NB Commentary: So at least if you are going to vote, get these folks out of office and don’t replace them with another of the same ilk, for crying out loud.
Racist Prosecutor Who Acquitted Trayvon Martin’s Killer Loses Primary In Landslide
Republican prosecutor Angela Corey just lost in a primary election landslide by a 65% to 28% to the defense lawyer of a 12-year old child Corey prosecuted as an adult, raising a national uproar. People around the country are cheering Florida voters for removing America’s worst prosecutor from office after a relatively short eight years in office.
Angela Corey was hand picked by Florida’s despicable Republican Governor Rick Scott to prosecute the Trayvon Martin case against George Zimmerman which she lost by overreaching for a murder charge. In a stunning demonstration of racial disparity, Corey used her prosecutorial discretion to push for a 60-year jail sentence against a black woman who fired a warning shot during a domestic dispute with her abusive husband, which ultimately resulted in a 20-year prison sentence for Marissa Alexander, that was ultimately reduced to three years after national outcry erupted.
Recently, the New York Times singled out Angela Corey as a death penalty zealot, resulting in her office handing out four times the number of state sanctioned murders at taxpayer expense than even Miami-Dade, the state’s largest county, a place which has double the population:
Angela Corey, 61, has made her reputation, in part, by winning verdicts that carry the death penalty. She has one of the highest rates of death sentences in the country, with 24 (19 in Duval) in the eight years since she was elected. Even compared with the three other Florida counties on the list of 16, Duval County is an outlier. The state attorney in one of the three, Miami-Dade County, which has twice the population of Corey’s jurisdiction and twice the annual number of murders, has five death sentences over the same period. Death-penalty opponents question whether Corey gives too little weight to the backgrounds of defendants.
“Other prosecutors in Florida care about mitigating evidence like chronic and serious child abuse,” says Stephen K. Harper, the executive director of the Florida Center for Capital Representation. “Angela Corey does not.”
So finally, a woman that Wonkette said was too awful even for Florida (my home state) will depart her office, leaving a wake of destroyed children’s lives after prosecuting them as adults, and cementing her reputation as America’s cruelest prosecutor by sending 75% of juvenile defendants to jail versus only 12% in Miami.
Trayvon Martin’s mother has not responded to the news of Angela Corey’s downfall on twitter yet.
Editor-at-Large at HumanisticPaganism.com and editor of Godless Paganism: Voices of Non-Theistic Pagans
Why “Black” Makes Us Uncomfortable
Dear fellow white people, let’s have an honest talk about why we say “All Lives Matter.” First of all, notice that no one was saying “All Lives Matter” before people started saying “Black Lives Matter.” So “All Lives Matter” is a response to “Black Lives Matter.” Apparently, something about the statement “Black Lives Matter” makes us uncomfortable. Why is that?
Now some white people might say that singling out Black people’s lives as mattering somehow means that white lives don’t matter. Of course, that’s silly. If you went to a Breast Cancer Awareness event, you wouldn’t think that they were saying that other types of cancer don’t matter. And you’d be shocked if someone showed up with a sign saying “Colon Cancer Matters” or chanting “All Cancer Patients Matter.” So clearly, something else is prompting people to say “All Lives Matter” in response to “Black Lives Matter.”
Many of the people saying “All Lives Matter” also are fond of saying “Blue Lives Matter.” If you find that the statement “Black Lives Matter” bothers you, but not “Blue Lives Matter,” then the operative word is “Black”. That should tell us something. There’s something deeply discomfiting about the word “Black.” I think it’s because it reminds us of our whiteness and challenges our notion that race doesn’t matter.
The Problem With “Colorblindness”
If you’re like me, growing up, the word “Black” was always spoken of in whispers in your family. It was like we were saying something taboo. Why was that? Because itwas taboo. We might feel more comfortable saying “African-American,” but not “Black.” The reason is that we were raised to believe that “colorblindness” was the ideal for whites. We were taught that we shouldn’t “see color.” And saying the word “Black” was an acknowledgment of the fact that we did “see color.”
The problem with being “colorblind” — aside from the fact that we’re not really — is that it is really a white privilege to be able to ignore race. White people like me have the luxury of not paying attention to race — white or black. The reason is because whiteness is treated as the default in our society. Whiteness is not a problem for white people, because it blends into the cultural background.
Black people, on the other hand, don’t have the luxury of being “colorblind.” They live in a culture which constantly reminds them of their Black-ness, which tells them in a million large and small ways that they are not as important as white people, that their lives actually do not matter as much as white lives. Which is why saying “Black Lives Matter” is so important.
“Black Lives [Do Not] Matter”
“All Lives Matter” is a problem because it refocuses the issue away from systemic racism and Black lives. It distracts and diminishes the message that Black lives matter or that they should matter more than they do. “All Lives Matter” is really code for “White Lives Matter,” because when white people think about “all lives,” we automatically think about “all white lives.”
And white people act like Black lives do not matter when we fail to raise the appropriate level of outrage at unjustified killings of Blacks or when we respond with platitudes like “All Lives Matter.”
But we still say it. We say it because “All Lives Matter” lets us get back to feeling comfortable. “Black Lives Matter” makes us uncomfortable. Why? Because it reminds us that race exists. It reminds us that our experience as white people is very different from the experience of Black people in this country. It reminds us that racism is alive and well in the United States of America.
The New Face of Racism
Now, I just said the “R” word, so you’re probably feeling defensive at this point. You’re instinctively thinking to yourself that you are not a racist. You may be thinking that you have Black friends or that you don’t use the N-word or that you would never consciously discriminate against a Black person. But most racism today is more subtle than that. Sure, there is a lot of overt racism that still goes on. The KKK is still active and some white people do still say the N-word. But overt racism is really culturally unacceptable any more among whites today. The racism that we need to face today is much more insidious than white hoods and racial slurs. It is the racism of well-meaning people who are not consciously or intentionally racist.
The racism that we need to face is the racism of average white middle-class Americans who would never think of saying the N-word and would vociferously condemn the KKK, but nevertheless unwittingly participate in institutionalized racism. We most often participate in racism by omission, rather than commission. We participate in racism when we fail to see it where it exists. We participate in racism when we continue to act like race is a problem that only Black people have. We participate in racism when we seek comfortable responses like “All Lives Matter.”
What We Can Do: Embrace the Discomfort
We white people need to embrace our discomfort. Here are some things we can do:
1. Recognize that we are not “colorblind.”
We can start by recognizing that we all have an “implicit bias” toward Blacks. Think you don’t have it? Consider how we mentally congratulate ourselves when we treat the random Black person the same way we treat white people. Here’s a tip, if you give yourself brownie points for treating Black people like you do white people, you’re not really treating Black people like white people.
Still don’t think you have unconscious bias, go to the Harvard implicit bias testing website and take the tests on race and skin-tone. Even white anti-racism activists like me have these biases. And they come out in all kinds of subtle ways, as well as not so subtle ways.
2. Work against unconscious bias by spending time with Black people in Black spaces.
Next, go out of your way to spend time with Black people in Black community settings. Many of us live segregated lives in which we have little to no interaction with Black people. Let’s face it, Black people make us white people uncomfortable. It’s because we’ve been socialized by a racist system to fear Black people.
Even if you feel comfortable around individual Black people, you most likely do not feel comfortable in a room full of Black people. You might have Black friends, but you probably socialize with them in white spaces. Have you ever been to a Black space and felt uncomfortable? Maybe you felt like no one wanted you there. Welcome to the everyday experience of Black people in white culture.
And when you go to a Black space, go to listen rather than lead. Learn to follow. Leading is a white privilege. Let go of it for a while and learn from those whose experience you will never have. Listen to Black people, and if what they are saying or how they are saying it makes you uncomfortable, so much the better.
3. Talk to white people about institutional racism and say “Black Lives Matter.”
It’s no good sitting around feeling guilty about white privilege. We need to do something about it. One thing we can do is to use our white privilege to dismantle it.
One white privilege we have is that other white people listen to us. We can go into white spaces and talk to white people about implicit bias and institutional racism. We can unapologetically proclaim that “Black Lives Matter.”
After the Orlando shooting, I went to an interfaith vigil in my small conservative town. Almost no one among the speakers said the words “queer,” “gay,” or “lesbian.” This was probably unconscious, but it revealed a lingering, but deep seated discomfort among heterosexuals with gayness and queerness, a discomfort that the popular use of the acronym “LGBT” obscures. Similarly, we whites are uncomfortable with Black-ness. We don’t even like like to say the word. It feels wrong in our mouths. We hide it by using code words like “inner city” or “urban,” terms which allow us to hide from our unconscious racism. We need to say “Black Lives Matter” because we need to overcome our discomfort with Blacks and face up to our unconscious bias.
Join the Second Civil Rights Movement
Dear fellow white people, we are in the middle of a second Civil Rights Movement. Most of us white people idealize Martin Luther King, Jr. and we like to think that we would have been on his side of things during the Civil Rights era. But the fact is thatthe majority of the American public did not support the Civil Rights movement while it was happening and only came to see King as a hero after he was killed.
The Civil Rights movement was unpopular among most whites when it was happening. It was unpopular because it made white people deeply uncomfortable. Today, the Black Lives Matter movement makes us uncomfortable, too. In forty years we will look back on this second Civil Rights movement and have to ask ourselves whether we were on the right side of history. If we want to be on the right side of history this time, we have to make ourselves uncomfortable. There is no comfortable way to change. And the change can start with saying this simple but powerful phrase: Black Lives Matter.
NB Commentary: Dr. Boyce Watkins & Zaza Ali discuss some things around black folks having their own business and what it means, more so than the title of the video suggests. My commentary addresses that part of the video. See my comments below.
Dr Boyce & Zaza Ali: Was Obama weak on police shootings of black men?
Before I comment I tend to read a lot of the comments to see what folks are talking about and to learn something new as well.
Watching the interaction between Dr. Boyce and ZaZa, I wondered if anyone else picked up the pixie dust. LOL
On the real though, I have been independently employed for most of my adult likf, and that’s about 40 years. At this point the idea of working 9-5 is terrifying to say the least. But folks who do work 9-5 for even half that long are just as terrified to step away, and that ain’t got nothing to do with color. This culture does not teach us to be anything else but workers. Get and education so you can get a job. Not get an education so you can provide jobs.
I think that we have to be careful not to be disingenuous. There is no multi-level pyramid scheme out there that will have you living high off the hog, basking in the sun on the beach all day, while your business grows and grows without you having to do something.
Having your own business is hard work. I don’t know about them two, but I put in more hours than I would ever have to working 9-5 and I am more responsible for what goes out because it’s mine.
I think there are many prongs that can be used for African Americans to become more self reliant. Some are employers others are employees. It’s how we play the game. I really am not too cool with doing it the capitalistic way, however, if you are going to build a business in this paradigm you are gonna have to cross the capitalistic Rubicon on some level. There are so many stipulations that are required for you to even become incorporated. And this system is set up to only let a few fish swim upstream.
I haven’t reviewed Dr. Boyce’s business work and teachings, I been too busy keeping my business afloat, but I hope that he is being real with everyone about the “paperwork” involved, and as the saying goes, “Black folks is scared of paperwork.”
Folks should take a few classes before you step out there. Others should have a trade. We need so many skilled workers, cause even though you have your own business you will fare much better if you have helpers. Everybody can’t be a chief, but a good solid business plan, with good solid workers who share your vision.. can work wonders.
We as a people have a lot of “Soul Work” to do on the level of having our own business and working with or for other Black folks.
So, yeah, get all the information you can get about starting your own business, and if it scares you too much, then see if you can work for an already established black business owner, and if that’s not an option, support Black businesses. I have seen so many come and go due to lack of support as well..
There’s nothing like having your own, but you gotta put in the grunt work and the sweat equity to make it happen and keep it happening. Real Talk!
This are article examines three critical aspects of a false flag event and then applies what is known, and typical of a false flag event to the murder of five Dallas police officers earlier in the week. By the way, the above picture strongly suggests that there is a lot more to the official narrative than the public is being told.
The three areas of concern are:
Rehearsal of certain aspects of the event by either First Responser, LEO, or both.
If the false flag event consists of an assassination(s), the narrative includes acting alone, the “discovery” of a diary or a mainfesto which states the murderous intentions of the “patsy”, and the labeling of the so-called perpetrator as being insane so the act can be referred to as a random act of insane violence so the subject of a conspiracy never enters the discussion by the media and the authorities investigating the crime.
Disguise the purpose of the event.
Rehearsal for the Event
History is replete for rehearsal of a false flag event. In some cases, the event flows from the drill/rehearsal. This practice make s a great deal of sense, because complex agendas need rehearsal in order to produce the desired effect, which is always the opposite of the truth.
