Category: Race,

Black Florida State Attorney Pulled Over in Traffic Stop, Prompting Criticism

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Race,Leave a comment

Aramis Ayala was pulled over by Orlando police in June, but video of the [of the unnecessary and unwarranted] traffic stop went viral on Wednesday. 

Black Florida State Attorney Pulled Over in Traffic Stop, Prompting Criticism – NBC News

The cops even try to claim that there is something wrong with her plates! Like lying little toddlers trying to justifying sneaking into the cookie car…

They both should be yanked from patrol and permanently parked at a desk because they are a complete embarrassment to the badge.

Trevor Noah: ‘I Have Been Stopped by Police 8 to 10 Times’ in 6 Years in US (Video) – SFGate

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Race,Leave a comment

Like, a Tesla, people, host says. “The Daily Show” is usually about the jokes, but in a behind-the-scenes clip, host Trevor Noah got serious to talk about his experiences as a black man living in the U.S. 

Trevor Noah: ‘I Have Been Stopped by Police 8 to 10 Times’ in 6 Years in US (Video) – SFGate

hmm

Police speak disrespectfully to black drivers, study says 

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Race,Leave a comment

…Instead of [solely] focusing on police use of force, some researchers are turning their attention to use of language.

…Police officers in Oakland, California, are more likely to speak to white community members with a higher level of respect than black community members. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday, used police body camera footage as data.

…”At the very least, this provides evidence for something that communities of color have reported, that this is a real phenomenon,” said Voigt, a doctoral student in the linguistics department at Stanford University.

…For instance, the computer measured how often police officers introduced themselves; used formal titles such as ma’am or sir; used words like please and thank you; apologized, such as saying “sorry to stop you”; and reassured safety, such as saying “drive safe, please” — all of which are utterances that show signs of respect, according to the study.

…After analyzing all of their data, the researchers found that white community members were 57% more likely to hear an officer say one of the most respectful utterances in the dataset, such as apologizing. Black community members were 61% more likely to hear an officer say one of the least respectful utterances, such as informal titles.

: Police speak less respectfully to black drivers, study says – CNN.com

What is that I hear? The sounds of the surface being scratched?

Officer Who Killed Tamir Rice Fired For Rule Violations On Job Application

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Local Interest,, Race,Leave a comment

Timothy Loehmann, the police officer who shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice in 2014, was fired by the Cleveland Police Department on Tuesday. At a news conference, city authorities announced that the reason for his termination wasn’t the deadly incident that brought him to national attention, but rather violations he committed in the course of his hiring process.

Officer Who Killed Tamir Rice Fired For Rule Violations On Job Application : The Two-Way : NPR

 

hmmm

Tamir Rice’s mother ‘relieved’ at firing of Timothy Loehmann, wishes Frank Garmback was fired 

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Local Interest,, Race,Leave a comment

“What we don’t see out of today is any mention of accountability for the people at the city who permitted Loehmann to become an officer to begin with,” Chandra said. “There’s absolutely not a hint of that. There’s no explanation, there’s no accountability, there’s no accounting to the public for who it is that failed to check Loehmann’s application, to check his background and do proper do diligence before entrusting this man with a badge and a gun.”

Tamir Rice’s mother ‘relieved’ at firing of Timothy Loehmann, wishes Frank Garmback was fired | cleveland.com

 

sigh….

A Transit Officer Questioned A Commuter’s Immigration Status, A Fellow Passenger Intervened

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Infrastructure and Transportation,, Local Interest,, Race,Leave a comment

In a Facebook post shared last Friday, Metro Transit Police Chief John Harrington said, “This afternoon, community members and partners alerted me to a situation in which one of my part time officers was witnessed asking an individual whether he was in the state illegally. I immediately called for an Internal Affairs investigation to gather the details about this incident and to report back to me as quickly as possible.”

He added, “It is not the practice of the Metro Transit police to inquire about the immigration status of our riders.”

As The Washington Post points out, when Minneapolis declared itself a sanctuary city in 2003, a city ordinance prohibited city employees (including police) from inquiring about a person’s immigration unless it’s directly relevant to a crime under investigation.

A Transit Officer Questioned A Commuter’s Immigration Status, A Fellow Passenger Intervened

Show me your papers, brown person!

Justice Sotomayor takes aim at police brutality in Salazar-Limon v. Houston dissent.

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Race,Leave a comment

Justice Sonia Sotomayor  …penned a powerful dissent, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, sharply criticizing her colleagues’ willingness to ignore a possible instance of police brutality. …It serves as a warning to us all that the court’s excessive force jurisprudence has gone lethally off track—especially when the victims are minority men.

Sotomayor cited a study showing that “nearly half of the individuals shot by Los Angeles police after allegedly reaching for their waistbands turned out to be unarmed.” She also cited an entire Washington Post article by Radley Balko collecting instances of what Balko calls “ ‘unarmed man reaches for his waistband’ shootings.”

