of the riots, things were dire in Los Angeles, and it seemed like every other white family had left town for the Pacific Northwest.

On the eve of the 20th anniversary of the uprisings and chaos, Loyola Marymount University has released a survey measuring the temperature of our city, especially when it comes to race relations.

The results could be skewed:

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mike72ka

There was a time when uttering the word Mexican was impolite.

Cops in Southern California would call anyone with brown skin a Mexican. And those of us who were born here preferred other terms such as Mexican American, Chicano and Latino. How could you tell if someone was born here by looking at them, anyway, people argued?

Times change, however, and Chicano is about is contemporary as a beeper. And now brown folks don't much care for Latino or Hispanic, either:

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Adam 12

Indigo Charlie.

Adam 12, the sometime DJ for President Obama's campaign fund-raising and a photographer as well, embarked on a project over the weekend to bring attention to the Trayvon Martin case.

He photographed several musical and cultural luminaries in hooded sweatshirts. (Teen Martin was unarmed and wearing a "hoodie" when he was shot by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman in Florida in February).

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palmdalesd.org

What's going on at Palmdale Unified?

Did a race-baiting Facebook post lead seven black teens to smash in the face of a random Latino 15-year-old on March 14?

L.A. County Sheriff's Detective Chris Bergo says that while interviewing the seven suspects, one of them -- who attends Cactus Middle School in Palmdale -- "talked about a Facebook post where Hispanics were going to beat up the blacks."

So they allegedly went to the Cactus Middle area looking for a fight...

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As L.A.'s own Trayvon Martin case appears to be erupting in Pasadena, the radio station KJLH (102.3 FM) is hosting a town hall discussion about the Florida shooting tomorrow.

Some of the African American community's biggest luminaries will be there, and it's free and open to the public.

Here's the 411:

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Update at 11:20 a.m. See LA Weekly contributor Ted Soqui's photos from Monday's march here. First posted at 7:09 a.m. yesterday.

A demonstration seeking justice for an unarmed 17-year-old shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer in Florida will kick off in downtown Los Angeles today.

The case of Trayvon Martin, an African American teen who was walking to a family friend's home near Orlando when he was was shot last month, has set the nation abuzz over race: His shooter, 26-year-old George Zimmerman, has not been arrested.

The Million Hoodie March ...

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laprogressive.com

Principal's office. Now.

In reaction to the L.A. riots, black flight from Los Angeles whittled the K-12 population down to only 9 percent African-American, as of the 2009-10 school year.

But those roughly 61,000 black kids are being punished much more harshly than white, Asian or Latino kids, according to new data from the U.S. Department of Education.

And the trend is worse in L.A. than other major cities with higher ratios of black kids...

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Garcetti.

Eric Garcetti has what you could describe as a white guy's face and an Italian's name.

But, in the race to become the next mayor of Los Angeles, the city councilman could use all the ethnic bloodlines he can get. It's a diverse town where political winners often have to piece together disparate coalitions. And so Garcetti is playing up his Latino and Jewish ancestry.

Los Angeles is roughly half Latino, and Antonio Villaraigosa rode his own Mexican American background to a win as the first Latino mayor in Los Angeles in the modern era. Garcetti would like to make that two in a row:

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@mlim20

You saw Sacha Baron Cohen, in character as The Dictator, take on the Academy Awards for allegedly refusing his punk-worthy entrance to the red carpet at the Oscars Sunday.

It was all a media stunt, and Cohen ended up on the red carpet, spreading the "ashes" of Kim Jong Ill on Ryan Seacrest. Ha-ha.

Except Arab Americans aren't happy. Not at all:

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CBS Los Angeles

UCLA students living near campus were targeted with anti-Latino graffiti this week, prompting university police to launch a hate-crime investigation, according to reports.

The UCLA Daily Bruin says the graffiti on an apartment door, stairs and a nearby fence have messages such as, "you rude ignorant spic cunts" and "dirty Meximelt bitches." Nothing, apparently, was stated about the old-school Enchirito and the perfectly chaste women who love it, leading investigators to believe the culprits were both young and dumb.

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John & Ken.

Conservative talk radio hosts John & Ken are back on the air this week following a week-and-a-half suspension for calling the late Whitney Houston a "crack ho."

A group of African Americans in broadcasting met with the duo yesterday and seem cool with the outcome, but in a statement the coalition said it wants to see more diversity at John & Ken's home station, KFI 640 AM, where it says 13 of 14 shows are hosted by white people. (L.A. is half Latino).

The dynamic duo apologized for the remark and, yesterday, one half of the pair, John Kobylt, told the black group that the Whitney Houston remark ...

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Félix Beltrán

Angela Davis, former Black Panther, is the go-to commentator on any protest or political uprising these days. (And, apparently, the go-to stencil for "street artists" designing nostalgic protest fliers.)

So why hasn't anyone asked her how she feels about the DREAM Act -- the national push to grant undocumented students and soldiers their citizenship, and one of the greatest civil-rights fights of the 21st century?

Maybe because...

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David Blumenkrantz

No big surprise for the people of Los Angeles or Kobe Bryant. The Pew Research Center this week confirmed what we Angelenos know and live:

Marriages between folks of different racial and ethnic groups have more than doubled in the last 30 years in America.

Yes we've been crossing those divides in L.A. for quite some time. Here are the groups Pew says do it the most:

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Frederick's of Hollywood

Okay fellas, here's what you're getting your girl for Valentine's Day:

A bra that matches her skin tone! Ah!? No? Well, anyway, if you're in the market, you might have a hard time fulfilling that wish, even if the gift was going to be for yourself.

That's because it's difficult to find bras that match the color of, well, ladies of color. An L.A. woman this year has set out to change that:

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