The following events represents a history of major false flag attack in which there were drills preceding the attack. This list is not exhaustive and it not intended to be. Rather, it shows a distinctive pattern in which the event was preceded by a drill closely associated with the nature of the false-flag event
Oklahoma City
9/11
The Estonia Catastrophe
The Oslo Shooting
London Subway Bombing
Virginia Tech Shooting
Taft Union High School Drill gone live
Boston Marathon Bombing
In the case of the Dallas shooting, we see the same type of drill preparation only a few days prior to the murdering of five Dallas police officers
FROM CBS DFW: “The sights and sounds are scary, but not dangerous. Members of law enforcement, along with fire and EMS personnel conducted an active shooter exercise at a North Texas high school on Wednesday.
Emergency vehicles could be seen responding with lights and sirens at Argyle High School. Local hospitals also participated in the disaster drill.
The event includes realistic scenarios that have actors playing victims and officers using fake gun rounds.
The sights and sounds are scary, but not dangerous. Members of law enforcement, along with fire and EMS personnel conducted an active shooter exercise at a North Texas high school on Wednesday.
Emergency vehicles could be seen responding with lights and sirens at Argyle High School. Local hospitals also participated in the disaster drill.
The event includes realistic scenarios that have actors playing victims and officers using fake gun rounds.
Argyle ISD Police Chief Paul Cairney said officials are taking every consideration and realize a shooting event can happen in a small town. “We’ve been thinking about that. But one of the things that we need to make sure that we do, if something were to happen, is we need to have the whole response coordinated and coordinated well, because we don’t want to have anymore people that are hurt,” he said.”
The Dallas event definitely fits the profile of so many other false flag events with regard to a preceding drills which comes close mimicking the actual event.
If this were the only similarity to so many false flag events, one could argue that this is just a tragic coincidence. However, the evidence trail which strongly suggest that this fits previous false flag events, almost perfectly.
There is no question that the rehearsal aspect of a false flag event was satisfied in this case.
When the False Flag Involves Assassination, the Following Characteristics are Present
When direct assassinations are involved we see the following narrative:
Lone gunman with no second shooter in order to avoid allegations of a conspiracy.
A discovered diary or manifesto declaring the intentions of the lone gunman. In each of the following cases, the perpetrator (i.e. patsy) had a diary/manifesto stating their murderous intentions and the target of the hostility.
JFK assassination
RFK assassination
Martin Luther King
In 9/1l, the discovery of Mohamed Atta’s passport was miraculously found, despite the fact that neither of the two planes had their black boxes found. But the government found Atta’s passport. Swamp land in Florida anyone? The found passport served the purpose of a diary with stated terrorist intentions, for placing the blame on Muslim terrorists, to cover up the fact that this was a false flag event.
In regard to the most recent terror event, the shooter has been identified and he has, you guessed, a manifesto with stated intentions to go along with a discovered document on military strategy tactics. In regard to the most recent terror event, the shooter has been identified and he has, you guessed, a manifesto with stated intentions to go along with a discovered document on military strategy tactics. Micah Xavier Johnson went on a shooting rampage against Dallas police, officials said Friday.
“Investigators have discovered bomb-making materials, rifles and a “personal journal of combat tactics” in the home of the black former Army reservist who is identified as Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, a Dallas-area resident, was a “loner” with no criminal history who “wanted to kill white people” and “especially white officers,” said police, who are still investigating whether he acted alone in perpetrating the deadliest day for law enforcement since the Sept. 11 terror attacks in 2001.”
Please note that Johnson was not a man of many means. Where did he get the money to acquire such a vast amount of military hardware? This is strongly reminiscent of the Aurora Batman Shooting for the exact same reasons.
The Purpose of the False Flag Event
I have been writing this for years, the following order will be followed to take world into a third world war in which the goal is to cull the population by 90%. The people don’t want war, they have to be convinced by false flag events. The following three steps are now in play and will culminate in World War III
The creation of domestic false flag terror events (e.g. the Dallas police shootings designed to start a race war), in which the government, for the good of the people, must step in and declare martial law.
The elimination of all political and religious dissent under the martial law. This means gun confiscations and roundups (e.g. rehearsed by Jade Helm.
When goals one and two occur, World War III will commence and the New World Order will complete its mission of the elimination of all national sovereignty.
We are are present in stage one moving quickly toward stage two.
NB Commentary: I knew it wasn’t over, I get this dizzy feeling when Shit is about to hit the fan. So from Orlando to this. If they give us enough false flags, with real casualties, we won’t be able to keep up or debunk them fast enough. Bomb Robots?
Dang, couldn’t they just get me a robot that likes to house clean.
Seriously?? A Bomb Robot??
Okay, here’s a question. Who saw this coming?
Makes you wonder if they stage these events to test out their new weapons. I am beginning to think so.
Bet they wagered on it down at Wall Street, wish I could understand all them numbers. Watch the stocks for this company go up though.
For humans to find more and more creative ways to kill each other must give the one who created this Prison Planet even more reason to feel good about their experiment.
I believe that Killery is behind it, and I wouldn’t put her passed it, it gives her a chance to throw her towel in for the BLM movement. It’s all staged, and believe me there are many agendas, they got a lot of dogs in this race.
divide and conquer. They tried to do it by selecting Obama and get all the white folks that are secretly racist, riled up. But that didn’t work, and a lot of white folks fell in love with that man.
Gun supporter Ms Giffords on a shooting range
Then we had the Tea Party, and that went over like a led balloon when they shot that political lady, Gabby Gifford, a gun supporter. And all these “false flags hoaxed drills” that are unraveling at the seems. So they throw in Donald Trump to get the masses really acting whacko. But even Trump got unexpected followers, in the Latinos and Blacks.. So now what, what can they do to declare Martial law, what can they pull off next to give them good reason to bring the military to the streets of North America in full bloom?? Either the American people are more resilient than they expected or too sleep to care. One thing I do know, is that if Martial law does become open, and warfare is declared, they will be facing some serious gun battles from folks who ain’t as scared as the Police are, from folks who have bought out the gun stores in the Malls and online, even the gays purchases of firearms peaked after Orlando, well, all I can say is, get your supplies and honker down cause if the SHTF… it ain’t gonna be pretty. And it will certainly be colorful as all walks of life join together. The USA and its government has shown that it doesn’t really care about ANY OF ITS people. It ain’t about black or white, or latino it’s about those who have and those who do not. So yeah, this will be a colorful revolution coming to a war theater near you.
You know, maybe it’s because I have been checking the Corbett Reportout for some time, but James said exactly what I was thinking when I heard the term “sniper”. Then I went down the list of countries in my head where this same scenario took place. Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Egypt… and it makes you wonder, who the hell is behind these “so-called snipers” and what is their agenda, or should I say agendas?? After the recent deaths of two black men (Alton B. Sterlingand Philando Castile) here in the US struck down by police, and the not so recent legislation called, “Blue Alert” to protect the Police, it makes you wonder if along with being psychopaths, if the folks at the helm are bi-polar. I have always admired folk’s ability to list dates and times and names in news stories and talks etc., well that part of history always escapes me, but believe me, I remember the stories, the carnage, the blaming and the looking away. And one thing that is for sure, the US will say it’s a brutal regime that uses snipers to kill its own people who are peacefully protesting, but they will never turn the mirror around and own, claim or admit that those snipers, along with a host of other so-called “lone gunman” are funded and supported by our own home grown brutal regime, right here in the USA. Nope, not, it’s different, they are “lone gunman” they are not connected in anyway to the USA or it’s government and administration, oh no, the US would never do anything like that against its people, never in a million years, only those other guys do that.
NB Commentary: American Exceptionalism is a hodgepodge of deluded definitions of what it means to be exceptional. In reality, there is no real value in this exceptionalism except that it is highly overrated and seriously undermines any reality that one might wish their brain to travel through.
The Media hype about how great America is, which probably should be stated the USA, is the burning flame of this delusion. It tends to give folks the idea of being better than the rest of the world and that in and of itself gives them the right to impose their “betterness” on the less fortunate creatures who don’t have a clue about how to run their lives without the help/ better known as intervention from the USA.
This bandage over the eyes of the citizens of the USA has them sullied in the eyes of those who meet the brunt of the swift hard kick that comes from American Boots on the ground. How great is great and what does it mean? I could add a few more to this list of ways that America ain’t so great, but suffice it to say, that without mentioning the pervasive inequality between the haves and the have-nots, the USA does a serious disservice to its credibility when trumping around telling others to run their governments and live their lives as Americans do.
Unfortunately, there are enough other folks out there, who risk their life and limb to come here, as they too, have swallowed the hype that America is better than any other “free” country in the world. They soon find out that that is not the case, quite the contrary. They see that they too will be stepping over the homeless, subjected to bigotry, inequality, low wages and disruption in family life as they attempt to assimilate and get their Lion share of the American pie.
This dichotomy can only create a nation filled of delusional, paranoid, socio-pathic, psychopaths swimming a a pool of cognitive dissonance. So Yeah, What does the 4th of July mean? Ask Fredrick Douglas.
As Americans don their red white and blue sequence bar-b-que aprons and raise their flags, ironically made in China, in an effort to “celebrate their freedom,” we should be asking ourselves this 4th of July, what freedoms do Americans really have?
We are under constant surveillance, our every move under a microscope by government goons, “protecting us” from “terrorists.”
We are under the constant threat of violence from the State for possessing a plant, or having a tail light out, or simply walking down the street.
Americans are constantly paranoid of those blue and red lights popping up in the rearview mirror that most always end in extortion and could very well end with a visit to the hospital, being locked in a cage, or worse.
State-sanctioned deprivation of rights, liberty, and life, is that what we call “Freedom” these days? The exact opposite of what the founders meant when they signed the Declaration of Independence.
Sadly, when people do begin to question this paradigm of violence against the citizens and the usurping of freedom, blame is quickly associated and directed toward whichever corporate puppet is in charge, then they just go back to sleep — resolute in the notion that they can vote those bastards out and it will all be fixed.
Boobus Americanus then slips back into la la land, cheering on the police state as if they are fans on a football stadium sideline. “My team is winning! USA! USA! USA!”
But your team is not winning, Boobus!
Just for a moment, can we stop chanting that “USA is number one”?
Can we remove the patriotic blinders for a moment and take a look at the categories in which we are actually number one? Because it’s certainly not freedom.
According to the 2014 Legatum Prosperity Index released in November, in the measure of personal freedom, the United States has fallen from 9th place in 2010 to 21st worldwide—behind such countries as Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Uruguay and Costa Rica.
Other such rankings systems show the US as low as 46. Yet somehow, Americans still believe their leaders when they say that terrorists “hate our freedom,” as if the ‘terrorists’ took down the first 45 freest countries and are just now getting to us!
No, we are most assuredly not number one in freedom.
But, we are however number 1 in,
Prison Population:
The job of law enforcement in America today is enforcing every arbitrary edict in the land to maximize profits for just a few private prison companies who are paid with stolen money (taxes). Because order followers don’t question any of their orders, it has lead to 65 million Americans (about 22% of the population) having criminal records.
This vicious cycle has become a phenomenon known only as recidivism.
Obesity:
Of all the major industrialized nations, America is the most obese. Mexico is #2.
Child abuse death rate:
The United States has the highest child abuse death rate in the world. Many of these deaths happen in State-approved foster homes after children are ripped from their parents’ arms because their parent took part in some arbitrary victimless crime, like smoking marijuana.
From 2010 through 2015, there were eight fatal police shootings in England, which has a population of about 52 million. By contrast, Albuquerque, N.M., with a population 1 percent the size of England’s, is approaching 40 fatal police shootings in that same time period.
China, whose population is 4 and 1/2 times the size of the United States, recorded 4 killings by law enforcement officers in 2015. Police in America killed 302 times more people than China!
Debt:
The United States has accumulated the biggest mountain of government debt in the history of the world.
As for the citizens, there is more credit card debt in America than anywhere else in the world. There is more mortgage debt in America than anywhere else in the world. And, there is more student loan debt in America than anywhere else in the world.
Crime:
According to nationmaster.com, the United States has the most total reported crimes in the world, by a long shot.
Arbitrary, immoral and downright evil laws:
How ironic is it that the Land of the Free has the most laws on the entire planet?
Attorney Harvey Silverglate argues that the average American commits three felonies a daywithout even knowing it. Although it has been estimated that there are over 3000 types of federal criminal offenses, no one knows the exact number for sure. At any given time, a police officer could walk up to you and find you in violation of some arbitrary law. It is a mathematical certainty.
So, next time your chest begins to fill with patriotic puff, stop for a second and realize that Americans are number one, but in such a bad way.
In the meantime, however, we still have the freedom in this country to inform ourselves and others. Only through a lesser ignorance will these horrid tyrannical traits subside.
Humanity is involved in a struggle, as we have always been, but there are much more of us now. Inciting peaceful change has never been more important. However, so many well-meaning individuals go about inciting this change with blunt force. This has to change.