…Officers have used this defense across the country, often after killing minority men. The courts, Sotomayor suggested on Monday, have become complicit in this injustice.

Justice Sotomayor takes aim at police brutality in Salazar-Limon v. Houston dissent.

Amen, Justice.

 

Clarence Thomas Just Voted with Liberals, Changed Course of U.S. Politics

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Race,Leave a comment

He joined the 5-3 decision to the surprise of many.

…This ruling upheld a federal district court decision striking down North Carolina’s 1st and 12th congressional districts, finding that legislators drew the lines with the intent of consolidating African American voters into two districts, hence diluting their influence in others.

Republicans have long justified this sort of gerrymandering by claiming it was in the spirit of the Voting Rights Act, which required districts to be drawn to enable African-American voters to elect their own representatives. Yet what Republicans did here was to draw oddly shaped districts with the distinct purpose of packing African-American voters into even fewer districts.

As Justice Kagan wrote in her majority opinion, the 1st district “produced boundaries amplifying divisions between blacks and whites,” while in the 12th, “race, not politics, accounted for the district’s reconfiguration.”

Voting rights advocates hailed the decision as a victory.

Clarence Thomas Just Voted with Liberals, Changed Course of U.S. Politics

hmmmm

Confederate monuments’ removal bring cry to lynch Louisiana officials

On By peanutgallerynhIn Gulf Coast Region,, Race,Leave a comment

A Mississippi lawmaker recommended lynching over the weekend for New Orleans’ leaders who have had four Confederate monuments dismantled.

…In a Saturday Facebook post, state Rep. Karl Oliver, a Republican from Winona, also compared the actions of Crescent City officials to Nazis.

Confederate monuments’ removal bring cry to lynch Louisiana officials

What a psycho. Clearly his true colors have shown themselves.

New Orleans removes monuments to ‘lost cause of the Confederacy’ 

On By peanutgallerynhIn Gulf Coast Region,, Race,Leave a comment

…“Three weeks ago, we began the process of removing statues erected to honor the ‘Lost Cause of the Confederacy,’ ” said Mayor Mitch Landrieu (D). “This morning, we continue our march to reconciliation by removing the Jefferson Davis Confederate statue from its pedestal of reverence.”

…[Some supporters of the statues’ removal] marched in a second-line parade to the traffic circle where Lee’s statue stands …to protest the monument’s place in the circle. …They were met by Confederate-flag wavers keeping vigil there, some wearing riot gear.