If you truly want to make the world a more peaceful place, you have to become a more peaceful person. Petty infighting, personal attacks, vitriol, and hate are the tools of tyrants and also of those who only claim to be awake.
Peace is true professionalism.
Next time you’re cringing in a public setting, listening to Joe Six Pack spout off NFL stats like an ESPN commentator, wait for an opportune time and plant a seed.
Hey Joe, speaking of the Kansas City Chiefs, what do you think of wide receiver, Dwayne Bowe and his arrest for having weed? Do you think its cool that he was deprived of his freedom for having a plant? How can we legitimately call this country the land of the free when that can happen to someone?
Be the change that you want to see in this world.
Matt Agorist is the co-founder of TheFreeThoughtProject.com, where this article first appeared. He is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. .
NBCommentary: So that’s how it’s done. To avoid a federal civil rights trial, the Rice Estate gets $6million. Meanwhile, no criminal charges against the officers that killed Tamir. For some reason this just seems a bit strange to me.
Mayor Frank Jackson announced a $6 milllion settlement with the family of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old killed by the police, but said no price could be put on the life of a child.
CHICAGO — The family of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old boy whose fatal shooting by the Cleveland police in 2014 prompted national outrage, is set to receive $6 million from the city in a settlement announced Monday in federal court records.
The settlement, which would be the latest in a series of seven-figure payouts by major American cities to the families of African-Americans who died at the hands of officers, spares Cleveland the possibility of a federal civil rights trial that could have drawn new attention to Tamir’s death and to the city’s troubled police force. It also allows the city to avoid the possibility of an even larger judgment.
Cleveland officials said the settlement was the city’s largest in a police-related lawsuit, though under the terms of the agreement, the city does not admit wrongdoing. The $6 million figure is in line with settlements in the deaths of Eric Garner in New York and Freddie Gray in Baltimore.
Lawyers for the Rice family had been meeting with Cleveland officials to discuss a settlement since early last month. The agreement must still be approved by a probate court.
For the Rice family, which had called for criminal charges against the rookie officer who opened fire almost immediately after encountering Tamir on Nov. 22, 2014, the settlement means a significant payment and an end to civil proceedings. But it does nothing to change the decision by a Cuyahoga County grand jury last year to not indict the officer, Timothy Loehmann. Lawyers for Tamir’s estate said Monday that “no amount of money can adequately compensate” the boy’s relatives for their grief.
Family and friends of Tamir Rice, 12, struggle with their loss five months after a Cleveland police officer fatally shot the boy as he played with a toy gun in a park.
By Brent McDonald and Michael Kirby Smith on Publish DateApril 22, 2015. Photo by Brent McDonald/The New York Times. Watch in Times Video »
“In a situation like this, there’s no such thing as closure or justice,” the lawyers, Jonathan S. Abady and Earl S. Ward, said in a statement. “Nothing will bring Tamir back. His unnecessary and premature death leaves a gaping hole for those who knew and loved him that can never be filled.”
The Rice settlement provides another example of a city choosing to settle for millions of dollars rather than to contest a wrongful-death lawsuit in court.
This month, Chicago aldermen approved paying $4.95 million to the family of a man experiencing a mental health crisis who died after being dragged from his cell in handcuffs and shocked repeatedly with a Taser. They also approved $1.5 million to the estate of an asthmatic man who died after a police foot chase; witnesses said he had been denied access to his inhaler.
I remember thinking to myself, back in 1990; “I wonder what has happened to Black Folks as a result of Slavery?” It was like an epiphany, as I can actually remember where I was sitting when it occurred to me.
I had just entered the field of mental health having started off in Sociology. Somehow, life lead me to the field of Mental Health and particularly as a result of wanting to use Cultural Enrichment as a way for healing and benefiting Black folks who have so many odds stacked against them as it were.
I couldn’t help but notice the parallels, from denial to over achievement to resilience to secrecy and a host of other conditions, outcomes and variables that plague our community as well as offer some real life stories of survival even in the most hostile of environments. We still managed to work, have families, raise our children, get an education, despite the trauma we received.
However, it seemed that talking about PTSD in the clinical sense was didactic, linear and devoid of inference beyond the obvious. That is, a person caught in a war zone, a person who experienced a car accident, physical/emotional abuse or the death of a loved one. We knew that it would affect them in so many ways and we often called in “Adjustment Disorder”. Then we moved on to figure out strategies for healing and getting these “individuals” to a healthier mindset and that feeling of “safety” again.
As these thoughts swirled around in my mind and I began to seriously wonder if we may be suffering from trauma that was inflicted upon our foreparents and if in fact, the genetic memory has been imprinted on our DNA. It has been discovered that various events can be imprinted on our DNA so how about some shock?
I remember attending seminars where it was presented that our bodies remember our trauma long after the traumatic event had passed. Being a dreamer and one who interpreted dreams, I knew that our subconscious, or that place where dreams lie, would also bring up disturbing and/or traumatic events in various dream images.
It all began to make sense to me that surely, African people in the Americas, and perhaps the entire Diaspora; who were captured and imprisoned on slaved ships and brought to a foreign land, most certainly have suffered serious trauma along with transmitting that trauma to generations that followed. And as Dr. DeGruy Leary explains the trauma didn’t stop after they were brought here, nor did it stop after they were released from chattel slavery, it continued, and continues to this day. Much of it is insidious and below the surface but it continues in the form of police brutality, poverty, poor educational systems, dilapidated neighborhoods, erroneous depiction of our youth in the media, etc., etc., etc.
I always wanted to research it, or see what others have done in that line of research. I am so grateful to Dr. DeGruy Leary who has done the grunt work on this topic. I am sure it can be developed even beyond the book she wrote, and perhaps others will look into it. She also has a lot of courage to even broach this subject. In my ignorance it seemed to only make sense that the impact of our past would affect our future, but the cognitive dissonance will not allow many on both sides of the aisle to see it, accept it or do anything about it. So I must commend her bravery to even take the time, resources and brain work to put this thought together so eloquently.
She, along with Dr. Frances Kress-Welsing, in my estimation, have capture two of the most profound aspects of our history post Trans-Atlantic slave trade. When you couple White Supremacy with Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome you can pretty much sum up the African experience in the Americas and throughout the Diaspora where racism is an integral part of the society where its impact can be seen in politics, education, religion, entertainment, historical analysis, health care, economics and the general welfare.
Below you will find a video playlist of some of Dr. DeGruy Leary’s talks on Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome.
Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing (PTSS) is a 2005 book resulting from years of historical and psychological research by Joy DeGruy (formerly Leary)[1]PTSS describes a set of behaviors, beliefs and actions associated with or, related to multi-generational traumaexperienced by African Americans that include but are not limited to undiagnosed and untreated Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in enslaved Africans and their descendants.[1]
PTSS posits that centuries of slavery in the United States, followed by systemic and structural racism and oppression, including lynching, Jim Crow laws, and unwarranted mass incarceration, have resulted in multigenerational maladaptive behaviors, which originated as survival strategies. The syndrome continues because children whose parents suffer from PTSS are often indoctrinated into the same behaviors, long after the behaviors have lost their contextual effectiveness.
DeGruy states that PTSS is not a disorder that can simply be treated and remedied clinically but rather also requires profound social change in individuals, as well as in institutions that continue to reify inequality and injustice toward the descendants of enslaved Africans.
DeGruy holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Communication, a Master’s Degree in Social Work, a Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology, and a Ph.D. in Social Work Research. She teaches social work at Portland State University and gives lectures on PTSS nationally and internationally.
Hillary Wants a Crusade to Defeat Trump’s “Bigotry” – and Leave Her Bankers Alone
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
“It took the emergence of a grassroots movement against police terror, to wake a critical mass of Black folks to the reality of their condition.”
“If Hillary Clinton can make the general election into a crusade against “bigotry” and “intolerance” as embodied by Donald Trump, she can win with an otherwise issue-less campaign, thus shielding the 1% from harm. Black folks will be happy, imagining the election is all about them. “The great task of independent Black politics is to pry Black folks loose from the Democratic Party’s lethal embrace.” For that, we need a movement in the streets.”
Tuesday’s primary victories will allow Hillary Clinton to get busy planning her “big tent” general election crusade against racism and incivility, in the person of Donald Trump. It will be a corporate Democrat’s dream campaign, with the prospect of the party garnering majority white support for the first time since 1964. Clinton will allow Bernie Sanders’ delegates to craft much of the language of the party platform, in Philadelphia – a meaningless exercise designed to convince the Sandernistas that there is still hope to transform the Democratic Party “from below.” Clinton – who is permanently primed to lie on any subject, at any time, in the interests of the Lords of Capital – may give forked-tongue service to a Sanders-inspired platform, especially if Trump continues his hype on jobs losses to “China” because of “bad deals.” But, Wall Street will have little to worry about. Clinton’s central project will be to build an historic Democratic super-majority by appealing to all “decent” Americans to reject “bigotry” and embrace “fairness” and “tolerance” – by which she will mean nothing more than that they reject Trump.
Such civil rights-sounding rhetoric will signify to Black voters that their faith in the party, and the Clintons, has been bounteously rewarded; that the campaign is really all about them. They will be reassured of the continuity of Barack Obama’s policies under Hillary – as if that were a good thing, and as if Obama and the Clintons were not political triplets all along, rooted in the same right-wing of the party.
When Hillary Clinton is sworn in, there will be no Great Black Hajj [3] of millions to the Washington Mall, as in 2009 – no dizzying euphoria. But, the effect of a huge Democratic triumph over the Trump Monster could reproduce much the same disastrous Black political passivity as in the early Obama years, when folks thought they were on track to the Promised Land. Despite having been set back as much as 30 years by the Great Recession, in terms of their relative position to whites, African Americans clung to the delusion that things had never been so good, simply because there was a Black family in the White House.
“The effect of a huge Democratic triumph over the Trump Monster could reproduce much the same disastrous Black political passivity as in the early Obama years.”
It took the emergence of a grassroots movement against police terror, under the general heading of Black Lives Matter, to wake a critical mass of Black folks to the reality of their condition. For two generations, the dead, hegemonic weight of the Democratic Party had subverted and suffocated the Black Radical Tradition, diverting all Black political energies into a corporate dominated electoral enclosure. However, no sooner had the “Ferguson movement” (as many initially called it) gained traction, than it was partially co-opted by young opportunists with corporate ambitions. Campaign Zero immediately set out to become a player in the Democratic Party. (Its twittering star, DeRay McKesson, is currently running for mayor of Baltimore.) #Black Lives Matter was endorsed by the Democratic National Committee, with its founders mentioned by name. However, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi, rejected the endorsement [4]. “The Democratic Party, like the Republican and all political parties, have historically attempted to control or contain Black people’s efforts to liberate ourselves,” they said. “True change requires real struggle, and that struggle will be in the streets and led by the people, not by a political party.”
In a caricature of confrontation with power, activists held two cozy “chats” [5] with Hillary Clinton, in which they made no substantive demands. Clinton easily dominated the discussions, and succeeded in projecting herself as a stern but sincere supporter of the movement – an undeserved reputation that would benefit her presidential campaign.
The brazenly opportunist Campaign Zero group and the Garza-Cullors-Tometi network dickered with [6] the Democratic National Committee over campaign events. Campaign Zero agreed to collaborate with the Democrats on a televised town hall-type event on racial justice issues. The #Black Lives Matter network preferred a televised debate. Either way, participation in such projects relegates the collaborators to the status of annexes of the party, like MoveOn.org.
“Being controlled by the two-party system is hugely problematic and is disempowering and oppressive to black people.”
It was refreshing, and heartening, therefore, to hear another founding member of #Black Lives Matter explain why the network will not endorse any presidential candidate. Prof. Melina Abdullah, chair of the Department of Pan-African Studies at California State University, Los Angeles, told Democracy Now! viewers that “neither Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton have a strong command of the particular issues related to race in the specificity of black oppression.” (Actually, a more knowledgeable Democratic Party leader would be, if anything, even more dangerous.) More definitively, Prof. Abdullah said “being controlled by the two-party system is hugely problematic and is disempowering and oppressive to black people.” The movement needs to “think about what democracy is,” and “we need to really kind of redefine what that means and break away from this notion that the only way of being democratic is engaging in electoral politics.” The #Black Lives Matter Network “is pushing the real revolution,” she said.
Revolutionary movements – movements of any kind – require the formulation of demands. “We need to develop a plan that really deals with the specifics of blackness – black jobs, black employability, moving toward black wealth,” said Abdullah, the political scientist.
Hillary Clinton hopes to build a super-party this election season, packed to overflowing with “moderate” Republicans fleeing the taint of Donald Trump, who will bring their otherwise conservative politics with them into the Democratic “big tent” – an ideal infusion to reinforce Hillary Clinton’s (and Barack Obama’s) corporate wing of the party. Black folks will emerge from this electoral process even more marginal to party policy than before. But, most will not realize it.
The great task of independent Black politics is to pry Black folks loose from the Democratic Party’s lethal embrace. For that, you need a movement that is armed with proper demands. The #Black Lives Matter network is not there, yet, but at least some members are aware of the general path that must be taken.
NB COMMENTARY: I really wanted to NOT be in this Beyoncé Madness, but the irony of it all is to see folks being offended by her antics to the point of calling it racist when in fact, if they took the time to read the lyrics, they would see the song is all about Beyoncé getting hers. With a smattering of some retorts against “whatever.” The fact that she even uses this “so-called” Black Panther imagery, which in and of itself is a smack in the face of the movement, a downgrade at best in its presentation and surely not militant at all; is amazing to me. The fact that folks are getting hot under the collar over it is outright laughable. Then, on the other hand, you have these drones who support and even consider this “show” as something meaningful or even intrinsically an acknowledgment of her “Blackness.” Now I am ROFLMAO and sadly, there are many in that camp as well.
In it’s simplicity it barely shows any aggression or hatred or anything against the police. It’s a bunch of scantly clad women, fist balled up, dancing with Beyoncé in formation. The directive?? Work hard, grind hard, own it so you can “have the paper.” Which none of that was what the BPP Movement was about but surely a capitalistic approach to success.
These folks give money to these movements (Black Lives Matter which is suspect on its face), and bail protesters out of jail, but none of them will give up their way of life to join the Movement on the Real, and that’s the point. If twirling her ass, and rocking her crotch gets her money, that is what she will do, she certainly is not on the front lines of the conscious movement or on the front lines of the progressive movement.
Being part of the conscious or progressive movement would be detrimental to her power bank account cause folks would stop spending money on those things that do nothing for their progress and that would mean to stop buying her and her husbands stuff. Her lyrics were more about, “this is what you get for your money, I work hard for it, I slay for it, and see, what your money did for me??? I am at the Super Bowl.”
It’s all about her and will always be about her, and folks need to get real cause she ain’t doing nothing against her handlers who are all “albinos.” LOL Check out the lyrics if you haven’t already. Click Here for the Lyrics
Although the Black Panther Party (BPP) revolutionized the condition of Black people and communities in the 1960s, sexism in the group silenced the voices of Black women to promote a Black nationalist agenda that became conflated with the idea of preserving Black masculinity. This project aims to examine how and why this brand of racialized sexism in the Black Panther Party operated in the group, and to shed light on some of the silenced and erased the narratives about radical Black womanhood.
Regina Jennings, a Black woman who joined the Black Panther Party as a teenager, reflects about her experience with sexism in the group. She recounts a particularly difficult encounter with a captain who romantically pursued her. When she rejected his advances, she explains, “he made my life miserable. He gave me ridiculous orders. He shunned me. He found fault in my performance” (262). Ultimately, he had her transferred to a different branch of the organization, even though that meant completely disrupting her way of life. Jennings brought the incidences to the Central Committee’s attention, but the all-male panel accused her of white, bourgeois behaviors and values.
In spite of this situation, Jennings takes great pains not to demonize the entire group. While she and other women in the Black Panther Party confronted this form of sexism and misogyny, they also received a lot of support from Black men. Some Black men even defended Jennings when she complained of the sexual harassment, even when that meant that other men would shame them or call them emasculated. Jennings attributes these circumstances with a lack of knowledge or experience with power. “Black men, who had been too long without some form of power, lacked the background to understand and rework their double standard toward the female cadre” (263), she contends, demonstrating that oppression not only works to degrade a group, but also impels that group to internalize a set of power structures and enact oppression upon others. In spite of her claims, she emphasizes that this type of sexism should not be excused but rather understood. Jennings celebrates the love present in the BPP, forgiving the Party for the conditions that made it imperfect while honoring the uplift it achieved.
“I want you to know how much they perfectly loved you,” she clarifies in reference to those who dedicated their energies to Black communities. “I want you to know that they were willing to die for you” (264).
Kathleen Cleaver was the first female member of the Black Panther Party’s decision making body. In this interview, Cleaver challenges Euro-centric standards of beauty while expressing the BPP’s stance on self-love, and Black revival through celebrating different images of Blackness. She really does make a case for “the personal is political”!
What about Feminism?
Although Black women have not always identified with labels such as “feminist,” Black women have advocated for women’s issues as early as the 19th century. Black women have fought for economic justice/equality, against racism, against sexism, and against imperialism throughout U.S. history. In fact, the first wave white feminists learned much of their organizing and political strategies from Black, female abolitionists.
The late 1960s and the 1970s did witness an increasing number of Black women articulating their experience around the words “feminist” or “feminism,” but also a number of Black women challenging the structure of feminist movements. The Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) took the nation by storm, voicing many women’s grievances, but it did not appeal to many Black women and women of color who interpreted the movement’s work as an agenda that principally furthered white, upper-class women’s issues. Furthermore, many Black women considered their involvement in mixed gender spaces more pressing because they identified more with their male counterparts’ struggles than with the affluent white women’s problems. Kathleen Cleaver explained this phenomenon:
“The problems of Black women and the problems of White women are so completely diverse they cannot possibly be solved in the same type of organization nor met by the same type of activity… [but] I can understand how a White woman cannot relate to a White man.”
This racial solidarity in some ways led some Black women in mixed gender groups to tolerate oppressive ideologies to avoid division, or to subscribe to certain roles. In the pamphlet, “Panther Sisters on Women’s Liberation,” some women insisted that “Black men understand that their manhood is not dependent on keeping Black women subordinate to them,” but also claimed that because “our men have been sort of castrated,” women had to avoid taking up too much space in leadership so that Black men would not have any “fear of women dominating the whole political scene”. That kind of admonition to other Black women invokes ideas about pathologized matriarchy. Other women in the BPP adopted more masculine roles in order to be taken more seriously. Assata Shakur confessed, “You had to develop this whole arrogant kind of macho style in order to be heard… We were just involved in those day to day battles for respect in the Black Panther Party,” revealing the complications in negotiating one’s gender identity and the implications of said gender, even in anti-oppression organizations.
Although the climate of the BPP proved difficult to articulate in terms of gender politics, it was due to Black women’s participation in mixed gender groups and organizations (as opposed to the tendencies of some white, radical feminist groups who championed separatism), that Black women could interrogate the sexist and misogynistic ideologies present in anti-oppression organizations. Various BPP chapters even collaborated with the Women’s Liberation Movement at times, such as in 1969 when WLM members protested the cruel treatment of imprisoned Panther women.
Black women’s presence in the BPP forced men to reconsider their sexist assumptions. Even Party leaders like Eldridge Cleaver shifted positions. In 1968, Cleaver limited Black women’s political potential only to “pussy power,” or, the idea that Black women should withhold sex from Black men until he was ready to “pick up a gun” and embrace his own activism. In contrast, a year later, responding the cruel treatment of Black Panther women in prisons, Cleaver asserted that “if we want to go around and call ourselves a vanguard organization, then we’ve got to be… the vanguard also in the area of women’s liberation, and set an example in that area.” Black women demonstrated that sexist gender norms could not dictate their worth, and that in the grand scheme of things, the police imprisoned them just as they imprisoned Black men, and that white society had stripped them of their femininity just as it had stripped Black men of their masculinity.
Sources:
Anon. “Panther Sisters on Women’s Liberation.” In Heath, ed. Off the Pigs! Pg. 339.
Cleaver, Eldridge. “Message to Sister Erica Hugggins of the Black Panther Party.”The Black Panther Party. 5 July 1969. Reprinted in Foner, The Black Panthers Speak. 98-99.
Cleaver, Eldridge. “Speech to the Nebraska Peace and Freedom Party Convention,” 24 August 1968. Pg. 22
Matthews, Tracye. “No One Ever Asks, What a Man’s Place in the Revolution Is”: Gender and the Politics of The Black Panther Party 1966-1971.” In: The Black Panther Party [Reconsidered]. Edited by Charles E. Jones. Black Classic Press, Baltimore, 1998. Pg. 274, 284, 290.
In 1965, then Assistant Secretary of the US Department of Labor, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, issued a report about the question of poverty and the Black American population. Startled by statistics that showed that the unemployment rate of Black people doubled that of white people, Moynihan set out to expose the conditions that economically limited African Americans.
Given its historical context, the Moynihan Report actually represented a radical conceptualization of the relationship between gender identities, family structure, and socio-economic class; however, Moynihan’s statement falls short of the mark by pointing to Black matriarchy as the damning factor. While recognizing that structural conditions that originate in the enslaving of Black people in America has contributed to and caused many of the social disadvantages that plague African American communities contemporarily, Moynihan implicates Black motherhood thereby suggesting that without a patriarchal structure, the Black family is doomed to fail. “He does… identify the fundamental problem confronting the Black community as the ‘tangle of pathology’ associated with a matriarchal family structure,” contest Juan J. Battle and Michael D. Bennet in “African-American Families and Public Policies.” By legitimizing Western, patriarchal culture over non-white alternatives to the family structure, Moynihan prioritizes the suggestion that the Black family is deviant and therefore pathologically damaged instead of demonstrating how institutions like racism, sexism and classism systematically oppress Black families. In this way, he roots the problem in a presumed cultural deficiency, shifting the onus to Black mothers to stop corrupting the family structure instead of on the government to stop discriminating against people of color.
African Americans had initiated conversations about the Black family long before the Moynihan Report; nevertheless, using anecdotal, historical, sociological, and statistical evidence, the Report validated many Black men’s sentiments of “castration” and their resentments about a lost masculinity. Without a doubt, some Black men within the Black Panther Party endorsed the Moynihan Report to sanction their own desires for male superiority. Even Black Panther Party co-founder Huey Newton attested to this male inferiority complex:
“[The Black man] feels that he is something less than a man… Often his wife (who is able to secure a job as a man, cleaning for White people) is the breadwinner. He is therefore, viewed as quiet worthless by his wife and children” (Huey Newton, To Die for the People. Pg. 81)”
Interestingly enough, although Newton does not necessarily subscribe to the subordination of Black women to elevate the Black man, he does not attempt here to undermine the assumption that men should be the breadwinner, that womenshould not head the Black family, or that the solution is to esteem the Black man above the Black woman. Women, especially those in the BPP, would have to create most of the awareness about the fallibility of this form of social change.
Sources:
Battle, Juan J. and Bennet, Michael D. “African-American Families and Public Policy: The Legacy of the Moynihan Report.” Sage Publications, London and New Delhi, 1997. Pg. 154
Moynihan, Daniel P. “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action.” 1965
Newton, H. To Die for the People: The Writings of Huey P. Newton. City Lights Publishers, 2009. Pg. 81
In the 1960s, Maulana Karenga spearheaded Us, a Los Angeles-based organization dedicated to raising Black people’s awareness of their cultural heritage. Us propounded the notion that a revival of African traditions would elevate the condition of African Americans. Whether real or contrived, these traditions would ennoble Black people in new ways.
[Malauna Karenga, founder of “Us,” creator of the pan-African/African American Holiday of Kwanzaa, intellectual and writer.]
The Black Panther Party and Us supported each other ideologically, and Maulana Karenga even attended various BPP meetings and rallies. In spite of this initial alliance, the two groups diverged when their ethics no longer aligned. The BPP pushed back against Us’ idea that all Black people were allies in the struggle simply because of the color of their skin. On January 17, 1969, a shootout erupted between BPP and Us members during a Black Student Union meeting at UCLA, which resulted in the death of two BPP members. From that point onward, the relationship between the two organizations never recovered.
Although the Black Panther Party and Us often feuded, the earliest philosophies in the Black Panther Party do reflect many of Karenga’s beliefs. With respect to women, Karenga championed female submission in the name of reinstating Black male authority. He observed:
“What makes a woman appealing is femininity and she can’t be feminine without being submissive. A man has to be a leader and he has to be a man who bases his leadership on knowledge, wisdom, and understanding… The role of the woman is to inspire her man, educate their children and participate in social development. We say male supremacy is based on three things: tradition, acceptance, and reason. Equality is false; it’s the devil’s concept.”
Karenga espoused a complimentary gender theory; this theory depends on the credence that Black women serve to affirm Black men’s superiority. The foundation for this brand of Black racial uplift remains in the notion that empowering Black men necessarily will translate to empower Black communities. Ironically, this philosophy does not interrogate the premise that the restoration of Black male supremacy only occurs insomuch as Black women inspire and educate these Black men. Unfortunately, many of these problematic viewpoints continued to circulate in BPP chapters after Karenga’s departure from the group, necessitating that the Party resolve many of its gendered issues in later years.