…At Lee Circle, there was some yelling between the pro-monument and anti-monument crowds and some icy stares. Much of the fury and the verbal challenges came from the monument defenders, who appeared to be outnumbered by the second-line participants by at least two to one.

~~~

…Davis was captured in the waning days of the war by Union soldiers after he fled the Confederate capital in Richmond.

“His cause went down in disastrous defeat and left the South impoverished for generations,” Smithsonian Magazine noted, adding: “Many Americans in Davis’s own time and in later generations considered him an incompetent leader, if not a traitor.”

…As the Davis statue came down, a group of proponents for removal who had been largely absent from the area around the Davis memorial since a series of verbal clashes and minor skirmishes with monument defenders, chanted “Na-na, na, Naa-na, goodbye,” according to people at the scene.
The group stood behind police metal barricades, near the corner of Canal St. and Jefferson Davis Parkway, on an expansive grassy median known in New Orleans as “the neutral ground,” a reference to the way that the space once served as a conflict-free zone where the Spanish and French settlers who once battled for political, economic and social for control of this city engaged in trade.

Across the intersection, monument defenders watched in a state of sad disbelief.

…Hours after the statue was removed by crane, the Times-Picayune reported that crews were still at the site, “attempting to [re]move the pedestal on the statue sat. … It appears [getting rid of] the pedestal is turning out to be a difficult task.” [emphasis: mine]

Jefferson Davis disappears as New Orleans removes tribute to ‘lost cause of the Confederacy’ – The Washington Post

hmmmm

Sessions to Toughen Rules on Prosecuting Drug Crimes 

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Drugs & Drink,, Race,Leave a comment

 

In contrast to Mr. Sessions’s views on drug crimes, the Obama administration pushed for more lenient and flexible sentencing laws and presided over the first decline in the federal prison population in a generation.

…Mr. Holder has said his policies were intended to reduce taxpayer spending on prisons and other public safety costs and to ease inequities in the justice system by scrutinizing the circumstances of each case rather than applying one-size-fits-all punishments of the toughest variety.

Mr. Sessions has argued that the Obama administration’s less aggressive approach toward prosecuting drug cases has inspired other crimes.

…Should Mr. Sessions push for a uniformly strict posture in prosecuting drug crimes, it would mark a significant shift in tone.

“Many advocates think there are too many mandatory minimums, and that federal charging in general is still too harsh, even after the shift in policy under Holder,” Ms. Starr said. “But this isn’t especially surprising given what we know about the attorney general and the president and their view on criminal justice.”

—-

Meh, a lot of totally-not-at-all-rooted-in-fact bullshit justifying his actions when Sessions just wants to put more black people in jail.

Betsy DeVos speech at Bethune-Cookman met with boos, turned backs 

On By peanutgallerynhIn Education,, Race,, Schools,Leave a comment

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos faced an auditorium of jeering Bethune-Cookman University graduates Wednesday as she gave a commencement address that many students and graduates said she was in no place to deliver.

…As she opened her remarks, some students stood and turned their backs to her. At times hecklers drowned out her remarks.

…A primary reason for protesting her appearance — and for petitioning school officials to cancel her address — is her now-recanted statement that founders of historically black colleges and universities were “real pioneers” of school choice.

HBCUs, of course, were founded during segregation when black students were barred from attending white colleges in the South and beyond. DeVos walked back her comments, conceding the schools were born of racism, but it’s not enough for many on this campus nor those who hold it dear.

…Students and alumni reserved plenty of their angst for Jackson and other members of the school’s leadership. They question why they didn’t learn DeVos would be the speaker until final exams were already underway, giving them little time to issue feedback.

Betsy DeVos speech at Bethune-Cookman met with boos, turned backs – CNNPolitics.com

Heh.

Bye bye, Bernie: He’s not fit to captain the Democratic ship if he can’t stop chasing the great white male

On By peanutgallerynhIn Chick Stuff,, Media and Culture,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Race,Leave a comment

The Democratic Party is selling out women and all marginalized groups in favor of  [fiction]

Sanders is clear that he is not a Democrat — except when he needs to be one in order to run for president. 

…Economic populism and what are commonly erroneously and dismissively referred to as “social issues” — such as reproductive rights, immigration reform and civil rights for people of color, those who have disabilities, people of all faiths, LGBT people and women — are indivisible. Sanders routinely demonstrates his own lack of progressive values by dividing them.

There is no economic populism without abortion rights and civil rights. No one can have economic justice if he or she doesn’t have fundamental rights. Yet Sanders has made it plain that abortion rights are negotiable and brushes off [what he terms] “identity politics.” He consistently argues that his values — and his alone — should define what it is to be progressive. (Which can’t help but remind one of Donald Trump’s unilateral defining of terms.)

…The Democratic Party, which has a deeply progressive platform and whose candidate won the popular vote by 3 million and lost the Electoral College tally by only 77,000 votes in just three states, need not look for its soul. Its soul is right there in its platform and its voters, not in Sanders’ white-male dog-whistle rhetoric.

Bye bye, Bernie: He’s not fit to captain the Democratic ship if he can’t stop chasing the great white male – Salon.com

Mmmmhmmm.

 

 

New Orleans Begins Confederate-Monument Removal

On By peanutgallerynhIn Gulf Coast Region,, Media and Culture,, Race,Leave a comment

New Orleans is severing its ties to the racist Confederate history that lingers in the city by removing several Confederate statues. Early Monday morning, city workers were to begin to take down the statues while it was still dark to avoid clashing with those wanting to preserve the [white-washing.]

New Orleans Begins Confederate-Monument Removal

Yeah you right! Good on ya, New Orleans.

In response to a LOT of comments I saw when the mayor went live to talk about this:

1.) Yes confederates were traitors. (What are you, f’ing stupid?) They were literally waging war against the US government. How much more of a perfect definition of treason do you want?

2.) No one is erasing history. They are just refusing to elevate a totally twisted and slanted version of it above the truth anymore.

3.) You want to boycott New Orleans because of this? Great! If that’s how you feel nobody wants your backwards, hateful, fucktard self on their streets anyways. Please, stay where you are. No need to slither out from under your rock, trash!

And finally, wooohoooo!!

The GOP’s Attack on Voting Rights Was the Most Under-Covered Story of 2016 

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Domestic Affairs,, Local Interest,, Race,Leave a comment

There were 25 debates during the presidential primaries and general election and not a single question about the attack on voting rights, even though this was the first presidential election in 50 years without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act.

… 27,000 votes currently separate Trump and Clinton in Wisconsin, where 300,000 registered voters, according to a federal court, lacked strict forms of voter ID.

On Election Day, there were 868 fewer polling places in states with a long history of voting discrimination, like Arizona, Texas, and North Carolina. These changes impacted hundreds of thousands of voters, yet received almost no coverage. In North Carolina, as my colleague Joan Walsh reported, black turnout decreased 16 percent during the first week of early voting because “in 40 heavily black counties, there were 158 fewer early polling places.” Even if these restrictions had no outcome on the election, it’s fundamentally immoral to keep people from voting in a democracy. The media devoted hours and hours to Trump’s absurd claim that the election was rigged against him, while spending precious little time on the real threat that voters faced.

The GOP’s Attack on Voting Rights Was the Most Under-Covered Story of 2016 | The Nation

sigh…