Sources:
Halisi, Clyde, ed., The Quotable Karenga. Los Angeles: Us Organization, 1967. Pgs. 27-28
Matthews, Tracye. “No One Ever Asks, What a Man’s Place in the Revolution Is”: Gender and the Politics of The Black Panther Party 1966-1971.” In: The Black Panther Party [Reconsidered]. Edited by Charles E. Jones. Black Classic Press, Baltimore, 1998. Pg. 272
How is it that an organization so committed to righting the wrongs committed against Black people, could often support ideologies that endorsed the subordination of women? It is important to recognize that the Black Panther Party (BPP) did not exist in isolation; competing concepts about gender and sexuality perpetuated and upheld in mainstream society shaped the social frameworks of BPP members. The process of dismantling sexism meant theoretical and practical work on the part of all Party members. One female Black Panther who worked in the Oakland and international chapters, the late Connie Matthews assessed the disparity between the BPP’s philosophies and practices.
“I mean, it’s one thing to get up and talk about ideologically you believe this. But you’re asking people to change attitudes and lifestyles overnight, which is not just possible. So I would say tht there was a lot of struggle and there was a lot of male chauvinism… But I would say all in all, in terms of equality… that women had very, very strong leadership roles and were respected as such. It didn’t mean it came automatically.” (Interview with Tracye Matthews, 26 June 1991; Kingston, Jamaica.)
The men and the women in the Black Panther Party had internalized various views that validated sexism and even a racialized form of sexism. This brand of misogyny that specifically targeted Black women (contemporarily referred to as misogynoir) manifested itself in public discourse in two important ways: throughcultural nationalism, and through the Moynihan Report. True equality in the Black Panther Party meant interrogating these cultural “norms” and exchanging those views for a more egalitarian framework.
Source: Matthews, Tracye. “No One Ever Asks, What a Man’s Place in the Revolution Is”: Gender and the Politics of The Black Panther Party 1966-1971.” In:The Black Panther Party [Reconsidered]. Edited by Charles E. Jones. Black Classic Press, Baltimore, 1998. Pg. 289
1969, the Free Breakfast for School Children Program was initiated at St. Augustine’s Church in Oakland by the Black Panther Party. The Panthers would cook and serve food to the poor inner city youth of the area.
Male figures in the Black Panther Party, such as Bobby Seale, Huey Newton, and David Hilliard, were key to the initiation process of this project; however, Black women figured greatly in the execution of the first Breakfast Programs. Neighborhood mothers, who lived close to St. Augustine’s Church and actively participated in local parent-teacher associations, focused their energies on the program, even though they were often unaffiliated with the BPP, and made it a success. Female members of the Black Panther Party also contributed to the Free Breakfast Program by feeding as well as educating the children present. Although tensions often arose between the more conservative community mothers — who preferred that the children quietly and orderly ate — and the Black Panther women — who brought their restless, activist spirits into the spaces — these women cooperated to transform their neighborhoods.
Ms. Ruth Beckford, a parishioner at St. Augustine’s Church who helped to establish the Free Breakfast program with Bobby Seale and head of the Church, Father Earl Neal, spoke of the communal uplift that occurred through nourishing the community’s children. “When we were doing it the school principal came down and told us how different the children were. They weren’t falling asleep in class, they weren’t crying with stomach cramps, how alert they were and it was wonderful” (412), Beckford insists in an interview, demonstrating that by feeding the young children, the predominantly female Black Panther Party and Black community members radicalized their youth’s relation to education systems and thus their youth’s access to societal opportunities. The Free Breakfast Program, a largely woman-run project, asserted Black people’s right to food, to preparations so that they could thrive academically, and to conditions to further their position in society.
Source: Heynen, Nik. “Bending the Bars of Empire from Every Ghetto for Survival: The Black Panther Party’s Radical Antihunger Politics of Social Reproduction and Scale.” Department of Geography, University of Georgia, published online: May 2009.
“[W]omen ran the BPP pretty much. I don’t now how it got to be a male’s party or thought of as being a male’s party. Because those things, when you really look at it in terms of society, those things are looked on as being woman things, you know, feeding children, taking care of the sick and uh, so. Yeah, we did that. We actually ran the BPP’s programs.” (Frankye Malika Adams in an interview with Tracye Matthews, 29 September 1994; Harlem, New York)
When the media invokes images of the Black Panther Party (BPP), it often displays images of gun-toting Black men in military garb. Historical representations have relegated many women who participated in and devoted their energies to the Black Panther Party to a prop status. Excluding the outliers like Assata Shakur and Kathleen Cleaver, women in the Black Panther Party earn their time in the spotlight insomuch as they endorse the male cause; even some of the more famous images of these Black women feature them holding up signs for the Free Huey Campaign. Despite these depictions, Black women played a fundamental role in the Black Panther Party. Often comprising the majority of local BPP groups, women staffed and coordinated free breakfast programs, liberation schools, and medical clinics. The Party even sought out Black women unaffiliated with the organization, such as women on welfare, grandmothers and community figures, to staff these initiatives. If these women played such a fundamental role in the infrastructure of the BPP, why aren’t Black women as celebrated for their contributions? History has a way of degrading work that mirrors “traditional” female duties to categories like “community service” or “support work”. The term “support work,” especially invokes the connotation of inferior, menial and subordinate labor. Sexism not only impacted what jobs Black women in the BPP received or fulfilled but also how history conveys the value of said efforts.
Source: Matthews, Tracye. “No One Ever Asks, What a Man’s Place in the Revolution Is”: Gender and the Politics of The Black Panther Party 1966-1971.” In:The Black Panther Party [Reconsidered]. Edited by Charles E. Jones. Black Classic Press, Baltimore, 1998.
“Black liberation politics became equated with black men’s attempts to regain their manhood at the expense of black women,” asserts Anita Simmons in the chapter “Black Womanhood, Misogyny and Hip-Hop Culture: A Feminist Intervention”. Simmons continues, “In the Black Panther Party, attainment of black manhood meant the degradation of black women and womanhood.” Sexism in the Black Panther Party (BPP) silenced the voices of Black women to promote a Black nationalist agenda that became conflated with the idea of preserving Black masculinity. This project aims to examine how this brand of racialized sexism in the Black Panther Party silenced and even erased the narratives about radical Black womanhood in the late 1960s from our social history. What are these narratives? How did women in the Black Panther Party radicalize their position? This project will also examine the interaction between Black feminists of the 1970s and their criticism of Black men’s understanding of Black womanhood. What was the stance of women in the Black Panther Party? Were there Black feminists who were also Black Panthers?
ABOUT
Although the Black Panther Party (BPP) revolutionized the condition of Black people and communities in the 1960s, sexism in the group silenced the voices of Black women to promote a Black nationalist agenda that became conflated with the idea of preserving Black masculinity. This project aims to examine how and why this brand of racialized sexism in the Black Panther Party operated in the group, and to shed light on some of the silenced and erased the narratives about radical Black womanhood.
NB Commentary: I enter this discussion kicking and screaming and swearing to myself that I am not, and I mean, am not gonna fall prey to the hype. But today, I had to come forth with another blog post. I was compelled by the comments under many of the pictures posted of her and her girl gang at the Super Bowl and how some folks were actually seeing it as a Powerful Movement, a statement about Black Power, a high five to Malcolm X, and the insane indicators of it being an Illuminati ritual. But what really took me to the top of the clock was the actual lyrics, which in no way seem to reflect any of this, in fact quite the contrary. So here I am again, with something to rant on about That!!!
Let me begin my rant with a shout out to Cookie Couture who posted the lyrics to Beyoncé song.
“Thank you for this. You know how you witness something and something inside you goes off and tells you that there is something wrong with this because inside of you, you can feel it going in all kinds of different directions. Well, thanks again, I really appreciate you posting those lyrics!!”
Nowadays, we cannot take lightly the impact of the media. It’s in your face in an instant and manipulating you and brainwashing you in the millisecond. Nowadays, it’s more dangerous due to the advance technology they can use to grab your brain and do all kinds of trickery with it.
The invention of motion pictures and later television, herald the beginning of an epic age, where the minds of the masses are in the hands of the elite controllers who can massage, manipulate, brainwash and control the narrative to such a degree that people believe that what they see is real and true.
People identify with the character on the screen so much so that they protect them as if they have an intimate relationship with them, all because of what they see on the screen. People project themselves into the personification of a made up image on the screen and it becomes their alters. For that matter, fans are as much MK-Ultra slaves as much as the people they Idolize and Adore. The Cult of Personality has replaced the Gods and Goddesses of ancient times.
The people on the big screen are fallible human beings, but the masses need Gods so they elevate them to the status of “Gods” and defend their “Persona” as if it’s real, or actually means anything. The psychological irony of this is that their “Persona” does mean something for the hungry masses, but 99% of them won’t use this power for anything other than maintaining the status quo of the Elite Moguls who control them from behind the scenes. Their true creativity is eclipsed by the greed, avarice and debauchery that is the world of celebrity. If they step out of the mold that was designed for them, they will fail or meet a worse fate. Thus the hype is just that, hype, form no substance, yet the impact of such superficiality is as deadly has a thousand poison arrows.
And Now to the Lyrics. You decide, how progressive these are.
What happened at the New Wil’ins?
Bitch, I’m back by popular demand
[Refrain: Beyoncé]
Y’all haters corny with that illuminati mess
Paparazzi, catch my fly, and my cocky fresh
I’m so reckless when I rock my Givenchy dress (stylin’)
I’m so possessive so I rock his Roc necklaces
My daddy Alabama, Momma Louisiana
You mix that negro with that Creole make a Texas bama
I like my baby heir with baby hair and afros
I like my negro nose with Jackson Five nostrils
Earned all this money but they never take the country out me
I got a hot sauce in my bag, swag
[Interlude: Messy Mya + Big Freedia]
Oh yeah, baby, oh yeah I, ohhhhh, oh, yes, I like that
I did not come to play with you hoes, haha
I came to slay, bitch
I like cornbreads and collard greens, bitch
Oh, yes, you besta believe it
[Refrain: Beyoncé]
Y’all haters corny with that illuminati mess
Paparazzi, catch my fly, and my cocky fresh
I’m so reckless when I rock my Givenchy dress (stylin’)
I’m so possessive so I rock his Roc necklaces
My daddy Alabama, Momma Louisiana
You mix that negro with that Creole make a Texas bama
I like my baby heir with baby hair and afros
I like my negro nose with Jackson Five nostrils
Earned all this money but they never take the country out me
I got a hot sauce in my bag, swag
[Chorus: Beyoncé]
I see it, I want it, I stunt, yellow-bone it
I dream it, I work hard, I grind ’til I own it
I twirl on them haters, albino alligators
El Camino with the seat low, sippin’ Cuervo with no chaser
Sometimes I go off (I go off), I go hard (I go hard)
Get what’s mine (take what’s mine), I’m a star (I’m a star)
Cause I slay (slay), I slay (hey), I slay (okay), I slay (okay)
All day (okay), I slay (okay), I slay (okay), I slay (okay)
We gon’ slay (slay), gon’ slay (okay), we slay (okay), I slay (okay)
I slay (okay), okay (okay), I slay (okay), okay, okay, okay, okay
Okay, okay, ladies, now let’s get in formation, cause I slay
Okay, ladies, now let’s get in formation, cause I slay
Prove to me you got some coordination, cause I slay
Slay trick, or you get eliminated
[Verse: Beyoncé]
When he fuck me good I take his ass to Red Lobster, cause I slay
When he fuck me good I take his ass to Red Lobster, cause I slay
If he hit it right, I might take him on a flight on my chopper, cause I slay
Drop him off at the mall, let him buy some J’s, let him shop up, cause I slay
I might get your song played on the radio station, cause I slay
I might get your song played on the radio station, cause I slay
You just might be a black Bill Gates in the making, cause I slay
I just might be a black Bill Gates in the making
[Chorus: Beyoncé]
I see it, I want it, I stunt, yellow-bone it
I dream it, I work hard, I grind ’til I own it
I twirl on my haters, albino alligators
El Camino with the seat low, sippin’ Cuervo with no chaser
Sometimes I go off (I go off), I go hard (I go hard)
Get what’s mine (take what’s mine), I’m a star (I’m a star)
Cause I slay (slay), I slay (hey), I slay (okay), I slay (okay)
All day (okay), I slay (okay), I slay (okay), I slay (okay)
We gon’ slay (slay), gon’ slay (okay), we slay (okay), I slay (okay)
I slay (okay), okay (okay), I slay (okay), okay, okay, okay, okay
Okay, okay, ladies, now let’s get in formation, cause I slay
Okay, ladies, now let’s get in formation, cause I slay
Prove to me you got some coordination, cause I slay
Slay trick, or you get eliminated
[Bridge: Beyoncé]
Okay, ladies, now let’s get in formation, I slay
Okay, ladies, now let’s get in formation
You know you that bitch when you cause all this conversation
Always stay gracious, best revenge is your paper
[Outro]
Girl, I hear some thunder
Golly, look at that water, boy, oh lord
AND NEXT,
TRENDING ON THE OTHER END OF THE MASS MIND CONTROL SCALE
COMES THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE.
BELIEVE IT OR NOT????
FEBRUARY 10, 2016
ARE BEYONCE’S ‘FORMATION’ LYRICS ANTI-COP, PRO-BLACK OR JUST PLAIN PERFECT?
The lyrics and video to Beyonce’s new single “Formation” shouldn’t be surprising to any fans who have been closely following the political leanings of the pop artist and her husband Jay-Z. While the power couple have often tried to keep it quiet, they’ve been huge financial supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement. Last year, activist Dream Hampton revealed that the couple had poured in tens of thousands of dollars in bail money without a second thought when Baltimore and Ferguson protestors were jailed. After those tweets were deleted, he later suggested that they didn’t really want to largely publicize the fact, reported The Guardian.
That attitude seems to be shifting when peering into the video, performance and lyrics behind Beyonce’s “Formation.” Just as she gained accolades for aligning herself with feminism on her 2013 surprise self-titled album, Beyonce has once again recognized the power of pop and the cult of her own artistry to send a message. This time, it’s about the police violence faced by the black community.
In reality if there is no serious response from our people after all that marching in the streets and demanding justice, etc. Then we will not be a force to be reckoned with. The police will continue to assassinate our people with impunity and nobody should say nuffin no more.
How can we make any kind of impact or change if we are too weak, brainwashed and conditioned to stop participating in their holidays? I always say that this time of year is the most blatant celebration of white supremacy ever! White Jesus, white Christmas and giving all your money to the white man, going into debt for a capitalistic economy and it’s banksters who could care less about you or anyone in your family who suffered under police brutality.
Marches keep them going. T-shirts give them a spike in sales. Magic markers and poster boards ring their cash registers. George Soros can bank roll it and profit from it, but does it change anything? NO! We have to hit them in their pockets. But if we are too dumbed down to do it, well, ain’t no need to be griping about how racist this country is.
Oklahoma ex-cop guilty of rape in sex abuse case involving 13 women
NB Commentary:It boggles the mind that people fall apart when the gavel comes down on their heads, when they had no compunction when bringing the gavel down on another’s. This happens over and over again. The serial killer doesn’t want to die… the serial rapist fears being raped.. What is it and where is the disconnect? How do you explain this in any logical terms? One guilty verdict is enough…..to send this man whirling into the path of destruction….. there were too many to count in this case. And while he may suffer the punishment of his crimes, the women whom he hurt will have a lifetime of recovery from it. Cause punishing him will only be like a band aide on cancer. I hope these women can get the help they need over the long term.
And then you have THIS GUY. I can’t help but wonder where do they find these people. Who remembers the black friend who defended Zimmerman?? Strange indeed.
Daniel Holtzclaw, a former Oklahoma City police officer, sobs as the verdict is read on Thursday.
Holtzclaw was convicted of 18 of the 36 counts he faced, including four counts of first-degree rape, related to accusations that he victimized 13 black women.
A former Oklahoma City police officer was convicted Thursday of raping and sexually victimizing eight women on his police beat in a minority, low-income neighborhood.
Daniel Holtzclaw, who turned 29 Thursday, sobbed as the verdict was read aloud. Jurors convicted him on 18 counts involving eight of the 13 women who had accused him; the jury acquitted him on another 18 counts.
He could spend the rest of his life in prison based on the jury’s recommendation that he serve a total of 263 years, including a 30-year sentence on each of four first-degree rape convictions. He was also convicted of forcible oral sodomy, sexual battery, procuring lewd exhibition and second-degree rape.
The jury deliberated for about 45 hours over four days. Holtzclaw’s sentencing is set for Jan. 21. A judge will decide whether he will have to serve the sentences consecutively.
Holtzclaw’s father — a police officer in Enid, about 100 miles northwest of Oklahoma City — his mother and sister were in the courtroom as the verdict was read. At least one accuser was present, as well as several black community leaders. Seven armed deputies were stationed around the room.
Holtzclaw’s defense attorney, Scott Adams, declined to comment after the verdict was read.
“Justice was done today, and a criminal wearing a uniform is going to prison now,” Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater said. “In those counts where the not guilty verdicts came back, they determined that we didn’t prove those cases beyond a reasonable doubt. It doesn’t mean they didn’t believe the victims.”
The lead detective in the case, Kim Davis, said after the verdict: “I feel horrible for his family. It’s brutal, but I think justice was served.”
The allegations against Holtzclaw brought new attention to the problem of sexual misconduct committed by law enforcement officers, something police chiefs have studied for years.
During a monthlong trial, jurors heard from 13 women who said Holtzclaw sexually victimized them. Most of them said Holtzclaw stopped them while out on patrol, searched them for outstanding warrants or checked to see if they were carrying drug paraphernalia, then forced himself on them.
Holtzclaw’s attorney, meanwhile, described him as a model police officer whose attempts to help the drug addicts and prostitutes he came in contact with were distorted.
Among the eight women Holtzclaw was convicted of attacking was a grandmother in her 50s, who launched the police investigation and who was in the courtroom Thursday. She said she was driving home after 2 a.m. when Holtzclaw pulled her over. He first asked her if she had been drinking, then ordered her out of the car and into the backseat of his squad car. He then stood over her and ordered her to perform oral sex.
The woman was tearful after the verdict and prayed with supporters outside the courtroom.
She was the first victim to testify. The last was a teenager who was 17 when Holtzclaw attacked her. Holtzclaw was convicted of three charges related to her case: first-degree rape, second-degree rape and sexual battery.
The teenager recalled Holtzclaw pulling up in his police car as she walked home one night in June 2014. Holtzclaw drove her home and walked her to her door, where he told her he had to search her. She said he grabbed her breasts, then pulled down her shorts before forcing them off and raping her.
Despite the number of victims, the case presented prosecutors with several challenges.
Many of the women had arrest records or histories of drug abuse. Holtzclaw’s attorney made those issues a cornerstone of his defense strategy. Adams questioned several women at length about whether they were high when they allegedly encountered Holtzclaw. He also pointed out that most did not come forward until police identified them as possible victims after launching their investigation.
Ultimately, that approach did not sway the jury to dismiss all the women’s stories.
Holtzclaw was convicted of one of two charges related to a woman who testified he gave her a ride home, then followed her into her bedroom where he forced himself on her and raped her, telling her, “This is better than county jail.”
That woman testified in orange scrubs and handcuffs because she had been jailed on drug charges hours before appearing in court. But the jury still convicted Holtzclaw of forcible oral sodomy in her case.
All of the accusers were black. Holtzclaw is half-white, half-Japanese. The jury appeared to all be white, though Oklahoma court officials said they did not have race information for jurors. Some supporters of the women questioned whether the jury would fairly judge their allegations.
A former college football star, Holtzclaw joined law enforcement after a brief attempt at pursuing an NFL career. Oklahoma City police chief Bill Citty fired Holtzclaw before the trial began.
Citty said in a statement Thursday night that the department was satisfied with the outcome of the “long and difficult trial and deliberation process.”
“We are satisfied with the jury’s decision and firmly believe justice was served,” the statement said.
Holtzclaw’s case was among those examined in an Associated Press investigation of sexual misconduct by law enforcement. The AP’s yearlong probe revealed about 1,000 officers had lost their licenses for sex crimes or other sexual misconduct over a six-year period. Holtzclaw was not included in that count because he has not yet lost his license.
The AP’s finding is undoubtedly an undercount of the problem of sexual abuse in law enforcement. Not every state has a process for banning problem officers from re-entering law enforcement, known as decertification. And of those states that do, great variations exist in whether officers are prosecuted or reported to their state licensing boards.
The mother of the 17-year-old victim told The Associated Press on Thursday night that she feels like justice has been served. The Associated Press generally does not identify victims of sex crimes and is not using the mother’s name so as not to identify her daughter.
The mother said she believes the type of police crime brought to light by the Holtzclaw case “isn’t just a problem in Oklahoma — it’s a problem for the nation.”
I always wondered about this connection between firearms and sex. Stay with me here. One day I had a dream as I was trying to figure out why rape and war go together. In this dream I was told that men shooting guns actually get sexually aroused and that once that happens they need to relieve themselves so they rape. It is also about power and control. If you look at the language used when describing sexual intercourse, you get words like “firing his shot”, “blasted” “busted” and various other metaphors for what it means when a man ejaculates. And then there are these synonyms: emission, ejection, discharge, release, expulsion.
So, we have in this story, a barrage of senseless bullets shooting up a car where clearly the men had to be dead long before 377 shots to their vehicle. Are we dealing more with sexually frustrated men who have to act in this manner? Are we dealing with men who ejaculate too quickly? Are we dealing with men who can’t seem to satisfy their partners and who feel so inept that by this obscene show of force they can, ejaculate over and over and over, hundreds of times without needing to stop and regroup? Are they insecure because after on orgasm it’s over for them, whereas by assaulting someone while wearing a badge they can “orgasm” over and over and over again?
I hadn’t thought about the sexual implications of war and police brutality in that way before. But It always appeared to me to have sexual overtones. When you watch how the police force suspects into handcuffs. Or how they “knock” you to the ground in a what appears to be sadomaschistic demonstration of dominance over someone they have rendered weak and helpless.
We keep looking at the sociopathic indicators that this type of behavior reveals, but I am wondering if we are missing an even deeper psychosis. Are we actually looking at folks who have sexual hangups, possibly sexual abuse and assault in their own history? Are we looking at a sexual perversion that can be shrouded in a uniform and a badge where a take down is imminent? Do these folks have a license to kill?? Or a license to rape, mentally, emotionally, physically and psychically?
I remember years ago noticing that weapons tend to resemble, in some way, the male phallic. From guns to to rockets to bombs they all look the same. The male phallic. Does this mean that there is an innate insecurity that men have about their manhood which is many instances is determined by their sexual prowess, however distorted this perception may be. What do bombs, guns etc. do? They penetrate, they explode, they ejaculate.
We have been living in an era of the Patriarchy for the past several thousand years. Male dominion over all life on Earth, particularly when looking at Male dominion in so many religions, politics, economics and social institutions around the world. It is expected that men should dominate! If a man does not carry that energy he is considered effeminate and a disgrace. Looking at our world we are seeing how this distortion has lead to more destruction and chaos since the days of the Gladiators.
The male principle in its desire to have dominion over all has become so distorted that the idea of freedom. peace, justice etc. is skewed and gleaned through the lens of destruction. Their creations have become destructive toys that hurt, maim and kill.
Frustrated, insecure and competitive men with killing toys are running our world and the consequences are devastating.
Excerpt: “In prison, infliction of mental and physical agony on helpless captives provides sexual pleasure to sick individuals. No penetration is needed, violent predators value power and control more. Sandra’s treatment, particularly isolation, are techniques found in CIA prisons and Guantanamo Bay. They are unbearable and leave no marks. The UN calls it torture.”Read More:
In my opinion, any editing of the information released to the authorities is suspect. In this video there is a shot you may want to check out. Sandra has a huge lump on her head that has been obviously photoshopped out. Here’s the link to that photo. http://www.conspiracyclub.co/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/ne55be5a07.jpg Why did they do that? I am still suspicious and I don’t think the person in the video of Sandra in a orange jumpsuit is Sandra, maybe another person from another time, maybe it’s staged, with no timestamp and no identifying info on this video it could have come from anywhere. Proof that Sandra Bland’s Mug Shot Was Edited & Why: http://www.conspiracyclub.co/2015/08/02/sandra-blands-mug-shot-edit/
March 13, 2013 12:56 p.m. My Adventures With ‘Penis-Numbing’ Spray In a bold step toward remedying the world’s least pressing health issue, the FDA recently approved an over-the-counter topical spray to treat premature ejaculation. (Similar products have long been available, but this is the first to win FDA approval.) Manufactured by Absorption Pharmaceuticals, Promescent’s active ingredient is lidocaine, a local anesthetic you have probably encountered at the dentist. Promescent’s website boasts that it “benefits both men and women by helping a man have staying power.”
Police abuse doesn’t get much more flagrant than this. Recently dozens of Miami-Dade police officers filled Adrian Montesano’s vehicle with 377 bullet holes, shot from every imaginable angle. The frenzied show of police force was described by witnesses as “chaotic” and “contagious” in nature.
The vehicle’s 2 occupants had been trying to surrender, but 23 police officers in total decided to act as judge, jury and executions, shooting up the car, the suspects and also neighboring houses, businesses, vehicles. Even fellow police officers were hit by the insane barrage of bullets from the high capacity magazines carried in triplicate by each officer. The events began back in the early morning hours of December 10th, 2013, but questions about the massive show of police force have begun to mount in the community. Adrian Montesano had already crashed, and his vehicle remained pinned between a utility pole and a tree after an earlier police pursuit around 5:00 a.m. Dozens of officers aimed their M4 assault rifles, as well as high capacity handguns towards the from every angle, and for several minutes, they shot round after round into the unarmed suspects. Anthony Vandiver witnesses the assault from his house. He ran upstairs to watch the whole thing unfold, from a perfect, unobstructed view.“They said, ‘put your hands up!’ And the guys were still moving after they shot, like maybe 50-60 times,” Mr. Vandiver told CBS-4 Miami. “And the guys tried to put their hands up, and as soon as they put their hands up, it erupted again.” Read more: Counter Current News
Racist Killing Fields in the U.S.: The Death of Sandra Bland
Posted on Jul 23, 2015
By Henry A. Giroux, Truthout
Sandra Bland, 28 years old
On July 9, soon after Sandra Bland, a 28-year-old African-American woman, moved to Texas from Naperville, Illinois, to take a new job as a college outreach officer at her alma mater, Prairie View A&M, she was pulled over by the police for failing to signal while making a lane change. What followed has become all too common and illustrates the ever-increasing rise in domestic terrorism in the United States. She was pulled out of the car by the police for allegedly becoming combative, and was pinned to the ground by two officers. A video obtained by ABC 7 of Bland’s arrest “doesn’t appear to show Bland being combative with officers but does show two officers on top of Bland.”
A witness reported that “he saw the arresting officer pull Bland out of the car, throw her to the ground and put his knee on her neck while he arrested her.” In the video, Bland can be heard questioning the officers’ methods of restraint. She says: “You just slammed my head to the ground. Do you not even care about that? I can’t even hear.” She was then arrested for assaulting an officer, a third-degree felony, and interned at the Waller County, Texas, jail. On July 13, she was found dead in her cell. Quite unbelievably, the police reported that she took her own life, and the Waller County Jail is trying to rule her death a suicide. Friends and family say that this scenario is inconceivable, given what they know about Sandra: She was a young woman starting a new job, who was eagerly looking forward to her future.
Sandra Bland was an outspoken civil rights activist critical of police brutality. She often posted videos in which she talked about important civil rights issues, and once stated: “I’m here to change history. If we want a change we can really truly make it happen.”
Sandra Bland’s family and friends believe that foul play was involved in her death, and rightly so. Their belief is bolstered by the fact that the head sheriff of Waller County, Glenn Smith, who made the first public comments about Bland’s in-custody death, was suspended for documented cases of racism when he was chief of police in Hempstead, Texas, in 2007. After serving his suspension, more complaints of racism came in, and Smith was actually fired as chief of police in Hempstead.” Bland’s death over a routine traffic stop is beyond monstrous. It is indicative of a country where extreme violence is the norm – a society fed by the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, the incarceration state, the drug wars and the increasing militarization of everything, including the war on Black youth. There is more at stake here than the fact that, as federal statistics indicate, the police are “31 percent more likely to pull over a Black driver than a white driver”: Routine traffic stops for Black drivers contain the real possibility of turning deadly. This regular violence propels a deeply racist and militarized society. It is a violence that turns on young people and adults alike who are considered disposable. This type of harassment is integral to a form of domestic terrorism in which Black people are routinely beaten, arrested, incarcerated and too often killed. This is the new totalitarianism of the boot-in-your-face racism, one in which the punishing state is the central institution for both controlling poor people of color and enforcing the rules of the financial elite. How much longer can this war on youth go on?
CONFIRMED: Dashcam Video of Sandra Bland’s Violent Arrest was Indeed Edited Read more at
The United States has become a country that is proud of what is should be ashamed of. How else to explain the popularity of the racist and bigot, Donald Trump, among the Republican Party’s right-wing base? We celebrate violence in the name of security and violate every precept of human justice through an appeal to fear. This speaks clearly to a form of political repression and a toxic value system. Markets and power are immune to justice, and despise it. All that matters is that control – financial and political – serves soulless markets and the Darwinian culture of cruelty. How many more young people are going to be killed for walking in the street, failing to signal a lane shift, looking a police officer in the eye, or playing with a toy gun? How many more names of Black men, women and young people will join the list of those whose deaths have sparked widespread protests: Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, Renisha McBride, Aiyana Jones and Sakia Gunn, among many others – and now, Sandra Bland. Is it any wonder that one funeral director in Chicago stated that “young people in the city do not expect to live late into their adult life”? Moreover, police violence in the United States is not only a direct manifestation of state violence, but also serves as a gateway to prison, especially for people of color and the poor.
Yet, the mainstream media is more infatuated with game shows, financial brutishness, celebrities and the idiocy of Donald Trump than they are concerned about the endless violence waged against poor children of color in the United States. This violence speaks clearly to a society that no longer wants to invest in its youth. And if one measure of a democratic society is how it treats young people, the United States has failed miserably.
The form that the “war on terror” has taken at home is a war on poor people of color, especially Black people. Racism and police militarization have created a new kind of terrorism, one in which extreme violence is being used against Black people for the most trivial of infractions. The killing of Black youth by the police – a norm that stretches back, in an unbroken line of terror, to slavery – takes the form of both routine affair and spectacle. Nowadays, acts of domestic terrorism perpetrated by police take place increasingly in full view of the US public, who more and more are witnessing such lawlessness after it is recorded and uploaded onto the internet by bystanders. New technologies now enable individuals to record such violence in real time and make it a matter of public record. While this public display of the deployment domestic terrorism is undeniably crucial, in that it makes visible the depravity of state violence, these images are sometimes co-opted by the mass media, commodified, and disseminated in ways that can exploit – and even attempt to erase – Black lives, as William C. Anderson argues.
In the current environment, racial violence is so commonplace that when it is perpetrated by the police against innocent people, justice is not measured by holding those who commit the violence accountable. The official measure of justice is simply that the presence of violence be noted, by the authorities and the mainstream media. Few of the most powerful people seem distraught by the ongoing shootings, beatings, and killings of African-Americans in a society in which a Black man is killed every 28 hours in the US by police, vigilantes or security guards.
In a country in which militarism is viewed as an ideal and the police and soldiers are treated like heroes, violence becomes the primary modality for solving problems. One consequence is that state violence is either ignored, rendered trivial or shamelessly legitimated in the name of the law, security or self-defense. State violence fueled by the merging of the war on terror, the militarization of all aspects of society, and a deep-seated, ruthless and unapologetic racism is now ubiquitous and should be labeled as a form of domestic terrorism. Terrorism, torture and state violence are no longer simply part of our history; they have become the nervous system of an increasingly authoritarian state. Eric Garner told the police as he was being choked to death that he could not breathe. His words also apply to democracy itself, which is lacking the civic oxygen that gives it life. The United States is a place where democracy cannot breathe.
This authoritarianism fueled by the mainstream press, which seems especially interested in stories in which it can (wrongfully) frame victims as assailants, as in the case of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, but is less interested when the old stereotypes about crime and Black culture cannot be invoked. When dominant forces cannot figure out a way to label victims of police violence “thugs” – consider the case of Tamir Rice, who was only 12 years old when shot to death by a policeman who in his previous police assignment in another city was labeled as “unstable” – such acts of state terrorism often fade out of the mainstream view.
Why was there not a more sustained and mainstream public outcry over the case of Kalief Browder, a young Black man who was arrested for a crime he did not commit and incarcerated at the notorious Rikers Island for than a one thousand days – two years of that time in solitary confinement – waiting for a trial that never happened? Shortly after being released he committed suicide. Would this have happened if he were white, middle class and had access to a lawyer? How is what happened to him parallel to the egregious torture inflicted on innocent children at Abu Ghraib prison?
Not surprisingly, the discourse of “terrorism” once again is only used when someone is engaged in a plot to commit violence against the government – but not when the state commits violence unjustly against its own citizens. What needs to be recognized, as Robin D. G. Kelley has pointed out, is that the killing of unarmed African Americans by the police is not simply a matter that speaks to the need for reforming the police and the culture that shapes it, but also for massive organized resistance against a war on Black youth that is being waged on US soil. The call for police “reform,” echoed throughout the dominant media, is meaningless. We need to change a system steeped in violence, racism, economic corruption and institutional rot. We don’t need revenge, we need justice – and that means structural change.
Ending police misconduct is certainly acceptable as short-term goal to save lives, but if we are going to prevent the United States from becoming a full-fledged police state serving the interests of the rich who ensconce themselves in their gated and guarded communities, the vicious neoliberal financial and police state has to be dismantled. Such resistance has taken shape with the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement, along with youth movements such as the Black Youth Project, Million Hoodies, We Charge Genocide and other groups.
A new brutalism haunts America, drenched in the flood of intolerable police and state violence. Millions of people are being locked up, jailed, beaten, harassed and violated by the police and other security forces, simply because they are Black, Brown, young and/or poor, and therefore viewed as disposable. Black youth are safe neither in their own neighborhoods nor on public streets, highways, schools – or any other areas in which the police can be found.
In reality, when folks are connected to that which is around them, they are less likely to tear it up. But when you have disenfranchised people who are neither cared about or engaged and encouraged to be apart of what is around them in their environment, but instead are told to walk here, be there, leave this and don’t interfere with that, they are alienated. How many of those who riot are gainfully employed by the establishments that surround them? How many of them own the property? How many of them are even co-owners? How many of them care and how many of them are “unaware” that these establishments have insurance to cover damages.
“The Los Angeles Police Department’s response to the Rodney King riots 22 years ago could provide a blueprint for what happens in the coming months and years in Ferguson, Missouri, as police work to repair their reputation in the wake of Michael Brown’s fatal shooting, according to experts on the LAPD’s transformation.” READ MORE
When people are policed and restrained, ordered and separated, they will not feel attached to their environment. They will see the environment as much of the enemy as they will see the Police or the so-called “Authority that Polices them”. They will not see or feel a connection to their environment but will feel caged and imprisoned by it.
Systemic racism and re-gentrification alienates the inhabitants of the community, particularly as business and corporations set up shop in the communities they do not live in. They are more representative of the oppressors than they are considered neighbors. The businesses set up in these communities have an ingrained attitude about the inhabitants of the communities that they are financially benefited by. They do not see them as humans but more as commodities. They are as alienated from those whom they depend on to support them financially as those who spend their money there.
EXCERPT: “There was an uprising on social media calling for a violent protest to take place, and resultantly things exploded yesterday afternoon in northwestern Baltimore around the area where Gray’s funeral had taken place that morning. Images of looting, destruction, arson, and violence have since streamed from the area as the city was placed under a state of emergency.”
It may appear reckless to riot but rioting is a deeper sign of an even deeper chasm between the haves and the have-nots. When people are actively involved in their own communities that they feel an ownership of and an ability to control, they are less likely to be destructive. It’s simply human nature, and to expect what happened in Baltimore to fall outside of the confines of human nature is cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is denial of what is truly the cause of what is happening when people riot.
By Evette D. Champion EXCERPT: In the midst of the rioting that is going on in Baltimore, many people are thinking that rioting and looting is something that has only been done within the past 50 years to show civil unrest. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Did you know that this country was founded on looting and riots? During the 1760s in Boston, Massachusetts, there was a lot of political activity going on that rose a lot of eyebrows and ruffled a few feathers. The early settlers were in the midst of constant and violent protests against the British. A lot of the credit for the Revolution belongs to Sam Adams and the group called “Sons of Liberty.” READ MORE
EXCERPT: “A local militia, believed to be a terrorist organization, attacked the property of private citizens today at our nation’s busiest port,” the part of the curriculum pertaining to the Boston Tea Party reads, according to CBS Houston. “Although no one was injured in the attack, a large quantity of merchandise, considered to be valuable to its owners and loathsome to the perpetrators, was destroyed. The terrorists, dressed in disguise and apparently intoxicated, were able to escape into the night with the help of local citizens who harbor these fugitives and conceal their identities from the authorities.” READ MORE
Cop Killer Ismaaiyl Brinsley Had Pocket Full of $100 Bills – But No Job or Home
Remember how the 9/11 attack led people to cancel or pull back from anti-globalization protests? It appears a similar dynamic could be at work as a shocking event challenges and divides a growing and effective movement making serious headway. Like anti-globalization protests before it, the anti-police brutality/ policing movement is going through its own birth pangs as the tactics debate (when is property violence appropriate?) and issues such as how to foreground anti-black racism (#BlackLivesMatter vs. #AllLivesMatter) have taken center stage in the multifaceted and large scale resistance efforts underway.
Saturday, December 20th, was a big day for movement news. While Minnesota’s Mall of America protest had people occupying space in the US’s largest mall to demand an end to police violence, half way across the country in Brooklyn, two police officers were shot and killed by a young black man who had ostensibly posted on social media before the shootings about his intention to “put wings on pigs”, citing revenge for the deaths of Brown and Garner as motive. The accused shooter, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, shot himself dead on a nearby subway platform after shooting the officers. As of Sunday afternoon, there is little information and much speculation about the accused murderer’s life (including that the murders were part of a counter-intelligence plot to discredit the movement and justify extreme force). Much is uncertain, but it’s certain that the NYPD is already using this to suppress protest, repress entire communities, and further foment divisive public relations–especially with NYC Mayor deBlasio. How can recent police union behavior and statements be considered anything but a naked admission of a police force’s own extra-legal/ paramilitary ambitions?
At this writing we do know a few things for certain: the corporate state’s policing apparatus will do everything in its power to use this event as a further call to arms against protesting U.S. residents and communities of color. They will attempt not only to discredit a growing direct action-based movement, but also to aggressively attack protest groups and individuals they have been trying to get their hands on anyway. If Ismaaiyl Brinsley had been arrested and charged with the killing of two police officers in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, clearly the anti-policing movement would be having very different debates and discussions. Now, in his death, many people righteously struggle to contextualize his motives or opportunistically use his actions for their own political reasons.
Not that probing Brinsley’s motives is entirely irrelevant–he shot a woman, possibly an ex-girlfriend, before the officers, for example– but the movement can hurt itself by participating in the posthumous quasi-legalistic media charade of “nailing down” his motives or state of mind. (This activity already inculcates participants in the state’s judgmental logic of condemnation/ exoneration–echoing media character assassinations of murder by police victims like Brown and Martin.) What if he was acting in concert with counter-intelligence forces? What if Mao’s little red book was in Brinsley’s pocket? What if he was an active member of a local Cop Watch group? What if he was a well-known local homeless man struggling with mental illness and addiction?
Initial activist reactions offer a range of responses: some grapple with the delicate issue of expressing compassion about the shooter’s life, death, and family; some timidly, or not so timidly, tiptoe around self-defense concepts and a deep understanding of the extreme nature of “revolutionary suicide”; some routinely denounce Brinsley’s actions–acting as guardians of the “real non-violent movement” against “unstable violent outsiders”; some have decided that was a police action he got entangled in. Then there’s those (new to the issue white activists, I am talking to you) who may have been active and supportive of the anti-police brutality movement, but will use this as an excuse to pull back. (Controversial events function as a movement’s filtering process, losing people who are too challenged to keep fighting and were just waiting for a chance to fold anyway.)
If there’s anything I am reminded of by this event, it’s the power of social movements, and anti-racist struggles in particular. For me, there is a connection between the cop murders and the movement. Before you jump down my throat insisting that I am “feeding the cops’ ideology” by saying this–hear me out, please, and don’t take my statements out of context. Since the drug war and mass incarceration/ deportation practices, many black and brown lives have been destroyed. You don’t have to be a front lines long term activist to have strong opinions about policing and institutional racism in America, and feel hopeless in the face of it, too. Frustration and anger is woven into the everyday fabric of people’s lives, and this includes individual consciousness, rhetoric, and self-understanding. Add to this an endless flow of social media, news commentary, and live feeds of protests and demonstrations all over the U.S. Some people may not be able to attend protests for various reasons (work, childcare, transportation, not living close to one, or a shy demeanor) but social media offers a strong way to feel emotionally connected to events since Ferguson began.
This access and ability to connect is both reason for the movement’s effectiveness and a reason to prepare for more controversial actions taken up by individuals in the name of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, or against violent police generally. (And then there’s always police counterinsurgency activities…) In a large, multifaceted, international movement such that the Hands Up, Don’t Shoot!/ anti-policing movement has become, no one can ultimately judge who’s a protestor or a non-protestor, who cares or doesn’t care, about “the issues”. (Who has an authentic political consciousness gauge and where can I get one?) We can only state if we support certain actions as part of strategies our organizations or ideologies endorse.
I believe, from what I understand about Brinsley’s biographical facts and his presumed state of mind before the murders, he understood himself as a target of racist policing. Go figure: young, black, and male in the U.S. A. But, As Dr. Johanna Fernandez wrote in CounterPunch, he could have also been acting in concert with authorities to execute a state plot to discredit the movement. We will never know the facts here, and it shouldn’t deflect from our understanding of institutionalized racism, anyway.
Whether or not Brinsley acted alone or in concert with the state, his life had a truly tragic end. If we admit understanding or empathy with people espousing extreme tactics — even cop murder — to express oppositional feelings, are we only throwing the police state, and its rabid NYPD, another reason for street level preemptive attack? (As if it ever needed a reason. We’ve clearly seen over the decades, if the state doesn’t have a reason to justify aggression it’ll make one up.) What about attempts to understand how social pressures like racist policing and mass incarceration damage people–like Ismaaiyl Brinsley? If we deny a careful consideration of the incalculable impacts movements can have, which include tapping into very real frustrations/ psychological dynamics leading individuals to act alone or as police agents, we sacrifice any potential unity than can be derived in a process of self-reflection and greater political awareness. Collective analysis may not lead to the unity of a shared position, but it could lead to an “agree to disagree” unity or a commitment to explore unpopular perspectives. Something beyond simple condemnation or exultation is called for here.
It’s a daunting situation and the corporate state wins again if we play into the terms of engagement it always sets by the very nature of its power. If Ismaaiyl Brinsley had survived and faced his accusers in court, we would see the movement split around “just” court procedures and outcomes. Some would want him evaluated to qualify for mental health rehabilitation services, some would want him routinely punished, and some would call for his freedom, with an understanding his actions were committed under extreme duress due to the pernicious police state apparatus (a kind of “black rage” defense– if you will.) From the looks of his social media posts, he knew he was probably going to die Saturday.
I shudder to think about what the state would do to Brinsley, and how the movement would split around his “just” punishment and desirable “rehabilitation.” (How are we going to rehabilitate psychotic racist police? Any ideas?) We would have to painfully endure a real trial of the Left’s anti-policing/ abolitionist positions. Instead, we are left to grapple with three dead bodies, many unanswered questions, and a big question mark about our ability to buoy the turbulence of building and sustaining a mass movement, focused specifically on the deep and festering wound of racist police violence, in the age of social media activism.
On Tuesday police Commissioner William Bratton said Ismaaiyl was carrying $100 bills in his pocket. But he had no job or home.The Yeshiva World reported:
If we are going to posthumously speculate on Ismaaiyl Brinsley’s life, dare I suggest we use the very commitment to institutional analysis and human compassion that has served as a foundation of the Hands Up, Don’t Shoot!/ anti-policing movement–and previous anti-racist movements– since its inception? As the saying goes, let’s “keep our eyes on the prize.”
Michelle Renee Matisons, Ph.D. has written for Counterpunch, Black Agenda Report, Z Magazine, Mint News Press, the NJ Decarcerator, Rethinking Schools, Alternet, and other publications. She can be reached at michrenee@gmail.com.
If you dress police officers up as soldiers and you put them in military vehicles and you give them military weapons, they adopt a warrior mentality. We fight wars against enemies, and the enemies are the people who live in our cities — particularly in communities of color. — Thomas Nolan, criminology professor and former police officer.
Ferguson matters because it provides us with a foretaste of what is to come. It is the shot across the bow, so to speak, a warning that this is how we will all be treated if we do not tread cautiously in challenging the police state, and it won’t matter whether we’re black or white, rich or poor, Republican or Democrat. In the eyes of the corporate state, we are all the enemy.
This is the lesson of Ferguson.
Remember that in the wake of the shooting, Ferguson police officers clad in body armor, their faces covered with masks, equipped with assault rifles and snipers and riding armored vehicles, showed up in force to deal with protesters. Describing that show of force by police in Ferguson, Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, stated, “This was a military force, and they were facing down an enemy.”
Yes, we are the enemy. As I point out in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, since those first towers fell on 9/11, the American people have been treated like enemy combatants, to be spied on, tracked, scanned, frisked, searched, subjected to all manner of intrusions, intimidated, invaded, raided, manhandled, censored, silenced, shot at, locked up, and denied due process.
There was a moment of hope after Ferguson that perhaps things might change. Perhaps the balance would be restored between the citizenry and their supposed guardians, the police. Perhaps our elected officials would take our side for a change and oppose the militarization of the police. Perhaps warfare would take a backseat to more pressing national concerns.
That hope was short-lived.
It wasn’t long before the media moved on to other, more titillating stories. The disappearance of a University of Virginia college student and the search for her alleged abductor, the weeks-long man-hunt for an accused cop killer, the Republican electoral upset, a Rolling Stone expose on gang rapes at fraternity parties, Obama’s immigration amnesty plan, and the rape charges against Bill Cosby are just a few of the stories that have dominated the news cycle since the Ferguson standoff between police and protesters.
It wasn’t long before the American public, easily acclimated to news of government wrongdoing (case in point: the national yawn over the NSA’s ongoing domestic surveillance), ceased to be shocked, outraged or alarmed by reports of police shootings. In fact, the issue was nowhere to be found in this year’s run-up to Election Day, which was largely devoid of any pressing matters of national concern.
And with nary a hiccup, the police state marched steadily forth. In fact, aided and abetted by the citizenry’s short attention span, its easily distracted nature, and its desensitization to anything that occupies the news cycle for too long, it has been business as usual in terms of police shootings, the amassing of military weapons, and the government’s sanctioning of police misconduct. Most recently, Ohio police shot and killed a 12-year-old boy who was seen waving a toy gun at a playground.
Rubbing salt in our wounds, in the wake of Ferguson, police agencies not only continued to ramp up their military arsenals but have used them whenever possible. In fact, in anticipation of the grand jury’s ruling, St. Louis police actually purchased more equipment for its officers, including “civil disobedience equipment.”
Just a few weeks after the Ferguson showdown, law enforcement agencies took part in an $11 million manhunt in Pennsylvania for alleged cop killer Eric Frein. Without batting an eye, the news media switched from outraged “shock” over the military arsenal employed by police in Ferguson to respectful “awe” of the 48-day operation that cost taxpayers $1.4 million per week in order to carry out a round-the-clock dragnet search of an area with a 5-mile-radius.
The Frein operation brought together 1,000 officers from local, state and federal law enforcement, as well as SWAT teams and cutting edge military equipment (high-powered rifles, body armor, infrared sensors, armored trucks, helicopters and unmanned, silent surveillance blimps) — some of the very same weapons and tactics employed in Ferguson and, a year earlier, in Boston in the wake of the marathon bombing.
The manhunt was a well-timed, perfectly choreographed exercise in why Americans should welcome the police state: for our safety, of course, and to save the lives of police officers.
Opposed to any attempt to demilitarize America’s police forces, the Dept. of Homeland Security has been chanting this safety mantra in testimony before Congress: Remember 9/11. Remember Boston. Remember how unsafe the world was before police were equipped with automatic weapons, heavily armored trucks, night-vision goggles, and aircraft donated by the DHS.
Contrary to DHS rhetoric, however, militarized police — twitchy over perceived dangers, hyped up on their authority, and protected by their agencies, the legislatures and the courts — have actually made communities less safe at a time when violent crime is at an all-time low and lumberjacks, fishermen, airline pilots, roofers, construction workers, trash collectors, electricians and truck drivers all have a higher risk of on-the-job fatalities than police officers.
Moreover, as Senator Tom Coburn points out, the militarization of America’s police forces has actually “created some problems that wouldn’t have been there otherwise.” Among those problems: a rise in the use of SWAT team raids for routine law enforcement activities (averaging 80,000 a year), a rise in the use and abuse of asset forfeiture laws by police agencies, a profit-driven incentive to criminalize lawful activities and treat Americans as suspects, and a transformation of the nation’s citizenry into suspects.
Ferguson provided us with an opportunity to engage in a much-needed national dialogue over how police are trained, what authority they are given, what weaponry they are provided, and how they treat those whom they are entrusted with protecting.
Caught up in our personal politics, prejudices and class warfare, we have failed to answer that call. In so doing, we have played right into the hands of all those corporations who profit from turning America into a battlefield by selling the government mine-resistant vehicles, assault rifles, grenade launchers, and drones.
As long as we remain steeped in ignorance, there will be no reform.
As long as we remain divided by our irrational fear of each other, there will be no overhaul in the nation’s law enforcement system or institution of an oversight process whereby communities can ensure that local police departments are acting in accordance with their wishes and values.
And as long as we remain distracted by misguided loyalties to military operatives who are paid to play the part of the government’s henchmen, there will be no saving us when the events of Ferguson unfold in our own backyards.
When all is said and done, it doesn’t matter whose “side” you’re on as far as what transpired in Ferguson, whether you believe that Michael Brown was a victim or that Darren Wilson was justified in shooting first and asking questions later.
What matters is that we not allow politics and deep-rooted prejudices of any sort to divert our efforts to restore some level of safety, sanity and constitutional balance to the role that police officers play in our communities. If we fail to do so, we will have done a disservice to ourselves and every man, woman and child in this country who have become casualties of the American police state.
decacsinc 
Recent Comments